And I expect it'll be a better one, I'll prolly jinx m'self if'n I claim it can't get worse, but after a year where my husband died less than a month after my birthday, and two or so months later the room mate had to put his cat down, the cat we took care of because she didn't like him..

Yeah, its been a hell of a year. Its not that there can't be other losses, there will be at some point in the future, but with older family members, its sorta expected that you'll outlive them, that's just life, but when they're only 5 or so years older? Yeah, I was starting to rough out plans for our retirement, with an expectation of at least another decade together, hopefully two.

So what's the plan this year?

As someone wisely said, do I look like I have a plan?
Ok, seriously, not much, clear this place out, fix it up (anyone know a good contractor in #stl ?) a little bit, and downsize, the latter likely resulting in me moving out of state, because Republican states suck, but not sure where I'm going, likely Illinois, but Maryland and Pennsylvania are also possibles. First step of clearing this place out was done yesterday, rented two tables at the Sunset Hills community center for the first three flea markets, March, April and May, and while I'll still be selling stuff before that, that'll be when I really get things going.

Speaking of selling, anyone need any clothing?

Any how, that's about all, other than maybe building an electric kei van, finally found an engine small enough. Yes, small enough, there's something you never here with an engine swap.

And now, onwards with #today , grocery shopping and... Pack a few more things up for shipping.

#life
#newyear
#future

Started out with being told I was making over $200 doing 105 packages. Thankfully they reduced my work, giving part of my route to someone else, frankly I don't want to work that hard. Plus considering that I wound up getting the car about ¾ full only to realize I'd have to more or less start over because it wasn't going to all fit, it was a good thing. Interesting part is that it was supposed to be 45cu ft of packages, but a Bolt is supposed to have just over 54cu ft of space, so I think someone's calculations were off. So in the end, about 60 stops or so, and about 64 packages, nice amount of work.

But I could never leave it at that, could I?

So, we stopped at the bank to deposit the check from selling my car yesterday. I wound up getting only $4700 for my 2020 Bolt, about half what they initially offered, but it is a lemon, so the price got cut way down, but I kinda expected that since Carvana had offered $4600 and CarMax wouldn't even make an offer until I brought it in. Sure, I might've been able to get more, but considering what I paid, and the fact that this was inline with the only offer, I decided to take it. Besides, did I really lose? The car was $14,800 when I got it last year, however I got $4500 EV credit from the government, and $8200 for my trade in, so the out of pocket was only around $2200... Should've seen the chaos it caused when I pulled that out of my pocket cash. Any how, yeah, $2200 out of my pocket to buy it, and $4700 sale, so I guess I came out ahead?

Any how, since their was a branch of my credit union, First Community, a credit union I highly, highly recommend, I deposited the check, then got back to work. And then later I was passing a DMV office, one that had only one other customer and around five clerks, so in and out in about five minutes with a plate transfer. Yep, my current Bolt, formerly my husband's, is carrying the BOXEN plates now. Hopefully I'll have to visit the DMV soon to collect the new version of that plate, MIssouri Bee Keeper Association specialty plate, looking forward to that.

Oh, and I also changed my insurance around via email, removed the old Bolt from my commercial, and moved this Bolt from personal to commercial, thankfully the DMV didn't ask for any documentation as I hadn't been home to print a new insurance card yet.

So yeah, that was my #today Tomorrow morning will be spent trying to get all my gig apps updated, car change, insurance update (did I mention that it expired yesterday on all of them?), and possibly other settings, then it'll be off to work. Prolly do a speed breakfast, homemade microwavable breakfast sandwich and K-cup of coffee while I work.

No, that's not a typo, though this one is somewhat more understandable, since rest is not an option in my life.

Get up, switch out the dishwasher, feed the cat, cook and eat breakfast. Then wash dishes, cook a batch of rice, wash counter, sweep and mop floor.

Then its try unsuccessfully to deal with Chase Bank, that's going to require a visit. Also talk to Goldman Sachs, unplanned steps towards closing Vik's Apple Card.

Got work in about 1½ hours still, no idea how big that's going to be, the current alert shows only a small route, but the last small route more than doubled in size by the time I got to the warehouse, so who knows.

Lunch'll have to be bought as I forgot to thaw out a sandwich last night, so no food for me, yay.

••yawns•• I wanna go back to bed.

#today

What a day, slept fine far as I know, not through the night, but I never do that, but wasn't up more than usual. But dreams, I rarely remember dreaming, let alone what I dreamed, but I did sorta remember these, at least in as much as they were weird, very trippy.

