Sharon Lee is creating
worlds with words
Able to leap large deadlines with a single bound
266
$2,046.50
Milestone Goals
For warm cats and working computers
We have a book due on February 15, 2016, which we're working on, even as I type this. It's a nice book; it would be really bad if something happened to it, like, say, a 10-day power outage in January, or (like last year) only three days out: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, taking all of the extra holiday goodies -- and the eggnog! To avoid similar tragedies, we'd like to install a generator before Winter arrives, approximately in November 2015.
About
I'm one-half of a good writer -- Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. I live in Maine. I write books and stories and blog posts. I keep cats -- four, at the moment; three Maine coon cats, Trooper, Sprite, and Belle; and the Office Manager, Scrabble. I blog, and post cat pictures, at sharonleewriter.com
Location
Waterville, ME, USA
Top PatronsSee all 266
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Well.
Winter is coming. You heard it here first.
Back in April, after urging from some of you, our readers, Steve and I started this Patreon account -- as an experiment, mostly. We didn't know where it would go, and we were, yes, hesitant. We had talked about the idea, walked around it, and put it aside a couple times until, during one of the cash-flow pauses that tend to hit freelancers, we went for it – and you responded, with verve. Many thanks! You -- all of you -- helped us tremendously in the intervening months, and we greatly appreciate the steady support.
In the interim we'd been looking to sell our house in the country, and buy another, closer to -- or even in! -- civilization, but a series of unexpected medical costs kind of scotched the cash-flow, and seriously depleted the money we'd saved to move. Family necessities also arose this year, and -- long story short -- we've taken our house off the market, just in time for fall to be peering over our shoulders looking to become a hard, wet, and cold winter powered by a potential record-setting El Nino, with us living no closer to the city than we were last year when the house went on the market.
While we'll be able to stock up on cat food, water, wine, and people food for a long, strong winter, what we won't be able to stock up on is another necessity for our net-connected household: electricity. Back in the mid-90s, the last time a mega El Nino visited, we were in the epicenter of the ice-storm that blacked out large portions of New England and Canada for days – in fact, we here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory were without power for well over a week, the electric and cable lines down for more than 7 miles in all directions. We were melting ice (harvested with hammers from the windshields of our cars!) on the woodstove for hot water, and eating such things as could be heated out of cans on the top of the (propane) stove, having lost all the food in the fridge.
It was, yes, a Grand Adventure, and gave us a real sense of how simple life can be, when all you have to worry about along the day is staying warm.
So, considering that Winter is on the way, we're hoping to add a generator here, one able to automatically power the house if (when) the lines go down. Our well and baseboard heat depend on electricity as well as the refrigerator, and our computers. It's been almost 20 years since that really long outage, and we're no longer the young folk we were then – tramping a quarter mile in a blizzard to get extra firewood from a kind neighbor is no longer as. . .adventuresome as it was.
We are, therefore, announcing A Goal!
We'd like to see the monthly support level rise to $2000*, so that we can install a moderate-sized permanent home generator, and pay it off within 24 months.
Thank you all for your support and your company down the long, strange road we've decided to walk.
Sharon and Steve
________________
*Multiply by .12 for fees, subtract from total, multiply the result by 0.6 for taxes, to get an idea of what we get to use after taxes and fees. For instance: $1869 x 0.12 = $224; $1869--$224 = $1645; $1645 x 0.6 = $987 comes into the authors' checkbook.
Winter is coming. You heard it here first.
Back in April, after urging from some of you, our readers, Steve and I started this Patreon account -- as an experiment, mostly. We didn't know where it would go, and we were, yes, hesitant. We had talked about the idea, walked around it, and put it aside a couple times until, during one of the cash-flow pauses that tend to hit freelancers, we went for it – and you responded, with verve. Many thanks! You -- all of you -- helped us tremendously in the intervening months, and we greatly appreciate the steady support.
In the interim we'd been looking to sell our house in the country, and buy another, closer to -- or even in! -- civilization, but a series of unexpected medical costs kind of scotched the cash-flow, and seriously depleted the money we'd saved to move. Family necessities also arose this year, and -- long story short -- we've taken our house off the market, just in time for fall to be peering over our shoulders looking to become a hard, wet, and cold winter powered by a potential record-setting El Nino, with us living no closer to the city than we were last year when the house went on the market.
While we'll be able to stock up on cat food, water, wine, and people food for a long, strong winter, what we won't be able to stock up on is another necessity for our net-connected household: electricity. Back in the mid-90s, the last time a mega El Nino visited, we were in the epicenter of the ice-storm that blacked out large portions of New England and Canada for days – in fact, we here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory were without power for well over a week, the electric and cable lines down for more than 7 miles in all directions. We were melting ice (harvested with hammers from the windshields of our cars!) on the woodstove for hot water, and eating such things as could be heated out of cans on the top of the (propane) stove, having lost all the food in the fridge.
It was, yes, a Grand Adventure, and gave us a real sense of how simple life can be, when all you have to worry about along the day is staying warm.
So, considering that Winter is on the way, we're hoping to add a generator here, one able to automatically power the house if (when) the lines go down. Our well and baseboard heat depend on electricity as well as the refrigerator, and our computers. It's been almost 20 years since that really long outage, and we're no longer the young folk we were then – tramping a quarter mile in a blizzard to get extra firewood from a kind neighbor is no longer as. . .adventuresome as it was.
We are, therefore, announcing A Goal!
We'd like to see the monthly support level rise to $2000*, so that we can install a moderate-sized permanent home generator, and pay it off within 24 months.
Thank you all for your support and your company down the long, strange road we've decided to walk.
Sharon and Steve
________________
*Multiply by .12 for fees, subtract from total, multiply the result by 0.6 for taxes, to get an idea of what we get to use after taxes and fees. For instance: $1869 x 0.12 = $224; $1869--$224 = $1645; $1645 x 0.6 = $987 comes into the authors' checkbook.