Emily Smucker's Blog, page 3
April 7, 2024
The Trip to Belize
For my second post in the 2024 April Blogging Challenge, I intended to write about my trip to Belize in January. Then, Mom posted about Belize for her first April Blogging Challenge post.
If you are the type of person who can’t stand to read the same story twice, from two different perspectives, I am very sorry. You’re allowed to skip this post. I won’t tell anyone.
BeforeI had every intention of hunkering down in Texas this winter and not traveling at all. And although I ended up alone for the holidays, I really didn’t regret it, as I watched every person I knew get sick while I stayed healthy.
But the Belize trip was different. Several women in Belize asked Mom to come speak at their women’s conference, and knowing it would be emotionally intense, she wanted me to come along as her travel companion.
Once I realized that this was not just a fun vacation—that I’d be supporting Mom as she did the Lord’s work, I agreed to go. And the Lord miraculously provided the funds, so yay!
The JourneyImagine traveling to a foreign country without jet lag. We got on the airplane in Houston not long after 8 am and, three hours later, arrived in Belize just in time for lunch. There wasn’t even a time change.
After going through immigration, Mom and I exited the airport, where two friendly women greeted us like long-lost friends. Apparently, we were long-lost friends, as they’d been Missionaries in Canada with my parents back in the day. But I didn’t remember them, as I was merely a toddler back then.
They showed us around Belize City and took us to a lovely open-air restaurant for lunch, where I befriended a gentle iguana.
The ColonyWe drove along feeling that foreign country feeling—bright sunshine, unfamiliar plants, bright houses, and graveyards full of above-ground tombs. And then suddenly, things were a little different. More Mennonite. Mowed lawns. Large businesses.
This was Spanish Lookout—a colony carved from the Belizean jungle by a group of Kleine Gemeinde Mennonites in the 1950s that’s morphed into the backbone of the Belizean economy.
There would be plenty of time for exploring the colony, the ferry, the dairy/ice cream shop/fast food restaurant, and various local businesses and attractions later. For now, we went to our hostess Alvina’s house, met Anna who was co-hosting the Women’s Conference with Alvina, ate borscht, and then went to bed.
The Women’s ConferenceThe next day was Friday, and Mom spoke in the evening—the first night of the women’s conference. A very moving talk about how Jesus related to women. It’s interesting how even though Mom gives talks fairly often, I rarely get the chance to hear her.
She spoke again Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, and in-between times we met new people, ate delicious food, and saw the sights of the colony.
The Mayan RuinsThen, Sunday afternoon, we did our first truly touristy thing by going to some local Mayan ruins. I was fascinated.
Apparently Mayan ruins are everywhere in Belize. Farmers find them in their fields. Even at the place we went, there were some mounds that were presumably full of ruins that hadn’t been uncovered yet.
Alvana told us that these were temples where Mayans did human sacrifices. Whenever I hear things like that, I always wonder, but how do we know that’s true? How do we know what Mayans of long ago did with their temples?
Well, it turns out that the Mayans had written language. And they wrote down details about the human sacrifices they performed.
The BeachMom gave her last talk Sunday evening, and Monday, our rest day, we headed to the beach.
But first I gave a talk about writing to some local schoolchildren.
Then off we went to the wide and wonderful ocean, and I bobbed about in the warm waves for hours and hours, having the best time ever.
The End of the TripIt was a wonderful trip. We left that Tuesday, munching on stewed chicken we bought from a vendor outside the airport.
It truly was such a phenominal trip that I wish I could post something twice as detailed and three times as long about all we experienced. But the truth is, I traveled to see the eclipse this weekend, and just didn’t find the time to finish this post until right now, Sunday evening, the day it’s due.
So please enjoy the words I’ve managed to write, stare at the pictures, and then close your eyes and imagine some place very nice and sunny, full of wonderful smells and welcoming people, and you’ll get a small taste of what the trip was like for me.
April 1, 2024
April Blogging Challenge (And the End of the Christmas Quest)
It’s April 1—you know what that means!
No, I’m not trying to pull a prank on you. I’m just here to say that once again, the Smucker Writers are doing the April Blogging Challenge.
This year, besides myself and my mom, my sister-In-Law Phoebe will do a couple of posts, as well as my brother Ben. (Ben doesn’t have a blog, so he’ll guest post on my Mom’s.) You can expect a new blog from a Smucker writer every other day.
For my first post, I’m going to finish my Christmas Quest Saga. This past Christmas, I was alone for the holidays, so I made a list of fifty things to do. Turns out, fifty is an enormously high number for a holiday bucket list, so not only was I quite busy, but I’ve already written three blogs on the topic, and I’m still not done.
(If you’re interested in catching up, you can read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.)
List Item #18: Make a Pot with Backyard ClayMy list included some big, exciting things, but it also included a lot of little, fun things. For example, our yard is full of clay soil. Ever since moving here, I’ve wondered if it’s possible to make a pot with the backyard clay.
So I put it on my list.
Turns out, yes, it is possible. Of course, without a wheel, a kiln, or any potter experience, I have no way to make useful or pretty pottery. But I managed to make something vaguely bowl-shaped.
Someday, it would be cool to buy a wheel and learn for real.
Other small-quest items included:
List Item #10: Go to the same coffee shop every day for a week. I went to Starbucks since it’s the only coffee shop in my suburb (although oddly, we have ten donut shops). “Becoming a regular” was a really cool way to connect with people. The baristas complimented the mugs and cups I brought in, memorized what I liked to order, and once even gave me free scones.List Item #37: Meet with Sarah. There’s a writer in town named Sarah that I hoped to connect with, so I put it on my list, but her life was pretty crazy and it didn’t work out. Still, I was determined to cross it off my list, so I asked my friend Sarah Beth if she’d “meet” me by having a Zoom call and catching up. So technically, I still met with Sarah.
List Item #19: Bike to Sylvan Beach. Our little bay beach is only 2.3 miles away, so I borrowed Phoebe’s bike and went. This area is flat with wide sidewalks, and I presume it’s okay to bike on them because people drive golf carts on them constantly. When I got to the beach, I inadvertently completed List Item #24: Listen to a Street Musician, because for some reason, a kid was standing in the parking lot practicing his drums.
List Item #43: Ride the Bus DowntownHouston is the fourth-largest city in the USA, and it’s genuinely cool to be able to drive for an hour or less and experience almost anything—any culture, any band, any type of food, any random activity that’s ever seemed fun.
But other cities I’ve been in have had a distinct soul and an exciting big-city feeling. I haven’t found that in Houston. So I decided to chase that feeling.
My plan: Ride the bus downtown. Walk around enjoying the sights.
The Friday before my quest ended, I drove to the nearest park-and-ride, which, frustratingly, was 20 minutes away. No one seemed to be around. I climbed onto the bus. There was no driver and only one other passenger.
“It’s two dollars, right?” I asked the passenger.
“I don’t know, I just used my fare card,” he said. “I think there’s an app where you can buy a ticket.”
The truth was, the metro system has multiple apps and they don’t always make sense. I decided to wait for the bus driver, and when she arrived she confirmed that yes, it was two dollars. I paid cash.
