A long hiatus has ended

Hello everyone. I realize I haven't posted here since March. Six months is a fair bit of time to be away from my blog, but I've had things going on that kept me away. Not the least of which is being burnt out on blogging. Not having anything new to say, running out of ideas, feeling like no one ever read my blog. It was very disheartening. Now I feel that I'm ready to start blogging again. So here we are.

The first thing I'd like to update you all on is my living arrangements. The last time I posted I was still living in Boise, a hot and moderately unpleasant desert. Now, I live on the Oregon Coast. I live in a little town that's primarily a cross between a tourist town and a retirement town. It was super busy from around May until around the middle of last month. Oh yeah, we moved to the coast on my birthday of May 11th. That was fun.

Let me back up a little. Last summer, my husband's two business partners moved to the coast. They were hoping to start a business revolving around starting a farm with a varied number of plants they grow. They were able to find some help and got their first plants this spring.

My husband's business partners started working on getting us out here as soon as they could. They wanted Tims to be a part of this. They were looking for a place for us to live. Well, they found one for us. I expected it to take a while and we were trying to save up some money so we could get out here. The money saving part wasn't going well, but we were trying.

Then we got the call that they'd found us a place to live. We needed to get out here as soon as possible. We packed up our belongings into our little truck, leaving a lot of our stuff behind as it wouldn't fit, and left Boise on May 11th. We got up to the coast and Tims immediately got to work. I was a little slower, but I found my place as well in the flow of things.

The house we're living in is amazing. We're living with one of his business partner's parents for now. The house is on ten acres. We're right on the river. I mean it runs right along our property. We have a huge yard for the dogs (my husband's business partners have three ) to run around in. There are fruit trees and blackberry bushes.

We've been able to eat vegetables from our own garden. We have a lot of tomatoes and peppers, as well as a few onions. We even had artichokes that we grew. They were small but very good when we finally got to eat them.

I love it up here. And I love the view. I just drive a few minutes towards town, and this is what I get to see. 

So that is the saga of our move and our current living arrangements. Next post I'll update everyone on my writing progress and goals.

It's so good to be back.

TV comments

I don't have a TV. I don't have TV service (for obvious reasons). My main source of entertainment is Netflix and the rest of the internet, though I can't put Netflix on my laptop. Ubuntu is great for many things. Netflix and Sims 3 are not among them. But when Himself is gone, I can watch Netflix all I want on his computer.

There are things on TV that I want to see. Specifically shows on Food Network. I have an admission to make: I'm a Food Network junkie. I've got to their site and there are very few episodes of things there. I don't know if Hulu Plus has the episodes, but I'm already paying for Netflix and Himself doesn't want to change it out for Hulu Plus. So I'm stuck without it.

I also used to love watching the true crime programs like Forensic Files, Cold Cases, and other things like that. Investigation Discovery was one of my go to channels because it almost always had those types of programs. I really only watched two channels back when I had TV: Food Network, Investigation Discovery.

I wasn't fond of watching the basic channels. I got my news from other channels, I got my weather from the Weather Channel, I got my entertainment from the two channels I primarily watched. Himself and I used to fight over what we'd watch since he was not into the same programming I was.

Then we got into a position where we lost our TV. We ended up losing it when we became homeless. When we moved in with our friends out in Kuna, we were able to share one with some of our roommates. When those roommates moved out, we got their TV. Himself used it for video games. I stuck with the computer. Then we moved into Boise and brought the borrowed TV with us. We still stuck to Netflix and didn't bother putting regular programming onto it. We simply couldn't afford it. When we moved out from Crazy's place, we left the TV behind because it was her husband who'd loaned it to us.

I find, other than my occasional desire to watch Food Network and Investigation Discovery, I don't miss TV. Neither does Himself. He doesn't even miss having one since almost all the games he wants to play he can find online. He's said multiple times there's four games he wants to play across all consoles, and it's not worth it to buy the consoles for so few games. He's even made friends playing games with an online aspect (not MMOs, but things like Minecraft), or hung out with long distance friends while playing video games.

