I think I have Alzheimer's.

I think I've started with early signs of dementia. I have felt that for a long time I forget too much but it is really getting bad. I told my husband that he needs to start checking things out for me and not count on my mind to make sure all things are going right.

On the 20th Jenn was flying home and after a lot of delays she was coming in to O'hare at 1:30 am. We got there and her flight was not on the board. After looking all over for someone to ask about her flight she called and said she was on the ground. I asked her if she was at O'hare. I was so worried that I had messed up and went to the wrong airport. But this time I was right but really doubted myself. I was afraid that we were going to have to make a run for Indy at that hour of the morning after driving all the way to Chicago in some pretty nasty and cold weather. Then today we get her to the airport to fly to Greenville to see her friends over New Years and I forgot the print out again with the flight information. I was sure she was on United. We were getting there in plenty of time for how it usually is with American where you can walk right up to a self check in and in a few minutes you have your boarding pass and they have put the tag on your bag and your off to security. Well with United there was long lines waiting to get to the self check in or an agent. We knew that time was going to be close. When she finally got to up there we could not get her flight to come up. She used the phone there for assistance and they did not have her on a flight. Starting to panic, I did get an agent that was helping people get in the right line and stuff to go and check out her flight as I did have the flight number. She came back and said it was US Air instead of United and that we needed to go down 2 more buildings. So out we went and headed for her terminal. Luckily when we got there you could walk right up to the self check in. When she got her bag checked it was already time for her plane to be boarding. She had a little wait in security but she did make it to her gate in time that she did not miss her plane. So all worked out, but what will I goof up next.

Just don't anyone count on me for anything too important.

Merry Christmas

I do say Merry Christmas, I don't put an X in it. It is CHRISTmas. Not Happy Holidays either. If I want to include more then Christmas I will say Merry Christmas and happy new year. Ok, so now you know where I stand on Christmas. Remembering this time as a celebration of Christ's birth. It's nice to get family together. Hopefully if roads aren't too icy, I will have both of my daughters and one son-in-law home for Christmas. Jenn is home from California and Heather and Randy are coming up from Lafayette when he gets off of work today. Right now it is raining here and temps are above freezing but the temp is to drop sometime today and continue to rain, snow, and sleet. Sounds like fun.

We have 3 days of getting together with different family members. That is a lot of cooking, but I think it is worth it. I guess that is a lot of eating also. Maybe not so good for sugar levels. Sat is another day to start behaving.

I keep remembering more things that I need at Walmart. Will I ever remember it all and get it all in one trip. I think I'm going to make another walmart run in a little while. House is almost cleaned. Table Scape for the dinner at my house is done. Jenn is disappointed that it is planner this year and does not match the Christmas tree. I isn't a big deal to me this year if they match. Presents are all bought. I think. If they are not they probably will not get bought. Ham is out thawing for Friday. Have I forgotten anything. There is a soap opera on TV because no one is watching it to change it after the noon news was over. Lark just walked in and said "the table does not go with the tree!" Hmmm, should I change it? That would mean buying new candles when I go to Walmart. I like it the way it is.

I hope that all have a very Merry Christmas, make memories with family and friends and have a good year in 2009.

Learning to be content

Sometimes God hits you with a 2x4 when he needs to get your attention and sometimes he just lets a little lady walk into your office. Today, I and a co-worker had been complaining like usual about having to work where we work. It not uncommon to hear either one of us saying that "I do not want to do this anymore". When not more then 5 min today after both of us had shared this with each other a lady walked in wanting to know what all we help with there. My co-worker explained that we help get in-home services for the elderly and disabled and gave some assistance with heat bills and so on. Then she explained that she was having difficulty paying her bills because she had recently lost her job. That put both of us in our place. We do need to be thankful for what we have. Yesterday I also a time when I was driving home from a doctor's appointment in South Bend, at one stop light I had someone with an old pick up that needed a muffler (probably more then that, but that was what was obvious) on one side of me at a stop light and a car on the other that had no glass in the rear passenger side window and they had a garbage bag over it. The garbage bag looked like it was wearing out and was not keeping the rain out (it was a rainy day). It made me think, how lucky I am to have a good car, not a new car, but a good one, I like my car. While driving on I did say a prayer and thanked God for taking care of me. But even if I was driving around in a car like one of those that I saw, I would need to be thankful that I was driving and not walking.

I'm still alive.

