It has been forever since I blogged. So much has happened in the past few months, and yet very little has happened. The biggest thing is that I have a new job, which I have been working at for the past three months. And that’s been amazingly rewarding and also a big part of why my time is full.

In the past, working for churches had this fluid quality to it. I was a salaried worker, and basically on call 24/7. Not that I would actually be called up for things, but the understanding was that my time and work time were all interconnected. If I took an hour for a doctor’s appointment mid-day, I would make up the time later on. So I didn’t worry about stopping my “work” to do something like write a blog post. Maybe I should have, I don’t know. But now I have a job where I clock in and out. I can’t really check my phone while I’m on the clock either. This is not a complaint, just an observation.

At the end of the day, I am often too tired to bother with much of anything. I don’t feel like writing or journaling or doing anything productive. What I feel like doing is having dinner, putting up my feet, enjoying a glass of wine, and indulging in a television show or reading a good book.

Here’s the thing: I love my new job. What am I doing? Working for a food bank. I spend 30 hours each week working with volunteers in the sort room. The work is exciting and demanding and I love going to work. I even enjoy the commute (audio books and podcasts have become my best friends).

I do wish that we had more chances to connect with our community, but right now that is really difficult for Travis. He is trying to separate from this place because the stuff with our church still hurts him. It hurts me too. We miss our congregation but also know that trying to maintain relationships when he no longer serves there can be crossing some ethical lines. If people reach out to us, we respond and we love seeing folks. But we cannot be the ones to reach out without giving the appearance of a lack of integrity. He is not the pastor and I am not the DCE anymore. And that goes back to the world of churchwork, where the personal and professional intersect and overlap so much that it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins.

I  am so thankful for a job that is a job. Where I put in my time, then clock out and my time belongs to me. It makes things like dentist appointments more complicated, but the payoff of having clearly defined boundaries makes a huge difference. I can be “work Stephanie” for eight hours and then come home and just be me. Sometimes I will think and plan during my off time, but I am learning to let go of work during the drive and be myself at the end of the day. Now if I could find the energy to actually DO something at the end of the day… But I sleep really well at night and I am getting a lot of exercise at my job, so that is a good thing.

(If you are wondering where I found the time to write this post, I had a dentist appointment this morning, and I am not scheduled to work until 12:30. So I finally made time to blog! Plus, my husband got me a keyboard for my Kindle Fire, so blogging will be easier for me since I can get into WordPress super-duper quick!)