I guess the two of us really don't care about having TV service again. That doesn't mean we don't want a TV. Himself wants one to put Netflix on instead of his computer. He jokes about getting a 50”+ TV just for Netflix, and then use it as a computer monitor to play his games. I just shake my head and let him dream. I'm happy with what we have now.

Moving Adventures, Part Three

We got into the house and began the arduous process of getting settled. The previous tenant had left a pile of trash in the bottom of the closet. We carried it out and threw it away. We moved boxes into the closet so we had room to get the furniture in place. The bed, Himself's computer desk, the bookshelf, and our small fridge got moved around until they were where we wanted them. Then we started emptying boxes.

We got two boxes emptied before we shoved everything back in the closet and collapsed. Himself at his computer and me on the bed. He got online. I tried to edit but was so tired I just went to bed. He didn't stay up too much later because he was as exhausted as I was.

The one concern I had, and continued to have over the weekend, was Reidar. I let him out of his carrier and he dove into the closet. We weren't able to get him out at all until Friday night. He came out to use the litter box and then ran back to the closet. I don't think he ate anything. Saturday he came out a couple times during the day to use the litter box but still didn't stay out long and as far as I could see didn't eat anything. This worried me.

Saturday night he came out and actually stayed with Himself and me as we played Fluxx. He curled up on me and started purring though his tail was still twitching madly, which showed his fear and agitation. When we started packing up the game, he hopped off of me and jumped over Himself. He found his food and I think he took a few mouthfuls and got a drink of water before running into the closet. He found a new perch. He settled in on a pile of boxes on top of the quilt.

Sunday night, as we were getting ready for bed, he came out of the closet. He actually stayed around long enough to roughhouse with Himself, get petted by me, knead my back for a bit while I was on my stomach, and get a few mouthfuls of food. He still ran back to his perch after a while and resumed hiding.

On Monday afternoon, he came out again. He looked out the window and came up for some attention. He ate a little bit and got a drink. Then he tried to bury his bowl, which is something normal for him. He stayed out watching things for a while. Then he went back into the closet.

A couple hours later he returned. He came up for some petting and then wandered off. He reared up on his hind legs to peer out the window. He went over to take a few more bites of food. Then he went over to the window again. He tried twice to jump up on the window sill and fell off both times.

By Wednesday he was out more frequently. He finally ate all the food in his bowl from the first filling so I refilled it along with his water. He's spent some time on the window sill, which he's figured out how to get onto. He's coming over for petting and loving. He still resides in the closet and I'm sure he will even after we empty it because there's no real place for him to settle down in here. But he's getting used to our new home.

Moving Adventures, Part Two

Moving is always high stress, but it got worse when Himself told Crazy she wasn't getting rent because we needed to pay our rent/deposit for our new place. We'd already given her our promised that we were getting out as soon as possible, so it wasn't as if she didn't know.

Instead of accepting things and wishing us well, she lost her mind. She swore at Himself and told us we had to be out by Friday at 4. The day she told us was Wednesday night. We'd started packing but we weren't even close to being done.

Himself got angry and started looking up the Fair Housing Act while I went through a few boxes in the closet and started getting things set aside that we weren't going to take with us. After Himself finished reading up on things, he came over and started helping me. We worked late into the night, often running out to the garage grabbing boxes.

The next day we pushed things into overdrive. We shoved things in boxes. We loaded things into our laundry basket. We did laundry to catch up on things. We scrubbed the bathroom down so she couldn't say we left it trashed. We packed and packed.

When we took a break from packing, we loaded some boxes into the car and brought them up to the house. We stopped and with a little money I'd been given for just this purpose, we grabbed some food (foot long Subway sandwiches which we split into two meals each) and got back to packing. We each took a break for a little bit and played around on our computers. Then we got back to work. We took another little break and got rid of the things we weren't going to keep.

Friday came. We started early. We shoved boxes into the car and brought them to the new house. We went back to our old place and loaded the car again. We dropped off a third load at the house. The fourth load got shoved into the car. We stopped to get something to eat and then went to Himself's friends to see if we could get some help moving our furniture and the last few things we needed to get moved. They contacted a friend of their's and got us a truck.

