Short and Sweet

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Kelsey

You know how everyone always remembers to call Twitter by the new name, “X” now? The Gulf of Mexico. That’s that. Maybe the Gulf of X. And I am done with that. What a stupid thing to do. And no, I will not be dressing up in Gulf of America regalia and dancing in a puddle.

So, the llama is still alive. I turned another bowl on the lathe today, but this one has a lid on it. I am pretty happy with that. I did some time signed in to deliver today. There was only one delivery. But oh well. It was something. I brought our youngest with.

There are two days of very cold weather ahead, then we are set to warm up to mid 40’s soon after. Nice! Shop time!

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Delivery Offerings Status Change, and Llama Still Hanging On

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Kelsey

It’s Monday morning. The llama is still alive out there in her paddock. So, no moving a body yet today. Ah, life on the farm. Also, the kids are off to school, I have laundry to do, and a shower to take, but none of that till after breakfast.

Uber is starting a promotion and says to me that Uber Eats is now active in Preston. If I take any orders between now and Sunday, I get to take part in the promotion, which is that they will pay me $30 each time I take an order starting in the zone marked on the map, which is Preston. Well, no shit I’ll take that. Most exciting of all, the Uber app lets me go online for orders and just BE online for orders. Door Dash does not. It makes me wait till orders are starting to come in before I can go online for them, so I cannot be notified about orders till I notice on their little map that they are getting orders. If i am not looking at the map, I cannot go online, thus cannot get the orders. In other words, I have to babysit the app just to know when I can go online. Uber, It’s just an on and off switch. Nice. I’ll do that. So, I am going to go online after I finish some chores and then take whatever comes this whole week. $30 each for the first five, then $15 each for the next five. Time to be at home in the shop? Sounds like what I was looking for on the time part.

Maybe nothing will come in all week. Maybe only one or two. Who knows. The point for me is that I can be online, and work in my shop, then take the orders as they come. But once this promotion is over, if the orders come in at $2 per, it might not be worth leaving the house. So let’s see how it goes. I still have no idea why I got paid $37 for the one from Preston to Franklin the other day. Pay like that is worth leaving the house for! But Uber gave me a $10 promotional payment after, making that a $47 run in total for me. Weird. But yeah! Nobody is going to pay that kind of money for a food delivery. But I do want fair compensation. It has not been doing that in Logan, so I don’t have high hopes for the long run.

Meanwhile, I plan to work in the shop this week. I need to get some things ready for Market. I have to do the damn near impossible. Make things, then SELL them. But when I make them, they are mine, and I don’t want to sell them! Like that bowl I made yesterday. I love that thing! It is lovely! So, it will stay in my collection. Now I have to make a better one. How in the hell am I going to let it go once it is made? I don’t know! I also have a kid with a birthday coming up in a week. I have ideas on what I can do for that.

So, this is a week I look forward to. I am eager to see how things turn out. With a market right here in town coming up, I may be able to help Missus set up, then go online with Uber for that. No biggie if I pop off for a bit, is it? Earnings upon earnings! Potentially. I mean, Uber says Uber Eats is now live in Preston. how will anyone know that? Will there be any orders at all?

About done with breakfast now while I type this. Next off to start readying for the day and week. We are down to one chicken. Obviously, they are not going to work out in an outside coop. I will have to keep any future chickens in the old coop with a covered run if I am to keep making eggs here on the place. I’ll be down a llama in a day or two. She is definitely on her way out. That’s less hay. I will change the future coop practices if we go into chickens again, which, given egg prices! Yeah. Meanwhile, we will see how the current set of work offerings with the delivery services and the markets work out. We need to earn some money.

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Turn a Bowl, Lose a Llama

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Kelsey

I turned a little bowl today. It gave me a little trouble, but I got it in the end. Boy! Did I ever! What a laugh! It blew out a bit of pith at the end, and so it was pretty much past the point of repair. So I turned another one. I took what I learned from the first and put that to use on the second, and this is what I came up with.

