Day 3173 – What To Do About Something You Hate – or – Jennilyn On A Soapbox – repost

Posted on March 19, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

One of the great things coming out of my epic digging through old posts and making them ready for other things is that I find some gems like the post below. This is something I have been passionate about for a very long time (well before I wrote this post). I’m not saying it’s easy (it’s far from easy), but I can promise you your life will be amazing after you go through the fire.

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originally posted 12/11/15
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Today, I stumbled across something on Facebook.

“Don’t work 8 hours for a company then go home and not work on your own goals. You’re not tired, you’re uninspired.”

This quote speaks my language. And a language I’m very passionate about.

See, I hate complainers…myself being one of them. I really do try to not complain. If I do complain, I try to at least play the “well if nothing else” game.

Sidenote: This game is essentially about finding the good in whatever situation you find yourself in. Late for work? It would go something like this…well, if nothing else, I have a job to go to. Well, if nothing else, I have a mode of transportation to get to my job. Well, if nothing else, it gives me a chance to change. Try this game, it really does help.

Anyways. If you tell me – “I hate my job” I’m going to tell you to either quit and do something else or stop complaining and see the good in it.

Living the life you want is all about choices.

We wanted to be debt free. I entered our marriage with $30,000 worth of debt. For so many reasons that are SO stupid. Oy. We worked our butts off to pay it off. We didn’t go out to eat. We didn’t travel. And guess what, we’re out of debt now. We sacrificed a LOT in the first 3 and a half years of our marriage. But guess what – now we continue to stay out of debt. We travel. We skydive. We splurge on our friends. We splurge on stupid stuff. That was all a choice.

I wanted to be my own boss. I quit my job. I worked my butt off for years. My photography business wasn’t working like it needed to, our lifestyle was changing and Bret’s work situation changed. Oh, and God said it was time to move on. So even though I invested 10+ years of my life in my photography business, I chose to stop. I made a choice to create a new job for myself and I am over the moon happy.

You might come back and say, well, it’s going to mean I have to….move back in with my parents….get an apartment and sell my house….move to be closer to a lower paying job….

Well, you tell me, are those sacrifices worth doing something you love? Or at least something that isn’t as bad as the thing you hate now?

If you’re not willing to make the sacrifices to fix the thing you hate, then don’t complain about them.

::steps off soapbox::

DCIM100GOPRO

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Day 3171 – What Would You Grab If You Had To Leave In Minutes Because Of Fire – or – Yesterday Did Not Go As Planned

Posted on March 17, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

Yesterday progressed like most days around here. Bret worked at school. I worked here. I had pretty much finished up my work list, prepared my weekend and Monday to do lists. Bret arrived home and we chatted about our days. It was a little windy, but it’s been windy the past week or so. Then the lights started to flicker. At first we thought the power was going out, so we turned off a few lights, and checked the breaker box. We were able to switch the popped breakers back when our landlord said to hit the main breaker. A minute later he was at the door to say there was a fire and we had to get out. In a few minutes, we grabbed things that were close (computers, contracts, work folders, wallets, keys, phones, my current book manuscript). There wasn’t a raging fire or any smoke, this wasn’t a “get out now” situation, so we had a few minutes to look around and ask – is there anything we have to have? Anything we wouldn’t want to lose? Because we have minimal stuff and work out of our backpacks pretty regularly, most of what we needed was ready to go. But it as a little surreal to walk around the apartment and not find much we HAD to have. In a last minute remembrance, there was a sweatshirt I had been gifted recently that I did not want to lose, so I tossed that on top.

We made our way to the sidewalk where we found out there were several houses affected. Each owner described the same experience – flickering electronics and the smell of burning. The fire departments were here really fast. Several stations showed up too.

Standing on the street, I almost started to cry. I think it was the weight of what could have been, the potential seriousness of what happened, and that sense of community when something happens. Ha ha, we were formally introduced to one of the neighbors, even though we’ve been here almost a year.

After checking all the houses, the fire department counted them as safe. They had called BGE to look at what had happened. At this point, we decided to take off. Either to get a hotel or just kill some time while things were being looked at and fixed. Turns out there was a surge and the transformer for roughly 10 houses had to be replaced.

We ended up celebrating a recent signed contract for another house with dinner and coffee. We try to celebrate in small ways for a signed contract and then big ways for a closing. Ha ha, so much can happen to extend a closing or not work out all together. So we don’t count that money until the check is in hand.

We grabbed dinner at Taco Bell (which is a big real estate investing celebration spot for us, apparently!) We had talked about going to see Black Panther, but we haven’t seen a few of the Marvel movies before that (Thor and Spiderman) so we decided to just grab coffee and then head back. We chatted for about an hour or so at Starbucks.

When we arrived home, we set up candles and read by their light for a little while, then bundled up for the night without power.

Thankfully, the power is back on and very few things were damaged by the surge (just microwaves, I think). The lesson learned is to turn off EVERYTHING if you think there’s a surge. Also, have a housewide surge protector (I didn’t know this was a thing!)

It was also a great reminder to actually have a “bug out bag” ready to go. While we got everything that we needed, we were very haphazard about it. So we plan on thinking through the things we’d HAVE to grab and have a clothes/toiletries bag all ready to go.

Here’s hoping today is a little more chill.

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Day 3168 – Sometimes It’s Hard To Say Goodbye….To A Plant

Posted on March 14, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

As long as I can remember there have been a few things that are true of me and flowers/living plants:
– I am allergic to pretty much all flowers
– I can’t keep a plant alive
– I once killed a cactus

About a month ago, on a lark, I picked up a hyacinth from Aldi. It was in this glass where you could see the roots. I saw this little guy for only $4 and had to get it. Look how cute he was (I guess it’s a he to me!) as a little baby!