Meanwhile, the ice was broken between me and the passenger. We chatted all the way downtown. He was an English professor named Carl—in my memory, he was wearing a sweater with leather patches on the elbows, but I think that’s just a figment of my imagination to match the sort of person he was.
You know, the kind who casually says things like, “You’ve read Joyce, of course.”
Carl got off as soon as we reached downtown, and I rode a few more stops to get off near what I presumed to be the center of activity.
I have to admit, downtown Houston was disappointing. I don’t know how to describe it except that it wasn’t hoppin’.
Some places are full of life, with street performers, people going in and out of shops, people who look like they’re on vacation, and people rushing to important meetings. And some places seem dull and lifeless, with the people-to-building ratio off in a way that seems vaguely apocalyptic.
Houston is a very indoor-oriented culture, which I think contributes to the dull feeling. But I know there are hoppin’ places here, like Galveston on nice weekends or the Kemah Boardwalk on New Years Eve. But downtown Houston on a Friday, with a drizzle of rain in the morning that turns into gorgeous not-too-hot sunshine in the afternoon, is not a hoppin’ place at all.
There was also a marked absence of old or historical-looking buildings. I found a few on random streets, but instead of being turned into museums or bookshops or pubs, they just looked propped up and waiting to die.
Even my search for a cute coffee shop was rather fruitless. I finally stopped in an empty, charmless bakery because I was hungry and tired, only to realize it was closing in five minutes.
That’s when I gave up and rode the bus back home.
I don’t regret my excursion because the hunt for beauty and charm is always worth it. I’m sure it exists somewhere in Houston, but I didn’t find it downtown.
P.S. I only took one photo that day, which you’ll understand if you’re a Swiftie and if you’re not that’s fine just ignore this silly picture.
List Item #36: Prank someoneI put this one on my list without thinking it through. How do you prank someone in an area where you don’t know anyone? Could I prank a stranger?
Maybe I could hide in the Starbucks bathroom but not lock the door, and when someone came in, I could yell, “Boo!”
No, I didn’t quite have the courage for that one.
I called my brother Ben and asked if there was any way he could conspire with me to help prank Mom.
“What prank do you have in mind?” he asked.
But I drew a blank.
“You could always put googly eyes on things,” Ben laughed. Once, Mom pranked him by sticking googly eyes on all his stuff.
I went back to the Starbucks bathroom idea. What if I stuck googly eyes on the mirror? So that if someone looked at their reflection they’d see googly eyes instead of their real eyes?
I bought googly eyes and sticky tack, and on Saturday, set off to do the prank. Only I decided against the Starbucks bathroom. I kind of knew the baristas now, and it was embarrassing to think that they’d probably know it was me.
So I went to Target instead.
Only once I was inside the Target bathroom I realized there were too many people around for me to unobtrusively stick googly eyes on the mirror. So I went into one of the stalls and adorned it thus:
I meant to slip quietly out, but when I opened the stall door, there was a woman right there, ready to claim this stall the instant I vacated it.
I dashed to the sink, and just as I wet my hands, the woman poked her head back out of the stall. “There’s eyes on the…”
I yeeted out of there so fast. Hands dripping. Feeling like a criminal. Climbed in my getaway car and haven’t been back to that Target since.
List Item #45: Go to a ConcertAnd then. Sunday. The last day of the quest. The day I went to a concert.
This was the pinnacle of my quest. In case you’ve forgotten, I wanted to go to a Tophouse concert, but tickets were sold out. So I DM’d the band, and wonder of wonders, they agreed to put me on the guest list in exchange for one of my books.
Now, I really have not been to very many concerts in my life, and I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. Should I give them my book before or after the concert? Am I supposed to go backstage? I didn’t even know which member of the band I’d been communicating with.
But I showed up at the venue with a bag of books—I figured I’d give them each one instead of making them share—and hoped for the best.
The venue was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was called a “listening room,” and was just a room with a stage set up in one corner. There was a bar there, so people could buy drinks if they wanted, but it wasn’t a bar. I mean, it was only open when there was music.
As soon as I walked in, I saw one of the band members, Joe, selling merch at the end of the bar. However, that end of the room was extremely crowded because the bar, the merch area, and the bathrooms were all in the same corner. So I didn’t bother him and figured I’d do the book-handing later.
Well, something odd happened then. A man with a brown fedora and a little gray ponytail started asking me about myself, and when I mentioned my books, he said he wanted to buy one. I had three extra in the car, so I ran out to get them. Then, this other lady overheard us, and she was interested, too—she didn’t buy one, but she took a picture of the cover. Then a third lady overheard us and wanted to buy one.
Honestly, I felt kinda bad using someone else’s concert as a book-selling event.
As it got closer to showtime, Joe-the-lead-singer left the merch table and went backstage, but on his way passed me, stopped, and said, “Hi, by the way. You’re Emily, right?”
Wow. I felt very special. What a night.
Anyway, the concert started, and it was very fun and lively and beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed it. One unexpected delight was how funny the band members were, cracking these awkward deadpan jokes between songs.
Afterward, all four band members hung around to sign merch and meet people. That’s when I thanked them for putting me on the guest list and gave them copies of my book. They all seemed excited and talked about the books they’d just finished reading and how many books they’d brought on tour. (Honestly they kind-of had homeschooler energy which was fun and unexpected.)
I decided it must have been Joe that I’d communicated with on Instagram because no one else recognized me until I said I was the “bucket list girl.” But they all acted impressed that I wrote a book, and I have to say, having people that you find impressive act like they think you are impressive feels amazing.
So that’s how I ended the quest: Listening to music I loved, feeling like my writing mattered, and knowing I’d accomplished what I set out to accomplish—fifty items crossed off my holiday bucket list.
***
I hope you enjoyed reading about my Christmas Quest, and are excited to move onto other subjects this month! For now, be sure to check out Mom’s blog, Life in the Shoe, on April 3 for the next post in the April Blogging Challenge.
***
Latest Patreon Posts:
In Search of BelongingBut What Do You Actually Want?The Wealthy Mennonites of Belize and Beyond
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February 19, 2024
The Christmas Quest, Part 3: Swimming in December
Here’s an interesting fact about life: People will travel from all over the world to visit someplace like, say, Washington DC. They’ll spend all day at the Smithsonian and see only a fraction of the exhibits. And they’ll think to themselves, I’d have to live here for a month to see everything there is to see.
But then if you talk to people who actually do live in Washington DC, they’ll inform you that they rarely go to the Smithsonian. Really, only when they have out-of-town guests.
I suspect that this also occurs in fascinating cities like Paris, Moscow, Istanbul, and Venice, and it’s always struck me as such a sad phenomenon that it’s so easy to miss out on the beauty of where you live right now.
Well, the beauty of La Porte, Texas, the suburb of Houston where I currently live, is that:
There are (sometimes) sunny warm days in winter, andI live close to some pretty neat swimming holes.The two best swimming options are Sylvan Beach, a little bay beach with imported sand that’s only six minutes from my house, and Galveston Beach, which is 45 or 50 minutes away on The Gulf of Mexico. Both beaches have rather murky water, but as someone who grew up swimming in Muddy Creek, I remain undaunted.
