Kate Singh's Blog
May 12, 2024
What If This Is It? As Good As It Gets.
Good morning to all. I’ve been awake since 3 AM and finally around 5 AM I heard a bird singing outside and decided that if he was up, I could be up too. I brewed a little pot of coffee, but it turned out I had forgotten to put espresso in the pot so I had to try that again. Now I am nestled in bed with one child cuddled up beside me and my creamy, sweet coffee at my side. The sun is not over the mountains yet but it’s light out and all the birds are up talking and singing, I hear the squirrels scurrying up the trees and playing. These are their fun days. They play all day in Spring and Summer.
I was thinking about the Cricket and the Ant story this morning. I was also thinking about using things up. I had some fancy whipping cream that I never buy and I wanted to save it for as long as I could but it was already past the sell buy date and I had to use it up fast or miss out on this treat. I was thinking about how we hold on to things; money, fine China, dreams, and we miss out because we don’t want to spend it all or break it or use it up or fail.
I thought about the Cricket that played too much and didn’t prepare or store food and was screwed once winter started. He had to rely on the ants that worked so hard to be ready.
I think about the squirrels and how much they play, but when it’s time to harvest nuts and prepare for winter they work as hard as they play and they don’t mess around. If you see them in the Summer, you think all they do is play and run about like silly things. Come Fall, you see a whole other squirrel, industrious, wise, prepared.
There is a fine line for preparing in life and then being over zealous. Being frugal and then getting into a scarcity mindset. Saving things but in the end never using them.
I’ve also thought about my life as a writer and influencer. I checked my book sales this morning and the last few days have been less than stellar. I had a real run on book sales for a couple months and made some wonderful money and now it’s petered out. Every time I publish a book, I have about two good months and then it slows to a dripping faucets pace.
I have a couple months in the Fall when I make a lot of money on YouTube and then it goes back to a small but decent income.
I have learned that when we have money windfalls, I sit with the money for a few days, if I can, and I think hard about where it will serve us best. I love stocking the pantry as it is fun building your own little grocery store and when you have lean times, you have a full pantry to get buy on for months. I love stocking up everything because, like the squirrels, it gets us through the winters or slowing earning months. I always have a savings. That gives us a stress free existence. No matter how tight it gets with money, knowing you have a reserve makes it peaceful in my mind. I never worry knowing I have a back up.
However, I’ve been at it for years and I sometimes wonder if this is it? This is as good as it gets? What if I never do well in fiction and my homemaking lifestyle books run dry? What if my channel never grows much past what it is? What if this is the highest level I can raise up to?
And I think the idea that this is it and it’s just fine if it is, gives me a sense of peace. I can let go a little, stop trying so hard and just focus on having fun and being creative. It takes the pressure off, because if this is it, we are doing pretty well and life is good. We have a nice, cozy home and good food, good coffee, soft beds, piles of library books and movies, and I have hobbies that earn me a little cash every month. How great is all that? Do we need more? I don’t think so. We also have phenomenal health, good and true friends, a cute little dog, land, a huge garden, an orchard, some basic smarts and wisdom on rare occasions, and we live in a wonderful place with so many trails and rivers and historic towns and thick forest.
We are rich! So what if I have a dozen cracks and peeled paint on my old Toyota car, it’s clean right now and I just bought a new scented tree for it. I love the coconut one or maybe it’s Pina Colada. So what if we have to do almost everything DIY, we have learned so much and have so many skills now. So what if I can only dream of having a maid, I do the cleaning myself and get a good work out and therapy at the same time. And so what if my books aren’t popular yet, I have a sweet community on YouTube and I enjoy every book I write. I don’t go through all the dramatic suffering other writers talk about, I love writing. A mug of coffee and my laptop and I’m in heaven.
So, I will work and play like my squirrels and store away nuts when they are there and abundant and play when things are slow in work. I’ll appreciate all the sweet gifts life brings and not get stuck in “more, more, more!”
Jim Carrey said in an interview about him retiring from Hollywood, “I have enough, I’ve done enough, I am enough”.
We don’t hear that often but it is the path to fulfillment.
April 7, 2024
A Life Vlog, Returning To My YouTube Community
Even a virtual community can feel real and necessary. Look at Bob Wells and the van dwellers, they have a huge, connected community and meet in the Arizona desert yearly for the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.
I have a small community but some of those people have been with me from the start of my first channel…heck, some have been with me from my first blog! I feel them in my soul sometimes and lately I’ve felt them missing me, calling to me, and, of course, some have literally found me and called to me.
I have every intention of going monk mode for a year and doing deep inner work, diving into my writing career and doing some intense self education. And I still will, but why don’t I share that with others? It may inspire a few people and I’ll have more fun with it.
I’m inspired by a woman in her fifties who was going through a mid life: overweight, drinking too much for her, empty nest, depressed. She gave herself a year to change it all. She and her husband got rid of everything, downsized to a backpack and moved to Portugal. She lost all her weight, is plant based and so fit and cute and happy now. FiftySister is her channel.
I’m giving myself a year to transform things I want more of or want to change completely. We are three months in and I have gone back to plant based, painted four rooms in the house and still counting, wrote and published two books; one fiction and one nonfiction, and I have a fantastic work out routine. I have a lot of good stuff I added to my mothering practices that nurture the kids and dog and I’m nesting like crazy. I’m also reading much more this year.
Today my back was bothering me, I have mild scoliosis and degenerative disc desease along with arthritis. I feel strong and good but I’m well endowed in the breast area and I’m telling you, I must carry around 20 lbs of boobage here. I felt like I just can’t deal with the back discomfort any longer and I have to get the weight off. We are way beyond vanity at this point. I need all this fat off my poor little frame.
After taking one kid to the park, we stopped at Grocery Outlet and I filled the cart with salads, fruits, golden potatoes, avocadoes and lemons. Right now the kitchen is steaming up with big pots of pinto beans simmering, brown rice steaming, Kiki’s plant based cheese sauce boiling, potatoes baking and the counters and fridge are full of fruits, veggies and salads.
I start tonight. I have to immerse myself in it. I love eating like this so it won’t be hard. I’ve have watched hours of cooking and inspiring videos on plant based cooking and raw vegan living. I’d like to be 74% raw and 25% whole plant based. I look great, feel great and the weight does come off fast.
