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Brokenness

Over the weekend I quit my job. You know, the job that I told you about in my last post, the job that had ‘gone bad’?

Yeah, that job.

The job that I don’t have anymore.

I quit over the weekend. By text.

I know. I felt like a jerk. Like a real live jerk.

To be fair, I kind of had to do it by text because #1. That’s the main way we communicate, #2. I didn’t have my manager’s e-mail address, so I couldn’t email her, #3. I wanted to give her a heads up about my not coming in on Monday because I wasn’t giving my two weeks notice — I didn’t want her texting me at 8:30a Monday morning wondering where I was; I thought a No Call, No Show would be worse than a text, #4. I wanted to notify the owner of my leaving, but I didn’t have her email address either so I had to ask my manager for it via text (What’s with me not having their email address? I work(ed) for a small company and didn’t have a desk job, so it wasn’t exactly mandatory for me to have their email address). So, you see, I kind of had to do it that way, although I really did feel like a jerk.

Also, what’s with me not giving two weeks notice? Read my last post here for the background (And if you’ve been following me for awhile you know that I haven’t exactly been loving my job. When I first started it was ok, I didn’t mind it and really the tasks I had to do, like shipping orders, I kind of enjoyed. But lately…eh, not so much). Not only had the job gone bad…or rather the warehouse itself had gone bad…there was the issue of mold and mildew. Since the rain had come through the roof, then through the ceiling and on to the products, some of the products had major water damage and the ones that didn’t have major water damage still had some damage and one of my co-workers found mold on a product that she was planning on sending to a customer (But caught it before it went out of the warehouse). Not to mention the place smelled like mildew. Back in June part of the ceiling fell in and the owner made no move to fix it. The roofer told her it was because of birds, or squirrels or some other unwanted animal visitor. One of my co-workers, who soon after left the company, said he ‘didn’t think it was birds’ that made the ceiling fall in. I agree with him. Birds?!? Squirrels?? *eye roll*

Adam and I had a long talk with his parents last Friday, asking for advice and an exit strategy. Adam’s dad agreed with my friend who said it was clearly an OSHA violation, and he said I should call them for an inspection and let my boss know I wasn’t coming into work until it was fixed. Adam’s mom asked me if I wanted to keep the job. I said no, I didn’t. They both agreed that I shouldn’t go back. In fact Adam’s dad said, ‘I tell you as a father, don’t go back’. Which got me, because my dad isn’t here…

I was talking with my mom on Friday morning and mentioned my work situation and she said, ‘You need to get out of there’. Another friend, who I told later, said it was wise to leave.

So I left. And since this whole thing with work has gone down I am now very conscious of mold around me. Like, at home. Is that mold on my shower curtain? Ugh. Is that mildew? Hmmm. What’s that black stuff there? Let me check.

I feel I’ve been on a sporatic cleaning spree when I see something that looks suspicious. Wow, do I really live with that much mildew around me?

Now, I know that we live in a world where nothing is perfect and that things break, things wear out or run down. We live in a broken world. Things get old and break and need to be repaired, replaced or thrown out. It’s the neverending cycle of stuff. It’s the neverending cycle of the world we live in.

Some things do get better with age though! I love old, vintage items. I enjoy going thrifting. I like things that aren’t new. In fact, I remember one time, several years ago my aunt passed on to me a small, well-worn patchwork quilt, because, as she said, ‘You like old stuff’. And it’s true, I do (P.S. That quilt is still one of my favs — and it’s even older now. 🙂 )

We live in a broken world where things break. Stuff goes bad, our bodies wear out and food gets rotten if not eaten. Mold and mildew exist and things get rusty and moth-eaten.

Stuff can last longer if it is maintained. You can have something for years if it is well-maintained, preserved and taken care of. Cars and houses needed to be maintained. Our bodies need to be maintained. Preventative healthcare is a thing. Oil changes are good things. Changing out your furnance filter is routine home maintenance.

It was obvious to me that the owner of my former workplace was not doing basic building maintenance until she was told she had to (By an insurance company) or until things got so bad that it was so obvious that even she couldn’t ignore it any longer. By then, for me, it was too late.

Yesterday, when I went to drop my key off I was talking to one of my co-workers and she said that she had been applying for jobs and once she got one she was out. We stood there for a few minutes, talking among the tarp covered shelves, wearing masks, while rainwater from the ceiling dripped into a bucket above us. ‘I have asthma’, she said. No, she can’t work there. I was glad that she was making moves to leave, taking care of herself. She’s smart, she’ll get something better.

So, let’s buckle down and get practical. Like, really practical. Where in your life is there mold? I’m not talking about figurative mold, but real mold. Do you need to get a new roof? Do you need to clean under your kitchen sink? Do you need to scrub your shower? Get a new shower curtain? What you do you need to clean in order to get rid of mold or mildew in your home? Wear a mask, wear gloves, wear long sleeves and get to work.

