Drama.
Not really interested in it, but I was subjected to it last night. I wasn't any part of it, but I had to sit there and listen to all of it. One of James friends was over where the drama began with his wife texting Taylor and asking her why she had asked James friend to come over?

It went down hill - wayyyyy downhill - from there.  At the end of it all, the man was told to get his stuff and get out.  All 3 of them left, I just sat there wondering how that could go that far south in such a short period of time.  He got his guns and ammo - fearing she would sell them or otherwise remove them from the premises, a few basic things and they call came back around midnight. 

I went to bed after that.  I had agreed to listen for the boys if they happened to awake, which thankfully they did not.  What happens today with all of this I have no clue, whatsoever.  Obvious issues within that marriage, James friend that is, but none of my business really. 

Anyway, my manager is out of duty for a while.  Understandable with her father passing and a very close relationship. What got left out in the process of handing drivers over to the interim manager is that they didn't have my phone number and therefore assumed I was on vacation.  I'm not sure what not having a phone number has to do with a vacation, but I emphatically informed them that I did not ask for time off, couldn't afford time off and need to work.  I was polite, don't worry, I didn't make any threats of quitting tho the thought certainly crossed my mind. 

This company really is very unorganized.  They have their stuff together as far as knowing about hazmat and having all the proper licenses and permits, knowledge of the industry, but when it comes to employees, they aren't even close to be on track with anything.  It isn't the worst thing in the world and much of it, I am guessing, has to do with the company I am working for being acquired by a much larger company.  But I believe that was years ago and I would think with the passage of time that they would have had all of those details worked out.

It's too soon to look for another job anyway.  I need a year there before I think about doing that.  Preferably 2 years and some experience showing on my resume with hazmat tankers.  A week off isn't going to kill my finances. Not at all, in fact I'm not concerned about going "broke" right now at all. But it's some serious money towards savings that I won't be getting.  But it's a foregone conclusion that I won't be going back to work until Tuesday morning.  The weekend loads are handed out on Friday, including Monday.  These corporate and office people don't work on weekends, or certainly want their time involved with any workplace interaction severely limited, so all work is handed out in advance. Not to mention the plant office is skeleton crew as well, it's just how they have it worked out, tho that plant is open and running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year excepting for scheduled maintenance shut down.  I think. 

But I let them know I hadn't asked for time off, I wasn't on vacation and tho I had made good use of the time, I needed to work.  They are going to need to send me on a 3 or 4 day run next week is all I can say about that. . Perhaps someone will bow out of a load and I can take one sooner.  Tho I have plans for today now that I know I'm not going to be working.  Namely, spraying both properties with tick/flea killer in the yards. The dogs are getting affected by it and I need to deal with it.  I was informed by 2 pest control companies that they were going to charge me $199 and $169 respectively for each property.  Totally unacceptable.  I'm not going to spend almost $400 to have 2 properties sprayed, end of story.

Last year, I sprayed this property myself and the problem of mosquitoes, especially, was kept at bay.  I was just short of shocked to hear them telling me with a straight voice that they wanted that much money to spray a property that would likely take them less than 15 minutes to accomplish and probably ten dollars worth of product.  So, that's what I'm doing. 2 large garden hose spray jugs of poison, $15 a piece and another hose to be able to reach all portions of the properties.  Cost me around $80, will work just fine and will save a ton of money. 

Well, I guess if they called me today to go out I would just go ahead and take the run anyway.  But, it's after 10 am and that isn't very likely at this hour of the day. 

Anyway, I paid most of my bills already for the coming month.  Mortgage not included, but that money is coming in in a few days and so is the money for the other property here.  There are bills that come at the end of the month - for next month - but by then I will have made up for this loss I am currently experiencing.

I don't suppose much else.  Just cleaning stuff today.  I came out of my bedroom this morning to an unmitigated disaster in the kitchen, so I cleaned it all up.  They made dinner, I figured it was my part to go ahead and clean all of that mess up.  They stayed up very late, much later than me, probably discussing the friend's marital situation, fortunately my ear plugs and fan muted that noise and I slept right through it.  I'm still attempting to decide how to enter the stock market on my own without going through 401k.  So far, I am pretty much not doing anything but research, looking up websites, reading articles, etc. 

I want to start out with $500 and see what happens, but not haphazardly just dump it into a stock somewhere and hope it goes up in some set amount of time.  My mother suggested CD's - she's been doing those for decades, but the rate of return isn't enough.  Another thought I had was to rent some sort of dwelling structure and then sub rent it.  But, that's kind of risky out here. It would be unknown if I could get tenants to fill up the room and if not, I'm stuck renting a place I'm not using. In phoenix, if I had a second property, I could easily fill it up.  As long as the place is decent and has all the perks, you can rent a room within 24 hours of it vacating.  In fact, you end up with a list of people you can rent it out to and you have to make a decision based on interaction with them.  Anyway, I thought about a couple homes in the immediate area of my house there, but I think they are doing as much as they can right now maintaining my property and adding something on would probably be too much for them.

Tho, the incentive would be that they would end up paying nothing for anything in the house they are living in now.  As it stands, I think I have them down to $200 per month. 

No hurry to do the wrong thing.