Business

I'm sitting here at my dining room table eating a bowl of very healthy cereal and drinking a very unhealthy cup of coffee. The sun is streaming in the back windows and through the sliding glass door, warming my head and upper body. I wish my sister were here. We could be sitting here having our devotions and some sister time. I'm missing my sis. I tried to plan a short weekend trip where we could get together and it just be her and I. It didn't work out. So, here I sit, missing her.

Today is probably going to be a busy day. I have to make a cake for Michael's "Office" Christmas party. It's a microwave cake. A box of cake mix, 3 eggs, a 3.9 oz package of pudding mix and ......um....I think that might be it. Then into the micro it goes. I hope it will turn out o.k. Then it's off to take it to him and go check to see if my paycheck(if you want to call 10 hrs in two weeks a paycheck) is available yet. Next paycheck will be for only 8 hrs. That's o.k. though, because only working 2-8 hrs a week gives me lots of time to get other stuff done and spend time with my family. I love it. With this job I feel like I can have my cake and eat it to! No pun intended.

Mike, the baby, and I are being taken to Red Lobster tonight for Christmas. We are celebrating our Christmas tonight with my parents and Mike's mom. I don't think that's fair. But, I'm not going to get into that rant right now.

I gotta go start my day. Merry Christmas to all!

Will it stop?

Over and over again this happens. Mike has a talk with his employers at the Dade City Ford dealership, and things go well for awhile. They treat him with respect and he works hard for them. Then it happens. They begin demanding higher expectations. They begin putting more and more work on him. 15-30 minutes before time for Mike to get off work they will bring a vehicle back that requires 2 or more hours of detailing and expect him to get it done in the next 15 minutes before he leaves. The same car they knew needed detailing earlier in the day and they could have brought it back before then and it would have been done and sitting there for them already. It's like they play mind games with him. Because he is so quiet and he doesn't respond to them when they are crawling all over him, they think he's stupid. Or ignorant. Or whatever they think. Poor guy, it hurts my heart to see him come home nearly every night looking haggard and downtrodden. He constantly feels he can't do anything right.
Even God doesn't put more on his children then they can handle. And the "bosses" at the dealership certainly are NOT gods last time I checked. They don't do his job and yet they expect him to comply to their demands simply because they are asking him to. They don't ever take the time to go back there and work with him to see what his job actually consists of. They sit in their air conditioned/heated offices and "oversee" the work with a critical and demanding eye. Never rewarding or giving out any positive encouragement to the detailers when a job is done well. They ALWAYS come up with something wrong with a newly detailed vehicle. Expecting miracles from some of the wrecks that come back there for Mike to clean. The worst of the worst. Mike has even found rats in vehicles they were so nasty! And yet, the salesman and managers bring them to Mike and he digs there beauty back up and revives the dead. Not once do these same people come back and say he did a good job. It's always, you could have done better. My opinion. They are all on a high testostorone trip and don't seem to be able to get back down to the real world. God complexes of the highest degree. Thinking just because they wear a button up shirt and tie then they are better than the lowly grease/dirt monkeys back there in the mudholes. I pray one day they will have to switch roles. I know one day these same men are going to find themselves gravelling for a job of any kind and end up working in some dirty, hot, detail department, with the cold wind and rain blowing in their faces as they try and wipe freezing water off of a newly washed vehicle with ice cold frozen fingers numb from the exposure of the cold. This will come. Maybe not soon, but it will come.

Will it stop.

Getting Ready

The Christmas Spirit is making it's rounds. It's taken a little bit longer with me to be possessed. But, it's slowly sinking in.

Today, Michael came home from work and we went to Big Lot's and bought a smallish tree(about 5ft) for G-G(great-grandma to Kea). I should say, I did. Mike sat in the car with his friend from church and Kea.
I then began imagining a tree. Not a perfect, Macy's window worthy tree, just a nice simple, but elegant one. Trying to conj our up images of Grandma's tree from when I was a little girl, I began picking out ornaments and tinsel, and the most demanded tree item for Grandma, garland. 50ft of it. Gold and Silver. The "balls" if you could call them that, were spiked. They were like little round starburst type shapes. They had spikes sticking out all over them. They were very modern, which for some reason made me think of Grandma. She was never one to follow the flow. She liked what she liked. And I thought she would like those spikey Christmas balls. So we threw a jingle bell wreath, some fake snow(which I forgot to use now that I think of it), and to Grandmother's "house"(apartment) we went with sleigh bells jingling and all that jazz.

The Edwinola, where Grandma lives, is decked out with Christmas lights. Beyond what I would have ever imagined a retirement community such as this doing. It is nearly too much. You can see the glow of it out here in the middle of the country!
I watched as my little girls gaze beheld the glory of the sparkle and glitz and saw the reflection of those lights in her sweet eyes. She was so excited and kept yelling "Christmas tree Yights"(no I didn't misspell that's how she says that word). She ran to her G-G's room and knocked on the door then did her little routine of hiding against the wall to jump out at G-G when she answers the door.
Once inside, these two little elves went to work. Unpacking and unwrapping and untangling the goodies.
We began the decorating, the tree is pre-lit(God please bless whomever invented the prelit tree!) so all was needed was the final touches of our starbursts and garland. Kea helped and was so elated to be the one putting decorations on one of her beloved trees that she so enthusiastically points out everywhere we go.
Stepping back and watching G-G's face as she took it all in was wonderful. She sat so proudly, so excited about having Christmas decorations up.
We left G-G's tired but in a good way. So much done, and still so much to do. We are now looking forward to putting up our own tree in our home. I just can't put into words the joy I'm feeling as I watch my little girl take in the wonderment of this precious Holiday. I am praising my Heavenly Father for giving His only Son to us. Not only as an atonement for our sins, but also a reason to celebrate each year a glorious occurrence.
This year Kea seems to understand a little more. She isn't quite there yet but she's getting it. You can see the wheels inside her head turning and thinking and processing it all. I can't wait until she is old enough to understand how to give back. Next year we are going to "adopt" a child off the Angel Tree Project. I'm so curious to see how Kea will do. She already demonstrates compassion and a kind heart. I pray God will use those gifts to reach others for Him, through her.