The trick is to keep yourself inspired. I watch lots of videos. I also eat a lot on this lifestyle and still lose weight. You need to get enough to eat and since it’s all plants you can load up a plate.
Off to check on the beans and rice. Come over to the channel; Kate Singh author. I’m starting that fresh and new. New year, new me, new life vlog.
April 5, 2024
Writing for Camp NaNoWriMo, Snow In April, More Reading, Less Internet
It’s April and snowing like December. It’s lovely, however, I have fruit and nut trees in bloom and we are supposed to get a hard frost for two mornings according to a neighbor that called this morning. She wants help covering her peach tree. We have so many trees, I’ll have to get some netting or something to cover them today. It would be a shame to miss out on a nice harvest this year due to late April frost.
I’m enjoying a delicious cup of coffee before I start homeschooling the youngest and working on my novel. I’ve joined April’s camp NaNoWriMo because the November, April and July NaNo’s get me in the mood. There is something about having a deadline that keeps my little fingers typing. When I start to criticize my work or feel stuck, I have to keep moving forward because I need to get so many words in a day. This helps shut down the inner trouble maker and editor. It keeps the flow going. I have written and published two books from my time in NaNoWriM. It works for me.
I’ve been reading Shut Up And Write The Book by Jenna Moreci and I would strongly suggested it for new writers and seasoned writers as a refresher. I’m only 31 pages in but I’ve covered the pages with yellow highlighter and it’s helped with my outlines.
I’m trying desperately to stay off YouTube. I wasted over an hour yesterday on trying to find a video to inspire me. When I go on there I need to know exactly what I’m there for or it turns out the same way a trip to the store turns out when you don’t know why you’re there; wasted time and money and a bunch of junk that you bring home.
There is a new channel by a seasoned writer that I absolutely love and I’ve watched every single one of her videos, which is so rare for me, although she just started her channel so I only had a handful to go through. The Cozy Creative. Check her out, you won’t be disappointed. She is genuine, different, interesting and I love her personal stories and perspectives. She is very different from what the norm is on YouTube. She is a breathe of fresh air.
I also enjoy Loch’s Library. She and I read very different books, but she reads like crazy and she devours fat novels and series. She loves her library and is always building it. She also sells a lot of books, which funds her purchases. She loves books with gorgeous covers and artwork for her shelves and annotates like no one else, even using theme music libraries with her favorites. Her love and immersion in the reading world inspires me to read more. It feels like a safe, cozy place to be, like way back in the day before internet when that is what we had for entertainment: books or movies.
The internet has a lot of wonderful things and spreads good works, but it also has a lot of dark places and ghettos and is set up to be addictive. Everything in our world seems to be set up to be addictive. Packaged foods, internet, gaming, YouTube, shopping…it is rigged to keep us there scrolling, playing, buying, eating. We are fortunate to be here in this time because there is so much good stuff, but we must protect ourselves and our children, learn to use things responsibly.
I have no interest in news, many things trigger me, thus it is best, for my personality, to be off line as much as possible or only go to specific zones. Here, on my blog, is a safe place and I have my library of subscriptions on YouTube and I only go there as I know it’s all good, positive stuff. When an influencer starts to do click bate or get into the negative or fear mongering to get views, I unsubscribe and replace them with someone gentle and light filled.
And yes, I have found that not having social media and staying off line and off news has lifted a huge weight and transformed my inner self into a happy and content person. Daily. I rarely feel off or in a funk and when I do, it is because I need to do some inner healing work.
I also feel that going back to plant-based and keeping the junk foods and sugars to a dull minimum has also helped boost my happiness. And daily exercise. All these combinations have cured me of what I thought was perimenopause, but now I’m not so sure. I think I just needed to cleanse my body and mind of the toxic stuff and here I am today, content and peaceful.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
April 2, 2024
The Perfect Writing Life
A lot of people, we would be surprised at how many people, quit their day jobs to write. Some have a publishing company supporting them. Some have already been paid to write books and they need to focus. Some people take a risk and jump into the unknown. They have no one backing them, financing this luxury to stay home and write. Many writers live a very humble existence and write articles or a book now and then to make enough money to get along for a few months or a few years. Then there are the writers that are making enough to be the main bread winner. They have a partner that takes care of the home and children while they focus on their writing career.
Then there are the run of the mill writers, someone like me that have neither publishing company nor homemaker partner. We are the homemaker and the working writer, but not yet the bread winner writer. We are the writers that make enough to pay for the lights and heat to stay on and it ends there.
There is a line in Hello, Dolly! When Barbara Streisand, Dolly, says to a bell hop, “As my late husband Ephraim Levi said, if you’re going to live hand to mouth, you better be ambidextrous.” For a long time I thought I had to be this way to ‘help’ us get by. It did help us get ahead and it helped us get up here to our mountain town. I’m hugely grateful for that. I used most of the money wisely and because of that we need less today. I have been preparing to let my hustles go and rely on the breadwinner and my passive income from published books.
I’m fortunate in that I have many book out there on a popular topic: home and frugality. You’d be surprised at how many people love this topic. It certainly has a warm spot in my heart. Frugality has made our dreams come true and home is the safest, coziest, most fulfilling place of rest and creativity.
Being home is the best thing that ever happened to me. I never enjoyed working out there. Sometimes I did and I made great friends and have good memories, but mostly that is of my waitressing or barista days. I don’t have many office memories that I remember fondly. Working in an office was always a bit cold and too structured. It felt like I was doing homework all day. I preferred the warmth, music and busy work of making latte’s and sweeping floors. I loved and hated being a waitress. What I loved was being in a busy place that was always cooking and there was always work to be done. It was a happy and playful energy.
Becoming a housewife and mother was a dream come true. And, yes, I struggled with boredom in the beginning but then I took up reading to fill in all the down time. I studied frugality and devoured fictional novels. I went deep into my homemaking with some baking, making homemade pizzas, hanging laundry outside, making homemade laundry soap, and reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette. I filled the days with routines and rituals and soon I had two babies and I had a nicely paced life.
