If my relationship to Public Radio was a romance novel, it would definitely be an enemies-to-lovers trope. But before we could be enemies, I still had to learn what Public Radio even was since I had no idea it existed, and wouldn’t until I was in high school.

Although my family listened to a lot of radio growing up, I never remember my parents being big on PR, even though my dad loved talk radio shows. He also loved calling in and winning stuff from the radio, like the time he got a free ride on an airplane and had the pilot take him over our marching band practice (no jokes), so he could get an aerial view of what we were doing. To be fair, I’ve inherited a bit of this trait from him (more on that soon).

Somehow, I can vividly remember the first time I was subjected to Public Radio which was in the late 90s while being driven across the state of South Dakota by a church member on a youth group ski trip to the Black Hills. I’m sure the dad of an upperclassman, a local doctor in our hometown, also let us listen to other things (or did he?!), but he for sure made us listen to *his* radio, too, which was all classical pieces and grown up news/talk stuff. My teenage, pop-loving self was not on board with this arrangement. The skiing may have been fun, but it felt like torture to be in the vehicle for so many hours coming and going (it takes a good 5.5 or 6 hours to get across SD) listening to that.

My next real encounter with all things classical music, world news, and talk-based shows, was in college, when I was once again influenced by my environment. This time it was the semester after my study-abroad in Africa, when I lived in the spare room of one of Doane’s professors; my quilting instructor. She had a radio/stereo in the center of her home and I remember it being turned on to NPR/NET Radio at any manner of time throughout any given day. Unlike the road trip/radio hostage situation, by the time I was 20/21 and living in her house, I was a tad bit more mature and less bothered by this listening choice. Also, I could leave the house or, at the very least, shut my door and put on my own music whenever I wanted, so I never felt so forced or attacked by this semester-long exposure. 

In fact, I think my host’s influence was a good one on me because I learned that classical music can make a great backdrop to learning (and especially to writing). This was a trick I used often in my early years of teaching when I gave students time to write in class – some soft instrumental music in the background to fill the void a bit while they worked on individual compositions, free writes, etc. for assignments. It was also helpful that I’d been introduced to Nebraska’s Public Radio in college because, by the time I was teaching college myself, just three short years later, I needed to know that such a station existed, just to survive my morning drive to work.

Calling my drive a commute might not be fair since the campus where I first taught, Central Community College – Hastings, is literally just outside of Hastings. Even better was that our first house on the east-ish side of town, making it even easier to get to work. However, it still took about 10 minutes to get all the way out there, onto campus, and parked, and because of my teaching schedule/arrival to campus time, I found myself running into the hour on the local radio stations where they were doing nothing but birthday wishes (oh my goodness – another thing my dad was famous for loving when we were kids!) and talky-talk, and I couldn’t stand it. So, I flipped the dial to 89.1 and started listening to NPR’s Morning Edition instead; from there, the slippery slope took hold. 

It wasn’t long before I, too, was obsessed. I listened to NPR in the car, at home, and even streamed it in my classes during the aforementioned writing times. I became a huge fan of several weekend shows including Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! and Click and Clack – a call-in show where two brothers, both mechanics, would answer wild car-related questions (that involved a lot of funny noises made by people trying to mimic the weird sounds their vehicles were making that had prompted them to call for help). Although my NPR listening tapered off when the kids came along (we switched to more music and kid-friendly on CDs rather than listening to NET’s updates on local and world news and such), I still loved to catch my weekend shows when I could, even when the babies were super young and I had less listening time.

Once, the spring I spent driving toddler HD and baby RL around the countryside because that was the only time I could get them both to nap, I even made my own call to Click and Clack in hopes that they could identify the strange noise our own vehicle was making at the time. Alas, I never got a call back to be interviewed on the show, but see? I am my father’s daughter! 

A few years later a highlight of my NPR relationship occurred when Ben and I happened to get tickets at the Lied Center in Lincoln for a taping of Wait, Wait, which was so entertaining to witness and seems now like one of those things I can’t believe I ever got to do in this life. They literally travel the country doing the show, and for them to be in Nebraska felt like such a gift. 

