ARK LIFE: What the Hell are we doing and why? Part Deux

So let me make this clear: ARK LIFE can be

lived anywhere, any place; all one needs is what you carry with you...

This is especially good if you are, like Feathermaye and me: starving artists.

Between our writing, painting, photography and jewelry design, we have a lot of keen interests which, along with sixty-five cents, will get us a cup of

"Waiting in The Wings"
Photography by
Feathermaye

coffee...Just not at Starbucks.

The pursuit of ART is not only solitary, it's most often unrewarding, financially.  Ergo, one needs the proverbial day job to pay the expenses, which we try hard to keep minimal.  

S. Bond Herndon's New Novel
Coming Soon

We did a year of cruising through the great wilds of East Texas, taking photos, writing great American Novels, blogging about it all, and selling our wears at one of the oldest swap meets in the

1st Monday Trade Days
Canton, Texas
One of the oldest swap meets
since the late 1850's

country.

This got us a lot of material, but as funding ran low, we had to get back to our jobs: Self-Storage Resident Managers.

For us, it's the perfect fit.  You see, The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly enjoy each other's company more than anything else, so working side by side, day in and day out, living without neighbors or distractions just works.

Plus, our ARK LIFE STYLE leaves us with

Many of the residences we've been
housed in have huge, open space
great for studio work.  Paint, photography
music recording, we do it all

plenty of space in the apartment (usually included with this job), so we turn that space into a studio.

If you stop by our place to visit, we'll happily set you up on an air mattress--don't knock it, we slept on them for two years--right next to paint canvasses and drop cloths.  You'll get to look through stacks of photos, paintings and we'll probably talk your ears off when we're not watching something on ROKU.

You'll get to dine on fine, Gluten Free cuisine,

and if you want to hit the town, we take the train (station is just behind the property) into downtown to take in museums, music, parks etc. 

It's the simple life, with focus.  

More about that focus, as well as a lot of tips on ARK Living in future posts...

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Ark Life: Paring down to the essentials...

The best rule of thumb we've come up with

when it comes to reducing the amount of crap you have to carry with you: if you haven't used it in three months, you don't need it!

When The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly were forced to make choices like this, we had, like so many of us out there across America, accumulated quite a lot of stuff.  Some of it was sentimental, a lot of it fell into the category of: stuff we might need to hang on to for a while, to: Jeez,  this is still a pretty good bit of (junk we weren't using).  


In all honesty, we might still be accumulating junk if we hadn't been laid off.  Our day job allows us to work together; we prefer it that way...Yes, that's another blog altogether so I'll remain on point here.

As resident managers, housing comes along with the job, so when we were suddenly handed pink slips, we had to scramble, not only for income, but for housing!

It was at this point that we decided to do what we had talked about for a long time: Never let anyone, any company (You know, THE MAN) put us in such a position again.

We had a week to move out.  Our accumulations

amounted to a house full of stuff, as well as a 10' by 20' storage unit full to the brim.  By the time we left for parts unknown (at least at that time) we took everything we felt was essential, and only that which we could pack into our small Hyundai.

Necessity forced us to get RID of everything else; we gave it away to the kids, sold a good deal of it, and free cycled out as much as possible, trying not to leave a big environmental footprint.  

You might think it a painful process.  But it was actually quite liberating.  We no longer had to stress over things!  And, we began to focus on the important items we needed to put into our ARK.

After some trial and error, we broke it down like this:

portable is best, when you can
have it! But do NOT sacrifice
the quality...

1. Bedding-getting comfortable sleep is paramount. You can't think, work, have any sort of fun, nor can you keep up your energy level (highly important) without a good way to rest.
If you are an old fart, like Yours Truly, or a sprite young kid like the Fabulous Feathermaye, you will come to find how much one appreciates a simple, glorious night of rest.   

2. Communications-The internet is the most powerful tool mankind ever came up with, second

The Web and a good WiFi
keeps you in touch...

only to fire (perhaps) or air conditioning (if you're in Texas).  The best way to transport important documents, photos, birth certificates etc. is on the portable laptop, or smart phone, push-come-to-shove.
Keeping with this theme: When we started out on our journey, it was not as easy to find Wi-Fi as we had first hoped.  We spent a good deal of time in McDonald's parking lots, and lawn chairs close to someone's free signal, in order to keep blogging, posting on social media, or keeping up with friends and family that were concerned about our well being.

