Projects I am Working on in My Non-Existent Free Time....

Free time around here only exists during nap time, which doesn't happen everyday now that my son has reached his toddler stage in life.

I am the type of person who needs to have something to do.  I like to call them "projects" because when I actually complete a task, I feel better about life.  I feel like I'm not wasting my life away because I don't have a j.o.b. and am not contributing financially to my family.  But I wrote about that situation in my previous post, so I will not dwell on that here.

I have several "projects" in the works these days and work on them when I have time to do so.  I have a lot of project ideas for the future too that I am excited about and am going to share some of them with you now.  They involve crocheting, reading, writing, paper crafts, amateur landscape photography and getting some of my papers published.

As far as crafting, I had the idea a while back to start doing paper crafts, like making my own cards and antiquing paper and making journals or cards with it.  I haven't started learning how to do that yet, because of the time crunch of being a stay-at-home mom of a 2 year old, very active little boy.  I am still very interested in learning about and doing paper crafting though, so it is on my list of projects to do in the future.

I have been doing a lot of crocheting lately and am getting better and better at it.  I still only know how to do one stitch and am not ready to learn another until I get better at the one I know.  I have made a throw blanket, two rugs and am currently working on a scarf.  All of these are gifts I have and will be giving to people.  It is something I enjoy doing and giving to others.  I had aspirations at one point to try and make some money by selling my completed projects, but I am far too slow and can only work for short periods of time before I start to have an allergic reaction to the yarn.  I tend to work on my crocheting projects during the afternoon when my son is napping and I don't have to do anything but stream tv shows and crochet.

I find that when I don't read for a while, I get cranky and actually depressed about life.  Reading allows me to use my brain and learn new things, even reading fiction.  I just finished reading Twelve Years a Slave, which everyone should read and am starting to re-read Life After Life, a fiction novel that is one of the best books I read last year, for book club.  My life is so dull without a good book in it.  I don't have much time to read during the day, so I do most of my reading before I go to bed at night.  I'll read a chapter or most of a chapter of a book or several articles from my Time Magazine before going to bed.  Reading my Time magazine during the day is easier because I can easily put it down and pick it back up again throughout the day.

And with my new-found commitment to reading, I am starting to write again too.  I am writing in a journal and blogging a couple times a week.  Writing, for me, cures the soul.  It is easier for me to blog because it is a shorter time commitment than say, writing a chapter of a novel or a non-fiction book.  So I plan to blog twice a week and would like to journal several times a week, if I have the time.  I have a great idea for a novel and several ideas for histories as far as future writing projects, but those, I shall keep to myself until I am ready to reveal them.

I have recently gotten the bug up my butt to research publishers both magazine and book publishers.  I have several papers that I would like to try and get published in an academic or some kind of magazine.  I also have two graduate theses that I would like to do something with so I am researching book publishers too.  I have found several online and am trying to figure out the best way to submit my work and have it be successfully published.  I have submitted one of my papers to a publisher already but haven't heard back.  They were quite explicit on their website that if I didn't hear back from them almost right way, I wouldn't be hearing back at all.  But that's okay, there are many more publishers to try.  My last resort would be to try doing self-publishing online.  I'm just not convinced that is the best way for me to go at this time, at least with my non-fiction work.

And just for fun, I am continuing to dabble in amateur landscape photography.  This town might be boring but the landscape around here is amazing.  I am thinking about ways to make some money by selling postcards or prints of my photographs to people.  I am having trouble figuring out copyright so no one can steal my images.  I don't want to have to start a company, but it might be worth it someday if I become more than an amateur landscape photographer.