What physical, tangible things in your life are broken? Is there something you’ve been ignoring? What do you need to fix? Do you need to do basic car repair or home maintenance? Do you need to replace a window or a door? Or paint over something? Do you need to go to the doctor?

Now, figuratively speaking, what else is broken in your life? Do you have estranged relationships that need healing? Do you have a heart that hasn’t been healed of a past hurt? What steps can you do to reach out and mend a broken relationship? I think that the first and most important step in being healed of past hurts is to go to Jesus. Sit before the Lord in a quiet place and bring your hurts and questions and brokenness to God. He is the all-knowing, all-seeing One who loves you.

There is a verse I came across recently that stood out to me. It is in Psalm 147 and talking about God is says, ‘His understanding is infinte’.

His understanding is infinite.

God’s understanding is infinite. No matter what is broken in your life, whether on a relational level or something on a more practical level (Mold at your workplace, anyone?), He understands.

God knows and God cares about the brokenness in your life and wants to help fix, repair and heal it.

Summer Update

It has been a very long while since I’ve written anything besides a journal entry. In a way, I’m trying not to feel guilty about this, but why should I feel guilty about not writing? I just enjoy it, so when I don’t make time for it, I’m a little sad.

Truth is that 1. I’ve been pretty busy. Life happens, so they say, and this summer has been decently busy, and 2. Although I have a lot to say, I don’t feel really led to write about any of it. Until now, anyway. Maybe this is my summer update.

What’s been happening?

Our extroverted guinea pig, Peanut, goes on her nightly adventures, wandering around our TV room while I sweep their habitat. Molly, our introverted guinea pig, stays contentedly inside. She’s such a homebody. A month or so ago I bought fleece liners for their habitat from GuineaDad and they are really nice and work well, but I bought a size or two too big for their cage (Despite the heads up on their website) and the piggies followed their natural instinct and started burrowing under the liner. I was actually pretty mad about it and I ‘fought’ the pigs over it for a week or so until I finally weighted the liner with fabric covered bricks. The trick has worked so far; no burrowing allowed.

Mu husband is currently engrossed in the Women’s World Cup quarter finals. He’s a soccer guy. I don’t find soccer all that interesting, personally, but I’ve learned a lot more about it from being married to my husband. The new MLS team in St. Louis, the St. Louis City SC, has taken off like crazy here.

Talking about marriage, I’ve been thinking a lot about balance in marriage recently. Things like, my husband is the type of person who likes to have things done yesterday. I am the type of person who likes to do things tomorrow. Together, we do a lot of things today. Or, my husband is the type of person who likes to be five minutes early to an event. I like to arrive ‘fashionably late’ (Read: 5 mins). Together, we arrive right on time.

We’re a good balance. I appreciate my husband and being married to him and I am thankful he is the one I get to do life with.

We are still on a wait list to adopt. We’ve been on the list through our agency since January. The agency told us that people typically are on the wait list for eighteen months, so far it’s been eight. If the agency is correct, we have ten more months to go. That seems like a really long time to wait, especially since we’ve dealt with infertility our entire seven year marriage and have been wanting to have a family that whole time. Ten months may not seem long in the grand scheme of things, but to us who have already been waiting, it feels like a long time. I’m personally trying not to be anxious, I’m trying not to hurry things up in my mind, I’m trying to be patient, but it is hard.

My job at the warehouse has gone to crap. The week of the 4th of July we had some really bad thunderstorms that knocked our power out for five days, so we were working in plus 80 degree heat (Or hotter) with no AC, wearing headlamps so we could see our way around in the basement, the computers powered by a gas generator. We worked half days, trying to just focus on getting orders out. Besides the weekend that knocked our power out, we’ve still had a lot of rain in July and unfortunately the owner of the company I work for is not up on her building maintenance and the roof was leaking. Like, it’s bad. Really bad. Dangerous and she’s sitting on a lawsuit in my opinion. There has been water all over the floor multiple days and I’ve heard the shop vac going at work sucking up all the water for more hours than I care to count. I’ve wasted a lot of precious work time cleaning up the water and damaged products and when I told my friend all this she said that a leaky roof is claerly an OSHA violation. Right now we’re dealing with mildew. The owner is getting a new roof for the warehouse on Monday, but there has been so much water damage and mildew on the ceiling that she needs a new ceiling now too. All this because when she was told a year and a half ago that she needed a new roof and that it would be $30,000 she switched roofers to one that would just do patch jobs for her and now she’s dealing with all this — damaged products, a much more expensive roof and major ceiling damage. I can barely work simply because, not only dealing with the mess, but we have tarps over all the shelves to protect the product, so it’s hard to find things and a good portion of our products in a few of the aisle are on rolling carts, making it even more difficult to pick products for orders. I’m done there. Like, really done. I can’t work for a company whose owner won’t do basic building maintenance, who clearly does not care for her employees health and safely, not to mention she buys expensive office furniture, goes on multiple, multi-week vacations a year (Like Japan for Spring Break) and buys a Telsa (Now I know personal finances and business finances are different, but really?). Plus, in the last couple of weeks, the bathroom door lock has broken, so I can’t even pee without holding my foot against the door for privacy.

