Apparently my skill set is considered pink collar. A Pink-collar worker is one who is employed in a job that is traditionally considered to be women’s work. The term pink-collar worker was used to distinguish female-orientated jobs from the blue-collar worker, a worker in manual labor, and the white-collar worker, a professional or educated worker in office positions. Who knew? I didn’t. But I’m down with it since pink is one of my favorite colours, next to black. Actually pink really looks lovely next to black. I digress.

As anyone who reads my drivel knows, I’ve been unemployed for almost eleven months. I never, in my wildest imagination, thought I would be out of work this long. It hasn’t been at all unpleasant just confusing. It’s baffling but as I have been pondering it in my heart, I have come to some conclusions.

After I caught my balance from being tossed to the curb of redundancy (I like to dramatize it), I made the decision to take a paid holiday. My choice. Since I had several months of severance I just thought I would take advantage of it and worry about employment later. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, you may still think of a way to get out of it. Well, 11 months later, I still haven’t figured out a way that we could survive financially without me bringing home some bacon. I considered a tea cup pig but that’s not really the kind of bacon we need right now.

I began to half heartedly apply for positions in mid July, as it was a requirement for collecting employment insurance benefits. I only applied for positions that I would seriously be interested in, in the off chance that I got called in for an interview and offered the job. Do not worry about what you will eat or drink or what you will wear or where you will work, your Heavenly Father knows your needs. I firmly believe that.

That said, as I reflect on my job search efforts over the past year it occurs to me that I’ve been projecting the wrong vibes. You see, many of my well intentioned friends encouraged me to start my own business because of my many creative skills and endeavours. This would be my last season of employment, why not go out with a bang? Not that I hadnt had these same thoughts quite often.

Then there was the other camp that said, no, don’t turn what you love into work. You’ll end up resenting your work and it will take all the fun out of it. You’ve got the experience to do administrative work and it’s been good to you (minus the shutdown and the layoff), so continue with that and save your creativity to bless others or make some income in your spare time. I probably should have spent more time on my knees and less time wailing my woes to others. Maybe they were just trying to tell me what I wanted to hear.

I’m not blaming anyone for anything. Once again, I make my own choices. But I had two interviews for two possible positions in September and both fizzled . Again, the week before Christmas, I had two more companies interview me. Few and far between. Once again, nothing. I was certain one of those positions was mine. Wrong again.

I have always been the type of student that does great on the day to day assignments but foils the exam. Maybe that’s what was happening here? I’m just not comfortable or trained to handle the Spanish Inquisition style of interview.

After talking with a friend who’d had some interview coaching and more insight than I, we came to the conclusion that maybe I was projecting a contrary attitude that I was unaware of and that was obvious to the interviewers. Was I really sabatoging myself? I think so. It occurs to me, because I hadn’t decided which route I would go, I was not really taking the interviews seriously and that was coming across to the interviewers. Plus those Christmas interviews? They were just an inconvenience at an inconvenient time when I was focusing on my favorite season, Christmas. Hello? Maybe in my subconscious I didn’t really want those jobs. I said I did, with my heart and my mouth but did I really?

Also, I’ve had a rebellious attitude towards the new interview process. I have looked at it with distain and haven’t tried all that hard to learn how to play the game. I have had an attitude that administrative work is not rocket science. Quit pretending it is, thus, possibly projecting a non serious and non committed vibe. Of course these companies take these opportunities seriously and they want to know that you do too. Oy vey!

I’ve had the good fortune to try out many of the ideas I had for doing my own thing. Planning events, cooking and baking for others, I even coordinated a wedding the day of, in the fall. I’ve remodelled clothes and sewn items for people, done people’s shopping and it finally occurs to me that no, I don’t want to do these things for a living. You see, I’m not a business person. Or even a marketer, I have many creative skills but that is not enough to run my own business. I’ve actually already been there and done that.

In conclusion, I have decided to learn how to play the game and get serious about getting a corporate administrative job. That will be my undivided focus going forward. That doesn’t mean I will get one if that’s not what God wants for me but I have to draw a line in the sand and narrow my focus and intentions. I’m not a victim unless I make myself into one. So I’m going to pursue temp work in the hopes of getting my groove back. Don’t cry for me Argentina.