So, as you can see, I have a lot of "projects" in the works and ideas for the future.  I find I can be overly ambitious sometimes, but when I do find the time to complete a project, it just makes life that much more awesome!  :)

Biggest Concerns of the Moment

Some of my biggest concerns of the moment are income and entertainment. Ideally both go hand in hand. Life is too short to be miserable. I have always enjoyed hobbies that earn some income. I am a cellist and have gotten paid as a studio musician on CD's of bands such as Glint and The Milling Gowns, and as a wedding and event musician. I haven't gotten involved in the (surprisingly) thriving music scene on the rock yet as my cello just arrived a few weeks ago. I need to get back into practicing and meet some musicians.

GOAL: practice cello, meet musicians, play music.

I also am an avid artisan. I have dabbled in many forms of arts and crafts over the years (since as far as my memory goes back) and have always sought ways to make a meager income from my creative efforts. In the past several years I have focused my creativity on textile arts and jewelry making. I have a small business, YazBerry Fashion which supports itself and that is about it. Nice to have a hobby that breaks even. Right now since I am between postal codes, my handmade purses and vintage purses are for sale on Etsy, and my handmade jewelry is available on facebook and in a few local craft and gift shops on the rock.  I am slowly starting to meet other artisans and I would love to host skill share gatherings at my home or another venue. I would also like to be able to more than break even with my artistic talents.

GOAL: meet more artists, host skill shares, maybe even teach classes for small fee, get my jewelry into more shops around the rock. One artist I have met has a simple goal of having his work in 100 stores. If he sells just $20 of product per store per day that is $2000 in a day! A simple thought but it could produce amazing results!

I am constantly seeking internet based opportunities to make some income. I just stumbled across this music review website on craigslist today, slicethepie and it seems you can earn on average $0.16 per song review. I haven't tried withdrawing yet but the website seems legit and since I listen to music almost constantly, and LOVE to hunt down new music, I figure might as well get paid to do something I enjoy!

Two month update: I never put in enough time to see if this actually pays out. Conclusion: not worth my time right now. 

GOAL: continue seeking online opportunities to earn income. I would like to seek editing and writing gigs specifically. Have an opportunity for me? Any tips? Anything you do or can recommend? Let us know!  

Small Town Living

Hi, I am Megan or as my good friends call me Meg or Megs.

Before I tell you about my adventures in small town living, I should tell you that before I moved to small town Montana, the smallest town I lived in had a population of 10,000 or so people. So when I moved from Minnesota to Montana it was a complete culture shock, add to that moving to a town of 700 people and it's a miracle I haven't gone completely off my rocker.

My adventures in small town living began when my husband Jason and I moved to small town, Montana in June 2011. Jason and I had graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota and were eager to start on our ministry adventures. In May I found out I was pregnant with our first child and everything was looking up in the world. We had visited the small town we currently reside in, at the end of April and after much discerning and discussion, decided that Jason should take the call to be the pastor of the Parish there. The Parish consists of two churches, the church in town and a church about 8 miles NE of town in the country. I thought I knew what we were getting into moving to a town of 700 people, but it turned out I had no clue.

The original plan when we moved was that I would substitute teach at the school until our baby was born and then I would stay home with him or her for a year, then go back to work. Well, none of that worked out as planned. I miscarried our first child in July 2011 and then after substitute teaching 2 times, I called it quits. I rarely was called in and when I was it was awful. So then I decided to try building my Mary Kay business which I had started back in Minnesota. Epic fail. I no longer sell Mary Kay. And I no longer had any way of bringing in some extra income. I started selling AVON instead, but with similar results. I'm giving myself until the end of the year to see if I can't build my business. If it doesn't work out, then I'm done.

But miracle of all miracles, I found out I was pregnant again on Thankgiving Day 2011. Seriously, one of the best days ever! So the job search took a halt because I still was planning to stay home with our kid for the first year of his or her life and there were no jobs in the nearest "big city" that made it worth driving there and back because the job would have paid for the gas to get me there and back. So needless to say, I have been jobless since June 2011, over two years, which has made me feel pretty worthless at times.

