VanPacking

I am back

2010-03-25T10:59:00.003-05:00

Another reason for not blogging here more regularly has been my involvement in politics. Being a Libertarian stuck in Misery (Missouri) the incongruity of folks who profess christian charity and personal responsibility while reviling President Obama comes to a sharp point when I'm sitting in a room full of Republicans on the dole. There is high unemployment here and a severe lack of health care options for the working poor. I joined them and now have Medicaid, the first step in getting help with my pre-existing eye conditions. But in spite of my problems I've joined the Democrats here to assist with phone calls and gathering signatures, or basically anything I can still do within my vision limits. The recent passage of a bill that begins health insurance reform was a historical event. Hopefully, we can all settle down now and work on other pressing issues like alternative energy and women's rights.

While I may whinge on this blog about whatever is bothering my poor old mind, it is merely to illustrate ways to think ourselves out of the problems of life. Where a faux-christian will cry "why did G-d let this happen to me", there are those like me who grant that good and bad things happen to people. It is up to us how we handle it, using the intellect we were granted.

Where Have I Been

2010-02-13T19:21:00.002-05:00

It has been a very long time since I posted last. So much has changed. Sister is going to kill me for using her computer because I posted on some sites and used her account automatically by mistake. We have the same politicval views, but I can be more cutting in my prose and was on a bit of a roll. I'm just tired of all the bullshit in the world. I blame it all on faux-christian repubtards. There hasn't been an honest conservative in the repubtard party since the neo-cons took over. But I digress.

I finished a long journey taming materialism and continuing with survival plans. Like sister and her DH I also outfitted a plain white passenger/work van as a stealth camping van. What some folks may not understand is that homelessness can happen in advance of TSHTF, or you may need to travel for work farther afield and that having a stealth van camping situation will allow you to save a lot of money on lodging and travel expenses. On one of my last programming jobs I stayed in the parking lot and took buses to shop. The company had a gym available to contractors so I used it early in the morning and appeared to be an eager worker. They just loved me!

The changes though have come to a head. Years ago I had retinal detachments and scleral buckle surgery to repair them. My vision was sufficient for most tasks. But in the past year or so I noticed that I could not focus to read and that migraine attacks came quickly upon any attempt to read a computer screen. Plus the opthalmic migraines increased from one or two a month to one or more a day. That is when you suddenly lose vision for a period of 20-40 minutes at a time. I began to fear driving alone expecting an attack to come upon me. That lead to a decline in posts and overall interest in things that mattered to me. Yes, I finished all the urgent tasks then vegetated myself into a bit of a depression.

I just got a complete eye exam and found out I have advanced cataracts at a fairly young age. With the retinal detachment history I am not a great candidate for intra-occular lens implant surgery. I'm probably going to have it done, but not until I've gotten on disability and become eligible for Medicare so that I can get the best possible care. Unfortunately, anything that happens to me that affects vision is "pre-existing condition" and will not be covered by my health insurance. I could have a new condition, a brain tumor, and if it affects my vision in any way whatsoever it will not be covered. That's a sad way to run a health care system. An otherwise healthy and productive worker is forced to go onto disability to get medical care to help her stay productive.

My condition is not self-inflicted. But I see obese people get disability for back problems, smokers get disability for lung problems, people with diabetes from poor lifestyle and nutritional choices get disability. But I'm going to be going through hoops. A high school drop out will get disability faster than a nearly blind college graduate. Like, where do they think I can *go* and *work* without the training for the blind offered to younger people? Like my college degree somehow obviates a physical challenge. I'm using a screen reader to hear this site and Dragon Naturally Speaking to "type it".

It's ok. My trailer and van are paid for. I just paid off all the taxes so now I'm broke again. That ought to do it. I'm now more eligible to go on the dole. One more visit to the psychology CE will establish my depression, which will magically be cured once I get SSDI, Medicare, and implants. So for now, I shall say "I'll be back!"

Cats vs Dogs

2009-06-14T09:55:00.002-05:00

Cats and I get along very, very well. We don't have any socialization issues or soiling issues, which is often the same thing. However, I just got a teeny, weeny 11 week old female Chihuahua named Zena. No problems just yet, but from all the dog socialization websites out there it would lead you to believe that a cat lover would be more alpha with a dog than dog lovers are. Humans failing to be "alpha" is what appears to confuse dogs. This lead me to think about the cat lover's way of life, in contrast.

My old roommate had a Chihuahua who seemed fairly tolerable, not yappy, but he was completely in charge of being let out and being walked. On the order of 20 times a day! Oh, no we don't! My Chihuahua will be using a litter pan! LOL

Cat's only require a few simple things. Peace and quiet, cleanliness, a scrupulously clean litter pan or two, food and water available at all times. If you socialize your new kitten or cat properly with those conditions, you won't get bitten, scratched, or mauled, and you won't find eliminations in the wrong place.

Bring your new kitten or cat home and have a quiet room prepared that has a clean litter pan, food, and water. Make sure it is a clean room with nothing left on the floor. If you don't respect your space, they figure anything goes. It's rugs, laundry, paper, and boxes left out that get special kitty attention at bathroom time.

So, for a few days, confine the cat and all interaction to the one room. Play with your cat by using a fishing rod type of toy, never, NEVER directly with your hands. You don't want them to think that it's ever ok to engage you with their teeth and claws. I have six cats, two who were feral, who never hiss, scratch, or bite. They got nail clipping attention early and often, and were not bothered unless they wanted to play.

Limbo Waiting Projects

2009-03-26T08:41:00.004-05:00

It's been awhile since I felt like updating my blog. The problem is that I want to take this in a new direction while I'm torn in so many other directions, caught up in my old dramas and projects. I've recently commited to finishing up several work projects, several home projects in the trailer, and two personal projects. I'm trying to convince myself that the projects are part of the larger plan to live a mobile lifestyle, supported by the technology I crave and the peace of mind I require. I can convince myself of anything, apparently!

And a storm blew through it

2009-02-11T15:03:00.003-05:00

One of the joys of living in Missouri is wating for the weather to change. A friend of mine came out to keep me company and help me with my downsizing, and after less than a week here he enjoyed the Missouri pasttime of watching the weather channel and news stations for clues to where the softball sized hail and the tornadoes planned to land. Of course, being based in a tiny little metal box, a little bigger than a Class A RV, barely tied down to a muddy hill that threatened to slide into Highway 63, makes the weather news just that much more interesting. Fortunately, we made it through the night.

I have three cats at the vet getting surgeries today, and was disappointed that I couldn't grab the feral mother cat running around like a drunken harlot in the trailer park. I want to get her fixed, ASAP! I have two of her cast-off youngsters in my RV and I'm not happy about it. Once Batman (friend's AKA) helps me with the cleaning and downsizing this weekend, we'll make some videos and post them to help me find homes for everybody.

I have a Spike and a Kristi Belle Belle, plus a Loki and a Nikki. I do not also need a Thor and a Pongo. And to top it all off, my new guinea pig just had SIX babies. Guinea pigs simply do not have that many babies and I don't think anyone will believe me. They are less than a week old and growing daily, all except for Ru-Runt, the tiniest guinea pig I've every seen in my life. He's just itty bitty and I have to hold the momma down for him to nurse several times a day. When I pick up the cats today I'll take Ru-Runt and one of his bigger siblings to show the vet and staff. They may be as amazed as I am.

Simply Living

2009-01-26T10:08:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted last. I've been snuggled in the RV for the past two weeks instead of traveling around in Rocky, my van. And according to plan I've been continuing to downsize while just simply living. The past year or so of ramblings in my blog have been about all my stuff. Egads! Even while musing on it all I knew it was simply ridiculous. Now that I'm simply living instead of living large, I wasn't sure what to post.

The everyday activities of survival and van dwelling are what interest me the most. And if I'm distracted from that in any way, I don't have that much to share. I work as a software engineer and have been focused on finishing a project for general public release. So attention to detail is vital. Add to that the six cats I now house in the RV, and things can get a bit hectic.

The RV is a very small mobile home I bought last summer for $2500. It is next door to a dear friend who watches the place for me when I travel, and it serves as a base address for legal purposes. At the moment, I have custody of two big kittens I brought with me from Pennsylvania, two adult cats I've had for years, and two kittens that I trapped under my RV just before Christmas. My cuppeth runneth over, as does the litter paneth. Oy, vey! Sometime today, between producing a software release and prepping for an ice storm that's coming, I should steam clean the living room carpet and put the place back into shape.

See, no matter how much you downsize there is always something that needs to be done.

Voluntary Simplicity

2009-01-09T13:21:00.003-05:00

I'm now officially part of the Voluntary Simplicity Movement. Once I decided upon this course of action and then got going, it was a much simpler matter to ensure that my lifestyle choices veered towards less clutter in both the material and the mental worlds. I'm working on the spiritual world so that I can get the spiritual side of life less cluttered with "me".

At this point I've gotten the income producing side of my life under control. I've acquired the barest necessities to survive living out of my van, as well as gathered all my excess items into one geographical place in order to review them and make them work for me. I'm working towards intelligently converting the remaining assets I have control over into cash for items I may need.

Relaxed at Last

2008-11-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

I have a long way to go, but I think I've got relaxing under control today. I'm juggling several tight deadlines with work and some personal deadlines of less urgency, and I'm still a human being, instead of just a human doing.

The Journey

2008-11-12T06:59:00.005-05:00

I was pretty busy the past week just handling the journey from Pennsylvania to Missouri. I've now timeshifted and here I am where I intended to be. I feel like I manifest my life according to my intentions--really! It's not as fast as a transporter beam, but I tend to get where I am going eventually.

The adventure of it all is not to be missed! I believe I manifested some vehicle problems because once the Uhaul was loaded to the max and the van was outfitted with cat crates and paraphenalia I got on the road and worried about what would happen if my vehicle broke down. And of course I got to find out. Apparently I can be calm, capable, and resourceful in stressful situations, thank goodness because I get a lot of them! The way I look at it, what's the alternative?

The first day of driving was uneventful. I got on the road Monday at 3 pm, the day before the election. I drove 350 miles and stopped at a rest stop just after passing the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, past Wheeling I think. The memories blur. I parked the long way at the end of the passenger parking lot because the truck area was full to bursting. The truckers were stopped lining the sides of the exit and the entrance, as well as taking up all available space. Even if a space was available I thought it more appropriate for my combination to park in the empty car area.

I slept until 3 am, though it was rough with kittens running about at first. What energy the little scamps have! I must have had a kitten careen off my scalp once to often because I found them crated up when I awoke. I plugged in the Smart Mug and set it on the highest setting, 160 degrees, spooned my instant coffee into another travel mug, then dressed and went to the loo while the kittens frolicked again. Then I crated them up, leaving my adult cat Kristi Belle Belle loose to relax wherever she decided. She's a calm and peaceful rester, so I didn't think she'd be a driving distraction. It took at least a half hour before the SmartMug had heated water hot enough to pour over my awaiting instant coffee, and I was ready for it after less than six hours of sleep. The sleep part was quite good, though. I had a bench seat in the van because it was coming back from Pennsylvania, and I did well there cocooned in several blankets and with bins stacked at the right height to fling my restless legs upon occasionally.

I drove another 50 miles and heard what I thought was a high-pitched whine, though I wasn't sure. I had over-drive off and lowered my speed from 60 mph to 50 mpg, and it seemed quieter so I kept going. Then I heard a grinding, whining sound, like a garbage disposal eating a rubber glove. Then the steering started to go sluggish and all the engine lights appeared. So I looked for a place to pull over and got my combination off the road safely, about five feet from the highway, but stopped about 8 feet short of a guardrail. Ruh-roh!

The first thing I did was turn on the flashers, and the second thing I did was consult my Garmin Nuvi to inquire into accommodation. I found an EconoLodge in Heath, OH that would take the cats. Then I called AAA and requested help for my van with the understanding that towing the Uhaul would cost additional. They got me a great guy in Heath who brought out a flatbed with a ball hitch the correct size. That was fun going back and forth with Uhaul to determine the size of the hitch. It wasn't properly posted on the equipment. Thank goodness I had personal lights to carry around and check things out.

Rick showed up and because I was so far off the road for safety reasons that he couldn't get my van hauled easily, I offered to start it up and back up the combination. But, it turned out that the serpentine belt was a goner and as a result of sitting for several hours with the flashers activated, the battery was dead. I had a portable charger we used to start the van and I backed it up 12 feet, which was fun without any steering available. But with that done, we jacked the trailer tongue off the ball hitch of the van, got the van onto the flatbed, then hooked the trailer to the flatbed.

Because I was travelling with kittens, kitty, and my entire work kit-and-caboodle it was necessary to put the trailer down at Rick's yard, then put the van down at the motel, where I checked in and took an hour to unload the van. Then Rick picked the van up to be serviced, while I set up my lab and worked. Because I'm a van packer I had a cooler of food and drink, a portable kitchen, and everything needed to live, work, and enjoy my life. The motel had a small fridge and microwave, so I was covered.

As it turned out the van only needed a new belt and tensioner ($350), including the second tow charge. I paid $65 for the Uhaul tow, and tipped Rick $60 for the entire adventure. Without his advice and willingness to help, I'd have had a lot more to worry about. The van was fixed in a day, but I was too late to get back in time for the election, so I "elected" to stay in Heath to work and relax as much as possible until ready to go. I extended the trailer rental three days, and stayed until Sunday morning. It took longer to load again, but I got on the road at 11:30 am, and arrived 600 miles later in Rolla, Missouri around 7:30. My bff Marie helped me unload at a pre-arranged storage room, then we returned the trailer. We had to use her truck's jack to get that danged tongue lifted enough for me to drive away from the trailer, then we put the tongue down on a large rock we found. After that, we stopped at a Denny's for a late breakfast where I left the kitteh's and the kittah (lolcats-speak) to frolick.

About all I had the time and energy for Sunday night was to unload the crew and some of the crap. Here it is now, 6:30 am on Wednesday and my kitchen is together, and most of the RV is together. I call my tiny trailer in Missouri "the RV" because it is so tiny-cute. The $2500 find for a permanent home that is paid for. I don't live "in it" any more than I live in a van. I live OUT of it. So, this week I'll work on the last of my sorting and downsizing while working on the current software project. Next week I'll start the next phase of my manifesting--writing, blogging, and making money on the internet. Stay tuned!

Complexity

2008-11-03T08:05:00.003-05:00

What's the opposit of simplicity? Why, that would be "complexity" and I think I've about got that covered!

First, it is Monday, the day before the election, and I'm in Pennsylvania. So with all procrastination accounted for I now have 33 hours to finish some software work, take a shower, and load the van, then head to Missouri to vote. Work will take about two hours, then another two to shower and finish loading. I could be on the road by noon if I hop to it. That means 20 hours of driving and perhaps 6 hours of napping to get to Rolla.

The complexity is that my 3/4 ton extended body Dodge Ram van is being followed by a 6 x 12 Uhaul trailer. When I said I simplified my life I totally forgot about the storage room and the vast amount of stuff I purchased during the past two months. Whoops! There is the $3500 in video equipment for my blogging plans, more jewelry supplies for my van industry, and clothes that I had to buy to show up at work a few times. What was I thinking?

Not only did I buy stuff, I acquired two kittens who will be returning to Missouri along with my special kitty Kristi Belle Belle. Hence the Uhaul, so the stuff can follow me whilst the kittens and cat can play inside the van whenever I stop. I will be so happy to get to Rolla, vote, unload the Uhaul into storage, return the Uhaul, pick up groceries, then settle into the RV with All My Cats. Oy vey! I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

If there is any time in my busy morning I plan to video tape the youngsters with a Chihauhau before I leave one of the three musketeers with my former roommate, little bird. That would make me very happy, so it is a top priority today. If I drive from noon to midnight, at an average rate of 50 mph, then I should be able to make about 600 miles before I pull into a truck stop and sleep in between some big rigs. I won't be comfortable, so I should be on the road again by 4 am. If I drive another twelve hours I could be past St. Louis before rush hour. Or not, I'm not pushing myself.

Simplicity

2008-10-28T17:01:00.004-05:00

It was a slow, hard slog through the morass of my belief systems before I finally got it. I knew that something was causing me pain in my life and sensed that it was the sheer falseness of getting and spending. Even during the past two years as I went through the process of getting rid of debt and downsizing I mostly didn't get it. I was still wrapped up in all my stuff.

Lately I haven't posted as much because I'm not dwelling on things anymore, but I want to post about my daily life living out of my van. The van is a nice sized, extended body vehicle with the two bench seats removed. I have a very heavy board over the wheel wells where I keep an SUV sized air mattress. Underneath I keep a crate of gallon water jugs, and bins with cooking equipment and food. The rest of the bins contain clothes, toiletries, a bathing kit, books, and paperwork.

Right behind the driver's seat there are two large plastic containers with three drawers in each. The drawers are latched so they don't open while I'm driving. There is a drawer devoted to quick food and drinks, with coffee, creamer, tea, and hot chocolate. I use a 12-volt smart mug to heat water in the van. Another drawer holds toilet paper, trash bags, port-a-potty waste management items, cleaning supplies, and all manner of paper/kitchen/household things.

A bottom drawer holds batteries, and a battery charger, plus various electrical items like my weather radio and flashlights. Another drawer contains current paperwork items, envelopes, binders, stamps, tape, stapler, and the usual office clutter. The two remaining drawers hold cups, plates, utensils, and condiments. The drawers are to quickly get to things I need. The bins are for when I stop and camp out.

My ultra-lightweight backpacking items hang in an ultra-lightweight backpack from a hook in the van. That holds a Katadyn water filter, solar shower, camping cookware and stove, and basic survival gear. A plastic bin under the "bed" holds extra backpacking gear.

For cooking I've found the simplest solution to be the best. A couple of fold-out wing stoves hold pots over any found fuel such as twigs, paper, and sticks. Some heavy duty aluminum serves as a windbreak. Titanium cookware serves to boil water or saute found veggies. A sharp knife and a cutting board serves as a food processer.

New Holland, Pennsylvania

2008-10-23T07:43:00.003-05:00

I've been working hard, helping little bird clear clutter (more on that later), and babysitting my granddaughters. Not where I want to be but I'm comfortable getting some things accomplished.

Today I'm working at the home office of a colleague, who is in New Holland, PA. He was amazed that I could stay so cozy and comfortable in the van at night, just using his shower in the mornings. Heck, even the port-a-potty got some use in the middle of the chilly night. I've stayed a few days now and expect to finish a major piece of the project before heading back to little bird's house closer to Royersford this evening.

Little bird got an "intervention" from her son and I earlier this month. EVERYTHING MUST GO!!! She is finally letting go of stuff. I made it clear and her son made it clear that WE are NOT going to clean it up. SHE must CLEAN IT UP and LET IT GO! There is a pathological clutter problem, really a hoarding problem and she's too great a person to allow this to go on any longer. Every word she says about hopes and dreams is about "one day when my house is clean". Yo! Clean it today, one square foot at a time.

I posted a bit about the issue earlier in my blog. I'm a minimalist, neat freak, with delusions of simplicity. For awhile I allowed myself to suffer as her roommate, freely "helping" by cleaning entire rooms only to come home from work to see them trashed. I finally told her how it made me feel. Her son confronted her on her belief that the clutter and mess came only from the time she had hand surgery. I had believed that, until he pointed out to her that this problem has been around since he was small. He cried as he told her that the way they lived hurt him and made his early life difficult. He was pushed to a tiny area of a cluttered room with barely enough room for his bed. He showed her pictures of it before she would accept what she had done to him. I showed her pictures of the kitchen as it would look to me after a hard day at work, then coming home to food leavings and dirty dishes everywhere, when I had cleaned it up before leaving for work! Never again!

I only spend my energy giving her moral support now, because she asked for help. Help can only be moral support. Nobody else can clean up her life and expect that the lesson will take. She simply has to do the inner work to ensure that happens.

So, I'm finishing up here at work, then next week I'm headed back to Missouri for the winter. I want to winterize my tiny trailer and settle in with my new kittens. I'll travel again when the cold season is nearly over, taking a kitten or two with me.

October Mornings Interrupted

2008-10-13T10:54:00.004-05:00

Here's another October morning interrupted by everything but what I want to do. It's my own fault because I stayed an extra few weeks to help my friend little bird clear more clutter and get her life in order. The job was quiet and I spent a few weeks doing nothing. Now the job wants some deadlines met lickety-split and I need to get cracking. I'd rather spend the morning under the covers in my van, snuggling with a kitty cat. I just got a new kitten and she's definitely a snuggler.

Instead I am slaving over a hot computer with nary a hot chocolate or a snack in sight. I am cold (obviously) and I'm bored of this work. Ok, smacks head and gets focused again. I'll finish up some magstripe encoding then I'll go to Giant and pick up some Rice Dream or something vegan for a snack. Then I'll nap, and then I'll work on the item to be delivered tomorrow. And the documentation of it all.

I have to remind myself why I'm working like this. To pay 2008 taxes and save up some money to invest in a stock photography business. And a new career making vid's for YouTube. And because I like what I do. Computers are my life!

Yeah, right!

A Long Cold Winter

2008-10-03T11:47:00.004-05:00

It's going to be a very long cold winter for 2008-2009. With petroleum based product prices going up and the economy tanking we who live the alternative lifestyle of thrift and frugality need to prepare ourselves for the coming hard times.

At this time I have both a van to travel in and live out of, plus a small mobile home in Missouri. The van is warm enough for camping, really. My plans to outfit that small space are not as extensive as my plans to prepare the mobile home for this winter. The trailer uses propane for heating and cooking. Ordinarily, using heat like it's water, the propane tank has to be filled up approximately three times during the year. I would like to get that down to only two times per year.

The issue is the fluctuating price of propane, and the fact that you need quite a bit of cash to fill the tank each time. The cost was about $550 per fill-up last winter. I plan to set things up so that I rely on electric heat and other measures to avoid using the propane furnace as much as possible. The 10 year old furnace needs service to be sure it is most efficient. Then the water pipes need heat wrap, to allow the trailer temperature to be kept lower. If I set the heater to 50 degrees, then I can use electrical appliances to provide comfort heat in areas where I most need it. The electric company is cheaper than propane now, due to the economy of scale. The electric company can obtain power from many sources, not only petroleum based sources.

Some of the windows are like sieves, while the rest are good quality storm windows. I'll tape up the windows from the outside, then fill the insides of the windows with filler of any kind. Then I'll hang heavy quilts and blankets on the walls and behind curtains, to provide a bit more insulation. Of course I'll leave a few places for the wind to whistle through. The idea is to keep my heat inside the trailer. I may add some insulation boards inside the skirting of the trailer, depending upon the cost and what I can obtain. Of course I'll research the concept to be sure it is "safe".

To use supplemental electrical appliances for heat means ensuring that I don't overload any wiring. The wiring is up-to-date, and I would space the appliances carefully. For instance, I would use a fan heater in the bathroom to use while in the shower and dressing warmly. Two forced oil heaters would go into the living room and the one bedroom I use, to be used singly. I'm in one room or the other, not both at the same time. Generally, only one heater would be used at a time.

I have a second bathroom that isn't being used. I want to make that room a storage area. If I can get someone to pull out the plumbing and cap it off, then I can keep that room unheated. We aren't allowed to have wood stoves in the trailer park, for safety reasons. If I could have one it would be great for keeping warm and for cooking stews. But I can put one in my empty storage shed for emergency warmth. If the electric goes out, we are kind of screwed, even with a propane furnace. I'd need propane heaters for backup. Or something. It's the water pipes that scare me in the winter. I don't need an expensive plumbing problem. I know, I can run the water. What fun! Pipes bursting or water flooding. There is are several cold snaps to look forward to.

In any case, whether I use my propane furnace or not, my total living expenses are expected to be no more than $300 for land-locked needs. Including lot rent, electric, cable, and propane deliveries. I wanted to just live out of the van but I have interests in life that make having at least one permanent homesite more convenient.

Van Dwelling

2008-08-13T20:18:00.004-05:00

I can't believe that I'm finally pursuing my golden dream of living out of a van and traveling the country. The idea struck me about 18 months ago and I've spent my time avidly reading about the lifestyle while making preparation to make it a reality. Obviously I could have just jumped in my car and got on with it, but while I still had a little money and energy it seemed beneficial to plan my escape.

That involved downsizing my vast quantity of consumer stuff and rethinking how I'd manage the daily tasks of life. My dream starts with waking up when I feel like it and having tea and a long read before getting up and about. That meant having a comfortable place to sleep, a place to potty in private, and a way to heat water for tea. That was resolved with a 2000 Dodge Ram Van with an extended body and lots of room for a bed platform, storage, and room to move around. A trucker's 12 volt hot pot for water, and a small portable pot with a toilet seat and lid resolved the next two needs. Around that a fair amount of resources to ensure security and a well-maintained van, plus a collection of consumer items to enjoy life surrounded the idea. So I did it and have come to realize that I've traded one complicated life for another complicated life.

The complications are smaller, but they exist nonetheless. You still have to locate resources for showers, water, and food. You still have to plan for cooling and for heating your vehicle for comfort. You even have to look for a private and secure place to sleep. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you have traded one set of survival complications for another. But the total cost of living out of a van versus paying rent and utilities is far lower. You aren't going to be maintaining a large job and a large lifestyle.

For a while there I made jewelry and sold it on Ebay for living expenses and I know I can do that again, but now I just focus on writing and selling software components as well as working on remote software contracts. With a small laptop, and inverter, and a broadband connection card it is possible to continue making a living while not maintaining a permanent dwelling.

However, I did go ahead and buy a used trailer for a small sum of money in order to have an official address and a permanent place to leave my favorite cat sometimes. She is ok living out of the van but tended to limit my travel a bit.

I just finished a large software project to integrate a DVR and for now I'll just give my brain a break and contemplate this new lifestyle later.

Cole Slaw With Ginger Dressing

2008-07-23T20:47:00.003-05:00

My favorite cold meal on a hot, humid day is a fresh cole slaw slathered with a tangy orange ginger dressing. I don't measure but try to keep the proportions, and load it up with ginger and garlic. The next key ingredient is frozen orange juice concentrate. But half-way through the mixing I discovered that I was using grapefruit juice. Talk about a gnarly taste, I had to break down and add some turbinado (a raw cane sugar product). After some doctoring with rice wine, onion powder and salt it turned out pretty good. After marinading the green and red cabbage for an hour I started eating it topped with sunflower seeds. A very nutritious, tasty, and CHEAP vegan meal. When I'm energetic, I add shredded carrots and whatever else may be on sale.

If you ever eat in a good Japanese style restaurant and order the salad with ginger dressing it is usually made with an orange juice base. But I've had a hard time finding a recipe that replicates my favorite. So I've got a Word document with over a hundred recipes that I'm trying. Back in Pennsylvania I would buy the dressing from my favorite restaurant, but out here in the boondock of Rolla, Missouri the options are slimmer.

Another problem I'm trying to solve is finding a better way to process the ginger and garlic. I left my garlic press somewhere and I miss it. So I've acquired a couple of gadgets to try out. Ginger is the hardest to process because it is so stringy. I end up cutting thin slices, then making tiny julienne strips to make a tiny dice. But I wish there was an electronic gadget that would take the ginger and the garlic and grate or mince them together. Believe me, I looked. My requirements are that the gadget has to be worth packing in my van as well as be very easy to clean. I found a small mandoline that is made handle garlic, and should work with ginger. It has a device to hold the object to be shredded, to protect the hand.

Which is a good topic for vanpacking, the kinds of kitchen items you should carry in order to eat healthy on a budget. My strategy includes a small cutting board and a few good knives, at the minimum. I only need one board because I don't use them for meat.

Processing

2008-07-21T13:22:00.003-05:00

I think I got it now. I took two weeks off of the software project from hell and got some things accomplished, including a vacation and handling personal goals. I paid $2500 cash for a very small but well laid out and well maintained mobile home on a permanent site, with a lot rent of $95 a month. The utilities are about $35-100 a month depending upon the season. The owner of the mobile home park is getting out of the rental market, so it was a matter of timing. The outside isn't pretty, but the view from inside is spectacular. It is next door to the $2000 trailer my oldest friend obtained, so this makes a great permanent address for less than $200 a month, in a quiet community.

With the van paid for and well maintained, and my lifestyle suitably downsized, I'm ready to tackle my own plans for writing and traveling, living out of the van. It's time.

Plans within plans within plans

2008-06-12T16:25:00.002-05:00

Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans, so I'm layering my plans. If one pans out, I'll ride it out, otherwise it's on to plans b and c and d.

This software gig is about to kill me. I'm not young enough to carry on much longer. I have trouble focusing and concentrating. Working for days on end, without a break or a life is not what I signed up for. Really! I've been 9 days in a hotel room trying to get finished with this blasted project.

The money is good, but with the accident case settled, I need to rethink my life and my plans. The van is ready for mobile dwelling and I think I am ready, too. I've set up a website and have plans to lanch my "brand" onto the world. The world is ready for it, what with the economy tanking and prices going up. The message of simplicity is coming.

Survivalisting

2008-06-02T18:59:00.005-05:00

Here I sit at my current software gig, somewhere in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. My kids could explain that to you, since they graduated from Pennsylvania schools, the fine distinction between a Commonwealth and a State. In any case, I'm working late and am taking a mental health break to surf the web. I'm in survival planning mode, which is no surprise. As a child of the 50's who grew up on Florida, I carry the utlimate atomic bomb shelter in my head at all times. Posted in the corridors of my childhood schools were detailed lists of everything you should do in the event of a nuclear attack: stay away from windows, hide under your overturned desk, close your eyes, clasp your arms around your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye--seriously!

So this peak oil thing is nothing new to me. I'm down with what they predict, though for different reasons. First, the production of oil that we can get at easily is being artificially kept low. The reasons would be to facilitate the continual rape and pillaging of our willing purses, in which we are so cooperatative. The second would be the sword that defeats our rapacious democracy from the inside. We are willing victims. Even after 9/11 people still continued to patronize the storefronts of the world at the expense of our own.

My grandparents who survived the depression always taught us to keep a year's worth of food in storage, and to stay out of debt, and to have a paid for piece of land. So I've always been prepared for anything, all my life. But I've spent the years since Y2K figuring out an ultimate survival plan that takes into account the realities we will face.

