Emily Smucker's Blog, page 7

I Am Undone: My Second Week of Thankfulness

At the beginning of last week it was very hard to find things to be thankful for. At the end of last week I could have named 100 things. That’s how my life seems to go these days⁠—stretches of mundanity punctuated with vibrant beauty. But I’m trying to be thankful in the mundanity too, because mundanity is when my body rests.

Monday

On Monday I was thankful for tea on tap. I’m not sure if that’s the correct phrasing, but my latest favorite coffee shop has a hot brewed “tea of the day” that they keep in an insulated carafe. Instant tea! No waiting for it to brew! It reminds me of that feeling of coming downstairs and seeing that someone else has brewed a pot of tea to share, and all you have to do is pour.

Tuesday

Last week my health was pretty dubious. Tuesday was the worst day, and neither Jenny nor I did much of anything. I couldn’t stomach much besides brothy soup and saltines, but I didn’t have the energy to stand at the stove and cook up brothy soup. 

Then I remembered…crock pots exist!

I filled a crock pot with pork chops, broth, potatoes, and some random veggies from the fridge. Then I went back to bed. The soup cooked itself to a digestible mush and that’s what I ate for the rest of the week. 

So on Tuesday I was grateful for crock pots.

Wednesday

On Wednesday I couldn’t decide what to be thankful for. I have a pretty view out my bedroom window, I thought, but it was hard to be grateful because it just reminded me of how much of this gorgeous fall weather I’ve wasted by being indoors. 

However, later I changed my mind. If I had to be indoors and unwell, having a lovely bedroom-window view is nothing but a blessing. Orange leaves and quaint brick buildings. I am grateful. 

Thursday

Thursday I was grateful for a different sort of thing. I was grateful that I don’t have to carry my burdens alone.

Sometimes I get the idea that it’s just me and Jesus in this big world, but it’s not. God gave people other people for a reason. I felt a little convicted when Vanya Hooley wrote on Twitter, “I’ll tell my friends my thoughts. I’ll tell my friends my thoughts about my feelings. But I rarely tell even my best friends about my *actual* feelings, and it just occurred to me that that probably hurts both of us.”

Maybe it’s an Enneagram 5 thing. Nevertheless I decided to tell one of my best friends about my *actual* feelings, and her empathy lifted a burden from my soul.

Friday

On Friday I was grateful for old friends. The ones who understand everything about where you come from.

I drove to Pennsylvania this weekend because a group of new-ish friends invited me to go see Hamilton in Philadelphia with them. I was pretty apprehensive because my schedule is so booked up through early December that I was afraid any misstep could send my health tumbling into the abyss. I know so many people in PA that I always tend to overbook myself. So I tried to plan for as few people and as much sleep as possible.

Even though I’ve gone to PA several times since I’ve moved, I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Shanea yet, so I asked her if I could spend Friday night there. So Friday I was able to get up late and take my time cleaning up the house and leaving. I arrived at her house around dinner time, and we spent all evening chatting.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call Shanea an “old friend” because we weren’t friends growing up. She was quite a bit younger than me. But like, Shanea’s best friend’s brother, Trent, was my brother’s best friend, and Shanea’s sister Janane was my sister’s best friend, and Shanea’s brother was my other brother’s best friend. We were in the same very small circle of acquaintances.

I think we became real friends in the 2017/2018 school year when she taught grades 3-5 and I was the secretary. That was an…interesting year, and let’s just say we bonded. Shanea saw a side of Brownsville that I never did, and I really credit her for helping me understand so many of the dynamics of the church and school where I grew up. 

As we were talking, I got a text from someone I haven’t really talked to in years. “Trent just texted me,” I said. There was something wonderful in not having to explain who “Trent” was. 

“What? Why?” Shanea asked.

Turns out he was in Blacksburg and wanted to hang out with Jenny and I. He also relocated to VA from Oregon, and wanted to connect. Trent, of course, is in that same tiny group of people that Shanea is in. He once climbed in my bedroom window because he wanted to hang out with Steven and didn’t want to use the front door.

Anyway, of course I wasn’t in VA but Trent and his wife ended up hanging out with Jenny and I’m sure I’ll connect with them at some point. I was grateful, for Shanea and Trent and all the others who “get” what it was like in our tiny Brownsville universe. 

Saturday

At the end of 2019 I wrote down my top 10 moments of the 2010s. In 2029, if I write the top 20 moments of the 2020s, it is very likely that Saturday will be on that list.

Saturday, see, I was grateful for Hamilton. 

Usually when I talk about the things that deeply move me, they’re very uncool, semi-obscure things. It’s always either musicals or fantasy books. I have to explain why I like them while also understanding that most people won’t like them. And not in a cool way. 

But Hamilton is extremely popular. So maybe you’d love it too, who knows!

In 2016 a friend played me two songs from Hamilton and I really loved them. However, I didn’t allow myself to listen to the full soundtrack because I knew it was a sung-through musical and I didn’t want to “spoil” it. But tickets were hundreds of dollars and hard to get so I didn’t see much chance that I’d ever see it for real, at least not for a very long time.

Near the end of 2019, I was in Delaware and I saw that the library had a copy of “The Hamilton Mixtape.” This is an album of some of the songs from the musical and a few related songs or songs that were cut from the musical. I popped it into the CD player of my car and was blown away. Which is kinda funny because I had never remotely liked hip hop music before, but I guess it goes to show that I’ll like any “genre” of music as long as it’s a show tune.

Anyway. During the pandemic I learned that they were going to release a recorded Broadway performance of Hamilton and stream it on Disney+. I watched it with my sisters and didn’t think they were impressed enough, so after it was over I went wandering over the moonlit fields by myself, feeling my feelings like I was some sort of enneagram 4. 

Last summer, a friend reached out and wondered if I’d be interested in seeing Hamilton live in Philadelphia with her friend group. At first I was apprehensive about the cost⁠—aren’t tickets obscenely expensive? But if I was willing to sit in an “obstructed view” seat I could get a ticket for $47, which was doable. 

We were waaaay up in the theater, but it wasn’t super spread out so I could still see quite well. Although it did give me that weird feeling like if I leaned forward too far I might tumble onto the stage.

As you can see in the picture, the balcony post blocked part of my view, which is why the ticket was cheap. But lucky me, no one bought the seat next to me, so I scooted one seat to my left and had a perfect view.

Then I watched the show, and it was amazing. It made me feel like I understood everything.

It’s hard to explain why I’m so moved by the things that move me. I guess I never like my stories to be too “realistic,” because life is so much more than what we can see and hear. Most of what we experience we experience internally, so we invented metaphors and music to try and convey our internal world to others. In fantasy you can use giant fantastical metaphors that aren’t “allowed” in realistic fiction or nonfiction. And in musicals you can tell the story with music, and thus everyone can feel the emotions of the story as they watch. 

Most of the time I exist in the expanse of my own ignorance*, longing to know everything. But in these moments I feel like I understand everything about myself, the universe, even Spirituality. Before seeing Hamilton I felt weak. After seeing Hamilton I felt like God’s strength would be made perfect in my weakness.

So afterwards everyone kept asking, “how was Hamilton?” And I’d say, “amazing,” and hope that if they saw it they wouldn’t be disappointed. After all, it is quite popular. But I do think that most people don’t feel that same sort of transcendence after seeing a spectacular musical. Or maybe they do and no one talks about it.

Sunday

Dana, one of the girls I went to see Hamilton with, was staying at her parent’s house that weekend while they were out of town. So four of us ended up spending the night there, and in the morning we sat around sipping tea and coffee. Then they went to church and I began the long drive home.

I decided that I was grateful for those slow, tea-sipping mornings with friends. I experienced a number of them that weekend. First on Saturday morning with Shanea, then late Saturday morning when I spent an hour at Esta’s house, and then Sunday morning.

