Less Hustle More Coffee

Good morning here! Sipping coffee and finally getting some blog time. We find ourselves sitting on a Wednesday already. The week has been fast yet I do find myself asking if it’s Friday yet. It is so doggone hard to get anything done during the week. Just work, eat, sleep or try to sleep and get up rinse and repeat.

So the early mornings this week have been foggy and full of deer. The deer make me smile so long as they are not meeting my front bumper. Yesterday morning was almost a bit frightening as it was pretty dense in some places. It actually started to clear up some here.

Payroll went well. I am a bit worried about getting quarter end done without having to work weekends. I have to take Mom for her eye appointment today. So I’ll leave at mid day to go home and get her in Mount Juliet and then get her to Hendersonville. She also has another medical situation that has crept up and if not in control we’ll be going to an urgent care this evening or tomorrow. It is what it is. What can you do? But I’ll be glad when quarter end is done so I won’t have to worry about THAT anyway. I will probably work later in the next two weeks to try and avoid working on the weekend. I usually get the Transport information way late and that makes me have to rush during that last week, and/or have to work weekends. Or not and get in trouble later, lol. It depends. I may not have a choice if we have things going on with Mom. And there usually is. So….I have prayed about it and it will be what it will be and I will do what I can for the company and likely will put family first as it should be and what remains after that, simply does. I can’t worry about this every day. I’ll just do my best and it will be what it will be. But I’ll be honest. When I leave here at 7 and hardly leave my desk. I’m ready to leave at 4 and I usually don’t leave until 4:30. That is 9.5 hours and then 45 min commute which is 1.5 daily. The traffic is up and also I’m going the back way most days because the interstate is getting dangerous. People are even being shot at, as if these Nashville drivers were not bad enough. ::sigh:: My point is that any hours worked beyond 4:30 my brain is mush at that point.

They are Listening. But Who are They?

Define they. I’m not sure. Some Alexa or Apple employee or some third party ad partner gone astray and crossing boundaries? But take note of this:

So we are sitting at the dinner table and Mom says “hey you remember that guy that you gave a ride to, when a bunch of you went to see your friend in the hospital?” and she mentioned the guys name. Let’s call him David Longbutt, (That’s not his name but lol, might as well make it fun). So….Mom said the guys father (Mr. Longbutt, Sr) had called and blessed Mom and Dad out because I let his son ride with me and I was only 16 (at the time) and didn’t have his permission to ride with me.

First of all, I did not even remember giving him a ride to the hospital. I remember giving him a ride home from church once. And I had to laugh because I was thinking as Mom told me this – what a goofball, you don’t punish the other person who is being nice to give a ride, you punish your own child for not following your parenting directions – if directions were even given. I’m surprised I wasn’t arrested for kidnapping, the way Mom made it sound. Anyway, aside from all that and our discussion at the table, guess who I got a friend request from the next day?

You guessed it. “David Longbutt”. Now how the hell heck did that happen? What is the irony of that? I did not have my phone with me, but I had my Apple Watch on. Alexa may have been within ear shot but two rooms away, so not sure. The room could have been bugged by neighbors, employers, FBI, lol. As the sunroom’s back handle door was compromised once and put on backwards. We never figured that out although I have my suspicions. I seriously doubt that Mom or George would have created an alias and done it to mess with me but who knows? Anyone of these options are suspect. lol lol lol.

So the Facebook account appeared to be a cloned account of David Longbutt (not the real name) as the cloned account used pics of the real person’s account. Unless the real person created another account for himself suddenly just to befriend me, but is this not weird. He also sent friend requests to several of my friends, some of who accepted. I deleted before I thought to get their names to warn them. I thought Facebook would take care of it, but no they refused to delete the account. It’s up to them if they want to keep fake accounts, but I guess they did not do their research. But anyway, I deleted him. I also stayed up half the night last night from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. (awake anyway) to try and secure my Facebook account. Although I doubt the “hearing” of the person’s name that triggered said friendship request was a Facebook issue. I still decided to tighten my account. I got rid of friends (about 40 of them) that I thought really had no business being on my friend list. I’m ok with acquaintances that had been nice to me during periods of my life for a time, even people I’ve met on a whim that we hit it off and I could tell they were ok. But there are some that I just didn’t have that much of a bond with that I felt were there for spy purposes or for their own personal interest. Some I just didn’t know very well but we were part of the same wellness group and no longer interact and didn’t really ever remember interacting to tell you the truth. Those were deleted. I kept those that inspire me, challenge me, interact with me on some level though.

