Transformation Almost Complete

Mark has adjusted to Texas rather well and quickly I might add too. I asked him this morning while we were at the breakfast table, "Did you ever in your wildest dreams think when we met in Alabama that you'd be living in Texas, driving a truck and wearing boots?" and his immediate response was, "nope."

My grandmother, who is one of the most gracious people I have ever met decided that the boys in our family could use some new boots and those who did not have boots would get them for the first time. So when my parents were here a few weeks ago we all went to Cavender's and told the people at the front door that we needed to have Mark fitted for his "first" pair of boots and that he was from PA. I told them there was no need to announce those details over the loud speaker. So Mark picked out, very fitting to gator country where we now live, his first pair of boots made out of alligator. Pretty sure, they're real skin, so don't be offended. Gators are a plenty in Southeast Texas. Thank you Beegee, he loves them.

And since my husband has been so good to "unman" himself and drive a mini-van for the past two years, I decided it was time he should step up. I had met with someone at a local dealership that I had done some work for recently at Manning's and he gave me an excellent deal on the truck. I had totally wanted to surprise Mark with it but got nervous at the last minute so took him over last night to take a peak. the kids and us took it for a spin and it was an immediate hit. Hard to step back into the mini-van after that experience. So the truck was bought today and Mark is loving it!

He says the transformation is almost complete, he'd like a belt buckle and a hat too. Oh my goodness, this is getting scary. Baby you look good in boots and driving your new F-150.

A weekend with Ben

Ben and Mark spent last weekend camping at a Boy Scout camp about an hour from here. They had a great time! Ben loves anything to do with the outdoors and as you can see from the pictures below, spent an entire weekend immersed in "boy" activities. They even had a blacksmith there and they forged some iron and made some different pieces. Of course my sweet Ben, made me a beautiful heart, that I will try to post on here later. He was so proud handing it to me when he got home. He even burned his little finger while making it and had a pretty large blister, but he didn't mind he said.

The Indians at the top were from his project he turned in at school last week. He had to write a whole page on the Apaches and then make some kind of visual. He decided he wanted to sculpt his Indians out of clay and we were amazed at his creations. Today he only came home with one of them and when I asked Mark where the other one was he told me Ben had given the other one to a little boy in his class that is blind, named Tyler. Tyler was in Ben's class last year too and they have formed a special friendship. Ben will come home at least once a week with something that Tyler has typed on his braille typewriter for him to keep and take home.

TGIF

Usually this is a statement I look forward to saying each week. Thankful that another work week has been completed and I can head home to clean, referee, clean some more and try to catch up on all the projects I could not get done during the week. I have been very blessed to have found a job that usually gives me great fulfillment. Being at home with my four children while they were young was an amazing gift but I admit I often tired of not being able to use some of my other gifts. Since Ella is now in school all day I work at a locally owned school supply store but run my own department, invitation design. I get to use skills that I began acquiring back in high school with computer layout and design and I get to incorporate aspects of interior design with color combinations and layout. I really enjoy my job, on most days. I get to work with brides planning the perfect invitation for their special day and I also get to participate in plenty of other special events making custom invitations or printing on blank stock. Getting to work with people during those special times of their lives is a great pleasure.

Not today though. I'm a people pleaser, always have been and don't like to tell people no. I told a woman today that I would complete her job in a very small amount of time because we had done the bride's invitations and programs already and wanted to help out with the last minute details. The bride has been a pleasure to work with, her assistant today was anything but. The job was passed onto my partner who had designed her invitations and programs but the job today was not completed in the time frame I had specified. Differences in work styles between me and my partner. Things only went down hill from there. The assistant called my partner a _itch and my partner simply handed her the paper and said, "we cannot help you today." Well, I ended up completing the job, with a rather large woman staring me down telling me, "I'm going to stand right here and watch you until you finish every last one of those." OK...so job done. I then proceeded to tell her that I completed the job out of courtesy to the bride whom we have enjoyed working with but that I did not appreciate how she treated me or my partner today and that I felt confident had the bride known how we were being treated she would not appreciate it either. Proud of myself for remaining composed but steaming inside, wanting to scream at the top of my lungs.

