(no title)

Discipline

In my last post I shared a couple of tips that have been helping me to focus while I’ve been working at home.

How is that going for me? It was a new thing for me when I shared those tips, so I wanted to circle back now that it’s been a few weeks…how are they working out?

The short answer is that yes, they are working out well. Turning my phone off, sitting down and eating lunch, and saying no to distractions have all helped me tremendously and I’ve seen a big boost in my creativity and my production (Even if it is just for my own enjoyment).

Yes, these things have been working, but I’ve also noticed, as I’ve been doing these things, that it takes discipline to put these into practice. Turning my phone off in order to eliminate distractions doesn’t come automatically. I have to do the physical action of pushing the off button, which takes intention and discipline.

Discipline, like focus, is hard.

Discipline doesn’t come easy.

But if I continue in being intentional in my focus and see the fruit in this area of my life then it will become easier.

Another point I want to add is that discipline takes patience. And in this patience of learning a new discipline, you need to be kind to yourself. Developing new habits and a new way of doing things takes time, so be kind to yourself while you’re learning. And I’m talking to myself as much as I’m saying this to you. Be kind and gentle with yourself.

So my friends, another short post to spur you on in your focus, discipline and creativity.

Focus

Since writing my last post I’ve been thinking a lot about FOCUS.

Last Friday I wrote a post about doing daily activities from a place of peace and contentment rather than from a place of hurry and worry. I mentioned at the end of that post that I was off to make some soap and to do it at a relaxed pace, knowing that things would get done throughout the day as needed, without the rush and stress that I usually experience inside of myself.

I did do as planned and I took note of how that felt and what happened. I made soap in a reasonable amount of time, taking things slower than normal and not rushing through it and I felt much better.

I found that I had to say no to a lot of things thoughout that day. For example, I noticed that the trash needed to be taken out in the middle of making soap. I had to tell myself, ‘No, I am not going to do that now’, and continued with my soap making. I eventually took the trash out later that day, when it made sense to do so (As I was leaving for work).

The ‘No’ that I was saying was not one of procrastination, but one of Focus. ‘I am focusing on this thing at this moment, that can wait’.

If anyone knows about procrastination, it is me. I am learning, though, to not procrastinate and I am hoping that focusing on ‘one thing at a time’ can actually help me with my procrastination issues.

Another thing that greatly helped with me being able to focus was turning my phone off. I had my phone off most of the day and only turned it on when I gave myself a lunch break.

Normally I tend to graze throughout the day when I am home, but kept this to a minimum by telling myself that ‘No, it wasn’t time to eat yet’ and by giving myself a genuine lunch break by actually sitting down in the kitchen and eating. Often times I am up and around and down and eating a PB&J on my way out the door to run an errand or something. But not this time. And when I ate lunch, I turned my phone on to catch up on text messages, then turned it off again when lunch was done. This made a huge difference in my day and helped me to focus on what I was actually doing, not what I needed to do. It eliminated distractions.

Focus is hard.

I remember listening to The Next Right Thing podcast by Emily P. Freeman and she said simply that, ‘Focus is hard’ and it struck me.

Focus IS hard.

I told Adam on Friday, at the end of the day, how things went that day, how I was deliberate in focusing and not hurrying and why is focus so hard for me??

He replied that probably one reason is that I am at home. There are many things to disctract me, many things I could do, many things vying for my attention. Which do I do first and what is the most important thing for me to be doing at the moment?

Sometimes it comes down to picking just one thing and sticking to that decision.

Even that can be hard. There are many things I feel are importatnt, or even just many things that I want to do; how can I pick one?

It can be hard for me to settle on one thing. Maybe it is a learned thing, maybe it is biological and hereditary. Maybe both.

Since last Friday went well and I got done more than I was ancticpating and enjoyed it more, I thought I would try the same thing today. Turning my phone off, focusing on going to the grocery store, then making cookie dough and two salads for Thanksgiving on Thursday, then catching up with some business administration work. After another specific lunch break, I went to the post office and gas station. Now I am writing this.

So, pro tips for focusing at home:

#1. TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. This will greatly cut down on distractions. Unless, of course, your work is on your phone. But trust me people, if you need to focus on something, turn off your phone.

#2. SAY NO. Once the decision to has been made to work on one specific thing, stick to it. Say no to everything else until that one thing is finished. Tough? Yes. Will you stay focused? Yes.

#3. GIVE YOURSELF A LUNCH BREAK. Give yourself time to eat. It doesn’t have to be a fancy meal, chips and a sandwich will do, but if you feed yourself, you’ll be more focused in the afternoon.

I realize that I have just started doing these things myself on the days that I work from home, but they have helped me a lot in staying focused on the task at hand, being productive and doing what I do from a place of contentment.

Those are my three tips for staying focused. I am going to try and stick to them as much as I can over the next few months.

Places

I have a lot to do today. Soap making and roll ons, lots of emails to respond to, finances to look at, a market to prep for tomorrow and a two hour work commitment, not to mention a grocery list to make for the upcoming holiday.