It is a great idea to own land, but land and resources can be seized and taken, by the government, or by the hordes. There is no guarantee you will be able to defend against the gangs and hordes of suffering humanity. If our government implodes and society breaks down, then no amount of land will save you. You will be easily identified as the easiest pickings, and the first to go. Unless you are well hidden and have formed a group with likeminded family groups.

I don't have that luxury, and I intend to be well beyond the hordes and gangs. My strategy is to live out of my van. I expect to be able to make at least 600 miles in the van, in an attempt to flee the urban and suburban area ahead of the hordes. I'll take the pulse of the city and be well away before any government entity announces an evacuation, or the hungry reach critical mass.

Once I'm 600 miles away, I expect to be able to wait things out in a camping mode. I could stay in the van indefinitely, depending upon the mood of the crisis. If things go badly while camping, my mountain bike is outfitted with panniers and a rack, upon which I can carry everything needed to ensure survival as I go deeper into the wilderness areas. After the bike is no longer useful, my backpack contains enough to sustain me as long as I can find water and wild edibles. My dehydrated food collection was designed to sustain me without wild edibles or other food sources for at least three months of hard-scrabbled rationing, if necessary.

I think that being mobile and hostile is the best strategy. I do not see any need to invest all my resources into a place that I may not be able to keep.

On another note, this may on the surface not be a completely "popular" thought, but the the concept that our economy and our collective American "lifestyle" was never really sustainable seems to be ignored by the Peak Oil survivalists. The Nouveau Survivalists. Most will not see it, and many who do see it still do nothing about it:

"The Population Reference Bureau estimates that the average American consumes about 23 times more goods and services than the average world citizen. Americans also bum 10,000 liters (2600 gallons) of oil-equivalents per year —seven times the world average. Clearly, achieving a US standard of living is impossible for the rest of the world, based both on projections of future resource availability and on population growth. The affluent standard of living now enjoyed by Americans (made possible by our abundant supplies of fertile cropland, water and fossil energy) is projected to decline if the US population doubles during the next 63 years." http://www.mnforsustain.org/pimentel_d_natural_resources_and_optimum_population.htm

That doesn't mean that I don't understand the Peak Oil whinging and the pain that the forced realization of these home truths cause in average Americans who believe the lie, that they are somehow more deserving of the world's resources than the people whose resources we steal. My survivalist planning isn't about the problems exposed by Peak Oil. My planning is to save me and mine from the ill-prepared, starving, raging, marauding hordes. My kind will always survive YOU. I have no illusions about the coming reboot of human civilization. See, we are all survivalists--even the foreigners who inflate the oil prices--they are trying to survive YOU.

Don't take this personally. Understand what is really going on. And, of course, SURVIVE!

Getting Back to Now

2008-05-18T12:11:00.004-05:00

As in the power of now, I'm trying very hard to get back to now, rather than dwelling on past and future. My cat is all about now so I'm following her lead. She eats, she sleeps, she poops, she just is. I just now ate a lovely lunch of water and a salad. The salad was laden with mung bean and alfalfa sprouts, carrots, cherry tomatoes, brocolli, cauliflour, sunflower seeds, dried cranberry bits, dried blueberries, sweet vidalia onions, a tomato vinagrette, plus some essential oils (flax & sundry omega fatty acids). I ate a huge bowl of it, which should keep me in the now of software development for a few hours yet.

It's raining outside, pretty steadily. Hot oolong tea is steaming by my side, and it's drinkable now. I serve myself tea without sugars or additives, to enjoy it for its own true nature. I woke up feeling anxious about getting everything done to go camping for three days. I'm behind in my work, behind in getting ready, and I don't have a broadband card. Plus its raining. So I decided not to be anxious and possibly just bag tonight and stay here at Little Bird's. That will take some pressure off as I finish getting ready and continue to make progress on the software.

I'll work to the point where I have made significant progress, then I'll dismantle my current cramped living arrangements upstairs, with the plan of sleeping in the van. Then I can help Little Bird's stash more clutter into the room I'm cramped out in now. I will take some before and after pictures. But really now, shouldn't I be living out of the van? That's what I'll contemplate on my camping trip this time. It all comes back to the cat. I can't leave her in a hot van or a van with the windows open. I also don't envision being with her 24 x 7. That is my dilemna, else I'd be working in the van right now.

Van Camping Planning

2008-05-17T10:45:00.002-05:00

The rain subsided long enough yesterday and I got enough done with the software development to go ahead and pick up my new bike and ride it home. It is sitting in Little Bird's house now, waiting to be ridden today, and trucked to French Creek tomorrow. It has its cute little backpacking panniers attached to the bike rack. There are two adorable grocery panniers that I will keep in the van for grocery shopping. I may be an ultra-lightweight backpacker, but I'm not carrying all my stuff on my back while biking. Not happening!

It is Saturday, a beautiful day from all glances out of the window. I've been working this morning and will take some time to get showered and ready for outdoor activities. A nice long bike ride (a shakedown cruise), then more software development work, then perhaps some errands for beer, food, and camping supplies. I'll hit Walmart and Home Depot tomorrow if I'm energetic enough in the morning. I promised to help Little Bird consolidate clutter in a big room she wants to move into, then move it to the room I'm cramping out in now.

I'll move my computer lab to the dining room while all that is going on. The laptop and hardware will travel with me to the campsite, then hopefully I'll have a new and empty room when I get back. There I'll set up jewelry and crafts, and my computer collection. Mostly, I'll work in Exton for a few days next week and perhaps will leave all the PC's onsite. I don't have to commute every day, especially with the van. I can camp out in the van overnight and still get 20 hours of work done over two days.

My hope and plan is that once I'm in the big room I can work out a nice routine that gives me plenty of time for hiking, biking, and camping. I do feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that all my stuff will no longer be my topic of the day. Can't wait!

Procrastination

2008-05-16T10:15:00.004-05:00

I'm still procrastinating. The software I need to work on is soooo easy, but I'm not into it. Instead, I'm huddled inside over a hot cup of oolong tea while buying gadgets for van camping, van dwelling, and van accessorizing. The roommate's alarm is beeping, for about ten minutes now. There, I just shut it off and got a reheat on the tea.

It's raining pretty steady today, here in Trappe, Pennsylvania. My bike is ready to pick up, but I told them I'd wait for the weather to clear a bit. I'm also waiting for the Thule bike rack to come in, but it probably won't arrive in time for my trip. So I purchased a Thule lock and rattle-dampener for the hitch, plus 4 adapters for transporting women's bikes. That's for the occasional trips with other mountain bikers. Now, I don't mind cold and wet, but only if I'm going to be having fun, not working, and taking a nice nap later. None of that applies, today. >^;^<

I found two new gadgets that I "must have" from the e-trailer website. One is a seat mounted trash can with lid, and the other is a seat mounted DVD player stand. That will raise stuff off the floor, while giving me a good view of the DVD player from the bed. I won't be traveling to buy the Home Depot stuff, or the sewing machine today. It is just too wet and miserable. Now is the perfect time to concentrate on my work. And I will concentrate, really I will.

Yawn.....

Oh, more fun shopping stuff. For hiking, camping, and general personal protection, I ordered some bear, dog, and human pepper spray. I plan to get a taser, in a few weeks. And for hiking and camping, I picked up two lightweight GSI recliners. I'm probably the only ultra-lightweight backpacker who carries a 30 oz camp recliner, but why else should I save on weight but to make room for my comforts and joys?

Someone recently asked me how things are going. Well, the accident case settled, I'm located in Pennsylvania to visit my son and new grandchild, I'm still working on the software project from hell, and I'm about to enter into a payment agreement with the infernal revenue service. That old adage of my Gran Gran's, "Never pay until you see the white's of their eyes!" and "Never give anyone your last dollar!" are my motto's. I'm hiking as much as possible, and planning some great van camping expeditions. So I'm stocking up on every item that would enhance my enjoyment of van camping, hiking, backpacking, biking, and general survival planning. I've acquired a night-vision monocular (so I can see if there is a bear outside my hammock), and new solar battery chargers.

In spite of the spate of buying and shopping, I'm not cluttering and I'm still downsizing. During my upcoming three day camping trip I'll further downsize my paperwork collection from 6 bins to 1 bin. My entire jewelry making collection fits under the van bed area. My clothes and toiletries fit into two large gym bags. My backpacking gear fits into a 1600 cc ultra-lightweight backpack, and the electronics and excess stuff fits into bins that travel in the van and are stored in the seats when I'm stopped or camping. At most I may want to pull a trailer for long trips, or have a roof-mounted cargo carrier for excess stuff. For the most part, I'm self-contained within the body of the van.

Mountain Bike & Hitch

2008-05-15T16:51:00.006-05:00

Wow, I budgeted $2000 for a new mountain bike and hitch, and I got everything for only $1200. I got a Thule hitch-mount with locking cable for four bikes. This moves out of the way for ease in getting into the back of the van. The bike is a cool grandma green with 60's purple flowers. It's a Barbie bike!

http://www.trekbikes.com/women/wsd_products/bikes/2008/mountain/3700wsd

I left it at the shop to have some gadgets attached. The kick-stand, water bottle rack, rear cargo rack (will also hold removable panniers), wireless odometer, kick-ass headlight, and a rear safety light. The new Trek helmet is also in green to match my new Trek bike. I will have it in time to take it camping Sunday, for three days.

Tomorrow I'll head over to Home Depot to buy the reflextix and screen for a van camping van window covering project. If I have energy, I'll head over to JoAnne's for a sewing machine and some material for curtains.

This three day weekend is for meditation, van windows, biking, sorting all my paperwork for final disposition, hiking, studying C# threading, remediating threading in a server application, eating healthy, and napping--a lot! I think I can fit all that in.

When the Van is a'Rocking, Don't Come a'Knocking!

2008-05-13T08:04:00.006-05:00

Before:

During:

The van is coming along as I make the changes needed to van dwell comfortably. This is the progress, as I put in the bed platform and sorted necessities into clear plastic bins underneath. I still have plans to obtain 42 inch 2 x 4's, to raise the bed platform slightly. Then deeper plastic bins will be housed safely.

A work in progress, with lots of editing and planning left to do:

The air mattress is an adjustable Coleman SUV model, that is 43 inches wide and up to 70 inches long--the exact width at the back of the van for those of us short folks who can sleep cross-ways. This gives a lot of room for the living space. A nice black bedspread is in the dryer, and will make the bed look more finished, while covering up the under platform storage area.

I especially like the clean lines of the pair of plastic three drawer units that fit perfectly behind the driver's seat. The top is perfect for meal preparation when i'm stuck inside. The drawers house other necessities, like toilet paper, batteries, gadgets, and the like.

Rocky the Van, parked in a quiet neighborhood:

I like the doors, because they can be used to rig up an awning, or even a privacy curtain for outdoor showers.

Next on the list:

Hitch-Mounted Bike Rack & Locking System
Custom Reflectix Window Pads - Removable
Install Alarm, Remote Start, and Locking Gas Cap
Custom Vecro or Magnet Mounted Interior Window Screens
Tires & Balance Wheels
Maintenane (oil, fluids, belts, wipers, brakes, etc.)
Evaluation (steering, transmission, electrical systems, engine, etc.)
Ladder & Roof Rack
Electrical Installation (deep cycle batteries, solar roof panels, wiring, cable, outside box, TV platform, etc.)
Solar Vent(s) Installation
Roof Air Conditioner Installation
Wood Stove Installation (venting outside, removable, fireproof underpad)
Swivel Seat Installation

The hitch-mounted bike rack will be ordered this Thursday. Friday, I'll buy the materials to make the custom window pads and interior screens, which I hope to finish during a three day van camping trip to French Creek starting this coming Sunday. I may have the alarm and remote start installed on Friday, if someone can come out that soon.

Next week will involve the maintenance part of the plans. I have someone who may be able to install the roof rack, ladder, and all the electrical the following week. I want to get all this done before I head to Missouri for a few weeks.

I'll give up the use of the van for a week in the summertime, to have the vents and AC installed. The AC is planned for use where electric is available.

The wood stove is a real wish list item. I think that a tiny wood stove is feasible, and with reflectix pads and heavy curtains for insulation I can keep the van safely heated off the grid using found wood.

It may take some effort to locate and have a swivel seat installed, but it would make it nice having a reclining seat available to make the interior space feel more roomy, and for guests.

I think with all that done, I can get the camper van improvements rolled into the insurance coverage, but I'll have to research it to be sure. I can't wait to get started!

Sucked in, again!

2008-05-07T15:30:00.003-05:00

Every now and then I see things with great clarity, and then I blink and the vision is gone. I simply have to stop getting sucked into the drama's that are manufactured by other people. Marie finally cut the chains to Brock and told him to "get your life together, man!" I've been telling her that for years. And now, I'm visiting my old roommate Little Bird, and she got us sucked into a bigtime 17 1/2 year old drah-mah! It's is still a bit of a roommate situation, where I pay her $100 a week towards expenses, plus I help her declutter. Sigh...

I admit, I saw this one coming with the 17 1/2 year old. Verona came to Little Bird with a horrible tale of woe. We've known the kid for years and we know Verona came from an abusive and unstable background, with foster homes and children's homes, before becoming adopted, with her younger sister. The family has been in turmoil for six years now. Verona rages at them and they were afraid to come into the house when she was home--and that's what we learned after giving her some requested help.

The tale of woe did not include anything that would cause the police or social services to intervene, but it was bad enough that two old birds got temporarily sucked in. Within three weeks of housing her, with the express permission of her "evil parents," we got the picture. The only tale of woe was to stir up chaos and instigate drama on a 24 x 7 basis. So, Verona (has NOTHING to do with veracity!) was booted back to her tale of woe a few nights ago. I like to call that "consequences".

In the meantime, I'm trying to finish up my own projects with back taxes, paperwork, a lucrative software engagement, and outfitting my new van. The accident settlement money is on the way, and that would sure help in getting things done right from the beginning. But I'm happy enough to cobble together what I need. I wish I had the time and the inclination to figure out how to install and outfit my own electrical and HVAC needs. But I have no interest in building this shelter. I have to farm the good stuff out to experts.

My new SUV mattress from Coleman is perfect for my set up. I sleep the short way in the van, not the long way. That takes up far less room. I like to see a cozy bed made up in the back with a hidden storage space underneath. It makes the van look more like a home. I am using a thick plywood board to hold the air mattress, and still have room to fit six one foot deep plastic bins underneath. If I raised the board about 8 inches onto a railing, then I could fit six smaller bins on top of the deeper bins, for more storage and organization. Ideally, jewelry making supplies would fit under the bed.

I'm using two Snap 'n Stack craft organizers (http://www.acmoore.com/p-31381-snap-n-stack-craft-organizer-large-square-3-layers.aspx) to organize my cooking, eating, and drinking implements. One organizer has small pots and pans, cooking utensils, cutting board, knifes, and miscellaneous accessories. The top is empty and ready to be filled with herbs, sea salt, spices, and my collection of dehydrated vegies (onions, shallots, tomatoes, celery, mushrooms, spinach flakes, etc.). The other organizer has my smart mug and hot drink fixin's in the top, with plates, bowls, cups, and eating utensils in the bottom.

A milk crate holds four one gallon water jugs, two large white rubbermaid three drawer storage units hold clothes, extra food, cooking items, and miscellaneous. I have a large toolbox, a medium sized cooler, a rectangular folding table, a folding chair, a toilet hassock, and a bike. Then there's the hiking and outside camping stuff. Oy, vey! Where does all this stuff come from?

Pictures are coming soon. In the meantime I'm playing hookey from work and need to get back to it.

Van Camper Planning

2008-04-21T09:28:00.007-05:00

OK, now I have the van, and I've done a night in a state park to work out what I should do next. I'm happy enough with the van to think about how I could improve it for permanent living or camping, but the downside is that there isn't enough head room to stand up. Over the long haul that could be very uncomfortable.

I'd end up doing more in the van and even living in it if I could consistently walk around and not feel so claustrophobic. Of course I could live in the van in a pinch, but I'm deciding whether to use the current van for casual camping while searching for a taller van to outfit for living.

This matters because I want a permanent bed attached with room for storage underneath, a desk to work at, and an easy way to cook and clean up inside when necessary. It wouldn't make sense to outfit this van just to obtain and outfit another one, so here is how I thought I'd proceed:

1. Keep this van and have it mechanically checked and brought up to a state of excellence. I may need some suspension work, brakes, tires, and that should be it for another 30,000 miles. I need to verify that. I want money budgeted for the power train, or replacement of the van, as necessary.

2. Have electrical items installed-vent, roof AC, 110 volt wiring, cable wiring, panel to hookup to outside electric and cable, deep cycle batteries and box vented to the outside, and perhaps solar panels on the roof. Anything to make it simple to run a vent, fan, AC, or small heater as needed. The AC and heater would be run when hooked to outside power.

3. Install alarm & remote start-I can use that to run AC and heater from the engine in a pinch. Also install some kind of gas cap lock.

4. Install permanent screens and window coverings that are removable as necessary, using reflectix panels for when the windows need to remain shut. That includes window coverings for the cabin, too. The curtain between the cabin and the living space is still good for if a guest needs to use the potty behind the curtain. It *could* happen...

5. Clean up the rug, the walls, and the ceiling, and cover the walls with something attractive and easy to clean. Fit a rug that covers the bench seat holes and looks attractive.

6. Install a plywood bench across the back with enough room for a twin to 3/4 size mattress to be set up as a permanent bed/settee, using the underneath for storage of 8 lidded plastic bins with necessary items as storage for clothes, toiletries, extra food, and miscellaneous. Cover the plywood so it is smooth to the touch and attractive to look at. Cover the front opening to hide the clutter.

7. There is room for a small desk on the right of the van, to use for making jewelry inside, or to work. It can be a real desk or a jury-rigged desk, like a fold-down style that can be reached from the bed(?).

8. There is room for two plastic chest of drawers behind the driver's seat, with space to store a 5 gallon water bottle with a pump on it. I'd make the drawers the area for cooking, cleaning, and storing food. It would have dishes, utensils, sprouting supplies, spices, seasonings, trash bags, paper products, anything else related to eating and cleaning. There is room for a cooler behind the passenger seat for easy acces to cold items, both to clean it out, stock it, and fill it with ice.

When traveling, I'd use the living space in the back to hold folding chairs, a folding table, tools, inverter, travel bags, cleaning supplies, hiking gear, and extra items. When parked, these items would be stored in the cabin. Ideally, if I lived out of the van for long periods of time, I'd pull a sturdy enclosed trailer to stow sellable items and extra stuff. For the present I'll still work on downsizing, though I'm doing pretty good already. One van load and a half of personal treasures is not bad for a 51 year old grandmother.

>^;^<

Camping in the Van - French Creek, PA

2008-04-20T11:58:00.013-05:00

Yesterday I came home from my van camping adventure in French Creek State Park, here in Pennsylvania. I was tired and ended up vegetating before going to bed early. But I did reminisce about the adventure and thought about what I could do to make it better next time, and in general for van camping and van dwelling.

The biggest issue was my disorganization and an excess of stuff. I had to toss in everything I thought I might need or want on the trip, then got on the road before rush hour. There was no time to organize anything. I was lucky to keep the load from sliding around too much. Once I got to the park and backed into my site, I plugged into the electric and threaded the heavy duty extension cord through the side window. I plugged a power strip into the cord and charged my cell phone and ran a small fan for ventilation. That's what I did right. I also brought the real necessities: beer and food, and in that order. I only drank two beers on the trip but in Pennsylvania the blue laws insist you buy beer by the case, so I had to keep the beer cold so it wouldn't get skunky. The rest of the larder consisted of veggies, mushrooms, hummus, blackberries, and blueberries. Yummo!

There was stuff everywhere! I stayed in the van for several hours working it all out. I think my pop-up camping neighbors thought I was acting a bit odd, but I was there for my own purpose, which was to checkout the van camping setup and improve it. There were several large and small plastic bins that were used to organize the necessities. There was a bin for food, one for dishes and utensils to eat with, and one for cooking equipment. That seemed like a lot. The first time I tried van camping I used two large plastic chests with three drawers that hid most of the clutter. Those were bungied to the front seats and taped to keep them closed. Henry was a taller van than Rocky is, so I didn't think the drawers would work this time. I may have to try them out.

There is a also a black hassock shaped port-a-potty with a grey lid. I'm using black trash can liners doubled inside, with some biodegrading additive for the smell. I didn't notice an odor unless I removed the lid. It wasn't too bad then either.

In the picture above you can see the green plastic sewing organizer I rescued from little bird's basement hoard, plus an inverter that I plan to keep charged and in the van for casual use, a white trash can with a plastic pop-up lid that stays closed to keep the stench down, plus the blue fan. The orange handled device is for cutting firewood, and the water jug and dishes are self-explanatory.

Order started to come out of the chaos of it all, and I was able to make curtains and put them up. This was for a sense of privacy, though with the lights on it was clear that you could still see into the van in the dark. I'll need privacy curtains, so that's a new shopping task. That box seen in the picture above contains some hiking items I ordered in the mail that I wanted to inspect while out camping. I'm experimenting with the overall weight of my sleeping system, and got some disposable sleeping bags to keep in the van for social emergencies when I'm planning a hike with others who may be ill-prepared.

Those are my toes, relaxing at the end of the sleeping pad. My left ankle is as swollen and misshapen as it looks, from the accident, but I get by. The cooler had to be set to hang over the doorstep to drain. It is a Walmart cooler that leaks, and until I can stop it up correctly, it will have to drain to the steps rather than the rug as it did before I discovered it. I think I can cut some rubber to fit inside, or even some silicon. I'd like to make a permanent bed area off the floor in the back, over the area to store plastic bins, then put the drawers against the wall behind the driver's seat. The toilet hassock can be used as a seat, and I need a space for storing a folding table and chair to use outside. The driver and passenger seats are a waste of space at the moment, but will probaby be used as a space to stash little used items while in camp. I still need to make or buy something to cover the dash and front windows, for privacy. I'd like to get some screen to make covers for all the windows that open, during the buggy seasons of the year.

Camper Van Dwelling

2008-04-18T12:20:00.002-05:00

It's Friday, and I'm getting ready to go to French Creek to camp in the van. I need to run some errands and get beer, ice, and food. Then I'll set it up for a nice day of camping out. I reserved an electric site so that I can have light to do my sewing this evening. After spending the last few months picking up 50 cent scraps of black cloth, it's time to make the curtains. There is one privacy curtain going up behind the driver's seat. The rest will be velcro attached curtains on all the windows.

For cooking I'm bringing a long heavy duty extension cord and a power strip for plugging in a hot plate. I simply don't feel like dealing with a propane stove or a hobo stove. I'll post lots of wonderful pictures when I get back home.

How the Other Half Lives

2008-04-16T07:51:00.006-05:00

I'm determined to relax today, after spending all day yesterday at a client site in Trenton, NJ. The things I'll do for money! LOL

It was a pretty intense day, lots of traveling, and a certain amount of stress. Now I'm processing that day, and taking care of miscellaneous items for today. An order to the Spice House for powdered tomatoes went to my address in Missouri. That's so odd because they switched the billing for the shipping address, but that's not what the screen print said. The credit card wouldn't have gone through if they used it when I hit the confirm button. So, my much sought after tomato powder is in Missouri, while I'm in Pennsylvania planning a hiking adventure where I wanted to use the powdered tomatoes to make delicious concoctions along the trail. Now I'll have to go to REI and to Whole Foods to see if they have it. Maybe I'll go to Kimberton Whole Foods and see what they have. I don't feel like working much today, anyway.

I took pictures of the house of clutter, or how "the other half lives." I have permission and I'm not invading little bird's privacy. She knows there is a problem and is trying to work on it. Apparently, clutter becomes invisible after a certain number of years. I've documented clutter piles that have not materially changed for the past three years. The basement is an utter disaster, both as a fire hazard and as a health hazard from the mold and dust. At least the stairs are being kept clean for a change. Here are some examples of the living areas and the basement.

This is the dining room:

More of the dining room:

Dining room, continued:

The entry way, better hope you don't have to come in or go out of this doorway:

The living room, which is 2000% better than when I started the project several years ago:

That blue styrofoam container is my fault. I didn't toss it last night when I finished the mushrooms. The difference with me is that I will see it and take care of it when I see it. That is not how the rest of the household clutter is handled. For now we have finished the kitchen, though clutter is starting to build up at the basement door, making it hard to go downstairs to do the laundry. That is a "tolerance" and keeps one from actively doing the laundry, because the laundry becomes a project, not a task. The project is to clear the door several times, replacing the clutter each time, as you start the wash, dry the wash, and get the wash. Inevitably, you never "get the wash" and that becomes clutter on its own. The pile of clean laundry in front of the dryer is a sad testament to waste, because that laundry used energy, water, and detergent to become "clean", but is trodden on the floor of the basement because it is all too much to contemplate. There is too much "project" going on in this house. It is better to just discard, discard, discard. Then make projects when the house is clear of things.

In the next few pictures you can see the basement and the green plastic sewing box I "rescued". If you have lived with a hoarder, then you know what the term "rescued" actually means. I am really going to utilize the box, today. That is the key difference between a hoarder and between normalcy. I use items or discard them when they are not actively useful. I have no attachment or anxiety associated with any item. I'm free to hunt and gather, and to discard at will. If I rescue the sewing box, then subsequently no longer need it, it will be donated or held for a near-term yard sale that will actually occur. I do not hold it for "someday" "I" "might" "need" "it".

Basement, see washer and dryer on the other side of the peak:

Clean laundry moldering on the floor:

Spotting and "rescuing" the sewing box:

Yes! Cleared and snagged! I'll wash it and sanitize it today, before I go to storage to continue my own downsizing and organization project. I'm planning to do some sewing soon, and I want to make sure my sewing items are ready for action.

Earth Mother Has A New Granddaughter!

2008-04-03T11:25:00.005-05:00

The main reason for traveling to Pennsylvania has come to fruition. I have a new granddaughter--number three! She is a tiny little bundle of joy, weighing in at 6 pounds. She looks just like my son and me, who all take after my father's side of the family. She has the dark skin and the dark hair, and I suspect this chick will develop green eyes. If she does, this is my "mini me". My son is in for a time of it, raising this little woman.

Reason number two for coming to Pennsylvania is the accident case, which has settled. Nothing more to be said about that until the money is in my hot little hands. Then I will have a lot to say!

Reason number three is the job, which is a bit of a conundrum. According to the higher ups, they need me. According to my "manager" I'm a grunt and should consider leaving this operation soon because the product is getting trashed anyway (not according to everyone else above him). He also told me to pad my invoice with an extra 40 hours, which I refused to do, the result of which he didn't approve the lower amount of the invoice (the correct amount) and I didn't get paid. Which isn't a castastrophe just yet. My intention is to get hired as a full-time employee, rather than as a contractor, to further my plans to remain in the area to help my son with his family while he is in Iraq next year.

To understand the politics of it all, I was called in under desperate measures because the project needed to be saved. The plan has always been to "fire" or otherwise remove my "manager". I was specifically told to blind carbon copy (bcc) the higher ups on every communication. Now I need to decide how much more of this nonsense I will deal with. I've been vocal, but not adamant up to this point. I'm about ready to let loose, but do not want to fall into a trap. So, today I will quietly continue working on specific items that need to be addressed and see where it leads me. I'll put in a hefty invoice next week and then I'll see where things stand. If I don't get paid or involved I'll know it's time to exit. Of course, I'm communicating and working visibly on the hot issues.

Now for the clutter of it all. I'm staying at my old roommate's house and giving her money weekly, with the understanding that this is temporary. But the clutter is going to drive me more insane than I already am! I nearly went out and rented an apartment yesterday, or an efficiency, or a no-tell motel room. I'm so tired of helping my old friend with her clutter, only to see it come back. I'm in the mood to resolve issues so I proposed this: One area per week and if she doesn't go through with it I'm leaving.

Tonight the area is the kitchen and the outside trash area. Hey, you can't drag trash out if you don't have a place to put it! Duh! Then a clear path to the basement just to get to the washer and dryer will be the next area. I might include the bathrooms in the basement to washing machine activity because the "area" is about cleanliness. The next area will encompass the living room, dining room, closets, and entry way on the main floor. These are filled top to bottom with books, sellable items, junk, paperwork, and mess. In fairness, I've put little bird through the paces of ditching paperwork trash in the past, like forty clear trash bags of it, so it wasn't quite as bad this time. We won't even go into the areas like the wet trash filled basement, the damp atticSSS, the stuffed third bedroom, the stuffed closets, and THE BARN. Thank goodness the barn only has a second floor and no basement!

The kitchen is small and is packed with the usual clutterholic items such as: 21 frying pans, 16 spatulas, 95 plates, 295 mismatched silverware, spices & teas that are over 10 years old, moldy foods in the refrigerator, food that is well over 10 years old, gadgets that duplicate function and overflow every surface, and every household item sold on QVC and in the Lillian Vernon catalogue. How many ways are there to implement a cutting board? I found a cutting board that is three feet long and has a hole in it. Oy vey! That's along with the other 8 cutting boards, plus the four brand new ones laying on the floor. At least you can SEE the floor now. We will have a little helper tonight and with the use of six huge plastic bins we will pretend to do "Clean House". I'm playing the part of Niecy Nash, step into my office!

The six bin method includes removing/editing everything in the kitchen and all cupboards that are not used in the kitchen. Duh! There is a lot of that, classified as "to ebay", "to Charlestown Fair" flea market, "to donate", "to yard sale", "to go to another area", and to "store". The agreement is that a single woman only needs 8 plates, 8 bowls, 8 glasses, 8 cups, 12 place settings, a range of pots and pans without any duplicates, no more than two of any cooking utensil, and above all CLEAR COUNTERS. There is a nice plastic shelf system beside the fridge to store appliances that are actualy used. The counters are not for storage, they are for food preparation and cooking. Dishes are washed as they are used. Food is used, not stored. Cabinets are used for storage of kitchen items that are rarely used on the bottom, and for highly used items on the top where they can be easily accessed.

Then the fridge. My son and his girlfriend have a clean refrigerator with a few easy to see items that include actual food. Little bird collects condiments. And rotted food that is hard to see and impossible to locate for use. And a complex system for storing ice cubes to keep them from picking up odors. I propose: clean out the fridge, clean the fridge, and sanitize the fridge. Then we can use a real ice maker hooked up to a water filter. So far, I have little bird's agreement. She seems happy about it. There is a large table in the kitchen that is taking up extra space because the legs hit the radiator. I'm taking off the back legs and shoving it as close the fridge and the back wall as possible to get more room. Here is a picture of this as it looked once when it was originally decluttered:

I'll find the before pictures and post them soon.

