Unearthing Alicia

 Money doesn’t buy happiness, but not having enough sure does buy you stress and grief. The real question is, how much is enough? I grew up watching my hard-working parents stress and fret about money and, although we were happy, I saw the toll it took on them. I never wanted to add to that worry so as soon as I got paid for my first babysitting job at nine years old, I tried to pay for my own clothes and activities. I saw money as a tool and never spent enough that I didn’t have any left. That one little thing, spending less than I made, has made all the difference. Money is a tool and if you recognize that you can use it to your advantage. If you see money as a goal you’ll never have enough. If you see money as a status you’ll never be satisfied. I love my family and I am so grateful that we have enough money to have a modest home, vehicles, clothes, and food, and that there is some left over to do fun things and help others. My husband’s job provides for us all and he’s be...

 Who am I? That's an easy question and the hardest question in the world.  Who am I? My name is Alicia and I am the daughter of Craig and Marie. I am a granddaughter, niece, aunt, sister, wife, mother, and friend. Who am I? I am the Young Women's President, the cake-maker, the audiobook narrator.  Who am I? I am an inherently lazy person who is constantly fighting the urge to just sit and read a book. Who am I? I am the silly, crazy one who belts out Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of my lungs and wears shoes that look like ice cream cones.  Who am I? I am a heart mom and a mother to a late child. I am one who grieves daily and genuinely smiles daily. Who am I? I am the responsible one who simply gets things done when they need to be done. The one you call when you need advice or just need to vent.  Who am I? I am a vain woman who just wants to be pretty but pretends not to be concerned with such frivolous things or what other people think.  Who am I? I am the...

 Have you heard of 20% Time? It's not a new idea, in fact, a quick look at Wikipedia shows that it comes from an initiative 3M started back in 1948 for employees to dedicated 15% of their paid time to their own projects. Google helped bring the idea back by allowing their employees to use 20% of their time for personal projects and there's been a movement to encourage more companies and even schools to follow suit.  For some reason, if I'd heard of 20% time before this was the first time it really registered. As a mom trying to home school three kids while going to school online, juggling my responsibilities as Young Women President at church, being a wife, baking and decorating cakes, narrating and producing the occasional audiobook, and trying to be a person all at the same time can be a bit overwhelming. The idea of spending 20 minutes a day working something just because I wanted to seems unattainable, let alone 20% of my day or week. But I've been getting up at 6am...

"Do you need a grand, detailed, complete plan before you can begin your hero's journey? Has this become an excuse for never taking the first step?" Yes, and yes.  This question, posed in the book A Field Guide for the Hero's Journey by Jeff Sandifer and Rev. Robert Sirico, hit me hard. The hero's journey they're talking about is that of the entrepreneur, and the fear that I don't know exactly what to do is the main thing that has kept me from taking the first step.  In every other aspect of my life, I'm not a planner. Believe me, it drives my husband nuts. When we go on vacation he wants to have our days planned out; I want to see how we feel and be okay discovering new things. When we moved to a new city for college and didn't have a place to live even just a couple of weeks before we had to be there he was completely stressed out and I was calm, believing that we could only do what we could do and if we did it would all be fine. I barely know wha...

"If we could see the end so clear We'd surely lose our fears"   Twenty years ago, I attended a church conference called Especially for Youth. Along with activities, classes, dances, and service projects, we were given a CD (like I said, it was 20 years ago) with songs composed and recorded especially for that year. I listened to that CD countless times over the next several years, but now I can remember only two things from it: the version of I Believe in Christ and one lyric from an original song that says "If we could see the end so clear We'd surely lose our fears."  This line meant a lot to me over those years. I remember having moved across the country to Memphis, TN to work at a radio station and being laid off after two months. I wasn't sure whether to stay there and find a job, go with my radio mentor to Maine, or go back home so I prayed and prayed. Finally, the answer I received was, "Write in your journal." Not really the ans...