‘Tis done. I’m now traveling in my new-to-me rig. After tires, brakes, differential fluid and new batteries for solar, I was a lot lighter than when I arrived to pick up the little E-Nuff bus, wallet wise, lol. First stop was, aptly, Hope, ID. What a beautiful place for the first real road camping I…
Oh my, my, how I had forgotten the joy to be found in driving – particularly driving a responsive, well-functioning vehicle where gauges and issues did not have to be monitored. It’s glorious. You feel one with the car. The radio playing classic sounds – The Cranberries, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Panic at the Disco, Plain…
This is my first post via cell phone because my laptop simply will not cooperate! I have no idea how this will turn out, lol. I made it 2,200 and change across our beautiful country in Ruby, and it has been delightful, despite yet another breakdown en route. I wish everyone could see the America…
So, I bought a campervan. Nothing big, nothing fancy, nothing new. Just new to me. I want to approach this kind of like a fiddler crab, edging sideways towards a new hole in the sand; or maybe a hermit crab, checking a new shell for a better fit, always remembering that it is me…
A friend of mine recently said ” It doesn’t matter what anyone else wants, what do YOU want to do?” I thought back to what my goals were before Plannus Interruptus (common ailment for plans, no doctor needed). Remember nearly five years ago when I bought an RV and planned on paying off debt and…
I saved another wasp today. No, no, not the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant type. The flying, stinging type. “Why?” will be most people’s response, understandably. But, I feel that wasps get a bad rap. They live all around my house – on the ceiling of the mud room, on the door frame of my front door,…
Up until two weeks ago, my answer to that question would have been a myriad of things. A new SUV. Really nice smokey perfume. A case of fabu Pinot Noir. An all-inclusive trip to Alaska or Scotland. And so forth. My, my, how one’s perspective can change in a jiffy! Top of the list now?…
Well, they don’t call me the wandering Jew for lack of a reason, but I’m putting down tentative roots once more. I bought a house. I’ll try not to burden my mind with calling it my ‘forever’ home, as I did once before when I found a little slice of heaven – making it like…
It has been a stretch of interesting days. I’m not certain how my life always seems to amble along like a comedy, but it does most of the time. It could be that I am just silly 🙂 I ran up against a wall this week that I’ve not encountered ever I don’t think, since…
Quote of the week: “…People should be able to walk into their back yards and say, ‘that’s a cicada, that’s a tree frog, and that’s a bird.’ Then, when they hear a bird scream, ‘get out of my territory, get out of my territory,’ I want them to recognize the cadence and remember that…
Reading novels makes me feel like I am stuck in a really bad one sometimes, one that I might produce on my first stab at such. Since I’m winnowing my books, my reward for working towards packing is reading books I’m getting rid of before spiraling into sleep, instead of my normal perusal of the…
I did it! I am now the owner of a rolling version of a tiny house. Well, me and the credit union 🙂 And yes, I drove it, adrenaline inducing event that was. I’m scheduled for a full driving course prior to taking actual delivery, after it goes through its bells and whistles review and…
Yes, it is gory. Gut-wrenching. Painful. Overwhelming. That’s why I am taking a break to write about it instead of doing it. Heh. We squirrel away for all kinds of maybes. Maybe they won’t make (insert item of choice) any more. We stock and store because we’ve a prepper mentality so maybe there will…
I feel like I’ve joined the ‘writer’s abstinence club’ of sorts lately. I think of great things to write, but I’m busily doing something else, and then I have tasks to tackle or familial bonds to reinforce with listening, advice, interventions or the like, and a dog to walk and a job, and well, then…
Ensconced back in the micro-haus in balmy weather, last week feels like it passed in some kind of dream form. I’m pretty bone-weary in all honesty. It was a very emotional trip, in both good and bad ways, thanks to incredible friends. The roughshod road trip was to pick up venison on another person’s timeline.…
Yes, it is a little play on words from the duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong because today I am writing about my homesteading dreams. Maybe re-re-dreams is more accurate, since I’ve already started twice and had to stop due to the death of my spouse and another time due to the pesky necessity…
I don’t have much to say today really. If you’ve a mind, I ask you to visit my poetry site here: She Doesn’t Mourn Well Life is for the living, but sometimes living is harder than you expect. To those who have helped me along the way, my gratitude is truly inexpressible even for me…
The other day I published a quote of my own. But in part, it was a lie. This was the quote: “Sexual abuse in the young creates the neediest people, who will tell you we need nothing; we live that way too. We are taught by actions that there is no real love; there is no trust,…
Today is Shabbat. A time free of work world constraints. Time to absorb beauty, reflect beauty and warmth, radiate that back to others. A time for thinking, for being. A time for giving thanks. I smell like the woods, having finally finished my sun-steeping of a new body oil I created, scented with vetiver, peru…
“’..and what will you trade for these things that you desire?’ he intoned flatly. ‘Blood, tears, sweat?’ I felt smaller even than before. ‘But, you see, I’ve already given all of that; and yet I still stand here before you empty-handed, without the Affection. Is there, there… no other way?’ My voice trails away imperceptibly,…
I normally don’t post on Wednesdays, because it’s the most hectic work day of my week. But in a conversation with another blogger, a thought hit me today about all of you, my readers. Many of you are new; in fact, more than half of you, within the last six weeks. You don’t really know…
I continue my march (shuffle?) on towards a return to living closer to the natural world, with a lighter footprint, more mindful consumption, growing more of my own food (leaf and limb) and trying to reduce what I already own. Egads, you simply don’t know the cycle, the pressure of it on those around you,…
