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The Car Breaks Again!

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Kelsey

Just plane awful! That’s how yesterday’s workday ended. I did a last run to get me barely over the minimum limit line on my earnings for the week, it was that tough a week for me. Then I got back into the car and started it up. Within a moment, the battery indicator light came on. Oh my! Newish alternator is only about six months old. It has got to be the battery! Right? I carry on towards home from Logan, and by the time I am bearing down on Smithfield, there are a lot of lights coming on in the instrument panel. This is not good! I start thinking about limping it home, and if I am going to make it or not when I notice an opening to the left of me in the lane of traffic, and that I am just coming up on OReily’s Auto Parts. I bust the move. I get into the parking spot and go in and the guy inside offers to come test the car for me. I go out to start it and it is stone cold dead. Nothing.

An hour later, I have a new battery installed with a broken positive connection and vise grip pliers holding it on. Now I go ahead and limp it home. Next morning I have the broken battery terminal badly replaced and start the car to find the battery light coming on again. Must be the alternator. But by now I am feeling under the weather and the psoriasis on my hands has split all up and has me feeling a lot worse because of it. So, I rest a bit before going out to tackle the issues. When I am done I get the alternator out by sunset, eat supper with the girls, and they come with me to get the alternator replaced under the lifetime warranty O’reily’s Auto. Exchange done, we come home and eat supper before I go upstairs and work on my Roman Bench in my den. Enough is enough for the day.

It has been a couple of those kinds of days to be sure! I hope tomorrow surprises us with a fast warm up and plenty of warm weather too. For now, I am off to bed to dream of a longer lasting alternator if nothing else. Goodnight!

Early the next morning, before 6:00AM.

The car has had a rough time of it lately. Parts are failing too frequently for me to be able to pay for them before the next one comes up. On top of it, DoorDashing does not pay nearly enough to keep us afloat while all this is going on as well as everything else. Our lives are far too expensive, and we don’t even have a housing cost outside of maintenance and tax. I am honestly depressed. I feel as though I am a part of the greater society that is designed for common people to fail, and that is not where a person who considers himself a part of the homestead movement ought to be. Our direction is in reverse. It needs to change. It absolutely needs to change. I’d cry, but I have no tears for it. I think that is merely a product of my age. If this were me thirty years ago, I’d be running up the bill on tissues and maybe even alcohol. It would not help, obviously.

So what does help? We are at a point where I am struggling to make the money I do. What’s more, to go any further up, I need to make a massive jump in earnings because of what we would then require to cover insurance costs. At this point, I am thinking somewhere in the range of $2K a month for the premiums, and more for copays and deductibles to actually use the insurance. Guess on our family, given common uses, at least another thousand to two. There are additional taxes on that income, so at this point, add another thousand, and we are breaking even to where we are now. So now that is upwards of $8K a month income just to keep us where we are now with government help in lieu of our own insurance. And of course, the government wants us off quicker than quick. I can barely keep milk in the fridge right now, and I get it cheap already by only buying it on Wednesdays from a local market that puts it on sale every Wednesday. Yeah, our current system is designed for mass failure. And there are shameless motherfuckers that are getting filthy rich off it. It needs to collapse.

January 1, I am beginning a photo business, and with any luck will fill gaps in my time with both DoorDashing and some making things to sell. I have candles piling up and I am nearly fully set up to make candle boxes by hand in the den where I put my Roman workbench and modified it for tasks. I may be learning to cut dovetails horizontally if my jury-rigged vise fails. Either way, I need to work this rather than the stupid DoorDashing that I am currently destroying our car with. It’s too much on it, and too much on me. The car gets about 200 miles a day put on it, and I have long periods of focus and movement while driving, in addition to those damned tires vibrating the hell out of me as I go. I go and buy good stout winter tires, and it is effing January and still has not even snowed! What gives?!

I am going to get a nap in now, before I have to get up and work on putting in the new alternator I picked up last night. It’s not that hard to change it out, but my hands are giving me absolute hell right now, and the tools are ice cold and hurt to hold them because of all the cracking and splitting of my skin. Well, if it were easy, anybody could do it.

