Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue
Bio
Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue is a lesfic author at amzn.to/36DFT2x. Sign-up for her newsletter at higginbothampublications.com
Stories (122)
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Small Tasks, Big Bucks
A lot of people complain that they don’t have a lot of time to take on extra tasks. However, what if the tasks that you were taking on actually saved you both time and money? Think about this. If you educate yourself on how to be more self-sufficient then you don’t have to hire someone to perform a service for you. You might not even have to shop at a store for a product that you need for your household. So, being more self-sufficient can save you money. One thing that you can do is to research gardening. By doing this, you might find that you have the knowledge to grow your own fruits and vegetables, and this might not only save you money from buying them at the store, but it might save you the gas that it takes to get to the store. Along with these savings, you might save yourself the hassle of having to deal with product recalls on these items. If you grow them yourself, you will know who helped you plant them and pick them, and this might make it easier to have access to these foods. Another thing that you might consider learning how to do is car maintenance. The more you learn about how to take care of your car, the more you might save on auto fees. So, learn to change your tire if you already haven’t. See if you can change your own oil, and see if you can learn the necessary knowledge to do simple jobs like brake pads and fluid checks. By doing this, you might not only save yourself the money that it would take to bring your car to the auto shop but you might extend the performance of your vehicle, because you might develop a new routine of checking your car to make sure it has the proper fluids and working equipment. If you are good with numbers, you might want to learn how to do your own taxes. This might allow you to see what money you earned over the year and what tax breaks are available to you. An easier way to do this is by using tax software that comes available at the end of the year. This might help guide you in the process and save you the money of having an accountant do it for you. Home maintenance is another useful bit of knowledge to obtain. Invest in equipment like steam vacuums and try to learn how to fix simple issues. There are several common issues that you can learn to fix around the house and if you don’t know how to do these things, you can always look it up online or in a book. Make sure that while you are doing this research, you consult several sources so you get a good idea on how the job is to be done. Some sources may only give you partial information which can result in you having to do another job that was unexpected. Try to take the time to learn new things when you can. This might help you with the day-to-day tasks and complications that you run into. The more that you can do yourself, the less money that you have to spend hiring someone to do it for you. Also, by doing it yourself, you avoid having to schedule an appointment for someone else to do it and this can help you stay on your normal routine rather than having to take an entire day off of work so you can have someone fix something for you.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Trader
Balance Your Time
If me is money, then it seems pretty important to save time, right? So, the next thing that can help save you money is your organizational skills. Now, this might not seem like it makes a lot of sense. What does organization have to do with money? Well, if you already have the things that you need to get your day going ready, you don’t have to spend the time getting them together, and all of that time that you save at the end of the day adds up. This allows you to get more done, and it might give you more time to do the things that you want. So, in a way, being organized can save you money. One thing that you can do to use this skill effectively is to create a list before you go to the store. By doing this, you will have time to go through the items that you already have in your home so you don’t buy an item twice. This will also give you a little time to analyze what you want and what you need and how much money your purchase might cost. If you go to the store with a list in hand and follow it, then you might not be as tempted by impulse buys and unnecessary spending. This might help you maintain your grocery budget and it might help prevent impromptu stops after work, saving you gas. You can also organize the things that you need to do and the items that you need for work. Create a routine where you shower the night before work. Set out your clothes so you don’t have to pick them out when you are groggy. Set your alarm so you have enough time for breakfast and coffee before you have to walk out the door. Not only might this help you cut back on last minute purchases like coffee on the go, but it might help you get to work on time so you are not losing money due to being late. Another thing that you can do is to create a chore list for your home. This can be divided out between all members so one person doesn’t have to do everything, and by doing this, you might find that your house is more maintained, decreasing the need for constant repair. This also might help you save time in the long run so you have an ability to relax and can perform at your best. Do your best to keep your closets and your cupboards organized so you know where things are. That way, if you have a last-minute birthday that you have to attend or a family gathering, you can see the things that you already have and avoid double purchases. This might also help you see the trends of the items that are used in your household so you can prepare for these future purchases without being taken off guard. Not only can being organized help your home stay clean and maintained, but it can help you understand what things you already have and what things that you need. Also, by coming up with a routine, you might find that you spend less time and money trying to get to work and have more time to yourself. Though it might seem difficult to put this all into practice, once you establish it as part of your schedule, you might find that the benefits outweigh the work. So, don’t wait. Try to establish these organizational skills into your routine as soon as you can and when you have it down as part of your regular schedule, analyze the impact tha