I’ve always been a homemaking nerd but not a natural nor crafty one. I was just in love with having a big doll house to play with and babies to cuddle and nurse, casseroles to get in the oven and a book to read when the babies are napping and I’ve vacuumed the house.
Then I took up my writing again and made a career of it. That was so very fulfilling.
But there was a time when I was running the home, raising kids, gardening, writing, blogging, YouTubing, had Patreon and social media. I was doing it ALL! And you can’t. Something gets neglected or you do everything luke warm. I also had burn out over and over. Then I let it all go and returned to my two first loves: my children and home. Then I put writing back in the mix and stopped there.
It has been perfect. I have the work and contentment of tending to a family and home, then I have my art that fills up that need to create and express myself. It is my thing and belongs to me alone. I can do anything with it and it can never be taken away or controlled (unless I work with a publishing company).
Learning my limits and releasing my hustles completely, downsizing my life to a comfortable and enjoyable task and pace has done wonders. I’m happy and pleasant again, the children are feeling loved and that my focus is on them, Molly is getting daily walks, the home is cozy and organized, and everyone in this house is thriving, including me.
I have all this time now. I’m baking bread by hand again and making all kinds of dishes from scratch. I have the energy and it saves so much money and cuts out all the chemicals from the factory made foods. I have time and energy to listen to my kids talk about their interest. I have time to deep clean and repaint and organize. This house is in top shape right now. I have time to exercise and study. Time to write books and blogs and read novels.
Life is in balance again. The time exchange of letting go of this to take up that has worked in our favor.
But to be a writer and publish a few books a year, I have to manage my other jobs well. Time management and getting ahead in my work is essential. Organizing everything and doing huge amounts of decluttering was crucial. My house is now downsized and efficient. I cook ahead all the time which frees up hours and days to play and write. I have everything in the house neat and tidy, everything has a place and purpose. I pay bills ahead, I do deep cleaning once a month so I can do normal housecleaning over the next so many weeks. I make thorough lists and stock up pantries, toiletries and cleaning supplies so I don’t rush around shopping everyday. I also save a lot of money. I plan menus a few days in advance. I plan the garden months before. We have rituals and routines that keep us all calm and feeling grounded.
Routines and rituals are so vital for a home and children. It’s vital for us adults. We all know what to expect and what days bring what chores and delights. I don’t want a life of drudgery and so I make things enjoyable, playful, mix in treats and rewards.
When we had a lot of money flowing in from YouTube or stimulus checks, we set things up for the lean times. I knew a couple years back that I had to slow down for my health and my kids childhood. I let go of social media years ago and never felt such a relief and calm. Then over the years I’ve let go of this hustle, then that hustle and kept whittling down my work load until I was down to what truly mattered. I purged the house until I had tidy, unstuffed closets and cupboards and the home had a charming bohemian look with space and light.
I invested in a lot of reusable and sustainable tools. We invested in our yards and filled them with gardens with rich soil, orchards of fruits and nuts, berry vines and garden beds in sunny spots in the front yard. This is wealth building in it’s simplest form with big results that keep growing year after year. I replaced every single thing I could that I bought on a regular period and swapped out with reusables, thus ending the bleeding of money in so many little areas that they built up into a big deal. Everytime you replace a disposable item or cleaning tool with a reusable lasting tool or item, it is one to five less things you need to buy each month or year. We save thousands of dollars a year with all the tricks I impliment. With this and the way we shop, cook, live we save up to $15K a year and that is about what I’d make working a job outside the house more than part time.
When I bulk cook, stay on top of the laundry, set up an hour a day to do full house cleaning, shop for the month, and set up most of the bills on auto pay, I have just saved myself hours upon hours. Those are used to study and hone my writing craft. Even this blog helps me improve my writing, it encourages me to do a warm up daily where I get out the cluttered thoughts and then I can go on and focus on my characters and their story.
Our lives should be set up to suit us and our families. Our home, our schedules, our surroundings and people should all be set up to work with us and our crafts and hobbies, our passions and skills. That way we thrive.
My homemaking doesn’t get in the way. My mothering isn’t an interruption. Homemaking stimulates my ideas and imaginings. Mothering fills me up on a soul level. Housecleaning is a way to exercise and meditate. The home is our idea of a Zen Center catering to our selves. Mothering helps me go deep into psychology and spiritual work on the soul.
I’m not the first housewife to become a writer. There are hundreds of my kind. Thousands. Maybe millions we don’t know about.
But for me, to do well in my writing career, I have to coax everything around me to work with me. And, when I’m being smart, I use everything around me to inspire ideas, characters, stories and dialogue.
I am the writer. I am the homemaker. I am the mother. I am the observer of all of life.
March 30, 2024
Reading, Typing, Cleaning, Cooking, Repeat
Handmade, homemade pizzas. They are a spiritual practice in themselves. I start with a clean kitchen, turn on the radio to a fun music station or my Pandora and choose Opera to get in the passionate mood of rolling dough and creating a meal delight that requires no fork. I light a candle and flour my board and into the mystic I go for a long time. Pizza’s take a while, the longest part is rolling out a dough that keeps wanting to shrink back to a small size. It needs time to relax and willingly expand itself.
Every pizza I make is different. I could never go into business because each time the flavors and textures are new. I love watching the Chef’s Table Pizza episodes while I do my work. Then we can eat this delicious pizza while watching other people make and eat pizza. That’s the best.
Here is a frugal tip. I bought a 4 lb block of cheese for $18. It was on sale and that is a huge deal. A good cheese is normal $8.99 for a lb. I made 9 pizzas and one pan of 12 vegetarian enchiladas with this cheese. Plus a few sandwiches. For $25 I could get one decent pizza at Papa Murphy’s. There’s a frugal tip for you on this wonderous Saturday. One block of cheese on sale fed us 5 or 6 dinners plus a couple lunches. That is why it saves so much to cook at home.
Now, let’s move on to writing and books. I just read 3 books in 3 days. A record for me, however, I did skim the heck out of one of the books because it bored me. I’m now onto heavier reads: The Once And Future King by T.H. White, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. I have quite the stack here but we are taking it two by two. I have two writing books to tackle; Shut Up And Write The Book by Jenna Moreci, she has a youtube channel and does lots of live writing sprints if you are interested. She is funny and no nonsense. Then I have Save The Cat! Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody. This got great reviews. Haven’t cracked one yet, but I’m no stranger to the writing craft books.