Posted in Candle Making, Delivery Jobs, Journal Entry | Comments Off

Christmas Post for 2025

Posted on December 26, 2025 by Kelsey

So the first thing I want to put in my blog to update recent events is that my baby sister has graduated and is officially an RN now! I am so proud of her! That is super cool! Not only is it a massive accomplishment, but it is a secure future for her! I am well chuffed with her!

There is other good news that is personal to the owner of it, but this is as close as I will come to publicly acknowledging it, making it known that I am celebrating!

Yesterday was Christmas. Normally, I would be asleep right now, having a lie-in for Boxing Day, but I am awake, and will be pottering around a bit before I get ready to go in to work. I need to put the rubbish bins to the curb, and feed the animals, and then go push for money on DoorDash. I am so fed up with it. It is no career. It is not even a job. I would not even call it a good side hustle. And this is coming from someone who has been doing it to live on. There are a multitude of reasons, but as I said, yesterday was Christmas, and I would much rather talk about that.

We did our usual fare for the season, though I added in a Christmas light peep on the 23rd with my daughters and grandson. I called it Grandpa’s Sleigh Ride. I think I will change some things about it before trying it again next year, such as localizing it to one or two towns. But we tried to peep at everything I could remember from going around the valley that was big and grandiose.

There is something to be interjected about lighting these days. There are lots of people who have installed the permanent lighting on their houses. Those lights require them to come outside with an app and select a color and pattern at most, then they are on their way. Looks total rubbish. I used to get more of a thrill looking at the Casinos of Las Vegas when we drove through when I was a kid. They were at least interesting. But straight, permanently affixed lights on the eaves of a house do nothing for it. It was the folks who put in the effort and went out to put some things up organically, and creatively that made their displays worth looking at. A little wonkiness and a bit of randomness, as well as some variety is what attracts the eye. Aesthetically, there is nothing worth driving for to see a house with a perfectly straight set of lights flashing away, and color changing under the eaves. But put a deer in the yard and add some figures of Santa and his elves somewhere, and things change. The more that gets added, the more curiosity is peaked, and the want to see it.

Christmas Day, we had the boys over, with their kids, and of course the girls were here, as always. My Missus made it magical, as she always does. She did not even let “this economy” slow us down. We all had a gift exchange, and food. I think everyone had cut out by three or so, and that’s okay because the Even before was its usual good time with games and Chinese food. My gifts out were from my hand made candle collection. I would like to have done more, but “this economy.”

As it is, I am sat here now, 6:30 in the morning on a day I would normally have off, and just pecking away before I go get ready to go in and work. Money is low right now, and I need to go make it up.

This New Year has got to bring some new things. I cannot keep going like this. It is not that Dashing is particularly hard, or unenjoyable. But it is requiring too much on my car just to earn so very little. Repairs cost too much, and fuel and other wear and tear and the miles are deteriorating a valuable asset too much. It also takes too much time to earn so little. I am left with little time or money for myself. I have nothing to spare and feel like I have nothing to show for it. No, it’s just too much. They don’t pay nearly enough.

My best path forward would be to build a photography business, then supplement it with some woodworking and firewood. I can always DoorDash along the way to get a little extra, or to fill a gap now and then, but I need to make my move into what I know, and enjoy, and can charge a reasonable amount to do without destroying my car, and without taking all of my time away from my home and family.

Well, there’s my lament this morning.

Christmas is over. Boxing Day is today. Normally I would be enjoying a buffet at breakfast and some time with the kids today. But I have got to get to work. Bills are coming in, and the bank is extremely low. Bouncy, even. The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day have traditionally been very slow, but this time, it needs to have a right kick up the shorts.

