I Have Had Some Rough Days

This post is so befitting with day being Friday the 13th and all. 
With that said,we have all had rough days right?  Of course we have!  Why if everyday we went through were all peaches and cream we wouldn't look forward to a brand new day.  Everyday needs to be different in order for us to appreciate the next one.

For a while, I was having rough days, weeks, even months!  I hated having to get up and go to the place that I had once really enjoyed going to because I knew once I got there I would be under constant scrutiny wondering, "Is today the day the 'devil' says something to me that makes me snatch her bald?  Is today the day that I can't take it anymore and just go off the deep end?  Is today finally the day where I just say fuck it all beat the shit out of her, give her a piece of my mind and walk the hell out?"  Those would have been all gratifying in the moment but the consequences to follow were not worth it.  Every single day Lord keep me in the right frame of mind. Give me peace that will get me through yet another day.  And at night I thanked Him for doing just that.

I often called in sick because I would become physically sick to my stomach knowing that I had to go to a place and be in the same space, (her cubicle was right on the other side of mine) with this chick for at least seven hours of my day.  Ugh!  There was such a lack of interest on my part of having to be there.  Whenever I saw her car in the parking lot my entire body would cringe at knowing that she would be in the same building with me.  I didn't want to hear her voice, I didn't want to see her face, I did not want her presence around.  The ONLY thing that made me continue to deal with the stress and drama that went on at the work place was knowing that I had to pay a monthly tuition for my child to continue to go to the school is still attending.  

I couldn't understand what had I done to be punished.  I was even willing to leave my job that I had been happy at for the last eight years and go a distance of 45 minutes OUT of my way in order to not be around her!  I live a mere 5 minute walk from my job and a 5 minute drive from my daughter's school to get away from this chick.  I couldn't breathe or pass gas without it being documented against me.  I felt as though I was trapped after she wasn't able to transfer to another place and after she had written me up. After that, I became ineligible to transfer anywhere else for six months.  I was trapped with her and her nonsensical dramatics that not only took a toll on me but brought the morale down for my department.  I felt as though no one was listening to my plea for help and that they thought the situation would get better.  

The thing about it is, I already knew how I felt about her and how she felt about me BEFORE she became my supervisor and I tried to speak to upper management about the situation before anything could transpire with her being my supervisor...No one listened, therefore, there were issues that came up and sparked major controversy that I won't elaborate on.

I had to deal with this woman for two years and about six months of those two years she was my immediate supervisor.  I really had a obvious disdain for her and I felt that my prayers had been answered on the day she sent the email stating that she was leaving, not only our workplace but the state entirely!  

Had I been tested by God to see if I would indeed seek Him out for His help.  Although I had many stormy months, He showed me that there is a rainbow after the storm.  There is a plate waiting with peaches and cream waiting for me to indulge in after a hard day.

I have a new supervisor who is quite understanding, easy to work with and very fair when it comes to working with individuals who come from a different background.  He's very smart and a lot of fun to work for.  He is just learning a lot about being a supervisor and how to deal with things...he is willing to admit that he is 'just learning' and isn't trying to push his work off onto others that work for and with him.  He is willing to take on new tasks that he has never been introduced to feet first.  I am glad to work with someone who IS a team player and not one that is trying to get recognized for efforts that they've done by stepping on someone's back to get to get that recognition.

I mention all of these things in this particular post to say that it was definitely a lesson learned.  Some days will be rough but you cannot let those days be a precursor to the following day.  I had to learn that.  I'm still sorting this out because it is very easy to let  one day carry over into the next.  You have to look at that statement through all facets of life.  Be it with your husband, wife, lover, children, family friends, coworkers, etc. We have to thank God for the everyday lessons that He teaches us in hopes that we will be able to look at the next day differently.  We need to take the lessons learned and recognize that the issue just isn't worth getting worked up over.  I know this next statement is cliche' but it is so true.  If God brought you to it, He will bring you through it!  

So many people have not learned to live for the day and moments that are given to us.   Most people (including myself sometimes) often forget tomorrow is NOT promised to any of us.  Yes, today was not as good as I would've liked it to be, but by golly, if I live to see the next...watch how I will set it off!  Don't let one bad day get you down, if you live and nothing happens, enjoy what's in store for you tomorrow.

