Another month draws to a close, and as usual I haven’t written here for some time. How long? I haven’t looked- I don’t remember the last time I visited this site, but offhand I bet it’s been at least a month, maybe closer to two.

In any event, what have I done this month? I don’t have a list of events to hand, but I can think of a few things off the top of my head. Let’s begin.

At the end of last month, after a bit of online car shopping and talking to my parents, I bought a pickup truck! Previously I had been driving vehicles they owned and insured, but a few days after buying my truck (which did involve borrowing some money from my parents) I began paying for my own insurance.

When we were looking at the truck that I would end up buying, my dad commented that the tires were worn and I’d have to save up for new tires. Sure enough, about a week and a half after buying my truck, one night after work I had a tire blow out a couple miles south of town. I had originally pulled over because I noticed it was riding really rough, and I wanted to look at it, but once I saw the tire had blown I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to limp the few miles to the next town to put air in my tires, as I had been hoping. The guy driving behind me stopped to see if he could help, and he said that he thought I had hit a deer, but he didn’t have a jack that could lift my truck. I realized, after checking the manual in my glove compartment and looking for the jack, that I didn’t get a jack with my truck. Fortunately, a local law enforcement officer also stopped when he saw me pull over and put my emergency lights on, and he also didn’t have a jack that would work, but he called a couple people and some other law enforcement officer brought the right jack and a tire iron, so the first officer changed my tire while I (and two other law enforcement officers) watched. After limping home, I called a garage and made an appointment, and later that week (I think) I ordered two new tires.

A few days later, on Valentine’s Day I was asked if I could come in to work at 1 pm, instead of 3 as I think I was originally scheduled. I said I could do that, and the weather was bad (it was snowing and cold) so my mom let me drive her truck, but I decided to drive on what I thought would be a better road, since I thought I’d have more traction on gravel than on pavement. That turned out to be a mistake, since I got stuck in a ditch about half a mile east of home, but Dad was able to pick me up, brought me back home, and that day I drove the 2010 Jeep Compass to work. I had been driving it for about the past 7 years (before I bought my truck, at least), and I think that was the last day I wound up driving it. Fortunately, despite the snow and cold, once I got onto the asphalt, I was able to get to work without further incident. Later that week, I would get my new tires (and a tire pressure monitor sensor, since apparently I had lost that when the tire blew out).

Last week, Tuesday night after work I was pulled over by a county deputy, and he said he hadn’t seen my transit stickers until he was right behind my truck. After looking at my paperwork and borrowing my driver’s license for a moment he let me continue on my way. Wednesday I called a couple local government offices about what paperwork I’d need to license my truck, and I wound up driving to town to get an odometer reading inspection (for lack of a better word, not sure what the actual terminology would be). As of a couple years ago, in the state of Missouri vehicles that are less than 10 years old and have less than 150,000 miles on them don’t need inspections to get licensed (if I remember correctly), so due to my truck being a model year 2012 and only having about 25 thousand miles on the odometer, I didn’t need a full inspection. Last Friday I got my truck licensed, finally, at sort of the last minute, and so now it’s on to the next problem, I guess. I can’t particularly think of any problems right now, but I think Dad said something the other day about how now I’m ready for the next hail storm, or something like that about how that might be the next problem to worry about.

It seems weird thinking about it being March (and that’s without even delving into the weirdness of the pandemic and how that kind of hit my life in March 2020), but after the cold snap we had a couple weeks ago (or Arctic vortex or whatever that was about), it’s been warmer lately, with highs in the 40s and 50s, so that’s been pleasant. Less enjoyable has been the melt, due to all of the snow and ice we had melting, so the ground has been saturated. It’s not all a muddy mess, but there are definitely patches that are awful.

As far as work, I’ve been working a lot lately, and not exactly enjoying it! Someone got fired last Sunday, so I “got” to pick up several shifts she had been scheduled to work, and I think someone else didn’t show up yesterday, so I didn’t get a weekend off after all, despite being scheduled to have Saturday and Sunday off this weekend. Instead, I got a call from the assistant manager yesterday asking if I could work 8 to close last night, and after some texting yesterday evening, I agreed to work 1 to 6 pm today. I had the opportunity to only work 6 to close, but I wasn’t “jazzed” about that idea considering I already close just about every day this week, and it was nice being home a few minutes after sunset instead of at 11:45 pm, or whenever I usually get home. Overtime will help me financially, I guess, though I’d rather just go back to working 35 hours a week instead of 43 or whatever I have been and/or am due for. It’d be nice if we could hire some people, but I don’t know where we stand on that front (and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were stupid reasons, like not having the labor hour budget to support hiring more people or something dumb like that).

I’d like to take up a project or something, but I’m also not really sure what to do. I have a few story ideas, or I could begin playing a game or something, but what I’d really like is a few days off work so I can sort of forget that I’m employed, or at least just relax at home and not have to be anywhere. A vacation would be nice, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards in the near future.

In other news, I happened to think recently that late February 2015 is when I started talking to my now-ex-girlfriend, which made me wonder what I’ll be doing in 6 years. Fingers crossed, some things will be different (and maybe even better!)