by Nikki Amare | Jun 20, 2019 | Musings
Hubby and I are in the process of packing up our house and selling it so we can buy some land and build a small house. We plan to build an eco friendly sustainable homestead. When I tell people this they almost always ask the same question… Why?
We currently live in the suburbs in a three bedroom, two bath house that’s about 1,300 square feet. Of that 1,300 square feet we actually use about half of that. The rest? It’s used to store stuff we should have gotten rid of years ago. Which is why the new house will be around 650 square feet. I plan to eventually build a small office for myself and we will have a shop and a green house but the actual house will be smaller.
One reason we’re moving is because we want to be able to enjoy the outdoors more. We don’t want to be stuck inside because it’s too hot to be outside most of the time. So having a smaller house that’s better organized with built-in storage makes more sense. If we don’t have a lot of room to keep unnecessary stuff then we’re less likely to accumulate the junk that we have here. And having less square footage means less maintenance and less time spent cleaning.
Another reason is because we want to build a life we can enjoy instead of spending so much time working jobs we don’t like to pay for a life we never have time to appreciate because we’re working so much to pay for things. It’s a vicious cycle. I don’t have a problem working hard, but I would much rather work hard for myself than for someone else. The goal is to be able to support ourselves off of my writing and the things we can produce on the homestead.
We want a simple life but one where we can go to bed at night with a sense of accomplishment.
Like I told my best friend the other day, I want to create things, to plant something and watch it grow, instead of just consuming things without thought. Although admittedly Hubby will probably be handling most of the planting because I don’t seem to have the green thumb of my grandmother or mother. Hopefully that will change but just in case it doesn’t we’ll be sure there’s enough plants that Hubby is tending to actually feed us. LOL
One of the things I’m really looking forward to is the food. Hubby and I both enjoy cooking and we’ve really started to get back into it after too many years of quick and easy meals, which translates to processed and not good for you food. We’ve always eaten relatively healthy, or so we thought until we really started paying attention to the labels of things. A few years ago we stopped buying processed foods altogether. The exception being pasta because I don’t have a pasta roller and I don’t want to buy any more appliances until after we get moved and have a house. Plus, I don’t really have the counter space for pasta making at the moment. And Ramen noodles because I’m not even sure how I would make them. Although I’ll probably go searching for a recipe at some point because I really do hope to make at least 90% of our food. I would really like a grain mill so I can mill my own flour but that’ll be a few years down the road if I do get one.
Since we’re going to be building the house—as in Hubby and I doing the actual building not hiring someone to do it for us—we plan to do things like grey water tanks, a water catchment system, passive solar heating, and radiant heating. We’re also talking about going off grid with solar panels. But that’s going to depend on budget. Because one of the things I’m adamant about is not acquiring any debt in the process. I don’t want a mortgage or a bunch of credit card debt. I don’t want to have large monthly bills the way we do now. I realize it would be impossible to get rid of all monthly bills but I hope to get them under a thousand dollars a month.
It means we might have to get part time jobs for awhile in order to be able to afford to buy materials and supplies to get the homestead started and the infrastructure in place. But if we’re careful with our money then we should be able to live off of what we earn from the homestead without having to depend on outside jobs. We have short term goals and long term goals for the homestead. We have the must haves and the wish list. We also have several ways to potentially earn an income. I’m a firm believer in not having all of your eggs in one basket, also known as having multiple streams of income. It’s why my books will always be wide unless every other retailer suddenly goes out of business leaving only one option. Even if that means I make less money than I would if I went exclusive with one retailer. Even if it means it takes me twice as long to build a stable income. Because the stability is more important to me than the money. Having only one source of income, no matter how big that income is, isn’t a good idea. Things happen and those things can mean you go from making a hundred thousand dollars a year to making nothing in the blink of an eye because that was your only source of income. I would rather make thirty thousand a year from ten different sources because the odds of all ten sources going away at once is slim to none. And if one goes away then I should be able to continue to live on the others until I can find a way to replace that lost revenue with another source.
