Day in the Life - January 2021

Last year I did a series of "Day in the Life" posts. I did a Sunday in January, a Monday in February, and so on until I'd covered every day of the week. I love having that record of what life was like then...and I thought I would do it again this year so I can remember this season of life! We also get MANY questions about what our days look like here at WillowBridge. Truthfully every single one looks different, and I had no clue the day I picked to document would be extra busy. There's no such thing as a "normal" day, and we never know what one will look like when we wake up. But here is an example of what a Sunday in January 2021 looked like for us.

Date: Sunday, January 10, 2021
We are on duty at WillowBridge, flying solo since our co-workers have today off.
Today we have four tenants.
Ryan is 41 years old, Bekah is 42 years old, and Braeya is 14 years old.
Weather: High of 32 - Partly Sunny. (Very partly. It was done by mid-morning.)

Midnight-6:00 a.m.

* While most people would start this stretch deep in REM, we ring in our Sunday sitting on the couch watching the first episode of Mad About You. 

I'm still finishing my last 16 ounces of water from Saturday. (We were gone all day and it threw off my water consumption.) I'm also wrapping up my journaling from Saturday. My mind is heavy with thoughts. When all those are finished, I move into my makeup removal routine and we fill up the bedroom diffuser with a concoction of nighttime oils. (Thieves and Lavender tonight.) 

We're on duty, so we grab the WillowBridge phone to have beside the bed in case any tenants have an emergency during the night. We land in bed around 12:30 and talk/watch TV/listen to Braeya play until about 1:00, when we all finally conk out for the night. 

6:00 a.m.- Noon

My alarm goes off at 7:00, and I snooze until about 7:30. Ryan talks me into staying in bed until closer to 8:00, and since I'm exhausted from the previous day, I agree. Braeya is still camped out at my feet, but she gets up when I do. 

I move to the living room, grabbing my first 32 ounces of water for the day as I walk by the kitchen, and pull out the work laptop to begin creating notes for Tim and Justine. (They went off duty Saturday night when we returned home, and they'll be off the next two days, so we will need to keep track of all the happenings for them to read when they return.) I was too mentally spent to write about the things that happened when we first went back on duty Saturday night, so it's time to catch up now. Ryan fires up the coffee pot and fills our new living room diffuser with Thieves so we can breathe that in throughout the day. 

The coffee is finally ready and he gets the first cup for both of us, and for some reason this morning, it's extra amazing. Today will probably require much coffee, actually. I finish up the notes and check the blog, answering comments from yesterday, and reading through new posts on the roll from today. 

I empty the coffee cup and finish reading through all my posts and emails, so it's time to get up and put the sheets in the washer. Saturday is always sheet-washing day, but we were gone all day yesterday so I moved that to today instead. 

Ryan takes a shower, and I get dressed so I can begin morning chores around the building. We like to have the blinds open in the community room before 9 a.m. when the room opens to tenants, because it just looks more welcoming that way. I also write today's date and an inspirational quote on the window board in the entry, which I decorated for winter over our recent weekend.

Then I head into the office to erase yesterday's checkmarks from our daily to-do list (laminated sheet that contains daily chores) and begin checking off today's items. I also glance over our team white board to see what is ahead for us today. (We have a giant white board in the office that we use collectively as a team to keep track of what's happening that week. Since we were just off for three days, I need to see if Justine added any new things to Sunday's to-do list for us to accomplish.) 

I pour a second cup of coffee, keep working on the water, and restart the dryer, which is fluffing Ryan's shirt for church. I also check over our recipe for dinner today (chicken zucchini parmesan) to see if I need to do anything in the land of prep work before I leave for church. Looks like I just need to put it all in the slow cooker when I get home, so all that's left now is to get ready for church and have some breakfast. 

Ryan and I switch places in the bathroom. (Our bathroom is very small, so we have to take turns getting ready.) I'm on fourth day hair today, so it doesn't take long to re-curl. I put on my makeup and declare myself ready. Normally I listen to music or Marco Polo friends while I get ready, but my mind is still full from yesterday, so I spend my getting-ready time praying instead. 

Ryan makes my fruit smoothie for breakfast, and I drink it in the last few minutes we have before leaving for church. 