A note on the Global Warming Hoax. It’s a hoax. This winter has only just started. I am sure we have set records for the warmest days ever recorded for weeks in a row now. Late autumn has been almost completely without snow. It is 6:45 in the morning and 43°F. Last year the low for this date was 30.8, and the year before it was 1.4. It was 22 in 2022, and 18.1 in 2021. All the years before that it was in the mid-teens going back to 2018, when I first put in my weather station. Global Warming, Climate Change, the end of civilization, or just a little change in the weather, I am not bothered by what you call it. But it is different this year to the others. Our streams and rivers are running high and rain continues to fall when we normally are storing water in the mountain snow. There is little up there right now. Maybe the warmer weather will do for winter what we normally get in the warming spring weather with heavy snowfalls, and loads will accumulate. But that’s hope, and that’s only for this year. I am certainly uncertain for the future beyond it.

These are just my observations, and opinions. This is what I see that is undeniable. Philosophies and politics beyond it are beyond what I would even publish here today. We all have a length of rope, and we all get to decide how to use it.

It’s 7:00AM. I am going to go get my day going, and then go chasing pennies, which were recently cancelled because they are not worth digging around for among the rich. For the rest of us, poverty sucks.

Posted in Candle Making, Catastrophe & Disaster, Delivery Jobs, Family Activities, Family History, Family Time, Photography, Uncategorized, Weather | Comments Off

General Update

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Kelsey

So, I am trying to get my photography website up and running and myself ready to try to make a real living with it. Not the website, but my photography. I have been messing about with it for so long one way or the other, but I have an interest in photographing people that I have never really explored, but I also have a lot of ideas on what I would like to do. Seems a good way into this would be to photograph people for a living. I would like to work with their ideas, and maybe get the opportunities to input some of my own as well, which is to say, I would have a lot more creative control than that, but I will work with others to creat what they are looking for, too. I believe I have mentioned this before, recently. The photography for a living bit, not the mechanics of my own business in it.

I had the day off today, and got some of the work in the yard done that I have been trying to get to for a while now. I cleaned up some of the mess, and am working on getting things cleared away for winter. I also did a big-ish job in moving the tree trunk out of the back yard. It was still up, so I cut it from the stump and took it to the woodpile. That is me getting rid of a lot of problems in our yard as putting a single tree out in the middle of where the old septic system was turned out to be a bad idea on the part of the one who planted it there. Thankfully that was not me. Now I need to drill some series of holes in the top to catch water and rot the stump. It was a poplar tree that split up into a lot of branches early, and does not leave a lot of clear wood grain for use in the low part of the trunk. Whatever! It will burn just fine.

I got a few other chores done today, and have laundry in to finish the day. I started it off weird for a busy day full of work. I showered and shaved. I have been using the straight razor more lately, especially for over me now full beard. Well, full as in not a goatee. I keep it fairly short, and am shaping it with the razor. I am using it more now since I figured out how to put a hell of an edge on it. It is sharp as can be. So it has a place again, along with the safety razor, should I decide to do some more extensive work.

I have been listening to French music on YouTube lately to get used to the cadence and the sound of indiviual words. But the music I dug out to start with has been AI. I like the sound, generally, but it does not seem too imaginive even to me, who does not understand much. So, I dug up Edith Piaf tonight. It is much more imaginitive and interesting. I will be going for more from someone else, but I have a lot to learn and discover. I don’t know the artists I should be hunting for.

Oh, I did something dumb and didn’t realize it. I have been dipping six and nine inch candles, but meauring the diamieter in a one inch opening for the bases. Well, I need to do the six inch in three-quarter inch bases. So, I will have some short ones for the bigger stands, but the smaller stands that usually take a six inch around here will need a whole load made, still. Opps!

I will be working tomorrow. I need to earn a higher amount this week than I have been the last couple. It has been pathetic, even though I have been working my tail off. I could do with a photo client or three! That would sort me out some free time to work on the website and get me some more pictures to put up there. Goodness. Maybe I will be working by the New Year?