This past Tuesday I felt unfocused. Stressed, flitting from thing to thing, not really sure what to work on or where to land, but was kind of floating. I worked on some business admin stuff and eventually worked on some journals, but it all felt hurried and didn’t come from a place of peace, but of doing and almost worry. I have so much to do I have to do it all at once and so nothing gets done, or done half-heartedly, doing just to get it done and not from a place of contentment and its all just stress and bother and worry and not enjoyable and I’m wondering why I’m doing any of this at all. If this is what ‘having time’ to work on my business or creative ideas looks like, then forget it. It’s just not. FUN.

I have a lot to do today. But I don’t want today to be a repeat of Tuesday. I want to work today from a place of satisfaction, of content, of peace, of confidence.

And so I am sitting writing this.

Writing was not necessarily on my agenda for today, but these words needs to be said and, to me, it is important that they are shared with you.

These words are indeed coming from a place of trust and confidence, that the things that needs to get done today will get done in a timely manner.

And it is making me think of HOW I do things and WHY I do what I do. If the things I do on my ‘days off’ only are done from a place of stress and hurry, there’s no point. But if they’re coming from a place inside myself that is peaceful, then it is worth doing.

So, this short little post to nudge a reminder in your heart and head: Is what you are doing coming from a place of peace and contentment, or of frustration, angst or worry?

This could apply to your career, family and personal life, or your art and creative pursuits.

I hope that you will do what you need to do with joy and peace today.

And on that note, I am off to make some soap from a place of happiness and trust.

Chicken-goon-wha…?

This post has been stirring around in my head for a while now and I typically think about writing it when I’m having a flare-up.

In 2014 I went to Haiti on a mission trip and got bit by a mosquito.

Ah, yes, now things are becoming clearer, you say. One of those mosquito borne illness posts.

You’d be right. Said mosquito was infected with the Chikungunya vitrus (CHIKV) and wanted to share said virus with humans, namely me and four other people who were on the trip.

The acute illness lasted the typical amount of time; I was better within the week and even went to work the day after I got home. The main symptoms of Chikungunya fever, namely debilitating joint pain, fever and rash, lasted about 4 – 5 days.

The fever came on slowly, with me not being able to sleep one night and feeling terrible the next day wondering why my joints felt like they were on fire. By the end of that day I had definitely felt terrible and had a fever and was put to bed by my friend, who happened to be a nurse and was 100% positive I had the Chikungunya virus.

I hardly slept that night and the next day was me, in bed. A teammate had some melatonin on hand and I took that so I could finally get a decent sleep. I could barely move too, when awake, because the joint pain was so bad. My brain was telling my body to move, but my bodily response time was soooo slooow.

The next afternoon I was able to actually get up, slowly dress and slowly…very slowly…walk down to the dining hall. When I say slowly, it was as if I was 34 years old going on 90; one foot barely moving in front of the other, trying not to topple over. Walking was a chore. When I reached the dining hall my teammates gave me a round of applause.

Fast forward to today. It’s been eight years since that trip to Haiti.

It’s been eight years and I still struggle with joint pain due to CHIKV.

This may not be surprising to you who have heard of this virus and/or experienced it yourself, or if you are in the medical field.

The CHIKV joint pain mimics rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, with joint pain and stiffness being the main ones. However, it is more, from my experience, a polyarthraligic condition, meaning there is joint pain in multiple joints, but it is not due to inflammation.

If you look at my hands, they do not look swollen or inflammed. They look like perfectly normal hands, and yet, inside…that is where the pain is.

This is just not in my hands though. This is literally all over my body. Toes, fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, feet, you name it. If it’s a joint, it more than likely hurts.

On some days the pain is worse than others. On some days it hardly bothers me, other days it’s a different matter and I push through the pain to get done what I need to do. This hasn’t prevented me from living a full life, but my full life has caused me a lot of physical pain at times. I don’t generally talk about this to a lot of people, mostly just Adam; it’s just a fact of life I live with. I’m learning to take things slower, learning my limitations, especially as I get older.

(Interjection: As if I wasn’t slow enough already!)

Last week I was in a lot of pain and was pushing through my work day and wondering, not for the first time, how I could manage this, and really, it’s been eight yeras since I’ve had the CHIKV fever, what’s the deal? Why is this persisting in my body? If this is my life, how can I live with it better so I’m not so achy all the time?

Just yesterday I looked up Chikungunya on Dr. Google, again not for the first time, but this time I found something different. I noticed a blurb that said if the joint pain from CHIKV persisted after three months from having the fever it was considered chronic chikungunya arthritis.

So what I’m dealing with has a NAME! This was a revelation!

I went down the chronic chikungunya arthritis internet path and found a couple of interesting research articles that were fairly recent. You can read those articles here and here if you’d like. Note: Unless you’re a medical professional you probably won’t understand half of what it says. I didn’t, but I got the jist of what they were saying, enough to satisfy my curiosity and give me a background.

You may be wondering if I’ve talked to my doctor about this. When I first came back to the States, I did. But there was little known and not much research happening in the CHIKV department at the time, so it just became something I lived with. I even participated in a research study with Vanderbilt University on CHIKV the year after I had it. But it came to a point of, Why mention it if they can’t do anything about it?

That being said, I have a doctors apopintment this Tuesday and I am definitley going to ask her about it. To see what she knows and if there is anything I can do to manage the achiness.

