Gadget's Journal

[Gadget]

Hello ERE world, I mostly lurk here but have decided to commit to a journal to get in the habit of putting myself "out there" more. I introduced myself a long time ago when I left my trained profession but haven't posted much since. I have difficulty going back and reading my previous entries and people's responses as I tend to feel inadequate compared to the many intelligent contributors here. I've realized I badly need to work on my self confidence and this journal will be a part of that effort.

DH and I have been traveling the US in our small travel trailer. We are completing our second year of this lifestyle. I have seen many natural wonders and it has been a luxury to leisurely explore and experience day-to-day life in various places. I bird watch, hike, ride my bike and make art. It's an awesome way to live and I can thank FIRE/ERE fundamentals for making it possible! That being said, we have decided we need some sort of home base and community. Neither of us make fast friends, so it is challenging to make meaningful connections with people on the road. As an introvert, this bothers me more than I anticipated.

I need to clarify my vision for how this base camp will take shape, so I will share my thoughts here, among other ERE lifestyle things. My intention in the beginning is to post rapid-fire entries each day until the habit of sharing is formed. So this is going to be an unorganized, stream-of-consciousness type journal.

That's it for now-- I'm not going to reread this or spend much time with a detailed outline as I will likely end up deleting it

[mountainFrugal]

Sounds like a fun nomadic lifestyle. What kind(s) of art do you do?

[AxelHeyst]

I love stream of consciousness journals/threads. Don't look back just keep going!

I empathize with the difficulty of making connections while traveling as an introvert. That's one of the reasons I'm happy with my current base camp situation - the ability to slowly build connections suits me more. Looking forward to following along with your base camp thoughts and journey!

[Gadget]

Sounds like a fun nomadic lifestyle. What kind(s) of art do you do?

Thank you, MountainFrugal. It is fun, but it definitely takes more effort to connect with society. I'm working on it! To answer your question, I currently do portraiture of a niche subject matter. I opened my online storefront not long ago and quickly received 4 commissions for the holidays which has kept me very busy, and another order just came in today. So obviously I need to raise my prices. I would like to branch out into other media, subject matter and styles, but the portraiture hustle is a way to pay for my materials.

[Gadget]

I love stream of consciousness journals/threads. Don't look back just keep going!

I empathize with the difficulty of making connections while traveling as an introvert. That's one of the reasons I'm happy with my current base camp situation - the ability to slowly build connections suits me more. Looking forward to following along with your base camp thoughts and journey!

Thank you, AxelHeyst. I have read a good portion of your journal and your base camp. It sounds like a great set up-- I am jealous! We really have no idea what form the base camp will take. We are very torn about it and our current plan is to take 2024 to come to a conclusion. We traveled a lot in 2022 and 2023, so we are ready to slow down and cover a much smaller geographic area, focusing on promising base camp locations. I suspect some of this will be interesting to ERE folks so I will talk about it here.

[Gadget]

We are "home" for the holidays. This is where we owned a house and held corporate career jobs. It has been almost a year since we've returned and I was apprehensive how I would feel about it. This is considered a "very desirable place" and I was worried I might have pangs of regret about giving it up. Thankfully I don't. While the weather is near-perfect all year, there are amenities galore and beautiful scenery (but plenty of ugly too, swept under the rug), I no longer feel like I belong here. It's a bit of a culture shock after being in mostly dusty, rural locations for months at a time. The cars are too clean. The landscaping is too perfect. The snaking line of red brake lights on the freeway gives me flashbacks to my old morning office commute. Most everyone i know is too busy working or too far across town to get together.

We have relatives here who recreate primarily by spending vast amounts of money. It's the same every year and we go along to keep the relationship going. This year the event was a spendy brunch at a historic hotel. We spent the meal blinking at each other trying to make conversation, taking turns horrifying each other with our lifestyle choices

It's nice to see friends and family, but then its back to the desert for us!

[Gadget]

I am going to follow along with the 2024 ERE Skillathon-- great motivation to develop a plan vs. winging it as I have been doing this year.
January's project will be related to my portraiture hustle. I have been working in colored pencil which is a notoriously time-consuming medium, so I would like to explore new materials to find faster processes: Graphite, Pastel, Watercolor, Acrylic.

Following AxelHeyst's template for project design...