Okay, so there is one thing that kind of disturbes me this year. I am watching the weather forecast going into Christmas, and it is wanting to produce warm days into the 50’s all the way up to the day. Seems a bit extreme. I am waking up to find a chill on the house, but it is not cold. It has only been cold twice so far this year. Otherwise it has been more mid-autumnal warm or warmer. It just does not seem right. Well, I giess we will see, but from what I have read on the science, this seems like we are on track for some serious change over the next few years. I keep waiting for the summers to become unbearable.

Well, enough of all that. I would do well to remember to bring my camera tomorrow as one of my favorite Christmas decorations is up, and I want to catch a better photo of it than I did last year. Meanwhile, what a good time to go to bed, and drift off to Edith Piaf.

Posted in Candle Making, Journal Entry, Photography, Regular Update, Weather | Comments Off

A Little Family History

Posted on November 17, 2025 by Kelsey

I am at a bit of a loss for words. I have an old tin sewing box from maybe the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, my guess. I had it out from under the dresser tonight while looking for a camera battery and charger I have lost that go to my old Nikon. While I was rooting around for it, my daughter came along and looked through some old pictures in a cardboard box, then wanted to know about the sewing box. It had been quite a while since I last peered into it at all, so I mostly forgot what was in it, apart from knowing it was to do with family history.

We started in at the top and found it to be letters and such from the Twentieth Century. By the time we got to the bottom, we had found a bank book dated in 1893. I have always thought it was something special to have my grandfather’s grandfather and grandmother’s schoolbooks, but this box had their report cards going back to their earliest years in school. I was also shocked to find a letter from one of the family that was dated on VE Day, and written from Tripoli, Libia. The writer was complaining about having recently spent five days in the hospital with diarrhea. Amazing to wonder if he fought Rommel. I’ll have to look in more detail as we were going through a lot and trying to get to the bottom of the box in one evening to get an overview of what we had. Lots of letter from the war, a suitability card from the time of WWI, and property deeds and wills going all the way through the century.

It really was a treasure. As it was from the family in West Virginia, there is a certain grace to these people in how they wrote and how they addressed one another. I’ll have to go through again and see what I can learn in depth about them, and how they were all related to each other. I appear to have gotten my first name from that family, and while I am not blood related to them, I was able to see my name gone back six generations. Four of those generations including me have it. One of my daughters does, too. So that’s something special.

One other thing that is special is that while we were looking at all these papers, and names were brought back to life going to my grandfather’s grandparents, I have met three out of four of them myself in my early life. One even survived till I was around twenty. Given they were born in the 19-aughts, I have had the privilege of knowing people who were, as it turns out, fit for duty for World War One.

Posted in Family History, Journal Entry, Memories, Special Update | Comments Off

Auroras, Anniversary, and Car Repairs

Posted on November 11, 2025 by Kelsey

The Milky Way and Aurora Borialis as seen from my back yard tonight.

Missus got a message from a friend asking if we could see the Northern Lights as well tonight from our place down in the valley as she could up in the mountains where she lives. So we all went out to check it out. It was by far the most vivid display I have ever seen.

I can remember an amazing fireworks show I once saw from the roof of the house out in Norwalk when I was five, but that would have been 1976, and the 200th Anniversary of our country, so, not the Northern Lights.

Today has been Veteran’s Day here in the US, so Rememberance Day in the UK. You know what that means? It was also our 23rd Anniversary. I don’t think either of us believe it, either. But nontheless, here we are. We had a chance to spend some time together and to have a good conversation and such, so it was really, really pleasant.

I got the tire fixed on the car today, too. Not exciting at all, I know, but it did turn out to be a fence staple. I was none to thrilled for it being there. I took it in for the fix, so that meant I had it patched on the inside, and not just plugged.

Well, that’s all the news that fits in print.

