All Quiet on the Blogging Front

I know, the blog has been the sound of crickets for a while now. I have had multiple posts written out in my head, but they've just never made it to the keyboard. I don't have much to say now, but I figured I'd better get back in the habit. :-)

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I'm settling in to my new job. I think I'm finally starting to understand what it is I'm supposed to do. Not that I think I know everything, but I have fewer questions. Everyone kept telling me to give it a year before I really feel like I understand what's going on. A year??? I don't think I've ever had a job where I wasn't supposed to know everything about everything inside 2 weeks!

It's not that the job is that difficult to understand in and of itself. There's just a lot of product knowledge to absorb.  I'm getting there! It helps that they just hired another person in our department, and I was able to refine my focus. Our products are divided in two categories, and technically she's over one and I'm over the other. That makes it a little easier, although I still need to learn hers and her mine. We just don't have to know it all righthtisverysecond.

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I started working out regularly again. I'm actually doing a pretty good job of sticking with it this time. I've been meeting my friend Leah 4-5 times a week for the past 10 weeks. I've discovered the keys to getting me to commit to it.

1. I have to be meeting someone.
2. I have to have a plan. 
3. I have to do it at 6am. 

A fourth condition might also be that I have to have it sprung upon me. Leah asked me to be her Maid of Honor, and I told her the only way I would do it was if she was my workout partner. Then 5 days later I text her a pic of my new workout shoes and she asked if I wanted to meet her the next morning at 6am for our first workout. Uh... sure! That was September 2, and we've been going ever since. 

We started out with this plan, which was great until the donkey calf raises. That's a no. Now we're working through a different one, although we're probably going to change it up again soon. We're both seeing some great improvements in strength, but now we need to get some extra cardio for the weight loss. 

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I've currently been without a "real" fridge for about a week. Ours just decided to stop cooling last Wednesday night. After multiple calls with Best Buy and Samsung customer service, they are finally coming to fix it this afternoon.

G was kind enough to take a lot of the stuff from our freezer and put it in his. Then we made an emergency purchase of a mini-fridge to get us through what turned out to be the next 6 days. It's been interesting trying to meal prep in a mini-fridge, that's for sure. But hopefully the real fridge gets fixed this afternoon. Then the mini-fridge will go live in G's garage. 

Ok, well that's enough rambling for today. I will leave you with this.

I might have been praying over this one last week. :-)

Spirit Week

I'm going to totally pretend that you've only missed this week. That being said, this is still going to be a long post. Deal with it...

This week has been... interesting! In a mostly good way! Tomorrow is the Group Fitness Launch at work (where the instructors start using new releases of the MOSSA Group classes), so we've been having a Spirit Week at work to gear up for it. Starting Tuesday we had Earth Day, Sports Day, Crazy Hat Day, and Super Hero Day. Tomorrow for the actual launch will be Beach Party Day. What most of us heard was that we go almost a whole week where we didn't have to wear our uniforms. Chicka-chicka-ka-score! ;-)

The interesting part of my week really started on Monday. I knew the next day was Earth Day, and I was allowed to wear anything with an Earth Day/Recycling theme to it. I shot Amy a message to see if she had anything I could borrow since I had nothing appropriate, and she found a tshirt of her husband's that would be perfect. When she asked him if I could borrow it He said I could, but only if I applied for a position that had just become available at his company. I think we all know that I've been looking for other employment for a while now, so I was intrigued. After a brief conversation with Amy, I polished up my resume and go it to the HR person. When I saw Amy at small group that night, she said her husband came home saying he thought they wanted to interview me on Thursday. Sure enough, when small group was over I had a voice mail asking if I was available for an interview on Thursday at 10am. Ahhh!

Tuesday and Wednesday were kind of a blur. I scrambled to get my shift partially covered for Thursday (I was supposed to work 11am-6pm), and I finished getting the rest of Greg's birthday gifts together. Oh yeah, not only did I have an interview on Thursday, but the love of my life turned 37! Tuesday and Wednesday involved a lot of shopping and praying. Mostly, I was praying that I would keep calm and just present myself well. I didn't want to get too excited, mostly because I've applied for several jobs and had a few interviews and then crickets. So I kept praying for God to move as He saw fit in the situation and to remind me that He has perfect timing.

