New Adventure: Update

It's been a long time since we've posted and seeing as it's the end of the year, we thought an update was in order.

The end of this year has been a tough one but we're hoping it was our lowest and there's nowhere to go but up!

Job update: Cristen got what she thought was the minimum wage version of her dream job (well, one of them) and after a month of waiting it fell through. No worries though, she is currently very hopeful that a job will come along soon and is job hunting like mad. Mark hasn't had much luck either. He's working hard hunting, got a couple of interviews but nothing has worked out as of yet. So that's the story on the job-front and hopefully by our next update we'll be able to say we're comfortable at our jobs (or at least have one) :)

Cristen is excited to start a couple of new techniques in painting. She happily spent her Prizm gift card (Prizm is a local art supply store) and is now the proud owner of a massive amount of gloss medium and glues. It should be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Mark is currently working on our car, repairing our rear breaks. He is amazing with cars and has yet to not be able to fix something when we've had the money to. Hopefully after we buy the last piece he needs the Saab will be up and running again in no time!

Something has happened that neither of us thought would ever happen. We've become babysitters. Cristen was always adamant about not babysitting children and Mark had never held a baby until this summer (oddly enough, the same baby we're now watching). Somewhere along the line our thinking changed and we started to sit for our friends baby about a month ago. It's been a great experience to watch him grow so fast over the short month we've seen him. And it never hurts to see old friends on a regular basis again :)

This past year was an incredibly difficult year, maybe the most difficult of our lives so far, but we're extremely hopeful that this year will prove to be different, that the best thing to happen to us this past year is the worst that happens to us this year. Honestly, if no one dies it will be a better year.

"What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence." -Christopher Hitchens (RIP)

All Creatures Great And Small

Times, they are 'a changin'. Cristen got the Barn Staff job she applied to in our last post! It's been four days and she has never been happier. This is the first time she's been comfortable and happy enough in a job that she can see it becoming her career. As barn staff she helps feed, turn out and take care of the horses. Every single person she has come in contact with, staff and volunteers alike, has been very nice and welcoming. Management is professional and level-headed and the horses are unbelievably well behaved. It's such a turn around from other barns she's worked in and other management she's worked under.

This job is going to be a life-changer for Cristen. Her depression and anxiety are being kept in check without the aid of pills and she'll start to tone up and get in better shape. She says she's very excited to see what her pant size will be come December. :) After a couple of very hard years, things finally seem to be turning around. Hopefully we'll be able to move out into our own place in the next couple of months, but until then we're going to enjoy what it feels like to be human beings again. To be part of a world that doesn't struggle day to day, that can look forward to better things happening in the future with doubt cast far aside, it's truly an amazing feeling. It's very freeing and, for lack of a better phrase, life changing. Plus, she gets to drive a John Deere Gator (which she is over the moon excited about) :)

Summer seems to be coming to an end. Days are getting shorter, and cooler, leaves are starting to change, kids are back in school. You can feel the changing of the seasons in the air. Part of us will be sad to see the green go, but the other part can't wait for the pumpkins, spices, apple and grape picking, sweaters and beautiful colors that will fill our world. Best of all: no bugs! We've been unable to do any Geocaching this summer, but will jump back into it this fall when the GPS signal will be clearer and we won't have to fear West Nile Virus carrying mosquitoes.

We hope everyone in the path of recent Hurricane Irene stayed safe and evacuated when necessary! To those thinking that Irene is a "harbinger" of what's to come (NYTimes, I'm looking at you!), keep in mind that this is one of the least active hurricane seasons we've had. This is not a "bad sign". Weather patterns fluctuate year to year, season to season. One season can be catastrophically bad while the next can come and go like a kitten. Some of our worst weather outbreaks in recorded history have occurred in the early-mid 1900's. Remember that when you're freaking out that the newest storm system spawned a deadly outbreak of tornadoes.



All I pay my psychiatrist is the cost of feed and hay, and he'll listen to me any day. ~Author Unknown

Back to reality

We had a very nice, quiet and relaxing two weeks watching Marks parent's place and Kiira. For the first time in four years nothing broke, Kiira didn't need to go to the vet and nothing flooded. We were able to just do our thing, get some stuff done and run out of what little money we had. At least we got to do that in a house with indoor plumbing (Cristen is getting tired of the bucket). This will be the last year we watch the house though, we will not be missing another year in the Outer Banks. If we're left out of other people's plans, we're making our own.

It was nice to come back to the camper and find that our fire pit had been left untouched and there were no puddles in the trailer from the recent storms. Now we're back to daily/nightly fire building, eating once a day and trying to stay balanced.

