(Written on December 4th from notes taken previously)
I was up and awake… nervous… what was going to happen?!?!
The spread got narrower and narrower, looking more like it was going to go break not in my favor.
But it was such a good position, I’d thought…
[sigh]
Started the trading day with prayer and some church music playing in the background while trading.
That did wonders for calming me down and staying focused and grounded.
When the stock opened, I watched it move in the direction I’d originally hoped. I was down a lot, but it was heading back the direction I’d been hoping for.
I spent hours staring at the bid/ask numbers, and finally–finally, they came back to where I had originally started. Again, feeling grateful that it had come back and turned what was at one point looking like it could have been a huge loss into a break even situation, I closed my position.
Aaaaaaaaaaand then a couple hours later I watched it so what I had originally expected it was going to do when I first opened the position.
Gosh… again… had I just held the position, I would have made thousands, but I was so afraid of losing because I had been in the red all night waiting and waiting, that I cashed out when it started getting down to the possibility of breaking even.
I actually put in my order before even getting to the break-even point, willing to lose a little bit in order to not lose more.
Gratefully, the stock was changing so quickly, that by the time I order actually went through, I ended up making $80 on the trade, but had I stuck with it, I would have made thousands.
I keep having good instincts, but being afraid to hold on to them because for a little while the stock goes the opposite direction to what I’m needing it to to make money.
It’s a combination of relief and gratitude to be out of the big-number red and disappointment and a sense of loss because I let fear drive my trading instead of sitting back and waiting to see whether my original choice that I felt good about was going to be good in the end.
When all was said and done, I think I ended up making $450 today. It would have been a perfect day to make thousands, not just on that first trade but on Tesla because Tesla spent pretty much the whole day going in One direction, and I made hundreds of dollars on it, but only trading tiny share sizes compared to my normal. Had I made my normal share size trading, I would have made thousands just on Tesla today. But I was so nervous from what’s happened the last couple days that I wanted to play it safe and just do small trade sizes.
And $450 was a nice win for the day.
Still, really hard to not look at all the opportunities lost because of fear, knowing I could have made back everything I lost just today, but not having the courage to do it. 😕
Or do you count trading conservatively today a win? A win by not taking risks? Or a failure by trading overly conservatively on a day when it was clearly perfect to be aggressive, but you didn’t because you were gun shy?
🤷
Grateful to be up again today, regardless.
Took a nap because I was absolutely exhausted. Still not getting almost any sleep at all because of the trading that’s absolutely dominating my days. In terms of hours spent, I’m not making a lot per hour even on the days I’m in the black. 😅
I miss the steady income of being a mobile mechanic where I could just load myself up and make a bunch of money in a day.
Anyway, had a good nap. Was excited to see a girl who parked next to me walk around and pick up trash in the parking lot. I let her know how happy I was to see her do that, feeling a bit alone in that effort myself.
Chatted with a gentleman who was out taking his dog for a walk, and he recommended some places to go, so after chatting with him, I headed in the direction of his recommendation.
I didn’t end up going to the places that he recommended, but I ended up at a place I absolutely love. 😊
Kauri Mountain Beach. 😍
Saw some really colorful parrots on the drive there (I think maybe Eastern Rosellas?). And then there was a gate and a rough, puddled dirt road for the last couple hundred meters or so to the parking area.
So beautiful. 😊
The view from the parking area back inland, so… green! And the view from the ridge just above the parking area looking down (maybe 20 meters below?) on the beach below.
Just… beautiful. 😍
Took some pictures and texted back and forth with one of my sisters and with another friend.
I spent a good little while going through all my financial accounts to make sure all my
Messaging sister and friend autopayments were on a specific credit card, as I’ve got someone close to me using my credit card to make purchases.
Oh my goodness, some of the customer service chat services I’ve had to work with lately have been mind-bogglingly bad. I mean… yeah, I guess that expresses it pretty accurately.
For whatever reason, I continue to be… what’s the best word… I don’t know, but I guess dumbfounded might work? at how poorly designed/executed the programming of tools and features on websites can be.
I just… I mean… how do some of these companies not just kick themselves right out of the market with their awful interfaces, their bugs/glitches, etc?
Rained a little bit, and I think I cleaned the summer cuts on my pinky toes.
Darn those deformed pinky toes. I’ve thought, more than once, about amputating them. 🙃 I mean, I don’t think they actually serve a functional purpose for me personally, as they don’t even touch the ground. Because they’re so mashed into the toes next to them, they trap bacteria which, periodically, breaks the skin and causes minor, but annoying infections.
Let’s just cut them off, yes?
Yes.
Large dog claw trimmers, nicely sharpened and sterilized ought to do it.
🙃
After taking pictures, dealing with credit card stuff, and whatever else, I put on my wet suit, grabbed my snorkel, and headed in down. This area looked like it could be really good, as there were rocky outcroppings on the far north then of a very long beach.
And it was pretty good. The water wasn’t super clear, and the incoming waves were pretty powerful, but I did see a huge stingray (huge to my sensibilities and experience), maybe 4+ foot wingspan?
And lots of fish of multiple different species.
I love snorkeling. 😊
And I’m really grateful for the dish soap trick, and I’m really grateful for my wet suit. It’s a tad too big, but it’s been fantastic for me. And I think I’d much rather have one that’s a tad too big than too small?
The next multiple hours were spent removing just about everything from my van, taking apart the wood framing inside that serves as storage compartments and as bed frame/platform.
I think I forgot to mention that I bought a tool set that was one of those ratcheting screw drivers with a gazillion different bit types, including the square type I needed to disassemble the wooden framing.
So I got all my stuff out and relatively carefully laid out on the ground outside, and then I spent the next I-don’t-know-how-many hours removing a seat (which I found out is actually a swivel seat!!! 😎), removing wood framing, pulling back trim and carpet, and then removing the seat bracket tracks.
But! Success!!! I was able to remove the brackets from the tracks, and I chose to reinstall the tracks to make storage simpler.
The reinstallation on the driver’s side was a lot harder than the removal, but I managed eventually. 🙏
The wind was a bit of a challenge at times, blowing the stuff I’d laid out around, including I think, blowing my solar panel off the roof of the van and onto the ground.
Fortunately, it looks like it’s still working. 🙏
Chatted with a nice woman from Australia (Kylie) who also found her way to that beach.
Gratefully, I managed to get the van all put back together just in time as the rain was coming.
Oh! I forgot to mention that I took the passenger sliding door panel off in order to do some testing to try and figure out why the power window wasn’t working (I was kind of shocked to find that the window switch was not removable without removing the door panel first 😶. That was a first.)
Finally, I redid the design of my inside headliner light set up. Over the last week or so, I’ve accidentally pulled on and pulled out sections of the lighting because it was in high-traffic areas of the headliner.
Well… not anymore. It’s not as artistic, much it’s much more functional.
So that was the day.
Pretty positive on pretty much all fronts.
I’m very very tired, running on probably 2 hours of sleep last night and a lack of sleep from multiple other nights in a row this week as well.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 