I need $200 a day today and the next two. There is no lower option if I am to catch up to only just about drowning. Failing that, I am behind today, tomorrow, next week, and forever. I hate this, and the depression along with it. I am fine with being on the social fringes, but an economic outcast?
DoorDashing, Wood Working, and Photography. Three of My Work Purposes
The days keep ticking on by and I am still DoorDashing. It is not enough to make it by, and we have cut all luxuries to reduce the expenses and try to align the outflows to the inflow of our budget. Meanwhile, I have the photography site up and am looking to book clients and put my skills to work behind the camera. Funny enough, I have a video playing right now, and the author is saying one of the harsh truths he wish he would have learned earlier in his career is that you have to push, and you have to slog to sell your work, and that you will not be just discovered by people coming out of the woodwork. I need to figure out the time and efforts to put myself into that.
Meanwhile, I have been putting the evening hours into my table project. I am feeling pretty good about it. I am happy with how it is coming along. I have the top done and am working on the rails right now. The legs are started, but the edges of the legs are parallel, and will not taper till I have completely decided on the rails and their depth under the top. I have come to nine inches. At the moment, I am thinking I will have two large, deep drawers on the outsides, and two small, narrow, shallow, stacked drawers in the middle. I may put dividers in the larger drawers, but we will see.
The whole table will be around 29 inches tall or so. I measured off my desk upstairs. I also was constraied by the wood I had for the legs. I made some 2 inch sort of posts that bent after they were cut and left to dry. So I have got them down to 1 1/4 inch and as long as I could cut out of them, accounting for the extra that could be got where the legs will taper. I had originally hoped to use the full length of these legs to build a pie safe, but that did not work out, so I looked about to find another project, and Missus came up with this table idea.
I have a bead around the skirt of the table at the moment, and I am pratty happy with that as a decorative accent and a way of seftening the bottom edge. I have a router bit for the electric router that could do this, but I have used it before and have never been quite happy with the results. It really follows the wood, and has that choppy look of repetative strikes of the blade as routers do. So I have used the hand scratcher. And that is quite suitable for the project because the whole thing is meant to be done almost entirely without power tools. I did cut those legs down to size with the bandsaw, then that power planer, but they will be run through hand planes for the final finish.
All three skirts are done now as far as shaping and finishing. I need to cut their tenons, but that won’t happen till I get the mortises into the legs, which comes very soon, so I will be planing their finish next, cut the mortises, and then taper them. Somewhere in this I need to cut the rails for the front where the drawers will be. The bottom will require a bead cut into it. They can be cut along with the skirts a little longer than required, then the tenongs cut from that. The top rail needs to be dovetailed tight to give it strength against pulling apart. The bottom will be drawbore tennoned.
If you know the talk, you know what I am talking about. If not, then I am sorry to have confused you. I am journalling for my records.
Okay, today is Friday. The kids are off school, and I am working today in town. I have three days of hard earning to do, and I need to earn like crazy! Prefer to get more than $150 a day these next few days. So, I have goals. They are painful, but they will keep me busy and in turn, tired. I carry on working through Monday as it is the start of the new earning week, and I take Tuesdays off to skip the low earning day of the week. That’s when the woodwork makes a bit of progress.
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Still Stuck, and Other Ideas
I tried yesterday and today to get that damned car running. Where we got to was trying to start, engine cranking, but not turning over properly, and at least not running rough as can be as it did. I think that is progress, but it is not even trying to go, almost as if the timing was gone. It’s pretty bad. I don’t know how it could be the timing. The engine is meant to have a chain, so it is not a belt that has broken. I will double check that. I am getting to the end of my rope. I have missed too much work to come out ahead at all for next week’s pay. The situation is, I’ll say it, dire. It’s dire and I don’t know what to do. I need it to start, but it feels smother and yet farther than ever. I am at a total loss.
So, I put my photography website on the front burner. If I could do some work with that, I could make easily as much with one client a week on just shooting photos, as I took home from DoorDash in a week. You have to consider gas and car maintenance, after all. Give me two clients a week, and I am doing pretty well. Set me up with two and them buying curated art, and I could live alright. It’s not a lot. It is enough.