JANUARY: ART MEDIUM EXPLORATION

What are you trying to learn?
Draw/paint quality portraits in a variety of art media.

What is the desired outcome?
Identify a faster process for completing portraits to increase throughput.

Why do you want to know the thing? How will it improve your life?
If I can complete portraits faster, I can make more $ to fund other art projects, and will have more time for other pursuits.

How will you know when you are done?
I can identify one medium which achieves professional results and can command a price which translates to a higher hourly rate.

What materials are you going to use to learn?
Various art supplies, youtube videos.

How are you going to practice?
Active drawing/painting practice portraits from reference photos in the morning, videos in the evening. Fill in with technique exercises.

Deadlines and milestones
January 1-3: Graphite Days.
January 4-8: Pastel Days.
January 9-16: Watercolor Days.
January 17-30: Acrylic Days (I feel need the most time to get the feel of this.)
January 31: Review body of work, selection of medium to pursue further. Post results in journal.

[Gadget]

Jotting down some thoughts here at year end.

Career Wins:
- Quit job! The most obvious win for 2023 was leaving my corporate career. An arduous process. The first 6 months afterward was a blissful dream. I pretty much chilled out and did whatever wanted, whenever I wanted. I now feel ready to start pushing myself. Definitely need to reassess my WOG, and work on time management.

- Started portrait gig. This was my primary focus for the second half of the year. It took 3-4 months to gain enough skill and confidence to open my storefront and another 3-4 months to begin making sales. I have had a steady stream of work the past two months. I don't know if this will last after the holidays, but I am optimistic. Now that it is rolling I would like to spend less time on this to make room for other goals.

- Goal for 2024: Continue to not work. Further develop portrait gig, focusing now on efficiency.

Relationship Wins:
- During our travels I was able to visit two old friends from high school-- one in Chicago and another in Tucson. It had been many years since we even messaged each other so it was thrilling to reconnect and find we were able to pick up right where we left off as if no time had passed. Sadly I had forgotten how close we were. Fortunately our personalities are still a match so I will make every effort to foster these relationships. I sensed no judgment at all from either friend regarding my career suicide and nomadism-- a difficult find. They are both up to interesting, independent-thinking lives. Awesome people. A huge win!

- Visited an old boss I worked for many years. It was interesting to connect without the employer/employee power imbalance. It is a very different dynamic. All the old angst has fallen away and it turns out he and his wife are both lovely people. Who knew?

- Visited my half-brother for the second year. Our family is a disaster so we hadn't seen each other since I was a teenager-- I think at at a funeral. We were both relieved to find out the other is mostly normal, functional and doesn't need to borrow money.

- Goal for 2024: Develop above relationships. Connect with new people with similar interests. Make a bike friend, art friend and nomad friend.

Bike Wins:
- Got bike and love it! I previously found biking somewhat boring, but I've discovered I just need some rocks and dirt instead of pavement. I picked her up second-hand to scout ahead on questionable BLM roads, but now I'm never happier than when I'm on a dusty 2-track on my bike. She's old and clunky and filled with Utah red dirt, but solid and a perfect fit. I got a flat the first time I took her out, so I quickly learned what slime is and how to change tubes and treads. I can sort of adjust the derailleur with mixed success. I will ride to the point of exhaustion which is surprising since I'm fairly lazy about exercise in general. I am more confident and bold on my bike than DH is on his--perhaps dangerously so. Definitely need to learn more about maintenance and safety. I could go on...seriously I cannot say enough about this bike. Love, love, love.

- Goal for 2024: Take beginning and advanced bike maintenance class. 3x7 to 1x7 drive train conversion?

Travel Wins:
-After 2 years of long distances we have narrowed down the geographic area for our future base camp. It is a relief to no longer feel the need to see **everything**. I'm not sure we've reached the point of 'enough' in our travels, but we are far more discriminating with our travel choices. We will save time, money and energy in 2024 by spending more time in a cluster of our favorite places.

-Goal for 2024: Make base camp decision.

Finance Wins:
-Spending down 25% from 2022. DH consulting income is up 36%. Obviously my corporate income is down to 0%. Portrait gig is currently in the red, however current revenue covers approx 50% of cash outlays, I expect this to turn positive in 2024. I'm not going to discuss finances much here-- it was a huge focus of my accumulation phase but is now mostly back seat to more nebulous lifestyle questions. That being said I do need to revisit investment strategy.