However, like the person who lives in Washington DC but never visits the Smithsonian, I kept living so close to the water but never swimming in it. How silly!
With my Christmas Quest (if you need to catch up, here’s Part 1 of the Quest and Part 2 of the Quest), I aimed to change that.
Item #25: Swim at Sylvan Beach
Item #9: Swim in Galveston
Unfortunately, I didn’t account for how chilly and autumn-ish December is in Houston. As I neared the halfway point of my quest, I looked at my weather app and realized there were only two decently warm days left—the last two days of 2023.
So on Saturday, December 30, I went to Sylvan Beach with a terrible flaking pool noodle I’d found on the curb once and tried to have a nice swim in 66° weather.
Unfortunately, the tide was out, and the swimming area at Sylvan Beach is roped off, resulting in water that didn’t even come up to my knees.
I made a valiant attempt to swim in its shallow depths with my useless noodle. Then, deciding it was enough like swimming to “count,” I put a jacket on over my swimsuit and just splashed around for a while.
List Item #50: Do Something Glittery for New YearsI knew I wanted to do something for New Year’s, I just wasn’t sure what, so for a while, I just left the last item on my list blank.
Did I want to go to a New Year’s party of some sort? But staying up late…the traffic coming home…drunk drivers…
Did I want to go watch fireworks somewhere? But staying up late…the traffic coming home…drunk drivers…
Eventually, I just wrote “do something glittery” because that was vague, and I could interpret it however I wanted. I don’t know why I wrote “glittery” when I really meant “festive,” but whatever.
Well, New Year’s Eve was the only remotely warm day left of the Christmas Quest, with a projected 72° in Galveston, so I drove South, sipping iced tea and hoping I’d come across some festive way to celebrate the new year in Galveston without having to stay up too late.
First, I swam. It really was wonderful. The only drawback was that I forgot my terrible noodle in the car. I swim for pleasure not exercise, so I’d rather just bob along on something floaty. Still, I didn’t feel like going back for it, so I plunged in and promptly pulled a leg muscle.
Ha. Oh well, I had fun anyway.
List Item #8: Visit the pier coffee shopI saw on Google Maps that there was a coffee shop extending over the water, and I wanted to visit, so I walked over there after my swim.
Now, I didn’t take any pictures of the place, but oddly, one of the free stock photos that comes with WordPress is of this exact location. Here’s what it looks like.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." data-large-file="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." src="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." alt="" class="wp-image-12642" />Photo by Lesli Whitecotton on Pexels.comCharming, right?
Unfortunately, I ended up disappointed. It wasn’t really a coffee shop so much as a convenience store. There was no tea, so when an employee finally showed up, I asked for a hot chocolate and received something giant, expensive, and far too sweet for my taste.
The only seating area was up top, where I found a bar that was actually rather charming. I sat there for a bit, enjoying the view and sipping my hot chocolate. But I have to be honest: every time I’m in a bar, I feel uncomfortable, like I don’t know the rules. Is it okay to sit here drinking the hot chocolate I bought downstairs, or is there an unspoken rule that I’m supposed to buy a drink from the bar?
The whole place smelled like dead fish, and I don’t plan to go back. But if you’re the sort of person who likes bars, or if you’re walking on the beach and want a quick coffee to go, you might enjoy it.
I decided to head to the other side of Galveston Island, which is full of charming old buildings. As I neared downtown, I saw the trolley pass.
List Item #26: Ride the trolleyI’d ridden the trolley in Galveston once before and wanted to do it again. I didn’t know the schedule, but when I saw it pass I knew it must be nearing the main station, so I headed there, waited for a few minutes, and sure enough, there it came around the corner.
It costs $1 cash. Nifty system. And it was lucky I hopped on when I did because I caught the last round of the day. They were shutting down a bit early for New Year’s.
My friend Tiffany had told me that there’s a street in Galveston called “The Strand” that’s full of old buildings and cute shops. After riding the trolley in a loop, I walked over to the Strand with some vague notion that something fun and new-yearsy might be going on. Also, I hoped to listen to a street musician (List Item #24).
Unfortunately, there were no street musicians around. I heard what sounded like live music, but as I approached excitedly, I saw that the musician was in a bar. He was right next to an open window, and I listened from the street…did that count as a completed list item?
I couldn’t decide.
I passed a touristy storefront and screamed when a man walked out with a snake around his neck. Then I felt bad for screaming, so I asked the man about his pet, and somehow ended up petting the snake, whose name was “Boba.”
I overheard a cashier tell another store worker that most of the Strand shops were going to close at 6 pm.
I ate all the snacks I’d brought with me.
It wasn’t even 6 pm yet. Midnight was over 6 hours away. All I wanted to do was go home and watch my Korean drama. But that didn’t count as something festive, now did it?
Then I saw a tea shop. “Oh,” I thought, “I’ll buy a festive tea! I can sip it while watching my Korean Drama! That will be festive enough!”
A Quick Note about JacobHere’s one funny thing I forgot to say about my date with Jacob (which I wrote about in Part 2): our date was in the afternoon, so I ordered a less-caffeinated green tea, and he got the same thing. But they gave us both Earl Grey. I didn’t complain because the Earl Grey was delicious, even though it had a slightly higher caffeine content.
Well, Jacob told me later that the tea kept him wide awake.
But you drink coffee, I noted, bewildered. That has way more caffeine.
Turns out he only drinks decaf.
Anyway, we made plans over New Year’s weekend to meet up at Sylvan Beach the following Wednesday. I was secretly roping him into another of my Christmas Quest tasks (more details coming). I told him I’d bring tea.
So on that last day of 2023, as I searched for a festive tea to ring in the new year, I was also searching for something decently decaffeinated to share with Jacob. I ended up with a blood orange smoothie rooibos tea—festive and caffeine-free.
Then I watched fireworks the whole drive home, and I watched fireworks out the window as I watched my Korean drama and sipped my festive tea, and I went to bed and woke up at midnight as the booming roar of a gazillion fireworks went off at once. Turns out, in Houston, you don’t have to drive to any particular location to see fireworks.
The Second Date with JacobI felt a little apprehensive about my second date with Jacob. I didn’t know how to tell him that I wasn’t looking for anything serious—that all I wanted was a fun little date. I called my sister Jenny and her pal Kathrine, who advised me to ask, “Why were you on Bumble?” and open the conversation that way.
I also was running out of time to complete my list, so I decided to rope him into
List item #27: Have a picnic with sharable food and tea, and
List item #33: Buy a cake.
Looking back, so many items on my list were really about connection. I had this idea that if I had a picnic alone with sharable food, surely some strangers would come by who’d want to share it with me. I put “buy a cake” on the list because they always look so yummy, but I’m never frivolous enough to buy a cake instead of making it.
But I always had a notion of taking the cake to the picnic because what’s more shareable than cake?