But what experience do I want to creat? I said the word “curated.” I meant it. I would like to come up with choice portraits of families in progress, or families just getting started, to fill their homes with beauty and memories that cannot possibly be created with AI. I am good with kids. I am a capable photographer. I love people, and I love to try to capture them in unique imagery that will generate conversation and happiness in a home for many years to come. It is not a job, but a purpose. I want to first consult with the co-conspirator or co-creaters. I want to know what they are looking for, and what space or need they are trying to fulfill. I want to know who will be in the images, and a little or a lot about them all. I want them to bring their personalities to the photography day event. Why should it not be like a wedding day? It is an event.
Then I will review and edit, and then present with choices for the final art being selected. From there, I will have the media made and then when it is all ready and together, framed or just printed if desired, I will personally deliver it, and hang it if they want. It is the co-creation of personalized art. That’s how I want it to be.
I just need an interested right fit to give me a call.
So, okay. Now, I am thinking of what on earth to do about the car tomorrow. I need to get it home somehow. I need to try once more to start it, then get it on the trailer and get it home. I need to give up DoorDashing entirely, or mostly, and do good work on the real work I desire to do.
Well, for now it is to be sleep. I have nothing left from myself on an entirely frustrating and disruptive day.
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More Car Troubles
I went in to Dash today with the goal of making $200. I came out shy because of the car. Well, sort of. I was pulling into Cafe Zupas to pick up an order and a guy coming out started to dart out towards me, so I nailed it to avoid him hitting me, and bumped a bit going into the drop curb at the entrance to the lot. The car started playing up right then. I could not keep it running at an idle. So I got my delivery and headed north with it. I was able to keep it going with a foot on the brake, a foot on the accellorator, and a hand on the gear shifter. But by the time I made the first of two deliveries, I could not keep it going anymore.
I thought maybe I busted the oilpan and was running the engine to death. Was not sure though. I was not going to stop in some stranger’s driveway and try to figure it out there, though, so I went on a possible suicide mission and drove it with all it had to O’Reilly’s in Smithfield. The clerk there has helped save my butt before with the Honda, and what do you know? He was in. He came out and put a machine on to test it and decided I was misfinring in the 1 and 3 cylinders. I called up our oldest, who is both the previous owner, and a mechanic himself, and showed him the diagnostic screen, and he came to the exact same conclusion. Said I needed a new coil pack, and presto. So I ordered that tonight for it to arrive tomorrow around 10AM. Got a ride from our younger son home, and will get one tomorrow with some tools in hand. It appears it is 4-6 bolts and a wire clip to change it. If this works, well, I am happier than you know! But we will see. I figure it is going to work, and I am back to work tomorrow.
Life happens. I wish it was easier, but this is what it is, and if it is just a matter of spending $100 on parts and doing some easy labor myself, then I will call it a very happy thing. I will have an advantage over the old part, which is apparently an Amazon part, in that I will have a lifetime warranty.
I did not get my goal for today, though I was well on my way for it. But I did get a bit more than I would have on a regular day because I was able to work later.
I am frustrated. I talked to a grandmotherly lady who was also Dashing, and she expressed to me that she would not do it if she made less than $25 an hour, and that she usually makes $35 or so. I make $16! What is the difference? Why am I not making better money? Is it the options that I am not opted in for? I need to find out. Time to Google!
Oh, and the wipers gave me crap again today, but I did find out from our oldest that it has been an ongoing issue. Ha!
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An Outrageous Day
Well, it finally snowed. I mean real snow. There was not so much on the ground this morning that I would have been shy about driving in it, but there were other things at odds, such as the continuation of snow that was set to fall throughout the day, the fact the car has no traction control or ABS, and the other people on the road. Together, I decided that I would hold out from working till after picking the girls up from school, then the snow would have stopped and the roads had a chance to clear.
So I took the kids to school and came home. It was after 1PM that I finally noticed the plow truck had finally been through. That was after me clearing our front on my own with the tractor around 10AM. We are usually cleared much earlier because of the milk truck that have to get into our area. So that was indicating to me the possibility that they have had it so easy this year that they were not ready.
