Back in Truth or Consequences

VW Bus John, Many Wheels Brian and Blogless Steve

It's been a month since I blogged, and what a month it's been!  I spent the beginning of April getting ready to leave Why, Arizona, and head back to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  Because I could leave some things in storage at Steve's place, I didn't have to carry everything I own with me in The Guppy, for the first time since I left Oregon about 15 months go.  So I made a lot of little decisions about which clothes and art supplies and so on to bring with me and which to leave.  It was nice to be able to travel lighter.


Steve and I spent a night at an RV park in Willcox, Arizona, en route to TorC, and then we lived in The Guppy at the Artesian Bath House & Trailer Court in downtown TorC for about two weeks.  We weren't sure whether we wanted to rent an apartment this year or not.  Last year we both paid a lot of rent and it seemed like it might be a good idea to just stay in my little motorhome and spend our money on gas money to travel around instead of getting tied down with an apartment.


But, after two weeks of close quarters, we were ready to rent a place.  We got along great, and we'll definitely use The Guppy for some future travels, but for every day living, we need more space.  I like to spread out to to my eBay work and my artwork.  Steve likes to have a little space where he can watch a movie, read, or take a nap.  

 My good friend Gretchen

I was visiting my friend January the other day at her gallery while delivering my first batch of mandala greeting cards, and she mentioned there was an apartment across the street over another store.  We checked it out and loved it, so we rented it immediately and moved in the next day.  Yesterday we already had our first little coffee party here.  Several friends joined us to watch the Fiesta Parade, since we live right on Broadway, the main drag through TorC.  It was a blast!  We hung out of the windows and stood on the roof next-door and enjoyed a bird's eye view of the parade and of the other people watching the parade.


The apartment is great--two bedrooms, hardwood floors, and tons of old-fashioned character.  We have windows and doors that open to a false balcony over Broadway, so we get lots of breeze and can watch the town wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.  I love it!  

 Sonja is right at home in the new place

I feel really energized here.  I've been drawing mandalas like crazy and have gotten the first dozen greeting cards into January's gallery with another dozen almost ready to go.  Since getting back to town, I've already joined the local artists' salon and volunteered to help find sponsors for the yearly artists' directory.   I've returned to work just a little bit at La Paloma Spa.  I have some writing commitments and a couple of business ideas, including making a Truth or Consequences coloring book!

Before I get very settled into my business endeavors here in TorC, I'm heading off to Seattle to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks.  Air fares have been a bargain recently, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to go visit my friend Helen who had knee replacement surgery last week, as well as my son Sly.  Helen has been working out at the gym for the past couple of years, and she's in such good shape physically that she probably won't really need much help from me in her recovery, but hopefully I can at least drive her to doctor's appointments and physical therapy until she's ready to drive herself.   Sly will be busy with a barista job training program most of the time I'm there, but I'm sure we'll get to hang out a few evenings and on weekends.  I'll get to see a few other friends while in Seattle, but I'm mostly going to concentrate on Helen, Sly, and my eBay business.  Seattle has fabulous thrift stores!  And I'll have time while hanging with Helen to iron and photograph scarves and get them listed online.  I'll probably write my next blog entry in Seattle.

 Andrea, Lynn, Judi and Chris

I can't quit this one until I mention what a great time I had meeting some of the members of my WomenGoSolo RVing group that were all staying out at Elephant Butte State Park, about five miles from TorC.   I'm so glad we had the opportunity to get together.  Not shown in this picture is my friend Metta, who has been living in her Class A in and around TorC for the past eight months or so and who recently joined the WGS group.  Both Metta and Judi are now working as camp hosts at Elephant Butte, so I'll be seeing lots more of them.  


And, finally, the real reason I haven't blogged in a while:

"It's not your turn yet.  Meow!"

 

Selling Off My Excess Inventory

Be honest with me--Does this chair make me look fat?

Two blog posts in two days! It must be spring! I must be getting invigorated. Maybe it's that big nearly full moon.

Last night I was on the phone with Steve, who is visiting family in Tucson, and I had to put down the phone and close the door because my cat Sonja was trying her darnedest to get out the screen door and play in the moonlight with the coyotes and other creatures of the night.


