I've been thinking about starting a journal for a few days now. It's been pointed out a few times that I need to have a set plan to achive the goals that I desire so much. I do have certain goals in mind, along with a vision as to where and what I want to do. But, well sometimes you need a bit of advice so you stay on track and get where you want to go.
Since I've yet to do a profile in the nearly month since I joined here, I should start out by telling everyone a bit about myself. I'm 44yrs young. Will be 45 on August 15th. I'm single. Sapposedly engaged, but it doesn't really feel like it anymore. I've a wonderful, beautiful 6 1/2 year old daughter that means the world to me.
I myself grew up as the only child of a single parent. This had of course both it's benifits as well as it's downfalls. At times during my young years my mother and I lived with my grandparents. At which time 3 of my great grandparents also lived. This too also provided it's pro's and cons. But I survived, and probably better off for it to. In 1977 my mother purchased her first home. This house although was located on a double wide lot in our town. This affroded us a huge garden where I quickly learned that I've a green thumb. I also learned how to can and preserve what we grew back then as well.
Because my mother felt it was nessary that I had the influence and guidence from men and to be around other boys, she enrolled me into scouting as soon as I was old enough to become a cubscout. I stayed in scouting all the way through until I made my eagle in 1984, the same year I graduated highschool. While in college I stayed on as assistant scoutmaster teaching first aid, fishing and marksmenship merit badges.
While college didn't work out as planned (the school took out my department in my senior year), I started work immediately once I was out of school. For the better part of 20 years at one company or another I was a retail manager. I did, at times take other jobs, when nessary. So I've done 10key, data entry, warehouse, assembly work, ect. Even ran a mail room at one time as well. In 1999 I finally proposed to my girlfriend of 5 years at the time. I was working for a major drugstore/dry goods store at the time. But with an 84 hour work week (7 12 hour days in a row) then 7 days off, it was starting to get to me and wasn't very good for my relationship with my fiance. So after discussing the situation with her, her father, my mother, as well as friends I sold my stock in the company I worked for and retuned to school. Sadly this second time worked even worse the the first time around. School was a fraud, and the owner of the company is behind bars. There went $4000!
With a loan from my mother I went back for a third time, this time I was seeking my MSCE (microsoft certified network engineer), specializing in network security. But then totally unexpected, fiance and I found we were expecting our daughter. I dropped out of school and found work immediatly, so as to support my now rapidly expanding family. I quickly found work and continued doing so until 2006 when this company was bought out and consolidated the managment (I was a sales manager at the time) Being laid off and having a 3yr old you're trying to pay support for, I again immediately started looking for work again. While doing so, a county representiative at my local unemployment office encouraged me to go back to school, on thier dime this time, for any trade I chose. I happened to have an interest in welding so I took a course in this. Sadly though, this class was a joke. In 16 weeks the course ran they didn't bother to teach use how to read even one welding blue print symbol. Even after I recieved my sapposed "welder certification", nobody would hire me.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this, because it was only a matter of weeks later when my mother fell at work on some black ice on her way home one morning. I rushed her to our local hospital's ER. I know full well head injuries are serious. It was during the examination while my mother was in the ER that they determined she had breast cancer.
Even though my mother didn't have insurance other then medicare part A, we did manage to get her set up at county hospital for treatments. Only one problem. Even after making litterly hundreds of calls to all sorts of agencies, I could find NOBODY to take my mother to and from the hospital for these treatments and visits with her onocolgist. This duty then fell on me. It was rough, I had to make the decision of having to take care of my mother, or not care of her and try to find some sort of employment so I could give my fiance support for our daugther. But I knew my daughter would be well taken care of. When the finally told us how far along the cancer was, (it was stage IV before it was caught), I did some research online. I knew that my mother had less then at 10% chance to live another 5 years. So I don't regret one moment the decision I made to take care of her and be there when she needed me. As it was she faught the cancer off for nearly 3 years, only succumbing to it fall of 2009.
So that leaves me where I am today. I'm loosing the house my mother worked so hard for for nearly 30 years. It's rought at times to concider this aspect to be honest. Yet, something inside me is saying this is my chance to break free and become everything I can be or do. Because my mother enrolled me in scouts, has had a life altering change in me. For a long time now I've wanted to move out of the city. So, while I am close to being forced out of the home I'm in now, I'm also looking at this as someone telling me this is the proper time to reach for the preverbal brass ring. To turn a what most would concider a downfall into something possitive. And that's what's been keeping me going! Well,that and my daughter too!
Now why am I calling my Journal "Ruathia Holding". I sappose there's a bit of explaination due here. I'm a book worm. I love to read. It saddens me I have to sell of as many books as I'm having too, but hey, I can always buy more books later once I move, right? I love Sci-fi/fantasy stories and one that is very dear to me is Ann McCaffery's 'Dragon Rider's of Pern' series of books. If you know anything about these books or have read them, they REALLY fall right into the theme of Self Sufficency's forums.