So when Jacob wanted to meet again, I suggested we go to Sylvan Beach, and I said I’d bring tea and a snack. Then I went to Kroger and picked up a cake.
This cake-and-tea picnic was the first time I told Jacob about my Christmas quest. But I didn’t tell him that “go on a date” was part of the quest, because that just felt weird.
Jacob made fun of me good-naturedly for bringing a whole stack of paper plates and a pile of extra forks. “Hey,” I said. “You never know, some strangers on the beach might want some of this cake! We can’t eat it all by ourselves.”
Our date proceeded much like the previous one had, only with a prettier setting and un-caffeinated tea. This time, I was a lot better about sharing the conversation instead of doing all the talking. The friendship vibes were flowing. The romance vibes, not so much.
Two men in their 50s walked by. One of them said, “Happy Birthday!”
“It’s not my birthday, I just decided to buy a cake,” I said. “Want some?”
The men came over. I pulled out my extra plates and forks, giving Jacob a bit of an I told you so look, and cut them each a slice.
Their names were Jesus and Jorge. Jesus lived in the area, and his cousin Jorge was visiting from Mexico. Jesus spoke fluent English, and Jorge didn’t.
Jorge silently ate his cake while Jesus told us all about:
How he learned to deep fry a turkey for ThanksgivingThe trip he took to Oregon (this was after I said I was from Oregon. Jesus was very excited about a trip he’d taken there, but everything he mentioned—Redwoods, Lake Tahoe—was actually in California.)The trip he took to the Grand Canyon where his wife was too scared to go up in a helicopter.The trip he took to Israel, where he “walked on water” because the Dead Sea was so salty. He said that a bunch of people followed him into the water. Jacob and I thought this was hilarious—a guy named Jesus goes to Israel, walks on water, and has a bunch of followers—but Jesus either didn’t find this funny or else was so eager to get on with his story that he didn’t find time to stop and laugh.After a good while of listening to Jesus’s travel adventures I felt like it really was time for me to go home, so I started quietly gathering up the picnic supplies, and Jesus and Jorge thanked me for the cake and left. Jacob helped me carry the picnic supplies to my car.
Now what? I never did get around to asking him why he was on Bumble.
Jacob put the leftover cake on the passenger seat of my car “Do you think we’ll do this again?” he asked.
I hesitated. “I’m not really looking for a relationship,” I confessed.
I suppose I must have looked rather pained and pitying because he said, “It’s fine, just be yourself.”
Really, I was trying to decide if I should say, “We can still be friends!” Because I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with him, but I knew I was never going to feel romantically toward him. Still, I bit my tongue and didn’t say it. I guess in the moment it didn’t seem kind to friend-zone him so blatantly.
I was relieved that Jacob didn’t seem super surprised. I supposed he’d gotten the hint from my general non-committal, non-flirtatious demeanor.
We hugged goodbye. He said, “It was great meeting you.”
“It was great meeting you, too,” I said.
I can only hope that now he has an interesting story to tell his family.
That concludes the Jacob saga. None of you are allowed to accuse me of leaving you on a cliffhanger this time, LOL.
I must confess that my venture into online dating went about as well as it could possibly have gone. However, I don’t think I’ll try it again any time soon. I realized that dating apps are full of people who either want a serious relationship or casual sex, whereas I want friendship with maybe a few romantic sprinkles. There is a friendship version of Bumble, and I might try that on my next quest.
More Adventures Coming!Can you believe that I’ve written three blog posts about the Christmas Quest and it’s still not over? It goes to show that the only thing you need to live an exciting life is simple bucket list and a little bit of bravery.
The next blog post will include a story of a prank gone awry, seeing a band for free in exchange for my book, and attempting to make a bowl out of backyard clay (just because I was curious).
However, I have a very busy end-of-February, so the next post won’t be up until early March.
Take care! If the winter blues are getting you down, I recommend complimenting a stranger’s hat.
***
Latest Patreon Posts:
The Wealthy Mennonites of Belize and BeyondThe Difference Between Men and WomenA Surprising Insight into Dignity and Worth
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February 12, 2024
The Christmas Quest, Part 2: Go on a Date
This Christmas, I found myself alone for the holidays, and thus, I embarked on my Christmas Quest (read Part 1 here for more info).
Essentially, I wrote a bucket list of things to do over the Holidays, and one item on the list was to go on a date.
Not knowing anyone in Houston to date, I downloaded the dating app Bumble, and had my first experience with online dating.
Now, I feel it’s worth noting that I was not looking for a relationship. The older I get, the more I realize that the grass is actually greener on my side of the fence—that is, that my personality, dreams, lifestyle, and general disposition make me better suited to singleness than marriage. Sure, this could change if I fell madly in love with someone, but I’m not the type to fall in love easily.
But I do enjoy going on dates now and again. Sometimes it’s nice to have a few romantic sprinkles on your single life. That was the inspiration behind putting “go on a date” on my Christmas Quest.
Bumble is supposed to be less sketchy than other apps because it’s set up so that the woman messages first. But I was immediately overwhelmed, because what am I supposed to even say?
Also, I only swiped right on a couple of guys, but I matched with all of them immediately, which kinda freaked me out. I didn’t want to have infinite matches, so I was trying to be picky, but being picky proved impossible because everyone seemed exactly the same. Handsome single guys in their 30s with a few generic hobbies and a couple of gym pictures—who knew so many of them existed in the universe, much less in my city?
I should clarify that I wasn’t looking for Mr Right, I was looking for someone who would go on a Christmas Quest Date with me and have lots of fun but who ultimately would not fall in love with me or make things complicated. Like an adventurous-looking atheist.
Well, as I was perusing an array of adventurous-looking atheists, I got a notification that someone had complimented my picture. I guess that’s a feature on Bumble. It was a nice Christian firefighter named Jacob. He said, “I’d be smiling too if I had coffee and a good book!”
I had to “swipe right” on him before I could reply, but I did, and we started chatting about tea and such (because I obviously was drinking tea, not coffee, in the picture he complemented).
Over the next few days, I swiped on a few more Adventurous Atheists but then couldn’t think of how to start conversations with them, so I ultimately decided to go on a date with Jacob.
Just to be clear—Jacob seemed great—my hesitation was due to the fact that I thought we were probably looking for different things. But then I though, I mean, why not give it a shot?
But that was a little later. Meanwhile, in the week before Christmas, I continued to work on my Quest.
The Week Before ChristmasThe week before Christmas was a little rough healthwise, but I still managed to cross things off my list. I went thrift store shopping for Christmas gifts (list item #49), just in time to send a package to Jenny, and then accidentally sent it to the wrong address. Oh well. It reached her eventually.
I made hot chocolate and drove around playing Christmas music and looking at Christmas lights (list item #44). That was lots of fun. But I was alarmed by how hard it was to find Christmas music on the radio. What is the world coming to?
I decorated a Christmas tree (list item #48). Just a baby tree that Matt and Phoebe had bought to plant in the yard. All I had for decoration was some red yarn and one set of twinkle lights, but I covered the base with a blanket to channel my inner Charlie Brown and surrounded it with all the packages that came in the mail addressed to me.
