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Max here with another one…….
It’s Sunday April 29…….Oh wait… I mean it’s Monday April 29th 2019. The time is 1:50 am. And Yep, I’m here at the club. For me it is my Sunday night into Monday morning at work.
And how has Max been since I last wrote? Well….. I’ve been stressed, but hopefully in a way that is tolerable. A way in which I can still believe that tomorrow will be better. I have been trying to write in the gratitude journal, I have been trying to do the weekly planner (writing when I sleep and eat), I have been trying to do the small wins, and I have been trying to understand that sleep is important to me. I have also been trying to understand the reasons why I am seeing the hypnotist. (There must be a way to self reprogram these things in my life that are not pushing me to my goals)
Now I said “trying” which doesn’t mean that I have mastered it, or even do it consistently. Instead, I can see that the gratitude, small wins, and writing in the weekly planner is in some odd way working for my mind. the gratitude and small wins seem to allow me to not feel so crappy as I go thru my days. And the weekly planner is allowing me to have self reflection on how I am eating and sleeping. Now, truth be told, I have not yet done any type of analysis on the weekly planner as far as compiling the data from several weeks. Instead, as I write when I sleep and when I eat, I can see in the week that I do have some form of a pattern. Or at least I am trying to get a pattern. The hardest part is still my Monday. or rather Sunday thru Monday. I still for the most part don’t sleep. Big bummer.
As a mater of fact. I remember last week that it wasn’t until Thursday that I felt like I regained energy from Sunday. In other words. Last Sunday I didn’t go to bed until Monday night, then I woke up early on Tuesday and again didn’t go to bed until almost midnight on Tuesday night only to wake up about 7ish on Wednesday and finally went to bed before midnight on Wednesday night. But man, that week just physically tired me out.
The plus side of that week, was that some work got done on the upstairs apartment (the tenant finally moved out) God that makes me feel good to say that. It really does. However, now the apartment needs some serious rehab. which is going to probably cost me at least 6k in rehab. I want to be able to finish the updates that I originally wanted but never did. 3 years ago I took that apartment out of the 1970s and into the beginning of the 2000s but now I need to bring it into the low end of the 2010 era. I will be redoing the mudding of the walls and laying new flooring and replacing a window and adding a new fridge and a new stove. And I want to secretly replace the shower/tub. It looks old and worn. and I may need to replace the bathroom sinks too. over 3 years ago I also had to redo the plumbing under the apartment. It has just been a very long road in rehabbing that 4plex.
but yeah, so now that this tenant is out, I have a new job. And beyond that, the inside of apartment #1 is finally completed. all it needs now is another cleaning and then one last look for small defects and if all is perfect then the inside of the apartment will be officially stamped as ready…. Now there is the outside….. The outside of the apartment as of 10 days ago was 97% completed. Then I decided to stucco the outside walls smooth. My reasoning for doing this is because I want uniformity. Eddie finished the stucco smoothing of outside walls/fencing and after looking at it, I could see that the apartments now need to have the same smooth stuccoing done to them. And so since I have Eddie working for me, I should utilize him as much as possible. And because Eddie has allowed his life to have so many uncontrollable problems, it is quite possible that he might not work for me in the future, so I find it important to have him do as much stucco as possible. He has most of the front of apartment #1 completed. After that it will need to be painted. Then I will need to redo parts of the outside cement flooring. The residue from the Stucco has messed up parts of the outside cement and so it will need to be recleaned and then restained. If I would have had Eddie 3 months ago, I would have done the walls before the outside flooring but sometimes, you gotta utilize what you have when you have it.
So to sum it up the 4plex is now only halfway rented, and now all the money I was spending on apartment #1 is now being redirected to apartment #2. This last week was uber expensive. Repainting the outside decking of apartment #2 was a job in itself. I had my guys put at least 3 coats of paint on the railings and I will also need to recoat the flooring again. I had my guys use the expensive decking paint. And after 2 coats It didn’t fully cover all of the cracks in the wood. So I know it will take one more 5 gallon bucket of decking paint to truly get that flooring covered. And after this coating the deck should look good for at least a couple of years. Texas sun puts a beating on paint color, and this deck sits with full sun from sun up to sundown. Hence my reason for wanting to give heavy coats of paint. Maybe some real estate people will be ok with thin coats, but I am someone that really dislikes having to go back and do a job twice. I already have to go back and do things twice because I either didn’t do things in the proper order or because one of my workers wasn’t professional enough to get the job done right the first time, or any number of other reasons that I did not properly see or foresee. (I MUST fix this). So for me I don’t want to repaint, when I can just do it good this time.
So what else has been going on…. Well, my taxes are laying heavy in my mind, my family on the island are heavy on my mind. I went this past Wednesday to the consulate to see about getting a visa, but when I got to the building, went upstairs, and got to the suite, I realized that they no longer have an open consulate. Which my ability to get a visa to see my family has halted to almost impossible. That day I also went to the Chinese consulate. I want to try and take a 1 day trip to China. (I know, I said 1 day). But you see, I must make sure to not miss days here at the club. It’s how I currently survive. And from what little research I did, it’s a 24 hour trip to China. So if I just lightly think about it, I have 4 days before I have to back at the club. And after 2 days of 24 hour flying, I think that I might need a full day to just almost recover from a 24 hour plane ride and be ready for work. So my trip in China may last all of 24 hours. But if I am lucky I might be able to pull it to 48 hours. But well see.
So back to the stressed part…. Well. I just need a lot of money. There are things like the company picnic that I will be doing for the girls I work with here at the club, and that is very financially expensive for me, as well as labor time intensive. I also have the apartment #2 that now needs a large injection of cash in order to be ready to rent, and If I can keep them, then I will now have 2 people that might work for me, and that will cost money. And I still want to help my family on the island. That also costs money. And I want to do a PRP for my hair. There is a special that ends on Tuesday. And like I said I must get my taxes ready. I somehow feel that my taxes are going to be expensive since I have procrastinated for so long. But again, we’ll see. I know that if I can put my mind on it, that I can keep some form on sanity during these next few months. This doesn’t include all of the other bills that I have recently added to my life.
Well, that’s about it. I would write my gratitude and small wins here, but I am literally about to start writing them now. Wish me luck….. Lord knows I need it.
Wishing everyone a beautiful and amazing day,
Max.
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