I've been quiet on my blog for a while. My last posting I said I had been in a funk. I've really struggled to pull out of that funk. Even to the point of having a lot of depression symptoms. In my pastor's sermon Sunday morning he said something that was a reminder to me of something I already knew but had not thought of. What he said was that what we think leads to what we feel. When he said that, I thought I know this. Even with all that is going on with a president elect that scares me, all the unemployment and companies closing around us, watching the stock market go down more and more and watching as a ministry that was close to our families hearts prepare to close, I need to keep my thoughts on the truths of God's word. We have a great and mighty God that is still in control. He lives and he works all together for good for those that love him. That would be me. I'm doing better. I've stopped reading some things that I had read because I feel that it is good to stay informed. Thank you God for opportunities to grow.

I am praying for our nation, President elect Obama, our church to stay strong, our military, family to stay employed, Castlepoint staff as they find new ministries to serve in and to keep remembering that God is good.

What's ahead?

I've spent the last few days in a real funk. I guess sort of grieving. I am worried about where our country is going in the next at least 4 years. And I know that I am not to worry. God is good and I know that he works all things together for good for those that love him. But that doesn't mean that we are always going to like what happens. With the liberal agenda that our president elect has it could be a very rough time for Christians in the nation. I grieve for the babies that will be killed, I grieve for our freedoms that will be lost. Plus if he raises taxes on the "rich" a lot of businesses will fail or need to cut back on employees and there go jobs of the people that aren't "rich", the people that were told they needed a change. I know a lot of people voted for him because they were told we needed a change. But this is not the change that we needed. I am not completely convinced that this economic crisis we are in was not created to get him elected. So they could blame the present president and his party. Some voted for him because he was black. I think it would have been good to finally have a black president, just not this one.

I've been working on a book "Thank You God for Opportunities to Grow", maybe this is just one more of those opportunities. The trials in life do make us stronger. At this point I guess what I really need to do is to just start praying for our future president, that he has a change of heart.

How Great Thou Art

I flew to California to see my daughter, Jennifer, last week and to attend a ladies retreat with her. I took a window seat on the plane, maybe not the best idea as I can't stand to sit that long. But as I flew over mountains, rivers, flat land, lakes, deserts, cities and the San Francisco Bay, I just sit back and reflected on what a wonderful world God created for us.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to get on a plane again any time soon to fly that far, but it was good and I'm glad I did it. I enjoyed spending time with Jennifer. The ladies retreat was really good. It was about walking in faith. Sometimes I lack a little of. But we really do have a great God who loves us and uses everything for our good. We may not like what is happening all the time but God can use anything.

Facebook

I now am on Facebook. I kept having people tell me that they found out something on my daughter's facebook so I joined myself. I found in the first couple of days I spent way to much time there. But now I know a lot more about people. I have 20 friends. But one was someone that I thought I knew but really it was not who I thought it was. She sounded like a really nice person though. I'm not sure about putting all of this stuff out there for all the world to see. But what am I doing with a blog anyway? Duh!!! I haven't figured out how to do all that stuff on there or what it is really all for. Poking someone. I've poked back a couple of times. Then I hope that it isn't a bad thing. There is flair and gifts and all that. I guess when I am out to see my daughter I will have to have her show me some of that stuff. This brain of mine is just getting too old to comprehend it all. She says I need to get a picture up on my profile. I don't think I want my picture up there. Maybe I can come up with something real cleaver to put up there. OH well where will all of this lead. What ever happened to calling someone or writing them a letter putting it in an envelop and mailing it? I feel so old.

Sarah Palin

Sorry about the spelling of Sarah Palin's name in my last post. I put an extra n in it.

Sarah Panlin

Oh I love McCains choice for VP. Can we just vote for her for President? A hockey mom with tenacity!!! Great. Maybe if we could get her in for president she could really fix things in Washington. I know a lot are talking about her not having any experience, but maybe that is a good thing. She has not learned all the bad things about politics. I think she is real and that is what you'll get from her. I've been known to go against what most people think before, so maybe I'm all alone here again. But I'm voting for her. I guess if that means that I have to vote for McCain, I will. I would have anyway, just to hopefully avoid the other guy.

Ok, so much for this having the house to myself.

