When Friends become Family

Sandra and Rolando's Wedding!

Thanks Jen and Dany for being a part of the family celebration!

At our table...

Mom and Dad

Jon and Mayela

Jen and Dany

Me and Scotty

On the dance floor

Mom and Uncle Roland

Jen and Roland!!!

Dany and Sandy!!!

(sorry so blurry)

And one of my favorite parts of the night, Jen and I stopped at a garage sale on the way to the reception!

Jen purchased this lovely owl.

If you look closely you can see the garage sale in the back.

Blessings

You know sometimes I forget to choose to see the wonders of the Lord. There are times when I am not tapped into Him and therefore I see none of His beauty or greatness in this world! There are times when I am so out of the loop that I don't even experience His love.

I know though that those things are a prayer away. I get so caught up with life sometimes. Not LIFE, but life (the things I "have" to do) and I get to this place where He seems so far away. But all the while He is there, His love is there, His beauty is there, His greatness is there, His magic is there (yes, His magic) I just choose to not see it or be a part of it.

Anyway, I got to thinking today about how I stress out about money. How sometimes that fear of not being able to pay our mortgage consumes me! I lose sleep, I do. But yet, we have always managed to pay our mortgage, and all our bills...ON TIME! You know how? God. His blessings. I never gave Him credit. He has always provided for us financially even when I have been unfaithful and decided to stress out about it rather than pray.

Let me give you just a few examples...

About two months ago a young boy backed into our car in a parking lot...AND BAM...his mother cut us $1,000 check! We put it into a savings account. And we plan on using it on our much needed family vacation in September. We can do that right?

Last month we were not going to be able to pay the bills with what we had in our checking account so we transfered $200 from savings to checkings. And we felt kinda bad for dipping into the savings. Couple days later I received a check in the mail for $228!!! A Check. In the Mail. For $228! From whom you ask??? From Humble ISD giving us a tax refund!!! Who would have thought? Not me.

And this month Scott and I both needed a good pair of work shoes because we were both having knee problems (we're too young to be having knee problems!) and we had worn out our current work shoes. But how can we afford to buy good work shoes for the both of us? WELL, WELL...Scott's boss went out of town for a weekend and left him in charge. He left him an envelope with an extra $100 for all the added responsibility he had to take on that weekend!

Wow. Wow.

Looking back now I can remember that just randomly the Lord would provide for us and I didn't even give Him any recognition or credit.

Like one time in the drive-thru a lady gave me a gift certificate to Sonic as a tip. This came right in the middle of a conversation I was having with a co-worker about how we have no money for food so I have to put things on the credit card.

You see people. He is there, always there, creating beautiful things, blessing us in ways we may not even see, providing for us, loving us, caring for us. It's just easier for me to complain sometimes. And when I do that, I don't see or experience all His wonders and blessings. And magic.

And beauty.

And greatness.

And magic again.

Courage and Hope

After watching the Lord of the Rings last week, I've been thinking a lot about my life.

I think about this routine I feel stuck in and the lack of adventure in my own life. But I also know that a lot of that is by choice. I chose to come home from work and turn on the TV. I make excuses for why I don't go out more and do more. For why I don't paint more or create more. Or why I don't spend more time with friends.

I think about the courage it took for Frodo to take on such an adventure and burden to return that ring to that firey pit! It is such a great story with so many obstacles, and I kept thinking as I sat through those movies about the courage that Hobbit possessed. And what was his motivation for it all?...

HOPE

At one point his friend had to remind him why he was on that journey...hope!

So I thought about my own life and where I gave up hope or decided to give in to comfort rather than be courageous. Turned out to be a pretty scary realization.

I don't go out more because I have to drive and I'm afraid of driving places because I get the slightest bit nervous about changing lanes. OR I stay at home and watch FRIENDS on DVD rather than spending time with real friends because I'm comfortable at home in my bed TAKING in FRIENDS rather than taking part and GIVING in a real friendship.

etc. etc. etc.

So I decided to start by not giving in to little fears that come my way. To choose to change the things I don't like about my life. And to pray that I will continue to have HOPE!

"Let us therefore persevere in our hope and the earnest of our righteousness, who is Jesus Christ." - Epistle of Polycarp 8

We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. Pablo Picasso

This week

This week...

I found a juicy tick on Kita!

We gave the old beard a trimmin'

you're so pretty babe

now, show me your mean face

measure it and see if it is long enough for you to donate it to locks of love!

too bad!!!

Smile!

I created a new reading spot

Picked up new reading material

And was inspired to paint...

My precious pup!

My precious kitty!

My precious babies!

Oh, and we watched all three Lord of the Rings movies!