I spent most of today putting box lots of 50 scarves each out on the kitchen table so I could photograph them. I got the photos all taken, uploaded, and cropped, and then I wrote up the auction descriptions and launched them. I'm offering a total of 400 scarves (8 lots of 50 each) on eBay at bargain prices. My hope is to have less stuff to take back to New Mexico, as well as having a little traveling money.


Normally I list scarves individually. But sometimes they don't sell right away and I have to decide whether to re-list them individually or save them up and sell them in lots like I'm doing today. I also include scarves in these lots that I chose not to list for one reason or another--maybe a minor condition problem or maybe I just am not that impressed with the scarf and I'm not sure it's worth selling on its own.


I am always glad to get some return on my investment when I sell these lots. I am probably going to sell these scarves at a loss, when you consider what I paid for them and how much it costs me to list them online. Then there's the value of my time--huh! Sometimes it's best not to think about that! I had a couple of self-employed friends over last weekend, and we all agreed we probably work for 35 cents an hour. But, regardless, I'll be glad to get something for these scarves, rather than having to just give them back to a charity thrift store.

I'm one day closer to getting back to TorC, and getting these scarves listed felt great. Hurrah!

The Dog Ate My Homework

Wild burros just over the fence from our place in Why, Arizona

Okay, I don't actually have a dog, and blogging isn't homework. But I feel a little adrift when time passes and I haven't been using my blog to sum up what's been happening in my life. Not only are there several people who actually care about what I'm up to, but writing this blog also helps me hone in on where I stand with my goals and issues.


I've been busy. For most of the month of March, eBay offered free listings for eBay store owners. So I've been working hard, getting lots of scarves ironed, photographed, listed and sold. I've also made some progress on my book on successful eBay selling strategies for full-time RVers, and I've been asked to write some articles for the collectibles page on About.com.

What?! We have to travel...again?!!!

The weather has warmed up a lot in recent weeks. We often have afternoon temps in the 90s. Soon it's going to get uncomfortably hot, and with solar power, we can't run an air conditioner. Steve and I are planning to go back to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in mid-April. So I'm working on a mental list of things I'd like to get done before we go. I had a full physical a few days ago, and I'm going to get my taxes filed this week. I'm trying to use up food, and make decisions about what clothing, art supplies, and such to take with me and what to leave here.

Tailgating at Darby Wells

Life has been routine lately, but one highlight was a picnic out on Darby Wells Road one warm Sunday afternoon. This is an area that several travelers I know have talked about in their blogs, and for good reason. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the Senoran Desert I've seen so far, and it's BLM land where you can camp for two weeks (although I heard recently that, practically speaking, the two weeks starts when an official stops by to check on you--and that rarely happens on Darby Road, where there are far more Border Patrols than BLM rangers).


We also took a nice trip to Tucson last week to spend time with one of Steve's cousins who was visiting from Oregon. Going to Tucson usually means eating too much and spending more money than we do out here where there is hardly anything to buy. I visited the Tucson Mall and found some really practical, comfortable chinos and walking shoes at reasonable prices. Score!


Our six months in Why is almost over and I never produced the artwork I'd planned. I had anticipated going back to TorC with a gallery show ready to hang. I had an idea and most of the materials I needed to do it, but I did not have the creative energy. This was largely due to my concerns over my kid, who has had lots of ups and downs with mental illness since last fall. I guess my biggest accomplishments this winter have been to sustain a happy, loving relationship with my new partner, to live in a new place where I am always meeting new people and have no old friends, and to come to peace, albeit sometimes a fragile one, with my son's life situation.

These curtains are lovely silk scarves that didn't sell on eBay

These things are enough. The art will happen when it's supposed to. In the meantime, I have made a daily habit of drawing mandalas while taking an afternoon coffee break, and that has rekindled some of my creative energy. I've also gotten some more redecorating done around Steve's 5th wheel. There are colorful curtains on all of the windows, some made from my scarf inventory and others from vintage fabrics I'd collected. It is definitely more enjoyable being in Steve's place now that not everything is brown!


