Today isn't going the way I thought it would.

Contractors that the electric company hires refuse to stay off my property, so I spent part of the day at 'war' with them. This road has been traveled before.

A mason for a different job decided that it was okay to trespass and fill the water tank on the back of his truck with my well water. Electric company said "sorry" and sent a gift card. They owe me more than a gift card this time. I've been told about 10 times today that they'll do anything to "fix" the damage. A simple phone call or email would have prevented the whole problem, but no. I'm not in with the electric company other than a paying customer, so I am POS. The only reason they're willing to do anything is so we don't sue them for property damage. Also, I just told both project managers, in person, a couple of weeks ago to keep their contractors off my property. I got a head nod and a "uh-huh". In one ear, out the other.

The weeping cherry tree in the front yard is looking sickly. I called a company to come out look it at. No problem except the person that came out isn't a arborist. The only thing he could do is give me a estimate to take the tree down. While he was here, we had a conversation about a cluster of scrub pine trees which are small now, but can grow up to a 100 feet tall. Scrub pine trees are terrible. They're a "weak" species of tree that are problematic in times of things like hurricanes and strong Nor-Easters. Unlike oak, the wood of these trees is really soft, so they snap in half / the tops of them fall off / they fall over if winds are too strong for too long.

I'm not interested in having three scrub pines fall on my house in the future, so they'll be coming down. The jury is out on the weeping cherry tree. I like it and all, but if it's sickly with no chance of making a come back, then it needs to go. We can plant a new tree, not a big deal. As I was writing this, a tree company that has aborists on board called. We have a appointment with them in a couple weeks.

You know what's weird? Supermarket shelves. Actually, lots of stuff is weird, but I dont wanna derail my post

I was in the biscuit aisle today and noticed that if I wanted chocolate chip cookies then I had 3 options to choose from: LU, Mcvities, and store brand. Now I already knew that the store brand was not longer what it used to be, it's now overly sweet, smells weird, and also has a metallic after taste. Disgusting. Mcvities chocolate chip cookies are new to the shelves, and LU biscuits are generally cursed. See, LU biscuits are intensely metallic, like licking iron filings or drinking lead paint. Fairly certain is an ingredient or factory related. But then again, that time I was in France for a while I did notice all their supermarket biscuits tasted metallic. And since LU is French it's probably French manugacturing regulations?

Anyway, imagine my shock, my surprise, my astonishment when the LU brand chocolate chip cookies were good?!

Published a book through Kindle direct.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be since I attempted quite a few times, I even got $5 in royalties for a sale for a prior book.

Still, I am currently working on more content under pseudonyms because, let's face it, I can be a bit much for some to handle.

Been oddly quiet today. Today is my father's 60th birthday. We got him a brownie filled with ganache and a card.

I talked with my therapist and I felt terrible afterwards that I had to eat. I wanted potato chips and dip, but evidently, I eat while asleep and I had no chips leftover.

Either way, I have to buy embarrassing items this upcoming month along with something I had my eye on in electronics. I am currently working on a video project. I have an enormous amount of backlog and commentary to work through.

I even have a protein shake powder. I might consider working on things for July.

It's my birthday today, too! Aside from going out for coffee, my celebration has been limited to a party thrown by my Animal Crossing villagers, lol. I was looking forward to a relaxing time, but my three most excitable villagers were in attendance, impatient for me to blow out the candles and break the piñata. It was almost as stressful as a real party.

My dad sent me birthday money earlier this month, as he's done since I was a child, and I bought books and dolls, as I've done since I was a child.

One of the books is Dick York's autobiography. It came with a sweet handwritten note from the publisher, thanking me for caring about his story. You know how you can hold some books and immediately feel how special they are, even before reading them? That's how this one feels. I began reading it this afternoon and I'm already enjoying it immensely. It's such a privilege to be allowed into someone's life. It feels like a great start to the coming year.

Happy birthday @chamelea !

That Dick Yorke autobiog sounds great, where did you buy it from? He was lovely.

Thanks so much, @simsample !!

I bought it from the publisher's Amazon store - here's a link. He really was lovely. Rather than physically write the book, he recorded himself speaking about his life, so it truly feels like a conversation with him. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it just as much!

Thank you @chamelea , the copies available in my country are around £75 ($96) so a bit expensive for me, but I'll keep looking to see if I can find an affordable used copy somewhere.

Today, I decided to get back to my Pokémon "Living Pokédex Project"

By definition, a living Pokédex is basically a Pokédex of every Pokémon from Bulbasaur to Terapagos in the Box System as of the Generation 9 DLC Expansion, as they grew tired of making separate secondary versions after Generation 7 and made Generations 8 and 9 ones where you have buy expansions for that version, which was somewhat more expensive that there is talk they may revert back to the old business model of a secondary game.

It gets pretty damned expensive to purchase two expansions with the same content.

(The price of the expansions is $35, making it $70 before any other fees and the price for the Pokémon games is $60 per version, so it's a rat's nest for the basic math requirements to remain feasible for anyone to complete these games as of Generation 8)

An overhaul on such affairs might just be in order to keep customers.

But that's my frugal side talking. $10 is $10. Easily could buy a tray of kappa maki sushi from the Japanese cuisine counter at my local supermarket\pharmacy.

My daughter had her 5th birthday party today. Crazy how time flies. Both kids are still awake, an hour after bedtime and are wildly overstimulated... As are me and husband.

It has been a long week. I'm finding new ways to deal with the electric company and their BS.

I don't know if this is a universal thing or not, but electricians and others in the electric-related field are cocky AF in my area. I've been told one more than one occasion about the good ol' boys club within our electric company, people spending their time proverbially smacking each other over the head with job titles, ect... I believe it. I had a electric company employee rambling at me about all of his previous job titles during the week. They act like somehow a job title matters to the average person. I suppose there could be people that are wow'd by such things, I give zero fugs. I expect them to handle issues (whether they caused them or not) in a professional manner as opposed to what I'm actually getting which is adults acting like they are 12.

Getting a break from all of that 'noise' today, I've been window shopping for new guinea pig cages. It is said that guinea pigs should never live by themselves, but my boys fight, so they have to live in separate spaces. Both of their cages have solid bases to prevent broken toes and feet, but the wire top of one of them is starting to rust. We bought said cage a little more than a year ago; it wasn't cheap. Upon looking for a link to it, Pet Smart doesn't sell it any more. If that isn't a red flag, I don't know what is.

I'm going small business this time, I've had enough.