Van Traveling - continued

2008-03-28T06:56:00.003-05:00

It is nearly 7 am on Friday morning. I should have left on Wednesday, but the sinus infection really hampered my efforts. I was so tired that every action seemed fruitless. I gave myself the day off Thursday and I'm satisfied that I loaded up enough stuff in the van to make today a bit easier.

I need to do a few hours of work and upload the software for review of a prototype solution to handle photo graphics. Then I'll shower and dress, start up one last load of laundry, and pack up the van. Because I'm not sure when I'll be back, I need to drag the trash out and clean up the place a bit. I'm leaving Marie's cat, Spike, so his litter pan and toilet area needs to be cleaned and changed out.

I believe that at some point I'll be on the road towards Pennsylvania today. I've considered, really considered, obtaining a small trailer to clear the RV and take everything. But I'll hold myself back.

Once I get to Pennsylvania I'm staying with my messy clutterbug friend so I'll unload the van completely into a storage room, then load back only what I need to live with. If I tackle one box a day, I could have all my memorabilia and paperwork consolidated and handled by the end of April. That is huge! That gets me to the point where only personal, kitchen, and jewelry/crafts are left--the moneymakers!

I need to get out of my own way!

Van Traveling

2008-03-27T11:19:00.003-05:00

OK, I admit it. This trip to Pennsylvania is about van traveling, not van dwelling. I have so much stuff anyway, I couldn't sleep in there if I wanted to.

Rocky the Van is loaded up so far with both bench seats, all the memoribilia, all the paperwork, most of the office supplies, most of the jewelry, and some miscellaneous items. I have one of the white plastic utility three drawer units in the front bench seat. Next I'm sorting out the clothes in my room so that some is in a bag to carry to and fro, while the rest is in the drawers. Once I empty the other drawers they will go next on the bench seat to be filled. At least they are high enough in the bench seat to keep crap from hitting me when I have to stop quickly. I just ate a quick vegie burger to give me strength.

The other utility drawers are in place, and packed up. Pretty much everything I'm taking is in the van, except for kitchen stuff, the laptop, the monitor/TV, and my bedding. I postponed the trip yesterday because I felt just miserable from the beginnings of a sinus infection. My tail was dragging all day.

Van Dwelling

2008-03-24T15:44:00.003-05:00

It hasn't really sunk in yet that van dwelling is more than a set of tasks on my to do list. This time it's just about the van. It doesn't need anything done to it or for it. It just "is". This one isn't about how many generators I can get into it, or when is the vent getting installed, or covering up metal walls. This is a passenger van with two bench seats and carpeting, and is fairly finished inside. The doors are conveniently arranged and the windows are darkly tinted. So even curtains aren't absolutely necessary. I'll check that out later tonight.

I've let my mind go in circles trying to decide what this trip to Pennsylvania means for me. It was mainly about seeing my son and his new baby that is due this week. And secondarily it was about the lawsuit and the trial scheduled for the 31st. The job is out there, too. Though I wouldn't have to be tied to the job. The freedom that is all tied up in that van is something I just can't comprehend the same way I accepted the shackles of restricted living. I can come and go, with or without stuff, really I can.

I've mentally explored endless possibilities in trying to decide what to take, what to leave behind, and how I will live out there. I still have a lot of stuff and if I wanted to stay in Pennsylvania for a month or more, then I don't want to be thinking I'd like to make some soy milk then remember the soy milk maker is in Missouri. I might want to work on craft projects, but the same condition applies. Where is all the stuff? Then what happens if I lose my stuff? This is a George Carlin schtick if I ever saw one. Stuff, stuff! Everywhere and nowhere is the stuff!

I did shop a little for the new van: big toolbox, large rectangular zipper bag to organize van dwelling stuff, a port-a-potty for those nights or days when I'm too shy to go into a facility, LED lantern, and some camping cookware. I have stuff all over the living room of the RV as I'm trying to organize before loading the van before my trip.

The priorities are work (PC, hardware enclosure, laptop, printer, scanner, camera, software), personal (clothes, shoes, toiletries), paperwork (consolidate even more!), memoribilia (scanning project), camping & hiking gear, garden & sprouting stuff, kitchen gear (if I decide to get a place). Nice-to-have would be all the jewelry supplies and tools, and my dolls and crafts. And then there are the cats, Spike and Kristi Belle Belle. My head is spinning.

Do I go ahead and take out the bench seats then put in the living space, which means storing the bench seats in Missouri? Or, do I leave in the bench seats and take all the above items, leaving the cats and the crafts? I don't really have time for crafts if I'm going to visit my son and the new baby, hike as much as possible, finish consolidating the paperwork, and further consolidate memoribilia in the scanning project. If I'm going to stay in Pennsylvania I don't necessarily want to drive all the way back to Missouri to get the cats and the crafts, but I would have to come back anyway to sell the car. Argh! See why I can't stop the voices in my head?

OK, calming down a bit. I'll take the bench seats, work stuff, kitchen stuff, paperwork, memoribilia, and hiking & camping gear. I'll take my air mattresses in case I want a real bed. I'll leave the Spike and take Kristi Belle Belle. Marie will take Spike if for some reason I can't get back here (I hope, he's her cat!). I'll stuff other things into the van, things I can't easily or cheaply replace. Then I'll rent a storage room in Pennsylvania to hold the stuff while I leisurely go through it. This is really, really ridiculous! I'm really not all about my stuff, but I do have some hobbies and I haven't had a chance to work all this out.

Speaking of Clutter

2008-03-19T15:23:00.005-05:00

Oy vey! Speaking of clutter here, I have to seriously handle my business because it is time to head out to Pennsylvania to work and to see my newest grandchild who is on the way. I have paperwork to do and send out, plus I need to decide what to take.

I acquired a 2000 Dodge Ram van extended body for $4900 today. Tomorrow I pick it up, get it registered in Missouri, then mail out paperwork, then get the car inspected so that it can be registered in Missouri so I can sell it. But I probably won't have the title back in time to sell it before my trip to Pennsylvania.

This weekend I need to prep the van with my sleeping arrangements and storage needs in order to travel and visit folks without having to unpack. Ideally I can sleep in the van during comfortable weather and just bring in a toiletry bag and my laptop when I need to shower or work. I'm liking this idea.

Today it is 5:00 pm and I'm home from running, waiting for Brock's girlfriend to stop by and get both her taxes done plus get a lecture on household management. Then I need to finish up my own work, and fit in some time with doing my paperwork and taxes and copies and preparation to mail things. Hopefully I'll get enough time in to enjoy myself and make some jewelry.

Less is More

2008-03-15T18:37:00.003-05:00

Do you live surrounded by clutter yet spend your precious mental energy buying more stuff? Do you have more books & movies than you could watch in a lifetime? Are you providing for the care and feeding of paper that appears to be successfully reproducing itself when the lights go out? Do you want to live in simplicity and peace? You can turn this around for yourself without cleaning it, organizing it, or throwing it all out.

Because you are a perfectionist and you are waiting for the magical day when it will all be squared away, you are too tired, too drained, too confused, and too defeated to try cleaning it up even one more time. I understand because I have been there too.

If you use my system you will become more organized every day by becoming more functional. Functional means knowing where your keys and cell phone are, being able to put your hands on your bills and on paper, pens, envelopes, and stamps when you need them. Because you are going to enjoy that feeling so much that you will want more of it!

You need to have one shelf or surface near your front door where you will keep four boxes the size of shoe boxes. Box #1 is for keys, wallet, cell phone. Box #2 is for envelopes, stamps, pens, scissors, and tape. Box #3 is for bills and important papers. Box #4 is for returns, like movies, books, and stuff that is going out of your house. Keep a trash can right outside your front door and use it often! When you get the mail, toss everything except your bills, your checks, and your important correspondence before it comes into the house.

When you generate trash each day, take it to the trash can in front of your house. Take all the unused trash cans in the house and place them outside. You must follow this rule: bring NOTHING into the house until every trash can is filled and taken by the sanitation service, then you can bring one THING in. Otherwise, try to live on what you have cluttering up your house.

Need money? Sell stuff on Craigslist. Hungry, swim through the debris in the kitchen and sweep everything off the counters with your arms. Take food out of the fridge until you find something that doen't have mold, taking the bad stuff to the trash can outside your front door. While the food is cooking or heating up, wash just the dishes you need to eat with at this meal, plus wash dishes for the next meal. Eat. Take the trash from this meal out to the trash can in front of your house. Then wash all the dishes in the kitchen and put them away.

Tip #1: Your kitchen should contain ONLY two glasses, two plates, two bowls, two spoons, and two forks for each person in your household. Pick your favorites and put them in the cabinets and take all the extras to a thrift store ASAP. Do NOT buy anything at the thrift store.

By the time you have eaten and washed your dishes, you need to think about tomorrow. Find ONLY the clothes that you plan to wear tomorrow, then wash them and fold them and put them away. Sweep the rest of the clothes, shoes, and accessorie into a pile. Make a big pile in the corner. The goal is to have a bed you can lay out on full length to get a good nights sleep because you deserve it!. You and your family also deserve to have clean clothes for tomorrow, and only for tomorrow.

Tip #2: When you watch tv make it a habit to get up during every commercial and take seven articles of trash to the trash can outside of your front door. Make a game out of it! Anything goes, including old newspapers, magazines, magazine clippings, empty food containers, dog poop, dust bunnies, and even old shoes.

If you want a snack, first go into your bathroom and clean one of the following: sink, toilet, tub, floor, mirror, counter, cabinet. Then wade into the kitchen and get one item to eat, taking all your trash to the trash can outside the front door.

Tip #3: Don't buy another item to eat until your refrigerator is completely empty. Then wash the refrigerator and make a menu for the next week, trying to make use of the items overflowing from the cupboards. Be creative! You may be able to save hundreds of dollars in food costs by eating what you have and trip over, rather than buying things you don't have room to store.

Before you go to bed for the night, make sure your cell phone, keys, and wallet/purse are in the box by the door. Make sure your freshly laundered clothes are put away. This is the highest priority every day.

Tip #4: Get big cardboard boxes at work. Bring them home and immediately fill them with clutter from your entry way. Grab things like toiletries out of the pile if you see them and take those things to the bathroom--toss them on the floor with everything else. If you see clothes, take them to the huge pile in your room--that goes for shoes and accessories. If you find bills, stamps, pens, tape, scissors or stamps then put them in the box by the front door. If you feel like taking any trash that you see out to the trash can by your front door, then that's fine. Fill that cardboard box up, close it after rescuing any returns (which go in the box by the front door). Keep bringing home boxes, and box up the clutter stacking the boxes up to the ceiling. Don't organize anything! Do NOT under any circumstance label anything. Leave important things on the floor where you might find them again. If you simply MUST, then put important paperwork in the special box by the door, and put the miscellaneous paperwork in one box near the front door. If you have to find something that is where it could probably be.

In the morning, you should shower and dress as soon as you get up. Then stand and supervise your children dressing in their clean clothes. If your kids are small, you can clean the sink or the floor or the toilet while they bathe. When everyone is dressed then assemble everyone in the kitchen where you will prepare/find food, wash dishes for the next meal, and get everyone to take some trash to the trash can outside your door. Don't do too much today. Get the kids to school and take a box of extra kitchen stuff to the thrift store, then go to work. Work like a dog and try to get as much stuff done as possible. Be sure and file everything away and clean your desk off before heading home.

As soon as you get home assemble everybody in the kitchen/dining room, clear a table (just shove the crap onto the floor), do homework with the kids while you prepare a meal and clean the fridge out. Every day you should:

If it's open, close it.
If it's on the floor pick it up.
If it's in the fridge eat it first, then the stuff in the freezer, then the stuff in the cabinets.
If you have two of the same thing, give one away.
If you need it, do without or dig it out of the mess.
If you wear it, put it in the: hamper, washer, closet, drawer, give-away pile.
If you want to keep it, then take care of it.
If its in a pile, it was never that important.
People are more important than things.

Smile and remember that Less is more!

What life is all about

2008-03-09T21:54:00.002-05:00

Today was so peaceful that I don't remember any particular part as different from any other part of the day. I capped the day off by inviting neighbors over for a bonfire on the concrete pad outside the RV. I had a small grill that I picked up at odd lots for $10 and had amassed a huge pile of deadfall. That was the basis of the friendly bonfire and a get together with beer and wine. I just got done with all the festivities and now I'm putting my brain to bed. Yawn....

Anxiety and my favorite herbs

2008-03-04T19:35:00.002-05:00

Heh, heh, you thought this was about "those" herbs, didn't ya? I'm a pretty straight arrow, outside of a few of my favorite brews on occasion. No, today I was feeling an extreme amount of anxiety over all the known, unknown, and forecasted outcomes to my financial situation. The contract work, the taxes, the accident case, all roiled and broiled around my head until I felt like it was spinning. It's about 6:39 pm Missouri time and I think I need to go to sleep and start tomorrow around 1:00 am. When I first get up in the morning and if I get my brain engaged in software development I can usually put the thoughts of doom and gloom on another thread.

But gloom and doom were paramount this morning and basically nothing got done, i.e., "accomplished". I ended up researching my accident case and it is still on the schedule with a trial date set. I just figured they'd won their motion for summary judgement, and now I get to worry about actually going to trial. While trying to finish my software project, while worrying about the outcome of the tax situation. Yes, that's what I'm talking about--S T R E S S, with a capital D, which stand for impending doom. I even made a list of the items I need to do to get away from all this. Hence a trip to the local health food store to grab some tinture of Kava. I hope it helps because I need some relief from this massive amount of anxiety.

I've mentioned before that if the going gets too tough, this time I'll leave without a vehicle. I'm still wedded to a certain amount of my stuff so I need to position that stuff where I can easily get to it if I'm without a vehicle. I have to review my survival gear and get it ready for a quick trip to anywhere. At some point I would get a vehicle, but it would not be in my name. So that is the plan. This week I will divest myself of some stuff, position the rest, and start planning my escape. I'm only holding onto this job in order to keep up with all the illusions of civilization that will assist me in getting closer to an actual accident settlement or win at trial.

So, back to the tincture of Kava and an early bedtime. I'm going to get through this! Dammit.

Coasting for a minute

2008-02-22T18:34:00.002-05:00

This is Friday in Misouri, with ice all over the place and my car frozen shut. I'm not going anywhere, but at least I am warm and cozy in the RV. I'm coasting a bit right now because I managed to make it through the whole day without e-mails and botheration. I should have turned in my software project, but as long as nobodies' asking, I'm coasting.

The tax forms for 2003-2006 were sent to the kind folks at the IRS on Tuesday. I owe about $15,000. In all the chaos of recovering from the accident and dealing with financial problems and being homeless, I knew I needed to look at my paperwork and take care of this. I honestly didn't think I owed more than a few grand. It was the self-employment taxes that got me, plus losing the house and all those deductions, that I didn't realize how the mortgage shielded me from so many of the realitie of life. Also in the back of my mind I was praying for the accident case to turn out in my favor sooner, and provide the funds to handle everything.

Now I'm working with one of those tv tax relief firms to help me work out a payment plan. If I can do that, I can keep this job. If the IRS garnishe me, I'll lose the work. If that happens, I will follow Plan B. Plan A was living in a van, which is now put to rest anyway. I sold Henry to have enough cash for this issue, or to run. Plan B is to run. Perhaps with no car and no driver's license, a bus ticket or a thumb will take me away from here. So I'm thinking about putting all my belongings in storage, what few are left, and taking my cash and hitting the road. I think I can get to a place where I can room with somebody via Craigslist, in a college sort of town. They don't ask too many questions there. Then I'm one petsitting business away from living completely off the grid. Or, something. The point is that I don't have to live in fear unless I just want to.

One of the things that weighed heavily on me for the last several years was fear. Fear that I needed to do things a certain way to "survive." I've done the math and the emotional work and the given deep thought to "why" life has happened this way for me. I could blame myself, I could blame others, and I could ask "Why me?" But, it is what it is. As I read articles about homelessness I see both sides. Homefull people point out concrete reasons "why" others are homeless, because they don't understand and because they think they can keep the "reasons" at bay. But you have no control over circumstances. Have a couple of bad things happen in a row, go through your savings, run out of options, and then you too can be counted as one of the unfortunates of the world. The serious fact is that if I didn't have money, friends, family, or a brain, I'd be homeless right now. As it is, I'm merely contemplating the possibility.

At one point I bought Henry the van with the thought of fixing him up as a mobile bedroom on wheels. For a woman my age, a van is safer than being on the street in any way, heck for a woman period. The plan was to keep making jewelry and selling it, and the van was necessary for transporting all my stuff. But as long as I have cash I can land in a city with public transportation and get lodging easily enough. I don't need stuff. If I can manage with very little money. The business ideas were in case I needed to make money along the way. So I still have Plan A, but am prepared to go to Plan B.

Here's my one rant and whine, because I'm only human. My sister lives in our mother's house. My mother passed away and the house came to my brother, sister, and me. I have $20,000 equity in that house, the same as they do. My sister knew how bad thing had gotten for me, but refuses to either buy the house or sell the house or pay her fair share of the rent. If I was like her I'd sic the IRS on that house. But, I think I'm not like that. I can't do that to my family. So, I get to handle this bad situation alone, as usual.

Whinge over!

This blog is all about what one 51 year old grandmother will do to survive and get through the bad times. That means that I'm going to get up off my lazy butt and hook up the cable from my friend next door so I can be snowed in and relax with TV until they come hook it back up. When my friend got her cable turned on the technician accidentally turned mine off. Sheesh!

Then I'm going to finish two more items on my software to do list. Then I'm going to get my tiny little home organized again. Then I'm having a real night's sleep and I'm not getting up until I have to! I've been living on four-five hours of sleep at a time for the past two weeks, trying to make the work people happy while trying to make the IRS and attorney people happy, while trying to help my friend move into her hoopty trailer.

I'm beat!

Details

2008-02-05T07:15:00.002-05:00

I got to the finish line with the software project! The tax forms were mailed out yesterday. Today the plan is to get the details finalized by around 10 am, then to use the rest of the day to clean up and get organized. My roommate here in the RV is getting her new place ready next door. If all goes well she could be completely moved into the trailer and out of mine by the weekend after this coming weekend.

She picked up a one bedroom trailer that is just tiny cute, for $2000. It needs cosmetic work inside, and some plumbing updates. The plumbing inside works well enough, but one day a new vanity and a sink in the bathroom would be a cheap and easy update. The tub could use a new faucet and some pipes behind the wall, which is easily reached from outside the trailer. As the resident engineer I'm pushing to have all the pipes heat taped and wrapped. My friend is really good at the cosmetic stuff and I'd say she has taken on a lifetime project with this. But it is a well-insulated trailer and has never been moved from its quiet spot in a sleepy retirement style mobile home park. We are all about the alternative living styles.

I could pick up the trailer I'm in for $2500, and it needs no work at all. I'm considering it just to have a permanent place next door to a friend who'd look out for the place while I travel. But I'd be tied to a $950 per month lot rent, plus about $50 in electric, and $100 for propane. Not bad compared to the east coast. I have gotten my head wrapped around the fact that I may be spending a year and a half on the east coast, working and helping out with my new grandchild while my son is in Iraq. I have a place to stay on the east coast that will be very inexpensive during that time. If I'm working as planned, I'll be able to afford both places for less than $1000 a month in total living expenses on a salary of about $8000 take home. I "could" rent this place out for about $400 a month. I'm thinking about this. The decision does not have to be made until June 2008. By then I should have the accident case finished (hopefully settled) and the tax situation under control. I may have to sell Henry the van to ensure that the tax man is happy. But, it will give me a chance to work out the van dwelling logistics again so that I can have what I want when I pick the next vehicle, rather than having to build it into a used van. That was getting to be way too time-consuming and I was getting nowhere.

One of the sneaky ways that my friend and I are going to save on expenses is to have one telephone line between us, at her new place. I'll pay for the DSL portion for her and use a wireless router to send the signal my way, with a code of course! That way we don't have to duplicate service all over the place. I can have a handset here for making calls. It's doable.

Back to the details of building a software installation CD. Ugh!

The job's not done until the paperwork is finished.

Ebay Sellers Up In Arms

2008-02-04T06:54:00.000-05:00

It's still very busy here. That convergence of due dates should ease up today, provided I complete all of my tasks, or at least look like I did. >^;^<

I took a chill pill after working on software for a few hours, and looked at my ebay account. I've had an account there for ten years which I just cancelled. The paypal account is going next. The reason I am cancelling after so many years is due to the changes ebay is making in their fee structure and in the buyer feedback system. After routinely forking out over $400 a month in fees, only to clear about a thousand dollars a month, I am voting on the new policies with my feet. As soon as I get to a quiet point with my software project, I will work on my new website to sell handcrafted jewelry and doll sized miniatures. I'm sure I can live without that tiny bit of money from ebay. Gee thanks, Meg! I needed that! The final and last straw that would get me to quit the beast!

Crunchtime

2008-01-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had to do something about the convergence of due dates. Since it is in the best interests of all taxpayers that I continue to work, I was able to gain an extra 3 days to finish the forms due on Friday. Now I'll have the weekend to complete them. Yes!

So only the software monkey is on my back today. No time to blog about anything else. It's crunchtime! Focus, focus focus!

Earth Mother is Ruthless

2008-01-29T19:29:00.001-05:00

Back to pragmatism. Today I'm working diligently on sifting my mounds of paperwork, trying to find the nuggets that will declare that I owe little to nothing for the years 2005 and 2006. That should hopefully put the IRS monster to rest for awhile. At this point, I don't much care. Working for food and scraping up a little extra to have for emergencies on the road is all I'm up for now. I'm going to plow through as much of the bulk of the work now, then pick up my roommate from work. I'll clean up the mess I'm sure to make, then make it an early night. Tomorrow I'll work on my software project until later in the day. When I'm satisfied with my progress, then I'll do a finer sifting to see where I'm at. The forms are due on 2/1. Maybe they'll let me fax them in, which would buy me another day. Maybe they'll let me overnight them on Saturday, to arrive Monday. That would give me an extra three days! Heck, I'll drive them to Jeff City! Wah! I need more time!

Clear Your Clutter

2008-01-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

After a few days of the diligent shifting of bags and boxes, the UHaul full of clutter is now decreased in volume by 50%. Clutter is a visual symptom of postponed decisions. That's why half of my clutter consists of 20 years of paperwork. Things like my kids schoolwork, cards and letters, pictures, and everything else. Calendars, scraps of notes, and other detritus of a life misspent on the little things. One of the tasks today is to obtain a good photo and negative scanner to put the most memorable keepsakes into an electronic form. Then I'll mail each of my son's stuff to them to keep if they wish. I no longer need to be the keeper of the clutter.

The other half of the clutter consists of several bins of craft supplies for things I want to do and can make me money, a huge collection of sellable fashion doll accessories, loads of jewelry making supplies, and boxes in which to sell said jewelry. Then there are a few boxes of personal items and clothing. There's a bag of holiday decorations, and a few boxes of books. The books are sellable. Before I can tackle the clutter I have to finish part of my current software project, Then I have to sort, file, and purge the paperwork in order to make the tax people happy. Then I can seriously clean up the rest of the stuff.

I think that the threads of my life will converge at a point that meets sometime in April, May, or June. Yeah, try and plan around THAT! The lawsuit, the taxes, the clutter, and the job. You see, all I want to do is live and work out of a camper van, with a jewelry making business in progress to supplement my income. But I can't realistically do that without finishing the lawsuit, the taxes, and the clutter. Catch 22 all the way around. I suppose I can once again mortgage my life to a job in order to get a few years closer to my preferred lifestyle. This sucks!

Jest in time to take my mind off my troubles, here comes Brock, home from prison! Yeah! His mom drove to Farmington to pick him up. She'll call me when she is on the way back with him, which will give me two hours to finish my chores and run some errands on the way to say hi to him. After that I'm back to the RV to work on my software project. Brock will be going to visit his girlfriend at her Section 8 apartment, where she has her three children and his four children. Yes, you can laugh out loud. His mom and I always get a good chuckle out of it when we think about it.

So I've learned my lesson. I'm not going to be available for loans, babysitting, or anything else. He is expecting a good sized tax refund of which $2500 is due to me for the bail money. Then his mother will borrow $1000 of that to buy a $2000 trailer far enough away that he can't disturb her peace either. In the meantime we will be roommates again. I have my next six days set aside for 3 days of work and 3 days of paperwork, taxes, correspondence, bills, more downsizing, organizing, and cleaning. I'd love to sell more crap on Ebay but may have to hold that thought for a few more months. I'm simply too busy to Ebay these days.

Emptying

2008-01-15T20:12:00.000-05:00

No matter how much I try to empty my life it seems I'm determined to fill it up in spite of myself. Emptying the stuff, the to do list, the chores, the pets, the junk of life. Trying to find the peace that doesn't include everything we perceive as necessary. Curiousity continues to drive this need to find out what is absolutely needed to sustain me.

Long ago I learned that a house in the suburbs and an Expedition in the driveway wouldn't sustain me. So I traveled the highway to another place with as little as possible. It sustained me for six months. Then a driving need to see my son for Christmas and grab the rest of my junk out of storage compelled me to travel 2000 miles from here to there. Once I went through that process I ended up looking at a Uhaul full of crap.

Sheesh!

Home Stretch

2008-01-13T14:35:00.001-05:00

Yeah, it's been awhile. With nothing earth shattering to mention on the lawsuit, the job, the van, or anything else, it's been a time of maintaining direction and handling old business. I'm still working as an hourly contractor on a contract, trying to get on my feet for the home stretch of the accident case. After a trip back home to Pennsylvania, all my stuff is stored in the RV for sorting and purging. A lifetime's accumulation of paperwork is waiting for a final cleansing before I file old tax forms and clean up that bit of the disaster of my life.

Yeah, about three days after I returned home with the papwerwork and junk there was a knock on the door from the infernal revenue service. Something about the form that kicks out when you lose your house to foreclosure. They are looking for the lost years' forms and possibly some money, but it will be up to me to show that I didn't make a dime on that deal, or many others. I didn't even claim a "home office". I'll probably need legal advice on this one. In any case, homeless people do have a low rate of tax compliance--duh!

The van is set and I'm currently processing things so that I can be mobile and gone by the end of February if necessary. The lawsuit is coming up on the pre-trial conference date, so I have that emotional roller coaster to look forward to. And, I have three of the boys whose father is in prison--all in a tiny "RV" with no room. My nerves are truly shot at this point. In about two weeks I should know how the lawsuit will play out. How does one survive chaos and uncontrollable change? I think you do it by putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. That's all we can do.

Ten Days Later

2007-11-17T08:18:00.000-05:00

Just a couple of ordinary days has past. I've been working hard on the software contract and put in a hefty invoice yesterday. Some political b.s. got in the way of getting things done, but that too shall pass. My attorney called me with instructions to stay by my cell phone on Monday--some sort of settlement conference with a judge. ROFL. That's not going to happen. Lawsuits are a PITA.

I took my friend Marie to a birthday lunch yesterday, then came home and puked my guts out. We ate at a place called "Cooking from scratch". I should have known. I'm a vegan and a frugivore and all they had on the menu was Southern fried stuff. I got the fried okra, cole slaw, and green beans. The fried okra may have been fried in lard, one sniff told me not to eat it. The green beans had a slice of pork in it--I gave it to Marie. The cole slaw was not delicious and hindsight tells me it was a bit off. I ordered the onion rings because I was hungry and the side dishes weren't up to par, and that was after making sure they fried them in vegetable oil, at least. They were OK. But I'm not used to bad eating nowadays. I popped the whole lunch within a few hours. I woke up today feeling a little better. I'm sipping a cool herbal tea and will baby the tummy for a few more hours.

The usual morning routine sets in, though I plan to read a couple of chapters on C# to get my head wrapped back around delegates, handlers, callbacks, sockets, and threads. When I design something I always have a handle on all that. This weekend I have to remediate a project that was poorly designed by someone who was still new at the job. I'm trying to understand what that last genious did so I can make surgically precise corrections.

Then I do all my personal stuff first, because you should always start your day dressed all the way to your shoes. It prevents obstacles to progress later in the day and you should always put on your own oxygen mask first. For me, personal stuff includes good eating, good grooming, good exercise, and good meditation. Chores are next, so they don't hang over your head...all the animal care, housework, remedial cleaning. With the boring stuff out of the way, I then concentrate on anything to do with immediate money, making jewelry to fill eBay orders, listing new jewelry, wrapping items to mail, then sending invoices or following up on past invoices for the software business. Then I get any errands out of the way. By 10:00 am I'm at work on my projects where I can get 8 hours of work done in about 5 hours. Then the rest of the day is mine.

So there won't be much posting here until I hear something significant about the lawsuit, the work, or the van. The van is being scheduled for basic work next week. I hope they only keep it for a few days. Henry is due for some basic preventative maintenance, mechanicl work that we may identify, new generator and electrical system, roof vents, and a discussion on who might be best qualified to prep the inside for real living. I'm popping $4000-$5000 for the first bit of work, it may be a lot less. I'm expecting engine work and perhaps a new transmission. I've got another $2500 ready for extensive work. The body and chassis is in excellent condition, but it may have had some hard driving in the past. I don't want to be a van dweller who finds out in a remote corner of Georgia that I have to put my house in a shop for a week. The backup plan for that is preventative maintenance and mechanical work now, plus a small trailer which will be used for storing my items if the van is getting repairs. I could camp out in a tent, or spend cash on a motel room. I have to have Henry back within a few weeks because I'm traveling to a few places for work, then I'm heading back to Pennsylvania to get my stuff.

Today, I'm just going to chill out.

This is the life!

2007-11-07T19:35:00.000-05:00

To think that just a year ago I was worried about getting my own place to live and downsizing so that I could afford to work less and play more. I struggled with my situation, made lists, schemed, and prayed for miracles. But what finally helped me in the end was just doing it. I worked at a job I didn't like, saved money, got out of "the job", went on unemployment, and just did it. I took a few detours along the way because we humans are like that sometimes. The safe and familiar is more dear, and the promise of better circumstances can be quite a lure. I thought I had a "real job" waiting for me, but that did fall through. It is HARD to change, one of the most difficult things that we can do. You have to be willing to throw your hat into the wide open ring and just do it.

