Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

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A Very Important Woman – My Oma

March 8, 2017 / / 39 Comments

Today’s blog post is a difficult one for me. I have written emotion-laden blogs before, like the one about our sweet, smart and cute dogs Kali and Darwin and the one about my sister-in-law Dru. I never wrote about my dear aunt Monique or my paternal grandma I called meter. Both also passed away while Mark and I were sailing the seven seas. During all those years abroad, I had one massive dread and worry. It had to do with my maternal grandma, my oma, who I loved more and longer than most anyone else.

When I was thinking about this subject, I realized it is International Women’s Day today. Perfect! What better day to celebrate the woman who meant so much to me, my whole life? Continue reading

Monthly Expenses – February 2017

March 6, 2017 / / 12 Comments

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without being rich. Or even without owning/earning a lot of money. That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is car, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up. 🙂

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks (100% orange juice, oat milk for Mark and organic 2% milk for me) predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Utilities are always Skype-related, since that is how we make phone calls. 

You now see health insurance and costs related to my health care, since we are not in the lowest income bracket anymore and I am not a US citizen. As a matter of fact, I owe the government $1500 for health care insurance in 2016 (and a lot of taxes!), because our income was a bit higher than anticipated. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state (we are currently in California), it will be expensive for either of us! I still pay a small three-monthly fee in Belgium for health care (required to keep my citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

Here is an overview of our expenses in February. It is a much higher than normal month, because we bought two sets of plane tickets for each of us. The first leg will be to Boston the end of April, from where we will both fly to Belgium for a month on May 20th. On the way back through Boston, we just have a short layover, before continuing on to San Francisco. Fuel costs are relatively high due to our return trip from Southern California. The good news is that we signed up for a fancy credit card, which gives us 100,000 points, if we spend $4000 in three months. We are doing our best to make that (high for us) number, and the flights - relatively cheap for what they offer - happily help. 🙂

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IWSG Writing Update – March 2017

March 1, 2017 / / 31 Comments

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) encourages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement or anything really about their writing.  Since August 2016, the IWSG offers a particular question as a writing prompt for their members. Answering it is optional. This month that question is “Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?”

I have about five completed articles in my archives which have not been published. Some of them are a few years old. I’ve sent them to particular magazines (the ones I wrote the stories for) and either got no reply, or once, a rejection.  I have reworked a couple of them and sent them off on different occasions (you are supposed to wait for a rejection before submitting elsewhere, but more often than not, I receive no answer, so after multiple months, I try again with another magazine). The one time I did hear back, it was to tell me that the story was accepted. I’m signing the contract and providing a bio today, actually. Yay! I still have a few articles left that I need and want to re-submit. It is one of the many time-consuming projects on my long to-do list. 🙂

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Completed House Sits: Costa Mesa, CA – January 24th to February 14th, 2017

February 27, 2017 / / 33 Comments

When Mark and I found out about a 2.5-week house and pet sit in Southern California, we applied to take care of 7-month-old Jaxx and find warmer weather. The owner chose us for the assignment and soon after, we were on our way to Costa Mesa after visiting some friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. We were to stay in her cozy apartment, in walking distance of many stores and amenities.

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Ask a House Sitter – What Do You Do between House Sits?

February 20, 2017 / / 40 Comments

For house sit assignments to line up perfectly, house sitters have to be pretty lucky. Finding consecutive house sits in highly desirable locations is pretty rare, unless you are able to secure every sit of your choice and all the dates are flexible. Or, you are in an ideal position where home owners consult with you to see when you are available. That would be the dream of all house sitters: having different owners bombard you with invitations, so you can choose which situation and location works best for you. Unfortunately, home owners are the ones to pick from an array of sitters, since the demand for house and pet sitting jobs is higher than the supply. So, what do we do to fill the gaps between house sits?