I went to Kroger one evening and followed a stranger around for a bit, writing about him (list item #23). I thought it would be an interesting study in observing strangers, but it was actually really boring, and I felt weird doing it, although part of me felt like a spy on a secret mission.
I also needed to complement a stranger’s hat (list item #28). Kroger was full of boring baseball caps, but at one point, I heard someone behind me say, “Excuse me,” and I turned around and saw an older gentleman in a faded-yet-dapper blue fedora.
“I like your hat,” I said.
“This old thing? I need to get a new one!” he said. But he sounded pleased. I’d just re-read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, and this gentleman looked and acted exactly how I pictured Anansi, so that was fun.
List Item # 20: Go to a Christmas PartyYou may recall that I wrote “go to a Christmas Party” on my list, but I wasn’t invited to any Christmas Parties. Well, that one resolved itself spectacularly. Indiana invited me to come over for dinner on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve I was also trying to go an entire day without using screens (List Item #39). The only exceptions I allowed were checking my lock screen for texts, replying if necessary to keep people from worrying about me, and using Google Maps if I got into a terrible driving pinch. Otherwise, no work, no movies, no scrolling, no checking the weather, no nothing.
I chose Christmas Eve for this task because I thought I’d be busy all day. First church, then dinner with Indiana, then the candlelit service in the evening. But when I got to church, I discovered that “dinner” wasn’t until after the candlelit service, lol.
(I know dinner can refer to the evening meal, but for some reason, on Sundays and Holidays, I always assume it means a noon/afternoon meal.)
Anyway, I managed a lovely screenless afternoon by writing in my diary, reading a decently interesting book called The Bones of Grace, and trying to tackle list item #17—taking a plate of cookies to my neighbor’s house. (They weren’t home. I believe I didn’t actually deliver them until a day or two after Christmas.)
I met up with Indiana and her daughter Bella at the candlelit service that evening, and afterward, we went to their city apartment for dinner. I rarely feel like I’m in a big city when I’m in Houston, but that night I did. The apartment was in a tall, almost skyscraper building—one of those places with shiny floors and a doorman and a keycard you have to swipe to use the elevator.
We went out on the balcony and looked at the tower opposite—a wall of windows full of twinkling Christmas trees.
It wasn’t a loud, crowded Christmas party, but it was lovely.
List Item #2: Go to Church on Christmas MorningChristmas morning, I drove to Galveston to go to an Episcopalian church service at a historic church. This was my third time going to a liturgical service on Christmas Day, and I’m a huge fan.
According to the liturgical calendar, the time leading up to Christmas is Advent, a melancholy time of hopeful waiting for Jesus to come. A time where it’s much more appropriate to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” than “Joy to the World.” December 25 is when all that changes—Christ has come, and we can now rejoice.
The traditional way to do Christmas was to start on December 25 and then have all your parties and such after that, ending with gift-giving on Three Kings Day. Only now, we’ve shifted all that into the month of December, and if we do Advent, it gets kind of muddled up amongst the festivities.
So even though very few people show up for the Christmas Day service, I really love the “yay! It’s Christmas now! Advent is officially over!” vibe from liturgical churches.
After church, I considered driving over to the beach and going for a swim—list item #9—but ultimately decided it was too cold and windy. Also, my friends Tiffany and Ryan invited me over for Christmas lunch. Another Christmas party!
I considered making gingerbread men for Ryan and Tiffany but the results were so monstrous I just ate them myself. My Christmas Day ended with a family Zoom call where we all opened presents and joked around.
The Christmas StockingHere’s something else I did the week before Christmas, not because it was on my list, but because of something I’d read on Twitter.
Somehow, I came across a thread of people talking about how much of the Christmas burden falls on moms and how often the mom’s Christmas stocking has barely anything in it compared to everyone else’s.
The thread concluded, “Call your dad and tell him to fill your mom’s stocking.”
So I called my dad and told him to fill my mom’s stocking.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." data-large-file="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." src="https://emilysmucker.files.wordpress...." alt="" class="wp-image-12618" />Photo by Goran Grudiu0107 on Pexels.comNow, Dad was perfectly comfortable filling Mom’s stocking with wrenches and flashlights, but he was completely lost at the prospect of picking out anything cute. So I told him to go to Target and call me. He did, and our convo went something like this:
Dad: So here is a little stuffed reindeer, do you think she’d like that?
Me: Well, it’s so Christmas-specific that she wouldn’t have much use for it the rest of the year. Why don’t you go to the stationary section and look for things in pretty colors or with flowers on them?
Dad: Okay, here are some pens that look like bunnies. Do you think she’d like those?
Me: Yes, I think she’d like those.
Dad: It looks like you push the ears down, and then the pen tip comes out so you can write.
Me: ?????
Anyway. On Christmas evening, as we opened presents, I watched as Mom pulled pretty Post-it notes, cute binder clips, and bunny pens out of her absolutely bulging stocking. When she discovered that Dad had put them there, the look of shock and delighted surprise on her face was adorable.
Now, Back to the DateTwo days after Christmas, Jacob and I met up at a Starbucks close to his workplace. It was a decently brief date—just under an hour, I think—as he needed to go pick up his nephew.
I felt zero butterflies, but I’ll admit I had a really good time. I just felt bad, at the end, because I realized I’d done most of the talking.
Jacob was very good at asking questions and listening well but tended to answer my questions briefly and without much elaboration. Although we had a lot of similar values, our dreams and lifestyles were vastly different. He liked comfort and stability and didn’t have a lot of life goals beyond a desire to have a career where he could help people (hence the firefighting).
I really admire people like Jacob, but I’m not like that at all.
It was also pretty obvious that, unlike me, Jacob was looking for a relationship. I wasn’t sure how to tell him that I wasn’t. I guess I hoped it would come up somehow, maybe when he asked to meet again.
But the funny thing was, he didn’t exactly ask to meet again. Instead, he said, “Next time, I’ll come to your area.”
“Um, okay,” I said. This was just as he was dashing off to hang out with his nephew.
“So, I’ll text you?” he said.
“Sounds good,” I replied. After all, I’d had a good time. Why not meet with him again?
My first date with Jacob happened about halfway through my Christmas Quest. There’s so much more to come, guys! Come back for Part 3, which I’ll hopefully post shortly, although lately, I seem to have projects coming out my ears, so I can’t make any guarantees.
***
Latest Patreon Posts:
The Wealthy Mennonites of Belize and BeyondThe Difference Between Men and WomenA Surprising Insight into Dignity and Worth
Order my book:
Print Version
Kindle Version
Follow me on:
Instagram: @emilytheduchess
Twitter: @emilysmucker
Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog
YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker
Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month.)
February 7, 2024
The Christmas Quest, Part 1: Have a Conversation With a Stranger in Public
I decided my life was too crazy, but in an attempt to make it less crazy, I inadvertently made it even crazier.
Here’s the story of what happened. There will be multiple parts to this narrative. This is the first one.
I carry a certain restlessness within me, and when paired with my remote work lifestyle and lack of spouse and children, the result is a pretty scattered, unstructured life where I travel and move around a lot. Sounds nice, right?
