The Coffee Mug

This is the perfect Day to be in The Coffee Mug.

The sky is grey.
It's drizzling rain.
The freshly laid blacktop is gleaming with colors bleeding together from the reflection of the buildings across the street. Melting together like colors in a watercolor painting.

Cuddled into a booth with a favorite cup of Banana Foster Cappuccino.

Cozy .

Warm.

Comfortable.

Life is good. No worries. No stress.

Just quiet reflection.

Painting pictures in my mind of dreamy, far away places.
Imagining and spinning romantic stories of a couple sitting in the corner with heads together over a steaming latt'e.

Just Bea-ing..........Happy
Content
In love
With my Coffee Mug

Trying to keep in mind.

Today has been a test.

A test of patience. Tolerance. A test. Holding of the temper. Trying not to spew vile emotional negativity all over innocent bystanders as I view my life from afar and wonder "what the h---" and "why is God doing this to us?"

Convincing myself He is in control no matter how it may look at the moment. Convincing myself He is bigger than this and He knows what He's doing and I'm just a minute detail in the over all plan and if I would keep my grimy paws off of what He is doing it just might all turn out to be o.k.

Just like it always does........

Trees say hello

This is a memory I wanted to hold onto so I figured I better write about it and maybe it would stick.
Kea has never seen strong, gusy winds before. So, as we walked out to the truck yesterday to begin our errands, Kea began staring up into the trees. She studied them in wonderment for a moment and then began waving to them. I looked up to see who or what she was waving to and this thought crossed my mind. With the wind blowing the branches of the trees it caused the smaller branches and leaves to wave around giving the appearrance that the trees were waving in a manner of greeting. I thought it was so precious to see my childs innocent face peering up into the tree tops and her little hand waving back to the trees as they told her hello!

Update on life

Things are going great. Staying very busy. This past week and weekend has been overwhelming!

The Lord is blessing us with groceries, nearly more than we can consume! I have a package of ribs in my fridge that I have got to cook today because they've been in there for a day or two now. I don't want to have to throw them out.

Kea is handling all this busy-ness in stride. I haven't noticed any adverse reactions to me having worked two eight hour days.

I'm loving working in a coffee shop. This past week I worked the two eight hour days and then got back up again at 6 a.m. and worked my two hour day. It was three days in a row of having to get up and go to work and it gave me a taste of what it would be like to have a full-time job again. I didn't relish the idea. I hated leaving the baby with someone else to be taken care of. And I was having reservations with some of the decisions the care taker was making concerning her. The home life is different in that family and a little more, well, "aggressive" I guess. They communicate a bit differently in certain situations than hubby and I like to communicate. We don't permit screaming and yelling in anger and such. The care taker's family is a little more lenient in expressing themselves in a heated situation. That always makes me a bit nervous. It has assured me we have made the right choice in keeping kea at home and trying to be a stay at home mom. As much as I love the coffee shop and enjoy the work there, I will not be working any more hours than I have to.

Business is a bit slow. I haven't been able to put much effort into it and that is making it pretty hard to grow my business. You definitely have to be able to put time into it. I'm hoping to get a better organized plan working so I can manage my time better and include time for everything that needs to be done in our lives. I tried contacting a professional organizer. No one returned my call and when I attempted to send an email it was returned saying the mailbox was full. Guess I'll have to do my own research and figure it out by myself. Not something I'm very good at since it seems to be getting worse every day. The clutter and distraction is overwhelming!

Well, I better get back to posting ads. And coming up with some strategies for marketing. Hope all is well with everyone!

Weather

I'm sitting inside with my A.C. on and outside it looks like a winter day. Just the kind of day I love! Overcast and windy. It makes me wish winter were really here already.

I hate summer. It's hot. It's humid. It's sticky. Yuck! I dream of calm and cool temperatures never dipping below 55 or above 75 degrees all year round. Occasionally sunny but mostly overcast.

(sigh) I know I must face it. Although it looks cool and windy outside, I know for a fact it's humid and muggy. The wind helps it some. Not enough.

Here I go.

Coffee

I'm addicted again. In spite of the acid reflux it produces. Who can work in a Coffee shop cafe and NOT drink coffee.
Not me.

