Time for another catch-up. It’s been a while since I’ve written a non Heroclix tournament blog post and I’m feeling the itch to brain-dump about the last few months. It feels like I’m making some changes and just wanting to share it into the world. I’ve got so much in my brain that I don’t even know where to start. I just know I have some stuff that feels stressful and stuff that feels super exciting!
I suppose since I mentioned Heroclix, let’s start there. We’re at the busy time where I’m gearing up for tournaments. We have the dates announced for both Canadian Nationals and Worlds, and I’m planning on going to both. Now to figure out what I want to play. Devin and I did some team building over discord and Mike and I talk teams when we’re in the car travelling to weekly events. Right now I have too many things I want to try out to see what feels most comfortable to me, what feels like it’s the strongest and what I think will give me the best chance to do well and have fun with it. It feels like this round of building is picking a prime and then deciding what I want to play with it. It feels like there are so many good primes right now and it’s hard deciding which one to use. As of today, I’ve only put 1 of them on the map to get an initial feel for them – so that’s going to be the first step. I already let the locals know that I plan to bring 2 teams to the weekly events. 1 for meta practice and 1 for the stipulation of the week and I’ll let my opponent choose which to play. I know there are others that are also wanting to practice for the big events too, so this will help us all get to do that.
Let’s talk construction and house stuff next. The main jobs are finally done. This includes the side of the house, which I did end up adding to the project and getting done over the winter. That was the new siding, bathroom window, my bedroom window, a basement window and installing an exhaust fan in the bathroom. I love the look of it all and it’s all well constructed, but I won’t lie that I’m frustrated. The last little bits that were supposed to be done on it are still lingering. Getting the hanging wires onto back secured on to the house and removing the construction debris from the backyard. It seems like the last small things are always like pulling teeth to get finished.
In this same thought, let’s also chat about the air conditioner. A few weeks ago when we had our first few really hot days, I went to turn the a/c on and it didn’t turn on. This has turned into such a frustrating experience. I looked back in my emails to see exactly when I had purchased the air conditioner and what the warranty information was. It was about 8 years ago and the warranty was only 5 years. Darn. I also hadn’t re-added the air conditioner back on to the protection plan, so it wasn’t currently covered. I called Reliance about adding the air conditioner back on and they were able to add it no problem, but I had to wait 10 days before they could send someone out for it to be covered by the plan, unless I wanted to pay for the repair out of pocket. It was cooling off outside so I decided to wait it out. When the 10 days was up, I booked the appointment and a tech came out. He looked at it all and in the end, said that the wires were crushed, the tube that carries the freon was leaking and possible issue with the condenser. However, because I had the construction done with re-doing the deck, that voids the protection plan because construction damage isn’t covered and he said that it was damaged in the construction – but his recommendation because so much is wrong with it would be to replace it. So back I go to my construction guy to let him know that it’s not working because of the construction work and he sends his HVAC guy out to check it out. He could see where wires were cut with a saw and repaired those, filled it with freon because it was completely out and gave the unit a wash to clear the vents. He got it up and running but said he didn’t know how long it would continue to run because he didn’t know if there was a leak in the gas line and if there was, how bad it was. It could run for a few days, a few weeks, a few months or even a few seasons if it wasn’t bad. So he said to contact him again if the cooling stops for the next steps. Well wouldn’t you know it, about a week later it stopped cooling. His suggestion is now also to replace. I’m feeling really frustrated that I’m needing to replace already after only 8 years. It worked fine at the end of last season, before the construction work. So on to getting quotes to see what my options are to replace and once again, add to the line of credit to get this done. Something I definitely did not want to do. I will say though – in trying to look at the positives – that on the days where is hasn’t been super humid and gross hot, I’ve really enjoyed having the windows and screen door open and have that fresh air come in with a nice breeze. Also feeling grateful that I have access to a line of credit to even if I don’t want to use it and hate having debt.
I’ve been making good steps on slowly clearing stuff out of the house. I’ve been making it my mission to fill an extra bag to go out every garbage week and am getting less sentimental about some stuff I haven’t touched in ages. If I haven’t looked at it or used it since I moved in, do I really need it taking up space? I may as well use up any space in my garbage bin when it’s not full and slowly get stuff out. It helps keep it less overwhelming by doing it a bag at a time too. I also finally got all my silver age Heroclix organized and into boxes in my closet, where they’ll live until I can put them in the basement, once that’s dealt with and clear and my brother isn’t down there anymore. The only ones I haven’t done yet are the bagged LE’s. All the modern ones are also all in their own bins, but easily accessible in the kitchen on a bookshelf. But they’re also organized and put away, with the exception of pieces I’m potentially using on one of these meta teams.