Posted in Family Activities, Family History, Journal Entry, Photography, Special Update | Comments Off

More Tire Troubles

Posted on November 10, 2025 by Kelsey

Well, it has been a week since putting new tires on the car, and today I got a nail in one. Popsitively unbelievable! I got out of the car to move some stuff so the girls could sit down on the way home from the bus stop, and when I did, I could hear the leak going strong, and could not believe what I was hearing. There it was. Hissing. It was hissing, and I went over to find it, and the tire had a nail in the tread. Anyeway, I pumped some air into it with the compressor, and it held till I got home. I will put more in tomorrow in the morning and drive it up to town for a patch, or maybe even take it off and drive it up in the truck. We’ll see.

Well, I am going to leave it at this. It is frustrating, and I am not swearing about it, though I would sure like to.

I have found my missing tablet that I was looking for two weeks ago. It was hiding in my camera bag in a little pocket that I only accidentally found. Good Hell!

So, I am going to see how I can integrate it into some plans I have now. I can not keep up at the DoorDashing, so I would like to put myself to work with my camera and offer services.

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Tire Troubles Troubling Me, Again

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Kelsey

Well, the tires lost air last night. I only made a little over a hundred for the day. I will make nothing today and tomorrow. It being Sunday, I cannot get the tires fixed today apart from doing it again myself. That already proved only marginally helpful, and I was only lucky that they failed in a decent enough place that I was able to sort the spare on and pump up the other safely. I was on a run and am pretty unhappy that the food did not get delivered. DoorDash told me that I was to dispose of it in a gas station garbage can. I am unhappy with myself for the thought of someone not getting what they ordered as expected. I see that as on me, not on DoorDash’s reputation.

With today being Sunday, I have to plan out my best strategy for getting things done. I think that if I am forced to a day off, then firewood handling and chimney cleaning are my best bet. I need to get wood split and on the pile, ready to burn for winter. I have about a cord and change out there now that is left over from last year and from what our oldest has done. I don’t know how much of that he is accounting as his. But I am just going to throw on top of it and try to get the pile up big enough to cover us both. I need a lot more wood! And as to the chimney, it just needs a sweep, I hope. This would not be a good time for it to have rusted through. But I will clean and inspect it when I can today. The forecast is calling for the mid 60’s today, and more of the same for the next couple of days.

The situation with the tires cannot be fixed till Monday. I may be able to work out getting a new set, then. But it is going to take a toll on us financially. It is not going to be easy to swing, but I cannot go for days without working. I am lucky that I have no effect on my work beyond missing it. It is not like I am going to get fired for not working today, or face discipline. But I do need to keep my stats up. So I need to get this situation turned around as quickly as possible. Oh, and I need the money, obviously. The only respite I really have for today comes from the fact that I can work on wood and the chimney, as they need to be done, and I have not been able to because I have needed to work. Oh, and also from the fact my tummy is full of a lovely Indian meal I would never have ordered for myself that I had unexpectedly last night.

There is so much going on in the broader world right now. I have opinions. But I think they are best kept to myself. So, sticking with what I can control, and the things I can do that have immediate effect on my household, I am going to leave it at tires, firewood, and a chimney. They are the things that are immediate, along with my problems.

Souls for Sale poster (1923) chromolithograph by Goldwyn Pictures. Original public domain image from Wikipedia. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. More: Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Posted in Delivery Jobs, Firewood, Journal Entry, Weather | Comments Off

Firewood and Family

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Kelsey

I lay there in my bed just a few minutes ago and found myself slowly arriving at consciousness, thinking that perhaps I had made it, and it was close to six in the morning. I even started to congratulate myself for it. Surely, I was not waking up slowly unless I made it to the finish line for a night’s sleep. I would not be so stupid. Would I? Usually when I wake up at three, I sort of just pop out of sleep and then try to lay there and go back to sleep, till nature calls too loudly, and I have to go downstairs to the loo. Nature was calling. Dammit! Three Anno Domini!

Now I have been down, done my business, moved laundry from the washer to the dryer, and put a log into the stove, and now I am typing, typing, typing.

I got down to the firewood supply in Logan yesterday and picked up another trailer full of wood. It was not so hard to get it filled up on my own. I think that putting that spare boat winch I have lying about would help to get the heavy ones up the ramp. That is the hard part. Once I get the logs up the ramp, there is stacking them more than a layer up. But even getting a layer on the trailer is a good start towards a warm winter.

