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A Dreamer

It has been over a decade since I started this blog. And while it was never updated regularly, it’s carried on. Looking back through the posts is like looking back through my life. My trials. My hardships. My highs. My accomplishments.

Everything has changed. I have changed. My life has changed. Heck even WordPress has changed.

Some things will never change. My love for my family and friends. My dreams to become a published author. My dreams to own workable land. And being able to see the world.

Some dreams I’ve achieved. I got out of Florida. I moved to North Carolina. I’ve traveled and seen a lot of the country.

I’m never going to stop dreaming. That’s what I am, what I’ve always been. A Dreamer. I realized something recently though. Dreaming is getting harder. It’s as though the walls between what’s around me and what I imagine are becoming more rigid. I think this is what happens to people as they get older. You know that “growing up” thing. It has nothing to do with your age or maturity. It’s about your mind trapping you in the here and now. You lose your ability dream. And that scares me.

Can I push back? Can I break down these confining walls and delve back into the pool of imagination? Or have I sacrificed much of that ability to attain the dreams that I had? Is it a trade off? You can either dream, or achieve; with no in between.

I want to believe that’s not the case. I want to believe that if I just let go, I could drown in my imagination again. As long as I keep the shore of reality in sight, I should be fine.

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Do I?

Do I embrace the crazy, the unknown, for the sake of the art? I’ve always stayed well within the margins of safety when writing. Only surface emotions. The day to day. Things that the masses could relate to. I can imagine… so much more.

Is it a risk to my own sanity to reach into the darkness? There’s a market for it. Millions of horror movies and stories can attest to that. But what does it do to the creators? Do I tread into the shadows to pluck out the tales woven into them? Can I? Dare I?

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Don’t blink – time vanishes

I am officially in Pennsylvania.

I am officially a home owner.

Time barrels through our lives like a freight train with no brakes.

We found a house about 25 minutes from where I work. Not a bad commute. We just spent the last 6 years though in remote areas. A quiet street in Asheville, a hayfield in Waynesville, and the middle of nowhere in Wisdom. So imagine our surprise upon moving into a neighborhood that is alive with people. People working on their yards, walking across the street and talking to neighbors, dozens of kids running around all the time. I like it. The people are friendly, Nova has already made a best friend, and downtown is within walking distance. We have literally walked to the store a few times when we’ve only needed a couple of things. We’ve walked down to Dunkin’ to go get breakfast a couple of times.

Our house, is a sweet little thing; it’s 100 years old and well loved. There are a lot of updates that it needs (as many 100 year old homes go) and a lot that we need to do to make it ours. But summer hit and it’s hard to get around to doing things. That’s okay, we’ll get there. One little step at a time.

I’m well into a routine at work. I haven’t quite gotten a solid routine down at home though. I think there are too many projects that need to be tackled. It stresses me out. A lot got done today though so that was nice.

I came home to find that Murphy cut the bushes out of the front of the house. He also busted out the steamer and started peeling off the horrible wall paper from the walls. He got all the camping stuff put away as well and vacuumed. I got home and made us some dinner and cleaned the kitchen as well as we can. I say as well as we can because we currently have no hot water. Our water heater is broken and we won’t be able to get a new one till later this week. So I boiled some water and did it the old fashioned way. After that I took Ash for a walk then gave him a bath and combed the cat. I iced a few cupcakes with Nova and now we’re finally sitting down to relax.

We took a camping trip over my weekend. Rented a canoe and paddled out to a waterside campground. It was a beautiful night and a really nice break in what has been rainy/dreary weather. I’ll take the rainy weather though because that means the upcoming 4th of July won’t be so dangerous all around us.

So things are moving. Gears constantly turning. And each day ticks by to a new year. We just circled the sun one more year… I didn’t realize as you got older that you felt it, but this year I feel it. Between the move, the new job, taking care of the house, getting sick, and everything else….. I feel it. I wish I didn’t. I guess everyone feels that way though.