I'm looking forward to getting back home to Truth or Consequences, where I have more friends and there is a good coffee shop/bookstore, a movie theater, and lots of 12-Step meetings. I understand there is also now really good bakery bread to be had from the Bountiful Kitchen--I'm looking forward to trying it and seeing what else has happened in my absence. With that, I'm off to do some packing.

Sitting Pretty...More Color in the Man-Cave

My handiwork meets with Sonja's approval

Steve is still dog-sitting in Ajo, and I continue to surprise him with additions of color to his 5th wheel when he comes out to Why to see me. The other day I re-covered the dinette cushions, which had previously been swathed in worn-out cream-colored terry cloth. They're not anymore. I used up some of my vintage fabric cache, which was good. I was tired of hauling so much fabric around with me.

Keyboard and crayons...the necessities of life

I told Steve the next project is curtains. The vertical blinds above the dinette are difficult to adjust, and they poke me in the back. I showed my partner a nice big piece of blue and white Hawaiian floral fabric I'd picked out for the curtains.

"Won't that be too busy?," Steve asked in a worried tone.

"It's a bit late for that, isn't it?," I cackled in reply.

I stay busy selling on eBay, drawing mandalas, occasionally breaking plates for mosaic, playing Words With Friends, meditating, studying metaphysics, reading novels, etc. Now I have begun a new project. I'm writing a book about successful eBay selling strategies for full-time RVers. Writing a book is all-consuming. Last night I was burning the 9:30 oil.

Tipi, the nice one

On Thursdays I go to Ajo for...well, I was gonna say conjugal visits, but that's really tmi, isn't it? Anyhow, there's a meeting for anonymous former winos like me on Thursday nights, and I go in early to have dinner with Steve and then stay overnight at the house where he is caring for Tipi and Jiggs the Devil Dogg. Tipi is a lap dog with a pleasant cat-like personality. Jiggs is a barking, whining, howling, humping disaster of a dog.

Jiggs, in a rare moment of being nearly inert

Dog-sitting wears a guy out

This past Friday, I stayed longer than usual so I could use the 110v electricity to iron scarves for resale on eBay. I stayed too long. My chakras were shot by the time I got back to the quiet of Coyote Howls. Even so, I was able to intuitively sense that I would see a coyote that evening...and I did! While Steve and I were enjoying pizza with some long-time friends of his from the RV park, I saw several coyotes across the fence on the Reservation, one of them a rare white coyote.

I am always glad to get back to Why. There was a full moon a night or two ago, and the coyotes and burros have been very vocal throughout the night. Occasionally I have been woken out of a sound sleep by howling coyotes that couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet away. I never feel alarmed by the coyotes' presence. It's oddly comforting to be so close to nature even in its howling form.

Sonja is scared out of her wits (well, whatever of those she may possess) by the coyotes, and she stands at the doorway hissing at the burros when they walk by. "Take that, burros!"

"The coyotes won't find me in here!"

Man-Cave to Casbah

Happy Hippie indeed.

Hi guys and gals, as well of those of you who are unsure or unwilling to commit. In my last blog post, I shared with you that I was having a busy week listing lots of scarves on eBay during a free listing week for eBay store owners. It was a great success, so the past week I've been packing up the items that sold and getting them to the post office as quickly as I can.

It's been very reassuring to me to see that I really can make a modest living from my business, so long as I'm willing to devote enough time to it and live frugally. I'd previously had some success at this level, but it was back when I had a large suburban home where I could devote an entire room to eBay shenanigans. To achieve the same results in an RV took me a while.

It wasn't just the smaller space--it was also getting to the point of settling down to business. I spent a year kind of treading water in one place after my marriage ended and then another year wandering about, both geographically and in terms of how I made a living. For a while last year, I actually had a job. After a time, I came to realize that working for someone else, even just part-time, was distracting me from my real work, which is self-employment on eBay and as an artist and busker. So I am beginning to buckle down now and do what I need to do.

Today I got an email from eBay about some upcoming policy changes that present new challenges. Every time I just about figure out how to be a top-notch eBay seller with stars and ribbons showing potential buyers how reliable and trustworthy I am, the rules change. Now I need to decide whether I can provide one-day turn-around on my shipping in order to maintain my privileged status as a Top-Rated Seller. Can I do this, living on the road? I don't know yet. I have a couple of months to practice before the new policy goes into effect.

