Random Thoughts...No Explanations

• Job Starting Tomorrow...quite nervous.
  
• How do you balance 2 jobs every day and keep your sanity?
• Moving out...when, where, how?
• Is my car finally dying? First AC then the tire. It's never had such bad luck.
  
• Work Drama. Can't we just do our jobs and get along?
• Subbing. How do you get on the list? How do you pick the schools? Will it be ok if I start late? Will they call since I wasn't available earlier on? Will it be enough to make ends meet?
• Wedding: Where is my dress? What should my speech say? How many things have I forgotten?
• I'm thankful for seeing friends and getting to have deep talks with friends.
  
• Annoying people being annoying. Get a grip.
  
• 70 degrees in July?!?!? Where is summer?
• Texting. I don't use it a ton and I still think that people are incredibly disrespectful when texting, but it is a nice option to have in some situations.
  

I've worried my heart out for months on end trying to figure out what was going to happen next. Meanwhile, I slaved away in the hot kitchen at the Lutheran Home for the 6th summer in a row trying to make do until something better came along. I have worked my butt off trying to find some kind of a job and have came up empty handed many many times. I've gotten several rejection letters/emails and had 2 interviews that led no where. I was feeling fairly defeated and had no idea where to turn next. I wished, I hoped, I prayed, I broke down, I gave up, and then I get a voicemail yesterday morning. TMC in Wauseon wanted me to come in for an interview tomorrow(Friday) at 11am. I went in feeling much more confident and relaxed than any of my other interviews and walked out with a job. It's only a seasonal job which means I only have a job until about October sometime, but it's a start. It gives me time to figure out what comes next. And in the mean time I get to make 15 dollars an hour, which should help things out a bit. I'm not "teaching" the age that I love. In fact I'm not sure I call it teaching at all. I will have 1 year olds. Although they are cute and I'll be teaching them life skills I don't expect to be teaching reading or writing anytime soon. All in all I'm pretty excited and looking forward to see what comes about in the next couple of months as God's plan unfolds for me. I'm being careful with things. I'm still holding on to my job at the Lutheran Home so that when all of my migrant children leave me I have somewhere to turn if all of the other roads are closed.

Have you ever read the article about how everything you need to know in life you learn in kindergarten? If not click here. After a few days of thinking about different people that I talk within my daily life or different people that I have to work with I started thinking about this article and how sometimes I feel like I taught my kindergartners a few lessons that these adults could handle hearing. A few that top my list include:

1. Manners: A simple Please and Thank You in your daily life really isn't all that difficult. Think about the number of people who do things for you even the smallest things. Have you thanked them lately? It could really turn a persons day around.
   
2. Teamwork: If you want someone to do something for you, do something for them in return. if they do something for you, return the favor in some way. People naturally will help people out, but if the favor is never returned they tend to quit wanting to help.
   
3. Clean up your own mess: If you use something put it where it belongs when you are finished. If you dirty something, clean it, or at least put it where it needs to be so it can get washed.
4. Attitude: Yelling really doesn't motivate a person. Ignoring them also doesn't motivate them. Talk to people, try to stay level headed and try to meet in the middle.
   
5. Accept Differences: No one is the same. We all come from different backgrounds and we all have a different idea of what is "right", but you have to talk through your differences and accept the other persons ideas.

There are so many more, but these top the list right now. I'm not saying that I'm great at all of them, but I try to keep them in mind.

A Tangled Mess

People always say that doors are opening up for you or will open up for you and that things will work out, but right now it feel like one tangled mess that is never going to straighten itself out. I'm trying to be patient and I'm trying to just let things fall into place how they are supposed to be, but lets face it, I'm not a patient person. I'm trying to enjoy my summer and make the most of what I have, but there is so much of me that worries about what is going to happen at the end of the summer and how I'm going to be able to do what I want to do that it sometimes interferes with relaxing. There is only one strand of the whole tangled mess that has freed itself and seems completely clear to me and that is my relationship with Steven. I am absolutely blessed to have him with me in life now and in the many years to come. He sits with me late at night while I freak out and somehow can always find what it takes to calm me down. I know that in the end everything always works out, but right now at this spot it feels absolutely impossible. There are so many things that are not coming together and I have no idea what else I can do to make it work. I hate sitting back and watching. I need to be involved, I need to feel like I'm doing absolutely everything I can to make something work, but right now I feel like I've exhausted all of my options and it has left me with nothing but a mess.