I love the smell and I'm having to learn how to mix the coffee drinks and smoothies. I can't help but drink it. I have to practice and we can't just throw it out after I've made it!
That would be a travesty!

The work is very simple. Stock the fridge for the day with items needed to make the sandwiches and salads and such, and put the dishes away. I only work two hours in the morning about two days a week. And then 4 hours in the evening one day a week so far. As I become better at it I will gain more hours. I will not be full-time though. I don't want to lose the "stay at home mom" status. But, God has blessed us with this job and it's perfect and just what we needed for our lifestyle at this time.

I just want to say I love ya sis. I know you are probably the only one who really reads this. Occasionally I hear from Struggles of a Teacher person and that is always a blessing. But, I have been thinking about you today sister. I don't know why but I'm missing you really bad. I wish we lived closer. I miss sharing things with you and being close to you. I miss cuddling together on the couch and drinking coffee and reading magazines. I dream of one day being together and painting things together. Picture type things. Mosaics. Sewing and sipping and dreaming. Going to Islands and staying at remote inns on a picture perfect beach. Lazing around in hammocks with the breeze rocking us and caressing our tanned skin.

All right. I've gotta go. It's gettin' late and hubby doesn't like it when I'm on here too much. Love you bunches. All of you who read this!

I couldn't stand it.

It just wasn't right! So, I went to a local hair salon and had them fix my hair. I know, the other cut didn't look that bad, but I could see the errors. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my hair. You can ask my sister! I'm probably one of her worst clients! :)
Here is the newest cut. I'm liking it more and more everyday. It's getting me lots of attention!

Praising God for His Grace!

When I get rich from this business one of my goals is to hire a professional organizer. I've come to the realization I'm never going to be able to do it. I can't seem to figure out where to put everything. And I don't have the money or innovative insight to be able to buy the neccassary tools needed to become organized. So, I shuffle everything around, can never find what I'm looking for because I've put it somewhere where I could find it to just not be able to find it. Yea, I need an organizer. Wonder where I would find one of those? Can I just look in the yellow pages?
Oh! I've gotta tell you the biggest blessing that happened to us tonight. Another big clue that God does exist for those who doubt it. Mike came home and we decided to go to The Coffee Mug ,where I work part time, and get supper there so I could practice on preparing the drinks and stuff. On the way out I happened to notice an envelope from a mortgage company I had layed up on the bar to shred since I thought it was just another spam letter from some company wanting to get us to mortgage a house we don't have. I opened it just because. It was a check for $2,031.00!!!! Turns out I had a Ginnie Mae account with unclaimed funds in it and they tracked me down and sent them to us! Praise God. I stood there and cried because we needed money so badly. So, we went to eat and I went to pay for the food and my card wouldn't work. It declined it. I was astounded because Michael had just been paid and we have direct deposit. I told the girl I was gonna go to the bank and get the money and bring it back. I figured that Mike's job just didn't get the deposit in yet or something like that. I went ahead and went to the bank and before I put the $2,031. check in I checked the balance and it said we were -$230.60! Hmmm, I deposited the BIG check and withdrew $100 to pay the bill at the shop and get some gas. After we got some milk for the baby and a few things to tide us over till our $119. food stamps kicks in on the 3rd. This is where the blessing comes in to play! I got online and checked out our checking account history to see if Mike's check had even hit the bank yet. It had and the negative was AFTER his check was deposited! Without that "suprise" check from GM we would still be negative and not be able to pay rent, get food, gas, or pay the other bills that were coming in. I'm still not quite sure how we became that negative other than we were paying bills and we just aren't bringing in enough to cover them all. It's obvious God knew what was going to happen and we were clueless and it's so amazing to see how God works!!!!!!!!!!! I'm still in awe of this. It happens to me quite often. Not neccassarily involving money but the money is the most obvious that happens. The other blessings and unexplainable incidents like this that I KNOW are from God is involving the baby. I've seen things happen where she should be in the hospital or really hurt badly and there won't be a mark on her! I am just praising God almighty for being so good to us even when we don't deserve it and I want to give HIM a shout out!
PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!