I start the dishwasher after I'm done with my smoothie cup, so we'll have enough dishes to eat from when lunchtime arrives. When it's time to leave, Ryan and I grab our Bibles, hats, coats, and masks and head to church. We still haven't landed on where our permanent church home will be, but for today we think it's important to attend the one the tenants have chosen go to, especially since we have some new tenants in the building.

It's the first time this church has met in person for about two months, and we find ourselves a little corner to sit for the service. We locate all our tenants and are happy to see them settling in with friends they've made over the last few months as they've attended  this church. The sermon is excellent in a convicting kind of way, and I take two and a half pages of notes to copy into my journal later. 

After church, the tenants find us and we talk to them about the morning and see how things went for them. We all head back to WillowBridge and the girls decide to hang out in the community room to make lunch together. Ryan talks over some things with them (church seems to always trigger deeper conversations) and I sneak back into our apartment to put the sheets in the dryer, portion out our leftover white queso chicken chili for lunch, and get dinner going in the slow cooker so it's all ready to go come dinner time. 

I remember that I need to get more butter out of the freezer, because I promised to make cookies with one of the tenants this afternoon, so I make a quick run to the basement to grab more from the deep freeze, and while I'm gone, Ryan comes back to the apartment, having finished his conversations in the community room.

He unloads the dishwasher while I warm up our lunch.

Noon-6:00 p.m.

Ryan and I sit at the breakfast bar in our kitchen and eat our leftover soup. 

I'm on to the second 32 ounce water for the day, which puts me right on track with where I want to be. The two of us talk at length about work, trying to sort and process through the needs around us and how we can meet them in effective ways. (We sorely miss our evening walks from warmer weather, where we used to have these conversations.)

After lunch, we have the last of the razzleberry pie we baked last week - ala mode, of course - with coffee and keep talking. 

We decide we should probably go check on the cooking taking place out in the community room. It involves frying foods, so we want to make sure the hazy smoke that always ensues stays to a minimum - ha! 

Things are going well out there. The baby crawls over to me and I'm having a great time bouncing him until Ryan walks by and makes a face. He bends down and takes a whiff...and then I catch a whiff of my own! WHEW! That boy can create quite a stink, for sure. 

Between team cooking and team diaper, everyone ends up clean and no smoke alarms go off. That's a win for today. Ryan and I sit with the girls and talk to them while they eat, and the baby conks out in my arms. I pass him off to Ryan (the girls are still eating) and excuse myself to go put the sheets back on the bed, make it, and sneak into the office to work on the daily chores. (I normally have them done well before noon, but Sundays are always different because of church.)

Before I make it into the office to work, one of the tenants wants to talk for a while. We appreciate those moments when they open up without prompting, so Ryan and I take time aside to talk with her for a while and then I get to the office work. Since it's a weekend, my inbox stays pretty empty, but there are lots of other daily tasks to attend to in security/plans for the upcoming week/scheduling, etc. 

After that, I gather up the ingredients for the chocolate chip cookie fest and carry them out into the community room to bake with the tenant. We exercise teamwork and whip up the batch in no time. Ryan works on his computer at the community room table and watches football on TV out of the corner of his eye. We all keep a collective eye on the baby who plays with a leftover Easter egg while we work.

The first batch of cookies comes out of the oven JUST as one of the other tenants needs to leave for work, so she serves as a taste tester on her way out the door. I gather up my coat, purse, van keys, and shoes and hop in the driver's seat to take her to work. I'm back to WillowBridge in about 15 minutes and eager for some afternoon coffee and a sampling of those cookies.

Ryan cleans up the community room kitchen (so kind of him!) and unloads the community room dishwasher. Everything is all cleaned up, and I continue to update work notes and talk to our tenant.

The two guy tenants have been pretty quiet today, but one comes into the community room to grab some food from the pantry. (We have a pantry stocked with donated food items that tenants can use if they run low on something.) He heads back to his apartment to make his dinner. (Oh! He tries the cookies too, and declares that they are excellent.)