-Goal for 2024: Reduce spending by additional 15%. Increase DH consulting income by 10%. Portrait gig net positive, to cover 15% of expenses. Revisit investment strategy.


I have so many other items I'd like to work on. It's overwhelming--I'll touch on these in a future post.

[Gadget]

Project Base Camp

DH wants a house. I think back to two short years ago when I couldn't wait to be out of the townhouse we had then. How much work it was to fix up, the constant maintenance, and how stressful it was to sell. The realtors and paperwork. The fees. The time. Ugh.

So we're going to have to figure something out. So far he's cool with spending 2024 revisiting potential locations to put down roots, but I'm getting the sense he wants to stop full time travel sooner rather than later. That's understandable, it can be exhausting on the road and I didn't think we'd do it forever in the first place. However we run the risk of making hasty decisions.

Jotting down some options here. Housing is #1 in Jacob's classic "21 Day Makeover". We've all been through this in one way or another. This is an opportunity to start from scratch and hopefully make some smart decisions. Which will be hard because it is so, so easy to make dumb ones when it comes to housing.

"Home is a place to sleep and keep your stuff."
Ok, we have this now in our trailer. The biggest problem is having to move it more often than we'd like.

Potential solutions for moving:
- Travel shorter distances, stay the max in each location (usually 2 weeks).
- Stay in BLM LTVA areas in the winter (max stay 7 months).
- Get seasonal job in a tourist location that provides place to park trailer.
- Pay to park trailer in private trailer park for extended periods.
- Find someone who will let us park our trailer on their land for a fee.
- Put trailer in storage, travel overseas for an extended period of time.
- Purchase our own land to park trailer. (Currently lack any knowledge about raw land, land use etc.)
- Rent a modest apartment. Store trailer when not in use. Complain about neighbors.
- Purchase modest condo in LCOL area. Travel part of year. Store trailer when not in use. Complain about HOA fees and special assessments.
- Purchase a modest house in LCOL area. Travel part of year. Keep trailer in yard. Complain about roof maintenance. Struggle with the broken lawn mower.
- Purchase or build some sort of pole building garage/shop on land. Travel part of year. Keep trailer in building or yard.
- Purchase eyesore condo in dream location. Fix it up and stay in it during off season. AirBNB it during high season when traveling. Worry about AirBNB renters.
- Purchase eyesore condo in dream location. Work seasonal tourist job during high season. Travel during low season. Complain about lousy tourism job.
- Purchase eyesore condo in dream location. Stop traveling because location is so awesome. Work to pay for it. Sell trailer. Complain about job.
- Purchase expensive McMansion in suburbia. Never travel again while spending all our time working to pay for it, polishing doorknobs and buying sofas. Complain about everything.

Second problem is space. We get along well in the small space but are starting to feel its limitations. I am drowning in art supplies and DH would really like a desk for work and gaming. We both would like normal chairs to sit in. If we travel less then I will be spending more time making things so we will need space for tools, etc. (Note: our problem is not about excess stuff. We don't have things we don't use.)

Potential solutions for space:
- Get larger trailer: Don't want to do this. It's expensive and a hassle. Harder to maneuver, would require bigger tow vehicle. Not really an option.
- Get a supplemental cargo trailer, turn it into an office/art studio: This could work when staying at the BLM LTVA in the winter, parking on someone's land or our own purchased land. Sort of a hassle towing two trailers around, would need to store it when traveling.
- Put a shed on purchased land.
- Rent or purchase a modest apartment, condo or house: After living in a trailer for two years, any size would feel spacious.

This is what is I'm investigating for now, I will add/edit as the plan evolves.

[Bicycle7]

Hi Gadget!

I'm enjoying reading about your nomadic journeys and plans for a base camp. The above list is a nice way of seeing the potential options space for a home. I'll be interested to see how the project base camp evolves! Do you plan to narrow the above options?

[Gadget]

@Bicycle7, I'm glad someone is enjoying reading this mess! I feel compelled to explore all options in the beginning but we will be narrowing down this list in short order. For example, I have zero desire to become an AirBNB host so that path is unlikely.