So I did it. After a few painful months of downsizing, I was able to put all my interminable boxes of stuff into a small storage room, load up a tiny Ford Escort with the stuff I considered my most basic requirements, and then I hit the road. Yes, I had a real destination, but it was just a stop to allow me to execute the rest of my plan. I spent my savings on a used Sprinter van which is mechanically sound. Without modifications it serves as a bedroom and kitchenette on wheels. I've already used it for camping, for retiring to after a night of babysitting, and for accessing my jewelry supplies and tools to keep up an online business. I've even gotten back into the software contracting business, also from out of my van. I still have a room in a tiny trailer I share with an old friend. Our goal was to downsize both of us in preparation for an early retirement--two old birds giving each other a hand. But she got sidetracked by her own life and we are essentially keeping up two places between us. Until her son gets out of prison, she's stuck with her grandsons and in her current job.

So I'm rattling around the little trailer, the RV I like to call it. It's a good thing, because it would take a lot of diesel or even propane to keep Henry the van warm right now. We got a hard freeze last night and I tried to sleep in the van, but it was just too hard to function. I think my tv froze and my feet definitely froze in spite of two pair of socks and my thermals. The problem with the van as it is with the bare metal and no real insulation is that it was probably colder inside than outside. The plan has always been to get the van outfitted more like a real home inside, but that does take time and money. Realistically, if I had to live in the van full-time as it is, I'd be farther south by now. Or, parked at a friend's house. But then I'd be spending my spare time insulating. Now I'm working on the practical matter of completing work on the software contract to get some money to stashed. And because it makes more sense to stay in the RV and be comfortable I've been working on winterizing the RV.

Winterizing, you say? Oh, yes. All over the country, wherever it might get cold, poor folks are gathering newspaper, plastic bags, duct tape, staples, nails, and hammers, even old blankets, old sheets, old mattresses, old pillows, you name it, all for valiant attempts to seal up the holes that run rampant in older homes and trailers. I've even lived in a fairly new condo in New Jersey where I would swear that the wind was whistling through the drywall, not the cracks, the drywall itself, right through the coating of paint! I nailed quilts to that wall that went up two stories. I also closed the upstairs bedrooms and moved my children down to the dining room where we lived that winter, with their bunk beds and my full-size bed. I moved in the TV and the VCR and the computer and their toys. We wouldn't have been able to financially survive that winter if I hadn't. If you don't know how to winterize, you'd better pay attention now. Sometimes you have to be ruthless and often you have to be creative.

Winterizing the RV is still in progress but I've gotten a lot done. The two air conditioners are covered with heavy plastic and winter grade plastic tape. They are covered both on the outside, around the window openings, and inside. Windows have been covered on the outside with heavy plastic and tape, while I took a lighter plastic and wound it around the screens, reinserted the screens (where there was no storm window to insert), then taped plastic around all that. I left one window in the hallway untaped, in order to get air when needed. Then the doors, oh my, the doors! I think these doors have never seen a gasket or a weather seal, so I cut strips of felt and glued them to the sides, shut the back door and hung four $1.00 quilts found at the thrift store in the recessed opening of the "back door". The front door has a heavy quilt hung in front of it, plus there is a baffle set up with quilts on either side of the opening. It won't be fun getting in and out, but the quilts can be moved out of the way during the day. I set the propane heater on 62, and use a couple of space heaters when I'm awake. Two quilts on the bed and I don't need heaters at night. I even turn the propane heater down to 58. Then you wear sweaters inside, stay dressed in clothes, and keep your socks on. That completes the winterization of a less than cosy place to live.

Still Catching Up

2007-11-06T11:40:00.000-05:00

Basically catching my breath and working on the new project. I want to stash as much cash as possible before I go back to Pennsylvania for the Christmas holidays.

Catching up

2007-11-03T10:56:00.000-05:00

Now, back to catching up on my postings. Before getting back to the backpacking adventure I want to take a few moments to explain the long gap in between postings. I'd recently signed up with the Red Cross and during the wildfires in California we were involved in helping those displaced. I didn't leave the area but it was pretty busy with collections activities and providing general support to those who did travel. It didn't feel like I did much but the feeling of being part of a group effort was the highlight of the past two weeks. We just hope that those who were displaced will receive the help they need to rebuild their lives.

In between responding to emergencies and working on the latest contract I helped out with babysitting. Brock's boys and a new friend's newborn kept me occupied with not much time to dwell on the fact that my youngest son is going to Iraq next year with his Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit. That's going to weigh heavily on our minds until he's there and we have a whole new set of problems to contemplate. I just hope that the idiots in office give up on this made up war that was dreamed up to line their pockets. The economy is imploding here and I'm sick of the Re-pub-licken party. It's almost time to change my party affiliation but not before I cast a negative vote in the primaries. I hope that many other registered republican voters do the same. Vote for the weakest republican candidate and then at election time vote for ANY Democrat put forward. I hope the independents will do the same at election time. I'd vote independent but its a wasted vote until the bad party is weakened. The only reason "it" got elected the second time is because many of the older folks won't change their vote during the time of war, even if it's a made up war.

Two Nights in the Ozarks

2007-10-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

I started this blog entry over a week ago then *things* started to happen faster than I could think about them. Starting from the beginning, the past Saturday and Sunday, over a week ago, were absolutely beautiful. The sky was clear and blue and it was almost too warm. I'm glad that I managed to fit in two overnights out in the wilds of the Ozarks because it's going to get cold.

So I joined a group of local backpackers and we met up at UMR (University of Missouri) around noon and worked out the travel arrangements. This adventure was relatively stationary. We had permission to hike and execute a LNT (leave no trace) camp out in a local national park. While milling around I let several folks look at my "camping" arrangement inside Henry, my van. I alluded to "living out of" the van, but most folks don't catch on to that concept. It's still shady to appear to live out of a vehicle, much less IN it. When I have the modifications done to make Henry look more like an RV inside, then I'll press the idea forward, the idea of living out of a vehicle as a normal option for people to embrace. I'm not hiding it but for casual acquaintances I'm not advertising it just yet.

I'm still amazed at how much STUFF most backpackers think makes a great adventure. To me less has always been more. One older fellow tried to explain to me that my tiny pack was not going to cover two days of backpacking and camping out in the Ozarks. I just smiled mysteriously and asked him if I could snuggle up with him if I found myself in dire straits. He blushed appropriately and changed the subject. I do a lot with a 12 pound lumbar pack and he didn't bother to ask me what my plan was, he just did a typical rush to judgment. Actually I was overpacked for two days out. I do carry over a pound in my tummy pack, plus I carry stuff on my trekking poles, and more stuff in my pockets, so my total weight becomes 125 pounds of me and about 16-18 pounds of my "stuff." But I try to carry NOTHING on my shoulders. That's my weak spot. But compare my 15% body weight sized packing to those 40-70 pound condo packs and you can see why they are so concerned for me. What they don't know is that I can and I have camped out for over a week in the Pike's Peak area of Colorado with nothing more than the contents of a tummy pack. In other words, I have a full amount of survival gear in the tummy pack, and can live for a week on it because that's the training I've received. Lightweight backpacking is not for the average hiker, you need to understand how to survive on basically nothing then surviving on ten pounds of gear is a luxury!

Anyway, the trip was as much fun as backpacking. I like the time spent traveling in a vehicle, having a cup of coffee and a little camaraderie, and transitioning into the new space and attitude. I'm funny that way, for me its the journey not the destination. I took the older gentleman because Henry doesn't have seats for more than the driver and one passenger. He angled himself in position to travel with me. At that point I figured he was either feeling protective or attracted, and possibly curious about my plans for backpacking in the Ozarks with a tiny little lumbar pack. It took both of us to get his condo pack into the van and he still didn't "get it." There is a major rift between condo packers and ultralight packers and the former thinks the latter is just plain crazy and that we don't know how to survive. We had a good conversation, starting with packing for the wilderness. He was still worried about me.

So it started with "Don't you need a tent?" Since he didn't "see" a tent he assumed, I mean presumed that I didn't have a shelter at all. I told him I have a Hennessy Hammock and two tarps that weigh a total of two pounds for the entire setup. "Oh...well what will you sleep in, where's your sleeping bag?" Well, my sleep system doesn't have to be a "sleeping bag" though sometimes it is. For this trip my sleep system was thermals under flannels with two pair of socks and a woolen hat, inside a silk bag, with a bivvy sack backup depending upon the temperature, total weight of five pounds for the extra clothes, silk bag, and el cheapo bivvy sack. "Oh, I'd like to see that, but how are you going to cook?" Well that's pretty easy, my Esbit wing stove is 3 ounces, the six tablets are about 4 ounces, the fire starter is maybe 2 ounces, and the titanium pot is about 6 ounces. I'd say my entire "cooking" system including plastic utensils is less than a pound, and that includes a large folded sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil that can be used as a windscreen or to make a bigger pot. The Esbit fuel tablets are only for backup because the wingstove can use any found fuel, deadfall and twigs on the forest floor. So that takes me up to seven pounds. After that I had a pound of water handling stuff, two pounds of water, a pound of food, and a pound of personal stuff. I weighed it, twelve pounds and I was overpacked! That set the tone for this backpacking adventure.

We got to the parking lot and everybody met in a circle and defined the parameters of the trip. The two leaders were very organized and gave each of us small maps of the area and directions on getting in and out. Then we loaded ourselves up. I strapped on the tummy pack, then the lumbar pack, then grabbed my trekking poles and lccked up the van. I turned around and saw several straining faces as the guys did impossible acrobatic movements to toss those packs on their backs. I tried so hard not to laugh, but my body was quivering in mirth. I'm bad! There were two additional women in the group made up mostly of young fellows from the college. The women were fairly serious and they turned out to be a couple. One carried the tent and the other carried the cooking equipment, so they weren't loaded down too badly. Fit and athletic women can usually fit into a smaller tent, smaller sleeping bags, and can regulate body temperature better. Menopausal women, like me, can sleep in sub-zero weather and open the tent a notch to get some fresh air and that's like no problem. I don't get too many hot flashes thanks to my vegan diet, but I do notice that I really appreciate air conditioning like never before. In any case, I'm of the belief that we women have a leg up when it comes to survival under most any circumstances.

We hiked about six miles to the campsite, which wasn't too bad. A bit hilly, but nothing like the third class scrambles in Rocksylvania on the Appalachian Trail. It took us about two hours to get to the spot and set up camp. There was some friendly competition for good tent spots, and I hung back and let them fight it out. Then I went into a stand of trees and put up the hammock and added the two tarps on each side in a diamond formation. That served as a wind break and a privacy screen. I made sure I had a big rock and a log for comfort while cooking and eating. I hung my packs on the ridge line inside my hammock, which has it's own rainfly. Altogether it was a very cozy, lightweight, quick to set up system. I've spent years working it all out. There was water nearby so I opened up the collapsible pail and brought water to my site for later. We all met in the relative middle of the camp and had some lunch. I cheated with lunch and had a tofu salad pita sandwich with fresh broccoli, alfalfa, and mung beans, dehydrated onions, and one whole tomato. That never tasted so good before. There's something about a hike on one of the last days of autumn that makes everything you eat taste wonderful. And so it went.

Hiking is about planning, provisioning, preparing, and then hiking, eating, eliminating, and sleeping. Your whole world is simplified to the point where you are only thinking about your physical needs and the outside world is far away. No matter what is going on in the outside world, your world is simple and free.

Hiking Day

2007-10-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

It was nippy last night in the van. I was snuggled into my bed and had cats trying to snuggle into me most of the night. Henry the van is not set up with heating other than from the regular vehicle heater. The thought of having a remote start to periodically heat up the van crossed my mind more than once throughout the night. I've had that before on the Expedition and used it when camping out or sleeping in parking lots away from home. But we managed. I slept great until about 5 am. No amount of lazing in bed was going to induce sleep again so I bit the bullet and got dressed. That was the hard part! I'm sleeping in thermals next time which should make it easier to get up.

Well I'm dressed now and have some hot chocolate next to me. The laptop is where it's supposed to be, on my lap, and the cats are snuggling up to my feet. I hear the two competing coyote families yipping to each other in the big field beside the big trailer. I wonder how I should manage hiking in coyote country? That's on the agenda for some research before I go hiking with the local college group today. I have bear spray and bear bells on my trekking poles, but I'm hoping to learn that coyotes never try to contact humans during the day. Bears aren't supposed to but lately I'm noticing that the bears don't read the same manuals that I read. I'm still looking forward to the hike and hope that some of the senior members of the group are armed with local lore. There is a renouned ecologist on this hike, a woman older than I, so I expect to learn a lot today. I'm particularly interested in local foods.

In a bit I'll have some coffee with Marie and wish the boys good luck with soccer, then I'm heading over to the RV to drop off Spike and Skyler. They did well in the van but I don't want to leave them in it for two days. When I travel I plan to leave the kitty boys with Marie. Hopefully, I'll have the van set up as an RV before I do extensive traveling so that I can leave the cats while working or hiking.

I love Henry

2007-10-19T16:02:00.000-05:00

Henry is the best boyfriend I've ever had. He performs all the functions of a man and best of all requires very little care in return. Henry carries my worldy possessions for me by day and envelopes me in his warm embrace at night. He provides me with security in a hostile world. Becauses he's an older model, but a top-of-the-line model of his day, he commands respect. I have no fear of running afoul of societal mores with Henry's companionship. This means that Henry, my van, doesn't look like a derelict family of drug-crazed hippies lives inside. Henry looks like a modestly successful locksmith's van. Hmmmmm, I wonder if I should look into becoming a locksmith?

Van dwelling is fun now that I have Henry, but backpacking is even more fun--that's my true passion. This weekend is a backpacking weekend. I plan to look for a puppy to raise as my hiking companion, for those places that Henry cannot go. Soon...the way this week has gone I haven't had time to shop for anything. In between getting the van cleaned up and unpacked, the laundry done, and starting a new IT project so I've been digging into the Y2K rations, which are still good. My Y2K solution consisted of sprouting seeds, beans, and dried foods like corn, onions, and spices. I've kept up with that shopping, roughly twice a year, and have rotated my stock so everything is still less than two years old, while most is less than six months old.

I found that I need far less kidney beans than first envisioned. They are too much work, what with soaking, rinsing, and pressure cooking. I far prefer chick peas. Sprouted chick pea hummus is simply fabulous. It's possible to make it without using electricity, and that's a bonus. I just use a pastry cutter, that twisted set of metal blades used to "cut in" butter into a pie dough. Of course you have to sprout the chick peas first, then blanch them for a minute in hot water. Then cut into the two-three cups of sprouted chick peas a couple of lemons or limes juiced, a few tablespoons of sesame oil, and either peanut butter or tahini (sesame seed butter). Sometimes I use whatever nuts I have handy and crush them mercilessly before adding them into the hummus. After the basic hummus is fairly smooth other things can be added, like garlic, or cilantro, or other similar savory things. Once you have hummus you have a highly nutritious food and healthy food, deliciously prepared, that goes well with any type of vegetable crudite. I like eating foods as close to nature as possible, without much cooking. So hummus is a big deal when so much prep time and hot water go into it. It's still delicious and definitely far more nutritious and healthy than anything that is cooked to death.

With that being said, today's repast was as raw as I could make it while running out of fresh produce. I had been spending most of this week babysitting at the big trailer and sleeping in my van in the yard (you can hardly call it a driveway). I got up this morning and after making a cup of oolong tea I fired up the laptop to get a little work in. For some reason my groggy brain was able to quickly solve the highest priority issue in about 5 minutes, which involved 1 hour and fifty-five minutes of testing after ten seconds of typing. The problem was estimated to take 40 hours so I'm about 38 hours ahead. Being a fairly fair consultant I think I'll bill just 12 hours. The guys would bill the entire 40. I guess they can live with themselves, but I don't have to. I fixed a few other problems, too. That means I'm ahead on next week's billing. Since the big boys want estimates to measure the results I'll work to the estimates. Duh! I think the secret to being able to solve technical issues quickly is to purposefully ask my subconscious mind to work on the problem before I go to sleep. In nearly all cases of doing this I wake up with "the answer".

With "work" out of the way I grabbed my morning basket, the basket that holds clean undies and some frivolous toiletries, and ran inside to take care of some daily grooming needs. I "can" clean up inside the van but I don't have to. I live "out of" my van, not "in it". After the cleanup I located the last of the produce and did some food processing with the knife and cutting board. Everything's a salsa. Chop tomatoes, onions, and cilantro, then add some sprouts, and you've got salsa! Use a spoon and a couple of carrot sticks along with some hummus and you have dinner! I made enough salsa to last for at least two days. I'm hitting the farmer's market in Rolla first thing Saturday morning and that should take care of my food needs for the week. I expect to spend less than $10 for a week's supply of fresh produce.

Preparation for hiking this weekend is done. My lumbar pack is set, and it contains everything needed for an overnight camp out. Strapped to that is my fleece bedroll, my Hennessey Hammock, and an inflatable mat. I have a three-season system that weighs less than 12 pounds including water. At first I left out the inflatable mat and just used a combination of silk liner, fleece sleeping bag, and an emergency bivvy sack to mix and match a sleeping system suitable for the weather conditions. But in the hammock there is still a problem with one's backside getting chilled. So the self-inflating mat makes a nicer barrier as a well as a firmer sleeping surface. I can also use the mat for sitting or napping along the way. In ultra-lightweight backpacking, multiple uses are mandatory for any item in the kit. My lumbar pack has room for the heavy stuff in the bottom and also has a top part that has shoulder straps. Here is a review I did a while back: Kelty Lumbar Pack. Yes, I'm seriously into backpacking the ultra-light way.

Henry's Camping Adventure

2007-10-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a blast! I took a primitive campsite last Wednesday through this morning, during the Old Ironwork's Day celebrations at Maramec Springs. A bit pricey but heck, I'm making the big bucks again. With the van, a regular tent, and a screen tent, I was set up for a little bit of entertaining over the weekend, in case anyone brought the boys out to visit. Though I was looking forward to a little bit of solitude, that might have been too much to expect during a celebration week.

I parked the van Wednesday afternoon and explored for several hours, expecting to come back to a quiet evening in the van with my cuddly cat, hot chocolate, and a good book. Instead, I found a new Rolla friend at my campsite setting up a barbeque with a group of her local biker friends. By biker friends, I mean professionals by day, bikers by nights and weekends. It WAS at least a low-stress way of meeting members of the local police force and fire departments. There was definitely a dead carcass cookout going on and I found several willing helpers who put the tents up for me. They even brought some beer and wine, and picnic fixin's. I never did get the solitude I was looking for, but it was a lot of fun. A bit more of a party atmosphere than I expected, but I'm usually up for a good party, as a real Gemini's Gemini (Sun and moon in Gemini). Yes, I believe in it. The Zodiac does not lie!

On Sunday I hitched a ride to a Universalist Unitarian meeting (on a Harley), and I'm glad I did. The presentation was by the group, "Engineers Without Borders". I'm now thinking about joining because it would be a mitzvah to help bring the internet to a remote village in South America. I'm still trying to decide how to implement my mission in life, and I actually dread trying to help the homeless in America. At least I'd be working on relatively the same continent if I went the route of Engineers Without Borders, and it would be only 2 trips a year with the rest of the time spent here. I'd still be able to work with the homeless. What really interested me was the primitive engineeering solutions for water and waste handling, which I think I can put into practice on my own land in the US someday.

Well, the guy who brought me also attended the fellowship meeting and now I think I have a "beau". There is that tendency when the girl rider is wrapped tightly around the guy driving 80 mph down I-44. It's just a normal response to the situation. He hung around me the rest of the day and I had to boot him out of the van before the park closed last night. I didn't give him my cell phone number, but Bonnie did. He's left three messages since last night. I think if he were closer to my age he'd understand how to be a little smoother with the approach. I'm tempted to go out with him but am leary of his "campaign" approach. He's a fireman and has a small business, so hopefully he won't have a lot of time to stalk me. I think I will be nice and return one call, thank him for the ride, and plead a busy week to get out of any dates this week. I do have to get started on a new IT contract and don't need the distractions. Hey, I'm old and I'm not going anywhere. If it is meant to be it will happen.

Henry did well for this camping adventure. The nice part was that I didn't need to pack at all. Everything I needed was already in place inside, only a stop for gas and groceries was required. The blankets on the sides of the interior gave plenty of insulation against the rapidly cooling Missouri days and nights. I let a couple of the ladies stay overnight in the van with me and we managed fine. The men and dogs stayed in the tent, of course. I like dogs and men ok, but they bring funny odors with them. Skyler the cat was the only boy sleeping with me over the weekend. His big adventure was sneaking out to explore the campsite. He got a load of the dogs in the area and decided to perch on the driver's seat instead, which got some sun and warmth. I think living fulltime in a van with a cat shouldn't be a problem until it gets too hot, then I would need to stay somewhere with more conveniences.

I'm home now and will do the cleanup and equipment maintenance before I go take the boys to soccer practice. Hopefully I can snatch a nap in the back of the van while the little brother does his homework. I have a big pile of laundry to do in the Rubbermaid bucket this afternoon, to be dried when I take them back to the big trailer. I'm still living in the RV sized trailer while my friend takes care of her grandchildren in the big trailer. I'm able to be the "soccer mom" and supervise them in the evenings so they aren't alone.

The laundry solution I came up with for van dwelling has been working out well for me. Normally I'd invest an hour of my time at a laundromat, but if it's too cold to contemplate leaving the RV, washing clothes at home is a viable option. The hardest part is agitating the water and wringing out the clothes. I've done it strictly by hand and it's taken days for sopping wet jeans and sweatshirts to dry and my hands ached. My tiny paws were meant for easy work like hand sewing and typing, really. So I bought a commercial size Rubbermaid mop bucket that holds up to thirty gallons of water, though I can do a complete wash with ten gallons--three to wash, and eight to rinse. To "agitate" I bought a new toilet pluner, the black kind made of soft, snag-free rubber. On the mop bucket, the built-in wringer is a flat press style that easily presses most of the water out of the clothes. Inside the van or a tub enclosure, I use a spring pressure mounted bar for a preliminary hanging of the clothes until I either get them to a dryer or hang them on a line outside. With regular clothes line rope I used snap hooks attached to each end to fashion a portable clothes line that can be set up in flexible configurations wherever I can find trees or parts to hook them from. I'll probably set up an awning system on the van one day, so I don't have to harm a tree to dry my clothes.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to wash and hang four days worth of laundry. I'm fast and follow the old fashioned rules--start with extremely hot water and wash the whites (sheets & towels), the stinkies (socks & undies), the pants, and the shirts last. Then dump the water and rinse in the same order, wringing and hanging as I go. A pre-soak, then a detergent scrub with a stiff bristled brush works well on tire tracks, if you know what I mean. My friend Marie has a washboard she's going to dig up for me, and I think it will help with working on any stains. I think my laundry is coming out better now that I use the new system. You tend to put laundry in and not inspect it for hard to treat stains until they are dried into the fabric and it is too late.

Well, enough lunch and lollygagging, it's time to get busy...

Henry's First Picnic

2007-10-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

Columbus Day brought some great community events and we attended all of them, Henry and I. I didn't locate a TV or antenna but I also didn't look very hard. I may just do more research and buy the best antenna I can find on the Internet and be done with that. A flat screen TV that can double as a computer monitor is probably a good way to go for the television. For my line of work I will need to travel with a server as well as a laptop. In the spirit of ultra-lightweight backpacking, each item in the "kit" has to serve more than one purpose. Although, I do have dreams of laying in a hammock outside my van watching Bear Grylls take his clothes off on my portable TV. We all have dreams. Maybe I can rig up a movable monitor that can hang outside occasionally.

The picnic at the Lion's Club park was fun. I was able to enjoy myself outdoors then take a nap when I felt like it. Nobody was offended and my new extended family thought it was a great idea, having a camper van. They are at a socioeconomic level where being homeless isn't an issue since Section 8 housing is always an option. It's hard to explain to them that I like being independent of government help and I'm willing to work hard to make that happen. I took all four boys on a hike around the biking trails and we kept up a good pace for several hours. The oldest boys, 10 and 12 years of age, had the hardest time keeping up. Little Sean, at the age of three, was able to easily outrun me. I counted on his fear of the woods to keep him in my sights and that worked fine.

These boys are not used to being outside except to go to school or errands. The first time I made the older boys "play" outside brought on tears that broke my heart. I grabbed some spoons and cups, scissors, washcloths, and a few GI Joe toys, and I sat with them by a big oak tree and taught them how to play. We dug out forts and a big pond, then furnished the fort with washcloths cut to size for bedrolls and other primitive needs. I pulled my favorite Backpacking Barbie's out and showed them how we could enjoy pretending that the dolls were camping out. You know my Barbie's are well outfitted with the best equipment, including tents, sleeping bags, picnic tables, and cooking items. The kids were amazed at all these "toys" and I got to share, from a grandma's perspective, the joy of imagination. It was a great time for me, even though my Barbie collection is simply a hobby in my old age. Out of this time outside the boys are learning how to play again, cooperatively and happily.

They are at risk due to a father in prison and a mother with psychiatric problems. I keep forgetting that the simplest things in life are foreign to them. They have never had anything of their own that wasn't lost in an eviction. Every conversation they have is about lack of money and lack of necessities. I guess I was brought to them to teach them about the joys of simplicity and the responsibility we all have to conserve our own resources. I was a single mother with two sons and a foster son and we may have been homeless once but the kids had no idea. Our belongings were in storage and we were packed for a camping trip. In my world, we don't discuss any lack of money with kids, that's called "poor mouthing", but we do reinforce the idea of a budget and conserving resources wisely by shopping carefully and properly preparing foods and using leftovers. I think the positive approach is better than the negative approach characterized by "poor mouthing". That is the practice of constantly stating one is poor or in poverty. I've been broke but I've never been poor.

Starlight Through the Trees

2007-10-08T07:29:00.000-05:00

Living out of a van is a few inches closer to nature, like the starlight through the trees makes the stars seem closer, sleeping in the back of a van brings all the sounds of the woods inside. Gee, I can't sleep past 5:00 am anymore! I had to get up and explore the sounds of morning in Missouri.

We still have the little trailer in the RV park, but my BFF Marie is now staying in the big trailer with Brock's kids until he gets released from prison on parole. She plans to take the trailer int he RV park when he comes out and gets on his feet. I can stay in either trailer, but have chosen to set up my living arrangements in the van. This is the real deal and not just practice because it was always my intention to live out of the van. I say "live out of" not "live in" because a vehicle should not define my life. My life is outside of the vehicle and within the vast space defined by my two ears. I am the cat who walks by myself and all places are alike to me. Though I can be tempted inside for amusement and companionship at times.

The Cat that Walked by Himself
by Rudyard Kipling

"HEAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild--as wild as wild could be--and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him."

So, living out of the van means this to me, that everywhere I go my necessaries are nearby without being so numerous that I'm encumbered. It is a rolling closet, with a chest of clothes, a tub of jewelry making supplies, healthy foods, my indoor garden, all the electronic gadgets that an engineer dreams of, and a private place to lay my head. It means that when I get the call to explore the Grand Canyon I can just drive there, stopping to work when I feel the urge and stopping to explore at every opportunity. It means that when my next grandchild is born I can drive there and spend days or weeks without packing or planning. I could have been doing all of these things before the van, but the van makes it simpler and simplicity is the key. I am tired of lists of chores and lists of bills and lists of to do's. I want to be a human being and not a human doing.

Now that the shakedown cruise is done I'm planning to add a good deployable antenna and a small television, probably today if I can find these things at a good price. I guess I'm addicted to the tube because I didn't get to watch Survivor Man or Man vs Wild last weekend and was at a loss. No wonder I jumped at the chance to go sightseeing with strangers without having to unpark the van at my campsite. At some point after some planned van modifications are done I will look into satellite TV.

The planned modifications are: diesel generator, solar panels, batteries, electrical system, rooftop vents, heating & air conditioning, finishing the interior and adding cabinets. I'm only doing the interior and cabinets in order to make the environment more like a home rather than a warehouse. I should take a cue from my friend Marie and use hanging fabrics that can be removed for laundering. Heck, that's were I got the front partition curtains because she's a thrift store fabric aficionado and has tubs and tubs of fabric. I should turn her loose in the van. But I only have a few short weeks before the van goes in for modifications. I'm trying to get the best local RV mechanic on the project and he's jammed up with work right now. I'm buying the items needed and basically am just getting ready.

I have the urge to go camping today but some old business needs attending before I get busy on a new IT contract and there is a picnic to attend later. I think today is a holiday. When you no longer have kids in school you tend to forget the miscellaneous public holidays. Yes I babysit kids who attend school but I'm oblivious to the finer details of their school schedule.

Time Flies in the Cloud Forest

2007-10-06T07:26:00.000-05:00

In the cloud forest, time has no meaning. You cannot see the sun, though you can see when it is completely dark. You begin to see the "not sun" and the "not moon" and in those places where you see not you begin to see all. Perhaps that's why monasteries are so often found among the clouds. Places of meditation and purity. That's what you find in a cloud forest.

I took some time lately to do a few earthly things on my list and just came out of the clouds of the Ozarks after a shakedown cruise for the new van. After a very intense and busy period I realized I hadn't updated my blog in over a month. There were some compeling reasons, but those are now behind me. It turns out that my former "crazy roommate" decided that my moving out would be her impetus to getting out of her abusive relationship with her bigamist husband. That stirred up a hornet's nest with him because the D.A. is involved now to deal with the bigamy issue. He did not go quietly and there were a lot of threats and some cyber-stalking. So I took the time to change my blog address and will cleanse the blog of information related to location, names, and anything else necessary to achieve privacy as I re-post former entries. I'm not really afraid of him but I do guard my sanity, what's left of it. I don't need to have to deal with him or her situation any longer. I've also made changes in the amount of time I spend on the Marie and Brock issue with the four children and non-existent parenting. It is so easy to be sucked in and I can be a sucker for animals, friends, and kids. This latest journey of mine was about getting my own life back and I feel like I have it again.

Now for the great news. The new van is a 2002 Sprinter Van with the Turbo diesel engine. I once had a purple Ford Windstar we all called "Barney", and now the new van is called "Henry". I picked him up at an auction in St. Louis for $7000. He may need a new transmission in a few years, but I budgeted for that. My overall budget was $15,000 for a good quality, current century, cargo style van that would be comfortable to live out of and travel in. In keeping with the spirit of simplicity that I strive for in life, this van is simply a shell with a driver and a passenger seat in the front and a partition between the driving compartment and the cargo area. It came with shelves and a toolbox in the back which I've already sold on Ebay.

