Struggling Out of the Darkness

We are officially living at the farm! We're surrounded by boxes, bags, and chaos, still need to clean the rental, but we're here. And I'm fighting a wave of depression and hopelessness.

I know most of it is brought on from the sheer physical exhaustion of moving, as well as the mental exhaustion of not knowing where anything is. Part of it is looking around the house and realizing how much work needs to be done on this place. And another part of it is the huge life style change, that although I was expecting, I don't think I fully understood.

We've killed 3 scorpions in the house this week. No snakes, yet, but I really don't like the scorpions either. At least we found some window screens for the front windows so we were finally able to open a few extra windows and get some air flow! Summer is definitely upon us, and it is getting HOT!

Anyway, hopefully as we get some of the boxes cleared away and start getting organized I'll start to feel a little better. It would be great for the scorpions to stay outside, too!

Days go by

We are only days away from The Big Move. I'm stressed. This was supposed to be an easy move. Most of our belongings are supposed to be at the new house already. We're supposed to have renovated a bathroom so at least we can have a decent shower after the heavy lifting of The Big Move. We were supposed to buy heat pumps so that we won't over heat and die in the Texas summer while trying to figure out this new farm life thing. None of that has happened.

There's some stuff that's been shifted. Quite a bit I thought, until I looked around at what's left to move and then I realized that we have way too much stuff. How did that happen? We got rid of so much before tackling the international move, got rid of even more when we moved across the country, and then we were very careful about not buying anything, but we still wound up with too much stuff!

Instead of redoing a bathroom, we ended up spending our weekends mowing the grass and repairing fences. We can't afford the bathroom now anyway! So we're stuck trying to take a shower in a tiny tub or a dark cell with no light source, both with horrible water pressure, and a dodgy hot water cylinder that cuts out when it gets bored.

And, of course, if we can't afford to do the bathroom, you know that means we can't afford the heat pumps either. There are 3 window ac units that we haven't tried so we have no idea if they even work. The one thing we do know about them is that they give all the charming Texas insects easy access to inside the house. It also means that even if the weather is ok, we can't open the windows. This wasn't supposed to be an issue this late in the game.

So, I'm stressed, I'm hot, and I'm really starting to not feel very good at all. I just want this week to be over with.

Still here!

So, with the crazy weather over the weekend, I thought I'd take a moment to say that the storms went around both the farm and the rental- for the most part. Steve cleared out the cupboard under the stairs yesterday in preparation, but we didn't need it. I filled my Instagram account with videos of rain, and then of the local creeks higher than we've ever seen them. Not that that's very impressive, but they were also higher than anyone's ever seen them which is much more impressive.

Please keep Texas in your thoughts, though. There are a lot of people who have lost everything, lots of people missing, and a few have died. If you are able, please donate what you can. This website is a good place to start to find out what you can do. And if you're not in a position to donate right now, just keep us in your thoughts.

Sometimes anger is justified

I am angry.

I am angry because when we contacted Progressive Insurance three months ago to let them know that we were in the process of buying a farm and would need to alter our insurance, they said that would be fine. I’m angry that when we signed all the papers and money changed hands, Progressive Insurance told us that it was all set up, the property was insured, and payments for the insurance were lumped into the mortgage payment. I’m angry because the form I got in the mail on the 7^th of May came with a letter dated the 24^th of April saying that unless we signed and dated the form within 10 days, our policy would be cancelled. Ten days from the date on the letter or ten days from receipt? Mostly, though, I’m angry that it was that letter that led us to the knowledge that Progressive Insurance had every intention of cancelling our policy regardless of what we did, but they weren’t interested in giving us much notice and no way to appeal the decision.

They had several reasons why they were going to cancel the policy on the farm. One was that there is a metal building on the property that could “blow away.” It’s difficult to get a straight answer from them, but they seem to be referring to a corrugated metal equipment shed that has been on the property for a while and is very solid. They also hinted at a handrail that was missing. We were confused as the only stairs on the property that are high enough to require a handrail already have a hand rail! We eventually worked out that what they meant was the guardrail around the back deck, the one we informed them we would be replacing as soon as possible. Another reason was the tree branches that are over hanging the roof- the same ones that we informed them the entire tree would be removed shortly. All these reasons for questioning the policy, asking for clarification, I could respect that. But they didn’t ask for clarification, they threatened.

The most appalling reason for cancellation, though, is non-negotiable, ridiculous, and an absolutely mind boggling example of what is completely wrong with Progressive Insurance’s company. One of the out buildings they required to be torn down is a chicken coop. When we questioned why, their response was that if there is a chicken coop on the property, we may be tempted to have chickens. It’s a farm; of course we’re planning to have chickens. Progressive Insurance cannot insure a farm property that has farm animals. If we have a single chicken on the property, our policy is void. One of our reasons for moving out to the country was to have chickens!

I am angry that this is the system. I’m angry that Progressive’s response was, “You should get quotes from other agencies.” We took their advice, and are collecting a few other quotes. The interesting thing is that even the “expensive” companies are coming in very close in price to Progressive’s bargain.

