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.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
People
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!
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!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Pondering the Meaning of Life
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
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
Friday, August 17, 2007
Grandma-isms - Rules to Live By
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
New Life
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.
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!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Wild Women
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Letting Go
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Being
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.
>^;^<
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.
>^;^<
Monday, August 6, 2007
Downsized
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!
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!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Nicely Downsized
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.
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.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Peace and Quiet
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Employer Confidentiality Handled
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.
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.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Employer Confidentiality
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.
>^;^<
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.
>^;^<
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Drama
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!
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!
Monday, July 23, 2007
New Life
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!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Milestone
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!
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!
Monday, July 16, 2007
What do you do all day?
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
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.
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.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Health and Wellness in a Nutshell
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.
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
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.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Still Tidying Up
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
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
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Tidying Up
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!
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!
Monday, July 2, 2007
Countdown
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?
>^;^<
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?
>^;^<
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Really Downsizing Now
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.
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.
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