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Trader
Clearance Holdouts
You might feel like you are always going to the store and spending money on necessities for your family. If this is the case, you might consider discount stores and clearance areas. Instead of going to mainstream stores for everything that you need, see if there is a store that might have the item that you want in a generic brand or for a lower price. There are several dollar stores that have basic necessities like light bulbs, batteries, trash bags, dishes, and holiday decorations for a little over a dollar. Not only can this help you get the items that you need for the house, but it might help you when you have an unexpected birthday or holiday purchase that you need to make. Try going to the dollar store for your utilities before you hit a big name store. This can help you cut the money that you are spending on supplies so you can save it for bills and other expenses that you need to pay. You might also want to check the dollar stores if you are decorating your house or redecorating a room. A lot of the time, you will find that they carry soap holders, trash cans, and even cute little signs that you can put up in your house. Compare prices to where you would normally go for these items. You might find that you were spending more money than you needed to on items for your home. If you have children, you might find yourself in a predicament when it comes to buying clothing. Kids always seem to be outgrowing the clothes that they are in and it can be difficult to keep up. However, if you check out thrift shops and cosignment stores, you might be able to find clothing that has only been worn a few times for a great price. This could save you hundreds of dollars over the year while still keeping your children in fresh threads, and many of these stores even have brand name clothing. Also, if you have clothing that you need to get rid of, some of these stores will offer you store credit to sell the clothing to them. This might help you cut your costs even more. But what about shoes and other items that you might need? Easy. These are usually found on clearance racks in the brand name stores a month or so before school starts. Stores need to filter through their inventory every once in a while so they can bring new inventory in, so when a season ends, a lot of stores will put their old products on clearance so they can make room for their new products. Clearance items can also be found after holidays. Several stores will get rid of holiday items right after the holiday. So, if you check out these sales, you might find a discount on a body wash set or a present that you can give to the kids later on in the year. It is important to check these sales because even regular products end up in them. You might find a stack of paper plates for a few cents or a box of chocolates for less than a dollar. Analyze what you would already be buying and see if any of the clearance items fit an item that might already be on your list. Sometimes, it might be difficult to find the clearance area in a store, so it is imperative to ask associates where these areas are. Even hardware stores carry clearance, and some stores will lower the prices of the items until they get down to a penny before getting rid of them. Check the stores that you regularly frequent to see where this aisle is. It can help you save money while still getting items that you need.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Trader
You Won't Always Know
My wife and I like to change up the way our living space is decorated from time to time. Sometimes, we will get new decorations for the room that we are changing up. Sometimes, we will organize it, and once in a blue moon, we might get a new piece of furniture. Therefore, when we decided that we needed to redo our living room in the beginning of 2020, we made a plan to get a new couch set. We hadn’t had a new couch since we had gotten married and the set that we did have was one that my wife had bought ten or twenty years prior. So, the furniture was passed due for an update, and we decided that we wanted to get a set that would be easier to have with little kids, one that wouldn’t stain as easily and one that wouldn’t be as risky to rip or tear if they were playing around. We went to the furniture store and looked around, trying to find a set that would match both our sense of taste and our comfort. After looking for a while, we found a faux leather set that was easy to clean up and had enough room for everyone to sit down. Not only that, but the color of the furniture was perfect for the modern design that we had established in that room, so we were sold on purchasing this new set. We went up to the counter and told the sales lady which set we wanted. She discussed delivery options with us and told us what the process was in getting the set to our home. Then, she charged us for the furniture so we could move on with the process. However, the charge didn’t go through, and both my wife and I looked at each other in shock. We knew the money was in there. We had saved for this purchase. We had planned it. So, we didn’t quite understand why we weren’t able to pay for our furniture. The lady tried again but the charge still didn’t go through, and after a half an hour of trying to figure this situation out, we decided to leave and go to the bank to figure out what was going on. Upon arriving at the bank, we found out that the money was in there. There was no explanation as to why the charge didn’t go through. We were frustrated and we decided not to get the furniture set because we had already gone through so much trouble trying to pay for it and the store had so many issues charging us. So, instead, we just kept the money. Ironically, a couple weeks later, a novel virus hit our country and we were all put on lockdown. At that point, we were very happy that we had saved the money that we were going to spend on furniture. We needed it. Our lives were turned upside down at that moment, and we spent the next two years in quarantine. So, after finding out about the new situation we were in, both my wife and I were happy that there was some kind of fatal flaw in charging our card for the furniture. It was like someone was trying to tell us to hold on to the money that we had, and since we did, it put us in a better place during a very rough time.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Humans
Accept Me Maybe?
