This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)

Date: Saturday May 25-2019   Time: 10:44PM  Place: The club in the ATX

My current mood:  neither happy nor sad.

Max here, and this week has been both good and bad…… Wait let me try that again….. This week has been both Good and Challenging! Very challenging.

This is going to be a bit of a ramble until I can get my thoughts together. So as of late, I have not been able to seem to be organized in any form that feels productive.

Like I had mentioned, it is now just after 11pm. I’m at the club, and the club, well, it’s memorial day weekend and a Saturday, so the club has got a good vibe. Someone within management even pulled out some party favors to accentuate the memorial day feel. (that I like. It’s important to have things to help create a theme for the night) So yeah, the club seems to be off to a descent to good start.

Now what about me? Well, last night I did not sleep well. I woke up literally about every damn hour… I went to bed about 9am. Before I got home, I stopped at a Circle K (about 10 minutes from my house) and I got gas for the motorcycle, bought a couple of sausage and egg kolaches, I ate them while pumping gas, then got home and made myself a sandwich, then showered and went to bed, or at least tried to go to bed. At that point I just woke up every hour until noon, then slept from noon to 2pm, then woke up again at 3pm, then woke up again at 5pm. I then meditated until about 5:40pm. In this meditation, I worked on trying to relax my body. As of late, I have been having deep aches and pains in the left side of my neck as well as my body just not feeling comfortable. And obviously, how I mentally feel typically resonates and manifests itself in different parts of my body. I have been really wanting to get a deep chair massage and I have also been wanting to get a foot massage (But this will be a first in ages only because I never get foot massages. I never get foot massages only because most people that massage feet, typically massage fast and that just ends up tickling my feet) but I think it is time to find someone who will be able to massage my feet in a way that I am needing.

So when I woke up today, I just wasn’t in a good mood. After I meditated, I felt better, but also didn’t want to do anything. So after I did all the norm (shower, teeth, dress, etc) I drove to work. Which btw I normally take the toll road up to Austin, It allows me to drive fast and not have a ton of traffic slowing me down. Personally, I literally hate sitting in the hot sun, at a standstill on the highway. The heat from all the cars and the asphalt reflecting and amplifying the heat from the sun just makes sitting on the bike even hotter. It’s like sweating in a sauna, but with clothes on.

so while I was driving to work, I could feel myself fighting to keep my mind and body from becoming agitated. Remember, I did not get good sleep or wake up in a great mood. And for some reason, work (at the club) seems to mentally rub me the wrong way. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing. IDK. I would go into detail, but for now, it is deeply important that I fight every negative thought and triple down on learning something positive.

So let’s talk about this week….. Monday, I (If I remember correctly) I slept much like I did last Monday. I have been trying to get sleep on Mondays, but between, the 4plex and the guy that helps me at home, I am having to sleep for an hour, then wake up and do something, then sleep for an hour, then wake up and do something. I repeat that cycle several times on Monday. In the end I feel like a zombie and with almost no energy, but barely alive. I have noticed that within that time I am not having to physically do the work, but I am having to oversee the work. Which in itself is also freakin WORK. And one of the goals in becoming a millionaire is to make money and not “have” to work. So yeah, Monday, was a bit of a blur, all I really remember is not really getting good sleep, I briefly remember more challenges one after another and cascading like a waterfall, and a lot of sluggishness in my day. Although, I do also remember trying to mentally end my day by 6pm so I can be asleep by 9pm. Now oddly enough if I remember correctly, I didn’t get to sleep until 10 or 11pm. Then I woke up Tuesday about 6am. And yes, I initially woke up about 11:45pm. Which means that for some reason my body is having a hard time sleeping more than 4 hours. But yet, when I can get a solid 8 hours of sleep, I feel (my body feels) rested and powerful. I feel ready to go, but when I get 4 hours of sleep I feel like I am struggling to remember, struggling to care, and struggling to get things done.

