Hello September 18th

We're ready for you this year, September 18th. 

Me,Sue (w/ Stephanie) Mom, Terry, Kathy

My sisters and I are planning to have dinner together tonight. 

We are late getting together for my sister Kathy's birthday. We get together for each of the sister birthdays over dinner, in addition to the family celebration with the husbands, kids, etc. Just to have time to connect with one another over good food and keep in touch.

Tonight is different, we chose the date of September 18th. We always stay in touch on this date, but don't always see each other. We lost our Mom, too soon, 37 years ago on this date. I was just 18, supposed to leave for college that weekend. I know others who have lost a parent at an early age, and I feel for them. 

Losing a Mom at such an impressionable time can not help but have an impact. Having terrific family who is close and provides support and unconditional love makes all the difference. It was hard for all of us, but being youngest (yes sisters, I got that in there!) I was the one still at home, as yet not established in my own life etc. My sisters did everything they could to stand in where they could to get me through. I don't want them to think I've ever forgotten that, for a minute, I have not.

We feel grateful to have a close-knit family who still gets together to honor special occasions, every holiday, births, weddings, and even small occasions.  We celebrate together and we sometimes, although fortunately not often needed, grieve together. I've heard people speak of not talking to or acknowledging family members, and I feel sorry for them. They are missing something.

 "Home" is often not a physical place, but is often a place in the heart where one knows they can do or say anything and will still be loved, and accepted, even if not completely agreed with or understood, still accepted and cared for. My family is my Home.

Oh, it's not always pretty. Do we argue? Yes! One year I walked out of my sister Terry's house because I didn't like the domino she played! Hahaha. I'm laughing now. Because of course,  it was not about the domino at all. She knows that and I know that. And a few might have been shaking their heads at the time, but Terry and I worked it out on the phone the next day, as we always do and always will. Because there is no thing that she can say to me, or I can say to her that can erase the unconditional L*O*V*E I have for her or any one of my sisters. Should we take care with our words, and build each other up rather than storm out of one anothers homes on a whim? Yes, of course, and we usually do. That was a rare day, (Actually, it was night, the middle of the night, we play dominoes into the night when we get together.) and an unusual circumstance. None of us are likely to forget it. But the feelings have long since been forgiven and now we laugh about it, or I do anyway. 

What I really remember is Terry might not have played the domino I wanted her to play, and it might have been deliberate to agitate me. But when the chips were down and I was struggling in the post- September 1975 time period, Terry, was there to provide stability, solace, reason, and sometimes just a listening ear or HOME. Thanks, those were the moves that counted. And there were lots of those. Seems I required lots of that patience during that next, um decade.... Thanks to all my sisters. Kathy and Sue had the foresight to live out of town during the 'rocky years,' but we all remained close, albeit long distance. And all four of us are local now and I'm grateful we are blessed to be geographically close and close at heart.

Any day now our niece Emily, who a few years ago was valiantly fighting a tough fight with breast cancer, is having her third baby. Niece Ashley is getting married where she lives in California. Almost all of us will be able to make it out for the wedding in LA, where Sara also lives. Stephanie and Mirek and their four babies are making the trip too. And of course, all the sisters will be there. We all go over and above to support each other in our endeavors big and small and all the life events inbetween, because our parents supported us. Our father in particular, raised us to believe we could do or be anything we decided we wanted to be, because he believed it of us. Thanks Dad!

So September 18th, we are prepared to remember the day, and celebrate family.  So many blessings to share together because two beautiful people loved each other and raised us to love and support each other ----no matter what. That doesn't happen every day or every where. But it happens here.

Peace

Go kiss your sister!

Betsy

Edit to post:
Gus Henry Detrick has joined the world! He was  born September 19th at 7:39 p.m. Mother and baby are doing great, as you can see for yourself!  8lbs 9 oz. and beautiful.

I love the emotion in this photo, this is the first look. "Oh, it's you, in person." "Hi Mommy, Thanks."

Emily, Gus and Ryan

Our Dad's name was Harry Wass, and he went by "Hank." Henry, a cousin name to Hank, as Gus' middle name is a nod to Dad. I like it! Rumor has it Susanna and Sebastian made their visit today and approved their baby brother, so he is IN!!
Congrats Em and Ryan, and baby Gus.
-B

Tracking the Progress

 A lot has happened this week. Really. 

 But I can’t find an exciting picture to show you any of it so I post this one instead. 

I love colors and vegetables! I took this platter of roasted vegs to a family picnic at my sister Terry's, last year. We know this photo was from last year because this platter didn't survive the picnic. But the vegetables were great!

Anyway, we are moving forward. Here is a little about my week.

• The blog post of last Sunday is my most read post to date, bar none, go figure. Thank you for the love.
• All the kitchen equipment was ordered last week and has now started to arrive!!! 
• The truck is in its new home in Canal Winchester, OH becoming a commercial kitchen on wheels, and I had a great day taking it there. Just a feeling that I was in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time, and feeling blessed to have the ability to do it. Ability meaning lots of things- means, wherewithal, help and support of friends, partner, family, etc. see next point.
• An angel came through for me this week. I knew I was going to find a way to make all this happen without stressing our family finances or family financier, and an angel has appeared, really two. They know who they are. Bless them! (This sounds like I have someone who gave me money. Not really, they just made it easy for me to conduct business. I’m extremely grateful. Thanks.) 
• Randy and I have agreed on a name for our business!!! (This is huge) I’m not trying to be coy, but until we get everything registered, we still haven’t publicized it. You know me, I’ll blurt anything, but I’ve promised I wouldn’t say. So, yes, I’m blaming Randy! I’m kidding he’d probably tell also, but he promised me. So there you have it. When we have our logo and have it all sewn up, we’ll put it out there. Then we’ll need you to go to our Facebook page and ‘like’ us. In Facebook land, when it’s a business you don’t ‘friend’ the business, you ‘like’ them. So please ‘like’ us when we do have our page. Because once we have the biz we can’t promote it on our personal FB pages or they will freeze our accounts. Thanks.   
•  Because we have our biz name, we now have our LLC name, too. We could have named our LLC anytime because it didn’t have to be the same. But I wanted to wait and tie it in. Glad I did. It’s an acronym of business name. I like it.   
•  Our design for the layout and equipping of the truck was approved by the Health Department this week. So that is step one of passing inspection. Because we changed the layout, we are not required to have a separate commissary for our business!! This is HUGE news, I should have listed first. This will really streamline the business and our time schedule, but also will save us a great deal of money. The health inspector was instrumental in helping to make that happen. So there really are great people everywhere, if you reach out them. 
• I’ve preliminarily gotten acceptance for the City of Cincinnati Mobile Vending program once we have the Health Department sticker. Really that just means I made sure there is still a spot for us. They only give out 25 licenses per year. We didn’t want to get this far down the road and then find out we couldn’t participate in the city program. 
• I practiced our #1 food item for the Food Truck on some family members last night. Flying colors, it passed with… flying colors. I’m getting excited. Did I say it went over really well? All components of it were great. It has a lot to it and I’m excited to see how it will be received/perceived by the public. At first there are questions, but then people say, ‘yep, lay it on me.’ The whole thing. And they love it! Really, if you think of Food Truck food as ‘street food,’ it’s supposed to be a little more jumbled up, a little messy, mixed flavors. Not quite as buttoned up and tidy. Okay? So for dinner last night the offer was, ‘plain or street?’ Everyone went for ‘street.’ Amen! 
• Oh, and we have a ‘secret ingredient’ and I practiced it again yesterday morning. (5^th version) I think I’ve got the recipe where I want it. I’m happy with it. I sent some over to house of Randy, awaiting verdict, he is also rarely without an opinion. But verdict here is I’ve got the truck recipe nailed. In my mind this could be breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. But, that’s just me. I could tell you what we’re calling it but that will have to wait too.

So really this was a blog post of nothing. It’s everything I can’t tell you about yet. But we are just on the verge of pulling this together. I see the pieces moving together from an idea, to a stripped gutter truck, to a fully realized commercial kitchen rolling in Cincinnati and vicinity, stay tuned. 

My sister Sue and I have the same Mary Engelbreit calendar every year. As we turn the page daily, we know the other is seeing the same page and message. Occasionally one sends the other photo of a page if it really fits, I got this from Sue, something about it made her think of me.

Thanks for joining us on the journey, and thanks for reading. 

Make the most of today, it’s really the only one of which we are assured.

Peace,

Betsy

(Slightly) Off Topic Blog Post

(Slightly) Off Topic Blog Post
Or

New Beginnings

Or

Ode to the 20% failure on my DISC Personality Test

It's tough to know where to start on this one.

One thing I know for sure, I am in a new place. Or at the very least, I'm not in the old one.

And now that the change has been made, it does seem like it was time to make a change. And without having cut the cord on what I was doing, I wouldn’t have been looking for that next something new. And would not have embarked on this business venture with my brother-in-law.
And therefore wouldn’t be about to distribute some A-1 streetfood about the places and streets of Cincinnati! (I was going to say ‘kickass streetfood’ but its Sunday, I didn’t think it would be polite)
So, it’s all good.

Ah, but getting here, there were some hurdles. And there are some places that hurt a little if you push on them a little too hard, or even if you don't.

For your listening enjoyment while reading, this is a long (but worthwhile?) post:

And today is really the first day of not being in the old place. That is, among other things I was Greeting Ministry coordinator at my church. A very fine church, which I still love and am committed to, but now from a distance. When I finished erasing the weekly jobs and tasks I had blocked in my calendar just for this little volunteer position, I freed up 20 hours, a week. That’s why I knew I was going to need a big project if I was going to walk away from this ministry. I loved putting a lot of time into a ministry I enjoyed and which met my gifts and in which I felt well suited to serve. Why leave? It was going to be made a job, a paying job. And of course, I applied. Here is where I flunked. They were really looking for someone a little more ‘people-y’ 

This is where the DISC comes in. Do you know it? It goes by other names and is also similar to and crosses over with the Myers-Briggs. People are categorized by whether they are task/people oriented. Also if they are oriented more fast/slow. And also are they: Dominant/Influencing/Steady/Complacent. (An ideal work team has some of each type on the team. There is no ideal or better personality type, all are valuable.) I like and use the DISC all the time. Here’s a shortcut if you are unfamiliar, if in an interview or conversation, if you know to slow your pace in speech to someone who speaks slowly, or speed up if they are a fast talker – you’re half way there. Oh and if you know me I don’t have to tell you this, but I’m a ‘D’ for Dominant, big surprise, right? What are you?

 But I was asked “would you say you are more people-oriented or more task-oriented?” (I mean you could watch my work in the Sanctuary I had just demoed and re-built in a 12 week time period, on time and on budget and making lots of new friends and business contacts along the way, and see how that worked out, or you could ask me the question. But you see how this is going.) So my answer was “I’m 50/50.” Here is what I mean by 50/50, I’m both. Really, I’m 100/100, and that’s what I should have said. I’m exactly what I need to be in the situation. 

When I need to spend hours on the computer scheduling 130 volunteers so that all the doors of the church are covered with a greeter and then coordinate with them to be sure they remember their assignment, I’m task oriented. But when I spend all morning every Sunday interacting with the people in the Welcome Center, I’m people-oriented. 100% each time. And, I loved doing both. It doesn’t matter which one I’m more naturally inclined to be/do. I bring it either way. (An aside, I told one of my very closest friends that I was told I wasn’t people-oriented enough, she simultaneously almost fell out of her chair and she spit her drink out. Thank you, Tina, I love you.)

But darn, they were looking for someone more like 60-70% people, and the remainder task. Sorry you lose, board goes back. (Oh sorry, that’s an old game show.) Too bad. And you know what? They found ‘him.’ Just took one afternoon meeting and they knew enough to know he’d be great. 

So I could stay on, continuing to volunteer, or I could understand that I and the 100% I was giving, was not going to be what they wanted. Ever. I did stay and wish the new person well..I love my church and all my (formerly my) volunteers. I want the ministry we built together to continue to go well. So the 100% task oriented side of me gave all my files, details, and instructions to him. I stayed 3 months and 2 days beyond the day I learned I was not ever going to be what was wanted in this position.

Honestly some people are having a hard time understanding why I stayed a day longer than the phone call.

Others don’t understand why I couldn’t just stay and work alongside the new person.

And still others of course have no idea, how deeply rejecting it is to be told you are 20% short of being people-y enough to be paid for a ministry you built and have been working in for 5 years. Or they do, but choose not to see it. To ice the cake, I didn’t just build the ministry, I built the welcome center in which we are doing the welcoming. 

I’m not sure how long it will be before I walk back into it that welcome center. Today is Sunday. I stayed home. My family went. We are not leaving our church. It was our church before the evaluators of the DISC ever got jobs there. They’ll be off improving other churches and making them fit their vision, and this will still be our church, where our family came to know God, our son was Baptized and raised, and where we have some fine facilities in no some part due to our family. I’ll be at our church. But my heart for now will be on a food truck and I’ll find a way to make that my ministry. 

I’m truly grateful these events occurred because it caused me to move on and I’m happy about the direction. And I harbor no ill will to those arbiters of these decisions. I think our Senior pastor is an excellent speaker of God’s word, and has led our church well.(And was not the administer of the DISC.) I’m okay with disagreeing with people but still seeing their value. (It’s just unfortunate we disagree about me/my role!) I think this is just exactly what was supposed to happen to move me to my Food Truck and I never would have gotten there without this turn of events. 

Right now my 100% task oriented side is dealing in all those details of figuring out who has the best price for the equipment needed and determining the best layout for it, along with my partner. And you saw his task-oriented side with the concrete blocks simulating the weight of the equipment. We have a great deal more task-oriented focus to go before we are ready to roll. When the customers come, because we did that well, we’ll forget that part and we’ll be 100% people-oriented because that’s why we were doing the tasks in the first place, to get ready for the people. The people are the point of doing the tasks. 

If Randy and I were both 60-70% people-oriented and neither of us very task-focused we wouldn’t be properly ready when the people come. It would be great to see them, they might have fun visiting our truck, but if we can’t get __________ (you thought I was going to name our product, no way!) out in time, they won’t be back too many times. We are thinking now about food flow, systems, packaging, sales tickets, etc. We are 100% task now so we can be there 100% for the people when they come up to the window in a few weeks. And we'll be successful then, because of the detail we are putting in now.

I’m glad I’m both, it has served me well. You too, Randy. 

A person who's opinion means much to me, predicts great success with this truck and the food we are planning to serve because of the detail we are putting into the planning and the food we are planning to serve. He is confidant what we do with the good results will be my ministry. I think that's right. Ministry is where you make it. I know due to the efforts of many, ministry will continue to occur where it was started in a church building in Anderson Township. And ministry of a slightly different type, will happen rolling on a food truck through the streets of Cincinnati.

Peace and Blessings,
Betsy

This has always been my church work marching orders and is in fact attributed to John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist faith. It's on my computer and written inside all my notebooks and workbooks:

Photo and photo effects by Betsy, permission for non-public usage,granted.

 

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can!


 "Life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you react to it." - Charles Swindoll, and often quoted by Mary Kay Ash.