Is it a dreamy bit of perfection? No! But it is good enough to make me happy for a fir… second try! I will need to work on my sharpening skills on the turning tools, but it is my best so far. It might also be because of the wood being walnut. I’ll check out the wood I have got and see if there are any more appropriately sized for another try. I’d also like to do a plate for myself. I might have to make it usable for eating off of. That would mean using a different oil! The oil I used on this bowl is boiled linseed oil. Whatever oil I need to use has to be raw because of the chemicals added to them for the boiling process. I will no doubt use olive oil. Good time to get out my 18th century cutlery set!

I could not do any of the woodturning till I finished cleaning a load of stuff off the shop floor. It was such a mess!

I’ll give one of the llamas, Mystique, till morning, then I think she will have died. I have been kind of waiting for this. She is older, and she has had pretty bad arthritis in her hips for several years. In fact, whomever sold her to us probably saw the early signs and took advantage by putting her up for sale. I don’t know for sure, but she has had it that about that long. She is laying out in her little shed now, and from the looks of her, she is on her way out. That will be the second we have lost over this winter. I am sure I will be firing up the tractor tomorrow morning to move her across the street to the bone pile. Sad day.

I did the washing up today. It was a big pile! I need to go back in in half an hour and do the pots and pans. That will be nice. It is cold in here, and I could do with the warm water to warm my hands up. There is this warm coffee to make my hands comfy for now.

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Uber Again

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Kelsey

Okay, I have tried food delivery again in Logan, Utah. I went for a few hours, and earned something around $63. Then you take out the $20 in fuel I topped up again at the end of the night, and the food I had to buy totaling $15.97, and you are left with around $30. That was for about six hours of work, and there were no taxes paid on it, yet, so there’s that. It is not enough to keep a Chinese kid from jumping out his “school” window. Not on the relative economy, anyway. Color me unimpressed. I’ll need to get on with support and see what they want to register me with Utah for passengers, because unless I can pick them up, I am not going to make enough to pay the taxes on what I earn.

Then we will have to account for the wear and tear on the car. That will more than eat up the remainder of Uber ‘wages.’ Tips and wages, if you can believe that. I had a couple of fair tips tonight, but most of them were dire. The people of this area have no appreciation at all for what it costs to get them their food, and with a smile every time? I mean, wow! Around 90% of them are cheap as whores. I am very much not impressed. Yet, this also comes down to Uber and that they pay nothing for delivery fares. I mean, $2 for 2 miles? That can be from when I get the notification three miles away, which I have to include, then the two, then however far back to my rest spot. And the time adds up to 20 minutes or so with all the walking in and walking around, and sometimes finding the place. I went into a place today that was liminal spaces, with doors for apartments, doors for storage, and more doors for more storages, and they all had numbers on them, so if your apartment was 237, there were two or three other doors with 237 on them as well. Then, to top it all off, the place is a series of long straight hallways stacked on each other, and there were no stairs visible anywhere. I walked down one hall, then another, and finally out in between the buildings and passed yet another door before realizing that that one was out of place, so I checked the poorly colored low contrast sign, and it said “stairs” on it. There was me about to eat the food and go home and never sign in again with Uber. But alas, Wendy or whomever it was got her food left at (hopefully) the correct door!

Again, it was another night of meeting nobody. There was a girl who actually did meet me at the door and I thanked her for reminding me that there were actual humans ordering this shit. Well, I didn’t quit put it like that. But I thanked her because it feels a lot like some sort of prison meal service on the isolation ward. There is certainly no love in it. And that is sad, because I love what I do when I am doing food delivery. I love the meeting people part. Actually, I think I had this rant last night. Now I am going to have to go down tomorrow. See if the Super Bowl draws in traffic. I will try it. But if it is crap, I think I can write this off altogether till I get permitted to carry humans. That seems like it is more profitable. I’d like to try that. There might even be people involved in that. Who knows?

