Category: diary Page 1 of 17
Life continues to move pretty fast.
Yesterday I lit a fire under my own rear end and decided to put together the family video for the year (a tradition of sorts that started way back when I began making videos documenting each month of our kiddo’s first years), and if nothing else, I can say with confidence that the Hogan family has been on the move.
In the course of this past year: Atlanta, Miami, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Labadee (Haiti); Washington, D.C. with Thomas (the kiddo-trip-with-Dad experience); Cherry Grove (the annual Beach Week); out west–Denver, then Las Vegas, then Zion National Park, then Grand Canyon National Park, then Phoenix; then to Toronto for a Springsteen concert, then to New Jersey to visit family. Not to mention a bunch of trips around Cackalack.
It was the year a hurricane came and devastated so many towns and communities here in western NC, an occasion where I found myself sitting in for my boss while he was out of the country. (This, coincidentally, was roughly where my commitment to working out every week sort of fell apart. See more below.)
Let’s go.
There are many accidental factors that contributed to my career change from teaching to college fundraising, but one of the most compelling reasons I remember was the fact my new fundraising position paid me to travel.
It was something I couldn’t afford to do very much on a high school teacher’s salary, and even when we had the money, we were more often than not bound to the school calendar. We traveled on school breaks–the time when it’s more expensive to travel. Getting paid to travel (and yes, do my job as a fundraiser) sounded like a dream.
I learned to travel efficiently. Even if I had fundraising work scheduled throughout the day, I could often sequester off a few hours on every trip to do something on my own agenda. Sometimes it was a baseball game (I visited lots of cities with ballparks), other times it was a museum or historic site. I tried to experience each place I visited with an open, curious mind. When I would call on donors, I asked about where we were and what made it special. What do you love about here? I wanted to know.