I’ve never thought money was the end all be all, but the last few years I’ve really realized there are more important things than money and if we set things up right then we shouldn’t need much of it to survive. I would rather spend money on experiences than things like buying a new car every few years or designer clothes. Or even ridiculously high power bills. ($400 a month at the height of summer is just too much) I would rather travel and see the world, meet new people, and build memories occasionally. I would rather build I life I love, a home I don’t want to escape from, and spend time with friends and family.
That’s why we’re homesteading. That’s why we’re moving out of the city and into the country. That’s why we’re getting rid of sixty percent, or more, of our things. So we can get healthier, be happier, and live a more purposeful life.
by Nikki Amare | Jun 12, 2019 | Musings
Yesterday I spent several hours cleaning out our car. I took everything out out of it, vacuumed the entire thing, wiped down all the hard surfaces, and then put everything back. Anything that went back into the car was organized and now has it’s own place. The seats could use a good scrubbing and the windows need to be washed but that will have to wait for another day. I’m actually considering having it detailed instead of me doing it since yesterday took a lot out of me.
That’s the thing about chronic illness, you have a few good days in a row and this little voice in your head tells you that you’re getting better. That you can do more. And if you listen then you end up paying for that decision for days, or maybe even weeks, on end. With this move I keep pushing myself, even when I know I shouldn’t because there are just some things that have to be done and other projects that once started have to be finished. Which means sometimes the decision to push further isn’t always a conscious one.
About halfway through the cleaning yesterday I knew I was going to pay for it but leaving the car torn apart wasn’t really an option as my husband was waiting for me to finish so he could go to the store. And since he was going through things in the utility room and throwing things away, so he could get the trash can filled and out on the curb so it could be picked up today, I wasn’t about to have him stop what he was doing to finish a project I had started. He already does so much that at times I feel guilty.
But that means I’ve been having trouble breathing since yesterday, my hands and feet are swollen, my chest is tight, I woke up with a headache, and my pain level is higher than what it has been.
If I’m lucky in a few days things will level out and other than being tired, in pain, and having trouble breathing I’ll be okay. If I’m not, then I’ll end up sick and this minor activity will cost me several weeks and set back the move even more. Today I’ll be doing easy, less strenuous activities. I’m going to try to get the rest of my office packed up. I figure wiping my hard drive and removing the ink cartridges from my printer is easy enough. The actual packing will be a little harder but I should be able to at least get the computer packed away. The bookcase and packing up the printer and monitor might have to wait for another day.
As long as the fatigue doesn’t hit hard and the headache doesn’t get worse, I should be able to get some writing done so today won’t be a complete waste of time.
A little over a year ago I started taking CBD oil. I don’t have insurance and so I can’t afford to go to the doctor. The CBD oil has helped so much. A year ago not being able to breathe, being in constant pain, having constant headaches, having my hand and feet be swollen all the time, extreme fatigue, and brain fog were just par for the course. That was my every day reality. Now, after having learned to manage my condition on my own, I’m always surprised at how much I was able to do given how poorly I felt. And now, when I have those days it makes me appreciate the good days even more. But it also makes those bad days even harder.
But for today, at least, I’m going to take it easy, while still trying to make some progress. I definitely see a nap in my immediate future though.
Each day is a new fight and I’m far from being ready to throw in the towel.
by Nikki Amare | Jun 5, 2019 | Musings
A few weeks ago I noticed a bright spot in the corner of my iPad screen. Since it wasn’t in the viewing field really, I just kind of ignored it at the time. But then a week or so later I noticed another one that was close to the center of the screen and then a few days later a third one appeared. So I finally decided to send it off for repair since it’s still under warranty. (Glad I got the extended warranty) In preparation for sending it off I backed everything up to the cloud, to iTunes, and to my computer. I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose anything.
While I was without my iPad I worked a bit on my desktop. I edited the short story that will be exclusive to my Patreon subscribers. And I added in some details to the prequel novella. That was in addition to writing five new chapters and editing four or five others.
Fast forward to last week when my new iPad arrived. So I get the new iPad and I turn it on and let it load everything. After several hours everything was uploaded and looked fine. All of my pictures and apps were there. My documents were stored in the cloud so they were there as well.
Or so I thought.
