Layout:
Home > Archive: June, 2014

Archive for June, 2014

My husband has temporary work finally

July 1st, 2014 at 03:48 am

He found some work!

It's temporary though. He is working in a position for a temp agency. The position is soon to be made redundant by the company due to automation. However it could be a few months before that happens. This may see us through the summer. I am still working like mad as a writer. Loving many of the jobs I get now. I have established myself with a few agencies and they seem to like my work. I write ads, so nothing glorified, but definitely up my alley.

The tomatoes are starting to wilt and yellow. Does anyone know why this would happen? We fertilized with fish emulsion, but nothing is improving.

The beans are still going and the okra. My peppers are limping along. Pulled some shallots the other day. So delicious.

If things pick up we can finally start paying off teh credit card debt! Woo hoo right?

Been working hard

June 28th, 2014 at 08:29 am

and I got rewarded ...... Drum roll Please

I made $46 in one day writing! Whoa right? How many writers do that just starting out. Of course I worked 12 hours straight.

We have a baby goat that is very healthy and happy. We have green beans coming on, squash, and some tomatoes. I have one okra with fruit on it. Very excited, being on the cusp of so much deliciousness.

I have cleared 5 beds. I have a few more to clear and then we replant in mid August for a winter bed. Probably more potatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, beets, turnips, and things. I can live on those. Actually we have been.

Also, super duper awesome dawsome news, we got a contract for almost 500 bucks a month on top of my writing stuff! Plus my husband might have found work. God I hope so, working my tail off like this leaves little time to garden, cook, or preserve.

I had heat exhaustion.

June 23rd, 2014 at 12:01 am

I spent the last two days recovering from heat exhaustion. I sent my doctors note to my clients. Two cancelled their orders instead of waiting literally 72 hours until I could finish their jobs. Some people are ....not worth the time.

Well we pulled potatoes

June 16th, 2014 at 08:18 pm

Yesterday we pulled potatoes after my work. They came out lovely. We still have another bed to pull, but that will be later in the month. We are saving the tiny potatoes to replant for fall potatoes.



Then we made homemade chicken fingers and french fries for dinner. A neat treat from our chicken and our home grown potatoes. We cut so many fries we put back half in the freezer to fry up another way, or bake in the solar oven.

We have over 90 percent of the potatoes we pulled left. Yummy an scrumptious. I should have taken a picture of the fries and fry making process, but we were all to hungry to worry about pictures.

Good news!

June 15th, 2014 at 08:23 pm

Well first, I got my medication, at least the most important one. I couldn't afford the rest. I did a little job for a client that normally has me work. The extra cash was just enough to get one medication.

I sold one more book. The first one of Bringing Up Baby, I believe. That or the second one. Either way, I was super ecstatic.

Work picked up a little more. No where near enough to make up for the $800 dollar short fall, but that's ok. I found another way to make up for it.

We happen to have a lot growing in the garden now.



Our beet bed.



Our turnip bed after we pulled about 5 pounds of turnips for the weeks dinners. We chopped the greens and froze them for our soups.



Our onion haul two days ago. We chopped up all the green onion bits and froze it for soups. The little onions are being used in everything from Mexican food to caramelized onions for snacks for the kids. It's basically onions fried in very little oil to caramelize the outside of it. A very tasty snack. We also made eggplant Parmesan with our onions. We didn't have Parmesan though, but it tasted fine.

I have been pulling from the garden a lot to supplement our food budget so I spend less. Well I went through everything we had in the house and made a meal plan. I believe, at least for the next month, we should get by without buying any food. It will be tough. We will have to eat beans a lot when the garden doesn't bless us. Beans are good anyway though. I usually buy more butter and things when the goat isn't producing a lot. This should free up more money for about a month. After that we will have eaten down every last store and only have what we produce, so hopefully money picks up soon.

Unfortunately we do not produce enough to live on exclusively. It does make up a lot of our diet in the summer, but until the green beans take off and the okra is setting and the tomatoes are ready to drop we will just won't be able to do it. It's awfully cold here now, so they aren't wanting to grow like usual. My peppers are dying. My tomatoes are beautiful, but only 3 of the 22 plants are setting. My okra are growing, but slowly. The green beans had to be trellised already, so they may take off soon. My squash and cucumbers all came in, but aren't setting fruit yet. We should have some potatoes soon and that will be fine. Other than that, we have fields of beans. They take 90 days and they have been in only 30. Plus no guarantee they will set right also. The weather has been so weird. I like it, I just need to learn to grow better I guess.

I found a few things to sell on eBay, but none of them are doing well. I assume the items I chose are not that popular.