Friends

I've been thinking a lot lately about friendships, friendships that are good today, that have gone bad, that have completely fizzled out, and some that are just plain rocky. I'm not sure if there is any rhyme or reason to why they work out the way they do and I have yet to find any kind of commonly occurring theme. Each one is different. I've gained and I've lost many friends in my lifetime. Some have stuck around for years and some only months. I can probably count on one hand the number of friends that I actually think will stick with me until I'm old and grey, but that's ok with me. I've made it ok with me. I used to hate that I didn't have more friends and always wondered why, but as life progresses, I'm ok with it. I still wonder though the friendships that went bad, was it something that I did? Is there something that I could do? There are only a couple of people who I honestly open up my heart to and tell them how I feel and it's because I'm trying to protect myself. I don't want to let myself be vulnerable to pain, I want to "be tough", I'm beginning to think this is the part of me that might screw things up. When I have a rough patch with friends I'm not one to sit and talk it out. I usually just walk away and let things cool down and see if it picks back up. I rarely though am the one to initiate the come back which is probably part of my problem. I 98% of the time want my friendship to be restored and honestly care, but there is just this guarded part of me that can't be the one to give in and go back. The part of me that is too scared of the confrontation, too scared to hear the things I did that were wrong, too scared to just break down and lose it. So it's easier for me to just keep going on with life like it's really alright until so much time has passed that it actually becomes the norm and another friend is gone. I guess my point is that I'm so incredibly thankful for the friends that stick with me through everything no matter how difficult I can be and no matter how ridiculous things get.

Addictions and New Things

My phone finally arrived. After many phone calls back and forth to the Verizon man and many impatient days I have it in my possession and it is wonderful. I love it! It's an alias 2 if you have some time you should look it up. With my phone I also finally entered the world of texting. I have a great fear of going over my 500 texts I'm allowed each month, so I'm trying to only text Verizon and Alltel customers(because they're unlimited!) I don't even text very much, but now that I am able to, I feel like I should use it a bit more. It also gives me an excuse to use my cool sideways opening phone too!

Steven gave me this game to play. He plays it and wanted me to play with him. At first I absolutely did not understand it and I thought for sure I was going to hate it. Now though, I can't quit playing! It is seriously an issue. I believe it's worse than when I play Diner Dash. I think it might also have to do with it being the first game I've owned in full length for quite some time. Opposed to Yahoo's 1 hour trial versions.

Lately, I've noticed that I look into the past a lot and I start thinking about how things could have turned out. What life would look like today if I had made different choices along the way. I can happily say that I think I've done a pretty decent job thus far. I guess we'll see how the next few years go...

What's new...

I had an interview yesterday. Don't ask me how it went, I have no idea. I was so ridiculously nervous that I felt like I could have puked and I came out of it with an uneasy feeling, sort of like I messed it up terribly. Although at my last interview I had a really good feeling about it and never heard another word from them, so perhaps it was actually a good sign.

I'm growing increasingly interested shopping for a church. I've always wanted to have a church that I could call mine, but with bouncing back and forth between towns for school, home, and whatever else it didn't really seem to work out. Now, I'm still bouncing back and forth between towns quite frequently, but I feel like I would actually be able to commit now. The hard part is deciding where to start and getting the guts to actually do it.

Finding a job, being able to move out, and making all of the decisions that go along with that are still wearing heavy on my heart and mind, but I'm trying to enjoy each day between now and then because I'm sure it's going to get harder before it gets easier.

I suck at striking up random conversations; I always have, and lately it seems to be challenging me greatly. It seems like it is what I need to be able to do in order to make some friendships work because speaking from my heart about feelings and thoughts just gets me in trouble. But then I struggle with understanding why I have to change for friendship, is it truly friendship then?

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. ~George Iles