So for whatever reason I was dragging this morning, but I did get out of the house close to on time so I could go sit at Bread Co and wait for RoadieXD to drop jobs... And nothing today, action there's been nothing for a few weeks I think, however I haven't had the time to work for them as I've mostly transitioned back to BetterTrucks, so I was checking as frequently, but Tues is a free day, so we were looking for something today. No dice, so I'm going to have to decide what to do with my Tues in the future, maybe back to Better Trucks, or be more careful on Sunday so I can catch when Jitsu drops their Tues blocks, not sure yet. I did however while I was out make a payment on his car, once his burial and memorial is sorted, I'll have to look at what's left of his life insurance and see if'n buying out the car is an option, but with no TOD, taking ownership might be tricky, I'm going to see if'n the Credit Union can help with that by repossessing the car on paper, then selling it to me for the pay off amount and some extra fees, otherwise there's a form to fill that will transfer ownership so long as the car isn't worth too much, and of course probate court is an option, but I'd rather not deal with that if I don't have to.

Either way, came home, finished my usual web surfing, though that took longer than usual as I was still dragging. And sleepy, very sleepy. I did wind up taking a nap, but do need to figure out why I've been sleepy lately, been busy getting the comics ready for sale to the tune of 20 or so hours a week on top of 30 to 35 hours of work, sometimes more on either of those, plus chores. Oh, and the yard work, part of a much larger project that was going to involve me, Vik and our room mate, the latter is helping here and there, but I'm mostly getting the backyard sorted out, it serves as a break from everything else, but its a large project, the yard waste pile is now 6ft or so, and we have piles of pavers and concrete. It is however mostly done, just need a few cubic yards of dirt to fill in some holes, and its done. Might also be thyroid or vitamin, my mom has basically no thyroid function and my sister very little, so runs in the family, but that'll have to wait until I find some insurance (anyone want to help with that?). If its vitamin, that's going to be tricky, I did try to go back to multivitamins, Vik had about a half bottle left here, but they turn my stomach, so that's not an option.

Should've called the cemetery about the burial, but was tired, so napped, then scanned a shelf of comics, and here we are. I suspect the burial is part of my problem last night and today, Vik was often out late whether he had game, town council meeting, pen club meeting, genealogy research, and so on, so him not being here is only unusual in the fact that its for an extended period, since I haven't cleaned out much of his stuff yet, things feel mostly normal here, but planning his burial... Yeah, that kinda hammers things home.

Need to figure out dinner, surf the web and then bed.

#today #life

Started at 0630 with the front lawn that hadn't been mown in three weeks. Mostly went well, but my Hart equipment needs new batteries, could've sworn I had four, but could only account for three, one of which broke, and the remaining two seem to have drained way to fast. While waiting for them to charge, I started on project two, finally reining in the south side where things have been growing like weeds. Not sure if most of it was goldenrod, or the Missouri equivalent of bamboo, but I went to work cutting each piece down with pruners and piling it in the back against the fence.

At one point I took a break, ordering MickeyD's delivered, which is stupidly expensive. After eating, I got back to work, finishing the pruning before returning to the front to finish that. After that, we went to work using a trimmer to cut the grass in the same area because there was no way the mower would get it done. In the end, the room mate joined in, since his equipment is better than mine, and everything along that side was cut.

Yep, no before pic, but there's the after, not real impressive looking, but at least its no longer an eyesore.

That said, I do think I overdid it, from neck pain to unquenchable thirst, as well as the coffee I had with my breakfast, I went through four 12oz Gatorades while I was working. Since I came in, I've had another coffee, and cup after cup, after cup of water which doesn't come back out. My neck is also sore, and I'm fairly certain I'm a bit sun burned.

Ugh, no grocery shopping or laundry today, those can wait until tomorrow, though I will do the mileage log and finish proofreading a story I've been working on, along with my regular night's web surfing... Well, extended version since I didn't surf this morn. Once I get that all done, it'll prolly be bedtime.

Tomorrow I'll have to start scanning documents to share with my financial manager related to Vik's passing, we need to get a plan in place so I can start taking care of the big financial decisions, and winding down his estate. I did accidentally kick over a hornet's nest yesterday, hopefully the bank doesn't repo his car now that they know he's dead, I'd rather like to keep it, even though ownership transfer will be challenging, but them taking it is not that big of a deal. And I do really need to get back to the comics, prepping that for sale, and that's the really big project. I do have someone brokering the sale of his fountain pens, and that's going well.

#today #mo #STL #Yardwork #fountainpen

And managing minimal level of functionality as yesterday took a lot out of me. Today's plan is grooming, cleaning, and not much else.