When I was in my twenties, I dated a woman that liked to criticize how I looked, how I acted, the things that I liked to do, and who I surrounded myself with. It was weird. How could someone want to be with you when they didn’t seem to like anything about you? I didn’t really know how to take her judgement back then. I thought that she was right. I figured that I was still young and still had room to grow and she was trying to mold me into what I needed to be in order to have a longterm relationship. I mean, no one is perfect, and it does take two people to make a commitment work. So, after listening to her critiques, I did my best to accommodate her needs. I tried to be more open about where she went, even if it meant that she was going to her ex’s house. I tried to get along with her friends, even the ones that seemed to be addicted to substances that I had never heard of until then. I even tried to fit in with the personalities of the people that she surrounded herself with. It was very uncomfortable. I always felt like I was being judged, and when she lectured me, telling me that I was too standoffish, I felt back, because I didn’t want to make a bad impression on the people that were close to her. I went through about four years of this before I called it quits. I was tired of standing on eggshells. I was tired of not feeling like I could be myself, and I was tired of being criticized for who I was. I wanted to know who I was, and I wanted someone to like me for that. I was tired of people telling me who I needed to be or blatantly misinterpreting what my wants and needs were. I was ready to speak for myself and be who I was without having people who didn’t like that in my circle. So, after breaking up with her, I cleaned up my physical appearance. I wore the clothes that I wanted to. I got my hair done, and I basically cleaned up my outer appearance to what I wanted it to look like. I still wasn’t completely myself after this. I still didn’t know who I was or what I wanted, so I began making new friends and having new experiences. I went out and did things that I hadn’t in the past, like trying improv or driving halfway across the country to see all of the states that I hadn’t before. Then, when I met my soon to be wife, I started to let my guard down a little. She wasn’t like any of the other women that I had dated. She didn’t tell me how to dress or act or who to hang out with. She didn’t restrict my ability to do the activities that I wanted to do. She just let me be myself, and she loved who I was. This was new for me. I wasn’t used to being around a person that fully accepted me for who I was. I didn’t understand that concept as I had never experienced it. It was such a breath of fresh air. After meeting my wife, I was more confident in who I was and I learned more about my wants and needs, because she gave me the room to grow. She allowed me to explore whatever I needed to in order to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. She supported me on this journey, even when there were barriers, and after being around a person like her, I realized that there were people that I could be around without having to change a thing about mysel
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Beware and Look Around!
Everyone has a bad day. I’ve had my share, but the older that I get, the more that I realize that there is always someone that is facing harder circumstances than I am. For instance, I thought school was pretty hard. I didn’t really fit in, and I didn’t really feel like I was a part of anything. I felt pretty insignificant. Because of this, I had a hard time connecting with other people later on. I was used to being judged, so I instantly figured that everyon that I met was judging me. I was used to being bullied, so I expected it. When I was about nineteen, one of the friends that I did have when I was in high school went to college and got a roommate. My friend wanted me to meet this guy, so I did. The guy that I met was nice. He was different from the guys that I grew up with, and he wasn’t as harsh on others as most people that I knew. This new guy started telling me about how he grew up. He had cerebral palsy, so he had a lot of struggles when he was younger. Mobility was one of them. So, while I was worried about making new friends, he was worried about if he would be able to walk. Then, the new guy told me about how nice everyone was to him in school and about his dreams to be a wrestler. He knew that having cerebral palsy affected the possibility of his dreams and instead of getting all upset about it, he made it work for him. Since he couldn’t wrestle right away, he became an announcer, so he could be a part of the sport that he loved so much. Instead of getting jealous of the other people that were able to participate in the dream sport he so much wanted to be a part of, he became friends with them. He tried not to let his struggles get him down, and he did the best that he could to be a part of the sport that he loved. As I got older, I met several more people just like this guy. I met someone my age that lost his sibling due to addiction. I met a single mother that got pregnant at an early age and had to suffer the loss of the baby’s father. I even followed the story of someone that I went to school with as she suffered a miscarriage. All of these people touched my life in a way. It helped me remember that despite the struggles I was going through, there were other things out there that people were enduring that were just heartbreaking, and knowing that these people were able to get up every day and do what they needed to do, helped give me the motivation to do the same. Life isn’t perfect. We all have struggles, and being there to witness other peoples’ struggles and help them if you can puts life in perspective. There might be a day where everything seems to go wrong and everything seems crazy and chaotic, but if you look to your left or your right, you might realize that someone else is going through a situation that is ten times worse than what you are. At least I did, and that made me more appreciative of my circumstances. I’m thankful that I was born in a country with clean and available water. I’m thankful that I have a right to an education, and I’m thankful that I have the ability to choose who I marry or who my friends are. Some people don’t even get these basic rights.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Shortest Stick