So Tuesday comes along and and one of the things on my mind is my tenant. He sent me a text on Sunday saying that a ceiling tile fell from the bathroom ceiling, which now exposes the inside of the ceiling. This was the same tenant who one of her ceiling fans fell down. I swear sometimes, when it rains, it just fucking pours. And as my friend Sebastian would sometimes say, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all” And sometimes, this is just so me! So it’s Tuesday, and I go to my Rotary meeting (which by the way is at 7:30 in the morning) and then I fumble and bumble my way through the day, with ideas of uncertainty of not being sure what exactly I should be doing. Now what I do remember from Tuesday is that my worker, the guy that helps me at home worked most of the day trying to do work in my master bathroom. He had to go to Home Depot twice which caused a least 2 hours of lost work. Big No Bueno! I also remember talking to my friend Kevin from Canada. I spoke to him on Monday for about an hour and then he called me on Tuesday. Turns out that he decided that he needed a break from things at home. And that a day of helping me at the company picnic would somehow relieve him of stress from home. Which personally, I can’t truly understand that, to me that is just trading one work for another, but I guess, from my own experiences in life, when I’m 1000 miles from home and engulfed in other things, regardless of what they are, then I just literally allow myself to forget my “problems” and instead focus on the things surround me

So Tuesday…. Well, from the best of my recollection, kind of came and went, and I didn’t get enough accomplished in the day. Deep down, I had been wanting to go to they gym, but I think that because I have Martin helping me at home, that I can’t yet truly feel stress free to the point where I am able to focus on multiple things. IDK, maybe I am not focusing enough on what is important and how to organize things and projects in my life. And maybe I can’t feel that way because at home I have a million small projects that are unfinished. And each project has it’s own set of details to be conveyed to the person doing the project, which is currently Martin (and this feeling doesn’t include my feelings of things outside of my house). In the end, this current project for Martin, was simple but for some reason he didn’t attack the project in a form that I found to be the method that I would have chosen, but then again, the last thing that I want to do is to micro manage someone. I have had that done to me, and it just causes stress for the worker. So yeah, he wasn’t able to finish the project in the way that I had envisioned, but there was at least some progress towards the project, which is better than no progress. Next week will be another week and another chance to get more done.

Now remember, the company picnic is just around the corner and that shit is extra heavy on my mind. Like stressful heavy….. It’s just money, money, money, and more money. Which reminds me that I must get the truck rental by the end of next week. So Wednesday rolls around and by that time I had written enough checks that total almost a $1000. Fuck I wasn’t expecting that. This deeply affects my mentality. I am supposed to be making $1000 and not spending $1000. Now the only upside to my week by Wednesday was the fact that my family on the island had received the package that I had sent them. This made me smile. A smile that when I reminisce of it now, I relive that joyous feeling. Wow that’s a good feeling.

You know, this reminds me of Joe Dispenza. How he talks about living in the past and how living in the past limits us. And for the most part he is 100% correct. So much of our life get restrictions. And it gets restrictions because of negative self limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves or even past events that caused us some form of emotional and or mental and or physical pain. And the only way to break these chains is to learn to not live in the past. However, I am sure that even Joe Dispenza would say that sometimes, it can be helpful to live in the past. But to do it with a past moment that brings us joy and internal happiness, a past moment that feeds our soul. Those moments are beautiful. So yeah, my family on the island. Nice.

So Wednesday is here, and I decided that I was finally going make some time to work on the BBQ pit. Remember that fucking picnic is weighing heavy on my mind. And each time that I work on it, I get closer to having it ready for the picnic. The only issue, challenge, mountain, and almost “problem”, is that it is not finished and I still need to make a pig roaster. I need to make a pig roaster because one of my other goals is to roast a pig at the picnic. Now how much work do I need on the BBQ pit. Well, luckily not as much as when I first started this BBQ/smoker project. When I first began this project. I had to build the frame and so much more, but now the only MAJOR thing to finish is the firebox, then I have a few small things like to cover a few holes, bolt the grill part to the frame and then add some wheels. It then needs to get painted and then tested. After I make the firebox, I am going to see if I can get Martin to get some of the work done. (Work that does not require welding) So yes, I worked on the BBQ pit for a few hours, then Thursday came around I did some more work on it. And at that point, when I had finished welding for the day, is when I could see that the end of my work on the BBQ pit is close to completion. This made me feel good, but also pushed my level of anxiety up because of how close the picnic is and I just don’t have enough things ready yet.