Silk Ceiling

So, you are probably wondering what all this has to do with my title, "Man-Cave to Casbah." Actually, I have to give Steve credit for this title. While he's been dogsitting in Ajo and I've been living by myself in Why, I've been getting a little creative, bring colors other than brown and design elements besides the bones, feathers, skins and skulls of dead animals into Steve's 5th wheel. While sorting through my many hundred scarves to pull out the best designers and brands, as well as green scarves for St. Paddy's and florals for my spring sales, I uncovered some hippie fodder...hand blocked silk scarves from India. Today I stapled them onto the ceiling of the cab-over bedroom. Hence the title.

Rumi in the living room

I've also been taking down some of the yellowed paper on which years ago Steve printed out some of his most beloved sayings, and I've been painting the words directly on the walls. That's right, commitment. With me constantly finding new ways to improve his home, I'm sure Steve feels trepidation every time he comes out here to visit me. But he still keeps showing up and fortunately he has been happy with the results thus far. My next redecorating projects involve using up some of my vintage fabric cache to cover cushions and make curtains.

My first mandala

For a while this winter, my creativity seemed to be kind of dried up. But the practical art of redecorating has gotten it flowing again, and now I'm spending a little time each day drawing. One of the items on my bucket list was to create mandalas and now I am thinking of making some greeting cards, combining mandalas with the quotations that I've been gathering for daily posts on FaceBook over the past year. Mandalas are a natural for me, because I love to doodle and, like any mosaic artist, I'm mad about geometry. Most types of art work integrate your inside and outside, but mandalas are particularly great for this because you can choose symbols that hold special meaning for you.

Mesquite honey from Indigenous Nutrition

In closing I'd like to rehash some old business from past posts. In my last blog posting, I mentioned that the blooming desert is causing me hay fever, a condition I thought I'd left behind when I came to the Southwest. Who knew that such tiny flowers could cause so much sinus congestion and headache? I sure didn't. I thought about taking pictures of these little blossoming bio-hazards, but Roxanne has already done it for me. So I'll just mention that I'm trying a couple of ancient remedies this time around rather than just popping Zyrtec and they seem to be helping me.

While it's debatable whether local honey actually helps immunize you from the effects of pollen, I sure do enjoy slathering a full tablespoon of mesquite honey on my toast each morning. If nothing else, it soothes my throat while going down. And there is no doubt in my mind that using my neti pot once or twice a day is helpful. Once you get past the revulsion of having stuff coming out of your nostrils, nasal irrigation rocks! I've also begun using lavender oil instead of antibiotics for the rosacea that usually starts bothering me by late winter, and that rocks, too.


On a final note, there was a very interesting article on Yahoo! News today about the reopening of portions of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, ten years after their closure to the public following the killing of a park ranger by drug runners. For my friends living in other parts of the U.S., this article gives you a little bit of a feel of some aspects of living near the Mexican border. In a short time, though, I have become inured to the loss of civil liberties that occurs each time I travel around here (although I'm sure I would be far more stricken by their lack if I wasn't a pinkish, blondish Norwegian-American). Most days, the beauty and peace of living in the Senoran Desert allows me to forget about politics and crime.

All By Myself

Nicole Miller silk pocket square handkerchief, designed for Absolut

That Celine Dion song, "All By Myself," is such a cry-in-your-beer number. Personally I just don't understand it. When I am by myself, I get to sleep in the middle of the bed and take all the covers and all the pillows and eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and be completely self-indulgent. What's wrong with that?

Pierre Cardin equestrian scarf with knights in armor

Steve is house-sitting for friends in Ajo for five weeks. I am not. I'm staying out at Why with my cat. Sleeping in the middle of the bed, taking all the covers--no, wait, we've been through that already.

YSL pocket square

I thought about taking the Guppy into Ajo and moochdocking in our friends' back yard, but Steve's job involves small dogs who are very excitable about cats, among other things. I would've had to confine Sonja to the Guppy, yet the dogs would probably still bark at her. So I'm staying home.

