002 : Sad goodbyes, church, and knitting a sweater.

Today, father's day, has been bittersweet for me. I really feel like my life is a metaphorical airport terminal. People and things always coming and going- some heading off to reach their destination, the others simply headed to be laid over somewhere else, and the select few that have found their destination with me.
Starting off, last night was my last night at Janie + Jack. I finally got a full time job so I don't need a second job anymore. Plus, I got a little one night a week moonlighting job at a gym so I could have a free membership. I learned while I was there that essentially, one of my bridesmaids who also works there is writing me off because a fellow employee lied about me to hurt our friendship and she believed it. Now, for some history on the situation, this girl has been a friend of mine for a very long time. Despite her tendency to keeping drama stirred up around me, I have been loyal to her. She is very kind, but has a few bad habits that are beginning to consume all areas of life: she is heavily medicated for her emotions, but still drinks them away almost every single night. head meds + alcohol = baaaad mix. Because of this, she tends to be paranoid and generally expects the worst of people, and in the back of my mind I always worried about having her as a close friend because I was scared of what would happen if I ended up on her bad side. I've seen her accuse a two employees of theft, another employee of drug abuse, and yet another employee of being lazy and abusing company property- all without adequate proof of what was going on... And she attacked each of them to the death. She simply wouldn't leave the situation alone until she had run each of them off or emotionally beaten them into submission. Unfortunately though, I think she has finally fallen off of the deep end. She has been digging at her husband, digging at her employees, and has essentially given everyone around herself the shaft with the exception of her drinking buddies and one girl from the store that plays into her drama. The only thing about it, though, is that all of this is recent. She had become a big sister to me. I really love her. The thing is, I feel like I have to wash my hands of the situation because myself and others have tried discussing with her the fact that she needs to slow down and smell the roses and get some help. Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally got what I guessed would eventually come to me, and without just cause. It started when I turned in my notice. She was flying off the handle over something rediculous that she had caused herself, had found out that another girl from the store was moving out of state, and that I was leaving all in the same day. Normally I would be just a little sensitive because if someone was having a crisis of the grevity that she was, I would give it a day. But when she has a crisis every single day on a good day, I really just stopped treating them with the kit gloves I did in the past. Ever since then, she has completely given me the cold shoulder. She changed the schedule on me at the last minute and never let me know, so I pulled a no-show and didn't even know it... And I got written up for it. The next day, she calls me two days later yelling at me and being really ugly about it, then telling me it's okay because she was able to give the hours to my replacement. Well excuse me. Then, she proceeds to tell me where I can put it if I don't show up on saturday. When have I ever not shown up for a shift? This tells me she's been speculating about my whereabouts because when she acts like that, it means that someone somewhere has put the thought in her mind that I had planned my no-show and had planned another one. Ontop of that, she tells me that the reason she wants me to work on saturday so bad is because she'll have to work if I don't show up, and she didn't want to have to work both saturday and sunday. Let me just say, for the record, that I have worked almost 20 days back to back for her. Some weekends, it was because she took me for granted because I'm a friend. The others was "I knew you would understand. I really just want t go (insert something stupid here)". Let me also point out that my fiancee that I've been at odds with for the past two weeks (partially because I've been taking this woman's relationship advice) was leaving today to spend a week in PA. She wouldn't have worked. So I'm just going to let her move along with her paranoia and left-field assumptions and let sleeping dogs lie. Saturday was my last day and she can seriously stick it where the sun don't shine.
As she is moving her way out of my life, I have a whole new throng of people working their way in. I started my new job last monday and it is wonderful. For the first time in seriously, years, I work somewhere positive and upbeat. I'm making friends -both my age (finally!!) and much older-, meeting great people, and finally gaining a church family. Today, as I mourn the loss of my dad, I gained a whole family of new people when I went to church for the first time in literally months. These people are so kind and loving, it has completely reversed how I've looked at churches in general. They just love you and don't ask any questions and it encourages me to want to learn more and become closer to God. It makes me want to be a better person and be involved. The pastor, Mark, told me when I talked to him about joining, "go ahead and get involved however you want in the church. If you have a servant's heart, find what you love and serve. Becoming a member is important but not as important as being a disciple of Christ" (paraphrased). I tell you, most people think being baptist and methodist are very similar, but being raised baptist and then now watching the inner workings of a methodist church, I see that they are like apples and oranges. Basically what I am seeing is that while the baptist doctrine is all talk, methodism is all action. The baptist doctrine says "tell everybody about your relationship with christ. But make sure it sounds good", while it seems that methodism says "Don't tell us, show us. Show us how Christ is working in your life, and be an example". Considering that the topic of witnessing has always been kind of difficult for me to deal with because I like to show people the love of Christ and not always tell them about it, it's like I've finally come home. Of course, there is always legalism and there are always those people in the church that live by their own interpretation on things like works and evangelism, but this is the attitude I'm getting from the pastoral staff, the administrative staff, even the janitorial staff. So I feel like this "out with the old, in with the new" is welcome and wonderful and a fresh change for me.
Also while mourning the loss of my father, I had to kiss my wonderful fiance goodbye for the second time in three years and watch him walk onto a plane and leave me for a week. You would never think that telling someone goodbye could be so hard! He wasn't leaving for the war, he wasn't even leaving for a complete week. But having to watch the man of my dreams check his luggage, put all of his metal stuff through the security x-ray machine, and check in was the hardest thing I've done in a while. So now I sit here all alone, contemplating on my day... and learning to knit...
Yes, knit. Like what little old grannies do for lack of anything better. I got tied in with the love & hospitality ministry at my new church and one thing they do is knit baby blankies for the new babies that are born into the church. Since I've always wanted to learn how, and tried and failed several times, I allowed myself to be recruited for osmething I have no idea how to do. But, since the main soaker-upper (I miss him....) of my time is now a time zone away, I have had the opportunity to learn. I've done pretty well for myself, I've learned to cast on and the knit stitch all in one day. By the end of the week, I'll be ready to go! I want to make Jason (my fiancee) a quilt. I love new hobbies! My life is all new things.