I write all this because it is a part of my life. I also find it interesting. I know that CHIKV is not necssarily a common virus (And I hope it doesn’t become that although there are trends leading in that direction), but I also know that it is something that people around the world deal with this, so my chronic pain is not an isolated incident (Obviously, there are medical articles on it).

We all go through physical pain and have to deal with physical issues on a daily basis. As I write this I have a good friend who has diabetes, my sister-in-law lost her hearing due to NF2 (You can look up your own articles for that!), one of my friends has heart issues and is dealing with recurrent thyroid cancer, another of my sister-in-laws has a pacemaker and lung issues.

Chronic chikungunya arthritis (CCA) looks like a piece of cake comparitively!

Joint pain, achiness and stiffness? Eh, big deal.

And yet, sometimes it’s the little things that can wear us down little by little. I’m still going to ask my doctor.

I do know this though: That I do not regret my trip to Haiti and God is still good no matter how I’m feeling physically.

Bookbinding History: Coptic Stitch

I have wanted to learn the history behind the different types of bookbinding stitches that I use on a regular basis. This desire is based in my wanting to grow my knowledge of where these stitches originated, how they came to be, who first used them, what they are, etc. The information will be basic and simple, but hopfully informative. So here is the first in a series (The next will probably come out next year!), exploring the Coptic Stitch.

A Coptic sewn book is a method of bookbinding that comprises of sewing multiple signatures together along the spine with a chain link stitch. The separate front and back covers are stitched together along with the signatures to create an exposed, open spine binding.

The coptic binding method originated in Egypt and came into use around 2 AD. It is still in use today. The first people to employ this method of binding were the early Egyptian Christians, or Copts.

The Copts were a people descended from pre-Islamic Egyptians. They spoke a form of Egyptian which was known as Coptic, and were identified by the Greek term Aigyptios, which in Arabic is qibṭ and Westernized as copt. Later in history Egyptian Muslims stopped using the term coptic to refer to themselves, the word came to denote the Christian minority in Egypt. Today the Coptic Orthodox Christian church is still comprised of this ancient ethnoreligious minority group and is the largest Christian denomination in North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East.

The coptic binding is known as the first true codex. Codices are books made up of multiple signatures that have exposed spines, rather than the more Western, or European, tradition of sewing cords along the spine then encasing the spine so it is covered.

The covers of the original coptic bound books were made of layers of papyrus, but by the 4th century wooden boards were also used. Leather was also used as a cover material around that same time and became the precursor to many decorated Western leather bindings.

The Coptic binding is still in use today, as it is a simple and easy-to-learn form of multi-signature exposed spine binding.

There are variations on the coptic stitch, such as using paired needles for each set of sewing holes. That stitch is a little more advanced than the basic stitch, but it results in a beautiful herringbone pattern across the spine, especially if you use contrasting threads.

In my current bookbinding practice I cover two sturdy bookbinders board, called Davey Board, with handmade bookcloth for the front and back covers, then use white sheets of 24lbs/90gsm weight paper for the signatures and bind using either the coptic stitch (As pictured in this post), or one of several other stitches in my repertoire.

I enjoy using the coptic stitch as it is rhythmic, meditative and simple and produces really lovely results.

A selection of my handbound journals, including coptic bound ones, are listed for sale on Etsy and can be found at this link.

I hope you have enjoyed this simple history of the coptic stitch. 🙂

Writing About Writing

Writing about writing seems like a cop-out to real writing. And yet, I like writing about writing. And that is what I’ve been thinking a lot about this month. Whether it is because lately I haven’t made time to write, or what.

I started a blog post two weeks ago with this:

‘I’ve been feeling the unction to write all day.

I don’t know about what, I just feel the need to write. It seems like it’s been awhile since I posted anything, not that it matters really, but when you are a writer writing or posting something isn’t a chore, it’s fun.

And so at six o’clock this evening (Now), as the pasta for dinner is boiling on the stove, I run upstairs to get my laptop…I have twenty minutes before Adam comes home; how much can I write before then?

I had jury duty this morning. My number wasn’t called. I was planning on being there all day, but after getting there at 8a, sitting through three rounds of numbers, they let the rest of us go home at 11a. Jury service for the next two or three years is finished.

It’s been a cloudy fall day, warm, slightly rainy. Romantic. And maybe it’s this romanticism that’s urging me to write. I feel the call. ‘

And there, it ended, as Adam came home and we went on with our evening.

And then last week I wrote this:

‘Places inspire me to write. Writing takes work. Writing IS work. Today, at my day job, I was daydreaming about writing. I was thinking of how I feel like people (Or maybe it’s my husband I’m mostly thinking of) around me don’t understand that writing is work. I, personally, need time and space to write and writing takes thought and observation and sitting and thinking and lots of staring into space, trying to formulate ideas and put them into words and phrases that make sense to others. Writing is a form of communication and if I am to communicate clearly those those around me things that I believe are important and want to share then I need time to do that.

I mentioned that I feel it’s my husband, or my marriage, that isn’t giving me the time to write, but if I am really honest with myself, it’s probably ME.

Am I allowing myself, or giving myself, the time to write?’

