To quote Britney Spears...

So I've been working as a freelance writer (officially, anyway) for about a year now. And I'll be honest, I've been making peanuts. Like, I can handle the Starbucks budget.... and that's pretty much it.

But I love writing! It's something I genuinely enjoy doing, even if the pay sucks right now.

I think that most people start out pursuing a writing career hoping to be the next J.K. Rowling, or Stephanie Meyer, or the chick who wrote 50 Shades of Unrealistic Expectations. Everyone dreams of writing that instant hit that garners you critical acclaim, a loyal fan base, and a big fat paycheck.

While that would be lovely, I am completely aware that it doesn't happen that way for 99% of writers.

I get that.

Most of us will toil away at low paying writing gigs, working on seven different manuscripts on the side, hoping that maybe something will hit. We will put our blood, sweat, and many tears (not to mention a whole heap of self-doubt and occasionally questioning our sanity) into our work, never completely sure that anything will come of it. We will nervously allow those closest to us to read our work, seeking feedback, reassurance, and ways in which we can improve. We will jot down setting notes and dialogue ideas on any scrap of paper we find (or if you're me, in the notes on your iPhone). And we will think of giving up eighteen times per week, while knowing that we couldn't possibly bring ourselves to walk away from our passion.

Contrary to the idealistic expectations of newbies, writing is not a glamorous endeavor. Nor is it a piece of cake, sought out by slackers who want easy money with little to no effort. Writing is actually hard work, and you get out what you put in.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

As Ms. Spears put it, "You better work, bitch!"

One good thing about being a writer in this day and age is that no longer do you have to hustle your butt to and fro different publishing houses, hocking your work to anyone willing to give you 5 seconds of their time. No longer do you have to blindly mail copies of your manuscript to editors, publishers, or agents, hoping someone will pull your work from the "slash pile" and give you a chance.

You still have to hustle, yes. You have to hustle your arse off. But you have technology on your side. You can network instantly with industry contacts without having to leave your couch. You can publish individual chapters on various sites, building a reader base and proving to publishers you are worth their time. You can even self-publish your books either digitally or in print, at a much lower cost than vanity publishers would charge, and get your work out there for the world to (hopefully) fall in love with. If your work does well, publishers will contact you! And if not... then you keep trying!

So that's what I've been busting my butt with recently. Establishing networks, building my portfolio of freelance work to gain the history and experience the "big" clients want ('cause that's where the money is), and meanwhile working on my manuscripts to be ready for the self-publishing saga.

I'm excited. I'm intimidated. I'm exhausted. I feel like I'm completely insane for even attempting this career goal.

But if you don't go for your dream, you'll always wonder 'what if...'

"Moodling"

As I've mentioned in my other blog, I lost my Zen, and have been working to rediscover it. One way that has always helped bring me back to center when things start getting all bajiggity, is through reading Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach (pronounced Bon Brannack).

Simple Abundance is a day book that focuses on finding your inner voice, your spirit, your creativity, your authentic self. Over the course of the year, it covers various topics, such as discovering long-lost and new-found hobbies; finding ways to express yourself through cooking, home decor, wardrobe choices, and personal interests; and expressing gratitude in the simple pleasures of life.

It's basically a hippie call to arms!

What I love about reading this book is that it focuses on the difficulty women often have in carving out enough time for themselves, between jobs and kids and husbands and our endless daily responsibilities. Women very commonly do not allow themselves the personal time to pursue their own interests and feed their souls. We feel guilty for taking an hour of strictly "me time".

But taking that "me time" and discovering ways to express our inner selves feeds our happiness and satisfaction, relieves stress, and generally makes us better, happier, and overall less eye-twitchy versions of ourselves.

And the great thing about it? That "me time" doesn't actually have to consist of anything in particular!

You can have a plan, and spend this time doing something you specifically set out to do. (And actually enjoy doing. "Me time" should not be "household chores time" trying to masquerade as a creative outlet!) You can have a plan to bake a loaf of homemade multigrain bread, or work on a sewing project, or try that new recipe you've had earmarked for months.

Or. OR!!!