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Frustrating Changes

All of my changes seem to be massive. Go big or go home right? Nothing can be easy.

It was the end of January, at the tail end of the Quadrantids meteor shower. I missed all of them, January was very cold and I just haven’t been a fan this winter. I got up to get ready for work, and when I open the door to let Ash outside, I notice the stars are the brightest I’ve seen them all winter. So I step outside and have a look. It’s absolutely amazing. Our skies are so clear that the Milky Way is brilliant to the naked eye.

While I’m standing there with Ash, there goes one of the shooting stars. You make a wish on shooting stars, you don’t really have a choice, right? So I did. “A place for us, a place that’s ours.”

Not an hour goes by when I get a phone call. It’s one of the supervisors from Allegheny National Forest offering me a job. After talking it over with Murphy, we decide to accept. Back across the country, only this time we actually have a moving incentive – so there’s that.

So I started digging in and looking for a place, not only for us a live, but to buy. I mean, the universe kind of spoke to me, right? This is my chance. After a couple of adjustments to our budget, we find a really great little place. We put an offer complete with what’s called an escalation clause. But that clause only works up to the dollar amount worked into it, and someone offered the seller substantially more. So of course – we didn’t get the house.

Now we’re down a month and counting and there’s nothing new in the area that’s gone up for sale. We’ve exhausted the available houses too and none of them will work. So now we’re scrambling to try and find a place to rent. We’ll have to renew our search once we get out there.

I so desperately didn’t want to rent. I wanted to have that chapter of my life behind me for good, at last. We don’t seem to have a choice though. So it’s kind of sapped the excitement out of the move, and now it’s just kind of mechanical. Put items into box, put box on truck – get across the country. Work. Work, work, work, work, even though it provides you absolutely nothing to show for it. Nothing but putting someone else’s roof over our heads yet again.

I guess we’ll see what happens. We’re going to keep looking. It’s not like we’re giving up, I just got the wind knocked out of me. The right thing will pop up – won’t it? Now the trick is managing to beat other people’s offers with the little bit that we’re able to work with. I feel like it will be easier to do these transactions in person though. I hope so.

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Doing stuff

I feel like this is the most productive I’ve been in, yikes – it feels like months. Physically productive I should amend. I’ve done creative stuff, but today Nova and I tackled a whole lot. We got up and made a breakfast of some banana and flax pancakes. A cup of raspberry tea for Nova and some coffee for myself.

I had fed and prepped my sourdough the night before and we dove right into making some bread. We got a large sourdough loaf going and then a batch of sourdough naan bread going. I also had some phyllo dough to use before it dries out, so I tried a little blueberry pasty recipe. It turned out alright and was super easy. The instructions on the recipe page were lacking however so I kind of had to improvise. Had I known this, I would have done them a little differently. But I might try again.

Then Nova decided she needed some Jell-O, so we mixed up a batch of blue Jell-O for desert after dinner. She asked me for it ALL afternoon. I had to keep her distracted.

We did 2 loads of laundry. I took Nova and Ash outside to play in the snow for a while. As they did that, I finally got around to cleaning out some of the old boxes and trash from the garage and got it prepped for garbage day. I also FINALLY trimmed off the dead “greenery” from my overwintering mums to discover that they are ACTUALLY surviving. I have them in a pot in the garage. So I gave them a little water and moved them to the back of the garage where it’s a little warmer. I took Ash for a little bit longer of a walk when Nova wanted to come in.

I printed out a few recipes to put in my family recipe book. We replaced our printer the other day and it’s working nicely. And one of the things I’ve been doing is writing out all of our favorite recipes. Some I’ve snagged from the internet, but most are either family recipes passed down or things that we’ve created ourselves and really enjoyed. I want to be able to give this little recipe book to Nova one day when she moves out, so she’ll always have her favorite things.