Project Base Camp - Where?
In addition to the type of housing, we also need to determine the location. Over past two years of travel we have narrowed down the area to west of the I-25 and south of the I-80, with a few exceptions. Yes, large swaths of this area are running out of water and likely to catch fire. But once the West gets inside a person, it's hard to shake. We originally thought of relocating back to the Upper Midwest, where I'm from and my family still lives. It is less costly and there are many beautiful natural resources to enjoy. It makes the most sense on paper. But my family is dysfunctional, there are no mountains and deserts, the winters are long and sunshine is comparatively scarce. So it's not a fit for us. We have been to some nice communities in this area that might fit for someone else here looking to relocate-- I'll share some of my impressions of them here in this journal.

[AxelHeyst]

I'm also really enjoying reading your thought process here.

There are structural problems with the West, yes. But I think there are a variety of strategies one can take to life there. Just buying a condo in Phoenix and saying "this is good, we'll live here forever now" - yeah, that's problematic because water etc. Or a wood-sided house on a wooded brushy hill. The west was never a good place to rely on centralized infrastructure to meet your needs, and that's becoming more salient these days. For those interested in cooperative self-sufficiency strategies, however... opportunities for creative endeavor abound. That's my take, anyway. Ultimately I choose to play with fire because I love where I live and prefer the problems coming my way here than the problems I see coming to other places.

You might already know this but in many counties it is illegal to live on your own trailer on your own land for more than 14 days. You can get away with it in lots of places (my family did, in CA no less), but not all. If you go that route check both legality and get a sense for if it's enforced or not. For example I read that the rule (and others) often ARE enforced in the UP.

Two tiny spaces can definitely feel like more than 2x the usable space. Going from cargo trailer to cargo trailer plus 120sf studio was huge for me.

[Gadget]

Hi @AxelHeyst,

I am vaguely aware of ordinances that would impede on the "camp on land" option, but not the specifics. I didn't realize the limit is as short as 14 days. That doesn't fit the spirit of the UP, in my opinion! Research is required - I'm not interested in sneaking around, skirting the local covenants and making enemies of the neighbors. I'm not even certain if it's feasible these days, honestly--perhaps some counties in Arizona or New Mexico? Whatever we do needs to be on the up and up.

Currently I am trying to learn as much as I can to better understand the various risks to make informed decisions. Through our travels I've become interested in western water history and rights. I've recently read Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner and Where The Water Goes by David Owen. Both fascinating reads, in a slow-moving train wreck/doom-scroll sort of way. I'm not sure what to do with this knowledge, however, aside from moving to Minnesota and planting a big garden. One approach would be "Safety in Numbers": reside in a large municipality with political clout and redundancies in the water system. Tucson, for example, draws water from the Central Arizona Project and also maintains a system of groundwater wells. As I understand it, the city recharges its aquifers with surplus CAP water. I've heard it also encourages rain catchment through rebates to homeowners. This appears more resilient than, say, the neighboring town of Marana which only has wells with a PFA contamination problem. Or a nearby rural property with a private well and thirsty cotton-farming neighbors drawing from the same aquifer.

If we go with "camp on land" option, I have no issues hauling water as long as the land is priced accordingly. I have a good handle on our personal water usage. It's not a lot for 2 humans accustomed to water conservation. This is better than paying a premium for property with a well, only to have the well go dry or fall victim to arsenic contamination .

[Gadget]

I just finished another commission. One more to go and I'm caught up from the holiday rush. Whenever I finish a portrait I celebrate by relaxing in my little camp chair with a craft beer, taking in the surroundings. We're back in the desert now-- just decomposed granite, creosote bush, distant mountains and quiet. So nice. We do need to go back to the city later in the month but for now I'm soaking up the peace and enjoying the slower pace. We're just outside a dusty little artsy town, which bustles on weekends during the winter tourist season, but is dead during the workweek and rest of the year. Surprisingly the library is brand-new, super fancy and nice. If only they had a better grocery store.