The Week in General

I was super dooper grateful because my plan worked. I specifically scheduled my trip to include lots of sleep and fewer people, and I had good health the whole time with no crash upon return. Hallelujah! 

The Rest of November

Originally I wanted to keep up this grateful-for-one-thing-every-day plan through the rest of November. However, the day after Thanksgiving I’m taking a trip to Kenya, and if I have time to post I just want to post about Kenya. 

So what I’m thinking is, next Monday I’ll write another gratefulness post, and then I’ll do a gratefulness post on Thanksgiving as well which will end the series.

Take care, and stay grateful!

*I must credit Darren Sensenig, who was part of the Hamilton group, for this turn of phrase. I asked him why he went to college and he said, “I think the expanse of my ignorance was a motivating factor.” I thought that was a really cool way to say it. 

***

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.)

Gratefulness, Clichés, and Mini Miracles

Every once in a while, when things in my life get extraordinarily bleak, I try really hard to fix the problem by “cultivating gratefulness.” Gratefulness is one of those things that I deeply believe in, yet I also roll my eyes at because it can become so cliché. Like we get it, everyone is grateful for family and friends and good food and a warm house to live in. Can we just start eating Thanksgiving dinner already.

I think I get annoyed at people who use a sort-of faux gratefulness to avoid having to deal with the real pain in their life. But then you have people like Mrs Harris in Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris who, through a mixture of gratefulness and ingenuity, take the hand that life dealt them and turn it into something charming and fun. That’s what I want.

For reasons I don’t want to get into (because #personal) the end of October was extremely rough for me, to the point that I was desperately praying for a word from the Lord just so I’d have…you know…something. As November approached I thought that I would write down, every day, something that I was grateful for. After all, November is the month of Thanksgiving.

And then I decided to blog about it, just to keep myself on track and accountable.

Nov 1

I woke up, looked at my phone, and I had a text from a friend. She said, “I don’t know if this is for you now, but I really feel God wants you to know that He loves you and hears you.”

I started crying, of course. I had my word from the Lord, and I was grateful.

Nov 2

I was quite surprised, on this second day of November, to discover that I had two things to be grateful for. I couldn’t decide which to add to my official list, so I added both.

First, I stuck a book in the mailbox, and knew that I’d soon receive one in return. It all came about because of a random Facebook conversation. I’d posted about gratefulness, hoping to get some advice from the wide Internet, and then this happened:

Elijah is an Internet friend who I’ve probably met when he was very small, but I don’t remember. In any case, this exchange is the sort of thing I love. It was random, books were involved, mail was involved, and Internet friendships in general have proved to be surprising and delightful additions to my life.

So I was grateful.

Second, I officially reviewed the proofs for THE SECOND PRINTING OF MY BOOK. Yes, you read that correctly. I am so close to sold out of the first printing that I need another. In less than a year. I am blessed.

(And if you are an eagle-eyed reader who was annoyed by the four typos in the first printing, rest assured that they are fixed now. I also deleted one “easy-peasy” because my dad thought it sounded silly.)

Nov 3

I drove down to visit my Aunt Margaret in South Carolina, and there were a lot of small things to be grateful for that all culminated in The Perfect Fall Day. The drive was long but breathtakingly beautiful, as I drove through forests of autumn leaves in their prime. Then I got to hang out with family (which is always wonderful) in their huge brick house with just the right amount of cats and books. And there was a fire in the pellet stove.

In the evening I went to a poetry night with their church, where everyone sat around an enormous bonfire and ate donuts. They were all extremely friendly. I had a great time.

Nov 4

I’ve had trouble sleeping lately. Maybe a better term is “trouble with sleep.” Trouble falling asleep, but also trouble waking up. You know how it is.

As I was talking to Mom on the phone one day she told me that she’d gotten a weighted blanket from somewhere, and she’d never slept better. That made me think that I should buy a weighted blanket. But I put it off because spending money is my least-favorite thing, and also there are so many types of weighted blankets online that I could comparison shop into eternity and never make an actual decision.

Then out of the blue I got a text from my Aunt Margaret: “Do you (or Jenny) want a weight blanket? Free to a good home.”

Um, yes please. I slept under it at her house that night, and took it home with me the next day. My sleep has improved. I am grateful. (The most interesting difference is I feel like I wake up less in the night.)

Nov 5

At this point I began to wonder if good things happen to those who are grateful in the same way that good stories happen to writers. Because a lot of the things that were happening to me felt, not like ordinary gratefulness, but like mini miracles. (And yes, I know that “mini miracle” sounds like you’re talking about children. I’m not talking about children. I just didn’t know what term to use. “Small miracles” sounds even more like children, haha.)

Potentially the biggest miracle of all happened that Friday, November 5: I finished a novel. Well, a novella. But still.

I think I’ve achieved the thing I’ve been trying to do my whole life.

When I was six years old, lying in bed unable to fall asleep, I started telling myself stories. And ever since then I’ve been trying and trying to turn those stories into novels. But I can’t.

Technically, there are two other times in my life when I sort-of write a novella. The first was a middle grade book called Leftover Princess. I wrote a couple chapters and then put it on a website for writers, and it was so popular that I was extremely motivated to keep working on it. So it was “finished” in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, and came to about 30,000 words. But I made it up as I went along and it didn’t really have a plot. The chapters were just characters doing things. I wanted to fix it–I wanted to make it work–but without a plot you can’t really do that. I tried very hard over the next few years and eventually gave up.

The second was a story I wrote for my friend Esther Mae. We did a trade–she made me a pillow with felt fairy-tale characters on it, and I wrote her a story about an alternate-universe version of herself. It ended up being a very long story, around 10,000 words, which is just on the cusp of being considered a “novella.” But it was just a bunch of goofy nonsense.

It’s interesting that both these sort-of-but-sort-of-not novellas happened because some external force was compelling me to finish. First the website, then Esther Mae’s lovely pillow sitting on my bed and making me feel guilty for not being done yet. Self-motivation has always been my undoing, although as with any character flaw, I’ve been able to improve it with consistent practice.

I had hoped that, after writing The Highway and Me and my Earl Grey Tea, my next book would be a novel. I thought that I would write a non-magical novel about Mennonites because I thought that’s what my audience would want to buy. Something lighthearted and funny, like a 21’st century Anne of Green Gables.

Not last spring but the spring before, I had an idea for a Mennonite novel and I worked diligently on it for an entire year. I re-started it three times, and the third time reached 38,777 words. That was the most I had ever written on a fiction project (including the novella I just finished, which was about 26,000 words). I was convinced I could do this if I tried hard enough. But it became so difficult, and I began to despair.

When writing is going well, you can see it inside your head like a movie. It’s like writing down your own dream. But I always hit a concrete wall, and then it’s like trying to write down someone else’s dream. And other people’s dreams never make much sense.

I had a mid-summer panic. What on earth was my next book going to be about?

***

To me, ideas are as common as sidewalk gum-splotches. It’s no wonder that I got another New Brilliant Idea last spring. For a while I resisted the urge to write it down, convinced I needed to be self-disciplined and finish my Mennonite novel. But then I started allowing myself to work on the New Brilliant Idea as a sort of prize, after I’d done some harder work. And thus, it flourished as a side-project.

The big problem with the New Brilliant Idea is that it’s not super marketable. I soon realized it would be longer than a short story, but not quite a novel. A novella. Novellas are quite unpopular, unless they’re for children, and this was definitely not for children. I could maybe market a Mennonite novella to my audience, but this was not about being Mennonite. Not directly, anyway. There was magic in it. And fairies. And silliness. Three things that Mennonites aren’t too fond of.