In quiet and through reflection, when I really want to get to the bottom of things, make sense, improve who I am, I peer into the Void. The Void is the place where other people developed things that I never did. What you read here is years of self-discovery; things I never had the quiet…
Did you ever have a wound that you dressed with care after finding out it was infected and festering? You had let it go a very long time, until it threatened the rest of you. So when you went to finally get a professional to examine the wound, and they gave you instructions, you followed…
Before I consciously decided to follow my dream of writing publicly as a concrete thing, I wrote primarily for me. I wrote, as I mentioned to a friend recently, “… just to express, to emote, to get feelings out of me since I no longer had anyone even to listen to me, my dreams, my fears.…
Can you tell I’m stringing this along just have another excuse to take these memories out and immerse in them again 🙂 I hope you don’t mind humoring me in it. It is difficult to tear myself away from the old homestead and all of its treasures and imaginings. But I hear the wild turkeys…
It’s a new month, and I often will try to follow something emotionally taxing with something that gives me more depth, find another way to stretch myself in order not to stagnate in the past and shift my focus onto something forward-looking. Yesterday’s post was lengthy and probably for some, a difficult or even bypassed…
I’ve not focused much on being a widow over the time that I have been writing; yet, that is really the entire back-story of this blog, documenting my life after widowhood – the thoughts, struggles, effects and the imprint that difficult things leave upon a person. I’ve never told here the story of how I…
As you know, I live in the city, in a studio smaller than most people’s garages, filled with boxes and containers from my farm. It was small before I brought anything in, it is much smaller in navigable space now, lol! So open space, I love it. It ain’t happenin’ here on a day to…
Taking you back to the beginning of this trip (actually recorded in the morning rainstorm in GA, at the campsite, and updated later from my tent in TN) When I grouse about technology, I often forget that it is technology which allows me to be atop a ridge, on hundreds of acres, in a tent, running…
While I await the final timeline on my outing in March due to work issues, my mind has turned to prep for the trip. Since this most likely will be my only vacation this year, I want to squeeze all of the good things that I can from it. So far I’ve contacted an online…
After a long, LONG day at work covering two vacationing managers (funny how we non-managers get that role eh?), the Big Boss being in the office in person from Dallas and holding scads of meetings, a walk of the dog and then a flick of the button to turn on my laptop, and voila! –…
I’m supposed to be prepping for a party, but eh, other than some small food contributions which are already cooking, not much to do. Also supposed to utilize this time to continue to toss/eliminate/re-store things, but my other deck storage box is still in Brown delivery limbo. As such, I am fiddle-farting around on the…
Like most of you I suspect, much of my life included living in spaces of 1,000 square feet and upwards. The exception to that rule in my life is my first apartment ever, a temporary place in 2005-2006, and the place that I reside now. I order of size, my first apartment was the…
While I’ve spent the last few days flitting around the interwebs looking up fun and creative things, tonight was spent on the things that actually help bring dreams to fruition – the running of the numbers. Less exciting and exotic than the running of the bulls I’d say, but much more necessary for a successful…
Oy. Vey. I have fallen down the Pinterest rabbit hole and may never see daylight again, lol! I have to consciously ignore the ‘suggestions’ when I Pin something from the ‘net that interests me, or I’ll be distracted by every shiny, interesting thing out there. But wow, what a wealth of ideas, color infusions, organizing…
I have to tell you, excitement is getting the best of me. I sneak peeks all during the day at house plans and gaze lovingly at the little parcel of land on GIS maps on and off during the work hours. My head is crammed full of designs, colors, building materials, gardens, cute hen-houses and…
I am keeping up my commitment to write daily, but I don’t have a number one person in my life to write about, which was the prompt for today. Instead, I have a number one dream to write about. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do…
WordPress offers this cool little tool called “The Daily Prompt” for bloggers, in order to give them a push to write daily. Last night, on a whim (impulsive, remember?) as I was lying in bed I thought “I should write something every day until the end of the year.” I mean, it is the slowest…
Anyone who has followed my blog for a month or more knows that homesteading, the euphemism for ‘simpler times’, is the dream that I desire to return to. It has been a few years since I lived that life, 2011 to be exact. Previously embarked on by me and my husband, it is a lifestyle…
I have forgotten how much fun planning is. Several people offered suggestions for pushing past this painful time. The most humorous suggestion was “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else!” Errrr, funny, but definitely not my style. But now planning? Re-engaging with my dreams? That IS a…
So this past week I took the first step to begin simplifying my life and down-sizing a bit. You learn a lot about yourself when you car shop if you’re paying attention (smirk) My goal was to trade in my SUV, take the cash, and buy used, since all the online guides told me my…
I’m not a whiner. I hate it. Listening to it especially. But lately I’ve experienced my own inner whine. It’s annoying, rather like that lone mosquito that somehow gets into the room and circles your head like a buzzard lookin’ for a roadside snack…drives you nuts! I usually suck it up when I’m feeling whiny.…
Sunday was a very fun day. A full-timer met me at the LazyDays showplace for a little knocking around, education and temptation. Whooooeee. I insisted on only canvassing the used area, thinking I would be safe. Oh hell no. I ooohhed and ahhhed over all the buttery leather trimmings, beautiful cherry cabinetry, finely wrought multi-toned…
Sunflower Solace Farm 