Tag Archives: 2016

Dec31

Good-bye and Good Riddance, 2016

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2016 has been a rough year for a lot of us.

So many cultural figures died in 2016. RIP Prince, David Bowie, Gene Wilder, Mohamed Ali, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke, Buckwheat Zydeco, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Alan Rickman, Glen Frey, Garry Shandling, and Patty Duke, George Michael, and Carrie Fisher. (Nancy Reagan died in 2016 too, but honestly, I don’t care if she rests in peace or goes to Hell.)

On the personal front, I found a dead man in an isolated campground, and by the end of the same month, my dad was dead too.

Then the presidential election turned out the way so many of us feared, and now a hateful, crass, misogynistic bully is headed to the White House.

Of course, some nice things happened in 2016 too. Lou gave birth to a beautiful baby girl to keep her beautiful baby boy company.

Uh…that’s the only nice thing from 2016 I can come up with.

Well, I guess I should say that’s the only momentous nice thing I can come up with. Even in a bed year, smaller nice things happen all the time. I shared a campsite with a giant sequoia for over four months in 2016. I saw pileated woodpeckers (or maybe just one several times) in 2016. I visited Red  Rock Canyon in Nevada in 2016. I felt the love of friends near and far in 2016. The year wasn’t a total bust.

Starting in 1997, every ten years I have a really great year. I’m due for a great 2017, with or without Donal Trump as POTUS. Bring on the joy, 2017. Bring on the joy!

I

Things 2016 Taught Me:

My dad wasn’t invincible.

When we thought George W. Bush was the worst thing that could happen to this country, we weren’t using our imaginations.

There’s still so much hate in the United States.

I can function in a crisis.

I am capable of writing/publishing/promoting a book.

My life is full of people who love and care for me.

 

My Goals for 2017:

Turn off the damn solitaire game.

Read 75 books.

Think before I open my big mouth.

Write another book. (I currently have plans for three more.)

Treat everyone (even people who annoy me–especially people who annoy me) with kindness and compassion.

Make healthy food choices more often than not.

Move my body every day.

Please share what 2016 taught you and/or your goals for 2017 in the comments section.

 

Free clipart courtesy of http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/new-years/2.shtml and http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/new-years/3.shtml.
Dec31

Spending

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Last year I formulated a two-year plan. Part of the plan involved keeping track of every penny I spent. The other part of the plan involved visiting and writing about all of the New Mexico state parks. When I decided not to do the state park part of the plan, I mostly forgot about the keeping track of spending part of the plan.

The other day on one of the vandweller Facebook groups I belong to, someone asked how much money people “need” to live in their vans and travel. The same question came up at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous last year. I never know how to answer such a question. I’ve been on the road with no money in my pocket, literally living off of the kindness of strangers. If I didn’t have as much money as I needed, I did without or asked strangers for help.

But it got me thinking…How much do I spend? Can I spend less? How much (money, things) do I really need?

So I’ve decided to go ahead with the keeping track of every penny part of my original plan.

I’m not going to go out today and stock up on a bunch of things so I can spend less in 2016. (I’ve got some food in the van and three propane canisters, and I filled up the gas tank two nights ago because I needed to.) I’ll just buy what I need when I need it and note it down in my little black book. (I found an old, blank black book when I was organizing the van last week, so I didn’t have to spend any money to buy a new one.)

I think what’s going to happen is that #1 I’m going to see that I buy a lot of stuff (mostly from thrift stores) that I don’t need and #2 Some things I won’t buy because I’ll be embarrassed to admit to it in writing. (I don’t mean sex toys or tampons. I mean yet another skein of yarn or a book I’m not totally excited about or more postcards when I already have plenty of postcards.)

Every month I’ll post an accounting of my spending here. By the end of the year, I’ll have answers.