Secession? It’s Not That Easy...

I know social media comments sections on anything remotely political are pretty much just a dumpster fire. However, one topic I’ve seen people bring up on both sides is ‘simply’ dividing ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states into separate countries.

I don’t have to tell most of you that this is a terrible idea.

I lived in Ohio and now Indiana. While I’d officially call myself an Independent or moderate, during crucial elections where third party voting serves no purpose, I’m a ‘blue’ voter. I used to live on Hamilton County, which covers the Cincinnati metropolis, which is among about 8 Ohio counties that is consistently blue. This is often a swing state in presidential elections and is never red or blue in general.

And now I live in Indiana so you likely see my new dilemma. Red county, red state, almost consistently. I do NOT want to be imprisoned under the authoritarian hell of a Red America.

This is what it comes to. A very stupid ‘solution’ that would effectively trap millions of Americans in absolute hell. I imagine the red voters trapped by their circumstances in a blue state terrifies them too.

Where you live does not determine your beliefs or ideals. While many take to social pressures and indoctrination, many also formed their own conclusions that go against popular beliefs. This country might be divided but it’s not a geological grouping you can just throw fences around and pretend that fixes the problem. After the tRump wall bullshit, liberals especially know better than that being even remotely a good solution.

What makes people’s knee jerk solutions and opinions so useless is that their research rarely ever includes consulting people who have dedicated their lives to that area of study. I see posts about the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine peppered with doubt about its efficacy and long-term consequences and that they’ll let the ‘idiots’ go first. The problem with people’s doubt and questions comes from the fact that they are unloading them without FIRST taking the time to do real research, to consult with healthcare workers (who not only risk their lives but have seen the full-blown horror of it). 

It’s become evident that, like forming uneducated opinions, there’s also an irresponsibility in asking uneducated questions too soon. We have the ability to find unbiased factual resources for the very nature of the virus, but it may be in language too difficult for many to follow. However, asking ‘is this vaccine going to kill us?’ is fear-mongering and inflammatory. Instead, we should be asking ‘if you’re a healthcare worker, can you tell us why we should get the vaccine?’

And it’s not enough to simply trust that every healthcare worker is going to be objective either, which is why polling is a mandatory part of research. Your doctor might be a biased idiot but it’s more conclusive if ‘7 out of 10’ doctors agree.

We all wondered why 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Colgate. It’s not because we have reason to believe the odd one out is right. He’s probably barking at the moon. He might’ve rightfully earned his degree and been educated but then started playing around on the dark web, not updating his education legitimately and now thinks that cavities are caused by 5G signals so he tinfoils his walls. 

But we’ve also seen that tens of millions of Americans also vote for a moron. While this wasn’t the majority of votes, it’s also possible to simply be surrounded by a majority of falsehoods. Which is why it’s so damned important to know HOW to find legitimate resources. It’s always worthwhile to even take the most batshit insane theories and find out the unreliable source that the ignorant ones are taking as fact. Just dismissing them only increases their hysteria. When face to face with the truly insane, I know from experience that the last thing you want to do is burst their bubble. You ask questions without judgement, try to look for whatever trauma in their lives made them vulnerable to the imaginative logic of that lie.

Division, segregation, that is the opposite of progress. We need to stop sorting privilege, stop drawing lines and stop insisting on labels. We shouldn’t entertain dividing this country. We should be challenging each other to tolerate and understand our differences and never entertain making things easier for bigots. This isn’t the time to be forming opinions and questions prior to research. Stop treating social media like Google (or for you paranoid nut jobs, DuckDuckGo, with its absolute shit sorting system). Use it to poll for educated answers and survey opinion, not confirm a bias.

Yes, as a liberal, I do celebrate progress, to a point. It’s not an extreme. Positive progress is very slow and met with a lot of stubborn opposition. As an atheist, it’s always especially exhausting how extremist conservatism wants to build laws, seemingly on behalf of their god. Not only am I quite aware that the Christian god touts free will, it’s also technically blasphemy to enact ‘God’s will’ through the laws of men. We are meant to bear the consequences of our own sins upon Judgement Day, according to the Bible. Subjective ‘sins’ like abortion and homosexuality (and I cringe to even entertain those are sins at all) are not detrimental to human society, which is why it makes no sense to punish for them like society does for actual human harm like rape, robbery and murder. However, religious perceptions (superstitions) overriding science is an attempt to undermine and subjugate, a move done more out of fear and hate than reason.

I’d love to discuss my passionate studies in theology that led to atheism sometime, but not now. That’s a VERY long conversation.

Which is why it’s so confusing that extreme conservatism has been pumping out the ‘fuck your feelings’ rhetoric. Authoritarianism, religion, almost every area they stand for are almost entirely built on how they feel about things, not the logic of progress, science or fact. 

I also think it’s irresponsible if I didn’t mention that I do have religious and conservative friends. I’ll tell you now that this is because there is wisdom buried in religious stories and meaningful progress is not something to be rushed. It’s responsible to admit that I don’t always agree with liberals when they spew extremist ideals either. However, I’m also aware that I do lean more left on economic issues, slightly right on social issues (only because I think a great deal of the shit people are suddenly forcing others to talk about is kind of none of anyone’s damn business).

Obviously, I jump around a lot but it’s difficult to talk about one without inevitably pulling a string from another. If I were a professional blogger, I’m sure I’d poke and prod and edit and organize, but that’s more work than a personal blog needs. I’d consider that more the responsibility of an influencer.

You got the gist. I hope. At this point, we just have to accept that we’re not responsible for how people twist our intent. I’m happy to elaborate for someone genuinely interested rather than condescending.

Stay out of the crazy rabbit holes, folks. Used to be a fun concept for the curious, the adventurous Alices of the world, but too often, it’s become tainted by the rambling of conspiracy theories and damaging biases. The concept of the Mad Hatter is superseded by the terror of the Jabberwocky. Rather than sticking solely to the classics, I’ve always been in favor of writing for the present and future. It’s never a good time to say it’s all been done and we have all we need so let’s quit. There are better things ahead.

Spreading Oneself Too Thin

One thing I’ve always contemplated was how to regard the opinion that I may be ‘spreading myself too thin’. I have no shortage of admiration for people who are able to laser focus on one thing, but that’s actually a pretty popular opinion and one we should assess more in modern times.

Certainly there is room to admire those with many focuses without being over-critical with the perception that they are taking on ‘too much.’ While I suppose it can be an issue when they never finish anything, but even if people don’t finish *most* of what they start, perhaps we should look at the success of those processes in more ways than making sure everything is done.

Some projects, even when started with the intention to have a finished product, are left undone. I’ve found this can happen when you’re trying something new and possibly very ambitious, something you’ve underestimated the sheer labor of. It’s often assumed that someone just gets ‘bored’ or ‘lazy’ but, quite frankly, that’s a lazy assumption. Every project contains a learning process, whether it is something you’re trying or you’ve done it a hundred times before. Along the way, it’s very possible that the errors are more tedious to fix than simply starting over or we’ve simply gotten what we’ve wanted from it and are otherwise inspired to apply what we’ve learned to a fresher idea. Especially in creative fields, you must marry yourself to an alien concept in most other fields; not every aspect is precious and some must be abandoned to apply your skills and attention more efficiently. But it’s also true that no labor or effort is actually ‘wasted’ and that those discarded materials and unfixable mistakes are an important part of your personal ‘résumé’ too. 

Those hundreds of hours of ‘mistakes’ and things left unfinished are the evidence of your efficiency. There’s a reason why professional artists aren’t cheap. We’ve literally taken a task that would take the average of persons hundreds of hours to do and get it done, with no lack of quality, in a matter of hours or days. Or more accurately, we’re able to get it done (and well) in exponentially quicker times. Creatives have also spent hundreds of unpaid hours earning the right to charge for that kind of delivery. While it’s easy to blow off the things that apps and filters can do for your images, it’s still incomparable to the quality done by a graphic artist. Anyone can write a book, but who actually has the patience to format, edit or market? 

Which brings me back to the point of whether we are actually spreading ourselves too thin... or if we’re simply exceeding people’s expectations for what one person can actually do. More often than not, I think people are critical about spreading focus because they themselves actually don’t succeed doing so. So in the midst of many months where you don’t seem productive, it becomes a shocking blow when you finally show the fruits of those ‘unfocused’ efforts.

It’s mostly a positive response that I get over time. People who take the time to get to know me see an ambitious and full body of work. I think it’s easier for people who don’t know how I operate to chalk those times when I’m not sharing anything as a lack or work or success, rather than a skillful process.

Indeed, modern people are more than a little spoiled when it comes to instant gratification. This can make it more difficult for artists because, while our neighbors can’t see our progress (like when we’re building a deck on the house), we’re enduring a period of vulnerability of ideas and a challenge to the great focus that project needs and we can’t reassure others or even ourselves of what progress is actually made. Even in this state of vulnerability, sometimes we have to expend energy defending ourselves against many kinds of negative criticism about our contribution and dedication. Which is also why even extroverted artists tend to shit themselves in a working solitude, to eliminate the distraction and focus their limited energy on a project.

