Making my dreams come true! AKA- My summer plans!

About 11 years ago I witnessed a bad car accident and the amazing skills of volunteer fire fighters and EMTs. From the moment I saw the vols in action, I knew I wanted to be one of them. A few short months later, and I was a certified fire fighter complete with a yellow helmet. But most importantly, the volunteer bug had bitten me, and I knew I wanted to give back to the community whenever possible.

This my baby sister Steph.  I can't find any pics of me as a FF/EMT. But let it be known, I was almost as cool as my sister .

Not long after I became a FF/EMT I went to Romania and discovered my love for international travel and international volunteer work. And again, my love for volunteering increased. And I discovered a desire to want to work in less developed countries.

Years passed, jobs happened, and life moved on. But one thing never changed- my overwhelming desire to get involved at a very deep level in volunteering in a less developed country. But people tend to not hire women who specialize in marketing firearms to go work overseas. So I sought out different opportunities to go abroad to volunteer, but nothing ever seemed to work out. Meanwhile, I found plenty of great opportunities to serve at home, and took advantage of those. (Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Boys and Girls Club are just 2 examples. Also serving at church with the youth program really meant a lot to me.)

When I finally got the opportunity to volunteer in Haiti it all just clicked in me. I knew it was time to start returning to that feeling I had felt nonstop for so many years and get more involved in volunteerism.

I don't know if words can even explain how the little girl in the picture above changed my life. Is it possible for a photograph to capture a life changing moment? It was right then as I held darling little Nathalie that I knew I would be following my instincts and dreams, and not returning to a more regularly prescribed 9-5 life. I still dream about that little doll, and wonder about the life she might have had.

All of these experiences are what lead me to signing up for the Peace Corps. Again, joining the PC was not a hard decision for me. I knew I wanted to do it. But it isn't easy to choose to leave your "normal" life behind, even if the life you are living is not the "normal" that you want. The big delay the Peace Corps presented me with last week broke my heart. I am 100% ready to leave with them today, if they would just take me.

But the delay is there, and so I spent a few days mad and sad, and suffering from a broken heart on a different front. And then I picked up the pieces, asked myself what it is I have always wanted to do, and what do I need to be doing to reach the next levels of my life. I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands, and thanks to getting out of debt, favors, and hard work, I suddenly am not constrained by finances anymore.

So what do I want to do with my life, or at the very least, with my summer?
I want to serve more. I LOVE SERVING. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if Mormons had nuns, I'd be the Mother Theresa of Mormons.
I want to date dang it. I'm so freaking bored here. I want to meet some men.
In the bigger picture and longer term, my ultimate "professional" goal is to work in or with orphanages.
I want to travel more. Not for the stamp in the passport. That's not me. I travel to truly experience other customs and appreciate other walks of life, and enjoy the people. While I loved staying with my family at the resort this past month, that's really not my style. I'm not the type to stay in a nice hotel or go on a cruise. I'm a much more organic traveler that is in it more for the learning experience than the fun of it all.

To find the answers to my happiness and future I talked to family and friends, looked into options, and put some feelers out there. But most of all I prayed and listened. And now my summer looks like this-

This week- go to youth conference with the teens from church. More on this tomorrow!
Next week- work, work, work, and make some money!!
Work some more the next week.
Go to the DC Singles Conference the following week.
Pick up "Little" and show her around Virginia!
Go to Girls Camp with the girls from church.
Have a few low key days where I'm sure I'll just work, work, work!
Speak at a singles conference.
And then, drum roll please!!!
I'm headed to Cambodia to work in an orphanage for a month!

CAMBODIA!

I'm so excited about this! I really cannot believe how fortunate I am to have found this program. I made it clear to them that I am not looking for a "hold the cute babies" program. I really want a program where I can learn more about the administration, politics, funding, etc that goes into running an orphanage and private foster care system. And the people I am working with are happy to help me with that. This program will help open doors for me professionally as I work to change my career from for-profit to non-profit, especially as I continue to look for long-term assignments overseas. Just 15 degrees above the equator, this is a dream come true for me.

This summer has just gone from dull and sad to suddenly the most exciting and opportunity filled summer I could dream of. I can't wait!!!!

Funny sidenote: I found out that Cambodia was a real possibility on Saturday while with a church group. Overwhelmed with possibilities and excitement I blurted it out to a man from church that was standing nearby. "I just got accepted to go to Cambodia to work in an orphanage. Ugh, now I have to figure out how to tell my parents!" He looked at me funny and said, "Your parents who live in XYZ country?" (I nodded.) "You think they will have a problem with Cambodia??" I replied, "Its not the Cambodia part. Its the volunteering in an orphanage part I don't think they will care for." He looked at me funny for a minute then said, "From what I know about you, the orphanage part was the part that made the most sense!" 

How I attempt to balance working, unemployment, volunteering, ADD, and a creative personality

Why this picture? I'll tell you why this picture. A) I am far more creative by moving water (completely true and verifiable fact), and B) I'm ADD and it just made sense to me at the time.