I went through a whole crisis, scrapped my Mennonite novel, and started working on a non-fiction book about the lonely, romantic, spiritual, artistic, embarrassing, purpose-searching journey of being a post-college older single. It’s going fairly well, although some of it might be too “real” to actually publish–I’m not sure how brave I am.

But I kept working on the side project for fun. I found it incredibly cathartic. As silly and magical as it is, it’s really a book about loneliness and isolation, and I was able to work through a lot of my pandemic feelings. Without the stress of actually having to publish it one day, I just had fun with it. I named all the characters after people in the books I was currently reading or the movies I was currently watching. I stuck a few real people in as side characters, just for fun. But since it had a real plot, I felt like I was doing something important. Maybe no one would ever read this story, but it would teach me how to write a novel. I would learn how to finish something. I would learn about my process.

And when I did finish it, on Friday November 5, it really did feel like a miracle.

November 6

To be honest, Saturday was not a great day. I joked with Jenny that I had nothing to be grateful for except her. She said, “well what about the baked goods I made?”

“You made those on Friday,” I said.

I decided to be grateful for hot grape juice, my fall drink of choice. I was sad, this year, to be away from the homemade grape juice straight from the vine, but I found that Welch’s heated in the microwave is nice too. Hot apple cider messes with my digestion, but hot grape juice is perfect.

Then I reflected on how I got introduced to this delicious drink. How Mom, every fall, would put piles of grapes into the steamer, and then pinch the clamp on the little rubber hose to send a stream of hot grape juice into a jar, where it would be sealed away to be later consumed on Sunday evenings with a bowl of popcorn.

Once, Steven took a green plastic teacup and filled it with hot grape juice straight from the steamer. “Try it,” he said. “It’s good.”

That’s how I found my favorite fall drink. It was all because of Steven. Also, Saturday was Steven’s birthday. I thought choosing family members as my “thing I’m thankful for” would be too cliché, but I’ll make a birthday exception. I am extremely grateful for Steven. Funny, kind, not afraid to say “I love you,” always down to randomly go see movies with me–I am immensely blessed to have him in my life.

November 7

Sunday was also not the best of days, although it was better than Saturday. As I reflected over my life at the end of the day, I decided that I am grateful for writing. With writing you can take anything terrible that happens to you, whether it’s embarrassment or loneliness or even illness, and you can turn it into something beautiful. A good story. A story that someone else can relate to and feel “seen.” Or even just something for yourself, to process your feelings and turn it into art. That, to me, feels like a miracle.

Thus concluded my first seven days of gratefulness. Come back next week for seven more.

***

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.)

Notes On Free Stuff and Bad Health

Free Stuff

Janessa and I were driving around, looking for camp chairs at thrift stores. I was telling her about my life philosophy, and why I’m always reluctant to purchase things that I want but don’t desperately need. “I just feel like if I wait long enough, things suddenly appear, for free,” I said.

Two seconds later I yelled, “stop! stop!” Because there was a free chair beside the road.

Unfortunately it ripped that weekend on my camping trip, but I think I can fix it? Anyway.

I just love free stuff. There’s something so thrilling about rescuing a discarded item, and something so fun about figuring out how to make it work for you. When I was a child, I’d take a purple paper bag to garage sales and paw through the free boxes, so if you wonder why I’m like this, blame my mother I guess.

Soon after we moved here I joined a Buy Nothing Blacksburg Facebook page. The first thing I acquired was a pair of lampshades that, unfortunately, didn’t fit the shadeless lamps we had.

I balanced it in place, though, and it’s been sort-of working.

I found Jenny a desk chair out by the dumpster, which was probably the best free find of all.

I was mostly looking for a desk, because we brought our sewing supplies but had nothing to put them on. I wanted something small enough to haul in my car, of course. When someone posted a small-looking desk to the buy nothing group, I commented and asked for it, just sort-of assuming it would either fit in my car or I’d figure something else out.

Well, they messaged me saying it was mine. Realizing I wouldn’t be able to haul it around myself, I convinced Jenny to come get it with me. So we hopped in my car and drove over.

The address led me to a second floor apartment. The man who opened the door was confused. “Oh, I guess my wife must have posted it to the group,” he said. So Jenny and I stood around and smiled at his cute child while waiting for him to clear off the desk and wipe it down.

He offered to help us carry it down the stairs, but Jenny and I insisted that we had it. Personally, I was scared it wouldn’t fit in my car, and I didn’t want to deal with solution-finding while this strange man stood around judging us. And sure enough, when we got it out to the parking lot, it didn’t fit.

“How about this,” I said. “I’ll start wheeling it home, and you drive home and get a screwdriver.”

So that’s what we did. We met up in the CVS parking lot, dismantled the desk, and it fit easily into the car. Always bring a screwdriver with you, folks. Although wheeling a desk around town was kind of fun, I have to admit.

Lately I’ve been looking for a portable cassette tape player with a headphone jack. I figured out that I sleep a lot better if I put my phone and computer somewhere not in my bedroom when bedtime rolls around. Staring at a screen is bad for insomnia, and I’m always tempted to go down midnight Wikipedia rabbit holes.

But sometimes I still want to write as I wind down for the night. I have notebooks and my AlphaSmart, so that part is fine, but I didn’t have a good way to listen to music.

Then in the Buy Nothing group one day I saw a cassette player with a headphone jack. It was bigger than I imagined, and when I finally picked it up it was…well, a rather large boom box. But! It also has a CD player and a radio, so lots of musical options. Also, ever since the CD player in my car randomly quit I’ve had no way to play my CDs. So win win, except I had to buy a large quantity of enormous batteries for it.

Also, it faintly smells like the tiny planes we used to fly around in in Canada. I think that smell must be my earliest smell memory. I used to feel sick whenever I smelled it, or whenever I saw the awful shade of green that the pilot’s headphones used to be. I guess as a three-year-old you don’t understand the difference between smell, color, and air sickness, and they all are the same thing in your brain.

Health

In general my mini book tour was amazing. Thanks to Covid this was the first time I was really able to have good chats with people who enjoy reading my work. But unfortunately I way overdid it and had a health crash.

Some of it was beyond my control and some of it was just poor planning. I had two-and-a-half long intense days, one extremely late night and one extremely early morning, and a very sketchy undercooked burger I was too tired to bother sending back to the kitchen. But I crashed so mightily upon returning to Blacksburg that I had to miss my cousin’s wedding that weekend.

Honestly I was surprised that my health was so great for the first two months in Blacksburg, because moving is kind-of hard on my body. But I guess it all caught up with me, because I’ve struggled through these past two weeks. Just really, really tired all the time. I don’t exactly know what’s up but I hate it.

Other Stuff

Everything in life pauses when I’m struggling with bad health, so I don’t have a lot of other interesting stories to share. I’m slowly feeling more connected in general, although again, I’m not exactly socializing a lot these days, just surviving.

I am making good progress on two more books, a fiction I’m writing just for me (probably) and a nonfiction I plan to publish, maybe in a year?

I have a large fun exciting trip planned for later this fall, and am just praying I have the health for it. I think I just need to make sure I eat enough, sleep enough, and get enough alone time.

***

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.)

Giveaway Winner (Turtle Heart)

The Turtle Heart giveaway is now closed, I have picked a random winner, and that winner is…Jo Hendricks! Congrats Jo! I sent you an email. If you can’t find it, check your spam folder.

For everyone else, thank you for participating! Remember, you can always pick up a copy of Turtle Heart on Amazon.

Turtle Heart, by Lucinda J. Kinsinger: Review and Giveaway

Luci Kinsinger just came out with a new book, Turtle Heart. I agreed to read and review a copy because based on her first book, Anything but Simple, I knew she was a good writer. But I was unprepared for just how much I’d love and relate to the stories and ideas inside it.