The problem is that it’s really hard to accomplish anything in life without some sort of rhythm and structure. And I have so many ambitions. All kinds of books I want to write.
So, after a pretty chaotic summer and early fall, I decided to start traveling less. I committed to hunkering down in Texas for months, focusing on developing good writing habits and saving money.
The First Hurdle: ChristmasI didn’t go home to Oregon for Christmas. For a while, Matt and Phoebe considered staying in Texas, too, but ultimately, they decided to make the trek to Oregon after all, leaving me here alone.
Alone. In the suburbs. For over three weeks.
I don’t know my neighbors very well, I have few friends, and and many of them were leaving town for the holidays. This type of isolation is very unhealthy for me. The self-isolation builds on itself, and I start to feel a particular type of depressive misery I’d rather avoid.
And so, in a valiant attempt to avoid misery and self-isolation, I devised a Christmas Quest. I opened to a blank page in my diary and wrote:
50 Things to Do This Christmas(That’s how I wrote it. But really, it was 50 things to do before Matt and Phoebe return circa Jan 7.)
I don’t know if you’ve ever written a bucket list, but 50 is a very large number. I don’t know why I chose 50. But I did. And it was such a struggle to think of 50 things that I started putting some rather whacky things on the list, like…
20. Go to a Christmas party
…when I wasn’t invited to any Christmas parties, and…
22. Go on a date
…when didn’t know anyone to date.
I was just having fun. The list felt very theoretical as I was making it.
45. Go to a ConcertAs I was constructing the list, I found a band on Instagram called TopHouse, and I thought their music was delightful. When I checked their tour schedule, I realized they were coming to Galveston, 45 minutes away, on January 7.
January 7! That was just within the limits of my Christmas Quest. I wrote “go to a concert” on my list.
Unfortunately, I didn’t purchase the ticket immediately, just bookmarked it to purchase later. If you’re thinking that sounds like a dumb idea, you’re right. It was a dumb idea.
Some corners of my personality are very difficult to explain, and here’s one of them: I put off buying things online for as long as possible, even when I know with 100% certainty that I want to buy it. There is no logical reason why I do this.
Anyway, Matt and Phoebe left on December 15, and on December 16 I began the quest in earnest by going to a local holiday market. In the evening, I clicked on the bookmarked link and saw, to my horror, that the TopHouse tickets were all sold out.
Oh dear. Oh dear dear dear.
What could I do? Is there a way to buy tickets on a secondary market? Could I go see a different band? But I didn’t want to see a different band. Every clip of them I saw convinced me that this band would be the Most Fun.
While googling “Can you still get a ticket if the show is sold out,” I came across a random forum where someone advised, “You can always message the band and ask for a ticket. The worst they can say is no.”
So I got on Instagram, and I DM’d the band.
I explained that I was alone for the holidays, that I’d made a list of 50 things to do, and that “go to a concert” was on the list. I explained that I desperately wanted to go to their concert, but it was sold out.
Was there any hope?
Could they get me a ticket somehow?
And as a PS, I added that I didn’t have much to bribe them with, but I’d be happy to gift them each a copy of my book.
Then I sent the message, and it disappeared into the void, with no way for me to tell if anyone had even read it. Ah well. That’s what happens when you message random famous people who don’t follow you.
34. Have a conversation with a stranger in publicThe funny thing is, throughout the course of my quest, I had many conversations with strangers. But the first one happened on Sunday, December 17, and that’s when I crossed it off my list.
I struck up a conversation with Indiana, not because of my quest, but because she was sitting beside me in church when the “greet your neighbor” portion of the service came along. She mentioned that she was from Central America.
“Oh, what country?” I asked.
“Honduras.”
“I’m going to Belize at the end of January,” I said.
“Really?” her eyes lit up. But the sharing time was over. “I’ll talk to you after,” she mouthed.
The Belize StoryAt this point, you may be scratching your head. Wait a minute, you may be thinking. Weren’t you going to settle down and stop traveling so much? Isn’t that why you found yourself alone for the holidays in the first place? What about saving money?
Let me explain.
There’s a Mennonite community in Belize on a colony called “Spanish Lookout,” and the women there asked Mom to come and speak at a lady’s retreat.
Mom was happy to go, but these trips can be exhausting and spiritually intense, and she wanted someone to come along as a support person.
She mentioned it to me several times, and each time I reiterated my plans to boycott travel for a while. The trip sounded like so much fun, but I was sticking to my principles.
But about the third time she brought it up, I asked, “Wait. If I go with you, will it be fun vacation time, or will it be doing the Lord’s work?”
Mom said, “It will be doing the Lord’s work.”
Well, you can’t refuse to do the Lord’s work over something petty like finances, so I agreed to go and assumed the finances would somehow work themselves out.
Anyway, at church the week before Christmas, I told the bones of this story to Indiana as an explanation for why I was taking my first trip to Central America. And she said, “I think the Lord planned for us to meet. I would like to help you with your trip.”
I was floored. Almost speechless. I drove home from church that afternoon, and all I could think was, “miracles always happen to me. Miracles always happen to me.”
Even More MiraclesThe following Tuesday, I opened Instagram, and my heart leaped like I was an eighth-grader whose crush had just walked into the room.
TopHouse had actually replied to my message.
“Allow me to assist!” they said.
And they proceeded to put me on the guest list in exchange for my book.
Yes. That happened. I couldn’t believe it.
That was the moment when I felt like my Christmas Quest was really happening, and I had to complete all 50 items or else I’d forfeit all this wonderful Christmas Karma I’d been given.
Well, that meant I had to go on a date. So for the first time in my life, I downloaded a dating app.
But for that story, well, you’ll just have to come back for Part 2!
***
Latest Patreon Posts:
The Wealthy Mennonites of Belize and BeyondThe Difference Between Men and WomenA Surprising Insight into Dignity and Worth
Order my book:
Print Version
Kindle Version
Follow me on:
Instagram: @emilytheduchess
Twitter: @emilysmucker
Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog
YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker
Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month.)
November 24, 2023
Introducing “Emily,” Emily’s Version
Hello Everyone,
I’m delighted to announce that the new, updated version of my first book, now titled Emily: Diary of a Sick Girl, is available for pre-order!
I’ll be sending copies out December 9, so please get your pre-order in if you want to have it by Christmas!
Cover art by Jiayi (Serena) Ma. Design by Gabrielle M.
“Emily” is a story about me, taken from the pages of my diary and my blog when I was seventeen and eighteen. I was sick with West Nile Virus, I was afraid I’d always be to sick to go on the wonderful adventures I dreamed of, and moths were the bane of my existence.
About a year into my sickness, I found out that a medium-sized publishing company called HCI Books, who was most famous for their Chicken Soup for the Soul series, wanted to publish a series of books written by teenage girls for teenage girls.
I sent in some writing samples and was chosen as one of the first three authors in the new Louder than Words series.
I spent a month or two compiling my blog posts and diary entries into a book, and adding supplementary entries to fill in the gaps. Then the book went through a few rounds of editing and came out in August of 2009.
