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okay, so... update, the one night was a bit hungry but not too bad, next day i split and spent the next night at another friend's house, got fed, tonight i'm sleeping at the local pastor's home, got fed, tomorrow i call the local realtor and try to find out about local rentals. taking things very much one day at a time but so far people have been very understanding and genuinely very helpful. it is stressful, but, i'm kinda at the point where there is very little i can actually do to control what happens next, so i've (more or less) just surrendered to the whole situation and process. i give thanks today for having had breakfast and dinner, that i'm sleeping in a safe, warm bed, and that this house has two HUMUNGOUS adorable dogs - one 16 month old rottweiler and one gigantic 5 year old bulldog, both of whom seem to think they are 10-lb puppies.

no complaints from me, i feel blessed right this moment.

okay, well, phew! starting to emerge near the top of the hill now. got my check today. had a roof over my head every day since i left williams and hopefully tonight i'll get to move into an RV that isn't actually in the trashy trailer park and shouldn't be much different in rent. won't be large, but i'm a small person and at least it will come with a bed and appliances i can use. and of course there's no place you can live here with a magnificent view of these majestic mountains. today i'm eating a hot breakfast and putting gas in the jeep, and hopefully this afternoon i'll be in boulder city getting those two bad tires replaced. for reasons mysterious to me, i still miss my ex-bf, but i'm too busy to spend much time dwelling on it. and i get free internet from the nearby restaurant.

learned a lot from the last few weeks. learned a lot about the difference between needs and wants; learned a lot about human nature (good and bad, but mostly good); learned a lot about keeping the faith and putting one foot in front of the other. i hope this is a turning point.

Good on ya! I lived in a medium-size pickup camper for a year and a half with no distress while working in a big shop next door. People in the tiny house movement say they are fine as long as there are interesting walks or other outside activities as well. It sounds as if you are doing very well at getting around and making friends.

just a quick update - haven't been able to get online in a while. still living in the trailer park, struggling to get on my feet but making slow progress. i put up a flier at the community center looking for odd jobs and have been approached about housesitting and maybe helping set up a bed and breakfast on the same property while the owner lives in Thailand. No rent and possibly splitting some income if i can handle it! So keeping my fingers crossed this works out as it would be a big step forward. i have no idea if i'm up to the challenge of managing a B&B but i think i might be. i've always done a lot better working from home and don't mind dealing with customers, just not coworkers and bosses! my boss would be in Thailand 10 months of the year! perfect!

oh - and he wants to put horses on the property. not only might i get to care for and ride them, i might even get to realize my long-held dream of being a trail guide since we would want to offer that service to guests.

Hey Opi! I haven't been seeing these posts you've been leaving, but it sounds like you are doing great! What an amazing thing, you go out there and your dreams start to come true little by little! You are an AspoRamaPowaMomma! I have to remember to keep coming here to look for your posts from now on.

Glad things are coming together for you.

thanks all! wozaree you made me chuckle. i met with vince, the homeowner, yesterday and everything is moving forward, although now he sounds like he's not sure what he wants to do as far as the B&B and horses goes. he thinks 60 bucks a month for hay is expensive - imagine what he would do when he sees the vet bills! anyway i'm moving in on Saturday and he is leaving for Thailand probably Monday or Tuesday. i found out i already know the neighbors. the owner of the trailer park who has permitted me to stay here for two weeks rent free has no problem with my leaving.

the house is great. i'll have a washer and drier, a huge kitchen, a jacuzzi in the bathroom (if we can get it running), a fireplace, and the views from the living room are fantastic.

two long years of hell... could my life finally be turning around?

Maybe it's a Jeep thing.

Enjoy, but beware of taking it for granted. It does sound like a good match, and a good situation.
"The bad old days, they came and went, giving way to fruitful years"
Jethro Tull

i'll be aware and careful, but i seriously think it will be a long time before i take anything for granted ever again.

on a side note, my ex-husband emailed me this morning. two years coming up and he says he misses me (very poetically) and wants to talk. i'm really not sure HOW i feel about that, kind of mixed. i don't mind talking with him though.

got our first tenant. he's a nice, elderly man who seems trustworthy and cool but is clearly very lonely and wants to talk constantly and also has that habit some people do of inserting themselves in front of your gaze if you break eye contact even for a second, and even if i'm clearly doing something i need to look at instead of them. which is driving me absolutely batshit crazy. i HATE eye contact at the best of times . at least i get to get out of the house on more or less a daily basis so i'm not subject to it 24/7.

very rainy and cold for the first time since i got here, that damp cold. so it sure is nice to be in front of a roaring fire in a nice, tight house with hot water! sooo good to be able to be grateful for the little things which are really some of the biggest things we take for granted in our lives.

jeep sprung a leak in the radiator but was able to get some "stop leak" to fix it at least until i can afford a new/used one. seems to be working.

Oooo first a "poetic" I miss you, then a tenant.

I'm a little confused, probably missed something, but I thought you were boarding horses. I guess somehow people are involved in this. That little old man sound cute/annoying. Sometimes you can get the message across that you need your space though and the elderly can be fun to be around too.

I can't believe you doing all this brave stuff. You just go girl!

sorry haven't posted in so long. life has been full of drama - pthui!! ! can't get the taste out of my mouth.

well, the guy i was "housesitting" for was all over the map. first he wanted a housesitter. then he wanted a bed and breakfast. then he wanted a dude ranch (hence the corral-in-progress) and offering room and board to people traveling with horses (cool enough, but, i'm no trail rider at this point). then he wanted to offer a daily restaurant *out of the house* to local truckers. I learned over several weeks that he'd be off in ten different directions and then returned to the idea of temporary renters boarding their horses and then eventually a dude ranch once he has some of his own, something i always felt spoke to the most ideal market for this area.