So Friday comes along and the night before, I get a text message at night from my tenant. He sends me an image of a rat. and not a tiny one either. He says that the rat probably fell from the ceiling. Remember a ceiling tile in the bathroom fell down. And so I had to commision someone to fix it. And Mark was dragging on fixing the ceiling tile issue. And yep, the rat probably fell or jumped from the ceiling. Life happens. Rats will always be an issue to humans. It’s like people that have dogs…. if you have a dog, then fleas will always be an issue. And so rats are just a part of life when it comes to renting. Especially older apartments. So I told my tenant that I would have someone out there in the morning to take care of the rat issue. Needless to say, seeing those photos really upset me. They didn’t upset me because of the rat itself, but instead because of the cost incurred to fix the rat issue. And over the last several weeks, there has just always been some unforseen issue that costs me at least $500 or more. And that shit has got to stop!

Remember, if you have read any of recent posts then you read about me having to buy new tires for my motorcycle and how it cost me over $800, then this ceiling tile falls and costs me more money, and before all of that Eddie did stucco work for me and made a mess and cost me over $500 and a week of wasted time and effort. And I still have brand new shingles that now need to be re-shingled because Eddie got masonry cement all over them. God that just upsets the fuck out of me. I already spent money on a job, only to have to go back and redo the job. Unexpected bills. Just fucking annoying.

So it’s now Friday and I call a pest control company, they quoted me about $200 but also said that they won’t get out to the 4plex for at least 7 days. And because I want to try and be as helpful as possible to my tenants, I told the person on the phone that I needed someone today. They obviously couldn’t help, So I called a different company, and was able to get them out today, but when I asked for a quote, the guy just hemmed and hawwed, and then said that at a minimum would be $450 and as high as $800.

I almost took a shit in my pants. $450 dollars for a fucking rat? WTF!!! After talking to the guy, he explained that some companies try to trap the rat (which is what the first company said that they would do) but this guy said that they were going to kill the rat. Now….. The good is that the rat problem will be snuffed. But the bad is that there is a possibility that the rat might die in the walls. And thus create a very bad smell for weeks!!! I swear, if it wasn’t one issue or challenge, then it’s 3 or 4 other issues or challenges. A dead rat in the walls that smells….. Right as I am getting ready to rent my best and largest apartment. The last thing I need when showing the apartment is the smell of a dead rat. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck ugggggghhhhhhh!

So I tell the guy on the phone that the people before him gave a lower price, but that I was willing to agree to at most $450. He then told me to hold on while he checked the manifest of his workers. He ended up telling me that they might not be able to get out today. Then as he thought about it…….. And I assume that he thought about the fact that he was going to make a minimum of $500 that he somehow decided to move other people around to ensure that his technician saw me today. This both made me happy, but didn’t lower my internal anger of having to drop $500 for a fucking rat. And a rat that I could have just killed my damn self. You see, all this technician is going to do is to come out, look at the place and then put rat bait everywhere. Fuck! I could have done that myself or had one of my guys do that for me. But then again, if I did it myself then my tenant would not have felt that I was properly addressing the problem. However, later that day I explained to the tenant what the pros and cons were of remedying the rat issue. And there is just no great answer or explanation. Because on one hand, if I have someone try and trap the rat, then it could take weeks to actually trap the rat, and if I choose the other route of killing the rat then, although the rat will be killed and also kill the initial issue of why I had to call a pest control person, it may also cause a bad smell that will last for weeks. And we are talking about Texas and Texas heat.

So for me, there is no easy answer to give my tenant. Other than to say that the problem is getting rectified today. My tenant then asked about future events, I told him, that after this event, that I will have someone drop new bait every year.

So needless to say this week has just been one very long week that has been several weeks long. The upside is that there has been 2 great things that have occurred. over this last month. One thing is that I am now working on selecting photos for the apartment #1 and the second thing is that I was able to internally smile in knowing that my family on the island received my package.

Now even though I did not do any thing in my  gratitude journal, or small wins journal, nor my weekly planner, nor any time at looking at my todo list I still have to find progress, and joy in what small wins that I have had……then, all I need to do is to get to making money from these properties, prepare for more unseen challenges that I can feel coming in the near future and to get organized and start winning the morning. And if I can do this, then I will definitely limit the amount of times that I will have to pay $500 for one rat!

Max out.