Black Friday

I really hate Black Friday sales. Mostly because they force me to leave my house and interact with strange people.

So, in honor of that, I'd like to present the perfect solution! My book will be free Black Friday and the following Caturday in order to promote sales that don't make you leave your house.

But if you do have to go out, at least this will give you something to read while you're waiting in lines!

Go grab a free copy today on Amazon and don't forget to leave a review if it helps kill some time.

You should also pass this book along as a gift to anyone in your life who has an addiction to Pinterest or Instagram or any sort of visual discovery website. Or if they have a love one who is afflicted. Laughter is the best solution to stress, and the holidays can always use a few more giggles.

❤ - Hope

Non-Steading by Hope Woods

http://amzn.com/B014OKNOZE

Free Today and Tomorrow!

11/27/15-11/28/15

The perfect stocking-stuffer for your Kindle.

Or your friends' Kindles.

Anyone really!

Grab your copy today!

Construction Project: I Should Not Be Up This Early

As anyone reading this blog knows, I am cursed to live with someone who has "project ideas" every so often. I won't say this comes entirely from Pinterest or YouTube, but I think we know I could say that.

The latest undertaking that I have been tasked with assisting is a home gym.

Let me tell you about my love of fitness. Let me shower you with ideas about weights and angles and safety.

That's right, I can't. Because I don't care. I don't care even a little tiny bit about fitness. Or gyms. Or building things. I'm a NonSteader. This means I like to take advantage of things that someone else has already put together like cell phones, cheesey puffs and Netflix. I don't want to have to build something. And even if I were going to help with the construction of  some sort of fitness machine, I would consider the very act of construction work-out enough!

I may be alone in my steadfast refusal to take part in anything remotely assembly-required, but what's even worse is something that involves building from scratch.

It's one thing if you want to test your relationship by making a pilgrimage to some giant furniture emporium that sells things that come in pieces in boxes with hex wrenches and instructions that consist mostly of pictures and foreign languages!

It is something entirely different when you want your loved ones to field trip to the local hardware store, measure, cut wood, cut metal or pipe, solder things together, weld, wire, glue, clamp or otherwise engage in things best left to professionals.

The very thought that you would want to use something after I have been involved in the construction of said thing is ludicrous. Honestly, I wouldn't use the shower head first after I had to install it myself one day last year. I waited until some other poor sap tested it out first. I know my limits. I know my skills. Handi-craft and manufacturing are not among them!

With that being said, if you ever find yourself working out at my house (which I can't really imagine happening, but you never know) maybe don't use anything that has been put together by anyone other than the original retail outlet.

So, today I am up bright and early and I am going to help build a gym. Let's all cross our fingers that I don't lose any.

Non-Steading Holiday Sampler! #FreebieFriday

Do you dislike mason jars?

Do you dread being dragged from bed at dawn on weekends to help garden?

Do you love your friends but hate hearing about their hobbies?

Do you prefer distractions that are streaming?

You may be a Non-Steader...

To help you find out, here's an excerpt from my book, Non-Steading! It's free right now, today only! #FreebieFriday

Sample of Chapter 8 - Non-Steading at the Holidays

Limited time sale price of Free!
Get yours today!

Halloween/All Souls' Day

Beyond even Christmas and Easter, this is probably the largest homesteader holiday, if only because it allows them to showcase all of their tips and tricks in a practical setting where it is hard to criticize. If the old November holiday was created for homesteaders, then this was one is almost certainly created by them every year.

Do you want to bob for apples? There is a homesteader in your community that has been restoring old oak barrels for the last eleven months for just that purpose and he cannot wait to tell you about it. Did you want to dress up as something? There is a contingent of PinThings people who have done nothing for the last 90 days but look up costume ideas and how-to infographics.

If you were hoping for a quick jaunt out to trick or treat with your kids, abandon all hope ye who exit your houses. This is the one holiday that isn’t tied to meeting up with some part of your family, so I would suggest Non-Steaders dress up, make one trip to the grocery store, together, in costume, purchase candy you actually want now that it’s on clearance and then go home and watch horror movies. These scary images will help distract you from the homesteaders as they celebrate their favorite holiday. On All Souls' Day, and even into Day of the Dead, depending on where you live, they may persist. If possible, just hibernate until it’s all over.

http://ow.ly/TAO7U

#FreebieFriday here at the Non-Steader!

Go here TODAY October 16th, 2015

- http://amzn.com/B014OKNOZE

and get a free copy of

In honor of #FreebieFriday!

Today, I'm giving away free copies of my book over at Amazon. Please give it a read! If you like it, maybe pretty please post a review. That would be super.

Thanks!

http://ow.ly/ThkB6

FREE eBook Wednesday!

If you just want to skip to the free stuff:

Go here TODAY Wednesday 10.14.15

- http://amzn.com/B014OKNOZE

and get a free copy of 

This is my book. It's a little pink, I know.

I have gone up in the Amazon Rankings!

I have also launched my new website!

www.thathopewoods.com
Please come by and check it out. All of places you can find me, updates, everything!

I never expected to become rich or famous just from writing a book about Pinterest widows and Instagremlins why you should avoid anything with the word "project" involved. I just thought there might be a few people who felt like I did. People who couldn't understand the need to DIY or bedazzle or 'upcycle'.