The books take place thousands of years advanced from now. Humans have been space faring for quite some time. That is until we ran into another space fairing speicies. Where as usual a war broke out. This war lasted for centuries. After the war was over (the books never say who won), we go back to exploring space peacfully. Where one of our exploration teams find a small planet with some but not alot of raw materials. Nothing special to speak of. But of interest to some back on Earth. By which time has become a planet wide meglotroplis. With not one spot of green anywhere left on the entire planet. So a group of approximately 4000 settlers desiring a more self sufficent aguarian life set off to colonate the planet of Pern.
Ruathia is a "Holding" on the planet Pern. Think of it as the Lord's castle-keep. And the lord has workers harvesting grains and other things. Some holds do mining, others holds do fishing, and so on. Ruathia is actually from an old dialect of irish or scottish, I don't remember which now, that means green fields. Where cattle are rasied and crops are grown. "Jaxom" is actually the lord of Ruathia. Although in first book he's just a baby. I relate the character because he didn't have a father (his father was actually killed by a dragon rider). His title is actually "Lord Holder of Ruathia, rider of white dragon Ruth (Ironically my mother's first name)
My ultimate goals at this time are as follows.
It's my intentions to find a fair sized place to rent or buy. Preferably 1-5 acers would be fine. And frankly at this point I don't care if all it has is a one room house on it. So long as I have the land, that's the most important to me. I can always build a different house later.
To achieve this goal I need to...
1)get estate sale done...sooner the better, yesterday would have been best
2)get my truck working. I did some work on it today, I'm a bit closer to having the gas tank resintalled with new pump. Still need to work on a snapped off bolt in order to do so.
3)get the last of the things I want to keep (very little) packed and ready to move on a moments notice
4)continue seeking work here and in the area I'm seeking to move to
5)Investigate some possible sources of income where I run a buisness (re become a commercial fisherman)
6) Continue researching and reading anything and everything thing I can about self sufficent living.
7)get on real estate broker, it's been 3 weeks since he said he was going to see if I can do short sale on house
8)get my nieghbors to take the dozen boxes of books they bought out of basemnet i need the room to do sale with
9)get in touch with local dental school, see about getting some teeth pulled before they get infected again
10)If truck is working, go visit daughter, it's been months and I miss her!
11)If I'm not busy, I'm not thinking right there's too much that needs to be done!
Jax
Since I've yet to do a profile in the nearly month since I joined here, I should start out by telling everyone a bit about myself. I'm 44yrs young. Will be 45 on August 15th. I'm single. Sapposedly engaged, but it doesn't really feel like it anymore. I've a wonderful, beautiful 6 1/2 year old daughter that means the world to me.
I myself grew up as the only child of a single parent. This had of course both it's benifits as well as it's downfalls. At times during my young years my mother and I lived with my grandparents. At which time 3 of my great grandparents also lived. This too also provided it's pro's and cons. But I survived, and probably better off for it to. In 1977 my mother purchased her first home. This house although was located on a double wide lot in our town. This affroded us a huge garden where I quickly learned that I've a green thumb. I also learned how to can and preserve what we grew back then as well.
Because my mother felt it was nessary that I had the influence and guidence from men and to be around other boys, she enrolled me into scouting as soon as I was old enough to become a cubscout. I stayed in scouting all the way through until I made my eagle in 1984, the same year I graduated highschool. While in college I stayed on as assistant scoutmaster teaching first aid, fishing and marksmenship merit badges.
While college didn't work out as planned (the school took out my department in my senior year), I started work immediately once I was out of school. For the better part of 20 years at one company or another I was a retail manager. I did, at times take other jobs, when nessary. So I've done 10key, data entry, warehouse, assembly work, ect. Even ran a mail room at one time as well. In 1999 I finally proposed to my girlfriend of 5 years at the time. I was working for a major drugstore/dry goods store at the time. But with an 84 hour work week (7 12 hour days in a row) then 7 days off, it was starting to get to me and wasn't very good for my relationship with my fiance. So after discussing the situation with her, her father, my mother, as well as friends I sold my stock in the company I worked for and retuned to school. Sadly this second time worked even worse the the first time around. School was a fraud, and the owner of the company is behind bars. There went $4000!
