World Tour, Day 8: A Belated “How We Met” Story, and California Is Pretty

I realized after telling you how I met Lelia that I hadn’t told you how I met Holli.

Back in… 2011? Yes, 2011. Back in 2011, Emilie Wapnick started the beta run of the Puttytribe, an online community for multipotentialites (aka, people who are into and good at a whole bunch of things, and who don’t want to do just one thing for the rest of their lives). You had to apply to get in, and Holli and I were among the first to do so.

(Side note: I remember being scared as heck filling out my application and being pretty sure I wouldn’t get in, but I’d had a strong inner prompting to apply, so apply I did. I was overjoyed when I found I’d gotten in.)

Holli and I, along with a few other people, ended up starting an accountability group for our various businesses. That accountability group exists to this day, now consisting of me, Holli, and Emily, who I went to visit during Reading Week one year while I was still in university. The three of us have become good friends and it’s been fantastic to have them in my life. I learn a lot from them. :)

Meet Teddi

Ok, so now to California. I didn’t get as good a sleep on the bus this time because, with the way the seats were shaped and how close they were together, I didn’t have as much room. Oh well. The bus came into Sacramento late, so I got a little more sleep than I’d expected, which was nice. And, in Sacramento, I finally met Teddi Deppner in person for the first time.

A few years ago, I stumbled over Mike Duran’s blog. I really enjoyed reading it- both his posts and the conversations in the comments. After a while of lurking, I commented on a few posts, when I had something to say on the topic at hand.

One day, I get this email from Teddi. Turns out, she’d read my comments – my name caught her eye because it’s similar to hers and because it’s also similar to a pen name she was considering using – and loved how alike we are in how we think. So she went to my blog and read some of it, and then she sent me this wonderful, enthusiastic email. We emailed back and forth a bit, added each other on Facebook, and we’ve been friends ever since.

We ended up chatting a whole lot, and I completely forgot to take a nice, big-picture shot of anything because a) I was tired and b) we had such awesome conversations that taking photos completely slipped my mind. So it’s up to my words this time:

I don’t remember what Sacramento looks like. That would have required me being more awake than I was that morning.

Teddi lives on an acreage about 45 minutes away from Sacramento, and I remember going up the driveway and seeing all the beautiful trees. Pine, maple, and another kind of deciduous I haven’t yet identified. They line the road and surround her house. She told me that deer and rabbits often wander through her yard.

I hadn’t realized that she lived on an acreage before, and I was delighted. Holli could tell you how much I loved all the nature I saw in Seattle and how I tried to figure out what all the plants were that I don’t see in Edmonton. Cities are all well and good, but I relax more when I see more trees around me than buildings. I’m like Adren that way – it’s a part of her character I wrote on purpose so that she and I could have something in common that’s important to me. It’s important to like your characters even when they’re being emotionally suppressed jerks xD

It’s also clear that this part of my trip will be very different from Seattle. I loved seeing all the cool places Holli took me to, and I loved all the opportunities to take photos. I also like how the trees make me quiet inside and that Teddi and I can talk and talk and talk.

Variety is exactly what I was hoping for in this trip, and I’m glad it’s here right from the get-go.

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