Sometimes the storm is the blessing- TOTALLY stolen from Amy

I have been having an extremely difficult time at work lately. It has gotten to the point that by the middle of the afternoon I am just about to loose my mind. I want to poke my eyes out and scream in pain because of the way that they are allowing me to feel. I leave at the end of the day feeling helpless and feeling as though I have no self-worth because my soul has been sucked from me within the last 9 hours. I am usually simply a shell of a person. It takes me between 2-3 hours after I leave to begin to feel like a normal human being again with an ounce of self worth. I hate it has gotten to the point where I despise coming to work every day, but I do it everyday because of the darn work ethic that was instilled in me many years ago. But I hate it.

I have spent a lot of time talking to God about why I was in this position right now. What am I suppose to learn? Who was I suppose to learn it from? How can I ever figure it out because, Good Gracious, I want to poke my eyes out!!!!!! Just tell me, God! Just tell me NOW!

Needless to say God has not taken my threats lightly. You know how he likes to reveal things to you in his own time? Well, he has been taking his sweet time for about 2 years now. And I am as patient as, well, I am not patient at all.

However, only recently did I begin just asking for my purpose at this place of employment to be revealed. I wanted to know what I needed to learn. I really do believe that people are placed in certain situations to learn from them. And I think this was one of those situations. I had to believe it was or I might simply go crazy.

I sat down this morning before work started and got on-line. I checked out a few web-sites that I enjoy and settled in for another long day at work. At least it was Friday and I had the weekend to look forward to. And then I clicked onto one of my regularly checked blogs: It coulda been worse. And then I read her post for today. And she speaks of grace. I have spoken on grace before, but in a different perspective than she does on her blog. And it hit me.

Sure, I am fully aware that God has given me grace. Daily. When I want to poke my eyes out at work, he gives me grace. He gives it to me thousands of times a day. But do I ever dole some out myself? Rarely. I do give grace to Josh and the kids. I give it to my friends. But I don’t think I have ever given grace to anybody in my work environment. Not even once. Not on purpose. I forgive and forget, but not just blind grace. I am going to try to do that today. And from now on. I will attempt to be gracious to my superiors while I am here. (Even when they make me want to poke my eyes out.) I will allow for Jesus to sit next to me while I work on my reports. I will bring God with me into my meetings. I will show grace to my boss, who I almost can not bear to look at for the fiery dislike that fills my being. And I will show grace.

I hope this is the lesson I am meant to learn here. I want it to be. So that I am able to move on and be filled with the happiness of a thousand puppy dogs and butterflies. And show the folks here what grace is all about. And get the heck out of dodge.

Myspace, fun for the whole family

The whole myspace thing is a little crazy. I will admit that I love me some myspace, yes I do! I made an account over 2 years ago, but only because you have to have an account in order to look at someones pictures. I used it a lot then to get in touch with folks about my 10 year high school reunion. It was great. Then, with the encouragement of my dearest friend Amy, we took myspace by storm. It was a fun competition to see who could have the most friends (she is still beating me, but by less than ten- I just checked) and we worked out the kicks together, over IM’s and had a great time with it. And then we were addicted. At least I was. Goodness, I couldn’t get enough. Looking for old friends and finding them and reconnecting. It was great.

Now, I was the one reaching out to people. I rarely had a surprise Friend request. I may have been surprised that they finally had a myspace, but not that they were adding me.

But this morning, I had a surprise friend request!

When I was 12 my parents picked me up from my very cooshy life and threw me into a foreign country away from my friends, my surroundings and my native language. They threw me into this horrible place where I didn’t know a soul and was scared to death. Until Mr. Hunter, my 6th grade teacher sat me and one Miss Kelly next to each other. We were mortified. “Seriously, her? I have to sit here? Ugh, why me?” said in only the way a horribly moody sixth grade girl could sound.

But, you know what? That Mr. Hunter, he knew what he was doing. He sat me next to my soon to be best friend while I lived those three years in Germany. It didn’t take long before we were hanging out before school, after school on the weekends. Her sister Tara was who introduced me to REM, a love which I still have all these years later. I even bought my first cassette tape of REM (Out of Time) with my money from bagging groceries at the Shoppet, at the Shoppet. Oh, and Mr. Big, ahhh, those wonderful bands from the early nineties. We would walk to the bakery that was minutes from her house and buy kinder chocolate, which I still crave and can’t get my hands on. We were great friends. Then in three years, I moved back to New Mexico and that stinky Abbie Decker* followed me there (a story for another day). But we were friends before the whole internet thing was as widely used as it is now. We found each other once, many years ago- honestly I am not really sure how we did that. We emailed a few times, but quickly lost touch.

And she found me on myspace.

Who knew?

Seriously?

She is the first friend from my time over seas that has found on the myspace thingy, and I am SO happy that she did. I totally have to post a picture of her on and once I get my hands on them. I think they are at my parents house. She makes me want to try to find Melissa, Samantha and Jennifer. Of course they are probably all married and I will be unable to find them, since their name will have changed. Oh well, it will still be fun to look.

