Greetings fellow Steemians! My name is Thomas, I am 27 years of age, and I live in rural mid Michigan. My hobbies include researching various subjects online such as electronic projects, renewable energy, herbal medicine, self-help advice, politics, religion, and philosophy. I also play the guitar and the keyboard (which I have just started learning to play about 2 weeks ago). Lately, I have been watching the rollercoaster that is Bitcoin, which is exhilarating!
I currently have a part time job in the food industry that does not pay enough nor does it give enough hours. My employer keeps hiring more and more minimum wage workers for what I believe is a tax write off purpose. I only get to work maybe 9 to 15 hours per week as of late. Meaningful jobs are hard to come by here in my town.
I have made some progress in my life. I quit smoking marijuana December 22nd to gain more control over my emotions and to find a better job. I have no desire to start smoking again. I have saved some money and cut back on a lot of unhealthy habits. It seems like every turn in the right direction leads me to a wall, pushing back hard against my progress.
I have saved up some money for a way out of this mess but it is still not enough. I live with my mother and stepfather. My mother has been laid off work and she was notified recently that she is not allowed back after 17 years of faithful service. My stepfather who usually fixes things around here recently had several head injuries along with a declining mental state that makes it so much harder to deal with, especially since he still wants to be the only person to do certain things and refuses to ask for help but also waits until things break to do anything.
I have had to step up and help out a lot more, frustration is a prevailing theme in my life recently. There has been a death in the family as my grandfather, who has been the glue holding together the entire family, has passed. He has not only left a heartbroken family but he has also left my grandmother who is very scared, angry and confused, most of the time she does not realize that he is gone. My grandmother has Alzheimer's and has been put in an assisted living home and she asks, “When do I get to go home? This is only temporary isn't it?” … the person that gave our family hope, my grandfather, has passed and with him, it seems that our family’s hope is passing on too.
The trailer I live in is a slum. It is falling apart and recently we have had some issues with the furnace, it has been fixed but we are unable to pay the full amount of rent, along with the internet bill, car insurance, consumers energy bill and propane bill. Money is a constant struggle. The roof leaks, the floor is caving in and a whole family of shrews have found their way into our crumbling home.
I do not have a car and I couldn't afford a single insurance payment even if I did have a car. I ride a cheap huffy bike to work every day I am scheduled, even in the freezing cold with ice covering the roads. My bike is breaking down slowly but surely, the crank keeps getting sand jammed inside the bearings and every bike I have had has this problem because we live on a dirt road. As of late my bike is unusable as the bearings have fallen out and the corroded threads on the pedal crank make it impossible to fix.
There is only one brake, it is worn down and uneven. The gears shift when they want because I cannot afford to fix them. The back rim is a mismatched replacement from a cruiser bike. It is too much of a hassle to keep putting money and effort into making it look nice so the bare minimum is all I need, alas I cannot afford to keep buying new bikes when one breaks.
My good friend 
Amazon Fire doesn't have enough space between the text box and the autocorrect options
Inserts words that shouldn't be there
Auto corrects words that I don't want corrected.
My samsung galaxy S3 is outdated and unreliable as well, it seems like less apps are being supported on this model. Auto correct makes me sound like a character from the movie “idiocracy” and at times makes me want to pull my hair out.
I am writing this post for two purposes:
My long awaited introduction.
I need to earn money to help my family’s situation.
I made a strategic move in my life using some of my life savings for a laptop, it is a decent laptop and hopefully it pays off in the long run. For the longest time I found myself to distracted and frustrated at my previous devices, I am much happier and less distracted typing this post on a decent laptop which I feel like I needed very badly, especially for the purpose of contributing to Steemit.
I have taken the first step to getting organized, quitting marijuana was probably one of the best things I have ever done for myself, i took my last personal drug test today and I am happy to say that after much effort and a little bit of stress, I am THC free! I don't plan on starting back up. I now save the money I would have used on weed for things I need. Staying away from the people who previously reinforced and facilitated my habit and wasting less time and effort in the process.
I have always been told that in order to improve my current situation, I need to get organized by finding order amongst the chaos of my environment.
Some of the things that I will do with the laptop I invested in includes:
Posting blogs without the frustration of a small touch screen.
Get back into learning to build webpages.
Recording and editing my original music.
Update and edit my resume.
Research to satisfy my thirst for knowledge.
Buy and sell Bitcoin.
More readily secure and organize my information.
I originally was seeking a cheap laptop, I researched chromebooks but they have google based operating systems which I feel was not to my liking, perhaps for a browser but not for a laptop. I am very picky! When that was not to my liking I thought that a cheap laptop around $400 dollars would do nicely but they were all either old and refurbished or they had average reviews, so I upped my budget.
I spent a lot of hours and sleepless nights researching the perfect laptop when I saw the Acer Aspire F5-5 73G-74NG and I fell in love almost right away. A powerful, high performance CPU, decent battery life, a Windows 10 operating system, AND it is less than a year old! It has taken a bit of getting used to, I have not been on an actual PC in a very long time, I even tried to use this laptop as a touchscreen (it is not a touch screen laptop). I love how fast it is!
It was very difficult to avoid downloading any games or getting on Facebook. Facebook is such a waste of time and energy but it is still good for finding different viewpoints of political posts and current events. There are some oblivious people that need to be set straight on actual facts but I try to stay away from that trap so I don’t get sucked into an un-winnable argument.
Any upvotes, donations, and/or contributions would greatly help my cause. There are still a lot of goals to be accomplished. I want to help my mother find a worthwhile job because my family has helped me a great deal and i have a moral obligation to help my family, they do not deserve to suffer. I have a long term goal in mind besides the basics of getting a car, a house and a good job. The area i live really needs a community solar farm/ micro grid and i would like to make an off the grid sustainable community where i live. This is just an idea but great projects all start from the seed of an idea. At the very least a solar power system to ease the burden on the Consumer's Energy bill my mother pays.
I would like to leave you with possibly my favorite quote of all time and the words of grace that drive my will, even in times of distress, the words that echo through my mind with the rhythm of the universe:
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.”
- Aleister Crowley