I had 6 holiday commissions and I didn't realize how all-consuming they were until now. They were fun to work on, challenging and rewarding. All of my clients were very appreciative and left glowing reviews. Hurray! However, I do need to dial it back for a little while and regain some balance. DH has been supportive of this little endeavor but I can tell the time commitment was getting to him as I was slacking in some other areas, such as keeping us fed. I have some ideas to be better prepared to handle the workload next year:

1.) Run an early-bird promotion for artwork scheduled to complete in September-October to spread out the demand. The traffic to my storefront exploded in November, I had a number of orders placed within a few days of each other. I had to post regular schedule updates and deadlines on my listings. (Interestingly as soon as I did this more orders immediately poured in. Establishing a sense of urgency really does work as a marketing tactic.)

2.) Extend the turnaround time from order to delivery for my sanity. (Already did this-- much less pressure.)

3.) Jack up the prices on November orders. Surge pricing!

4.) Do not take December orders.

5.) Come up with some type of gift certificate for last minute shoppers who would like to purchase a portrait as a holiday gift for the recipient to redeem later. The platform I'm using isn't set up for this so I need to come up with a workaround.

6.) Offer an on the spot discount on January/February orders to those who inquire in December but I have to turn away.

If I institute all of the above I should have a full portrait schedule from September - January. Not bad, I'd be totally fine with this being a seasonal gig and leave the rest of the year open for other pursuits.

Skillathon

Due to the commission backlog I'm behind on my January Skillathon. I have started but haven't been able to stick with the rigid schedule I made for myself. I'm feeling a little burnt out on the portrait subject matter so I'd like to switch things up by focusing on wildlife and birds. Watercolor birds make a nice micromastery due to their small scale, wide variety of size, plumage and colors. Plus I'd like to improve my bird identification skills so, you know, WOG and all I'll be happy if I can do, say, 5 different watercolor birds in January.

Family Stuff

Dad is not well. He sounded sick on Christmas but I didn't think much of it at the time. He said his "tests came back clear". I assumed this meant Covid. Turns out he's not getting better and the aforementioned tests are of the cardiac variety. Not good... after further inquiry his symptoms sound like congestive heart failure. He has a history of heart problems so I'm willing to bet this is what it is. Mom and sister both agree. My grandmother went quickly after this diagnosis so it is alarming for sure. He's talking about "going over paperwork" and getting rid of stuff. He wasn't even exited to watch football this week . I have a sense this may impact our plans for 2024 and Project Base Camp. I wasn't planning on dragging the trailer all they way back up to the Midwest this year, but we will see. Fortunately life on the road is inherently flexible so we can easily adjust. I'm so, so thankful not to be holding down that fancy corporate job...a big impetus of wanting to be early retired was watching my mother balance work and caring for my elderly grandmother. It sucks bigtime. If I need to be there, I can be there-- no problem. Time will tell.

[Gadget]

Atrophy
I've been stuck in my head lately with the humbling realization that I know next to nothing about pretty much everything. Its a crummy feeling but I'm coping the best I can by telling myself "realization is the first step, etc. etc." There are moments when it's energizing and I can't wait to dive into an ever-expanding list of topics, while there are other moments where I'm frustrated by my lack of knowledge, skills and progress. Part of the issue is not having realistic expectations of how much time it takes to become marginally competent at a skill or concept. The other part of the issue is time management. I'd been lenient with myself after leaving full time employment, which I felt was needed, but I could benefit from more structure and I'm struggling to find it. I used to fantasize about all the time I would have once leaving employment to do "all the things!!", and don't get me wrong, there is definitely more time. But it also takes more time to rectify all the atrophy that accumulates during years of living a very narrow, specialized life. And the more I work at it the more I think "Oh crap! I suck at this too!? Wouldn't it be great if after I stop sucking at this, I then stop sucking at all this other stuff I never thought about?! Why have I not accomplished more? Do I even know how to DO anything?!" It's a never-ending discovery of ineptitude.

There are many here who are able to develop their renaissance mindset while holding down a career, but that was not my experience. The career took all the energy I had. Well, now it's over and its time to figure out "the rest". In that spirit... I reread Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows this month, taking ample time to digest the material. I've realized I need to read everything at least twice, take active notes and synthesize thoughts on paper in order to retain anything long term. (This in itself is progress-- I have a tendency to rush through material for the satisfaction of marking it "done!" without retaining much.) The book is very accessible and intuitive, and it is helpful to have the building blocks of a language to express ideas.

Some Thoughts on Thinking in Systems

Resilience Vs. Rigidity:
"Because resilience may not be obvious without a whole-system view, people often sacrifice resilience for stability or for productivity."