So, there is my summary of Uber Eats deliveries. It really is not worth it at all if you are not riding a bike. It is hard on the body, hard on the car, hare on the wallet, and doe not do much to replace what a person earns. The sooner everybody learns that, and starts refusing anything unreasonable, the better. We could all do with more money. You can’t expect these Utahns to pick up the slack on the wages and actual cost to deliver. They believe themselves to be adopted into the House of Israel, and literal Israelites. (Why not Israelis, I don’t know!) They are cheap, but they are not funny. So, close!

Next trick is to make some things in the shop and see if I can sell anything at those markets coming up. Maybe that will help fund food.

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Uber Logan

Posted on February 8, 2025 by Kelsey

I took off for Logan for like eight hours yesterday. I was all set to make a bank, wasn’t I? But for one tiny little detail I had missed on the secondary screens of the Uber App. When in Utah, Utah lights up for me, doesn’t it? But when in Utah, I cannot take passengers in the car. I can only take food deliveries. The area around Logan is quite large, and there are lots of places for food pick-ups. So that’s good. But the $37 delivery I did the other day is beyond my understanding at this point. Uber offers on average in Logan about $2.50 per delivery. People tip on average a buck or two with outliers for the ones who do orders from Olive Garden. Most of the rest do not think the driver is worth more than that. So, on average, I pulled just over 16 miles to the gallon tearing my car and tires up and earning about $50 for that whole eight hours. There was an Uber bonus for some reason on that $37 order I took the other day, so that is now sitting at $47 for one order from Wendy’s. Yesterday’s work average me about $7.87 ah hour. Now, consider this. I then added $18 in fuel to my car. Down to $5.63 an hour. Now consider this. I definitely put higher than normal wear on the vehicle for the sake of getting money to feed my family and pay my bills with. The government allows me $0.65 a mile for that. So, using that on the 95 miles I did, that come up to $61.75. So, based on that, what were my earnings? I am giving the time and effort and wear on my assets away for the sake of a little money back into my account each week. For other people to enjoy food that smells up my car or spills in it. Uber is not at all worth taking food deliveries.

If I were driving passengers, that might be a different story. But Uber won’t let me drive them in the close, rich market of Logan, because I live a mile from the Utah state line, and I am not approved to drive people there. I need, desperately, to get approved for Utah to make this at all worth the effort. And even then, unlike food that only spills, this new income source complains, and pitches a fit, and so on. I had one customer last night who moaned about me not finding their door when the GPS sent me to the Ford Dealership over a mile from their house. The exact wording is gone from me, but it was something to the effect of “I give you directions because everybody gets lost. I spect you to follow them.” How nice. Luckily another GPS app was able to locate the correct address, and when I got there, it was first on a street where there were a row of houses, then on that, there was a driveway that sneaked in-between the houses, and beyond the houses was a tiny little row of houses seemingly in the back yard of one of the main road houses. And that’s where the address was. On a named “road” that was no more than a driveway in appearance, just wide enough for only one vehicle. I have done a lot of delivery in my days, and this was surprising as a layout. I ‘spect’ I will be able to find it next time. By the way, the customer communicates through the app, so spelling is also a part of the communications.

Oh, and let’s talk about communications through the app. People order for their food to be left at the door. Hey, there is a nice guilt free way of adding a dollar as a tip and then forgetting about the human who is being robbed to make your food appear from McDonald’s because you are too poor to have a car, too lazy to go get food for yourself, or too busy earning money to buy food you cannot afford. A dollar? I spect I got a dollar, which was nice, but my delay in delivering the McDonald’s to the door of the driveway road house did not make it late, nor was the food any colder than it would have been if I had driven straight there. I resolved the issue with the GPS fast enough that had the customer not got on to start complaining only a couple of minutes after I picked up the food, they would have never known I was stalled up there.