By the time I did all my chores, worked on a table I am building, then went to get the kids, the snow had fallen a bit deeper, and the car was covered in snow again. It was heavy, and wet, and I cleared it in a hurry to get to the kids on time. It was not enough. I left too much weight on the wipers and they stopped working. I drove on, but my vision through the window was obstructed. I cleared the rest off when I got stopped at the bus stop. They wipers would work a little, but they would not travel the full distance of the sweep, so I decided to give it a once over when I got home.
Fuses? Check. Nuts on the wiper arms? Check. Motor working? Check. Oh, there is one more place to check! Can I get to it? No! I had to remove the coweling under the wipers, and check the little rotational arm on the motor. I figured, on my own and without the help of Google, that there was a nut there that had come loose because the wipers would try to go down from the resting position before trying to go up, and then failing to go at all. I finally figured out the clips that were holding the coweling in the way and got the motor out and found the nut I anticipated. I got that tightened, and everything back together, and it all works just great now.
But now is gone 7PM. I am not going in to work to come home when things start closing at 9PM on a Wednesday. So, I lost a whole day to weather and then a sudden mechanical issue. And a stupid one at that! If the roads were dry and the snow had for sure stopped, or in other words, if it was like it has been almost every day this winter so far, I would have been fine. Well, at least I have that nut tightened up good now, and should be fine going forward.
I must remember to clear the snow more thoroughly in the future! What an enormous pain in the ass!
Now for the irony? I could not use the Honda because I need to get some gaskets for it. I cannot afford the gaskets till I earn the money I needed to earn today! The Honda has four-wheel-drive, and would have been expensive to drive, but I would have made money today. I am relying on a beater that is far more economical, but I still cannot get the credit card paid down so I can put the gaskets on it to get the other car running so I can stay in work longer on school days, and earn more money. It is a hump, and I need to get over it.
As for the table I am making, I am building one for behind the entry door to serve as a classy little entry table. I am building it out of pine from a tree that I got from a guy I know who had it removed from his yard the summer before last. I have started on the glue for the top, and I have selected the stock for the legs and cut them to length. Next chance I get, I will have to do some bandsaw work and some planing on them in the shop. I’ll first plant the outer edges, then once thos are presenting true faces, I will cut the insides clse to 1 1/2 inch square, then plane those, and then plane them to a taper, or cut them, whichever. Either is as easy as the other. Then it is time to cut the mortises and make the sides. I want some drawers in the front, and am thinking two wide ones with a narrow center one. I was thinking a candle drawer. It will prbably be used for lense wipes, but hey, what the heck!
Forgive the spelling on this post. The tablet I am typing from does not highlight the errors, so they are getting away from me for the time being.
I’m hungry and frustrated. That is a hangry state. I better go eat, and try to work up. My feet are still cold from all the time I spent out in the snow working on the car.
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Wind Records and the Salt Box
Got some administrative chores done this morning that were good to get out of the way. You know the type. Perfect for a rainy, windy, snowy, cloudy day. It’s all those today! So, perfect. There’s a lot of things I would rather have been doing, but those are the kinds of things best done on sunny, windless, rainless, snowless days. We had a wind gust last night that broke my all-time record for this location since 2018. The whole house rumbled, and I could have been nearly convinced that out there in the darkness was a dust devil, blowing over our house. It just lasted a bit longer than I would have expected one to.
I finished the salt box last night. I say finished. It needs another coat of oil on it to really finish it. I have only one on now. There are two coats of red milk paint, too. But when I put the oil on, the wood shone through a little. Fine. I am not too bothered by it obtaining an aged look. I have left the inside as raw wood as I plan to fill it with kosher salt and have it as part of the decorations along with a useful item around the house.
I am happy with it, and how it has come out so far. I just need to stop applying the oil with a paper towel as it covers it with so much lint. I like how clean the joints are. I wish the hinge would allow the lid to drop a little closer to fully closed. It tends to hold up a bit, which I corrected with a hammer, some. But yeah, it should hold all the salt in, and any bugs out, especially when I correct that lid the rest of the way. I will either hammer it a little more or create an inner lip with a piece of wood, some glue, and the box kept upside down a while. Shouldn’t be hard. Theoretically bugs should not be attracted to the inside of the box, and from a scene I remember from when I was young, good luck to any that are.