We were able to get another car, thankfully. It's a decent car but it's been lowered. Couple that with the wide wheels and it performs horribly in the rain, which means it will be awful in Ohio winters. So we've decided to try and sell it and get something else, something we can test better. The sale shouldn't be hard since it's a pretty nice car, so we're hopeful. At the very least our car isn't breaking down on us while we're looking to sell it. Yet.

Job hunting has recommenced after both of us were sick with the Flu for two weeks straight. Cristen even got an interview for today at a stable in town that specializes in therapeutic horseback riding. It's not a lot of hours but as long as it pays over $8/hr and she's offered it, she'll take it. She misses being around and working with horses a great deal and this position would be a mental health saver for her, even if it is hard labor (mixed in with some not-so-hard stuff). Getting a job isn't about moving out anymore, it's about being able to live day-to-day without significant hardship, and this stable assistant position can give that to us. One simple part-time job can change our lives. It's just hard not to get discouraged interview after interview. We are always so close to getting that change before it's ripped away.

Note to hiring managers: Please tell your potential employees whether they'll be called back or not. If you're not planning on calling an applicant back, please don't tell them you will. Let them move on to something more promising instead of making them wait a week or so to never get a call-back. Give your applicants some courtesy.

Ok, enough with the job rant.

Parting thought: Take care of those you love. Listen to them when they try to tell you something. It may very well be something they've been trying to tell you their whole life. Include them in your life, let them know that you think about them too. Don't let them feel abandoned or passed over. Make sure they know how much you appreciate them and let them know that you'll always be there. Don't let them grow up questioning where their growth, or lack-thereof, came from. Don't ever let them feel like you gave up on them.



Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. ~Paul Pearshall

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born. ~Pearl S. Buck

Fresh Produce

One of the best things about summer are farmers markets. Fresh vegetables and fruits, homemade goodies, thick cut bacon, all of the local treats you can think of, all in one place.

We started house sitting today, which gives us access to a car for the next two weeks. This allows us to attend more garage sales and markets than before. One local market specifically stands out. Sirna's Market and Deli across from Geauga Lake is the finest in local produce, free-range/antibiotic-free meats and crafted foods. Whenever we go, there are fresh samples at their bakery where they make beautiful pastries, chocolates, cakes and pies, all at incredibly decent prices (example: $.99 for a large gourmet brownie or slice of pie), and their prepared foods section is equally impressive.

One of our favorite buys is their Amish bacon, cheaper than the packaged stuff but of a much higher quality. The best thing about this store are their sales which gives serious discounts to slightly older produce and prepared foods (example: $.79 for 2 decently sized zucchini). We've gone in with $10 before, come out with three large bags of groceries and $4 change. The same food at other local grocery chains would have easily cost two to three times the price.

Don't be fooled though, not everything in the store is cheap. They carry a lot of fine and gourmet items, many of them locally produced, and their boxed/jarred foods are a bit pricey, which is to be expected when your fresh food is so reasonably priced.

They have a massive wine cellar as well (of which we haven't yet taken advantage) with many events throughout the year. If you're ever in the area, you have to stop in and check this store out.

Remember, any time you can, buy locally. Summer is the best time to grab fresh fruits and veggies at roadside fruit stands, weekend farmers markets and other local events. The USDA has a great site that shows you local market events happening in your area and Local Harvest shows you stores like Sirna's in your area. Take advantage while you can!

Dog Days

Welcome to the dog days of summer. Tons of heat, tons of humidity and very little to do.

We've been stuck in a stalemate for the last two weeks waiting for the insurance claim on our car accident to pay out. We're not sure why we didn't mention it in the previous post, but a quick update: we were broadsided by an older woman and pushed into a ditch while taking Cristen to an interview. It has taken three weeks to settle the claim. We only received the settlement check yesterday and still can't access the full amount to purchase a vehicle until mid next week thanks to bank bureaucracy. We have been without a car since, so job hunting and money making have come to a stand still. Luckily we are able to use a family car for the time being as we are house/pet sitting for the next two weeks. Very, very lucky break on our part. If you are ever in an accident with someone who has Allstate insurance, be prepared for a lengthy claim process. Their agents don't answer phone calls until 3-4 hours after they're supposed to "open". You will get a different story and different "policies" from every agent that calls you, and be prepared, three or four agents will call you. At the same time.

Also, if you're expecting a package from FedEx, expect that package to not show up. The FedEx carrier that was supposed to deliver the settlement check never showed. Gave them a call and found out that he got to the end of the street, to the end of our driveway, ignored the four obvious address signs for the house (and the mailbox) and claimed our address didn't exist. So our choice at that point was to either wait until the next day between 9am and noon or drive to their headquarters 30 minutes away and pick it up later that night. We chose to drive. Not being able to find a hidden mailbox address or the address for a house that has a mile-long drive way is understandable, but you could see our house from the road with the address on it, there's a huge green address sign at the end of the driveway (right where he would have turned around), there's a plaque with the address number on it at the base of the biggest tree in the yard and the blacktop road ends halfway down the driveway. Either he didn't even try to come down the road or his IQ is legally below 10 points. Either way, he shouldn't be working for a delivery service. Ok, rant over.

