I Can Do Hard Things: Preface

My name is Tiffany and this creation, a compilation of stories and songs, is my story. It started out as a blog post, “Blonde Hair”, which briefly documented how my husband Nate and I managed to get through almost a decade of schooling debt free. I included various sacrifices we made, such as going without my beloved blonde highlights, in an effort to support frugality and put education first.  However, the more I talked with others about not only my post, but their personal experience with student loans and the challenges associated with financing and therefore obtaining advanced degrees, I felt the need to more fully document and share my story.  

As I began I desperately wanted the book to be strictly secular in nature, comprised of a combination of financial figures, common stumbling blocks, contributing habits, and personal experiences. Yet, the more I tried to write the more I found it literally impossible to separate faith and God from our experiences, for above all else they have been central to our success. Without them, there would be no story.

The idea to do away with hair color and grow out my natural locks was in truth not my idea at all. The credit belongs to a woman, more than ten years my senior, and someone who I greatly admired as a teenager. I vividly remember her telling my mother how she had died her hair back to its natural color with the anticipated financial change associated with her husband’s acceptance to dental school. At the time, this person represented everything I wanted to be when I grew up, and I carefully observed her every move in the hopes of emulating her grace, sophistication, and charm. This casual remark, not even really meant for my ears, one that could have been easily missed or brushed aside, stayed with me through the years until ten year had passed and I found myself in similar shoes.  

            I was twenty six years old, a mother of three, and my husband had just walked away from the financial security of a steady bi-monthly paycheck in exchange for eighteen months of rigorous study and course work in a full time Masters of Business Administration Program (MBA). Having signed a contract with the University, stating that he would not engage in or accept any form of employment during his first year of study, and seeing no financial benefit from me working an adjunct position while paying for child care, we set sail into the unknown and I recalled those words I had heard nearly a decade ago, words that inspired me to follow suit and temporarily forgo the favored practice of coloring my hair.

            This book is not intended to be a step-by-step guide for how to obtain a college education debt free, nor is it intended to spell out the exact financial figures needed to make a perfectly balanced equation. Rather, this book is intended to share principles lived, personal experiences, and those hardest of the hard moments in the hopes that each reader can ponder and evaluate how best to tackle the every growing battle of how to attend and pay for college. Just as I was inspired by the example of a positive role model in my life I hope the stories contained in these pages and the music that has touched my soul will inspire you to know that you  too can do hard things.