 

 

 

 

Do you ever start to panic when you end up with a free day totally to yourself to do whatever you want? Probably not. But I do! There is so much I want to do that it becomes overwhelming. What will I choose? How will my time be best spent? I don’t want to waste the time but I often do, especially if the free day is a total surprise (much like the day I got laid off). LOL The worlds my oyster.

My problem is that I have so many hobbies and interests there is no way I can dabble in everything. I’ve got to choose one or three things and do them each justice. There are so many activities that bring me great joy. ‘The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings’. Robert Louis Stevenson. Actually I don’t think there are too many happy Kings these days.

Should I read all day long? Should I write? Should I journal? Should I paint? Should I design? Should I sew? Should I quilt? Should I drive out to the mountains? Should I go to Chintz and co.? Should I hang at Starbucks (as I’m doing at this very moment)? Should I sleep in and then soak in a tub full of bubbles with candles and relaxing music? Should I call a friend? Should I go for a walk? Should I play the piano? Should I bake? Should I test recipes? Should I go to Homesense and Winners? Should I have a nap? Should I do housework (which I find very rewarding). Should I organize closets and drawers? Should I eat junk food? Should I go downtown? Should I hide out in the basement and play with my toys? Yes I have toys. Fun toys. Should I do a prayer walk inside the house? Yeah, I do that. Should I finish our ongoing puzzle? Spa day? Go to a movie? Watch my latest addiction on Netflix?

I think a perfect day alone would start with a vigorous scenic walk in the summer or yoga in the winter. No, the perfect day wouldn’t include formal exercise -I’d rather pretend I didn’t need to workout, live in denial for just one day. I usually like to Seek first His Kingdom (and hope that maybe God would set my agenda for the day). Followed or coupled with a nice sudsy tub soak in water hot enough to turn my skin red (I usually need an ice cold drink to accompany this so I don’t pass out). After that, set the timer and do some journaling followed by an hour of reading (for enjoyment and inspiration). Sometimes I just feel like I need to get out and drive somewhere, so I’d drive to Chintz and co. and pick up some fabulous decorating ideas. I just love taking in all the beauty, creativity and design I find there. Meet a friend for coffee and conversation at Starbucks (of course). Iron sharpens iron. By now it’s late afternoon, so I’ll go home and cook up a sustaining healthy meal for whomever will be home for dinner. Make lots so we have leftovers. After cleaning up the kitchen I would sit in my favorite chair and do some writing while listening to my favorite relaxing music. Read some more. Journal some more. Take a nap and then go to bed.

Days of my own should not be about productivity but rather about living in the moment and enjoying what is. At the end of the day, I want to feel inspired and relaxed and motivated for productivity on another day. An entire day painting is very cathartic too. I think I’ll do that on my next day of my own.

 

 

We all know that love isn’t just for one day. It’s all the time. Every day of every month of every year. I’m pretty sure that Valentine’s Day was something Hallmark, chocolatiers and florists invented together to boost their revenue in the long cold winter months. I think they got the idea from Christmas.

As a kid, it was just a fun day to exchange paper valentines and red candy (which is no longer acceptable because of red food dye fear) and to see how popular you were. When I was a child you gave valentines to your favorite people and it gave you the warm fuzzies. But that is no longer politically correct. If you are not going to give to the whole class then you’re not allowed to give at all. The world is so crazy and backwards. You still should be required to be kind to everyone but let’s face it, we are not friends with everyone. Ain’t nobody got time for dat!

At present, In our family, even though my kids are adults, they are not in relationships. And that’s just fine. When the right one comes along, they’ll know it and God will prepare them for it. There is a lot of extra heartache that comes from being in a relationship, even the right one. Better to be alone than in the wrong relationship. So for the time being, their parents are the ones that love them the most. So I do my best to let them know they are loved unconditionally and forever, by us. Valentines is just a day that we can affirm our love for others. It’s just fun. It’s also a good excuse for me to decorate and bake heart shaped food and buy candy and enjoy flowers etc.

