Tidying Up Links and Other Updates
I just spent the past week tidying up the blog. I deleted a few posts that were no longer relevant and attempted to clear out all the broken links from, egads, 18 years of blogging. Remember when we thought stuff on the internet would be around forever?
So the pandemic hitting after the housefire set back a lot of the recovery and my business and creative work. While my main focus since 2020 has been homeschooling my nephew, I have still been working on a second edition of Living Single on Minimum Wage off and on.
The good news is my efforts to be active in the fire recovery did pay off for my family. I did manage to retrieve more story notes and sketches than I thought I would, but I lost most of the video files. The ones I did have backed up on the laptop I had with me were quickly made out of date by rapid inflation. I made a video explaining what happened... but I've taken it down. I was not in a good place, and you can see in the video how frazzled and depressed I was.
The fire was just bad enough our house got stripped down to the studs. We took the opportunity to do some renovations. I lost hundreds of books, but because insurance was good to us, I was able to replace most of the ones that were important to me, often with nicer copies. By not replacing everything, I was able to take some cash in place of lost items, most of that went into catching up on IRA contributions since I was out of normal work.
I used to worry I'd need to support my parents in their retirement, but as my dad was an only child his parents passing away passed on enough assets that social security is covering all my parents retirement needs, which took a huge a weight off me. Fire recovery and insurance and watching the nephew and helping with household chores became my full time job. May do some more detailed posts on that later.
I'm working part time outside the home and trying to get my business/publishing efforts back on track. Currently trying to tidy up my web presence, then I'll focus on promotion and putting out new material. (My nephew is 16, so we still have 2+ years of homeschooling left, but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.)
Blogging here will still probably be sporadic, but I'm likely to do more once the 2nd edition is finished and we get ready for that release.
Poor PJ's been out of work for the past few months... I know job hunting has been slow and difficult for many people with AI taking over so much of the process. But he got a new job this week. So hang in there, companies are still hiring.
So the pandemic hitting after the housefire set back a lot of the recovery and my business and creative work. While my main focus since 2020 has been homeschooling my nephew, I have still been working on a second edition of Living Single on Minimum Wage off and on.
The good news is my efforts to be active in the fire recovery did pay off for my family. I did manage to retrieve more story notes and sketches than I thought I would, but I lost most of the video files. The ones I did have backed up on the laptop I had with me were quickly made out of date by rapid inflation. I made a video explaining what happened... but I've taken it down. I was not in a good place, and you can see in the video how frazzled and depressed I was.
The fire was just bad enough our house got stripped down to the studs. We took the opportunity to do some renovations. I lost hundreds of books, but because insurance was good to us, I was able to replace most of the ones that were important to me, often with nicer copies. By not replacing everything, I was able to take some cash in place of lost items, most of that went into catching up on IRA contributions since I was out of normal work.
I used to worry I'd need to support my parents in their retirement, but as my dad was an only child his parents passing away passed on enough assets that social security is covering all my parents retirement needs, which took a huge a weight off me. Fire recovery and insurance and watching the nephew and helping with household chores became my full time job. May do some more detailed posts on that later.
I'm working part time outside the home and trying to get my business/publishing efforts back on track. Currently trying to tidy up my web presence, then I'll focus on promotion and putting out new material. (My nephew is 16, so we still have 2+ years of homeschooling left, but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.)
Blogging here will still probably be sporadic, but I'm likely to do more once the 2nd edition is finished and we get ready for that release.
Poor PJ's been out of work for the past few months... I know job hunting has been slow and difficult for many people with AI taking over so much of the process. But he got a new job this week. So hang in there, companies are still hiring.
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