I would never actually defend laziness either, but often it’s a false perception directed at creatives. Of course, it is ultimately destructive if they never produce finished work or never share progress at all, but that’s actually extremely rare. There is always something to admire about the discipline required, but a discipline without application or production ultimately does become a waste.

Sometimes I beat myself up about that too. For a little over a year, I kind of just... halted creativity, or more accurately, large projects. A dear friend of mine likes to remind me that I just spent three years of my life, doing nothing but living to write, edit, format, design and publish eleven hefty fantasy novels. My social life was almost nonexistent, my focus was razor sharp, my ambitious was undistracted. Now ideally, a bit of ‘burn out’ would occur AFTER I finished my second series finished (that I’ve published two out of four projected novels), but that’s just not the way a personal dream actually travels, and also why my friends often have to remind me I’ve ‘earned’ a bit of burn out.

Of course, it does make the professional in me wonder if this also makes potential clients think that this is somehow a lack of ethics I’ll sprinkle into work I do for them. The definitive answer is absolutely not. I do not tell people I will take on a job and never do it. In fact, my actual track record shows that I not only quickly tackle projects for others quickly, but they’re also often surprised that I deliver my work quickly and done well. 

In truth, sometimes my own ideas need to simmer or don’t quite challenge me enough, but I am quite easily charmed to the challenge others present me. I am not a client that will get frustrated and walk away. My ideas will always exist as long as I do. Yet there is a different pressure to perform when I’m dealing with the patience and criticism of a client. They can lose interest or patience in the stalling of my ideas in a way that my personal projects will not.

Side note: this is why I flirted with getting an agent or traditional publisher. The challenge of those eyes on my work was an appealing challenge, but ultimately I decided I simply wanted the experience of creative control. Very few aspects of commercial creativity actually give you the freedom of control and that was far more tempting than literary clout.

So... going back to ‘spreading yourself thin’... is that a concept to be admired or criticized harshly? Really, let’s stop with lazy thinking and start applying a more critical eye on generalized statements or perceptions like these. Ask questions about what they consider their failures and successes, get to know the body of work behind these multi-focused individuals, consider the vast amount of time, effort and struggle was involved to make their work look so effortless.

Perhaps remember that we don’t have to admire single-focused mastery less to show more admiration for the polymaths out there. While high IQs are sometimes squandered through lack of application, this is the exception, not the rule. It doesn’t take a great deal of time and effort to talk to someone and understand how hard they actually work.

Honestly, I kind of pity the ones that don’t bother to ask and try to hurt me with harsh assumptions. There’s a thread of jealousy in people that dismiss someone who is doing something they didn’t think possible that is truly pitiable. It’s also not worth my time or theirs to beg them to acknowledge my accomplishments. Sometimes, people are in a painful personal place where trying to hurt someone is the only way they know how to deal with what they’re going through. And I’m human too. I don’t always have the mental fortitude or patience to reach out to people in pain, so the best thing I can do is simply shrug and walk away sometimes. They’re not always in a position to accept help or advice or have their minds changed.

But that’s also a little superpower of mine. I do tend to sense strong positive and negative vibes that help me decide the risk of pressing an issue with someone. I’m all too happy to help others but I know all too well that even my own good intentions often just stir the pot.

Okay, I’m tired so it’s time to set this mess free into the blogosphere...

Building Community

I’m going to start with a solid opinion here, but it’s a sentiment that’s not rare: there is nothing admirable about being a miserable fuck.

I realize some people might take this personally or feel they’ve inspired the sentiment, but everything isn’t about you, whoever you are. In this case, it’s a blanket statement to introduce what is actually ‘wrong’ with the world today.

Americans have become ‘hustle-obsessed’. They literally forego working in jobs they enjoy or are actually good at and passionate about because of some misguided idea that this is a contribution to society, their family, etc. However, there is absolutely nothing more important to everything and everyone you prioritize than the quality of your time. Loving your contribution is just as important in the equation.

But, Krista, if everyone only did what they love, who would work all these ‘shitty’ jobs that keep society going? If you’re arguing this, you haven’t really thought about the whole picture. I worked with a woman who earned an MBA, had the tools and brains to start her own business if she wanted, so why the hell would she want to work at a Petco? When asked that, she laughed and added with such unwavering confidence, “I love this job and wouldn’t think of doing anything else.” Now, I’m sure some people have this very narrow view of this concept. Well, service jobs are much ‘cushier’ than, say, shoveling shit at a zoo or working on an oil rig. But here’s the thing: what most of us might consider a job that no one would work unless they ‘had to’, there are some people who truly take pride in doing the dirty jobs that most of us don’t want. We don’t need to force people into desperation and poverty, to take jobs they hate because ‘no one will do them’ otherwise. 

What society doesn’t need is cyclical suffering and misery. As a society, we need to gently lean towards utilizing technology towards encouraging more of the more widely ‘wanted’ jobs, not the desperately-needed. This looking down on people who enjoy jobs you think no one wants is a problem, but not the focus I’m after in this post. It’s a small chip in the bigger pile.

What I hear a lot these days, wherever I go, is how communities just don’t work together like they used to. The problem with this is that this NEVER comes from the mouths of people who actually DO work in and with their communities. 

One thing I actively started using social media for was joining the group pages of small towns. There is no shortage of posts about food pantries and clean-up events, but you see the same problem in the follow-up posts about these events: only a handful of hopeful, helpful faces are in the many photos.

But I had to work. But it was my day off and I just wanted to relax. But it’s simply too inconvenient to make the effort. What it comes down to is that if *you* do not make the effort to make it a priority, then you can’t be surprised that you don’t see how hard others are working to create the unity you simply expect.

It’s possible for us to rebuild strong communities again. While the pandemic goes on, it’s an unfortunate but necessary truth that events are a lot more limited for the time being. But it’s not impossible. 

For one, we each have to understand that attitude is everything. Building a safer, happier community means knowing your neighbors to some degree. If you want the luxury of a neighborhood crime watch, the ability to feel like your kids are safe and looked after when they walk around town, the fun of a neighborhood block party, you have to make whatever community events are available a priority. Organizers can lose hope and stop trying if no one ever turns up, but you can really invigorate them just by showing up. You don’t have to be an extroverted ball of sunshine. The best thing about organizers is that they are usually very intuitive when it comes to assigning people roles suited to them. If you’re a shy introvert, they’ll usually hand you a tool and give you a solo job. If you want to be in a more involved job, they’re also usually good at hearing out your ideas to make the event run more smoothly.

The whole mechanic behind community events is encouraging people to fall into roles they’re both suited to and might actually enjoy. If that’s not your experience, then what are you doing to make a more successful event? What would you do different? Events only improve and attract more people to future efforts with valuable feedback.

But you have to be there. Working hard may be part of your passion, making it difficult to attend often or at all, but there are other ways to contribute to the success and frequency of community building events. Most people might assume I’m talking about throwing money at it, which is often very welcome to, but sometimes they have a list of supplies they’re trying to gather and going a little further by ordering or purchasing and delivering what they need is often massively appreciated too.

There are many valid reasons why people don’t/can’t go or find some way to help, but if you’re the sort that complains about how this world has gone to shit, it’s time to give yourself a reality check. Attitudes may suck, but there are plenty of people still making the effort and it’s not because they don’t have day jobs. Participating in community is a priority because they want safer, happier and more interesting neighborhoods. I’ve seen volunteers show up, disheveled and tossing down a box of supplies, and still pasting a hopeful smile on their tired faces.

As a society, we are sick. Mental illnesses are prevalent, people are angry, scared, bitter and disillusioned to the potential for good. But among the unrest, people are still making it a priority to turn this around.

And yes, I used to be one of the miserable fucks. I fell for this broken sentiment that simply working hard or smart somehow put you on the right side of life. However, over time, I also learned that I destroyed whatever contribution I thought I was making with simply suffering and ignoring the lack of quality in this contribution. My family suffered, society continued to suffer, no one was healing. 

Moving to a new town really motivated me to think about this more. I set out determined to make sure this was a town I could love to live in. I was actually motivated by the grumbles of how ‘bad things have gotten here’ to do what I could to see how I could make a difference.

Seek and ye shall find. One of the first local cafes we visited is run by a very passionate and motivated man. He helped organize the Christmas Walk, one of the first events I saw posted when we finally settled in. While talking with him in his restaurant, he talked passionately about reviving a sense of community here and it ingratiated me to the idea. I added the cafe to my FB group page and started liking his quirky videos, commenting that I love his energy, ideas and menu. In turn, he added me and noticed from my profile that I’m a crafter and he just so happened to want to organize a craft show.

I jumped at the chance. At the moment, I’m antsy and nervous enough just being out of work and craving the motivation to do more. When a group of us met at the cafe to discuss how we’d set it up, my sister also mentioned I’m a graphic designer and that I would be happy to make a logo and flyer for the event.

It’s a lot of work and so small in the span of things, but I hope we can inspire each other and this town to keep up with efforts to build that sense of community that so many feel entitled to. I hope more people will want to work for those entitlements. 