Everyone has a bad day. I’ve had my share, but the older that I get, the more that I realize that there is always someone that is facing harder circumstances than I am. For instance, I thought school was pretty hard. I didn’t really fit in, and I didn’t really feel like I was a part of anything. I felt pretty insignificant. Because of this, I had a hard time connecting with other people later on. I was used to being judged, so I instantly figured that everyon that I met was judging me. I was used to being bullied, so I expected it. When I was about nineteen, one of the friends that I did have when I was in high school went to college and got a roommate. My friend wanted me to meet this guy, so I did. The guy that I met was nice. He was different from the guys that I grew up with, and he wasn’t as harsh on others as most people that I knew. This new guy started telling me about how he grew up. He had cerebral palsy, so he had a lot of struggles when he was younger. Mobility was one of them. So, while I was worried about making new friends, he was worried about if he would be able to walk. Then, the new guy told me about how nice everyone was to him in school and about his dreams to be a wrestler. He knew that having cerebral palsy affected the possibility of his dreams and instead of getting all upset about it, he made it work for him. Since he couldn’t wrestle right away, he became an announcer, so he could be a part of the sport that he loved so much. Instead of getting jealous of the other people that were able to participate in the dream sport he so much wanted to be a part of, he became friends with them. He tried not to let his struggles get him down, and he did the best that he could to be a part of the sport that he loved. As I got older, I met several more people just like this guy. I met someone my age that lost his sibling due to addiction. I met a single mother that got pregnant at an early age and had to suffer the loss of the baby’s father. I even followed the story of someone that I went to school with as she suffered a miscarriage. All of these people touched my life in a way. It helped me remember that despite the struggles I was going through, there were other things out there that people were enduring that were just heartbreaking, and knowing that these people were able to get up every day and do what they needed to do, helped give me the motivation to do the same. Life isn’t perfect. We all have struggles, and being there to witness other peoples’ struggles and help them if you can puts life in perspective. There might be a day where everything seems to go wrong and everything seems crazy and chaotic, but if you look to your left or your right, you might realize that someone else is going through a situation that is ten times worse than what you are. At least I did, and that made me more appreciative of my circumstances. I’m thankful that I was born in a country with clean and available water. I’m thankful that I have a right to an education, and I’m thankful that I have the ability to choose who I marry or who my friends are. Some people don’t even get these basic rights.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Keep Your Head Up
There was a time in my life where everything seemed impossible. I had just gotten out of the military, and I had to start all over again. I had to find a new apartment, get a new car, and I started a new relationship. Though all of these things seemed like additives, the issues in my life slowly unraveled until I felt like I was sinking in a pit that I would never get out of. First, I realized how difficult it was to take care of two people. Prior to the military, I hadn’t had an apartment, so I wasn’t used to paying rent or utilities. I also wasn’t used to paying for groceries. These were all additives that they provided you with when you were in the service. On top of that, I had a car payment. Every car that I had prior to being in the military had been paid off. I hadn’t paid car insurance growing up, and I didn’t know a thing about car payments. To make things worse, I had credit card debt from when I was in the military. One of my girlfriends at the time had convinced me that credit cards would help with everyday expenses, and since I didn’t have any money management skills or learn about the downsides of having a credit card earlier, I had outstanding debt from having them. I was so in debt that I didn’t even have the money to take care of myself, and now, with another person to worry about, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I worked in fast food at that time as that was the only work experience that I had besides working for a hotel and my military experience. I knew that I could get the job fast, and I knew that they would put me to work right away. So, I did my best to get as many hours as I could, hoping that the small amount of money that I was earning would add up to enough to make ends meet. However, I found out quickly that this wasn’t going to work, and the number of hours that I was working without eating anything made me sick and weak, making it difficult to press on. So, with no idea on what to do next, I put on the only nice clothes that I had, a pair of khakis that were too short and a nice shirt that probably didn’t match, and I drove over to the local gas station to ask for a job. See, back then, my pay was about five dollars an hour, and I had heard that the gas station might have better pay. I was right. The man inside interviewed me right away. He gave me a drug test while I was there, and I was hired at eight dollars an hour. I was elated. I don’t even know if the person that had won the lottery at that time was as excited as I was. I was finally going to have a little more money to pay the bills. I had it all planned out. I would work at the fast food place, and I would work at the gas station at the same time. Doing that would give me enough money to pay the bills, and I wouldn’t have to worry about the debt that I had incurred, because I would just pay it all off. I did my best to follow my plan, but a few things happened along the way. First, my girlfriend wrecked my car. It was an accident, but it left me with a $17,000 bill that I couldn’t pay on top of the other bills that I already had. It also meant that I had to walk to work. Then, my furnace crapped out, leaving my apartment fairly cold and jeopardizing my already fragile health. A family member gave me a space heater to get by, which was nice, but things were already beginning to spiral back out of control. While I was worried about my work schedule, the car, and the furnace, I was still going to school as well. I had gotten enrolled at a local college that wanted me to be there in the morning for class, and with everything going downhill, I ended up dropping out after the semester ended. Then, my girlfriend