Fallish Weather and Pet Peeves

As I write this, I am sitting on my lovely back porch on this cool summer night.  It did get warm today but there's no humidity and it felt like Fall first thing this morning.  Fall is my favorite season - it's getting cold, not too cold but sweater weather, there's college football, and the Holidays just around the corner....can life get any better??? 

I decided to write about my pet peeves today.  I have two - people who don't return phone calls and people who blow their nose in public. Originally I intended this blog to not be a personal journal or complaint column but I feel that this post is more of a PSA (Public Service Announcement). A lot of you know that my number one pet peeve is people with poor communication skills.  This applies not only to friends but in business relationships as well.  Freakin' call somebody back already! I have wonderful friends.  I have friends all over the country.  And I have friends who don't like to return phone calls.  How are you supposed to manage relationships if friends won't respond to phone calls, emails or text messages.  Currently, I have a two call limit on my friends.  I will call a friend twice without a return phone call in a reasonable amount of time then (usually a month or two), I will not call them again, unless I forget because it's been so long! There is hardly anyone who falls outside of the two call limit, except my family and maybe a college roommate or two!  When people don't return phone calls, you know what it says to me...."I don't care".  When I don't hear back from you, I automatically think that you, who refuses to return calls, don't care about my friendship and that it's not important to you.

This two call (and now text) limit may sound ridiculous but friendships are so important to me that I work hard to maintain them.  I also feel like I shouldn't have to chase down my friends.  When I lived in South Carolina, I was always driving back and forth to Knoxville and all over the country and spending counltess hours on the phone with my friends who weren't around.  My friends are some of the most important people in my life.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now but I hope you know that the two call limit is not in place because I'm demanding or being ridiculous but because I value relationships with people that I love.

That being said - Happy Fall and Happy Football Season! College kick off is just a few days away! :) I guess I'm a Tennessee fan now that I live in VOL Country.

Life is Ridiculous

This week has been ridiculous.

This week I have forgotten:
1) My purse, in the grocery cart, in the parking lot of kroger, on sunday night at 8 PM. I didn't realize it until I got home BUT thankfully it was still there when I went back. Ridiculous.
2) My keys. I locked the door knob, closed it and walked out while my keys were on the kitchen counter. Ridiculous.

I have gotten some fun things accomplished. Well I dont know about fun.... I got a Tennessee Drivers License and a Tennessee license plate.

I'm SOoooo tired. Hoping for a mental health day Friday. Tomorrow is going to be CRAZY busy trying to get ahead so that I dont have to work Friday :) Hoping for a nice relaxing weekend with few plans...chillin with friends and hanging out.

Life Continues to be Unexpected

GREAT NEWS: I have rented my condo in Greenville!

This is the best news I have received since I got the phone call from Mark saying 'I was calling because I'd like to offer you a job'! I've yet to sign the lease with this girl, but she seems pretty serious about the condo and we decided on a price and all. I am SOOoooo glad to be relieved of this burden!

Life is Unexpected

So, my life is still feeling a little bit crazy and unexpected. I had a good weekend here in Knoxville. Celebrated Bryan's birthday friday night. Saturday: gym, lunch with Whit, Jake's football game, and rockband. Sunday: church and lunch with Mike and Bev. So fun to receive a last minute phone call from them yesterday and find out that they were in town! :)

I was hoping for a little down time this weekend. I had that today but still feel like I have a lot to do that I shouldn't be wasting my time with tv watching and chilling. I'm planning to take a mental health day this week and be able to take care of some things that have been left hanging since my move to Knoxville - mostly my car. The other thing is the organization of my life!

I think this mental health day will help my brain. It really will be a mental health day. Today, I did one of the dumbest things I've ever done. No, seriously. I went to the grocery store today because I will actually be able to cook as I'll be in town for the next two weeks! Yay! So, I was loaded up my car, moved the buggy to the cart replacement thing and drove away. I got home and realized that I'd left my purse in the cart, in the parking lot at Kroger at 7 pm on a Sunday night. Have I seriously lost my mind? Well of course I took off and sped back to Kroger and there it was, right in the cart, in the cart replacement thing, in the Kroger parking lot. Praise Jesus. Seriously, Praise Jesus. It could have been disasterous.

In the past several days, I have heard of deaths or suffering of several people, two semi close to my age. Earlier this week, a guy that I went to high school with passed away. I didn't really know him but was shocked to hear this news. The reality of life's fragility was again brought to my attention this weekend in Knoxville. On opening high school football night, a team from Kingsport was playing a Knoxville team and one of their players collapsed on the field and passed away. A high school senior. Playing his last first game of the football season at the beginning of his senior year, collapsed on the field and never got up. I also have a friend who is dealing with a sick, old grandparent. It's just a bittersweet reminder of how precious life is and how most of the time - life does not go according to plan, things change, stuff happens.

Life is totally unexpected.

I'm curious to se what God is going to do next in my life. This past almost 2 months now, has been an amazing time for me to see God working: in my job, my friends, my new city, my old city, in looking for a church, in new friends, in old friends. I'm excited about what's next!

Life is Interesting

In my mere 25 years, I feel like I've learned a lot about life. My boss, who is in his mid fifties, thinks its hilarious to ask me about things like onion paper and broken records - things that were before my time. Although - I did grow up listening to records, thanks to my parents. Mostly Monster Mash and Willie Nelson. Quite the combination!

I'm not really even sure to put into words how I'm feeling...