Then, I saw what was supposed to be this neat trick with the instant pot. You can cook beans without having to soak them overnight. I was kind of psyched by this, so we tried it. I found a recipe and got a pot of pinto beans cooking. Followed all of the directions and let it go. I got the pork chops prepped and broccoli only to discover that the bean trick was a bust. And no, you cannot cook dried beans in the instant pot without soaking them. It’s a lie, don’t believe the recipes. They’re dumb. Not only did it not work, but it made a god awful mess in the kitchen when I did the quick release. Bean juice EVERYWHERE!

So I poured the still crunchy beans out into a regular stock pot and stuck them on the stove to boil. After 30 more minutes, they were NEARLY edible. But we ate dinner anyway. The beans are still simmering on the stove. Still not done. It’s been 3 hours.

Got Nova a bath, 2 loads of dishes done, along with setting Rosie the vacuum up in the kitchen and dining room to clean for us.

Cleaned out the litter box (all the way, replaced all the litter), cleaned the cat dishes and got her all set up. Then we did a little nose work training with Ash. We’re teaching him to sniff out morel mushrooms for the spring. He’s doing pretty well in theory. We’ll see how he does in practice. That’s been where he kind of slips up. He’s a sweet dog. Smart, but also an idiot. I’m sure you know the type.

And now I’m sitting here, writing an entry for the first time in…. I don’t know – forever? Needless to say I’m tired tonight. Nova’s still raring to go. “Mom, let’s do this. Watch me, I’m riding my scooter. I want to play with Ash. Let’s go through pictures. I’m doing back flips on the bed!”

Oh to be a toddler again. I wish I remember more of my toddler days. I have a few memories from around 4 or so, then of course they’re pretty solid after that. Mainly, I remember getting in my mom’s gray barrel chairs and spinning until I was so dizzy I couldn’t even climb out of it. Or sitting in my kiddie pool and the big Sheepdog (Baby) jumping in with me. I hope Nova remembers more. I hope we’ve given her things worth remembering I guess.

But for now, I’m going to finish getting us ready for bed. It’s only 8:16 here, but I could crash without a second thought. Back to work tomorrow (this is my “Sunday” evening). I should be able to finish putting the flooring down in the unit I’m renovating. It feels good to see it all come together. I got the hot water heater successfully installed and working, new lights and fixtures. Once the floors are in, I can clean and put the baseboards back in. Pull in the new fridge and furniture and reinstall the toilet. We should be good. A week? Depends on what a pain the baseboards are. They looked kind of rough. I might have to sand them all down and re-stain them, but we’ll see.

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AAARRRGGGGggghhhhh

I’m… cold. It’s winter here in Montana. Full on, it hit us hard and kind of early. I love the cold weather. I enjoy snow. But my body, does not want to function in it. I’m tired all the time, and if given the option between going out and adventuring in the snow, I end choosing curling up inside. I feel like the fat bear hibernating. And it has been this way for the last 3 years or so.

Only I’m starting to look like the fat bear hibernating as well. I accepted it when my body settled on a ten pound range. Heavier in the winter, lose ten pounds during the spring/summer due to higher energy and activity levels. But this year it’s decided to tack on an additional ten pounds on top of that.

So I did a bunch of food prep last night. Easy portioned breakfast. A big thing of soup and some salad. We’ll see how it goes. My brain won’t leave me alone though. The very moment I start entertaining the idea of a “diet”, I get hungry. What is wrong with our brains? I will never understand why our subconscious wants to sabotage our progress.

But I’m also looking into trying to take up XC skiing. I finally figured out what I need. And even if we don’t stay in Montana, we’ll always be where there’s snow in the winter, so it’s not like they’ll go to waste. I just have to find some now that won’t break the bank. Mainly because I’m worried I’ll get them and hate the sport.

We’ll see what happens. I just needed to vent a little bit. Do my internet scream and try to clear my head.

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Where does it go?