I've had the house to myself for almost a week. I thought it would be nice to be able to always pick what to watch on TV. I thought a whole week of the Olympics, oh boy. Well now I'm sort of bored with the Olympics. Maybe that is because they are just showing the Marathon. I thought they would go to it once in a while and show it's progress and show something else in between checking in on it. But no. Watching a marathon is sort of boring. I haven't found anything else to watch either. The house flipping that I usually like to watch is boring me also. I never get bored. Maybe it is because I've been home alone for a week. Not having to figure out what to cook, just getting what ever I want when I want it. I've ate horrible this week. I still have to figure out what to have. I think I am ready to have my husband back. He flys home tomorrow. I almost went to Walmart just for the heck of it. But thought better of that. Now I'd have to get dressed again to go. If I would have gone today and bought some paint I could touch up the places on the ceiling that I got the wall paint when I painted. But I decided not to go and get that today when I was out. Maybe I'll clean the bathroom. Or maybe I'll see if I have a movie that I want to watch again.

On another note. My daughter is now all moved in in California. She is officially a Californian instead of an Indianan. Just so they don't have the big one out there and have California fall into the Pacific ocean. I found her house on Google. That is sort of scary how you can Google someones house and see pictures of it. But I can see where she lives at.

Oh Oh, I think I hear them switching to swimming on the Olympics, I gotta go. I want to see that one guy get his 8th gold. Aren't I good, I can't even remember his name. I'm terrible with names.

Rude Movie goers

Ok, this is a complaining post. I took a vacation day today because I just could not stand the thought of going to work today. It's time for a change. But that is not what the complaining is about this time. I pretty much wasted the day. I did clean the kitchen a little. I had to clean out under the sink because I had someone coming to replace our poor dying garbage disposal. I could not believe all the stuff I pulled out of there. I keep the potatoes and onions under there and I guess a view over time had gotten out of the bag. I think they were potatoes, but they were pretty wrinkled up and petrified. I found a lot of cleaning rags, no wonder I was having a hard time finding one lately. Almost empty cleaning products, lots of good stuff. A lot of it is not going back down there. Anyway, still not what I'm complaining about today. I decided that since I had spent the whole day home alone except for the half hour or so that the guy installing the new garbage disposal was here and except for the dog, I was going to go to the movies while you could still get in at the matinee price. I'm cheap that way. So I checked what was playing and found that swing vote was still playing. I think it is probably about to the end of it's theater run. So at the 5:00 show on a week day there was a total of 5 people in the whole theater. This was in one of the smallest theaters there as it is about to the end of it's run so you have to sit close to the back if you don't want to have to look up to see the screen. So here I am 2 rows from the back in the middle of the row and in comes this couple and sits in the very back corner. When the movie starts I thought they would shut up but they kept talking all the way through the whole movie. In Spanish no less. This was so annoying. They did go out for a short time and I hoped that they would not return, since they did not seem to have any interest in the movie. But back they came with snacks. Noisy snacks. I then kept hearing them crinkle the wrappers. I kept wishing that I had a squirt gun that I could squirt them with. But with only 5 of us in the theater, I think they could have figured out where it came from. I wished that I was brave enough to tell them to shut up. But I was all alone and not wanting to get someone real upset with me. Then I kept wishing that they had someway for you to summon someone from the theater to expel them from the theater. Why would you pay to come see a movie, even if it is at the matinee price. That would still be $11 for the 2 of them and then they bought over priced snacks and all, just to sit and talk. If all you are going to do is talk, go to McDonalds. Go to the park. Don't pay to go to a movie and annoy all the other people in the theater. Hey the movie was good though. I did enjoy it, just not the rude couple in the corner. Then there is the cost of the way over priced snacks and soft drinks.

Insurance company vs. Doctor's office

I just got off of the phone with my customer service for my insurance company. I hope that things are finally resolved. I have been so frustrated that I have postponed my annual physical several times and it is now scheduled again for in 2 weeks and my physical from last year has still not been paid for by my insurance company. I have paid it out of pocket to avoid being turned over to a collection agency, but it is now supposed to be paid shortly by the insurance company. After speaking to their rep at a meeting to explain next years changes in insurance she has got it marked for them to go ahead and pay it even though they say the doctor's office has not submitted it with the right codes yet. So another words even though it will be paid the doctor's office still does not know how to submit it in a way that the insurance company will process it. So if I keep my appointment in 2 weeks will I go through this all over again. I guess I can use the money that I should have coming back from the doctor's office to cover this years appointment. I am thinking about just cancelling the appointment so that I do not have to go through this all over again this year. But then what about not getting what we are paying for when we are paying our premiums. Anyway I look at it, it looks like I lose. I guess I could change doctors, but I like this one, even if her office people can't do their job right. It seems that we should have some recourse to deal with this stuff. I feel like I need to get over this anxiety to even go for the appointment in anticipation of the hassle I will have trying to get it paid for again. Is this another "thank you God for opportunities to Grow" moment?

