The side hustle of writing is starting to pay off to the point that I’m considering bumping up my schedule to once a week publications.

The problem with that is that it will take time away from teaching and teaching prep. However, to be fair, teaching ain’t really paying the car payment, so a change of focus for me may just solve two issues at once (new job + more income than what I make now).

I think the biggest issue art stake is the “worth” question. When I substitute teach for June County, I take home about 65 dollars for about 8.5 hours work. That’s 7.64 an hour. Other work pays better (18 an hour), but those classes take a good bit of prep work to do well.

Well, at least that’s above minimum wage? Yeah, when I write, I’m making almost triple that per hour. It just makes sense—right?

That means a major rescheduling and rearranging of my daily schedule and work outline down here in the South. According to my notes, I’ve got about four weeks before I HAVE to publish again to keep making money.

On the “Goals from the Beginning of the Year” front, I’ve conquered the three months consistently making my car payment from my writing. My next goal is to accumulate three months of car payments in the bank so that when I can’t make the money that month, I can fall back. I think if I keep publishing at least every two weeks, that’s a reasonable goal. I’m not consistently writing 2k a day (sorry Stephen King!). I am upping my writing of what I call “quickies” that I publish on the other writing website to draw traffic. That has definitely helped move eyes to the webpage, so I’m going to keep doing that.

​Here are the most recent images from the farm

It’s been a whirlwind of a week since I got home. Well, kind of a week. It’s actually not quite been seven days yet. It’s wonderful, and it stinks all at the same time.

Doug picked me up at the airport with flowers and Arora was waiting (asleep on a table). Poor thing was sick. Doug brought me home and made me an apple brandy Sazerac and we giggled for the rest of the night.

I’ve gotten to visit with Leonard and Arora, but not Aaron yet. I wish I could figure out a way to be closer to that kid. I love him so much, but I know my personality is a bit too loud for him. I get it. I try to restrain myself. Aaron and I are both emotional people. I just wish I could communicate with him better.

This might all be brought out by the stress of being home and experiencing Dorian’s birthday for the first time without her. Maybe I should have marked the day differently, but I went rock climbing for the first time at Leonard’s rock wall (the one he manages at UNO). Leonard taught me about bouldering, Unfortunately, I fell and hit my head pretty hard on the mat. To be fair, I was trying to learn how to fall—I didn’t do very well with that lesson. Kinda swished my brain around and I had a headache behind. My eye for the rest of the day. No concussion, but I just didn’t feel right after the blow (slightly nauseated, brain hurt when I looked too quickly at stuff.).

After sitting in the hot tub for a while, I felt ready to go to Mexican with the babies (except for Aaron who was working—such a great human). I felt icky so I didn’t get a Margarita, but I did get my carnitas. With full tummies, Doug took us for a shopping trip to Shadow Lake. He wouldn’t tell us where we were going, but he had prepaid for our new phones (me, Arora, and Len—Aaron’s comes up for renewal in a few months and then we’ll do his).

It is super nice to have a new iPhone. It’s also super nice to have food and a roof over my head when I’m not working to support myself. I feel so lucky and so blessed by this life. I miss my sister. I did not want her to die so young, but she did and I couldn’t stop it. I am still blessed beyond belief to be able to mourn her in my own time and space and way. My family has done that. From helping with car payments to feeding me and providing me regular treats and loans of cash. I can’t express how wrong it feels to take it. I know Dorian must be laughing her butt off at me being in the same destitute place she was in. I wish she were in it with me and we were in it together.

I wrote this morning that every single breath feels like it’s a step away from her and her memory some days. I need to reframe that thought because every breath I take is actually one step closer to seeing her again. Which, honestly, I don’t know or even really feel that everlasting life/or and after life will be possible for me.

Even if this is all I have and I end at death, I will find peace in the fact I will no longer miss her or my son anymore. That will be enough. It has to be.