Inserting current thoughts here:

That leads to another question I’ve been pondering lately, ‘What do I give myself?’ Or, ‘What do I do just for myself?’ Yes, there are lots of things I enjoy doing or enjoy making, aromatherapy blends, blank journals, mixed media art…yet, I also do that for others too. Because part of the intention and motivation behind them is to sell them. I do enjoy making them, that is not the issue, I do it because I like to, but there’s also another motivation mixed in with the self-care and enjoyment (So then is it truly self-care?). I don’t think having a desire to sell what I make is a bad thing, but what then, do I do just for myself? This blog is just for myself, but I share it with you. And I am ok with that. It is healing for me to write and in a way it is very healing, and also humbling, to share these thoughts with you. So what then do I do just for me?

What, friend, do you do just for you?

Back to what I wrote last week:

‘At work today I was daydreaming of having time and space to write. Of going to the Botanical Garden one morning a week and sitting on a bench and observing the world around me. I would take a notebook and a pen and write what I see, what I notice — the smell of the flowers in bloom, the blue of the sky, or perhaps the grey sky if I’m there on a cloudy fall day, the green of the grass the sound of the birds calling to each other — all this and how can I put it into a story?

My senses are stimulated by my surroundings and I need to put pen to paper. I write non-fication, can I write a novel? I’ve always wanted to.

One thing I realized as I was thinking these things earlier today is that the place where I write and the surroundings in which I write are extremely important for my writing. My imagination takes off if I’m on a hike or a long walk in beautiful, outdoor surroundings. I love writing on vacation and I’m always stirred to write away from the pressures of my normal routine and outside of my every day duties (Fix dinner, go to work, do yoga, take out the trash, eat lunch, make an appointment at the mechanics, get ready for a market, post to Instagram, read a chapter in a book, watch a required adoption learning course, get gas and on and on). Today’s realization: My surroundings are important in stimulating my imagination and writing.

With that being said, I will totally contradict myself because I am writing this in my kitchen, so I don’t always have to (And often DON’T, simply because of practicalities) write in a romantic place, or at least what I feel is romantic. I once started a short story in the Nairobi airport waiting for the red eye flight to Amsterdam. Airports are highly unromantic in my opinion, especially when you’re with a crowd of other people in a hot, smelly airport, all just restlessly waiting. So really, I can write anywhere, yes?

But my daydream today has some truth to it, in the fact that even though I often don’t necessarily write in places that inspire, just going to those places and visiting, meandering, wandering, looking, seeing, being, experiencing has a profound impact on the way I write and what I write, especially in relation to short stories or fiction. Even just the memories of being in these places also stirs me to write.‘

So, what about you? Do you hae a certain place you like to write in? A special corner or nook in your house or do you feel uninhibited in your writing while on vacation or away from your normal routine?

I don’t like the question ‘What inspires you?’ because I feel it is silly to ask someone who writes or does anything creative for a living. You can’t wait for inspiration to hit, you have to just start working and inspiration and the work flow will come.

Nevertheless I will ask, ‘What inspires you?’. Where do you feel inspiration come? Is it in a special place where you feel safe, or in the big expanse of the outdoors where you can breathe in frsh air and touch the wildflowers? With friends, or in a coffee shop? In a library surrounded by the works of others through the ages?

The Temporary Concreteness of Life

Grief is starting to feel familiar.

I’ve been introspective lately. I get like that. Often. Or am I just like that?

Our lives are temporary. We live in a temporary world, where life happens fast and moments are transient and days run into one another and we wonder where they went to and how did we get here?

On the flip side, we live a concrete world and if we happen to run into something that is front of us we might get hurt. It’s a conundrum, this temporary concreteness of life.

We drive on concrete streets, walk on concrete sidewalks and if we happen to fall down concrete steps we might end up breaking an arm and end up in a cast.

Or we might happen to fall down wooden steps and break our neck and end up in a casket.

This is morbid. This is gross. This is not a pleasant thought to think about. I don’t want to think about it.

And yet, life is temporary and tangible at the same time and I can’t deny that or shy away from it no matter how much I may want to. Life is fragile and frail and I am finite and limited. And yet my spirit, the unseen, eternal essence of me, is in a body that can touch and taste and feel and smell. As I write these words my unseen spirit and soul is in a body that is sitting on my solid blue velvet couch in my living room. My spirit is crafting words inside of me that come out through my fingertips and end up on the screen in front of me that I can visibly see. And now, days later, your eyes, that are real and here and present and tangible, are looking at these words I am writing and your spirit, the unseen, eternal essence of you, is taking in all you are reading and all I am communicating.

We live in a world of tensions and contrasts and things that don’t make sense. Like the question, ‘How can a loving God send people to hell?’

What if…what if…what if...

What if God, who is all-wise and all-loving, doesn’t actually send people to hell?

What if, imagine with me for a minute, we are all already going to hell — like no choice, this is where we are going, destined because of things we did, or said or thought wrong and rights we didn’t do, or say or think — and God, who is all-wise and all-loving, rescues us from utter destrution, commonly known in this day as ‘hell’?

It’s just a thought.

In my last post I mentioned that one of my friends, a dear, long-time friend, passed away at the end of August.

My friend wasn’t religious. In regards to the Christian faith she was raised with she took a left turn when she was in right field and ended up in outer space with Peter Pan trying to find any star she could to lead her to a Neverland that only existed in her imagination.

Imagination.