As for writing, I have two stories with two outlines finished. I’m not sure who I’ll go with first. I think I’ll enjoy my weekend, I’ve made a rule to not work on the weekends because that is what would happen if I was in the work force right? Clock in and clock out, take a weekend off. I would quickly resent a boss asking me to work on the weekends. I have family, I’d say. Shove it! I’d say. Probably I wouldn’t say that, but I would think that. I see people working their lives away, it’s sad. But us self employed people work around the clock without realizing it. We are home, after all, and it’s easy to mix writing work with house work and family work. It gets jumbled and goes on to infinite.
Starting April 1, Monday, we have Camp NaNoWriMo! This is not exactly like Novembers Nano where you are writing a whole novel of 50K words. This is camp Nano so you can work on anything: an edit, poem, script, novelette. I will start my novel on Monday and I’ve plugged in 50K words as the goal. I love NaNoWriMo, it is the best exercise for us writers, especially when in a slump or dead end in a novel. It forces you to just write like a crazy person without the criticism and ego interrupting every five minutes. You don’t have time for all that, you have to write fast and hard to get to the finish line. Result: success in finishing a book. It may be 90% crap, but so was Sylvester Stallone’s first draft of Rocky and look what happened with that. That is why it is a draft…an idea ready to be molded and reworked into a good story.
I do a lot of cleaning and cooking on the weekend. The house is full of the family and trapped by rain so everyone is crammed in here. I usually have the father take the kids somewhere fun for an hour and half so I can clean the whole house. Then it’s fresh and sparkly for the weekend. I spend the rest of the weekend in the kitchen making foods or you may find me in the tub loaded with hot water and bubbles, book de jour in hand (the dry hand, of course) or you may find me in my office writing a blog or doing a Chakra spread or sitting in what ever room my children are hanging out in and missing the days of George the Curious Monkey and PBS cartoon mornings. They grow up too fast. These first ten years are crazy because they change SO much in a year, every year. One minute they are little and fit on my lap and love dinosaurs and Godzilla and then they are sassy and moody tweens. Aaahhh, tweens, teens! You’re never prepared no matter how much your friends try to prepare you by telling old war stories of “When so and so was a teen, boy oh boy. I didn’t think I would make it!”
My kids are fun and affectionate, so it cushions the fact I’ve already lost control.
I’m making my honey, butter wheat bread and cooking up the one large pizza that survived unscathed and uneaten last night. I have chopped up all sorts of delicious, sweet fruit and it’s set out as a fruit buffet on the kitchen counter, the bread rising on the side board. I’m having my afternoon latte with two shots of espresso and will be starting on King Arthur between packing for my eldest who has a field trip out of town with the school. It’s the first time we will be separated for three days. We have never been separate. Exciting and sad stuff.
Everybody have a great weekend and Holiday. We do an alternative with Spring Welcoming Celebration. It’s feeling like eternal Winter over here, but I know that one day it will be sunny and warm and I will run out into the street that day and take us all on a long stroll to downtown and around the woodsy neighborhoods where other humans will be outside as well, re-enacting yard work and other behaviors one does when outside in good weather.
March 27, 2024
Pet Spiders, Saving Money, Getting To Work On Another Book
It is time to start another journey. I brewed up my espresso pot, made myself a homemade latte and I poured over story ideas and partial outlines I had on my laptop folder and in composition notebooks I get for a dollar at the store.
I have only just returned to writing fiction after years, but I’ve been busy writing up ideas and characters with problems. I read somewhere that conflict is oxygen to a story. It was a comment on a writing video. That really stuck with me. You have to put a lot of conflict into a story. This is hard for me, I naturally avoid conflict. I like things flowery, sparkly, happy and peaceful. I don’t want my characters to suffer. But without challenges and obstacles they don’t grow. And neither do I.
I found a story, wrote up an outline and I’m ready. But not today. That was enough for today. Whew. Break time.
The day got away from me. It was after 3 o’clock before I got out of my pj’s. I took a lovely hot shower and had all sorts of great thoughts. I need to find some waterproof recorder to keep in there, because I have the best thoughts and story ideas but they rarely survive by the time I’m back at the laptop.
I talk to the spiders in there. They just listen. Their mother, who started this whole spider community, was Elsa. She was the first spider in my bathroom and I left her be because she earned her keep with catching stray flying insects and keeping me company. Then she got a partner and they started building web condominiums everywhere. I wasn’t thrilled. But that’s what we do to nature, right? We pave over everything taking the critters habitats then complain when hungry bears and racoons get in our suburban garbage cans. So, I left them to it. Mi casa es su casa.
After awhile, one of them moved into the shower. Now, I was really uncomfortable with this. I told them to stay in their space and don’t scare me with those long legs. They stayed off to the side as I ask. Then they disappeared and Elsa disappeared. I wondered where her little spider babies were, if she had even laid eggs. Soon enough I saw tiny, tiny baby spiders in tiny webs along side the twinkle lights. They were too small to put out in the wild. I’d wait for them to get bigger.
They got bigger and began taking over the bathroom like teenagers. But then it was winter and Bali and I agreed to not put them out until Summer. When the first hot days hit I will scoop them all up and parts of their little commune and put them out in nature where they will find far more bugs. I don’t know how they have survived but they do get enough flying creatures to make it through the winter. I tried offering them a fly that had died on the window sill, but one turned it’s spider nose up at the offering and tried to get away from it. It was still warm, why be so rude? I said, “fine, you want to be so picky, I’ll offer it to your sibling.” I offered to the sister in the window but she also would have none of it. I guess if they don’t kill it fresh, they would rather go hungry. Quality over quantity, I get it.
My bathroom ceilings are draped with webs and I’m a little embarrassed when guest come over, but soon they will be rehoused and I can sweep my walls clean again. You may think this is silly, but we need to start thinking about nature and Mother Earth before our own selfish needs. I’m not crazy about the webs, but those spiders have a right to squat. Plus, Elsa had to listen to all my crazy rants and share a bathroom with me so it’s the least I can do for her offspring.