Here’s a picture of me the first time I saw my book in a Barnes & Noble.
Now, one thing you may notice about the above picture is that the girl holding the book and the girl on the cover of the book are not the same girl.
The truth is, although the inside words of the book were all mine, I had almost no say in how it was packaged. I emailed my editor and asked if they could please keep in mind that I’m Mennonite, and said that if my grandma saw a girl on the cover with short hair and pants she’d be offended. Ha.
My editor said she’d bring up this issue with the cover team. That was the beginning and end of my input into the matter.
Did I like the original cover?
Well, it wasn’t the worst cover ever. Sure, the girl on the front didn’t exactly look Mennonite, but since she was lying down I could forgive the tank top and lack of head covering, as I may have looked similar while lying in bed.
My biggest gripe with the cover was that it wasn’t me. Every time I did book events, people would walk up, pick up the book, look at the photo, look at me, and ask, “is that you?”
And I always had to say, “nope, just a random cover model.”
I also came to feel, over the years, that the cover didn’t accurately represent what was actually inside the book.
Somewhere on YouTube there’s a video of a woman reviewing my book, who was very disappointed that she didn’t learn much of anything about West Nile Virus from it. Watching the video, I felt a sense of frustration, because I, also, don’t know much of anything about West Nile Virus. I brought this up to my mom, and she said that she, too, didn’t know much of anything about West Nile Virus. No one seemed to know much about it at the time except that it was in my system and I was very sick.
The thing that always confused me the most about my illness was that when I read about West Nile on Wikipedia, it said that the “severe” cases can last up to a couple of weeks and require hospitalization.
This was not at all like my experience of suffering for over a year but never being close to needing to go to the hospital.
I actually received a lot of clarity, though, when Covid hit. In some people, Covid lasted for a couple of weeks and required hospitalization. Others suffered months or even years with “long Covid” that didn’t require hospitalization but was just never ending low-energy misery.
It made me wonder if “long West Nile” was a thing, and while Googling “long West Nile” didn’t give me any definitive answers, I did discover that depression is a very common long-term symptom of West Nile, and suddenly my mental health meltdown of 2010 made so much more sense.
But all that to say:
The original cover looked like it was a book about a very sad, moody girl who had West Nile.
The real book was about a creative, quirky girl who kept a detailed diary through her frustrating journey of never ending sickness.
My writing skills were growing and developing so much in my late teens and early 20s that I began, only a few years after the book was published, to feel a little bit embarrassed by it. It was a book written by a teenager, and it sounded like a book written by a teenager.
But every now and then, teenage girls would reach out to me. They would say that they, too, were sick, and didn’t know when they would get better. They read my book, and were so happy that someone else understood what they were going through.
And I decided that this was the true purpose of my book: to tell sick people, especially sick teenage girls, “you are not alone.”
***
Right now, one of the most famous singers in the world, Taylor Swift, is in the process of re-recording her old albums. Every time she releases a re-recorded version, she keeps the same album name but adds the words “Taylor’s Version.” The re-recorded albums contain new artwork and extra songs that were left off the original albums.
Through this process, the public has come to understand something about the arts. Someone may seem like they’ve “made it,” but they might have actually signed a pretty bad deal.
In Taylor Swift’s case, she had limited control over the product she put out, because although she owned her songs (since she wrote them), the record label actually owned the recordings.
I’d say a similar thing happened to me, albeit on a much, much smaller scale.
In most publishing deals, an author gets paid in “royalties”—that is, a small percentage of every book they sell. The publisher pays them an “advance,” which is a lump some of cash that’s an advance on their estimated future royalties. If their book does well, the author will start receiving royalty checks once the total amount of royalties earned exceeds the advance they’ve already been paid.
I did not get royalties. Instead, my book deal was this: I would write the book, and they would pay me a flat fee for writing it. Then, they would own the book, and all the money from book sales would go into their pockets.
Now, it ended up being a sort-of fair deal. I didn’t spend a lot of time writing the book, since it was mostly compiling, so the flat fee was enough to cover my time. I operated as an independent bookstore, buying boxes of 100 books at a time half off and re-selling at full price, and was able to earn money that way. But I got zero dollars from any book sold at a bookstore or on Amazon.
So it was a fair deal only because my book wasn’t that successful. But if it had become a mega-bestseller, all that mega-bestseller money would be in HCI’s pocket, and none of it in mine.
I don’t regret signing that book deal. If you’re a teenage girl and you get the chance to publish your work, you just sign the deal, right? That’s what Taylor Swift did, that’s what I did, that’s what a million other people do.
However.
The book is now mine, and I can publish it exactly as I want. And it is so satisfying.
***
I had no dramatic dispute with my publisher. I’d call them every few years and order another box of books, and that was the extent of our relationship.
But in late 2021, when I called to order another box, they told me my book was out of print.
First I asked if I could buy the rest of their inventory, but they said no. I guess that’s just not done. So then I asked how I could get the rights to my book back, and they said it should automatically revert back to me, but it might be a little complicated since my book was part of a series.
However, after a little back and forth, I got an official reversion of rights letter.
Then I began planning the re-release.
This time, on my own terms.
The main thing I wanted to change was the cover. I wanted something that would more accurately portray what was inside the book. And I absolutely did not want a stock photo of a random girl.
Logically, I should put a photo of me on the cover, right? But that proved challenging. For The Highway and Me I hired Janane Nguyen Photography to shoot the cover, but I can’t just jump back in time ten years and do a nice photo shoot, and I’m not about to slap a photo of 33-year-old Emily on 17-year-old Emily’s book.
After failing to find an adequate cover photo, I decided to get an illustrated cover, and hired Jiayi (Serena) Ma to draw it for me. With my favorite Gabrielle on graphic design, I was all set to release my version of Emily.
Frankly, I was never a huge fan of the title Emily, but I wanted to keep it to minimize confusion. However, I changed the tagline. Instead of Emily: My True Story of Chronic Illness and Missing Out on Life, I titled it Emily: Diary of a Sick Girl.
I didn’t want to edit the actual words, because I wanted the book to sound like it was truly written by a teenager. However, re-reading the book I felt a little bit like a celebrity whose old tweets resurface. Some of the things I wrote back then make me cringe now. I ended up changing my wording a couple of times, as well as fixing the occasional typo.
I also added a preface, where I explained the few changes I’d made, how the book came to be, and what I saw as the purpose of the book. Then I added an afterword where I told a little of what happened in the 10+ years following Emily‘s initial release.
Two sections were cut from the original Emily document at the last minute, and I added them back in to this version.
Finally, my favorite change is this: Back in August of 2007, I kept a hand-written diary, and, inspired by Jean Webster’s book Daddy Long Legs, I added funny little doodles and drawings to the text. Excerpts from that diary made it into the original Emily, sans drawings.
But in this edition, I added some of the drawings back in.
Warning: they are not good drawings. They never were supposed to be good drawings. They were supposed to be hilariously bad.
I am quite proud of the new edition of Emily, and I hope it can continue to bring joy to people, and empathy to any teenager out there who is struggling with chronic illness.
