Wandering Thoughts of a Writer: #mistake

Showing posts with label #mistake. Show all posts

On step forward, two steps back.

Yesterday wasn’t a good RV renovation day for us.

At first it started out great.

We hired someone to help Kevin with some things on the RV that needed to be done.

Wiring up everything went great.

-Well, Kevin built this box to put our batteries in and just as an added safety precaution, he wanted to screw it to the bottom of the RV compartment it would be housed in. The reason being, if he had to suddenly break or if we ended up in an accident, the box wouldn’t slide.

Good idea, right?

Kevin and the guy (I’ll call him Sam), got busy drilling the holes to the bottom of the wooden box he made, while it was in the RV basement compartment, with the batteries in it.

Kevin went inside to cool off because it was horribly hot and humid out, not to mention the mosquitoes were everywhere.

-So, imagine being miserably hot, your clothes were sticking to you, your energy was quickly getting depleted, AND you were constantly getting bit by mosquitoes.

Yeah, note to self: don’t work on the RV when it’s hot and humid out.

Kevin went back outside and Sam said, “I accidentally drilled a hole into one of the batteries, and I have battery acid all over my pants.”

Kevin thought he was kidding because Sam liked to joke a lot.

It wasn’t a joke.

Seriously.

There was battery acid everywhere!

All the hard work of wiring everything up had to be undone.

They had to take all of the batteries out of the basement compartment and the wooden box Kevin made for it.

Sam was okay, but he felt bad and wouldn’t let us pay him for his labor because the battery he drilled a hole into was going to cost us $130.00 to get a new one.

*sigh*

What a bleeping mess!!!

We all make mistakes, but this RV renovation is kicking our ass.

-But, we’re not giving up.

We realize it’s actually the heat and humidity that’s kicking our ass, not the RV itself.

Plan B:

· Breathe.
· Don’t be in a hurry.
· Don’t work on the RV when it’s miserably hot and humid outside.
· Focus on one project at a time.
· Remember, everything is how it should be.
· Go with the flow.

Today is Sunday. On Sundays we prepare food for the week, do laundry, I set my personal goals, work on my writing, and future plans.

It’s time to regroup and reenergize for the coming week.

Life comes with struggles and frustrations.

That’s how we grow.

I told Kevin what happened was now a memory we could revisit: “Remember, back in the summer of 2018, when Sam accidentally drilled a hole into one of our batteries, and you had to undo all of the work you'd done. Omg, that fucking sucked! But we got through it.” We also have this memory to share with other people, like what I’m doing now with you guys.

-So, everything is how it should be.

It’s all good.

#breathe, #focus, #frustration, #future, #goals, #growth, #horrible, #hot, #humid, #learning, #life, #memories, #mess, #mistake, #RV #renovation #installation, #struggles, 0 Comments

We made a mistake last weekend when we were sealing things up on the fiberglass frame of the RV that’s going to cost us more work and time.

We used latex caulk instead of silicone.

(LOL I couldn't resist. That my friend is a Beavis & Butthead moment.)

Latex caulk with silicone added is supposed to last 40 yrs.

Cool, right?

-Well, on the back of the tube, in tiny ass font it says it takes up to 7-14 days to dry.

If it rains within that time frame guess what?

You’re totally screwed.

Last Sunday evening we sealed all of the windows, seams, etc. on the outside of our RV.

And then this happened on Monday morning.

We had a major thunderstorm and it poured and poured and poured.

When I got home from the office Kevin told me he wanted to show me something.

We went outside, and he showed me this.

It was a gooey, yucky mess.

Lovely.

-So, we have to scrape all of the sealant off and reseal everything with silicone.

We decided to do it today.

But, we needed a scraper.

How do you walk into a hardware store and say, “I need a caulk scraper?”

That was Kevin’s question earlier.

He bought the scraper, and he scraped the latex off while I picked up the goobage and handed him a paper towel when he needed to wipe that shit off his fingers.

He resealed everything, and now we think we’re good.

-So, learn from our mistake. Read all of the instructions on everything you do, just to be on the safe side.

#fiberglass, #maintenance. #silicone, #mistake, #renovation, #RV, #RVmaintenance, #RVrenovation, #storm, 0 Comments

The solar panels are installed!

We took the week of June 25^th off to install our solar panels.

Of course, it didn’t take a week to do.

. . . But the weather was atrocious, so we had to wait until the humidity wasn’t so high and the temp. bearable.

Wednesday morning was when Kevin installed them.

I had to tie a rope to the back of each one so Kevin could hoist it up on top of the roof.

Do you notice the covers on them?

We didn’t want the sun on the panels until they were installed.

After Kevin placed the panels where he wanted them to be, he got busy mounting them.

