Odds and Ends

Lately I’ve been reading and thinking about minimization a lot. There are a number of people that are downsizing for whatever reason. Reading about these people and how they’ve gotten rid of all the things that they considered weighing them down was amazing. The ways that these people have reduced expenses and become more self sufficient is amazing. My question. How much space do we really need? At the moment I’m on just over 6 ½ acres of land in a three bedroom two bath home that is a bit past its prime. I have to wonder if I had the time or rather the tools since the ground is a bit hard if we couldn’t be mostly self sufficient out here in our little corner of the world. I mean at the moment we don’t use half of the land. The majority of the land I’m on is fenced off for my neighbors horses. The reasoning is that I was tired of people waking me up because they were out. I have repairs that need to be done on occasion so I take them to the neighbor in exchange for not charging the...

I used to make a wish list on an almost daily basis and edit it every time I got paid. Sometimes I marked off the things I had gotten and left it alone. More often than not I would mark off the things I got and rewrite the list adding something else. I stopped making the list long before I got everything on them. It was something to occupy my time and let me see that I was actually working for something. I stopped making those lists a long time ago. Now it seems I need to make those "wish lists" again but for a different reason this time. There are bills to pay off and a divorce would be at the top of that list this time.  A divorce that I can't afford or even think of affording until all of the debt my dear husband (can you feel the sarcasm?) has caused. OK I'm off to update two more blogs and write the wish list over again.

My mind is a total blank which is fine since it's the weekend. I usually try to get work done that I didn't do during the week. This weekend I've decided to get what I could get done done and the things that I don't get done are fine. I have a plan at least I think I do. I have a bunch of laundry to catch up on. The air is kind of chilly so they'll be hung out inside which means it takes a while for them to dry. They have to be hung inside since the dryer isn't working. I wouldn't use it anyway it took forever to dry a load of laundry. At the moment I'm catching up on shows I missed watching other shows with the On Demand feature of my cable. I'm going to miss either it or the speed of my Internet come January. I have to reduce the bill, I think dropping my connection speed for the Internet back some since I don't work as much as I did once. I used to spend all day and most of the night working. Theresa is more active now and doesn't spen...

I can remember that I used to get excited about the holidays but that was a long time ago. I was a kid and family still enjoyed a home cooked meal made mostly from scratch. The thought of going out to eat or buying frozen dumplings never crossed anyone's mind. I miss those days more than anyone could ever imagine. Now I prefer to spend the holidays alone with the daughter that I have with me. I'd love to spend it with both of them but that's not always possible. This year I'm taking my youngest to my mother's and hubby is going with his parents to their family. Someone is cooking, I have no idea who. All I know is that they're huggy people and I'm not. Well, I'll be going now, I have nothing else to ramble about.

Today was not a regular Tuesday and that's OK. I have clothes on the couch waiting to be folded and put away and some hanging on a line in the back bedroom that I hope will be dry by morning. By mid morning tomorrow I should have a load of toddler training pants to wash. Not particularly looking forward to that but there are some days that they help the little one to understand why she's sitting on the potty. I managed to read a little bit of my book today not much though. I'll be waiting to read more when I take my next break. At the moment I would be going back and forth between this posting and accepting gifts for various games on FB. I needed a break even though I haven't done much work today. I really need to start getting a bit more organized but the new schedule is one that I haven't adjusted to just yet. Monday and Wednesday mornings Theresa is in preschool for a half a day. Those two half days give me the chance to either get a little work done or to fr...

I've been thinking a lot lately and that's a rather dangerous thing. I think that I want a larger computer screen, and a desktop computer. I think that I want a brand new laptop or a new battery and an upgrade for this one. I want more portable storage devices, I want to be able to print out the pictures that I want to print out anytime I want and get it right the first time. Most of all I want people to pay attention so I don't have to keep repeating myself. I want to be comfortable. I also want to stop being so dependent on the power company. The biggest problem is that I can't afford any of those neat little solar items. Well, maybe a solar shower but I'd still have to have power to get running water. I have a private well, the pump doesn't work without water. I don't use a clothes dryer, it doesn't work at the moment and it took so long when it did that it was faster to hang the clothes out. I used to use both back when the light bill was still jus...