I told my brother all this last week and he was like, ‘You still work there?’. Yep, apparently, at this point, I do.

So that was a big work rant. This week we did have a meeting with the warehouse manager and I brought things to her attention (Not to mention the lights in the basement need to be replaced. Like a lot of them. It’s hard to see down there) and she said she was going to talk to the owner about everything (The owner being on vacation the past two weeks).

I’m looking for a job — I just decided this week that it’s all too much and I can’t work in a mildewy warehouse with an owner who just doesn’t care. I’m done. But that means that I actually have to LOOK for a job and that takes time and effort. I don’t want to look, honestly. When we adopt our plan was that I would leave my job and stay home with the baby. I don’t really want to find a temporary job. We had a prayer and fasting week this week at church and one of the focuses yesterday was asking God for wisdom in life situations, and I desperately need his wisdom in this because finding a new job was not something I really want/wanted to do.

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Do I push people towards Jesus or do I lead them away from Him? What fruit do I bear in my life that is evidence of my walk with Christ?

Some questions I’ve been pondering this summer.

I’ll leave you with those two questions for now. It’s late and I need to shower and head to bed. But hey, it feels good to write.

The Question

Often, in life, one of the main questions we hear, and are asked, starting when we are children and especially when we are teens and going into college, is, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’

We hear this question over and over and over again. It comes from outside sources: well-meaning parents, other family members, our friends and acquaintences, counselors at school, social media, ‘What do you want to do?’

It comes from inside us too, maybe stemming from what we see and hear around us. We ask ourselves ‘What do I want to do with my life?‘ We think and ponder and agonize over this question, especially when we are teenagers and in our early twenties.

THIS, this doing, this ‘What do I want to do?’ seems like the MOST important decision in life. It may seem, or be, all-consuming at times. I know that I personally have struggled with this question often enough throughout my life.

The question comes regularly, not only in big, career-making decisions, but in small ones too.

‘What do you want to do tonight?’, is a question my husband and I ask each other often.

‘What should I do about this situation?’

‘What do I want to do today?’

‘What do I want my life to look like?’

Sometimes the question looks a little different, as in, ‘What do I want to be when I grow up?’. That seems to be more a question children ask themselves as they play…or at least I, my siblings and neighbors did when we were kids. ‘I want to be a fireman!’, ‘I want to be a nurse!’, ‘I want to be a teacher!’, we’d say. Our choices of what we wanted to be in life were mostly limited to fireman, nurse or teacher. 😉

This question varies in situations and circumstances, but it seems to always be some version of, ‘What do I want to do?’.

But what if the question was different?

What if, instead of, ‘What do I want to do in life?’ we asked ourselves, ‘WHO do I want to BE?’

This goes beyond the childhood playtime question of wanting to ‘be’ a fireman, nurse or teacher.

This question, ‘Who do I want to be’, popped into my head yesterday after a long day at work. I had been struggling with a mild migraine for two days and I felt stressed and anxious and tired, looking forward to a day ‘off’ today (Off in quotation marks because I always have something to do).

‘This is not how I want to live my life,’ I thought.

Oftentimes I feel angry inside, or stressed, or tired, or run down, or really just not enjoying my life. I feel ticked off about this or that or the other, I feel annoyed at this person or that person, I have a hard time sleeping so I’m not getting the rest I need to feel calm during the day, I feel selfish, I feel I judge people too much, or I don’t want to go to work, or I wish this or that in my life were different. Maybe you can relate??

But I don’t want to live this way.

I don’t want to live stressed, or angry, or mad, or judgy or caught up in the doing, doing, doing…always…doing…

WHO do I want to BE?

I want to be someone who is kind, loving, generous, compassionate, calm, confident. I want to be someone who enjoys the nuances of every day living, with all the ins and outs and surprises that comes with each day. I want to be someone who enjoys the sunset with my husband, who stops and listens when others are talking, to really hear and understand. I want to be someone who gives, someone who makes others feel comfortable. I want to be someone who celebrates others, who loves others around me.

WHO do I want to BE?

HOW do I want to live my life?

As I think about my life, as I become gradually older and I think about the future…who do I want to be in ten, twenty or thirty years? How do I want to live my life?

This is way beyond the, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ or ‘What should I do with my life’ question. This is deeper, most intentional.

This is being kind to my co-workers at a job I don’t love. I am not saying I am mean or unfriendly…but I could be kinder and I could be more friendly. I could create more of an atmosphere of community and cammaderie. I could be not quite so focused on my task at hand.

This is listening to my nieces and nephews and respecting them. I am not saying I don’t listen or respect them, but I could give attention to another layer of respect and listening before speaking.