Because I get communications through the app, and I get instructions to “leave it at the door” from almost everybody, I saw one customer last night face to face. The rest were drop and go, and I got almost nothing in tips with most of them, between a dollar and two and a couple of others lowballs, then the two closer to ten. And all that still added up, with my fares, to about $53. Before $18 in fuel. How is this profitable over eight hours, with wear and tear on my car? I last made this kind of money in high school in 1987, when the minimum wage was $3.35 an hour.

So, I don’t know that I will be doing Uber for food deliveries anymore. It is very much not worth it, especially when putting myself at serious risk of an accident in Logan, Utah. Anyone reading this who live there knows how likely I am to end up in an Air Ambulance heading down to Salk Lake City. Logan has serious traffic along its main roads, and it all goes up and down a narrow corridor of development. So when everybody gets off work, most of them are heading up and down that narrow corridor. It is like living in Los Angeles without the freeways. Well, not quite. It’s still loose enough to flow. But it is the speed that makes it worse. When people hit, they hit hard. And to drive among that, is not only very dangerous, but it also means harder starts, stops, and turns with the car. So harder wear.

Also, I expected there would be deliveries among the college housing, what, with a university in town and all. Not one. Deliveries were out in the mid and low-income houses of the regular people, with one on snob hill. That one was one of the two higher tipping deliveries, but not the high one. Past experience tells me that the working man is usually the one who tips fairly. But the masses in Utah are cheap where I worked.

So, what do I do? Drive a little more to transfer the value of my vehicle and my time into the bank account, try to get set up to take people, and then keep an eye open for a “real job.” I don’t know. I am still ambiguous about that. I could never get paid what my time with my family time is worth to me.

It smells like a slight whiff of smoke in here. Missus must be up trying to light the stove with the minimal amount of wood that’s in the house. I suppose I better get up now and get ready to go get her enough firewood to actually heat the place for a few hours.

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Yet Another Morning Entry

Posted on February 7, 2025 by Kelsey

It’s eight in the morning now, and I slept up till about an hour ago, so I am feeling pretty good. Out of bed, dressed, down the stairs, loo, kiss the wife, clear the ash out of the woodstove, load it with logs, coffee, tablets, and computer. It is rainy looking out the window, and when I looked, there was no sign of snow anywhere but on that little patch out front by the small pickup truck. Wind is ranging 15 to 24 miles an hour at the moment, and the weeds out the front window are showing with their rendition of the funky chicken.

Weather being like that, I don’t know so much that I am heading out to the yard to work today, or if Missus still wants to go to town to sort out some things. We do need to get her glasses. That reminds me, I also need to put gas in the car.

I am still astounded by that Uber delivery I took yesterday. With tip it ended up being $37! A check with Missus on the topic of going out, and she says Monday. Fine, and on goes the Uber App. Well, I am going to take it if it livens up! Might actually make some real money while running the little Door Dash runs in between. Who knows? I wish there was a consistent market close enough I could count on getting runs at will. I could make enough to live on with that. And I could do it at will. And enough, is enough. I’m happy with that.

The kids are up now, and the dishes are wandering through the kitchen sink. I have been doing them most of the time lately. So, the break is nice as my oldest goes on with it. I huffed and puffed on the hot coals in the stove and finally got it to light up. Another log on top, and the fire is beginning to put a little heat up the flu. It is windy, and there is definitely a certain amount of clogging in at least one of the choke points. That causes the wind coming into the chimney to have a great effect on pushing back against the heat trying to go up. One the flu is hot, there is a much greater force of hot air pushing back against it, and the chimney would have to be pretty plugged up for it to push hard enough for the air to come back down. But my sign that things are getting tight in those choke points is the smoke not flowing easily up the chimney. Or it could be just the force of the wind. But the wind needs to be stronger to stop it up that much when things are clean. It’s all a spectrum.