I thought, well, I have to photograph the progress. This was the next day and already the bud was popping out.

This was only about 6 days after I got ‘im!

Then the magic started about 8 days in!

This is a photo from yesterday, after only about 2 weeks. Once it started to blossom, I thought, wait, I might be allergic to this. Every time I’d get close, I’d have that feeling again. So I told Bret we should get rid of it. I suggested giving it to our landlords, but we didn’t really have a chance to do so. I mentioned he should take it to school, at first he thought, eh, that’s kinda weird. But then I suggested that he leave it in the teacher’s lounge with a note. While he did wrote a note to go along with it, his co-worker claimed it before he could share it.

I thought his note was hilarious, so I’m sharing it here:

Up For Adoption

Name: My Little Hyacinth
Age: About 1 month
Gender: Identifies as “other”
Likes: – long walks on the beach
– sunbathing
– sitting around all day
– not having a job
– referring to itself as a “trophy hyacinth”

We’re basically bad parents and don’t know what to do with it and might be allergic, and hope it finds a loving home.

I’m glad the little guy got a good home. 🙂

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Day 3167 – No Movies With Nudity – What’s That Like Practically?

Posted on March 13, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

I’ve talked about not watching movies with nudity in the past.

When I look into a movie to see if it has nudity or not, I check out IMDb and Plugged In. Sometimes I can get a good answer on IMDb but the details are user generated, so I have to wait until after the movie is in theaters. Plugged In is very detailed in what happens, what’s shown, and what topics are covered in the movie.

A few nights ago, something popped up in my online scrollings about Ready Player One. Dude, I LOVED the book so much that I read it twice. I’ve been super excited about the movie. So I thought, let me see if anything has been posted yet about the content. Oh friends, what disappointment was I met with when I saw in the rating itself – partial nudity. Now, I have NO idea what this entails. There is some adult content in the book, and I could see nudity being present.

When I mentioned this to Bret, he mirrored my disappointment (as he read the book too on my prompting) but he said something that really struck me and reminded me why I don’t watch nudity.

Jen – ugh, it’s probably just a funny butt shot or something.
Bret – Isn’t my butt enough for you?
Jen – That THE whole reason why I don’t want to see nudity!

See, one of the bigger reasons I don’t watch nudity is because I want my mind clear for only Bret. I mean, even Jesus cautions us:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Matthew 5:27-30 ESV

I want to take Jesus at His word and cut out my eye (not watching nudity) so there is less temptation to lust after someone who isn’t my husband. My marriage is much more important to me than watching the latest movie.

We’ll see what this partial nudity turns out to be and if I’ll actually watch it, but at the end of the day it’s just not worth it.

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Day 3164 – What We Can Learn From Waiting – repost

Posted on March 10, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

I am currently on my solo vacation, so you’re getting an oldie but a goodie!

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Originally posted 6/28/2015
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Yesterday, we flew from Maryland to California for a summer visit with Bret’s family. I am SO thankful that God has us in a season of abundance so that we can visit more.

We arrived in Las Vegas in route to our California end stop. We had a scheduled layover of about six hours. I was thankful for not being too tired this time around, but it was still a tough wait. I had some Starbucks to help over the first hump. I felt like young Anakin in his pod racer when he says “It’s working!!!!”

I spent the hours eating, reading, catching up on games and listening to podcasts. Finally, the time came to move to the gate and then we boarded. The new airline we tried has a great boarding method….if you don’t have a carry on, you board first….it really helps to get the plane boarded.

We sit down, start reading and wait. We pull out from the gate and stop….and wait….then there’s an announcement that the breaks are hot, so we have to wait some more….then another announcement that it’s not cooling, so we have to go back to the gate and deboard. We spent probably another hour or so sitting at the gate (thankfully very air conditioned!) Finally, we’re told we’re changing planes. Woo hoo!! We ended up waiting another 20 minutes or so at the gate before boarding.

All told, we were delayed 3 hours. What was a six hour layover, became 8. It’s a shame I don’t gamble.

But here’s what I learned. Sometimes waiting isn’t bad at all. The three hours flew by, because we started chatting with the girl sitting next to us. We chatted with other passengers. We joked, we learned about each other. Sure, some of the passengers were really mad, wanting refunds and complained to people who couldn’t change anything. (What can they do about a plane that’s hot in Las Vegas in June? I mean, really?) But for the most part, while frustrated that we had to wait, everyone was pretty optimistic and just dealt with the card we were given. If we hadn’t had this big delay, we never would have chatted with the lady sitting next to us. We shared stories about rock climbing and hiking. She was a ranger and we chatted about what she does. It was so fun! It was also cool to see how a situation like this brings a group of people together. We weathered the storm together and came out stronger. We connected on a personal level that wouldn’t have existed if we weren’t delayed.

The next time you’re met with having to wait, think about what you’re actually getting out of the delay.

Oh, and get Starbucks, always get Starbucks.

day_02178

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365daysofmarriage

Simplicity in Marriage, Christianity, Travel, Business, Life

Category Archives: Life

Day 3173 – What To Do About Something You Hate – or – Jennilyn On A Soapbox – repost

Day 3171 – What Would You Grab If You Had To Leave In Minutes Because Of Fire – or – Yesterday Did Not Go As Planned

Day 3168 – Sometimes It’s Hard To Say Goodbye….To A Plant

Day 3167 – No Movies With Nudity – What’s That Like Practically?

Day 3164 – What We Can Learn From Waiting – repost