NotSoMuchDrivingAndy

I'm suddenly feeling like my life has been complicated by the van, which is obviously the opposite of what was supposed to happen. And after putting what money I have into it in terms of repairs and then of course wood/materials for building the inside it seems like a giant waste to scrap the entire plan now. But I would be lying if I said I haven't been considering it. It's developed an exhaust leak that is getting louder and louder and I haven't looked into how big of a repair it'd be yet. There's also a new fluid leak underneath it every day when I get out of work. Friday in particular had a very large spot in comparison to recent days. I haven't diagnosed that one yet either.

So I wonder if it's time to cut my losses before I keep pouring more money into it.

I'm starting to think this blog is going to never be about being 'on the road'. I know that's okay. For me, at least. Maybe not for you. I guess I just feel like I'm drifting, and not in the good way. If I could be drifting on the road then great, but I'm not. I'm just not getting there, I'm not getting anywhere currently. That's what I find the most unacceptable to me.

My 'promotion' at work has been stressful and I spent a week desperately wanting to quit, but now I'm starting to settle in again and am trying my best to deal with being uncomfortable by my lack of knowledge. Knowledge that can only be acquired by time and experience in this case. The store manager and assistant manager have been cool about it and I've come to understand that I've been expecting way more of myself than they have and that it's okay for me to not know everything.

Do I want to be with this company forever? No. Do I feel a lot of outside pressure to be with this company for at least a decent amount of time? Yes.


The only way for this job to make any sense for me going forward, I think, is to ditch the van and get something way better on gas mileage. I can't keep spending $400/month in gas just to get to and from work.


Today I found a cheap, small 'cabin' on 5 acres with a great big old barn. Problem is, it's 100 miles north of here. 120 miles north of my work. It got me thinking a lot about how nice it'd be to have a place of my own again. That's where a lot of this post is coming from. I wish it was located down here, but then again 100 miles north excites me because it's in a national forest and that 100 miles means the difference between black bears and a greater abundance of bobcats and things like that. I have zero experience with those things, but they're wild and I want to know them. Only recently have coyotes and things like that really made themselves known around here. Black bears are maybe a yearly occurance but it's just a lone bear passing through the county that ultimately returns north.