In His Steps

I'm suddenly much more relaxed. I had some wonderful lessons in church yesterday and heard a lot of things I think I really needed to hear. They were all about charity, giving and receiving. Charity....the pure love of Christ. I've been thinking about all these trials and tribulations in the wrong way. They may indeed be tests and trials, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to get something good for patiently enduring. They happened to teach me to learn to rely on others, especially at the expense of my pride. Charity was always seen as welfare in my family, which is the lowest of the low. You don't ever rely on anyone but yourself to take care of you. I needed to learn to accept help, and take it for the gift it is without refusing it to save face and struggling on anyway. I also needed to learn to handle problems gracefully, without fuss and fix it calmly. So many things get blown out of proportion and "ruin the whole thing" when really, they don'...

I shouldn't have worried so much. Rosslyn assisted me in getting me home. Our friend Red took me to the train station and made sure I was alright. My parents picked me up at the station and I slept at a family friends', because that's where Christmas breakfast was going to be and they were allergen free (in comparison). I have my old phone, so tomorrow I'm picking up my paycheck early, getting a new simcard for the phone and handling all that, my home teacher who was fixing my tire has finished it, so tomorrow night or Sunday afternoon he's going to put it back on for me. I'm so grateful to him for all the effort he's gone through to do that for me. Presents were minimal, again, this year, but I don't need much and I obviously wasn't able to give much. Rosslyn gave me a new wireless card, so tonight when I get home I'm cleaning my room and getting the internet back on my own computer. Surrounded by friends and family, I'm content and happ...

I spoke too soon last time. I'm having a really hard time now. After the previously mentioned things came to pass, my wireless card died, my car had a flat, my phone was stolen, and at some ungodly hour this morning those cramps that put me in the hospital returned. Rosslyn was amazing and got me lying on a hotpad and got my meds for me. The hospital had never determined what was wrong, so all they did that helped was lay me down and give me pain meds. As I can do all that here, I did. I had to call out from work (I feel so bad for my boss right now, despite my apathy to my job itself). Without my phone though, I'm kinda helpless. I can't call for help, my possible new job can't get ahold of me, my home teacher has my tire and I can't go see my family with the donut on... I might cry. I just keep feeling like I'm being tested. Just when things look up, like at the amazing show I performed in on Tuesday, something happens, like my phone getting stolen backstage...

Bad things are said to come in threes. After my stint in the hospital, I went back to work on Monday. Rosslyn drove me that day and the next, just in case my cramps reoccurred. When they didn't, I went out to my car in the morning on Wednesday to drive myself, happy to be back in the swing of things. My car wouldn't start. Yep. The battery was dead. It wasn't until today (Monday) that I got it fixed through the good graces of my wonderful bishop and a couple of the young men in the Elder's Quorum of my ward. Considering we had a storm all day, with uprooted trees and torrents of rain going on this whole time, they are pretty much golden in my book. They were given hot cocoa, of course. It was the least I could do, since they weren't able to stay and enjoy the warmth of the house and a good movie. Darn weather. We were going to go caroling and I was going to run the choir. Without a ride, the latter wasn't going to happen and caroling is right out. Ah well,...

I seem to not have much good news lately. Yesterday was Black Friday, so naturally I was at work at 5:45am to open the store. My boss and his wife showed up to help, and they bought me breakfast and a hot cocoa. I was extremely grateful. The day was going on normally, customers and the lot, when at about 11:15am I started getting cramps. Now, my period had begun a couple hours before, so at first I just thought it was that and that I'd be ok in a couple minutes. Nay nay. The cramps were suddenly sharp, stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. I got my coworker to take over the register and ran to the bathroom in back and spent the next hour in the worst pain I've ever experienced. I was sobbing for air and shaking so badly I couldn't dial my cell for help for 45 minutes. Finally I got a hold of a friend and my bishop. My friend sent his sister to be with me and the bishop sent his wife to get me to the hospital. I called my boss (and apparently I scared him--he's never h...

Yesterday was a morning of Constant Interruptions. I got to work on time and all seemed well. Just before I was about to open the doors, my boss calls. Interruption #1. I was almost late opening the store by the time I got him off the phone. I generally don't mind him calling, but it's hard to open the doors with a phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder and he wants us to open as soon as we come in. Shortly after that, the phone rings. I answer, no one responds. Interruption #2. Repeat this particular interruption every two to three minutes for the next THREE hours. No, I am not  exaggerating. Not one bit. So, about an hour into this I was ready to throw the @%!* phone through the window and over the mall balcony so that it would smash into as many pieces as possible. However, I'm not allowed to simply take the phone off the hook. I got a customer call in there, so I knew some people were calling and getting through to me. By some point I was assuming it was a p...

Agh, I've been so grrrrrrrrr lately. Just constantly angry and peevish. I've been handling it ok; I haven't snapped at anyone or yelled or anything. I just...hate my job. It's not that the work sucks (though it is retail) or that my coworkers suck or even that my boss is a moron, because none of that is true. It's just that I've been at this for over three years now and I am stuck in a rut. I am sick and tired of this job, of driving a half hour to and then another from work, of barely paying my immediate bills and making no  headway at all on my school debt, and of that fact driving my credit down and making it so I cannot get a better job in order to  pay it off. I am hating this rut a lot right now. Feel the hate. It's like being stuck in an oubliette with people tossing you just enough food and water to survive the day but never a ladder, rope, or enough to stock up a supply with. So everyday you're terrified they won't come, because if they do...