I'm still pretty motivated to get rid of stuff and declutter myself.
I'm hopefully set to get rid of one of my larger objects (a car) within the next day and a half. The guy was supposed to get back to me tonight to lock down a time that he would be able to make it up here. He hasn't, but I'm hoping that it'll still happen. I told him it had to be before Tuesday afternoon because that's when I have to go back to work. He sounds pretty interested in my spare parts too. So on top of the price of the car I plan to try to pawn off ALL of the spare parts I have for a pretty decent price. He's in it to make money, I'm in it free up my life. Win, win.
My storage unit is always an interesting thing. There isn't really enough room to make piles. I might make an effort to target my biggest items to make some room. I really would prefer two trailers there. But that's not possible. One for the dump, one for metal scrap, and then really I need an area for donating and selling too. The deeper I get into this, the less "keep" even feels like an option.
As it is now I need to use my van. A van load, one I can get together in a day or two, usually isn't worth the price of a trip to the dump. Unless I just go throw away crazy. Maybe.
Back to work for 11 days after tomorrow. For now I'll go watch another episode of Hoarders. Haha.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Hello, I'm Drive-by Andy
Hey everyone. Do you remember me? It's been a while.
The snow is finally melted and gone. I'm pretty sure for good for this year.
I haven't exercised in a while. Before I stopped I was to the point where I could run for 28 minutes straight. Pretty crazy. A multitude of things made me stop. Too many people at the gym suddenly. My feet/heels being in pain. Getting home too late. Simply being burnt out. I still have my membership, I'd like to think I'll get back soon.
Through some events at work I've been picking up extra hours on one of my days off every week. I'm also kind-of-maybe-technically the Assistant Manager now. Complicates the issues a bit. Anyway so now every other week I have 3 days off in a row, but the week in between I only end up with one day off. So in a span of 11 days I have one day off, and that's starting to get to me. I end up dreading the next long stretch as soon as the current one is over.
The van is falling apart. The exhaust is horrendously loud. I decided to buy a junkyard transmission for my old car and am in the process of trying to get that swapped in. If everything goes as planned I will be retiring the van when the time comes. I don't think I'm even going to try to sell it, I'll just scrap it.
I watched Hoarders for the the first time the other night. It's on Amazon Prime now. I'm not as bad as the people on the show, but I would say I'm definitely a bit of a hoarder. The show has really opened my eyes to some things. It all came together at the right time for me too. My plan is/was to move into the motorhome soonish. But I still have too much stuff everywhere. My parents house/yard, and storage. Which, by the way, my storage price has gone up $20 in the last 6 months, so now it's a pretty ridiculous amount every month.
I want to get rid of a large majority of it. I always have, but it's difficult for me. I'm starting to though. My standards for 'things to keep' have gone way up. I'm throwing things away that I would normally keep, or that I have kept for years. It feels great.
I've just finally realized that it, ALL OF IT, is the cause of so much in my life. My inability to do anything. My constantly feeling like I should be doing something else with my time. The most successful times in my life were when I didn't have all of this emotional, mental, and physical CLUTTER. If I ever want to move forward, if I ever want to be free and do what I want with life again, I need to let this crap go.
It's still a long road. I have a lot of stuff to sort, because I'm not at the point where I can just throw it all away without even looking at it. But I'm happy with where I am with it. I gave away some chairs to a coworker that I was keeping for sentimental reasons. Now they're being used and my coworker is happy to have them. They took up way too much space in storage. I plan to get rid of my washer and dryer soon. That will be a lot of space freed up. I'm pretty sure I'm ready to throw out my old couch. Lots of sentimental value there.
The weight and financial cost of it all is simply too much finally. That's a good thing.
Have less, do more, be more. All of these things are tethers, keeping me in this place in life when I could be rolling in my motorhome witnessing beautiful landscapes, lives, and moments.
The cost of a life fulfilled, happy, and free. That's worth it.
The snow is finally melted and gone. I'm pretty sure for good for this year.