It is now stripped bare in the back and has an area rug over a plywood "floor", hanging fabric panels over insulation, and some plastic drawers and cabinets attached to the partitions. I put up a double curtain between the partition and opening to the driving area. The inside curtain is a pretty pattern with colors I enjoy. I decided to put up a set of plain white, well lined curtains that are visible through the front windows. The white seems to blend in naturally and seems to be less of a signal that the van might be occupied. It just looks like a workman's cargo van that is closed off in the front. I think that a black curtain might be more of a tip off to security folks. There are no windows in the cargo area, and I checked that you can't see any light leaking from the cargo area in the dark for stealth camping.

In the shakedown cruise I was well outfitted and came back with a very small list of needs. I took two Ozark full size air mattresses to stack for a normal feeling bed, and a portable vacuum cleaner to use in the reverse to inflate "things", plus all my hiking and camping gear, two five gallon bottles of water with one battery operated pump, a luggable loo, and a pantry. I also took the laptop with the wireless broadband connection card, an inverter, a solar battery charger, a solar shower, a small child's blowup pool, and a privacy tent. The privacy tent is for setting up in a camping situation. These are often set up for use as a privy or a place to stand up and shower. I also tossed in the jewelry making table, chair, and supplies, as well as a pop-up screen tent in case I decided to camp somewhere with icky buggies.

For the first night I just stopped in a truck stop parking lot and used the inverter to plug in the vacuum and inflate the mattresses. The nights are starting to get cool in Missouri, so I had two blankets and fixed up a very nice bed cross-wise against the back doors of the van. The luggable loo came in handy, strapped to the partition behind the driver's seat. I used a Good Sense trash bag (nice smell!) with scented kitty litter inside, the multiple cat household variety, of course! This worked out well with one bag a day for my waste. I hate wasting plastic bags, but this will do for now.

I was pretty tired the first night and just slept. I woke up to the sounds of activity about 4:30 am and decided to get dressed and have my coffee. The Smart Mug takes way too long to make a decent cup of instant coffee, though it is great for keeping the coffee at a drinkable temperature. So I used the Rival "hot pot" to quickly heat some water to almost boiling, plugging it into the inverter. I tuned into the local news with my weather radio and fired up the laptop to check e-mail and such. Things quieted down in the parking lot about 6:00 am so I laid back down for a nap until 9:00 am. Hunger definitely drove me out of bed that time and I decided to make breakfast.

The pantry is attached to the partition behind the passenger seat, right by the door. That was so I could open the door and cook outside if I wished. It consists of a set of four large plastic rubbermaid drawers on the bottom, with a plastic cabinet hanging on top. I used a huge, heavy duty rubber band to ensure the doors stayed closed during travel, which worked fine. I have a laminated board cut to size sitting on top of the plastic drawers to protect them from my appliances. There is even a light attached under the cabinets to make it easier to see, the pop-on battery operated style you can pick up at a flea market for less than a dollar.

I had a hankering for some hash browns and happened to have some in the dehydrated food drawer. I used some of the water in the hot pot to re-hydrate them while I browned some fresh cut onions in a saute pan over a single burner electric stove. At that point I decided it might be a good idea to run the van to ensure the battery wouldn't be drained. It also gave a needed boost of A/C to the rear. It may be cool at night, but it's still summer weather here in Missouri and I wasn't camping with the door open just yet. While the hash browns did their thing in the saute pan I manually juiced two oranges, a lemon, and a tomato that I kept in a pan over ice in a large cooler. That was a mighty fine breakfast for my first day in the Ozarks. It was easy to prepare and easy to clean up. I just wiped the pan clean, stashed the cooled appliances back in the appliance drawer, and wiped down my utensils and cutting board with the lemon rind before doing a final wipe with alcohol. I think the citrus fruit rind helped the loo out, too.

The pantry worked fine during the trip. I guess I've been setting up kitchens and cooking over camp stoves long enough to know what might work the best and I'd put more thought into the van setup. The four drawers are organized so that all the heavy canned and packaged foods are in the bottom drawer. The next to the bottom drawer holds the cooking appliances (electric burner, pans, hot pot, Esbit wing stove, etc. The second drawer holds dishes and utensils for eating, while the top drawer holds all the cooking utensils and cleaning paraphenalia. The cabinet has three shelves and I attached lips to the edges with molding and glue so things won't slide out. The bottom shelf has my Biosta sprouters with room for six sprouted crops in rotation. That shelf also contains teas, coffee, Stevia (natural sweetener), hot chocolate, snacks, sea salt and spices. The middle shelf contains oils, condiments, seeds, and nuts, while the top shelf contains paper products and general items. In the middle shelf I also house a dishpan and dishtowels. The hardest part was getting to the water bottles easily. I should probably strap the water bottles behind the driver's partition and move the luggable loo to another location. Decisions, decisions! Anyway, things worked out well.

I got on the road and arrived at my intended destination in time for lunch. I got settled into my reserved campsite in Battle of Athens state park and met my neighbors who invited me over for a barbeque. I grabbed my portabella mushrooms and a squash, a couple of beers, and my lounge chair and had a very enjoyable afternoon that lead to a couple of more beers and an early night. Sometime during the barbeque I made a salad with tomatoes, vidalia onions, tofu, shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, and a bunch of fresh sprouts, including mung beans, alfalfa, and broccoli. For a dressing I juiced six lemons and mixed the juice with grapeseed oil, fresh herbs I grow myself, and some Celtic sea salt. I made this huge salad in my new dishpan and even after sharing the ingredients list with my neighbors that salad disappeared almost before I could get some. That salad plus my grilled squash and portabellas is a meal memory that I'll treasure. No matter that I ran out of fresh produce because it was worth it. I ended up going on a trip with my neighbors the next morning and we stopped for groceries on the way home. It's funny how you can go camping alone and end up meeting people anyway.

Because I'm still helping out with the boys I only stayed out for three nights and days, and had to head home Monday this week to take Dee Dee to soccer practice at 5:30. I stretched my weekend out as long as I could.

People

2007-08-31T17:05:00.000-05:00

People are funny and fortunately they are fun to interact with mostly. After a good start to the day then a bad middle somewhere around the bend of good intentions the afternoon turned out to be enjoyable. My landlord in the RV/trailer park is a delightful woman in her seventies, from the UK originally. Since her husband died she now handles the park, does most of the maintenance, and keeps up on all the appropriate gossip. I paid the rent early and left a note about some issues, one the light over the stove has a short, and the other was that we needed a mailbox key. She came right over in her toy cart and we had a nice visit. We discussed the finer points of dealing with adult children who have come home to roost with their chicks. More on that later. We will be getting a new light over the stove but she brought a clip-on light in the meantime. And the door that had previously been torn from its hinges will be replaced with an accordion door. She loved what we did with the place and is indeed a sheltered island away from the storm over at Brock's trailer that is so full of disfunction and chaos. We get along famously, we old ships of the sea. Like Ma Joad said in The Grapes of Wrath, men they live their lives in jerks while we women experience life as a flowing river. Sometimes its deep and treacherous and sometimes its calm and peaceful. I'm having to jerk some peace back for myself after dealing with Brock today.

To set the story up, of course I'm always right. Once that's decided then we will get along famously. All kidding aside, when I'm forking over time, energy, and money, yes I'm always right. This week his mother was in tears and we are both sick over how shabbily he is taking care of things. He got a job at Wally World when he first got out of jail when I bailed him out on a $2500 bond. He didn't get all four children dumped on him until a few months afterward. I've been doing all the babysitting which has turned out to be only about three days a week. He uses any excuse to miss work and it falls on his mother to take up the financial slack. Every time I see him the fist is opened palm up requesting money. Of course we don't want to see him lose his job or for the kids to go without birthdays and back to school supplies. But I'm tired of sitting in the trailer babysitting and catching calls from bill collectors for things that were not needed. We cannot affort fancy rental TV's and video game systems. We are tired of subsidizing a life he just cannot afford. We are sick of it. SICK OF IT! She wants to throw her hands up and say "screw it!" I thought I was made of sterner stuff and proceeded to try to get him involved in part of the solution, so I called him and requested that we use Friday to take care of things.

Today I picked him up on my last effort to invest more time, energy, and money into the problem. The plan was to get the notarized power of attorney forms done for the kids because we may end up with them if he has to serve out any sentence on his conviction, and next week is the big day where we find out. I took Brock to do his laundry because the washer is now broken. His mother believes this is because he allows all his friends to come to her trailer to do their laundry. She has no plans to fix it. So after that we planned to get a carpet steamer to take care of the nasties in the trailer. There is an issue where he is not on the lease and Mavis doesn't want the landlord to have an excuse to put an end to this nonsense because the trailer is falling to a state of filth and disrepair. Actually, there is no lease, this is the country. But there is common decency and one should keep one's rental property in good condition. Most responsible people know this. But, as I expected, Brock decided to inform me that he wasn't having anything to do with cleaning up the trailer and since he is a grown man he is sure I'll understand that he will be doing his own thing in the trailer while I work at cleaning it. Excuse me! I am not your kitchen mammy. I dropped him off at the trailer with the kids and I'm spending the rest of my time doing my own thing, since I am a grown woman. Can't wait for him to ask me to babysit again. Gee, I'm busy. I'm a grown woman and I have other things to do. I think it's time for another hike. And did I mention that his hoopty car, which belongs to his mother, has died? No? Well, it's on the side of the road and we "we're" going to look into fixing it after the trailer cleaning. But that's not my problem. >^;^<

On the bright side, this is just another life lesson for me. I really need to stop helping people when they ask. Gee, I'm jest too busy. Family is the worst and this youngster is like a son to me. I'm obviously not doing a very good job of being an example to him. My own sons are 27 and 23 and once they turned 22 and finished school I have not had to bail them out of trouble, knock on wood. Brock didn't get the pleasure of graduating from my boot camp for troubled teens.

The question on my mind as I reorganize my life is how far to go to help my family and friends? There have been people who helped me when I needed it and I don't mind being helpful, but surely there is a line to be drawn when it is too much. When is it too much? The decision has been made, it is too much for me. I'm not enjoying this stress at all. I did promise to give him a ride to work and the two smaller children to the sitter tomorrow, and I will. I think I'd like to leave the kids with her and leave Brock to his own devices coming home. He's a grown man. Five miles is no big deal to walk and I'm sure he will get a ride. I have an appointment with my hammock tomorrow night. I feel the urge to wander the woods.

Briock, if you are listening, I was a single mother too. I worked every hour I could and I held on to my money. My kids never had to wonder where they were going to live. Man up! No excuses!

Sheesh!

Pondering the Meaning of Life

2007-08-27T18:21:00.001-05:00

The meaning of life is simple, it is just plain fun to live, and breathe, and sleep, and get dirty, and become clean, and have children, and raise them, and have cats, and enjoy them, and to keep one's quests simple. The structure in which you do it can be fun in and of itself. It is a little harder to enjoy life without some kind of structure.

I got this epiphany over the past few weeks as I donated babysitting services to Marie's son Brock (sometimes I facetiously call him "Brain"). He has four young boys, ages 3, 4, 9, and 10. Yeah, I know. What were they doing in those years? Heh, heh. Anyway, the issue is that

Grandma-isms - Rules to Live By

2007-08-17T14:54:00.001-05:00

My grandmothers were wise, wild women and left me a legacy of "isms" that I've learned the hard way to ignore at my peril. When you become a grandmother it is your duty and your right to dispense "isms". Here are some words to the wise, and you tell me if they aren't the smartest ideas on the planet today.

1. Never leave your purse unattended. That also goes for anything important to you. If your dollars or cell phone go missing don't say you weren't warned.

2. ALWAYS keep your keys with you. Don't leave them in the car or the house because your kids or grandkids could lock you out, and that is the LEAST of your worries. The only time you should not keep your keys with you is if you are body surfing at Daytona Beach. My dad could explain that one to you. The worst mistake you can make is to leave kids and keys in a car. You could lose everything. I don't leave kids unattended. At gas stations or the post office, they go with.

3. Never give anybody your last dollar (re: bill collectors)

4. When the bill collectors approach, don't pay until you see the whites of their eyes!

5. No money leaves this house!

6. Stash your cash and ditch your trash.

7. Don't build your house in the swamp. This could apply to fault lines and the path of tornadoes, too.

8. If the kids are quiet you'd better investigate. Flour, sugar, syrup, and cake mix dampens noise.

9. Travel light through life, things are not important, people are.

Hey, what can I say? They each raised four children, who raised children, who raised children, who are raising children. Great grandma can't be wrong. I hope I get to see my grandchildren raise children one day.

New Life

2007-08-15T16:19:00.001-05:00

The new life is really still the old life only now I'm living quietly and will much less need for material possessions. Mavis and I will still enjoy tracking down bargains to help Brain raise four active boys so we aren't suffering. My wish list is filled only with the plan for buying a good used van to travel and live out of. Most of what I have left is suitable for a mobile life, with easy to transport items.

Check out the pictures of my peaceful room in the tiny trailer I'm sharing with Mavis. I love the warm, rich tones of the old-fashioned wood paneling from the 60's. All of the furniture, bed, bedding, curtains, material, lights, wiring, and appliances were purchased for under $70 in total. The bed is a queensized blow up bed, padded with two comforters for a more bed-like feel. A white student desk and matching set of drawers is covered with a suede look cloth for a quarter, topped with a hutch to make it look more organized. The entertainment center consists of a $5 color tv plus a vcr for $10. A couple of dark pieces of material were used to cover the table with a wood board on top in the alcove. The curtain over the table hides some storage and a large combination printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine. The laptop is wireless, and is handy now when I travel in the area, for staying connected and for writing and creating. I use an inverter to keep the laptop charged while mobile. Yes, that's a dremel on the top shelf of the hutch which I use for making jewelry. It's great for burring, buffing, and drilling. There is a book on edible plants, a big nalgene bottle of water, and a stapler. Generally, I keep most items out of view unless I'm using them

The three light fixture is perfect for making jewelry on the parsons table next to it. I also use the parsons table to set up a light box and take pictures of items I sell on Ebay. It may seem close to the bed, but I use the bed to sit while I'm creating. I can see the entertainment center from that position so I don't have to miss any part of my favorite soap operas (tic). The little table to the right is an end table for the bed plus it is the perfect place to display my jewelry making parts and findings in a pretty set of organizers I got from Jo-Annes s while ago. They are a nice touch because they represent my passion to create jewelry and make me happy to see them. I'll often relax on my bed at night and pick through the parts to come up with ideas for the next day's work. The black shelves are right outside the door, in the hallway. I display things that I enjoy there, plus books I'm currently reading.

The wall behind the bed could use some work. If I'm energetic I may find a nice cloth cover to staple up and make it look nicer. I really don't feel the need to remove the wallpaper to prep and paint, or anything like that. If we are still here in a few months, I'll think about it. We are possibly moving into a slightly larger trailer with two bedrooms that each have their own bathroom. That would be ideal. For now, this is fine. We are both neat and orderly in our habits.

I hung a bright green sheet in the hallway to provide an extension of the room that holds in my AC while giving both of us more privacy. The doors are sliders and they are fine but I thought this would benefit the feng shui. I should have posted a picture of the wonderful built-in closet and drawers. It's like living in an RV. I love it!

Wild Women

2007-08-12T09:43:00.000-05:00

From the age of four or five, Marilyn and I ran the neighborhood. We hid in bushes and spied on the neighbors and we knew all the great gossip before it became gossip. We used information and intrinsic coquetry as cash to gain cookies, candy, and above all building supplies. Because there was much more fun to be had in the woods. We allowed some of the other neighborhood children to run with us, both girls and boys. But together or separate we were the alpha females and the undisputed leaders of the pack. She was a loner and I was a loner with devious social skills. We were lean and mean, one a tall goddess and the other a petite wood nymph. We meshed together well and shared a common purpose--utter curiosity and the drive to be the masters of our domain. We were wise, wild women from an early age.

Wild Women are Earth Mothers. Wild Women are untamed and unpredictable. We own our sexuality and you won't see anything other than shampoo, soap, and a toothbrush in our bathrooms. The lotions and pots of makeup are stored away for when we want them. Yes, Wild Women will occasionally dress up like "ladies" or "other-than-ladies", mostly because we can, but that is not the entirety of our consciousness. We were lucky to grow up as a wild women in central Florida, shielded from mass media, knowing nothing of weight and diets, makeup and fashion, and with a small dose of the reality of being targets in a male dominated culture. It was a delightful test tube and we revelled in it, in spite of the hardships of our lives. She lost her father early in life, while I was the cat person raised by wolves. But I am the cat who walks by herself and all places are alike to me.

My fondest memory of our escapades was the taming of the wilderness surrounding us. We lived in a concrete block subdivision of surrounded by "the woods". The woods were a grand forest of towering pines with a low ground cover of vicious blackberry vines and treacherous palmetto's, stretching around us for miles. There were rattlesnakes, coral snakes, a vast assortment of bugs and mosquitoes, plus an array of fruits and benign looking foliage designed to lull the unsuspecting into believing they were safe. But we were children of the woods who were well-schooled in the false pretenses of both the wilderness and civilization.

Beware the blackberry that is actually lantana, a poisonous weed. Beware the poison oak masquerading as a mild bush. Beware the coral snake pretending to be a king snake. Oh, yes the woods can be very, very devious. "Red touching yellow kills a fellow; Red touching black is a friend of Jack" that was our code for deciphering the message in the coloration of a potentially deadly coral snake, and only works decisively in Florida because the coral snake is more devious than most throughout the continent. Lantana has no thorns, so we only ate blackberries from vines with lots of thorns. The more blood on your arms the safer the berry. And we used the Native American method of inoculation against poison ivy. We never got a case of it while running the woods in Florida. It is the reason that folks can get allergy shots today. We believe that the great spirit put the remedy with the problem, in all cases.

So we tamed the woods around us and made hidden paths that went for miles and miles in and around our territory. We built forts high in the pine trees and used them to defend our turf from rivals. There were hardly any disputes because all the kids wanted to be in our group. And you could join the group if you had tools and building supplies, and a willingness to be bold and to build in the clouds. If I could name our tribe today, we'd have been The Children of the Clouds. We rained terror on the lowly children of the woods who came later into our game. Pebbles, water balloons, and noxious substances. Wild Women can be ruthless.

Building supplies? That was simple. We found these things laying about, dumped at the edges of our woods, in back yard piles, and at the new construction sites. We favored large nails, long planks, plywood sheets, and shorter lengths of two by fours. But we used everything. Our dads had hammers and saws, and didn't miss them during the day. We carried water in glass coke bottles with corks we made from sticks when cork was hard to come by--there were no plastic containers available then. We carried nets and forked sticks to catch snakes and other animals, plus boxes and bags to carry them home safely--safely for us, not for the animals. My dad dispatched quite a few of my captured coral snakes before I started carrying the axe with me, which turned out to be great for hacking foliage and cutting firewood as well.

The first venture into an apparently impenetrable forest wall was my idea. Marilyn said she wasn't allowed in the woods, but I hadn't gotten those specific instructions because to my unsuspecting parents it didn't look like any human being could penetrate the sheer volume of foliage, much less one small daughter. One day we were playing in the back yard of her home on the edge of the subdivision. Her step-father had a woodpile behind the house, at the edge of the woods. All the parents were at work and their family's maid was ironing and she never paid attention to us anyway. I got Marilyn to help me grab a board and stand it on its end, right at the edge of the woods. We let go of the board and made a four foot long path directly into the forbidden woods. I scampered to the end and said "let's do it again!" And it was on! We made it at least twenty feet into the woods and included a ninety degree turn to camouflage our efforts. Because it was forbidden, we wise women gathered brush and debris to hide our initial hole into the dense jungle we had started to tame. We must have been about seven years old at the time. Running around the neighborhood was getting old, it was time to run around the woods.

It was the beginning of spring, and it was hot as hell already, but this was central Florida before air conditioning was easily available. It was just as easy to cool down in the creeks as it was to cool down on the concrete floor of a Florida room. TV was black & white and we weren't yet hooked on Dark Shadows, so the ideal situation was born. We were of the age where nobody really cared what we did as long as nothing was broken and we didn't scare the horses. There was no such thing as babysitting for kids in school. In that era, in the sixties, there seemed to be no need. Ted Bundy hadn't set up shop in Gainesville yet, so we were wild and safer wild than tamed in any event. There were a few incidents where we ran into men in the woods, but already being well versed in covert operations from running wild in the neighborhood, it was more fun to be discreet in the woods and watch the men without them knowing about us. We sensed danger from adults anyway, so strangers had to be doubly dangerous. We were very wise women, even then.

The next day we would ordinarily have gone to my house to play as part of our unspoken reciprocity agreement, but being mind readers we hopped off the bus together and went straight to her house. We had three hours to make our way deeper into the woods. This time we prepared a little better and had a definite goal--to find water! Most of Florida is about an inch away from water at any moment and we already knew that if we didn't find a creek we could easily make one by digging a trench. So she carried the shovel and I dragged two planks. We fixed our entrance by setting it back behind a stand of palmetto's so that we could disappear behind it, and we made a place to stack our personal supplies and building materials. We had a fair idea of where the subdivision's drainage creek was located and that is what we set off to find. We didn't make it the second day, but we thought we heard it.

A few more days passed, and it rained a bit, so we went to my house to avert any suspicion over our activities. There we played a rousing game of Risk. "Crush, kill, destroy," that was our motto. We were long past The Game of Life or Monopoly. We rummaged through my father's tools and gathered a few more boards for our next venture. Then on the third day of this new adventure we found the creek. And not only did we find the creek, we found a relatively clean "beach" made of white clay in a cool depression along the sides of the creek. There was a tree down over the creek that made a great bridge, but the creek was only a few feet across at one point, so a few planks of wood solved the problem of carrying our supplies and tools. We made inroads into the woods with only a few planks at a time. As one plank was laid to compress the foliage, we'd trot to the end and lay down the second plank, taking up the first plank to use again. Once the foliage was compressed once, it seemed to stay relatively compressed as we used it as a pathway. At the creek, we eventually stashed three planks for use as a temporary bridge when we needed it.

On the third day we rested in the cool depression, covering our sun browned limbs with white clay as we laid in the shade, plotting our next moves. We were inveterate planners, always thinking several moves ahead, which serves us well to this day. As we lay there in the depression with our knees bent and our feet ankle deep in cool water we both seemed to spy the perfect tree house tree at the same time. We had made the prerequisite inroads into the woods, and it was logical to now build up. How on earth do two young girls build a tree house in a pine tree that has no lower branches whatsoever? We were two young engineers in the making and that part was easy. We needed rope for safety and short two by fours for the ladder, plus a hammer and the biggest nails we could find. Thus the next step of the project began to form.

Within days we had what we needed and it was a Saturday with hours and hours stretching out before us. In our plotting we arranged it so that I stayed overnight at her house. Her step-father went fishing, something we normally would have clamoured to do, but we let him go peacefully. We asked her mother if we could make a picnic lunch and go to the park. Naturally, she said "yes". Carla, the maid, helped us fill a small cooler with ice, four cokes, water, cups, and peanut butter sandwiches. Carla even gave us apples and a bag of Lay's potato chips. She didn't make the sandwiches the way I was used to, with maple syrup, but I wasn't arguing that day. Marilyn's mother and baby sister went shopping and Carla was watching TV. So we plotted how to get our lunch and our supplies to the tree house site as quickly as possible. At first we were going to make it in three or more trips. But mid-morning demonstrated how hot it was going to get. No way was I going to traipse several miles before starting the project, being very eager to begin. I grabbed a tarp from the carport and showed Marilyn a new trick. I was planning to make a travois like I'd read about in a book about the Plains Indians in school, but we managed to stack everything in the tarp, fold it up, and run the rope I brought through the holes to make a tarp sandwich around our stuff, like a hot dog with the ends closed. It didn't take us long to get to the creek pulling our travois behind us.

We organized our stuff, and had part of an early lunch, sharing a coke over two cups jam packed with ice. In Florida, everything is served over ice. It is inconceivable to me to drink a coke from a bottle or a can. It has to be over ice, otherwise it just isn't a coke. And everything's a coke. You order a coke in a restaurant and the waitress will tell you what they've got, sprite, coke, Dr. Pepper, etc. If all they have is Pepsi then you order yourself an ice tea. In Florida, in the south, everything's a coke. That's the way it has always been.

Anyway, after refreshing ourselves with a cold drink of coke (later it would be beer or Mad Dog, but we hadn't gotten to that yet), we worked out the plan. The first day we expected to hammer in short two by four's as ladder rungs to make it up the pine tree trunk to the first sturdy branches. And that is what we did. We quickly learned that one nail just wouldn't do, two is better, and the little engineers in us decided that three nails in a triangular pattern would work the best. When we ran out of two by fours, we used whatever fallen branches we could find. It took us 32 rungs to make it to the first set of sturdy branches, where we sat and looked around our domain, wishing we had our cokes and our lunch with us. Necessity is the not the only mother of invention, so is desire. We were well on our way to making our desires turn into reality. First we tried using the rope and tarp but realized it wasn't long enough, but I remembered my dad using a pulley to draw mysterious things up to the roof when he was working on it. I knew where the pulleys and the rope were stashed and he never was able to locate them again. Marilyn heard my description of his system and she knew what it meant. The idea of building a real tree house was born out of a simple desire to have an ice cold coke high in the tree, overlooking a vast woods filled with mystery and untamed promise.

It took us days to get the pulley system worked out permanently, plus a base set of boards secured, and place to hold our lunch and supplies. We learned to pull out the lowest rungs on the tree and carry them with us because we didn't want anyone to see that there was a path to our fort in the tree. We knew stealth, and we knew the limits of our potential rivals who would only see what they expected to see, not what we had introduced. Within weeks we had walls and a roof, and a stash of water and food. Because of the hardships in our lives we both talked of running away and living in the tree permanently. It was our haven and our dearest desires fulfilled. A safe place, hidden and discreet, far from the veneer of civilization. She had a step-father to dodge sexually, and I had the position of kitchen mammy in my home. We were warriors protecting our souls from the leeches of civilization. That is the way it has always been.

Letting Go

2007-08-08T13:09:00.001-05:00

This morning Mavis was awakened around noon by the UPS driver delivering the DSL modem and filters. I was awakened by the smell of her toast burning, so we managed to meet with our cups of coffee in the common area. We watched most of "All My Children", our favorite soap opera. We talked about the process both of us have gone through to let go of the idea that we have to spring out of bed exhausted and attend to a never-ending series of tasks and worry about everything we say or do and the repercussions all day long. Egads! Did we ever really live that way? The life of a single mother is just like that. You are the last to be hired, the first to be let go at work, while statistically being the most reliable employee an employer can acquire. You are beholden to everybody, your kids, your hex, your family, social services, your employers, your landlord, and even the neighbors. I managed it by becoming successful enough to get a secluded house in the burbs, while she gave the boys to her husband and said "good luck to you, my friend." He was retired from the Army and had the time and income to deal with very energetic and conniving pre-teens, while she worked two jobs to get on her feet. We have been through the wringer. I'm so glad I turned my back on the madness, and even forgive myself for sleeping past noon today.

Around 3:00 am last night I was still awake, mainly because I slept until 11:00 am yesterday. I just turned out the lights and rolled over, and proceeded to fantasize a survival scenario until I fell asleep. Now I'm ready to incorporate the fantasy in my book. But first I need to make some jewelry to fill Ebay orders that came in overnight. My little room here in the tiny trailer is very comfortable, but there are a few more things I'd like to acquire to make it more organized. So I'll finish the jewelry and go on some liesurely errands. In fact, I'd like to go play trivia, so I need to look up some places in the area. It's time I make this place my home for awhile. I figure on settling here until my new grandchild is born, and just working as little as possible as I take day trips in the area. First it needs to cool down. It's hot outside!

My expenses now are less than $500 a month, really less. I include $225 for shelter, electric, cable, and DSL, $36 for a life insurance policy, $60 for full coverage on my hoopty car (which is paid for and well-maintained), $70 a month for auto maintenance and fuel, $100 for food, and a little bit for toiletries. That is easily made in a week of selling on Ebay, and all the rest of my income goes into savings for my van and van dwelling plans. Of course I spend more than $500, but that is when I have made extra by selling things I no longer need. I sold a PC software game that I no longer use and am using the $26 I made on that to find materials to block off my alcove to look like an armoire or built-in closet with curtains. It's all about the feng shui of hiding the electronics and the clutter. I like clean lines and bare surfaces. Pictures are coming soon! Oh, and all the materials will either stay while I'm traveling or can be incorporated in my van, one day.

Being

2007-08-07T22:49:00.001-05:00

Today was spent merely "being", so I'm officially a Human Being and not a Human Doing anymore. It took a lot of self-searching to change into a Human Being because a Human Doing is very much addicted to being busy and I am really good at busy. Is is very hard to give that up and merely "be". It is all falling into place in my mind regarding a van dweller's life because in my spirit I am already there. It must be the ultra-lightweight backpacker in me, as I schemed and plotted to reduce my base pack. I had to go through the steps where I realized that I can truly survive with what I can carry on my back. Obviously, I'm going to be a Human Doing again, but hopefully this time it will happen because I want it to, not because I feel that is the only way to survive.

Someone reading my blog e-mailed to ask for my Ebay information in order to see my jewelry. I wish I could oblige, but from a privacy and safety standpoint it is better that I keep my business life separate from my on-line journal. I've been trying to e-mail that message back to the inquirer, but my internet connection keeps saying that my e-mail server is not available. The bottom line is that my Ebay customers might not approve if they knew I was traveling, while my writings may generate interest that could potentially jeopardize my income. So, I advise anyone who posts a blog to keep their privacy and safety in mind. Even my picture is one where I cleaned up nicely, but at work you wouldn't recognize me because I scrape my wild, wild hair back and wear librarian glasses and dress very conservatively. Unless I clean up like that again, you wouldn't recognize me from my picture. As a woman alone in the world I have to take my personal safety seriously. In any case, I have posted recent pictures of my jewelry, and will post other pieces as the mood strikes me.