I got a ton of wood, and as all the logs I gathered were dry, that is a pretty good total volume. Just need to get it cut and split now, but that is a lot better done here on the pile at home than having the wood down at the dump waiting to freeze to the ground and get impossible to pick up and bring home. I will get the wood sorted. I need to prioritize the gathering for now. I did not unload the trailer because I was tired. I’ll have to get that done before next Tuesday.

I put the new part on the chainsaw, and it drives the chain like new. It made a big difference, and I was sawing like crazy out at the dump. I didn’t do a lot, but what I did do went really well. I actually look forward to getting at the rest of the wood here.

I took Missus down to teacher her 4H class and took our youngest with me to go visit the kids in town. They had stopped by yesterday morning to visit, but I was on the way out to get the wood, so I could not stick around. I wanted to make up for it. It turns out they are good for our grandson to go Trick or Treating with us, so he will spend the night this weekend, and I can take him with when I take my youngest out to the city. That ought to be a fun couple of hours out.

It has been about an hour since I began waking. I need to get the last couple of hours of sleep.

Posted in Family Activities, Family Time, Firewood, Journal Entry, Regular Update | Comments Off

The Tree in Logan

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Kelsey

While out working I came across this tree Saturday night, so I shot a quick photo of it with my cellphone, then went back and shot it again last night and got these. There are several more of course, but these are what I am happiest with on a quick review straight out of camera.

The rain and fog didn’t quite do for it what I hoped it would, but it had to be shot so soon after I found it because the autumn leaves are falling, and the color of the leaves with the light just makes the whole tree glow so! Having not seen it before and not knowing that I was going to come upon it, it was at first absolutely breathtaking.

I cannot imagine the work that went into wrapping it so thoroughly with strands of lights. And I know somewhere among you, there are those who can imagine a single lamp going out, and the whole tree going dark. Then the search is on.

I regret not bringing my telephoto lens last night and shooting much deeper into the tree. I think there is something to be had there, weather in the middle or along the periphery with more contrast between subject and a dark sky background. One wants a calmer night for such a photo anyhow. Last night’s weather was just a little rough to try it anyhow. Maybe I will bring my lens today and try. I am just having a hard time imagining being in to work so late. I am sure tired after reaching yesterday’s work goal to close the week.

When I was doing a pickup at Jersey Mike’s yesterday, a family was asked about their day and they said they had just come back from doing a family photo shoot. Missed business opportunity for me. I am happy for them, but I would love to have given it a go myself. I still don’t know if that is the type of photography that would make me happiest to do. I know a lot of photogs do it because it is a money-making opportunity. Not a huge one, but everything helps to pay the bills! Give me $250, and I could take the whole day off DoorDashing, which would be a nice break. That would cover what I would earn outright over two days, and given the ease off the gas expenses, probably repay me the better part of three to rest for. A thought I need to take more seriously!

It did rain yesterday. All day. I mean, it was pretty constant. I am sure records were set. I know I was the wettest I have been for a long time. Perhaps since leaving England. It was nice. What I would not do to have days like that once a week or two over summers. The rest of it could be our normal sunshine. Could you imagine that? Seems to me our harvests could be amazing. It’s just a thought.

Oh, I notice that most of the faces I come to know at the many restaurants across town have changed. Any efforts I have made to get to know people are basically all lost now. In just over six months! I still see a couple of the same DoorDashers around. I am not the only one giving all my time to the work. But there is certainly no opportunity to make friends in this line of work. The people I get to talk to are my daughters when they decide to take a turn and come along for the day. That’s absolutely awesome, of course! I love getting such blocks of time with my kids in what would otherwise be time thrown away to the man. But they are not the kind of people one talks to on a social basis as, you know, a sort of sound board for adult problems in life. I should just go to McDonald’s on Sunday morning for a coffee for an hour and leave an invitation in the Dasher’s Discord group and see who shows up, then make that a sort of weekly thing. 10-11 or something.