And imagination she had. That was one beautiful thing about my friend. One of many beautiful things. She had an imagination like no one I’ve ever known and she was able to take ordinary life and create a world of wonder and depth and make the most mundane things exciting and something to be discussed and thought about and told and marveled over.

My friend was a poet. She was intellectual and smart. She was ordinary, a person, like me or you; she found joy in ordinary things, like coffee and books and the smell of fresh English air, and yet no day was ordinary to her, I think. She was an introvert who loved her books and libraries and stories and music and writing and poetry. That is what she thrived on. She also thrived on justice and social causes, wanting the world to be an equal and better place for everyone.

Losing my friend is hard and it hurts and this grief I am walking through is starting to feel familiar.

The denial, the anger, the bargaining, the depression, the acceptance…I’ve been here before and yet I’m going through it again.

Each time, though, it is different.

Because each loss, and the grief that comes with each individual loss, is different with every person we lose or every situation or circumstance that feels like a loss, whether big or little, mundane or extraordinary.

My dad meant something different to me than my friend did and so losing my friend is much different than losing my dad.

Though it still hurts. And this grief, the same yet different, feels oddly familiar and usual.

It’s hard too, because my friend and my dad knew each other. Ann and I grew up together even though we lived 250 miles apart. Our parents were best friends. We were like siblings, her parents like second parents to me, and I’m sure she may have felt the same way about my parents. Losing my dad and my friend is a hard loss for both of our families in what seems like a short amount of time.

And yet, what is time? Time is short and time is long and time never ends and time was around yesterday but it is here today as well and will be again tomorrow. Time is a concept that I will never fully be able to grasp. God created Time and God is outside of Time and… what really is time??

I missed the question.

One of the things I love of Madeline L’Engle’s writing is her exploration of the concept of time. One may not be able to fully grasp the concept of time, but we can explore it and try to make sense of it. One concept that I am always trying to wrestle with and grasp is Time vs. Energy vs. Money. I feel like there is an art project, a book or mixed media collage project that is in me about these tensions.

I digress. This is just a mash-up post of random thoughts about grief and time and loss and friendship.

There are construction workers outside my house right now working on the sidewalk. Even hard concrete is temporary. It can be torn up and repurposed…all with eternal consequences.

How Adam Met His Wife

I know that I have already writtten how I met my husband, but those posts (Which can be read here and here) were from my perspective. What about Adam’s perspective?

This is my attempt at writing Adam’s version of how we met.

Adam, a single man in his 30’s, had been attending a church called Harvester Christian Church since he was a teenager. Throughout the years he had been very involved in leading small groups in the youth ministry, attending the home groups that are a part of modern church life, helping with security on Saturday nights and being an active member of his church and events. Dare I say he was Harvester’s most eligible bachelor? In fact, the annual women’s conference had been nicknamed, in some circles, the ‘Find-Adam-A-Wife Conference’.

In his twenties Adam had started attending a home group that my cousin Rachael and her husband, Matt, were also in. Rachael and Matt lived close to Harvester church and had been attending for a few years. They became good friends with Adam through their group at church.

Fast forward to early 2015. Rachael had just been diagnosed with cancer. Like all good church communities, this diagnosis was met with a round of ‘meal trains’ from the congregation. Adam’s mom, Nancy, who also attended Harvester, signed up to take Rachael and her family a meal.

On the day Nancy was assigned to take the meal she phoned Adam asking him to put the store-bought frozen apple pie she had purchased for Rachael in the oven, so when she brought it over it would be hot. Adam did as his mom asked and even helped her deliver the meal, but he felt terribly embarrassed that his mom was bringing a store bought pie for their dessert (Please note: Adam was not living at home at the time, but he didn’t live too far from his parents).

Adam liked to bake and felt he could do better than a frozen pie. He asked Matt what Rachael’s favorite dessert was and Matt said it was angel food cake. Adam was not prepared for that answer, as he had never made an angel food cake before, but he was up for the challenge.

He went and bought the ingredients, complete with a dozen eggs and cream of tartar to help the egg whites froth and made Rachael her homemade-from-scratch angel food cake. When he went to deliver the cake Rachael opened the door and he immediately noticed a look in her eye that was unmistakable, ‘as I had seen that look before’, he told me later.

‘I have a cousin…’, said Rachael.

Uh-oh, thought Adam. Friends had tried to hook him up before. Needless to say, they hadn’t quite worked out.

‘She’s my age’, said Rachael, meaning a couple of years older than Adam. Rachael asked if she could give his number to her cousin and he, perhaps somewhat recluctantly, agreed.

I don’t know how long it was after that that she gave him my number, the timeline is fuzzy, but the numbers were exchanged and he texted me one rainy Tuesday evening at the end of March.

We agreed to meet at a pizza place. For Adam the story goes that when we finally got to our booth after a 45 minute wait in line he purposely sat with his back to the TV in the bar area. The March Madness Elite Eight game, Kentucky vs. Notre Dame, was on and he didn’t want to mess this date up by staring at the TV the whole time. I didn’t know all this then, and I certainly didn’t know he was a big sports fan. He caught the score throughout the evening when I went to the bathroom.

