Day One on New Shift

Carol in Calgary says, "just do it!" So, ok, today when I came home I drank a glass of water and went downstairs and did a thirty minute workout with my Nintendo Wii. I was really hungry afterward so I ate two slices of leftover pizza and some bbq potato chips. Huh!

Tomorrow will be better yet. How many days to become a habit?

Happy New Year

What a whirl win of a year its been. For me and my family (sisters and dad and close friends) it has been a very trying decade. It really hit me when everyone was saying how they hoped that the next year would be better then this year and my sister chimed in and said that she was so happy that this decade was over because it has been a really crappy decade. So much has happened (too much to even get into) and unfortunately a lot of it has been as bad as things can be. It is hard to even think about all of it because when I do it really makes me feel a little bit dizzy and I immediately start to feel my heart racing. So for me I try very hard to keep those thoughts at bay as much as possible or at least I try not to try and deal with them all in the same time frame. I do find that emotions sneak up on me at times and I just try to ride that wave when it happens.

I am thankful that New Years Eve was spent with family and my closest friends. Everyone at my home that evening holds a very special place in my heart. I love to see everyone and it is a gift to bring in the new year with such love. I hope that our lives will continue to be intertwined and that we can help each other through the tough times and be there to share in the happy moments.

Happy New Year to all of our readers from our home to yours.

I am Thankful

It is early Saturday morning, the house is still quite as I am the only one awake. It is a day I could sleep in but my body is now conditioned to wake up at 6:00 am so by 6:45 I am wide awake.

It is Thanksgiving Weekend and all week I have been contemplating what I am Thankful this year. I have complied a list.

1. I am thankful for my husband who has picked up the household slack now that I am not here to do it all. And I am thankful that though he doesn't do it the way I do I have matured enough to know to keep my mouth shut and go with it.
2. I am thankful that the little one has adjusted to the early morning (6:30 am) wake ups and gives me minimal hassles getting ready for school. She also goes to her classroom to catch up on school work or get a head start on work willingly each school morning by 8:00 am.
3. I am thankful that though the teenager is going through her own personal struggles wright now she does get up each morning and goes to school and is still looking at her future and researching university and scholarships.
4. I am thankful for my blogging sisters, who as of yesterday now are all working outside of the home (as they wanted to). Way to go Cathy, Louise, and Sunshine. It will make it almost impossible for us to get together now but its a new chapter in our lives and we will embrace it with smiles on our faces and our heads held high!
5. I am thankful for my Friday night small group as we are about to start a new book study 'The Hole in our Gospel, the answer that changed my life might just change the world' by Richard Stearns (president of world vision U.S. I am excited to get into the book and expand beyond my comfort zone and do more work in my city with the homeless, less fortunate and needy. Learn more http://www.theholeinourgospel.com/
6. I am thankful for the women's Heart 2 Heart bible study that is held on Wednesday nights. We had 27 women register including two of my aunts! It is going to be a great study and I am excited by it. http://www.lifeway.com/lby/
7. I am thankful for the opportunity to work at a job that I love and be around loving,encouraging people. Most of the staff at the school have been very encouraging and the students are wonderful. I pray that I can move to the new kitchen ASAP! Please pray that the kitchen is outfitted and complete very soon.
8. I am thankful that my family will be together this Sunday for a wonderful turkey dinner with all the fixings and it is not at my house or do I have to cook it!!!!!!!!!
9. I am thankful that though the weather is cold and rainy it isn't SNOW.
10. I am thankful that my annual physical went quickly and smoothly yesterday. All the blood work came back and is all in the normal range, no lumps and quickest, painless pap I have every had!
11. And finally I am THANKFUL that God has given me the opportunity to wright what I want when I want and that he has provided the friends who come to the park and join us on the bench to have a laugh or a cry. You are all patient while we are slow to wright lately as we adjust to our new schedules. Though I have not always wrote on the blog believe me when I say I do go on the blog at least twice a day. So keep commenting, I love our interaction.

Happy Thanksgiving Benchers!

Self Struggles

I struggle with what I am suppose to do in my day today life. I use to just do things because it seemed like the right thing to do and my heart was always into it. Somwhere along the lines I started to get angry over some of the things that I made my self do that I didn't want to do. I decided not do some of the things that made me unhappy because I didn't really want to do them. The problem is that these actions (not doing things) make me feel even more unhappy.

They also make me feel guilty for not doing what would be helpful for someone else just because I don't feel like doing it. What does that say about me. I wonder if it just a phase and I need time for myself. That use to be such a foreign concept for me but now it is becomings the norm.

It happens with my family all the time and it happens with others in my life as well. I use to really work hard at trying to keep us all together (I'm talking about my family) and it would be a struggle all the time but in the end we saw each other ofter and spent a lot of time together.

Different people came and went and some people were unhappy about it but I always forced the issue for the greater good in the end. But sometime around the start of this year, I started to do things differentially. I stopped begging people to be a part of things and I stopped making myself invite people who made for a difficult evening to create a better atmosphere and an easier time for myself and for others. I don't really get questioned on this but rather I get people saying its fine with me, It's your house. I never really understood why you forced the issue so much (again this is all in reference to my family).

I feel guilty about it but I still continue to do the same thing week after week. Why?
With my sister, she doesn't really want to be bothered so much anyway so it seems to be OK with her. But when I tell her that we got together, I feel guilty and wonder if it bothers her. I don't really know because she doesn't really comment and she really never initiates anything anyway.

With my dad, the new woman in his life is so complicated and so much work and it is so much easier when she does not come but we ususally just grin and bear it. I have always taught my children that regardless of our feeling for her we will be polite to her out of respect for my dad. Well lately we have gotten together several times here and I have made the decisoun not to call and see if he was available. I have always told him about the get together later and really they have always been last minute in prompt toos (I am justifying again) and it was not the whole family because it was only my family and my sister and her boyfriend but still I know that if he were available, he would probabally come. I feel like such an awful person and a horrible daughter.

I hope that I go back to the girl that I once was a short time ago because I think that I liked her much better. I don't think that my heart is in it at the moment. I don't really know why.

I hope that God will soften my heart and help me to move forwards because at the moment I feel as though I have taken so many steps backwords.