With a new year comes many new changes for the Hardy family. One of the changes was that my sweet Nico started a M-Th 9am-1pm preschool at Summerbrook Church last week. He is doing amazing, and I couldn't be more proud of this transition. The second big change is my 7 year stretch as a Stay at Home Wife and Mother has been altered. Since the boys and I returned back to SC from Italy we have been praying about what kind of work I would like to do, what God wants me to do, and how I could keep our lifestyle as close to what it has been for the last 7 years. Meaning, being there for the boys before and after school, and still being able to take care of the home front. I purchased books on how to start up my own business. I immediately began praying about what kind of opportunities God could use me in the most. Anyone that knows me knows that I have many passions. I am a huge DIY person. If I can do something by teaching myself from watching youtube videos or reading books, then I will attempt it before calling in reinforcements. My dairy free baking brings me such joy. Taking any recipe that I can find and converting it to be dairy free and delicious has been challenging and rewarding in so many ways. Watching family and friends enjoy my baked goods as much as the boys and I do, makes my heart so happy. (Please enjoy the few dessert pictures that I have posted to make your mouth water).
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| Brown Butter Salted Caramel Snickerdoodle |
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| Brownies from scratch |
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| Bourbon Pecan pie |
Then there are my wood working projects. A few years ago I began watching videos on how to efficiently take apart pallets, use power tools, and build things for people upon request. I am super creative and God has definitely blessed me with the ability to do so many things. Here are a few pictures of my favorite pieces.
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| Cabinet for essential oils |
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| Doorway Entry Console |
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| growth charts |
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| My official Uber Photo |
To answer your first question, which is most likely the same question those closest to me have all asked, "aren't you scared to drive for Uber?" No, I am not. There is peace that came over me with all of this and its because I didn't make the decision without praying first. Are you scared to go to church every Sunday? Are you scared to allow your kids to go to public school? Are you afraid to go shopping at the local mall? Are you too scared to fly? Some people may think I am taking a huge chance every time I allow an Uber rider to get into my car. But you have to be crazy to think that I am not worried about unattended backpacks at local parks where my children play. Or that I am not watching every white van that creeps by wondering if people are being human trafficked inside. I know that I may have just taken it to the extreme, but my point is that if I am at peace about the decision and if bad things can and do happen all around us, we can not stop living our lives out of fear. Will I still avoid certain situations that others see no problems with? Of course! Everyone has their own fears and its hard to not push those off on those we love the most. I just ask that you please respect this decision that I have made, jump in and share my joy, and follow all of my blogs to read about all of the crazy experiences that I am sure to have.
Uber Day 1- This past Monday I thought I was prepared to start picking up Uber riders. I dropped off the last child at school and turned on the app. I quickly got an alert for a pick up and so I headed to the destination. I arrived to where my rider was, we confirmed each others identity and then she proceeded to get into my van. "Please continue to your destination to pick up X." Ummm I have her already, why is my app still telling me to go to my destination and pick her up? I asked the rider if she made the request from the back of the building, and of course she did. So I attempted to drive as far to the back of the building as I could to get the app to register that I had picked her up. Yea this didn't happen. The app began to charge X for making me , the driver wait. Even though she wasn't making me wait, she was in my car. AHHHHHHH this is how I felt, but I stayed calm. I attempted within the app to manually select something, anything to say that I have picked up the rider. But I couldn't. Next I searched for a cancel trip option but at this point I think I got so frazzled I wasn't really reading the options I just wanted the noise to stop telling me to go pick up X at her destination. I asked X if she could cancel the ride from her app and she did. Now, she has been charged the $ for supposedly making me wait on her, and then she got charged a cancellation fee because I really had no idea what I was doing. Even with all the "preparation of tutorials, conversations with other Uber drivers, and playing with the app in offline mode" nothing could have prepared this new employee (ME) for this situation. I have no trainer/boss/friend sitting in my front seat to help me. So I apologized to X and she politely said, "It's okay, I am in no rush. Can you call Uber while I wait here and get my fees reimbursed?" Of course I did. After I call the Uber help I apologize again and explain it will take up to 48 hours but you will be reimbursed. She thanked me and asked if I could still take her to where she needed to go. Unfortunately Uber doesn't work that way where you can select your driver. Also, because she cancelled her trip with