I haven't exercised in a while. Before I stopped I was to the point where I could run for 28 minutes straight. Pretty crazy. A multitude of things made me stop. Too many people at the gym suddenly. My feet/heels being in pain. Getting home too late. Simply being burnt out. I still have my membership, I'd like to think I'll get back soon.
Through some events at work I've been picking up extra hours on one of my days off every week. I'm also kind-of-maybe-technically the Assistant Manager now. Complicates the issues a bit. Anyway so now every other week I have 3 days off in a row, but the week in between I only end up with one day off. So in a span of 11 days I have one day off, and that's starting to get to me. I end up dreading the next long stretch as soon as the current one is over.
The van is falling apart. The exhaust is horrendously loud. I decided to buy a junkyard transmission for my old car and am in the process of trying to get that swapped in. If everything goes as planned I will be retiring the van when the time comes. I don't think I'm even going to try to sell it, I'll just scrap it.
I watched Hoarders for the the first time the other night. It's on Amazon Prime now. I'm not as bad as the people on the show, but I would say I'm definitely a bit of a hoarder. The show has really opened my eyes to some things. It all came together at the right time for me too. My plan is/was to move into the motorhome soonish. But I still have too much stuff everywhere. My parents house/yard, and storage. Which, by the way, my storage price has gone up $20 in the last 6 months, so now it's a pretty ridiculous amount every month.
I want to get rid of a large majority of it. I always have, but it's difficult for me. I'm starting to though. My standards for 'things to keep' have gone way up. I'm throwing things away that I would normally keep, or that I have kept for years. It feels great.
I've just finally realized that it, ALL OF IT, is the cause of so much in my life. My inability to do anything. My constantly feeling like I should be doing something else with my time. The most successful times in my life were when I didn't have all of this emotional, mental, and physical CLUTTER. If I ever want to move forward, if I ever want to be free and do what I want with life again, I need to let this crap go.
It's still a long road. I have a lot of stuff to sort, because I'm not at the point where I can just throw it all away without even looking at it. But I'm happy with where I am with it. I gave away some chairs to a coworker that I was keeping for sentimental reasons. Now they're being used and my coworker is happy to have them. They took up way too much space in storage. I plan to get rid of my washer and dryer soon. That will be a lot of space freed up. I'm pretty sure I'm ready to throw out my old couch. Lots of sentimental value there.
The weight and financial cost of it all is simply too much finally. That's a good thing.
Have less, do more, be more. All of these things are tethers, keeping me in this place in life when I could be rolling in my motorhome witnessing beautiful landscapes, lives, and moments.
The cost of a life fulfilled, happy, and free. That's worth it.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Go Away, Winter.
With no temperatures even above 20 degrees for the foreseeable future I'm getting a bit bummed. I'm feeling pretty inspired and motivated about so many things in my life right now and then to have this persistent winter that just won't give up is horrible. I've shoveled out the motorhome several times now, but it's still stuck where it's at. I don't think it'll be that hard to get it to get out of the little hole it's in but in reality it's stuck right now. I tried again yesterday and the tires just spin.
It did warm up for about two days last week and that's when I first shoveled all around it so that things would hopefully melt more. I also got out the ladder and uncovered the solar panels again and chipped off the layer of ice on them. Not that there's much sun to be had, but anything is better than nothing.
I'm still going to the gym and working on the C25K program. I'm on week 5 now, which is one of the hardest weeks both physically and definitely mentally. After tomorrow night I will officially be half way through the program and well on my way to being able to run!
During week 3 of the program I did actually start to lose weight. My scale isn't great but probably about 5lbs. Week 4 saw most of that weight come back for whatever reason. Now this morning I weighed myself and I was pretty solidly down the 5lbs again. Like I've said before weight loss isn't really my focus right now, but I'll definitely take what I can get of it.
So yeah! Winter can go away now and other than that things are looking good for 2014.
It did warm up for about two days last week and that's when I first shoveled all around it so that things would hopefully melt more. I also got out the ladder and uncovered the solar panels again and chipped off the layer of ice on them. Not that there's much sun to be had, but anything is better than nothing.