Then I started writing and I needed to look up a detail I’d changed in the novella but I couldn’t remember what I’d decided on since there’d been a few options. So I open the file for the novella and immediately start to freak out because none of the changes I’d made were there. I open the short story and all of those changes are gone as well. Scroll to the last chapter and, yep, the chapters that should have been there were gone. I’ve tried everything to get them back but their just gone. For some reason when I brought the new iPad online it overwrote the newest versions of the files with the version from when I’d backed up my iPad.
While it’s several hours of work… gone. It’s not the end of the world and it’s why I constantly backup my backups. I typically do it once a week but I’m going to have to get in the habit of doing it more often.
On my iPad I have iCloud storage and Dropbox, both. I have my writing program automatically linked to my iCloud account, but at the end of each week I duplicate the files and move them to my Dropbox so that I always have the most recent version there. I also backup my cloud accounts onto an external hard drive and regularly back up to a portable hard drive and thumb drives as well. The portable hard drive and thumb drives live in my fireproof safe.
Some might think that’s overkill but I’ve lost books in the past due to computer malfunction. That time I lost a six book series I was getting ready to start submitting to agents, back when I wanted to go the traditional route. I also lost four other standalone books and about half a dozen partials. I took it to the computer repair store hoping they could recover something but there was nothing they could do since the hard drive had gone out and corrupted everything on it.
Tears might have been involved.
Which is why I backup my backups now. The odds of all of them being corrupted or lost is minimal and while I might lose some work at least I’m not likely to lose entire books again.
So this week I’ve been trying to recreate as much of the changes and story as I can. It’s not going to be the same no matter what I do but hopefully it will end up being better. My head is so full of details it’s hard to keep things straight at times. Especially since I have a tendency to change my mind about things or I’ll get to a point and realize something isn’t working, so then I go back and rewrite sections to make it work.
I’ve already removed a character that was in all three of the current stories. They weren’t really necessary and I realized about two thirds of the way through this book that the character was pulling to much attention from the main characters and the overall story arc. They may appear in later books or they may end up in a different series altogether. Who knows.
Such is the writing life.
by Nikki Amare | May 29, 2019 | Musings
I’ve written and rewritten this blog post more than a dozen times in the last few weeks. I keep going back and forth on what to say or whether or not I want to say anything.
I recently read Writing With Chronic Illness by Kristine Kathryn Rusch after having read her blog posts on the same topic. (You can find them HERE, HERE, and HERE) A lot of things in that book resonated with me. One thing she talks about is her priorities.
Her list goes:
-
Family
-
Health
-
Writing
She talks about having to get up every day and constantly revaluate what she can and can’t do. If it’s and good day then she can do X, Y, and Z. If it’s not a good day then she knows she’s only going to be able to do X and if she’s lucky she might at least get started on Y.
For over ten years I struggled with declining health. I went to a lot of doctors especially in the beginning. I ended up with six figures worth of medical bills. What I didn’t get out of those doctor’s visits was a diagnosis. Instead I had doctors tell me time and time again that there was nothing wrong with me. Or tell me was just depressed and should see a shrink. A few even accused me of being a pill seeker, which is funny because I hate taking pills of any kind and prefer natural medicines to pharmaceuticals.
But durning what my husband and I now refer to as the dark years, I applied a lot of the same techniques she talks about in her book. When I felt good I tried to do as much as I could knowing it wasn’t going to last. And by feel good I mean my pain level was only a six instead of an eight or that my inflammation was down enough that I could actually wear shoes. Of course the inflammation issue also effected my breathing, leaving me short of breath and coughing all the time. Not to mention the constant headaches and migraines. Oh and let’s not forget the extreme fatigue and brain fog.
I think the fatigue was the one that bothered me the most. Not necessarily physically but mentally. Doctors kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me yet I would have weeks where I was lucky to be able to stay away more than four hours a day. Then I would have weeks when I was lucky to be able to sleep four hours a night. I had a cough that would not go away and once I started gaining weight it all got worse.
Then my sibling was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition. I was told I needed to be tested since it was likely that I had it as well. When the test came back positive I cried. Not because I have this rare condition that there’s degenerative and there’s no cure for, but because I finally had a diagnosis. I had something to finally fight against. I began educating myself and learned things to avoid and things to try.
I finally had something I could learn to manage.