At the end of our three hour blind date, he said, ‘Maybe we can do this again sometime’. I said in an upbeat tone, ‘Maybe’, which as I mentioned in this post, threw him off some. But he thought that he didn’t know exactly what that ‘Maybe’ meant until he reached out to me again, which he did a few days later.

He said the first thing that he noticed about me, and that really attracted him to me, was my smile. He thought I had a pretty smile. And he liked my grey cardigan that I was wearing. He still likes my smile and my grey cardigan now has a special meaning for him. Angel food cake, as well, has a place in our relationship, although Adam hasn’t attempted to make another since I’ve known him. We still have the cream of tartar though. 🙂

After three dates in two weeks Adam asked if I wanted to ‘keep doing this’, ie, seeing each other, and I said sure and so we made our dating relationship official. About a year later we made our relationship permanent as husband and wife.

And that is how Adam met his wife.

(To read the postscript to this story, click here)

Month in Review: August 2022

A month.

A month, in our Western calendar, is between 28 and 31 days.

A lot can happen in those few, short days that we call ‘a month’.

Some months life goes on and not a lot happens. There is not much to review besides the typical work week and small social gatherings and weekly errands. There are other months throughout the year that are a whirlwind of activity, some planned, some not.

This month, August 2022, has been one of the later.

To be honest, some of this started at the tail end of July.

It all started with the terrible thunderstorm we got one night. Adam and I barely slept because of the rain. Our phones went off in the middle of the night, twice, with a emergency warnings of flash flooding in the area. We woke up to a basement that was leaking, like, badly. And our roof was leaking, which meant it really was time for a new roof.

A couple of days later we had another bad thunderstorm with flash flooding. I was at work and my boss let us all go home early so we wouldn’t get stuck at work. However, it was at the height of when everyone was leaving work early because of the rain and there was traffic, flash flooding, stuck cars, abandoned cars and emergency vehicles everywhere. It was a mess. My normal 30 minute commute home took me two hours.

Then, at the beginning of August our car had transmission issues. We took it to a mechanic, who after two days of testing, said it would be $6,800 to fix. We took it to another mechanic. He said it might still be under warranty. So Adam called two dealerships to see if they could look at it. The first said the earliest appointment available was October. The second dealership said the appointment wait would be 8 – 10 weeks, but that we could drop it off and leave it there and when they had time they would look at it. If it was still under warranty it would be 2 – 3 months before they could order the parts and get the car fixed. So we had the car towed to the second dealership where it is currently just sitting and waiting to see if it’s under warranty.

But, being one car down, how was I to get to and from work? While the car was being looked by the mechanics, I had pieced together transportation by rides from my boss to the public Metrolink train, Adam and my brother picking me up from the Metro station, borrowing my mom’s car and Adam dropping me off at work. But clearly this was a short term solution. We still had Adam’s work car, but he needed to get to work and we work on opposite sites of the city. After much discussion between Adam, myself and extended family and putting all our scenarios together, we decided that purchasing a car would be the best solution. And possibly the cheapest. Renting a car was out of the question (For $100 a day for potentially five months? No, thank you). So the second week of August found ourselves sitting in a dealership office purchasing an eleven year old car with 167,000 miles on it. It was within budget and it should last six months or at least until we figure out what’s up with our first car.

Meanwhile, we’re getting roof estimates for a new roof. The quotes came in, amid a few no-shows and rescheduling appointments on the roofers end. The quotes: $13,000 for one, $11,000 for another, $4,000 (Only four thousand??) for the last. Decisions.

The day our car broke my brother sent a group text to my family. Him and his wife were chosen by their adoption agency to adopt a newborn, just two days old. He sent pictures. We all knew they had been waiting for over a year to adopt; when it happened it was sudden. Adam and I were sitting at our kitchen table when I got the text. After a week of basement floods, roof leaks, car issues (Not to mention my sewing machine needed repair too) and major job stresses the text just seemed like one emotional thing too many. The one good news in the midst of what seemed like overwelming situations. I showed Adam and text and, people, he cried. I cried. It was all too much.

Then, things were, and still are, going hay-wire with Adam’s job. Poor management, poor communication, poor salary, way too much work, stress and pressure. Adam had a three hour meeting with his boss and the three other employees the secodn week of August. Will anything change? I hope the boss got the message that if things don’t change his entire staff will be gone by the end of the year. Adam applied for another job.

The first weekend of August my cousin came in town and we all went on a family camping trip with a day river float. The camping portion was fun; the day float was a nightmare. Not only was the river jammed with literally thousands of other people, all drinking and carousing on river rafts with cooler floaties in tow, we had a three-canoe collision that left me shaking inside and out. Thankfully, we all walked away from that expeience with nothing more than bruises and a float trip story. But it could have been much, much worse and I don’t like to think about what could have happened.

Despite Adam’s less-than-ideal work situation he went to Cancun the third week of August on a work trip and left me to hold the home fort down and care for the piggies. It was actually nice respite from the craziness. I worked, thankfully having gotten the car situation mostly taken care of. I had to deal with getting it insured that week. The temp tags are 90 days, so still have to get it licensed. I got together with a friend that week, and another friend, and had plenty of ‘play time’ on my current mixed media project; a book with hinge binding, which was a new technique to me.

