The Beauty Of New Beginnings And Lifelong Resilience

A snow forecast, a quiet studio, and a fresh obsession with solo mahjong turned a simple idea into a small movement: make learning easy, beautiful, and shared. We walk you through how a handmade board, a short tutorial, and a few well-chosen tools can transform a nervous “I can’t” into a confident “I’ll try.” Along the way, we spotlight local maker Susie DeHoff’s wooden boards, talk through the practical hurdles of finding tiles and cards, and share why thoughtful design—like clear instructions and a stitched bag—removes the friction that keeps beginners on the sidelines.

Our conversation widens into a story that changed our family’s map: a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis two decades ago, a rainy drive, and the steep curve of learning to live well with insulin. We recall clunky early tech, the cost of pumps, the choice to return to injections, and the slow rise of better tools like continuous glucose monitors. What stands out is not perfection but persistence—tiny acts of care repeated until they become strength. That lesson threads back to the game table: rules can be learned, confidence can be built, and community makes both easier.

If you’re snowed in or just ready for a new ritual, try solo mahjong with what you have on hand—tiles you can source locally, a layout drawn on paper, and a simple reference to start. We’re here for the first step, celebrating the beauty of accessible craft, the grit of health resilience, and the joy of sharing what lights us up. Subscribe to Brewtifully Made, share this episode with a friend who needs a nudge to begin, and leave a review telling us what new skill you’re ready to try.