Everyday Gifts

As I sit here in the middle of my bed typing yet another entry into my blog and taking a break from my wedding planning, I am enjoying the rhythmic sound of the rain tap dance across the concrete and run down the side of my apartment onto the neighboring grass below.  Sitting in amazement while also listening to the background music of Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldier play and watching the nearby candle flame melodically bounce to the beat of the reggae sounds pump out of my iPod dock with the help of Pandora's Sade radio station.  With all of the descriptions given about the space I am surrounded by, the only answer to my enjoyment is pure pleasure!  Pleasure in knowing that I have all my senses to enjoy the small yet wonderful gifts the good Lord has given me THIS day!

I have NEVER claimed to be one of great holiness, but I am a believer in HIS great works!  HIS awesome gifts!  HIS love and mercy!  HIS willingness to allow me to live yet another day and be able to smell the wet earth, to hear the powerful thunder, to see the flicker of the candle flame, to feel the cool rain on my face, to taste the fruits offered from the trees afterwards.  Be happy with the gifts that are given us each day.  Don't let one gift given to you from the good Lord go by unnoticed.  Pause for the cool breeze on the hottest day of the summer.  Watch the sun say goodbye for the day, welcome the moon's presence.  Don't get mad if it rains on your parade.  March on baby march on!  Just grab your umbrella and slicker and prance as if nothing is wrong!

It's Just Another Day?

I have decided to do with the coined response, "It's just another day."  Life is to short and too important to continue to go through the day like you are ENTITLED to another day when you absolutely are NOT!

I have noticed when people have a birthday and you wish them a happy one, they usually respond with, "It's just another day."  That's right, it is another day that you survived God's grace and mercy to see 'another day' or even another year for that matter.  There are so many people who have died not living at all!  Granted I don't get to do everything I want to do or go anywhere I want to go but by golly, I do whatever I can whenever I can!

My daughter and I have had some fun times during my husband's year deployment and we are definitely looking forward to him coming home safely within the next couple of weeks.  What if something had happened to him while away?  I would be so devastated!  How could I go on with the thought of knowing that my other half was gone forever, never to come back?  How many people have lost their loved ones who were fighting in the war, sitting in their homes watching tv, playing outside with friends, or just doing everyday, normal activities without making an impact on someone's life or touching someone's life in some way.

It really is true that you have to live everyday to the fullest and live everyday like it's your last because no one knows the time and day that their life will end.  No matter how much you plan for the future it's just not gauranteed that you will live long enough to see what comes of it.  With that being said, live your life!  Enjoy the precious gifts offered to you everyday in the forms of the setting sun, birds singing by your window, loud thunder storms, a melting ice-cream cone, hey...even the honk of a car's horn.

I know this message is cliche' ridden, but it's so true.  Sometimes I sit and I wonder what a person thinks when they are told they only have six months, three months, or one week to live.  Do they sit down and sulk?  Try and make the best of the time they have left?  Wonder, "What if I had only spent more time with my family?"  What would you do if you knew the date and time that your life would expire?  Marvel over that for a while and then answer.  What would I do if I had Just Another Day?

Enjoy the time that you're in right now.  Don't waste your todays on tomorrows because they just aren't promised to you.  Love long, live happy, enjoy your day!

Our First Week is Almost Complete

In just a few hours, I will be going to pick up my daughter from school...the fifth time this week!  We have survived the first week of many more weeks to come!  This week has really been a week of definite transition!  Last week, my 4 year old daughter was in daycare one in which she has been in ever since she turned six weeks old.  That in itself was a great transition.  While in daycare, she got a hot cooked meal everyday, a two hour nap, playtime with toys, tv time, as well as some simple lessons (counting, shapes, colors, reading, writing, & crafts), and she even got to sleep until 7:30 am before having to get up and dressed to start her day.  This week was totally different for the both of us!  I have been getting up at 6 am--6:15 at the latest to get myself ready and get her breakfast ready (which her daycare provider would provide for her), get her dressed, hygiene handled, hair combed, backpack ready, and all this no later than 7:45 am.

It has really been a great transition though because most of her getting ready happens at night.  She takes her bath, I get her lunch packed and iron her clothes and she's pretty much set for the next day with all those tasks out of the way!  I especially enjoy that she isn't taking her usual two hour nap because bed time goes a lot smoother!  By the time 8:30 pm rolls around and we get everything done, she's ready for bed and when she gets there she's out like a light in 5-10 minutes!  Before, I would have to tell her several times to go to sleep and at 12 she's still looking at me asking, "What time are you going to bed Mommy?"  It seems that those are all days of the past, thanks to kindergarten.

