Friday 

Paycheck came in overnight.  It sealed my fate with this company. No way am I going to spend the kind of hours I am spending washing out trailers, loading and unloading coupled with the driving to get that small of a check.  Just a non-happening event.  I have decided that after Christmas and New Year's are over, I am going to start looking for a new job.

I say looking, who knows how long it might take to find a similar situation that will at least pay me for the time spent doing it.  I was appalled at the sight of the amount of money for a 15 day period of work, many of those days spent working.  Just not going to waste 7-8 or longer - the other day it was 13 hours - and get paid pauper's wages like that.  If I have to switch to something like the previous job, I may just have to do that.  I need more money than this and the promise was that I was going to get X amount of gross pay per week, that is not materializing.  

Just a little peeved this morning seeing this kind of junk going on at Christmas.  Most of my presents have been bought, I just have a few small things to buy for the kids left so it's mostly normal bills and thankfully, I have lots of rent payments coming up soon.  Much of it is around the 1st, a few days before and after.  I feel like I have wasted a lot of time with this company considering what I went through to get this job but I know I had this feeling more than once  - several times - that I should just move on.  My fault? Yes, I should have just listened to myself, but I was already invested into it by the time I got over to Oregon and was in the middle of that hellish landscape of working all day and getting almost no sleep at night.

I'll never forget that experience for it was one of the worst experiences of my life overall, not just for trucking but for much of anything.  I just really thought I would get a larger paycheck than this, by at least $500. But, obviously they aren't paying much for the "stop" pay, which is the pay for loading, unloading, washout, etc. 

I'm going to expand my search beyond trucking.  I don't know what else I could do - but I do know forklifts, I have operated them on and off since the mid 80's, a bit rusty right now, it would come back to me quickly much like ice skating the other night.  I don't know, can't predict what I might find or end up with, I am just going to expand my horizons on this front.  If there was something else I could do with my land that I am not thinking of that wouldn't cost a lot, I would do it.  

I kind of feel like I'm stuck right now.  I can't expand the park for I don't have the funds to do so.  I won't have the funds for a very long time at this rate - if  ever really.  I don't know what I can do.  I actually could add more lots to the current septic, it would mean having it pumped out, well who knows how often, every couple of months probably anyway.  So, would it be worth either putting up another lot or building a small cabin for the kind of return I would get minus the pump outs? 

I have no idea for I don't know how often I would have to have them coming in to do that.  

I'm a little preoccupied with these thoughts all of a sudden after seeing this paycheck.  Like, I need a lot more money than this to start getting ahead.  

I raised my rates on Hipcamp.  I am not going to let people get away with that again.  I had them very low, just overnight stuff, this person took advantage of it and will staying for 5 nights at a rate that doesn't make hardly any money.  I don't care if there isn't any traffic coming through that site, there is no way I'm going to be taken advantage of again with that nonsense.

Changing the gears at least for a minute, Keto is going well. It shows "trace" amount of ketosis, but I suspect it's just that I'm what they call "fat adapted".  Meaning my system produced enough ketones to deal with everything but not a lot of extra, hence it doesn't show up on the strips for results.  I'm not looking at strips for the results, however, I'm looking at my belly and my weight.  I'm down to 214 today, a 20 plus pound drop in the almost - is it a month now? - that I have been doing it.  So, I am at least happy about something this morning, lol.  Yes, I am going to cheat Sunday and Monday, I'll be right back at it on Tuesday and continuing on as long as it takes to get this gut gone.  

The guy has  definitely shrunk quite a bit. Still have one, but not near as big as when I first started this diet.

And sitting here musing all of this, I am going to go to Lowe's today and price out lumber and supplies to build a cabin.  We're not talking about anything fancy.  Wood floor, maybe elevated a bit to keep moisture off of it, one window, one exit/entrance door.  Maybe around 400 square feet of space, plus or minus.  Heck, I may not even have to go to Lowe's, there is always lumber of various kinds being sold on FB marketplace.  Companies doing projects with leftover wood, people with wood for unknown reasons they are selling, who knows why they have it, but it's sold less than retail/market value at places like Lowe's, Home Depot and local lumber places.  We have a few of those in town, actually.  

This something that will happen overnight? Of course not. Money is the issue, it always is.  I tried to get a big loan to pay off the debt and have one, monthly payment at a lower cost than all of it put together, that fell through for the idea of huge interest rates that didn't really help my situation that much.  Just didn't seem prudent to be taking out a loan at ridiculously high interest rates. 

Well, unexpected days off, I need to go over and figure out how I am going to install the new security camera system.  I also need to go get some stuff I won at auction a few weeks ago, I got some good stuff for almost nothing.  Especially the boxes. One for inside storing tools and things, the other for outside for a package drop off for the delivery services.  

Watching footage of people waiting at airports and such, lots of traveling they are predicting for Christmas.  I'm not going anywhere.  I saw my mom and my son a while back, visited with friends, that was it for this year.  Next year, we are all going to Las Vegas on Memorial Day weekend for a wedding.  I figure to stay 3 or 4 days.  I also figure to spend credit card points to pay for the flight there and back.  It's not cheap, either, which was a bit surprising considering how far off it is.  I'm going to keep looking at the various sites offering airfare, maybe I'll find something a bit cheaper. 

I dunno what else. Just going to have to try and get this pay situation out of my mind somehow.  It's Christmas, would rather be in the holiday cheer, festive attitude I had the other day.  

Regardless, that's enough for this one.