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    The Escape Place
    The Escape Place
    The Escape Place
    Ebook176 pages1 hour

    The Escape Place

    By Lyn Vandebrake

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Want to escape?

    If you've ever dreamed of having a little me-time away from the hustle bustle demands of everyday life, the Escape Place is the book for you. The author shares her personal story of acquiring an escape place of her own, an Amish-built one-room log cabin, then interviews over a dozen women just like you who created a get-away space for themselves.

    From broom closets to chicken coops, grain bins to tree houses, tiny houses, glamper campers, kitchen pantries, front porch renovations and laundry room make-overs, it's all here. the Escape Place shows you how to create sacred personal space with whatever resources are available.

    the Escape Place can rejuvenate your inner soul.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordCrafts Press
    Release dateDec 31, 2019
    ISBN9781393161363
    The Escape Place

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      Book preview

      The Escape Place - Lyn Vandebrake

      The Escape Place

      A Woman’s Guide to Running Away from Home Without Leaving

      by

      Lyn Vandebrake

      Published by WordCrafts Press

      Copyright © 2019 Lyn Vandebrake

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Contents

      Dedication

      Prologue

      Husbands & Other Hazards of the Happily-Ever-After

      The Three Most Important Things in Real Estate

      Site Preparation

      She-Shed Near-Miss Delivery Disaster

      Sarah and the No-Frills, Low-Cost, Behind-the-Woodshed Escape Place

      Haley and the Hippie-tats and Hobbit Houses

      Laura and the Tree House

      The Characters in my books Live in my Backyard

      Hannah and the Tiny House

      A Bamboo Garden Hide-Away for Nhung Hong Nguyen

      Front Porch Make-over

      Laundry Rooms that do more than Magically Produce Clean Clothes

      The International Travel Design Service that Operates from a Broom Closet

      Jackie and the Henhouse

      Supershed Rescues Damsel in Distress

      Monica and the Iowa Grain Bin

      Condo Kitchen Pantry Offers Unexpected Hideaway

      I Didn’t Have Room for a She-Shed so God Gave Me a Farm

      Kathryn and the Dairy Barn Milk House

      Scotland Archeological Dig Unearths First She-Shed

      She-Sheds that Travel

      It Followed Me Home. Can I Keep It?

      Daniel Boone Used to Live Here

      Acting as Your Own Contractor

      And God Said Let There Be Light

      Furnishings and Finishing Touches

      Alternatives to Prozac Found at Home Depot

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to all the women who have said,

      I just want to run away.

      Well, girlfriend, now you can.

      Prologue

      And he said unto them,

      Come apart unto a desert place and rest a while;

      for there were many coming and going,

      and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

      Mark 6:31

      Margaret, affectionately called Maggie, is pregnant with her fifth child. The other four range in age from two years old to eleven, are home-schooled, and involved in multiple sports, church and other age-related activities. When not transporting her six and eight-year old sons to soccer practice in her mini-van, Maggie is running her oldest child to piano lessons on Tuesday and flute lessons on Thursday.

      The two-year old is part of a play group on Monday mornings. The homeschool science club meets at Maggie’s house Monday afternoons, and Monday evening is her husband’s prayer group for men at the church, which means he is not at home to help with bedtime rituals, bathing the younger children, and getting everyone settled for the night.

      Maggie co-leads the Wednesday Kids Klub at church, is an adult helper with the children’s choir Sunday afternoons, volunteers with the church nursery when needed, and is ready to run away from home if only there were time to plan the run.

      I love my children, says Maggie. I love being a part of their lives. I thank God for each of them and that He has blessed me with being a wife and mother. Having said that, Maggie is at the end of her rope. She has not gone to the bathroom by herself in about a decade. It seems there is not a span of 15 minutes in any part of any day when someone in Maggie’s household does not need her for something.

      If only there were a place of undisturbed calm where Maggie could run; a quiet space to call her own, to sit in solitude, refreshing her spirit and restoring her spent energy.

      Would such a place have made a difference for Gretchen Garrison, who one evening as her husband returned home from work, met him at the door with car keys in hand. I’m leaving, she said and out the door she went, leaving behind the four children she had given birth to in her five years of marriage.