Now after 2 years and 5 months of living in small town Montana, I have this to say about small town living. It is definitely not for me. When I go out on walks with Jason and our 14 month old son Preston, we walk by the same houses, see the same sights and barely run into anyone outside. I find myself wondering if this is it. Is this really all that life has to offer here? I'm going to go crazy if I don't find an outlet for myself and my son. We spend a lot of time at home because there are no places for us to go for activities in town.

The people are nice here. Wonderful people. When we do move on from here, it will be really hard to say goodbye to some of the amazing people we have gotten to know.

People my own age here want nothing to do with me, I don't know if it's because they don't know how to act around a pastor's wife (act like you would around anyone else, hello....) or if it because I'm not from here or from around the area. I can't even claim I'm from some other part of Montana, which may have given me an in. Not only did I not grow up in this small town, which makes me an outsider, but I didn't grow up in Montana, which makes me even worse. I'm expected to pay my dues here to be accepted at some point down the road but I've gotten to the point where I don't give a crap. Sadly, that means I'm alone, with no friends my age close by to say, "Hey let's go out for lunch. I need a break from the house and my kid."

On the plus side, my friend Melissa, who is in a very similar situation to myself and who only lives about 2 hours away, and I have started going to a MOPS (mother's of preschool kids) group in Great Falls, which is a such a blessing. So there are silverlinings in this craptastical mess.  Another silverlining is that it is beautiful here.  I love the mountains and the landscape is just gorgeous.  I think it would be hard for me to go back to living some place that didn't have mountains nearby.

We are a one income household. My husband makes enough for us to pay our student loans every month and for the essentials (food and other bills) but that's it. I've been told of a gym in Great Falls, the nearest "big city" to us, which is about 35 or so minutes away depending on where you need to get to. Sadly, we can't afford to join said gym or the extra gas it would take to drive there and back several times a week, where I would be able to work out and where they have daycare for kids while the parent works out. So we are basically stuck trying to figure out ways to not go crazy in our small town, except for the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month, which is when MOPS group meets.

And I have discovered getting away from this small town as much as possible has helped. Because Montana is such a big state, it takes hours to get to some places. Even the drive to Great Falls means that we end up spending most of a day there doing errands, eating out and spending time together as a family. I've come to love our weekly Friday trips to Great Falls, even though I am not too impressed with Great Falls as a city itself. But nonetheless, it is an escape from my dull existence in the town we live in. We, as a family, also do a lot of driving to Montana ELCA Synod events, which gets us out of town. In fact, this weekend we are going up to Flathead Bible Camp for their annual meeting on Friday and Saturday. Next Friday, we are heading down to Helena for the Bishop's Conference, which will be an all day trip. So there are plenty of opportunities for us to go places as a family and get out of town. Even going to visit Jason's parents or his brother takes a few hours so we usually spend the night and have quality visiting time. :)

But Sunday-Thursday when my husband is working all day and most nights is when things get really tough with trying to keep a moving, easily bored kid occupied as well as myself. So I've come up with some ways to do that and some ways to keep myself occupied during nap times and once Preston has gone to sleep for the night.

I realize this post is pretty dismal, but after over two years of living like this and feeling alone a lot of the time, something's got to give. So I've started doing things I haven't done in a long time to keep busy while being cooped up in a town where there is nothing to do. Yes, much of my time is taken up with raising my loveable, amazing, sometimes pain in the ass son and being as supportive and good a wife as possible, despite being depressed about living where we live, but when I have alone time, which is when Preston is sleeping and Jason is working, I have found things to keep myself occupied.

One of these things is to participate in this blogging experiment with one of my best buds Virginia, where we plan to share with you some of our coping strategies and let all you out there in similar situations know that, you are not alone, and that we will survive, and be stronger for it in the end. Some of these strategies involve crafts, some involve nature, hiking and photography, some involve spending time in the kitchen and some involve hours wasted online pinning on pinterest (Don't judge. You do it too.) So here's to surviving small town living and the knowledge that this too shall pass, we just have to survive it first.