This new little life I lead of unemployment/self-employment is completely contradictory to everything that comes naturally to me. This life requires an insane amount of self-discipline that I am not naturally prone to. Not to mention, attention to details, follow up, and other things I've already managed to forget since the idea to write this post hit me.
To clear up the confusion about my working status. I am still technically unemployed. I am still actively looking for a job. I am also still an actively waiting impatiently Peace Corps nominee. I am also attempting to earn money in a side job that is sometimes more effective than others. Not to mention, I am bound and determined to finish writing a book before I do get a job/leave for the Peace Corps/make another crazy change in my life.
To balance the multiple priorities in my life (looking for a job, attempting self-employment, be creative, volunteer work), I have divided my week up accordingly. Two days a week I focus on the self-employment part. Two days a week I focus solely on job hunting. One day- Wednesday- I attempt to allow myself to just be creative all day. (More on that later.) Saturdays are for volunteering and fun, and I am bound and determined that Sundays will be a day of rest.
When absolutely everything relies on you solely to happen a little self-discipline becomes a good thing. But guess what? I only possess a little self-discipline. This can be a problem. I'm easily distracted by everything little thing. I do try to keep my household running in such a way that I'm not distracted by it. (For better or worse, I am not distracted by messes or unclean things like dishes. If you do ever hear me complaining about such things, you know I am beyond stressed and begging for a distraction.) However, I do have dedicated cleaning times to help me survive my own shortcomings (Saturdays and Monday nights when I have nothing to watch on TV anyway.) Also, allowing routines to form in my day are absolutely essential to faking self-discipline until it actually happens. For instance, I run all errands first thing in the morning. (Most of the "work" I do is in the Pacific or Mountain time zones, so this makes more sense.) This serves two purposes- getting a distraction out of the way, and forces me to get up and get dressed. Even if the errand is running to my favorite gas station to get my daily Diet Dr P, this tiny little effort at a routine is helpful. I find that forcing a routine forces things to become habits, and that most of those habits are very good things.
The only downside to my attempts at scheduling and self-discipline so far are that first and foremost wheels I put into motion on a Monday may finally have results for me on Wednesday (my dedicated creative day). And so I lose my much needed creative day and find myself working instead. This isn't a bad thing, but eventually that creative side of me feels punished and lashes out at me in the form of ridiculous ADD and then nothing gets done on a day it needed to be done.
The past few years of first working full-time from home, and now just attempting to find work from home have been very enlightening. I think they have set me up well for what service in the Peace Corps will be like. But at the same time, I am terrified of the day I have to return to an office, and work in a confined setting. Will I like it? Or will I crawl under my cubicle and cry in the fetal position?
I have learned it is very hard to serve multiple masters like this and ever feel successful. But at the same time, this opportunity has been good for me, and has allowed me to explore new reaches of my self-discipline, dedication, and ability to overcome my own known short-comings.

This blog post is brought to you by Wednesday- the creative day. The one day a week I'm allowed to sit here and write and just be creative as needed. Otherwise, I never would have allowed myself to write such a long, rambling post in the morning. But now I must stop myself and go check my professional email account. Because "the wheels of commerce never stop turning." Not even for the day where I'd rather watch a movie and knit something. 

Taking the Mountain to Mohammed

Or is it taking Mohammed to the mountain? I always forget.

I've been making a very concerted effort lately to find happiness here in un-Happy Valley. I've made no secret on my blog that I'm pretty much been miserable here. The facts are simple- the job is... well, we'll figure that one out later. And I'm stuck in a social black hole. So I've been trying harder. I've signed up as a volunteer pretty much everywhere and anywhere. And I'm making my own happiness. I've set a few personal goals and I'm working every day on each goal. (more on those later) But three big things happened for me this week.

But first let's back up to last week. Last Thursday I had every reason in the world to just throw in the towel and call it quits here. I really did. But after much prayer and contemplation, I'm still here one week later. And in most certain and definite answers that God does love me more than I trust Him to at times, three key things happened this week to make my life more tolerable and happy here.

1. Back in August- AUGUST- I signed up to be a volunteer with a very well known film festival held right up the road from here. Considering the international acclaim of this film festival, I had no reason to think they would give me a job of any importance, and they probably wouldn't even accept me. I was hoping for a ticket taker or street sweeper job. But after so many months of not hearing from them I figured they didn't even need me for that. (My sources tell me that most of their volunteers are actually experienced Hollywood types who come here on their own dollar hoping for a leg up in the business.) So you can only imagine how shocked I was when they called me this week for a phone interview and then told me they were considering me for 4 positions. I'll get a position for sure, but they couldn't guarantee which one for a few more weeks. Sure, two of the jobs are nothing more than ticket taking, but the other two are just dang cool! I can't wait! 5 days in Park City doing my favorite thing- watching indi films!

2. Also several months ago I signed up with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Utah. But due to timing conflicts between me and them, I only got in this week to interview with them. I'm very excited to get involved and can't wait to get my Little Sister.

3. Back in DC we had a little thing called the Thursday Night Dinner Club. Every week we went to a different restaurant (usually ethnic, but it was DC and that was normal there) for dinner. No big deal. Open invite. Good conversation and a great way to meet new people. Well, the single LDS scene around here is different from DC, (and LA and Orlando and Houston- all towns I've lived in) and it's just plain hard to meet people if they don't live on your own street. So I put out some emails on random email lists and on a website, set a time and place, and started my own Wednesday Night Dinner Club. I really had no faith that anyone would show up. Because why should they? No one knows me from the man in the moon, and who goes to a dinner sponsored by a total stranger, right? I figured I'd be happy if just 1 person showed up. My spirits totally faltered as one by one each of the friends I thought would come all had to back out. And I was totally anxious when I arrived at the restaurant waiting hopefully for total strangers to show up (I had a sign so they could spot me). It was a huge relief when the first 2 faces to walk through the door were the Dirtius Familius, who hadn't told me they were coming. And then suddenly several more people just walked in and joined us. And my friend Sean came too! 12 people total showed up for dinner with a stranger! How crazy is that?! And all but 1 of them said they would come again next week. So it's on! Next week, Wednesday Night Dinner Club at Bombay House in Provo. Finally a chance for me to make some friends!!

Now it feels like there is a lot more hope here than there has been for the last 6 months. I'm still very frustrated with several aspects of my life, but at least there is finally something positive to look forward to. (and of course I'm excited to make my first thanksgiving meal ever. but more on that later.)