{"id":735,"date":"2012-10-21T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/?p=735"},"modified":"2012-10-21T15:10:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-21T22:10:53","slug":"why-i-keep-at-it-no-matter-what-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/why-i-keep-at-it-no-matter-what-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Keep at It No Matter What – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still moving my business forward? Yes.\"Never<\/a><\/p>\n

Still frustrated by the lack of time to do so? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Do I have a solution? Not yet, but I’m working on it. And I’ll keep working on it until I’m generating the type of income that it takes to meet my goals!<\/p>\n

I finally got my taxes done for 2011 (Yes, TurboTax<\/a> is my friend) so my focus is back to business. For the past few days, the thoughts have been about how (and where) I can make more time to complete the projects that I’m working on. And the best way for me to figure out where I might have more time available is by starting with figuring out where my time is currently being spent.<\/p>\n

Right now my boyfriend and I drive a big rig as a team. We haul from San Diego, CA to San Antonio, TX and back twice a week. Then at the end of the week, we go back to Phoenix.<\/p>\n

So here’s how our week has gone so far. We started our week on Tuesday afternoon. We loaded the car with food for the week, a few changes of clothes, extra water, and my computer\u2026 All the necessities for our time on the road since we know we won’t be home again for at least five days.<\/p>\n

We drive to the yard, locate our truck (this particular company actually washes it for us while we’re home for our “weekend”), and transfer our stuff from the car to the truck. We park the car and my boyfriend hooks up to our trailer while I organize everything inside the truck. Once everything gets checked out (lights work, tires are good, etc.), clothes are put away, items are strapped down and our log books are updated, we’re ready to roll (just one more quick stop to get ice for the coolers).<\/p>\n

This week I started out driving first. My boyfriend had been up all night finishing up some of the food that we take with us. We do our best to cook before we go so we can limit the amount of crappy food we’re exposed to since that’s mostly what’s available at the truckstops. He heads to the sleeper to get some rest. I now have up to 11 hours to drive.<\/p>\n

As long as everything goes well, I can get us from Phoenix to San Diego to pick up our load and then back out again. There’s a truckstop about an hour back from San Diego where we typically switch out (his time to drive, my time to sleep). And so it goes. Phoenix to San Diego\u2026 Pick up our load. San Diego to San Antonio\u2026 Drop off the load. Back to San Diego. Grab another one. Back to San Antonio. Then, on most weeks, we head back to Phoenix. Depending on whether the week goes smooth or how many issues we run into determines the amount of time we’ll have at home.<\/p>\n

For example, when everything went well, we got home on Sunday evening and we didn’t head out again until about 3 AM on Wednesday. This week, our first load in San Diego hadn’t made it across the border before the border closed, so we had to spend the night at the truck stop until it opened back up in the morning so they could bring it across. This week wasn’t too bad because it showed up about 8:30 AM. Then on the way back from Texas, we ran over a big truck tire tread that busted the fitting on the trailer air tank. That left us sitting for three hours waiting for the repair guy to come out and fix it.<\/p>\n

A few road construction and border patrol backups later, it’s now near 6pm on Saturday and we’re headed to San Antonio when we should be headed home. We’re about 200 miles out. We just switched out again at a rest area so now my other half’s driving. I should be sleeping but I do as much as I can on business stuff before the drowsiness takes over. \u00a0Besides, I can’t remember a time in my life when I slept for 10 hours…not without having spent 24 awake!<\/p>\n

I will admit that I do end up much more tired out here than at home. A lot of that has to do with bathroom breaks. When I’m home, I can sleep for a straight 6 or 7 hours and, even if I have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, it’s a minimal disturbance… short walk to the bathroom, leave the light off (we have a night light), do what I gotta do, then back to bed.<\/p>\n

Out here, it’s a whole different story. I have to stop every 2-3 hours because the truck bounces and vibrates my body the whole time we’re moving. Then when we stop, it’s at a truck stop or rest area. That means I have to get up, get dressed, go outside into the cool\/cold air and bright lights, and get adjusted enough to it all that I’m not tripping over someone’s dog, kid or grandparent because I’m still half asleep. Then it’s back to the truck. Change back to sleep clothes and see how fast I can get back to sleep. By this time I’m fairly wide awake so it takes a while. Since I do this all week, it starts to wear me out!<\/p>\n

Then of course is the shower stops. We shower at the truck stop after we fuel so no matter what time of day or night it is or which one of us is sleeping, we get up, grab our stuff and head in to shower. It doesn’t bug us if we’re the one driving, but it’s tough to get back to sleep after that as well.<\/p>\n

Okay, probably a bit more information than people want to know. But when I tell people that I drive for a living, they typically think that “all” I have to do is drive when I want and stop when I want. It doesn’t work that way. We actually LIVE in our truck during the week. The one advantage I have is that there’s a whole lot less room to have to clean! I suppose you \u00a0could sort of equate it to going camping every week and getting paid for it\u2026 sort of.<\/p>\n

To top it off I’ve had to deal with allergies for the past month or two. Between the itching, sneezing, blowing my nose, trying to breathe, etc., not to mention all the medicine I’ve taken to try to kick it in the butt, that’s been wearing me out even more.<\/p>\n

When we get home, we unload the coolers, dirty dishes, and laundry from the truck into the car, take it home, and unload it. I’ll do some business for an hour or two and go to bed. Then we’ll spend Monday doing laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking for the next week, all while visiting with my son. Thankfully, he’s an odd hour person as well so if I don’t get to catch up with him during the day, we can always catch up at night. The goal is to get it all done and together by Monday afternoon or early evening so we can actually spend some relaxing time together Monday night, especially on weeks like this.<\/p>\n

We have to be in San Diego for our next load on Tuesday afternoon so we’ll have to head out again on Tuesday morning. Plus, this week they want us to do three runs instead of two which means we won’t see home for two weeks. In the middle of all this, we work in doctors, dentists, chiropractors, haircuts, housecleaning, auto repairs, bill paying, and everything else that has to get done to run the house that we rarely get to see!<\/p>\n

Since it’s tough to keep two weeks worth of food from going bad in a cooler, we pack for one and then stop at a Walmart for week two and restock. Most of the Walmart stores on our route are truck friendly so it works out really well.<\/p>\n

Well that’s it in a (large) nutshell. My job life. I love driving big trucks but the lifestyle sucks and I’ve had enough. THAT’S why I keep moving forward with my business whether it’s 5 minutes a week or 25 hours!! I know what it’s like to work at home and travel whenever I want and I want that life back! Hell, I’ll be happy initially just to get MY bathroom back to the one that I primarily use! It amazes me how many women don’t wash their hands after using the restroom\u2026 Can I just say GROSS!!<\/p>\n

Well, on that note, I gotta go get some sleep. I’ll be back later to talk about what I AM able to accomplish in spite of my job.<\/p>\n

Until then\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still moving my business forward? Yes. Still frustrated by the lack of time to do so? Absolutely. Do I have a solution? Not yet, but I’m working on it. And I’ll keep working on it until I’m generating the type of income that it takes to meet my goals! I finally got my taxes done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus","category-internet-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/debij.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}