Anyway. I paid for a new bale of hay which got dropped off the night I first found the tree. I did not see it till yesterday morning, and I had to move it to the shelter because it was raining like crazy. Luckily, I was able to do that right away rolling it with the bucket, rather than having to assemble the bale spears onto the pallet frame. It rolled into place nicely. Managed to get it there just as the last flake off the old bale got served out to the animals. I’ll be cutting that open this afternoon when I come back to the farm with the girls from school. That last flake had fallen away and against the shelter, making a little hole a couple of cats have been sleeping in. Maybe the same will happen again, and they can have their little house back. I imagine it is a lovely warm place for them to sleep. It’s certainly a lot drier than most places yesterday!

Posted in Delivery Jobs, Journal Entry, Photography, The Farm, Uncategorized, Weather | Comments Off

A Day Out DoorDashing

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Kelsey

This article was written in part by dictating as I went through the day working in my car. It was finished up at home between the hours of three and four in the morning. It is a bit rough in form and perhaps also in verb tense. You can blame the Midnight Oil Editorial Department for that.

The day started as any other. I got up at 6:00, had the girls to the school bus, then drove straight down to Logan via a stop at the grocery store to pick up a delicious breakfast burrito, three bananas, and a bottle of Pepsi. Then it was off to Walmart in Logan to get gas for the car. At the Walmart gas station I filled the tank, cleaned the windshield and the back window, then did a quick trip to the loo, and turned on my DoorDash app for the day.

I set the app with a finish time of 3:00 p.m., That’s my usual finish time for my first session of the day. It works out to about a six-and-a-half-hour shift with no breaks. Yesterday was a normal day and it put 249.6 miles on the trip odometer on the car. But that includes a trip back up to Idaho to pick my kids up from school and take them home, have a short break and visit with Missus, maybe eat supper, and come back down to work again. There’s a 50-mile round trip or so right there.

From Walmart as I pull away from the fuel pump and put on DoorDash, I reset the odometer, and drive towards McDonald’s in the center of Logan or Chick-fil-A as a good starting point. Chick-Fil-A tends to pay closer to $7 per run, but McDonald’s at $4 or $5 a run will keep going and going. The other reason I like McDonald’s, is it their bathrooms are just two or three steps easier to get to than Chick-Fil-A. It’s the little things make a difference. I decided to start today off by Chick-fil-A. I parked near and waited.

Yesterday’s fuel cost $40.93 out of what I earned, which was a little over $120. That left me a practical earning of about $80. Then there is whatever food I buy. On top of that there needs to be consideration for taxes and anything else such as wear and tear on the vehicle. After all that, there is my time and what I’m actually worth. By the time the day ends, that is about ten hours of work and the time to go back up and get the kids, making for more like 14 hours out of the house by the time I get back in the evenings.

First order comes in for $4.50 from Burger King, despite me being parked near Chick-Fil-A. At least their bathroom is in between the front door and the counter but their electric hand dryer wasn’t working. The first delivery was about one and a half miles from the restaurant.

The delivery was to someone who lives in some apartments. I’ve seen an eviction notice hanging on the front door of a comparable complex recently. The back rent due was over $1,600. I can’t even imagine having to come up with that kind of money just to cover a monthly rent on an income like mine with DoorDash. After the expenses I mentioned above, it does not pay well enough to cover rent and utilities and everything else. On top of that, I’ve got a tire that’s going bald on the back right of the car that’ll want replacing and I know that when I go in to get one they’re going to tell me it’s four wheel drive and they can’t replace just one because they have to be the same size and wear evenly to prevent damage to the transaxle. That’ll be a full set of tires and upwards of $1,000 right there. I also need to change the oil about once a month, which I do myself to keep the costs down. Our family qualifies for Medicaid without even taking into account my work expenses. People often ask me how DoorDash pays. I give out 14 hours of my day to make it work on school days. On the three-day weekend for Idaho kids, I will do my day differently, starting to drive for work around 10:30 in the morning and finishing at 8:30 at night. That makes for an eleven-hour day with about 30 minutes out for lunch, not including time down and back.