And that’s what I’ve done. Over the last year I’ve learned to manage my condition. I still have set backs and I still have days when no matter what I do I end up battling the extreme fatigue or shortness of breath. But those days are fewer and further between. After reading, Writing With Chronic Illness, I sat down and I wrote out my own list.
Here’s mine:
1. Health
2. Move
3. Family
4. Writing
Some might have expected writing to be higher up in the list. But as I’ve gotten healthier, as I’ve been able to enjoy life a bit more, I’ve realized that I want to enjoy it as long as I can. In order to do that my health has to come first. I have to take care of me before anything else.
The move is second because it’s really our priority right now, especially since summer has arrived and the heat and humidity are hard for me to deal with. Walking out to the mailbox in this heat leaves me out of breath and our mailbox is at the end of our drive which is only two car lengths long.
Family is third because I’ve lost too many people in the last ten years and I know how important it is to spend time with those you love. You can never get that missed time back. When I say family I’m not necessarily talking about those who are related to me through blood or marriage. I’m talking about those people who support you, who love you unconditionally, those people who always have your back. That’s what family is, at least to me.
Writing is fourth on the list. While writing is important to me and it’s something I enjoy and plan to do for the rest of my life, I also know it can easily end up taking over my life. The first time around I would write for ten hours a day, seven days a week. Everything in my life revolved around writing and publishing. After five years I hit a wall. Writing wasn’t fun and hadn’t been in quiet a long time. Not only had I lost the enjoyment of writing, but I also lost the enjoyment in reading. I had reached a point where I was burnt out. It also happened to be right around that time that my health got notably worse. And so with a heavy heart I walked away from the career I had dreamed about since I was a kid.
When I made the decision to begin publishing again I made myself a promise. I would write only so long as I enjoyed it and I would not let it consume me. I would set limitations and I would find that work/life balance that I was seriously lacking the first time.
Then I got diagnosed and I started feeling better. The brain fog began to clear, my pain levels began to drop, and I started losing weight. And so no matter what I had been telling myself I jumped back into writing full tilt and within a few months I had hit a wall. My health took a hit and I gained back some of the weight I had lost and I had my first migraine in months. So I slowed down and I made a few more changes to my environment. And before too long I was right back at it pushing myself again. I was trying to do too much and each time I succeeded in being able to write longer, write more words, get more boxes packed, go through one more box than yesterday I looked at it as a win. Proof I was getting better.
And then my body would step up to remind me that I’m not healthy and I’ll never be healthy. I’m healthier than I was a year and a half ago. I’m healthier than I was a month ago. But I have a chronic condition. There is no cure, no remission, no magic surgery that will fix it. This is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. Something that will continue to get worse with each passing year. It’s something that will have to factor into every choice I make, every day.
So while writing is a priority, it can’t be my top priority. I am serious about my writing and I will always strive to improve with each book I write. I will never release a book that I don’t feel good about. If I’m going to put my name on it then you can guarantee that it’s the best book I can write at that point in my life. But as passionate as I am about writing and as much as I love it and am dedicated to my career, there are other things that will always take priority.
These days I’m trying to do better about listening to my body. I take more naps know than I did as a kid. Or at least it feels that way sometimes. But if I don’t then I know I’m going to pay for it later.
Every morning I get up and take my CBD oil and then I check my air quality app to see if I need to wear a mask when I take the dog out or not. If the pollen is high then I have to mask up or else I’m going to have trouble breathing. Then I check the weather app to see how hot and humid it is to know if opening the door and stepping outside is going to steal my breath or not.
In almost everything I do I have to factor in my condition. And as long as I do then I have a better chance of staying healthier for longer. And that’s the goal.
Because no matter how much I wish it wasn’t true, I have a chronic condition and ignoring it won’t make it go away. Instead, I’ve chosen to make changes and be vigilant without letting it stop me from living.
by Nikki Amare | May 22, 2019 | Musings
I enjoy baking bread. I was fifteen when I baked my very first loaf and I think I fell in love with the process— and of course the finished product.
I used to bake a couple loafs a month at least, but then life got busy and it was just easier to buy bread at the grocery store and before I knew it almost a decade had gone by and I’d only made a few loafs in that time.
