Yay.

Ok. Whew! I think my day is done. Dinner is finished (red beans and rice, turnip greens and good ole Southern cornbread) and dishes are done. This was one of those days that just makes you tired. Grandson got up this morning and dragged around, not getting ready for school. When I pressed the issue, all of sudden it's my fault. He has had a problem with headaches lately and according to him, he has told me and told me and I haven't done anything. Well, first of all, he didn't tell me he had a headache. Second, I have taken him to the doctor about the headaches, but he needed to finish the medicine he was given before we could go further.  Anyway, I called the doctor and they said come in. So off we go, and it appears he might be having migraines. Will call the neurologist tomorrow for an appointment. Yay. That is on top of the fact that our air conditioners (2) are very old and now the downstairs one leaks the freon out.  So we have to replace both units. Yay. And the van is broken. It makes a roaring/whining noise as you go down the road.  So off to the shop it goes.  Yay. Found the property tax bill for the house today.  Yay. Also have to file the income taxes for last year with an amount owed.  Yay. I think I need a second job.  And maybe a third.  Yay. We played Power Ball tonight, so maybe that will take of it, you think?  Yay. :)

Boredom -- Doing the Same Thing Over and Over

Happy Tuesday!  I just read a really cool post by Live Bold & Bloom, one of my favorite thought-provoking self-improvement blogs (http://liveboldandbloom.com/03/self-improvement/the-one-thing-you-keep-doing-that-will-forever-hold-you-back).  "The One Thing You Keep Doing That Will Forever Hold You Back."  What do you think that "one thing" is?  Doing the same thing over and over every day.  This isn't the first time I've seen this concept, but I forget about it as I go along, dragging myself through the same things day after day.  It fosters boredom.  And more boredom.  While we all like the comfort of routine, it does absolutely nothing (NOTHING) to move us forward, to excite us, to tempt our senses. 

One thing I used to do when I had to drive 50 miles one way to work was to go a different way each time.  While that sounds pretty simple, it kept the drive from becoming so routine that I practically slept through the whole thing.  If I went a different way each time, I had to think about my route.  I had new things to see.  It would lead my mind in a whole different direction each day, kind of bypassing the routine.  Whenever I step away from the routine, the norm, it wakes me up (literally). 

I have decided to change jobs.  Punching that button to send the resignation email was one of the biggest things I've done in a long time.  I don't quit jobs, especially if I don't have another in line to take its place.  But the time had come.  So I punched the Send button . . . and it took my breath away!  I felt sad . . . and glad.  I no longer had to deal with a situation that was causing me stress, but I am moving away from a routine I've done now for a long time.  After a few days of feeling a bit panicked, I started to get down to business and look for another job, which I did find after a week or so of searching.  And the company that hired me seemed thrilled to have me!  Thank you very much!  It is time for someone to want me.  I made the decision yesterday to take that job, going backward a bit, but I am so excited!  I could hardly sleep last night, lying away for a very long time with my mind going 90 miles an hour.  I felt more energized than I have in years. 

So I highly recommend you step outside your little comfort zone and try something a bit different.  Just a bit, if you can stand it.  I'm not saying you should quit your job or anything like that, but try driving to work using a different route.  Eat your lunch outside instead of in the break room.  Cook something new for dinner.  Wake yourself up!  Life is short.  And you certainly should not be bored! 

The End of a Lovely Weekend

It's Sunday night, again.  The end of another great weekend.  I spent a long weekend with my beloved hubby in our cabin in the mountains.  Just the two of us.  Quiet, calm, peaceful.  No drama.  No fussing.  It rained for most of the weekend.  On Thursday, it was not raining and we drove over to the orchard store in Tiger, GA, and shopped for jams and jellies and yummies.  We bought our usual seedless blackberry jam and honey apple butter.  We also replenished our sorghum syrup.  We bought some "sweet and tangy" barbecue sauce that was very good on our barbecued pork chops on Saturday.  On Friday, after a very rainy Thursday night, we drove over to Hiawassee to visit my aunt and uncle.  This is my Aunt Gloria, who is my mother's only sister.  She and her husband, Uncle Don, helped to raise me and my brother.  We spent lots of time with them and their kids growing up.  It was a great visit.  we reminsced about camping trips when I was a kid and caught up on what everyone has been doing.  We took them to lunch and then shopped at the local thrift and antique stores.  A very pleasant afternoon.  On Saturday, we basically did NOTHING.  It was another one of those rainy days.  When I got up on Saturday morning, I started a fire in the fireplace that we kept going all day.  We sat in front of the fire and watched TV, read, and napped for the majority of the day.  Relaxed.  Nowhere to go, nothing that had to be done. 

But now, it's Sunday.  We had to pack it all up and come on back home.  Once you get home, it all has to be unpacked.  Laundry must be done.  The lazy teenager must be constantly prompted to work on the English project that is due on Wednesday that he has known about for a month and hasn't worked on.  The dinner must be cooked and dishes cleaned up.  I'm tired.  It's back to the grind again. 