Is there an Echo in here? No, but there are lots of them in my eBay store

And it's perfect timing to be All By Myself for another reason--I'm in the middle of a Free Listing Week for eBay Store Owners. Uploading an auction listing usually costs me between 35 cents and $1.00 per scarf, depending on how much I'm asking as an opening bid price. I still have to pay other costs to eBay and their Paypal subsidiary, but I am saving some bucks.

D is for Dior

And it's perfect timing to be doing lots of eBay listing, too, because I bought a shitload--wait, can I say that in my blog?--of scarves recently. Okay, make that a Guppyful of scarves.

My buyers seem to like Talbott's mosaic design as much as I do

A couple of months ago, a lady was selling a box lot of scarves on eBay and she mentioned in her auction description that she was downsizing and getting rid of a life long collection. I won that auction and emailed her to ask if I could buy the rest of her collection, which she sold me at a very reasonable price. I think I've gotten 12 Priority Mail Large Flat Rate Boxes of scarves from her, which is something like 1000 scarves. So I'm listing, listing, listing, and am glad the listings are free.

Sometimes I list to the left, but that's about my arthritic knee and my politics, not eBay.

Vera! This is Vera Neumann, not Wang or Bradley

Having this huge inventory of scarves is great. It's like somebody else went to a bajillion thrift stores and already picked out the best scarves and then mailed them to me for a lot less money than it would have cost me to do the same shopping, with gas at $3.69 a gallon here.

Nautical tall ship scarf by AV

So I'm working hard and Steve is, too, and when we're done, it will be starting to get too hot to stay here in southern Arizona, and we'll pack up and go back to New Mexico. We plan to spend the summer in Truth or Consequences, but we may travel somewhere northerly in midsummer when it's hot in TorC. We don't want to get too tied down being wage slaves this time around. And then in the fall, we are thinking of heading east to Florida rather than back west to Why. But who knows? That's a long ways off yet.

And the Oscar goes to...

In the meantime, please enjoy looking at my scarves on eBay.

Steve came out to Why today and made me fish tacos for lunch. Tomorrow he's coming out to make a new door to cover my propane tank compartment, since I keep losing doors along my travels. He's fashioning the new one out of an old metal Stop sign.

So I'm not completely All By Myself--we have visitation.

Nothing comes between me and my Calvins

An update on my son Sly--he has qualified for SSI and is receiving a small monthly check while living with his dad. The amount will increase when he lives elsewhere, and he's actively seeking a place to live. Seattle is expensive, and he's looking at getting some help through mental health organizations that place people in affordable, supported housing. It's all kind of up in the air right now, but at least Social Security has come through.

Hmm...do you suppose Anne and Calvin are related?

And another good thing is that Sly's hallucinations have stopped since his meds were changed, and now it seems unlikely that he is schizophrenic, although he has been diagnosed with Cluster B personality disorder traits as well as severe depression. But it looks like he will get his antidepressants increased once he's completely off of the meds that were giving him scary delusions.

This Scaasi is HTF and EUC in eBayese

It is difficult watching Sly's challenges from afar, but even if I was closer, it is essential that he start learning to find and get help on his own. And he is doing this. I pray every day that he can continue to work towards being independent or semi-independent without any huge crises, but, of course, this is outside of my control and would be even if we lived closer to each other.

Thank you for the kind comments and interest there has been about Sly. I really appreciate knowing that others care.

Staying Put Never Keeps Me From Rambling

Sly and another critter at the Arizona-Senora Desert Museum

When I last blogged a few weeks ago, my 19-year-old son Sly and I were on a camping trip to several Tucson area tourist traps. (By the way, our tickets to most of the places we visited were BOGOs because I bought a Tucson Attractions Savings Passport. If you're going to visit Tucson, you should buy one, too.)

Sly and a portion of Biosphere 2

On our penultimate day on the road, we visited Biosphere 2, north of Tucson near Oracle. Years ago, Biosphere was an experiment that had humans living in a domed environment to explore possible space colonization and ways to survive on Earth in case of environmental disaster. Due to funding and management disputes, as well as factors of "confined environmental psychology" (we used to call it "Cabin Fever" in Alaska), the experiments that involved having humans live inside the facility ended. A few years ago, the University of Arizona took over management and later ownership of the site, and now they are running experiments on climate change and other issues.

