Mother of the Year

Today, I am grateful for my Mother, Sharon Peterson. I have written quite a few posts on my blog about my mother, as referenced (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). You might say that she is in the top ten things featured in my writing. Pretty important person you might say. Both would be pretty true. She’s kind of a big deal. There are a lot of clichés out there, “my mom is better than your mom,” or, “the best mom of ALL THE MOMS!” And while these are true about my mom, they kind of fall short.

My Profession: The Reality Behind Social Work vs. What People Think I Do.

As I sit here, killing a sinus infection, there is not much to do besides knock off some Netflix, rest, drink water, and sleep again. Needless to say, I’ve been getting some writing done and this post has been sitting around for years. I decided to finish it up.

I can spot it right away. I’m at a social gathering and I’m telling someone I’ve never met what I do for a living. I tell them I’m a social worker. “Oh..” is their response. When you’re as good at reading people as I am, you try not to laugh at how blunt their reaction comes off. “Oh..” translates into, “Right, so you take people’s kids from them. You make almost no money. You’re a male in a female dominated profession. Wait…why are you a social worker?? You could do anything??”

The Beginning of the Ending

This year I start the beginning to the ending of my twenties. Three years ago I wrote a piece on my thoughts entering the ending of my mid-twenties. No this won’t be a drawn-out piece on how a millennial feels old, or document my angst towards my wasted youth. No. In fact, it may be one of the shortest pieces I write on the subject matter. (Which if you’re a regular to the site, might be a relief, ha)

How Moving my Life to New Zealand for 3 years Changed Me

I came to change New Zealand. After 3 years, New Zealand changed me. Cliche I know, but this ended up being the truth.

This post has been written over the past 18 months. My thoughts, my observations, and my feelings have obviously morphed along the way, but let’s just start at the beginning.

With 50lbs of luggage, a working knowledge of left hand driving, and one solid contact, I packed up what I owned and moved my life to New Zealand. I kissed my parents, hugged my niece, wished my siblings well, and flew. In my luggage was an optimistic, slightly naive, monstrously unrealistic idea that I was going to get a job, in my field, in the first few months. With…one…solid…contact. Yeah. Right.

How a 10 minute Run Changed my Life

This post comes a little late, and I wrote it a few days ago, but World Cup Cricket has taken over this nation. No apologies.

I was doing my usual workout at my gym on my day off. It had been a while and I wanted to get back into some routine. The workout went well and I went to the treadmill to do my usual 10 minute, post workout run. So, this run may not have changed my life in the way you might be expecting, but it was significant for this reason. A thought entered my head as I began running. “What if I just ran until I couldn’t run anymore? No looking at the monitor revealing my progress, just personal drive. How far could I run?”