broke up with me, and I was left to my own devices. I was lonely, cold, carless, and left without both a girlfriend and education. Things really seemed bad at that point. I was getting really sick because my body couldn’t keep up with my schedule, and my bills still weren’t paid off. Then, the blessings started rolling in. First of all, there was an older woman at my work who offered to take me to get another car. I told her that I didn’t have the money, but I kept her offer in mind in case I got to the point that I did. Then, I checked my mailbox and found not only a $2,000 stimulus check that I didn’t even know was being sent out but information on my GAP insurance. See, I had signed up for GAP insurance not really knowing what it was, and I quickly found out that the insurance was willing to pay the remaining amount that I owed on my car plus give me money for the payments that I had already made. This canceled the debt that I thought that I would owe on the wrecked car, and it gave me money to put down for a new one. On top of that, I also had $2,000 to help me with my bills, which really came in handy. I ended up getting a new car and paying off some bills, and then my boss at the gas station asked me if I would work full-time for him and get rid of my job at the food service place. I agreed. It had gotten too tiresome to go back and forth from one place to another, and concentrating on the job that paid the most might get me closer to my goal of paying off my bills. This turned out to be a good thing, because after quitting the food service job, my health seemed to recover. After that, I found out through conversation that I needed to notify the maintenance at my apartment complex in regards to the broken furnace. Again, I had never rented a place before. I didn’t know that they had maintenance there to fix broken appliances, so the thought of doing that had never crossed my mind. I made the call, and my heat was back on, creating a cozier sleeping situation for me when I got home. The last thing that happened occurred when I decided to pick up a part-time census job. I don’t remember how I found the job, but I do remember that it paid fourteen dollars an hour, something that I needed at that point. I went to the training after being accepted for the job, and I was thankful for not only the opportunity to help the community but the chance to be part of something bigger again like I was in the military. During training, I met a woman that happened to be a retired master sergeant. We bonded over our experiences, and she informed me that the place where we were attending training was one of the good colleges in the area. I told her about my college experience, and I explained that I had to drop out not only due to my lack of time but due to the financial situation that I was in. She informed me that the military offered a GI Bill that would help pay so I could attend college. I asked her for more information on it, and she told me to go to the registrar’s office and see if I qualified. So, during one of the breaks that we had in our training class, I went to the college’s registrar’s office and asked them. As it turned out, she was right. I did qualify, and by qualifying in that program, I had another shot at being able to go back to college. Not only that, but the classes that they had were online, so they would be able to work with my work schedule. I signed up for college, choosing a path in counseling as I had already explored both teaching and theatre at the other college I attended, and I started to go to school. At this point, life really picked up. I had a good job. I was going to school. I had heat in my apartment, and I had been able to get a new car after my other one was totaled. I felt like I had a whole new lease on life, and if someone had told me a few months ago that I would have the life that I did, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Continuing forward even through the troubled times made a difference and so did the several blessings on the way. If I had given up early, I wouldn't have been able to experience what was waiting for me on the other side of all of that hardship and I may have never known that things truly could get better.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Motivation
I'm Still the One
When I think of a good person, I think of my grandma. She was probably one of the best people that I knew and she was the type of person that was not only willing to talk to anyone that she met, but she was willing to listen to them too. My grandma grew up with four sisters, and her mom was the head of the household. Now, realize that her mom was paying all of the bills and taking care of all of the groceries during a time where there weren’t very many women that worked outside of the home. The concept is not only inspiring but motivating. Anyhow, my grandma grew up poor, and the food that was put on her table would come from the tip money that her mom, who worked as a waitress, received from her daily shift. Her mom would go to the store and pick up the groceries for the night and come home. There wasn’t too much of a fuss over what they ate, because they had to eat what was put in front of them. That was just how it was. When my grandma eventually started going to school, she didn’t like it at all. She got bullied, and if I remember right, I think that the only reason that she actually sought out to accomplish the task was for her mother. She met my grandfather at the tail end of her school days. He was in the military at the time, and since they didn’t have a car, he would walk across town to see her every day. The two of them married, and since they didn’t have a lot of money, they lived with my great grandma until they could get on their feet. They got a car, but it caught on fire, so they had to get another one. They eventually got a house, but my grandpa had to work two jobs at one point to afford their bills. This was difficult for him, and since they had almost immediately started to have children, my grandma was left home tending to the house and their kids, not able to help him by working outside of the house. At some point, this changed, probably when the kids got into school and my grandma got a job so she could help with the bills. This helped her, because she was able to make it so my grandpap didn’t have to work so many hours to take care of their necessities. She worked this job for several years, and then, one day, the place that she worked for was robbed. She was there during the robbery. She was there to hear the criminals walking by her and she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. She