Robert, the lonely old dude who longed for aaa mechanics and chain grocery stores, is long gone.

One of the last emails i got from the owner suggested we all buy suits of armor and hold "jousting" competitions once the corral was fixed. JOUSTING!! !! my only response was... dude... you're gonna get serious liability insurance for this... right? (no response after that)

BUT more to the point. I moved out. Seems the handyman he hired to live also at the house, we hit it off at first, and then... dammit... i got to enjoy the second most terrifying experience of domestic violence in my most recent year. I won't go into details but I thought he was going to kill me and dump me in the desert. Needless to say i spent a few days wandering around in shock and wondering what to do. I had already been in touch with my ex, but was putting him off. This time i called and told him exactly what was going on. Well, it took him about a week to fully assimilate the situation. He couldn't understand why I didn't just leave. I tried to explain the material reasons why... no transportation, no money, out in the middle of nowhere, cops take easily an hour to get here if they respond at all, etc. etc. What i couldn't explain to him, and nobody who hasn't been through it could understand, is the complete mind-fuck that goes with being abused like that, especially as a grown woman at the hands of someone you think you like and can trust. Those who been there, know. Those who don't, might want to read about it before they say something like "why didn't you just leave?" Do you know how many DV end up in murder at specifically the time the woman either says or tries to leave?

Fortunately my neighbors heard the commotion and intervened. White Hills is kind of a "don't tell" community in that nobody busts into your business but everyone still looks out for themselves. Gossip is considered low-brow (as it should). But they were very clear with me; if i ever need anything, and if i ever need to show up in the middle of the night for a safe place to stay, don't hesitate to come over. Which was enough to make me cry with relief. They are both ex-mil and no stranger to guns and while this guy, he would not put him toe to toe against anyone, i think he would lose to a gun, and i think he knows it.

so. i told my ex what was going on. when he got over his initial upset, he volunteered to fly me out on his dime and bring me home. So with great mixed feelings i bid g'bye to white hills. i still think it is an amazing, beautiful place and someday when i'm not in dire straights and can buy some land there and be solvent, i might like to go back. of course, they do say you can't go home again.

then again i'm sitting in the living room where i lived for some years. my ex is at the gym. the last couple of years of homelessness, loneliness, constant fear, etc., are kind of a surrealistic dream. tomorrow i see my old therapist. Friday i see my new dentist to look at my front teeth, which have become hopelessly screwed since the veneers wore off several years ago (i have active decay visible at the bottom of my chipped incisors, which for this old dental daughter, is the ugliest thing in the world).

i hope my ex and i can work things out. we had a good life together before it all went south. hopefully having some perspective we can look at those things. i notice a few things. i am stronger than i was, even though i feel week as a kitten. people don't intimidate me as much. it's easier to ask strangers for help "can i borrow your phone for a local call? thx"

i feel for no logical reason enormous guilt and sadness over leaving the guy who hit me at loose ends in White Hills. The truth is I left, suddenly, overnight. A big surprise. i couldn't take them with me, and i supposed i could have junked the jeep and made myself a little cash, but i signed him over the title to the jeep, gave him a bill of sale, left him my phone, and all my tools. it was self-serving, to a point - i packed two bags of clothes and my laptop and that's all i took with me.
but the truth is, i liked him because i saw so much of myself in him, and i wanted to rescue him, pure and simple. i saw a man with a terrible history (which included a laundry list of assault charges) trying his best to NOT be violent (except, of course, with me), to stay out of jail, to stay gainfully employed. i figured - if i gave him all that stuff, he would have a fighting chance to make it in White Hills. Doesn't mean he will, and those gifts are gone to me.

It's wierd being back with my (ex) husband. He is so much different and some ways the same. Still real controlling in his own way. But he's mellowed out some and is so clearly happy to have me back, and i don't feel resentful about being here, like i did before i left. i'm grateful for enough food, to be able to walk to conveniences, to not have to constantly worry about money. I'm grateful for health care. I'm grateful he's giving me time to settle in and not pressuring for too much. We've had some fights already, but i hope the kind that are going somewhere.

I had to leave white hills. the home owner, who is and will never be privy to the details why i left, is angry with me. i'm using his anger at me to promote sympathy for the other guy. he may sound horrible, but he too is a product of his upbringing. if you took a pit bull, taught it how to fight for its life, fought it for money for years, then pulled it out of the ring and gave it to some normal people, you would expect there to be incidents. That's Richard. he wants to be a good dog, he just doesn't have a clue how, and his ego doesn't help. but i swear if there is any place in the world he could learn, White Hills would be the place. So i pray for him. i grieve, not so much for what we had together in our brief time, but for what's been taken from him and for the hope of better things to come. for us both. the best things i could have done, i believe, was leave him - best for me, certainly, and best for him, if he doens't let this tip him in the wrong direction.

and if things don't work out for me with my ex-husband (whose counting on it) i have time and resources now to figure out my next move instead of just jumping off the next cliff.

PHew, I can hardly even process that story from reading it and you had to live it.
Your ex husband sounds like a very loving friend.

As for the other guy - well my first instinct is to say you saw good in him because of abuser syndrome - but I don't know, I wasn't there and you are right, you never know when an unexpected kindness be it even just a gesture of faith - can turn somebody around.

I'm glad you're safe now, I was wondering what was going on! Geez you had yourself quite the adventure there~

Thank goodness for those neighbors too!

Sorry you had to go through that. Hope things finally get better for you because you deserve it.