Recently, I learned that Public Radio has really only been available for listening in Nebraska since the 90s – the same time my teenage-self was lamenting my PR exposure in SoDak. And the reason I have access to it in Hastings, Nebraska at all is thanks to the fundraising efforts of a local woman that I just met for the first time in late winter of 2023, which is also remarkable to me. Here is this entity that has meant so much to me over the years and it is in large part because of her efforts that such a love could even exist in my life! Without her, a tower in Central, NE would have been unlikely and I never would have had the option to become a regular listener and supporter of the cause (check out the rad socks, pictured below, that I once got for a donation gift). 

Public Radio and I may not have seen eye-to-eye early on in our relationship, and we may have had some dry spells over the years where it looked like we might be falling out, but we’re coming to the time when I once again find myself alone in the car with time to listen and think, meaning that our relationship can once again be a steady force and presence in my life. Thank goodness for that! 

*Post 51/52

A month before I left for college, I got my first tattoo. My mom didn’t talk to me for three days after she found out but I was 18 and I had been wanting a tattoo for so long. It was a Jesus fish with blue ombre ink on my lower left back to represent my faith because even though I was young, I figured I’d never outgrow that. I went to Sioux Falls, SD with a friend from high school who also got his first ink the same afternoon, also on his back. To be honest, though, I forget it is there because I never see the thing.

A few years later I added to that original tattoo after my semester in Africa, adding the Swahili word for compassion, “imani,” above the fish. It felt like a logical addition in terms of theme and I wanted very much to document such an important and impactful trip. Even though I went to a different artist, I went with the same color fade in the letters, this time traveling with my brother who got his first tattoo that same day. Again, I hardly remember that it’s back there. 

My next tattoo, a few years down the line, was far more visible which turned out to be unfortunate because it also turned out botched. Due to sheer laziness on behalf of the artist and naïveté on behalf of me, it wasn’t the exact design I wanted. However, I signed off on the thing because I was in Lincoln with girlfriends for a getaway weekend (HD was a toddler at the time) and was desperate to get the ink done. For this tattoo, I wanted an “Om” symbol on my left wrist (with purple ombre this time, because apparently that was still a thing for me at the time) and while I technically got an “Om,” it wasn’t the beautiful script-y version I had emailed the shop (see above about lazy/naïve mistakes). It was basic and I ended up not loving it. And that’s not great when you CAN see the darn thing!

After that experience, I became MUCH pickier on selecting my tattoos and the artist to do them. Thankfully Joel, the good friend of a good friend of mine, is a stellar tattooist and he quickly became my go-to guy for the several next rounds of tattoos, which I seem to need every 4-5 years. 

The first round on me that Joel did came in 2014, just before I left for my one-month intensive yoga teacher training in Omaha, and we went big, but in actual small ways, via not one but three little tattoos at once. The first was a cover up of the lame Om with a colored mandala/flower/wheel design. He did a great job of making something unique out of that mess. On my right wrist, he did the actual, correct Om that I wanted (so much prettier than the first). And on my right foot he did a symbol for “karios” to represent the idea of looking for those glimmer moments in the long days of motherhood/the moments of God’s timing in the midst of all the chaos of day-to-day life where very little feels divine. They healed up just in time for me to do the wild ride of 5-days a week for 4 weeks that was my YTT.

In 2016, Ben and I went for a tattoo date night at Joel’s shop for our 10th anniversary. We got coordinating crown tattoos (Ben’s first and probably last ink) to represent our marriage and our respect for each other in a less obvious way than some other symbols out there. We embraced the whole masculine/feminine sides of the body with his being placed on his inner right upper arm and mine going on my inner left upper arm. As a side note, that was a stupid-sensitive part of the body to tattoo – almost worse than the top of my foot, so I don’t blame Ben for being one and done after that!

My most recent project was also by far my largest and most intensive. I always knew I wanted a mother’s tattoo, and while Joel and I started discussing ideas at one point over the years, we had to put that on hold because I ended up getting pregnant again; this meant we had to wait until a) that was no longer the case because tattooing and pregnancy don’t mix, and b) I knew exactly who this fifth little person would be so I could represent all five of them in one piece. Thankfully I landed on the best representation that also tied in one of my favorite Tom Petty songs “Wildflowers.” In the song, TP sings, “You belong among the wildflowers. You belong on a boat out at sea. You belong with your love on your arm. You belong somewhere you feel free.” And so, I put my love on my arm in the form of five different wildflowers, each with a special meaning to me (although not specifically assigned to a certain kid): a rose, lilacs, a sunflower, a peony, and a ranunculus. Because of the sheer size to fit five flowers on my forearm, it took two sessions that were both close to two hours long. The first was line work that we had to let heal for a couple weeks and then I went back in for the black and gray-scale fill (which I always prefer because I find it to be less painful). I adore how it turned out and I get compliments on it all the time. But yowzers – word to the wise: the elbow is in fact the worst place to tattoo – there’s nothing there but skin and bone!!