This "me time"? Can consist of nothing in particular. The July 26th entry of Simple Abundance calls it "moodling". "Moodling" is described as "long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering". In essence, my perfect Saturday!

Now, if course, I do have things to accomplish this weekend. I have the sorting-through-the-kids'-toys project I began this week and sorely need to finish. I have the corner of my kitchen counter that looks like my post office exploded on it and is in desperate need of clearing off. We need to paint the base of the deck with sealant so Husband can continue building. And my bathrooms need a bit of a touch-up.

But none of those things count as "moodling" (even if my OCD makes me enjoy cleaning more than the average bear).

So to satisfy my soul's need to "moodle", I also have tentative plans to write, or cross-stitch, or read. I'm going to try my hand at baking bread in the oven, rather than the bread machine. And I will waste probably more than a few hours doing nothing much.

And it'll be fantastic.

Intravenous caffeine use needs to be an option

Because Thursday.

Is this a real thing?
Please tell me it's a real thing!

Anniversary

One year ago today, we arrived here in Wyoming.

We had left Washington on the evening of July 6, 2013, and pulled into Cheyenne in the wee hours of July 9th.

Those first few days- hell, the first few hours, even- were a major struggle for me, as from the start, things did not go as planned and expected. I had just left a house that I loved, a town that I loved, and my family and closest friends, and was instantly regretting all of it. It honestly took me several weeks before I began reestablishing my grasp on why we had moved, and that it was in fact a good thing.

Those four months we lived in the apartment, waiting for our house to be finished, were tough. I physically hated living there, and the commute for my husband and children was brutal. After the house was done and we finally, officially moved up to Cheyenne, things began looking up.

The fluffy clouds of the High Plains

I loved our house, and the feeling of finally getting to be settled. I loved that the kids' school and Husband's work were now only minutes away instead of an hour. I loved that our lives were finally able to simplify, and we could begin establishing ourselves here.

Storm rolling in over the kids' school

There have been some hiccups, and some obstacles, and some what-the-hell-are-you-kidding-me moments. But overall, I can honestly say that I like living here (minus the wind, which is soul sucking).

But here's the thing.

Something that, despite my many attempts, I have been unable to successfully explain to many others in our lives.

On the one hand, I like it here. On the other hand, I would move back to Seattle tomorrow.

And yes, those two feelings can coexist.

While it was an emotional struggle for me at first, I fully understand why we moved here, and the benefits of doing so. I have adapted (mostly) to high plains living, and while there are some aspects of it I may not particularly care for, overall it's nice here.

Normal sunset views from my house!

I like exploring the area and seeing new things. The sunsets and sky-scapes are absolutely stunning. The slower pace of life and small-town feel is perfectly pleasant to me (except trying to get anywhere on Lincolnway anytime before 10 am, when the Blue Hair Brigade is out in force and going 20 mph below the speed limit!)

But here's the thing that people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around: I like it here, but I miss Seattle like crazy. It's not like living in Cheyenne is terrible, and I'm miserable and want out rightthissecond. I do, genuinely, like it here. But I don't love it here.

And that's the key.

Hello, gorgeous!

My heart and soul is in Seattle. In the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the ocean.

Mt. Pilchuck, my former backyard

Is anything better than a bonfire on the beach?!?

So beautiful, and so very missed

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if we will stay in Cheyenne for five more months or five more years. But I do know that our time here is not permanent. Western Washington is a very special place, rich in a natural beauty that can't be matched. My soul is fed up there, and because of that, we will move back eventually.

It is possible to like where you are, but know you belong somewhere else. To be happy, but not fulfilled. That's where I'm at. And our calamity of a trip last week reaffirmed that to me. Driving across Snoqualmie Pass made my heart sing. And leaving made it sink.

I don't hate living in Wyoming, and I certainly don't regret moving here.

But home is where the heart is. And my heart is in Seattle

When things go sideways: The vacation from hell

Crow Creek, Curt Gowdy State Park, 5/30/14

Robert Frost once said that the road less traveled makes all the difference…

Well no offense to ol' Bob, but in this case, the difference made by the road less traveled wasn't fun. In fact, it plain old sucked!

