Friday, September 9, 2016

Asking For Help



Asking for help has always been difficult for me. I've always felt like if there was something that needed to be done, I would just put my head down and work through it. However in the past few years we've faced some obstacles that were more than what we could handle on our own due to outside circumstances. It also doesn't help that where we're living currently, while we knew it wasn't in the best shape when we moved in, has gone from bad to worse. And now that our sweet grandbaby is with us we're in a desperate situation and require some help. I recently read Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking and it resonated strongly with me, on many different levels.

So, here we are. Asking for your help. The house we're renting is in terrible shape. The windows don't properly seal. There's holes in the walls that haven't been fixed. We've had multiple leaks while living here (including the water main which caused pooling water in one of the rooms...). There are places in the floor that have been covered with duct tape – and other spots that feel like the next time you walk on them, you’re just going to fall through. Our landlord will fix some things, but not always in an expedient manner, not always by a professional, and sometimes not at all.

We were going to move at the beginning of summer, but our only vehicle completely died (would have required repairs well more than what it was worth) and then my husband was laid off. Every bit of money we'd managed to squirrel away to get out of here was now put to a new (to us) vehicle and to cover until my husband could find another job (where we live is 15 min outside of a town of 2300.. Not a ton of job prospects nearby... His current job is a 50-min one-way commute).  I work and have been in the same field (audio transcription) for over eight years. I do fairly well, but projects aren't always consistent (as a result, I work for three different companies to try to stay busy enough to meet our financial needs).

We're looking to move back to the town we were living 2.5 years ago, where there are more opportunities, all the way around. 

And a big part of why moving is so important is our granddaughter. She’s been with us since she and her mom came home from the hospital. We need to get into a better place before winter falls as to not have to worry about health concerns.   

There are more details and factors. Some my husband covered on our fundraiser. And some that are private family matters that we’re in the process of handling, but add to the complications and complexity of our situation.  I hope that if you are in a position to do so, you will consider donating so that we can get in a safe house that will be good for all of us and allow us to focus on our family – and the relaunch of our business, Nightscape Press, which once we’re back up and running, we will switch to a model where we’re donating a portion of every new book we publish to charity (we’ve done charity anthologies in the past, but really want to be doing more).

So, that’s where we are – in a rough spot that we don’t see any way we can make it through on our own in the amount of time we have to work with.  Please consider donating, or at the very least, sharing our fundraiser so that we can better our situation to be able to help others in the future.  Thank you.

  If you would prefer to make a donation through PayPal, the link is: https://paypal.me/robertswilson