Turtle Heart is the story of Luci’s deep and life-changing friendship with Charlene, an elderly Ojibwe woman. It’s a heartfelt and wild story from beginning to end, taking twists and turns that I did not expect. 

When I first heard the synopsis, before I read the book, the concept felt familiar. I’ve read several popular books about a kindhearted person befriending a societal “outsider,” believing they can help them and then ultimately being changed because of them. It’s not new.

And yet, this book felt new to me. And I think what was remarkable about it was the way it wasn’t about a “normal person” finding an “outsider,” it was two outsiders finding each other. The book begins with the line, “I heard the F word for the first time when I was twenty-four,” underscoring the way Luci feels like a sheltered outsider from greater US American society. Although she begins her friendship with Charlene having some benevolent ideas of saving her soul and helping a frail old lady, from the beginning we understand that their friendship is something different: two lonely outsider souls who found each other. 

There was much to love in this book. Foremost, of course, was the beautiful friendship at the center of it. Then there’s the story itself which, together with the story of Charlene’s past, is slowly revealed to the reader in surprising ways. 

But what I loved the most was the commentary on outreach. 

Here’s a question for you: What is the best way to reach people in your community for Jesus?

You may be full of ideas, then go out into the real world and discover that your ideas don’t quite “work” the way you expected them to. Thus it is for Luci and Charlene. Luci begins the book trying to teach Charlene the plan of salvation while also trying to win her heart by being a “sweet Mennonite girl,” singing while she weeds the garden and such. 

These tactics never go as planned. It’s not that Charlene doesn’t want Jesus. It’s that Charlene already has a relationship with the Creator. Being much older and full of life experience than Luci, she doesn’t exactly appreciate Luci acting like she has all the answers. 

And the thing is, Luci doesn’t have all the answers. Ultimately, the story becomes something much larger than the story of someone being “led to the Lord.” While Luci answers many of Charlene’s spiritual questions and gets her to start reading the Bible, Charlene gives Luci many insights into the nature of the Creator, helping Luci to realize that He is much greater than she ever realized. 

That was my favorite message from the book. 

I also have to add that Luci has a masterful way of writing about what it feels like to be the odd one out, knowing that how you’re perceived isn’t how you feel inside. For instance, describing attending a funeral with Charlene, Luci writes,

I sit in a corner, just behind Charlene, and watch the family move around the room in short-cut or long-swinging hair, in short black skirts or jeans, in earrings and bracelets and tattoos, and feel conspicuous with my unmarked skin, my long dress, and my little white cap. Like a saint or a nun…and who wants that when you are just turned twenty-five? I want to be young and free-spirited, not righteous. But I’ve grown used to this conspicuousness of dress and wear it like a security blanket. It’s my identity, chosen for me before I was born.

Chills. I relate so much. Thank you, Luci, for writing this. Your work is a gift.

Now, here’s the best news: Luci has agreed to give away a copy of her book! 

To enter, just leave a comment saying you’d like to be entered. Or leave a comment telling me the best book you’ve read recently, or your favorite thing about Fall. In fact, unless your comment specifically says that you DO NOT want to be entered, any comment will count as an entry. 

Unfortunately, this giveaway only applies to US addresses. International shipping costs are brutal, guys! Even Canada. If you live overseas and want to enter, consider asking a friend in the USA if you can get it sent to his or her address for you to pick up on your next trip to the States. 

Also: This is your friendly reminder that I’m doing a mini book tour next week! Wednesday the 29’th I’ll be in Lancaster PA, and Thursday the 30th I’ll be in Harrisonburg VA. For more details, click here. 

***

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.)

Come Meet Me! (Mini Book Tour)

As you may know, even though my book has been out for almost a year, I haven’t really been able to do book signings due to Covid. But next week my mom is flying east for a wedding, and she and I are doing a mini book tour in Lancaster PA and Harrisonburg VA.

Schedule:

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

10 am to noon

Goods Store, 1338 Main St, East Earl, PA

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

3-6 pm

Rotary Pavilion, East Lampeter Township Community Park

2330 Hobson Road, Lancaster, PA

Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021

10 am to noon

Shenandoah Heritage Market

121 Carpenter Lane, Harrisonburg, VA

Feel free to stop by, bring books you already own for me to sign, whatever! The PA events will be outside. If you’d like us to wear a mask for your sake, just ask!

Can’t wait to see you!

Teaching Myself some Cooking Skills

Frankly, I’ve never really enjoyed cooking. I’ve always secretly hoped that I’d marry someone who loved to cook and never have to bother.

Well, we all know how that worked out for me.

Here are some things I’ve noticed about people who love cooking, as well as some theories about why I’ve never taken to it:

People who love cooking often also love eating. I enjoy good food but mostly see eating as kind-of a bother that takes a lot of time and often doesn’t agree with me.People who love cooking often take one recipe and make it multiple times until they can make it just so. I get bored of this and always try to tackle fancy new recipes.People who love cooking understand the craft so well they don’t get lost if the recipe leaves out a step. I always get lost. I also have a hard time holding numbers in my head, so I’m constantly checking and re-checking to see if it’s two or three tsp. Or was it Tbsp? People who love cooking can whip things up, things like stir-fry or pasta sauce, without a recipe. I’m too scared to try. What if everyone hates what I made for them?

So you see, there are plenty of perfectly good reasons why I’m not great at cooking. But cooking is kinda like, I don’t know, driving. An essential skill, which you pretty much have to learn unless you have lots of money or a Very Devoted Spouse.

Neither of which I currently possess.

For a while I’ve been wanting to have a growth mindset about cooking. Even before I left Oregon I was learning how to solicit feedback from my family without feeling insecure, improvise based on what we had on hand, and ask people-who-love-cooking for their advice.

However, moving really provided the ideal scenario for some good old-fashioned cooking practice.

First of all, being alone in the kitchen is everything. Sorry, family whom I dearly love. I enjoy an occasional Sunday morning you-make-the-salad-and-I’ll-make-the-pie situation, but. Trying to get food on the table by 6pm while someone is talking loudly on the phone in the next room, someone else is walking through with their laundry, someone is leaving before supper so they’re just gonna make themselves a quick sandwich sorry if I’m in your way, and someone else wants to ask you about your day while you’re trying to remember if it’s 3 tsp or 4 Tbsp, is nightmarish and I hate it and I’m sorry but that’s the facts.

Besides mostly being alone in the kitchen, I’m also cooking mostly for myself, on mostly limited ingredients. So I’ve very quickly been picking up on the dump-things-into-a-pan-and-call-it-cooking method that’s seemed so magical and elusive when other cooks do it. It’s easier to innovate when you don’t have a lot in the fridge to begin with, and so much less pressure when no one is eating it but you.

I should add, though, that I do cook for Jenny sometimes. Particularly on Monday and Tuesday nights when she works until 9pm and is starvingly hungry by the time she gets home. And I must say that there is great satisfaction in feeding a Very Hungry Person.

Anyway. Since I don’t have much of a social life in Blacksburg yet, I’ve been using my extra time to read books. I live so close to the library I feel like I won the jackpot. So besides silly books and fun books I’m learning all the ins and outs of self-publishing, starting a small business, and now, cooking.

I really just checked out one book on cooking, and you’ve probably already heard of it because it’s rather famous. It’s called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, by Samin Nosrat. I became fascinated by the idea of this book several years ago when I heard Nosrat on NPR talking about how she randomly learned to cook by begging to bus tables at a fancy restaurant and then begging the cooks to teach her, and about how there are all these women around the world who have spent countless hours cooking, becoming these unrecognized experts. She was super interesting.