The irony being that the same people that grumble about the undeserving receiving entitlements is that often expect the exact same thing from community. However, if you aren’t ‘paying into’ what it takes to make things happen, you’re just a different kind of freeloader.

It’s never too late to decide you truly haven’t been doing enough for the life you want. Humble yourself to that and build pride through changing that attitude.

And hey, I’m socially awkward and introverted, but it takes all kinds to make a community. Open yourself to the opportunity for making that difference.

Plague Trump

It’s not often that I’ll ever talk politics. Like religion, I consider the topic one deeply personal and never a gauge of the character or decency of the person.

However... Trump is a disease. I don’t mean this in a wholly political or personal sense. With great reservation, I set out to do unbiased research on the blind fervor behind his cult-like following. I say this because I know this line of research will be fraught with the sort of brainwashing and deeply cruel tactics that traumatized me as a child and teenager. However, I also know that, because I know the deeply subtle manipulations of psychopathy so well, I am also uniquely equipped to insulate myself against it and hash it out for people who don’t have defenses against the manipulation.

We can’t tackle what makes this cult-like plague possible without mention of QAnon. Thankfully, most reputable sites, rather than censoring this content and potentially forcing vulnerable people to seek more damaging outlets to know what it is, post warnings about the possibility of QAnon being akin to a terrorist or cult-like mentality if it continues to manipulate as it has. For those who don’t know, QAnon essentially is an idea that liberal Democrats are essentially a force of ‘evil’, a cabal of Satanists that run a widespread organization that deals in child trafficking and even cannibalism and ‘they’ are warriors of good, preparing for The Storm, where thousands of these evil elitists will be exposed and Trump himself will ‘save the world’ in doing so. Of course, these concepts, with vocabulary straight out of pure fantasy, simply welcome veteran conspiracy theorists, who attempt to combine their own outlandish rabbit holes into this ‘community’, so it’s really quite difficult to say what all QAnon ‘members’ (aka bakers) are actually buying into. There are all sorts, anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, creationists and many other easily debunkable concepts run amok for them to pick and choose from.

Like cults, groups like these prey upon the fear, isolation and disenfranchisement of the ones they target. It would be easy to dismiss these people as gullible or stupid, but in so many cases, these people are simply vulnerable, in pain. However, the deeper they go, the less you can sympathize with them. The way they dehumanize opposing views, seek vengeance, and put others in harm with the delusion that they are the good guys saving the world is where the real harm comes in.

While you can’t truly give Trump the credit for this frightening manipulation, his own actions have easily enabled these vulnerable people to believe he is ‘on their side when no one else is’ and even speaking to them ‘in code’. That’s right; he’s not just an idiot who is terrible with words, he must be speaking this way intentionally so that the really ‘smart people’ are getting the real message.

Like cults, the idea is to hook people based on common fears, make them feel unique and like they belong. Rather than simply issuing the truth, QAnon makes it ‘a game’, a hunt through cryptic messages, codes, meta tags, and photos. Not only are you ‘uncovering the truth for yourself’ but you're contributing your own (paranoid and delusional) spin on it. This endless scavenger hunt is an exercise in madness, both further isolating you in a feverish chase of paranoia and even subtly shaming and guilting you into working harder to ‘save us all’. Your punishment and reward systems are so intertwined that you begin to crave the abuse as much as the paltry prizes. Like anything you end up spending time and resources on, it gets harder and harder to pull away and rationalize with the information because you don’t want to cope with how much you have wasted to get there.

To be honest, it’s an exhausting spiral of thought but I truly felt the need to give you the gist of this and how it applies to my own experience. You can easily find safe ways to explore cult mentality, vulnerability, QAnon and so on. 

The oddity of my own experience is that I joined a local FaceBook group for the town I just moved to. Someone had posted about wearing masks, which I found to be an intriguing opportunity to find if there were some more like-minded liberals here in a Trump-loving town. Although I was respectful, if not a little exasperated that I would have to explain science to adults, I happened to question why we should ‘thank Trump’ for a vaccine (that they would likely refuse anyway) when so often his ego-driven rallies were super spreader events.

What followed was veiled insults, bullying and intimidation so I blocked the two women doing so. However, no less than six other women actually jumped in and defended my arguments as factual and not personal attacks, even though they had devolved it into such.

The next day, I was surprised to see that I had been banned from the group, no explanation. However, it’s not hard to deduce that, although I hadn’t broken any rules, the admin either did so to prevent any zealots from retaliating against me or they themselves had an issue with liberals finding common ground here. Two very different possibilities, but since I was given no reason, the latter is more likely. Although liberals are clearly outnumbered here, it’s very apparent that keeping them divided serves the fear and paranoia of zealots better.

Everyone I have met and talked to here is kind and amazing. But the internet is a very different creature. I do very much hope that the plague of paranoia, fear, and authoritarian control that is Trump is squashed with Biden stepping in. We truly have to seriously address what vulnerabilities exist to make so many turn to hate, distrust and blind faith in a man so unworthy of it.

America is hurting. Healing is a hard road ahead but we have two plagues to address before we can build a better country for all Americans.

Adjusting to the Move

 Prior to the move, it’s pretty clear I was bustling with nerves and excitement, promising to take pictures and post updates and make a few laps around the world.

Clearly, that was too ambitious; let’s face it—I’m pooped.

While my dad was away on his ten-day vacation, the rest of us were chipping away at unpacking our own stuff, ordering new furniture to put together and keeping the mess as manageable as possible. For about a week straight, all I did was all that and sleep. Even when the workload started to slow down, there were still orders trickling in and organizing to do. Every box unpacked looking like a messy explosion was a necessity of seeing everything laid out to then make its place more organized.

In my bedroom, there was the bookshelf, the desk and the bed frame. I also water sealed the desk surface and installed those childproof bumpers (which make excellent wrist rests). I used an extender pole for a duster to hang a couple of tapestries on my tallest wall. There’s still a bit of clutter, but I know that over time, I’ll become more efficient with the space and aesthetic. For now, I’m just glad I can move around the space and find what I need. Moving through a maze of boxes was not as fun as it sounds.

I got bookshelves for both Dameon and Marcus. For Marcus, I got a floor rug and a gaming couch, but gave Dameon my recliner and also bought him a shoe rack. Dameon needs some curtain rods put up and they could both use some stuff put up on their walls, but their rooms were easier to set up.

My sister got a vanity, a storage mirror, a TV stand and a dresser. I had cancelled a bed frame for taking too long to ship, but then it turns out it did ship, so my sister and I just put it together anyway so she could use it. Her room is pretty much done at this point too.

Dad has spent the past few days going through his ridiculous hoard of boxes, but he has that mostly sorted through too. He just keeps way too much that neither gets used or displayed so it ends up just taking up space. I wouldn’t say I’m a minimalist but I’m definitely not that much of a pack rat either. I’m usually the person you can ask for a specific tool and there’s a good chance I have one. 

For the past few days, I’ve really slowed down though. Today, all I did was set up a new Ecotank printer. My Canon decided to hang up on a 5200 error after only two years of use. I said fuck it and bought an Epson with a 4 year warranty. Hopefully I get more mileage on this one. It’s agitating how technology just ‘mysteriously’ stops working after a few years. Even though I find good bargains, it’s still irritating to have to replace things. It feels wasteful to go through appliances and devices so fast.

A couple of rainy days are ahead so I’ll take it as more opportunities to relax. I do have some residual soreness from the weeks of constant moving and carrying. The faster I can heal and function better, the sooner I can start to fully utilize all this wonderful potential space.

It’s actually pretty difficult to relax after working so much. I feel a sort of restless need to ride the momentum, despite my protesting body’s opposite response...

I do look forward to focusing on more creative projects. But I also look forward to exploring the new town and working towards other goals, like improving my health. All in good time!

Closed Home, Opened Future!

 So, yes, everything went well for the closing for our new house on Monday! We’ve been rather busy, packing up more boxes, Dad taking stuff over by the carload, more packing and sorting, more loading, rinse, repeat. It’s been an exhausting but exciting process. We’re almost down to just the big furniture which will need a UHaul to finish up. Not yet sure if we’ll get to that before Dad goes on his trip in a little over a week, but I do think we’re at least getting the beds over there and beginning the unpacking process at least. The closets are fully fitted for filling at least. I can also go ahead and order a bed frame and bookshelf sometime soon. If I need any other furniture, I’ll figure that out along the way.

Unfortunately, I’m exhausted so I’ll leave it at that for now. There will be more pictures/posts ahead, but I’m patient with the process. I’m just glad it’s all moving forward!

Big Days Ahead!

 I have a bit of sorting to do with Dameon still. Just going to bag up the clothes we went through that he doesn’t want and then start going through the toys/collectibles today.

Tomorrow is closing day! Dad will do a walk-through to make sure the house is good to go, sign a giant stack of paperwork and get the keys. We won’t start the moving process until he returns from a trip with friends this month, but that’ll give us some time to do all the final packing and be ready to start the big haul.