*And yes, I have looked for that stinky Abbie Decker, but I can’t find her. I guess somebody married her and she turned into some sort of decent human being- I hope!

Some pictures....

They are nothing special, but I did get out with my camera this past weekend. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

My new love affair with books

So I think that my big “resolution” this year is to read more. Read more actual books. I read plenty on the internet everyday and I read magazines way more than is necessary. But I used to really enjoy diving into a book. Just ask my parents how I saw Europe when I was a tween, head in a book, with a set of earphones on. NKOTB all the way! I have found that my excuse is always time. But I don’t think that is a valid excuse anymore for myself, anyways. I need to make time. I have found that this whole writers strike because they are making little to no money of internet downloads, according to this site, which has basically taken down many of the television shows which I love to watch off the air. While I support these folks, it really has made me aware of how much time I spend watching television. I have now begun to re-direct that time to reading. I have picked up a few books which have been recommended through people, blogs I read or through other media outlets.

I love the way a book feels in my hands. Especially if it is new, never been opened and ready for a good read. I recently took an armload of books to Half Price Books and picked up a book, and several I had ordered came in the mail yesterday and I kinda wandered around just holding them and smelling them. It was very nice. I had begun reading the one I picked up at half price books and now I am anxious to finish it and get started on another one. So that is all for today. I am beginning my love affair with books again. As much as I miss all my wonderfully written television shows, I think I am going to enjoy my books just as well.

Yeah! Weekends

So the weekend was successful. I accomplished everything on my list, except for the cleaning of the bathrooms and that was replaced with a nap for Jacob, Emily and myself yesterday afternoon. Emily had a sleepover the night before and didn’t go to sleep until 1:30am. I was lucky she made it through church Sunday morning. But a nap was needed and had by all. And it was wonderful.

We had successful cookie pick-up. I know have 107 cases of Girl Scout cookies in my living room. Lord help me.



The laundry is as done as it can be. There is ALWAYS dirty laundry. But right now, in the house there is maybe 1 ½ loads to do. And that is a stretch. I am going to see how long I can keep the lack of laundry going.

The kitty box was cleaned by Josh. I didn’t ask him to do it, but he did it before I could get to it. So I was thrilled that it got done and that I didn’t have to do it.

Jacob had is homework done Saturday morning before we left to get the cookies. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that I told him Friday night that he could not play the Wii until the homework was done. He was on me to get it done Saturday morning.

We made it to the Girl Scout shop and spent lots of Girl Scout money and money of our own. It was a good time. I got a yard sign for Cookies that is WAY cool.

And we went “treasure hunting” on Saturday after Josh got off work and before Emily went to her sleepover and I was presented with several wonderful opportunities for pictures. I have not uploaded them into my flickr account yet, but they are off my camera and on my computer at home. I will have to wait until tonight to load them into flickr and post some tomorrow.

I did accomplish a few things that were not on my list of things to do from Friday. I cleaned out the top of my closet. It isn’t done, but I not have a huge bag for Goodwill but I am going to wait until I finish cleaning out the closet to take it down there. I have a feeling some of my Home Interiors stuff is going to make it to Goodwill this trip. I think I may be over the whole Americana theme in my home now.

I successfully spent more money at IKEA. But that isn’t difficult. I think I am inflicting a self imposed ban on IKEA until we have saved up the $299 We need for the new bed frame that I want. We are selling things on Craigslist and we are up to $100 and when we have “earned” the entire amount from Craigslist we are going to go back and buy the bed frame and our bedroom will actually maybe look like we intend to live there for a while.

Overall it was a great weekend. To short as usual and to busy as usual, but good all the same.

Weekend plans are SO exciting, NOT!

It is Friday, Hooray! I have lots of “big” plans for the weekend. I think I will share them and we will see how well I do next Monday.

• We have our giant Cookie Pick up for Girl Scouts. That’s right ladies and gents, its that time again, COOKIE TIME! I will begin the painstaking process of counting and recounting boxes of cookies for the next 2 months. And it all starts tomorrow. I know that I will accomplish this goal, because I actually have NO choice in the matter.
  
  
• Finish the laundry. The washer and dryer have been on the frits since the whole lice invasion of 2007 and they finally last Friday got back to “full speed” and I was almost caught up when I had to head back to work on Wednesday. Needless to say only one load has been completed in the last three days. And it is starting to pile up and I have to get a hold of it before it takes over our lives again.
  
  
• I absolutely need to clean the bathrooms again. I have been successful in keeping the new clean bathroom clean this week and I want to continue the trend. And the kid’s bathroom could use a little attention. We are usually better about it than the master bedroom but God bless my son, he is simply the nastiest person on this whole entire bathroom. Especially when he is by himself, locked up in a small room where you are allowed to take your clothes off.
  
  
• The poor kitty box needs some attention. Really what more can I say?
  