My baby has left home!

Well today was the day. My youngest daughter left for California today. My husband is riding out with her and then flying home, so I have the place to myself for a whole week. This might be nice for a week. I'm watching the Olympics, something we wouldn't be doing if I was not home alone. I think I will probably see a lot of them this week. I don't have to cook for anyone. I can just when I'm hungry grab whatever sounds good to me. No trying to figure out what to have. But you know I don't think I would want much more then a week of it. The dog is not much company. I wanted to board him for the week though. He will be a big pain as he behaves worse for me then for my husband and I'll have to always be the one to get up and get water in his bowl when he goes and scratches in it and I'll have to always get up and go let him out the many many times he thinks he needs to go out.

But back to my daughter moving out. This is a tough one. I haven't cried yet. I'm waiting for that. It is like my job of being responsible for her is done. She is now responsible for herself. Taking care of car insurance and repairs. She'll have to check around and see if someone knows a good mechanic to recommend. Paying rent on time. Finding a new doctor and dentist in California. Learning about her health insurance. Seeing if it will cover her allergy medication or if it will cover another and getting the script changed if it will. I'm not sure what I will do with all my feel time. Will I worry less? Probably not. When my oldest daughter went out on her own it was married and she had someone else to be helping her with all this. I was married when I was 19 and dealing with all of this stuff with out my parents. I told her that she was 4 years older then I was when I was taking care of this stuff when we were dealing with getting car insurance in her name and she told me I had my husband to help. I guess she was right on that one.

I put her in God's hands and know that he is a great God that can use small things to do big things. My God works all things together for good for those of us that love him.

Well back to the Olympics.

I'm unprofitable Traffic

Ouch!!! McDonalds is making changes to their dollar menu. My daughter turned me on to their double cheeseburger for $1 a while back. Then I got my husband ordering them. You can if you want fries and a drink you can eat for $3. I usually only get the double cheeseburger though and drink water that I already have with me in my car. Now they say that the dollar menu is bringing in nonprofitable traffic into their resturants. Wow!!! I never thought I would be nonprofitable Traffic. I have noticed a lot of people ordering double cheeseburgers though. It is almost as filling as a quarter pounder. If I buy a Big Mac I take the middle part of the bun out anyway. This will be a sad day when I can no longer get my double cheeseburger for a $1. I guess I've expected it to happen sooner or later. I do feel sort of cheap when I go through the drive through and order one double cheeseburger with only onions and then make them remake it when they make it up with everything but onions. They seem to have a rough time with that one. I suppose I am the only person that orders a sandwich with only onions. But until I can get it with a slice of tomato and some lettuce and Mayo, only onion will have to do. I've wondered if I asked for them to put special sauce on a double cheeseburger if they would do it. Maybe even some lettuce.

I guess 15 cent burgers is never going to happen again either, is it?

It's been a month?!!!

I didn't realize that it had been a whole month since I've been on here. If anyone is reading, I'm sorry. I would like to know if anyone is reading or not. If you are leave a comment that you are or if you don't want a comment there for everyone, email me at gruch2@yahoo.com. You'll need to say something about the blog in the subject line or I might not open it. I get so much junk that I don't usually open something I do not know who it comes from. I would really love to hear what anyone thinks about what I've wrote.

Maybe the reason I've been silent here is I've been struggling these days. Work has gotten more stressful then usual and I've needed to look at how I'm handling things there. I felt that I had the responsibility for some things that went wrong that I really should not have had dumped on me like it was. Of 2 things that happened all at the same time I did not handle one well but I didn't do as bad of a job that came back to me. On the other one it was totally out of my control. I've held on to some bitterness with those above me and that has made work even harder. I realized the other day that I need to do what I tell others all the time to do and forgive and forget it. Then there is stuff with state funds that we use that changes just make it difficult to meet the needs of the clients that we serve. I have got to just look at what we can do is good and not stress over what we can not do. When you have a Governor that is more concerned that the state has extra money then how he got it that way because that makes him look good that he took a state out of the red and into the black, these people that I serve get left out as they are not very visible. As I work to think right, I find myself feeling better about my work. I'm not sure I will ever get to the point of saying I love my job, but it is doable until God leads me somewhere else.