It’s not about whether you’re in a relationship or not. Its totally ok to be alone. It’s not about judgement because you are single. There are a lot of heartbreaking relationships that also hate valentines connotations. I have let my husband off the hook in regards to great expectations. I dont need inflated price roses or expensive dinner out. Jewelry is nice but personal so I usually buy it myself (when I am employed) and everyone is happy. It certainly isn’t necessary. But Mike knows that if he doesn’t give me a card he is in the doghouse. I don’t care if he makes it himself. He outdid himself this year and purchased a beautiful one from my favorite paper store, Papyrus.

So we are staying home tonight to eat heart shaped pizzas and heart shaped red jello and probably watch the Olympics and this makes my heart flutter. To be with those I love most. In fact I feel this way anytime we are together enjoying each other’s company. Or listening to Andrew on one of his rants on a variety of topics. My favorite.

If valentines has any good purpose, let it be this. To learn to love everyone all the time. To be kind and generous everyday. To remember God’s love for us and pass it on. There is no one on this planet that is not loved by anyone because God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. People just need to know this and it’s our mission to make sure they do. Don’t just collect love, pass it on.

She is grace under pressure. She is beauty admist sorrow. She is grateful in affliction. She is soft spoken. She is kind. She is generous. She has a quiet and gentle spirit. She is a wife of noble character. She is a mother fervent in prayer. She is a lover of our Heavenly Father.

I watched her stand lovingly, with a servants heart full of compassion, by her husbands side as the C-plague was stealing his precious life away. For six long, heartbreaking months she was his wife, his love, his nurse, his prayer warrior. His wish was to pass away in the comfort and love of his own home with his own people and at great sacrifice to herself, my friend made this happen.

They lived in cramped quarters as they shared their adults children’s condo on their summer furlow from their home in Hawaii. Having no idea this small home would become a hospice with a hospital bed in the middle of the tiny living room, as summer melted into fall which finally froze into winter.

Just one more Thanksgiving she prayed. Just one more Christmas she prayed. Just one more birthday she prayed. Please not during the family wedding. But he did not make it to the one more anniversary and one more Valentine’s Day she prayed for. And now she is bravely facing a scary new world without her best friend, lover, husband, father to her children and friend to all whose lives he entered.

But she is most definitely not alone. Even if she didn’t have her precious children and grandchildren and loyal friends, she has a God that promised to never leave or forsake her. This is not a promise of no grief or sorrow or pain or suffering but it IS a promise of enduring comfort to get her through the darkest nights.

She has known great loss in this life as a car accident claimed her only mother and only sister over twelve years ago. She always asked me, it’s all about my response right? My children are watching for my response to all this. Will I let my sovereign Lord comfort me and grow my faith or will I crumble into a heaping mess? She chose the former. And I know she will this time too.

She may not appear to be strong tomorrow, or next week, or next month or even next year but underneath the sorrow and the loneliness will be a woman of great faith and strength, confidently forging a new path because she doesn’t have any other choice now. And I will endeavour to be there by her side, to hold her up and to learn from her example because she is my huckleberry friend.

Interesting trivia. It was exactly one year ago today that I embarked on this blogging journey. An entire year. I have posted over 200 times with 120 of those posts being actual written blog posts. It’s not easy coming up with topics sometimes. But I committed to writing at least once a week and I’ve managed over two. Upward and onward.

Unfortunately my WordPress blog isn’t exactly user friendly and many of my close friends and family aren’t even following or reading what I write. It’s sad, for me. I have exactly 21 email followers (meaning they will get an email every time I post something new). They may be regretting that now. I hope not.

I’ve been planning on getting to the bottom of why my blog isn’t user friendly. A couple of friends said they tried to sign up but they couldn’t come up with an acceptable password and so finally they gave up. My blog is linked to Facebook so if one happens to be on Facebook and is my friend then they might see my most recent post and be able to access the link there. Anyway, this is all, pretty boring, I know. My plan, all along, has been to fix this problem.

I still have a lot of work to do. To refine my blog. To energize it. To grow it. To make it look the way I want it to. I want it to be a place of inspiration. A place of creativity. A place of comfort and a sense of home (or that ‘me too’ connection.) I want to use it to pass along great ideas. Solutions. Humour. Fun. Encouragement. I want my blog to be edifying and useful. And sometimes just a little bit of silly. Or even an escape.