  
• Jacob has homework. He forgot to bring it home the Wednesday night before the break and therefore it was not finished and turned in on Thursday, the last day of the break and it was sent home to be completed. We have procrastinated this one big time. School starts Tuesday and I have to make sure he completes it before then.

Now for the fun stuff:

• I get to take Emily to the Girl Scout shop and spend a little money on her and attempt to get her excited again about Girl Scouts. Not that she isn’t excited about it, but it has been a month since we last met and we are trying to gear back up for it. Plus I need to buy patches for the Caroling we did last month.
  
  
• I want to take the kids out and * attempt * to get some good photos with them. I have this fabulous new camera and I don’t know what to do with all the buttons and I want to figure it out a little more. I want to be able to take pictures that people are impressed by. And to do that I need practice. Luckily I have 2 fabulous models at my disposal and hopefully the sun will be up and the temps won’t be down and we can hit the world and see what happens. I just want to stop taking blurry pictures. So I have got to practice. So practice I will. This weekend.

So those are our big plans. I am sure some Wii and a movie night will be thrown in there as well, but these are the things which I truly hope to accomplish in the 48 hours which are my entirely to quick weekend.

My name is Susan and I am addicted to the Wii.

"Hello Susan."

I think I need a support group to come off the Wii. I don’t want to ever stop playing. I have to make myself stop. It has become Mommy and Jacob time together. We have a love affair with Super Mario Galaxy. We play it all the time. It may become a serious problem once the kids get back in school. But we enjoy our time together. And we have collected 7 of the 8 stars we need to unlock the next part of the galaxy. (I am SUCH a nerd.)

But I cannot describe how I feel sitting there on the couch with my little boy in a fit of excitement as we battle some sort of crazy “evil” being. We work together to defeat the evils that are trying to kill us and enjoy every moment of it together. Jacob and I have never had an activity in which we both enjoyed it so much that we longed to do it. But we have found it. I enjoy every moment of it. I love playing, because it is fun, but I also enjoy watching him play and become excited when he is able to defeat an enemy in which he has struggled with. He is so proud of himself and I am so proud of him as well.

But don’t worry, after a while we turn it off and he will go ride his scooter or bike and run around and terrorize the neighborhood with all his little friends. So he is getting time outside as much as he is playing the game inside.

A headache story

I have had a headache for at least three weeks. Since before Christmas. I simply have attributed it to holiday stress/MIL stress/work stress/allergies and other general what-nots. However, yesterday I headed out and did a little shopping at IKEA and headed over to Amy’s house. During our visit the headache continued to pound and pound. Which made laughing with her and her husband increasingly difficult. Finally, I simply stated that I thought I had a brain tumor- right here- and I needed to curl up in a ball and die. She offered me some Excedrin and icy water and I swished them down, grabbed my children and went home. It was only 3pm and I grabbed my pj’s and went to bed. Jacob entertained himself with the Wii and Emily hit the block with her friends. I tried to die. After about an hour I thought that Amy was crazy and that whatever she had given me simply was not going to work because I simply still felt horrible. I continued to try and die until, suddenly, I felt fine. Not only did I feel fine I felt the best I had felt in 6 months!

We had purchased this beautiful new dresser with some Christmas money and are in the process of trying to clean our room and move out of the old dresser and into the new dresser and organize the HOT SPOT that is the master bedroom. Not much work had been put into it the project because of the horrible headache I had had for the past three weeks. But then, I suddenly felt good. And so I moved, and grooved and once Josh got home, he moved the old dresser into the garage and we moved some other bedroom furniture around. And I cleaned the master bathroom. Now, this is a feat in itself. I hate to clean the bathroom with a white hot passion. I HATE it. But it was disgusting and I had to clean it. But I never could convince myself to clean. But know I felt so good and I had some cute new bathroom stuff from IKEA that I wasn’t going to put into a filthy bathroom. So I cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. I cleaned the drawers in the cabinets out and I cleaned under the faucets and I comet cleaned the tub. It was amazing. It is so beautiful that I would let anybody use it right now. And that’s saying something.

I filed all the loose documents into our file case and cleaned off our bookshelf of the books that need to go to Half-Price Books and threw away things that were 4 years old. Things that had not been gone through since we moved to Austin. It was a big day, because Josh threw away all the documentation from the assault in New Mexico. And that was amazing to see him say, “Just toss it.” I still have TONS of work to do to get the entire bedroom clean, but it is cleaner than it has been in years. There is still a kitchen table on its side and piles of pictures I need to go through and sort, but I also have at least three clean table tops and a desire to get it all done. Hopefully tonight. Josh had to finally make me stop working at 10 because I think I would have kept going all night if I didn’t have work to wake up for today.

It was simply fabulous. I know that I am stopping at the drug store at lunch and picking up some of that fabulous Excedrin, because I haven’t felt that good in years. And if I have been living with a Migraine for the past couple of weeks I know that I don’t want to have to live with one for one more minute ever. I wish I had taken before pictures, even though it would have been so embarrassing to show those, but I will defiantly post after pictures once I complete the entire project.