On to what else is going on in my life. My one daughter moves into her new house next Sat. We will be going down to help her. My other daughter is moving to California next week. My husband will be driving out with her. She is using some moving pods to get her stuff there and they need to be packed up by Wed for them to be picked up. Hopefully we will have everything she needs by then. She has furniture ordered that was to be her by last Tues and then only the bed made it and the dresser was to be in by Friday and they cancelled the Friday truck and said it would be here this coming Tues. We sure hope it is because that is the last day we can get it picked up and packed in the pod. I was really hoping that all would go smoothly with this but I guess you can't count on anything. I know, I know, Thank you God for opportunities to grow.

How do you be a good mom to grown children?

I thought I was doing this really good job of letting my youngest daughter go. I was letting her move across the country with out making her feel guilty for leaving me, I thought. Now I find out that I was coming across like I didn't care that she was leaving. Wow! So how do you do this? I guess for one thing we need better communication. I guess being honest sometimes would probably be better.

I've sort of had a heavy heart today. Seeing my daughter struggle with some things sort of gives me an achy heart. Some bad things going on in my nephew's life has weighed heavy on me, both at how bad he must feel but also for my brother and his wife going through it with him. If my heart feels achy when my children are going through tough times, their hearts must really be heavy. Then just hearing so much in the news lately just seems to be so sad. A young man from the area being killed in Afghanistan. I knew a lot of his family from when I was young. My brother who is going through the things with his son was close with the family. So something more to know that his heart has got to be heavy. Then struggles to meet client's needs at work on top of it all. I just felt pretty bogged down today. But when we feel this way there is always one place to go with it all. We have God's promise that he will work all things together for good. We know that he is always with us. He is a great God. One thing I realized at the end of the day today is that I did not get my time in the word and to spend in prayer this morning. I hit the snooze way too many times. Maybe that has something to do with the heavy feeling that sort of hung with me today.

Thank you God for opportunities to Grow or travel helps

My daughter Jennifer is just finishing a missions trip to California. The rest of her team flew out of San Fransico this morning at 6am and she stayed behind at the church that they spent the night at it get a rental car and drive up to the camp she worked at the past 3 summers to spend a couple of weeks helping out there and seeing her friends that are working there this summer. We thought we had everything all set with a car reserved with the one that "picks you up". She called them yesterday to make sure everything was set up and they told her to call them this morning about picking her up. This morning she calls them and they tell her that they will not pick her up because there is another one of their offices a block from her. Well the reason for not reserving the car there was that on line and through our travel agent we were told that she could not rent there and drop it off somewhere else. She did not want to rent the car for over 2 weeks while she is at the camp. The office that we reserved the car at did let you drop the car off somewhere else. They told Jenn that she could call a cab and that they would pay for $7 of the fare. Well living out in the sticks you do not have a lot of reason for using a cab, we thought they would probably need cash and she did not have much on her. Jenn was getting pretty anxious about getting to the car rental. I told her to sit tight I would get back with her in a little while. I don't know what I was thinking about who I am. Was I thinking that I could straighten out this situation? I called the rental office and told asked them about all of this that we were told that they could pick her up and that the office a block from her would not rent to have it dropped off at another location. She said that they would have that we should have called that office directly instead of dealing with the on-line information. She said that she absolutely could not have someone come and get her at that time. She did call the other office to see if they would have a car that she could get and they did not. She gave me the number for yellow cabs and said that they would take a credit card. Called Jenn back and told her that she was going to have to call the cab and to use the credit card. Ended my call with her with what we have tried to have as our way of looking at things the last couple of years, "Thank you God for opportunities to grow". She called later and was on the road. They did not have the economy car that we had reserved, she was in a big black 4 door Dodge pick up truck that had an almost empty gas tank. She said that was all they had so she was getting this truck at the same rate as the little economy car. The only problem with that is that it will cost her a lot more for gas. I hope she finds a station before running out of gas. At this time she is driving herself up to Lucerne in this big black truck.

Oh yeah, she also told me that after she called the cab she went out to wait on the steps of the church and then saw a homeless person sleeping in the courtyard. At that point she wished she had not left the door shut and lock behind her. But he stayed asleep, the cab picked her up and she is on her way.