I don’t have Netflix though, so I haven’t seen her cooking show. And I couldn’t really afford the book. But now here I am, with a library next door, so here I go! I’m gonna learn.

The basic premise of Salt Fat Acid Heat is that, instead of just blindly following recipes, you can teach yourself the basic chemistry of what makes food taste good. So if you have a pork chop, some potatoes, and a few random veggies on hand, you don’t have to try and find a recipe that tells you exactly how to cook them. If you know the correct ways to apply salt, fat, acid, and heat to those types of food, you can come up with several delicious ways to cook them, no recipes needed.

Or if you find a recipe, you can adjust it to fit your exact ingredients, and you can use your own skills and taste buds to ensure it comes out delicious even if it means deviating from the recipe.

I haven’t finished the book yet. I’m still in the “fat” section. But did I use the book to make my own mayo the other day, so that was cool. Much more delicious than store-bought mayo, I would say.

Then on Wednesday I was at the farmer’s market when I saw a strange vegetable that looked like a snozzcumber from The BFG. “What is this?” I asked the lady behind the counter.

“It’s a bitter melon,” she said.

“How do you cook it?” I asked.

So she started explaining the various ways you can cook it, including the Chinese way (she was Chinese), and I whipped out a notebook and started writing down her directions.

I mean, look. The problem with me is that I still get bored with cooking and if someone is selling snozzcumbers and telling me the authentic Chinese way to cook them, you better believe I’m gonna try it.

So today I cooked the bitter melon the Chinese way, and then I realized that I had to taste the food before serving it because Salt Fat Acid Heat told me too. Over and over again.

I took one bite and started laughing. “You’re not gonna like this, Jenny.”

“Really?” said Jenny.

“Yep. It’s bitter.”

Jenny took a bite and made a face. “Yeah, I think I’m just gonna have the pork.”

I’ll confess though, I ate the bitter melon. Because first of all, food is food. And second of all, I get kind-of fascinated sometimes by weird food even if it’s kinda gross. Part of me wonders if I just cooked it wrong, but part of me is like, I mean, it’s literally called “bitter melon.” So, like, no one should be surprised that it’s…bitter.

Now I just need to learn how to make frobscottle I guess.

Anyway, if you enjoy cooking, please tell me your advice. Especially if you’re someone who used to not enjoy it, but learned how.

***

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.)

My Moving Journey: On Abundance and Fitting In

When I got the notice that my library books were due in three days, I started reading them extra-ardently. Then I ran out of books to read. I was going to walk down to the library, but then Jenny’s friend Tatiane came over and we walked to Gucci Kroger instead.

I’ll just go tomorrow, I said to myself. The library is extremely close.

Not quite as close, though, as the church I went to the next day. Jenny went to Sunday School at the little nearby church she’d decided to check out the previous week, and I debated about whether or not I wanted to go to church at all. (Finding a church has been an ongoing struggle for me, which I wrote in detail about over on Patreon.)

But then I decided to just go, whatever. I walked over and everyone was extremely friendly.

One of the weirdest things about Blacksburg is that it feels like the town only exists to be a college town. At least from my vantage point, living so near campus and constantly surrounded by students.

No one seems to realize that I’m 31. Everyone here mistakes me for a student. Sometimes I wish I were a student, just so I could say, “I’m a student,” and not have to explain what I’m doing here.

I slipped in near the back of church and saw Jenny up front with the other college students. Afterwards I joined her and she introduced me to her pals. “So, how are you liking Blacksburg?” one of them asked.

I didn’t know how to answer. “Well…not as much as Jenny is,” I said.

“It grows on you,” she said. “Like a fungus. I hated my first year here but now I love it.”

Everyone gathered outside to eat, and I sat with Jenny at the college student table. I felt a bit out of place as they discussed dorms, teachers, and welcome week, but they were nice. Everyone at that church was friendly, old and young alike, and several expressed interest in my book so I guess I have to go back at least one more time.

Later, at home with the hot afternoon wind filling the apartment with humid air, I put my almost-due books into my backpack and headed for the library.

It looked pretty closed. Were they closed on Sundays? I looked at the times: open 1pm-5pm Sunday. It was 2pm. So what…

“The library is closed on Sunday,” said a man sitting on a bench to my left.

“Really?” I asked. And then I saw it… “closed on Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day.”

I headed to the book drop slot, and as I returned my books I made a little dejected comment about having no more books to read.

The man on the bench, whose name ended up being “Bruce,” told me that I should just borrow some e-books. “I have the Libby app,” he said. “I’m legally blind, so I can’t read normal books anyway. With an e-book I can read it on my phone and make the words bigger.”

That’s how I ended up in a conversation with Bruce. He’d come to Blacksburg two years previously, he said, because the Holy Spirit told him to come here.

“Where do you go to church?” I asked.

He listed several he went to, and when I explained to him that I was still figuring out where I wanted to go, he recommended one to me. But I’m pretty sure he, too, assumed I was a college student, because when I looked it up later I saw that the service he’d recommended was the collegiate service. He also told me I should get involved with Cru.

Anyway. I told him I was jealous that the Holy Spirit told him exactly where to live. And he said, “just pray about it!” which I guess is good advice.

But it does feel, sometimes, like the Holy Spirit doesn’t always give super-specific directions. Or He’ll give super-specific directions in one area, but not others. Like, I’m very confident that I’m supposed to be a writer, and that I’m not supposed to be a traditional missionary like I intended when I first started college. At least, not right now.

But as to where I’m supposed to live? That remains unclear. Obviously I’m living in Blacksburg for at least a year, but I currently don’t feel any sort of perminance or sense of belonging.

I like to think I can fit in anywhere, but this first month in Blacksburg has been a struggle. I’ve never lived in a place where I was so expected to be something I am clearly not. And it’s hard to know, in that context, where I fit in.

I just realized I intended to focus this post on abundance, and instead went off about fitting in. Oops. Let’s get back to abundance.

So, I didn’t have a book to read that night. And not having a book to read is a very weird feeling. At home in Oregon I always have unread books on my bookshelf. If I don’t feel like reading any of them, I mine the bookshelves in the upstairs hallway, or Mom’s bookshelf in the office, or Amy’s bookshelf, or Jenny’s, or the piles of books on the coffee table in the living room.

Having an abundance of books is something I never thought about much until I didn’t have it anymore.

Right now our home is sparsly furnished. In my room I have an armoire that the previous tenants left behind, and a bed. That’s all.

I don’t mind the lack of a desk as much as you’d think. In college my desk was a little rolltop and my open laptop didn’t quite fit inside, so I did almost everything from my bed. A bad habit, probably, that’s supposed to make insomnia even worse, but nevertheless I’ve gone back to it.

But in college I had two tools I don’t have now: a nightstand, and a tray.

Now, every day my bed becomes littered with multiple books, notebooks, pens, my planner, and my laptop. Then I grab some tea and, where am I supposed to set it? If you set a mug on your bed it will tip over. So I put it on a notebook which is still precarious and will potentially leave rings or tip over and ruin it. Or I grab the lid from the big plastic bin where I store my skirts since I don’t have skirt hangers yet. (The bin also doubles as a laundry basket. We are very innovative over here.)

Come bedtime, it’s all just kind-of a mess.

What in the house can I use to solve my problems? I think over the options. We only have one little tray, and it’s mesh, so spilled tea would go straight through. Also we’re using it as a dish drainer.

And we really have nothing that can be used as a nightstand. My plastic tote already serves three functions and needs to be constantly moved around, opened, and closed. We have one metal rack in the kitchen, but if we move it we’ll have nowhere to put the microwave, not to mention the blender, crock pot, and toaster. And if we did have an extra metal rack it would go in the hall closet, which is a mess.