At least one other person feels the same way! That, honestly, made my whole life. I wrote something, and someone read it. That's really all writers can ask for.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I would like to offer my book free for today. I've never done any sort of free day so if it's a disaster, please be gentle!

http://ow.ly/ThkXt

Happy Autumn!

I think it's officially the end of summer, and the start of fall.

You all know what this means...

Well, if you had read my book (which by all accounts no one has) you would know!

Fall is the beginning of the best season for Homesteaders, Pinteresters, DIYers, and all other people who want to do something "fun" or make something "pop". It has begun, I assure you.

I would say watch your back, but it's probably more important to watch your surroundings. If you see signs of the encroaching invasion, run to the nearest television, sit down in front of it and refuse to acknowledge the existence of anyone. That may work.

If you see mason jars begin to appear in your residence, move out immediately.

In Bloom-ers

Summer is ending. I won't say finally because I don't want to jinx myself, like a cop with only one week to go til retirement.

This means things will be way less colorful, pretty, bright and hot. But most of all, it means gardening is at an end!

For the next few months, short of a greenhouse* solution no one will plant anything! Maybe some pumpkin harvesting left, or a little corn or something useful, but pretty plants are done for.

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is a lover of orchids, and at one point he discusses why the orchids are effectively his mistress. To paraphrase, they are capricious, expensive and they serve only to give him pleasure (if I find the quote, I'll add it here). Flowers that do nothing but look pretty are great if they give you pleasure, but for those of us who are non-steaders, we prefer less work. Summer ending means a few months where no one will ask us if we want to "help with the weeding".

*By greenhouse I mean they actually own a greenhouse.

The Wreath of Con

Last night, my S.O.* comes to me and says, "I have found an awesome project on Pinterest and we are going to make a thing. I need you up early tomorrow."

Those words, to a non-steader... I am already flinching inwardly. The thought of having to waste precious Netflix/sleeping/kitty time on some idiotic thing from the bowels of crafty hell is just more than I can handle. I begin to make my objections.

"I really don't think we have time for that. Or materials, I'm sure there's something we need that we don't have and we can't go out and buy anything right now and c'mon you don't really want to do this do you?" I am hoarse, trying to squeeze it all out in one breath so that there's no chance for interruptions. My face is contorted into a mask of carefully calculated abject concern and worry.

This is my best "Are you sure you want to do this" face and it has worked in the past to curtail these "urges" to make things from Pinterest.

But it does not prevail. Not today.

Today I am awake bright and early at 5:30 am. I have been carefully selected by default (the cats apparently cannot help) to assist with whatever this project is and I haven't even been given the courtesy of coffee. What was this urgent mission you ask? This massive undertaking that required I only get 3 hours of sleep and did not have time to pause in the kitchen for caffeinated courage?

http://www.ellaclaireinspired.com/the-wreath-trick-autumn-leaves/
@ellaclaireblog**

This. This monstrosity. Some orange fall-ish thing found on Pinterest. We are making a decoration for our front door because apparently September is "the beginning of autumn" and we "have to coordinate our house to showcase our personality". Yes those were the exact words.

I would like to state that we do not currently possess the items listed on that website. Brown pipe cleaners or something? I have no idea. The short version is we are going to Walmart immediately so that we can spend probably half of our weekly food budget on two wreaths and pipe cleaners and whatever else. It's a giant autumnal con!

I then made the problem worse somehow. I was the moron who suggested that we actually could just wait a while, collect pine cones and then hot glue them together to make an actual FREE wreath in a few weeks. If a wreath was even required. I think I learned that project in grade school? I don't know exactly, but I thought it was a good idea. My personality is pretty happy being showcased as free. At least as an alternative to whatever this costly monstrosity would clearly become.

I've realized that much like Juggernaut, these whims of whimsy are impossible to stop once they have begun. So if you happen to see a door with a giant fluffy orangish wreath, just know I was conned into it and I don't think it enhances our door at all. It clashes with the cream/dirt color.



*S.O. means significant otter. Maybe that should say other. Significant other. I might prefer the otter at this point... and of course I'm kidding if you're reading this honey!

**The lovely person who first posted this seems really nice, so please check out her blog and Twitter for more stuff like this if you enjoy these sorts of projects! :)

Getting Started

Waking up today, I saw an email that a friend had purchased my book and written a review! I got so excited!!

And then I checked Amazon and got sad. I still don't have any reviews on my book, and the one I did have was not accepted by Amazon. It seems odd to me that you can give free copies of a book in exchange for a review, but if someone purchases a copy, but is personally known to you, they are not allowed to share their thoughts. The person spent money on the book, shouldn't they be allowed to post their opinion, regardless of the relationship to the author?

Well, its a slow start. I mostly published the book because I genuinely thought people might enjoy it. Who knows if it will ever go anywhere? In the mean time, I will continue to work on my next book and hope for the best.

If anyone out there knows how to get reviews from strangers, feel free to email me!

Non-Steading Now Live on Amazon!

I cannot believe it! My very first book is now live on amazon.com!
I mean, obviously I have to believe it, since it's there! Isn't this exciting? It's even free to read if people have KindleUnlimited.

Find me on Twitter @nonsteader or head over to Amazon and leave me a review!

Non-Steading Now For Sale on Amazon.com!