I'm still going to the gym and working on the C25K program. I'm on week 5 now, which is one of the hardest weeks both physically and definitely mentally. After tomorrow night I will officially be half way through the program and well on my way to being able to run!
During week 3 of the program I did actually start to lose weight. My scale isn't great but probably about 5lbs. Week 4 saw most of that weight come back for whatever reason. Now this morning I weighed myself and I was pretty solidly down the 5lbs again. Like I've said before weight loss isn't really my focus right now, but I'll definitely take what I can get of it.
So yeah! Winter can go away now and other than that things are looking good for 2014.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Couch To 5K (C25K) Running Program
This is some of what I was talking about in my last post, and so far posting and video wise I've done nothing. I wanted to really keep track of my thoughts and obstacles through all of this and make some good posts and videos. So far, I've fallen incredibly short. I haven't been sure if I wanted to post them here or somewhere else, but here it goes.
Around the first of the year I shaved off my beard. I've had it to some capacity since the end of 2011. Having a clean shaven face after so long revealed that I have quite a fat face. Haha. On a base level, who cares. I'm okay with who I am and how much I weigh (290lbs). However, deep down I've wanted to lose some weight like most everyone.
For the first time ever I joined a gym. I've never gone to a gym, ever. It took me two weeks to finally get up the courage to walk into one and sign up. I planned on going that first night but I had to go BUY GYM CLOTHES first. Ugh. In the end I just bought some pants and shoes. With those, I drove over to the gym. Sat out in the parking lot for a while. Chickened out and went home. I'm pretty sure I did this the next night too.
I did end up going within that first week. I go on my way home from work. It's right along my way home and is, mostly, convenient for me. So far I haven't skipped out on any of the days I really plan to go to keep with my C25K program. There's been a number of days when there's been a few too many people in there for me and I really want to just leave without ever going in. I'm overcoming that fear. I'm trying to feel more comfortable, feel like it's MY gym. Like I have every right to be there too.
One big thing I've had to keep telling myself, and truly know in my heart, to keep this going is that I'm doing this for me. I'm the only one that's going to do it! For me. Nobody in that gym is going to do it for me. What they're doing or thinking or not thinking doesn't mean anything to me. Broaden the picture and nobody in my life is going to do it for me either. I have to be the one to make the effort, the plans, and climb over the obstacles.
So anyway, the C25K program is an interval training program that slowly builds up your endurance over a 9 week program. At the end of the 9 weeks, you should be able to run a 5k. I've done this program twice before. The first time getting to week 5 before giving it up. The last time too many things were against me and I didn't get very far I don't think. This time, I'm going to complete the program. Even if it takes me 12 weeks instead of 9. Or 100. I'm currently on week 3 with one running day left to go. So far so good.
I'm not focusing on weight loss, or eating healthy, or anything right now. Which, for the record neither of those things is happening. For now I'm interested in building up my endurance, getting into the HABIT of going to the gym, and I will worry about the rest later on.
Around the first of the year I shaved off my beard. I've had it to some capacity since the end of 2011. Having a clean shaven face after so long revealed that I have quite a fat face. Haha. On a base level, who cares. I'm okay with who I am and how much I weigh (290lbs). However, deep down I've wanted to lose some weight like most everyone.
For the first time ever I joined a gym. I've never gone to a gym, ever. It took me two weeks to finally get up the courage to walk into one and sign up. I planned on going that first night but I had to go BUY GYM CLOTHES first. Ugh. In the end I just bought some pants and shoes. With those, I drove over to the gym. Sat out in the parking lot for a while. Chickened out and went home. I'm pretty sure I did this the next night too.
I did end up going within that first week. I go on my way home from work. It's right along my way home and is, mostly, convenient for me. So far I haven't skipped out on any of the days I really plan to go to keep with my C25K program. There's been a number of days when there's been a few too many people in there for me and I really want to just leave without ever going in. I'm overcoming that fear. I'm trying to feel more comfortable, feel like it's MY gym. Like I have every right to be there too.
