Your Dreams Can Change- Part 3~ Day 45

Part 3... 

And yes, there was a silver lining to my book failure and my collapsed dream to help finance an orphanage in my homeland.  I met one reader that loved the book so much, he married the author and became my husband, my soul mate, my family. 

My new family with Lauren, 7 and Jerry at 14. :)

I am grateful for this unexpected turn in my journey, and the path that took me to having everything my heart desired MOST!.  It is soooo cliques to say it today, but…   “Love changed everything!” : )

 Though I didn't achieve my orphanage dream, my book did lead me to another dream!  So I set the orphanage dream aside to focus on “my family”.  

Great memories with Jerry & Lauren when they were young in California

James' nephew, Todd Swanson, my brother, Jason and family rode our bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mary came to stay & visit us in California for awhile.

The secure and forever feeling that comes from a loving and committed family had always been an elusive part of my life, yet my heart never stopped yearning.  Today my heart is finally at peace, living safely in a “forever home” built by my husband’s love for me.

After my book tour, we left Atlanta when my husband took a job in California with ConAgra Foods.  He managed a Hunt’s Tomato plant in Oakdale, and we lived 10 country miles away in Modesto.  Modesto is a city of about 200,000 in what is known as the “Central Valley”, one hour east of San Francisco.  It is definitely in the agricultural region that California is known for.   Miles and miles of every type of fruit and vegetable crop known to man.  And of course, vineyards as far as the eye can see.  For the trivia buff, Modesto is the setting for the 1960’s classic “American Graffiti”.  George Lucas, of Star Wars fame, is a Modesto native.

Our California beginning...

Our life in California was good.  It was a state we both wanted to live in because of its out door life and months of good, blue sky, weather.  There is so much beauty and contrast of landscape in California.  

We met many good friends in Modesto.  We were welcomed with open arms by many wonderful people who made us feel at home on the other side of the country. 

We miss you, Susan! sniff, sniff...

We miss our friends, Larry & Sharon in California so much! Our social life hasn't been the same since...:(

We even miss "Sal" , our BEST Bartender in Cali whenever we entertained at home! :)

With all the good dry weather, James got me started on running when we first got to Modesto.  I told him I wasn’t a runner and didn’t like running at all.  He told me the trick was to take it slow, and build my endurance over time.  One year later we were running the LA Marathon together, followed by a weekend of sailing at one of the sailing clubs that James had joined when he lived in LA several years earlier.  

Sail away after our LA Marathon Race in 2005!

I loved running.  The freedom, the easiness, the endorphins, the “put on a pair of running shoes anywhere and explore the area” feeling.  And the hard body booty was just a side bonus!! 

I could write so many positive experiences from our 4 years of living in California.  

From cruising in our two seater convertible, to great parties with our friends, to exploring the areas beauty, to trips to San Francisco and LA, to scuba diving trips, to RV trips, to eating “fresh” fruits & vegetables, to endless sunsets over the Pacific.  

Family's Scuba Day 

Both James and I were our healthiest,… physically, emotionally, and socially, in our California home. I still miss those years, today! Our East Coast way of life is totally different from our West Coast! Perhaps, one day our journey will take us back there again. :)

Christmas party at our house!

 But all good things come to an end, or so it seems that way in my life experiences.  I truly love my life, and where I am today.  I look back on that time when I first met James, and our “newlywed” life in Modesto, with such fond memories that I can’t help but smile.  

And none of this would have been my reality had I not written that book to fund my dream to rebuild an orphanage.  I learned that as long as we have dreams, we have hope, and when we act on those dreams with drive and commitment, only goodness follows,… if we are open to expect the unexpected, and are willing to travel new and uncharted forks in the road.  

Yes, I believe in the power of dreams, but I’ve learned that dreams only come alive when you take that first step. 

And thank goodness for failed books…

Cheers to the good life in California

Tune in tomorrow for the rest…

With Love & California Dreams,

Hai

Your Dreams Can Change- Part 2, ~ Day 44

Part 2...
My headmaster died in 1997, and because I was living with many disappointments and falling short of my personal expectations to “give back”, I hung on to his last encouraging words, “You can only do what you can do with your part, from where you are” 

 I continued the same message, 30 years later!

His words gave me courage to plunge ahead, and fueled my passion to finish my book, without fear to expose my life with raw honesty, in the only version of the story I knew to write ~ my own life & memories as I experienced them, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In 1999, my marriage failed and the family unit I wished for my entire life was gone.  Undoubtedly, it was the most difficult time of my “American” life, but my dream of rebuilding the orphanage kept me focused to do what I must do and helped me survive the unraveling emotions of divorce.  

Balancing my time as a single Mom, my dream to complete this journey helped me stay focused and productive.  My writing time gave me peace during this difficult time in my life because I felt I was living with a purpose,…ultimately, a purpose to help others in need.