All this ranting simply to state...being rude does not make me want to help you any faster. Do people really think that getting an attitude and being rude will want someone to work any harder for them? I work in an industry completely defined by relationships with my clients and I always work to the best of my ability and move mountains to get jobs done on time, creating exactly what my clients have seen in their minds for years and have many letters of praise in my employee folder to substantiate that but today was a day I could not wait to walk out that door.

TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 44th President of the United States

I read this entry on a blog I follow. It's been published in Relevant Magazine. It expresses a lot of what's been on my mind for months. I have very definite opinions about this current election season, some don't always fall in line with where I would have put myself years ago. I don't mind answering questions about these thoughts but don't really feel like posting them on my blog. It's not an arena for debate.

America Chooses Obama
By Roxanne Wieman

Well, here we are on the other side. A watershed moment. An historic election. And we, the American people, have made our choice.

Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States, and the nation’s first black president. And in elections across the country, Democrats won their seats in the Senate. When Obama takes office in January, he will do so with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

“The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly,” McCain told his supporters in Arizona after the results came in.

But what about you? Those of you who took our RELEVANT poll yesterday favored McCain: 47 percent of you voted for the Arizona Senator and 33 percent of you for Obama. So, are you disappointed? Will you hang your heads today? Do you fear for our nation’s future? I’m not so sure.

So many of us—members of the widely contested “young evangelical voters”—were divided about this election. Not just as a group, but even in our own hearts. I know which candidate I chose, but it wasn’t an easy decision. And, to be honest, I didn’t really care who won. I agreed with both. I disagreed with both.


What I’m wondering now is where do we go from here?

While the electoral vote and popular vote strongly favored Obama, our country is still largely divided. This was a hard-fought, personal and passionate race. There are wounds on both sides. Can Obama and the Democratic congress heal those wounds? Can we help?

Yes and yes.

Obama ran as a unifier. He condemned our party divisions and championed cooperation across party lines. Many of the Democrats who won seats in the Senate ran with similar platforms. If Obama and the Congress majority maintain that position and “reach across the aisle” in the years to come, that will certainly go a long way in healing our wounds and unifying our country. Karl Rove has already expressed his own wish that the Republicans would do the same, "I hope we will support [Obama] when we agree with him, persuade him when we think his mind is open, and oppose him when we think he is wrong."

Whether unity happens in Washington or not, the question still returns to us: what can we do to help? As Francis Schaeffer so famously put it, “How shall we then live?” Now that the election is over and Obama and the Democrats have so clearly won, how shall we then live? I believe that we, the young Christian voters, can uniquely answer this question. I believe, in fact, that this is the very question we are so primed to answer. Because this election and its profound life issues has galvanized us to true action.

Yes, we voted. But it’s more than that. Through this election, we’ve become aware of the major social issues of our day. And now we want to do something about them. We recognize an election will not change everything. We do not rest our hopes for change on a political party or candidate. We vote, we hope, but we don’t stop there. Tomorrow and the next day and the next and in January when Obama takes office, we get up and we continue our sojourn to follow Jesus. We live our votes for life, for justice, for peace, for equality.

We comfort our friend who tells us she’s considering abortion. Then we gently tell her why we believe life in the womb is precious. We help her find alternative options … and we stick by her side all through the pregnancy and birth and after. She is not a statistic or a faceless evil to us.

We love beyond racial, gender and sexual lines. We reject stereotypes. We embrace individuals. We work for reconciliation.

We do not talk about “that side of town,” we live there and work there and mentor there. We are a part of educational reform, and ESL, and rehabilitation.

We recycle. We reduce our imprint. We consciously make our purchases, recognizing the global implications. We strive to “live simply that others may simply live” (Ghandi).

We personally pray for our soldiers in Iraq, for the citizens of Iraq, for our leaders who are making tough decisions that affect millions of lives. We really do pray, and we believe our prayers matter.

We continue to work hard in the jobs God has given us, saving our money and stewarding our resources. We tithe. We donate. We volunteer.

We continually challenge each other to deepen our understanding of whole life ethics and Jesus’ call to follow Him.

I believe this is who we are. I believe this is who you are. I believe we can be the change we’ve voted for—no matter who we voted for.