I know along with greater readership…say, 30 of you… lol, comes responsibility. The more folks that follow and read my blog, the more I’ll be open to criticism so maybe it’s been good that my growth has been limited to a select few this past year while I’ve gotten my feet wet. Comments have been few and far between. Often I have asked myself, am I wasting my time? But I know the answer to that question, a resounding no! This blog has got me writing and thinking and writing and doing, and writing and praying, writing and living. It’s been a place for me to get it out there and share life, even if only with 21 people.

Did you know that I can see how many people view my posts and from what countries they are viewing them from? That is always interesting as I wonder, who, in China, is reading my blog?

All this to say, please join me on another years journey. I’m going to make a lot of changes AND have an idea for a different focus. Stay tuned. Because I am definitely sharing this plan with you. AND I can’t wait to get started.

Those that fraternize with me regularly may have noticed my eating habits have gone rogue lately, resulting in increased girth. Not just my eating but the poor sleep habits I have adopted since last April and the all too sedentary lifestyle. I go in spurts. I actually truly enjoy working out but I’m a procrastinator. If it doesn’t happen by 11:00 am then it’s not happening. But I rarely get to exercising before 11:00 because I sleep in too late as a result of going to bed too late as a result of …well I really haven’t pinned down the reason for that yet. But the later I’m up, the more snacks I look for and injest. What came first? The chicken or the egg. Well it doesn’t really matter because I ate them both.

I’m not getting on the scale as I don’t want you to read in the morning news…women stabs fork in her eye after scale read out says “one at at time please”. A friend once told me that she, personally, never gets on the scale and has no idea what that accusing or praising number is, therefore , her self worth is not tied to any particular weight read out. (She even makes the doctor keep her weight a secret as she fills out my friends medical history). I like that. I’m going to adopt that philosophy. It’s not like I can’t feel my clothes getting tighter or see my double chin or realize when I’m just not feeling great and my complexion and hair look dull. These are visible signs that positive action is required. The read out on the scale would just be too much to bear. If I don’t have knowledge of that condemning number then I’m more apt to feel empowered to do something about this situation. I know this is the opposite philosophy of WW, but I failed that too. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results and I’m NOT insane.

One of my favorite authors, who loves to eat as I do, lives by a routine of feasting and fasting. She uses the word fasting the way some would use the word diet. She loves to eat and she loves to cook and she loves to gather people around the table for nourishment, community and healing. I’m am her kindred spirit. So she feasts from American Thanksgiving through to New Years and she fasts from January to June then she feasts from June to end of August and then she fasts until thanksgiving. This way she doesn’t miss out any of the great traditions around the table or her favorite foods but she keeps things in balance. Her fasting times are seasons of sparseness.

This is another philosophy that I am adopting. I think we need a break from indulgence and to push back and set boundaries around our gluttony, in all areas. I seem to go through seasons of apathy and seasons of proactivity. I take my body to the edge of the cliff and when pushing it over is the only thing left to do…I return to all the good and healthy practices that I know heal and empower. And its that time now.

I’m like an Israelite, wondering the desert for 40 years, vascilating back and forth between knowing what freedom really feels like and yearning to be back in slavery. I seem to forget the chains of slavery, although they are starting to dig into my ankles again. I start inching my way back to slavery just because there were some aspects that were comforting. Harmful but comforting. “The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:3. How soon we forget the benefits of freedom.

I have the type of metabolism and body structure that doesn’t allow me to ‘not care’ or not be attentive to my habits. I cannot let up. I have to persistently stay on top of things or I end up back in slavery. An unhappy slave that is really not comfortable at all. Not that comfort is the goal. I don’t need to be a supermodel, I just need to fit into my clothes. Lucky for me I have clothes that fit, even now, because I have been here before, but its time for my descent once again. I do not like this place (or these clothes for that matter).

All this to say, I’m taking a gentler, more reasonable approach to find my way back to health and freedom. Health is freedom and I AM finding my way back. I keep hoping this will be the time that I’ll actually make a lifelong habit change. I’m getting closer to the my life expectancy as every year goes by so the lifelong habits won’t have to last that long anymore.

Let the hunger games begin! May the scale be ever in my favour. Actually I’m not using the scale but I just wanted to say that.

It’s been a life long struggle….I know skinny won’t solve all my problems…. but rich will. Lol

Rich and skinny? Look at Melania Trump, does she look happy? I rest my case.