It's Saturday again and I can't focus on anything. I did a load of laundry, got the husband to do a load of laundry and put up the clothes that were on the line from yesterday. Potty training isn't going well this weekend although Theresa has been left in her cloth training pants all day so far. That's good because I have one open pack of pull-ups until Wednesday and that pack has to last until only heaven knows when. I'm hoping until just the first of the month. This Thanksgiving I will be alone, it is a luxury I will not have Christmas. The closer this holiday day gets the more I dread the next one. As many times as I have told people that I do not celebrate Christmas they refuse to respect the fact. It gets more irritating each year. I just read a post about  Vision Boards  it sounds like putting goals where you can see them. It's worth a shot. I've done it before and had some luck but the things I wanted then were all obtainable with a little hard wo...

It's almost December and at this point I'm just hoping that the year ends on a good note. So far these last few months have been a disaster. I have had everything that could go wrong go wrong. We've had a rough year almost filing for divorce. We're putting it off but there is still a chance that we could file eventually. Although finances could put that off indefinitely. At this vary moment I would be wondering where my husband is since it's 8:33a.m. and we have to leave at 9a.m. to make it to therapy in time. Fortunately he's here and he even put the car seat in his car. We're working out the details of therapy transportation for Monday and Tuesday of next week, this should be interesting. Well, we made it to ABA which is not going to be from 3p.m. until 5p.m. on Thursdays so that we can start our weekends at 10 a.m. on Friday instead of at 1p.m. I made one boo-boo, I forgot that school doesn't let out for Theresa until Tuesday since she's not i...

Of course since I'm broke until at least one of my payments gets processed I'm wishing and wanting things just because I don't have the money to go get them. There are a few dozen items on Amazon.com I want just to have something to enjoy and a couple dozen more I could actually use. The items that I could use would save me money after the initial costs and it would only take a month or two of using them to get back my investment. I find myself in need of a new pair of shoes, I have a pair that is starting to break down and hurt my feet. The pair I replace with them is still OK on the outside but they hurt my feet. I found myself trying to wear a pair of old boots I used to wear to work in today. It didn't take long to realize why I don't wear them anymore. Leather is not a very forgiving material when it comes to shoes, while it may be fine for a jacket on your feet it can be pure torture when you actually expect to use what you have purchased once it gets wet an...

It's Tuesday and I'm rambling again. We had a good speech session, I watched and wrote a bit because she was doing so well. Tomorrow she goes to preschool for half a day. She'll be home just in time to eat a little bit of lunch and to go to therapy. I realized today that I have $6 in cash for gas and $6 in my bank account. It's only the 16th and we have 7 more days of therapy to get to. I bought pull-ups last night and that small pack has to last as long as possible. My husband for the moment gets paid next week, out of that he has to pay at least one week of his child support that is behind to stay out of jail and put gas in his car to get to work the next week. We a couple things here but some of them will just have to wait. My two rescued cats are almost out of food once again. They are going threw twice as much since they're outside. The neighbors cats seem to be coming to eat. I think I have to figure out how to get the food concealed so that just my two ca...

I have let yet another weekend pass without managing to do much of anything. I’m not sure if it’s the chill that was in the air or the fact that I am addicted to my computer but we spent both days of this beautiful weekend inside. I know that I have to do something about this computer addiction even if it’s just saving up my money to purchase a new battery for my laptop so I can write outside. The problem with working outside is that I would need a wireless connection to the Internet. While I have broadband I have the misfortune of being tied to the connection. I hope one day to buy a wireless router but in the mean time I would like to make sure I find the cheapest alternative to the connection that I have now. The price for working from home is getting to be outrageous with my hours being drastically reduced. This past week saw some changes to the therapy schedule, one change has to be rescheduled to make up for the missed session. The other change is permanent. I no longer have ...

Hello! I've noticed that my mind tends to wander a lot so I've decided to create a place where it can do just that. At any given moment I could be thinking about ten to twenty different things. Therapy, laundry, dishes and what sites I'll using to earn money that day. I have some strange thoughts but those closest to me know and understand. I keep doing my best to get those thoughts in order but some days it doesn't work. So come visit me and we'll take the journey of the wandering minds together.