He made a mistake, though.

He had mounted one of the panels close to the edge of the roof to prevent us from having to walk there.

Vertigo tends to mess with us.

. . . But what ended up happening was the wires from the other panels wouldn’t reach the one close to the edge, so Kevin had to redo it.

Shit!

However, I’m sure you guys know from your own personal experiences that when you renovate anything the process always comes with challenges.

We’ve been challenged this past week, and I’m not talking only with the solar panels, but with other things as well.

I’ll talk about that in another post.

-So the solar panels are installed.

Guess what comes next?

Wiring!

Not fun.

Kevin needs one more part in order to complete the project, which he’ll get tomorrow.

Once he hooks it up, we’ll have solar power.

WOOT!

Our goal for the month of June was to install our solar panels and get it working.

We basically accomplished it.

Our goal for the month of July is appliances.

We have a furnace and hot water heater that doesn’t work, and we know nothing about them.

We need a 3-way refrigerator, which cost between $1,500.00-$2,000.00.

I’m not shitting you.

I’m serious.

It’s frickin’ expensive.

We also need to find out if our a/c works, but before we can do that, we need to get our generator (our mechanic friend is rebuilding it) back. We might end up just buying a new one (I'd like to have a Honda generator) which I think cost like $2,000.00.

-So this month will be interesting and costly.

I’ll keep you up to date on it.

Honestly, I know all of our hard work and the money spent to do this project will be worth it in the long run.

For some reason we were meant to have this RV (Aesop), and I do appreciate it and love it. I'm also looking forward to seeing how it looks once we’re all done with the renovation.

Before we know it, we’ll be off on a new journey—a journey of self-discovery, of being in the now, truly living, and hopefully, inspiring others.

#camper, #journey, #mistake, #RV #renovation #installation, #solar, #solarpanels, 0 Comments

Creating or choosing a book cover for your story is fun, exciting, and hard work.

It’s fun because you can play around with the ideas you have and then bring one of them to fruition so the world can literally see your vision.

It’s exciting because it represents the story you wrote. You created something out of nothing, and that’s pretty damn cool.

It’s hard work because of the process it takes to make it happen.

When you decide on a cover for your book, there’s one major mistake you don’t want to make: Don’t choose or create a cover that doesn’t fit the genre your story is in—even if you fall in love with it.

I’m going to show you an example of my recent mistake and what I did to correct it.

Last January I released Ameerah, which is a paranormal thriller. Here’s the original cover.

Gorgeous, huh? I love this cover. It’s stunning. My cover artist did an amazing job. I fell in love with it and thought since Ameerah was a flapper gal in 1925 before she was murdered, this cover was fitting.

Wrong!

Yes, I received loads of compliments and people gushed over it; however, I discovered there were readers who thought Ameerah was a historical romance, not a paranormal thriller.

Damn.

They were right.

Why didn’t I see that when I decided on this cover?

I know why.

Love is blind.

I never even took into consideration the image didn’t reflect the genre Ameerah’s tale was in.

*slaps forehead*

I then did a do over. At first, it hurt. I mean, I really love this cover, but I realized if I didn’t fix this, I’d be losing sales.

I love Ameerah.

The world needs to know about her story; therefore, I had to do what was necessary and in my power to make that happen so I did.

Here’s the new cover.

I have to say, I’m in awe with this one. The images are perfect, and after Ameerah dies in 1925, she crosses a bridge.

Perfect.

And this totally reflects the genre the story is in.

In closing, don’t make that one huge mistake I made. Always choose/create a book cover that mirrors the genre your story is in. Always.

Here are the buy links if you want to check out Ameerah’s story:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1Usdu2d

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ameerah-Adult-Thriller-Rebekkah-Ford-ebook/dp/B01B5H110Y/

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/611006

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ameerah-rebekkah-ford/1123325240?ean=2940157883867

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/ameerah-adult-thriller

#authors, #bookcovers, #mistake, 0 Comments

At the end of last December, my husband and I were bragging about not being sick in a long time. We were totally cocky about it.

Guess what?

In January, we both got really sick, and I'm sick again.

I wish my cat Church would take care of me like that. I've been running a temp. since last Thursday.

I feel awful.

Why oh why did we say we never get sick?

We jinx ourselves.

I've learned my lesson. I'll never do that again. It feels like some unknown assmonkey source heard Kevin and I bragging about how we haven't been ill in a long time, and a wicked grin crosses the source's face, "I can fix that." His long, thin, knotty fingers sprinkles black dust over our heads.

BOOM!

We're sick.

Lovely.

Thanks a lot asshole.

I'm going to go take a nap now.

*crawls up the stairs and climbs into bed*

#cocky, #mistake, #sick, 1 Comments