Transcript

Discovering Solo Mahjong

Supporting A Local Maker

Making Mahjong Accessible

Designing A Playful Space

Joy Of Diving Into A New Craft

A Family Story About Type 1 Diabetes

Growth, Gratitude, And Encouragement

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Brutifully Made. I can't believe how fast these weeks go by. This month has just flown. I have one more Friday, and then we're going to be into March. Um, it is like spring around here. The weather is beautiful and it's not gonna last. We have a big snowstorm coming. And I wanted to share some kind of like lessons that I learned playing uh my newfound favorite thing, Mahjong, uh, with everyone before the snow came because I'm offering these cute little boards, these solo mahjong boards in my studio. And I got some tiles to go with them, and I thought, what would be more fun than to be able to play if you're snowed in this weekend? And so I did a video early this morning on how to play solo mahjong, and I shared it on my YouTube page. And it was just so much fun to um offer this artist. Her name is Susie Dee Hoff. She made these wooden boards, these wooden, like little wooden mats uh that have the letters for roller spelled out, R-O-L, and then L-O-R, and your courtesy pass, and then three other spaces. And so I was showing how to play solo mahjong and maybe, you know, get some people to come in and grab a couple, you know, grab a set, grab a board, and be able to play uh if it's very snowy this weekend. And so it's just kind of nice to step back and share something that you're really passionate about and that you love. And maybe it's something new. I am not a pro at all. I'm just learning from our library, but I wanted to be able to promote what she had brought over and I have in the gift shop, and then sharing my excitement for it and getting to um maybe offer that to the community. It's really hard to find tiles here. I thought that the local um kind of like toy store would have them, and they didn't have them. So I think there's some mini sets at one of the craft stores, but it didn't say that they were in stock, and so I just thought, well, I'll just have a few sets here in case somebody wanted to purchase them, and then I wanted to make it worthwhile, so I have a handmade bag with it, and I wrote instructions out, and um uh you have to have a special card from the Mahjong League to play, and every year is a new card. Well, 2026 has not, you know, been distributed yet, and so you would have to order a 25, and I don't sell those here, so I um made up some hands and then make a little card just so you get an understanding, basic instructions on like what jokers are and how you can play those, just you know, very, very elementary because that's that's the level I'm at. I am learning, and I just want to share that enthusiasm for learning something new with others. And um, I've been having you know game times here, and I have the sets here because, you know, like I said, you don't have them, not everybody has them, but I wanted, you know, to be accessible. So it's just been fun. I got uh another thing from Macvid. I got a mahjong table and paid six bucks for it. And so I set it up as a display. So I've got all of those things out there, and I have little bags and mahjong fun things, and just just thought it would be really fun to offer something like that. But um, yeah, I'm just really obsessed with how much fun it is and how pretty the game is and how many custom tiles there are, and I'm getting to design mats, and it's just a whole new world. It's just so much fun, and it's so neat that when you dive into something that you didn't know anything about, and for it to come like this full circle enjoyment that you can share with others, it just makes it more exciting. And um, yeah, I just I've learned so so much about what I can and can't learn. I've always talked about I can't play or I can't knit, I can't crochet, I didn't know how to play mahjong, and I'm learning. So it's never too late to learn something new, and that's totally the truth. Oh my goodness. Um, speaking of that, 20 years ago, my youngest daughter, she had to learn how to take care of her health in an entirely new way. She was diagnosed with uh type 1 diabetes, and it was this cold, rainy, horrible day. She was playing video games at my neighbor's, and my neighbor called me and she's like, Trace, she just drank like a whole case of water. I was like, What? She's like, Yeah. She's like, she just is so thirsty, and I'm like, that's not good. And I was working, so I I ran and picked her up and took her to the doctor, got her right in, and they took her blood sugar. I'm like, there's something wrong. And her blood sugar number was so high, it didn't even like register on the meter, it just said hi. And they're like, You gotta take her to the hospital, to the children's hospital in Akron. So I got her in the car and we're going to Akron. It's pouring rain, and I get a flat tire. And I am just beside myself crying and just trying to navigate how to take care of this child who is, you know, 10 years old and she doesn't feel well. So we get her to the hospital, and sure enough, she is a type one diabetic. And she had been battling um strep throat, and she was on antibiotics for that. And the doctor there, I remember his name was Dr. Riley, because my oldest daughter was Riley, and he was from Texas, and he was like, you know, the this virus has been known to attack like the pancreas and kind of like kills it off, and totally didn't understand that. I remember my grandmother battling diabetes and taking insulin shots in her legs. I can remember her doing that. Um so it was in my family, but uh no one in my age, my generation, all of my cousins, nobody had it. And then here, my kiddo, she has it. And it was a rough, rough time, and they didn't have so many advancements as they do now. I can remember reading about the artificial pancreas, the continuous glucose monitors, and just like, oh my gosh, I wish. I mean, I remember paying like$10,000 for a pump for her to be able to have a pump, and she absolutely hated it. She played soccer and she was so active and so athletic, and she hated the tubes, and uh she went back to just like regular injections and she went to diabetes camp and you know, talk about learning something new to survive. I mean, you have to have insulin as a type one diabetic, you have to have it. And just petrified when she went off to college and just watching her now as an adult in her thirties and knowing what we've been through is just incredible to to know. Well, she's almost 30, so I just um I I just can't imagine where our lives would be if she wasn't so responsible. And she is, she's amazing, and she's a geologist and she travels and uh has done work all over the country and just you know incredibly proud of how she grasped that new normal and um what she does and how she manages it and yeah. No, wait, is she 31?

unknown 7:44

Oh my god.

Try Solo Mahjong And Share Your Spark

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I can't believe it. Yeah, I think she is now. I swear, or she will be this year. Oh my gosh, she is. I'm getting old, menopause brain. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, honey. But um, yeah, she she is. So it's incredible, yeah. Cause that was that was twenty years ago and she was 10. So she is 30, she'll be 31. I am not editing that out because that is how my brain works sometimes. I'm like losing track of my kiddos. But yeah, so you're never too old or too young to learn something that is important. So keep that in mind and make sure that you keep an open mind. And you could be that person for someone that push that encouragement that they need that they don't have in somebody else to want to do something new, and embrace that. Don't swelch your enthusiasm and don't keep what you're doing to yourself because it will encourage somebody else. And um, that's a strength and embrace that. You know, we need unique perspectives. Everybody can write, but no one's handwriting is the same. And think about those things. Everybody may have, you know, uh you know, somebody you know, there's brown eyes everywhere, but they're not all the same brown, they're not all the same shape. Um you know what I mean? It's just everybody has a unique bit that needs to share so that somebody else can relate to it and make them feel comfortable and that they're not alone. So just wanted to encourage you to share uh everything about you. And um I can't wait to have more mahjong friends because it's a lot of fun. But uh yeah, go check that out if you want to learn how to play solo mahjong. You don't even have to have the board, I just have them here. I wanted to support another local maker and they're darling. You can just write it out on a piece of paper. You know, you do have to have tiles, you do have to have a card, but you know, you can research and find those things locally. But try it out. So I think they're beautifully made. And um, I will talk to you next time. Take care. Bye.