Now we are set back even further

June 11th, 2014 at 08:35 am

I was making progress. We had money coming in. I was working a little as a writer. I got sick and missed a days work, but that isn't the worst of it. The worst is we just lost $800 a month in income. It's complicated, it's likely to be temporary, but it's going to sting.

I have been on edge all day. I went to the doctor and got my medication prescribed, but haven't been able to get it filled. I take blood pressure medication, thyroid medication, and blood sugar medication. I'm not really worried about any of them except the blood pressure medicine as it gets really high without it. Like 205 over 95 high. Really high. It's partially due to my thyroid still not being in check. My stomach is doing back flips. If I don't get my medication soon, I may have some serious issues. How can I find the money when half of our income is gone, just like that.

I am doing everything I can to replace this lost income. I know we can make it. We have before, but man if the world doesn't have some crappy timing. I'm looking for things to sell so I can raise a few dollars before I run out completely. I am hoping something comes through on my writing gigs...but that money is slower. It takes 2 weeks for it to clear.

I have a husband. He has been employed regular like 9 months out of the past 6 years. I have had a job more than him. Sometimes I get frustrated. I imagine men that work for a living must feel this way. How many working men have to cook, clean, menu plan, grocery shop, garden, sew, and home school their kids though?

Let me stop right there. Complaining will do nothing. I love my husband even if he does not rise to the challenges that life hands him like I do. Perhaps that is why I am his wife, to keep him from drowning.

An opportunity I can't afford...and I can't afford to miss.

June 9th, 2014 at 07:18 am

My daughter Aukxsona was one of five children selected to go to a special camp for children with disabilities.



She has transverse myelitis.



Transverse Myelitis is a rare condition where the spinal cord has pieces missing. As you noticed in that picture she is standing. She can walk too now. She is a miracle in so many ways. When she was a baby she didn't walk and until she was six years old she hopped around. She fell down so much, it scared me to let her walk so I had to hold her hand as she hopped about. She had trouble toilet training and just recently got out of training pants. She couldn't walk well enough to get to the bathroom and her pelvic muscles were to weak to retain the urine. She now walks with braces that hide under her pants and goes to the toilet like a regular girl. She still can't feel her feet, but thanks to Shriner's she is getting better every day.



She is even being sponsored to go, the Transverse Mylelitis Association will sponsor her costs to go. However, they require a caregiver to go and the caregiver must pay $1200 to go. I thought the care giver might be sponsored as well..since it is a requirement for the child to go. Unfortunately it is not.

Does anyone have any idea how I can raise this money to go with her before August 9th? I know it seems so frivolous, but this is a huge opportunity and I really do not want her to miss it. She will be with other children like her, horse back riding, kayaking, zip lining. She will also have a chance to meet the director of the international Neurorehabilitation Institute and the assistant professor of Neurology from John Hopkins.

We had one leave the nest

June 6th, 2014 at 02:05 am

My daughter left the house. She is 18 and old enough to fly the coop, but her absence has been noticed. I don't know for how long she will be gone. She said not long, but she went awfully far away!

At any rate, even though it's been just a few days, I have noticed things. The food in the pantry is not disappearing mysteriously anymore, so we have peanut butter still. Usually it's gone with in a day. I also noticed my house is cleaner. Which is weird considering she was always complaining about how much cleaning she did.

I miss her to pieces though. She's happy and having fun. She texts every so often to say what she is doing, which is nice. I just never expected to notice anything besides how much I would miss her.

Working hard to stay in the same place?

June 3rd, 2014 at 10:53 pm

What is it when you get to a certain place only to spin your wheels at that point? I feel like I am doing that now. I have been writing articles for $5 a pop over on fiverr.com. I love what I do, but I'm not very fast at writing. I can only seem to get 5 one thousand word articles done in an 8 hour day. Of course, I only actually get $4 per article, so I am making about $20 a day for 6 to 8 hours of work. I'm not complaining! I am thankful to have work at all. We were living on much less. I just wish I could become better or faster at it. It really depends on the subject matter.

So I was thinking of selling off a bunch of stuff on ebay. My husband had great success with selling a Mantis tiller so far. In the end it sold for over $140. We are so excited, thankful, and blessed. I paid the water bill with it. My youngest son needed new shoes and now he will get some. We also got some staples we sorely needed like tea.

The yard is beautiful and the cactus are in bloom.




The baby goat is growing fine and her mamma is still giving plenty of milk. We should be rich in milk before long. I pulled off just enough to make a little goat cheese this past week. I don't dare pull off much more because I want the baby to have plenty of milk.

We just pulled a ton of onions that look oh so delicious. We had a few in soup and salad.



My tomato plants are starting to put on some small tomatoes. I'm very excited.