My family and I went on vacation last week; a road trip up to Washington to visit family and friends. The week leading into our trip, we pretty much had our plans laid out. We knew what days we would be driving through which states; we knew which days we would be seeing specific friends and family members; we had everything arranged and had set our expectations accordingly.

And then life happened. Griswold Family style.

At first, the hiccups were minor. Friday morning we had planned to leave by noon, but my oldest son ended up with a horrendous nosebleed that took over an hour to stop. I sat with him in the bathroom, changing out the tissues and reassuring him that he wasn't bleeding to death (something that genuinely freaked him out, poor dude). So that prolonged the packing process, and we ended up leaving shortly after 1:00- not bad by any means!

We stopped for a quick lunch and then hopped on I-80 West, hoping to make it at least to Ogden, Utah, if not farther.

For the first leg of our drive, we ended up making excellent time, and by the time we hit Ogden (around 9:00 that night) we were feeling pretty pumped and decided to keep on going to Twin Falls, Idaho. We fed the kids a quick dinner and had them get ready for bed, that way when we finally stopped for the night, it would make bedtime much quicker and easier. We got back on the road, and about 30 minutes later, as we're cruising along nicely up I-84, chatting about how great the drive had been thus far and how we would be able to make it to Seattle a day earlier than we'd thought… BANG!!!

Husband and I both looked at each other in shock, and he pulled the Suburban and trailer over to the side of the freeway. The sound we'd heard made us both think we'd blown a tire, so we hopped out and starting checking for a flat.

Nothing.

All the tires on the Suburban and trailer were fine.

But smoke was pouring out of the engine compartment….

Husband popped the hood open, and we fanned the smoke away and used the flashlight on my phone to look inside.

Carnage.

Ruin.

Badness of epic proportions.

Now, I may not be an automotive expert… but my spidey senses told me that seeing big chunks of metal and oil sprayed everywhere inside the engine compartment is… not a good thing!

We immediately called State Farm, whom our insurance is through, because we have their roadside assistance coverage. After being rerouted multiple times, with no one bothering to make a note of our call and forcing us to start from scratch four different times, we were finally told that they could dispatch a tow truck for the Suburban and two passengers, but that we would have to call a taxi for the rest of us (I guess they wanted us to pick favorites?!?) and pay out of pocket for both the taxi and the separate tow for the trailer.

They also were "unable to locate" the MAJOR FREEWAY upon which we were stranded.

Um…. so how are you assisting me on the roadside then? When I have three young children stranded in a broken vehicle on the side of a very busy freeway late at night?!? And when I gave you my exact mile marker location, and the cities both north and south of me?!?

Needless to say, we quickly became utterly disgusted by their version of "roadside assistance". I also quickly learned that these claims of "agents available 24/7" is… complete BS. Though our agent's office voicemail said they were available 24 hours a day, she didn't call us back until regular business hours the following day.

This whole debacle is something we will be discussing in person with her this week; while we have been loyal State Farm customers for well over a decade, we will likely be looking for a new insurance company without some serious ass-kissing and reparations on our agent's part. Because damn.

So during Husband's third attempt to get any sort of useful help from State Farm, I went ahead and called AAA. The woman I spoke with was able to find our exact location, find and dispatch a tow truck that was big enough to tow both the Suburban and trailer AND all five of us (no picking favorites!), and she expedited it because of the obvious safety issue of us sitting on the side of the freeway.

Finally, a competent human being and a company that gave a crap!

We got towed the 10 minutes south to Brigham City, Utah to a Chevy dealership that the tow driver just happened to work at. We spent the night in the trailer in the dealership parking lot, listening to the service department's radio station being played through the outside speakers… not exactly conducive to a restful night, but at least we were safe.

The next day, we got the initial assessment on the Suburban's engine. We had blown at least three pistons, which had shattered the oil pan and caused other shrapnel-style damage. It would take at least a week to repair, at a starting cost of $7000…

Not only did we not have $7000 just sitting in our pockets, but that also didn't include the cost of a rental vehicle (something State Farm also wouldn't cover) to tow the trailer back to Cheyenne, and then the gas to drive all the way back to Brigham in a week to pick up our newly rebuilt Suburban.

