Multi-ti-purpose Room

Today I’m going to hit you with a lot of information, so sit down and buckle up because I’m going to run through this like a bullet. And frankly, I feel like my life has gone through me like that same bullet. Funny, as you go through life, it seems normal until you step back and put it all in a nutshell. Then it just sounds really big.

Last year I was posting a lot of photography, because I was planning on starting up my business again.

That was my plan.

However, we don’t always get to decide how things in our lives go. Through some very unfortunate circumstances, my step-father passed away in May of 2023. This required me, my sister and step-siblings to completely stop what we were all doing and tend to our parents’ large home and property. We packed up 32 years and 3 storage units of their lives, sold their house and moved our mom to my town of Gardnerville. It was a very long and hard summer full of work and moving, and caring for my mom by bossing around the people at her assisted living center. Yes, I bossed them around as I became fiercely protective of my mom, who had just lost everything she had known as her life. Later that summer she was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and we lost her in October. Through a series of choices and contemplation I decided to start going to college with a new goal of becoming a marriage and family counselor. Trust me, there are 5 additional blog posts I would have to write to delve into each of these stories. You are getting the reader’s digest recap.

I made it through my first semester of school taking a full load including math and English classes for the first time since 1983. During math class I was assigned a project on my personal retirement goal. I thought it was silly, being that I was already retired and living on that income. However, during the assignment I decided to see what would happen financially if I sold my property. After following through with the assignment, I realized the smartest thing I could do was to sell my ranch. The ranch that has held all of my family, and dreams for the last decade of my life. I had been wondering what to do and wondering how I was going to be able to afford living here, maintaining it alone. After moving my parents and going through everything they owned I knew there was a strong possibility I could get stuck here and not be able to manage or get out of it before I died.

As I was doing all of this wondering, I mentioned to someone I was thinking about selling and that conversation lead to three people just stopping by to see the property, and the third party made an offer. I never even put the ranch on the market, but sold it to the third party that looked at it, and they bought it “as is.” I really like to tell people that God sold the property right out from underneath me. I never get really definitive answers for direction, but this answer hit me over the head like a 2×4. So, I leaned into this direction and sold the ranch. Meanwhile, I bought another house in Gardnerville. It’s smaller, easier to manage, and easier to afford alone. So here I am, one year later with two less parents, a new career goal, and a new home. I move in at the end of the month and can’t wait to share this adventure with you. Now I have time to write, to take pictures, to study, and to rest.

Over the last 9 years, I haven’t had time to do much but work, plant, clean, build, and be exhausted. I was feeling like I failed at the dreams or goals I had while living here. However, I’m reminded of the fact that I made this home beautiful enough to have someone else want it. I learned so much about myself and about others through all of the work I did here. I kept believing. However, sometimes all the work, sweat, and hope we put into things doesn’t always turn out to be exactly what we think it should. If you have followed me for any sort of time, you know I’ve realized this more than once. You know I’ve always been honest about the struggles and heartache life brings, because it does bring heartache. However, heartache and struggle is part of what makes life so incredible and terrible and beautiful. It is the human experience and we get to do it, and doing it all is when we grow, and become, and those things are my favorite.