Thursday was a full day, which was great! I didn't have time to dwell on anything because the day was so packed. I had the interview, worked 1-6, then immediately when to the restaurant to meet everyone for Greg's birthday dinner. I think the interview went really well. The HR person had told me it would be less than an hour, and I was there for about an hour and a half. It was really friendly interview, and I think I presented myself as well as I possibly could. Amy said her husband sent her a message saying it must be going well because I was still there, and that was only about halfway through my time there. :-) They said they hoped to make a final decision on Monday, and I should hear one way or the other sometime on Tuesday. After that, I ended up meeting Amy at the store because I had to get new shoes. I might have forgotten my tennis shoes and socks in my hurry to not be late... I needed new shoes anyway! We wandered around a chatted for about an hour until it was time for me to head to work. My shift went by pretty fast, probably because it was abbreviated. ;-) At 6 I flew out the door and up to Market Square for dinner. Greg decided he wanted to visit The Stock & Barrel this year. I ended up ordering a Bison Burger and Duck Confit Fries. Ohmigosh, it was so good! I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of it, but I inhaled it! If you're in the area, I highly recommend it! After dinner we wandered around the square for a bit, then all headed our separate ways.

Today was pretty good, too. It started off a little rough, but it's nothing that needs too much attention. Amy is at a women's retreat this weekend, Greg is at a concert, and Mom went off with her small group, so I'm at home with Tony tonight. He's in his room, so I've been left to my own devices. Well, a girl can only draft her resignation letter so many times before it becomes boring, so I decided to make something. We have a private Facebook page for our small group. I noticed that now you can add a cover picture to group pages (it used to just cycle through the profile pictures of the group members), so I went to PicMonkey and made this:

Ephesians 3:20 has sort of unofficially become our group's theme verse almost as soon as we started meeting together. Plus I wanted to remind myself that as much as I may want this job, God is capable of doing so much more than I can even comprehend. Again, His plan and timing are perfect. There's no point in worrying about it.

It looks like Anthony and I will have a pretty busy weekend. His small group is volunteering tomorrow morning so I need to get up early to get him up and out the door. Then he has a "date" tomorrow evening with his girlfriend. Whew, I don't know if I'm ready for all that! I better rest up!

Bring on '14

It's that time of year again! Everyone's making New Year's resolutions and vowing that this is the year to stick with it. Working at a gym, the "Resolutioners" can be the most stressful part of the job, so I've been a little adverse to making resolutions the past few years. That being said, I decided to make one this year. There is a lot of stuff I need to work on, but I made one all-encompassing resolution: Be More Organized. I figure if I can be more organized with my spending habits, I will save money. If I'm more organized with my meal planning, I'll eat healthier and probably lose weight. If I'm more organized with my time, I'll feel less stressed. Being more organized will help with a multitude of sins.

I have also chosen my Word of the Year. Last year my word was Love. I wanted to love everyone more. It was definitely difficult. I did great for the first few months, then I ran headlong into a wall. That being said, I think I was able to love people more than if I hadn't been trying to work on it. I was more compassionate and understanding, to the point of annoying others who wanted to be mad. Oops. This year, my word is Joy. Amy and I were at the book store the other day and I kept seeing books about finding hope. Finally I said "I don't need hope, I need joy!" and I realized I had my word. I do have hope for my current situation, but I need to be able to find the joy in the midst of it. I think my theme verse for 2014 may be Philippians 4:4-5.

If you're interested, there is a 4-day devotional available here about having a word for the year. I like having a word of the year. It gives me something to focus on. 

I have so much more to share with you, but I'm starting to get exhausted. I hope everyone has had a pleasant start to 2014. Stay safe!

Lucky 13

I have always said that 13 is one of my lucky numbers (along with 3, 7, and occasionally 87), and that is also true for Friday the 13th. I'm not saying that every Friday the 13th is rainbows and unicorns, but generally they turn out to be a good day overall. I'm (sort of) happy to say that today was no different. But I'm also happy that I got a reminder that luck and good fortune don't always look the way we might expect.

Today, my car sounded it's death rattle. It was kind of sudden actually. I went to work without a problem, and even went on a coffee run with no issues. But when I tried to go on my lunch break a few hours later the engine wouldn't turn over. Now, I've left my lights on more times than I care to admit, so I knew it wasn't a dead battery, but it definitely was not starting. I waited a few minutes and tried again to no avail. So I called Amy. (Not that I thought she could physically help me, but I needed to freak out to my bff, yanno?) While I was on the phone with her, I got the car to start, but it was shuddering really badly and made me nervous to drive. Needless to say I turned it back off. Amy kindly agreed to meet me after work and follow me home to make sure I got there safely.