We were completely screwed, and spent half the day just trying to wrap our heads around what the hell to do next.

(And I may have cried a lot. Like, a lot. Like, probably embarrassed myself in public but was too distraught and stressed to even care.)

While we were wandering around the parking lot of the dealership trying to get a handle on the situation, a salesman came out and said that he assumed we were over at the service department, but wondered if there was anything he could help us with. When we told him we were the Suburban, he gave us a look of pity I've never experienced before! We joked that we had a great trade in for him, with perhaps a bit of engine trouble…

The sales guy showed us their used trucks, and we found one we liked. It was a blue diesel GMC Sierra 2500 quad-cab. While I've never had the desire to own a truck, like, ever, it was beefy enough to tow our trailer and could handle anything Wyoming had to throw at it (no more getting stuck in snow drifts!)

The sales guy let us take it for a test drive, and Husband was pretty impressed with it. I wasn't quite as sold, as I was (and still am) fairly attached to my Suburban, and was quite honestly struggling to cope with the events of the previous 14 hours. After driving around Brigham for a bit, we went back to the dealership and Husband went inside to discuss the actual realistic-ness of trading in our dead Suburban for the truck.

In truth, I did not expect them to accept it, and knew we were wasting our time. The sales guy let us take the truck and go to lunch, and said he'd see what he would work out. I wasn't holding my breath.

As we were sitting there eating, not 20 minutes later, sales dude called back and said he'd worked it out!

He said that what they'd do is give us just under Kelly Blue Book on the trade, and put a used engine in the Suburban, making it plausible for them to sell it and make it worth their while. We lost all the equity we had built up in the Suburban, and would essentially be starting from scratch with the truck. But we were pretty much stuck at that point, and this was our best option.

He then told us what the payment on the truck would be, and my stomach flipped so hard I almost puked. We would be tripling our car payment.

Yes. Tripling. As in, three times as much. As in, ouchies to my budget.

After discussing it over the rest of our lunch, Husband and I decided to go for it, because it was the only way (and the cheapest way in the short run) to get us out of Utah. And this meant we could still continue with our vacation, which we had accepted was otherwise totally done-sies.

We got all the paperwork sorted, hooked up the trailer to the truck, and headed back on our way to Washington. Husband was immediately impressed with how well the truck pulled the trailer- no more bucketing in the wind or when being passed by other big vehicles, no struggling to go up even minor hills. It seemed like everything was back on track, and though I was still quite stressed over the looming loan payment, I was starting to shake it off and let Future Sarah deal with it.

We were about 15 miles past where we had broken down the night before, and suddenly the truck lost all power…

The fuel filter indicator, which had just read 100%, suddenly read 0%, and we weren't able to go over 30 mph. Husband immediately called the dealership, and the sales guy was stunned. He told us to come back and they'd take a look at it.

We slowly crawled back to the dealership, where they unhooked the trailer (again) and pulled the truck into the service bay. The same guy who had given us the tow the night before ended up being the one who swapped out our fuel filter (thanks again Juan!) After that, everything looked peachy keen, so Husband and the sales guy hooked the trailer back up (again) and took it for a test run, to make sure nothing bigger was wrong. They went up this steep hill behind the dealership, and everything was looking great until they got about 3/4 of the way up.

The truck lost power again.

Sales guy was baffled, since the dealership prides itself on selling quality used vehicles. He called the owners of the dealership to tell them what had happened, and the owners were there to meet them when they slowly crawled back into the parking lot. Several profuse apologies later (and a near stressed-induced cardiac event on my part), the owners presented us with two options.

Option A: they would do a straight swap of the blue truck for a red one. Same model, one year older, less miles, and one of the owners had just used it on his family vacation to Yellowstone, towing a similar trailer as ours, so they knew it was reliable.

Option B: borrow the red truck for the week and continue on our vacation, while they figured out what was wrong with the blue truck, fixed it up all pretty like, and had it waiting for us when we came back through the following weekend.

