I blog to vent, I blog to keep people up to date; I blog to explore.

Yesterday I spent the day catching up the Internet. I checked in on the Tiny House Movement most of the day, learning all sorts of things about the movement that scorns the MacMansion (but not the price, whoa! Some of those tiny houses have some majour prices! I mean, how can 350 sq ft cost close to a hundred grand, American???) by taking 'downsized' to new and amazing extremes.

That said, in complete sticker shock, I promise you, I got some great ideas. The best one is to see if I can buy the current tin shack, tear out the wall coverings, re-insulate with real insulation, and completely re-wire the whole house so that I can wash clothes and run the air conditioner at the same time, or bake in the oven, or whatever, and if you don't get it, I am glad for you that you've never lived in an inadequately wired shelter.

Who has the kind of money required to purchase the Anti-MacMansion? Not I. So I must make do.

And I'd better get on it, because winter will come, and I for sure do not want another three hundred dollar electric bill!

But first I think I should get the place levelled.

Yup, that's right, the damn thing sits slightly tilted to the back left, and as I sit here typing, I am slowly rolling southwest.

Sigh.

Adventures in being downsized.

Ten years ago I was sitting in a little completely remodeled trailer, snug-maybe slightly too snug-and paid for. I was a homemaker, although married to a through and through rotter, and a 24/7 mom. Most of my time ten years ago was spent cooking, cleaning, sewing, and trying to figure out how to keep Fox from killing himself, accidently or on purpose.

We had money in the bank, and food in the pantry, freezer, on the table. We paid all of our bills in cash, the credit cards carried no balances, and we went to some pretty cood places inspite of Crusty.

But Crusty wanted a mortgage, he wanted a 'working' wife, and he damn sure didn't want a family-which I knew back in '81 and told him-"Hey Mike, you and I want different things from life, I think you are getting too serious..." At which point he put a .41 mag to all of our heads, and well, it took 18 years to be able to get away.

I Googled him a couple of nights ago and was nauseated to see he'd also been in the 'cane. The difference is that he's taken the divorce as a chance to buy some place down in Central Florida, which the 'cane took out and garnered him a $90,400.00 drain on the American tax-payer by way of a federal interest free loan.

That sorry bastard. Fox and I went hungry, homeless, had no medical care while he was buying into a coming disaster zone!

It completely pisses me off to think that the ambulatory fecal matter went down to the worst place in America, a place I'd got us out of to avoid being there when the big one hit, bought himself some crumbling piece of rotting Florida landscape and then when the inevitable happened, got that loan.

I hate that my tax dollars are being wasted on a piece of sewage like him! I utterly despise people who deliberately choose to place themselves in danger expecting the government to bail them out.

I have nothing but contempt for the breed-'rich' people who are mortgaged to the hilt, leveraged to the max, and expect you and me to rebuild their wanna-be marble palaces that slid off cliffs-Malibu, go up in flames-also Malibu; are washed away in yearly floods-OK, also Malibu, but also the Gulf coast, any dry river bed, any ocean cliff...Sorry, but how hard is it to figure out Florida and the rest of the hurricane/tornado zones are perhaps a nice place to visit but only the idiot or incredibly selfish actually move there with the expectation of a US government bail-out.

Is it not a no-brainer that if you insist on building some architechtural nightmare, you should have the burden of replacing it on your own nickle when the inevitable happens?

Oh, please! How complete is the sense of entitlement that it takes to be the very incarnate vampire?!

I mean, DUHHHH!

And F___ you if you think I am going to smile and throw MY money at your willfull ignorance!

Not even when Hell freezes over will I think it is ok for anyone to think I should support their stupidity habit!

Meanwhile, I'm sitting hoping to scrap up the money to insulate my walls, one room at a time.