The day Adam came home from Cancun I found out one of my aunts passed away. I had to break the news to my mom. It was sudden, but my aunt had been dealing with cancer for the past eight or so years. Apparently she had stopped taking her medicine earlier this year; her body was probably ready to be done. She was in her mid-70’s. The funeral, in Texas, had to be postponed because her family, my uncle, cousins, their kids, etc, all got COVID.

Throughout this month I have been meditating on the Biblical passage in Philippians 4, ‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpsasses all understanding, will guard your hearts in minds and Christ Jesus.’

My friends, I cannot tell you how much these few verses have helped me cope with everything that has happened this month. Whenever a new situation has come up I think of ‘Be anxious for nothing’ and I somehow am able to face things with a clear head and heart, leaning on the promise of God’s peace as outlined in that passage.

Last week Adam and I met with a lady from the Children’s Division in the city as a starting point for our adoption process. This situation is taking humility and patience and I am wondering if we made a mistake by going through the State instead of a private agency? There are many questions and doubts and more than enough of training and paperwork to be gone through before we are placed with a child. This is just the beginning.

Is August done??

Not quite yet.

At the end of last week I got a phone call from my mom. It is not unusual for my mom to call me, even at odd hours. This was Friday morning, before 9a, so not really odd.

My mom said, ‘I have some sad news…’ By the tone of her voice, how and the way she said it, I knew someone had passed away.

I was trying to prepare myself, in the few seconds after she said that and before she told me that my oldest and dearest friend had unexpectedly fallen down a flight of steps, broke her neck and passed away. She was 41.

People, I am undone. I can’t even write about it. I’ve barely cried because it doesn’t even seem real. I am still in a state of disbelief and nothing is normal, despite the past few days since mom told me where I’ve had to to ‘normal’ things like go to church, watch my nieces and nephews, go to the grocery store, go to work. I’m shaken up, I can’t work on any creative project, can’t work on my business, I can’t function, but somehow I am. Everything is sludge. There are no words right now. How I’ve written this post, I don’t even know, but somehow I did.

The gathering for my friend’s life is this coming weekend. I don’t want to go. I know this will take time for me to process. I’m sure that writing will be one of the ways I process through this grief.

This has been my month in review. I hope, my friends, that your August has been better than mine.

How I Met My Husband: The Long Version

Note: To read the short version, see this post.

In December of 2014 I was at a family Christmas get together.

It was a Sunday afternoon at my uncle’s house.

I had just turned 35 a couple of months before and was very single.

Singleness, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. There were many things I enjoyed about being single. Having my own schedule, doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, a certain freedom and peace about not having to consult anyone about anything, being in my own little world and for the most part liking it. There were also many things I didn’t enjoy, like working a lot, going to weddings alone (The perfect place to meet single guys, right? And yet, it was just a reminder that, once again, I wasn’t the one getting married), not having anyone to bounce ideas or issues off of or talk to in the evenings, etc. I kept myself busy and I wasn’t lonely really, but there was still an ache and a desire to share my life with someone and build a home and family together.

The morning of the family Christmas gathering I had gone to church, and since there was a little bit of time between church and the family lunch I went for a walk in the park. As I walked I talked to God about what was often on my heart, Is there a guy out there, somewhere, for me?

As I talked to God about this issue I was reminded of the verse, ‘You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord – that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.’ (James 5:11b)

‘The end intended by the Lord…’

That verse gave me hope and comfort; that what I was walking through was not the end of the story. I didn’t know what end was intended by the Lord for me in this, but drawing on what I knew of the Lord and His character, it would be good.

After my walk I headed over to my uncle’s for the family get together. It was an extended family gathering on my dad’s side; aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, kiddos, everyone.

After lunch, my ‘best girl cousin’, Rachael, asked, ‘If I was going to hook you up with someone, what would you want?’

I didn’t hesitate, ‘Someone artsy who likes to travel and wears glasses.’ I had been around long enough to know what I was typically attracted to. 😉

My cousin didn’t skip a beat either and said, ‘Adam Hon!’

I thought, Who??

‘That’s who I thought of too,’ said Rachael’s husband, Matt.

‘There’s only one problem’, said Rachael, a little more confidingly.

‘What, he’s not single?’, I asked, kind of jokingly.

‘No, he’s single.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘He’s kind of…ah…losing his hair.’

Ah, I thought. A bald man. ‘Well, at my age you can’t be too particular’, I told her, somewhat sarcastically.

That really was the end of that conversation. I didn’t push anything, but I basically left it at Sure, hook me up, I’m available.

Two months later Rachael was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. I remember being at my church home group when I got the text from my mom that she had been disgnosed. Just six months younger than myself, the diagnosis seemed to come from nowhere.

A month later, March of 2015, I was at work checking my email over my lunch break. I had an email from Rachael saying she was still wanted to connect me with her friend Adam Hon. Would it be ok if she gave him my number? I wrote back saying, yes, of course.

And then, people, I was kind of on pins and needles. I mean, just because I said Yes, give him my number, didn’t mean anything would actually come of it, but I was still nervous, knowing that at any point I might get a text from some random number and some random person who I hadn’t met; what would he say? How would this go? What would come of it? I tried to be practical, rational and realistic, but I had some nervousnesss and excitement. Something seemed to be suddenly shifting in this area of my life. Even if nothing came of it, there was a small glimmer of hope.