ICED DOUBLE TALL VANILLA LATTE WITH LIGHT ICE!

Do you ever hear people at work say, "leave your personal life at home?"

First of all, a man must have come up with that saying because that's pretty much impossible for women to do!

But this story is not about men bashing or even taking your personal life to work, it's about when you bring your work home with you.

I know, I know, I don't have the most stressful job out there. Actually, I really like my job. But until you have been a barista working the busy morning shift at a drive-thru Starbucks, you will never understand what my job entails.

Seriously, during the morning rush in the drive-thru (which lasts anywhere from 3-5 hours) I interact with 35-40 customers every 30 minutes. How do I know this? Well, we are timed.

Our goal is to serve you from speaker to window in 3 minutes or less, and every thirty minutes our computers spit out these numbers of how many people we have served! Don't feel too bad for us though because I just see it as a challenge or a game and it's kinda fun.

Anyway, so that means I talk to people... A LOT OF PEOPLE, and take care of ALL their coffee/tea/pastry/breakfast sandwich/iced coffee/ frappuccino/oatmeal/starbucks card/lunch salad/smoothie/coffee for home brewin' and more needs!!! All in a very short amount of time and with a smile on my face!

Really there is so much going on that I don't even have time to think about my personal life.

So most mornings I wake up around 3:30 AM to be at the local bucks around 4:30. I set up the pastries and put them in their perfect places (where I'm told to put them by a picture provided to me by corporate which changes every so often) and at 5 oclock in the morning I strap on my drive-thru headset. Most mornings there are already people waiting for me to take their order!

As the sun starts to creep up, my drive-thru starts to pick up and pretty soon it is flooded with people needing to get their fix! But I'm no hater...on my days off, I'm right there in line with them!

Now at Starbucks we are trained to multitask. In the future if I apply for any other jobs I will most definitely mention the fact that I have mastered the art of multitasking!

For me in the drive-thru this means sometimes I am taking an order, grabbing a pastry, and waiting for a sandwich to finish cookin in the oven, and sometimes it means I talk to two people at the same time.

It is not uncommon for me to be handing out an order at the window whilst someone at the speaker is telling me their order in my ear. And of course you have to be mostly present in both of those interactions and be nice and friendly so these people will leave happy and hopefully come back tomorrow and the next day so I can continue to get paid and have health insurance.

[exhale]

And you can pretty much guess that most orders don't go like this, "I'd like a tall coffee black please, and that's it."

No, oh no, most go something like this, "I'd like a venti white chocolate mocha quad shot nonfat milk very little whipped cream extra hot at one eighty degrees double cupped and oh, um... I also want something to eat, what's good?"

Yep.

ALL THIS TO SAY that I had a nightmare today while I was napping.

It went something like this...

Scott and I went out of town to a bed and breakfast in the country to get away. We were enjoying a romantic dinner just the two of us and I got up to go get myself a cup of coffee. As I got up from the table I asked Scott what he would like and he gives me his order..."GRANDE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO" please.

Suddenly the whole dinning room was looking at me and shouting at me their coffee orders!!!! "ICED DOUBLE TALL VANILLA LATTE WITH LIGHT ICE" shouts one lady from the corner of the room. "VENTI VANILLA MOCHA WITH ONLY TWO PUMPS MOCHA FIVE SHOTS NONFAT AND EXTRA WHIP" yells a guy from the table next to ours!

And then out of no where, I am wearing a head set!!! AND PEOPLE ARE ON THERE TELLING ME THEIR ORDERS!!!

Wow, wow! Two people start telling me their orders at the same time, one guy over the headset, and another in the dinning room. I start to panic!!! I start to sweat!! And then I almost start to cry! My face wrinkles up and I get those big pouty lips...and then I hear this chime, a sweet soft chime... and I wake up... to a text message from my hubby...telling me he is bored at his work!!!

True story folks, all true.

Anyway, somehow I've got to figure out how to leave my work AT WORK!

Our Newest Heavy Trash TREASURE

And it works!

Things I've Painted

I love to paint! Not so much walls or baseboards, but rather furniture and on canvas when I get the time and opportunity.

So here are a few things I have painted the past few weeks...

A table I found in the trash

Previously brown...

Now antique white!

A desk my parents gave me for my arts and crafts room.

Started off brown...

And decided to go with Purple to brighten things up!

Then Sassafrass kept begging me to paint her litter box, sooooo...

I went with Red!

And people who know me know I am obsessed with Picasso.

I especially love all his paintings of the women in his life.

I also really love iconography, paintings of saints and the Virgin Mary.

With that I painted Marry Mary