What I would like to leave with any reader is the idea that they too could develop a business that could sustain them in an alternative lifestyle. I may not be making the kind of money I once did as a consultant, but I practice one important thing that I've learned. Do something you love to do, and do the least amount of work you can get away with to make your passion into something that earns income. I am careful, I don't invest much, and I spend frugally. When I make jewelry I am remaking beautiful pieces from discarded items I find at thrift stores, yard sales, dumpster diving, and flea markets. I reuse everything that I can. My friend Mavis is getting a charm bracelet that is made entirely of her departed mother's trinkets and costume jewelry that she normally wouldn't wear. I'll post a picture of that when we are done adding to it. It is a bracelet that can be worn or displayed as art. See? I'm passionate about it, I love to do it, and it incorporates my desire to recycle and live frugally. It also takes my mind of a dreadful accident case and the legal shenanigans that go along with it.

As my mission in life, it is my intent to pass along the message of simplicity. A single cup on a table that is otherwise empty is more beautiful than a hundred things lining a shelf. A bed with a single blanket is more peaceful than a room decorated by a designer. A blog where I can get it down to a paragraph a day is the desired goal. But, hey! I'm practicing! Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will my new life be built in less time than it will take for me to thunk it all out on my keyboard.

>^;^<

Downsized

2007-08-06T18:58:00.002-05:00

As close as I am to feeling that less is more, I realize that I still focus too much on material culture. Admittedly, though I do need certain things in order to be able to forage successfully for my material needs for shelter, clothing, and food, it seems I'm still attached to material things for my enjoyment of life. I think I must like thinking about and planning around "All My Stuff". It's a perpetual soap opera. It jest goes to show you that less is more. My apologies! Trust that I do indeed have far less than I started with seven years ago. And I do focus on a lot of other matters besides things.

I'm at the big trailer doing a load of laundry for myself and my roommate. The Skyler kitty is lovingly placing his paw on my hands as I type. We have been bonding again as I vegetate. It's a heat wave in Missouri, but at least it's a "dry heat". LOL

Mavis and I had visions of enjoying a quiet and peaceful day without any drama, but unfortunately, her son doesn't get it. The baby mama took all four kids for a week last night after the birthday party. He was supposed to go to work today at 11:00 am. At 10:59 am he calls her with a manufactured emergency. He was out of gas and late for work. He had allowed a friend to drive the gas out of the car over the weekend for basically bullshit stuff. The car is not his. The car belongs to Mavis, and she insures it. He lucky to be out of jail and working and enjoying a trailer, electricity, telephone, and cable, plus his rented TV, while he allowed his work schedule to be cut to two days a week. He is about to be fired, we fear. And we don't understand why this idiot decided it is ok to squander OUR resources. She is sick of it and I'm curious why people act like this. She wants to set a boundary, but she is on the bond and there are four grandchildren to be cared for. It would be better for all concerned for her to be the legal guardian of those kids, allowing the parents visitation. This is ridiculous. This latest escapade is merely one in a string of many. He acts like we are being ridiculous. Sheesh!

Nicely Downsized

2007-08-05T13:10:00.000-05:00

Life is so much simpler lived downsized. There is a technical name for what I've done, it is called downshifting. I'm a middle-class professional who has made a conscious decision to live a simpler life. There is no upkeep for my "stuff", no upkeep for a fancy car, fancy house, or fancy investments. Basically, my only upkeep is for myself. Today I relaxed outside early this morning with a cup of tea and contemplated for a bit. There was nothing on the "to do" list, other than the impending birthday party for a new nine-year-old.

So I read a book until I felt like taking my shower. Then I dressed all the way down to my shoes and up to my hair and along with a touch of makeup. Then I wrapped the gifts that Marie and I bought for BJ at midnight last night, at the local all-night Wally World. On the way we were in the midst of the state fair traffic letting out and got into a sobriety checkpoint line. We got away ok, but she didn't have her current Geico insurance card. The nice officer let her off with a verbal warning, and we just made sure we came home the back way on the way home. That was the highlight of our day. Two grandmas traipsing to the store at midnight and getting a field sobriety test. That reminded me of the time the old man and I were spooning at Evansburg park in PA and got breathalyzed. I guess it's just me. I attract excitement. >^;^<

Well, we have BJ here with us while his dad and grandpa are cooking and decorating for the birthday party. BJ is getting a Transformers cake and there is a dead carcass cookout going on. So I just ate my tomato salad and a potato and onion stir-fry. I'd take some of the tomato salad, but I doubt it would be appreciated. Marie has been eating my "cooking" for the past month and has lost 10 pounds and is looking more alert and healthy. Oh, Well! I enjoyed the tomato, vidalia onion, walnut, tofu, lemon and avocado salad. My tastebuds were soooooo happy!

When I get back from the party I'm going to spend a relaxing afternoon and evening making and listing jewelry on Ebay, filling and wrapping the orders that came in this morning, and planning for a trip back to Pennsylvania to get the last of my stuff. I should be able to make the trip there and back within three days. I'm not sure how it will work with the mileage. If I can get a one-way from PA, I'll take a bus out and just drive the one way back. It is just so expensive to rent a one-way from anybody.

I'm getting general feedback that the accident case is progressing. With any luck they may offer a settlement before we actually go to trial next year. At this point I don't care as much. Once I decided to just do it and start moving away from the area it seems like things are getting ticked off my list much faster. I have a large collection of miniature items to sell on Ebay, then I'm headed out to get more of the larger items out of storage. Then once I start working somewhere here I'll part with my savings and buy the best cargo van I can get for money. I may be able to buy a nearly new one if I can find a business in distress type of sale. Then I can get the prep work done to make the van liveable.

My list is small and reasonable. I want two vents on the roof, one a solar vent, and the other a wired vent, to maintain ventilation. These will be under a raised area with a plywood cover for added insulation from the sun beating down. On the plywood area I want to have as many solar panels installed as is feasible. Then I want to have as many storage batteries as feasible with the appropriate inverter to charge and run a laptop, hotpot, fans, printer, and lights. I plan to have a trailer that is for storage, plus it will house a generator that I want to plug into the van's system if I am boondocking--I'm thinking about a caged and locked area in front of the trailer, which I've seen before. Heat is the thing I need protection from the most because when it is cold I plan to be in milder temps. I will research and obtain the best air conditioner unit I can find which will be used only when I'm plugged into the grid or am pulling the generator. For cooking I plan to do the same thing I would do when hiking or camping. I usually eat raw foods, but enjoy the occasional soup or stir-fry. That can be down over a hobo stove, outside of my van. If I can run a hot plate or tiny microwave while plugged into the grid, then I will. The hotpot or SmartMug will be fine for tea and instant coffee anytime. I expect that my cooler will need a dollar's worth of ice every other day, if that. I won't be storing meat or dairy products. I'll be keeping drinking water cold, and fresh fruit and vegies cool. So I don't need to carry a refridgerator. For personal hygiene, I'm a tiny gal. I can use a solar shower with a privacy curtain, inside or outside. I will use a child's blowup pool if I'm planted anywhere for any length of time. I have a YMCA membership and I'm looking into getting an annual federal park permit.

I have already obtained my queensize blowup bed. I picked this because it will wedge in nicely in just about any size van, with canvas between the bed and the walls of the van. I don't plan to do much other than insulate the walls appropriately, use the venting and a dehumidifier to cut down on condensation, and hang fabric to make it look like a tent inside. I have plastic drawer systems to bungie cord to the back of the van's seats, as well as a luggable loo for anytime I want to poo in private inside my van. I will also bungie cord two large water bottles to each side of the interior. I have a battery operated pump that fits on five gallon water bottles, for convenience. I also have a solar battery charger, but I need to acquire a stash of rechargable batteries.

So, the downsizing and the planning are well in motion. I just need money to make things happen faster, otherwise it will still happen, just over a longer period of time.

Peace and Quiet

2007-08-02T05:43:00.001-05:00

Finally, a break in the madness. I have accomplished about 80% toward my goal of becoming a van dweller. I've downsized significantly and have most of my projects completed. Yesterday I found some bargains while shopping at local thrift stores. We went as far as Waynesville, Missouri, because Mavis had to pick up a free prescription there and we checked out several thrift stores, including Goodwill and Salvation Army. The unnamed thrift stores had the better bargains. I got a relatively modern TV for five dollars, plus about a hundred feet of cable and parts for another dollar. The VCR was ten dollars, and the hot pot for heating water in my room was fifty cents. Brand new! When we got back to Rolla I found a microwave oven on sale for two dollars and fifty cents, which I picked up for Brain, and he needed a small coffee maker which I found for a dollar. I picked up several floor lamps for two dollars each, complete with bulbs that worked. I found a skinny two shelf system to use as a side table beside my twenty dollar blow-up bed. There were other bargains to be found, including a new mop for a buck, a used bucket for a quarter, and a rake for fifty cents. I found new measuring cups, what appeared to be an unused citrus juicer, and a vegetable peeler which I got for another buck for all of them together. Plus a two sets of shelves and a hutch for organizing my desk, altogether for $10. I found nearly new comforters to pad my bed a bit, curtains, and a huge focal pillow that was perfect for lounging with a good book last night. The point of the exercise is that there is no reason to shop in a store without checking out thrift stores first. If I had needed to, I could have furnished an entire three bedroom house for about two hundred dollars. The items I picked up were merely the unused objects discarded by those with debt in the $20,000 range. It just doesn't make any sense, does it? Why go into debt to buy any of it? And most of what I got can be used in a van. Anything else can stay in my little room in a tiny trailer down by the river, where my cats will retire in peace and contentment.

In a few weeks I'll go back to Pennsylvania and get the rest of my stuff out of storage. When I get it all back here I have a small office in the trailer to finish the last of the downsizing and organizing. Half of the 5x5 storage room is filled with family memorabilia and holiday decorations. I plan to scan in all the children's art and writing, pictures, negatives, and etcetera, for creating DVD. That would include pictures of things I'd like to remember, then I can dispose of them. Anything with sentimental value will be dispersed to family. Another quarter of the storage room is filled with items to sell on Ebay. The remainder consists of kitchen items, clothes, personal items, excess toiletries, hiking gear, camping supplies, and other things to just sort through, purge a little, use, and sell as needed. I expect to have all of this completed by the end of September. It's a good thing, too! I'm going to be a grandmother again in March next year. I want to be able to drive up and plug in, to visit and help out.

Today I have several Ebay jewelry orders to fill and wrap, and plan to open a bank account here, at Bank of America. Commerce Bank isn't out this far. I might get the drivers license changed, too. That way when I get back from Pennsylvania I can move my unemployment case out here and start becoming a productive citizen again. I plan to take a minimum wage job and make the extra I'm allowed while on the dole, while I do a really comprehensive career assessment. Heh, heh, heh . . .

What I'd really like to do is play The Sims and vegetate, but that will be more fun later tonight when the TV is hooked up to cable and my beer is nicely chilled. I haven't celebrated in nearly two weeks, so it's time.

Employer Confidentiality Handled

2007-08-01T09:11:00.001-05:00

I mostly let the issue with the twit at my employer's office roll off my back. But I did gather all the evidence of what he did and I tricked four of the recruiters who contacted me into writing in e-mail and faxing documents to me. In the e-mails I got all of them to say how our "mutual friend" (the twit) gave them my information and told them how badly I need help finding work. I was transformed by the twit from a 50-70 dollar an hour consultant to a 20 dollar an hour consultant, even as low as a 14 dollar an hour consultant, in writing! In fact, I have never worked for 50 dollars an hour or lower in the IT industry and mostly work for 80 dollars or more an hour. This is war! I fedexed the package to the division manager and the branch manager yesterday and just got off a conference call with both of them. I included documentation of all of the transgressions that occurred before this one regarding the breach of confidentiality. The lack of communication, the delayed payments when I was on W-2, sending me to a client who is restricted due to non-payment and not putting me officially in the system. Plus, I discovered that he sent my resume to clients without running the jobs past me first and literally blanketed the area with my personal information. I found out that he and another recruiter and account manager had been called on the carpet for all of these things. The other guy was fired last week. The twit also left a voice mail for me last Thursday, when he was alerted that I was gathering information on him, apologizing for actions that he "sincerely" believed were helping me. I wish I had not been so distracted by the long, drawn out plans for hitting the road, else I would have caught on to this much earlier. Anyway, it is handled. I told them that I must not receive any communication from the twit, and that my resume and personal information must not be given out to anyone without my written permission via e-mail. I don't care what happens to the twit. As for a legal pursuit, I'd have to be able to prove I didn't get a job because of this. That might take more time and energy than it is worth. In any case I'd not do anything about that until after I take another job where I am couch surfing now, or get the accident settlement I'm hoping for, which would make any repercussions from this a moot point. I really don't want to work for anyone ever again. I want to write my own software and books and travel. Period.

So, today Mavis and I are shopping for things for "her" trailer. I would like to find a little tv for my room, one that will travel well when the van arrives in my life. I need a few little things to make the bed comfy and to organize my jewelry making gear. It will be fun to shop together and probably have lunch somewhere interesting. Brain is off work for the next two days so we won't be babysitting. Little Brain has a birthday this Sunday and his dad is hosting a party for him. Can't wait! LOL I'm sort of hoping that our part of the drama will subside and that Mavis and I can shop and vegetate in peace.

I have some jewelry orders to fill and we're going to hit the road.

Employer Confidentiality

2007-07-27T11:10:00.001-05:00

Picture this ... let's say you work for the city of Philadelphia school system. One day you learn that your employer has called the city of Camden school system and faxed over your employment application and resume. They tell the city of Camden that you are looking for work. Would you be horrified or upset or even angry about that breach of confidentiality? Well, that just happened to me. I've mentioned here that I'm on unemployment, but actually I work a few days here and there online for the last client I worked for via an IT agency. So I might work for five days one week then collect unemployment the next. I'm also looking for similar work in my field so I've got all the bases covered regarding the "looking for work" angle, plus I'm relocating, which is part of my personal plan in life. Well, the twit that kept me from getting paid several times at the agency took it upon himself to send my resume to his friends and proceeded to tell them that "she is having a hard time finding work." That is slander because it is NOT true. He has no idea what I'm doing to obtain employment and in fact his "help" can actually hinder my efforts.

By telling anyone in the industry that I am "having a hard time finding work" he has made me appear "desperate" which is the surest way to prevent me from being able to work with other agencies or recruiters. A person having a hard time finding work is usually labeled as a problem. I'm already over fifty and have that little matter of gender to surmount. If I had serious intentions of staying in the field in the Philadelphia area I'd be blacklisted, if I'm not already. Usually I get lots of job opportunities coming my way but since the twit started "handling" me I've had the poorest and most meager opportunities and they've been dangled like carrots to keep me "interested." Now I see the pattern. He has taken it upon himself to decide my fate in the IT industry. This is a pup who just graduated college about six months ago and has no IT industry experience. That's ok, I am gathering the evidence now and he is being duly handled.

>^;^<

Drama

2007-07-26T10:59:00.002-05:00

Our nerves are pretty much shot this morning. For the most part Mavis and I have done a good job of managing Brain and the four children so that drama is kept to a minimum. But this morning the baby mama drama intensified. This is the woman who is bipolar but will not take her meds. She is paranoid without cause, has dropped the children in their father's lap within days of them living with her in every single case, but suddenly feels nostalgic and motherly when she calls the trailer at 7:00 am and is told the children are sleeping. This is a household where the adults work late hours and it is set up during the summer so that the children don't wake before 9:00 am. It is critical that we all get our rest so we can function. Now the baby mama wants to come get all the kids. Great! If you do will you just keep them already? Instead she calls during the work day and demands that daddy leave his job and come to get them when she can't handle them. I'm a staunch defender of custodial parents, and they don't always have to be the mama. Brain is a good father and was the stay-at-home parent when they were born because she preferred to work and couldn't handle them then either.

Get this! She has no car, no drivers license, and is homeless. She stays with her 22 year old boyfriend at his parents' trailer, along with their daughter and her two children. We have it bad with four kids and three adults, and Mavis and I will move into our own trailer this weekend. There they would have five adults and six children under the age of ten in a smaller three bedroom trailer. I'd like a vote please. Should the four boys stay in a three bedroom trailer that is clean and organized, is safe and well provisioned, with their father who is working and has five great sitters lined up,and who cooks meals and spends time with them? Or should they stay in a tiny three bedroom trailer with their mother, her boyfriend, his sister, her two kids, and the boyfriend's parents, where the mother sleeps all the time, doesn't work, fights with her boyfriend's sister, and doesn't cook or spend time with the kids? Hint: all four boys want to live with their father. Daddy lets the baby mama visit the children anytime they want and has invited the baby mama and her boyfriend to one of the boy's birthday party next week. He just asks that she call at reasonable times, not 7:00 am or midnight, and that she plan the visits and give him a day's warning. In fact he does not want custody, he wants the kids to have a stable home environment, to go to school well dressed and well fed, and to live where there is no screaming and yelling.

Well, it doesn't matter because he is getting an emergency order for temporary custody ASAP. It has to be done to protect the kids. Mom needs to go to the psych ward for awhile, which is where she goes when she attempts suicide several times a year. Sheesh!

I put this type of post under "Drama" because I am only watching, from a distance. I don't want no drama!

New Life

2007-07-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

I've been busy making a new life in Missouri. The weekend was spent getting away from it all in the Ozarks, and I had a lot to get away from already. I did some impromptu car camping and made some jewelry while sitting at a lake. I put up my folding table that I got for two bucks at a thrift store, covered it with a gorgeous gold suede look cloth found for fifity cents, and spread out my work. I had several customers come up to see what I was doing and who browsed my selections and kept me company while I worked. I made eighty dollars over two days. That was awesome because I wasn't really trying to sell anything. I keep the prices at ten to fifiteen dollars, and up to twenty dollars for a full set with a necklace, earrings, and a matching charm bracelet. I'm getting lots of requests for rings to match so I'll have to figure out a good source for ring bases to glue charms onto them. This set with just a pendant necklace and matching dangle earrings went for twenty-five dollars because I was reluctant to part with it. I planned to give it to a friend. But, I have enough glass beads to make four more sets so this was money well earned. It is made with silver chain and silver plated findings, so it's not a shabby set. And it took me less than an hour to assemble the pieces for the first time. I judge it will take me about 20 minutes to reproduce the design.

As to what I needed to get away from, well we are now seven in a three bedroom trailer or mobile home. It is fairly large, but Marie has the master bedroom, Brock has the next largest room, and he now has all four of his sons (10, 8, 4, 3) in the smallest room. I have the living room. We came to an understanding on Friday. If you come into the living room and wake me up you are going to be shown to Daddy's door. And that isn't something they desire to do first thing in the morning. So they quietly play with a video game and then dress and come out and make their breakfast. By that time I'm showered and dressed and my bedding is stashed.

The really good news is that on Friday, Marie and I went out and got a small trailer to rent for $325 a month. Brock will take over the bigger trailer. We'll probably live semi-communally because he is going to need our help to establish a household and raise the kids on his own. By that I mean that I will probably babysit a few evenings week at the big trailer. We'll all use the washer and dryer at the big trailer, and I'll keep the DSL on for internet access at both places. The trailer should be ready in about a week. I will furnish my half of the trailer with a normal height air mattress in the bedroom and an el cheapo dresser if I find one at the thrift stores or a yard sale.

Well, I have an hour to get dressed and wrap some Ebay stuff to mail. I want to be out of the house before the Jehovah's Witness bible study starts. So I'm going to get busy and finish up as fast as I can!

Milestone

2007-07-18T09:42:00.000-05:00

Today is a milestone. I've reached the 10 day mark of being in Missouri, totally homeless, but happily couch surfing. I've hooked up with the Universalist Unitarians here and have met some Jehovah's Witnesses and just kept quiet and observed. That was interesting. I have realized that people stop searching for the truth once they've reached their comfort level. They do not want to learn anything further and it's not helpful to agitate them with pertinent questions or anything that distracts them. That was a very big milestone for me in my personal journey. I've been so incessantly busy throughout my life that it is pleasant to be idle and allow my thoughts to roam. The discipline of raising a family and providing for them is becoming a more distant memory. Yesterday was spent writing. Just writing. The book is fleshing out nicely. I have it outlined and the characters are interestingly enough that I dreamt about them. I woke up with more ideas which I plotted out and now I'm ready to just live the rest of today.

I sold a lot on Ebay yesterday and that is the first order of business, to fill the orders and wrap the items to mail. I was hoping to mail out the rent check for July for the crazy roommate situation in Pennsylvania, but the balance in my checking account doesn't reflect the unemployment check yet. I think their system is not working because I had trouble getting to the website. No matter. I could pull cash out of savings but I prefer not to. I'm planning to work at a job that pays minimum wage to keep me busy and to earn the allowed $208 extra each week when one is unemployed. I have no qualms about accepting unemployment because it is another bugger flicked at the system. I worked all my life and then the health insurance and the legal system not only failed me, but they actively harmed me. I won't allow that again. And the employment system is flagging me as too old to work at any job that pays well or has benefits. I have feelers out for contract work here, but would rather not at this point. I have a lot of things to accomplish.

So I'll live out today, make jewelry, run errands, mail products, and have a delightful time with two young people. We "cook" every day and they just realized last night that we never cook with any meat. I told them about being a vegetarian and what it means to our world and our animal friends. You see, children are not generally exposed to the harsh reality that the lump of grey or white chewy stuff on their plates used to be a creature that hopped, and flew, and ran around the house, like the cats, the dog, the hamster, and the birds. If you put a toddler in a playpen with a rabbit and an apple she will pet the rabbit and eat the apple. If you put a kitten in a playpen with a rabbit and an apple she will attack the rabbit and play with the apple. There is really a natural order to things. I'm playing with a cup of coffee right now and plan to attack a cantelope for breakfast in a few minutes. Now that's the natural order of things!

What do you do all day?

2007-07-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

What do I do all day? Well, mostly I follow a set of priorities in life. Shelter, food, trash, dishes, clothes, cats, and income producing projects. Then I tackle paperwork, helping others and getting involved in the community, then on to fun stuff like playing trivia, hiking, camping, and biking. I usually knock off around 6 pm on a busy day, whether I'm "done" or not. Because you should always live by some type of routine. I'm currently working on a book and you can be sure that global warming, healthcare, and the nuts currently residing in Washington will be well represented. I'm also working on a technical book in my field. Sort of an old-timers take on the modern "agile programming" concept. I've seen it all, from the waterfall methodology to RAP (rapid application prototyping), sometimes known as RAD (rapid application development). RAP is my thing. So I have a full life, in spite of being homeless, unemployed, and poor. I've decided that homelessness is my mission and my community outreach is through any of the social justice projects of the Universalist Unitarian Fellowships that I align with. Please though, I pray that I can get through a bible study with Jehovah's Witnesses without biting my tongue in half. I'm working on being more tolerant of quasi-christians in all their varied and perplexing forms.

Couch Surfing

2007-07-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

I do like couch surfing. All my life I have had an uncanny ability to sleep anywhere, any time, and any place. Like an orangutan I make my bed wherever I go. So I've been couch surfing for an entire week here in Missouri. The only thing odd about it are the tiny birds who aren't sure if they should wake me up or not. These are Marie's grandsons, who are very polite little men, responsible, and alert. They've had to be because they were raised by wolves, though we can see them relaxing and coming into their own personalities now. They have a room in the trailer, along with their dad. I helped him get out of jail and advise him on getting on his feet. Marie and I are pushing him along to get his own place by August 1st. I'm fronting the cash for that, then I'm taking the back bedroom for myself.

So far we have obtained a student desk and a matching two drawer module in white for $12 at a thrift store. I got a very nice formica topped table with tall 70's style round tapered legs for $5 at another thrift store. It is all set up for my laptop, printer/copier, and my jewelry supplies and tools. So far I've sold 15 items on Ebay this week and I've made Marie a custom necklace and two earring sets for her favorite turquoise outfit. I'm afraid that when the Jehovah's Witness bible study occurs here this afternoon that I may have more "orders" for custom jewelry. It is a poor area here and I'm not sure they can afford me. But, we shall see. (I'm not really that worried. I like to make jewelry and I keep my inventory moving, trust me.)

I found an obnoxious $14.99 charge pending on my checking account and tried to call the number. But they aren't open until noon. That's weird. I cannot even remember what the other $14.99 was for a month ago. Now that I have a decent new laptop I'll keep track of these things in Outlook. For now I plan to deal with it this afternoon. I searched all my e-mail and can't find anything about it. WTF?

The morning routine is simple. Coffee and read a fun book, morning constitutional with said book in the bathroom, wash hair, shower, dress, and grooming. Then start laundry, fold up and stash my bedding, pack away the toiletries, clean up my area, take care of the cat's litter pan and vacuum up the debris, put away dishes, trash out, and bring in Ebay wrapping supplies. Then wrap all the Ebay items and return the supplies to the car when I take the packages out. Then bring in some paperwork and root through that for a bit, gathering things to mail back to son and friends, prep some correspondence to mail, and etcetera. That should eat up most of the morning. Then around noon I'll decide to either stick around for the bible study or leave for the post office and perhaps other errands. I do want to fit in a bit of job searching, but there is no hurry. DAMN! We just had an incident here. It felt like something huge fell inside the trailer or there was an explosion outside. Marie just got up and informed me that it was probably something going on at Ft. Leonard Wood. But, that is over thirty miles from here. Sheesh!

Anyway, I could observe the bible study and decide if I should stay and make them uncomfortable or should I go into town then. Probably I'll stay and mess with them. Tee Hee!

Well, the chores aren't going to do themselves so I'm off for a bit.

Health and Wellness in a Nutshell

2007-07-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

I want to say I don't understand illness, but I do. After being around people who are chronically ill I understand that it is absolutely the choices one makes that contributes to either health and wellness or to chronic illness. Period. No excuses.

I know someone who has MRSA and RSD-CRPS. She gave it to herself. When she was first injured I tried to help her. She was hysterical about how the system was mistreating her in regards to Worker's Compensation. That's a given. It is how you handle it that is the measure of your health. Instead of relaxing a bit, and making better choices regarding nutrition and lifestyle habits, she drank pots of coffee, chain smoked like a steamboat, and focused only on herself and her issues. I begged her to stop the coffee and the cigarettes, and to please at least eat some fruit and take some B vitamins. RSD affects the nervous system. When my ankle shattered I suffered from RSD symptoms too. I decided to be well instead. I used a dry washcloth to force my skin to accept touch and desensitize the creepy crawlies. I gave up caffeine, a nervous system stimulant, and I focused outside of myself. There are three things we must have to be healthy. Sleep, rest, and relaxation is number one. Pure fruit and some vegetables is number two. And exercise is number three. That is all we need to be healthy. The human body is in charge of its own health and only needs these three things to accomplish it.

Orthopedists can also be quite useful in helping the body repair bones in a way that preserves function, as long as they do not prescribe narcotics, ice, or sloth. RSD was first diagnosed during the Civil War when soldiers were treated with narcotics, ice, and bed rest. Voila! RSD, reflexive sympathetic dystrophy. Take that to the hospital for unnecessary surgery and you have got yourself a lasting case of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

My friend in Missouri is the opposite. She is 57 years old and holds down a job and supports her son and grandchildren. She is a no-nonsense, no excuses type of person. No alcohol, no cigarettes, one cup of coffee in the morning, lots of fruits and vegies, and only a little meat or a cinnamon roll a few times a week. She has no health insurance, and only goes to the doctor if a sinus infection won't resolve on its own. She has a Scottish heritage but doesn't eat a Scottish diet, so the doctor is happily astounded that she has no issues with diabetes, high blood pressure, or cholesterol. She is active, involved, and focuses outside of herself while still enjoying a rich inner personal life. When we talk on the phone we talk about the kids, the fur babies, and how jobs and finances are going. We talk about bible study or giving donations. And we talk openly about how we feel about things, then we go on. Health is a choice!

Those aren't the only examples I've seen. My mother smoked over three packs of cigarettes a day and died young from emphysema. My father ate nitrite laden foods, smoked, drank, and died of pancreatic cancer. We weren't allowed to discuss environmental issues in our house. Yah, right! If we pretend it isn't a problem, maybe it will go away.

My choice today is to eat my fruit for breakfast with a fresh squeezed lemonade. Then I'll have a bowl of steamed squash and zucchini for lunch after we tramp the yard sale circuit. Dinner tonight will be the usual tomato and avocado salad, with vidalia onions, diced cucumber, and mung bean sprouts. Maybe we'll pick up some farm fresh produce at a roadside stand or two. I want to be healthy and enjoy life every day. I want others to get it, too.

Please take a broccoli chill pill and make yourself well! Honestly, I don't get a single dime for suggesting that people eat fresh produce, while the junk food manufacturers are making billions of dollars at the same time the pharmaceutical companies are making record profits. Neanderthin diet book gurus make millions, yet millions still fail to maintain a healthy weight. You do the math. In Shanghai, women who eat the traditional Western diet of manufactured foods that is heavy on meats and sweets get breast cancer at rates not seen in in the population that eats the traditional vegetable-soy-fish diet. You are indeed what you eat.

More Tidying Up

2007-07-14T08:35:00.000-05:00

See the "hoopty car" the "hoopty cat" on the "hoopty road". >^;^<

While couch surfing at my old roommate's house we got her hair colored, visited and enjoyed each other's company, did some shopping, and worked out several survival scenarios for me. I finally got the car loaded up with everything I absolutely needed to run my online business and conduct personal business. The car was divided into six zones. The trunk was one zone and contained the jewelry making tools and supplies, camping/survival equipment, shipping supplies, and miscellaneous stuff crammed into the available space. The backseat was three zones that housed paperwork, Ebay items to sell and listed, and the electronics. That would be the laptop, printer, lighting, postal scale, extra camera, and such. The backseat also contained a box of stuff for my friend in Missouri that I'd stored for her for years, plus five full boxes of dolls and props and items to sell. I'd say I managed to cram my poor little Ford Escort with at least $4000 worth of saleable items. As I drove I was making $60 per day on the Ebay site.

In the passenger seat I had three more boxes crammed in, plus a litter pan, scoop, and a huge animal cage that was broken down so that Spike could sit up high in the pan looking at the traffic and scenery whizzing by. I have some great pictures to upload, however I just bought a new laptop and no software for the camera so that will be a separate project sometime today.