Hear me on this though: When I ask the question, ‘Who do I want to be?’ I am NOT guilt-tripping myself into TRYING to be nicer, kinder or more loving. It is not saying I SHOULD BE this way because this is the RIGHT thing to do.

NO. That is not it. There are no SHOULDS or COULDS with this. There is no guilt involved with this question.

Instead, this question is more of bringing into an awareness of HOW I live my life, paying closer attention to WHO I desire to be, who I want to be when I think of my future or when look back over my life. Was I who I wanted to be, regardless of what I did, career-wise?

I feel this ties in with what I wrote about last year…this being and not doing. You can read those posts here, here and here.

For now, my friend, I will leave with with this question: Who do YOU want to be?

A Poet On Vacation

Tiny, translucent clouds, wispy, soft, light, drifted past the bright, full moon as it shone upon the dark water, casting a romantic hue in the atomsphere.

The waves, flowing, crashing, dancing, came to their shore-boundary and pulled back again, as another row of dancing, foamy waves came and took its place and they, in turn, pulled back as the cycle of ocean waves continued their rhythm. Two figures stood upon the light, sandy beach next to the incoming and outgoing water. One figure, a man, played a guitar, his companion, a female, had a violin tucked under her chin and was playing to the ocean, the sea, the great expanse of pale green and deep blue mix of water that connects the continents and cultures. The figures, the musical duo, serenaded the water, serenaded the early morning beach goers with their melodic refrain. Their gifting being liberally shared with the rest of us.

Now daylight, now morning, the brilliant sun reflects off the shore-water, glittering, glistening, blinding if you look at it too long. The waves continue their incessant moving, their continual coming and going, going and coming. The waves are bigger, louder, stronger, harder than the moonlit waves of yesterday evening. These waves warn us that the ocean is not to be taken too casually, that beauty can destory. The flag shows red, a warning, a sign that all may not be as calm as it seems. So I look, watch, enjoy, gaze, from where I sit upon the sandy shore, the burning sun on me as well as the waves and water and I glisten and glitter too, though from water from my pores and I rehydrate my body, my skin, with the contained, unsalty water beside me.

Water is life, and we are caught in the swirling, whirling, glistening, madness.

Confessions of a Terrified Traveler

While my travel-nerd-of-a-husband is sitting next to me on a plane peacefully and happily tracking our flight on the Southwest app, I am slouched in my seat, eyes closed, telling myself to ‘Breathe through it, breathe through it, breathe through it.’

As much as I love traveling, seeing new places and countries, I hate flying.

You can travel without flying. Traveling is just going from one place to the next by a mode of transportation be it bicycle, bus, car, plan train, moped, unicycle or anything other vehicle that you take you from where you are to where you want to go. Flying does not equal traveling.

Yet in today’s fast-paced world of international travel, flying is the easiest and quickest way to get from Point A to Point B.

I’ve never been a lover of flying. As a kid, we traveled by car. My parents had four kids and counting, so flying was way too expensive for our family. My first plane trip was when I was 17, as a participant in a church mission trip to a Mexican border town via Houston and then on to San Antonio where we then took a three hour bus ride to the border. A friend gave me Tylenol PM to get me through the short 45 min flight from Houston to San Antonio; that’s how freaked out I was.

My maternal grandmother never got on a plane. She told us that after she died we could fly her body back to Lincoln, Nebraska where her burial plot was because at that point she wouldn’t know or care. My uncle told her in no uncertain terms, ‘If you won’t get on a plane when you’re alive, you’re not getting on one when you’re dead’ (Sure enough, her body was driven back to Nebrask after she passed).

My mother, too, hates flying. She has, but she went on a very long stretch refusing to get on a plane (1991 to 2017 to be exact). It’s just been in more recent years that she has stretched her wings again and flown (Pun intended).

For me, I do it. I don’t like it, in fact, I’m pretty terrified and I may have nightmares weeks before getting on a plane, but I don’t let it keep me from traveling. I still do it.

I don’t fly often, usually just once or twice a year. When I was younger I flew much more often. Looking at my travel history and the places I’ve been you might not think I hate flying (I won’t rattle off the places I’ve been, but trust me, it’s more than a few).

Besides the nightmares, when I’m in line to board a plane my mouth goes dry, my legs start shaking, my stomach tightens, my hands shake and Lord have mercy, I pray…a lot.

Why do I dislike flying? Is it a generational thing? Maybe I was conditioned at a young age to dislike it and be fearful of planes. Or the fact that I’m an earthy person and like to have my feet planted firmly on the ground and not have my head, and the rest of my body for that matter, in the clouds. Is the fact that ‘anything could happen at any moment’? Or that I’ve heard too many stories of planes and things that could, or have, gone wrong. Or because I’ve flown through, or around, storms and had some extremely bumpy rides? (Talk about terrified).

In contrast, my husband’s first plane ride was when we was just a few months old. His maternal grandfather was a non-commercial pilot and owned his own plane(s). Adam’s uncle, on the same side of the family, is also a non-commercial pilot and owns his own plane(s) and flys his WWII fighter planes in air shows around the country. Adam’s dad travels all over the world on a regular basis (Right now he is in DC for meetings, having just spent a week in Denmark for meetings).

