This weekend started out pretty blah. I took daughter to her father's house Friday afternoon, arrived home 6.5 hours later (it used to be 9 or 10 hours so yay) and collapsed into bed at midnight with a book and fell asleep without even turning the page. A messaged me to ask if he could come over. Very predictable as firstly he knows when it's daughter' weekend away and secondly, he is paid fortnightly and this is week 2 so, he would have been jonesing for cigarettes and booze. I said no thanks, and slept long and well. On Saturday I delivered 725 newspapers on foot. I earned $70 for doing it, ugh. These are children's wages and sometimes I get angry about it but it's just what I have to do at the moment.  My legs will look good, the dog is well exercised and I will probably end up earning just enough each month to replace the runners I wear out doing it, lol. But there is satisfaction in it. I enjoy walking, I meet some nice people along the way, and I pause to snip small cuttings from suitable plants that overhang fences or grow wild to get a garden of sorts going in my barren wasteland of a backyard. Fuschias, geraniums, succulents, you know, anything that can just be cut off and stuck in the ground and grow and flourish. I miss having a garden and I look forward to the coming winter and the rain it brings. I once grew an absolutely magnificent garden this exact same way, when my daughter was a baby, just with cuttings and a bit of effort. 

Anyway I got home yesterday afternoon, loaded up my assignments to work on and fell asleep on the couch. Ugh. 

Today I woke to some very unusual and surprising news. A year ago I purchased an electric bicycle, I don't know if anyone remembers, and it arrived in poor shape due to a very irresponsible courier and I was angry and upset and had to spend money to get it repaired and have spent the past 12 months paying off a $2000 loan for a bicycle I hated because it was too big and heavy for me and I never rode it. Anyway I have advertised it periodically on various websites but held out no hope because it is a very expensive brand and so on. Anyway this morning a man had emailed me to ask about it and he had been considering buying one new from the company...he said he wanted it as a gift for his wife, anyway to cut a long story short he offered me a low price, $1000 and I really had to wring my hands over it. I JUST paid off a $2000 loan for that bike! They are  $2,300 to buy new!! He said that was his entire budget and if I didn't want it he understood and was sorry for wasting my time. I had to give myself a really good talking to about this and even drag in some al-anon tools.

The bike has been sitting in the garage for a year. I hate it because it is big and heavy and not suited to me and I have a car now anyway. $1000 is useful to me, an unwanted bicycle in the garage is not useful to me. Anyway in the end common sense won and I said yes and he came to see the bike. I insisted he take it for a good ride and I was very thorough in pointing out the few minor scratches and defects and explained to him that it had arrived with a damaged battery which had been sent back and repaired. He seemed really happy with it, because it's basically brand new and took it for a ride and came back saying "wow it really zings along doesn't it?" Anyway he had brought cash with him and took the bike with a big grin on his face and I found I felt a very new feeling. He hadn't paid what the bike was worth, (not that i was likely to find anyone who would pay what it was worth) but he was happy and he seemed like a nice man so that actually factored into the equation. I felt good knowing I had been honest and given a good price to a nice person and here is $1000 in my pocket that I didn't have yesterday. I had to let go of wanting equivalent payment for 'what I had paid"...very much as I have had to do with A and other codependent messes in my life. It wasn't about getting back what i had lost, it was about making something new and good. The man was happy, he got a great bargain. I was happy, i sold an unsellable expensive item and now have money to buy some things I actually need like a vacuum cleaner (I have a husky, and no vacuum cleaner. Can any dog-lover imagine what this is like???) and a hose to water my garden. I can set aside money for when my car needs servicing or for emergencies. It's been a lot of months of hand-to-mouth so this is a really nice bonus. Yay!  

So anyway I watched my online lectures today and did an assignment and generally felt good and happy. Then I discovered that my efforts at advertising my business online have yielded their very first paying customer!! A day of financial successes. Ironic because I was talking to a good friend about how I feel angry about delivering newspapers to pay the bills but feel I have to do it until I have a better idea and she said "maybe you need to do it just to show the universe you are willing and then other things will start to happen for you". Ha, maybe indeed.

Later I checked my messages and there were a lot from A, blaming me for this, that and everything else. Such as, he is going to have to take all of his stuff to the tip as I wont let him put it in my garage, he can't get a job as I won't give him my old car. And so on It just made me really glad I had said no to his request to visit, and i did speak to him briefly this afternoon and I was bright and happy and he kept bitching and when I finally let out an exasperated sigh, he said "OMG why am I even talking to you when you are so grumpy all you want to do is bitch at me" and so on...it was crazymaking at its best! I kept being friendly and ignoring his taunts and he kept trying to back me into a corner saying 'well you are being grumpy, I'm not going to talk to you if you are angry, you're just being a psycho" and I was struck at how very weird and sad it was and to think I lived with that for years and tried to argue with it. Even a quick phone conversation is just toxic and unbearable.

So anyway, much to be thankful for. I rate this weekend a success.