Well, this pretty much sums up a good portion of my life. It's in the forefront of my mind as we debate over what form our home base will take. We are currently craving stability, but I am fearful of getting stuck in a rigid system (house in the 'burbs, keeping up with the Joneses) that is difficult to get out of and closes doors of opportunity. Not that our current situation is resilient-- we are extremely reliant on technology and the global supply chain, for example. But I can drop everything and be pretty much anywhere in a matter of days, if needed, and can easily fine tune our outputs simply by adjusting where we travel.

Limiting Factors:
"At any time the input that is the most important to a system is the one that is the most limiting."
This gives me the vocabulary to express thoughts I've been having about the importance of system adaptation as we age. The "health" input with ultimately be the most limiting factor. How to cope with this?

Drift to Low Performance:
Been there, done that. Repeatedly. Importance of setting standards that meet or beating best prior performance.

Leverage Points:
Least impactful:
Size of flows, Size of buffers. (Salary input/expense output, emergency fund buffer. This was my focus in the early days.)

More impactful:
Balancing and Reinforcing Feedback Loops, Self-Organization - Power to add, change or evolve. (Preventative healthcare, Investment Returns, Evolution/Human Creativity)

Most impactful:
Paradigms/Transcending Paradigms ("Growth is Good" Mindset)

Community Garden
The most efficient lifestyle system element I can think of is the community garden.
Positives: Grow healthy food, save money, be active, and build social network. Save money on groceries, house price/rent and property taxes (less $ spent on house with big yard for garden). Easily dispose of garden plot if needed.
Negatives: Rules and regulations.
I'm sure this is obvious to others on this forum but it was revelatory for me. I am taking this into consideration in our plans for the future home base. I have a long way to go but it's a start.

[Gadget]

Skillathon Update

January Skillathon was a big fail, primarily due to a larger commission coming in. The downside of this work is I feel the need to drop everything else when one comes in. I like to power through until it's done, which means other things fall by the wayside. I'm pacing myself on this latest one in an effort to restore balance to my life and hoping for a break in February. I do get regular inquiries so it's possible the workload remains steady. Raising prices and turnaround times does help take some of the demand and pressure off.

February Skill - Personal/Small Business Income Tax Competency
This is borne of necessity. Since DH started his consulting work we have been working with an accountant, mainly because I was intimidated, short on time and imagined the business tax preparation to be complicated. Last year I caught careless errors and I feel the service is expensive for the value we receive. It doesn't save much time to work with the EA over tax software as I still have to gather the docs, input information, double check everything, etc.

I am going to download all of the forms and complete the process by hand for better understanding. I have the old accountant-prepared returns for comparison. I will then enter everything in Tax Software for filing. The goal is to feel confident enough to file myself without sending to the accountant. If not, I'll send them everything and see if my preparation differs from theirs so I can improve for next time.

If anyone has specific resources they love for learning about US income taxes, I'm all ears! Otherwise I'll be making friends with the IRS website and Small Business Taxes for Dummies

[mooretrees]

I don’t have any tax suggestions, but think it’s great you’re working on them. I hope to file by hand every year and chicken out every year…

Super interested in what you and your DH’s criteria for where you settle. We haven’t found any problems with keeping our bus on other people’s properties for the last year. But it’s so dependent on where one is and the neighbors, the particular rules of the state, county and so on.

Hope your skillathon practices work out! I am not working on such a tight timeframe with my stuff, but that does mean slower (sometimes imperceptible!) progress. Looking forward to more posts! Good luck with your Dad.

[Gadget]

Thank you @Mooretrees, and sorry for the late reply. After my previous post I dropped off grid and into "tax land". I filled out all of the forms successfully...I think anyway...then chickened out sent them off to the tax preparer. Now I wait. I am curious to see how I did compared to the pros. I definitely learned a lot in the process, much more than clicking through tax preparation software. Nothing was inherently difficult and it was humorous how the paperwork multiplied as I went along. There are a few minor items I decided to ask my preparer about, but mainly I decided to continue using them in fear/anticipation of increased complexity in the coming years. I'm paying for a security blanket, I guess. I'm glad to have it out of the way, as dad's condition continues to worsen and I suspect it will soon monopolize my attention.