But I will say this.  Thank you, Lord, for giving me a lovely weekend with my lovely family.  Thank you for giving me a house to come home to and a lazy teenage grandson that I love with all my heart.  Thank you for giving me food to cook and clothes to wash.  I think sometimes that when we only find fault with what we have, whether it be a job, or the fact that we have to laundry or yard work, God looks and says, "She doesn't appreciate what I've given her," and He might start taking things away.  We should always be grateful for our blessings, even if they don't seem like blessings sometimes.  If we didn't have them, we would surely miss them.  I'm learning.   

Does She or Doesn't She?

Haircolor so natural, only her hairdresser knows for sure.  That's the old Clairol slogan that has been around since the 1950s.  Well, these days, it can be natural or un-natural, take your pick.  I work really hard to make mine look natural, but you know, no matter what I do, after about a month those nasty gray roots just keep showing up!  So here I am, 55 years old, and I've been coloring my hair now for about 20 years.  That's about 9 times a year that I color my hair to cover up the gray.  It takes an hour or so each time.  That is about 180 hours I've spent over the last 20 years to keep my natural God-given gray hair from showing through.  That almost 8 days out of my life that I've spent with that nasty stinky color on my head.  Why?  Because we've been programmed over the years that women have to look young and pretty no matter what their age.  Men look distinguished as they gray; women look old.  Well, at what point do you  stop the madness?  I worry that if I go gray, I will look so much older.  But is that a bad thing?  I kind of have mixed feelings about it.  I'm really tired of having to deal with constant coloring and roots showing, but if I go gray, will everying think I'm an old woman?  I don't feel like an old woman.  I don't act like an old woman (at least I don't think I do).  But if people think I'm old, will they quit asking me to do things that an old woman wouldn't do?  And everybody has their own thoughts on whether to color or not.  My hubby says, "go for it, embrace your age!"  Does he really want to live with an old woman?  I have a friend who is a few years younger than me who has been gray ever since I've known her.  She says go gray. [Her hair is a beautiful white gray that is very striking.]  Mine is just gray.  Plain old gray.  I have another friend that I work with who is kind of in the same mindset as me.  She lets hers go gray for a while and then the next time I see her, it's colored again.  Yet another friend says always color!  Never go gray!  I asked my grandson the other day if I should let my hair go gray.  He said, "NO."  I said, "Well A is completely gray and hers looks good."  He said, "Hers is different.  You will look 80."  Gee thanks!  I did actually let mine go gray one time. 

It didn't last too long and I became a redhead again.

So here I am, sick and tired of coloring but hating to make myself look old.  I think I'm going to try going gray one more time if I can stand letting the color grow out.  I think it will be ok to just be me . . .  

The First One!

Well, I'm going to see if this thing will run!  I have a couple of other little blogs and keep getting encouragement to write, so hey, let's see what it will do!  Hopefully, my small but busy life and thoughts will be of interest to you! 

I'll start off by telling you a bit about myself and my family cohorts.  I was born and raised in metro Atlanta in a little town called Forest Park.  When I was growing up, Forest Park was a really cool place to live.  It was close enough to Atlanta to drive in and shop occasionally but far enough away to still be a small town.  It was located between the big city and what we call "the country."  I lived in the same house for most of my younger years and graduated from the local high school.  I started college but didn't finish due to the stupidness of youth.  I have better sense now.  I married young, beneath my station, and had a beautiful daughter.  After divorcing, I worked hard for an import retailer and move up through the ranks to become a buyer.  I traveled far and wide, both in the US and overseas to Hong Kong, China, The Phillipines, Taiwan and Thailand.  That was a fun time in my life.  At the height of my success in that career, I met the love of my life and married for the second and last time.  We have been married now almost 25 years.  Through good times and bad, we have managed to stay together and still love each other very much.  I worked toward getting a nursing degree when our kids were teenagers, but I found that I could not work a full-time job, attend nursing school and raise a family all at the same time.  Something had to give and the nursing school was it.  I learned to do medical transcription about 20 years ago and have moved up through the ranks.  I am currently the Quality Manager of very large medical transcription service organization.  I work from home, which is, in itself, a wonderful thing.  I have a nice home office (although a bit messy) that I go to every day and log on to the internet for work.  What a great thing! 

I have 4 grandsons (from my daughter) and 2 lovely granddaughters (from my step-son).  The oldest grandson lives us and has for the majority of his life.  I try to spend as much time as I can with the grandchildren, but with working and raising a teenager, there just isn't much time to go around!  My grandson who lives with us is 15 years old and is a sophomore at a small Christian school a couple of miles from our home.  He plays JV basketball and will hopefully be playing school baseball, too (depending on grades).  I work (a lot), and in what bit of spare time I have, I like to read and cook.  I also prefer to be outside if at all possible and like to camp with family and friends. 

And that's the scoop!  I hope I didn't bore you too much, but I thought you might like to know who you're reading about!  I hope you'll check back with me soon as I explore this blogging adventure.