A Sojourning Wayfinder

For the Interim  Time When near the end of day, life has drained Out of light, and it is too soon For the mind of night to have darkened things, No place looks like itself, loss of outline Makes everything look strangely in-between, Unsure of what has been, or what might come. In this wan light, even trees seem groundless. In a while it will be night, but nothing Here seems to believe the relief of darkness. You are in this time of the interim Where everything seems withheld. The path you took to get here has washed out; The way forward is still concealed from you. "The old is not old enough to have died away; The new is still too young to be born." You cannot lay claim to anything; In this place of dusk, Your eyes are blurred; And there is no mirror. Everyone else has lost sight of your heart And you can see nowhere to put your trust; You know you have to make your own way through. As far as you can, hold your confidence. Do not allow confusion to squander This call which ...

Conflict happens in every relationship for every person. We can handle conflicts well or poorly. They can be big or small. It’s a time for growth and struggle. From a young age we’re taught how to handle conflicts but as we grow, those skills are refined, redefined, and evolve. Some better than others. At times even if we have learned new ways to handle conflict, the old ways surface abruptly. Why do I bring this up after talking about my Ireland trip last week? Because one of my friends and I had a conflict on that trip. One that brewed all week before it erupted. We tried addressing it before it became so bad but we didn’t resolve the issue at it’s heart. I try to cram as much as I can into a trip and she enjoys relaxing more so on trips. We both were stressed a bit since this was our first real overseas adventure. Our expectations for the trip were different.  Needless to say, words were said and the trip ended a bit tense for us. We both needed a cooling off period bef...

Welcome back! Let's continue on more Irish adventures. Day four was our Cliffs of Moher adventure. This was also our biggest driving day. We started the day off later than other days we had but we were all tired. We were at the cliffs quite a while in the early afternoon. There was a visitor’s center we explored along with the cliffs themselves. When you’re at the cliffs, there’s a couple different directions you can walk. Most things are on the right hand side including an unrestricted area that people came and go from all the time. The main section had a wall and some buildings to look over the cliffs from. The unrestricted section let you get right up to the edge and by sheep pastures (see the picture below). The cliffs were beautiful and breathtaking. It was nice to have space to walk around and not be stuck in a car. After we were done at the cliffs, we headed up to Galway. Our first night in Galway, we went to a restaurant that was in the process of the expanding...

Last fall a few of my friends and I took a trip across the pond during fall break. We were in Ireland for 7 whirlwind days. We successfully saw most of Ireland though we weren’t able to go north of Dublin and Galway.  Ireland is a beautiful country. It’s green and lush though there aren’t a lot of trees for the most part. When you’re driving you’ll see a lot of trees as hedges on both sides of the road which makes driving as an American an adventure because you’re driving on the wrong side of the road and visibility isn’t great. Oh and the speed limits seem off sometimes given how narrow the roads are. We had a wonderful driver, Jordan*, even if he struggled at stick shift sometimes. Our trip was based off a package we purchased through Great Value Vacations. It included our flights, hotels/B&Bs and our car. The hotels were set in stone based off the dates of our trip and we were able to select the B&Bs where we wanted to visit. The package helped us plan our trip ...

Life as we know it is changing because of Covid. What will it look like after this is all over? It’s hard to say while we’re waiting for the changes to get cemented and trying to find new and old things to do or try. It’s easy to turn on Netflix and binge a series. It’s hard to go through an entire room and find what can be gotten rid of. Our schedules are freer but we’re not free like normal and have to find other things to do than what we normally do. One thing I have enjoyed about doing social distancing is working remotely. I had done it previously for over a year and I loved it! When I took a new position, it meant I would be in the office. That meant I couldn’t have my music or an audiobooks on in the background. I use headphones some at work but I don’t like having them in my ears all day long. Since I can work remotely again, audiobooks are on the come back and reading in general. I’ve listened to 3 books so far because I haven’t had a lot of time or the attention span...

I’ve seen a recent uptake in bread making since people started isolating themselves. It’s amazing that taking the time to slow down has inspired people to try something new and a bit time consuming. I started making bread a little over a year ago all with the help of my friend Rick ‘Peter’ Peckenus. Who is Peter you ask? Well, he’s a growing boy who loves to help me make bread. Have you figured out what he is yet? If you guessed a sourdough starter, you’d be right! Sourdough is super easy to start and keep up. All you need is some flour, water and time. I followed King Arthur’s starter recipe (here’s the link ). There is a lot that you will need to discard during the set up weeks (or you can find someone who already has a starter and ask for some of theirs). Taking care of a starter is pretty easy too - you just need to feed it once a week if your starter lives in the fridge or if the starter lives on the counter you need to make sure to feed it every day. Typically, I’ve fed Pete...