This week was our time to go to the food bank, but since we were gifted with all the pantry stuff from a persons “bunker” (I wrote about this in a previous blog), we have a little grocery store in the bedroom closet and side nook. If you missed the blog, someone was cleaning out their bunker and giving away so much pantry stable goods. They just said they had a problem and in recovery. A recovering prepper. But they blessed us and we gave more than half of it to the food bank. We had a truck load and a half. I won’t need the food bank again for months and we must have given back to the food bank what we had been given over the past so many months we’ve needed to use them as a resource.
We are at a perfect place to stand back on our feet. We have the mini grocery store, I bought 50 lbs. of wheat flour and 25 lbs. of all purpose the other day. I had stocked up at WinCo a couple months ago. We have a great pantry and I can make all sorts of dishes and bake all sorts of bread. Being we are plant-based, I can make milk, cheese, and meat from the pantry items. I’m so well stocked that I only need a little fresh produce money and plant based creamer money each month. All I have to do is save up a few hundred and in a couple months go out of town to WinCo and do another pantry refill.
I started planting parts of the garden a month or two back and I’ll keep planting every month. Soon as the weather gets warm, we will start having greens and then fruits and vegetables all summer. The orchard is going on four years old now and the trees are getting bigger and stronger, producing more. The soil in our garden is finally rich from three years of horse manure and compost. Last year it produced well. I intend to grow a lot this year and preserve much of it. I even have plans for the Mirabelle yellow plums this year. We have two big old trees and they produce gallons of plums that we eat and many waste on the ground. This year, thanks to a friends advice, I’ll make fruit leathers in the dehydrator. I’ve already ordered the Teflon sheets for the dehydrator. I have all the canning equipment and had a warm up last year with making spaghetti sauce in the Fall.
Sometimes we need a hand up and there are resources for that. Don’t feel ashamed if you need help and don’t wait until you are so far behind and in deep trouble. One bill or one overdraft fee can start a domino effect of financial problems. Find every resource and use them while you get on your feet and get ahead. When you have resources, use them wisely, working hard to climb out of the hole. We have taken every stimulus check and tax credit and built a mini fruit and vegetable farm. We bought things that were sustainable and would save us into the future. Water filters, stocking up on cloth napkins and kitchen towels, buying cookbooks that teach me how to make everything from scratch. All those things save us thousands a year. The gardens will feed us for years and each year it will be more productive and abundant. But we have needed help now and then.
When I had my channel we didn’t need help. A few hundred extra a month is a game changer for us. However, I needed a long break from the channel and to focus on writing, so we are limited in funds. But then the Universe steps in and looky here, some guy gets rid of his prepper stash and we are set with groceries for months. I’m once again finding free groceries, free clothes, free whatever we need. And that is how I work it. I hunt and scavenge what we need and find those crazy sales and stock up that 50 lbs. of flour and we thrive and I can focus on what is important to us; family, home and writing.
Right now we are way ahead of the game and soon the Summer will round out the rest of the pantry and we may not have to shop at all for months. This is what happens when you learn to stock your pantry right and grow a garden. When you learn to make your own homemade food. And I have to say that the plant based diet has reduced our grocery bill hundreds of dollars and we are even eating organics as much as possible. It’s much easier than it seems. And so much healthier than eating the factory foods offered us on the store shelves. Even the ‘health food’ has ingredients you need a science degree to understand.
On to books. I just finished The Housemaids Secret and My Husband. Both page turners. I read them both in three days, a record for me. But I can’t say I loved them. Both had characters I didn’t care much for and the stories kept me turning the pages, yes, but I don’t know if it was just because I got in too far and had to see it through. The endings were luck warm.
I’ll be starting The Moneyless Man and Hamnet next. I’m back to my old reading ways. I used to plow through a book in two days easy. I don’t exactly skim but I’m not lingering. Only the deepest, most poetic, eloquent writing slows me down to reread parts that I know are a writing education in themselves. The dime store novels are for brain exercise. They are there to get your reading speed up.
Join me on Goodreads, we can keep each other inspired and share reviews.
March 25, 2024
Changing Things To Have A Fuller Life
They “the experts”, who ever they may be, say that it takes 90 days to make or break a habit. I have found, from personal experience, that it takes a solid year and a hard core committed year of focus, work and unwavering determination to make or break a habit. Does this sound miserable? It’s not if it’s changing your life for the better and you mix in lots of your favorites and make it fun. I love changing my life and transforming myself often. I’m still Kate at the core but with upgrads. I find it to be an exciting process. Along with hard, frustrating, weepy, and exhausting at times.
I was not raised to play at anything. I was raised old school; blood, sweat, and tears. Now, that was how you got somewhere. But I never got anywhere with overwork and crying about it. I usually just quit after spinning my wheels for long periods of time.
I have found that having fun, playing and being creative is the way to go. Rewards work great with the kids and myself. Celebrating victories no matter how small is encouraging.
I’ve changed so many habits over the decades. Quit drinking and smoking fifteen years ago, changed my whole life, became a mother. Learned how to write books, learned how to be frugal, learned how to buy our first house late in life. Then another house. Sold a house. Learned how to garden. Learned how to do a YouTube channel. Learned how to decorate a whole house with an almost zero budget. I have mastered it all. Yes!
I haven’t soared to the top of the charts with any of these categories. However, I’ve had a good time and I’m still enjoying my life immensely.
This year I set out to get fit and slim. I set out to change my writing from lifestyle books to fiction. I also wanted to get my home dialed in with sweet and cozy. I had big plans for the year. I was wanting to change up my life a bit. I was feeling bored and wilty. Shaking things up is necessary for a mother and writer at home. I’ll tell you though, I don’t get too bored. I’m always learning and exploring. Always finding something new to get into.
I’ve also released some of my extra work back into the wild and freed myself of the over exertion and constant wheel of burn out. In making space I had to fill it quickly. When you empty a space in your life, such as letting go of toxic relationships, work that is draining you, dropping a hustle…you need to fill the space with something good and positive.
