Of fantasy land, unemployment, and too many animals

So, as they say, life goes on.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Not sure I buy that one, but I have changed and tried to move on.
There are still little reminders-like an ongoing battle with insurance companies and settling an estate- but that's a blog in itself.

I now live in a place I call fantasy land. It's truly everything I could have dreamed. I have a boyfriend who is wonderfully special and he doesn't have the same monetary concerns the rest of us mere mortals are stuck with-meaning no mortgage or car payment.
And he thinks the sun rises and sets around me.
Yeah, the fall from that pedestal is going to suck.

I moved here in May, bringing with me three dogs, four cats, four fish, and two horses. Oh and a piano. To add to his two dogs and two snakes. It's a big, happy menagerie.

I left my job and dove into the unknown. I had a lead on employment that didn't pan out, but I needed to change careers anyway. At least that is what EVERYONE who knows me said. Repeatedly.

I have always wanted to write, but fear continues to hold me back. I am afraid to fail at the thing I love. The sneaking suspicion that I really suck lurks in my ego like Lyme disease. Though I did get high honors on my undergraduate thesis...

Okay, pity party over, the best part of fantasy land and being currently unemployed is all this time to write. Right?
In theory, yes, but there are so many distractions. The rules are different out here. There are no deadlines, no assignments, nothing to whip my procrastinating nature into a literary frenzy.

Did I mention that said Mr Wonderful works at aboarding school and has three months of summer vacation? So there are trips, lunches at his parent's house, and dinners out. Aqua aerobics, yoga, and riding to counter the weight I'm gaining with all the eating. Mucking stalls, cleaning up after the dogs, unpacking, rearranging the furniture, hanging up the flat screen tv eight times and I still don't love where it is, more dog messes, oh crap! I forgot about the kitty litter,the snakes need water and when was the last time they were fed, we need to go get dog/cat/horse/people food, dinner is at 6:30, who peed on my shoes?!

You get the drift. There are weeks that pass like this.
So I am happier than I sometimes feel I have any right to be, my waistline is expanding and my bank account is dwindling(I am stubbornly independent), and have written about 10 pages.

So I'm blogging. Hey, it's a start.
No, seriously I have been working on what I have dubbed my crappy fantasy novel.
Who knows? Maybe I'm the next J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer. I would not complain. And I have some short stories that are in rough draft form and others that have recieved encouraging rejections. I will write and rewrite, throwing in some poetry on the way. I am embracing the fact that I love it.

I may not be the next Pulitzer Prize winning author, but I also know there is a lot of crap out there. I'm always going to be somewhere in between.
That's not necessarily bad.

I will continue to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I'll keep unpacking and cleaning up after the dogs (4 males, 1 female. Am I a glutton for punishment or what?)
And I'll keep writing, for myself and anyone else who cares to read it.
After all, I'm living in fantasy land now.