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Showing posts from 2016

One More Year

As I was driving home today in the beautiful Southern California December weather, I saw a kid on a bike.  It just hit me that Micah has only owned a bike for a few months when he was in second grade.  I felt sad.  I know he knows how to ride a bike because apparently you never forget how to ride a bike.  But I would feel a bit nervous if he road on the busy roads here.  Then I was thinking how he has never had a yard to play in.  He has hardly had an outside childhood. And after I thought about that I realized that he has only one more year of childhood.  Well, he has only one more year of school anyway.  And really it is a year and a half.  But in my sad mood it seemed like just a year.  It doesn't seem that long ago that he was in second grade.  It was 9 years ago!  How does that happen. Anyway, I drove on thinking my sad thoughts and drinking my Dr. Pepper and realized I have to soak in all my days with Micah.  I ...

New Job

I started a new job this week.  I still work for the BBB store but now a new location and a new title.  I am the Customer Service Lead.  I will be responsible for all the training of new hires and keeping everyone up to date on the product training.  I also will be responsible for the Bridal Registry and college stuff. I have had two days so far of training.  I think I will like this.  The thing I have to get use to is being a boss.  I'm no where near the top boss, but I am still seen as a boss.  And I get to boss people around.  The real weird thing is that one of the supervisors from my old store is now at this new store and I get to boss him around a bit. I'm not sure yet what I will have people address me as.  Some options:  Mrs. Boss, Boss Lady, Lady Superior (which fits well with my IQ), Leslie Mother, Oh Captain my Captain, or just Leslie.

You Don't Know Me

Last week was my one year anniversary of working at BBB.  I was excited for two reasons, I would get a raise and no longer get minimum wage and I would get my review.  I knew the raise wasn't much since 20 cents is the average raise, but at least it would be more then minimum wage.  And I was excited about the review because I like to hear how great I am.  At different times I have been praised for doing well at the job so I was expecting high marks.  I also was expecting some areas where I could improve and I wanted to hear these also so I could work on them. The day started out great.  I took my CLEP test for intro to psychology and did really well.  I was feeling very good about myself and the accomplishment.  The teacher who was taking care of the CLEP test people was shocked that I got done in just 30 minutes and then she said my score was high.  I treated myself to a Dr. Pepper on the way home and it was only 9:30 in the morning. I...

Duck, Duck, Goose

I went to the duck park today that is by our apartment.  I like to get out and walk a bit in the sunshine to get both exercise and vitamin D.  It is about a 15 minute walk from our apartment.  There is a pond with a small island of trees in the middle.  I enjoy watching the different birds.  And recently discovered that there are also turtles that live on the island. This time of year is when the little ones are born.  There have been geese babies and one set of ducklings.  The geese are interesting because they are all a week or two apart in age.  So there are babies, middle schoolers, and your awkward teens.  The teens are now getting their feathers and their wings are growing.  Soon they will learn to fly.  But for now they all just float around and waddle on the grass. The little ducks were out for a swim today without any parents.  Six baby ducks that are just a few weeks old were swimming around the pond.  ...

Fears

I went to a ladies retreat last week.  The topic of the retreat was on fear.  I didn't really feel I had a lot of fears.  My big one was worrying that my hair was falling out and how I would look bald.  But then came Sunday.  Nothing fearful happened on Sunday, I just remembered how Sundays use to be for me. In India I was fearful.  The roads scared me.  So driving to church on Sunday morning was sometimes too much for me.  I would skip church just so I didn't have to go in the car.  I was scared of road rage I guess.  I had seen angry people do some pretty crazy stuff.  I remember when I was driving and Micah was in the front seat and we saw a motorcycle get pushed off the road into a pile of bricks.  The motorcyclist was okay.  He got up and picked up a brick and charged for the car with his arm raised like he was going to smash the other driver with it.  I remember Micah slouching down in the seat as we watched ...

Israelites Complain a Lot

Recently I read the Bible story of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.  I was thinking about the part where the people were grumbling about not having water and then God provided water through Moses hitting the rock.  And then not long after that (not sure how long in time it was, but in the Bible it was short) they complained about something else.  They kept saying that Moses brought them out of Egypt so that they would now die in the desert. The people complained about Moses but in reality they were complaining about God.  I started to think about myself.  I find myself complaining about how some people have hurt me and all the life changes it has brought.  We have had to move, change jobs, leave friends, and start over in a way all because of what happened.  I start blaming people for my predicament.  I say, “If they wouldn’t have done such and such we would still have the skate park.”  Or, “If they didn’t do that, Micah...

Neighbors

Neighbors know a lot about you even if you don’t know them very well.  I realized that by living next to some people recently.  We were close enough to jump to their window if we wanted (or so it seemed).  And since we were staying in the upstairs room and it is warm here, we often had our windows open. Some mornings we would hear their teen and preteen kids getting ready for school.  Not the good mornings.  On the good mornings we heard nothing.  On the mornings when it was harder to get the kids moving we heard it.  We would hear the preteen girl having a breakdown over things.  Her voice would carry through our window.  I would think, “Oh boy, she is having a hard morning.”  And then you would hear a parent responding back in a raised voice.  Never anything bad, but I also don’t think I ever heard anyone yell, “I love you!”  It’s just not something you yell in your house much I guess. We would hear when the kids ha...