I’ve recently decided to make up for that. I’ve started making bread again. I usually make at least a loaf a week. And I’ve been searching for new recipes to try. I still have my tried and true white sandwich bread that I’ve made since I was a teenager, but I’ve also found an Italian loaf we really like, an English Muffin bread that toasts up great, and an artisan bread recipe that makes great bread bowls. I’ve also got a dinner roll recipe that is really good. I’ve altered a few of them from the original recipes. I love experimenting with breads. Even when the finished product doesn’t turn out so great it’s still usually edible. Might not be pretty to look at or be exactly what I was wanting, but we have rarely had to throw out a loaf.
Not to mention it’s cheaper for me to make it than it is to buy a loaf a bread at the store. And it tastes better.
It seems like everyone is on a low carb diet these days. I know Keto is all the rage. Those people would probably be aghast at the amount of carbs we eat. We eat a lot of bread, rice, and noodles. We do eat a lot of carbs. But we eat them in small portions throughout the day. And it’s all homemade, none of that processed stuff from the grocery store.
I’ve lost over fifty pounds in the last year. Hubby has also lost weight, although I’m not sure how much. And we are both continuing to lose weight. Even while we’re eating all of these carbs.
I wrote a post last year where I talked about why I don’t diet and those things still hold true. It’s more about the quality of food we eat and the portion size than it is the food itself.
We’ve also gone back to only using real butter. It tastes better and as long as we’re not slathering everything in it it’s fine to eat. I’d rather have the real thing than something that was made in a lab.
I’ve also noticed a big difference in the way I feel when I eat good foods as opposed to fast foods or processed foods. I have much less trouble with heartburn, inflammation, and my overall pain level is lower. On the rare occasion we grab something like fried chicken from our local chicken place or a pizza, we’ve both ended up suffering the consequences of those meals. It’s amazing the difference a year can make.
So now I’m off to eat some bread and search for more recipes.
by Nikki Amare | May 15, 2019 | Musings
While everyone is watching Game of Thrones, Hubby and I are trying hard to avoid spoilers. We canceled our cable at the end of last year in anticipation of the move. We kept the internet but got rid of everything else. We’ve got Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime so it’s not like we don’t have plenty to watch anyway. Although we really need to watch less television, not more.
So when the final season of Game of Throne came on we debated about whether or not to get HBO for a month through our Amazon Prime subscription. We finally decided to wait until the season was over and use the 7-day free trial. Normally I wouldn’t do something like that because it’s cheating in a sense, but we never watched HBO when we were paying for cable. The exception, of course, being Game of Thrones. I figure I paid for their channel for years when I didn’t use it so I’m not going to feel too badly about using the free trial that they offer to watch the last season of the only show I did watch.
Hubby and I prefer to binge watch shows anyway. Even when we had cable we recorded everything on the DVR and then we’d watch it all at once. The older I get the less I like schedules. Or maybe that’s due more to my working from home for so many years and being able to set my own schedule. I’ve never been very good at keep other people’s schedules. Apparently the same is true for my television watching as well.
Another thing, Hubby and I are trying to spend less time in front of the television. We’re going to be selling our 52 inch flat screen television instead of taking it with us when we move. We’ve decided we’re going to have a smaller television and we’re only going to have one instead of three or four like we have now. Or I should say we had since we just donated the three smaller ones.
I mean, there are only two of us so why do we need four televisions? Answer: We don’t.
I’ve decided I don’t want one in the living room of the new house. We’re going to have a little seating area in the master bedroom suit and we plan to have it there. That way we can have conversations and enjoy time with one another while we’re in the living room and kitchen instead of zoning out in front of a screen. The seating area will be separated from the bedroom by a bathroom and will be a good place to watch television for a few hours before bed.
During the day we’ll both be working, either on the house itself, on the homestead, or one of the various other endeavors we plan to take on in the future. We won’t have time to watch television. But when we do we’ll make a day of it and binge watch a show.
We might end up putting a television in the living room at some point but ideally I’d rather not. The point of this move is to be able to be outside more, to be more active, and to build a life that doesn’t require either one of us to work for other people anymore. It’s going to be a lot of work and there are going to be sacrifices, but it will be worth it in the end.
Hubby and I make a good team. We know if we work together then anything is possible.
What about you? Are you a binge watcher or do you prefer to watch one episode a week?