Not too long after that, maybe a week or so later, a rainy Tuesday evening in early Spring found me busy switching my closet out from winter clothes to summer clothes. I heard my phone ‘ping’ notifying me that I had gotten a text message. I saw a number I didn’t recognize and a message saying, ‘Hi Hannah. This is Adam Hon, Rachael’s friend’.

Ah, so it worked. The numbers had been switched.

We texted back and forth, kind of a slow and boring conversation about the fact he was out of a job (Rachael hooked me up with a guy who didn’t have a JOB???!? Don’t freak out…stay calm…) and that he liked rain. He found it relaxing. I didn’t like rain I said; it’s wet, soggy and annoying.

By the end of this text conversation I was pretty convinced that this relationship wasn’t going to work out. Besides, he didn’t even use punctuation in his texts. What the what? I wrote in my journal that night that, Well, at least I knew. The waiting was over. I doubted anything would come of this relationship. He’ll probably never contact me again considering we didn’t exactly have a riveting conversation. That was that.

Two days later I got another text from Adam. I was kind of surprised. This time our conversation was more interesting (Even though he still didn’t use punctuation) and the perfect segue to ‘asking me out’ happened when we were chatting about our personality types and if we were introverts/extroverts, did we like meeting new people?, etc. We both agreed that we were introverted, but that we enjoyed making new friends…and on that note, maybe we should meet??

I said sure. There’s only so much you can tell about a person from a text conversation anyway, I thought to myself. We agreed on Saturday evening, two days from then. Adam said he’d find a place to meet and that he’d text me later about it. Ok, great.

Friday I didn’t hear anything, Saturday nothing, until mid-morning. He gave me three choices of where to meet and we both decided a pizza place halfway from his house and mine would be ideal. If it didn’t work out, at least neither of us would have had to drive too far.

Saturday evening arrived and about half an hour before I was going to leave I heard a voice in my head saying, ‘You don’t have to go.’

Uh, what…? I stopped. Who’s voice was this? If you know anyting about me, if I make a commitment, I keep it. Hands down, I am there. Unless a crisis happens or there is an emergency, if I say I will be somewhere, I will be there. I am your Golden Retriever type person; committed and faithful to the end. This voice I was hearing was not mine, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t God’s. Tomorrow morning this date would be over with, come what may, good or bad, I was going. Bald man, or no, I was going.

(A note on the baldness: I had thought to myself, if he wears a ballcap I will know that he is not confident in his baldness. If he doesn’t, he’s confident. I prefer a confident man. Besides, I had looked him up on Facebook and when I saw his picture I thought, ‘Oh, he looks normal’, ie, not a weirdo. 😉 ).

At the restuarant I walked in and immediately I knew who Adam was. Looking him up on social media helped me get a visual, yes, but also, he was right by the door and I knew that he was the guy I was meeting.

Not only that, as I’ve often said about our first meeting, ‘I walked in and I immediately felt comfortable with him. Like, I had known him a long time’.

And no ballcap. Score one for Adam.

Adam said that it was about a 45 minute wait, did we want to stay? I said, yes, why not? Where else would we go? He agreed, and so we stood in line and chatted and talked until his name was called for a table. Even as I heard his last named being called, it didn’t feel weird for it to be us. Something felt right.

We sat at a booth and I as I looked at him over the table during a pause in our conversation I suddenly realized that I was ‘on a date’. I didn’t really know this guy. In constrast, in that moment, I also knew that this was the guy I would marry, that ‘this was it‘.

That night we talked, got to know one another and ate pizza for three hours.

At the end of the night, as we parted ways outside the restaurant Adam said, ‘Maybe we can do this again sometime.’

I, taking my cue off him, said in an upbeat tone, ‘Maybe’.

That ‘maybe’ was the subject of some debate the next day as I talked with my sister-in-law, aunt and cousin Rachael at a family bridal shower for my soon-to-be-sister-in-law. I assured them it was a positive ‘maybe’ not a negative. And to my defense, he said ‘maybe’ too, so I was really going off what he had said and didn’t even think how that would affect things.

Later I found out that the ‘Maybe’ did throw him off a bit, but there was no way of knowing if I was truly intereted unless he communicated with me again, which he did two days later. From there it quickly went to another date less than a week later and then our third date a week out from that. Three dates in two weeks, I think that’s a good sign. Plus, he got a job less than a week from us meeting. 😉

On our third date we met at an Asian restaurant then went to Forest Park and walked around. We ended up by the Grand Basin, which is where Adam wanted to ask me to make our relatiosnhip official, but we rode together to the park and if I said no then it would a long, awkward evening and drive back to my car if I said no. He didn’t want to risk it. So later, when he did take me back to my car he did ask if I wanted to ‘keep doing this’, ie, seeing each other, and I said yes, and he said, ‘Ok, it’s official’ and I suddenly found myself with a boyfriend.

Adam also asked if I needed a date to a wedding, because earlier in the evening I had mentioned that my brother was getting married in three weeks. I said yes to that too and I suddenly found myself with a boyfriend and a date to a wedding.

Our relationship progressed throughout the year and by the fall we were talking about marriage. Adam proposed on a Friday evening in early January and we were married four months later in May.

And that is how I met my husband.

(To read the postscript to this story, click here)