The afternoon and evenings slip away far to easily. Last I looked, it was only ten past seven, and now as I sit down, thinking I can write and it’s already eight-thirty. I know, considering I’ve stayed up until four a.m. in the past in a writing flurry that eight-thirty should provide me ample writing time. But it’s not. I don’t like staying up late anymore. I don’t like waking up dead tired and then slogging through the day. It’s too much. It’s not worth it.

So instead, I’ll table my ideas and carve out some time tomorrow. The only reason I didn’t sit down sooner is because I was assembling some shelves this afternoon. Finally after a year we got some shelves for our plants and they look fantastic. And after the cleaning craze I went through this past weekend, it makes the dining room feel complete.

So that’s done, and the cleaning is done. And there’s not a whole lot more I have to worry about until next Saturday, besides spending time with Nova and Murphy. So I will be able to carve out some time to write.

Considering I already have around 26k words on book 2, I should at least be able to finish NanoWrimo this year. The book? Well who knows. Maybe. I have gotten back into the groove. Words springing to my fingertips as the imagery fills my head.

It’s funny, last winter, I listened to the audio books of the Wheel of Time. I was so – I don’t know if I would say lost in the story… I think I was so aggravated by Jordan’s writing, that I couldn’t switch gears. He skipped around, I didn’t care for his narrative, the characters drove me batshit crazy… The story had potential and I wanted to know where he was taking it was all. The story, was great – the writing – meh.

This winter I have dubbed the winter of Stephen King. Already a fan of his writing, I decided to dive in to all of the books that I haven’t had the opportunity to read yet. There’s something about King’s writing that makes me want to drop what I’m doing and go sit down and work on my own story. It’s not that the tales are any less gripping. I enjoy his narrative and the variety. Maybe that’s what it is. There’s a variety. Each story tells a succinct tale and the next book goes into something different, all the while remaining within the confines of his little universe. Whereas Wheel of Time ended up pretty much being the same elements spun out each time.

But anyway, I’m enjoying my time working alone and listening to my books. And whatever writing I don’t get done this November, I will continue after things calm down.

Ethan will be flying out here next Saturday.

At last.

I’m very excited, and that’s kind of what spurned my cleaning spree. We discovered that he has a dust mite allergy. With as hectic as this summer was, I hadn’t had a chance to clean too much since April. So I went through the house and wiped down all of the surfaces to eliminate as much dust as possible. I want him to be comfortable when he gets here, and that’s just one simple thing I can do to help that.

I have a few fun things lined out for us to do. One of the things I wanted to do is a no go unfortunately. The mining town has been winterized so there’s no real access. But we can go to Bannock and Grant Kohrs. We’re going to go out into the woods and collect a couple of Christmas Trees. And then there’s just general hanging out and catching up. I found a funny, “scary” movie I thought he might like.

And all of that begins Saturday.

Time in general keeps speeding past me, forget just the afternoons. Whatever – I’ll take it, and enjoy as much of it as I can.

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Changing Winds

The winds are changing, as they do every year around this time. It’s blowing away my crazy hectic summer and making room for a relaxed autumn. And what appears to be a productive autumn as well. My creativity has piqued. Nikki and I have come up with nearly half a dozen short #sweet&spooky stories to work on. I was able to organize Nova’s room (a forever project since she’s the living embodiment of chaos). And I’ve got craft projects piling up. I started a dream catcher (I just don’t have the decorations that speak to me for it). I finished a little Halloween vest for Nova. And I just got the pieces cut to make my own autumn vest. I will probably make Nova a matching vest with this fabric as well.

And on top of all of it, I have a book to publish and a second to write. I’ve just been a bit busy to actually sit down and work on writing. And I’m waiting for the readthroughs on book one before I can take the next steps. But I have completed cover art and a plan in place – so we’re sitting pretty nicely.