I go back into our apartment to watch a Marco Polo message Justine sent me earlier and add zucchini and yellow squash to our slow cooker meal. It's fully done cooking and is just hanging out on warm at this point, but the recipe said to add that at the very end.  While I chop and dice the zucchini, I Marco Polo back to Justine. And through all of this, Braeya sleeps. We may have to work on Sunday, but she's not about to miss her naps! (The same is true for all other days of the week.)

Though I normally take Sunday as my rest day from working out, I took the day before instead (because of our travel) so I need to do my Your Daily Walk workout. The lengths of the workouts vary, but today's is 59 minutes long. I tell our tenant I'm going to work out and she wants to do it with me. We set up the workout in the community room and she makes it a half hour before calling it quits. 

6:00 p.m.-midnight

I finish the workout by myself, which basically means I entertain the tenant, Ryan, and the baby in the community room. I make it to my full 10,000 step goal (which is also normally nonexistent on a Sunday....but got moved because of our Saturday travel) and am very happy about that.  After my workout, Ryan has to do some paperwork in the office, so he excuses himself to finish that, and I dish up dinner from the slow cooker into our dinner bowls. Our tenant is cooking her own dinner while I dish up ours, and I happen to have the baby with me for a minute. I tell him not to touch the slow cooker because it's hot. I ask him if he can say hot, AND HE DOES! TWICE! I rush back out to have him say it to Ryan and his mom, but he just giggles and refuses. Of course.

I fill up my LAST 32 ounce water bottle for the day before Ryan and I eat dinner in the community room, and the tenant finishes cooking hers and eats with us. Then we all play a game that's new to Ryan and me - called What Do You Meme? It's pretty funny and Ryan wins...by one point. 

Ryan has to run a quick errand, so he takes care of that after the game. Our tenant that has spent the day hanging out with us takes her baby into her apartment to give him a bath and put him to bed for the night. I take advantage of the quiet moments to clean up the community room and do a few more notes for Tim and Justine. Ryan comes back pretty quickly and finishes cleaning up the community room where I left off. Our tenant comes back with the baby so we can give him goodnight hugs (aunt and uncle life for the win!) and then puts him to bed. 

I use the small break to make a cup of coffee in the Keurig and do a little more Marco Polo with Justine to catch her up on the day. We end up having conversations back and forth for a while and it's nice to sit and chat for a bit. I also take advantage of these few free moments to catch up the notes for Tim and Justine.

Our tenant asks if I'll do her devotions with her, and I say yes. We read the devo together and talk about it a little bit before quiet hours begin at 9 p.m. 

Since our other tenant worked today, we can't hunker down completely at the start of quiet hours. We wait for her text that she's ready to be picked up from work, and when it comes in, we hop in the van to go get her. When we come back to WillowBridge, I decide to go ahead and change the date and the quote on the window in the entry before bed, because I have to get up extra early Monday morning and be ready to leave the building by 7:15 to take one of the tenants to an appointment. I know I won't want to take the time to get up even earlier to change that info then, so I work ahead.

Ryan and I finally get into our apartment for the night about 9:45. I finish my last water bottle for the day and consult my day planner for the first time all day. Whoopsie. I was supposed to take pictures of our winter decor in natural light for the blog. I guess it's a little late for that. I decide to swap my posts for Monday and Tuesday and try again tomorrow for the natural light photography. 

Braeya is still napping in my seat on the couch, so I ask if she can scoot over, and she does...all the way to the other end to resume napping in Ryan's lap while he watches Sunday night football. 

I kick back to write Monday's blog, which ends up taking much longer than I anticipate. I take a break halfway through to have my standard evening snack of a honeycrisp apple with all natural peanut butter and unsweetened coconut flakes. 

After I finish the blog, I switch over to my journal to try to capture some thoughts on this day. I also copy over my sermon notes from this morning. Ryan joins me on the couch for us to do our Bible study together. We are working our way through a Daily Grace study called Search the Word. Today's chapter is called "Narrative: History, Law, and Gospels." We learn about historical narratives in the Bible and read a sample passage from Genesis that is an example of this genre. 

**

And just like that, it's midnight again. Our day isn't over. Ryan plays a little pool on his phone while I wrap up all my computer work for the day, and then it's time for evening chores. We know all of our tenants are in for the evening, safe and sound. He double checks the building to make sure everything is as it should be for the night. I plug in my Kindle to charge so it will be ready in the morning when I get up early to take our tenant to her appointment. (I can't go in with her, so I have to take car entertainment to keep me busy until she's done.) 