Therapy has been so helpful still for trying to work through things. I find I definitely don’t have my anxiety as strong or as often as I used to and the depression has lifted for the most part. I do have my moments still for sure and I’m glad when I can realize what triggered it and try to work through it. As for more physically, my blood pressure is mostly in a good range now. The meds I’m on are helping keep it in a good place along with watching the sodium I’m eating. My white blood count has still been higher than she’d like it and I’m due to get it checked again any time now. I had held off taking it when I was supposed to because I was sick with that con crud from when I went away and knew it would be elevated from being sick, so wanted to make sure I was fully better before going. My Dr. agreed. I just got it done so need to book a Dr appointment to go over the results. I’ve really been enjoying fresh produce lately. Bringing fruits to work and making salads when I get home for before dinner instead of another type of snack. But speaking of other snacks, I recently realized that they make low sodium chips. I had been avoiding chips because of the sodium and was craving having some. I was pleasantly surprised when I’d found them.
With my mind all over the place, I’m going to backtrack a little with my frustrations around debt from the construction. I think part of it is that I’ve never had debt before (with the exception of the mortgage, but I don’t consider that the same kind of debt because I’d have to be paying rent if I wasn’t paying the mortgage and at least it’s building myself and not someone else). So I get these thoughts running through my head that I’m not in a good place now, even though I am and I realize that I’m fortunate to have access to the funds in credit and not being stuck without a way at all. I just have these hopes of having the mortgage paid off by the time I’m 60 and by using the line of credit beyond what I’m comfortable with and potentially needing to roll it into the mortgage, will extend that. I’m sure I could really push to get it all paid off, but then I wouldn’t be living life the way I want to either – and I definitely want to keep living and enjoying life.
Speaking of living and enjoying life, have I talked about my mantra here? I literally speak this to myself every single day. I am happy. I am healthy. I have a million dollars. I’m living on passive residual income. I weigh 200 lbs. I have no pain. I am living a life of travel. I am strong. I am nourishing myself. I really want to speak it into existence and the whole being happy and living a life of travel is speaking to be loud. Which means needing to set my life up the way I want it. So I’ve decided that I’m going to take the steps to grow my life and make some changes.
First, I’ve decided that I’m leaving the direct selling business. I’ve done a few of them over the last 10 years and it’s just not for me anymore. I’m not putting the effort in that I used to and I don’t have the interest either. I realized that I hadn’t posted in my group in many months and no one was missing it or asking about it. Facebook has gotten worse and worse about showing posts from groups and combine that with my lack of wanting to put effort into it anymore just made for a bad combination. I am at the point that I’m actually losing money by continuing to be signed up with having the website fee every month with almost no commission. So I will be stopping paying for the website before the next payment is due – so if you’re wanting anything from my site, this is the last chance to grab it from me. You have until the end of first week of July before I shut it down. I’m sorry if you’re sad I won’t be your pretty nail dealer anymore – I’ve reached out to those of you who were my occasionally active customers and I appreciate you all for coming along on the journey with me all these years.
Second, I’m going to be putting my efforts towards something new. I’m going back to school! This is something I’ve talked about wanting to do for years now but I never put any real effort into looking at what I wanted to take or what options were available. This last little while I actually started looking. I made the decision to take something bookkeeping/accounting related. So I did a search for colleges offering programs for online classes with flexibility. I had SO many tabs open of different schools and as I looked at them I kept closing tabs as I decided they weren’t the fit for me. Completely semester based and needing to take like 8 classes at a time – x. Online but need to be online at specific times for classroom instruction – x. Lots of pre-requisites I didn’t have – x. Until I found one that had every single thing I was looking for. Durham College has online learning that is very flexible. You have 5 years to finish the certificate from when you sign up for your first class. You can take classes 1 at a time if you want. The bookkeeping certificate course has about 11 or so classes, so even doing 1 at a time, I’ll easily finish within the 5 years. They have a bunch of the courses that have monthly start dates – so I don’t even need to wait for a semester to start for most of them. Some of the classes don’t even require textbooks. I can pay for the courses 1 at a time, as I take them – no paying for the whole thing upfront. There’s no application for this particular class. So long as I have grade 12 english and grade 11 math, I can just pay for the course and start. A lot of the courses are the same courses needed for some of the other accounting certificates – so I can roll those into a longer course if I decide I want to continue after this certificate. So I’m jumping in and signing up for my first course for July!
I love my job and what I do with numbers and spreadsheets, so I figure why not get a paper behind my name supporting what I do. Maybe down the road I can turn that into my own side gig of doing taxes for people and then some maybe some small business clients. Working for myself, from home, making my own schedule and being able to live the kind of life I want to live. I know that none of this will happen overnight. But baby steps. One course at a time to one client at a time to making it happen!
I think that’s about it in my little world for now.
Until next time, xoxo