(written on August 2nd from notes taken previously)
I was up late again last night. Gosh, I wish I could just get myself to follow my morning schedule. Why can’t I get myself to get up at 5:00?
Well, I guess the answer to that is pretty easy. I don’t ever get to bed on time. I just have to force myself to get up at 5:00 one of these days, so I’m tired enough to go to bed on time. And then I need to Hope that I’ve got the self-discipline to actually go to bed on time instead of being distracted by other things.
There are some things that merit staying up for, but most of the time, I can put off till the morning the things that I want to spend my time on at night.
Had a pretty crappy morning routine today, diving into all the to do that I wanted to accomplish instead of putting first things first.
I pretty much spent the entire day working on Rover.
I cleaned, then I got my grinder and spent time cutting out the rested through portions of metal in the back corners, finding in the process, that the rear portion, at both corners, where the fiberglass topper is supposed to be screwed to the metal of the van that it’s… not. 😅
Water intrusion caused so much rust that the screws rusted through and are no longer even attached to the van.
😶
This poor van looks so great from the outside, but inside and underneath, it’s struggling. 🙃
Matthew 23:27 anyone?
😅
Anyway, I did some grinding and cutting away of rust, some good cleaning, and some vacuuming.
I spent a good long time measuring and cutting and measuring and cutting, lots of trial and error in order to frame in a little shelf/cubby/storage thingy all the way around the base of the topper on the inside.
That’s giving me a lot of extra storage space while still letting the van feel bigger on the inside because all of the interior paneling that took away so much of the space is now gone.
As is the insulation, but I prefer the space to the insulation. At least… for now. 🙃
I guess we’ll see how I feel about it come winter time, though I might be in New Zealand for winter…
We’ll see.
I also spent a lot of time measuring and cutting and building a platform and retainer ring for my microwave, so I can have it set in its place but not slide out of its place going around bends in the road or up and down hills.
I still haven’t finished anything completely, but I have been able to start putting some of my stuff into the new places, and it’s been really nice to have places for that stuff. With several items, it was a relief to have real organization and convenience instead of moving things around and dealing with stuff falling out of its place or whatever.
Definitely a large improvement. 🎉
Though admittedly, it’s been a frustratingly slow process to achieve that progress. Remodels are I think generally, if not nearly always, if not always more difficult than original builds… Having to deal with errors made by previous workers as well as measuring to existing construction as opposed to just being able to create the original construction.
So it’s been a very slow process of fitting things in, not necessarily in this case because of other people’s errors, but just because I’m trying to fit stuff around existing stuff, and I’m dealing with curves with existing stuff and straight lines with the new stuff… confined spaces, odd angles, etc.
Periodically, I check on Facebook Marketplace for replacement vans, knowing that Rover has over 270,000 miles on him right now, and it’s only a matter of time before his already long-extended life comes to an end.
He’s been my home for more than a year now, and has served me very very well. I would be ungrateful indeed where I to have any complaints when he finally gives up the ghost.
Thinking about the likelihood of needing a new rolling home in the near future, and thinking about how crazy expensive they are, often tens of thousands of dollars, if not over $100,000. Even the old old ones being several thousand dollars, even 10 to $20,000, I’m loathe to spend that much, but while chatting with my friend Cory, he mentioned something that I hadn’t thought about!
This topper is screwed on. It’s not welded or held on with some kind of epoxy. It’s simply screwed into the metal. I could probably take the entire topper off in an hour or two.
Which means I could probably transfer it from one van to another in a day’s worth of work–at least the basic shell, that it. Remove, measure the hole that was cut in rover, cut an identical hole in the new van, and I’m off and running.
I don’t need to look for another camper van, though I probably will anyway: I just need to find a van of the appropriate length. 🎉
Anyway, by the time I finished all of the work that I did on it for today, I was exhausted, and my spine issues were significantly flared up.
From there, I Heather and I headed over to help our neighbor get her Starlink set up.
She’s getting over 400 Mbps!
I’m not getting anywhere near that, though what I am getting is sufficient for my needs. 😊
…
Oh… I just ran a test, and I’m getting 166 Mbps. 🙃
I think that’s the best I’ve ever gotten. 😅
🥳
Anyway, after helping the neighbor get her starlink setup, we came back to the house, ate dinner, hung out, and messed around with Grok a little bit to simplify meal planning for specific nutritional needs.
After that, I worked a bit, organized my van a little bit, and tried to work on catching up on my journal.
(this is a perfect example of why it’s so terrible for me to even miss a single day of a habit. One day has turned into several days, and I’m not caught up yet.)
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful for ibuprofen, that it can take the edge off at least a bit and help me sleep better at night. That’s been a big deal for me to realize that since I left Arkansas.
- I’m grateful for the progress that I’ve made in my Rover renovations.
- I’m grateful my little electric toothbrush charging stand had just enough extra plastic on one side to drill a hole through and screw it down to the same platform that my microwave sits on. That’s one more piece of equipment or whatever you want to call it that is now securely stowed in a really convenient location and isn’t going to get in the way like it has again and again and again.
- I’m grateful for the strength of screws, that only a handful of screws can fasten so strongly and securely.
- I’m grateful that the Sparks from my grinder didn’t start Rover on fire. 😅 I realized they were melting holes through my sheets and into my mattress and threw my pants as well. 🙃
Success:
- I don’t know that there’s much in the way of success for me today. Maybe being willing to go over to the neighbors and serve when my body was not doing so well? Generally, though, I think about success as being in relation to the becoming goals that I have
Improvement:
- Today was a very bad day for putting first things first. Spiritually, I left it all on the sidelines while I focused on doing temporal things that have no eternal significance.
- I also should have worked today, as I haven’t done much of any work since last thursday, which means I’m going to have to cram tomorrow in the hopes of getting a sufficient number of questions answered as to not be demoted.
Thought of the Day:
Sometimes we need a personal crisis to reinforce in our minds what we really value and cherish. The scriptures are filled with examples of people facing crises before learning how to better serve God and others. Perhaps if you, too, search your hearts and courageously assess the priorities in your life, you may discover, as I did, that you need a better balance among your priorities
~ M. Russell Ballard
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I didn’t leave much room for God today. I put Him on the back burner. 😕
But we keep at it!
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 