I let go of some stuff and replaced it with rest and then I started missing things that I had let go of for a good reason, things I had pondered for seasons so it wasn’t anything out of the blue or impulsive. But I had too much empty space and it filled with missing people and things, hustles. I was getting bored and wanted to go back. I wanted the familiar and easy. But once you go forward on this new path, it’s dangerous to go back. The Universe isn’t always gentle. Sometimes, it gets tired of your back and forth and will bitch slap you.
I am a little afraid of the Universe because I know better. When you have spent years learning, seeking, finding, exploring, working on, and honing your spiritual life, you know better than to make a solid, well thought out decision and then try to turn around and go back. You can’t. You’ll get slapped. Hard.
So, I got busy playing and decorating. I painted four rooms. Only have one more to go. I need to repaint the doors, base boards, window and door frames. I’m not excited about that part, but it keeps me busy between writing. It helps me think. The end result is a nicer looking home, and I don’t return to old ways.
I sat down and wrote some books this year as I set out to do. I added weights to my routine when we hauled home a free Marcy Home Gym. Filling in spaces with good, positive stuff.
I watch movies that inspire me. Documentaries. I watch over and over until the message has been sketched on my memory. Sometimes, it’s just a scene or a few lines that relate to my metamorphism and move my soul. Parts in books have changed big areas in my life. Watching movies about writers inspires me. Watching movies about people changing their lives inspire me. Cast Away with Tom Hanks inspired me. He was a FedEx trouble shooter, flying here and there, always on the clock and fixing situations. His plane crashes leaving him stranded on an island. He is there for years and has to slow down and pay attention to survive. He has to be active and thoughtful, and fit to make it all those years and finally escape. He lives with just himself for four years. Imagine todays social media addicted society stranded with just themselves for four years.
I have no desire to be forced to survive on an island to learn how to pay attention and be slow and quiet again. But I see that this time for this character changed him in very good ways that gave him his soul back.
What I take away is that I can create some of that in my life without the stranded and survival part. I can stop being so busy and controlling and turn to books and music instead of schedules and internet. I can spend more time walking in nature and not thinking, just being in the forest. I don’t have to talk all the time. Maybe spend more time pondering and less time yapping.
Maybe everyone of us should have a year to withdraw from the world and it’s mad pace. I love talking to people at the grocery store, but I love being home too. Sometimes, on the trails I meet someone and we strike up a conversation and walk slowly together. That happened the other day. She was a grandmother and we talked about gardening and strolled along like old friends. I can be very personal and social. I am also very protective of my families space and time. I enjoy just being with my family. I may seem introverted or hermity. It’s a good, safe place to be.
All it takes is a bummer interaction, a downer phone call or seeing something upsetting on the internet and I can lose days being sad or angry about the situation. I have lost my peace and it is usually something I have no control over. It’s best to just mind our business.
There is another thing I want to change for me and my family. For years, I’ve been frugal. We have gotten far. We have worked hard. But that seems to be all we do these days. We used to go to farms in the Fall for the kids to pick pumpkins, buy boxes of apples, and ride tractors. We used to visit family in the bay area. We used to do things, but since the quarantine, we got used to being at home and working hard on the house and gardens.
You know what they say, all work and no play.
We have worked for years on two different houses. It has paid off in many ways. But Bali and I have been working hard almost daily, definitely all weekends were filled with saws and hammers, me cooking up a storm to feed carpenters. We have been painting, gardening, planting trees, building, repairing, earning, saving. We have a little fun here and there, but we are talking about a crunch wrap taco at Taco Bell once a month or a burger at our favorite local place, every other month. We are talking about one trip to Oregon in five years. And Oregon is only five hours from us. We are talking a movie a season or twice a year.
Life’s too short. There is a time to be hard core frugal and there is a time to find ways to have more fun. We go out of our way to save money, why don’t go out of our way to afford good times? This is what I asked myself.
I feel like I keep trying to master frugality at new levels, but I’m getting weird about it. I find myself sounding like that old parent that shouts out the price of everything when the kids are being rough or wasteful. “Do you know how much that cost?” “Do you know how long you would have to work to earn that?” It’s annoying. It’s one thing to teach kids about money and time, which I do, but now I’m just naggy and uptight about it.
I fixed that by booking a cruise. Off season, of course. Better rates and less crowded. You can be frugal and fun. And the more money smart you are, the more fun you can afford.
We were going to put the money to the mortgage, but I’m done with always being responsible. I have never felt so good being so frivolous! Putting the money toward a luxury cruise for two weeks has breathed new life into me! I’m working out more, choosing fruit and making healthy popcorn over ‘treats’. I’m planning the next book and will try and write the first draft before we take off. I planning and in bliss. It’s months away but the planning is a very delicious part I don’t want to miss.
It seems since making this decision, the Universe has been very generous. We stocked our pantry for free and I found free blouses my size. They are lovely and in good condition. Perfect for a cruise.
I truly believe, from years of experimenting, that focusing on more play, rest and fun actually ups our productivity and creative ability. I learned of this in Essentialism by Greg McKeown. They tried it at large companies and the ones that had more play and rest had happier, more productive workers.
I used to listen to Abraham Hicks all the time and Abraham would say to follow the good feelings, follow the bliss. Bliss and doing what makes us happy leads to good things and more flow. I know this is true. We absolutely do harvest what we sow. Good and bad. Sweet and sour. So, focus on the good and sweet. You’ll see more of it.
It’s so important to surround oneself with good people, good things. Light the candles, get out the nice dish ware and good linen. Take the cruise. Live and thrive for this is our life to enjoy right now. We can keep reinventing ourselves and keep changing things around. I feel that it’s very healthy for us to do this. It’s fulfilling.
I made this dream board sometime before this new year began. I have done everything on this board. I’ve spruced up the house with paint and thrifted or free décor. I’ve gone deep into health food and I am devoted to a daily fitness routine. We are traveling soon and it’s something we will be doing yearly. I’m writing again and reading plenty after a lull.
I am a big believer in dream boards combined with a lot of work to also propel the dreams forward. Work and dreaming makes wishes come true.
I made a dream board before we moved up here, to my dream town. I threw it away recently because it’s been years since we made it up here and most of the stuff on the board happened. We have big gardens and I’m canning again, this was all in the dream board. That and writing, books, decorating and living in the forest. All of it is real now. I dreamt, made boards, listened to music and talks that kept me inspired and happy. I worked daily to make it all happen. I have a partner to help me and that is a good thing. When two people agree and have the same mission, amazing stuff happens and fast.