I hop in the shower before bed, and Ryan gets the coffee pot ready for morning, makes sure Braeya has all the food and water she needs for the next day, and fills up the diffuser and humidifier in our room. 

Sundays aren't usually quite this busy, but that's how it went this day in January! Thanks for reading along! 

What's Up at WillowBridge?

 It's been a busy little month since I last updated you on life at WillowBridge. So let me just dive in and give you some updates!

* Right after my last update, we accepted two new tenants into the building! I'm pretty sure it was the actual week of my last update that we conducted interviews with two applicants, and we accepted both of them. They will be transitioning here slowly over the coming weeks. Then just a few days ago, one of the guys who lived here when we first arrived came back to stay for a short time. He's actually in college right now, but he had a few weeks between semesters and needed a place to stay, so he moved back in temporarily. It's a whole new dynamic to have this many people in the building again, and we are enjoying it!

* We celebrated the first WillowBridge birthday since Ryan and I arrived. Miss Isla, Tim and Justine's daughter, turned ONE in December. We met her in July, so we've officially known her for half her life! We enjoyed celebrating her, and I have to say that my Isla time is one of my favorite work perks. She's my buddy (except for when I insist she take a nap and she insists she stay awake. I don't think she enjoys being my buddy then) and I LOVE spending time with her. Her little personality is full of spunk and sass, and when she wrinkles up her little nose and smiles until her eyes squint shut, she pretty much melts my whole heart.

* I had the opportunity to do my first writing assignment for Gateway Woods since I last updated you! They asked if I'd write an article about mentoring, and it was a delight to get to share my words with them. It was a brief article, but I was really excited to get the invitation to write!

* We had the WillowBridge Christmas on December 21, and I already told you a bit about our celebration. It really was one of the most fun nights we've had since we came! We had breakfast for dinner, played the plastic wrap prize game, and then unwrapped gifts A whole team of generous friends from a local church provided EVERYTHING for our tenants' Christmas. One lady and a group of her friends came together to purchase everything (and then some) the tenants listed on their wish list. Then three other ladies came together and each adopted one of our tenants and put together stockings for them. It made for a blessing-filled night for all of them!

* Then on the Saturday after Christmas, we had Christmas with our two incoming tenants. We got stockings for them and enjoyed some pizza together before opening presents! It was a fun way to get to know them a little bit better!

* The very last Sunday of 2020, Ryan and I went along with Rob and a few other Gateway-associated people to make a presentation at a local church that has been really supportive to us. We were able to share about the work we do here at WillowBridge - and it was good to be back in an actual church building again after a return to online church for so many weeks. 

* Tim, Justine, Ryan, and I enjoyed a New Year's Eve party - and then once one of our tenants got off work, she joined us and stayed through the ringing in of 2021. It felt right and appropriate to wave goodbye to one year and welcome another one with the same people we spend our days with the rest of the year! We had a great time. 

* We began the new year by taking down all the Christmas decor and tucking it away for another year - and working on some new decorations for our Community Room! Our friend Amanda made us this amazing vinyl cutout to hang above our picture wall, and we think it looks stunning up there. I have my eye on some more ideas to make the room more homey - but this was a fine start. I also put a few wintry things out in the entry to greet everyone when they enter! 

* Last week after church, one of our tenants wanted to make lunch for everyone else, and it was quite a lunch! It was kind of like a low country boil, and she cooked the entire thing by herself. The food was really good, and a couple of us experienced crawfish for the first time! 

How can you pray?

* Pray for us as we make the adjustment to a fuller house. It's a great thing, for sure, but as you know, any changes in a living situation (adding or subtracting) changes everything about the dynamic of the house. We are doing absolutely everything we can to make it a healthy transition for everyone involved, but there are bound to be growing pains!

* Our tenants expressed an increased interest to learn more about the Bible, which is really exciting! We're meeting with them to answer their questions, and they have great questions! We want to make sure we answer in a way that is both correct (obviously) but also relatable and understandable. Ever have teachers who were so smart that they couldn't teach very well? They knew their stuff inside and out, but trying to help someone else understand it was a challenge? Well, I am not presuming that we are super smart, but I don't want our familiarity with the Bible to be a hindrance in helping them understand!