I got on the road around 5:00 pm Sunday night. I made it past Wheeling as I headed west on 70, then I stopped for the night at the 350 mile point. I roughly estimated that there was another 650 to make on Monday. It was more important to get on the road and stop for a rest by 11:00 pm. I stayed at a Red Roof Inn which is pet friendly. Being somewhat organized I brought in the litter pan, Spike and his food and water dishes, my pillow and bag, and the map and directions. I even carry a water heater to make my coffee in the morning. I cleaned up, popped a Benadryl, and sacked out. In the morning I was able to hop out of bed refreshed and rested by 8:00 am. By 9:00 Spike and I were on the road. The car did great and by 9:00 pm I was at the house. I was sweating out the condition of the car the entire trip.

It was great seeing Marie, Brock, and two of the grandkids. These were the quiet ones, thank goodness. I got a load of the younger grandkids a few days later and that was a shock to the system! I'm glad they are staying with their mother, while the two older boys are staying with Brock in the trailer. All last week I worked on my projects and supervised the boys while grandma and daddy were at work. I never heard a word about the potential contract jobs in Philly so the plan now is to take some temp or Walmart work here and earn the $208 a week allowed while still collecting unemployment. Between that and Ebay I should be able to make over $4000 a month with expenses now of just $400. That should certainly help me buy a van by the end of October. It would be nice if the accident case would settle, but I will no longer rely on that.

It is a beautiful Saturday morning. I think we are all going shopping for a cheap computer desk for me to set up a permanent workplace. I expect we will find something for about $20-30. That and a fold-up chair should work fine. So there is nothing much else to share. I have loads of paperwork to finish sorting and handling, and am ready to push major items onto the Ebay store on Sunday. I did find a Universalist Unitarian Fellowship in the area and will try to get to a service on Sunday morning. That may be a good way to network for jobs, vans, and free zucchini and squash. Plus I enjoy doing good works. I see now that homelessness and social justice appear to be my personal missions.

Still Tidying Up

2007-07-08T07:21:00.001-05:00

Wow! I got out on Wednesday night after selling the sleep number bed for $375 cash to a very nice young man. We laid on the bed together to get the air out of the inner chambers and just chatted about moms and sons, pouncing on good deals on Craigslist, and working with computers. I was sweating it out a little that the bizarre and crazy roommate would come home and there would be a scene. But she never showed up.

It was a hot, humid, enervating day. I moved out in stages. The first stage you couldn't tell anything was gone and the car was crammed full of my craft organizer drawers, bags or crafts, and other miscellaneous items. The second trip consisted of the two sets of white plastic drawers, perfect for my van one day, plus nearly all of the Ebay items, jewelry business supplies, and every single thing that is important to me. The kitchen still looked like nothing was touched, the AC, TV, and bed were still set up, and the bathroom things were in place. Someone would have had to search my bedroom to glean my plans. But the kitchen cupboard that I used was M-T! Is that stealthy or what? LOL

After Dan came and got the bed, and after we loaded it into his teeny, tiny car, I cleaned the basement, bathroom, and kitchen. Then in order of importance I loaded the car. I didn't get any serious bites for the TV or AC, so I ran them over to my old roommate's house to give to her. She has the cats for me--a real friend! Then I made one last run back to the house for last minute stuff. I actually forgot my bathroom scale and a USB cord for my printer. Dang it! But I was out of there and felt so happy and free for the first time in months. I sang and giggled all the way back to Little Bird's house to spend the night. I told the crazy roommate in a text message the next morning that I was driving the cats to Missouri--all true except for the exact details of when.

As it turned out I couldn't make the trip happen on Thursday as hoped. It was incredibly hot and I was feeling poorly from the stress, the heat, and the lack of good nutrition, and just couldn't get moving. I actually ate nothing on Wednesday which didn't help. It felt like I was getting a cold or sinus infection so I loaded up on fruit and started to recover Friday night. I did a few more loads Friday and was still moving things into storage on Saturday morning. I spent four hours at my son's apartment just going through paperwork and finding his tax information. I threw away four huge garbage bags of paperwork and consolidated everything. My son and I went over his list of paperwork things to do and prepped for his court date Tuesday for a traffic ticket. Then I loaded up the car with more things to give Little Bird and headed over to her house to spend the night.

We went out to dinner last night and watched several episodes of The Rifleman. She gets such a kick out of the phallicly charged opening scene where Chuck Connors is rapidly firing his specially engineered rifle. It is the money shot that makes all grandmas' hearts beat faster. We often wonder if they knew what it looked like when the series was filmed. That little smirk on Chuck Connors face tells me that he knew exactly what he was doing. Heh heh.

So now it is Sunday and I'm still not on the road to Missouri. And I didn't win anything on PowerBall for July 7, 2007. Shoot! It is 8:45 am and Little Bird won't be up for hours. I'll dress and unload the car, and then work on my son's taxes with a nice cup of coffee. Around noon I'll go to his apartment and load my basket of clothes, box of toiletries, and whatever. I'll stuff food into the nooks and crannies of my trunk. Then it's back to Little Bird's house to color her hair and try to load my boxes into the back seat. Anything that won't fit is getting wrapped and addressed to mail to Marie's in Missouri. Little Bird will hold those boxes until I get to Missouri and know for a fact that I do NOT have a job. If I have a job there is no reason to mail anything out there. Then when the car is loaded and I've eaten a veggie burger for lunch, Spike the big fat kitty will be put into the car and off we'll go. It is a 983 mile trip, the beginning of it on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a long, boring ride. And oh joy, it is the end of a major vacation week and the start of a major heatwave. It isn't getting any better this week. Oh, I have to remember to do some errands today on the way to and back from Dawg's apartment. Close safe deposit box at the bank, return item to Walmart and buy some necessities, see if the Mailboxes Etc place is open today or not, and check the PO box. And leave some envelopes for Dawg to mail my mail to me. Whee!

This is why I'm not on the road yet. LOL

Tidying Up

2007-07-04T05:36:00.000-05:00

I think my roommate is starting to get the picture that there is something wrong with this picture. I went to bed early last night because I'm going to be super busy moving out today while she is at work. I woke up to find that the crappy shelves in the dining room have been cleared off and one of the three crappy shelves got moved to the basement. It is too late, of course. Earth Mother is moving on.

Yesterday morning my lithe old bod was wrapped in a very sheer, gauzy little robe that left next to nothing to the imagination. It was about 7:00 am and I was at the computer downstairs in the dining room. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and assumed it was her, but the masculine voice that said "good morning" scared the crap out of me. I was debating how best to permanently disable him when the owner of the voice staggered into the kitchen to help himself to my private stash of Heineken from the fridge. I took that brief moment to log everything off and dash upstairs where I locked myself in my room and quickly dressed. It is easier to disable an attacker when one is fully clothed. I didn't want to accidentally knock myself out with a stray boob or something.

It turns out that she brought him home around 2:30 am after a drunken debacle at the local tavern where she plays pool and moons over the abusive ex-husband-to-be. She dates the owner there when not picking up strangers. She was still drunk when she had to get up for work yesterday and was still hung over when she got home last night. She makes it so easy for me to leave without a trace. I was going to offer to help her with the August rent, but that offer is off the table now. Her bad decisions have put me at personal risk. There have been two strange men in the house in the past week alone, not to mention the fact that her abusive husband accosted me in a public place. She is still mooning over him and has been at his house at least three nights a week since we moved in together. All it will take is another drunken, maudlin decision to bring him here for a boinking and then what am I supposed to do? She can take the abuse, I don't have to!

Unbelievable! I stopped at my old roommate's house yesterday, where she at least is trying to fix things in her life and has never put me or anyone else into any kind of danger. We had an interesting chat about this situation. Anyway, will add more later. It is nearly 7:00 am and I want to get showered and dressed, clean out my car for loading stuff, and clean the kitchen and basement. I want to get this done before the dingbat gets up and staggers off to work on the 4th of July. I'm not sure how much time I will have to get out today. I plan to leave the bed and obvious signs of my existence on the kitchen counter until the very last moment. If she doesn't search my drawers and closet then she won't realize I'm gone right away. She might get on the road for her tryst at the New Jersey shore without looking too deeply, giving me more time to get out of here. I'm hoping someone will come by and exchange some cash for the bed before 2:00 pm today, so I don't have to move it. I'm not taking any other furniture. I'll leave it for her to sell for cash. Just some nice but heavy wooden shelves and some organizer do-dads. If I don't have stuff I don't need furniture or organizers to display it on!

Countdown

2007-07-02T19:12:00.000-05:00

The timetable isn't exact, but I'm doing it. I guess I still have more stuff than I realized. I decided to let people come and pick up the sleep number bed, the tv, and the air conditioner on Wednesday. The roommate will be at the shore that day, and I will be moving stuff out that I do want to keep. I need Wednesday to concentrate on clearing and cleaning my part of the house. I'm basically a responsible person and I want to clean up after the cats where the litter pan was in the basement. Then I will spend Thursday clearing my son's apartment in case I'm not coming back soon, and load the car with just what I want to take. Friday I'll check the radiator and the oil, stop at the bank for cash, and then for a fill up. Then I'll get the cats last and hit the road to Missouri. I expect to arrive Saturday, sometime. It depends on if I drive straight through or stop for the night. I'd plan to sleep in the car except it will be filled with cats, cages, litter pan, cooler, and luggage. The trunk will be filled with Ebay items, jewelry supplies, and packaging material. Wish I had a van!

Tomorrow I plan to get the mail forwarding service and the storage room. Today I kept putting more stuff on Ebay then had nearly 20 packages to mail. It should be the same tomorrow, so it is worth it to delay for a bit. Still no exact news on the job.

I'm fine with it all. I still need to help my son with some of his paperwork. I could do that Thursday. So now I'm resting at his apartment and having a bite to eat. In a few minutes I'll bring in more stuff I brought from the house. Stupid stuff like a brand new ironing board, a broken TV I want to fix (I know I should put it into the dumpster!) and other detritus. Why can't I stop dealing with stuff?

>^;^<

Really Downsizing Now

2007-07-01T18:35:00.000-05:00

I don't think I can come up with any more barriers to escaping to a life on the road, at least for awhile. I've been putting more items on Ebay, and they are selling as fast as I can list them. Just some collectible items that I acquired while in the acquisition phase of life, with the great plan of reselling the items on Ebay--voila! That is what I'm doing. I'll keep listing those things today and try to get some charm bracelets listed. I backed off that for awhile to do the downsizing of the collection, trying to get the Ebay business down to a just few boxes and the jewelry making supplies.

The crazy roommate is at work and I'm slowly loading the car while she's not looking. As I mentioned before it perturbs her when boxes go out the door and her psychiatrist says she "must not be disturbed", ahem, "any further." I had been joking when referring to her as the crazy roommate, but I have been finding suicide/attention seeking notes and other things laying around. It's more like the fake suicide notes she doodles when she thinks nobody is watching. For an example of what I'm trying to escape, check out the pictures of the common rooms in the house:

OK, maybe my house looked like that once or twice but come on! After seven months shouldn't something be unpacked? Anything? I live in one small room and it is neat and orderly, even when I'm working on a jewelry or craft project. Is it me, am I expecting too much for $800 a month? Sheesh!

The tiny little spice bottle things in the right corner of the kitchen above, that is the only thing of mine you can see in the kitchen! My sprouts are in my room! LOL

OK, I'm getting out of here. Today is a quiet day of Ebaying my clutter away, and tomorrow is a day of packing and stashing into a storage room. Thursday I'm bugging out with my cats.

Deposition Aftermath

2007-06-30T06:05:00.001-05:00

It is such a relief to be done with the depositions and the infernal list of documents to produce. You have no idea--as I have said previously, don't ever get injured! Anyway, I'm processing things in my mind now that this milestone is passed. You would be proud how I handled the Brandon problem last night. I spoke with him briefly, and offered to drive up to Harrisburg to retrieve him and his belongings from the evil place that keeps putting him on the street. What I learned is that "they" like him now so he wants to stay the weekend, then come mooch off me later. And he wanted to know that if he does everything I "tell him" to do, can he go back and visit his cousins? I told him, "Son, you don't have to 'visit' them because you aren't leaving." LOL

I like Tara's comment about living in a van so people won't want to stay too long. Loved it! But I don't have the van yet. So I'm going to mooch off my peep's in Missouri and get a van there. I bailed Brain out of jail and he owes me a couple of thousand dollars, which I'll take in trade while fixing up a van. Getting serious now, I'm selling the sleep number bed, the air conditioner, TV, and some furniture this weekend. I'm clearing the house I share with my crazy roommate, and I'm trying to leave by Thursday this week, after the 4th of July. This should be fun. And If I get a start date for the job I'll come back at that time.

So it's time to clean my old self up and get busy taking pictures of sale items. Then I can post them to craigslist. While that is bubbling I'll clean the car out. It is full of books I want to list on Ebay. That will make room for loading up the stuff I'm not using this weekend, to store at my son's apartment. When you are moving out on a crazy roommate you have to do it with stealth. I won't leave her totally in the lurch moneywise, but when she sees a box leave the house she is always perturbed. It's guilt on her part. She knows she didn't fulfill her end of the roommate contract.

Have you ever had to move out with stealth? Post a comment and tell me about it. Sometimes you just have to melt away into the darkness.

Deposition Day Done

2007-06-29T16:27:00.001-05:00

My nerves are still vibrating, mainly from the drive into Philadelphia on the Surekill Express and back. That is the local euphemism for the Schuykil Express. It is pronounced "Skoo-kyl". We call it the other, for valid reasons. It is a two to three lane highway that should have been a four lane ( on each side! ) that runs from Philly to the rural "burbs" extending out to King of Prussia. We made it there, and back.

I'm drinking a Heineken, catching up on e-mail and stuff, and trying not to process too much yet. This was a major milestone in my case and it is a relief to get it over with. Not sure if we are going to see settlement stuff happening soon or just a year of prepping for a trial. If I could spend the next two days getting ready for a trip to Missouri I would. But it looks like I'm still giving birth to a 19 year old tonight or tomorrow. What should I do?

If I take Brandon in and stay here that's great, but I don't have the job yet. This is killing me, the waiting and the wondering. If I leave I'd have to take him with me and I'd still be responsible for getting him back to Pennsylvania in five weeks for his own legal matters. If I don't take him I risk alienating his mom and step-dad who are key to my accident case. Also if I leave now I risk alienating my son who is hoping I'll stay and take over his apartment. So if I leave now I will have given up on the legal matters.

I have to stay put another few days. Monday should be the last day I have to wait for news on the job. So I'll post more next week. It's time I concentrate on me, and clearing that house so I can go when I want to go.

Deposition Day

2007-06-28T06:46:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is to be the last Deposition Day, hopefully. It seems that each deposition necessitates more "discovery" which means I have to find more paperwork to support or refute various claims. And it seems that today is the day I'm supposed to definitively find out about one of the jobs I interviewed for several weeks ago. If I get the job that is ten minutes from my son's apartment then I will move back in with him and take over the lease. There won't be a trip to Missouri or an immediate move to being vehicularly housed. If I don't get the job I plan to move to Missouri in my car with minimal stuff that supports my online business. The rest would stay in storage in this area. I'm ok with either plan. But I'd really rather just have my accident case settled, in my favor, and have about $120,000 in my tiny paws to rebuild the purposeful and intentioned life that I want. By 6:00 pm tomorrow, Friday, I will know which of my intentions will be the fork I take in the road.

I could have left anytime, but I think that waiting until the last deposition was the optimal plan for navigating through this period of my life. It seems to be such a ridiculous juggling act. I guess that is what makes life interesting. Running away and being a hobo was never really a very good option. My son would like me to stay in the area and he is in the National Guard which surely means a trip overseas at some point. So if staying here would make him happy, then that is what I will try to do.

Well, I have the rest of this day before me. I'll primp for the deposition tomorrow, get my laundry done, and load more miscellaneous stuff that can go into storage at the apartment. Then I'm staying overnight with my son to prep him for tomorrow. I could also do more paperwork (what fun!). Just think. By this time tomorrow I'll be getting ready to drive into the city with my son for the deposition. In another 48 hours I'll have a whole new set of worries to replace tomorrow's angst. I still think I'll need a valium, but of course I don't have any and that is for the best. We'll need our wits about us.

Ok, Ms. Unfazed, get up and get going!

More Consolidating

2007-06-27T06:12:00.001-05:00

Screw it, I almost posted my last musings regarding the events of the week. And another wrinkle was added to the fabric of my life yesterday. My friend Lisa from Georgia called me frantically yesterday and stated that her 19 year old son was "homeless" and would I run up to Harrisburg and get him. What I did was get the phone numbers of those involved and arranged for him to be sent on a bus to King of Prussia this morning. So he will either be here around noon, or around 3:30 pm. In either case, my day is going to be wicked fun.

I'm still taking the cats to a friend's house for safekeeping tonight. But it looks like the move out will be postponed, oh and I got late news yesterday that I am still in the running for the lead role of three jobs at one place I interviewed. It is a contract-to-hire, which means about 3 months of good dollar per hour money until they "own" me. And with no idea regarding when the accident case might settle in my favor (if at all) I think I will have to take the job. It is 10 minutes from my son's apartment and my son wants to move, so I may just take over his apartment until the uncertainty factor subsides. Gee, every move I make seems to be so blasted expedient. I am getting tired of it.

Another wrinkle regarding my friend's son Brandon, is that he is a witness to my accident. I heard through the grapevine that the defendants want to take his deposition but his mother stated that she doesn't know his whereabouts and he doesn't have an address, which is kind of true. So I'm stuck with also "not knowing" where he is. He probably has nothing material to add, but I will quiz him today before I decide officially if I should produce him. And my son is being depositioned Friday so he also cannot know about Brandon. I've already been depositioned and as long as I'm not officially asked about it I can just keep my mouth shut. I will pick Brandon up at the bus station and keep him sheltered for the time being. Probably at the roommate situation.

So I have to figure out how I'm going to organize things. If I get news of the job this week then I can afford to stay at the roommate situation through August while trying to take over Dawg's apartment. That would ease the situation because then I wouldn't need to cause any drama there right now and my son would be happy that he can move out early to be closer to his job and girlfriend. But my roommate's daughter might be coming home from Texas the first of August and neither of us would want Brandon to be there. So, what to do, what to do?

If I had a camper van I'd stick him in there....LOL

Consolidating

2007-06-26T07:34:00.001-05:00

I don't like having to censor myself on my own blog today. But the rapid changes are coming to a head as of Thursday this week--today is Tuesday--so I should keep my actual plans to myself until Friday. I share a computer with a roommate in a situation that is bizarre, though she seems oblivious to my blog. I try to "leave no trace".

You really don't know someone until you live with them. I can get along with anyone and I do, but there are things I will not put up with. We have been here for seven months and she has not unpacked anything. That wouldn't be so bad except that *everything* is piled up *everywhere*. And she pays her share of the rent and expenses later and later each month because she is blowing money. And she's on Match.com dating everybody she can, all at once, and is planning to bring strangers here constantly.

I kind of think the fact that the house looks like a warehouse will fend off serial visitors for a bit, at least long enough for me to consolidate. To top it all off her abusive ex-husband-to-be threatened me with a pool cue in a local pub with no warning, because he feels like he is entitled to abuse her and then her friends by default. I was so angry I could have beaten him to a bloody pulp with that stick--but I will deal with him after I'm done with my own thing. Never do anything that messes up your own stable situation. That is the best rule in life.

The cats are going to a friend's house Wednesday night, until I can get on the road next week. Each day I take a little bit to my son's apartment, but plan to get a small storage room Wednesday. I'm taking stuff to his house tonight, stuff that won't be noticed, then in the morning I'll get the storage room. The stuff is still important for my online business, else I'd ditch it. If I can pull it off tomorrow I can take three loads to storage and be done. I have bits of furniture that I plan to keep for my van, mostly plastic drawers. These are mainly bulky, else I would be able to move everything in one trip. Getting the van first is not panning out, so I'm going with the car for now. It is going into the shop next week for a new radiator, oil pump, and timing chain. That is to help ensure that it will make it to Missouri. The only stuff going with me to Missouri will be my laptop, printer, jewelry business items, Ebay items, clothing, sprouting items, and cats. The sleep number bed might get sold before then. I'm going to miss that the most. But van dwelling and even ultra-lightweight backpacking has no room for luxury items like a sleep number bed. Alas...

OK, this is going to get saved to draft and published after I'm out of here! It's been over three weeks since I was submitted for the potential contract jobs. I will have to presume at this point that I'm not going to get them. It's time for Earth Mother to move on.

Managing Change

2007-06-25T11:32:00.001-05:00

Changes are coming rapidly and I'm not posting too many details until I know for sure which way the wind is blowing. Either I'm taking a local job, or I'm taking a job in Atlanta, or I'm going to put my meager belongings in storage and just car camp until things finish out in my legal case. In either case, there is a lot of change coming. I have to tread lightly and be diligent about how I go about things. Once I'm in the place I need to be, past all this current uncertainty, I will post a lot. I think that describing the way I'm managing change is beneficial for anyone reading my blog. I follow some real simple rules in my life, like "never pee in your own sandbox". I'm not going to upset my applecart by instigating any drama. About a week ago there was a big drama that my roommate's abusive ex-husband-to-be tried to draw me into, but EYE didn't bite. So I'm slowly consolidating my material position and planning the best route through the morass of uncertainty and limbo. Rest assured, I will be moving on.

Frugivore Equals Frugal

2007-06-22T11:21:00.001-05:00

I forget if I mentioned it before, but I'm eating the natural diet of a frugivore, one of the primate variety, not the bird variety. I think that being a frugivore also entails being an insectivore, but since the FDA has approved a certain amount of bug parts per ton I guess it's okay if I swallow an occasional mosquito or gnat, or find half a worm in my apple.

My typical frugivorian diet consists of, in no particular order, and without regard for "traditional" mealtimes: 1/2 sweet and juicy cantelope, 1 apple, 1 banana, several nectarines or peaches, a cup of any cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in season, all the mulberries I can find in the woods, tomato salad with shredded carrot and 1/2 ripe avocado, a handful of fresh raw nuts in season, and the occasional mango, kiwi, and other exotic fruits. It is so delicious and satisfying that I'm not craving anything else. Though the one day I was stuck at my son's house and ran out of fruit I confess to having attacked and slain some brocolli and a cauliflour. I'm ashamed to say that I steamed them with a little grapeseed oil and garlic powder. It was not a pretty sight. Apparently fruit is luscious and appetizing alone, while most vegetables seem to benefit from a little creative gastronomic experimentation to make them more palatable. I still like vegies, and will continue to eat any that are palatable in their raw state, but so far eating fruit alone is satisfying to me.

Even being a longtime vegan I was a sceptic when I first heard of Natural Hygiene. After a week on the diet I understand it. My nimble fingers and tiny teeth and jaws seem to be the perfect tools for gathering and eating fruit in its natural state. I can theoretically eat most fruit without cleaning or preparing it. If I was in a wild state of nature without a sharp knife I would simply use a rock to smash open a watermelon, cantelope, or pineapple. I can eat bananas, apples, pears, berries, peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers straight off the trea, bush, or vine. I believe that is the natural diet.

But with that said, I do believe we would not have civilization as we know it without agriculture and food storage techniques. Plus the accompanying food preparation techniques that have evolved in the past 10,000 years. I admire those techniques and am familiar with most of the foods. I believe a human can live and reproduce on a strictly agrarian diet. But, I'm trying to eat in an "optimal" way. I'm trying to allow my body to easily digest its food and avoid introducing the toxins that come from less optimal foods and preparation methods. I'm not sure though if I'm going to enjoy a hike that involves carrying about 2 lbs of fruits per day. I think I will go for 1/2 lb of fresh fruit with dense nutrition, 1/8 lb of a dehydrated fruit, 1/8 lb of nuts, and 1/4 lb of fresh sprouts as a daily hiking ration. That is 1 lb per day. The fresh fruit will be 1/2 each lemon & avocado daily, plus 1 tomatoe and 1 apple. I think these will transport the easiest and keep the longest if cut in half if I use the lemon as a "preservative". The best part is that I can just toss the leftovers and not worry about packing it in and then packing it out.

I'll try it soon and let you know how it works.

Paris Hilton New Justice For Rocky Delgadillo

2007-06-21T11:36:00.001-05:00

I am laughing my asp off! It has now come to light that Paris Hilton's "adamant" prosecutor is a flaming hypocrite! Well, I say hoist him on his own petard. In case you have been living in a van down by the river and missed it, it turns out that Rocky Delgadillo's wife, Michelle Delgadillo, is a fugitive from justice. She has an outstanding warrant for her arrest for driving on a suspended license, the same as Paris Hilton! The only possible option that I see is that Michelle Delgadillo should serve AT LEAST 45 days in jail, and I mean ALL OF IT!!! I think that Rocky Delgadillo himself should serve the appropriate sentence for covering up his wife's numerous crimes. Plus, Rocky Delgadillo should be DISBARRED! As an officer of the court it is up to him to turn in these cases, not cover them up.

ROFLMAO

Deposition Day

2007-06-20T09:57:00.001-05:00

Most of this week was spent anguishing over the myriad potential outcomes of Lissa & Sam's deposition regarding my accident case. That occurred yesterday. In the morning I wasn't accomplishing much so I wrapped the three Ebay items that sold and dropped them off at the Post Office. Then I got some money off the PayPal debit card and went to my favorite trivia spot to play. I stayed quite awhile, chatted with friends, but was really distracted which showed in my game. I broke down and ate the broccoli bites, which is about all I had all day. I'm going to stay in today and get ready to move some stuff back to my son's house. I'm waiting to hear about the potential contract job, then waiting for the outcome of my son's deposition next Friday. At that point I will either be moving in with him again and taking over the apartment if I get the job, or I will pack up and move to Missouri for a while. In either case, I'm not going to stay in my current roommate situation because frankly it's a mess.

Lissa did call late last night and I got a pretty good picture of how the deposition went, and I think it was good. Though I have not heard from my attorney as yet. I'm sure he is busy after flying out to Atlanta and back yesterday. But it would be really nice to have a word with him. Waiting, waiting, today is all about waiting. I'll break down and talk to Lisa shortly, before I talk to the attorney probably. After I do my morning chores.

It is hard to do the morning chores in this house. I've gone from the frying pan into the fire. First living with Little Bird and her ten foot high piles of junk to living with Crazy Girl and her collection of boxes that are on and around every available surface. When she asked me to move in with her and help with expenses I told her specifically that keeping the common living areas neat was a must. And that if she didn't unpack and stash the crap soon I would have to move out. Also, if she continued to have dealings with her abusive husband I'd have to move out. That was the agreement. You see, I get paid regularly and I'm responsible. I won't live under the threat of eviction or abuse. So I'm out of here, it is just a matter of when. I also warned her that I will not tell her or have any type of confrontation. I will just go.

Today I will finish up the tomato salad, walnuts, the two apples, one banana, and a bunch of carrots and radishes. That will be a fine meal for the day. When I take the paperwork over to my son's apartment I'll stop and get some fruit and a few veggies for the next few days, oh, and some lottery tickets. LOL

Ultra-Lightweight Backpacking

2007-06-17T18:31:00.002-05:00

I haven't said much about my backpacking trip on Springer Mountain a few weeks back. I went with Brutus and some folks we often hike with. He has learned to fastpack but there were some new guys on that trip who were definitely condo-packers. I have a base pack of 8 lbs for a five day trip, with the addition of about 8 lbs of food, water, and clothing. That is a total of 16 lbs at the most and is about 11% of my body weight. You can do this if you take the truly essential items with you and are able to find water as you hike.

Here was a typical day on the trip for me. We got set up at a motel the night before so we could be fresh and ready for a five day fast-paced march. I had a banana and my usual half cup of coffee and water. I rinsed my series of sprouting bags, one per day. The first bag was ready to eat. We hit the trail at 6 am hiking the access road to the southern terminus of the AT. I stayed hydrated with my water bladder and was carrying a liter of water in two bottles. Those are my stop and cook bottles. I think it was about 3.5 lbs total in water weight. We stopped twice to eat and each time I noshed on raisins, nuts, and tasty crackers. When I'm hiking I'm not usually too hungry. It wasn't too hot and I didn't finish the bladder until we stumbled into camp 17 miles later.

The first thing we did in our division of labor is while Brutus put up our tent and started boiling water I used my two collapsible containers to get water and bring it back to camp. I like to sit around the "campfire" and filter water for the next day with company. I also am scrupulous about keeping the filtered water uncontaminated which is harder to do standing by the water source. So I refilled our bladders and six bottles of water. Brutus carries extra water because he's 6 feet and 190 lbs of muscular mountain man and a 40 lb base pack doesn't faze him. This way he can boil a lot of water at once while I obtain and filter our supply. He carries a big stove and fuel apparatus and a big covered pot. I found I like to bring two balanced containers of water to camp at one time, so we have some cleanup water before changing for bed. Camp discipline is very important. A nice quick scrubdown before wearing lightweight camp clothes makes for a relaxing sleep. I also carry a small squirt bottle to use for personal hygiene throughout the day. I'll let you do the math. Wink!

We generally use the boiling water to reconstitute a gourmet dehydrated meal, though I do plan to get away from needing to do that. We try to make the evening meal a relaxing and complete meal. A little tea or coffee is always nice, or hot chocolate. Brutus also carries a concentrated alcohol selection because he associates camping with getting buzzed and that can be fun. I've frozen beer in a reusable plastic bottle just to enjoy a brewski the first night. That was just as an experiment to see if I could, of course. >^;^<

Base Pack:

Shelter - 3 lbs (hammock, bivvy sack, sleeping bag, silk liner)
Water - 1 lb (Katadyn Hiker Pro, Sweet Water drops, collapsible containers, iodine tablets)
First Aid - 0.5 lb (alcohol, peroxide, antibiotic, aspirin, Benadryl, ibuprofen)
Electronics - 1.5 lbs (batteries, camera, radio/flashlight, headlamp, binoculars, varies)
Tools 1 lb (duct tape, firestarting, etc.)
Cooking 1 lb (Esbit stove, tablets, aluminum foil, titanium pot, plastic spoon & fork, plastic cups)

Extra Clothing for wash as I go (wearing and not counting boots, socks, underwear, zip pants, t-shirt, long-sleeved sweatshirt jacket, multi-purpose scarf, hat, compass, knife/gadget, bear spray, tummy pack):

1 extra pair socks & underwear
Camp shoes - super super light!
Light leggings and loose pullover for camp wear, protects against bugs and chills
1 extra zip pants, often using just one pair of interchangeable bottoms
1 extra t-shirt
1 extra multi-purpose scarf (use as towel, sweat rag, do-rag, etc.)