Adam and I are complete opposites when it comes to flying. It is his happy place. He loves it. Being a travel agent is a good fit for him, even though most of his job is sitting in an office, not traveling. He still has a good head for it and can work the system. If he tracks flights for fun, stares at the Arrival and Departure boards whenever we’re in an airport, if he can name the airline hubs and knows their codes, if he knows plane routes and can look at the sky when a plane is passing and comment, ‘Hey, it’s a Southwest plane’…well, then, I rest my case. He’s a travel nerd to the Nth degree and good at his job.

I wrote most of this post via pen and paper when I was waiting to board a flight a few weeks ago in Orlando back to St. Louis coming home from our vacation in Jamaica (Iberostar Grand Rose Hall, if you’re interested). When we boarded the plane the flight attendants told it was going to be a very bumpy ride because we were going to circumnavigate a storm.

Oh, joy, I thought. I’ve done this before and I do NOT (Repeat, DO NOT) want to be on this plane right now. We were on Southwest and the message they were getting from the pilot was we’d only have about 20 minutes of non-turbulent weather and they were not going to be serving drinks or snacks because of that.

Turns out, there was hardly any turbulence. I kept waiting for it; I was as prepared as I could be emotionally. They told us. They were upfront. They weren’t hiding anything. Any yet, it was fairly smooth. I was so thankful, and also so appreciative of their honesty and their commitment to keeping the ride as safe and smooth as possible.

I don’t exactly know how to end this post, but if you are a terrified traveler like myself, I get it. Do you think the pilots and flight attendants can see on people’s faces as they board the plane who’s terrified and who isn’t? I’ve wondered.

And if you’re like my husband, well, God bless you.

Making Soap

You all know that I enjoy writing in a journal. My journal is mostly stream-of-conscious writing, whatever I feel like I need to emotionally process, or want to record, write down, or want to remember something significant for the future. In short, it’s whatever the heck I feel like writing.

Sometimes I look back on what I’ve written in the past. Sometimes I’m looking for something I thought was important; I look at specific journals where I might find what memory I have in my head — maybe I wrote it down, maybe I didn’t?? Sometimes, honestly, I want to trash it all. It served it’s purpose for me at that time, why do I need to keep it? And yet, I hang on to them, for whatever reason.

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing through a journal, looking for some specific event, when I came across something I had written about twenty years ago. It caught my attention, even though it wasn’t what I had been in search of. But I stopped, read it, pondered.

By now you also may know that I own a small business, Ruministics, that sells handmade soaps, self-care sets, aromatherapy roll on oil and journals at farmers markets (If you’re curious, check out my biz website here).

When I came across this bit of information from my past it was just a day or two before the ‘market season’, as I call it, started.

This year, this 2023 market season, was the first year since starting my very tiny business that I had signed on to be a full season vendor. Which means, every Saturday from April to November I would be at the same market, in the same location, at the same time, ever single week, selling my handcrafted body care goods.

I was feeling a little nervous. Sure, ever since starting my biz I was basically a vendor at some market, pop up show or craft fair. That’s how I did business. In-person sales, with occasional online sales and a couple of retail shops around town. Something one person can handle. Nothing crazy, nothing too big, a nice gig. I know what I was doing. Yet I still felt pre-market jitters, especially going into a full season. That was the new part. Would I be able to handle it? A lot of What ifs were bouncing around in my head.

Then, as I was glancing through my journals, I found this entry dated June 27, 2003. I quote…

‘I’ve been reading through some of my old Victoria magazines and one thing I’ve seen in me is a wanting to make natural cosmetics, soaps, candles, using essential oils and fresh herbs. I’ve also discovered a love for gardening and gourmet cooking. Do I have expenseive taste and don’t know it? Because essential oils are terribly expenseive. Why not just buy a cake of Yardley’s lavender soap instead of trying to make it myself? I also want to learn how to decorate cakes. Entertain people. Hospitality. And then I think, ‘Well, isn’t that selfish? What about all the poor children I saw in Africa? Shouldn’t I be reaching out to them instead of making soap?’ I do want to reach people. How? How do I do it by making my own clothes, having an herb and vegetable garden, making soap and candles? I think I’m an artistic person, just not in the typical areas.’

The year before I had been on a mission trip to Africa for nine weeks and part of our time there was visiting Kibera slum and working in an orphanage in Nairobi. I had seen the poorest of the poor. This entry itself, the one I just quoted, was written just two days before I headed off to England for the summer and then ended up staying two years as a missionary.

As I read this entry just a couple of weeks ago, very present in the year 2023, everything thing seemed to make sense. Twenty years ago, as a young twenty-something kid, the desire to make soap was just beginning in me, but I wasn’t sure how that aligned with my stronger desire to ‘be a missionary’.