Out with the old, in with the new.

- Day 001 : Bogart's Eye

A few days ago, my sweet Shih-Tzu Bogart got in a scuffle with my sister's kitten. Just to give you some history on the situation, Shih-Tzu's are highly friendly, amicable dogs who enjoy the company of other people and animals - including cats. He is also very well socialized and doesn't meet a stranger and has had the good luck to only meet friendly animals... So when he encountered my sister's kitten (who was born in a barn and grew up with very little human contact until the day my sister brought her home), you can imagine what happened. Anyway to make a long story short, Bogart's got a boo-boo on his eye. The first day I was just a little concerned but it was just this little red blotch on his eye to the left of his iris... This was Wenesday. Yesterday it had cleared up to a tiny little raised red dot. Today the raised dot is gone but it looks like he burst one of those little blood vessels in his eye, or maybe that it's just irritated. I can't decide if it looks better or worse, either way it has me worried. The only consolation to me so far is that he hasn't seemed bothered by it at all... Tomorrow Jason -my fiance- and I are taking him to our vet to get down to business about everything.
Anyway... A little about myself. I was never really good at coming up with something interesting when it came to this... I always dread the first day in a new class or group setting and you have to go through the perfunctory "tell us something about yourself" speal. I mean it seems to me that the people who have an immediate answer usually come up with something shallow that only covers the surface of who they are, or maybe isn't even them. Perhaps it is who they want to be. Then you have the people who are reluctant to say anything. I usually fall in that catergory. I'm not typically the wallflower-please-don't-notice-me type, but I absolutely cringe when it comes around to me. I mean how do you sum up 21 years of your life in a hobby? I guess the best way to sum me up, is that there is no way to sum me up. I never learned to try to stuff myself into one pidgeon hole, so what's the point in trying now? I have a hundred thousand different facets to my personality and I'm only beginning to learn about them. The one thing I have known about myself throughout my entire life is this: I am a woman of contradictions. I'm an artist, but painfully pragmatic. I'm in touch with my feminine side moreso than a lot of the girls in my neck of the woods, but I have a no-frills, no-froufrou approach to life and my relationships with others. I have a servant's heart, but struggle with having a selfish nature. I am a notorious planner, but I don't know where my life is going- with the exception that I am marrying the man of my dreams next year. I love art, music, writing, reading, languages, but I'm not much of an intellectual. I love spending time with my fiance and my dog, and I kind of have a problem with allowing friends into my world. They just kind of hang around the outskirts and are more like spectators. I don't really know how to pursue people. Maybe this blog is going to help me see into myself because I feel like I am this whole world I have yet to discover.