Let's Talk About Side Hustles

 Hi.  Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what I will do next in my life.  I love teaching, do not get me wrong, bur there is going to be a day when I am no longer doing it, more than likely in nine years.  (I am shooting for 30 years)

I have a list of things that I have thought about doing with my life after teaching.  

1. Get a Master's for:

    a. Social Work

    b. School Counselor

    c. Technical or Copy Writing

2. Work as an embalmer with my sister who has thought about being a funeral planner.

3. Greet at Walmart

Of all these options, the greeting at Walmart seems to be what I would like to do.  You have no work to take home and you don't have to deal with dead bodies or snotty kids.  Plus, I wouldn't need to pay more money for a degree I would only use for a while.

Of course, just saying "Hi and welcome to Walmart" seems to be a little boring after the twenty plus years in a job that you never know what will happen next.  It is quite exhilarating never having a repeat day and that whole standing at the door day in day out, hour after hour would be a let down for me. 

But really, I love working on bikes and I have recently decided that fixing up on bikes and making them rideable could earn me a little extra cash on the side for the time being. 

Reuben got me a new to me bike stand for my birthday.

Here you can see how easy it makes working on bikes.  This is Z's last bike.  With a tiny amount of work, a new saddle, and two new grips, I think I can sell it for about 40 bucks.

I also have four other projects after this one:

An old Giant mountain bike.  It will need a little elbow grease to rid it of rust.  A new chain, new shifters, and a new saddle are the big things this bike needs.

An old GT mountain bike.  It needs new grips and shifters, a new saddle, a new chain and a bit of mechanic magic.  I am hoping to get a little money out of both of these in order to get the more new project bikes.

There is also another mountain bike I can sell pretty easily without much work.

These bikes all came from the yard of a friend of a friend and had been sitting there for a long time.  

But there was also a very cool find from that pile of rust and pieces:

I am guessing this bike is from the 1970s.  It is a Raleigh Grand Prix road bike.  It has the original Brooks saddle from England, which has survived the weather surprisingly well.  Or maybe it isn't so surprising.  These saddles are the best, from what I have heard and I have thought about getting one but they are expensive.  They are probably worth the money seeing this one survived through sun, rain and snow for many years.  

This bike will probably be my next big project for me to ride for a bit before I choose to sell it.  It just looks like a very fun bike, and will make an interesting talking piece.  

Side hustles.  The in-between before the next big thing.

Media Monday: Book Review #2 The Marrow Thieves and Bonus #3

 The Marrow Thieves

Imagine a life without dreams.  You sleep at night is completely unconscious. That is what the world is like in this novel.  The only people who are found to have the ability to dream are The North American Indigenous people. The marrow in their bones possesses this power and now they are being hunted in order to harvest it. This story follows a fifteen year old boy as he battles to stay away from that harvest.  Very suspenseful read that kept me guessing what would happen next.

The Green Mean by Nick Bancock

This is the third in the Griffin and Sabine series of a correspondence between two artists.  They live across the globe from each other and communicate through letters and postcards.  The book is fun because you actually get to take the letters out of the envelopes and the postcards are artwork drawn by the characters to one another.