{"id":110348,"date":"2026-03-17T07:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T14:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/?p=110348"},"modified":"2026-03-17T12:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T19:18:29","slug":"and-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/and-it-was\/","title":{"rendered":"And it Was"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/span>his is not my normal St. Patrick’s Day post. If you’d like to read something about the Saint, check out last year’s post<\/a>. Today, I want to talk about this day last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francine journaled obsessively. Every year, sometimes more than once, she would try out an entirely new journaling system. Like me, she never met a notebook she didn’t need. In addition to monthly and daily entries about the mundane things, she kept separate writing journals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had a ritual she called “morning words”. This would involve her writing some minimum number of words every morning, often over breakfast. Sometimes this would be a diary, and sometimes it would be drafting out stories or chapters of a novel. Sometimes it was even just recipes. It didn’t matter what<\/em> she wrote; the important thing was simply that<\/em> she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Saint Patrick’s Day at Saint Patrick Church in Tacoma, 2023<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The last day she filled out on the calendar portion of her journal was March 17, 2025. Not only was this Saint Patrick’s Day \u2013 and we are members of Saint Patrick Parish \u2013 this was also my first day at a new job. She was so excited! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing and editing is a tricky career, particularly if you dislike working freelance. Even though I had sometimes long stretches of unemployment, we made it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, I had been unemployed for over a year and a half. Initially, this wasn’t as terrible as you might think. We know how this job market works, and we had money socked away to tide us over. But by the beginning of 2025, the situation had started to become dire. My unemployment insurance had run out, and our savings account was down to about a five-month cushion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The card I gave her for our 17th anniversary last January said, in part, “Better days are coming. But good days or bad, it’s enough to spend them with you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it absolutely was.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Francine slurping her ramen, Saint Patrick’s Day date, 2023<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not my normal St. Patrick’s Day post. If you’d like to read something about the Saint, check out last year’s post. Today, I want to talk about this day last year. Francine journaled obsessively. Every year, sometimes more than once, she would try out an entirely new journaling system. Like me, she never met a notebook she didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-francine-my-love","category-vocation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Francine-with-ramen.jpg?fit=1440%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aGBK-sHO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":109580,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/francine-my-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":110348,"position":0},"title":"Francine, my Love","author":"Thom","date":"21 April 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"following the great Vigil of Easter, my beautiful bride Francine was admitted to Tacoma General Hospital. 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She had recently suffered a bout of walking pneumonia, and during those days she was physically weak and had some small moments of forgetfulness and not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Francine-20-April-2025-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Francine-20-April-2025-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Francine-20-April-2025-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Francine-20-April-2025-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":109598,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/francine\/","url_meta":{"origin":110348,"position":1},"title":"Francine: Where We are Now","author":"Thom","date":"16 May 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"beautiful bride of 17 years was taken to the emergency room at midnight of Easter Sunday. 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My wife and I live in an urban neighbourhood known as Hilltop, or \"The Hill\" as I prefer to call it. The Hill is one of the oldest and grittiest neighbourhoods in the city of Tacoma Washington, a place that sometimes calls itself \"Grit City\". So that's a whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Francine my love"","block_context":{"text":"Francine my love","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/francine-my-love\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/thom-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":84001,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/one-year-ago-cows-and-a-great-evening-in-fonfria\/","url_meta":{"origin":110348,"position":3},"title":"One Year Ago: Cows! 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The climb to O\u2019Cebreiro was steep and rough, quite the toughest climb so far\u2026 but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"First Breakfast in Vega","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/14002984075_8a753b16b6_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/14002984075_8a753b16b6_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/14002984075_8a753b16b6_b.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/14002984075_8a753b16b6_b.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":106792,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/ash-wednesday-and-lent\/","url_meta":{"origin":110348,"position":4},"title":"Ash Wednesday and Lent","author":"Thom","date":"02 March 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"you are dust, and to dust you shall return.\" And with those words, our Lent has begun. 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