If we can stay in a stream of peaceful optimism, we can make it happen. We have to work hard as well. I love working hard toward a dream. The planning and setting up, the knowing our life will change completely soon.
I made this one recently as well. It’s mostly about where we live and enjoying it to the fullest. We are fortunate in that we have lots of trails, little farms, and charming historic towns to investigate. We can play tourist anytime within an hour to hour and half of our house. We have gone for hikes, bike rides, the river and we have our own pool to have fun. We have not yet gone camping. Things on this board have also happened.
And we are only a few months into this month.
What am I saying here? Dream big but play big too and take it bite by little step by small goal. Paint a new life or better life and then plant the seeds and tend to it, watch it grow. It doesn’t have to be much to make days sweeter.
March 22, 2024
Abundance Everywhere
Recently, we have been doing some purging and giving from our bounty. I rearranged the kitchen by pulling out the table and creating a space in the larger living room to add the dining area and expanded the kitchen were I’m quite busy cooking and baking these days. Plant based cooking does require some prepping and cooking ahead and I’ve gone back to making bread by hand instead of always in the bread maker. I wanted space to move around and I wanted my island under the window looking out onto two lush yards and near all that warm sunlight that streams in. We have had a long winter, so sunlight is coveted right now.
My husband helped clean out and reorganize the pantry off the laundry room and in so doing we filled bags with canned meats and foods we try not to eat anymore. The bags of food and all the bags and egg cartons we save went to the food bank. I love the food bank. We go there when money is tight, which it is often now, and we take what we don’t eat and donate. I save bags and cartons for them and in the Summer my kids and I volunteer every week. I adore the people that work there tirelessly and it reminds us to be of service to our community to keep it healthy and spread the love.
I’ve been doing some early Spring cleaning and decluttering and donated a car load of treasures to GoodWill and when the weather is nice, I put free things on the street, as do our neighbors. I go from room to room and clean deeply, rearrange things, and purging. The house is feeling open and lovely these days.
We are working with a small budget right now, however, I can still pay bills easily. I just have to be very careful. When I had a YouTube channel there was a cushion and extra for stuff and groceries. Groceries are necessary, but stuff usually can wait. I don’t buy stuff anymore. Not even my used cookbooks that I’m crazy about. But then I have the library and I can find anything there and enjoy it for a time. Most things we want we can find free or find an alternative. Switching out wants from say, I want to buy more nerf guns to I want to ride my bike in the forest. I say riding a bike in the forest is better on many levels. Let’s forget about shopping and go have experiences.
I’m waiting on our tax returns. We get a very nice amount back because years ago I sold my mothers property at a loss and each year I recieve a small allotment from the collateral loss amount. This is a gift every year. We were going to use it to pay off a chunk of the mortgage, but I decided to live a little with the kids. They are now at the perfect age to travel and it’s time for them to see what’s out there.
When I was about their age, my mother took me to Europe for two months. We were always poor but she felt it was important and scrapped enough money together to take us. We did it the cheapest way possible; riding in cargo with the back packers on ships, sleeping above donkey stables in Greece, and doing second class on planes and trains. It was a great experience.
I decided that the mortgage will always be here waiting, but the kids will not. They will be off and running soon enough. I want this time with them and when I look back I won’t say, “I’m so glad I got that mortgage paid off.” No, I would have huge regrets that I didn’t travel with my kids. I decided to take the tax returns and do a little packaged trip to Europe or we can take a family friendly cruise to the Carribean. I’ve already done the research, called a travel agent, and watched lots of videos. We are thrilled and cruising is one of the cheapest ways to travel. I’ve done cruises in the past when I was single and I was hooked. I love them. It’s like floating in a fancy all inclusive city and then docking at the most charming villages.
We found our dream ship: The Icon of The Sea. It is the Royal Carribean. It is a fantastical village filled with color and fun activities. They even have a garden with trees on one level! Any ship that has trees and a water park is the ship for us. If we go off season it’s cheaper with all sorts of deals.
I would pay for the whole trip with the tax money and use the rest to fill our coffers; pantry, toiletries, cleaning supplies. Maybe pay a few utilities a few months ahead. I was planning away.
Then I saw an add on Craigslist, “come raid my bunker.” So, I did. And did this man have a bunker of food. He simply said he had a problem and was in recovery. I’m thinking he is a recovering prepper. I commend him on this and sharing his pantry. We filled the truck bed and back seat. It took me two days to sort through cans and mylar bags, I set up a little grocery store in my bedroom. I had empty shelves in half the closet and empty shelves on the wall in a nook. I kept the vegetarian, the rice, beans, oats, and Progresso soups for the kids. I filled ten or more bags to the top with the rest of the canned foods and goods and shared them with the food bank.
One man’s prepping gone wild and his recovery has fed a family of four and a whole community.
We now have enough to provide meals for months and that has taken care of our grocery bill. I’ve already started planting our vegetable garden over the last couple months. Soon as the weather warms up I’ll be putting in starts. With our pantry full and a garden that grows well now, after years of amending the soil, we are now more than provided for. In organizing my laundry room and cupboards in the bathroom, I see we have plenty of laundry soap, vinegar, baking soda, bath soaps, and toothpaste, I’ll need very little to fill in. Always stocking up when I have the funds and there are deals keeps us ahead for the times when we don’t have extra money and not a deal in sight.
The other day I drove past piles of free things on the street the and stopped to rumage. I found some nice clothes my size and my eldest size, a few nice bowls, decorations, and a pizza cutter. I was thrilled. My pizza cutter had fallen apart and we go through bowls and cups. I’ve been rebuilding my wardrobe and I want a nice one for the cruise. I found a few nice pieces in the pile. I only take what we need. I’ve purged and decluttered so much over the years, I want my home to stay uncrowded. It’s very bohemian right now and I’ve just painted four rooms gorgious colors so I have a look to preserve.
I love nothing more than finding freebies. I have decorated my whole house with free and garage sale items. I have filled our pantry and wardrobe with free, thrifted and garage sale stuff. It has saved us a fortune and it is the only way we can live on such a small income.