Dad said he’s been doing some driving through and around our new town and is already drooling about how beautiful it is. I can’t walk for the walks and drives ahead to familiarize myself with all of it. I even went and added some of the local FaceBook groups to my feed, get a better feel for the bad and the good for people there. Apparently, the worst problem I’ve seen is FedEx’s tendency to deliver to the wrong addresses there. Our house's mailbox is actually on the other side of the street, so I’ll be adding some special delivery instructions to deliver it onto my porch whenever possible. The house number is big and clear on the house, but it’s not super close to the road. 

I constantly daydream about what life will be like there, the way I’ll arrange my room and decorate and make it our own. Nothing too fantastical, but I have snippets of our tour and where we drove in and I’ve pored over maps to see which ways I’d like to explore. I’ve always dreamed about an abstract home, somewhere between rural and suburban life, and this will be a surreal reality to come.

Not to say it won’t come without adjustment. Change is always a little scary too. Some of us live our lives afraid to make change and I can’t say I blame anyone for that. Some changes mean you can’t go back to way things were and, when the new situation is worse, it makes it all the more difficult to trust making big changes again.

Yet I remember how difficult it was to hit ‘publish’ on my first book. I drafted and edited and riddled with the cover and proofing, backed up to make adjustments required, learned all of the pitfalls of word processor formatting. I kept meticulous notes so that future efforts would be more streamlined. Yet as the excitement built, that dread crept in.

What if people hate it?

It wasn’t a dread that I cared to let build so I squeezed my eyes shut and clicked. 

The harsher reality is that most people didn’t care to read it or even know it existed. But I moved on. More books, each coming with some new challenges in the ever-changing processes. I didn’t even get my first review until this year, a very in-depth one, but I lapped it up. Feedback is golden, especially in a time where people consume and move on, rarely ever taking the time to interact with those who made the work they take in. I adored the honesty and the criticism and strive for more of it, good bad and ugly, in the future.

I would still like to organize to get some booths at local conventions, but in light of the pandemic, I’m not certain about making too many plans in an unknown future. Events are still being cancelled these days and I don’t want to accumulate any space-hogging racks or displays too far in advance. I’ve kept many suppliers bookmarked, ready to order when it’s time, but in truth, there’s still much work to be done and my muse is playing hooky these days. I know I’ll have to reread my previous two books in the series and comb over my notes to proceed. It’s too easy to forget when nearly a year has passed without drafting it. When you have a brain constantly processing many ideas, you have to be in a place to discipline it once more.

In any case, this moving adventure takes precedence. I’ll likely be straddling living between this house and the new one until the end of the year, fiddling with nesting in a new room and settling in. It may just be the sort of task that has my muse sniffing around in curiosity once more. There are also plenty of crochet and doll projects in process, so there’s really no telling where I’ll go from here.

Truly, it’s not a bad problem to have.

Some of That Good News!

 So... it’s pretty much final; we ARE getting the house! The appraisal came back higher than our offer so there will be no unforeseen costs to get in the way. The seller has to install railings leading out of the back of the house to be up to code, but it should all be ready to go by the closing date, October 5th. My dad, sister and I are getting on the same phone plan (none of our current services work out there) since we know for sure now.

I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’ve been on edge and relentlessly researching the whole process, just hoping we wouldn’t end up losing that house. The last real obstacle was whether the loan would cover the cost. In case you missed when I explained it before, the appraisal has to come in at the offer price or above for a lender to cover it. You can still get the loan when it comes in lower, but you have to pay the difference upfront to the seller. This is on top of the down payment for the loan (2-3% of the sale price) and closing costs (vary by house value, but usually between 4-10K).

As much as I’d love to ramble on, I think some video gaming is in order! And tomorrow, definitely a packing day! I’m so motivated again!

Reflection

 My nephew Thomas is coming over so I’ll likely keep this short. (Likely.) However, in this chaos of boxes and anticipation (the house appraisal results come Wednesday), I just felt an odd wave of... gratefulness.

For friends, for family, for the oddball groups I’m in on social media. Dolls. Crochet. Money saved. Projects in waiting. Healthy kitties and their many random cuddles. Daydreams (but not my weird night dreams) and dream goals. Plans, as fickle and unstable as they can be, and prospects.

It could be because I’ve taken a stimulant after days of not taking any (when feeling under the weather, the last thing I want is something keeping me awake). However, the focus without being overwhelmed is always welcomed and carefully used when it does hit.

I do feel better today but since Thomas will be here, I’ll reserve my need to clean and sort for tomorrow. Although it wasn’t above me in the past to invite someone over and restlessly clean in front of them while I talk a mile a minute, most of my nervous energy has become internalized over time. Sometimes it works in my favor, sometimes not at all. So I’ll allow myself another day of relaxing (kind of... I still tend to pace while having conversations).

Really, I want the day to come where I can post ‘yay, we got the house!’ but until we’re holding that key, I just can’t do that. Things can happen and even that moment is the start of another big process. I keep picturing actually being unpacked and settled in as the ultimate finish... but yet another beginning to a chapter I hope will mean flourishing in a new place.

I’ve spent some time adding the new city on FB to see what’s up. I’ve studied the school and the area. Lol their claim to fame is a 1954 sports team that won state champion, a feat because they were a tiny school up against much bigger ones. I’m not really a sports person, but I felt a weird twinge of pride for a city that isn’t really mine... yet. I am eager to explore a new place, learn a new area. It almost feels like planning for a vacation with none of the urgency of fitting everything you want to do within a week or two. It’s the caress of a slow-spreading adventure. 

I want this. I need this. I anticipate it wholeheartedly. Yet still, I feel like I can’t release the leash yet. I’m sadly used to disappointment, of things not happening, of having to pick up the pieces. But for this time, I dare to dream and hope it comes to pass.

Days in a Haze

 I wasn’t exactly feeling terrific once my kitties came home to recover. While She-Ra became an absolute 24/7 cuddler the first few days, Seven remained a loner. Until today. She-Ra is still cuddling but is doing more wandering on her own while Seven actually laid on the end of my bed for a while. Not for too long, since her sister’s attentions make her hiss and growl. Both of them are recovering well though, their incisions looking great. I spent the past few days just taking cat naps and checking on the kitties, so I’m ready for a break in tedium myself.

So tomorrow is the fated appraisal day, which I think will go well. While the static appraisals I found online are about $28K apart, I used a different sort of calculator to get an estimate that actually sits a few thousand above our offer. I’m hoping that one is the most accurate since, as I’ve said, a high appraisal is far better than a low one. I’ve noticed that some of the lower appraisals didn’t factor in the additional bedrooms and bathroom added after 2009, so it seems more likely that the calculator I used is probably the more accurate of the many sources I’ve looked through.

Today, I’m hoping to actually get my ass up and help my nephew sort through his junk. I’m actually typing this in the late night/early morning hours, so I’m also hoping to get a nap in before I get going. Really, I just want to get rid of the anxiety of getting the appraisal out of the way. It’s really the last big step that could make or break this one (and quite frankly, we better damn well make it because I’m ready to get the hell out of here). So I’m likely either going to sleep more or stay busy so I’m not restless. And since my dad is one of those nervous types that never shuts up about how everything can go wrong, moving forward is sorely needed.

Yes, yes, I know. Internally, I’m always thinking worst case scenario myself. I just don’t torture everyone with a fatalistic assurance that everything WILL go wrong. My dad isn’t quite hip to the fact that he’s no prophet and his constant negativity and assurances of everything going wrong are not really all that accurate. I also recall quite a bit of him telling me that working shit jobs would get me somewhere one day and, lucky for me, I stop believing that and have since lived my life according to my own intuition and been much happier. ‘Success’ for my generation is simply managing to find happiness amidst a failing economy and an imbalanced workforce. Some of my generation have been lucky enough to ‘make it’ but more often than not, most of us have to expend a lot of energy adapting to some disappointing realities.

Going a little sideways here, but I’ll likely be chasing a racing brain today and tomorrow. I’m going to err on the side of optimism and keep laboring under the assumption that all will go well. Quite frankly, this year can use a lot of encouragement.

More Down Time

 Sometimes a girl just needs serious healing time... and a couple of female cats to heal with. My girls got spayed a couple of days ago; one is hyper affectionate while the other just wants to be left alone. So every time I get up, I have one following me while I check up on the other. I’m feeling pretty run down but that will pass in a day or two.

Dad was in stress mode over the updates on the new house. The lender was having trouble securing an appraisal so my sister looked up a few numbers and Dad gave those numbers to the lender. Lo and behold, appraisal date will be September 28th. There are two more major steps, post-appraisal, so I figured it’s a good time to run a checklist of the process.