Here of late, we've noticed that Wi-Fi signals are becoming more and more common place.  It all depends, really, on where you are making camp, or holing up, as the case may be.

3. Entertainment-A big one for us.  Since it's just the three of us (Feathermaye, Starbuck the dog of wonder, and Yours Truly) we don't have a lot of big time needs in this aspect, but it is important to keep entertained and

stimulated. A couple of cool but portable items we take along is a device called ROKU, and 
paid memberships to NetFlix and Amazon Prim

e.  We opted not to take our 65" Big Screen TV--sold that puppy--we did carry our 39" with us, along with a compact DVD player, which is becoming more and more obsolete. 

It's been a two year odyssey from our former resident job, to the one we have (in this last month) settled into.  We made a lot of new friends, and encountered quite a few characters, many of which are mentioned in other blogs on this site.  

We've come to the conclusion that we will never

again burden ourselves down with things and now keep geared to get on the move with short notice.  One goal we've in mind now is getting set up in an RV to take the show on the road with.  But that's another blog as well.  

I'll have more stories, great innovations we've discovered, and tricks of the traveler to share in future ARK LIFE posts. Life is good in the ARK, because we make it that way! 

Please feel free to leave comments below.  We'd love to hear about your own encounters in this new America.  Also, you can follow this blog by clicking on the "follow" button here on the page, or follow us on facebook, tweet us on twitter, or digg us on Digg.  

 

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ARK LIFE: BINGE WATCHING IS WHERE IT'S AT!

WHEN Life gives you lemons or: making chicken salad out of chicken shit...

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly have a lot of life lessons we've collected over the past two years.  In that time, a sudden unemployment tuned us in to life in a bad economy, and just how drastically America has changed from the wonderful land of opportunity we were raised to believe in, to a more dependable truth: we needed to downsize and start living as if it can all change tomorrow!


This new philosophy is not the big disappointment one might think it is; rather, it opens up the eyes to new ways of living, and pursuing the American Dream.  Very simply put: we've learned that we don't need the standard "fixed fortifications" we'd been lead to believe we had to have: house, cars, toys etc. 



Instead, we've boiled it down to the essence of "What we really enjoy" and "What we actually need".


We call it "ARK LIFE"... Living with mobility in mind.Let's face it: Moving is a bitch, so make it easy on yourself.  Only take the essentials with you, so you can set up camp quickly, without feeling as if you're missing or lacking anything important.  


*A good rule of thumb: if you haven't used it in the last three months, you don't need it*


One important essential component question is: "how will you entertain yourself in downtime?'' 


Since today's technology has become more mobile, we discovered a little device call

"ROKU" that we carry with us everywhere.  Through it, and a decent WiFi signal, we can stream videos, movies and TV shows.  Which leads me to the current topic: Binge Watching.


Have any of you tried this?  Seems to be catching on with many of us Baby Boomers.  We saw a report just a couple of days ago from one of our favorite actors, Sir Anthony Hopkins, in which he told of how he caught up on the fantastic AMC Drama: Breaking Bad.  In two days, Hopkins watched every episode of Brian

Cranston's characterization of a High School Chemistry teacher who began to produce high grade Methamphetamine, and ended up destroying his family, and himself as his efforts lead from a "little extra cash for cancer treatments" to becoming the infamous Heisenberg, Drug Lord of New Mexico.



We did the same here in our portable ARK; only we did it in stages; the first two seasons (which my buddy Bill Keith recommended) and then waited with baited breath as each new season was offered on our favorite stream providers: NetFlix and Amazon Prime.  

Personally, I've always hated the distraction of commercial TV.  I can't stand the constant bombardment of "over-run" commercials--Super Bowl ads being the lone exception, but that's once a year, right?


With streaming TV, you catch it all in succinct episodes.  This has allowed us to keep up with all

our favorites, and we tend to do so in "Binge" periods, taking in the whole show in that period of time, be it a few episodes a night, or a weekend Binge from beginning to end!



Sure, there are other ways with which we spend our spare time: Exploring the different cities we find ourselves in, or the surrounding country side.  Feathermaye's photography comes from these excursions, and often my own impressionist paintings are inspired from those very same captures.
  


However, being "homebodies" by nature, not to mention the simple fact that we just enjoy each other's company so very much, streaming video together has become a routine we look forward to every day.



For more information on ROKU, Netflix, Amazon, and all the other streaming sources available today, you might try these links.


And, I'm curious to know how many of you already Binge Watch?  Feel free to leave a comment below, and include your favorites! 

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