When we do have money flow in, we take time to think about where to use it, where it will serve us best. When we had the stimulous checks we bought fruit and nut trees and a bigger Berkey water filter, this saves us money in the future in huge ways and provides food into the future.
Our tax returns are usually used to pay off little bills and get ahead. However, right now we are ahead, thanks to the Universe providing so well. This time I’m using funds to have experiences and live a little. When we are always working, saving, scrimping, being frugal, we become exhausted by it. There is a time to live well. Even that can be done frugally.
March 19, 2024
A Feast Of Life now available.
I just published this tonight. It is available in ebook now and paperback by tomorrow. It is a frugal lifestyle book, my favorite to write.
It’s about our life and how we manage to live on the husbands minimum wage salary and my small royalties from the books I have published, raise two boys, a small dog and own a 123 year old house. Minimum wage in California is high, but so is everything else here: groceries, gas, and taxes. Us Californian’s usually pay more in everything than other states. Except the East Coast.
Frugality is a way of life and it is adopted to raise the quality of a persons life or family’s life. It should never be an obsession or lead to poverty consciousness. It shouldn’t be a way to live cheap and opressed, denying the joys of life. It is a way to get out of debt, pay off a mortgage, and then go on and live life, have experiences, travel, pay for college. Frugality helps us pay bills easily and sleep well at night.
So many talk about struggling right now and I have no doubt they are, but is there a way to live without the struggle? Without suffering when a recession hits. Without going crazy with coupons or prepping.
We live well despite our small income and there is no magic formula. It is in how we eat, how we drive and what we drive, how we shop, how we live day to day, even how we think.
I share my life and home through this book and I’m a little proud of myself right this moment as I added photos to this book. I know they showed up in the paperback, I’m too afraid to look at the ebook just yet.
If you decide to check it out, I hope it is of comfort, cozy and inspiring.
March 16, 2024
Getting Started On That Next Novel
Photo by KoolShooters on Pexels.comMany great writers will tell us, fellow writers, who want to hone our skills, that the only way to become a better writer is to write a lot. And read a lot. Steven King publishes a mammoth book often, maybe yearly, yet he still finds time to read voraciously.
Nicholas Sparks plays a few movies in the background while he writes. And he suggests plenty of reading and writing. Anne Lamott has a writing routine. She suggest carrying a notepad or cards and pencil everywhere you go so when a brilliant thought comes to you, scribble it down. She says we rarely make it back home with the thought still in tact. Steven King says to make a quiet space to write, an office. He suggests facing a wall so you don’t get distracted. Thoreau lived alone in a cabin by a pond. Natalie Goldberg sits outside in nature and has connected her writing to a spiritual practice.
Me, well, I face a window as a wall feels like stuck energy. Although, I do spend a large amount of time staring out that window and pondering my life instead of writing, so I think Steven King has something there with that advice of facing a wall. I love having old movies in the background. It works; I like the sound and the company. Or music. I can’t stand writing in silence. You hear writers lament all the time about the loneliness of writing. The silence. Why be lonely and silent? For me, music stimulates images and scenes. I see stories like movies passing through my mind. Dramatic music creates montages in my mind.
When I first started writing fiction some years ago, I would get stuck on a chapter. I wouldn’t know how to build the scene and carry it out. I would get on my treadmill and listen to my SandDisc. I would choose music that suits the scene, and it would unfold in cinema style.
Natalie Goldberg talks about places we live, and if we love these places, they become part of the books we write. She heard someone say the places we love become the third character in a novel. She used some authors and their places as examples; Steinbeck and his California, Tennessee Williams, and the South. This is true. I love where I live so much that I felt like I was on vacation during the first two years here.
We have forest trails everywhere, wild rocky rivers, and history; some are nostalgic, and some of the history is cruel and painful. Standing in the forest, I feel Spirit, the peace, and the pain. The forest has been destroyed and reborn, the rivers polluted from mining and cleansed over time. The Native American and Chinese history is too painful to process, and there are many tribute trails, museums, and mentions now to bring this forward and to make amends. It’s too late, though. The forest and rivers recovered, but the Chinese immigrants and the Indians will probably never forgive the cruelties.
This place is wild even in a town setting. It refuses to be tamed. Sometimes wildfires rage through, burning down houses, and the land needs to be tenderly and generously worked before it will give you anything back. I learned this with my yard. We added gifts of amendments for three years before it gave me tomatoes, but when it finally did, I had more tomatoes than I needed. With our planting of flowers and trees and our feeding the land, the yard came to life with bees, birds, squirrels, dragonflys, lady bugs, and even a skunk family and foxes live here at night. All are welcome, this is a sanctuary for us and them. The yard and it’s critters thanked us and we are blessed with more produce and nuts and berries each year.
This place stimulates my imagination. When I write, it’s always about people living in a forest town. All my characters live here in this town with me.
I’m struggling with my stories. I have a lot of partial ideas and incoherent outlines saved in folders on my laptop but I am not feeling that energy yet. I don’t think it ever arrives, like an order from Amazon. “Here’s your packaged story and all the enthusiasm you could want, ma’am.” No, my understanding is that you have to sit down and force it until it starts to flow. Like blob stuck in a pipe, you have to push it threw with force and then it pops out the other end and the water can flow freely. That is what I’m hoping for. I’m pushing that blob presently, forcing the clog through so the flow will begin, maybe as a drip and then a trickle and then a stream of consciousness.
I produced a fictional book recently. I wasn’t that good, someone mentioned my ‘crap book’, they were purposely being unkind, but I couldn’t disagree. I haven’t advertised the book much at all, because I know it was just an exercise. It was a warm up.
And now what? Is the blob clogging the pipeline to my infinite imagination almost out?
Not really. I’m still buying time with reading writers talk about writing because that helps me feel like I’m working towards it. I’m educating myself, that’s what I say to me. Then I smile because I’m being productive. I’m working toward a book, never mind I’ve not started a chapter of anything, I’m taking in information to help me.
But the truth is that one day we have to put down these books and open the laptop or pick up the pen and get to work.
I’m going to start my next book today…right after I clean the house.
