Rainy Day, Sunny Outlook

It is dark and raining this morning, yet all I can think about is how we need this water for drinking water and irrigation. Not only that but a wet forest is much less likely to burn . . . and I like trees. 

I am not a ‘whistling Dixie out of my butt’ kind of eternal optimist, as I do have my down days. I do try to ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ as it were. Again, this is a struggle as there are so many things to get you down and depress you. 

Since I have to live with myself, I might as well be a decent person to live with. Others can walk away from my bad mood, I can’t. 

Today I get my paycheque, so I can budget and plan out what to do with it tonight, so I can deposit it tomorrow morning. Here is hoping that it will be just a bit larger than I expected, so my budget doesn’t have to be so drastic.

One way or another, I will: pay off Card #2, get what groceries I need, and keep moving forward towards my goal. What helps me do this is a positive attitude. What helps me keep that positive attitude is to choose to see the things that I do right, rather than focus on what I do wrong.

Embrace: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

I have said it before but I will say it again, I am really looking forward to this payday, because it will mean that my paydown will be back on track. For me, this means that a mistake has been corrected.

Something good has taken place over these past few months. I have learned and proven to myself that I can use Credit Cards responsibly. They don’t scare me anymore. I can charge things on them, and pay them off in a few months. This lesson I have learned and learned well, so that is good.

My paydown process was interrupted in the beginning of June by the failure of the guy who hit me to pay me what he owed me. (I have still not heard a word from him and don’t expect to). I was left with the bill, and that threw me for a loop, skewing my financial plans. Sure, I will admit that I put one or two other items on this card. In the end, all of it was my choice to do, I blame nobody else.

Yet without that eventuality, I could have been paying off the last of Card #3 by now, but that is life. What are a few more months in the grand scheme of things? Yet still it is this last point which nags at me. I wonder, what could have been if I had made different choices? 

As I see myself digging myself out of this hole that I have dug myself into, I wonder why I didn’t do this earlier, years earlier. I also know that I was not ready to make such a leap of faith. I am the person that I am because of the choices that I made; both good and bad. 

I have learned from what I have done and what has happened to me. If I were to go back and take a different path, then I would end up being a different person. Simply put, you are the result of your choices, so embrace them, all of them: the good ones, the bad ones and yes, even the ugly ones.

Your good choices only teach you what works. This is something handy to know but it doesn’t teach you much more than that, you won’t really know why something works, only that it does. 

Your bad choices teach you what didn’t work. It is through your reflection on these which teach you not only what didn’t work, but why it didn’t work. This is a much more worthwhile and more valuable lesson to learn.

Your ugly choices are the ones where things really went wrong, as in an epic fail of spectacular proportions. These ones are massive and huge and require reflection on the scale of a commission of inquiry, or an autopsy of the mistake. 

These lessons can help teach you or shed some light on an aspect of your character which may have contributed to this ugly choice and epic fail. These ones are the most valuable ones, as they teach us the most. 

Now, to brighten your day, here is your sunrise shot.

  

I Got Shoved Out the Door, Sorta

I got told yesterday by my boss that I need to take a vacation in September. Now, it wasn’t an order, not really, but more like a friend or co-worker saying “trust me, you need a break.”

So there I was looking at the prospects of taking a tour of the lovely Walmart parking lots around Calgary. It wasn’t long after that, that I started searching online for camping deals. I found one not too hideous in price for a week in a nice spot . . . so I booked it. I will take my vacation in the middle of September. 

The nice thing is that I didn’t need to pay for it all at once, so I have this payday and next to save up a bit towards it, thereby lessoning the impact to Card #1. I will put this trip on Card #1, because this is the card that I always pay down to nothing each month. As well, I can see this card and its balance each time I log into my online banking.

One way or another, this card will be paid off by the end of September as well as the full $1500.00 will go towards Card #3. I can do this and still get my vacation, in that undisclosed location. Yes, Card #2 will be paid off in full this Saturday, vacation or no, that thing will die.

I am sure that I will just plop and not move for the first day or two. While I can’t really afford it, I can make it work and yes, I know that I need the break. For those of you who feel so motivated, I am now graciously accepting donations towards the vacation fund.

Card #2’s Days are Numbered

I did a preliminary budget yesterday, based on what I estimated my paycheque will be and what Card #2’s balance should be, come Saturday. It will be tight, as in insanely tight, but I can do it, I can pay off Card #2 this Saturday. 

I have food and supplies, enough to last me and with a minimal amount of cash on hand I can make it through till the next payday. It is important to me to get this card done, on this payday.

I can then begin the real work on Card #3 as I try to pay it down by the end of October, if possible. This will be a tight and probably unrealistic goal. Most likely it will be paid off by early November, but we shall see. (One thing is for certain is that there is a nice funeral pyre in Card #3’s future . . . yes indeed.)

I did get up and I did work on the book, though progress is slow. I was able to get the main thrust of this chapter started and I am on track to finish it off tomorrow. Again, the progress is slow, but at least I am nudging this book forward, and I don’t have a specific deadline.

As far as my doing my dishes go, I am two for two . . . I did them this morning too. They say that it is three weeks to set a new habit; we shall see how this goes.

Again it is these thoughts of the future and envisioning my completed goals which keeps me going through what I am going through now. As always, keep positive and keep moving forward.

Pluckiness and Positivity Begets Progress

I have said this before and I will say it again, not to be preachy, but because it bears repeating. Whatever it is that you are doing, if it is important to you, stick with it. 

Be determined to keep working at it and keep moving forward, no matter what. Some days you will do nothing, some days you will do next to nothing, other days you will do considerably more. If your goal is important enough to you, keep going no matter what the setbacks.