It's been too humid the past couple of weeks to venture outside the air-conditioned RV. Furniture, carpeting and clothing become immediately wet without it. The plus to this moisture being the lush foliage that is surrounding the man made landscape. Butterfly bushes and Queen Anne's Lace are in full bloom and the very first Goldenrod bushes are popping up. Butterflies and woodpeckers are everywhere and bats flit around the trees at night. Summer in Ohio truly is beautiful.

We are very, very excited for the next two weeks. As we mentioned before, we will be pet/house sitting and will be living in an actual house! Indoor plumbing, indoor cooking with more than a microwave and a dog to play with :) The best part is that the house is level! It will be nice to walk around and not trip and fall face first into an angled counter top. This is where we feel we must put a disclaimer (there are some people who might take offense to what was just said). Our excitement does not mean that we do not appreciate what we have, it is clear that we do. A break from those conditions is a vacation for us. It means that we can live like a real couple, in a real housing situation. We would hope that those who care about us are happy that we have this opportunity.

And finally, congratulations to The Jacobs, our dear friends, on the birth of their beautiful baby boy. We can't wait to see him and spoil him rotten!


“I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D"." ~Mitch Hedberg

Lazy, Hazy Summer Days

So far so good on the home front and not much to report.

We've had a lot of heat and humidity that have brought out every single biting insect that exists in the Ohio woodland. The soil and grass are getting desperate for rain. There is so much moisture in the air and none of it helps feed our beautiful local foliage. However, corn flowers seem to flourish in a hot climate. Bunches of purple line the roadways and paths, along with purple, white and pink phlox. The birds are out in vast numbers and we've even been able to catch a glimpse or two of a pair of hummingbirds flitting past the RV.

Cristen is still in the process of going to a few interviews, two admin. assisting positions and one horse tack shop position. As much as she loves and misses being around horses and that specific industry, she really hopes the assisting positions pan out.

Mark has gotten making a fire for dinner down to an art. Within thirty minutes he has the coals burned down and we're ready to cook! We end up smelling like camp fire for the rest of the evening, but that's what summer is all about, right? :)

Seeing as most of the country is in the midst of a heat-wave right now, we hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying all of the fun activities that summer brings. (But bring on the fall!)

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips. ~Violette Leduc

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

So much for trying to post more often!

You may or may not have noticed that we've changed the name of this blog. We figured that since we're homesteaders now instead of homeless, we could stick with a similar theme and add a fun spin.

Now for the update:

We are all moved in, fire pit built, water hooked up (still no indoor plumbing but that's not a big deal), TV working and a limited connection to the internet through our phones. It is amazing. We fall asleep to lightening bugs that climb high into the trees and surround you if you step outside. There's not a single hint of light pollution other than the moon. Maybe it's what being an astronaut in space is like, surrounded by billions of stars. Then we wake up to birds surrounding the RV, landing on the trees just outside the bedroom window. Peaceful and quiet, days not spent working or job hunting are filled with collecting and chopping wood, building fires and cleaning. We feel like we've taken a step back to a slower time, a much simpler life, a new chapter.

Yesterday after we finished the fire pit, we decided to cook a late dinner. As we waited for the fire to burn down to glowing embers, we heard the strangest noise coming from the woods about 100 or so feet away from our camp. I can't even describe the sound because it was so alien. It seemed to fill the woods. It didn't sound like deer and it was too late for any neighbors to be working on machinery (it was about 11pm EST). After a while the noises stopped and we forgot about it. This morning when we went down to the camp to make breakfast, it hit us that there had been black bear sightings in the area over the last couple of days. So we figure it was either a bear or an owl.

We are so happy to be able to have this privacy and time together. We've learned a lot and continue to find out what we want out of life. With as little as we have, we've found it's liberating to maintain that simplicity. Although something tells me I wouldn't be so happy about it if we didn't have air conditioning this summer. Eighty-five+ degrees and 80+% humidity (making 85 feel like a suffocating 97) is tough to handle in such a tiny space. It gets to feel like an oven. Luckily, using the same space issues as an advantage, it cools down very quickly and we're not uncomfortable for long. :)

We hope everyone's summers are going well and everyone is staying safe! More updates to come!

"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." ~Galileo

Update

It's been a couple of weeks since we've updated, things got hectic but have slowed down a bit and we hope to be able to post more regularly.