What I haven’t been into lately – is cooking. Dinners have been really difficult. Neither Murphy nor I have a taste for anything. The creativity has been sapped from my love of food into crafts and stories I guess. Not the worst thing to have happened. And half the time we’re fine sitting down with a bowl of cereal or oatmeal. I actually prefer oatmeal for dinner over breakfast. Go figure.

The leaves here are starting to change. Patches of yellow are showing up in the aspens and willows. There’s still a lot to do at work, and not a lot of time to do it in. But I think we’ll get all the important things tackled. The problem is the smoke.

There are 5 fires within 50 miles of us and the wind has just kept this smoky miasma pressed down in the valley all week. It doesn’t look to change any time soon either. I hate working in the smoke, and of course all the things we need to get done are outside. Masks it is I suppose. But that also puts a damper on Nova and I adventuring. There isn’t any place within an hours drive that would offer us some fresh air. It’s disappointing. And poor Ash is losing his mind. But we’re trying. Just another month of it. Then the snows will fly.

I find it funny – back when I was being a stay at home mom with Nova, I went ahead and started my page for Whippoorwill Hollow. It was going to be my little apothecary page. I had big plans to grow and distill my own essential oils, and make soaps and lotions and tinctures and things. So many things. I reserved the Facebook page and then life stepped in. But every day I have at least one person that has stumbled across the page. Some like it, some follow. One day folks, I will get it going. I won’t let you down.

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The way the world is…

The way the world is…. is just broken. Everything is broken. Every system is failing. It needs an overhaul.

I’ve sat back this last month…. year… couple of years…. I can’t do anything but vote, which I have. But it’s worthless and does nothing. I have no influence. No sway over thousands of people. Hell, I can barely hold on to friends – and making new ones? Yeah, that’s a joke.

I broke down today. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had a moment of hope. Yeah, you’re right – I should now better.

You see, I love where I live. The area, not the house. Not that there’s anything wrong with my little house – except it’s not mine. I live in a government house at the park. I still pay rent. It’s nice – better than any other park housing I’ve seen. But it’s still park housing. Even if it wasn’t – it’s still not MY house.

I have worked and slaved my whole life for a chance to own a home. A place to raise my family in. A place to grow old in. A place where my kids can escape to when the world beats them down. A place for them to bring their kids to visit. A place I could be happy to pass down to them someday.

I’ve worked hard to repair my credit. I’ve saved up money. I have impeccable rental history. I discovered that I qualify for one of the USDA rural housing assistance, which means no money down. Only problem is – there’s not exactly a lot of houses available in this little town. Or within reasonable distance from the park. What there is – is land. A LOT of land. Not necessarily for sale, but I thought maybe someone might be willing to part with a couple of acres. I found a couple of nice mobile homes that we could put on said land – and according to the USDA site – this is possible.

So I reached out to my bank. Sure – it’s possible, but under different terms. For something like that, I have to put 20% down on the property and another 35% down for a construction loan. That’s 50 grand that I’ll never fucking have. That’s a home I’ll never own.

There are 2 houses for sale here.

One of them – the current owner was such a dislikable person that they could never obtain water access for the house. Not to mention, the neighbors disliked them so much, that they put a fence up on their property line. Which I know, you’re thinking – so? Well the current owner was such a moron, they build their house ON the property line. So there’s a wonderful chain link fence pressed directly against the front porch. It’s almost comedic.

The second – is being sold by a couple that recently moved out here. They’re currently asking about 3 times as much as when they bought it. It’s a cute house – but it’s not worth 700k. Not that I qualify for that to begin with.

So all I can do is sit and wait. And HOPE that my situation doesn’t change much. To be ready to pounce when a house MIGHT hit the market. Will it be enough? I don’t know. How much will I have to settle when it comes to that? Who knows. It’s a ridiculous game, and I’m just one of THOUSANDS trying to play it. It should NOT be this difficult to buy a home.

I’m the only one in my family that missed that chance. Sometimes it was my fault – but mostly it was the way the world changed these last couple decades.

And the world keeps changing… and it’s not good. Not good at all.