About me
Name: Jessie Nekut
Age: 39
Home city/ country: Quincy, California, U.S.A.
Current Occupation: (student, current job, etc.): Full-Time Mom at home with a fledgling design and writing business.
Time I wake up: Varies.
First thing I do in the morning: Look outside my windows. Today we have rain at last! (California has been experiencing a drought for quite a long time.)
My typical breakfast: Um, coffee leftover in yesterday's pot, but I am trying to do better.
Here's what my morning commute is like: There is no commute when you stay at home. :D
I spend most of my day doing: I'm online a lot. We are currently looking for a house to rent so I spend a lot of time checking Facebook and email for notifications about that. I am also an online gamer. (I play World of Warcraft, among other things.) But those things are by necessity frequently interrupted. I have a 3 yr old at home with me as well as a kindergartner; high school freshman, sophomore, and junior; and one child out of the home who attends college but still, of course, needs her mom for things. I spend a lot of time in the car giving my kids to and from soccer, school, and their jobs. My husband works nights, so I try to keep the bedlam down to a minor simmer. I like to cook, learn about natural remedies and homemade things. I do NOT sew, but plan to learn. I LOVE to learn new things! Mid-day I pick my kindergartner from school and my two youngest play for awhile before I can (sometimes) get them to nap. Around 4 in the afternoon, I start dinner. (I have an alarm set for it on my computer.) By that time, my husband is off to work and my older kids are normally home from school unless they have soccer practice. Then at some point, we eat dinner and I bundle the littles off to baths and try, try, TRY to get them a story in before they go to bed. My teens are fairly able to tend to their bedtime routines without my help, so there you go. :)
After work or school, I like to: There's an AFTER??
A fun night for me includes: Well, it all depends on whether or not I just need to veg out, which usually means computer games or movies in my bedroom. If I'm upset, I cook a big meal for my family, sometimes with dessert if I'm feeling particularly harried. I figure the world may be mean and confusing, but at least I can provide a comforting and filling meal for my family and we can hunker down while the storm passes or at least fortify ourselves to go back out "there".
Time I go to sleep: After midnight
Last thing I do at night: Turn off my bedroom TV and tell my 3 yr old, who still sleeps with me, goodnight.
My favorite thing to do for fun: I'm a homebody, so usually I hunker down. I love to cook something memorable while watching specific movies with my family. The older kids still have memories of specific food/movie combinations from when they were little.
My biggest fear right now: Not finding a house and things getting ugly with our current landlords who want to sell this house. A large family, even without pets, is a scary thing for a lot of people up here.
My biggest hope right now: We find an amazing house to rent and can begin building our credit in order to find a house to buy and make into an oasis for our now and eventual family. I also want to be able to not have the stress of feeling unsettled (in my safe house with clean water and surrounded by my healthy, well-fed family, I am constantly reminded of the countless mothers and fathers with displaced families across the globe who have nothing like as comfortable or stable a life as I do right now, so I try not to complain too much). Still, we have been living with the feeling of having to move from our home while not finding something else for the better part of 2016, and it is wearing on all of us.
Someday I'd like to: Publish my own books, rev up my design business, and be able to have my own income to help out my family and others. My husband and I would really like to buy land and eventually be self-sustaining and off-grid. The world is uncertain. There are so many skills that the technological generations are losing that we really need in order to survive. We aren't planning on building a commune or anything, but having practical skills and your own resources isn't a bad idea for anyone.
The biggest challenge I have overcome so far: I married young and had 4 children by the age of 23. I left an abusive husband that I depended on for everything. However, I struggled and cried, I still had my 4 little ones to care for, so I got a job, returned to school, and earned an associates degree with highest honors while caring for my children. Later, after I met my husband now, I returned to school and earned a bachelor's degree, again with honors.
The biggest challenge I hope to overcome: Money struggles are an enormous and insurmountable brick wall in the path of so many people. I want to be able to overcome more than I already have and work together with my husband to continue to build a life where we live farther and farther from feeling the desperation that comes with privation. I think that if we continue to build our skill set as well as increasing our education and connections we can also build our resources and reach out to those around us to help them find a less tentative and insecure path as well. Innovation, courage, imagination, and hard work can accomplish all of this and more.
Being a woman is wonderful because: I have a unique take on things. I am a very emotional person and I can sympathize fairly easily with anyone going through tough times. I think women have been downplayed for so long to the detriment of the global society as a whole. Our intuition and compassion make the world more humane as well as more nurturing and comfortable. Of COURSE we can be intelligent, of COURSE we can be strong. I think women undermine our own unique value often times because we are trying too hard to compete with men as men. We aren't men...we are women. That should be obvious, but the way many women act, I'm not sure they understand what this means for them. A man and a woman are not two different kinds of apple. A man is a man and a woman is his compliment. A woman is a woman and a man is her counterpart. We are individual and yet we make each other better. This was all by God's design, from the beginning. Some people have gotten it into their heads that for men to be great, women need to be diminished. This is nonsense. Not only does this sort of backward thinking discount the potential and contributions of roughly half the world's population, it also undermines the value of men themselves. Can a man only be great if he subjugates and terrorizes those different from him? This kind of thinking can easily work itself into prejudice against more than just the opposite sex. Soon, everyone else in the world is discounted and the cheese stands alone. This can never be completely followed to it's ultimate logical conclusion. The world's systems would collapse and there would only be disorder. We have seen this played out on a less absolute scale across the globe since time began. It never ends well.
Being a woman is a challenge because: Girls aren't supposed to be....do....say...think....and yet, so many of us are and do that it leaves us second guessing ourselves constantly. Our supposed allies are sending us mixed messages as well and the world is terribly distracting right now. I am highly distracted by shiny and I feel that women have a natural bent toward handling multiple plates in the air at once. Some of us are, of course, better than others at this. The thing is that there are so MANY plates that want our attention it is difficult to pick out the most productive ones sometimes. Technology only makes this worse. The result is that many times we are made ineffective and appear scattered when we are really just having a difficult time zeroing in on which project we will be giving our fine minds and unique intellects' attention.
What's one thing people don't understand about your culture that you'd like to clarify to the international community? My "culture" is white, a woman, and a Christian. This doesn't mean that I am better than anyone. In fact, it means that I understand my need for a Savior. I don't think that the world revolves around me. I try to learn as much as possible about other people who live and believe differently than I do. To be an authentic follower of Christ means that I can't put anyone up on a pedestal, especially myself, and that I must actively and purposefully reach out to others in love and compassion and not let their outsides frighten me away or pre-judge them. To follow Christ means to look to Christ as my ultimate source. When the world is less than loving, He is my peace and solace. When the days are hard and full of sorrow, He is my strength.
What's your favorite meal or recipe that is a specialty of your culture? My family hails from Scotland originally (at least a part of it). One of the specialties that comes from this region is a frushie (pronounced froo-shee), which is another word for a fruit crumble or crisp. I only recently learned this is a Scottish dish (made, naturally, with oats), but it has long been a favorite of mine, especially served warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
If you could ask the Mogul community anything, what would it be? Would you feel more comfortable keeping your daytime, public mask firmly in place, OR would you be brave enough to risk telling your REAL story if there was a chance it could help someone else?
I am a Mogul because: My unique voice and perspective help to round out the voices of the rest of the world and because the rest of the world needs to hear my story as much as I need to tell it.