The thermometer placed correctly at 18 inches up the flue pipe from the stove top is now indicating a temperature that puts the needle on the border between the yellow and the green indices. When it gets there and into the green a fire will self-sustain just fine with the stove door closed, and I ca heat the house efficiently and more cleanly. Time to close the door! Next is to adjust the draft down till the fire slows some, and the stove just maintains the heat required to keep the house warm. I usually burn in the first quarter of the green zone, and let it burn down in the yellow. I don’t burn anywhere near the red, and I am certainly never one to do that stupid looking stunt of burning the stove to any shade of glowing red. I don’t understand that. I like my house more than that. I like my family more than that. It appears too high a risk to both, to me. I can feel the heat coming from the stove, but since closing the door, it has cooled down to the yellow.

The actual temperatures don’t really matter with such a visual indicator. But as you can see, the pipe wants to be at about 275F or above to keep a clean burn and in the case of my particular stove, a self-sustaining one. Mind, once it is going and the wood has formed charcoals on it, it will sustain in the yellow zone just fine. As you can also see, it is probably time to freshen up and get a new thermometer. I wonder if I can still find a nice one with that “Made In USA” label at the bottom? That would be nice.

I think it is time to get a new coffee, and remind the kids that mom included ‘put them away’ on the dishwashing chore list. Then ask them to toss the cats out before the house starts receiving parcels. One of the cats is called “Serious Black.” I am asking my youngest daughter to get Serious. We all love that name a little too much.

Coffee!

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First Uber Was Today

Posted on February 7, 2025 by Kelsey

Six and a half bucks with no tip on the one and only Door Dash I took today. That would have been it, but for Uber finally lighting up and sending me a request for a food delivery. Naturally I was about half a mile from home, and it tried, then somehow, I missed the accept, but when I got home, it did it again, and I was able to accept it, then drive all the way back up to town, then back down to Franklin. That would not have been worth it, but for the $35 fee and $2 tip. Holy crap! I have barely made that much all week with Door Dash the last two weeks. So of course I took this! Plus, I really wanted to see how Uber worked. After all, this is the first time I have seen that it DOES work. Not a bad profit for a burger and fries. It was some teen with mom’s credit card, I think. That’s as much info as I will talk about it, though. Privacy and all that.

So, I made as much today on one 26-minute drive as I made all of last week on Door Dash payments. Unbelievable. And that was from here in Idaho! I will go down to Utah and see if I can see some runs there in Logan next. I think that could really put me over the top on some earnings. Nice work if you can get it.

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Every Morning’s Thoughts

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Kelsey

The usual three Ante Meridian wake up today was because of the weather alarm sounding that the outside temperature has gone to below 20F. A quick jaunt down the stairs to the well-lit room and the woodstove, and back up again is as usual enough to wake me into thoughts of anxiety and eagerness. So therapeutic self-care requires I make a bit of writing to lose the thoughts and work out the logic that is my own personal philosophies on life. It is going to have to be either this or go on down the stairs again, but this time for a cup of coffee.

I passed the last hour and a half finishing the long video I started last night about spoke shaves. There is a strange thing about that tool that draws a person to wanting to work wood. I don’t know just what it is, but for some reason, whenever I get to thinking of it and using it, I want to go set up a piece and begin shaving it. It is a lovely tool and requires both hands to use it most of the time. The foot is short, and the feel of it against the wood is like how a Corvette feels on the road compared to the usual Camry. Every pebble, every crack is noticed, and it feels like your backside is in a hole that follows you around throughout the world as you go. The spoke shave is nimble and can hit a curve, even with a flat sole. I think it is something about all that which makes such a desirable tool to work with. The worst part of it is that it wants a good work holding device to get you going. Funny thing is that for such a small and nimble tool, it requires a shave horse or a work bench of some sort to keep the piece while you work with it.

