Finding your purpose

Linda Esterline — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:48:58 GMT

I think it’s safe to say that most of us spend a majority of our lives looking for our purpose. I can remember starting The Purpose Driven Life and thinking ‘wow..all I have to do is read a chapter a night and in 40 days I’ll know what my purpose is.’ Let’s just say that was a good 25 years ago and if I found it at the end of 40 days I think I lost it again☺️.

I was recently downsized at 62.5 years old. No retirement party, no gold watch. I did get a whole 2 weeks severance pay and 2 months insurance but what I’m most happy about is the 6 months of unemployment.

I can’t say I blame the company that I was only at for the last 14 months for ‘letting me go’. After 35 years in Manufacturing and specifically Quality Assurance, I was feeling pretty done with the whole field and just trying to bide my time and pad my retirement account until I made it to 65. Alas, the decisions you can’t always make are sometimes decided for you.

A few years ago I had a dog blog on Bluehost/Wordpress. I really enjoyed writing about life with multiple dogs, pet grooming, dog food recipes and helping people understand how truly precious being a dog parent is.

In 2022, I was promoted to Quality Management and I suddenly had precious little time for writing and what time I did have left over after 50 hour work weeks, well I just wanted to spend that time with my dogs.

This year I found out about Substack after buying Neera Mahajan’s book ‘How to write and publish an E book in one week’. I read the book twice and made notes on each section. When I found Neera on LinkedIn and she said to subscribe to her Substack, I made my own account and did just that.

I am so happy to be meeting a lot of wonderful people, reading some great writing and learning what it takes to become a published author. I recently met back up with my 8th grade English teacher, Jan Stoneburner who also has a Substack account and has been instrumental in moving me to get my writing organized and published.

I have a 2 inch stack of my past blog posts that I found via the WaybackMachine. I have an outline for my book. Last night, my husband and I put this desk from Amazon together so I’d have a little office space to write. I shared this picture with one of my friends and she quipped ‘if you build it, they will come’😉.

Have I found my purpose? Who knows.

What I have discovered is something so fundamentally simple it’s crazy.

Living, is our purpose.

It’s no big mystery, it’s not found in a book or discovered in a retreat. Whatever makes you feel most alive, content and at peace while you are living your life, that’s your purpose.

Salt of the Earth Dogs

Linda Esterline — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:31:33 GMT

Hello everyone, and welcome to my dog blog. My name is Linda and I live in NW Ohio where it was 70° just 3 days ago and today it is snowing and 26°. We dog owners refer to this as mud season; mud in the yard, mud on the dog, mud in the house. Good thing I owned my own grooming shop for 10 years and still have all the equipment handy.

Dog grooming is just one of the many features I will be covering on this page. Other categories will be:

Living with Multiples-If you have more than one dog, this is for you.

What’s Cooking-Delicious homemade dog food recipes

Rockin’ Rescues-Featuring rescue organizations across the US

Ask the Dog-We have 12 very ‘interesting’ dogs here. You will learn each of their names and personalities and get to ask questions. Just expect a result that mirrors their personalities. You’ve been warned ; ).

Towards that end, I’d like to introduce Hobie. Hobie is an 11-year-old, long haired red dachshund that was supposed to be a miniature but somehow weighs in at hefty 24 lbs. He was our first dachshund and we still wonder how he could have made us want more. Why? Well, because he’s a bit of a grump. He loves his family and despises everyone else. And we aren’t real sure about us sometimes, either.

Ask Hobie a question by leaving a comment below.