Work has been slowing down a little lately. I am not making the money I need to. I am still listening to the Discord group, and the guy in there that typically makes nearly one and a half times as much as I do and only works maybe an eight-hour shift when I get mine in closer to seven. I feel as though DoorDash has something in its algorithm that is set to mess some of us. It’s all too consistent to be coincidence. It is especially frustrating because I am trying to rais a family, not living with my parents, like this other dude. I am trying things to bring up my earnings. I just have not yet figured out what it is I need to do.
What I really need to do is get some photography clients. I am ready for them. I have my website up and ready for them. I just need them to come and look. Marketing! I need to get some marketing out there. Then I am ready to schedule almost any time of the week! So, if you are local and need some photos done, http://www.kelseybaconphotography.com is the place to go! Let’s create some personalized art for you and your home!
Okay! Time to go figure out the next chore to do and get it started, or even better yet, done!
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Eye Saw Better
I just came out from an eye exam with my eyes dialated, and everything looks like we just got nuked. Especially the white cars and snow capped mountaints. I am trying to adjust mostly to the blurr, though. I can see, but not clearly. So I am waiting to adjust or get accustomed to that before I start working. But I am eager as can be to get working and earning! Oh, and the best part is that the Doc sent over a prescription to help with my allergies. That ought to be great!
Anyway, meanwhile while I sit here adjusting, you are looking at the happiest man on earth right now! I took some good advice into my shop last night for a litle free time I had and adjusted the bandsaw accordingly, and got some very straight cuts with it! The blade had been diving to the right really fast and far upon entering the cut, and I was pretty discouraged by it. So it has been sat while I have been too busy to deal with it, and now with it sorted, I think I will be able to have mroe time to do woodworking because I won’t have to budget as much hand cutting or want of the tablesaw.
Right. I had better go get some orders going and start my earning today. Still blurry and bright, but I think I can cope.
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Yesterday
I was out on 1800 S and 10th West making a right turn on to 10th heading south when the car suddenly went into reduced power mode. Great! Luckily there was a little gap between me and the oncoming traffic, but not much. It was enough for me to get into the left lane and turn left into the gas station just a block down. I popped the hood and checked the coolant and then the one I feared, the oil level. It was just down the other day and took a full load to refill. Sadly, it was all the way down again. I bought some at the gas station and drove home safely, but it seems that what I will be saving on gas in this car I will be spending on oil. It’s not good. I’ll have to not the days I top up and see how much it is really costing. Meanwhile, our oldest is meant to come and work on the Honda and maybe the Chev when he is next down. I hope it is a fixable problem. If it is, the car seems to be doing pretty good otherwise and should save a bit of money when it is not taking oilfields to keep it running.
But that was yesterday. I took today off.
I wanted to show some support for the general strike today, not just because of the lawlessness of the law in the country, but also because like it or not, the economy is not realistically set up to be of help to all, and to allow everyone to make enough to live on. There are things that should be done to correct it and can be by many people in business and government. Or maybe you agree that Elon is worth the trillion-dollar pay packet he tried to get this year, and the people who work for him who actually did all the fucking work do not deserve a share in the apparently large reserves the company must have. Whatever, Elon!
I just checked into Dash, and the wait for even a Platinum Dasher like me is currently 154 Minutes. And that is for conservative Logan, Utah on a Friday evening! Holy cow! It is good I decided to just stay home today and work on my businesses instead. Time to get my ass back to work! I was informed today that the strikers are apparently monkeys who are throwing a tantrum by one of the other Dashers who posted that in our valley-wide Discord group. Look who is the monkey now. What a laugh! I have to be honest though. I was not sure the strike would come together on short notice, but it seems to have. Salt Lake is at over 160 minutes. Of course, I am assuming it is the strike, and not a severe overage of Dashers.
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2026 – So Far
We are only two weeks into the new year, and so far it feels like it is doing everything it can to wear away at us. I have the car out of comission again, this time due to a leak under the thing on the top of the engine. Okay! It’s called the Vtech Solenoid! Apparently the one on the front of the engine notoriously leaks oil down onto the alternator and causes it to fail. So, when I saw the car was only producing 11.4V when I got down into Logan today, I soon decided that I did not want to risk getting stuck there and drove it home via the autoparts store to pick up a new gasket set.
