(written on August 2nd from notes taken previously)
Little bit of collateral damage from the Rover renovating. I have a hole in my roof still, the size of an exhaust fan, and it decided to rain last night. 🙃
I also had all of my bins of clothing outside, as well as tools and whatnot, so sometime in the middle of the night, I got up, realized it was raining, realized the little mini mattress next to me that my mom sleeps on when she’s on trips with me was all wet, so I climbed out of bed, climbed out of rover, put a piece of wood over the hole in the roof and some “catch pans” (the drawers from empty clothing bins) on the bed to catch what ran underneath the wood.
I also put the piece of plexiglass stuff over the bins that were still full of clothing outside, hoping that would be good enough.
🤞
Slept in a bit, and since it was Thursday and I hadn’t done much working at all, I needed to sort of cram in order to have hope of not getting demoted again.
So I worked a fair bit, but then Hans called with a bit of an emergency in Rapid City. The Jetta that I had just done the brake pads on and that had some brake pads wearing really unevenly on the rear driver side had the brakes lock up back there, so he was stuck in Rapid with locked up brakes and was afraid that if he kept driving he burn up the tire and what not, so I headed on up to Rapid to help him put on a new caliper.
Since I hadn’t had breakfast I poured myself a bowl of cold cereal and brought it with me, but when I leaned over in the driver seat, I felt a a cold sensation in my crotch and down underneath me.
And then I smelled like soy milk for the next however many hours. 😆
Not to mention I had an absolutely perfect peed-my-pants wet spot from my crotch to the back side.
It was absolutely perfect.
And perfect for overcoming embarrassment, as the first thing that I needed to do, anyway, upon showing up was go to the bathroom. 😆
I took some calls while driving as well, in the hopes of at least getting some work in. So hard to do because it’s so awkward trying to obey laws and take calls at the same time, having to pull over if they need something that requires me to look something up… It’s just awkward.
But, I believe in obeying laws, even though I’m not great at it all the time when it comes to using my phone to look stuff up while driving. 😅
After getting the caliper replaced and the brakes blood, we went over to South Dakota’s version of Cafe Rio or Costa Vida. It’s called Q… something or other.
We went there to say hi to one of the workers who is there who’s the son of one of the members in our Branch here in Hot Springs, and we were able to say hi, and then were quite surprised when the young man paid for our meals. 😊
So cool. 😊
Unfortunately, on the drive back, we realized that the Jetta still wasn’t fixed. 😕
Hans did a test drive, so we were able to rule out the emergency brake as being the problem, as he completely unhooked it on that side, and it didn’t overheat at all until he actually put on the hydraulic brakes, and then it overheated again.
Generally, that means it’s going to be a brake hose, which can be a pretty common problem in General motors SUVs and trucks, but I haven’t really seen it on anything else?
Could also be an issue with the ABS module for that particular wheel, or the brake line… But since it’s only one wheel, I don’t think there’s much chance that if anything else.
Anyway, we gave up for the day and decided to have Heather take the truck to work in the morning. I kept working a little bit online trying to answer a few more questions before the end of the day, and I think I was able to get enough to stay off to motion, but I guess we’ll see on Sunday night when the new report comes out.
Ate dinner and had a little chat with Cory, which was nice. I’ve not been in a good place lately. I just feel like I’m in the doldrums. I’m not in a bad place, but after a couple of months of being mostly in a really really good place.
I haven’t been feeling the spirit very much, and I think that’s mostly because I’ve not really been putting a lot of effort into the spiritual side of things. I keep focusing on the little whack-a-moles that pop up instead of putting first things first.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful that I was able to keep most of the rest of the rain out last night and that my catch pans were able to catch I think most of the rain that made it inside even after putting the wood on.
- I’m grateful that we were able to bleed the brakes decently enough for Hans to drive home without issues.
- I’m grateful that today was a decent enough day? Wise that I wasn’t starving for questions. Having put everything off until the last day, just about, it was nice to have regular questions popping through, at least a handful of them that I was able to answer.
- I’m grateful that I have brought so many tools with me, as periodically they are needed and it’s nice to have had them available, both for myself, as well as for others.
- I’m grateful to the very generous young man. It’s certainly not lost on me how it’s probably going to take him 2+ hours to make the money that he spent buying our lunches for us. Super cool of him.
Success:
- I don’t know if this is success or failure. Feeling as much pressure as I was feeling to answer questions, I battled myself using my phone and then not using my phone and then using my phone and then not using my phone. The only success was that I battled, even though I failed probably most of the time.
Improvement:
- So it’s a definitely-needs-improvement-not-using-his-phone-to-look-stuff-up-while-driving day.
Thought of the Day:
Ummm… got nothin’ today. 😅
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I’m just not focused on the things that mean most to me (e.g. my relationship with God), and so I’m not really giving what I need to be giving to have my heart in a place to notice those things? But I’m certainly feeling the loss and the increasing hunger to get back to the spiritual feast I left in order to accomplish more… unimportant things.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 