Based on my history and timeline, I’m due for another tattoo any day now but haven’t been able to settle on what or where to put something, and if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that (duh), you want to be really, really careful about those decisions!

*Post 47/52.

Through high school and college I held several part-time jobs after my initial work at the local orchard. I worked in the food, retail, and childcare industries and each one was an experience unto itself. 

My first official* part-time job was as a Sandwich Artist at Subway. No really, I still have the nametag to prove that title but absolutely cannot currently find it to offer photo evidence! Working there equaled a lot of long, late hours on my feet, as I worked nights and weekends, including the supper/closing shifts on Fridays and Saturdays when we stayed open late to accommodate the bars closing and drunk people who needed food after a night out. This was circa the same time that the movie Forest Gump came out and I can’t even tell you how many drunk guys slurred at me, “Me and Jenniiiiiiii was like peeeeeeas and carrrrrrrrots” after they read my name tag. *Insert eye roll here* Downsides of this job, besides the annoying late-night customers, included always smelling terrible after a shift (not even a shower could get that food smell out of my hair) and having to do all the odds and ends in the kitchen/stock room that go into making a place like that run. It definitely wasn’t just making sandwiches! Benefits of this job included free food. Duh! Their little frozen cookie dough pucks from the freezer were the best. 

Uniform: green polo shirts (Subway logo on left upper chest) and black shorts or pants; a visor with the Subway logo on it as well. Tennis shoes (that inevitably got food and gunk spilled on them and that stuck to the floor when someone spilled a drink in the dining area). Name tag pinned to shirt (both of which I kept, with part of the shirt ending up on my high school t-shirt quilt). 

*Funny story about this: I actually got hired at Dairy Queen first, where two of my BFFs and ton of other high schoolers worked, but then she never actually called me back to start the job, so I got sick of waiting and went out and got another job instead. Any time I went in (which was a lot given that my friends worked there) and the manager was around, I got the worst side-eye because clearly she was as frustrated by me as I was by her.

Eventually I got tired of the food service work and switched over to retail, big box style at the local Kmart. Although the store was made up of a half-dozen or so different departments that all had specific employees assigned to them, I was hired as a cashier which meant I (wo)manned a register by the front doors (which to this day is still a recurring nightmare of mine). This was also a long-on-the-feet job with plenty of eight-hour shifts that meant seven solid hours of standing and scanning/bagging items and handling payments. If memory serves correctly, we didn’t even have automatic conveyor belts to move stuff closer to us, so it was a ton of awkward stretching and reaching, too. When you’re a cashier, it’s either the best of times (a nice steady flow of people pulling into your register with carts ready to check out) or the worst of times (either nothing to do, so you straighten the candy in your aisle for the 10th time that day OR you’re sweating because your row is three carts deep and you were supposed to take your lunch break 10 minutes ago). I worked this job through the end of high school which worked out well as I got to use my employee discount to buy all the crap I needed to stock up my first dorm room at college. 

Uniform: white shirt of any design (for me it was mostly just plain white tees) and khaki pants. Red Kmart vest over that with name tag pinned to it (with blue stars under your name if a customer turned in an official compliment about you to the Service Desk). The vest also had two pockets where you could keep pens, tissues, a box cutter, or whatever else you might need during your shift; most of us kept our vests in our lockers in the employee breakroom where we also clocked in/out and took our lunches. Those of us really on top of our game took off our vests while walking through the store to get to the break room in an attempt to avoid being stopped by customers with questions. Also a must? Tennis shoes, of course, because of all the standing. 

