(written today!!! 🥳)
It was yet another night of four choices sleep wise. Better than night before, but I don’t think I got to bed until 1:00? 2:00? I forgot at this point.
I also haven’t been doing any favors to myself by parking parallel with a sideways slant. I haven’t rolled out of bed in the middle of the night yet, but that’s probably only because I’m such a light sleeper that I wake up when I move. 🙃
So I think it was a little after 10:00 when I finally woke up for the last time, the inside of Rover beginning to bake in the heat of the day.
I’m really looking forward to cooler temperatures.
Made myself a smoothie this morning with ice from the ice cube tray that, thanks to my mom for suggesting it to me while I was at the store, I bought last night. 🙏
I’ve probably already mentioned it, but I’m trying to eat down the foods that she can no longer eat, citrus being one of those, so I’m making pineapple/ Mandarin orange/banana smoothies. 😁 They are tasty on their own, but even more so when blended with several ice cubes. 😁
Spend some time unfolding and taping more book boxes for my mom, who volunteered to take the book-packing job that I had burned out on yesterday. 🙏
Instead of packing books, I began creating an ad for the canning jars that my mom had in the basement that she’s no longer going to be using, because she’s pretty much past the gardening/scanning stage of her life. I did a little research to see what they cost to buy new, and then put up an ad that I felt like was a good deal for people but still more than what my mom had hoped to get out of them, and gratefully, I had multiple people message quite quickly after the ad posted, one of them saying they were basically ready to come our way. 🎉
I gave them directions for how to make it to the house without missing the driveway (the driveway is on the downhill side of a banked back country road on a blind corner), and they arrived at the house sooner than I expected them to. Gratefully, they did indeed buy the jars for my mom 🙏, and gratefully, they didn’t haggle, which meant my mom got almost double what she thought she might get for them. 🙏🎉
From there, my mom headed off to lunch with her friend Rosanne, and I, somehow infused with positivity and a second wind 🙏, marched down to my van, grabbed all my laundry (which included taking off cushion cases and my mattress cover), got my laundry started and then climbed into the shower for a badly-needed body cleaning. 🙃
After showering, Hill brother Jim messaged me saying that he was available to go do the service project that I had asked if he might be available to help with, and so I headed out, chainsaw loaded up, to do our little stealth service project (cutting down and hauling off to small, but long-dead trees) while I knew that the recipient of the service was going to be away from home, otherwise occupied.
Since they were small trees, it was a super quick job. I arrived first and had most of the trees chopped up (which took all of maybe 5 minutes), and then Jim arrived, and started loading up the remains in the trailer while I finished chopping up the second tree.
The whole effort took a grand total of 20 minutes but was years in the making, I think. 😊
Wasn’t the greatest getting sweaty after a fresh shower 🙃, but it was nice to have overcast weather to work in that allowed me to be much less sweaty than I otherwise would be, and I didn’t want to turn down the opportunity to have the help to get the little project done, so the little bit of sweatiness was definitely worth it. 🤍
I got back to the house before Thomas (we planned to get a late lunch/early dinner together at Sam’s Club again 🙃), as he still hadn’t not returned from his job interview.
I got my laundry started on its second pass-through (double washing because of how dirty some of the stuff was), spent a good little while chatting with my mom and Rosanne, and then headed out with Thomas once he got back.
Had a good time chatting with Thomas. With all the challenges going on for him right now, it’s nice to be able to spend some positive time together. 🤍
After getting back and chatting briefly with my mom and Thomas, I headed off for Sapulpa, Oklahoma to buy a set of tires that had come up for sale that were the right size and type that I needed for Rover.
It was about a 3-hour drive, but I figured it was worth the price of gas to save the money on the tires, which can be rather expensive.
The drive went fine, despite being tailed by a cop for a little ways 😅, and I was grateful that though I decided not to stop for gas on the drive out, knowing that might mean I would have to pay more somewhere else (I was trying to save time, because I expected my arrival was going to be somewhere around 10:30 p.m. 😅 to buy the tires), I ended up passing a Walmart gas station with fuel that was actually cheaper than the decently-priced gasoline at the neighborhood market near my mom’s house. 🙏
The trip going quicker than expected (the speed limit most of the way was 55 instead of the 70ish I had expected, which meant I didn’t have to add time because I drive so slowly to Google’s estimate for travel time), I went ahead and stopped to get gas at the good price.
Even stopping for gas, and making one wrong turn, I made it to the guy selling the tires about 10:07 p.m. Unfortunately, though I had been assured the tires weren’t dry rotted or cracked, they were. 😕
Six-plus hours of driving and probably $70 in gas. 😅
Oh well. I had actually set the expectation for myself that if something went sideways, that I wasn’t going to stress it, so though I was disappointed, it actually wasn’t a big deal at all for it to have gone sideways.
I’m grateful I was able to handle that well. 🙏
Since it was already late, I decided to just crash for the night in the area, so I looked up a local LDS church, and headed over. As I was looking one up, I got passed by officers probably 5 to 10 times in the span of maybe 5 to 10 minutes. 😅
Hopefully that doesn’t mean I’ll be disturbed tonight in my little perch. The church parking lot has a tree that I parked under, and my van will bake in the morning, but by midday, it should be fully in the shade until evening, and I’m thinking I might just spend the whole day here in the Sapulpa area tomorrow. Why? Well, since I’m in another city, I might as well check and see if the junkyards nearby have what I need.🤞
I chatted with my mom for a bit as I was driving from the tire guy’s house to the church, and then accidentally cracked one of the fence boards of the fence between the church and the neighbors to the back because I forgot I’ve got the extra foot of tow hitch on the back of my van. 😅 As I was backing up toward it, I gauged the distance from the back of my van to the fence by the reflection of my tail and reverse lights on the fence behind me.
Oops. 😅
Fortunately, the fence I accidentally hit was already splitting, leaning over, and rotting away. 🙃
When I went over to inspect what I had done after hearing the crack, as I crouched down in the dark with my cell phone flashlight on, a scorpion, sans stinging tail 🤔, moved over from my side of the fence, through the gap between two boards, and disappeared to the other side.
That was pretty cool. 😊
There wasn’t time to get a picture of it before it disappeared, but I did snap several pictures of the minor damage that I did to the fence, just in case I needed to chat with somebody about it (that was before I realized the fence was in pretty significant disrepair already).
Anyway, it’s 11:37 now, and before I go to bed, I’m going to check to see if my friend has posted on her blog. I’ve been reading regularly since she started posting again, and it’s wonderful to see the light she’s feeling in her life. 🤍
Well, it’s 11:40 now, and I’m wide awake. 😆
Hope I can fall asleep. 🙃
I realized I don’t really have much in the way of food with me at all. 😅 And now that I’m thinking about it, it’s too late to find a grocery store… well, wait, maybe there’s a 24-hour store nearby?
…
Twenty four minutes away… wrong side of the city… nope. 🙃
Oh well. I’ll make something I’ve got work. 🙃
G’night, y’all. 🤍
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
