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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Some changes...





So, here I am again. I am having a lot of trouble keeping up on this blog with no Internet at my fingertips. Simon and I have are planning on getting the Internet in this apartment, but with me not working consistently, it is scary adding on any monthly bills. There are so many tings we need to think about. With Simon possibly starting school next semester, the Internet will be at the top of the list. I am also trying to get my whole business...thing...a little more up to date and easy to use, but doing it all with the computers at school is very annoying. I have been neglecting it which is bot really good for business. :) Hopefully by the summer, things will get better.

Fund raising has not been going great. I am still hoping it will work out, but I am also being realistic. Even if we do not get to go exactly when we planned, we will still keep saving ad just go when we do reach our financial goal. I think the biggest problem with it is the fact that I want at to be career, so I have taken this opportunity to go to school full time and do art, without the burden of working. Simon has been so wonderful to me and has been keeping us afloat by working full time. I am so proud and thankful for him. We would probably be on track with saving right now if I was working, but I know that if I want to make this art thing work, I need to focus solely on school and growing as an artist. Since I have this opportunity, I have to take it. I also spent a lot of money send y art to the show in Oakland, California. Sadly, because of finances, we were not able to visit it, but I feel so blessed that I was even asked to do it. Just having it there for people to see is an amazing opportunity.

I know this all seems a little flaky. Here I was, just a couple months ago, ranting on about my well thought out and planed three month trip to Europe, and now I am telling you that we might not go. Well please understand that the whole travel fund raising mission statement still holds. The money I am making from this site will help fun our traveling. But, to travel, we have to keep revenue coming in by maintaining this business as well as support ourselves while at home. Over the year and a half of intense saving, we have learned to scale back a lot on our living expenses. We have one car for the two of us, we don't have a tv, we live in a tiny apartment in order to save on rent. There is not a whole lot we could be cutting back on when is comes to living, but there are things we still need to pay for, and inevitably some of the money I get here ends up going into that fund to help out. I really feel like in the long run, this sort of dedication and simple living will pay off.

I have also been thinking a lot about why we wanted to go to Europe in the first place. I mean I know, it's Europe, everyone wants to go, but it was more then that. At the time I decided to start planing the three month trip, Simon and I were pretty new up here. Simon didn't have a consistent band, we didn't have many friends, we just worked and came home. That was our lives. It was hard for me to slow down that much when I had just come from a world of intense planning for our wedding and moving. I needed something to do and look forward to. Over the year, the trip become somewhat of a burden. There were times when we didn't want to buy healthy food because it was expensive and we “couldn't afford it” even though there was over $1000 in the bank. We were looking at it the wrong way. I still throughly believe in traveling, but I also know that there are things worth spending money on. We are going to be spending a lot more time in our everyday lives then on the road, we should enjoy them. That doesn't mean we have to waste, but I think now we have found some balance.


TO BE CONTINUED

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