I strongly urge anyone who has Progressive Insurance to start shopping for better insurance now, before they decide to cancel your policy for an illogical reason that they have no obligation to inform you of.

Question everything!

Haunted

The rental we're currently in is haunted. If you don't believe in ghosts, don't come to our house. Steve didn't believe in ghosts either. Now he does.

There have been a number of times when unusual occurrences have happened here, and for the most part we're used to them, but occasionally it still gives us goose bumps, like last night.

Last night the cat was going to sleep in bed with me until Steve and I both refused to get up to turn off the light (we really need a clapper or remote or something) which turned into a tickle war that I won but he barked at me which startled me, but it scared the shit out of the cat who jumped off the bed and wanted out- the door was closed. Steve told her no, and I called her back to snuggle with me, but she was pissed so she stalked into the bathroom, I assumed she slept in the closet, because she never came back to bed.

When the alarm went off at 7am, the cat meowed at the door like she does every morning. I was still half asleep, so I thought, "For fuck sake cat! No matter what side of the door she's on, she wants to be on the other side!" And then I realized she was on the other side; she wasn't in the bedroom. Steve also looked a little freaked and asked if I had let her out during the night. No. Did he let her out during the night? No. Who let the cat out of the bedroom?

Then Steve says that she was in the room at 4:30 am when he got up to use the bathroom because she was stretched out on the bed next to me. Except she's not a stretchy sleeper, she ALWAYS curls up when she sleeps. And she always wakes me up when she curls up to sleep with me because she has to check that I'm breathing first, at least, that's what I assume she's doing. So, whatever slept next to me in bed last night was not our cat. And someone let our cat out of the room.

What the hell was sleeping next to me?!?!

I suck at blogging

So, I realized that I suck at this whole blogging thing. It's been nearly 3 weeks since my last post, but in my defense, it's been 3 incredibly hectic weeks.

The move in is officially happening. We're in the middle of the whole moving thing, and that's never pleasant. This time, we have months to get through the process, so it's much less stressful than our last several moves which were chaotic stress monkey filled days of sheer panic. So far, I've only had a handful of panic attacks. That's something, right?

But I'm so afraid that I have over committed to so very much. There's a lot of work to do on the property, and I'm not in good enough shape to do even a smidgen of it. Since we're so far away from the schools, and typical schools just have never worked very well with my son, I'm going to start home schooling him after the move is done. Steve still wants me to get a job, which I have been gloriously unsuccessful at in the past year+, and it will only be more difficult living out in the boonies, home schooling, cleaning/repairing/building the farm, running our business, and attempting to stay sane. So, I've been looking at starting a brick and mortar shop in town that could house arts and crafts from people all over central Texas. The amount of work to get that going is staggering, so it's going to have to wait until I can take a full breath.

While all these plans have been nailing me between the eyes, I've also been dealing with the day to day hassles of the necessity of working with people who have less than no respect for me or my opinion, but whom I've had to rely on. A few have given me a total run around, and so I've cut my losses and I'm not chasing them down anymore. I really just cannot waste so much of my energy on people who are so astonishingly disorganized and insist on somehow making that my problem! You contacted me, get your shit together!

Blah.

At least we stayed the night the weekend before last at the farm and had one heck of a thunderstorm while we were there. The neighbors probably thing we're nuts! Steve and I stood on the front porch giggling like maniacs.

The approaching storm

I wanted to upload a video or 2, but apparently they're too big for the blog, and I don't have any software to edit them. Bugger. It was pretty impressive, though.

Stop the inspirational stories!

As you may know, Steve and I have a home business, Batty4Arts, that we sell our arts and crafts through. For me, it's my full time job. But it's a constant struggle, and let's face it, the economy is not in the best place right now which makes selling things that really have no functional reason. We still put in the effort, though, and hope that some day it will pay off.

I've tried doing what I'm "supposed to do" with this whole thing. It was suggested, multiple times, that joining support networks would be helpful while figuring out the basics of running a small business, so I did. I'm not really finding it very helpful, though. A lot of the "information" is around tax issues- because April is tax season and people are stressed about it- but those tax issues don't apply to us. As an arts and crafts business, the taxes are pretty straight forward. And we have to file each quarter, so it's just not a big deal.

The issue I'm having with the support networks, the magazines, the blogs, etc. is they keep doing theses success profiles. They interview someone who's made it: an artist who's in high demand, a handyman who has to turn down jobs because he's so overbooked, a writer who's been on the best seller list for months now. Am I the only one who's not inspired by this?

For example, the most recent was a jewelry designer that, on a whim, decided to make some pieces, go to a random market, and see what happened. She claims to have had a constant group of people "drooling over the pieces" and made $600 that day. So, she decided to make it her full time job. Or the doll artist that submitted a doll into a doll magazine, was contacted by a convention and asked to teach a class, and now can't keep up with demand. Or the picture hanger- seriously, he hangs pictures, not frames them, they have to be already framed and ready to go, he just puts them on the wall- who is in such high demand despite raising his rates that he has to schedule his time off. This is not inspirational when we've been struggling to make this thing work for years. In fact, it's just depressing and disheartening.

Is it just me?