Yesterday was fun, was under a tornado watch all day. Knowing I wouldn't be up to working #today , I rejected today's shift with the message 'Need extra time to get home from Oz'. That might get me in trouble, but it's worth it.

#coffee #art

Not much to say about #today, relatively slow down, household finance stuff and did some work for fun. Yes, work for fun, picked up in Glen Carbon, did one drop in Edwardsville, three in Marine, and one in Highland, four from WalMart, one from Petsmart. I've already more than made my money for the week, so there was no need to do any more, but... Couldn't resist.

Too many miles for too little money, but like I said, did it for fun. Turns out I've been to both towns, did Amazon deliveries in Marine around 2018, and last time me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe drove out to PA to visit my family, we'd stopped in Highland at Huddle House for breakfast. Ain't a Huddle House no more, which is a shame as I like them, but I'm up for trying the new place, Eddies Rise 'n Dine, if'n it's still around next time. Whole thing was just wandering around rural and small town Illinois for a few hours, then coming back 44 miles.

So #today I made the rather bizarre decision to jettison my scheduled package route that would've paid up to $150 for an on demand $50 order.
This was a gamble, I mean I could wind up with $50 and nothing for the return trip, but I got lucky. It started with this one, fifteen gallons of paint down to Crystal City, somewhere me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe had been to tour the caves down there, but that's about all we did down there, so I figured this'd be a more fun to do than my usual package route.
After that, we did start heading home, only to score a decent gig in Arnold at WalMart. Cool, but we still have a long drive home, right? Best Buy stepped up with a route ending about two miles past my home.
Yeah, that worked well, a wandering route home that in the end paid $115 for 116 miles. Usually you have enough wasted miles that you don't get anything near $1/mi, but there we go, almost spot on.

Yep, fun work, good money, and there's still plenty of time to do more. Today was a good day.

#work #gig #driving

So, #today was a good day, first part was actually pretty great. Decent weather, 19/43°F today, bit cold in þe morn obviously, but considering þat we went from 16/59 on Wed to 14/26 yesterday, definitely a much nicer day. Heck, yesterday I had to break out my old Þermal overalls from when I used to ride a scooter between Florissant and Maryland Heights, MO.

Þe day started wiþ a small run from the Dispatch app, $10.50 for 10 miles. Sure, a little light on pay, dollar a mile is my minimum after all, but it ended me on Dorsett down the street from Tony's, a donut shop where I like to grab a gyro, egg & cheese on an asiago bagel, so that's fine.

My main gig, Better Trucks, had delayed þe start from 9 (realistically more often 9.30) to 10.30, so I swung by þe credit union to take care of closing an account. On the way I noticed a CVS order on Roadie that looked pretty good, and surprisingly when I got out, not only was þat one still þere, but it was joined by anoþer order on þe way to it. Shockingly I got boþ, $6.80 for one, $6.40 for þe oþer, and a mere 3 miles of driving. Yes please.

From þere it was a quick trip home for a half hour of charging while trying to get two more email changes sorted out. After þat, off to þe usual gig, and a typical if'n slightly smaller package route, my night vision sucks these days, normal for my age, so I wanted to avoid being out much after dark.

I guess þat brings up þe car, my 2020 Chevy Bolt. Only real negatives are þat it's an LT, so base model, lacking features like heated steering wheel, and heated seats, boþ of which would likely help keep me warm without as much impact on þe battery. Speaking of battery, since it's one of þe battery fire years, it's in 80% jail, so my range is a bit more limited þan normal. Still, despite þat, it works fine for þe job. Sure, gotta charge a bit extra, but þat's just a winter þing... Maybe summer too, we'll see, not sure how much AC drains þe battery.

#gig #work #driving #food #STL #stlouis #mo #missouri #chevybolt

Not much to say about #today , cooked breakfast, straightened the kitchen, dishwasher is chewing on a load—— Not literally, thank you.

Gotta make a batch of rice, and fill my water bottles for work tomorrow. Get a few things straightened out with my email, the fun of transitioning. Yesterday we gave the house 20% of my company's money, since the company is being wound down, this is part of why social.xcetera.biz the instance is shutting down, although we will be keeping the domain and email for another year, I have burnt m'self too many times by forgetting to change an account's email before deleting that email account.

Not sure if'n the day will have any more to it, maybe take a chainsaw to the old deck if'n I have time, and/or putting some more stuff up on Marketplace to sell/give away, watchband, and some clothes (kilt, shirt, nightshirt, maybe some shoes). I really need to find one or more selling partners here in #STL so I can get back into flipping storage units, anyone interested?