There are a few different versions of thei 3.5L v-6 engine, apparently, and the one I have is not the one where you just undo three bolts on the top of the solenoid and pop it off. Mine requires removing the valve cover and everything that is on top of it, too, as well as another part where engines used to have intake manifolds. Anyway, it is a little worrying for me, especially on a first time and on a car I am totally dependant on. So, our mechanic son is coming down tomorrow and he says he will give it a go. I am more confident in that. I hope that fixing this will severely reduce the oil that leaks from the engine and how much I have to replace between oil changes. This is all after replacing the battery and altenator last week or so? It is getting hectic. I can’t keep track. The altenator is new from before! But it was swamped in oil. So when I saw the low voltage reading, I wanted to address the culperit once and for all.
Helping hands will help!
Money is not coming easy. I need to fix that, too. I want to get the photography business going and I want to get the candle sales to where I want them to be, which is selling candles in traditional wood boxes so someone has a complete set of 18th century candles and a place to store them that is decorative. It’s a dream. It is giving me practice working on dovetails, and other joinery, too.
Well, things feel like they are falling apart. I cannot seem to keep this car running reliably. Everything else that is wrong is wrong, too, and I find it all depressing. I have never been good at fitting into the economy. I am less sure of it than ever right now. I don’t know how to keep the ends tied together, so I struggle and keep them met as best I can.
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Happy New Year, Goodbye 2025
It is the end of another year. Good God! Where do they all go so fast? Okay, that was fun to say, but realistically, I have an honest assessment of the passing of time. After all, I was young so very long ago. I don’t honestly have my head around being 54. That has got me a bit flummoxed. It just doesn’t seem quite right. I don’t feel old. I used to, but the past year and a half has brought welcomed relief. I feel a lot better now than I did before removing a lot of gluten from my diet. I suppose it is gluten. It was bread that I found to have caused me so much pain. And now, I live a normal life again, for the most part, where my joints are concerned. Well, I can manage it. I do get sore sooner than I would like, but I am not waking up sore and feeling it all day, and going to bed dead from it. So that is good!
I would like to report this as having been a great year, but honestly, it could have been better. I took on DoorDashing to keep up on bills and such, and that has not paid nearly enough. It has barely kept us afloat. That and some credit, that is. This New Year we are going to have to catch up and get back ahead. That’s why tomorrow I am officially a professional photographer. It is one thing I can do and I can provide as a quality product, right to hand, right now. I can charge enough to keep us afloat, and I can supplament with DoorDashing. I would like to book enough clients I don’t have to, though, and I can work in my other crafts instead. That would be much better.
My daughter caught a photo of me this morning sat in my plaid covered chair, in my plaid pajamas, drinking from a plaid cup. Well, I thought it was pretty funny. I have been trying a full beard rather than just a goatee lately. I like it when it is tame. I don’t like more than about a quarter of an inch in length as it starts holding hostages. I have always preferred the more sophisticated appearance of a gentlman in such facial hair to the wild and wooley look that is often worn by the men of the region. To each their own.
So, here it is. The end of 2025. How do I feel about the year gone by? It has pretty much been a bust. It was largely a waste on my account. My kids continue to grow and learn, and I am proud of them for that. But where I am concerned, this year has not produced positive growth. Well, maybe that is not entirely true. DoorDashing has allowed me to get around Logan a lot! I know my way around the city really well now, and fear no part of it for driving. I can advertise photographic services or whatever else knowing I can confidently navigate to any location I need to appear at. So that has been a positive net right there. I have also met loads of people and I have been able to practice up on my social skills. If you know me, I am not polished, but I am pretty fearless when it comes to trying. So I am ready to go, I think.
Then there is the matter of need. I have enough of that right now to just go for it in the photo business. I need. I need to do the work I was meant to do. I need the opportunity to create! I need money! These are all things that can motivate my business. So I will be trying, as of tomorrow. I will keep my expenses, and I will make my ads, and I will speak to everyone I meet about it. I am not able to mess about any longer. It is time to run.
I am going to get to bed now, a full hour and a half before the new year rings in. I got a message from my sister-in-law in England proclaiming a Happy New Year, just a bit after midnight her time. Well, she is young still. You saw my photo above. This old man is heading to bed! I have seen these before. Too many of them!
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