This morning when I opened up the pickle jar where my sugar lives I was greeted with a bunch of little tiny ants (or possibly spiders). I have already sold my airtight jars, which is why sugar is living in a pickle jar and apparently pickle jars are not airtight. I did not panic. I … Continue reading The Pickle Jar Where My Sugar Lives
Category: International living
I’ve always wanted to work in a camp
Life is like a spider web. We start in the middle when we are born to a set of circumstances, within a family within a culture within a country. We are born on this point of time on the spider web who we are with all of the privilege and adveristy that come with being … Continue reading I’ve always wanted to work in a camp
2020’s First Resolution
The morning before I started my journey toward Michigan for Christmastime I kept crying. I was sad to leave my dogs and in that moment I didn’t want to. But I was going to, and I don't like doing things sad, so I told myself, “Don’t think. Just do.” So I got on a motorcycle … Continue reading 2020’s First Resolution
Memory, Work, Change, Peace
I'm doing a Gratitude Writing Challenge in lieu of NaNoWriMo this year. What a fitting four categories to be grateful for all at once: memory, work, change, peace. Memory // Work I remember when the life I have now was a life I dreamed about. I remember dreaming not so loudly about being an administrator. … Continue reading Memory, Work, Change, Peace
Nature
This month I'm participating in a Gratitude Challenge. Just being in nature and looking at nature - living things that are green and orange and yellow and pink and swaying in the breeze - fills me up with a sort of power. The past couple of years I have been more aware than ever of … Continue reading Nature
From the Ground Up
One of the reasons I moved to Jarabacoa from San Pedro de Macoris three years ago was to "build my life from the ground up." When I moved to San Pedro (three months after graduating from college), I felt very much like I was plopped down into a life. People I had never met before … Continue reading From the Ground Up
Being fat, Fab 5, and living in tension
I have always had what I call a healthy self esteem. Despite being overweight since puberty (but was I though? like, my memory tells me I was chunky in high school but when I look back at pictures I don't see it), I've never felt, or at least never felt that I felt, less than … Continue reading Being fat, Fab 5, and living in tension
Now’s the time
In the summer of 2001 I went on my first domestic mission trip with my youth group church, Trinity Presbyterian. We went to Chattanooga, Tennessee with an organization called YouthWorks. Many things stand out to me from that weeklong trip, nearly 18 years later. I remember the hum of the projector (the old fashioned one … Continue reading Now’s the time
Here’s the thing about being cat called
When I first moved to the Dominican Republic as a blonde haired, blue eyed foreigner, I am a little bummed to admit that I was flattered by the cat calls. I remember thinking to myself, Guys who look like THAT would never pay any attention to girls who look like ME in the United States. … Continue reading Here’s the thing about being cat called
Not Sad, but Perhaps Overwhelmed
This past weekend I went on a Young Life Training Retreat. Nearly 20 of us Young Life staff and volunteers traveled the windy road between Jarabacoa and Constanza until we reached this big ol' cabin in the woods where there was no WiFi and hardly any running water. There was, however, a giant table big … Continue reading Not Sad, but Perhaps Overwhelmed