Work update: Cristen got a job but there are some complications that are leading her to seek alternative employment. And that's all we'll say about that. This blog is meant to be informative, reflective and fun--work talk has no business here (pun intended) :)

One realization that has hit us unexpectedly: being "homeless" is expensive (if you don't stay in one spot all day). Living in an urban to rural area where gas prices are hovering around $4/gallon makes travel expensive. And by 'travel' we mean shuttling between local area parks, interviews and the few days a week of work Cristen has. Coming up with money for food and gas has become a full-time job. We're extremely lucky that Cristen's mother is willing to help with that, unfortunately the drive to get gas money from her pretty much eats it all up by the time we get back into town. Thankfully our car is extremely efficient and gets 30+ mpg and has a small tank. We couldn't imagine having to do this in an SUV or something with a huge tank that only gets 12-18 mpg (ahem, Jeep, we're looking at you!).

Our sleeping arrangements have also been a sanity-saver. I'd say where we're staying but then I'd have to find you all and kill you b/c "no one is allowed to know". Just know that we're safe and comfortable at night. :)

Spending so much time in the park districts has renewed our views on a lot of things. We've been able to reflect on life, the future, the present and the past. We've fallen in love all over again by the side of a slow, cool river. We've listened to the peepers and birds more closely than before. We've started to learn which creature is which by their calls and routines. We've seen a couple baby deer running behind their mothers, trying to cross unfamiliar streets, barely able to run in straight lines because they're still so young. We've realized that some of the birds that Cristen calls "monkeys" are actually owls. Perhaps one of the newest things we've seen is a flock of Canada Geese diving and swimming under water.

A new favorite past time: watching storms come in at the park. Beautiful summer storms that take the light from the sky and open up a torrent of rain on the landscape. Last night we were able to sit and watch the sky light up for hours. Some of the lighting was so intense and frequent that it looked like daylight outside. You could see every angle of the building across the street and every leaf on the trees. It was brilliant and breathtaking.

We stopped by to visit our dear friend Andrew (he passed away May 29) and saw where he was finally laid to rest. It's a beautiful cemetery where he found one of his first geocaches with us. We're planning to plant a memorial cache behind his site and let everyone who finds it know what an amazing guy he was.

If you're in the area in the first week of August, stop by The West Woods Nature Center on Rt. 87. They will be having a Nature Festival and we will be entering a couple of pieces in their art show. Their events are always fun and beautiful. We hope to see some familiar faces! :D

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the

running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." -William Shakespeare

Days 1-5 on the town

Days 1-3 we did not have our camera on us (it was lost in the boxes of crap to unpack) so we don't remember a lot. It was hot. Very hot. We saw at least one deer every day and a couple of nesting snapping turtles.

Day 4 we arrived at Beartown Reservation around 7:30am, just as a storm was skirting us to the northeast. As we pulled in we realized that the clouds had gotten darker and the system seemed to shift to the southeast, taking aim at the little park. Within two or three minutes the sky had turned green and black. It was nearing 8am and it looked like midnight. We made a break from the car to the park bathrooms and took shelter from the wind and rain (I didn't feel the car was a safe place once we saw debris falling from the sky and not the trees that surrounded us). We spent a good 20 minutes in there, waiting for the rain to let up. It didn't, so we hopped in the car and took off towards Chagrin Falls. The rain didn't stop for another hour. The thunder didn't stop for another two.

Driving into Chagrin Falls, we saw major tree damage, power outages and debris, but as soon as we hit downtown Chagrin (about 500 feet to the north of the damaged area), everything was virtually untouched with full power. We would have like to have seen what happened there. An unconfirmed EF1? Straight line winds? Whatever it was, it looked interesting from our point of view.

The weather this last week has been brutal, mid-high 90's and humidity usually reserved for the tropics. We've taken refuge at the local library on more than one occasion and have been reintroduced to what a nice service it is. Free air conditioning, free comfy chairs to sit and read in, free internet/computer access. All in all it's quite a comfortable place to waste time. The computers have come in extremely handy as we've been able to put out a bunch of resumes and job applications. Which leads us to...

Day 5. Cristen had a job interview and she got the job! Nothing huge, but a seemingly stable, well paying position at a hotel in a neighboring town. We know it's not something that is going to get us out of our situation tomorrow or next week, but within her first two to three paychecks we can find a place to stay! Hope is once again restored.

River walking at Sulphur Springs was a must on a 93 degree (felt like 101) day. It was beautiful, the sun reflected off of the trees and turned their leaves a vibrant green. The limestone along the river bed was smooth, at times slippery, the water clear and cold. Everything was wonderful. Until Cristen slipped and fell. No major injuries, just slight bruising and swelling. She did say she wanted to go for a dip!

Our attempt to hide from the heat at the library today failed miserably when their power went out it took 15 minutes for the computers to reboot and the a/c went off.

All in all Day 5 (and whichever day Cristen applied to her new place of employment, she doesn't remember doing it) was a success and we're actually enjoying the time we get to spend in the woods and heat.