The lesson is to stay calm even when things are not going the way you planned and things will work out. Everytime Jenn has gone through something like this she comes up with more information on what to do if things do not go as planned the next time. So Thank you God for all opportunities to grow, big or small. The other lesson is, don't always believe the advertisements that you see on TV.

Being thankful for the talents that we have been given and letting go of those we haven't.

That is quite a title isn't it? I could have shortened it I guess. But here is what has lead to it. About 5 years ago we finally went to satellite TV instead of amish cable (antenna). With that comes HGTV, TLC, DIY and Food network. These has wet my appitite for getting more creative, but sometimes you just do not have the natural abilities to be all that creative. I've always said that I am a paint by numbers person not the blank canvas and just go to it. I used to have most of the house wall papered and the rest was painted off white. But thanks to watching enough room make over shows I've taken down most of the wallpaper and there are no off white walls left in the house. We still have 2 wallpapered bathrooms but who knows how long that will last. The problem comes in when it comes to finding the right color for on the wall. My dear husband picked out the dinning room/office color. It is perfect. He did such a good job with it. I liked it so well I took the wallpaper off of the half bath down stairs and painted it that same color (good use of left over paint too). But since that room I have painted the living room 3 times to get the color that I wanted and the kitchen twice ( It still is brighter then I would have liked but Lark says he likes it. I think he says that though to keep me from painting it again.) I started when I went to our bed room to just buy a quart of what I wanted to try and if I didn't like it I would get another quart. I went through 5 different colors before I got one that I could live with. So now what has prompted this I was getting antsy to redo another room so I took the wallpaper off of my oldest daughter's old room and I thought I've got this mastered now. I had always had trouble with getting the paint too light so I went to a fabric shop to see if I could find the color in fabric where it would be larger so I could tell what it would really look like. WELL, I couldn't find a solid fabric, but I found one that had a color in it that I liked so I put my paint samples from the store up to it and found one that matched pretty well, but when I got to Lowes to get the paint under their lights that one just did not look good and I changed it at the last minute. WELL when I opened it up and started putting it on the wall I knew that this was way to dark. It was going to make a small room really look small. So I got this really great Idea of buying a quart of white and mixing it with the 3 quarts or so that I had left. It did not make much difference only enough that I will have to go back and repaint what I had already painted and it won't make a lot of difference. SO I am just going to live with this color and go real light with the curtains and bed spread. I was starting to beat myself up over this but you know what, this is just not one of the talents that God has blessed me with. Maybe I need to hire an interior designer to get what I really want in paint and spend my time on the talents that God has given me. OH but then there is the food network, that is another whole story. But I am off right now to have lunch with a very dear friend that I don't want to keep waiting.

Are we too full of ourselves?

On a church sign in our area (actually saw this on 2 different church signs) God can not fill us if we are too full of ourselves. That may not be word for word what it said but close. That is really true. We need to be empty to let God fill us with his goodness. How can we find contentment? Is is in trying to meet our needs and working to get all we can get for ourselves? I don't think so. We never manage to meet all our needs and we always want more. But if we are looking at how can I serve God better we can be content with what we have. How can I serve others? Then we stop thinking so much of what we want or feel that we need. Our culture is so concerned with getting our needs met. With having a good self esteem. But I've found that looking at what I can do for someone else has made life so much better. If we are always looking at what we do not have we are always going to feel down about it. I suffered from depression for so many years and it wasn't until I stopped looking at how I was feeling and what I needed to feel better that I felt better. Learning to be content where I was.

Not letting bitterness invade our minds also is key to staying out of the depression. Just the other day, I was feeling that I was being made fun of by my daughter and husband. She and her husband are building a new house and I talked her into starting a blog and putting pictures of the house as it is being built on the blog. They had been away for a week on vacation and had been back for 2 days and I was bugging her about where new pictures were and they were laughing at me for being so buggy, or I guess antsy is the term used. I started to get upset that I was being mad fun of, and how dare they do that to me, and thinking, I'll just show them, I won't even check their blog anymore or be interested in what they are doing. Although I thought I'll check it, I'll just not let them know that I am checking it. And the longer I went on with that kind of thinking the lower I was feeling. I finally sort of kicked myself in the butt and told myself to cut it out that no one was meaning to upset me, I was only hurting myself in holding this grudge, they didn't even know that I was feeling hurt. So just let it go and once again be happy for my daughter and not be going lower into the bad feelings. Boy sometimes I can be so stupid. I caught myself doing this a while back and you would think that I would have learnt from that but I didn't, I had to do it again. Maybe next time I won't take as long to remember.