* Like everyone, the continued versions of quarantine and restrictions bring a unique set of challenges to us in helping our tenants find the connections they'll need for the future. We're doing all we can to be creative, but it's getting harder as the months go by. (This is not an issue unique to us, and I absolutely recognize that.)

Thanks for all of you who encourage us so well regularly! 

A Smattering of Winter

I remembered to take my winter pictures! YAY!!!! So today I thought I'd give you a little tour of our apartment with all its winter decor up for display!

I put away everything that was most definitely Christmas, but I did leave out a few things that felt just plain wintry. We are enjoying the combination of subtle and cozy that they provide, so we thought we'd show you how it looks, apartment-style!

I moved a few of my small trees into the guest room and put them on the bench under the window. We don't have any lights on these trees, and of course there aren't any ornaments on them, but they provide a nice touch of texture and color to an empty corner. 

A couple of non-breakable snowmen landed on the sink in the guest room. I figured if they got knocked into the sink by accident, they'd be safe. 

Our buffet area is back in its rightful place, and I made a couple of sparkly new year spots on it. Since we had leftover glasses and hats from our 2021 new year celebration, I incorporated those. And the part in the back reminds me of fireworks, which just makes me happy!

Brutus got in on the action, too. I think he can see better with these glasses on, but the hat is decidedly too small for his big head.

This corner is my favorite. I left up our flocked tree - with lights on it, and put some lanterns near its base. I put some other pinecone-filled/flocked trees and a snowman on the stove, with the birch branches in front of it. This is the coziest little area, and I just love it!

A couple of tiny trees in the coffee and utensil area...

The snowballs were in the cloche jar for Christmas, too, but I left them for January. I also added snowflakes where the wreaths had been on the cabinets. I like that touch!

This is our "porch" display. Snowmen, plain trees, snowballs, and a sled. 

We'll leave it up for a month or two and enjoy the cozy view...and then it will be time for SPRING!!!! 

Six Months In...

I planned to give you a tour of our winter decor today, because I finally have the house all gussied up, as they say, but alas, we had a very busy Sunday and I was never in our apartment during daylight hours to take the photos! So I'll take those pictures today and come back tomorrow with that tour. Meanwhile, I'll share with you the thoughts I intended to post about tomorrow! 

Believe it or not, this week marks six months since we came to WillowBridge. In some ways it seems like we've been here a hundred years longer than that, and in other ways, it seems like we just rolled into Grabill for the first time earlier this very week. 

But in honor of our six month workiversary, I thought I would share some thoughts on these past six months.

First, let's talk about the things that have gone just about the way we thought they would:

* We love working together every bit as much as we thought we would. This has been a marriage-long dream of ours, and it has not disappointed. We love being on the same team and every time Ryan asks me if I'm tired of looking at him, I say no. He reminds me I've been with him every day since July third, and I remind him that these have been my most favorite days ever. (Ryan also adds that it's the best to have your ACTUAL wife as your work wife.) 

And that concludes that portion of our review. Ha! It's not that the rest of the job has been a disappointment. It's just that there were so many things (most things, actually) that we had no expectations for in any direction, so most everything was a surprise! Here are the rest of the things we've noticed:

* We love our tenants more than we ever expected to. This doesn't mean that we never disagree with them or never have to have hard conversations with them. It doesn't mean life here is always easy. But it does mean that we have come to think of them as our kids (because we really are old enough to be their parents, even though we don't like to think about it) and we will fight for them and advocate for them with all our hearts. We miss them when we are gone, laugh heartily at their wit, and pray fiercely for God to lead and guide their decisions.

* The days are fuller than we ever could have imagined - and truthfully, we imagined they'd be pretty full. Though we're learning to draw boundary lines and stick to them when it comes to protecting our time, we are also aware that this is the kind of job where if you're needed, you're needed. Work days often run from before 8 a.m. to after midnight. We've gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to tend to issues, we've gotten up early and stayed up late to be present, we've sat in on gut-wrenchingly hard meetings, and we've worked solo for as long as ten days.

