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.