One big thing I've had to keep telling myself, and truly know in my heart, to keep this going is that I'm doing this for me. I'm the only one that's going to do it! For me. Nobody in that gym is going to do it for me. What they're doing or thinking or not thinking doesn't mean anything to me. Broaden the picture and nobody in my life is going to do it for me either. I have to be the one to make the effort, the plans, and climb over the obstacles.
So anyway, the C25K program is an interval training program that slowly builds up your endurance over a 9 week program. At the end of the 9 weeks, you should be able to run a 5k. I've done this program twice before. The first time getting to week 5 before giving it up. The last time too many things were against me and I didn't get very far I don't think. This time, I'm going to complete the program. Even if it takes me 12 weeks instead of 9. Or 100. I'm currently on week 3 with one running day left to go. So far so good.
I'm not focusing on weight loss, or eating healthy, or anything right now. Which, for the record neither of those things is happening. For now I'm interested in building up my endurance, getting into the HABIT of going to the gym, and I will worry about the rest later on.
Monday, January 27, 2014
First Metal Detecting Find!
It's still snowing. And it's down right cold around here. Last week I did a little metal detecting under the pine trees not far from the house because the snow is much shallower there. The ground, of course, is absolutely frozen as well but it's diggable with a little effort.
My first find, luckily, was a 1920 Wheat Penny! Pure luck. The next one a few feet away was a 1977. And then I found a 2001 dime. With the extreme cold and frozen ground that's probably about all the digging I'll be doing until things thaw.
I did give into my impulses though and I bought a Garrett Ace 250 metal detector. The things I found above were with the first detector I bought off of craigslist. It was and still is a perfectly capable detector.
Some other things in the works. Not necessarily related to RVing or anything really. I think I'm planning to do a video series on this, possibly some blog posts, but I will do delayed publishing with them. In case things fall apart too quickly so I can just pretend it never happened and never post them. Mwahaha.
Oh yeah! Almost forgot to mention that I did my first attempt at Coin Roll Hunting today too. I found $40 worth of half dollars at one of the local banks. I didn't find anything worth anything or notable in any way. I'll probably keep doing that now and then though. It's like playing the lotto but you almost never lose money. My kind of odds, plus I like the idea of scratch off tickets but you can end up losing too much with them.
My first find, luckily, was a 1920 Wheat Penny! Pure luck. The next one a few feet away was a 1977. And then I found a 2001 dime. With the extreme cold and frozen ground that's probably about all the digging I'll be doing until things thaw.
I did give into my impulses though and I bought a Garrett Ace 250 metal detector. The things I found above were with the first detector I bought off of craigslist. It was and still is a perfectly capable detector.
Some other things in the works. Not necessarily related to RVing or anything really. I think I'm planning to do a video series on this, possibly some blog posts, but I will do delayed publishing with them. In case things fall apart too quickly so I can just pretend it never happened and never post them. Mwahaha.
Oh yeah! Almost forgot to mention that I did my first attempt at Coin Roll Hunting today too. I found $40 worth of half dollars at one of the local banks. I didn't find anything worth anything or notable in any way. I'll probably keep doing that now and then though. It's like playing the lotto but you almost never lose money. My kind of odds, plus I like the idea of scratch off tickets but you can end up losing too much with them.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Metal Detector FEVER
I've gone through this phase in the past, but boy do I sure have it for metal detecting lately. I've spent a lot of time watching MD videos on YouTube and whatnot. Haha. Here it is the middle of winter and I can't possibly do anything if I wanted to. I actually bought a metal detector off craigslist the other day. He was selling two, the one I really wanted was already sold and in a moment of haste I bought his other one. I'm sure it will work fine to start with, but I plan to upgrade fairly quickly later on. Then, I just couldn't let it go about getting a pin pointer too. So I just ordered one of those from Amazon. Ugh. After this I need to stop spending money on things.