So I’m left with the options of shopping, keeping an eye on the dumpster, or doing without. Which is not what I’m used to. I’m used to abundance. In Oregon, if I needed a nightstand I would have so many options. I could fashion one from a crate I found on the porch, or go out to the playhouse and rescue the little set of shelves that used to hold towels above the toilet. I could dig into Mom’s abundant stash of trays. With enough creativity, I can find everything I need lying around the house somewhere. No need to make purchases.

I find it so interesting how the way one grows up affects how one views “stuff.” Mom and Aunt Margaret grew up in a family that was poor but super creative, and they both learned how to get everything one needed either free or cheap. This trait was also passed along to me. If I find a suit jacket lying in the middle of the street, I will rescue it and make something useful out of it. No shame.

However, they also grew up in a home where their needs were not always met. In consequence, they gather stuff around them, hanging on to things they may need in the future. In this way they have enough to not only meet their own needs, but meet other people’s needs as well.

I, on the other hand, grew up in a home where my needs were always met. Too much stuff stresses me out, so I try to keep as few things around as possible. I like to travel with only a backpack, and move across the country with only my little Toyota, leaving enough space to still see out the back window.

It works for me, because I always assume that the world is full of abundance. Someone will leave what I need in the dumpster, or I’ll find it cheap at a garage sale, and I can survive without a nightstand until I find one for free on the Facebook buy nothing page. But I only think this way because my needs have always been met.

Even moving here, we didn’t have much, and it was Aunt Margaret’s abundance that saved the day.

Spending money has always been a struggle for me, although I have gotten better in this area. I work hard to avoid being stingy if anyone besides myself is affected, but when it’s just me, figuring out how to do without is a fun adventure. But sometimes it leads to slightly ridiculous situations.

For instance: Last September, I was camping with my siblings in southern Oregon, and as I camped I began to wish that I could work in beautiful places like this. But I wasn’t about to drag a heavy fragile laptop up a mountain with me. Besides, my laptop battery only lasts a few hours. And it’s extremely hard to see the screen in bright daylight. You have to turn your brightness up 100% and squint, and that drains your battery even faster.

So I googled for a solution, and that’s how I found out about the AlphaSmart. It was perfect–basically a keyboard with the sort of screen you typically find on calculators. It was lightweight, sturdy, had batteries that lasted for months and maybe years, and you could use it in bright daylight.

I knew that I wanted to buy it. I wrote “buy an AlphaSmart” on my to-do list for October. But it was August before I bought one. Yep–I waited almost a year. I don’t know why. It’s silly. If I feel like I can do without something I have a really hard time actually buying it, even if I want it.

The AlphaSmart showed up just in time, though, because my computer cord finally gave up the ghost. It had been sketchy for a while, but I’d always been able to make it work. But last Thursday I thought, “you know, I really should get a new cord before I end up in a sticky situation.” So I bought one, and then the old cord promptly died for good.

Amazon takes forever to ship to Blacksburg for some reason. (I just think of the poor overworked Amazon drivers pooping in plastic bags and try not to mind the delays.) But in the meantime I’ve been writing on the AlphaSmart. Friday I wrote a Patreon post (the one about church), and then Jenny let me borrow her laptop to transfer and post it. I also at times used the library computers to transfer stuff to my Google Drive.

There’s an area near campus where the street is closed off, and they’ve set up picnic tables and tents. It’s quite nice, kind-of like a town square. I went there to write on Monday, and as I was composing this blog post, pontificating about abundance, a guy stopped and looked at me with delighted recognition.

Do I know him? I thought. Maybe he’s friends with Jenny?

Then he said, “Is that an AlphaSmart?!”

“Yes!” I said.

He’d had an AlphaSmart when he was a kid, he said, and hadn’t thought about it in years. So I told him that they’re becoming popular with writers. He asked what I was writing. I said, a blog post about moving to Blacksburg. “No way!” he said. “I also just moved here!”

I asked his name, and he said something that sounded like “Zhan Flip.” I repeated, questioning, feeling like I’d missed something. “It’s French, I’m from Quebec,” he said.

“Oh cool, I’m also Canadian,” I said. “But I don’t know French.” (As if that wasn’t obvious.)(His name, for the record, was actually Jean-Philippe.)

I asked if he’s a student, and he tried to explain his situation. He’d graduated a while back and now worked remotely. But his brother was going to Virginia Tech. So he thought he might as well come live with his brother in Blacksburg.

I. Kid. You. Not. “No way!” I said. “Me too! My sister’s a student and I work as a writer so I moved here too!”

Of course after that series of remarkable similarities we were instantly friends. He set his laptop down and we just sat there and worked for a while. Like we were co-workers. It was very nice.

I think, after all, that the mushroom girl was right. Blacksburg is growing on me, like a fungus.

***

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.)

Blacksburg Virginia: Settling In

As I recounted last week, Jenny and I arrived in Blacksburg on Saturday, August 7, and our Aunt Margaret was here to help us settle in. We were caught in a flurry of activity–buying furniture, cleaning, putting things in the correct cupboards, and trying to figure out why the hot water wouldn’t work. When Margaret left late Sunday morning, Jenny and I were too worn out to do much of anything, frankly.

Still, the “to do” list was growing. There was a leak under the sink. The check engine light came on in my car. The laundry was piling up. And we were basically out of food, subsisting on pepperoni, Oreos, grapes, and corn.

Because of this I barely had any breakfast Monday morning before heading to Walmart for groceries. And you know how miserable shopping for groceries while hungry is. I found most of the things on the list, but there were a few things, like vinegar, that I couldn’t find anywhere. We wanted vinegar, not just for cooking, but also for pre-soaking laundry. Our couch cushions smelled a little funny, so I planned to soak the covers in vinegar and wash them.

But I couldn’t find vinegar, and I was hungry and grumpy and couldn’t find anyone helpful. So I just said “whatever” and checked out.

I put all the groceries in the trunk, then returned my cart, and then…I was going to get in my car, but where were my keys?

Okay, listen.

I have a long and terrible history of locking my keys in my car. After one particularly unfortunate incident I tried making copies of my keys, but none of them worked. I found my spare key when I got home, and very intentionally brought it along to Virginia, as well as very intentionally making sure I was signed up for roadside assistance.

I also am extremely paranoid now, and triple check my keys before I lock my car.

My trunk, though, is another story. I guess I wasn’t paranoid enough yet. Because after scrutinizing my purse, my cart, and the keyhole on my trunk, I concluded that my keys were locked inside, with the groceries.

I called Jenny. “Um, I am so sorry, but I need you to get my spare key and figure out the bus system.”

Poor Jenny had never ridden the bus before. Also it would be about an hour before she’d get here, because I was actually in the next town over. Meanwhile, I was so hungry it wasn’t funny. I went inside again and bought some obscenely sweet dairy-free cherry turnovers, and scarfed down half of them.

Also bought a book for Jenny. Because I felt bad.

And then after a while I was thirsty, so I went through the line a third time to buy a case of sparkling water. Also a large jug of vinegar, because I finally found it when I was looking for sparkling water.

So my arms were quite full when Jenny showed up. She’d navigated the bus system beautifully, but was quite hungry, and maybe annoyed at me. But I gave her the rest of the cherry turnovers and the book, and she forgave me.

When I got home I wanted nothing more than a nap, but I had a mechanic appointment.

That, not gonna lie, was a bit of a bummer. My car needed a not-cheap repair. I’d had to replace the battery before I left Oregon, and was starting to feel like my car was crumbling beneath me.

That wasn’t going to be done until 5:30 or so, so I had the bright idea to walk to Starbucks while I wanted. Um. Maybe not the brightest idea when you’re in an area of town that has no sidewalks. Oh well. Walked through the yards of a bunch of random business. I hope they don’t mind.