Personal Items in tummy pack:

Contacts lens stuff & glasses
Tissues
Squirt bottle (portable bidet!)
Book
Bug spray and bug net for wearing over a hat
Survival tin (functions as a mirror), has iodine, plastic bags, most of the first aid stuff
Trash bag
Firestarter
Coffee, tea, chocolate, candies, snacks
Vial of Dr. Bronner's for cleaning up
Vaseline
Chapstick
Pet sized finger "toothbrush"
Floss
Book
Batteries

The thing for me is that I don't really feel weight unless it is on my shoulders. So I wear a lot of survival stuff on my person, in pockets and in the tummy pack where I can get to it easily, plus a lumbar pack. I have the bear spray on my hiking poles, as well as a coil of rope for use when bear bagging my pack. Nothing stays in camp except water in a sealed container and a tiny case for my contacts. I use tiny vials, the 3 cc size, for my contact lens solutions and other liquids. I use tiny, tiny ziploc bags for things like vaseline and toothpaste. I also use a system where the equipment for each camp task is in its own stuff sack. So I'm only using one stuff sack's worth of stuff at a time, generally. I lash these stuff sacks on and around a good sized lumbar pack. I could carry 40 lbs around my middle without flinching (have been pg twice!), but strap it to my shoulders and I'll be bitching the whole way!

The survival tin has the last ditch gear needed if "god forbid" the lumbar pack got away from me by falling over a cliff or in a river. In reality I should be using it as my cooking pot, but it is still pretty pristine. I'm going to rethink everything I carry before going out the next time. I like to avoid backpacking during July and August and that is when I customize and rethink gear choices. My Kelty lumbar pack has a top that unzips into a combination backpack and lumbar pack. It isn't terribly comfortable because I have a short waist. So I will customize it for a better fit. I feel like it needs to be cinched in at my waist to take weight off my shoulders. I'll figure something out. The top part is light weight and I use it for extra food. The way I organize it, clothing goes into the water resistant lumbar pack section. The hammock and sleeping gear in their own stuff sacks is strapped to the bottom. Very light weight items go into the top.

What I really want is a multi-dimensional portal that would weightlessly store all my supplies and gear in a nether region that can neither be seen or touched without the portal. The portal would be a key into my own private inter-dimensional storage locker. What would be even nicer is if I could spend the night in a climate controlled dimension. I guess they call that Motel 6. Sadly...am gonna probably have to rough it again this year.

Frugal Frugivore

2007-06-17T17:37:00.001-05:00

I'm actually still on my fruitarian summer diet as it is getting so hot--into the third day now. I spent about $6 at ACME yesterday and got a cantelope, two avocadoes, six nectarines, and two bananas. Everything was on sale. Yesterday I ate one avocado, tomatoes I already had, plus a handful of walnuts as a meal. I had half of the cantelope for breakfast, and then noshed on three nectarines and the broccoli and mung bean sprouts. I nibbled on the sprouts like I might have nibbled on bad stuff in the past. Also I finished off a big bag of cherries.

Today I made a tomato salad with the juice of one lemon to which I added some sprouts, one avocado, and shredded carrot. That's the dinner I just finished with half leftover to serve as tomorrow's dinner. For tomorrow I'll have the bananas for breakfast, then two apples and some almonds for lunch. I have not given up my morning cuppa' though I stopped having the non-dairy creamer. I did make a fresh pitcher of sun tea for my beverage only because that is what I'm accustomed to doing. It is hard breaking longtime habits. I can eat an entirely all raw, all fruit diet with just a few vegetables tossed in, but I'm not giving up beer, coffee, or teas just yet. I really enjoy them and do not drink any of these things to excess. I still feel quite full and satisfied eating only the fruits. I guess a hot spring/summer day is a good day to transition to an all raw fruitarian diet. Frugivore equals Frugal!

An interesting thing I've already noted is that it does not take a lot of fresh fruit to make me feel satiated and full. I expected that I'd need to nosh continually and eater a larger volume than I'm accustomed to. It seems that there is enough energy in the fruit to satisfy my need for nutrients. I think I'm observing the reaction that is expected. Eating cooked food requires eating a larger volume in order to get sufficient nutrition. Raw fruit is so inherently nutrient and calorie dense that smaller volumes are sufficient. Interesting...

I'm about ready to put more goodies on Ebay. Took all the pictures this morning, adjusted and uploaded them to my Seller Source Book account, and now I just need to plow through and write the descriptions and post them. I think most will be some one cent auctions for a week. That should generate interest in my jewelry for the rest of the week. It's nearly seven now. I'll make more jewelry tonight after I do today's listings. Then I'll spend tomorrow night listing the new stuff. You have to have a plan and then you have to work your plan!

Frugal Equals Frugivore

2007-06-15T21:40:00.001-05:00

It finally came to me, the answer to a question or rather a dilemma in my life. In a manner of speaking I am in the process of downshifting. I yearn for a more mobile and less wasteful and costly lifestyle where I can avoid spending so much time at work. So I am pursuing a path to simpler living which for me encompasses frugality and at the very least a vegan diet. I've been vegetarian and semi-vegan for nearly thirty years and am renewing my commitment to be totally vegan. As I did a little inspirational research I stumbled upon a frugal diet that is based on our biological heritage as frugivores. Frugal=Frugivore, both from the Latin "frux". Interesting. Normally I thought of food in terms of what was I going to "cook" though a large portion of my diet consists of raw vegetables. I would eat fruit occasionally throughout the day. I knew raw foods are inherently better but like most Americans I am the product of my upbringing and my lifestyle had been busy, if not hectic. So I just did what I knew how to do.

I explored the idea of what a frugivore's diet would be in the natural world. For humans it consists of anything that a primate can get to, harvest, and consume in its raw state. Period. Biologically our bodies are the outcome of millions of years of evolution that culminates in our civilized state of having illness and disease as a "normal" part of life in a world of factory farms, cooked food, and vitamin supplements. Think how freeing it would be, to bring home some melons, avocados, peaches, nectarines, apples, berries, and an assortment of nuts to just graze upon at will. No meal planning, preparation, cooking, or cleanup. I know that psychologically I'm still going to want some hot drinks (not too hot!) and soups, a salad with lettuce and celery and carrots and peppers, and the occasional mushroom. But I think I can try this out for a week and see if it will sustain me both physically and emotionally. If this is successful then this will be the plan for van dwelling. It should save a lot of time and money. The hardest part will be giving up garlic, onions, oils, and hot peppers. Those form the basis of cooking and mostly have to cooked or combined with other foods in order to be palatable. It will be nice to get away from juicing, and most of the slicing and dicing needed to prepare foods to eat. I'll still make salads and cut my fruit into manageable portions, but it should be a lot easier than steaming rice and pressure cooking beans.

As a longtime vegetarian who has always eaten in a non-traditional and healthy way anyway, rest assured that I'm already well-versed in "where will I get my protein from?" as well as my Vitamin B-12. When I was a cooked carrion eater I had pernicious anemia and had to get B-12 shots at least monthly. When as a young adult I suffered from perpetual exhaustion I learned about vegan B-12 methylcobalamine supplements which helped somewhat. When I cut meat, fish, and dairy completely out of my diet and started eating raw vegetables from my garden I never had a problem with exhaustion again, plus I was able to stop the B-12 shots. And I do not believe in "meat substitutes". I'm long past needing or wanting to buy "veggie dogs".

The problem with protein is that Americans have been brainwashed to believe that only meat has protein. Forget food combining, a theory that NEVER had ANY scientific basis, just know this! ALL PLANTS HAVE PROTEIN! Yes, it's true! Carrots have protein, lettuce has protein, even strawberries have protein. The issue is threefold. First, eating animal based protein introduces toxins and waste into your body and you need to consume a lot of protein to get the little bit that you need. Second, eating purely vegetable based protein and excluding grains and legumes, you will be able to easily get the 5-6.5% of protein the human body needs, without having to process toxins and waste products. Third, by eating food that is less complex to digest you need less energy to get the same amount of protein the human body needs from less protein dense food.

My roommate and I are both 50 years old. She smokes, drinks excessively, and eats mostly meat, lots of dairy, and very little vegetable foods. The fridge is full of leftover takeout and defrosting meats that never get cooked because she is too tired all the time. I hike 5-7 miles daily, she hangs out in bars. When we do go out together she looks like a hardened 65 year old biker chick and I look like a fresh-faced 35 year old. She has high blood pressure, super high cholesterol and bad blood serums, varicose veins, heart palpitations, indigestion, migraines, deep wrinkles, puffy eyes with huge dark circles and bags.
She's been to the emergency room for the heart issues and high blood pressure a couple of times in the past six months. I have low blood pressure, no cholesterol, and none of the other problems typical for this age group. When she gets home from work I offer her salad with freshly made dressing, and whatever else I've made. But she has to fry up a slab of dead cow and that is all she will eat with her beer and cigarettes. Interesting...having been there myself I'm very sensitive to this style of eating and know I can't say anything to her. I can only get it off my chest in my blog. I just wish she'd notice that her diet is killing her and is making her look far too old for her age. Oh, Well!

I guess the experience of being laid low in an accident and then battling back physically makes me more aware of the need to be fit and healthy. I can't imagine having to take a pharmacy of medicines everyday in order to exist. It sure won't fit into a frugal, van dwelling lifestyle.

All this typing about food made me peckish, a state between hungry and bored. I polished off a handful of cashews, that is raw whole cashews I had stored in the freezer. So delicious they tasted like butter! Smooth and creamy. Yummo!

Chilling Out

2007-06-15T13:41:00.001-05:00

I got through two interviews and now I'm chilling out, though I spent most of the day listening to Lissa whinge about the deprivations of having to do the deposition next week. She's a character. I know she has my back and at this point I'm going to relax and push through with my own short-term plans.

Today I'm getting a bunch of paperwork organized and hopefully will be able to purge more of it. The car is loaded up with the last of the miscellaneous stuff which I will sort and purge at the roommate's house. Then I think I'll just stay in tonight and work on Ebay stuff to list over the weekend. So nothing too earthshaking is going on. I have a vision of what I want to do and will just wait it out to see which way I'm going to jump. If I don't have a job after my son's deposition on the 29th, then I will let Crazy Girl know I'm leaving and I will sell my car, rent a van, pack up everything and the cats, and go to Missouri. I'll leave my "stuff" in a storage locker, put the Ebay store on vacation settings, and bring back the van because it is cheaper than doing the one-way. Then I'll hop Greyhound and head back to Missouri. That will allow me to save more money for the van a bit faster. This waiting is costing me money.

I may consider just taking the necessities in my car. I learned a long time ago not to plan for anything but just have multiple backup plans and the flexibility to jump in the best forseen direction.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!

2007-06-13T22:22:00.001-05:00

Gag, snort, expell mucous, I have a damned job interview tomorrow. Just my luck I'll get the freaking job. Anyway, I could use $50 an hour for a few months to finish up some financial planning and to get the van of my dreams. Perhaps my accident case will settle while I'm working. Blech! I really don't want to work again. Face it, I'm not building a career or saving for a house anymore. I'm not getting retirement out of it, this is a contract job. I will be trading 45 hours of my precious time for $1650 a week after taxes and will probably hate every minute of it.

On the plus side I will be happy to have another freakin' reference and should probably spend my spare time building the website for my future software sales when I'm living in a van down by the river! But I want to be gone! I want to be in the van heading off to wherever. OK, responsible person that I am I know that if I live by my own rules for the next six months I could save $36,000 for use in getting ready for living out of my van. So I will put my silly butt to bed at midnight and set the alarm for 5:00 am. I will get up and groom myself and study .NET so that I sound like I freakin' care at the interview. I'm trading 45 hours of my time for an additional $3000 a month. What a whore! And my agency is the pimp. I really don't like living the life of an IT whore. So pray for me that this stupid contract five miles from my house will fall through! Wah, wah, wah!

I know, there are a lot of people who would kill to make the kind of money I am capable of making. The problem is that I don't want to work for anybody else but I don't have the money to put my own ideas into practice yet. What to do? I know, I'll scratch off my Pennsylvania lottery tickets and check on the Powerball drawing for today!

No luck, I lost $4 today. I guess I should go through with the interview. The reason I will do this is because I have to in order to be eligible for unemployment. So I really can't lose. Job equals $6k else UE and other activities equals $3.5k. Sigh....

I'm staying with Brutus tonight. It is 11:42 and he's been snoring for hours now. We had dinner at our favorite all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. As a vegan, I love sushi! I first learned about it when I lived in Hawaii. It's ok, sushi means "sweet rice" or "rice snack". It is sashimi that means raw fish. I eat avocado and veggie rolls with my own stash of Soy Vey! as the dipping sauce. Anyway, Brutus thinks I should get the job and move in with him. I think I should get the job and move in with him for six months. I wish he'd get with the program. LOL

Thou Shalt Not Lack Anything In It

2007-06-11T13:03:00.002-05:00

Yummo! I just had the most delicious lunch. My tastebuds are Happy Happy! As a vegan, the things that most people think of as a side dish would make an actual meal for me, and yes, even vegans watch the Food Network. I had a sprout salsa with hummus, using carrots, celery sticks, and spinach rolls for the dippers. I had made a fresh vidalia onion and tomato salad yesterday, with fresh cilantro, and shredded carrots. I added a huge jar of sprouted mung beans with a handful of sprouted broccoli and let it sit in the fridge while I made the hummus. I had sprouted my garbanzo beans (about 20 cents worth) for several days, rinsing three-four times a day and picking out any that wouldn't sprout. The tails were about an eighth of an inch long so they were ready today. I brought some filtered water to a boil while I made a pesto of lemon, cilantro, fresh garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, and sesame seeds (tahini). I took the water off the burner and plunged the garbanzo bean sprouts into the hot water for one minute using a screened colander. Then I rinsed them quickly in cool water. I put the rinsed sprouts into my Bravetti, added the pesto, and gave it several spins until the consistency was just short of smooth. I like a meatier texture to my hummus. I put the hummus into the fridge to chill and made my spinach rolls by hand-rolling green leaf spinach, and cut my carrots and celery sticks. Threw it all onto a plate, grabbed some fresh-made lemonade sweetened with a smidgeon of brown rice syrup, and plopped down outside on the deck to savor the moment.

Dinner will be served with the same freshly made foods, plus a saute of bright green snap beans, mushrooms, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, in olive oil, over an extremely thin bed of brown rice. The green onions in the window look good. They'll make a great fresh garnish. I think a few pinions (pine nuts) would be good with the saute. I'll post pictures eventually. In the meantime I will reflect over this passage that is meaningful to me. Especially the part of "thou shalt not lack anything in it". Everything on the follwing list is vegan except for the honey.

For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness; thou shalt not lack anything in it... And thou shalt eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee. (Deuteronomy 8:7-10)

I'm not a Christian but my motto is WWJE? I think it is ok to bring the reality of parts of the bible into the secular world. Read it or overlook my reasoning as you choose. And look for fresh local produce for the lowest cost in your area. It is always less expensive to eat a healthy vegan diet. This is part of my plan for van dwelling in simplicity, health, and abundance.

Paris Hilton Justice Denied

2007-06-09T06:26:00.001-05:00

Paris Hilton is being vilified by virtue of the mob rule mentality of folks who are just plain ignorant about how their legal system works. All over the country it is routine to shorten the actual sentences handed down by judges. ROUTINE! Murderers, rapists, and pedophiles walk free after serving a fraction of their sentences, yet the mob insists that a young woman serve an unnecessarily cruel sentence because they hate her for being rich, young, beautiful, and promiscuous. In Salem women got burned at the stake so obviously nothing has changed in all this time.

I have a more balanced view because in spite of being everything she is not, I am not in the least bit envious of Paris Hilton. I think she should have received the typical weekend sentence that most people get for violating probation in a reckless driving situation. Of course I think the drunk driving laws don't do enough to take care of the safety issue, and the fact that the original charge is reckless driving shows that the system is flawed. I'm a member of MADD, I am responsible when I drive, yet all I would ask is that everyone get the same sentence until the laws are changed. Nobody should be unfairly singled out because others don't like them. That is not what America is supposed to be about. In every statement you hear or read about Paris Hilton try to substitute the words "someone", "a person", "he" or "him". This way gender bias, money bias, youth bias, and beauty bias shouldn't enter into it.

In typical situations like this one, the normal sentence is a weekend stay in the county jail for a first time offender. Then if someone violates probation the second time the sentence is about a week in the county jail. The third time they should be promised 30 days in lockup. In all cases, nobody serves the full amount of time if they behave themselves in jail.

My roommate's soon-to-be-ex-husband is currently driving around drunk on a suspended license after getting a DUI in Pennsylvania. He can actually petition the system to let him have the right to drive to and from work but has been too lazy to ask for that privilege. Paris Hilton could presumably have done the same thing in California. If the STBX here is caught he will most likely get a weekend sentence for a month. This is because the system likes for defendants to work so they can continue to pay exhorbitant fines.

So, instead of vilifying the defendant we should be trying to change the system so that it accurately reflects the consequences we expect as a society. And while we are at it, let's first fix the way we mishandle pedophiles, rapists, and murderers in the justice system.

Spring is Sprouting

2007-06-07T17:17:00.001-05:00

I have pictures of the sprouts from yesterday and today and will post them soon. I spent most of today primping for my birthday celebrations starting tomorrow. Tomorrow I will see my sons and granddaughters, and of course the baby mama (wink). After that, Brutus and I have a night of carousing then the promise of camping under the stars. He's camping in Assateague, poor fool. The mosquitoes there are bigger than the Florida and New Jersey state birds combined. They will knock over the stunted ponies there to get a piece of you. I'm not camping at Assateague again, until I have a camper van ready for a night of air conditioning under the stars. It's not been too bad camping at French Creek in Pennsylvania. Even Springer Mountain a few weeks ago was relatively skeeter-free.

I also spent today putting stuff on ebay, making jewelry, and sorting out a lot of boxes of stuff I still harbor. I found more stuff to put on ebay and organized stuff so I can find it. Lisa called me from Atlanta. They served her with the subpoena today. She and Sam get depositioned on the 19th. We found that odd because Sam was not there when I got hurt. My son gets depositioned on the 29th. My nerves are shot, but if I can maintain my composure until after his deposition then I can find out my attorney's assessment of the proceedings and decide what to do next. Every single time I get a communication on the case I get a shot of adrenaline and the feeling of impending doom. But I will persevere. The case is not my life and my life doesn't depend upon the case. The case will give me a better van to live in, but I can get a van now if I'm willing to make do. I'm holding on, ditching my trash & stashing my cash. It will be ok.

Just got a text from my roommate and asked her to bring me back a six-pack of Heineken, the vegan beer. >^;^< I need to distract myself from the proceedings. If I could turn back the clock to the point where I got injured, I would have immediately upon getting out of surgery the first time sold everything I owned, including the house, filed for bankruptcy, and moved into a two bedroom apartment until I was fully healed. I wasted 7 years trying to get back on my feet trying to keep my former lifestyle. What a waste of effort! But, would I have learned anything if I hadn't gone through this? Hard to say. Hindsight is 20-20. But mostly we are just blind. It is said that most of us are a paycheck away from disaster. I see now that we are all a rent or mortgage payment away from disaster. As god is my witness, I'll never sign a lease or mortage loan application again!

Biblical Vegetarian - What is that?

2007-06-05T07:34:00.002-05:00

Someone recently asked me to explain what a Biblical Vegetarian is. I don't think it is a real label that anyone else has coined. I use it to describe the basis for my personal vegetarian beliefs, for which I find some interesting basis in the translations of the biblical texts available today. I am a heathen and not a Christian, preferring to avoid the hypocrisy of organized religion. I believe that the moment you only believe what you are told, then you have turned your back on the higher powers that put you here to learn. How can you learn if you will only hear one voice and do no research of your own? I do believe in faith, and even an atheist has faith in their beliefs. Everyone should have faith. However, there is a lot to admire in the biblical stories that are attributed to the covenant and to the reformers of Judaism, particularly the reforms of Jesus, one of the many Jewish Christs (teachers) who tried to fulfill the prophesies and reform Judaism to bring it back to its roots. The old testament has a prescription for a healthy abundant life and that is a vegetarian one. You will find no evidence in the bible that Jesus ever ate any animal product. He told his disciples to get "meat" for the Passover meal, but the translation of "meat" was from words that merely mean provisions. Jesus did not eat lamb at the Passover meal. The last supper was prior to the Passover meal and Jesus taught us that he demands mercy and not sacrifice. He destroyed the moneylenders operation in the temple because he came to us to BECOME the Senechal Lamb, not to partake of it. Thou shalt not kill. Period.

Biblical texts demonstrate the earliest human histories in terms understood to the least educated of those times. There are some common threads that run through the explanations and I have been seeking them out since I was very young. The common theme is that we have free will and thus have choices to be made. Every choice you make leads you down a different fork in the road and thus has consequences. Every vegetarian will tell you that if forced to "explain" their choices they will be almost viciously attacked for them. It seems to be a visceral reaction. The early Christians were vegetarian and were also viciously attacked for them.
Well, you can attack and I expect it. But my beliefs are firm on the matter. The right choice is the humane choice. It is right for our bodies and our spirits to be humane. "I require mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:13 & 12:7). So, have a little mercy on vegetarians.

Remember, the bible never commanded you to eat meat. You make that choice and it shortens your life and destroys the world. You who eat meat even try to quote scripture and claim that it tells you it is "ok" to eat animal flesh. God commanded ten things of you. And when he created the earth he gave Adam and Eve every herb bearing seed on the face of the earth, and for us it would be for "meat". He said that is was good. He has never again said anything else was "good". It is understandable that those who lust for animal flesh would try to justify it, and even try to subvert God's word to do it. But, it is still a bad choice. The scientific evidence is in.

Strictly from a pragmatic viewpoint, the ecological footprint of a vegetarian is smaller than the equivalent in animal flesh that is raised on nearly 16 times the acreage. It takes more petroleum products, more chemical fertilizer, more antibiotics, more water, and creates more waste than simply growing and eating the plant energy directly without processing it through the alimentary canal of a bird or mammal. To take pragmatism even further, it has been scientifically demonstrated that eating a vegetarian diet is extremely healthful in comparison to eating animals. So take a broccoli chill pill and enjoy the fruits of the earth. It's so tasty, too!

Yankees

2007-06-04T22:48:00.001-05:00

As a Southern girl transplanted amongst Yankee's, what I've observed is that their pursuits are fairly trivial. I haven't found much of substance here. The foods are boring, the conversation is banal, and only the vanities are discussed with much fervor. As in whose house is bigger, whose job is more important, and who gets the most respect for their dollar. I never really bought into that but now that I have lots of free time I'm noticing that I never missed much by working all the time. There is nothing much holding me here now. Just the accident case and one friend who hasn't moved away yet. We are suddenly finding ourselves getting closer than ever now that her move back to California is imminent. She has asked me to come along but I need to keep plodding on this path for awhile longer. I told her it may be quite soon when I am parked in her driveway for a spell. In any case I have suddenly realized that I have never been friends with a Yankee. So I guess it isn't going to happen now.

Purposeful

2007-06-04T19:40:00.001-05:00

A picture of plenty: beans, lentils, grains, cous-cous, sprouters, and more:

I'm back from the errands and just chilling out with some ice water and two juicy nectarines. Though I'm attempting to be a good vegan I have to admit that nectarines being a mutant fruit are probably not in accordance with my biblical vegetarian beliefs. I didn't say I was a perfect biblical vegetarian but my flesh and spirit are willing--it is my judgment that is weak. They looked so good and smelled yummy at Redner's. I tried to find the sprouted wheat bread, but they didn't have any. So all I got were the vidalia onions, bananas, nectarines, and plum tomatoes. I diced all six of the fairly large tomatoes into tiny chunks, added four shredded carrots and half of a vidalia onion. Over that I squeezed the juice of two lemons and added a few tablespoons of cold-pressed grapeseed oil and a smidgeon of Celtic sea salt crushed in the mortar. A bowlful of that with crushed walnuts and fresh squeezed lemonade made a dandy meal. I'll have it again twice tomorrow, for lunch and dinner. If I was outdoors I could rinse my knife and cutting board from a jug of water.

On a mobile homeless group I once described my favored diet and was asked how on earth could I manage such a thing. Isn't it expensive to eat fresh food? No, it's not. I spend about $4 a day on food, and $3 of that is on fresh produce. The other $1 is used to buy nuts, grains, beans, and lentils. I buy beans and lentils in bulk because they keep fairly well in a cool, dry place. I keep nuts, grains, and rice in a cooler or fridge. I also keep sesame and grapeseed oils in the fridge so they don't go rancid before I can use them. I also buy about $100 worth of sprouting seeds each year in order to produce my own fresh sprouts on a daily basis. Everything you need is in a blade of grass and in the herb bearing seed thereof, or so I've heard. I heard that someone said "it is good". Wheat, rice, and corn were domesticated from the world's grasses. If you sprout nuts, beans, and grains, that action releases more of their nutritional goodness, and it limits the amounts of protective enzymes and toxins that are nature's way of protecting the seeds. All over the world cultures routinely soak nuts, grains, and beans before preparing them. We have lost sight of that in the West. Living foods, sprouted and fresh is the optimal way to consume nutrients for good health and energy.

A typical day for a health and budget conscious vegan would start with some fruit and perhaps a handful of nuts. Rinsing the sprouts is a daily task, at least twice a day. I usually have three to six jars to rotate. Any that have grown to the right size can go into the fridge to retard their growth--they are still wonderfully alive and full of vitamins and enzymes. For second breakfast a small bowl of a produce salad from the day before would be refreshing, along with a handful of sprouts, with a freshly made lemonade. For lunch, saute a little fresh onion and garlic in olive oil and add carrots and spinach at the last moment. Then stir in some brown basmati rice and walnuts and finish it off. I like to add a little hoisin sauce sometimes, or a little Soy Vey. Second lunch is an early supper. Some rice and beans with chili seasonings in a real corn meal tortilla, with fresh vidalia onion and spinach for a topping. On the side, some leftover tomato salad and an ice cold Heineken (if it is in the budget). The rice and beans are cooked once a week, salad and lemonade are made daily, and the sprouts are rinsed and drained at least twice a day. It isn't hard, clean up is a breeze, and it would be very easy to do the same thing in a situation where one is living out of a vehicle.

In a vehicle, substitute a cooler for a fridge and buy ice every other day. Use a propane or a hobo stove and cook your rice and beans outside once a week. I have worked out my setup from past experience living out of my Ford Expedition while traveling on business once upon a time. A small fold up table makes a great work surface outside for prep work and cooking. Cook at a park, people will think you are having a picnic. Obviously you won't be cooking in a Walmart parking lot, I hope! And shopping with that $3 a day is done in 2-3 visits to the store each week. You look out for the best deals, which could be avocados one day and lemons and carrots the next. Carrots keep easily for a week, as do most root vegetables. I avoid potatoes because cooking them is a pain, unless I'm making soups or stews. I go to a produce co-op to get the best price I can on everything, but will also visit local stores.

So, instead of feeling bad about my circumstances and being anguished over the legal matters surrounding my accident, my purpose is to offer up what little I've learned about being flexible, resilient, and healthy on a limited budget under stressful circumstances. I've been a budget counselor for Army Community Services a long time ago when I was a young wife of a military man. I've been a single mom who learned to squeeze Lincoln until he cried out for mercy. I don't yearn for the expensive things in life, I yearn for simplicity and realism. I know that a homeless person without a vehicle can't follow any of my tips successfully. I know that most vehicularly housed folks won't be able to do it unless they have the resources and the purposefulness required. But, like me, there are people who don't fall into homelessness willy-nilly, but are purposeful. I've spoken to people who have seen it coming and planned for living in their vehicles. If you read the internet blogs and articles you'll soon learn that you would be living a life of stealth and planning. It is not the freedom of the road if you are without resources and remain isolated from the world. I am planning purposefully and judiciously so that I may enjoy a little of the freedom I hope to gain by not being tied to the grid for communication or a roof over my head, or even for a job.

The grid isn't inherently bad, but the false sense of security in the city, the suburbs, and in a job no longer suits me. I'm not going to be forced to live in my car through lack of foresight. I'm planning on living "out of" a van. Yes, I can sleep in a van but I've also slept under the stars on the Appalachian Trail. I can get by with an eight pound base pack weight on an overnight hike, but I'm not opposed to keeping my necessaries stored in a mobile closet. I don't want to wake up after a night in the van to trudge down city streets looking for a cup of tea. I can make that in my vehicle today. So if you are reading this post just keep in mind that purposefulness can help you plan and adapt and cope with just about anything. Alway know why you do what you do.

Here are some pictures of my setup for sprouting. The first picture is the organization of the sprouting seeds I like. You can see by the number of jars that sufficient variety is not a problem. The second picture shows two mason jars that I am using for mung bean sprouts and broccoli sprouts. I just opened a new package of broccoli seeds, enough to last a few years.

Malfeasance

2007-06-04T14:21:00.001-05:00

Whatever you do, don't ever get hurt. As soon as you are injured your life is not your own. I'm in midst of malpractice hell and it has nothing to do with the excellent medical care I've received. It was the deliberate act of an officer of the court that put me in this unwieldy financial predicament. Now I'm in the midst of a process that consists of paperwork and depositions ad infinitum ad nauseum. Now they want to deposition my son--again. I'm trying to keep my real life separated from the case so I am not going to be able to share what I'm planning with my son. We can't have him revealing the true extent of my flakiness by accident. I have to treat this process as though it will go to trial and I can't allow them to "try the victim". My attorney called with three dates for my son's second deposition. I'm waiting for my son to call me back to discuss it. Oh, Well! It is what it is. I have to live through it, like I did childbirth and all those surgeries. I need a Valium, but will settle for a St. John's Wort capsule and a beer.

I plan to work on listing things on Ebay until about 7 pm, then I'll run errands and drop off some mail and check the PO Box. I always feel threatened when I get a contact in regards to the accident case and I need to work on guarding against those feelings. My security is NOT threatened. I can run away any time I want to. The most vulnerable time will be when I've sold the car and before the van is ready. I think I should just sell everything now. There is still a lot of stuff that I shouldn't be harboring. Today I'll sell the larger collectibles and try to get all the miniatures listed by 7:00. I'll make jewelry when I get back tonight.