1. Get pre-approved for a loan. Before you do anything, and I’ll assume you’re not dropping cash, you’ll need to do this prior to anything else. Now, you CAN do the next two steps prior to this, but it will put a halt in the process until you secure a lender. You might want to know what your loan limit is with your credit or you’ll have a hard time locking in an offer. Once you’ve done this, then they can later provide an estimate for what your loan will cover once you make an offer.
2. Get a realtor. During our process, this actually came WITH securing our first tour of a house we were interested in, but most will advise you do this next. Most realtors are only licensed in one state, so if you’re looking in multiple states, you might end up needing to work with a few. Each house comes with the seller’s realtor, but you’ll need a sort of ‘buyer’s’ realtor to help you with your own best interests.
3. Go house hunting. My family learned early on; physically go look at the outside of the houses you might be interested in or the neighborhood first. We secured a tour first when we started out but when we got there, we realized that the outside of the house needed work, the yard was smaller than we thought and it wasn’t quite as private as we’d hoped. Pictures can omit a lot of important information before you even set foot in the house, so make sure you like the outside first, THEN schedule a tour for inside.
4. Make an offer! When you find one you like, put in an offer! You’ll usually do best with two figures; an initial offer, then the maximum you’ll allow the realtor to put in on your behalf. You may not need the second figure at all. If the house has been on the market for a while with no competing offers or you think they’re asking for too much and they agree, you may not need a secondary offer. However, it will save you some time. It can take a week to be accepted, especially in a bidding war.
5. Inspection: optional. If you’re unsure about the asking price or condition of the home and your offer has been accepted, and you’ve paid earnest money to secure the offer, this is a step which will provide an acceptable contingency to proceed or back out. If there is anything you would like to see done before agreeing on a final offer, repairs, etc., after the inspection is the best place to either negotiate or back out, if it seems too troublesome. This step will require you to pay out of pocket, but if you’re really unsure your offer will hold up to scrutiny, this is a good step to take.
6. Appraisal. Your lender is responsible for securing this step. They will schedule an appointment for the appraiser as well as the buyer’s and seller’s realtors to be present. What you’ll hope for here is a level or high appraisal. If the appraisal price cones in lower than your offer, the bank will only pay the appraisal cost and you will have to pay the difference in full, along with closing costs and your down payment. A low appraisal can be a huge dealbreaker for most people.
7. Underwriting. Provided your appraisal was favorable, this is likely the most secure step in the process. When you first put in an offer, your lender will have already given an estimate for what is finalized here. This is where you’ll get the actual monthly payment cost, as well as insurance, down payment and closing costs. This is the last opportunity to back out (but if it’s just cold feet, you may not get earnest money back). This one is approximated to take one to four weeks.
8. Closing! This is it! Prepare for hours of paperwork, paying all finalized costs... leave with the key to your new home. It was a pain in the ass, but it’s finally done. If you haven’t done so already, get packing and moving. Look forward to a strenuous haul before you finally get to settle in!

Crossing my fingers the appraisal goes as planned and we can hop on over to the underwriting step. It’s very nerve-wracking, trying to tamper down the excitement just in case something falls through. All the same, I’m keeping my hopes present at least, just hoping I get to celebrate a new home on October 5th!

Lazy Break

 My attempts at sleeping last night were futile, so I just decided to call it a lazy day. I realize I have a ridiculous amount of jackets and coats to sort through because I really don’t need all of them, but it shouldn’t take me that long... Tomorrow, I’m going to help my nephew Dameon sort through his stuff and pack. I know that kid has a ton of clothes he never wears and even outgrew, but he’s also got a lot of little junk he needs to sort through. I’ll put him on sorting duty and do the packing myself. Fortunately, no one in this house has as much crap as me to sort through so it shouldn’t be a huge task.

But most of my stuff was craft and hobby stuff. I got away with only about two boxes of regular clothes. My dressers are still full but I can probably get away with not taking about one whole drawer’s worth of stuff. The rest is pajama pants, socks, underwear... most of it is tucked into drawer organizers already. I did have quite a lot of books but packed those in smaller boxes so they can actually be lifted without breaking any backs. I’ll likely just poke around and get to what little is left this week. I do have some clothes to bag for donation too. All of this is stuff I could wait until closer to the move to do. I didn’t realize I would get most of it done so quickly.

Taking the cats to get spayed Wednesday morning. So I’ll at least make it a little easier for them to rest and get around while they heal. 

About two weeks away from the big move. I know it will be some serious hard labor and draining car trips, but I’m keeping my eye on the goal. I’ve got my camera bag accessible for some photo sessions along the way. I know I’ll need, oh, fifty million breaks, but I’ve been doing all of this in short bursts. Still have to be careful with my joints, especially ankles and wrists. Reminding myself to leave my braces out to use in any case. Those were a godsend on truck days in retail service. This will be a LOT more to haul too.

It’s a Warzone!

 I underestimated just how long it would take to sort the piles from my clothes closet, but then, I’m being extremely thoughtful. Can’t just set it aside because I don’t want it; I also have to make a separate pile with certain people in mind. Messaged those people to see if they want it and, if not, I’ll just leave it for my nephew to pick through.

Have a few random things that I can’t decide whether I should actually box up or just carry as is. But I’d like to make all those decisions before I start dismantling that closet and adding to those piles. So provided I get all that knocked out today, I’ll *probably* get to storage tomorrow.

Sleeping has been erratic. I sleep for a few hours and wake up energized enough to tackle some aspect of packing, grab some food, wear myself out and sleep again. Sometimes I sleep a lot to recuperate a bit more, but this is a lot of labor and I’m very careful not to hurt my back or make myself too sore, much like when I started vigorous workouts. Admittedly, I’ve been a lot lazier since the pandemic started, so I do have to be careful not to overdo it. Even once I finish my own accumulative mess, I still have to help my nephews with their haul.

Lots of doing this in short bursts. It’s actually quite a demanding process; lot of bending, lifting, dismantling, wrapping and sorting so it pushes me physically. Mentally, it’s not that taxing, which is kind of a surprise. I haven’t been hoarding stuff away for purely sentimental reasons and have quite a bit I’m not taking and happy to throw away or give away. Over time, I’ve just become more focused on what material things are actually important to me. A lot of what I’m finding along the way is stuff I shoved away unwanted, either to save for someone or it just wasn’t absolute trash. It’s a small amount compared to what I have given away over time, but a bit more than I thought was taking up space. 

And again, my cats are in constant curiosity mode with everything changing. Suspicious and not at all trusting the systematic mess. Lol I constantly hear them scratching the carpet in an area once inaccessible, which I’m guessing is the cat version of a luxury activity.

There’s still some paperwork trickling in from the loan officers. They tend to want to know what’s current in the accounts we’re paying from to make sure we can actually pay with both what we have and our flow of income, but that’s to be expected. Just crossing Ts and dotting Is. Lowercase ones, in case my choice of syntax confused that! (Also not literal; just as the saying goes, but I’m over explaining for the hell of it...)

So onwards and upwards and back to the task!

Back on Cleaning Duty

 Managed to clean out my clothes closet last night, so just spent today sorting them into donation, give away and keep piles to box and bag up. Also, knocked out the little craft corner, so all that’s left is the storage closet and a chest of drawers in the clothes closet. This is going quicker than expected so I should be done by the end of the week, easily, and get to start helping my nephews pack. I’ll probably do the chest tonight, saving the storage for the rest of the week.

I really don’t think I have that much in there though, at least not that I’m keeping. Some kitchen stuff, seasonal clothes, old magazines and a couple of suitcases full of crap. I’ll keep the suitcases, some clothes and the useful things, but I’m fairly sure the two bins in there are just full of things I have gotten around to donating yet. 

I know that just getting everything out will go quickly, but the deciding and sorting is the part I’m not sure how long it will take. It’s not hard for me to get rid of things, but I do have a tendency to be thoughtful, think of who might want things rather than just donating or trashing.

Just that and playing video games between the packing, pretty much all I do, but I’m content. It will be so worth it to settle in the new home and start planning out life there.

Taming the Room

 I haven’t yet started on cleaning out my dungeon closets. My nephew Thomas came over yesterday and it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster that took some time to level out. I got no sleep Sunday night and ended up staying up until Monday night so I crashed hard and slept 12+ hours.

So I got up today a bit late and so far, just packed up some smaller boxes with the books under my computer desk. Why do books have to be a million different sizes and shapes? So it was like Tetris, but I got it done. My room looks like it’s been pillaged, but all that’s really left is to take out drawers, wrap them so the contents won’t tumble out when carried. The rest is stuff I use daily and will quick-pack when it’s time to finally move to the new house.

To be honest, my room still kinda looks full, but I’m visually tricking myself so I’m not lying in a barren wasteland in the meantime. Everything is staying up on my walls until the move too. It’s just a kind of mental thing, where I don’t feel like my ‘sanctuary’ doesn’t exist anymore. All easy stuff to pull down. On the ‘day of’, packing up the little stuff shouldn’t take more than an hour, if that.

It’s still about three weeks away, but the closets will take at least a week to go through since I’m picking through everything. After that, I’m going to help my nephew Dameon start getting his stuff together. A lot of what’s in his closet is already boxed up: LEGO sets, Nintendo Labo stuff, etc. mostly just gonna have to go through clothes and what’s on his shelves. He’s a video game kid so he’s never been that interested in collectibles.

My friend Joe is giving me some diaper boxes I can pack clothes in, so that has to wait too. I’m always finding new issues to solve, but nothing overwhelming. I’m being super mindful about trying to pack everything so it won’t break or be too heavy to carry.

I’ve also had some paperwork to help Dad with. Sometimes, new info comes up concerning the loan or home offer so I help him do that. My sister Erin does too. When we were still in house hunting mode, it was mostly Erin and Dad pulling up listings and Erin would plot our route through the GPS on her phone, so that was a pretty efficient process too.