Fast forward twenty years and I own a small business making soap and aromatherapy oils, selling my creations at local farmers markets where I reguarly see people who are searching for…something. The farmers market itself ia a huge mission field.

How does my desire to make soap coincide with my desire to tell other people about Jesus? I didn’t see it then, but I see it now.

Twenty years later, yes, that long, I finally have my answer.

Writing For

In most of my writing I am not writing to or for a specific audience. I am just writing for myself, whatever I want to write, whenever I feel led to write it. It’s personal expression, emotional processing, things that I feel need to be written or said or read. You all know this by now, but I can’t help but write. I’m a writer, so that’s what I do.

However, I’ve been thinking that if I want to write a book someday (And you all know this is something I’ve mentioned here and there in my posts) then I need to practice writing for an audience. Or to a specific group of people.

Do I have to write to, or for, an audience to write a book? My creative, free-expression self is like, ‘Heck no’. No, no, I don’t. I can just write what I want and people can take what they want from it. I mean, right? That’s how it goes, yes?

I have this gut feeling though that in the ‘real world’, the world of real live book editors, publishers, authors and people who write for a living, that is not the case. You have to be specific. You have to be intentional. You have to write for someone.

The marketing team at your chosen publishing house (Or do they chose you?) needs to know how to market your book to the right audience. Maybe it all goes back to marketing. After all, you want your words to be read, right? You don’t want to write this great and awesome novel and no one reads it. And you don’t want to write a book for children and then somehow market it to adults.

And although the Number One rule of writing may be to actually sit down and write something (And the Number Two rule? Read this post for an idea), it could arguably be said that after Rule Number One comes, ‘Consider your audience, consider your audience. Consider. Your. Audience.’

Don’t all good writers (Professional and otherwise) and published authors consider who they’re writing to…maybe even before Rule Number One?

Or is it, ‘What do I want to write about?’

Then, ‘Who’s my audience?’

Then, ‘Create an Outline or Storyboard’

(So maybe Rule Number Two is actually Rule Number Three? Or maybe all the ‘rules’ are all mixed up and it all matters, despite what order they’re in)

I’ve been thinking of all this lately, this writing for. I don’t think it will change my blog at all, that’s not the point of this blog (It is first and foremost whatever I feel like writing about), but on the sidelines I want to start praticing writing for an audience with a specific theme in mind, ie, a book. Whether or not that means said book (At this point a mythical book because it doesn’t exist…yet) will actually be published, but that shouldn’t stop me from writing, trying or practicing.

For you, do you write for someone? Or do you write for yourself? What are your thoughts on this topic? I would really love to know what you think! Please feel free to leave a comment. 🙂 Peace.

Donation

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about organ tranplants and organ donation. This has come up mostly because my sister-in-law, who I mentioned briefly in this post, is needing a lung transplant.

At the end of last year my sister-in-law was in the hospital for a week and consequently because of the issues that she was dealing with then had a decline in her health. She’s had major health issues for ten plus years (Dare I say pushing 15 years? I’ve known her for eight of those years) and in her own words says that her ‘body is a maze’ and sometimes it takes the doctors a while to figure out what is going on and how best to help her.

Earlier this year, after her hospital stay and health decline her doctors highly recommended she have a lung transplant. She told everyone in my family this news about six weeks ago. Since she told us she has has the transplant evaluation and the doctors have definitely said this is the way to go in order for her to be healthy and stable. As well, the doctors have said she needs to be on the transplant list as soon as feasibly possible.

I’ll be honest, I know ‘this much’ about organ transplants — which is to say, almost nothing. Until about six weeks ago my knowledge was, ‘People have transplants. I know it’s a thing, I just don’t know anything about them.’

I have learned a little more recently. More details about what a transplant entails, more about the caregiving post-transplant, the medications, dressing changes. My brother and his family will need a lot of help during the transplant time and post-transplant. I’ve learned that organ transplants are no joke and that people don’t get them just for fun. Please hear me, it’s not like I thought people got them for fun before this, but my eyes have been opened to the seriousness of them. My knowledge was very limited before and now it has been expanded.

And I’ve been hit by the reality that in order to even have a organ transplant, you first need to have an organ donor.

Which means, someone has to die (In many situations. Not all. But hear me out on this).

It’s a weird thought…that in order to keep one person from dying, another person has to die.

And not only does someone have to die, the person that has recently passed had to make a conscious choice while they were alive to even be a donor in the first place.

It’s a choice; I will give up an actual physical part of me once I no longer have need of it.

When I was sixteen I got my driver’s license. My parents told me beforehand that when I got my license the person issuing the license would ask if I wanted to be an organ donor. People, my sixteen year old self debated this a lot leading up to my driver’s test. Did I want to be an organ donor? Did I want to be an organ donor? Should I be a donor? It was a decision that I kept thinking about over and over and over. When the time came I barely understood the question when I was asked. What I recall from that moment was the person asked briefly, ‘Do you want to be a donor?’ and the word, ‘No’ came out of my mouth before my brain could process what they were actually asking. The deed was done, I thought. I said no.