We enjoyed the tour at Biosphere 2, and it was fun to imagine what it would have been like to live there back in the day. There are several really warm, lush biomes, as well as harsher desert environments, all in one big complex. I never felt like we were getting the whole story as to why people no longer live inside the facility, but it really didn't matter. There is still a lot of interesting stuff going on there, and it's a great learning environment for both the University and visitors.

Harris hawk

After our tour, we hit Tucson's rush hour traffic to try to get to the campground in Saguaro National Park that lies west of town. We had hookups and bathrooms there, but no showers. The next morning we drove to the nearby Arizona-Senora Desert Museum, which is one of my all-time favorite places to enjoy and learn about nature. They have it all there--museum exhibits, art institute and gallery, zoo, trails, cafes, gift shops. It was all fun, but the highlight of the day was seeing a demonstration of Harris hawks in flight, sometimes so close over our heads that we were brushed by their wing feathers.

After the hawk fly-over, we headed back home to Why, where we spent the remainder of Sly's visit, mostly in quieter pursuits such as playing board games, doing jigsaw puzzles, and sitting outside reading in the afternoons. When Sly had been here for a little over two weeks, we drove up to Phoenix for his flight back to Seattle. However, this was on the first full day of the Seattle Snowmageddon, and all of the flights were canceled and it was hard to predict when Sly could get out. So I rescheduled Sly's flight to have him stay an extra week. As it turned out, this was a good plan--some parts of the Seattle area were without power for five days.

Deer, deer

The extra week also gave my ex-husband a chance to look into some resources for Sly. Within a few days after his return to Seattle, Sly started a day program in the psych ward of a hospital near his dad's home. They're making a new assessment of his condition and revising his meds, which had been giving him a lot of scary side-effects. So far, switching up the meds is making things more difficult, and Sly is also having to do a lot of hard work on issues that he'd rather not look at, but ultimately this should all help with his recovery. In the meantime, the Social Security Administration has determined that Sly is disabled and has started providing some funds, which will really help in getting Sly into a semi-independent living situation as well as funding his future healthcare needs.

Sly's painting of a blue one-eyed singer

Sly's extra week here in Arizona also gave him time to do more artwork. He finished painting some deer antlers for the neighbors, who had him over for dinner one night, where he showed their friends a painting he'd just completed and sold it on the spot! That was very encouraging. Sly has also had some sales in the past on his Etsy site, and maybe he'll be able to add more paintings there once he finishes his partial hospitalization program.

Dina in Brian's Chinooky Van

Another benefit of Sly's extended stay was that my friends Brian and Jon from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, came through and stayed with us a couple of nights in Why, so my son got to meet some of my friends and vice versa. Somehow I managed to only take a picture of Brian's dog Dina while the guys were here, rather than any photos of the guys themselves. But we had some nice meals, a campfire, time to all sit together in the sunshine, and all that good quality camping-with-friends stuff.

Since my son left, I've been really concentrating on taking care of myself. Steve and I drove up to Casa Grande, a city that lies between Phoenix and Tucson, one day so I could get my Arizona driver's license. Becoming an Arizona resident will enable me to get on a state health care program, which I need because my pre-existing knee replacement and other arthritis problems make private health insurance prohibitively expensive. I had a scary high blood pressure spike one of the last day's of Sly's visit, and I've been more aware of blood sugar issues lately than in the past, so I'm planning to call on Monday to set up a physical at the community clinic in Ajo, where they can get me started on the state program for low-income residents.

Steve and Sonja in the leather chairs

I've had a little more time for socializing since Sly went back to Seattle. It's a big arts weekend in Ajo, and our friends Arnold and Dusty have their historic house on a home tour, so they've been painting and redecorating, and last weekend Steve and I ended up with their nice old leather chairs.

The past couple of days, I've been helping our friends Clyde and Joan (silversmith and quilt designer, respectively) with their booths at the annual "Quilting in the Senoran Desert" show, and that was really fun. I saw beautiful, inspiring work and learned a lot, and got compensated for my time by getting some of Clyde's beautiful handmade jewelry as well as having a good lunch from the Oasis Cafe both days.

Now I'm ready to chill...like Sonja:

Sonja having a sit-in