The original flyer about our orphanage in Vietnam in 1968-69 to get donations.

In 2003, I completed and published my autobiography, and went on tour to sell books and raise money to realize my dream.  At last, my dream was going to become a reality!  :)

After months of doing a book tour, and attending many prearranged speaking engagements across the county, I was exhausted.  And even though I was physically exhausted, I was emotionally vibrant, and for the first time in many years, feeling content that I was giving 100% of my life for something good.    Unfortunately, the feeling of emotional peace that I so desperately needed was not to last.

After a few months, the numbers started to role in, and it became clear that financially, my book WAS A FLOP!  : (

 

It was a complete FAILURE, as well as a very expensive lesson as I had invested all the money I had into this dream. After printing 10,000 books, and spending $150,000 in business expenses going toward PR firms & a distribution company in New York, I learned the cruelty of the literary industry, and what it takes to survive in the public sector to compete in the speaking & literary business.

On top of it all, the vehicle that was to help me make the necessary money to "live out my dream with a purpose" ended up being the vehicle that put me into bankruptcy!  Yikes!  

The financial rewards of 5 years of work to publish and promote my book were not there.  I felt like a failure, but even more so, I was exhausted after this long, stressful but ironically, personally rewarding process. 

But ones life journey is filled with many twist and turns, and the bottom of this valley was soon to take a positive turn.  

Check in tomorrow to see the silver lining in this financial and dream busting disaster.

Part 3 to be continued...

With Love & Silver Lining,

Hai

Your Dreams Can Change, Part 1~ Day 43

It felt soooo good to help others by volunteering yesterday and to do my part to help toward a good cause to “feed the hungry”, regardless if it is a big or small part! :)

I believe we as humans are made to be compassionate souls to bring "GOOD" in the world. Of course, we can also bring "EVIL" in the world too!  Just look around each day and we see, read, and hear the good and evil events.  

It gets down to our individual choices, like we all get to choose our own dreams, big or small, and to live them out during our lifetime if we can.

I no longer own this nonprofit organization or website in this picture.

It is said, dreams"inspire"and give us "purpose!"

Remember when I blogged about Living Your Dreams (part 1, 2, 3), I shared my top 5 dreams, and I discussed three of the five on this day's blog at  http://cottagechic1.blogspot.com/2011/07/living-your-dreams-part-1-day-13.html

My thoughts go back to this list, so today I will  blog about this 4^th dream of mine.

4) Help to re-build an orphanage in Cam Ranh City, Vietnam, where I grew up, in order to help other orphans.

CamRanh City Christian Orphanage in Vietnam

 I won’t bore you with all the details here, as I have told them many times in my past. You can google my past under this title “In The Arms of Grace” 2003 by LeChristine Hai. It is available, very cheap nowadays, for purchase via the Internet at site locations such as Amazon.  I do not benefit from your purchase, so no gains here if you get it or not. It is just for information purposes that I mention it here.

I am still looking for this soldier. His last name was Grace

However, I will highlight the dream’s stepping stones to get to my main point.

This dream began for me  in 1991.  It was my first trip back to my past and my beginning!  I visited my heritage country, Vietnam, after a 15 year absence.  Being in America had changed me forevermore compared to that “orphan from Vietnam.”

After finding my lost biological Vietnamese family, and collecting all the missing pieces of my life from East to West, I had more questions than answers to my life.

I was only 25 years young with a classic survivor guilt of  “Why was I one of the lucky ones to survive, and now return to my poor country with nothing to offer?”  I didn’t want to disappoint my Vietnamese orphanage headmaster, Pastor Ha Xuan Nguyen, for saving all of us (about 70 orphans, escaped at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975).  Wouldn't he want me to sacrifice for the poor of my home country, just as he sacrificed for all the orphans when we were children.

Thank you, Pastor Ha, for being my earthly father when I was an orphan. God bless you always. I know you are in heaven, looking down on us all, not as adults, but as the childen of God you saved.

It was then that I, with a naïve and open heart, declared my wish to give back to my homeland by building an orphange.  I felt compeled to make sense of my life, and this act of giving seemed to be like a calling in my heart.  I did not understand why, but it was such a strong feeling, and I could not ignore it's influence on my daily thoughts.   I decided to be bold and make this dream come true by sharing it with the Universe, my headmaster, and any others who were willing to listen.  I had something to live for.

This dream did inspire, & gave me purpose these past 20 years.  I am where I am today because of the hope this dream gave me, as I coped with all of life's challenges.  It gave shape to who I am today.  I am so humble & grateful for the power of dreams!

First, this dream helped me put all the pieces of my own life together.   For the first 5 years it helped give me the drive to prove myself as a young married, ambitious career woman, and to gain status, money and self worth.  But despite this American drive, my inner self still thought my life purpose was to come full circle, and to somehow rebuild that orphanage so that other homeless children would have a safe haven as I did during the Vietnam war.