Now on the lighter side. I went shopping the other day. My mom had given me money for my b-day and so an opportunity to spend money. But I can't find anything that I really like. I can't wait for these big wild prints to go back out of style. But before that I couldn't wait for the manufactures to start making tops longer, as I do like them to come down past the top of my pants a ways and they do now again. But now it is these great big prints and tops that look like maternity tops. I have enough trouble with looking pregnant. But I guess at my age most people figure I'm just fat. If something is a solid color it is something so bright that it screams "look at me". People can see you coming for a mile away. I was in the dressing room trying on a couple of things I found that were not too wild and overheard someone else trying on clothes. Her mother had brought her in something to try on that I did not see as I was trying on clothes at the time. I heard her tell her mother that they were too bright for her. I thought someone just like me. She did not want to be seen coming for a mile away either. Then her mom asked if she wanted a white shirt and she said she was not responsible enough for white. I thought oh what a kindred soul and I didn't even know her or I couldn't see her either. I had never thought about it as being responsible enough for white, but that is me. But I guess I am not really responsible enough for any color then as far as that goes. Maybe I should look into some of those great big prints as maybe it would hide my irresponsibility.

Oh what a day!

Starting off a day of work (only a half day) after being in trainings all last week with all kinds of wonderful issues coming up through the week that really needed my attention was rough. I always have a hard time when I have so much going on to figure out where to start, it is just too overwhelming.

With crazy things going on at the state level to cut expenses at our clients expense that can't do without what they are getting gets so frustrating. I'm trying to take what I've tried to put into practice in my own personal life into practice with my job. I've taken on the motto of "Thank you God for opportunities to grow". It has really helped alot in my life to realize that God is not going to give me more then I can handle and that he does use all things together for good. I may not ever see the good but I have to trust that he does what he has promised in his word. This has lifted so much of the stress that I feel in my personal life. Now I have to stop worrying so much about my clients that everything will be OK. Maybe this will get some other people in their lives to take on a little more responsibility that they should already be doing if we can not do as much for them.

There has got to be a reason that I am still doing this job. It is not like I haven't done a lot to try to get out of it. Sometimes I feel like there must be a lesson to be learned here and then maybe I can move on. We were discussing at the training last week about what would happen if the average age people started to live to was 100. What things would have to change and all. We determined that retirement would have to be raised to probably about 80. The first thing that I thought of was that meant I would need to do my job for another 28 years and would be there for 35 years. That was almost too much to even think about. I joked that I could go from being a Case Manager to being the client. It may take me 35 years to learn to have patience at this job. I sure hope not.

Thoughts for today

Hey, here I am, wondering what crazy thing I am starting here. Will anyone else even want to read anything I have to say. Probably not, but here goes anyway.

Should I be serious or silly here. Should I talk about politics. That is a scary subject.

Where am I right now. Empty nesting. Jennifer away on a missions trip in California and then moving there in August to teach 2nd grade. Boy California that is a long way from home. But this will not be home anymore for her California will be home. This will be a place for her to come and visit from time to time and then go back home. I think that makes my job as far as raising her as being done. I will always be her mom and probably put in my two cents worth more then she will want me too, but just because they grow up and move away does not mean that you are no longer mom. Heather and her husband Randy are building a house in Lafayette now that he is done with College. That means they are not going to be moving back closer to "home". That means that that is home also and not here. Here is just where they come and visit. I try hard not to put my two cents worth in there too much. But hey they did listen to my two cents worth about putting an outlet in the island of their kitchen. Hey Hey, mom's not too dumb yet.

About being dumb, I do feel as though I am losing it some. Maybe early signs of Alzheimer's. I turned 52 yesterday. Boy that sounds old. I had to sit in on a training for work about aging. Could you imagine sitting in on discussions of aging on your 52nd birthday. They were talking to a lot of us at all ages, I was probably one of the oldest in the room. I'm sure the young ones had no clue as they thought all of this was so far in the future for them and I was relating to it. As they talked about all the physical things that happen to you, I thought hey that is starting for me already.

Hey this is kind of fun, even if no one reads it. I am just impressed that I learned how to do this. At least this far, I don't know if I will be sucessful in getting this posted or not and will I be able to get back into it to post again. Time will tell.