When God Laughs

And a Note of Gratitude to You

Me and My Hubs, Shawn, outside Nooks

If someone asked you on January 1st of this year what you thought you might be doing come springtime, what would you have predicted?

Maybe you had a big trip on the calendar that you could point to and say, “Yep, I’ll be doing that.” Maybe you are a gardener and figured you’d be somewhere in your flowerbeds with dirt caked under your fingernails, clearing out the weeds, making room for new your botanical vision. Or maybe you are more of a Steady Steve and estimated that you’d be doing about the same thing that you’d been doing every spring for the past 25 years of your life: getting up, going to work, coming home, chilling with the people you love, going to bed—rinse and repeat. The thing is, we can make all the predictions we want but chances are they never turn out quite the way we think they will.

How’s that old adage go? “Man plans and God laughs”? That sounds about right.

If asked what my spring might look like from the the vantage point of January 1, 2024, I honestly don’t know how I would have replied. I might have said “I hope I’ll have a book offer for my middle grade novel,” but I’d have said it with a less-than-hopeful shrug. I might have thrown out the possibility of trying my hand at container gardening in an attempt to eke out a few passable peppers or tomatoes by summertime, but you’d have sensed my trepidation and rightly assumed I’d still be buying produce from my more ambitious Amish neighbors come June.

The truth is, on January 1, 2024, I was about as clueless about where my life was headed than I had been in a long time, possibly ever. I’d completed all the normal milestones that I’d set out to accomplish: college, marriage, babies, etc. Over the past twenty five years, I’d earned a doctorate in potty-training, a masters in feeding a small tribe, and a bachelors in laundry management. I worked hard for those degrees, but despite the time and money invested in them, they translated into absolutely nothing in the corporate world. Once all my babes headed off to school full time, the logical thing to do was a get a job, but considering my aforementioned credentials and my actual bachelor’s degree in English, I knew that shedding my yoga pants and putting on a pencil skirt just wasn’t in the cards for me. So now what was I to do with my empty 9-5 hours?

I spent two years trying to figure that out. Among other small ventures, I worked at an art gallery, volunteered at my kids school, and helped run an online writing community. While I enjoyed aspects of each of those opportunities, they just didn’t fit me quite right. But along the way, I learned that I am very passionate about two things: words (either reading or writing them) and community. But what I was going to do with those two passions, well, I had no idea.

And then God started laughing.

Actually, it appears that He’s gotten himself into a bit of a giggling fit, because somehow a simple text exchange between my beloved husband and I,that went something like this,

Shawn: Hey, you want to buy a bookstore?

Me: Yes, I do.

turned into us doing just that.

We bought a bookstore.

And now instead of pining for a book deal or staring blank-faced at seed packets at the tractor supply store, I now have an answer for what I will be doing this spring…and for my foreseeable future: I will be living my dream. I will spend every day surrounded in a beautiful space that celebrates the words and ideas and creative energies of so many wondrous people, and I get to invite others to be in that space, too, and enjoy it with me.

It’s a gift I didn’t see coming.

But it means things will be changing around here. I want to live into the dream of this bookstore well and that will mean I won’t be in The Kitchen as much. That’s the thing about kitchens, isn’t it? So often, they are the launching pad for all the other places we rocket to in our lives, whether it’s school or work or the wider world in general.

So my time here won’t be as regular as it has been. Sure, I’ll pop in now and then to share a little life byte and some quick recipes I’ve found that are helping this now “Working Mama” still put something nourishing and delicious in the bellies of her family. However, the recipe crafting and video making will need to go back into the cupboards for a while.

But I’m not turning the lights out. I’ve enjoyed this space and my time in it with you too much to do that. Anyway, how does one live without a kitchen in some form, right? But out of respect for you and your resources, I’m going to suspend all payments for my wonderful monthly subscribers. I appreciate how you’ve supported my work in both word and deed over these past 9 months. It truly means the world to me. But I want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth, and I can’t say that I’ll have that to offer here in The Kitchen over the next several months.

But if you appreciate the work I do here and would like to continue journeying with me, I invite you to come along on this next adventure! Starting next week you can come visit me at our shop, Nooks, in beautiful downtown Lancaster, PA any day of the week (except Mondays) or you can support our shop online and you can read my words (and my husband’s) about this new journey over at our substack page, both of which we’ll have up and running by mid-May. I’ll have links to those in the weeks to come.

Now, it’s time to get a little sentimental.

I started this Substack back in August when I felt as lost as I’d been in a long time. But something I’ve preached as a writing coach and teacher over the years is that for those of us with words always swirling around in our heads, we have to find a place to put them in the world. Yes, first we must put them on the page, but then we have to allow them to be viewed by others. So I did the first part. I admit I did it under the guise of talking about food because it felt like a safe place to start. But then it became more than that. I started sharing about big life moments (the good, the bad, and the embarrassing), childhood memories, nuggets of wisdom Life was gifting me, and food became the postscript. You all didn’t seem to mind, though. I kept pouring out the words, but you all did the bigger part of showing up and reading them.

Nothing gives more fulfillment to a writer than to have someone else say, “I’m reading your words, and I like them. Thanks for offering them.” And you all have said this to me in your own ways over and over again. It helped me believe that I had something worth saying when I had a hard time believing it myself. But now I do. And you played a huge part in me getting here. I guess I’m saying that being a reader is important, life-changing work, and you all are fantastic at it. And I’m grateful.

So till the next time I stumble in here (probably in desperate need of some dark chocolate and a soothing cup of tea,) keep cooking or reading or writing or whatever it is you do that makes your life hum with delight.

Keep doing lots of that.

All My Love,

Maile