What I need to do is make a piece of furniture. I want to do something with a cabinet. That generally does not require a spokeshave, by the way. But I would like to have some sort of piece to keep things in here in the house, and to have the practice and work out a few things that I have not got my head around just yet in the construction. I also want to do another table. It could be that what I need to do is a short cabinet for the bedside cupboard that will hold a shelf or two for books and a drawer above that I can put some other things into. I think an elevated back shelf on the top might be a good thing, too. Maybe that could be a lift top box that is sized to hold a tissue box or something. Point is that this idea might be just what I need to do to get some skills up and to put together something from some wood I have outside that should be dry by now.

I think I may be spending the weekend down in Logan driving if I really do see the Uber app light up when I am down there for some errands on Friday. We could really use the money to cover some bills and food. If that is successful, then I might have to do weekends down there and earn money, then spend the rest of the week making furniture and running my own at home business. I think it has the potential to be a good schedule.

Speaking of schedule, one of the best parts about doing Uber and Door Dash, if they work out with said plan above, is that I can just pack it in and leave work at any moment and not have to ask anyone for a bit of time off whenever I need. That is super appealing!

Also, speaking of schedule, Missus has got some markets scheduled as of yesterday, and we have some summer plans for her business. There is one coming in the next two weeks, in fact. I’ll be excited to see that play out. I need to make some things for it to try to flog off.

It is time to try to get an hour’s rest before it is time to wake up and take the kids to school. Cold weather is coming. I may have to get out and put some wood to the woodpile again. Also, I am still asking myself how getting two neighboring countries to put 10K soldiers each along our border is a victory? I am not seeing kt. Maybe I can sleep on it.

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Wooden Figures

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Kelsey

I moseyed out of the house this evening when there were no orders coming through on Door Dash and walked into the shop. I saw the stool I started for Missus as a warping stool for the big loom. It is not the greatest finish at all, but the shape and size will hopefully put her right where she needs to be to do her work. It needed a couple of coats of paint on it to call it finished. I brought it into the house so the temperature would be better for it and mixed up a small batch of black milk paint. I coated it with that, then after it dried, I mixed up some red. That has one coat on it drying now. I expect I will put on one more coat tomorrow.

I put Uber on when I got down to Utah on my route to pick up the kids from their bus stop. It lit up. It lit up more than it did when it showed me the red zone in Rexburg a week ago. That was the only other time I have seen anything show up on it. So, maybe I can go down there and work? I don’t know. Nothing showed up in Logan. All I saw was in the region from Ogden to Provo. I’ll have to see what it looks like when we go down there next. Maybe the thing will light up. If so, I will be going there to work and try to earn some money. I am not earning enough in the old hometown in a week to pay a day’s worth of overdraft fees. Let’s see what’s what.

Missus had an appointment with a doctor today to finalize her treatment for her kidney issue. That’s the thing, she finalized it! She is no longer required to take antibiotics or do blood tests and EKG readings. We will hopefully be able to keep her healthy and from doing a trip like this again.

I am listening to a reading of the resignation letter of General Mark Milley right now. Obviously, Trump is wanting him charged. Believe you me, between the two men, I support Milley. That man has served this nation for a lifetime. He has earned his way to where he got to, and he did so through service and training, and sacrifice and more. Right now, we have a President who is proposing war crimes to take over the Gaza Strip. He is a real estate developer. For fuck’s sake, how is this not another violation of the emolument’s clause of the Constitution? It is as plain as can be that his intent is to do such a thing for his own benefit. There are 2.1 million people living there now. Relocation is illegal. I will say it out loud at last, I do think the President will be impeached again, and I do think it will come to the Republicans to do it in the end. I mean, if any of them have the balls to stand up for anything at all. But then, dismantling the government and destroying American influence around the world may well be what they have wanted all along.

Okay, off to bed now. I have a stool to finish in the morning and would like to get something new going soon. The mother of a good friend is being remembered tomorrow. I cannot be there, and I am sad for that. But I will be thinking on her, and what a wonderful lady she was, and the way she smiled and was supportive to us as kids. Farewell Ma Stewart!

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Mallets For Every Room of the House!

