I just couldn't do it, at least not yet.  

I went to the Kubota dealer after going to the TYM place.  I never even got started with TYM. I walked in there, a man walked in after me, they went immediately to dealing with him and completely ignored me. Hi, how are you doing!  To that other guy that is.  I just stood there thinking, well, I can wait even tho this guy just cut right in front of me.  I'm trying to do better in life beyond just going off on everyone. The temptation was there, instead, I just stood there looking at all of these employees in this place, there were a lot of them, wooing this customer and then going back to whatever they had been doing.  

I took all of that in for a minute, just standing there, the man behind the counter glanced at me, 2 other employees did the same but I didn't even get a hello, or how may we help you?  I said nothing the entire time in there, at this point, it was a test to see how I might be treated in the future and yes, I did have a smile on my face, possibly forced but I wasn't frowning.  I decided that this isn't the way I want to be treated, turned around and walked out without speaking a single word to any of these people.  

I then drove to the tire shop where I got the new tires, horrible vibration from both the front and rear, I assumed they didn't balance them very well, that or defective tires.  They balanced them again and then I headed off to Longview.  No more vibration, so that was good.  Had a sit down with the Kubota salesman, pleasant conversation but the end of the story?  38k at $539 per month, 96 months (8 years).  That's a good long time to be forking out that kind of money for a machine you hope but certainly don't know will last that long.  Interest free, too, I shudder to think what the payments would be with interest. 

No, I got up and left there as well, tho not in bad terms, I told the man I would have to think about it and look at my finances.  I've never even spent that kind of money on a personal vehicle.  I just don't know that I want to get into payments that high for that long.  I could bring the payments down by eliminating the backhoe attachment, but then I wouldn't be happy.  Like, I'm spending all of this money on this thing and I don't even have everything I need?

I went out into the parking lot, called the rental place, asked if their tractor was available? Yes, ok, I'm heading that way, got there, loaded it up and started work on the driveway. That driveway is in even worse condition than I thought, it really needs a dozer or a grader, neither of which I have access to and certainly, the rental place doesn't even have such equipment. 

I probably went over the worst of the areas 30--40 times but also was going up and down the entire 800 foot stretch of driveway that is used by the RV park.  I spent 2-1/2 hours on it before quitting.  I was getting hot, it was getting late and I have the thing until 2:30 tomorrow.  They allow 8 hours per 24 hour period.  I intend on getting my 8 hours out of it.  I'll just go over and over and over it until it's either smooth or I just don't have any more time.  I did get it better, but there's still a lot to go.

I ate a sandwich and a salad earlier and that tided me over until dinner.  The folks were on their way out to a local pizzeria when I got home, no thanks.  I wasn't even tempted, tbh.  I still had roasted chicken left over from yesterday, heated a bunch of that up, made a bit better salad than yesterday, chomped that down and in a while, my dessert will be keto break with cream cheese and sugar free strawberry preserves.  I need something to put the sugar desires in check.  It's the best I can do without buying expensive treats that are filled with chemicals.  There are recipes for stuff that I will look into at some point, just not now . 

Manager called me today asking if I was okay with the weekend schedule?  I thought, no, not at all, I said, well I had last weekend off so I figured I'd go with the flow and do the weekend.  

 Wednesday - late morning

I must say that I got the poorest night sleep I have had in quite a long time.  There was no rhyme or reason to it, my mind wasn't full of thoughts, I am not stressing over anything and I don't understand it. I take that back, I am sort of stressing over that horrible driveway, but it's nothing great enough to lose sleep over 

 My plans for this morning went right out the window.  It was around 6:30 am I finally got to sleep and yes, I slept until about 20 minutes ago.  It's 10:00 am.  If I would have gotten up at 6:30, I would have been miserable all day long and I wouldn't have gone anywhere or tried to get anything done.  

As it stands, I feel - ok.  Not great but certainly a great percentage better than I did earlier this morning.  I guess it's fortunate I didn't have to work today, but still. What a waste of a morning.  I was seriously going to go to Bible study early and then over to the park and then off to the tractor dealer.

The tractor dealer isn't off the table, I still want to go down there.  The salesman said he would be in today, I'm just sitting here drinking a couple of cups of coffee and wondering whether I should have a small bite to eat this morning or wait until this afternoon. I think I will have something to eat, for it seems like this might be why I get so hungry in the evenings, for the lack of food consumption during the daytime.  Late evening/night time is not a good time to eat either for sleeping purposes or losing weight.  It could be the food I ate yesterday interfered with my sleep, I dunno.  