Friends change. People change. Plans change. Places change.

Life changes.

I feel like I've heard the statement: The only constant in life is change.

Reality

Things really are going good here in Knoxville, but reality is that I'm:
extremely tired,
emotional,
frustrated,
and anxious.

Still Feeling Crazy

This week has been INSANE! I've been working in Crossville, which is about an hour from Knoxville and just on the other side of the Central Time Zone. We've been working 8-5:30 their time. We leave here at 8, get there at 8, work til 5 or 530 and get home around 730.

Wow, I'm tired.

Life is good though! I celebrated Nick's birthday last night with him and a bunch of his friends who just happen to be friends of mine too and it was so fun! We went to Litton's (best burgers in Knoxville) and then to the DGB, my fav! It was such a great time to hang out with friends and relax. I so needed that. Even though we stayed out til 1130 almost, it was so much fun! I am kind of paying for it today. We went into work early this morning to get some stuff done. I do not have anything to do tonight and that makes me so happy! :) I'm sitting in my pajamas. Just finished eating left over Thai food and am looking forward to watching a movie on TV or cleaning up my apartment. You wouldn't believe how messy it can get in one week without time to keep it up!

I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend!
Hope yours is great too!
LOVE!

Feeling Crazy

I can't put into words the way my heart feels.

good. bad. excited. scared. anxious. happy. frustrated.

there's so much going on at one time. my brain never rests. for the past month my thoughts have been jumping from:

YAY! Work!
knoxville.
greenville.
moving.
friends.
visits from friends.
missing friends.
condo.
whoa.
condo.
comcast.
comcast sucks.
sell?
rent?
knoxville.
friends.
work.
work.
texting.
traveling.
missing DPC.
hamilton.
momise.
caldwell.
family.
busy.
gym.

deep breaths...
one thing at a time...
i can do this.

Busy Schedule

So this past week was my first week of out of town travel for work. We were in Johnson City for the week. The work went well and I think that the more familliar we (the audit team) get with the process and the work, the easier it'll be. We've completed two audits at this point.

It was weird to stay in a hotel room by myself. I hadn't realized that it would be weird. I guess I've just always been with friends or family when I've stayed in a room and been with other people. It was so good to be in Johnson City and see friends. I met with friends for dinner every night but one and it was so fun to be in town for a few days. It was weird to travel and not be home. I thought that I would have a nice relaxing weekend to recover from being out of town for the week but it's turned out to be crazy.

It's saturday night and I haven't even unpacked from the week! I ran in last night, changed clothes and ran out to meet a friend for dinner and a movie. We saw Julie and Julia and it was so good. I really liked it! I would love to cook my way through a cookbook! Which is what Julie did - she cooked her way through a Julia Child cookbook! I came in late and went to bed, slept late, went and got my nails did with Mel-Dawg - who's finally back from China - waited on the cable folks who never showed up, dinner with Diana and now to bed again! I think tomorrow will be pretty laid back -lunch with Kevin and Kathy and then hopefully nothing for the rest of the day! It'll be good to relax and take it easy for awhile!

Hitting the road again next week for work. We'll be working in Crossville, which is an hour away. We'll be driving every day. It wont be that bad but it's across the time zone so we'll be getting home late every night. But I really dont think it'll be a bad drive. We'll carpool and we won't have to leave as early...if we leave here at 8 AM we'll arrive in Crossville at 8 AM. But leaving is going to be hard - we'll leave Crossville at 5 PM (6 PM Knoxville time) and get home around 7ish Knoxville time.

Off to sleep :)

Sunday Reflections

This Sunday, I went back to Redeemer in Knoxville. The sermon was taught by a Carson-Newman grad who is a pastor/music leader at Redeemer. The lesson was about waiting. His main points were 1) Expect to wait 2) Be Prepared to wait 3) Know what we're waiting for.

Recently coming out of a period of waiting in my life, this sermon caused me to be very reflective over the past few months/weeks. I'm not sure that all this change has sunk in my head yet. It's all been so fast and so much all at one time. It's all good, for sure, but it's just a lot. I've been waiting for so long for something to happen. I'm still reflecting of this lesson but these are my initial thoughts.

There were two things that Matt said today really made me think. The first was that God has something for us in the waiting periods of our lives. I'm still struggling with this. I feel like I might never know what the waiting period of the last 8 months was for. Maybe it was to change me. To allow God to take HIS time and mold me and teach me about His timing. I do feel like some things about me have changed. I'm a lot less of a planner, for one thing...this could be good and bad. I have a lot more empathy for others. And part of me just feels different. Different in a good way. It's hard to describe. This waiting period was definitely also a learning period.

The second thing Matt said that stuck out to me was "how you wait depends on what you are waiting on". This is so true. When we wait in line or waiting at a restaurant, we're impatient becuase we're hungry. When we're in line at the grocery store, we're impatient because there's 1234098 registers and only one cashier (Thank you Wal-mart and Target). What about waiting on Jesus to come back? Do we, as Christians, really live our lives like we're waiting on the Savior of the World to return? Also, if we're living our lives in the waiting...are we really living our lives? So much of life can pass by without even realizing what has happened. Sharon, a new friend, commented that she felt like so much joy is lost in waiting. Are we letting life pass us by because we're waiting on that one certain thing to happen? So often, we make excuses, saying "if this one thing will just happen, then I'll __________..." You fill in the blank.

What are you waiting on?

How much of human life is lost in waiting? - Ralph Waldo Emerson