was blessed. She did make it through,but she suffered a heart attack right after the incident, and it was at that point that she decided to retire. Now, this woman had been through all kinds of things. She grew up poor. She had her car catch on fire. She had to live with her mom so she could get on her feet. She had to watch her husband exhaust himself working two jobs just to keep their house afloat, and she got robbed. Ironically, she was the reason that a lot of people in my family didn’t have to go through these types of situations. She made sure that the people around her were taken care of, and despite all of her experiences, she never wished them on others. In fact, I grew up not even knowing all of the things that my grandma had to experience. I just thought about her as my grandma. She was the person that brought me to the movie theatre and hid snacks in her purse. She was the one that would take me for the weekend and let me pick out a movie at the local video store. She took me to the zoo, and she even went with me and my mom when we went to see Sesame Street live and the Ninja Turtles. When I was young, I hardly heard my grandma complain about anything. I didn’t even really hear her cuss. She taught me how important it was to be nice to other people regardless of their lifestyle. She also showed me how to give back to the community. In fact, my grandparents took me to one of the first charity events that I ever went to. Her entire life revolved around her faith, her family and taking care of others. When she went to the grocery store, she would greet the people that she ran into. She learned the names of the people that worked at those stores and she listened to stories about their lives and gave them advice. During the holidays, she would even give the associates that helped her out in these places gift cards so they had a little something for themselves or for their families. She was also big on giving things away to the homeless shelters in the community. She would make blankets with my grandpa that she gave to the men’s shelter in the winter. She would buy small crafts for children that she gave to shelters that housed women and their kids. She would buy baby clothes for the drive that her church had to help new mothers that might not have the resources to pay for those items, and she would volunteer at her local church to help with the business affairs that they had to tend to. Though my grandmother helped a lot in her community, she didn’t forget about her family. She always bought presents for everyone’s birthday. She would do her best to search throughout the year for the things that each person liked and personalize their presents. When someone in her family needed a job, she hired them to do gutters or mow the lawn, and if there was someone that needed something simple like their car fixed or shoes, she would give them the money to get the items required. My grandma never had anything easy, but she was thankful for everything that she had. Sometimes, people were mean to her, and there were plenty of times where she experienced pain or hardship, but she never let that affect who she was. Up to the day that she died, she was thinking of those around her. She did her best to be a good person, and she lived her life in faith, bound and determined to be kind to the people around her and give what she could to make everyone else’s life a little bit easier. She really cared about others, sometimes more than herself. So, in retrospect, it is possible to maintain your morals and the person that you are even when going through a difficult period of your life. It might be difficult to do this, and the experiences that you have might take a little time to recover from. However, maintaining your personality, beliefs, and goals might suit you better in the long run, and it might even touch the life of someone close to you.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Open Wins Over Stubborn Shuns
I waited a couple of years after I came out to start dating women. First of all, when I was younger, there was only one woman that I was kind of interested in and she didn’t like me the same way. Second of all, there wasn’t a large amount of LGBTQI people in my area, so I really didn’t know too much about dating women. I also didn’t know what I was interested in. See, I knew the traits that I wanted in the person that I was dating, or at least I thought that I did, but I didn’t know where to meet them or how to start a good conversation with them or even how to progress these interactions into a relationship. I had absolutely no experience in this area, and most of the people that I was around were straight. So, I felt absolutely alone. Then, when my family moved to a larger city and I started working at a hotel, I began to meet more women that caught my eye. I started to make friends and I found a community of LGBTQI people, which opened my eyes to a world that I had never known. When I had first come out, I was told that I was going through a phase. I was told that being gay was against my religion. I was also misunderstood a lot. For instance, one of my teachers had an open discussion in her class where the students could ask each other questions, and I was asked who I was attracted to in that class. I felt like an outcast, and the way that people reacted to me coming out was to do everything that they could to put me back in the closet. There wasn’t a lot of education back then on LGBTQI people. They didn’t have any laws protecting people that identified with that group, and they weren’t really worried about hurting other peoples’ feelings. People just did or said what they wanted to, and if you weren’t the same as them, then a lot of the time you were outcasted. There were more incidences of hate crimes, deaths, and suicides pertaining to the LGBTQI community too, and there really weren’t any known resources that were widely available to the general public. The Internet wasn’t as big of a thing. In fact, the first Internet that we had in our house cut off the phone line and made a lot of noise when you logged into it. Anyhow, when I came out, I didn’t know what I was looking for or what would make me happy. I had hung out with a lot of men growing up, so I considered myself more masculine, but I didn’t really identify as butch. Therefore, the first few women that I dated were ones that considered themselves more feminine than I was and they were the ones to make the first move. It was easier that way, if I let them call the shots, then I knew they would be happy, and I would be happy for the companionship. At first, dating like this worked for me. I got to experience