BTW, per a friend's suggestion, it may be that at some point, the old man will not be able to sustain taking care of a house full of renters and then it might be optimal to offer him a place out here in trailer.  I lucked out when I found these people, the guy is a worker and a half. He doesn't "tolerate" a messy house, either inside or out.  He washes the concrete and sweeps every single day and doesn't allow anyone to pile up dishes.  He's also quite strict about the rent being paid on time.  He may have gotten that from me, although I have eased up a bit with RV'ers who are long term and express a need to pay a little later than their due date.  Whether he would want to move out here is another story entirely.  He's spent his life living in a big city, not everyone can make the switch from big city to country living. 

I don't know what the market is in AZ right now, whether that house would sell quickly or take a while or what. I just know that it is 10 minutes from downtown, is sitting on the side of a mountain, sort of the base but definitely well elevated above the desert floor.  The downside is it's in a run down neighborhood full of old, junky mobile homes (mine is neither old nor junky) and the traffic is ridiculous.  

Not going to speculate about that right now, I'm here, not there.  And I have my plate full, here, not there.  The time will come when I will have to deal with selling that property but that time is, as of right now, not yet.  

I see these groups with amazing looking tiny homes and think about the possibilities of having a nightly rental going on in one of them.  They are quite nice looking, the interiors have been done up with high quality and more expensive materials and it shows.  Stunning, actually.  You see, the front of the property would work well for a setup with those in there.  The only problem is they would have to still be on axles/wheels to keep the tax free status of them.  

Yes, I'm still thinking of other ventures beyond lot rentals to make some money.  It's quite apparent to me now that having an actual rental unit beyond a lot is what is really gaining traction around here.  But, those types of setups are far from free, they're starting around 50k and go up from there.  Yes, for a tiny home. 

Then there's this idea of taking that back 15 acres and building a house on it.  It is intriguing, but I don't want to lose ownership of my property.  I'm sure that would cause some concerns.  It may very well be that they just need to find another property to build for this 25 acres is mine.  I feel like God gave me another gift in acquiring that land that at the time, no one else wanted.  It doesn't have as much pine trees as I would like  it to have, but it's still beautiful.  There is a large stand of them on the west side in the rear, just would prefer the entire property to be pine trees.  The upside to the property is that it is still in the school district that they want to stay in and yes, they have a bus running down my street every morning and afternoon.  The other upside is it's definitely out in the country regardless of how close to the town (they call it a city but it's only 22,500 people, in my view that is not a city's worth of population) the property is.  The kids could run free back there, I have never seen any neighbors roaming around anywhere back there and there is only a few people that occasionally walk back there with their dogs.  

That would have to be eliminated, of course.  Considering the infrequent use, I wouldn't have a problem eliminating access to it from the RV park.  

2 more payments. Yes I said this previously, it's important.  That shed payment can be applied to a tractor payment meaning my monthly payment for a tractor won't be a significant added expense, more than half of it would already be an existing, on-going expense that will simply be switched.  I'm not looking forward to endless payments, I'm also sure that I cannot operate this business and maintain this land without having the equipment to do it with.  

It's why you see every property that has any significant amount of land on my street having tractors parked somewhere on it.  Their usefulness goes well beyond just one task.  

Diet.  Light purple. That's what the test strip showed earlier.  It means I'm on my way to ketosis, sort of in it already but not enough to do anything.  This is encouraging for once you get into ketosis, you will see the fat start dropping pretty quickly.  It's staying in ketosis that is the challenge.  Strict keto is the only way to do it and that means pretty much meat and greens.  I bought lots of greens yesterday, I don't like the idea of eating too much meat on any given day.  

To be honest, it really feels like to me that I should be changing my direction with this RV business and doing something different, something that local people are looking for.  I don't know what my financing options would be, but having a couple of tiny homes or some sort of living structures for rent seems to be the way to go, regardless of the lack of finances. 

Where there is a will, there is a way.  God knows, He has the answers that I don't, I will wait on Him to guide me.  

But for right now, it's either buy a tractor on payments or continue renting one endlessly along with the occasional mini-ex rental.  It adds up.  

The cat. They were banished to the very large pantry - it's probably 30 feet long and 8 feet wide?  - because one of them started peeing everywhere while we were gone a couple of days at 6 Flags.  A trial run to see if she  would stop? Nope, 2 puddles of pee in the living room, the house is no longer free for them.  It isn't anything new to them, they were living in there for a long time because the other cat used to do that.  Roles reversed I guess.  I just wonder what caused that cat to suddenly decide to do this?  People said the cat got upset with our leaving. We weren't gone that long.  

Anyway, it's getting awfully late in the day. I could easily just sit here and do nothing, really, I could. Drink coffee, make a sandwich, kick back and watch movies.  And that accomplishes - nothing.

G'day.