Hopefully by the time the ground thaws out I'll still be interested in this. Har har. I bought some cheap knock-off GoPro mounts too. Head and Chest. That should get me going. I plan to build my own mounts for any other purposes.
I have fanciful and possibly unrealistic visions of living a different life this year. Truly balancing work and life, which I am horrible at. As my van falls into worse condition, the motorhome starts looking better, or at least comparable. So I want to take it on many adventures on my days off. Hopefully when I can get 2 or more days off in a row I'll take it out and spend the days hiking, kayaking, geocaching, and metal detecting. I want to start seriously doing YouTube videos myself too. RVing/Vandwelling and metal detecting and general outdoor adventures.
So there's that. Now if only I could go metal detecting.
Hopefully by the time the ground thaws out I'll still be interested in this. Har har. I bought some cheap knock-off GoPro mounts too. Head and Chest. That should get me going. I plan to build my own mounts for any other purposes.
I have fanciful and possibly unrealistic visions of living a different life this year. Truly balancing work and life, which I am horrible at. As my van falls into worse condition, the motorhome starts looking better, or at least comparable. So I want to take it on many adventures on my days off. Hopefully when I can get 2 or more days off in a row I'll take it out and spend the days hiking, kayaking, geocaching, and metal detecting. I want to start seriously doing YouTube videos myself too. RVing/Vandwelling and metal detecting and general outdoor adventures.
So there's that. Now if only I could go metal detecting.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Happy New Year and The American Dream
First of all, Happy New Year. I am optimistic about it. As everyone always is. Which is why I usually avoid the whole topic of a new year and avoid all the clichés.
I have plenty to be thankful for and optimistic about.
My job is going well. It's not where I want to be, and I definitely don't want to make it a career. Sadly, that's the direction it's headed. However, with the recent raise I can push back my flighty feelings for a bit longer.
My business is doing okay. I own an internet business if I've never mentioned it. I've been running it for 10 years. The last time I profited as much as I did from last month was exactly two years ago. It's still not much, but it's a few steps in the right direction and I hope to continue the momentum. Ultimately I want to get back to being self-employed and self-sufficient. Not necessarily from the internet, but I don't mind how it happens.
I filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy 2 years and 9 months ago. Since then I've ignored all things credit. I am now getting back on track to rebuild my credit. I've been approved for a secured credit card and already sent them my deposit so now I'm just waiting for the card to arrive. I'm considering seeing what my secured card options are through my bank also.
All of this brings me to The American Dream. It slightly depresses me how all of the above makes me feel GOOD. I am happy, I am proud, I am content by being a responsible, respectable person in society's eyes. And yet, I know not much of that truly matters. Still, it makes me think about the future. What my next options are, where I'm going from here.
It's amazing how my thoughts start floating towards a house, a better car, things that cost money, time, and freedom.
I have plenty to be thankful for and optimistic about.
My job is going well. It's not where I want to be, and I definitely don't want to make it a career. Sadly, that's the direction it's headed. However, with the recent raise I can push back my flighty feelings for a bit longer.
My business is doing okay. I own an internet business if I've never mentioned it. I've been running it for 10 years. The last time I profited as much as I did from last month was exactly two years ago. It's still not much, but it's a few steps in the right direction and I hope to continue the momentum. Ultimately I want to get back to being self-employed and self-sufficient. Not necessarily from the internet, but I don't mind how it happens.
I filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy 2 years and 9 months ago. Since then I've ignored all things credit. I am now getting back on track to rebuild my credit. I've been approved for a secured credit card and already sent them my deposit so now I'm just waiting for the card to arrive. I'm considering seeing what my secured card options are through my bank also.
All of this brings me to The American Dream. It slightly depresses me how all of the above makes me feel GOOD. I am happy, I am proud, I am content by being a responsible, respectable person in society's eyes. And yet, I know not much of that truly matters. Still, it makes me think about the future. What my next options are, where I'm going from here.
It's amazing how my thoughts start floating towards a house, a better car, things that cost money, time, and freedom.
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