Wow, I can't believe it's been more than 3 months since I started this journey. SO MUCH has happened since then so I need to catch everyone up on my progress and what's been going on.
First of all, I need to say I'm not where I want to be at this point in my journey. I'm not sure how to feel about that to be honest. Could I do more? Yeah, possibly. Have I overcome a lot? Absolutely! So one thing I love about writing a blog is that it helps me to sort things out, to compartmentalize things in such a way that it brings a little bit of clarity on how much (if any) progress I've made, or even if I've gone backwards in some ways.
Thankfully I can say with confidence that I have definitely made progress! Here are the areas that I am working on:
1. Diet/Health
2. Healing from the intensity of working two jobs over the past 3+ years, all while being sick with Long Covid, and being in my 50's.
3. Moving
4. Finding a new job/career path
5. Miscellaneous / Minimalizing the stuff that I own
Wow, writing out all of those goals is kind of intense.... Changing five areas of my life is kind of a lot!
1. HEALTH
So pretty quickly after I quit on June 2nd of this year, I started on my diet. As I have done in the past, I decided to do keto. My body reacts well to it and I can usually lose weight quickly while giving my body nutrient-dense foods. As long as I can get past the sugar cravings. The keto diet, for those who are not familiar, is a low carb diet, which includes lots of meats, vegetables, cheese, and such foods. No breads, pastas, or traditional sugars (even most fruits and some vegetables are off limits, or I may have them in small quantities.)
But due to my trip and my move (more on those later), it's been very difficult to maintain because you have to do a lot of cooking and/or food prep. That being said, since June 2, I have been able to lose about 20 pounds! I also have an amazing brother in the church that has set up a person once a week to come in and help me meal prep so that I have food on hand so I don't have to cook every day. That has been a godsend. It's hard to ask for help, but even though I'm not working at my old job, I'm still working full time with Door Dash.
By the way, I think I'll address my current job situation under my health goals. It's funny, I've run into two people that I worked with at the credit union during my Door Dash (DD) shifts. Honestly, I was tempted to be insecure about it, but then I remembered I enjoy doing DD WAY more than my previous job! So then I didn't feel insecure at all! And whether they understand that or not, I'm just not going to worry about that. I really do enjoy doing this in the interim until I find a new job. I love to drive, and the job is pretty easy, so it really is a net positive to my health.
2. HEALING
So I mentioned in my last entry that I was going to try to take a short vacation once things had wrapped up from the job. I know this is controversial, but I cashed out my 401k to be able to live on until I found a new job. It wasn't a huge amount, but it allowed me to make my special missions contribution, and pay for expenses while I took some time away, moved and looked for work. I got lots of advice from mature brothers in the church and set myself a daily schedule, a modified budget, etc. Not that this time has been easy, but I felt very confident in my decision. Still do.
So once I got the money in the bank (AND the check cleared. Remember I used to work in banking so I wasn't about to start my vacation without making sure the funds had actually cleared!) So when that all was done, I had everything already planned. I decided to do a road trip! A really long one too! But I was soooo excited because it gave me the opportunity to see several states I had never been to before, AND, even more importantly to be able to visit friends and some of our smaller churches that I don't think get too many visitors. I'll save the details for another blog post, but I'll hit some of the highlights here.
So I left on a Tuesday evening, due to a significant delay that was out of my control (more on that later). My first stop was supposed to be Boise for two nights, but could only make Kennewick due to the late departure for the first night. I stayed at a really nice Air B&B there and headed off to Boise the next day. It's a bout 4-5 hours for both of those trips.
When I got to Boise, I was able to attend their midweek service and meet the church. Got to see some old friends too and we had a great time. Unfortunately, my schedule was pretty short because I needed to meet up with Joe and his wife after midweek so I could get some time with them. I've known Joe for many years, and we had a great, albeit short, chat altogether before they had to turn in for the night.