I have had a number of setbacks and I am way beyond my initial goal that I had set out for myself when I started all of this. In fact my end goal has changed and shifted and will likely shift again, you know what, that’s life.

By the time my second anniversary came around, I was supposed to have paid off my credit cards and had close to 20K in the bank. Clearly, that will not happen, but I did not give up, I stuck with it. I rolled with whatever came my way and kept going, keeping my eye on my primary goal of paying off those credit cards.

It has been a struggle to remain positive and I do have my down days where I question everything and all of my choices in life. Again, we are all human, so we all have those days. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and set off again.  

Progress is progress, and worth celebrating before moving on. This morning I did a little happy dance because I did my morning dishes before leaving for work. If I don’t do this, since I live alone, I have this bad habit of just ignoring my dishes until the following Sunday and doing a large pile of the week’s worth of dishes . . . not cool. 

The point is to pause to congratulate yourself when you do something right, or if you do an action or activity that you are trying to change. As in my case, I will congratulate myself for doing my dishes before work or before bed. This may seem silly but it will encourage that behaviour in the future . . . so ends theory.

This weekend I made another batch of my Taco stuff, this time I added a bag of mixed vegies which I simmered and cooked in an onion soup mix first. I still treated the hash browns like meat, and all that, the result was amazing. Here is what I got out of it.

  

This should keep me fed for a month or so and will lower my food bills for the foreseeable future. 

What is really picking up my spirits is the fact that payday is this Saturday. This is not just any payday but the payday that Card #2 is finally back down to zero . . . again. 

After this, after Saturday, it is all Card #3 and I can focus on that final and dreaded card. I will rejoice once it is done, truly I shall. I will even cut it up and burn it (yes I saved the physical card to do just that) . . . expect to see the video of this celebration.  

This card has been turned off since 2011 and yet I have been paying the interest on it, just like it was active, since then. I was told that I could apply for a new card if I wanted but this card is dead. 

Nobody from this institution had contacted me at all to see about getting a new card or how I was doing. Even when I call them their “Customer Service” people talk about policy and what not . . . I call them “Hubots” . . . “Human Robots.” So no, this is not an institution that I wish to do business with again.

Again, the point is to stay positive and keep moving forward. A good tip is to envision where you want to be and remind yourself why you are doing what it is that you are doing. For me, I am living in my RV now so I can take control of my life in the future, go where I want and perhaps even finally buy some land . . . and a house. 

Say Hello to my Little Friend!

Forgive me, I couldn’t resist using that quote. For those of you who don’t get the Scarface reference, don’t worry about it. 

Yesterday my telescoping ladder arrived and it ended up being as good and handy as I hoped it would be. This is a 3.8 Meter (or 12.46 Foot) ladder when fully extended or just a few feet tall when packed away.  

An interesting note with the next two photos, the camera was leveled perfectly. The ground and therefore Wanda (and I) are sloped and a bit crooked (or some might say kinky).

  

This is the ladder when fully compacted.

   

These are the sliding lock releases.

These sliding lock releases allow you to shorten the ladder by bringing one rung down at a time. To extend the ladder you just pull up and the rung will slide up and lock when fully extended. You keep doing this one rung at a time until either your ladder is tall enough, or fully extended.

   

This is the ladder when fully extended.

    The following are a few shots of the roof of Wanda, just for fun and to prove that I did get up on the ladder.

This is the damage that I discovered to the cover of my refrigerator vent. This was the other damage due to the hailstorm. 

While this ladder is handy for all kinds of uses, as it is compact and yet is sturdy and strong, for an RV it is essential. With this, I can easily store it in the back of Trea, but I can also use it to get up on the roof of Wanda to do repairs or clean. 

This will enable me to replace that cracked bathroom vent cover myself . . . but maybe not this weekend, as it looks like it will rain all weekend.

If you do some internet searches you can get this ladder for a decent price. I was able to get mine for a little under $140.00 with delivery included. 

Once again, for no reason, and just because it looked spectacular, here is today’s sunrise pic.

    

I’m on Twitter . . . I Think

A friend of mine has been encouraging to get on Twitter so as to be able to post my blog feeds there as well. Personally, I have never seen much use for Twitter, and have used it twice. So, it goes without saying that I am not well versed in what to do with it, but I am going to give it a go. 

I was able to configure the service I use to automatically post my feeds to Facebook to do the same thing to Twitter. Today is the first day, so we shall see how it goes.

It is important to grow and try new things, so I will begin my foray into the world of Twitter. Seriously though, don’t expect me to tweet every last thing I am doing, nor hang out and search hashtags. 

I will be honest though, I would much rather hand this off to someone else and say . . . go promote and have fun. Then again, I might really like it, who knows. 

I suppose that is the thing to remember when stepping outside of your comfort zone, you may like it or you may hate it. We shall see, what happens with me and my Twitter Experiment.

In case you are curious, my Twitter: handle, account, thingy is: @geoffwestlock and I will be tweeting the blog under the hashtag of #calgaryurbannomad. 

With regards to the camping trip, that has been cancelled. Why?  Well, if I were to take any such trip going anywhere, I would have to be prepared to spend about $500.00 in fuel and camping fees. For me, at this point, that is just out of the question.

I need every spare dime to put towards cards. I am so close, in relative terms that just pushing it off would be irresponsible. If I get pushed (by the boss) to take a vacation, I may take a week and hang out in my western home. 

It has been suggested that I try to find a bit of crown land to stay on. Squatting on Crown Land always feels like trespassing to me, so I have never done it or been comfortable with it. I mean when I stay at a big box store parking lot, I generally shop there, and I know that they are okay with it.

I will not stay in a campground, not if I have to pay, which is frustrating because a week in a nice campground surrounded by nature is just what I need right now. Ah well, back at it, and we shall see how it goes with regards to Twitter, as I try something new.