Husband and I discussed the options, and I was initially leaning toward doing the swap. However, while the interior of the red truck was nicer, it had fewer features and a little less interior space than the blue truck. It was also a short bed, as opposed to the long bed of the blue truck (something I didn't really care about, but it mattered to Husband). We finally decided to just borrow the red one and fix the blue one.

We unhooked and re-hooked the trailer (AGAIN) and were finally, finally on our way. We made it to Boise that night, and then after sitting in awful Sunday traffic on I-90 in Washington, finally made it to my mom's house Sunday night. A full day after we had been expecting, but at least we made it.

Of course, the unexpected delays associated with our Suburban's catastrophic engine failure shook up our entire week's visitation schedule, so we had to make some last minute adjustments. Some people were… displeased… with our limited time frames, but quite frankly, by that point I had no patience for it. We drove 1200 miles and went through two vehicles; I think you can handle driving 20 minutes to meet us for dinner and survive not eating exactly at your predetermined usual dinner time. Suffice it to say, we found out who some of our true friends are (and are not) this week!

We also got a call on Monday afternoon from the sales guy back in Utah, to tell us what they had found on the blue truck. The injector bank went out. Now, as stated above, I'm not exactly an automotive expert, so to me, that pretty much means nothing. They could have said the phalanges were broken for all I know!

Husband explained that, basically, what happened on the Suburban's gas engine is what happened on the truck's diesel engine (only less catastrophically so). The engine was kaput!

Because of course.

Because Utah hates us.

So they ended up replacing the injector bank (and the phalanges, probably), and we have a warranty on the engine so that we don't have to deal with this again any time soon (fingers crossed, knock on wood).

The rest of our vacation had a bit of a pall over it, though we tried to make the best of it, despite some friend drama and a few minor irritations (because seriously, I fought this hard to make this vacation even happen in the first place, but yeah, let's make it all about not inconveniencing you) and some serious homesickness for Western Washington and my boo-thang Kym.

We left Seattle Saturday morning, with the intention of getting all the way to Brigham that night so we could swap vehicles for our truck and get back on the road first thing Sunday. We only got as far as Mountain Home, Idaho, because it took us 7 hours to even get out of Washington.

7 hours!

I don't even know how that is possible. It was like all travel slowed to a crawl.

Sunday we made better time, and got to Brigham shortly after noon. However, as we were coming back down I-84, about 10 miles or so north of the exit for the dealership? THE RED TRUCK LOST POWER!!! Same effing thing that happened to the blue truck. In the exact same spot as where our Suburban blew.

I swear, Utah hates us. I mean, I know things happen in threes, but come on!

(We did see a lot of other truck and trailers pulled over on the freeway, also having issues, so maybe Utah just hates road-trippers in general?)

After swapping back to our blue truck, the rest of the drive home was relatively uneventful, though still wracked with stress. I spent the entire rest of the drive just waiting for something else to go wrong, because the precedent was set. Our truck has a few quirks on it that we need to get checked out, like weak air conditioning, engine fans that aren't terribly effective, and the door handles have some issues. Plus, it's not my Suburban, and I loved my Suburban.

So now, I have a massive loan payment on a truck that, at the moment, I loathe (though I'm sure my emotions have as much to do with that as the quirks and stress).

This week, we have the joy of dealing with digging out, both in terms of unpacking and settling back into being home, as well as dealing with the financial and logistical fallout of this week. Our insurance agent will be having a meeting with us, which will be non-fun for her. We need to refinance the truck through a local bank so we can get a better deal on the interest rate (and hopefully ease the burden on my budget). And I will be looking into new paid writing opportunities, since Yahoo decided to shut down its contributor side… meanie heads.

So that road less traveled?

I have a gypsy spirit, I'm all for the road less traveled. I mean, hell, I moved to Wyoming of all places, just to experience something new!

But when I'm on a road trip with a predetermined destination, and limited time frame and financial leeway? I'd like to stay on the intended road, and not have any mechanical issues along the way, thank you very much.