It has been about a month since my last blog entry. I thought I would focus on how I have been spending my time everyday.

My husband and I live on a small fruit farm in Southwest Michigan. While we have plums, apricots, and pears, sour cherries take up most of the acreage. My husband harvests them with the one man shaker. My son works a lift tractor. My daughter and I take turns on the cooling pad. Cherry harvest can get hot in the orchards with no air movement. The cooling pad is a nice job on those days. However, when it is in the 70s or less, windy, and cloudy, the cooling pad can be very cold because you get wet. The tanks hold about 1,000 lbs. of water and 1,000 lbs. of cherries. The tanks come to the pad with dirty water, warm, and brush from the trees in them. The tanks must be cleaned, flushed out, and cooled down.

Now while I tend the cooling pad I listen to an old mp3 player I have kept just for this time of year. Sometimes I listen to music but often I listen to audio-books. This year I listened to: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, An Elephant in the Garden (a true junior novel about WWII – very good), and re-listened to the first two books in the Harry Potter series (The Sorcerer’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets).

I also have a part-time job for summer and fall. I work in the kitchen at Crane’s Pie Pantry about 20 hours a week. It is a bakery and restaurant. I poor soup and chili, make cheese patters, veggie humus sides, salads, and sloppy joes for the most part. I worked 12 years as a teacher’s aide and stopped to return to substitute teaching. I now work with some of those students. The fun part is how difficult it is for them to call me by my first name. Recently, Dylan, who graduated in this past school year made the switch. Last fall he could only call me Mrs. Hunsberger, but he feels grownup now and Sidona flows off his tongue easily. Now, Ben, went into a panic when he heard Dylan. Ben is still in high school. He asked me, “Do I have to call you that? Will you still answer to Mrs. Hunsberger?”  I assured him I would. It gets very busy at times but overall is fun.

My life is not glamorous. I do not run around sounding poetic and philosophical all the time – actually hardly ever. I have always felt you can live a quiet life and still make a difference. With each pebble I toss, I cannot see how far the ripples reach. So, I try to be me as best I can with all my flaws and rough edges. I express myself by tossing pebbles in the following places too:  www.sidonamarie.com, @sidonamariepoet (Instagram), www.facebook.com/pearlsof.sidonamarie, @sidonamarie(Twitter),  www.pinterest.com/sidonamarie/ (Pinterest). Making a lot of money has never been a goal of mine. Celebrity has never been a goal of mine. True treasure cannot be found in wealth and flattery. It can only be found in the hearts you touch and the hearts that touch you.

I am good with where I am at these days. Let’s just say I cannot see God’s plans for me at this time. I hope we are in agreement when as they come into view.