Then I traveled on to Salt Lake City for a night, then on to Grand Junction, CO the following day. En route to GJ, I wanted to visit Arches national park which was only about 30 miles off the route I was taking. SUUUUPER glad I took that detour. I'll cover that more in my vacation post. But it would suffice to say that it was I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E!! Stunningly beautiful!
After my overnight in Grand Junction, it was off to Denver! I had always wanted to visit Denver, but it's a very long way from Seattle and I finally had the time to check it out. I'm also considering starting a business and I've been following a digital creator online that has a really cool business very similar to the one I want to start just outside Denver. I wanted to check it out in person and meet the owner. He was even kind enough to let me do a short interview with him about some of his ideas that he has implemented in his shop. Very cool guy. More on that in my vacation post.
But one of the main hopes was to visit our church in Denver. It has been through some pretty major challenges in the last few years and I heard they could use some encouragement. But to be honest, I was the one who was encouraged. I think we all were, I hope. What a great group of people! I was really honored to spend time with them. I even got time with their evangelist and his wife on Father's Day of all days. It was a super encouraging time. I'm so glad I went there.
After that, I had a couple of days before I would see another one of our churches, but I was able to enjoy the Red Rocks Amphitheater, Boulder, and then stayed the night in Fort Collins that night. So I had accidentally not booked an Air B&B for that Monday night, so the stay in Ft. Collins was a bit of a last minute thing, but I'm so glad I stayed there. The city is only a short distance from Wyoming, and I also realized that Nebraska was only about 40 miles east of Interstate 25. And I had all day to get from Ft. Collins to my next stop, Cheyenne WY.
So I took my detour to Nebraska and realized that there was actually something nearby I wanted to see: Carhenge! Look it up, it's pretty cool for a gearhead like myself. Then I thought, you know, Mount Rushmore is only about 2.5 hours away from Carhenge. This would make about 10 hours of driving that day. I decided to go for it because you never know when I'll be back to see it. So I went to Mount Rushmore too that day. Very beautiful area, the Black Hills. Wow, another stunning place.
My only regret on that day was that I also drove within 30 miles of Devils Tower, WY. And it was already getting dark and I just couldn't do another hour's worth of driving. Oh well, maybe another time. As a kid watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, had I known it was there, I definitely would have made a way to see it. Oh well....
On the way back, I stopped in Sheridan WY, Bozman MT (to see the church there as they were selling fireworks for special missions contribution), got to see a dear friend of mine in Missoula, MT and then stopped for two nights in Spokane WA, my old hometown, and stayed with dear friends there and got to worship with them on Sunday before I headed home.
12 days, 3,609 miles, 96 gallons of gas, 9 states (5 of which I had never been to before: UT, CO, WY, NE, SD) and got to worship with 3 of our churches, and visited a 4th). It was such a great time. I love to drive and see new things. I stopped in probably a dozen other towns to look around, get coffee, or visit some local antique stores or grab a bite to eat. It was by far the longest road trip I've ever taken, and it will be very hard to top it. It was incredible. And to be totally honest, it was a bit too much driving. I never thought I'd say that, but so much windshield time. Lots of time thinking, praying and jamming out to music. Good for the mind and soul!
3. MOVING
In May, a new property management company took over the building where I was living. I was not exactly thrilled with the previous management company but the new company was extra bonkers. I won't get into details here, but I had to threaten reporting them before they finally backed off. And this was on top of a VERY stressful roommate situation and burnout at work in the months leading up to my move at the end of July. It was all I could do to just make it to moving day. Seriously, it was so bad. But I survived!! Thank you God!
Just over a week before my move, I got very, very sick. I slept for two days and missed our church's 10 year anniversary weekend. I made it to Sunday service but missed everything else. Thankfully I was fully healthy again by moving day!