We got the last of our things out of the room. Before we went anywhere Himself vacuumed the room. We got Reidar into his carrier and headed out for the last time. We stopped to give Nice our house keys. He wished us well and we said goodbye to their son. Then we left them behind.

Moving Adventures, Part One

My former roommates gave us the boot, telling us we had to be out by May 1^st because Crazy's dad was moving back in. He's taken a job here that should start in June. We scrambled to find a place. Our finances did not qualify us for a regular apartment, there was a waiting list for the low income apartments, and we didn't have any alternatives for places to go.

So we went to Craigslist. There were several requests for roommates. Most of them were for single roommates. We found a few that didn't specify and I called and emailed several people. For the most part, we were told no couples and/or no pets. Even though I have a letter from my doctor that forces landlords to accept my cat as my companion they were reluctant to take us.

Then we found one which was very sparse. There wasn't much to go on but we decided to contact the person anyway. We went out and took a look at the house and room. The house was a little battered but repairs were on the way. Some of the things were broken but again repairs were on the way. It was a small house, built back in the 60s.

The room for rent was smaller than the one we lived in but it was a little cheaper and away from Crazy, though we would miss Nice. We got to meet one of the guys in the house. He was the one who wrote the ad and he's technically the owner. It's his family's house. He's lived there all of his life. He seemed pretty easy going and his description of the other two guys living in the house were pretty chill.

Himself and I asked about Reidar, if we did move in what would be the pet deposit. He said no deposit because he had a few stray cats that wandered in and out of his house. Himself and I went home to discuss it. We took a few days to wait for more responses, and to discuss what the landlord/roommate said. One of the major benefits was there was no property management company which meant no credit/rental check. This was important to us.

We called back and asked a few more questions regarding the prorated amount since we only had enough for the first full month and the deposit. He agreed to let us split it up for three months. We thought about it for another day and then called him back and told him we'd take it. We took him a money order for the amount and started moving in.

Um...yes, I'm still alive

*cough, choke*

*removes spider webs*

Uh....hi?

I haven't had much to say lately so I haven't been saying it. Which is quite apparent since the last time I posted a blog post was in November. I feel rather bad about that and I appreciate all of you who have stuck it out during my blog absence. I can't guarantee how frequently I'll post but I will be posting more often.

A lot has gone on in the last four months. Himself has had a few more contracts come his way. I've been told I'm not allowed to go back to work, so I'm dealing with that. I've started writing full time since I have so much free time. I finished a first draft in less than three months. I've now burned myself out on writing but the first draft of Burning Dreams is done. That's the book I started in November, won NaNoWriMo with, and then scrapped at the end of December and started over fresh in January.

I attempted the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest this year. I didn't make it past the pitch phase. Which is fine. After everything was all said and done, I realized Only A Name, which I thought was finished, really wasn't finished and needs a total overhaul. I'm going to try it again next year, probably with Only A Name again since that's the book that starts everything.

I've also moved. We were living in a small town pretty far out from where we needed to go for shopping and Himself needed to go for work. It was a pain getting to my doctor appointments. Now we live in town and everything is within a 20 minute drive of our new place. We'll have new roommates by the 15th, but for right now it's just us and the cat in the house.

Reidar didn't take too well to the move at first. I think he was rather offended by the fact that I wrapped him in our bath towel and held on for dear life as we drove him back from the old house to the new. We didn't have a cat carrier for him and I needed some way to prevent him from tearing holes in me while Himself drove. He hid himself on a shelf in the bathroom and wouldn't even acknowledge my presence for the better part of a week. He's resigned himself to the new place and has since gone back to flopping on me every chance he gets, but for a while I was beginning to think my cat was going to hate me forever. :D

Things are progressing forward at a slow pace, but good things are coming our way. We're slowly optimistic that things are going to continue getting better. We've embarked on a new chapter in our lives. We're going to see how this one will be written before we progress on.

And because the butterfly is so symbolic of how I feel right now, this picture was posted by user seiyastock on www.morguefile.com.