So what’s the news I mentioned last night?

The husband and I will be moving to Amsterdam at the end of August for at least a year (and perhaps longer)!

Earlier this year, my husband got accepted to the University of Amsterdam to pursue a master’s degree, but the only catch is that they provided him with no financial aid. Neither of us was interested in accruing more debt, but we’d thought we’d defer for a year, see how much we could raise and scrape together, and go from there. He has quite a few connections and good friends who live in Amsterdam and around the Netherlands, since he lived and worked there for quite a while in the 90′s, so we had high hopes, but didn’t think we’d have much luck.

Then again, it’s funny how tragedy and opportunity tend to hold hands tight.

We found out two weeks ago that a very dear friend of his, the same one we went to go visit earlier this winter for his 80th birthday, has just been diagnosed with leukemia, with about a year to live. Him and his wife don’t have much family, but my husband has always been close to them both, and they’ve happily accepted me into their family as well. Both of us feel that we need to be there for them both in this last year, doing whatever we can for them–driving to appointments, shopping, emotional support and labor, cooking and cleaning, etc. Thankfully we can travel on his student visa to help them both through this difficult time, while allowing him to attend school, with some financial assistance they’re providing, and whatever we can raise ourselves. 

So what does this mean to you, readers?

1. Travelling with him on his student visa, I’m not going to be able to work in any sort of conventional fashion, so for the next year at least, contributions from all of you through Patreon will be my main source of income. So, if you’ve thought about contributing, but haven’t yet–now is definitely the time! If you’d like more info, or would like to contribute you can find out more here. 

2. Speaking of Patreon, I’ve been feeling like, with this new shift in my life, it would be a good time to reconsider the goals I had in mind when I first got going, and revise them. That said, rewards will not be changing! Everyone getting a monthly commission is still going to get those commissions. I’ll still be posting four times a week, at least for the time being–it might be that, as we approach the August departure date, I have to temporarily scale back my posting rate or take a week or two off, but I’m hoping to avoid that if at all possible. Looking forward to the fall, it’s possible that, with more time available, I’ll be able to scale up rewards in some fashion as well, but that’s more “wait and see”.

3. Lastly, to help generate a bit of extra income right now, I will be open for general commissions starting at some point in early June! We have a lot of expenses this summer to try and manage, and so every little bit helps. I’m still hammering out the details on pricing and what kinds of stories I’ll be accepting, but expect more information within the week, if you’re interested in helping me out in this way.

If you have any questions about any of this, I’ll answer what I can, as usual, over on my secondary blog. As always, thanks for reading, and for your support! I’m super excited for this opportunity, and I hope the next year will have great things in store.