I moved from a 750 square foot apartment to a 201 sf studio. And I love it so much! Got rid of a bunch of stuff and still have some boxes with nowhere to put them, but it feels like home and it's quiet and I don't have to walk up and down 3 flights of stairs! Hallelujah! (lol)
4. NEW JOB/CAREER PATH
After my old job where I was in a call center for 3+ years, it became very clear to me that (if at all possible) I didn't want to do direct customer service any longer and I really didn't want to work in another call center. I'm really wanting to do something more intellectual. Maybe fraud prevention or analyzing data or something where I can use my mind. I'm very open to working with internal and external customers, but I want that to only be a part of my job, whatever it might be. If anyone has any suggestions, please write me! I don't know what all is out there, so I don't know where to look for all the possibilities. Please pray for me to find something that fits these areas! Thanks!
5. MINIMALIZING MY LIFE/MISCELLANEOUS
Living in a 750 SF apartment, it's easy to accumulate stuff because you have room to store things. Moving into 201 SF, you have to get very creative on how to make everything you need fit into that space. I have given lots of stuff away and sold a few items as well, but still a long way to go to get everything unpacked. But the apartment is very livable and workable now, so I'm enjoying it immensely.
Now to the real thorn in my side. My cars... yes cars, plural. So to save money, I decided I wanted to sell my 2008 Volvo S40. Great little car, got it for a song back in 2023 and it's been pretty reliable. I took it on my road trip back in June. But I've had to put a lot of money into it, and with insurance prices and such, I was hoping to get back into a Honda which costs much less to insure and maintain. So I found a good deal on an Accord, which needed a few things. Actually it ended up need a LOT of things. I did most of the work myself, but some things just needed to be done at a shop: tires, timing belt, etc. So the cost of that car kind of went out of control. On top of the Volvo repair costs, we were starting to get into big numbers. And unfortunately, most of it was on credit cards.
To add to the chaos, I also foolishly decided to buy an older, some might call a "classic" car (most probably wouldn't call it that though, lol) A 1983 Honda Civic. Once again, I thought most of the stuff was pretty straightforward, but no. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail here, but I was almost done with getting it running again (had unexpected fuel issues) before someone got into the car and broke my ignition. Finding a replacement ignition for a 43 year old car is not easy. I finally got one and I hope to install it this week. Please pray for it to actually work! I need to have this thing running because I am seriously considering selling it too.
And I promised I would mention the reason for my late departure for my vacation. I had put my Accord in the shop on that Monday morning and was told it would be done that day or Tuesday morning. Then they pushed it to 11 a.m. Tuesday, then to 2-3pm, and I finally picked it up at 6pm. They weren't forthcoming on the price and the delays were only causing me additional stress. They ended up lyting to me about an issue with the car that honestly didn't make any sense to me. But I was able to drive the car home and leave on my vacation. Never go to that national shop that rhymes with Tire Bone. Another shop told me what was actually wrong with the car and were able to fix it. For $2000. Ugh. Oh well, it's only money, right? lol
FINAL THOUGHTS:
So that all is a lot, but it's also not nearly everything, not by a long shot. And that's okay. Ultimately God is in control and I'm undergoing a significant time of testing. Most days I feel like I'm not living up to my potential, but I'm also trying to give myself some grace, not many people would decide to quit their job, change almost everything in their life and trust God through it all. But oddly I'm content. I'm struggling in some ways, but I have lots of confidants who I can share my struggles with, friends, and mentors. But most of all I have God... If you see anything good in my life or my example, God has caused it to be there, not me. I'm so grateful for him.
This has not been an easy time, but I am actually really loving life right now as I navigate significant challenges. It will all be okay, even though the devil doesn't like it when we are making progress in life, he will throw lots of obstacles in out path to derail us from our true purpose in life. Please pray for me to navigate successfully and peacefully.
And thank you, God, for allowing me to have this time of rebuilding my life and heart and to heal from a very challenging time. I'm so grateful for this time. I can't imagine having done all these things while still working full time at the credit union!
If you made it this far, thank you so much for taking the time to see what's going on in my life and in my mind. Love you all, hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day weekend.