I’m not a medical person. Meaning, one, I’m not a medical professional and two, there is a reason I am not a medical professional and have absolutely no desire to be one. I don’t even like hospital dramas. The medical field has almost no interest in it for me. Oh, our bodies are fascinating, and I do enjoy learning about them to a point, but surgery? Blood? Needles? Cut me open? Lose an organ? Uh, yeah, no thanks. So me thinking about being an organ donor, even after I’m gone and someone cutting me open, gives me the shudders.

My sister-in-law in a brave woman. But I know, and she knows and my family knows, that she has to have this done. She is not doing it necessarily because it is her idea of a good time, she’s doing it because for her it is, quite simply, a necessity.

My dad was an organ donor. My cousin who passed was an organ donor. My dad was able to give skin tissue. My cousin was able to give her eyes to someone who needed to see. Both my dad and my cousin were sick when they died, so they couldn’t donate a major organ, yet they donated what they could.

As I’ve been processing the idea of organ donation the past few weeks I had a thought that was new to me. Being a donor means that a physical part of you is still left alive on earth. Someone in this world has my dad’s skin tissue. Someone in this world has my cousin’s eyes. A physical part of them lives on in someone else. It’s weird to think about, but also really, really beautiful.

And what if the person who received my dad’s skin tissue was able to donate their skin tissue after they pass? Then a physical part of my dad will live on in someone else again, even longer (Now I don’t know if that is a thing, but possibly?!?).

Someone’s lungs will live on in my sister-in-law. And as my family rejoices because she has a chance for a longer life, another family is mourning because a loved one has gone.

I see the spiritual element in all this too. One person dying so another person can live. Jesus giving his life so we can have life.

My license is due for renewal this fall. I am rethinking the ‘no’ that I gave so many years ago.

Our Matchmaker

I feel the story of how Adam and I met isn’t complete without me telling the story of our matchmaker, my cousin Rachael.

You may recall in this post and this post how my cousin had been diagnosed with cancer in early 2015. This diagnosis was a big factor in how Adam and I met (Read those posts linked above before continuing with this one).

Rachael went through chemo in 2015 and was declared cancer free by January of ’16. By that time Adam and I were engaged and planning our wedding for May of ’16.

Rachael was there when I picked out my wedding dress. She got a ‘matchmakers pass’ for our rehearsal dinner (Of course she had to be there. It wouldn’t have happened without her). I spent the night at her house the night before I got married because the church was so close to where she lived (And I lived 45 minutes away).

We went on our honeymoon — Cancun for a few days and then up to Milwaukee for a long weekend. The day we were home in between Cancun and Milwaukee we got an email from Rachael’s husband, Matt. It simply stated that Rachael’s cancer was back, and more aggressive.

Rachael spent the summer in and out of the hospital with complications. And one Sunday in August we got the news from the doctors that she wasn’t going to ‘make it’.

Adam and I drove to the hospital to be with her for one last time. She passed away the next day.

Yes…this is how the story ended. With our matchmaker passing away a short three months after we were married. As our marriage was beginning, hers was ending. I feel that this is not how it should have been. That something else was supposed to happen. Like, healing. Like, she should still be here with us. Like, we should be ‘best cousins’ still, living our married lives together. Sometimes it’s hard even now to wrap my mind around this — and it’s been almost seven years. The weekend of our wedding was the last weekend she had feeling good. I am so thankful that she was there to celebrate with us.

When people ask me how Adam and I met, I don’t usually mention this part. ‘My cousin hooked us up. And then she died’. That’s not necessarily what people want to hear and they’re not asking how we met because they’re interested in hearing about my cousin. But the story isn’t complete without this part.

I wish there was a different story to tell you. A different, happy ending. I take comfort in the fact that she was a believer in Jesus and that she is with the Lord now and that this life isn’t all there is and that I will see her again. For now, I can live my life as a married woman, loving my husband as much as I can and telling others the integral part she played in the story of how Adam and I met.

Resort Recommendations

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband, Adam, is a travel agent. He got his current job just a couple of days after I first met him (You can read about how we met at this post). The travel agency Adam works for specializes in leisure travel, family vacations, destination weddings, cruises, Disney trips and the like.

Throughout my life, as I’ve been at crossroads with my various jobs, I would look into possibly working as a travel agent. It never really seemed liked the right fit for me, although I do like traveling. Little did I know that later in life I would meet and marry a man who had worked for many years and still continues to work in the travel industry. Funny how life works. 🙂

Being married to a travel agent definltely has its perks with discounted or free travel, flights, accommodations and other upgrades or amenities. Many times you get the ‘Wine and Dine’ package without asking, which is nice.