So the Christmas Spirit is spreading, don't let life get you so busy you can't let it consume you.

Copy cat

That's what I meant to say as I conversed with my sister this morning. I called her to wish her Happy Birthday because I wasn't able to get to a phone yesterday. (our mom had me running her around alllllllll day!)
We were discussing a humorous story about coffee cups and one of her friends brought her a new one for her birthday because the one she was using was a disgrace to the avid coffee drinker.
I was coveting my bosses coffee cup and expressing my desire to find one like it and told my sister, "I would go out and find one like it but I don't want to be a coffee cat!".

I'm still chuckling. I hope it made my sis's day!

Happy Birthday Sis! Hope you enjoyed your new "mug" from your friend and the chuckle from me.

I'm beautiful....

And didn't know it. I look in the mirror and my hair is growing out from the short cut, I'm a bit overweight, my skin is red and ruddy looking(to me). I never feel beautiful.

I go to a photo shoot to assist my photographer ( I am attempting to train with her). We take some preliminary shots to test lighting and such. She gives me this disk with the pics on it and here is some of what I found.

I don't know about anyone else, but these pics make me look hot! And I found out from the photographer that no editing was done on the top pic other than cropping and the only editing on the bottom pic was just putting it in black and white and coloring in the fan. Everything else is 100% me! It really helped my self image and looking at myself through others eyes. It certainly boosted my ego a little.

Love to all!

Life Change

So, I went to church Wed. night. I was convicted as I sat there feeling overwhelmed about so many things. Mostly about time. Feeling I never have any and i can't seem to complete a task even when I try. God spoke to me and said it was my laziness. I'm lazy. Along with being used and abused and taken advantage of. He made it clear to me that if I used my time more wisely and were not lazy then I would have more time to accommodate others needs in addition to ours. Sitting at the computer for many hours a day was not helping matters. The church prayed over me, a friend and another member prayed with me in making our requests known before God. He prayed for specifics and one of them was that I would have wisdom in the use of my time. (what amazes me is that this person didn't know before hand that he was praying for the very thing I was struggling with.)
Thursday morning was spent with God. I had a clear head and it felt as if God was answering prayers and revealing to me exactly what needed to be done. I got up, cut my hubby's hair, got the baby up and dressed, got them both breakfast, and started on the dishes.
Enter, the devil.
Yup, the phone rang. I ignored it and let it go to voicemail. I was on a roll. Nothing was going to stop me, I was going to accomplish much.
10 minutes later the phone rang again. It's the same person calling. I'm thinking o.k., this must be important for them the be calling like this.
Mistake number one. Making an assumption.
Mistake number two. Answering that phone.
Yup, it was someone needing us to tote them someplace. It seems to be a constant around here now. I'm beginning to think the business I need to start is a taxi service company. I've already got clientele. Oh wait, they don't pay!! There is way more to this story regarding all these people calling us to take them places, but I won't go into it with you now. It would take too long.
I hung up the phone and screamed! Yes, I really screamed. A bloodcurdling, keening, "I can't take it anymore" scream. A real one.
As my panic attack began I thought about one of the ladies who prayed with me. She knew about the current situation and so I called her. What a blessing! She taught me a simple way to say "NO".( a word I can't seem to grasp the concept of for some reason even though saying it more often would make my life so much easier).
Find a secretary. Or just an alternate number you can give out, like your cell phone or something. In my case I don't have a cell phone and no one that I know of who would be willing to take a call for me if I did this. She suggested the pastor's cell phone. Yea, like he doesn't have enough people calling him for useless crap all the time and can take on all the people who call me for useless crap! I called him to see what he thought. What better person to get advice from about prioritizing and time scheduling than a pastor?
More great ideas poured in and I am happy to say I can now say "NO" without being riddled with guilt. I was just feeling like the excuse of "I have to do housework" was a lame excuse to give to someone who has no food and wants to be taken to the store where a manager has offered to donate food to them. Never mind to me that I see a habit being formed among other little red flags going up with these people. Yea, I know, put plastic wrap around my head and paint my body white, I'm a sucker!
So, my outgoing message now explains that until the 21st we are not available unless you have a life or death emergency that you feel we need to be involved with in which case you can call the church number at duh, d,duh,d,duh.
So, my kitchen is completely clean from top to bottom. My dining room table is clean but has papers that need sorted. My laundry is being done as I type. My living room, with a little more work, could possibly be in a magazine for looking nice. My bed is made up with clean sheets and Kea has been bathed and is shining. I'm on the right track. I can feel a change. A life change. And it feels good.
Thank God for good friends that He sends your way to help you with just what you need.