Then I called Greg and cried. I know, emotional manipulation, but I couldn't help it. (Did I mention I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep? My nerves were already fried). He talked me down, then started looking at cars online and calling around. After a bit of back and forth, we decided to go car shopping tomorrow.

The whole drive home I was incredibly nervous. The car shuddered and jerked and jumped. When I finally got home, Amy told me my car was sparking the whole way. Actually, she said something along the lines of  "it looked like you were chain smoking and throwing them out the window." Awesome. God bless her, she's coming to take me to work at 5:30 tomorrow morning, and Greg is picking me up after my shift. I truly am blessed in my friends.

So, how do I consider it  a lucky day? Well, I don't normally leave work during my break. If I had stuck to my usual routine, I wouldn't have known anything was wrong with my car until close to 6pm. At that point Greg wouldn't have been available to call dealerships for me (he had plans to see The Hobbit tonight), and Amy might not have been able to follow me home. Finding out early gave me time to mentally prepare for the idea of buying a car, making car payments, and so on.

It also gave me time to remember to trust God. He has been calling me to trust Him for a while now, and I just haven't been able to do it. No, I have trusted God. I haven't trusted that I was accurately listening to what He was telling me to do. This is a pretty blatant sign that He wants me to trust in His provision. Yesterday, I was sending verses to one of the girls in my small group, and today I was reading them myself. I'll leave you with one that is echoing around my heart today.

Ha... as I posted this, I realized the verse number is 13... Told you it was a good number. 

Weary

Weary? That's me. Carrying a heavy burden? One or two. Generally, I try not to complain about my life; not because I don't have problems, but because complaining doesn't fix anything. When I whine about something it just reminds me of the negatives without focusing on any of the positives. But like I said, that doesn't mean I don't have problems.

I have been under a lot of stress  lately, and it has manifested itself as muscle pain. I tend to store all of my stress in my shoulder; my right shoulder if we're being specific. I don't know why, but that's where it likes to live. The tension got so bad on Thursday that it was spreading down around my ribs. I don't know it's you've ever had a muscle spasm/cramp around your ribs, but it was not fun! By the time I laid down for bed that night my shoulder hurt so bad I was in tears. I couldn't think of anything to do to ease the pain.

Since I was awake, I started looking through my tablet. I launched my Bible app, and Matthew 11:28 was the verse of the day. Coincidence? I think not. If you read the rest of that passage you see that Jesus was asking us to give up our heavy burdens and take his light one.

Then Jesus said,  “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30, NLT

So I shut down my tablet and started praying. I told God that I was weary of being weary. I asked him to take my burdens. I told Him I was giving Him the stress, the pain, the borderline anger I was carrying. I asked Him to help me rest, both spiritually and physically. He did. I kept praying that passage until I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, my shoulder felt much better. I also felt calmer about the mountains that are in front of me. 

All this to say, isn't God good? He gave me the verse I needed, when I needed it, and helped me remember that I don't have to take it all on myself. I don't have to carry everything. Maybe I need to paint that on my wall.

How to Fight Fair

For the past few days I have really felt pulled to share something with you all and today I finally decided to do it. My church is currently doing an alignment series called Normal, which is all about the family; how the world sees the family vs. how God sees the family. This past Sunday the message was entitled Rules of Engagement, and boy oh boy did it hit home. 

One of the things I really like about Faith Promise is that we have an internet campus and they upload the audio and the video for the sermons each week. So if I'm out of town, like I was this weekend, I can watch or listen to the message when I get a chance. 

Since I wasn't able to make it to services on Sunday, I decided to listen to the sermon while I straightened my room. That lasted all of about 5 minutes before I realized I needed to sit down and take notes. Pastor preached from Ephesians 4:25-32 and gave us 7 Rules of Engagement to follow when we fight or argue with people. I felt like I needed to type it up and print it out so I could see it on a regular basis. And then I felt like I should share it with you. 

I highly recommend watching or listening to the sermon. Pastor explains more fully how the verses relate to each rule. I also appreciate the fact that he told us we're going to fight with people. We're human! No one is perfect and we're going to argue. But we can do it with a Biblical perspective and heart.