* Other duties as assigned takes on a whole new meaning here. Our jobs are defined in a nice little one- page description, but we've done a hundred other things, including but not limited to: assembling a toddler bed, extracting broken ear buds from deep within the ear, changing impressively foul diapers, making practice tests for the learner's permit, searching a river bed for a lost cell phone, doing photo shoots, monitoring tenants and guests during a surprise tornado warning, PTA work (which never goes away), financial aid counseling (which also never goes away), and even doing a little chaperoning now and then...just like junior high youth group. ;)

* We've attended more meetings in six months than we have in the rest of our careers combined. There are so many meetings and so many training sessions here! I seriously have never had another job with the number of them we've gone to in this short time!

* No matter how much training we have, there are some things you simply can't train for. Every single day is on-the-job training, and we learn most of our skills in the field in real time. There are no drills. 

* Watching our tenants succeed in their goals is one of the best feelings in life. We've had the opportunity to have a front row seat to some pretty amazing things, and those victories go a long way in sustaining us when we have a stretch of days that make us wonder if we're doing anything right. It's an equally exhilarating feeling to hear one of them acknowledge out loud that they appreciate what we do.

* Our work is far more about planting and watering seeds than it is about seeing a harvest. If we define our worth by a harvest, we're going to be disappointed. Our job is to show up every day, all day, and plant and water until we run out of seeds and the well runs dry. Though we love to see fruit, we have to know that we may never see that harvest. But we are called to be faithful with the planting and watering.  

* We are learning in brand new ways to do our very best to show love at all times, even when we may not feel like it. Our tenants have lived through experiences we don't even know and probably wouldn't be able to fathom if we did know about them. Their past marks their reactions to their present, just like our pasts mark our reactions to our present. They depend on us to be consistent and even-keeled in our responses in order to understand that we are genuine. God depends on us to be a consistent representative of His love, regardless of circumstances or our feelings. 

* This job has taught us marital teamwork like no other experience we've ever had. Ryan and I are usually easily on the same page with most things in life, but there have been times in this job where we don't see eye to eye. It hasn't undone us. I would say it has made us (and is making us) stronger. We are learning to hear opinions from opposite sides of thinking and find a way to work together for the best good, even if we don't agree. We have learned (and will continue to hone) a whole new rhythm of carrying out tasks while we are on duty. The days we work alone are long, since we don't have anyone to share the load with, but we have found that we work quite well together on those days, carrying the yoke and serving in tandem. 

There are also some things we're learning individually. 

Bekah: I'm learning courage like I've never known before. I'm not fond of conflict and though my role here often leans toward building peacemaker and mediator, I have had to learn to be firm, say difficult and unpopular things, and enforce rules even when it makes tenants upset with me. I still have MUCH learning to do in this department, but I've come a long way in six months. 

I've also learned to be much more courageous in standing for my convictions, even if I stand alone. I remember one meeting in particular where a consensus was taken, and I stood completely alone in my opinion. None of the rest of our team agreed with me...not even Ryan. In fact, even our boss didn't see it my way. Bekah of yore would have easily yielded to the majority, but that day I stood firm. I told all of them - even Rob - that I knew no one understood why I was so passionate about my point, but I believed in it strongly enough to die on that hill. I respected everyone else's different viewpoint and was not angry that the decision would follow that path, but I felt it necessary to stand firm in my thoughts. I told Ryan later that I wasn't even upset at the outcome of the meeting. I was grateful I had the courage to stand alone, because that was brand new for me. 

Ryan: I've had many jobs in my life, but this one has stretched me in ways I couldn't have imagined until I lived through it. This job is the least physically demanding job I've ever had, and yet I'm completely exhausted when I go to bed every night. 

The job has also challenged (in a good way) my listening skills. I'm finding that our tenants have spent much of their lives being told what to do without anyone really listening to them. I am striving to do my very best to listen well, really hear what they have to say - and then give advice that will hopefully steer them in the right direction, even if they don't always choose to implement it. 

So those are our thoughts and observations six months into this job. We are still glad God brought us here and we are grateful He is growing and changing us even while we are trying to be a Christlike example to those we serve!