I Love Kindergarten!!!  It rocks!!!  And yes, this is from the same woman who was crying earlier this week because her baby was growing up.

Changes

From about the time we were four or five years old people have been asking us, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  In about a month and a half  (October 29th to be exact) I will have spent 36 years on this earth.  And of those 36 years, I'd say about 31 of them I've been trying to decide the answer to that very same question!  I have done some interesting and some not so interesting things in my life but to no avail had I been able to actually say, "This is what I want to do!"

While in high school, my English class was instructed to write a paper on that very topic--well, almost.  We had to write a paper about what we wanted to do as a profession after graduation.  I always knew that I loved kids and that kids flocked to me for some reason so I knew that my calling was to work with children.  With that in mind, I decided that I'd like to help kids in some type of way.  I knew from there that I NEEDED to help troubled kids and decided I wanted to go to school for Psychology.  I wanted to become a Child Psychologist and help children!  My goal, my mantra almost was, "I want to counsel children because if you get them young enough you can mold them to the way that they'll be accepted by society.  Adults are pretty much set in their ways and are more unwilling to make a change."  With this way of thinking, I went to college and decided to major in Psychology and minor in Social Work.

Needless to say, I went to school and partied hard!  Yes, I skipped class to sleep in.  Yes, I went to all the parties.  Yes, I failed classes and didn't study.  And yes, I was put on academic suspension which made me lose my grant money, scholarship money, and I had to leave school.  I decided I'd work and the type of work I was doing was NOT what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.  I met a great man (who is now my husband), had a beautiful daughter, and continued to work.  It was not until after my daughter turned a year old I decided to go back to school to finish and get my degree.  My motivation...my daughter!  I wanted to get my degree and show her that all things are obtainable no matter what!  So yes, now I have my Psychology degree...but now, I feel like counseling in that sense is NOT my calling!

I have been working in a public library for the past eight almost nine years and I have been doing programs for children birth thru 18 for the past five years (six in September) which has mostly consisted of reading books, story telling, dancing and just allowing kids to have a good time through stories and song.  After doing this for as long as I have and being so well received year after year, it finally hit me!  This is how I'm supposed to reach children!  I have such great rapport with them and I know that I can do more than what I'm doing!  I have had such a positive effect on the kids I deal with! When they see me out and about they smile and speak and sometimes hug me.  The teens look for me!

Since my realization, I have written a children's book and have been working on the second.  I have yet to find someone who can draw for me the way I want my pictures in my book to look.  I have written original puppet plays, finger plays, rhymes, come up with crafts...just a menagerie of things that I have used.  With that being said, I want to become a published author of children's books and I want to be able to spend my time going to share my stories with children and their parents/caregivers all over! It took me a while to figure out what I wanted...but hey!  It's never too late to start your career (unless you die first).

Day Number Three

Well, today is my first blog entry, but my daughter's third day of school.  I am so happy that my daughter is old enough to actually go to school now, but that's my baby!  I was such a mother and cried!  Months prior to the first day, I was pumping myself up saying, "I will not cry in front of her.  I will NOT cry in front of her!"  I did good because I didn't cry in front of her.  I  waited until I got in the car.  And I didn't actually cry, I just welled up.  I got up extra early (even though I stayed up until after 2:30 am) to get her dressed and started on her way.  She was just as excited to get going and embrace her new venture in her life even if I wasn't exactly ready to let her go.  I know you're probably thinking I'm one of those mothers who don't want to let their kids go but I'm really not. 

My daughter is four soon to be five and it's a very exciting milestone in her life, but it's just that my baby is growing up and she doesn't have to depend on me for EVERYthing and that is awesome!  I took her to school and she looked like such a big girl in her uniform and backpack along with her brand new lunch box in hand.  She looked a bit nervous when I took her inside her class but she quickly warmed up and smiled as she waved good-bye to me!  Once she stood in that single line with her classmates smiling, I knew she would be just fine!

When I picked her up that afternoon she had all kinds of new things to tell me about her day and was ready to go the next day!  I knew at that point that we both would be just fine with her transition from daycare to kindergarten!  Wish us luck in the days to come.