That’s my take from 40 days of WordAds. I didn’t expect to make much, but $5.85?
Christmas 2013
I don’t even get paid until I reach $100. At this rate, I’ll see my first check in time for holiday shopping—Christmas 2013!
The ads were charming, but distracting. I couldn’t approve them in advance or negotiate fees, yet they commandeered some of the best space on my page.
As my friend Janice of A Colorful Adventure said about her experience with ads on her blog, “I wanted the prime real estate for myself!”
Me too, Janice. So I’m ending my WordAds Beta.
The quest for ways to generate income doing what I like to do continues. I have a few ideas up my sleeve. Or maybe a more traditional approach is in order.
You never know until you try.
I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:13-14 NIV
I cried in church and at the hotel. I cried for the people we visited and the people we missed seeing this trip. I teared up at Ladue Nails, the zoo, and the Galleria.
When I lived in St. Louis, I couldn’t wait to leave. Whistle me Dixie and send me packing to North Carolina where I was raised. Where life is normal.
Now that I live in Wichita, I’m still homesick for The South. But I also long for the Lou, where life is normal.
“I’m homesick,” I said to my husband. “But I’m not sure for what!”
“You’re homesick for everything and everyone we’ve known,” he said.
Well, that about covers it.
Sometimes I think my husband could be happy living in a van down by the river. Or on a farm. Or in a city. Or a small town. Or just about anywhere else you can imagine. His parents gave him luggage for graduation if that tells you anything.
But I pine for a sense of place. I feel a need to belong somewhere.
my kind of town, Chicago is
I’ve belonged several somewheres on our tour de relocation, and now I miss them all. Even Chicago looks inviting.
If there ever comes a time when we leave Wichita to go home, where will that be exactly? Will I miss Kansas then the way I miss my former homes today?
Transference is a psychoanalytic concept meaning the inappropriate redirection of feelings from one relationship to another. Sigmund Freud came up with it, so take it with a grain of salt.
Those struck by locational transference struggle through life in a never-ending episode of homesickness. Missing, missing, always missing. A framework of loss their only constant.
Reframing is another therapy concept. It dares to find a different way to look at things.
Maybe the never-ending episode is really a pursuit of Home. The people and the familiar. The smells and seasons. The moments of contentment, love, and belonging taken for granted. The state of normal once found in a place and time.
We forge new relationships as life moves along—we have to. But this lingering homesickness accompanies us. It reminds us to embrace contentment where we find it because things may change tomorrow. It drives us on to recapture a place we left behind a long time ago. A place called Home.
They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that… from Hebrews 11:13-16 The Message
In case you’re wondering, I’m still here. Our summer schedule has thrown my time into a tizzy.
Fear not. New material is in the pipeline. Working on a few humdingers.
While you wait, would you be so kind as to likeeveryday epistle on Facebook if you haven’t already? Go over to the right sidebar and click the like button.
You might also subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. You’ll find the email and RSS feed buttons to the right as well.
Apologies to those readers who expect more regularity in posts. Hope you’ll extend a measure of summertime grace to me. As Ferris Bueller said in one of the finest movies ever made, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
He also said, “You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?”
Seriously, who makes the rules in blogging anyway?
Stop. Look around. Skip gym, unless that’s your thing. And stay tuned for the summer series of everyday epistle posts coming soon to a blog near you.
You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. James 4:14 The Message