Fast forward a couple years to the summer before my Junior year at Doane, I switched to a new food establishment in town, Pizza Ranch. This time it was a merging of my two previous jobs – some food prep but mostly running the orders and registers at the front counter. We also had a drive-thru so occasionally my shifts involved wearing an uncomfortable headset that would sound the alert whenever someone had pulled in to place an order at the squawk box. There was also a panic-inducing clock that started counting anytime someone placed a drive-thru order, so whoever was in charge of that window was always hustling to beat a super slow time. Like at Subway, I worked a lot of nights and weekends, and had a lot of late closing shifts, although never late enough for the bar crowd. A free meal during a long shift was a perk, but even pizza gets old after a while, so I hit up the salad bar a lot, too. We also served friend chicken which was an interesting combination. Fun fact: a few years later Ben and I rented the Pizza Ranch party room for our wedding rehearsal dinner and made our family and wedding party dress up in western wear for the big night. I’m just never one to pass up an opportunity for a theme!

Uniform: Khaki shorts/pants and tennis shoes, along with (really ugly) brown t-shirts that maybe had a sheriff’s star or something on them? I’ve blocked them out because, again, ugly. But, also comfy, so there’s that. 

While I spent one summer living and working as a counselor at a Methodist Church camp in Northwestern Nebraska (named NORWESCA), the last job I had before switching to professional gigs, was that as substitute daycare teacher for Cedars Daycare in Lincoln, NE, the summer before grad school. This was a bonkers job because it was literally different every day and involved covering shifts at five+ daycare centers around the city, working with children ages infant through school-age, depending on what room you were assigned to for the day. I believe we were called Relief Youth Services (RYS) and while we sometimes got put in the same place back-to-back, that wasn’t often the case. This made it hard to get to know the kids or establish a rapport with them, not to mention the other teachers we’d be working with each day. Looking back, I can’t believe I ever even did this job because it was so far out of my comfort zone (I was also scared of babies at the time and knew next to nothing about toddlers, either, so that was, um, fun).  But somehow I navigated the all-overness of it and made enough money to pay rent and such for my apartment prior to grad school starting. I only did this job one summer and I still think it’s remarkable that I went on to have children of my own after this experience!

Uniform: Whatever I wanted so long as it was appropriate and I didn’t mind it getting covered in food or kid grime. Lanyard with my photo/name on it so people would know who the heck I was/that I was allowed to be there. 

Can’t say I have a favorite out of this bunch, but I definitely have a LOT of stories from each place I worked in my teens and early 20s! 

*Post 46/52

Growing up I never remember having to memorize Bible verses although I’m sure we did plenty of activities that would have leaned that way in Sunday School when I was little and then Youth Group and Confirmation classes in Jr. and Sr. High. And while I’m sure I had some favorites along the way, it wasn’t until my mid-thirties when I landed on my Top’o’the’List verse, Micah 6:8:

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” 

Each time I hear it, I remember how impactful it was when I first really remember it landing for me (shortly before I got pregnant with Wilson) and how it has stuck with me ever since, so much so that I got a piece of art for our walls with the gist of the verse on it. Not only did I want to see it on the daily, I wanted my kids to read it over and over until it became engrained in them, too, so they would carry these charges forward with them in the world. 

Recently, though, I heard one of our pastors say, when preaching on Micah 6:8, that sometimes people hear it as a nagging list of To Dos. That struck me as so wild because I have never heard it as such. To my ears, it has always represented a list of charges or challenges that we must do in order to bring about the good in the world that we know is possible and available to us via God’s love. I also believe you don’t have to believe in the same god as me to understand or follow these three simple steps*. I honestly think they can be for anyone and work really well as extensions of The Golden Rule about doing unto others as you’d have done unto you. 

Granted, there’s nothing really simple about any of the commands in Micah 6:8. This is probably why it appealed to me so much after I’d lived a bit more life and learned about how much injustice, cruelty, and harmful pride exists in our world, not when I was younger and more naïve. But it never occurred to me that this might be God nagging us. I know the list isn’t easy, but if humans could apply these three guiding principles on a more regular basis, I think we’d find a lot more peace and understanding in our societies and nations. And, for the record, what I was able to hear that Sunday in church (we weren’t even in our safety zone of the Balcony this time and I still managed to be distracted multiple times by kids, thereby missing out on key points and words) tells me our pastor doesn’t see this as a nagging list either. Just because something sounds hard (and is hard) doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to ask it of people, because we very much are capable of acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly (with our God). 

*there was an animated show the kids watched back in the day called OSO that had a jingle with the lyrics: “three special steps!” that I couldn’t stop singing while writing this. 

*Post 45/52