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Kelsey

Mallets made of Walnut.

I turned another mallet recently, seen laying on its side in the picture above. I took from what I learned from the one on the far right and made the grip opposite in shape, wider at the pinky portion and narrower along the throat, which seemed better suited to the shape of my hand. The base at the bottom is thus heavier, and that seems to add an interesting balance to the whole thing that seems to want to make it fairly easy to swing. It feels like it is easy to reverse the direction of the momentum. I will have to try it with a chisel and see how it goes in action. Till then, I don’t know at all.

I need to list some of these up for sale eventually, but how difficult it is! They are my babies, every one of them! And the wood! So lovely!

Wind is gusting as high as 35 miles an hour outside right now, the temperature is 52.2F and it is 4:30 in the morning, mind! The forecast high for the day is 51. So, who knows where this is going to go? It sounds like it is raining right now. Without looking out the window, the weather map suggests that it is very true.

Missus is starting to do some workouts using the VR headset. She has found a program that she likes, and which makes it more like a game for her. It is really good to see her trying it out. I think she is fed up with the ‘getting older’ pains. I need to do the same. I need to at least put on my favorite 8-minute workout video and put an effort into that a couple of times a week so I can feel more energetic in the days. I feel pretty good for my age, I think, but I am competing against how I used to feel and that was never competitive as it was always diminished by the pain of joint inflammation. If that is going to be gone, then I need to take advantage and go into my second childhood with all the energy and vigor of a kid!

The wind is picking up out there right now. It is not gusting higher, but the run is stronger. It is great not to have that tree stood looming over the house now. I am assured by the way I took it down that had it fallen on its own, it would definitely have hit the house or one of the sheds. I managed to get it to come back first when it fell, shortening the length of the fall, then land in the exact corner between the house and the cottage. It was nothing short of miraculous how if it had fallen in any other direction or not shortened its reach, it would have clobbered something valuable. Now I don’t have to worry about it at all. And to think, our homeowner’s insurance policy threatened to cancel on us if we didn’t remove trees that were right next to the house and could not possibly have fallen on it because they were barely taller than the eves. They did rub their extremities against the roof, and that was what the insurance company brought up. Good grief! They never said anything about the huge tree further out in the yard!

One of the kids is coming down this weekend, and we are all excited to see his family, and him. It is not as often as we would have it that we do see him, but life is what it is. He has a good paying job in the oilfields of North Dakota, and it takes him away from the state for his shifts, and if he has to catch up around the house on his weekends, then we don’t see him for long periods. So, it is nice when we do!

We have not yet found a job for either of us that is appropriate. Missus has tried to find project manager work online, but the listings she has looked at are offering insane things such as $12 an hour or less. She was north of $35 when she left her previous work. We know she is worth more than that. She is looking for a hobby job, where she can just work part time, but also where she is valued for the time she is putting into it. $12 an hour or less is not serious. How can she be expected to be treated seriously? As for me, I am still in the position of not having experience for the last 20 years since I have been a stay-at-home dad. It is difficult for the job seeker to list that and expect anyone to think of him as a serious candidate at all. I have been doing DoorDash, and that is fun and something I enjoy just fine. But there are not a lot of orders in the area, so I have been cranking in like $35 a week so far. Also, not serious. I am under no threat of being able to afford food.

I have been informed that we are going to a couple of markets this month and in April. I need to plan and put together something for them. Hey! It would be easy to crank out some carver’s mallets! I would like something with the candles, and maybe some candle boxes, too. I also should be advertising my tree disposal service. (In other words, an open gate into a field where a person could drop a tree off in.) I would like more wood to consider using to make some furniture from. But I am also concerned about the mount of it that gets thrown into landfill and left to rot. That is uselessness, while I can make so much out of it that it is worthwhile to try to put it all to use in our fashion. Also, I would like to introduce the furniture making into the markets by April, since I have the opportunity. Now THAT would be a good job for me!

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