Dear Friends and Family,
To say that this has been a difficult year would be an understatement—and yet, I’m still standing. I still have a smile on my face. I still enjoy life. I have made peace with my challenges, and I am looking forward to my next adventure! Here’s what’s been going on:
As you know, in September 2018, Dan decided that he no longer wanted to be married. Virginia requires that couples with minor children be separated for one year before they can file for divorce, so I have been living in our basement apartment (don’t worry—it’s quite cozy). I thought that I would be out by now, but since Dan and I have not yet reached a settlement regarding our assets, I am still here. Once the settlement is reached, I will be moving in with a friend up the street until John graduates in June. After that, I’ll be moving to…. No wait! I have to tell you how this year went first.
I spent the first part of the year working hard on my Six Sigma certification. I had decided last fall that I really wanted to pursue a career in process improvement, and I had friends that told me this was the best way to get into the field. Preparing for this test was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done. It was like getting a master’s degree in 6 months, and it fully consumed my life. I could not have done it without the help of several people, but I am happy to report that as of May 10, 2019, I am officially a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt! (Google it for more info on what that means.)
After that, it was a matter of finding a job, but it turns out that even with the certification, being a middle-aged woman, out of the workforce for 20 years, and not having applied my knowledge in a corporate setting made it seem impossible. So, another setback.
I then decided that the best course of action would be to start my own consulting business and teach organizations how they could save time by improving their own processes—without the high cost of hiring a big consulting firm. I corralled a bunch of friends (and their friends) who allowed me to practice my training presentations and provided me with valuable feedback. Many of you were among them and for that I am ever so grateful!
But I stalled yet again, because I didn’t know how to reach the people I could help. I hired a coach to help guide me and started a YouTube channel to help promote myself, but I still found myself drifting, until one day in September, I stumbled into a meeting with a financial planner.
Just to back up a little, all this time, I had been continuing to serve clients as a professional organizer, which included handling money issues, paying bills, filing insurance claims, etc. I had developed a good working relationship with the financial planner of a former client of mine, and he wanted to know more about what I do so that he could refer my services to his other clients.
After that meeting, a lightbulb when on. Actually, it was more like fireworks in my brain. It’s that moment when you finally wake up to your calling in life. I realized that I could bundle together my organizing skills, my process improvement skills and training, and my love of numbers, math, and money to help people and businesses untangle their financial messes. My new business, iSpyWaste, was born, and I am now “creating streamlined, efficient financial systems that eliminate waste and maximize positive cash flow.” If you know anyone who could use my services, please let me know! This includes small business owners who love their work, but don’t love paying bills, busy professionals who just don’t have the time or interest to deal with their personal finances, millennials who never learned how to create a budget or manage money, senior citizens or chronically ill individuals whose financial situation has gotten out of hand, or people who have lost, through death or divorce, the spouse that always took care of everything for them.
I am taking on a few clients now, but I am waiting to fully ramp up my business until next summer, when I move to…. Wait! I haven’t told you about the kids!
Lyn is has started her second year at BYU-Idaho, continuing to study Illustration. She loves spending so much time doing art! Because of BYU-I’s weird schedule, she has winter semester off, so she came home at Christmas last year and stayed until April, working at Lakeshore Learning, where she had started last summer, and a second job at Scramble, an indoor play area that is very popular during the cold winter months! She went back to Idaho for spring semester, but then found she had nowhere to go for the summer. Soooo, back to Virginia she came, where she again worked at Lakeshore Learning, until returning to Idaho in September, saying, “Hopefully this time it will stick!” Her first choice for this coming winter semester is to stay in Rexburg and work, but she is not hopeful she’ll be able to find a job—so she has registered for a few classes just in case, so that she can get some student aid to help support herself.
After a very busy summer as always, John is having a great senior year. In fact, this may be his best year in school ever! He decided to join the marching band and LOVES it. He plays percussion, primarily cymbals, and was in the pit, so he didn’t actually have to march (which I think he was grateful for!), but still he loved the camaraderie of being part of a team. It’s too bad he didn’t discover this sooner!
As for after high school, last month John took the ASVAB, which is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, and he is heavily leaning toward joining the Air Force. He will be meeting with a recruiter in January for additional testing and to discuss his options. [Update: The meeting turned out to be December 9, but it was kind of disappointing, because it was with a group, not just him, and more about career options in general than his career options in the military. So, sometime soon he'll be meeting with a recruiter to discuss all this one-on-one.]. If he does not choose this route, then who knows what his fate will be? Everyone is anxious to find out—including him.
Oh, and that Eagle project he’s been sitting on for two years? I have stopped asking about it. The deadline, which is his 18th birthday in January, is fast approaching. A mom can only nag so much. [Update: He finished is project! It was held in the pouring rain on December 14, but it got done. The paperwork has since been submitted to the district and is awaiting approval. The next step is a final interview, which will be held sometime after that and does not have to be done before his birthday. It looks like he might get that darn award after all!]
So that’s it for the kids. As for me, one other big piece of news is that I have been cast in my sixth show at LTA—A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. It’s a very funny lyric musical, similar in style to Gilbert and Sullivan. I am in the ensemble, playing lots of parts, but I do have a fairly prominent bit part near the end. I’m super grateful that I get to perform in one last show and wrap up my career here before I move to… Oh right! I haven’t told you where I’m moving!
I know everyone has been on the edge of their seat wondering where I’m going to end up. The only reason I live in Virginia is because of Dan, and with him gone from my life, I have no reason to stay. As I have been telling folks around here, the world is my oyster! For a long time, I thought I would just be a nomad, traveling the country in a van, taking pictures of sunrises, and picking up work where I could along the way.
When I took Lyn to school last year, I visited with a dear friend and told her that I never thought I would stay in Virginia—that I always thought I would meet some nice Mormon boy and we would move to Utah, I would join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and that would be my life. She said to me, “It still could be!” and I laughed it off.
But then, a series of events led me to actually consider Utah as an option. (I don’t have time to go into details here, but if you want, we can sit down with some hot cocoa and I’ll explain!) Consequently, I hopped on a plane and did some reconnoitering. I did it in secret, because I needed to spend time pondering on my own—so if you are in Utah, please forgive me for not getting in touch.
During this time, I drove around several different places, praying and pondering and thinking and meditating, until I arrived in one town, and I suddenly felt, as Brigham Young so famously said, “This is the place.”
That place was…drumroll please…Brigham City.
Brigham City is a small town of about 20,000 people an hour north of Salt Lake City. It is the childhood home of one of my best friends from college, and I spent many many hours with her family there when lived in Provo attending BYU. Maybe that’s why it felt so good to be there—I don’t know. But that is where I’m headed, and it is such a relief to have solid plans. For so long I have felt like I was blowing in the wind. I have already started working with a real estate agent there, and since housing prices are so much cheaper, I should be able to get a nice townhouse with the money I receive from settling on our house here.
So there it is. That’s all my news. I apologize for such a lengthy letter this year, but I know many of you have been anxious for an update after the year’s rocky start. I really do appreciate your love and prayers on my behalf.
Here’s wishing you joy, happiness, peace and fulfillment, now and always!