When I was still single, before meeting Adam, I rarely took vacations. I am not saying this is a good thing. It was mostly my way of saying, ‘I don’t have time for vacations because I am a Strong Single Woman and I have to work and take care of myself and I need the money and I just have to work, work, work.’ Again, I am not saying that was a good thing, but that’s where I was in my life. What vacations I did take were either shortened (Like, we had a family reunion one year in Branson for the week. I went for half the week, because, you know I HAD to work), day trips to a State Park on a Sunday afternoon by myself (Is that really a vacation though?) or with my family (Typically. One year I went to Florida with friends. It was a kind of last minute decision, but also one of The Best vacations I’ve ever had. I felt so rested and rejuvenated after I got home).

Before I met Adam I also had a tendancy to vocalize to family and friends that when I DID get married I didn’t want to go to Cancun for my honeymoon. Why? Because everyone goes to Cancun for their honeymoon. It was just where you went.

Where are you going on your honeymoon?

Cancun.

Oh.

Where are you going on your honeymoon?

Cancun.

Oh.

Where did you go on your honeymoon? No, no, let me guess. Cancun?

Yes.

Knew it.

Then…life changed. I met Adam. And he was a travel agent, specilizing in leisure travel and resort destinations. And where did we go on our honeymoon? Yep…Cancun. You know, it’s the thing to do. 😉

Not only did we go to Cancun for our honeymoon, but we’ve been taking a yearly resort vacation ever since we’ve been married. It feels luxurious to say that. I feel privilged. And yet, I also feel like it a gift from the Lord, a special way that He is telling me He loves me. That is is OK to relax. It is OK to take time to rest and rejuvenate. That it is OK to take time to do nothing. That it is OK to just be, to not work, to step away from the everyday routine of life and do something different. It is OK to put time into my marriage by just being with my husband one-on-one away from our daily norm. That it is OK to play a game at three o’clock in the afternoon and get a snack at the snack bar if I’m hungry. It is OK to lie on the beach and read a novel. It is OK. And it is good. It almost feels weird to say that simply because it is such a complete switch from how I used to be. And maybe that is also God’s way of gently and kindly laughing at me; the tables have turned. I thought I’d never go to Cancun on vacation; so much that I knew.

So now I’ve gotten wholeheartedly on the resort bandwagon. I love them. I love the resort culture. I love getting dressed up for dinner. I love laying by the beach or the pool. I love the sunshine. I love the fact that everything is included in the all-inclusive resorts (To a point. More on that later). I love that I can have a three or four course meal. I love that I can order anything off the menu and if I don’t like it I can order something else or get room service later. I love that I can have more than one dessert and it’s OK. (Dessert? Yes, please. Don’t mind if I do. In fact, I’ll take two). I love the sea breezes, the view, the different atmospheres of the resorts, the friendly waitstaff, the opulence, the luxury, the relaxed atmosphere, the just being.

So, all that to say that here are the resort recommendations, the places that I’ve been to and stayed at the past few years. I will list them in the order of which I experienced them, chronologically. Then I will list them by my favorites with links so you can visit them yourself, at least virtually. 🙂 (And remember, I get no compensation for recommending these resorts or from any other links in this post).

May 2016; Honeymoon, Le Blanc in Cancun, Mexico.

May 2017; 1st Anniversary, The Fives (When we went it was Azul), Riveria Maya, Mexico

May 2018; 2nd Anniversay, Playacar Palace, Playa del Carmen (This is when I discovered Bloomish, my favorite Mexican body care store)

May 2019: 3rd Anniversary; Le Blanc in Cabo and Secrets in Cabo (Travel Tip: Unless you are a thrill seeker don’t book a sunset sailboat cruise with the company Cabo Adventures. I thought I was literally going to die in the Pacific ocean on my third wedding anniversary. This is an experince I try to block out of my memory. Enough said)

September 2020: 4th Anniversary; El Dorado/Casitas, Riveria Maya

October 2020: FAM Trip with Adam’s Work, Hyatt Ziva and Le Blanc in Cabo

May 2021: 5th Anniversary; We didn’t go anywhere this year. We spent our anniverasary working then went out to dinner at Cafe Natasha’s on Grand (Which has since closed).

May 2022; 6th Anniversary; Fiesta Americana and Secrets the Vine in Cancun

Recommendation resorts in order of my favs:

Le Blanc in Cabo
Le Blanc in Cancun
Playacar Palace
Fiesta Americana
El Dorado
Hyatt Ziva in Cabo
The Fives
Secrets The Vine Cancun
Secrets in Cabo Adam says I’m spoiled and if Secrets Cabo is, to me, the ‘worst’ resort I’ve been to, well, then, I haven’t experienced anything bad. I haven’t been to a Riu yet (Apparently one of Adam’s former co-workers stayed at a Riu and stood in line for 45 minutes just to get a hot dog on a piece of bread. No condiments, nothing. Not even a bun. Just a piece of bread acting like a bun. People, this is NOT my idea of how I want to spend my vacation and definitely not what I want to eat on vacation). There you have it folks. Those are my top resort recomendations.