I know I have read Ephesians 4 multiple times, but sometimes it amazes me how many times you can read something and still find something new. I'm doing that quite a bit lately, especially with Ephesians. Maybe I should do a study on Ephesians soon.

Respond with Love

I promise... at some point I will get back to my regularly schedule blog. But tonight, I wanted to talk about something that's been on my mind lately; loving people when you don't want to love them.

This is something that I struggle with all the time. I'm not talking about loving G when he's grating my nerves or loving my brother when he's being a brat. No, I'm talking about loving the people that were put in my life to challenge me. My inclination has always been to lash out and break them. I've not always been the best of people. :-/ But as I challenge myself to be more loving, I'm also learning how to respond.

Yesterday on the way home, I was listening to Air1 and the DJ was talking about how even when we argue with someone, we need to do it with love. He sited 1 Corinthians 11:1-3.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. (NLT) 

Several instances have come up recently, and I'm ashamed to admit that I did not handle them all with the grace and love they deserved. And another one happened today, but God had prepared me with this verse. I knew I needed to respond in love, but I could not figure out how. After a lot of meditation on those verses, I realized that the most loving thing for me to do is to not respond at all. 

Well, that's one day down. Now to remember it all tomorrow.

Let your light shine

I don't know if y'all realize exactly how much I love birthdays. While I like to have fun on my own birthday, I love celebrating my friends and family even more. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned how much I love the feeling of finding a gift that screams someone's name at me. Sometimes it's a ready made gift on the shelf; sometimes it's just a piece of a gift and I have to figure out where to go with it. That's what happened with Amy's gift this year.

I was at Hobby Lobby looking at something she had pointed out when we were there before, but I couldn't decide what to do with it. I was staring off into space, trying to figure out what to do with the transfers when I saw this:

Black? Silver? Chandelier? Amy written all over it!  And within 30 seconds I decided what to do with it. Enter gray damask scrapbook paper and black glitter tape from Hobby Lobby, a silver picture frame from Dollar Tree, and the computer/printer.

The hardest part was deciding which Bible verse to use. I found a font on Pinterest. Can I just take minute to say how much I love browsing fonts on there? So many options! I found the font in this post, and I chose Grand Hotel. Making that choice made the whole thing have a vintage luxury hotel feel with the wallpaper and chandelier... maybe it's just me. Anyway! I set the paper margins to 5" x 7" and put my text towards the bottom of the page. I printed it and cut it to fit in the frame (it was an 8.5" x 11" sheet of scrapbook paper), then I glued on the chandelier. While it dried, I covered the matte board (originally an off-white) with the black glitter tape. Then I put it all together. Ta-da!

"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let you light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Matthew 5:14-16, NIV

I'm really impressed with the way it turned out! I think the black glitter really helps set it off. The frame I found is more like a shadow box; there is a good 1/4-inch of space between the glass and the paper. That isn't why I got it (I got it because it was the only frame I saw at Dollar Tree that wasn't some shade of brown), but it is an added bonus since the chandelier is not totally flat.

It's classy! And totally Amy. 

Scripture Hearts

Every Monday night I go to a bible study with some of the women from my church. Since tonight was the Monday before Valentine's Day, I decided I would make them a little something. I went back and forth, and finally decided to keep it simple and make scripture hearts.

I typed different verses into the out line of a heart (I Google searched for a heart outline I liked). I found my verses by doing a search for bible verses about love. Now, I know that the bible talks a lot about love, so picked out 14 of my favorites that talked about loving God and/or loving one another. Here are the ones I used:

1. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. Psalm 13:5
2. But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love, for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. Psalm 59:16
3. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17
4. A new command I give you: Love on another. As I have loved you, so you must also love one another. But this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:34-35
5. Owe no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8
6. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Romans 13:9
7. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:10
8. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13
9. Do everything in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14
10. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
11. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:14
12. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18
13. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has be born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7
14. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. the one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19

You can kind of tell I was camped out in Romans 13 yesterday. Oh well! I picked 14 because there are 13 women (including me) in my small group, and I wanted to have extras in case we had any guests. In hindsight, this could also be used as a biblical Valentine's advent. 

After I got them to look how I wanted, I printed them on red cardstock, cut them out, and put a magnet on the back. The ladies in my group really liked them. And I liked them because it was quick and simple!

*My heart outlines were a little faint upon printing, but that was okay with me because it meant no one would notice if my cutting was a little off. :-)
*The font I used was called "A Gentle Touch" and can be found here.