The drive west increased our gap with Mark’s family in distance

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Discoveries around Costa Mesa, CA – 10 Things to See and Do

February 17, 2017 / / 27 Comments

For three weeks, Mark and I took care of a cute 7-month-old dog named Jaxx and a small apartment in Costa Mesa, California. I report on that sit here. We had never visited this area before and gladly drove the eight hours down from Northern California for some warmer, and hopefully sunnier, weather. Well, the weather was wishy-washy, but on the weekends and some late afternoons, we did our best to explore a few sites with our “happy go lucky” temporary pet. And, three times, the sun gloriously accompanied us with 70-degree weather (21°C). Here are the discoveries we made…

My personal discovery of one of Southern California’s missions

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Wordless Wednesday – Against the Odds

February 15, 2017 / / 26 Comments

I have decided to post photos (or videos) of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos and tons of movies haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “against the odds“.

Mark does not like to pose for photos, so whenever I can convince him to be in a photo together, against all odds, it makes me happy, let alone when he actually agrees to kiss me! In some ways, the first photo is an all-in-one, what with it being Valentine’s Day yesterday (we do not celebrate this commercial event, but love each other nevertheless, even on an eight-hour drive from Southern to Northern California through heavy traffic in LA) and the WordPress theme “shadow” of last week.  Be brave, adventurous and live against the odds! 🙂

Love on a beach in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA

Hiking in Point Reyes National Seashore, California, USA

Have you done or seen anything against the odds recently?

Laguna Beach, CA – On a Shoestring

February 10, 2017 / / 41 Comments

One of the reasons Mark and I have been house sitting for over a year is so we can live “for free”, taking care of people’s home and pets, while they are away. For us, it is a perfect exchange, with quite a few perks, one of which is the variety of places we get to live in. We don’t seek out super desirable locations and make the destination our highlight as many other sitters do, but prefer longer term sits and weekend explorations in each area we find ourselves in. The United States has interesting parks, beaches and cities everywhere!

On the most beautiful day during our three-week sit in Costa Mesa, Southern California, we put on shorts and flip-flops and headed for the beach; Laguna Beach to be precise. Continue reading

Monthly Expenses – January 2017

February 8, 2017 / / 13 Comments

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without being rich. Or even without owning/earning a lot of money. That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is car, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up. 🙂

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks (100% orange juice, oat milk for Mark and organic 1% milk for me) predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Utilities are always Skype-related, since that is how we make phone calls. 

You now see health insurance and costs related to my health care, since we are not in the lowest income bracket anymore and I am not a US citizen. As a matter of fact, I owe the government $1500 for health care insurance in 2016 (and a lot of taxes!), because our income was a bit higher than anticipated. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state (we are currently in California), it will be expensive for either of us! I still pay a small three-monthly fee in Belgium for health care (required to keep my citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

Here is an overview of our expenses in January. Fuel is higher than usual because of our drive to Southern California, and we took some friends out to dinner, but we finally succeeded in spending less than $1000!

Continue reading

House Sit Chatter – Behind the Scenes

February 6, 2017 / / 27 Comments

A few weeks ago, when Mark and I were still taking care of Herk and a pool in Rocklin, CA, we faced housing insecurities for a period of four weeks. After not finding suitable listings, we were getting a tad antsy, only a couple of weeks out. Would we be homeless between our week-long house sit in Fairfax, CA and two-month assignment in Sebastopol, CA? What would we do for four weeks? We couldn’t afford staying in a motel for that long… Luckily, some other options started to appear.

Bay in Laguna Beach

“Do you think I should apply to that two-week house sitting job in Lacey, Washington?” I ask Mark as I am reading through the assignment again.

“Sure. Why not, we don’t have anything else at the moment,” he replies. “We have nothing to lose.”

“OK,” I say. I write a nice letter, explaining why we would be the perfect sitters for their two dogs and hit the submit button, thinking how an 11-hour drive and weather that is even colder than Northern California are not ideal. Continue reading

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