With a loan from my mother I went back for a third time, this time I was seeking my MSCE (microsoft certified network engineer), specializing in network security. But then totally unexpected, fiance and I found we were expecting our daughter. I dropped out of school and found work immediatly, so as to support my now rapidly expanding family. I quickly found work and continued doing so until 2006 when this company was bought out and consolidated the managment (I was a sales manager at the time) Being laid off and having a 3yr old you're trying to pay support for, I again immediately started looking for work again. While doing so, a county representiative at my local unemployment office encouraged me to go back to school, on thier dime this time, for any trade I chose. I happened to have an interest in welding so I took a course in this. Sadly though, this class was a joke. In 16 weeks the course ran they didn't bother to teach use how to read even one welding blue print symbol. Even after I recieved my sapposed "welder certification", nobody would hire me.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this, because it was only a matter of weeks later when my mother fell at work on some black ice on her way home one morning. I rushed her to our local hospital's ER. I know full well head injuries are serious. It was during the examination while my mother was in the ER that they determined she had breast cancer.
Even though my mother didn't have insurance other then medicare part A, we did manage to get her set up at county hospital for treatments. Only one problem. Even after making litterly hundreds of calls to all sorts of agencies, I could find NOBODY to take my mother to and from the hospital for these treatments and visits with her onocolgist. This duty then fell on me. It was rough, I had to make the decision of having to take care of my mother, or not care of her and try to find some sort of employment so I could give my fiance support for our daugther. But I knew my daughter would be well taken care of. When the finally told us how far along the cancer was, (it was stage IV before it was caught), I did some research online. I knew that my mother had less then at 10% chance to live another 5 years. So I don't regret one moment the decision I made to take care of her and be there when she needed me. As it was she faught the cancer off for nearly 3 years, only succumbing to it fall of 2009.
So that leaves me where I am today. I'm loosing the house my mother worked so hard for for nearly 30 years. It's rought at times to concider this aspect to be honest. Yet, something inside me is saying this is my chance to break free and become everything I can be or do. Because my mother enrolled me in scouts, has had a life altering change in me. For a long time now I've wanted to move out of the city. So, while I am close to being forced out of the home I'm in now, I'm also looking at this as someone telling me this is the proper time to reach for the preverbal brass ring. To turn a what most would concider a downfall into something possitive. And that's what's been keeping me going! Well,that and my daughter too!
Now why am I calling my Journal "Ruathia Holding". I sappose there's a bit of explaination due here. I'm a book worm. I love to read. It saddens me I have to sell of as many books as I'm having too, but hey, I can always buy more books later once I move, right? I love Sci-fi/fantasy stories and one that is very dear to me is Ann McCaffery's 'Dragon Rider's of Pern' series of books. If you know anything about these books or have read them, they REALLY fall right into the theme of Self Sufficency's forums.
The books take place thousands of years advanced from now. Humans have been space faring for quite some time. That is until we ran into another space fairing speicies. Where as usual a war broke out. This war lasted for centuries. After the war was over (the books never say who won), we go back to exploring space peacfully. Where one of our exploration teams find a small planet with some but not alot of raw materials. Nothing special to speak of. But of interest to some back on Earth. By which time has become a planet wide meglotroplis. With not one spot of green anywhere left on the entire planet. So a group of approximately 4000 settlers desiring a more self sufficent aguarian life set off to colonate the planet of Pern.
Ruathia is a "Holding" on the planet Pern. Think of it as the Lord's castle-keep. And the lord has workers harvesting grains and other things. Some holds do mining, others holds do fishing, and so on. Ruathia is actually from an old dialect of irish or scottish, I don't remember which now, that means green fields. Where cattle are rasied and crops are grown. "Jaxom" is actually the lord of Ruathia. Although in first book he's just a baby. I relate the character because he didn't have a father (his father was actually killed by a dragon rider). His title is actually "Lord Holder of Ruathia, rider of white dragon Ruth (Ironically my mother's first name)
My ultimate goals at this time are as follows.
It's my intentions to find a fair sized place to rent or buy. Preferably 1-5 acers would be fine. And frankly at this point I don't care if all it has is a one room house on it. So long as I have the land, that's the most important to me. I can always build a different house later.
To achieve this goal I need to...
1)get estate sale done...sooner the better, yesterday would have been best
2)get my truck working. I did some work on it today, I'm a bit closer to having the gas tank resintalled with new pump. Still need to work on a snapped off bolt in order to do so.
3)get the last of the things I want to keep (very little) packed and ready to move on a moments notice
4)continue seeking work here and in the area I'm seeking to move to
5)Investigate some possible sources of income where I run a buisness (re become a commercial fisherman)
6) Continue researching and reading anything and everything thing I can about self sufficent living.
7)get on real estate broker, it's been 3 weeks since he said he was going to see if I can do short sale on house
8)get my nieghbors to take the dozen boxes of books they bought out of basemnet i need the room to do sale with
9)get in touch with local dental school, see about getting some teeth pulled before they get infected again
10)If truck is working, go visit daughter, it's been months and I miss her!
11)If I'm not busy, I'm not thinking right there's too much that needs to be done!
Jax
