A Life of Many Experiences

In the past few weeks, I’ve reflected on all the many experiences and many travels I’ve had in my lifetime. How lucky I am! It has been fulfilling and varied, and I’ve seen so many places and things I never dreamed I would. I’m thankful for all of them and for Hubby who orchestrated most of them.

I was a stay-at-home mom for many years. I loved it and wouldn’t trade them for any kind of career during those years. But as all mothers discover, children grow up, and they don’t need you as much as they did when they were toddlers. When my kids were in elementary school, I went to college and got two degrees, both related to math. I scheduled my classes during their school day so they wouldn’t notice me being gone. However, they did notice when I had to do homework in the evenings. I think it might have done them some good to see how hard I worked because they both grew up to be very hard workers.

My degrees opened a lot of doors for me, allowing me to do many different things: high school teacher, college instructor, secretary, statistician, timber sale accountant, and an archeological technician. I had a hard time discovering what I wanted to be when I grew up so I tried it all. In all these positions, I learned a lot and found something fascinating in them, but they still left me feeling like I hadn’t quite found myself yet. It wasn’t until I got my job as a natural resources technical writer/editor that I found what I truly loved doing. I held that job the longest of all the rest and loved going to work every day.

After I retired, I became a self-published author. Ten books on Amazon and other platforms have my name on them. They were all a labor of love. Too bad I never took marketing classes to help me with the selling end of things. Sigh. I’ll keep plugging away on that part of this career and hope for better success. (Hubby says hope is not a strategy so I better get to learning it.)

When Hubby and I got married, an elderly woman said, “Honey, I hope you enjoyed traveling because you’ll never do it again.” Maybe she was expressing her own frustration, but I found her advice to be totally wrong. Hubby and I have traveled all over the United States and parts of Europe. History is the main draw on where we go and what we see, other than all of Hubby’s geocaching. It’s funny that we haven’t traveled in Canada which isn’t that far away, but we’re not dead yet. We may get there yet.

Boredom is not in my vocabulary. As long as I have a book to read, I’m happy. My skills in making something, writing something, or reading something make sure I’m content. Thanks to Hubby for giving me such a rich and wonderful life. I hope we can add to our states-visited list and maybe go see another foreign country. Like Canada. Hint, hint.