Anyway. When I finally got home it had already been Quite. The. Day. But then I had a brilliant idea. I’d had to tell the mechanics my address, and it was printed on my bill. Could I use that to get a library card?

I walked down to the library, and guess what! It did work!

And not only did I check out a large stack of books, but I also checked out a hotspot. Yes, the Blacksburg library has hotspots that you can borrow for two weeks at a time. Which has proved fantastic, because our WiFi is still not set up.

Over the next few days Jenny and I had a few domestic issues to deal with: The last of the cleaning, the maintenance man showing up to fix the leak under the sink, learning to deal with the fact that it takes FOREVER for the hot water to show up and we might as well just wash our dishes with cold, and finally, dealing with the laundry. And our couch.

There are some coin-operated washers and dryers in the basement of the next building, as well as a clothesline out back. Of course I wanted to make use of the clothesline and save money, but that was a bit tricky, as there have been random rain showers nearly every day.

The summer rain has been kinda hard to get used to, actually, but it keeps things green in August, as well as decreasing fire danger and keeping the air smoke-free.

Wouldn’t want to get married here, though.

Anyway. Everything went well with the laundry until it came time to wash the couch cushion covers.

I may have said this before but I’ll say it again–the covers were a bit pilly, and the whole thing smelled faintly, but I thought we could just run it through the wash, maybe give the pilly parts a shave, and we’d be good to go. And we always had the option of re-covering the whole thing in the future.

To get rid of the smell, I soaked the covers in vinegar water overnight, along with the smelly rags from our apartment cleaning venture.

Now, as soon as I took the covers off the cushions, I knew where the smell had come from. The previous owners had a dog. A dog with an abundance of thick black hairs. A dog who had apparently loved this couch.

The foam beneath the covers was coated with this hair.

At first I didn’t think it was a big deal. We’d just buy some lint rollers. Maybe run the vacuum cleaner over it. It would be fine.

So I washed the covers, and it made a terrible mess. Dog hair coated the washer. Dog hair coated the rags I’d washed with the covers. Lint from the rags, meanwhile, now coated the emerald green couch cushion covers. And the pilling was twice as bad as before.

I dealt with this issue the best I could, wiping out the washer with a paper towel and giving everything a good shake before and after I hung it on the line. Then I went upstairs and tried to tackle the cushions themselves. But when I ran the vacuum cleaner over them, it barely made a dent.

We went to dollar tree that evening to buy lint rollers, but they were all sold out. The whole town is alive with College Students Moving In right now, and sometimes it’s hard to get what you need. So we went home and used masking tape and one lint roller that Jenny happened to have.

But honestly, it didn’t help much. Because the hairs weren’t on the foam, they were in the foam. Sprouting out like it was skin. So we grabbed our tweezers, and we plucked.

I mean, it was a process: Pick a section of cushion to work on. Stick masking tape on it to get the loosest hairs. Wrap some tape around your finger and pick out the more firmly-lodged hairs. Then grab your tweezers for the most egregiously embedded.

Our lives were rather lonely that first week, but Sunday we were going to see actual people. First we were off to church where we met some of our cousin Keith’s friends, from when he used to live in Blacksburg. In the late afternoon I was going to go meet a friend in Roanoke, and then some of Mom’s friends texted us, wanting to swing by early Sunday evening. Well, I wasn’t going to be here, at least for a bit. But Jenny thought she was up for some hosting.

Hosting, however, meant that we need a usable couch.

So as soon as we got home from church we went into overdrive. Pick the hairs. Shave the pills off the cushion covers. Pick more hairs. Shave more cushion covers. Shove the cushions back into the covers. Sniff them.

Well, the dog smell disappeared at least, though we both knew good and well there were more hairs lurking deep within. It felt impossible to get everything. We’d settled for a decent 80%.

This week felt a bit like settling into a new normal. With most of the disasters taken care of, I’ve been able to focus more on my writing. For a while I just went to Starbucks as usual, because hello free refills. Also the familiarity of the space is comforting to me. But on Monday I discovered a random coffee shop with truly excellent and remarkably inexpensive tea. Today I discovered that they also give a free refill if you order your tea in a house mug. So win-win-win.

I mean, it does have its quirks. Today I sat down at a table, and there was a bit of water on it but oh well, I just grabbed a napkin and wiped it up.

Then, “plop!” a large raindrop plunked down in front of me, splattering across the table. Only I was indoors. Huh?

I looked up, squinting at the pipes in the exposed ceiling above me. “Is the pipe leaking again?” asked the tired-sounding barista.

That seemed the only explanation, so I moved to a different table.

It’s an odd place, but full of interesting people. The first day I came to this coffee shop a man walked up and gave the barista a plant. Not flowers, a whole plant. Which I know sounds like a flirtatious gesture, and perhaps he intended it to be, but his voice was so matter-of-fact you’d have thought he was passing on an informational brochure.

It’s also near campus, so one day I decided to go to the campus bookstore and shop for notebooks. The Oregon State University bookstore seriously has the best notebook selection I’ve ever found, so I figured the Virginia Tech bookstore would be the same way.

As I was crossing a parking lot I thought, “wait, is that a camel-colored skirt I see?” I came closer. There was Jenny, wearing the skirt she made out of Austin’s pants, walking toward me with a friend.

“Oh, hey!” “Wow!” “Didn’t expect to see you here!” “Where are you headed?” “The bookstore.” “Oh, you don’t want to go there. We just came from there. It’s a madhouse.”

The friend was Tatiane who I’d heard about, as she’s another first-year math grad student who lives near us. Jenny and Tatiane have been doing orientation meetings all this week and often walk to campus together.

So we all headed home together. On main street, as we waited for the red hand to turn into a white little man, a blonde woman behind me said “excuse me, have we met?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, because I feel like I haven’t met anyone. Then I remembered her. “Oh, yes! I showed you where the laundry room was!”

It was Mave. She lives below us. And she’s apparently a first-year grad student too, studying philosophy.

So we all walked home together, chattering about our lives and where we were from. It was nice. Probably the first time I felt like I sort-of fit in here. It’s really weird, though, being in the midst of this back-to-university flurry but not going back to university.

In other news, we found the farmer’s market and Aldi, so we probably won’t be going back to Walmart for groceries. Also, there’s a Kroger just down the street. “This one is called the Gucci Kroger, and there’s another Kroger in town called the Ghetto Kroger,” Jenny informed me.

Jenny has a math cohort that tells her how things are in Blacksburg.

Anyway, that’s our settling-in life so far.

And after the ordeal we just went through, I don’t think we’ll be getting a dog any time soon, maybe ever.

***

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.)

The Journey to Virginia, Part 3: Arrival

Yesterday I wrote part 2 of our trip, ending with the Bed and Breakfast in Huntington, West Virginia, on Friday night. We woke up early Saturday morning and left before our hosts even got up. Turns out, 6 AM in West Virginia is darker than 6 AM in Oregon and Colorado. We’d had many early starts, but this was the first time it was truly still night.

But we had a four hour drive ahead of us, and we were anxious to get there while it still felt like morning.

We’d set our Google Maps route to “avoid tolls,” which probably also contributed to our whole journey being extra-long. I’m very much a toll avoider, partly because I don’t like spending money, and partly because I’m just not used to them. Oregon doesn’t have toll roads. Or if it does, they’re not anywhere I’ve driven.

Although to be honest, I5 is getting so overcrowded these days I can kind-of see why toll roads are a thing.

The point is, we drove some random roads through West Virginia.

I never knew much about West Virginia until I lived in Virginia briefly ten or so years ago, and everyone told West Virginia jokes. “Isn’t West Virginia basically like Virginia?” I asked. I’d always thought of them as like, you know, North Dakota and South Dakota. Basically the same place.