taking a woman out to dinner for the first time. I was able to have long conversations in the park, and it was nice to have the company of another person after a long day at work. However, after a while, I knew that I needed more. I just didn’t know what. I was tired of dating women that expected me to pick up the tab all of the time. I felt like I had to be more concerned with what was going on in their lives without them giving me the same consideration, and I also thought that in order to have a girlfriend, these were things that I had to deal with. I had to deal with constant chaos, fighting, cheating, and there were even a couple that treated me poorly when they were around their friends. I dated a few that needed or wanted me to pay the bill when we went out, and sometimes, this would break the budget that I had set for myself for the week. There were even times when a girl that I was dating wouldn’t talk to me again until I got paid. I had never been with a real partner, a person that was willing to pull half the weight, was equally concerned about my wellbeing, and truly wanted to experience life with me. Most of the women that I was dating didn’t really show a huge amount of interest in my life. They were more concerned about their own. They had a picture in their head of what I should be, and for a lot of them it was a stereotype of what a butch woman should do for her partner. The thing was, I wasn’t butch. I wasn’t femme. I wasn’t anything but me, and for a lot of the people that I went out with, this was confusing. I lost some of my respect for relationships around that time. I was tired of having to deal with people that were more concerned about themselves than about me. I was annoyed that there wasn’t give and take in our conversations, and I had a couple people that I had gone out with that were dishonest and unfaithful. So, after talking to one of my friends, I decided to put the idea of being in a relationship on the backburner. I didn’t want to spend my life unhappy and I knew that if I continued dating the same people, I was never going to get very far. So, I stopped looking. I stopped dating, and I just concentrated on myself and hanging out with my friends. I also talked more to a woman that I had become friends with at work. Now, this woman wasn’t always someone that I had gotten along with. She was a manager, and she replaced the job of my original manager, so when I had first met her, I told her right away that I didn’t like her and I didn’t want anything to do with her. Ironically, I worked a lot, and as time went by, I had gotten to know her better. We had similar experiences growing up. We had people in our families that were alike. We even thought alike when it came to our interpretations of the world and other people. It was uncanny. The more we got to know each other, the more I wanted to be around her. I liked her company. I liked to see her happy, and she genuinely cared for me and the things that were occurring in my life. It was an unlikely friendship, and the more time that we spent with each other, the more we relied on each other. Then, one day, I went out with one of my college friends. We hung out, talked, and the woman at work came up in our conversation. At the end of the conversation, my friend smiled and told me that I needed to tell my friend at work how I felt. She explained that the way that I was talking about her made it seem like I was in love with her, and if I didn’t tell the other woman how I felt, I might risk never knowing if a relationship between the two of us could work out. Of course, I shook my head and told my friend that I wasn’t going to do it. I was too worried about there being someone else or the woman at my work turning me down. I didn’t even feel like I was in the same league as the woman that I worked with. She was so nice and caring, and she really did want the best for everyone. There was no way that a woman like that would want to be in a relationship with me. However, my college friend insisted that I talk to the woman at my work and tell her how I felt even after I told her that I couldn’t do it, and those words swirled around my head for the next few days, making me wonder if I should have that conversation. After a few days, I went to work and the woman that I had grown close to at work told me that she needed to talk to me. I agreed to conversate in private, and the two of us went to the back of the building. As I looked at this woman, the woman that I had slowly become friends with, the woman that had won my heart, I wondered why she looked so nervous. I could tell by the expression on her face that something was up, and I knew that if she had a look like that then it probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that I had feelings for her. She began to talk, and then, she would stop. The anticipation of what she had to tell me was making me anxious, so anxious that I started guessing what she was going to tell me, because waiting for her to tell me was too difficult to handle. After a few bad guesses, she finally told me what she had to say. She was in love with me, and she wanted to pursue a relationship. I was astounded. I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I wanted to date her. She was unlike any woman that I had ever known. She didn’t judge me. She didn’t have a preconceived notion of how I should act. She just treated me like a person. She cared about me. She talked to me about my feelings and the things that I wanted out of life, and I did the same for her. We ended up dating, and that evolved into marriage and kids and several other experiences down the road, and I realized that in the romance department, this was the woman that I needed to be with. She made me a better person. My faith was stronger with her by my side, and I had the freedom to be myself without being told what I should do or how I should act. I didn’t know what I needed so it came to me when I least expected it, and I didn’t have to settle for something that made my life harder.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Old Dogs and New Tricks