me I am pretty sure from all of my research we will NEVER be paired up again as driver and rider. X looked at her account as she was about to request a new more seasoned (I am hoping for her sake) driver and said she didn't have enough on her account to get home. As a Mom, my heart dropped. She was probably 18 years old, and you could see the look of panic in her eyes. I quickly did what I would hope someone would do for any of my boys if they were taking an Uber somewhere and in this same situation happened. I gifted her an electronic Uber gift card so it was immediately available for her to put in her account. Everyone can tell me what they would have done in this situation and it may have looked so different, but I know this young lady extended such grace to me at that moment I knew I was doing what was right in my heart. She requested a new Uber. I turned off my app and had enough for one day. Yes, you read that right, I quit (for the day). I went home (mind you this is the first weekday in 7 years that there wasn't a child to go home with me). I laid on the couch feeling so happy that all of my kids are doing so great in such a hard time in all of our lives. I feel so blessed that I have found a job that I can work at when I am available. I felt such sadness knowing that my life as I knew it as a Homemaker has shifted in a sense, not ended. I will always be a homemaker, it is in my heart and it is what has come the most natural to me in all of my life. I began to pray. Thanking God for putting X in my path and not having anywhere that she immediately had to go. I prayed when to start trying again. Then I prayed about wether I should do Uber Eats for a while first to better acquaint myself with the app before picking up anymore humans. I talked to a few more Uber driving friends that night so I could better prepare myself if that ever happened again. I asked them how they would have handled it, and knew I felt a bit more confident. When I woke up the next day, I knew His answer. I would do Uber Eats. So for the next 3 days I spent a few hours each day on different sides of town, making food deliveries and getting more comfortable navigating the app. I will say this, it isn't exactly the same features when driving for Uber Eats and just Uber. But at least everything kind of looked a little more familiar and I wasn't scared to make selections. I had a great few days. Last night (Friday) I decided since I had a sitter I would turn on the app and make deliveries or pick up my "first" rider. A ping came through on the app for me to pick up my first rider. I was really excited and surprisingly calm, and not anxious one bit. Turns out my first rider was from Jacksonville Florida where I moved to SC from. So we had a lot to chat about until we reached his destination. I dropped him off and immediately got a ping for a new rider. I proceeded to pick him up. You should know that when you accept a rider you have no idea where you are taking them until you have hit the accept button. You have 15 seconds to accept it or it goes against your declined trip percentage. You can select the trip and then if you see where their destination is you can cancel the trip and it will send them a new driver. But then this goes against your cancellation percentage. So I accepted it and drove to pick him up from Moncks Corner and then see the destination is all the way down town. Fun, I am game. It is my first night and I have no where I had to be. This second rider is completely different from the first. The first rider talked the entire ride. The second rider wanted complete silence, which I can respect. After a few minutes of the silence I hear crickets chirping. Didn't think much of it, but i can hear them. After the 30 plus minute drive to downtown I drop off the second rider. I pull over to turn off the app for a brief moment because I have consumed 3 waters and need a restroom. I also briefly checked my voicemail since I missed a call from an unknown number. Turns out the first rider left a container of crickets in a bag on my back seat. He needed these to feed his pet dinner that night. He didn't have a car so meeting me half way was out of the picture. I told him I would make my way back to Moncks Corner to deliver the crickets. But not before I stop at the first gas station I can find to use their restroom. I run inside and ask where the restroom is, and she said its closed because she is cleaning it. I must have given her a look that she recognized because she quickly said, " I just cleaned the mens bathroom, you can go use that." I couldn't have walk/ran any faster.
Biggest lesson I learned this week. When driving for Uber Eats the food is almost always not ready when you show up to pick it up so you have a quick minute to pee. When you drive for Uber picking up riders you get no break in between pick ups. So do not be like me and consumer 3 bottles of water and have no plans to stop somewhere in the night. If you are like me and want to meet people, need extra income, or would rather make money on a Friday night instead of spending money. Call me!!! Or you can click the link below or use my sign up code ALLISONH8696UI to sign up. We both get something out of it when you sign up on a referral.
https://www.uber.com/a/join-new?exp=&exp_hvp=0&invite_code=9ckjqkqan
Oh one more thing, there is are a few safety features on the Uber app. My favorite is the "follow my ride" option. You can choose up to 5 people to follow your rides while you are driving. They can see your real time location. They get alerted when you begin driving and when you sign off for the day. I know this will give some of you the peace of mind that it gave me. Thank you for reading my blog and stay tuned for more interesting stories that I am sure will come!