I guess that’s one of the best things about working together as a family. We all play an important part and it makes big things a lot more manageable for all of us. We all have strengths (and weaknesses) and, luckily, very different interests and skills to help us through these situations. I’m the sort of secretary, Dad is the main source of income, Erin is the one who takes action. We’re a great team!

Happy Home!

 Just a quick update, but we’re not selling the old house. My nephew Thomas has always loved this house, so when my dad brought up keeping the house, my sister saw the opportunity to see if Dad wanted to rent it to him. My dad said as long as it covered the property tax, that’s all he needed, so... not only does my nephew (and possibly his mom, if she wants to move in too) have a new place, but he’ll have enough for utilities, rent and possibly even be able to save money!

I haven’t blogged much about this kid (26 years old though) but he’s always put others first, going so far as to take care of his chronically ill mother even before he was an adult. His mother Angie is a cool cat, but she’s been riddled with an illness that sometimes incapacitates her for days and that can make it hard to function, let alone have stable income. Somehow, he’s always held the fort, making sure rent was paid, but it’s left him with not much for himself; he’ll save for the occasional ComicCon or collectible.

To be able to do this for him, well, I have a terrific Dad, what can I say? I truly feel privileged to be my nephew’s confidant through his struggles and, really, I’d never deny him anything in my power to give. I can’t take credit for this, but I’ve been more than happy to talk to Dad about how we can help. I’m usually just an ear to bend; I say ‘just’ but truly it’s an honor to have a great relationship with my nephew.

Well, back to packing! I keep stopping for breaks since it’s a muggy day, but I’m way ahead of schedule. I’ll probably end up being done with my room by the end of the week, just from pure excitement.

The Move Continues!

 Great news to be had this week as the appraisal fell almost exactly on our offer! BOOM!

I’ve been packing up my room, a couple of boxes at a time, and it’s coming along. I do have a LOT of stuff, so getting it a little at a time is a lot less stressful. My cats know something is up and are not feeling it at all. Terrible hoomans and all their stupid change... I can’t say it’s not causing some anxiety but getting used to a new place isn’t something I adapt to quickly. I’ve lived in quite a few places, but haven’t done a huge move since I was like 7 years old. I’m leaving the stuff on my walls until everything else is moved. It’s weird enough seeing everything else clearing away so I’m trying not to live in a lifeless space as long as possible.

I know for sure I want to shop for a new bed frame and bookshelves for the new space, something to display my dolls on better. I’m giving my sister my current bed frame and wire bookshelf. Most of my furniture should be okay to fit, but we’ll see. My recliner could be too much, but I can put that downstairs if necessary. It’s a bigger room but I’d like more floor space than I’ve allowed myself in the ‘old house’.

But I spent today dismantling a craft cubby unit and wrapping up the canvas boxes, packing up some of the miscellaneous bits that floated around. Tomorrow, I’m hoping to pack up my TV console stuff, games and desk bits. That will mostly take care of the ‘main’ part of my room before I start sorting through the closets. I have quite a bit that’s either getting thrown out or given away. The most challenging bits to decide about are my electronics: graphics tablets, TV, computer, consoles, printer, etc. There’s no way I’m trusting them being jostled about on a moving truck! Those will definitely be a regular vehicle haul...

It’s not terribly exciting stuff, I know, but after hearing the great news about the appraisal landing right in the ballpark of our offer and knowing we can be comfortable getting what we need for the new house, I feel like a bit of rambling in thought is in order! I look forward to building a new sanctuary and reorganizing my goals. It’s a nice and quiet little town, chock full of visual inspiration. I’m hoping once regular school is back in session, my nephews get to benefit from a new school too.

The pandemic makes me feel restless and tense so this at least had become the perfect opportunity for us to make such a big decision, without worrying about work schedules and all that.

What I’m really hoping for, after all this work to settle into a new home, is that my motivation kicks back in and I can focus up on my passion projects again. There are books to write, dolls to design, yarn waiting to be crocheted and a muse to wrangle! First things first...

Moving on!

Appraisal Week!

 So we’ve bumped into our first fight concerning the new house; Dad and Erin got a little heated about whether or not the gap by the stairs was going to be a safety issue. Dad swore there wasn’t one before my sister could show him the pictures. Dad got loud, Erin got loud back. They both said things they didn’t really mean, but I intervened and explained it to Dad calmly that I was the one that noticed the issue. He ended up apologizing because he was wrong and that he was confusing how the stairs were set up with the way the stairs were in the Manchester house. In any case, things have been defused and we’re back on track.

I imagine this isn’t the last petty argument that will erupt in the stress of a big change, but I’m prepared to step in and mediate more in the future. It’s kinda my thing and I’m damn good at it.

Even though I was hesitant to start doing any packing before it is set in stone, I went ahead and packed my dolls, some decor, what was on my bookshelf, stuff in the window box and most of my collectibles. None of these things are what I might need to use prior to moving and they were kinda just clutter for the time being, so I went ahead and knocked that out. My dad did some more research on what the house would appraise to and he is quite confident it will be where we want it to land anyway.

I’ll be happy to hear the results and lock in all costs and financial concerns regardless.

Closing may not be until October 5th so we’re not in a great rush, but packing a little at a time will certainly be less stressful. We’re getting the cats spayed on the 23th of September, but we won’t be moving them until we’ve got most of our stuff moved and the house cat-proofed, so they’ll have plenty of time to heal. Changes are always stressful to cats, so we definitely have them in mind as well. They did very well at their exam and getting their shots but all that excitement had them sleeping most of that day. Making sure they are healed and happy is just as important to the whole process.

I’m sure there will be minor snipes about things like who is getting what room and where everything goes, etc. but I’m quite prepared to defuse those bombs too. If nothing else, I’m a planner and a problem solver so I’ll be ready to counter frustrations. It’s very likely that because I live with near-constant anxiety, I’m simply not as short-fused as my family tends to be. I guess when you’re always wary of what could go wrong, it takes an awful lot to be completely caught off-guard or forced into an immediate emotional response. I was just as hair-trigger as they are when I was younger, but over time, I’ve developed patience, if not more tolerance, for stressful situations. Even if my thoughts are turbulent, much of my anxiety is invented so I only have emotional outbursts in the face of very strong threats.

I’ll leave this on a good note; I’m very hopeful. I think this will be an immensely favorable step and, once we’re settled in, it will do wonders for our peace of mind. I truly believe this will be a home we can focus more of our potential with.

House Hunting Saga Continues!

 Despite reservations to the contrary, it turns out our offer for the house was accepted! 

So what’s next? Appraisal week commences...

This week, we will find out what the appraisal prices the house at. In case you’re not familiar with this process, we are hoping the appraisal comes as close to our bid as possible. A home loan will only cover up to the cost of the appraisal so we would have to pay out the overage upfront. The baseline estimate for this one lies around $165K and our offer falls at $175K. If the appraisal is at $165K, we have to cover $10K upfront. Keep in mind, they also ask for a down payment (which, I believe, is about 3.8% of the total purchase price and also closing costs).

When starting a contract for an accepted offer, they ask that you pay earnest money, which is $500 in our case. This actually counts towards the purchase price, not an additional cost. This money is held as a sort of guarantee that you won’t back out of the contract without an acceptable reason. In most cases, if the seller hasn’t disclosed all of the issues that turn up during inspection or appraisal, you can chose to terminate and have the earnest money returned or renegotiate to ask them to lower the price or fix the issue prior to closing the sale. If you break out of the contract for softer reasons, like you found another house you want instead, then the realtor keeps the earnest money, a sort of penalty for wasting their time. I would assume there will be a delay in being able to repost the house to market as well as more costs to them to repost. Totally understandable to incentivize serious offers only.

So to avoid too many upfront costs, it is actually ideal for the appraisal to land as close to your offer as possible. In this case, the lowest possible appraisal estimate isn’t a huge leap that we can’t afford to meet. Although a higher appraisal price does mean higher payments, the difference in monthly costs is almost negligible in a $10K margin. We’d much rather pay a little more monthly than have to put out the larger amount right away. I might have said before, but this house is so well-kept, needing almost no work to accommodate our needs, so it is very likely the appraisal will indeed land closer to our offer.

At this point, I am not 100% on how closing costs are calculated since the realtor typically walks us through this once the appraisal is complete. We opted out of paying $400 for the inspection since my dad already knows what the inspection looks for and did so himself when we toured the house. The appraisal will be out of pocket (costs about the same as the inspection) but is a step that can’t be skipped in order to be fair to both the seller and buyer. An appraiser does the same sweep through as an inspector. Why would you need an inspection? Well, if the house needs questionable amounts of work, it is better to know what you’re getting into prior to proceeding with a contract.

So once I learn more, I’ll explain those as well. For now, we are very hopeful that we will be able to meet any possible obstacles and still have enough to fund any additional home improvement costs. We’d like to purchase a shed for outdoor storage, Put a deck on the back porch, hang a door on one room to make it a bedroom, and turn a rather large walk-in into a storage room, for starters. I know Dad wants to put a lot of work into the yard with more plants and such too. 