When I grew up, there was a big push to educate yourself before you were old enough to live outside of the home. This created the misconception for some that after you were on your own, you knew what you knew and lost the opportunity to learn more. Though I did well in school, there were still several things that I didn’t know how to do. One of those things was how to cook a real meal. You see, I grew up in a household with a vegetarian and a younger child that wouldn’t eat certain foods. So, the dishes that won the hearts of the children in the house were cheese sandwiches, cheese pizza, cheese roll-ups, and butter noodles. Then, when we did make a bigger meal, at least during the week, it was usually hamburger helper. This left me with few cooking skills, because when I made food for my siblings, there wasn’t much of a selection of things that I could make. Eventually, I ended up living on my own, and I expanded the items on my menu to chicken that I would fry in oil and anything that I could buy in a packet and add water or milk too. Even when I made dinner for my friends or women that I was dating, I usually cooked the same meal, give or take switching up the packaged pasta. To say the least, I didn’t really cook that much. I relied heavily on drive-thrus or food that I could buy from my work, and I didn’t have a good diet or the knowledge to know how to cook at home to save money. When my wife and I first got together, I showed her my special chicken dish, and she really liked the chicken. However, after a while, I found out that she knew how to make several dishes that I didn’t and was used to eating a completely different diet than I was. She would make casseroles and tacos. She would even fancy up a couple of burgers and make pasta dishes that I had never made in my entire life. I never had to worry about food, because I knew that she would cook it, but when I began my journey as a stay at home mom and writer, that changed. My wife was working a horrendous amount of hours at that time, and it just didn’t seem fair to have her working all of those hours to come home and have to cook her own dinner. My grandma always had dinner on the table for my grandpa. She was an excellent cook, and I knew that none of her children had to worry about eating when they were younger, so I sought out to do the same for my family. I wanted to learn to cook so I could feed my wife and children. I just needed to figure out how I was going to do that. That’s when it dawned on me. I remembered watching a food channel a few years back with a woman that I had been dating at the time, and I thought that if I could just watch that channel, I might learn a thing or two about how to make a meal. I started to do this, bound and determined to learn new skills that would help me around the house. I even found a couple of shows that my spouse and I could watch together. It worked. I ended up getting a ton of information from watching these shows, and I even began asking my grandma for recipes and looking up new dishes online. I would experiment with new dishes that I liked such as chicken and cheese jalapeno corn chowder and bacon fried potatoes and cheese. My wife loved the new array of food choices, and she usually had something to put in her belly after she got off of her long shifts at work. Throughout the years, my cooking has gotten better, and I have taken a real interest in learning how to make dishes that we have enjoyed in restaurants and so on. I even make a lot of the food that we take with us when we go to grill outs or have people over for the holidays. However, without the knowledge that I could still learn this new skill, I wouldn’t be able to do what I can now. So, I am thankful that I was able to push forward in learning this new skill and for the inspiration that I got from my wife and my grandma.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Motivation
Forward Advance
When I was younger, I had nothing to do but read, write, and learn new things. Like I said before, my parents worked a lot so we were home for several hours by ourselves each day, and after doing all of the chores on our chore list, we would pretty much have to come up with something to occupy our minds. We didn’t have cable, and I don’t even know if the Internet existed at that point. If it did, it didn’t in our house, so when we weren’t sledding down the stairs on our flying discs, we were each doing our own thing. One of the things that I liked to do was learn. I figured that if I could learn as much as I could, I would be able to create a more adventurous life and explore different opportunities that I didn’t have available to me at that time. So, I did my best to participate in as many reading competitions as I could. I read the encyclopedia often, and I even stayed up as late as I could get by with to finish my school work early. The only problem was that I was bored. Eventually, I had studied so much that the things that I was learning weren’t occupying my attention. This led me to searching for a way to gain new knowledge, and I found out about a class given by the local community college. I did the paperwork and testing necessary to get into this class, and I passed with flying colors, but there was only one class. This left me wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my high school career. I couldn’t just sit around and listen to the same stuff over and over again. I needed something to engage my mind, so one day, I began to read the state code. I don’t know exactly what drew me to this book or where I got the idea to read it, but after looking up different laws and regulations in my state, I found out that the school had the responsibility to pay for my college education while I attended high school as long as I had passed the college entrance exam. This discovery opened new doors for me, and I felt blessed that I had found it. I was able to take this information to the talented and gifted teacher, and she was able to set up a meeting with the school board so we could get the school to offer more college classes to those that were in high school. After the approval, a consortium of colleges were available to students that wanted to further their education while they were working on their diploma. I loved having this new opportunity, and I knew that down the road, it would save me money. I worked on both my high school and college classes at the same time, and by the time that I graduated high school, I only had two semesters of college left until I was able to get my associate’s degree in general studies. Having this education under my belt helped me take the next step into my education. It also allowed me to enlist in the military with a higher rank. Though both of these things were great, the coolest thing about my school offering these new classes was that future generations would have them available to them when they needed them. There would no longer be a learning deficit, leaving those at the top of the class with nothing else to do, and for students that would not normally be able to afford college, there was now an opportunity for them to go without paying a dime.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