I went back over by Chick-Fil-A and hoped for a high-paying run. My intention is to give it about half hour or so waiting for a run, then go back by McDonald’s. I also hope to go onto Earn By Time, as that tends to be longer runs and slightly better pay than earning per delivery. It also works out that when they put a driver on Earn By Time, the delivery from the restaurant to the customer tends to be a long way away, and the fuel economy in the car is better for that.

Of course, the app makes a liar out of me. Declined.

Second run for the day was Burger King for $4.50, less than a mile from store to delivery location. As I dropped it off and was considering what else to include for this article, I wondered why I’m still in the habit of walking so fast while I work. I move as quick as I can when I have hot food in hand. I also avoid walking on people’s grass as much as possible out of courtesy. All habits I have from past work.

Third order! This time it’s from Wendy’s by Sam’s Club. It’s not very far and for not very much, but it’s something to do, and it’s money earned, so I take it. Besides, if I decline it comes up in the app as a percentage that will harm my ability to earn. So let’s not pretend I have much of a choice here as I try to keep my acceptance rate as close to 100% as possible. I lose my status with DoorDash if I go below 80%, and one does need the room to decline once in a while because there are offered deliveries that would result in paying DoorDash for the privilege.

Back onto my day.

10 minutes till 10:00AM and I can normally expect it to go quiet till 12:15 or 12:30, so I’ll go sit outside McDonald’s a while.

After a while, I’ve done a few deliveries for Crumbl Cookies and for Einstein Brothers Bagels. I’ve been delivering carbs and made $24.00 in 14 miles. I figure I can estimate out about three bucks just for gasoline.

I get a South Carl’s Jr. and I am up to $29.30. I decided afterwards to go take a short rest on Center Street because I like the vibe. It reminds me of a town I lived in for a while in California when I was going to college.

Naturally, I said above that Chick-fil-A runs tend to pay better, and on this morning they have been paying like $3 to $3.5 per run. That’s about half what it pays normally. As I lose myself in the day trying to write and make the money I need to, I arrive at $36.30 on my earnings clock, and honestly, I don’t really feel very well mostly because of a little tingly feeling I tend to get in my arms when I have worn too many layers of clothing for too long. I never did get on well with GAP’s styling, even though I always liked the look when I was younger. I park again by middle McDonald’s. I find myself feeling a bit lonely.

By 12:30PM today my running total has made it to $65.00 and I’m just on my way back from Richmond Utah, which is quite a way out there from the center of Logan where I try to work. Whenever I get up Richmond way I am always tempted to just carry on home after the delivery. Because I need more money it’s back to Logan I go on a long drive.

I carried on for the day and was about at $90 by the time I had to head up to Idaho to get the kids and meet the hay man to pay him for a large bale of hay that will last a few weeks, and for some gravel for the driveway. I made that a quick visit, though I wanted to talk a while as it has been some time since we have had the chance to catch up. But back down to Logan I went to earn more money, which in the end was only about $37. But it all adds up, and while the start of the week always feels like it is a long slog to the goal I set myself to finish the week at, I have to endure and get there little by little like this.

By the time I got home in the end, I was pretty tired and after sitting in my chair a few minutes, I was ready to crash out in bed. I got a little time in with Missus and the kids, which in the most important part of my day. It’s what I am doing this all for. Six to seven days a week. Just to scrape by. Honestly, it would be much easier if I were not carrying any debts right now. I think we could then plan to grocery shop, rather than me bringing home little by little according to what we need at the moment.

Drift off to sleep.

Awake to finish this article up at the normal time people my age wake up in the middle of the night. Then back to sleep again. It’s a Friday, and I get to start a few hours later for my sins.

Posted in Delivery Jobs, Journal Entry, The Farm, Writing | Comments Off