I had no idea how, what, where or when to make my dream come true.  Life continued to roll along as I sorted out my purpose…

Building my orphanage home in 1968.  I am that little girl, with a flower dress, in the front on left with my brother behind me. :) So long ago...

And then one day it came to me.   I would write a book about my life's journey as that orphan, sell lots of books, and use the proceeds to help me build that dream!  Easy enough! I had a plan and God was going to help me (though God had other plans for me)!   Literary speaking too!

So, in 1996, I took a trip to see my headmaster,  also known as Pastor Ha, and brought my 6 month old daughter, Lauren,  to visit her "grandfather" per say, and to share with him my ideas and thoughts of that dream.  It was strong in my heart, and I wanted his blessings for such a journey.

At that time, Pastor Ha was living in California for the dry and warm weather conditions that helped with his failing health, and also be among his family there.  I stayed with Pastor & Mrs. Ha for a week, to do research for my book, wanting to hear “our story” and to help me tell the story of our common past.  I was limited in my memories as a child, but knew he would be the perfect source to begin my story.   It brought back so many memories, both happy and sad, as we sat and talked for hours and hours about the orphanage and all the children.  That was the most endearing visit I had with our headmaster and his wife!  Today I am very grateful for that time, more now as I am older.

He suggested that I reach out to the other orphans from our group about writing this book, and have them share their own stories with me.  I thought Pastor Ha had a great idea, and it would make the book more colorful and interesting.  Unfortunately,  none of the orphans responded positively to my offer to hear their stories and include them in my book.  Maybe they were too busy or perhaps the timing was not right for them.  I will never know why they wanted to remain silent about their past.

To be continued tomorrow...  Your Dreams Can Change ~Part 2

With Love & New Dreams,

Hai

Fight Hunger in America ~ Day 42

Today was a great day to volunteer! :) 

A bunch of good people, working for a good company!

In support of James, I was a part of his company, AdvancePierre Foods with their 30 volunteers to hand out 15, 000 pounds of food today! Amazing! 

Grocery bags full of food

Hand packing the sacks with fresh corn and vegetables.

The HR Manager doing his share.

We served approximately 155 families “at-risk for hunger in our local community” working with Second Harvest Food Bank, a non-profit organization, today.

 “Second Harvest is committed to helping the 1 out of 6 people at-risk for hunger in our local communities of Crawford, Erie, Huron and Lorain counties in Ohio.  With the support of our generous donors and our network of hunger-relief agencies, together we make a difference in these difficult economic times by bringing the most basic of needs — food — to the table.”

 I am so proud that we all were a part of something GOOD to help others with our time, while AdvancePierre Foods donated 7 pallets of delicious chicken and strip steaks.  Other food companies and farmer's market organizations donated their surplus. Each grocery bag contained all donated food.

Man in action.  Super bag man!!

Please check out their website to learn more in your area www.secondharvestfoodbank.org

 There were long lines of cars filled with families who were under the poverty status in America today. Any family with less than $18,000 in total income is eligible for this assistant.

Over 7 pallets of packaged chicken and steaks were distributed.

 I was so glad to be a part of it and saw my husband & his team of volunteers from the Amherst Plant at work!  It was an unusually hot day but everyone had a glow of “ so glad to help” attitude!

His company produces these products of cooked chicken and steaks

We are so blessed to have the most basic need of food taken care of when others go hungry.

May we all lend a helping hand whenever we can to those in need in our own communities!

With Love & Volunteer,

Hai

Our Back Yard ~ Day 41

It's late and I'm tired after our typical vacation play day.  So tonight's blog is being told with pictures instead of words.  Enjoy a day in Vermilion, a small lake side community near where we live.

Our daily vacation walk in our nearby town...Vermilion, Ohio

He is thinking "Is it a crime to sail away forever in someone elses sail boat?"

"Yep."  Better move on before he gets in trouble.

Only in America

The perfect back yard

Sooooo many boats, so little time,...or so says my husband.

My favorite boat.  Gotta be the shoes.

Beauty all around the Vermilion Yacht Club.  Note the look of envy on my husbands face.

Just another pretty garden in the never ending neighborhood of lake side cottages.

Can you smell the heavenly delight?

The red lawn chair is a nice touch.  Of course, the fence tells me that I better not sit in the nice red lawn chair.

Nick nacks and flowers.  Two of my favorite things!

The shadows are getting long and Teddy is leading the way back home.  It was a good finish to a beautiful day.

So there you have it.  The end of our daily vacation walk, and tonight we decided to explore Vermilion, Ohio.  Hope you enjoyed the journey as much as we did.

With Love & Gardens,

Hai