A Work in Progress

How Letting Go of What I Didn't Love Directed Me to Do What I Truly Love I'm not sure where I went wrong, but for a while, I worked two jobs that I shouldn't have been working. These are two jobs extra besides my other two jobs of freelance writing and vintage clothing.   I was working four different jobs alongside being a mom, wife, housekeeper, cook, and whatever else I missed here. This isn't to say the jobs were bad. They weren't. In fact, they were very far from bad and actually improved my writing by leaps and bounds. They helped me so much that I would recommend writers take these jobs if they want to be better writers. So why was it both helpful and unhelpful? Because I gave up my true love to do something I thought I should be doing rather than what I wanted to be doing.  Turns out, there's a big difference between the two. A few years ago, after feeling a little stuck in my writing, I picked up a magazine editorial position. Then a little bit after tha

My dad gave me a book to read called The Age of Gold.    It's a fascinating book about the California gold rush and the new American dream. It follows many people from various backgrounds who traveled West chronicling their harrowing journeys.  While I'm only halfway through the book, it's enlightening. Particularly how arduous the journey was getting to California whether they traveled by land or by sea, whether they were married or single, with or without children, born in America, or emigrated. Many feel the gold rush ruined aspects of the states, particularly the region, destroying the natural habitats, and endangering native Indians and their land along with myriad other issues. And for the most part, there were issues.   But without this event, the West wouldn't be what it is today. It was a rush to stake claims, and of course, there was a whole lot of greed involved. But whether I agree with the past or not is irrelevant. It happened.  While it doesn't make i

There are tons of memes and beautifully quoted “slow living” posts out there all over social media from Facebook to Instagram.  I follow several minimal and simple lifestyle accounts on Facebook from No Sidebar to Becoming Minimalist   that post beautiful and poignant quotes and phrases. They’re all helpful and validating but this one got to me.   This quote is the essence of my life, these days. And thankfully for me, I’m blessed to have a cozy home, plenty of nice books, and my husband knows exactly how I drink my coffee.  I can’t ask for anything more than this. I don’t need anything more than this. Have a wonderful Easter weekend and may your Good Friday be very good.  - Heather

The older I get, the more I feel like I wake up on the “wrong side of the bed” more often. It’s not because my life is bad. It’s quite the opposite. My life is wonderful. My life is busy, fulfilling, and overloaded with good things. But as I age, my life “experiences” taint my objectivity. This is normal. Life is hard. Adults understand this notion as age reminds us that nothing is easy and we're constantly fighting aging. Wrinkles and creaking joints are now a normal part of my daily life. So I thoroughly annoyed myself one recent morning with this whole groaning scenario as I got out of bed, with sleep wrinkles on my forehead. I not only felt old but was acting like a grouch. Why was I so ungrateful? I decided for the day, I was going to compliment people and say hello to everyone I saw. I would be the anit-grouch I wanted to see in other people. I was going to have a positive attitude about everything around me and see what happened. Anger and pessimism weren't going to be

My grandfather’s office was the best room in his house. At least, to me it was. His heavy wooden desk was the centerpiece and it was a beast. The office was filled with books, papers, and good things that smelled like education and experience. As a child, I would sit in his chair, hands folded on the desk or holding a pen, acting like I was writing something important just like him. Turning to my left, the chair swiveled perfectly to the typewriter. Clackety-clack. Sometimes , I would pretend to write an urgent memo. But, his office had a special smell. It smelled like a life filled with love. It also exuded a smell of adventure with the African art on the walls or the Indonesian sculptures on the bookshelves; places where various missionary journeys had taken him and my grandmother. The sweet smell of aging paper and typewriter ribbon permeated the room, too. And the way the pencil jar was overflowing with pens was a little bit of heaven that I wouldn’t know to miss until I wasn’t

It's been said that fences make great neighbors. I agree and disagree with this. Fences make great neighbors only because they keep them and their stuff in their space and me and my stuff in my space. But, if you're like most neighbors in California, I have met my neighbors once, and rarely speak to them. It isn't because I don't want to, but because we're all too busy to say hello.  Or something like that. I think it has something to do with the fence situation. The part that's supposed to make me a great neighbor doesn't actually live up to the hype.  A few weeks ago, after a wild, windy, and rainy storm, a portion of our back fence fell down. It was an overdue scenario for sure. We'd been propping that part of our fence up with two-by-fours for years. It was over forty years old, and the posts rotted out beyond their use. It was time. My husband and I walked around to confront our neighbor the following morning, a neighbor we had never met despite the

This year is the return to blogging for me. In case you hadn't noticed.  Oh, but I'm sure you did. I went from writing constantly (about a decade ago) to writing once every six months.  My life of raising my boys, as well as work, side-stepped my regular blog posting. But, I've not stopped writing.  Recently, I baby-stepped back to once-a-month blogging in 2023, and now I'm posting once or twice a week once again. I've come full circle. I've had this blog, A Work in Progress , for almost 15 years. This August will mark a decade and a half of writing my first post , along with my thoughts about books, writing, and random life events. This blog has been therapeutic, a way to keep my writing skills up, and hopefully, an informative place to learn about various things. It's essentially a slow-living blog.  Because, over the years, those are the subjects I tend to cover. There's writing (that was all I wrote about in the beginning); how to write, what to wri