Vehicle Challenges

My SUV has gone on strike, it seems. My next door neighbor, Malachi, has been helping me with it for two days.

 

He’s narrowed it down, he thinks, to the likeliest possibilities. I’m going to have O’Reilly’s test for them tomorrow as soon as it starts again. (It starts fine in cool weather; when it gets hot is when it goes on strike.) If it comes back clear for those, Malachi says he thinks I’ll have to take it to the big guns–a Kia dealer or auto repair place–to figure it out. He hopes he can figure it out because he knows a dealership will charge me an arm and a leg for what he can do for me for a lot less…

 

A sensor that may be causing it to fail to start in hot weather is a distinct possibility, but he doesn’t want to have to tear into the engine to swap it out unless he’s sure there isn’t an easier fix (starter or alternator) because both of those are easier to get to and install than the sensor.

 

He’s very patient, kind and eager to please. He’s about 30 and just about to go on a drive with his elderly mom in Alabama in a couple of weeks, so we need to figure this out pretty fast. I have a library presentation in Yelm on the 25th so I want to make sure the SUV is reliable for that. Getting stranded in Yelm, 30 miles away, at 8 at night would not be fun!

 

My Kia Sedona has been 100% reliable for eleven and a half years. It has 80,000 miles on it. This is the first time it has given me any kind of a headache. I take good care of it, and it has taken good care of me, so I can’t complain if it costs me a few hundred dollars in parts and labor to get it back on the road reliably.

 

It’s just that funds are low right now and I have to put the parts charges on my credit card, whose balance is already higher than I want it because I bought 85 books last month (at author cost, but still!!!) so they’d be available for the NEW DAY NORTHWEST SHOW on August 2nd (the producer asked if I could bring 30 to give away to the studio audience and I said yes) and for the Starkane sci-fi convention, which was postponed until next year just after I ordered the books.  So that was $350 I  spent considering it a good “risk” because I expected to get the money back real fast as books sold, this month and next, as a result of a “high profile” TV appearance and convention. “The best laid plans of mice and men” [oft go awry[.

 

I figured the NEW DAY NORTHWEST freebies would easily pay for themselves in book sales from viewers, but the producer didn’t post the link to the book website until almost nine that night (an oversight), ten hours after my appearance aired, so we lost 99.999% of the impulse buyers as they weren’t told where to get the books (although a few assumed Amazon and went there) or that there was an audio version available. (Next time I appear on TV, I will definitely mention the book website URL instead of expecting the show to post it promptly. Live and learn!)

 

Our water heater also died this month, so that was another $400 plus parts and labor to take care of. I owe my sister half that amount. And next month estimated taxes are due and we have to get 20 bales of hay to carry our six goats through the winter.

 

So to say that money is tight is an understatement. I’m semi-retired and on Social Security with a small pension. I can get by pretty well when there are no extra costs, but this month and next aren’t normal months so I’ll be playing catch up for quite a while!

 

Guess I’d better hop back on some freelance websites and see if I can pick up more writing and editing gigs… stop focusing on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek as much (where I thought an appreciable amount of income would come from this year) and focus on what I do most reliably: writing great copy and content for clients!

 

Multiple streams of income are the only way to make it as a Creative today.  I ignored that fact of life for a  while. I need to re-focus on what has been working for the past ten years and do less of it ONLY when something else pans out reliably for me.  I don’t have enough fall-back money to do anything less than that…

 

I hope the upcoming podcasts and radio shows help. Right now I really need a financial infusion!

 

It’s always darkest just before dawn. I have faith that everything will work out fine. At 65 I’ve faced so many crises and come through them all that I don’t stress out anymore over temporary situations that aren’t life-threatening to me. I’m living on borrowed time as it is, so it’s all an adventure to me!

 

Who do you know who needs a copywriter, editor, articles writer or feature writer? Please send them my way and I’ll send you a PDF of the the book of your choice (as long as I wrote it) if they do business with me, or a Starbucks card–your choice! Let me know their names and email addresses and I’ll reach out to them myself if they don’t reach out to me within a few days of your referral to me. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!! Mwah!  (That’s a kiss, in case you’re wondering…)

 

UPDATE: My SUV is in the shop. It will be fixed today (August 29th). The problem is down deep in the engine–a sensor of some kind–so while the mechanic is down there he’s also going to replace the water pump and timing belt. Total Cost: $750 (and taxes). Malachi agreed that this is a very reasonable price for the amount of digging required to get to the bad sensor and replace it.

 

I will be very glad to have a working vehicle again. Thank you to Lisa for being my chauffeur for the better part of two weeks!