Journal Update
We spent the entire month of February in a BLM Long Term Visitor Area outside of Yuma, AZ. This is the longest we've been in one place since moving into the trailer. A much needed rest while I focused on taxes. This was my favorite LTVA we have visited thus far. One could easily spend the entire winter as they have water, a sanitary station, trash and mail service, biking opportunities and a small reservoir to paddle in. Yuma is a reasonable distance away for supplies, which has everything one could need and more: groceries, medical services, and a surprisingly attractive little old main street. We found the BLM facility to be well managed by friendly staff, and had courteous neighbors. It was crowded in the front but more spread out in the back with nice spots overlooking the desert washes. The wild burros provided endless entertainment. I rode my bike nearly every day, watching the progress of the desert wildflower bloom. It was nice to be in a spot close to other people without being the "weird ones"...because out in the desert pretty much everyone is weird

March Skillathon/ Project Base Camp
I don't have skillathon projects for March as we are in of our potential base camp locations and want to take every opportunity to get a feel for life here. I took an art class and have first aid/CPR training scheduled. I hope to arrange a tour of the community garden network and stop by the bike non-profit, ride/hike the trail network and so much more. I am certain I will not get to everything on my list but very much looking forward to the next few weeks. My priorities have shifted considerably since we hit the road a few years ago. I previously envisioned buying a piece of remote land or a small cabin, valuing solitude and natural beauty over community and modern amenities. But I've been fighting a nagging sense of isolation and civilization is calling. We are now considering a handful of cities/towns and our current location has the largest population by far. I didn't expect to gravitate to this place but it might strike the right balance. I see opportunity for personal growth and making connections with others. I think there might even be some ERE people here

Reading
In February I read How to Take Smart Notes at AxelHeyst's recommendation here viewtopic.php?t=12436. I am very excited about this method as I am a very scattered thinker and struggle with making connections and retaining information. I have yet to successfully work this into my life, however. So far I'm fumbling around with Obsidian and making a huge mess in the process.

Overall Mood
I continue to feel frustration about my lack of skill and the time it takes to get really good at anything after languishing for so long. My interests are expanding quickly while my skills lag far, far behind. My mantra is to "suck a little less every day" and I am muddling through it, but it is difficult not to feel guilty and discouraged. I'm definitely feeling better here in town, having more interaction with other people. I tend to ruminate when we are out in remote areas alone for extended period of time. My mind is not kind to itself.

That's all for now, I'd to share more about our current location as I really am excited about its potential...I'm a little shy about posting specifics on a public forum.

[Slevin]

Overall Mood
I continue to feel frustration about my lack of skill and the time it takes to get really good at anything after languishing for so long. My interests are expanding quickly while my skills lag far, far behind. My mantra is to "suck a little less every day" and I am muddling through it, but it is difficult not to feel guilty and discouraged. I'm definitely feeling better here in town, having more interaction with other people. I tend to ruminate when we are out in remote areas alone for extended period of time. My mind is not kind to itself.

https://herbertlui.net/montage-fallacy

Getting good at something isn't nice or clean or sexy or fast. Its heads down effort hours over and over and over + persevering through issues and failures and finally finding out the methods that work and understanding why they work + starting to embody that knowledge and be able to apply it in the right place at the right time. It is about being able to fix the problems in the correct way when they come up, and gracefully understanding when to restart / redo something because you made too big of a mistake to fix (this will happen less though over time as you improve). This is the feeling of grokking a thing.

Getting good at something is eternally boring in itself. Some weird people apparently enjoy this process, I just learned to cope with it.

[Gadget]

Montage fallacy! That is the perfect name for it--thank you, Slevin. Of course on the surface I realize it takes hard work, dedication, repetition and time to develop expertise. But the reality of this process has not sunk in, apparently. The emphasis on instant success is pervasive, compounded by the cultural limitation of not being able to be bad at things publicly. Like we are all supposed to hide while practicing and sucking in private before emerging from our cocoons as experts, suddenly ready to grace the world with our divinely acquired talents.

His statement about prioritizing and giving up things you want to do resonated as well. Back when I was working full time I always thought "I'm going to do XYZ when I'm not stuck in the office all day". But time is always limited. And when not encumbered with full time work there is even more opportunity to start down one path which branches to ten more paths. It is not practical to explore them all.