The plan was to get the book out by Christmas, but it’s a tight squeeze! If you want it by the holiday, preorder now, and I’ll ship the books out December 9.
Take care, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a merry Christmas!
P.S. I realized, after I posted this, that I forgot to shout out my amazing editor, Debbie Reber. HCI hired Debbie to find the authors and guide us as we wrote our books, because as teenagers, we didn’t really know what we were doing. She called me weekly to discuss how the project was going and how to move forward, and without her mentorship and feedback, this book would never exist.
Love you Debbie, and I’ll forever appreciate your wisdom!
October 25, 2023
Hello Again: October 2023 Life Update
Hello from the beautiful but mosquito-ridden land of Texas!
Boy, do we have a lot to catch up on.
Part 1: America’s Next Great AuthorThe last time I posted an actual factual blog post with words instead of video was almost a year ago, when I drove up to Newark, NJ to film the pilot for America’s Next Great Author. I recounted the experience in detail, but the story never had a proper end…what happened with the TV show anyway?
Well, I haven’t posted an update because there isn’t much of one. The last email I got from the team was in May, when they said, “We are close to being able to show footage from the Proof of Concept. It takes so long to get the editing right!” The pop-up on their website promises a “big announcement coming soon!”
But that’s all I know. Maybe this TV show will get made, and maybe it won’t. In either case, participating was an interesting experience!
Filming happened at the end of October, and at the beginning of November, I moved to Texas.
Why Texas?
Well, my post-college living situation has been pretty haphazard. I spent a year traveling, then went back to Oregon to write a book about those travels. Then the pandemic hit. So I stayed in Oregon until the summer of 2021, and then moved to Virginia for a year, where I lived with my sister Jenny while she pursued her PHD in math.
Virginia was a bust. I hated it there and was desperately lonely. So I tried PA out for a few months, hoping to find permanent housing in Philadelphia, but when that didn’t work out, I moved to Texas.
My brother Matt works at NASA, and he and his wife Phoebe had just bought a big house and offered to let me live with them.
If you watched any of my videos last spring, you have somewhat of an idea of what life in Texas is like. We’re always finding cool things, making cool things, and planting cool things.
And I really love living by the bay.
Part 3: Texas DifficultiesUnfortunately, there are drawbacks to living in Texas. The difficult thing about being a writer and working from home is that it feels nearly impossible to make friends.
The best way (that I know of) to plug into a community is to find a church, attend regularly, and get involved. But finding a church to go to is much more difficult than you’d think.
First, although Houston has seemingly endless churches, I’m not willing to drive an hour on those harrowing Houston roads every Sunday just for church. It’s too stressful. I want something within 20 minutes or so from my suburb.
Second, although I don’t have anything against old people, I’d like to go to a church where I can plug in socially with people my age. Church after church I’ve attended seems to have a smattering of older people, and that’s it.
And finally, I want a church that’s politically neutral, at least from the pulpit. I’m still theologically Mennonite to the core, and I just can’t go to a church that believes we need to use politics to make others follow our Christian values. Sorry. That’s my line in the sand.
Church hunting is exhausting, and last year I had trouble mustering up the energy for it every Sunday. But I’m determined to try harder.
Part 4: The Epic Train TripEarly last spring, my friend Kathrine informed me that she was getting married in Maryland on May 20, and I was invited.
I started thinking through my options. I knew that I wanted to go to Oregon for the summer. So should I fly to Maryland and then to Oregon from there? Or should I fly to Maryland, back to Houston, stay in Houston for a few more weeks, and then fly to Oregon?
But instead, I decided to fulfill a dream I’ve had for oh, ten years or so, and take a grand Amtrak tour of the United States of America.
Step 1: Buy a $500 rail pass.
Step 2: Carefully plan how to wisely use my 10 segments to visit as many friends and cool places as possible.
I have never spent so much energy planning a trip, and I pulled it off, going from Houston to New Orleans to Atlanta to Maryland to Lancaster to (briefly) Pittsburgh to Chicago to Hutchinson to Flagstaff to Los Angeles and finally, to Eugene, Oregon.
I kept a detailed journal, and I planned to recount the trip in a series of blog posts, but I grew so busy over the summer I never got it done. Maybe I’ll still do it?
Part 5: Summer in OregonI arrived in Oregon on June 8 and stayed until September 13. That was a nice length of time to be in Oregon. Unlike last year, when I only stayed five weeks and spent the first week sick, the next three weeks working almost nonstop, and so only had my last week free.
This year I took it easy a bit more. I only drove combine two days a week instead of six. Of course, I still worked part-time for LifeX Marketing and did my own writing projects (which unfortunately did not include keeping up with this blog.)
I also did a cool new project this summer that I called my Red Barn Coffee Hour. Basically, every Thursday morning at 8:30 am, I invited everyone I knew to come hang out in the loft of our red barn and drink coffee or tea. That project turned out quite well, and I was able to regularly see my friends without the stressful back-and-forth of trying to set up times to get coffee with everyone individually.
Part 6: The Book TourThis year I was scheduled to go to a staff retreat in Pennsylvania in mid-September, so I asked Mom if she’d be interested in doing a short book tour around that time so I could kill two traveling birds with one stone, so to speak. (Mom came out with a new book this year titled “Coming Home to Roost.”)
Well, then Mom wanted to go see Jenny in VA while she was back east, and I wanted to see some friends too, and Dad wanted to come along, and soon it became a Very Complicated Trip.
Which became even more complicated when Mom came down with Covid.
I don’t feel like recounting every detail of what went wrong that trip and how we resolved it, so you can read Mom’s version of events on her blog.
Part 7: Back to Texas!The past five months have been a nonstop adventure for me. The train trip was almost a month long, I spent the summer going on fun adventures with my friend Ashlie and/or my brothers, and my back-east trip was three weeks of events—some stressful, some fun—with family, co-workers, and friends.
But now, winter is approaching—as much of a winter as we get in Texas, that is. I’m ready to stay put for a while and focus on writing some books!
Part 8: Next Book Project?I have a big announcement coming soon. Stay tuned!
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April 8, 2023
Attempting to Re-Finish the Floors in My Room
Hey everyone! I ran off to Galveston Beach with my family today and forgot to link my latest YouTube Video, so here she is:
April 1, 2023
Airstream Life + Five Tips for Being on Your Phone Less
Welcome to your weekly Saturday Morning Vlog!
This week, I’m living out in the airstream while we redo the floors in my room. So instead of a typical vlog, I’m taking some time to lay out my top five tips for spending less time on your phone.
March 25, 2023
Making a Strawberry Apron for My Friend Kathrine
For this week’s vlog, I’m finishing a project I’ve been putting off for a while…making a strawberry apron for my friend Kathrine!
It started out as a Christmas present, but I didn’t get it finished in time. So maybe it’s an early wedding gift?
Listen to Jenny and Kathrine’s podcast, Idiot’s Alphabet Soup, on Spotify, or follow their Instagram.
Remember, I post a new vlog every Saturday morning at 9am ET 
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