So for those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you now know (although you may not have realized it) why I haven’t been posting a whole lot these last few months. I was in a process that I couldn’t talk about publicly—and that was the main thing taking up all my brain power, so I never felt like I had much else I wanted to talk about. I have just accepted a new ministry position that will start in early November. I finish my current position in late October. Although I’m still denominational staff, it’s in a very different way: the new position will be REALLY new for me—all sorts of a learning curve. I. Can’t. Wait. It feels very, very right. I’m already being welcomed in by my new networks-to-be and my calendar is already filling up with requests for my time. I’m looking forward to having new challenges in front of me.
On the other hand, I will really miss the women I’ve been working with for the last 17 years. I’ve been getting wonderful messages of support since the news went public. I joked with a friend of mine that reading Facebook and email has become a sort of “This Is Your Life, Sandra Hasenauer,” with people sharing memories and moments that I’d entirely forgotten about. It’s been very bittersweet. Fortunately, we’re a small enough denomination that I know I’ll keep running into many of them at denominational events in the future. Still, I’m going from a network of relationships I’ve grown quite comfortable with and close to, to having to build an entirely new one. We’ve talked about that introvert thing before!
What that has meant for the blog and podcast is that I just haven’t felt like I had much to say since I couldn’t yet talk about the thing that was taking up most of my attention. I haven’t been at my sewing machine much, I haven’t done any embroidery, and there are even bigger cobwebs in my dye studio than there were when I was in school. I have been sort of living life in limbo, in a way. Funny how our mental state can have an impact on everything else. It’s not that I’ve been particularly busy or anxious. I just had difficulty wanting to focus on anything.
And now, having officially gotten the new position, I’m still not sure what my future will look like. I strongly suspect it will be a lot busier than it’s been. I’ll have a lot more travel on my schedule, although it’ll largely be more in my control rather than being told where I need to be and when. I’ll be preaching a lot more, and bringing greetings and generally being present at congregational and community events. I think there are a lot of chicken and spaghetti dinners in my future. I’ll be on the phone a LOT, and I’ll be spending a lot of time in coffee shops with folks, and I know for sure I’ll be in meetings. And then there’s all that administrative stuff that will still be on my desk for when I am not in coffee shops or on phones or eating chicken or preaching.
I haven’t officially gotten myself to put the podcast to bed, but I will be honest with you and say it’s extremely unlikely I’ll have the time to get back to it. I think the only reason I haven’t just cut it off is more from affectionate memory of enjoying doing it than a realistic expectation it will ever happen again. (I think iTunes may have cut me off at this point anyway.) I’m trying to get my mojo back for quilting because I know that it’s great stress relief. I think I have to start putting it into my calendar like everything else instead of just thinking “well, I’ll do it if I have time.” When I have time, I’m still more inclined to sit down with a novel.
But now that the deed is done and I have been officially voted in and notification has gone out to my current organization so we can all just move on, I am working on setting up new schedules, new habits, new plans. The podcast won’t be a part of it. But quilting and embroidery will be. So this blog will return to talking about interesting sewing stuff and not just be about clothing subscription boxes. Although there will still be some of that—after all, I’m no longer working in a home office and have needed to ratchet up the ol’ work wardrobe!
Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned!