HODGEPODGE BLOG

It became increasingly clear that I was not alone, the women I met and all of my friends and peers were all spread too thin. We had gone beyond burning the candle at both ends. Women were literally running on fumes.

The concept for Oil for Your Lamp was something I started working on years before I actually wrote the book. I would work on it for a while and then stop. Each time I would come back to it, the same thoughts would ultimately land it back on the shelf. Who am I to write a book about self care? I am working 80 hours a week, I don’t remember the last time I had two consecutive days off, sleep is a distant memory, I travel so much I just dialed 9 on my home phone. I would be a hypocrite.

So year after year, I thought about Oil for Your Lamp, and year after year, it waited. I kept thinking one year I will have balance. One year the timing will be right.
My flawed logic was that I should wait to write the book until my lamp was all
filled up. Well, I finally wised up when even my fumes started running out.

I ultimately realized putting oil in our lamps is a journey, not something I could just check off my list and be done. I knew if I waited for my lamp to be full the book would never be written and it was a story that needed to be shared. So I wrote Oil for Your Lamp from that honest perspective when my lamp was far from full. I reached out to others and shared how they filled their lamps and how I started to fill mine. We must learn together and support each other.

It has been such an honor and a joy to hear from other women about just how deeply this book has resonated with them.
Not a week goes by that I don’t have someone reach out and let me know how they
were touched by Oil for Your Lamp. It’s a great book club book!

Writing Oil for Your Lamp has been life changing for me as well. I made a firm commitment to myself to never again let my lamp get that low. I have kept those promises and made serious life changes in order to find balance and keep my lamp burning brighter.

Here’s one of my stories from Oil for Your Lamp that drives that point home:

Learning to unplug hasn’t come easily for me. The mere thought of being sans cell phone and laptop originally made my pulse race and gave me a rash. However, over time I have come to look forward to the one time each year when I truly leave the rat race and go jump in the lake!

Every summer for almost a decade we have gone to glorious Lake Powell. There are no phones, no cellular connections, and e-mail won’t work either. While out on the lake, we are in our own little world.
Turns out there are some places even stress can’t find you.

Lake Powell is near the Grand Canyon and just as stunning. Camping there gives me the chance to spend time reconnecting with nature. Spending nights under a ceiling of stars surrounded by walls of sheer red cliffs and a fluid carpet of deep green water is nirvana.

The first year we made this trip was quite an adventure. Not only because we were out of contact for the first time, but we had never piloted a houseboat either! Piloting a houseboat is kind of like driving a bus?on water! I only wish we had videotaped the many mishaps and fiascoes we had. I am certain we could have won a funniest home video contest!

Cooking also became an adventure. We found you could BBQ just about anything! We discovered you could cook everything from pancakes to lasagna over a BBQ. The kids, of course, thought we had lost our minds!

Over the years our trips to Lake Powell have morphed and changed as the kids grew up and went to college. We have gone from youngsters playing in the sand, to teenagers and wild wakeboarding, to our more mellow trips involving more floating and reading than boat riding.

But do you want to know what the best part of every trip is? No makeup, no hair dryer, swimsuit required?clothing optional. Heck, if I brush my teeth in the morning I really think I have gone all out! I am always amazed at how liberating it is not to have to think about what I look like, to simply shower, brush my hair and be done?you know, like men get to do every day!
Imagine having your complete bag of tricks consist of a comb every day!

I would never have guessed that the best part of the trip would be not having to “get ready” each day. How did we get that phrase in our vocabulary? What are we getting ready for?

When was the last time you did something really spontaneous? Where has your spirit of adventure gone? If the answer is “buried somewhere deep,” it is time to let her out!

I have discovered the more I carve out time for reflection, dreaming and play, the more effective I am in all areas of my life.

Oil for Your Lamp w/Dvd