Five on Friday: Facts You May Not Know About Me

 

Hello Friends! 

Happy weekend to you. ☀️🍁🧡

Thank you so much for your kind words on a recent post where I shared what I did in a day and it included my time I work at the hospice house. I mentioned being a social worker and I realized I probably hadn't mentioned that in the past. So I thought I'd just do a post of fun facts you may not know about me. 

And I hadn't finished this yesterday, so it's getting posted today. So it's 5 on Fri on a Sat. 😉

ONE

I attended a local private Catholic college called the College of St. Scholastica. There are Benedictine nuns still living and working on the campus. That building is one of the main buildings on the campus and it's called Tower Hall. I always loved it looks like a castle. 

The school was known for its medical programs, especially nursing. And that is actually what I initially majored in. I have Aunts that are nurse practitioners and I wanted to be them. :) Plus, I always loved the sciences. I even had anatomy and physiology classes, in college, that included cadaver labs. I did a whole year of studying that and I did very well. But I got into clinicals that included helping living people with colostomy bags and basically interesting smells, blood etc and realized it was not the area for me. Lol 

So I went into medical social work instead and ended up on the 5 year plan at college. But it was the right decision and I loved my social work jobs. 

TWO

I did social work for close to a decade - until Aaron was about 4. I was working part time then because I wanted to be home with Aaron too. My case load kept growing (& stress) and by then the businesses my ex (that I was also a part of behind the scenes at times) were doing well enough that I we could afford me to be a SAHM. So I then changed to full-time Mommy life with both of my kiddos. And it turned out to be a blessing as my MIL developed Alzheimers and I was needed as a caregiver for her.

When my MIL progressed to a point where she had to go into a facility and my kids were getting older, I wanted something spiritually for myself. I had dealt with a lot of grief work and death and dying as a medical social worker in a long-term care setting. So hospice volunteering just felt like a calling to me. As you saw in my "day in the life post" about what I do in hospice: some days I scrapbook obits, or I bake or help in the kitchen, or I visit with dying patients and their families. I do it all in the name of service. 

I have often sat with a dying patient that has no one - putting lotion on their hands. Praying over them. Singing to them. And I feel like a part of my soul knows it's doing what it was meant to be doing on this earth. I get way more out of serving the Lord in this way than I give. I guess that's the definition of a calling. :) 🙏🏻💗

THREE

For how much I loved social work. And I feel so honored and blessed to have been a SAHM. A part of me feels if I could go back in time I would have been a French teacher. I have always loved the language. I had 4 years of it in school. And I would have loved to travel to France every couple of years (& have had summers off!) 

FOUR

And speaking of the French teacher thing brings me a bit to my 4th fun fact. French always came easy to me as a lot of their words have articles before them and they change based on masculine and feminine. And I have always seen letters, words and numbers as such. Masculine or feminine. It's a form of synesthesia. 

Synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words or linking colors to numbers and letters.

What can I say - I'm weird. Lol 😁

FIVE

And the last thing I thought I would share is that I know many of you know I love scrapbooking as a hobby. And I have made many little decorated albums as gifts for others through the years. But I have through the years seriously thought about doing an Etsy shop or something related involving scrapbooking. I never took the plunge in the past - though I have come very close. But now I feel almost a calling related to that too. I would want it to involve "legacy" books for others. 

For example:

This is a recipe "cookbook" that I'm working on. This could be a project for someone to add their favorite recipes to for themselves. Or to give as a gift - adding in a legacy of family holiday recipes through the years. 

Aren't these the cutest holiday recipe cards? 

But I would also love to maybe work on completely different kinds of albums... spiritual ones. Where folks could make a legacy album related to their dying loved one. As a legacy to them. Or to continue a mission of theirs or their story. If that makes sense? 

So stay tuned. It may turn into something over time. It's something I work on and pray about where I want to put my focus and energy. No matter what I'll continue my work in hospice too. 

Thanks for going on this little journey with me and some things you may not have known about my background. I just know a FAVORITE FACT is how much I love blogging and sharing with such a fellowship of amazing women!! My love and blessings to you all. 

xoxo