      I remember crying and praying a lot, wondering what God was thinking when He asked me to be a mother, says Gretchen who would later return to her family. Being a mom is hard. I still often feel like there is not enough in me to rise to the occasion. Gretchen describes herself during this time as feeling exhausted, defeated, overwhelmed, inadequate and lost.

      In the spring of 2017, a Dr. Oz televised program highlighted the pressures imposed on women today. Dr. Oz stated antidepressants and other medications are increasingly being prescribed, to combat these feelings women are expressing.

      As responsibilities increase, so does the pressure to get everyone taken care of and everything done. Life becomes a never-ending to-do list, increasing the mounting stress women already feel. Self-care easily becomes totally neglected. Peaceful quiet space is limited or non-existent unless purposefully created by the woman herself.

      In addition to being primary caretakers of the family, many women work outside the home with jobs supplementing the family income or in professional capacities they have worked hard to achieve. Then professional women face a constantly demanding world in their workplace as well as at home.

      Referred to as ‘the Sandwich Generation’ women today often nurture and care for multi-levels of family members. Sandwiched in between raising small children, helping to support adult children still living at home, and caring for elderly parents, women find themselves stretched with these overwhelming caretaking responsibilities.

      My sister Linda is a traditional sandwich generation caregiver, says Amy Goyer, AARP’s family and caregiving expert and author of AARP’s Juggling Work and Caregiving. "She has two young-adult sons and recently moved to Arizona to help care for my father. We are both stretched so thin, it’s difficult for us to squeeze in time for self-care.

      I do not have children, but I am sandwiched between a very consuming job, a long-distance relationship, managing care for my dad who has Alzheimer’s disease and lives with me, as well as his sick dog, handling our finances and keeping up two properties. If that’s not sandwiched, I don’t know what is, says Goyer.

      According to a Huffington Post article, Ten Ways Stress Affects Women’s Health, Senior Writer Carolyn Grefoire states, Studies have found that women differ from men not only in their emotional responses to stress, but also that acute and chronic stress may take a greater toll on women’s physical and mental health.

      Grefoire further states that stress impacts a woman’s immune and digestive system, skin and hair health. Stress also contributes to depression, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain, increased infertility, increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

      Harvard Cardiologist Malissa J. Wood. M.D., Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, states that heart disease is the number one killer of women, and yet it’s preventable. They get so caught up in day-to-day dramas that they can’t enjoy life, says Wood, and further states when a woman’s life is happy, her life is in control, her heart then improves, as well as other health issues.

      With unremitting pressure, many women today find themselves longing to escape, and yearn for a private space of quiet time and solitude.

      Does the above description fit your life right now? If so, you are not alone. Further, this is not a condition exclusively facing women in our activity-driven, American culture.

      Marguerite van Geldermalsen in her nonfiction book, Married to a Bedouin, describes her life with husband Mohammed and children; Salwa, Raami, and Maruan as they live together in their one-room cave in the Petra desert. When Marguerite’s in-laws come for an extended stay, three generations now share the space.

      What’s the point in lighting two fires when your cave is warm and big enough for everyone? her mother-in-law says. The point is logical. The concept of everyone together around the one fire, cooking lentil soup and baking bread to share, also provides a homey atmosphere. This tight togetherness, however, infringes deeply on the married couple with in-laws, brothers, and small children all living in one small space of a mountain ledge and cave.

      It is remarkable how ingenious we, as women, can get when necessity demands. Marguerite is able to find a place of solitude and quiet, away from the bustling activity of her cave home with extended family, by walking down the mountain path to a place where berry bushes obscure the view from above.

      A big rock serves as a chair and gentle breezes in this small hide-away give Marguerite the solitude for which her spirit aches.

      Jesus said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest. Matthew 11:28.

      Is your spirit longing for such a place; a space to call your own in which to reflect, restore, renew? Are everyday responsibilities crowding in, screaming for attention? Do you long for a quiet moment to sit without interruption; without someone asking something of you that has to be done that very minute? Do you need to claim a sacred space in which to exercise self-care; a place to rejuvenate lost energies? Does such a space seem impossible?

      If so, then the Escape Place is written for you.

      These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

      John 16:33

      Chapter 1

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