#152 He Works Overtime

Weekend I’d Forget

I have had, yet again, another jam packed weekend.  I'm starting to think that ever since I began holding myself accountable for reporting one positive from my weekend, subconsciously, I've been making sure to pack my weekend with so much that I have to fight with myself over what to write about.*

*It's really been that good.**

**I dare you to take the challenge.  Find something good in your weekend and report back to me.

This past weekend my brother, Joel and his wife, Mallory, were back in town. You might remember my recent post about them and their new job.  We all have been so fortunate. They left in August expecting not to see family again until Christmas, maybe.  Their route has placed them in NJ for the past few weekends leaving them plenty of opportunity to visit immediate family.

Hubby worked a ridiculous amount the past two weeks, so the only negative of my weekend was that he was at work instead of with us.

After experiencing firsthand that no major city or state in their travels has pizza that compares to New Jersey, Joel and Mallory were craving the best pizza on earth.  Our original plan was to get some, then go apple picking.

If you were out and about on Saturday, you know that was a laughable option for the day.  It poured all night and into the morning, leaving us staring at the empty pizza boxes, bellies full, wondering what to do.

Mallory and I still had pie on our minds so to Johnson's Farm we went.*

Johnson's has recently opened a second location, and even though it is much closer to my house I couldn't risk that they would have the exact same experience I was looking for, in other words, the sweet potato pie I had been craving.

*Mallory had never been, and it was only when we arrived that Joel remembered having taken field trips there.  

No one can go to Johnson's Farm and simply go into the bakery.  It just feels so wrong.  They have their animal farm, Halloween shopping, a hayride, pumpkin picking and apple picking all going on at the same time.  Though stopping in the bakery had been our original intention, the hayride immediately took precedence.  The rain had stopped, but we still decided apple picking was a bad idea.  The ground was still wet and muddy.*  While most people get on and off of the hayride from the designated stops for pumpkin picking and apple picking, we stayed on and enjoyed the ride, taking in the corn fields, the pumpkin patch, and the rows and rows of apple trees.

*Naturally, Sunday was the perfect apple picking day and we had already made plans to do something else!

When we ended in their bakery, I had to look the other way from the apple cider donuts.  They were calling my name, but so was the sweet potato pie and I knew only one could* win.

*Not really could.  Both of them really could win.  Should is probably the right word.

I'd love to own a farm one day, but Hubby always tends to shoot this dream down.  Every time I talk about owning a farm he tells me that I only want to live on one, and have other people to do all the work.

I don't want to admit that he's right, but he has a pretty good track record of times he's been right vs times he's been wrong.  

#144 He Wears Nike

The overall feeling of unemployment is that something is missing.  Although I definitely pack my day with a schedule of cleaning, exercising, writing, and playing violin there is the lurking feeling that since I'm not being paid for those things I'm cheating somehow.  I shouldn't be enjoying what I can do even though I now have the time to do it.

I must have some kind of serious guilt complex.

That said, I often jump at the opportunity to add an occasional day of something different to my week.  When my brother, Joel, told me he would be nearby and needed some help with his work, I was the eager front row student with my hand waving in the air to be chosen.

At the beginning of August, Joel and his wife, Mallory, began working for Camfel Productions, a non-profit that sends teams all over the country to present student development programs based heavily on building character and eliminating bullying.  After training in California for two weeks, they drove across the country and wound up only a few miles away from home after a month on the job.

My family was pretty excited over that.

The presentation takes close to two hours to set up.  It is a three-screen projected video and setting up the screens and projectors is no joke.  On my visit, Joel and Mallory had to do this as the auditorium was filled with students for their different orientation periods on the first day of school.

I didn't expect to be so impacted by the video they presented.  They were supposed to be motivating the students, yet I was sitting in my chair feeling the rise within me of inspiration and excitement.  If I remember much about my attitude in high school, I'm guessing that not even half the students reacted the same way as I did.  Hopefully the key points sunk in, but I'm sure there weren't many students stifling tears throughout different segments of the video.

Okay, that one may have been PMS's fault.

The video was called, The Pledge.  Though the main focus was pledging not to bully or spread rumors, the especially moving part, for me, was when the video focused on stories of students who have overcome obstacles and disabilities, yet still manage to live without a worry or care.

Being part of or starting a nonprofit is something I hope to eventually make a part of my future.  I'm sure they had no idea, but spending the day with Joel and Mallory propelled my aspirations and shook inside of me the need to do something.

Nike cleverly coined the phrase "Just Do It" in 1988, and I feel like I need those words tattooed on my forearm so that I can always be haunted by them.  At the writing conference I attended in August one of the presenters used those words as a way of telling the audience they need to write constantly.  No muse is needed, the writer need only to just do it.  It doesn't matter if what you produce is bad.  Just do it, again and again, and it will get better.  Joel and Mallory followed "Just do it" by taking on this job.  It was risky, it was different, but they felt a desire to do it.  And they did.

I think the same is true with anything else we aspire towards in life.  Just do it.  Follow your dreams.  Don't allow inhibition to hold you back, don't allow the thought of what others will think or say to worry you.  It's a simple, but also powerful, concept.  Don't allow it to be used only as a fashion statement.

Just Do It.