I look forward to writing more updates!

More on House Hunting

 I was sulking the better part of the day when my sister told me that there were several more offers on the house in Milan, Indiana. I like to be hopeful, but I think I let myself get TOO hopeful and suddenly I was cynical that we would be outbid. I thought for sure this would be a long sleepless night where I would both be desperately hopeful and quickly depressed that it would go badly.

Well, we got the news that our offer was accepted!

Whoa, whoa, not so fast... it was a sudden rush but I reined it in again. The next step is appraisal. I’ve mentioned before that an appraisal determines the current value of the house and, again, the loan will only cover the appraisal cost. While I certainly think the house is worth every penny of our bid, if there is too big of a difference between these costs, we won’t be able to afford to make up that difference and would have to dissolve the sale still.

So, I’m standing on the center of a seesaw, trying to find the balance once more. The appraisal will be yet another nerve wracking, nail biting day, where I try to manage hopes and disappointment before the verdict is in and we see if this can be truly ours.

Before we began this journey, I wasn’t quite initiated into how much of a roller coaster this part was. I was mentally preparing myself for the idea of packing and moving, which I’ve always seen as the most daunting part. So this is certainly a crash course in the reality of how huge a life change this really is.

So I’ve taken a sleep aid to quiet my mind tonight because I’ll need sleep before I tackle the next steps with all of my strength. I want to believe that this is the one... but I must accept the fact that that’s not assured.

I see a lot of tears ahead for the next part, whether happy or disappointed. Not for long though; either I’m about to prepare for a big move or another bout of finding the right house.

Either way, I am still hopeful that I will settle into a new house in the future. And open myself to the new challenges of all that entails, foreseeable or not!

Hunting for Homes

 So, the Manchester, Ohio home fell through. We began to have our doubts after inspection that it was too highly priced and would need a lot of work so we dissolved the contract. Not to be defeated, we decided to look at homes in Indiana: Connersville, Rushville, Greensburg and Milan.

Milan was our last stop, one where we actually made an appointment to see the inside. Pictures just didn't do it justice and we loved the outside... even more so, the inside! It has the perfect amount of room and is SO well-kept...

So we put a bid on it.

Unfortunately, our Ohio realtor Amy Broermann doesn't operate in Indiana, but we met up with Minnie Rector, who is just as fantastic. I have high hopes that this is 'the one', with none of the creeping doubts the Manchester home was bringing up.

So the waiting game begins again. We'll see what the seller counters with and negotiate from there. Really crossing my fingers that it will all go smoothly and I'll have a new home to share with you all!

Big Changes Ahead!

 With the creative stagnancy has come a more fortuitous life event...

My family is currently negotiating a contract for a new home! We’ve already put in our bid, but it is pending prior to an appraisal and inspection. Provided these are all negotiated well, it should be final in about a month.

Last week, we started by trying to arrange showings for our top picks. Unfortunately, while waiting for the realtor at our first showing, we already weren’t too thrilled about the work we’d need to do on the outside. The realtor was running late and we ended up calling to cancel it. This wasn’t the house for us.

Within a day, all of our other showings (7-8 other houses) were snatched off the market and cancelled by the realtors. So, change of plans. Instead of arranging showings, we made up another list of potential houses and decided to just drive out to look at the outside, see if we even wanted that before arranging any more tours.

So we picked 6-7 more for a drive-by visit! We drove about 4 hours that day and weren’t really thrilled about any of them on closer inspection. Some needed too much work, some just didn’t have enough property or privacy. It was a bust, but we got home, lined up another 6-7 to look at (I apologize that this is so non-specific, but I truly lost count).

This time, it was 5 hours of driving. I packed some granola bars and brought along some coffee for this one. The first two houses, we absolutely loved. The ones after just didn’t compare. So we called up the realtor and asked if we could look at those two. This is how we met Amy Broermann. She was the most attentive realtor we’d spoken to yet, immediately disclosing the possible issues with both. The issues with the second house on the hill were worrisome, possible foundation slippage, which would be a HUGE costly fix if confirmed. Since it wasn’t our number one choice, we asked to take a tour of the first one. Major repairs had already been addressed and fixed and the minor ones, some possible electric and water issues, would be covered by the seller. So far so good...

And so we got to this house early and spent some time drooling over the outside, getting more excited as we got a closer look. This was our first meeting with Amy and she was not only from the area we were coming from, but she was really friendly and disclosed everything through the tour, asked us to check windows and lights and poke and prod at everything. 

To be honest, it has a really odd layout. Two bathrooms but all of them are off of bedrooms, no ‘guest bathroom’ off of the main rooms. Again, not a deal breaker just odd. It’s listed as a three bedroom, but we could easily make a fourth out of the room listed as a study. There is a sizable main room and a big kitchen/dining area with a small laundry room and the first garage off of it.

I say ‘first garage’ because the SECOND building was listed as a garage/rec room...

Which would be perfect for my Dad! The upper rec room is actually substantial enough to be a two room suite and the garage area could fit two cars... with a THIRD smaller storage room that could also house a car. Even though there is no bathroom in this building, it is possible to covert the storage room into both a small bathroom and a modest extra bedroom.

Although my nephews would have to share a room at first, we have plans to do just that, work on extra rooms, continuously making this home more accommodating to a big multigenerational family.

It’s still in negotiation, but we’ve all been learning and researching to make the transition, knowing that even if this deal doesn’t work out, we’ll reach our goal eventually. I have great faith that Amy will be able to find us the right home, regardless. We’re preparing for how we’ll get around town, get everyone to school or work, what we need to do to take care of utilities, and so on.

It will be a stressful but exciting process. We’ll likely all be bipolar on highs and lows as we maneuver these transitions.

Still, I have high hopes that this will be the new start that we need. I am hoping a bit of hard labor and nesting might interest my muse for a return. Amy has already soothed a lot of the unknown stress of the process, a true professional that knows her work and is great at explaining to all of us in simple terms what all we need to know and consider.

I truly look forward to being able to say we have a new home. I truly look forward to the work we’ll do to make it our own. I really feel like our family is bonding through this, that we appreciate each others contributions and each other.

I am hoping to return to blog again, saying we’ve got the home and are beginning the work. I may not be inclined to blog often, but I am hoping to take lots of photos of the process and post some substantial news  when possible.

Until then, wish us luck!

*Ive purposely left out addresses and locations for privacy reasons. In respect to the sellers and realtors, etc. some names are withheld as well. I may offer some of the house’s history later, but again, I’m aiming for some discretion. I have no intention of disclosing information that could damage interest in any homes prior to discussing these issues with the realtor, who will be more knowledgeable on their severity. I only mention Amy because I have to highly recommend her to others. This is encouraged by her personally and I am more than happy to recommend her!

PSA: Overthinking Does NOT Make You Smart!

This will be short and sweet, after reading a post that overthinkers can’t be fooled because they fill in all the holes until the story makes sense.

With bullshit, my friends. When you OVERthink, you are not saying you are fully researching all sides or considering the weight of facts. It only tells me that when there isn’t an answer, you’ll panic and grasp at straws.

No reason or logic comes out of racing thoughts. Hell, sometimes you’re not even resolving feelings that way. The very essence of overthinking isn’t the careful resolution of issues and problems. It’s spinning out of control and landing in the mess exhausted but not wiser.

Only once you’re able to both realize your feelings and dig through very uncomfortable facts are you mastering your thoughts into something productive. Intelligence is not about the sheer volume of thought. It is about carefully sorting through facts, and feelings, and developing sustainable logic. Intelligence is also useless without compassion. If you can’t bring yourself to think beyond your own needs and desires, to feel hate or blame, you have not fully resolved to a whole solution. Even the most eccentric, isolated and single-focused geniuses have centered their efforts for the good of mankind.

And in some cases, have been horrified by the abuse of their inventions.

So if you are 100% sure your ‘story’ is flawless, the truth is, you have filled in a lot of cracks with whatever floats around in your incomplete mind. Many conspiracies come right out of the possibilities explored in sci-fi, with technology wrought of pure fantasy, that isn’t even a little possible with our knowledge or ability. Belief doesn’t equal fact. There are always multiple sides to arriving at intelligent conclusions. Being unsure is a healthy sign you aren’t just making shit up.

Overthinking? Just isn’t smart. It’s a sign of irrational distress, not intelligence. It’s like being stuck in fight or flight, with zero action. It’s playing roulette with no ball. Again, you aren’t resolving anything, just stroking your own ego. Intelligence always leaves room for new information where there is none.

What a Difference a Day Makes!

My mind has weighed heavy with a lot of thoughts over the past few months and they’ve been heavier than ever in the past month alone. Yet today, the weather is absolutely perfect and it’s done something quite miraculous to my moods. I woke up feeling refreshed in a way I haven’t in a long time. I almost forgot it’s possible to feel this way. So I started my day cleaning and the peace has only extended.

I don’t expect it to stick around so it’s a feeling I must take advantage of. Experience tells me to nest, to make the space around me clean and organized, that such a simple thing can keep the peace going longer. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s well worth the effort to give my peace a chance to continue.