“Oh no,” I was informed by the shocked youth group. Apparently there was a whole history here. Different sides of the Civil War and everything.

Based on what they told me and various things I’ve read since, I’ve learned that West Virginia is known as a strange place. But I’ve never really seen that strangeness. I’ve driven through corners of it, but never through the heart of it.

Never, that is, until this trip.

Jenny was driving and I was navigating. We were on US-60, but then had to cross a bridge and get on WV-61. That, I would say, is when the bulk of the weird started.

To begin with, there was that bridge.

As we approached it we saw road construction signs, orange cones, and a “one lane bridge ahead” sign. We turned right onto the bridge, and it was indeed one lane. The other lane was blocked off with orange cones and held random bridge-repairing equipment.

But there was no flagger of any kind.

That was weird, I thought. Did we approach the bridge from a weird angle? Well, surely the flagger at the other end will see us?

And then suddenly there was a line of cars coming right at us.

It was like a bad, bizarre dream.

But what can you do? Jenny just pulled onto the other side of the bridge. The blocked-off side. There was just enough room to slip between the cones, and thankfully there was no equipment right there. The line of cars passed us, and we continued on.

There was no flagger at the other end of the bridge either.

It was so bizarre. I have never ever in my life seen anything like it. Why would you have a one-lane bridge with no flagger?

I mean, with some bridges it wouldn’t be a big deal, because you could look across first and see if anyone was coming. But this bridge was not that way. Both 60 and 61 ran parallel to the river, and there were so many hills and weird corners there was no way to see if anyone was coming before you started across it.

I guess the road construction guys were just like, “oh well, we’ll just leave some space between the cones so that someone can pull over if they need to?”

Maybe that’s how they do it in West Virginia?

After all, once when the road got bad there was a yellow “rough road” sign with a suggested speed of 35 mph. So maybe the type of place that would put up a sign instead of fixing the road would also make a one-lane bridge without a flagger and expect folks to just figure it out?

Anyway. To be honest, WV-61 was probably the weirdest thing we saw on our whole trip. It wound up and down and back and forth through thick forest.

“You know, it’s actually quite pretty here,” I said.

“Yeah, pretty…sketchy,” said Jenny.

There was a double-wide trailer house with several feet of space between the two halves. Random structures made of pallets. Abandoned gas station pavilions, just there, like an umbrella for nothing. Sometimes covered in kudzu. Lots of old RVs. The sketchiest houses I’d ever seen. A sign commemorating someone who’d apparently founded grandparent’s day. I only saw one person–a man who stepped briefly onto his porch when we passed by. So often I didn’t know if the area was abandoned, or if people actually lived in these half-condemned houses.

Also. I didn’t see any Trump signs.

That seemed really weird to me, honestly. Even nine months after the election, Trump signs littered the Midwest as we drove through. But we got to West Virginia, and we didn’t see a single Trump sign in the whole state. Was it a random fluke? Or are West Virginians just not as into Trump as mid-westerners are? No clue.

Eventually we got back on a main highway again, and crossing the state line into Virginia. And then around 10 am we pulled into Blacksburg, and into the parking lot of our new home!

Now I must admit that when I stepped into the apartment I was a bit disappointed. The place, first of all, was dingier than I expected. For some reason I’d thought the floors were real hardwood, but they were the fake kind you get at Home Depot and click together. Everything looked like it had been painted over too many times.

However, the main thing that crushed my soul in those first few moments was the musty, moldy smell.

Now, Jenny barely noticed a smell and it didn’t bother her. So maybe it wasn’t a big deal, but I’ll admit that I’m a bit sensitive about smells. They don’t give me headaches or anything, but I can hardly stand to be in a room with a bad smell. The idea of living in a bad-smelling apartment for a year suddenly seemed overwhelming. And I have a secret fear of living someplace that makes me sick. (I have no evidence that mold makes me sick, just fear, LOL.)

We hauled all our stuff in and made piles in the middle of our respective bedrooms. Then I drove to Walmart for cleaning supplies, and Jenny started sorting through her stuff. The previous tenant had left us an armoire, a dresser, a tall lamp, and a small metal rack, but beyond that the house was unfurnished.

But then, just as we’d started cleaning with our new set of supplies, Aunt Margaret arrived to save the day.

My Aunt Margaret lives several hours south of Blacksburg, and she’d offered to help us move in. She is also, in true Yoder fashion, a Rescuer of Abandoned Things, and she somehow owns extras of just about anything you could ever possibly need. She showed up with a mattress and box spring, bedding, towels, washcloths, rags, kitchenware of all sorts and descriptions, blender, toaster, crock pot, curtains, décor, canned food, frozen food, tubs of butter because butter was on sale, shower curtains, shower mats, etc.

Also, a pot of chili, which was fantastic. We were so hungry. We sat on the floor and ate off an overturned box.

“You know, we’d better get going if we want to hit up some garage sales,” said Aunt Margaret.

So we hauled everything in from her minivan, which was probably at least three times the amount of stuff we’d brought ourselves. (I was especially grateful for the mattress…I could live without lots of things but had no desire to sleep on the hard floor if I could help it.) And then we went garage sailing.

We found a few things we needed, like a coffee maker for Jenny, some baskets, some hangers, a toothbrush holder, and a soap dish. But we were really angling for some furniture. We reasoned that today was our best chance to buy it, because we had a van to haul it in. But all the garage sale furniture had already been snatched up, in seemed.

So we went to Habitat for Humanity, and I have never in my life bought so many things at once. We purchased:

A small dining room tableThree chairsA microwaveA desk for Jenny’s roomA bedframe for my bedA twin mattress for JennyA bedframe for Jenny’s bedAn area rugA small couch

It was our lucky day, because everything except the rug was 20% off. All together the whole load cost us less than $400.

Then came the exciting task of getting everything into the minivan. There was a whole crew of employees trying to accomplish this feat.

And in the end they accomplished the deed! Just barely, but it all fit in.

We went back to our new home, and now we had another giant load of stuff to haul upstairs. This was tricky, as the stairs are narrow and cramped. We didn’t think we could possibly fit, say, a full-sized couch up them. But we managed with the smaller furniture we’d chosen.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning. First we scrubbed our bedrooms from top to bottom and set up the beds. Then we took a break, heading to Wendy’s for supper, before coming home and scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen.

That was enough for one day. Aunt Margaret rolled out an air mattress she’d brought, and we all went to bed.

The next morning we mostly just went through everything she’d brought, deciding what we needed and what we didn’t need. I cleaned out the hall closet so I could store the extra bedding, toolbox, and ironing board in there. Aunt Margaret also went around putting pretty little homey touches here and there. She bought a quilted tablecloth at a garage sale, and she put it on the table with fresh flowers in a blue canning jar she’d saved from Grandma’s house.

That’s when it started to look like an actual home.

Best of all, the smell was slowly dissipating. Opening the windows, keeping the air flowing, and giving everything a good scrub seemed to have mostly fixed the issue.

Then it was time for Aunt Margaret to go. We thanked her and hugged her and out the door she went, taking her furniture-hauling minivan with her.

And here we were, in our new home.

In the end, we saw 6 dead deer, so Jenny’s guess of 7 was closer than my guess of 3. We also saw 2 dead watermelons and 3 dead raccoons. We found most of the states too–all but six: Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, North Dakota, and Massachusetts all eluded us.

Our list of weird things was long, but we still rank the poop-pumping Starbucks in the grocery store where everyone knew each other as the weirdest. Although if the whole state of West Virginia counts as a singular weird thing it was by far the weirdest.

That is the end of our story of moving from Oregon to Virginia. Next week I’ll plan to write a follow-up post, all about settling in to a new place.

Until then, take care!

***

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.)