Anyway, not sure what happened but yesterday I was thinking about banning Alexa, taking off my watch, hiding my phone – I mean sheesh. I guess I’ll do some study of how to protect ourselves more. And try to understand how to do that w/o being inconvenienced. I’m ok with them looking at my activity and sending me ads that apply to me. I’ve found that helpful actually. I’d rather see ads for things I’m interested in. But getting a friend request from a fake account from someone over 30 years ago I’ve not spoke of until last night, is just bizarre and apparent and obvious that either someone in that room (George or Mom) or either someone listening on some device, sent that request. Again, I am not accusing anyone, I’m just like the police and listing all the possibilities. And what would the goal be? And my friend list is hidden to only friends. So it would have to be someone that could see my friend list. Hmmmm.

Blog Upgrades Ahead

I am highly dismayed that I’m at 96% media (photos and videos space) storage with WordPress. I have a personal premium account but my space is about to run out. It’s going to be around $200 to keep on blogging here and I’ll have to upgrade to a business account. Sure I get all kinds of perks with it. Not sure if I’ll use all of it but the storage vastly – I mean vastly increased. I’ll probably die before it runs out, but the cost is annual. I’m guessing around $300 to $400 annually. I suppose it’s worth it because it is something I love doing.

The other option is to start over with a new blog, and if I did that I’d probably have to start with a new VLOG too and YouTube. I don’t really want to do that. I also already have subscribers and it’s so hard to even get a few in these first few years of vlogging. I’m kinda fond of the Less Hustle More Coffee vibe. It’s so me. Let’s not rush here but sip and have coffee – has been my whole meaning of life. Well not really but it’s always there in the back of my mind as I rush off and try to meet everyone’s agenda including my own.

So as of now, I’ve made the decision I will do it when it’s time. I get credit for what I’ve spent already this year on this blog, that is why I’m not sure how much it will be when it renews. I will have to look at some other things though. My hobbies and online internet expenses are adding up. I’m paying some bucks for online services and storage and for digital graphics and animations, music that doesn’t violate copyright issues, etc.- also Apple iTunes, Audible, YouTube Buddy, Apple storage, and so it goes. I also pay for my domain to have the name on it’s own instead of a WordPress location.

Now maybe someday I can switch to another internet company like GoDaddy or some of the others, but I’m pretty happy with this set up for the most part. So I need to let George know that when the time comes (soon), I will have to pay or not blog and I know which one I’m choosing. I could delete media (photos) but what fun is that and when people read the past blogs, which is often as I get likes here and there as it gets attention on the internet some – according to title or subject. So I guess I will just keep going. There is a WordPress seminar in Nashville and I’d love to attend but I guess I’ll have to wait until I retire, lol.

I have it on my list for 2022 to sit and map out my goals with this blog and with the vlog. I want to redefine – or narrow down a few things before I try to grow it any further. I will determine what is in, and what is out, as far as my goals and what I want to accomplish. I think it’s something you have to look at every year. This year has been more of a “test” year of “can I do this?” and “what can I do” and now I think it’s more of “what do I want to do?”

So anyway, I’ve blogged on enough. Need to get going and get to work and get as much done as I can. I leave today to take Mom to the eye doc for her eye injection and then tomorrow will take her for the other appointment unless it is worse today. If so we’ll have to go after the eye appt.

And only two weeks away for seeing her house inside and also the closing 2.5 weeks away. The truck to move has been scheduled by George!