I’m at a place where I’m pretty damn content with what I have so now is a time to just wander around, pick things up, dust them if needed, and keep them looking appreciated. It’s quite surreal, having saved money while buying things I want and need. I’ve never quite had a job that let me do that and if I did make good money, I rarely had the time to appreciate what I could get with it. I’ve gotten a taste for what it’s like to have a living wage, although I’d like an actual job to fill my time too... but that’s a whole other line of thought I’m unwilling to pick my brain with at the moment.

So I guess this will be a short post. Just one I’m allowing myself on a good day. To set a reminder that good days do happen and we should always embrace them, feed them positive thoughts and believe we deserve them as well. Especially in times where down days seem to be more frequent. Let good days be a lifeline to self-preservation!

On Hiatus?

A friend of mine put up a tweet that after months of not writing, they might be ‘done’ with writing...

It gave me pause for reflection, especially since I’ve been struggling for the past year on what my own efforts ‘mean’... but do they mean anything that permanent?

No. I don’t use words like burn-out or writer’s block or labels that speak to negative OR positive threads of commitment these days. We’re all adjusting to a new and uncomfortable normal and I think it’s been a significant part of my all-around health to stop demanding an extreme assignment for my actions.

Then again, I’ve always been that way, in a sense. I’ve never found it helpful to compound my issues with labels. I’ve never found them particularly helpful to any kind of success. There are many ‘experts’ that might say it’s a form of denial not to call it what it is, but we have so many people these days especially that are so quick to label what they see as the problem rather than put anything worthwhile to the constant but not obsessive analysis that things actually need and deserve.

At this point, it can simply be okay to be unsure. While it’s been a bit torturous to leave my second series suspended, I do have copious notes for how I would like to continue and even complete the books, so I haven’t been willing to say I am done. I didn’t start serial writing with the intent to keep myself chained to the work until it’s finished in a timely manner. In fact, many very popular and known series have suffered years of delays and likely for the same issues I’m having. My heart and motivation just isn’t firmly planted in the world I created, not like it should be. Some authors might actually admit mental health issues being an underlying cause, some might actually have written themselves into a deep hole that requires constant immersion to keep up with the many plots and they’ve only got a shallow foothold in it amidst current distractions.

Either way, it’s okay to admit we’re not machines, solely devoted to our arts. Sometimes they just aren’t an escape or a motivation or where we need to be right now. Sometimes we need larger chunks of time to be what we need to be for a project. It’s plenty a torment for us creatives to admit that since we know full well that time isn’t guaranteed. We want that finish something fierce once we’ve tasted it, but we also want that passion and focus that made those projects something worthy to put our names on. This is probably especially true when you’re relatively unknown, when putting out half-assed garbage might stigmatize the quality of your work.

And again, I’m mostly just playing video games to while away the time. I haven’t been able to focus much on reading either. I’ve been playing remakes of the original Dragon Quest games which I can easily say were an early inspiration for my own ideas. I’m not exactly playing them to get inspired to work again, just trying to remember basic appreciation for where I’m coming from.

I truly don’t know if/when I’ll find my muse again. It’s a time to feel weak and vulnerable because I’m admitting I’m not ‘something’ enough to pursue my dream work. A big ‘something’ is missing but I’ve consciously tried and failed what I know and nothing takes. My days feel focused on basic hygiene, housework, humility and kindness, both to myself and to those around me. It’s simplistic and unchallenging, or rather it should be, but it feels daunting.

At the same time, I do feel strangely empowered. To be able to admit that I am actively in search of myself isn’t easy. It’s always been socially acceptable to only talk about how motivated and in control we are. But if you are in a state of doubt and adrift, it’s not quite failure, as long as you are honest with yourself. It’s possible to even be proud of at least the admittance of flaws, of a hitch in the efficiency of plans, to admit that you’re reduced to a creature of basic function, as long as you’re not wasting time in a state of self-pity and misery. If you’re reflecting, using the time to get to know yourself better, there is simply no point in worrying you can never find your way back to a more ideal state of being.

So if you feel you need to walk away from your dreams, don’t lament it as permanent. Find a way to be accepting of your need to explore some other facets of your life for a while. Come back to it when you’re hungry for it. As long as you live, there is always opportunity to pick it up. Regrets have no place in a life still full of potential. Don’t wish at age 60 for what you didn’t do at age 30. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Sure, some dreams are very grounded in youth, but perhaps if you couldn’t be the Olympian, you could still become the coach or the guru, to go as far as you can physically go for yourself. Some dreams are simply far too specific and deny the dreamer the fulfillment of the journey. If your dream is simply a lofty end goal, perhaps it is time to condense it, to extract its most worthwhile parts, then expand it into something attainable again. Give maturity to immature dreams and you’ll never cater to regret.

Simple Revival

I wouldn’t say I’ve been lacking sleep, but the desire to sleep like a cat (up for a few hours followed by six to eight hours of sleep) hit me over the past few days and I have to admit I was a little worried that it was a sign of depression rearing its ugly head.

The worst thing about clinical depression is that it is purely chemical. It’s not caused by negative thoughts, although you can certainly feed the beast and make it worse. I did not. Instead, I took the lack of energy at its purest sign and simply let myself sleep. Still, I wonder what it might have been if I were on a regular working schedule, where I would have to get my ass up, grin and bear it.

Despite being out of work being something I don’t enjoy, I’m taking it as a time to listen to myself more. For some people, that’s a terrifying thing, laid bare by their every errant thought and having to deal with it. It’s not exactly cathartic, even to an introvert like me, but I’m slowly learning to adapt to a life that doesn’t challenge me with many outside sources anymore.

I’ve come to terms with it being a sort of creative depression at the moment, and it’s not a new frontier. There have been times in my life where, for years, I haven’t been able to access my creativity with vigor. It’s one thing that always concerned me since I’ve always intended to make it my livelihood.

Yet here’s the bare bones of it. I have so much to show for the bounteous times. I have written books and crocheted many things and completed dolls and collections... in those times where I was obsessed, I’ve given myself a buffer for those barren deserts that rear their ugly heads.

I miss the obsessions, for sure, but these times for reflection, for hanging on a thread, for uncertainty... they do have a place in it all. For now, I’m finding the small victories keep me going and I try not to worry, neither about the present nor the very uncertain future.

I’ve said these things before but I do need to reinforce them, to build my base of inner strength. I truly enjoy taking these somewhat empty times and filling them with games and spending time with my nephews. I don’t know where this pandemic is going, nor the future of this crumbling country, but I’m not obsessing on it, as easy as it would be to do that. People are demanding answers that aren’t so simple to manifest and I am patiently watching the minuscule progress, simply hoping for healing, for myself, for those I love, for the country, for the world. Hoping that fact may one day prevail over feeling.

Yet in the midst of it all, self care is still the most important. It prepares us to be more receptive to the bigger issues and give voice to reason.

Live Your Best Day

The lack of motivation persists. I spend a lot of days just focusing on basic needs and poking at games. I don’t feel any closer to getting touched by inspiration, but I’m not wallowing in misery over that. Anymore. At first, yeah, I beat myself up over it, but I’ve come to terms with the mental hurdles that are keeping me from a usually ambitious life. I used to love spending money but I’ve reached a point where it doesn’t really bring me pleasure to do so. I’m gratefully surrounded by the things I need and want and I’m not looking to live in more clutter. I’m saving and it’s... a quiet accomplishment, one I’ve never had the luxury to do before.

Mentally, I’ve been fighting an invisible war. I can’t quite beat the restlessness, an anticipation I can’t name. However, I know that pain often becomes part of a later drive that pushes me to excel. It is awful in the thick of it, but I know I will eventually beat it down and use it for something greater.

We don’t thank our enemies, but when we survive them, we learn more about how to handle the worst later. Sometimes we learn how to spot and avoid them, but when we can’t escape, we learn to endure and conquer. 

I really enjoy just sitting in my room and looking at what I’ve accomplished, though I often need to keep up this practice to remember I am deserving and talented. As an adult, I’ve had immense support and praise, but there is still that niggling edge of trauma from childhood that threatens to spoil so much. It’s amazing that creativity can manage to build heroes within us where we only feel vulnerability. We can become stronger where we least expect it, learn to discipline our most villainous doubts.

That’s why, I suppose, we can feel like we’re failing ourselves when we can’t summon up the urge to use our talents. Sometimes, we still have to be human and vulnerable, to fail before we understand the rewards of success.

I’ve begun to isolate myself more from social media, which is often toxic for me these days. I’m not sure now is the time I even want to invest in the every thought of strangers. I do believe this is mor3 of a time for introspection,

At first, I thought it might be depression, but I’m pretty functional. I’m just not a whole lot of extra like I truly enjoy being. But even those things that you enjoy can lose that flavor when the time isn’t right. I’m just not the sort of person who thrives on deadlines or hard set goals. There is a softness and a flow I’m searching for and it can neither be helped nor forced to revive.

For now, I am patient, reflective. Life is so very uncertain but racing the clock doesn’t assure we’ll accomplish everything with quality or grace.

Sometimes we just have to ‘be’.