Tax-free, not hassle-free

Today was another action packed day! We had to be at the church at 8:30 for Day 2 of our Leaders' Gathering. I must say, I learned quite a lot and really felt God stretching me in new ways for my walk with Him. Once I make sense of my notes, I'll have to do a recap.

After that, I met Amy for lunch at Panera before heading out for our tax free shopping. We only ended up going to Old Navy and Walmart, but I ended up with 5 new shirts and a pair of jeans for less than $85. My favorite item I picked up was a plaid shirt from Old Navy.

OldNavy.com

It's so fun and bright. I love it. Every thing else I got was pretty plain in comparison, but that's ok. It's my statement piece, haha. The trip wasn't without its craziness, though. There were long checkout lines at Old Navy, and kids going crazy everywhere. I may or may not have tweeted that shopping on a sales weekend was better than birth control. But I tried to be patient with everyone, especially they poor workers. I knew they were having a way longer day than I was.

After I got home from shopping, I did a quick change (into that shirt of course), and went with Greg to go see his mom in the hospital before heading out to meet some of his college friends for dinner. She's doing better, and hopefully she will be released from the hospital tomorrow or Monday. She's a tough lady, but she's getting frustrated that she can't get her mouth to cooperate with her brain. All we can do is pray for it to come back. And I know she's tired of being cooped up in that room all the time. It probably doesn't help that she has constantly had visitors since she was admitted to the ER on Tuesday. One of her kids has been with her almost 24/7 since she was admitted, and she looked relieved that Greg and I had to leave 45-60 minutes before his brother was supposed to arrive tonight.

We went dinner at Calhoun's on the River, which was nice. One of Greg's friends from college was in town from Texas this weekend and it happened to be her birthday, so she called some people together to go out to dinner. The only person I knew besides Greg was Moose, but I still had a good time.

But now it's time for me to log off and get ready for bed. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a peaceful day involving me copying recipes into computer files. Yay for projects!

Action-Packed Friday

Whoo! Today started early and is running late. My alarm went off at 4:45, so I could wake up and get ready to go shopping with Mom and Tony. Why 4:45? Because it was the first day of tax free weekend, and we wanted to beat the rush at the store. Plus, I has aspirations of going in to work early today (which I did, more in a minute), so the sooner started, the sooner finished. We got to the store at about 6, and Tony managed to find 3 pairs of shorts that he will actually wear. I swear, getting that kid out of basketball shorts is like pulling teeth! Oh well. All I ended up getting today was a notebook for the Summit next week and a desk organizer for work. I'm hoping to be able to go shopping with Amy either tomorrow or Sunday, though. I hope so at least, I am in need of clothes!

I managed to get to work at 9:30 this morning, and promptly set about organizing our front stock closet. It's where we keep our drinks and bars that aren't on display and our promo items. We just got some new bracelets and towels a few weeks ago, then got new t-shirts yesterday for our newest membership deal. Needless to say, things had gotten a little disorganized. We had a delivery scheduled for today, so I wanted to get things organized before I had to put even more stuff in there. I finished just in time to start my shift at 11.

My shift went pretty well, just packed. Shannon had a meeting at the corporate office this morning and  a conference call back at the club at 1, so I told her I would count money and do invoices for her. Once I was done with that I reorganized the front desk. We had a lot of wasted space going on (which was why I picked up the desk organizer), so I tried to make things flow a little better. By the time I got that settled the delivery arrived and I spent the rest of my shift restocking and putting things away. I hit 9k on my Fitbit before 4pm.

Once I got home from work it was time to change clothes and head back out the door for our leadership gathering at church. About once a quarter, the church invites all group leaders to the main campus to discuss how the groups should be performing and growing. This is the first time I've gone because I just recently felt led to launch a group. I'm pretty excited about it, and I hope that I can talk about it soon! Anyway, tonight was part one and we'll go back for the second half tomorrow morning. I got a lot out of just the 2 hours from tonight, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Well, I didn't get a lot of pictures taken tonight, so here is a photo of our melting centerpiece...

Leading

I know I keep saying this, but the past few weeks have been rough! Work has been super stressful, and it's bleeding into my social life. I'm hoping that since today was the last day of the summer contest I was running, things at work will smooth out a bit. Fingers crossed, at least.

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Yesterday was a really dramatic day anyway. Greg sent me a text at about 2:00 saying that his sister was taking his mom to the doctor because she was acting odd. She had been a little off the past few weeks, but I just chalked it up to her being 60-something and life just catching up to her. Yesterday she was being unresponsive so off they went to the doctor who promptly sent them to the emergency room.

It looks like she had a stroke, and she had it a few weeks ago. She doesn't have any paralysis or speech issues which is why no one noticed at first. However, she is having trouble thinking. For instance, last night when Greg and I went to see her in the ER, she knew who we both were. She talked to us just like she has every day I've known her. But when the nurse asked her if she could name any of us, she couldn't. You could TELL she knew, but just couldn't spit it out. It made me think of when someone asks you a question and you respond "I could have told you til you asked me..." The nurses said to be encouraged by that, but it was still hard to watch her struggle.

We stayed at the hospital until she was settled in her room for the night. She went for a CT scan and an MRI this morning. They showed that she had a blockage in her brain that might lead to mini-strokes. I'm not sure if they can remove it and when they plan to do so if possible. I do know they are not letting her go home until they figure out exactly what happened which will probably be another 2-3 days.

Needless to say, Greg's freaking out and upset. We're hoping that she is able to move back into a calm household with people who are taking care of her and supporting her. Greg very well may lose it if otherwise.

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I'm looking forward to August. I have a few things coming up that should be really exciting. This weekend I'm going to a  Group Leader's Gathering at the church. I'm feeling called to lead a bible study, so our groups pastor asked me to come to the gathering. It should be fun and informative. Then next week I am going to the Global Leadership Summit.

Can you tell I'm being called to lead?

 The Summit is actually in Nashville, but my church is hosting as a satellite. I'm excited. I looked at the list of speakers, and I think I'll really learn a lot that I can use in multiple areas of my life. Plus I'm taking 2 days off from work which is a little exciting in itself.

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I hope you had a great July and your August is AWESOME!