Month: October 2017

Howdy folks,

Well, today is the last day of my sabbatical. Last week I served with Love & Care Ministries in their kitchen, food pantry, & on the streets feeding those in need in Abilene. Working with L&C was certainly a rewarding experience! I was incredibly impressed how swiftly folks were served & how the kitchen always seemed to be tidy even during service. Of course, the people who work there are remarkable, Christ-like individuals who I respect a great deal for the work they are doing. I am happy that I spent my service week with L&C.

Over the weekend I have been resting & mentally preparing myself for my return to work. I also got a haircut so that y’all would be able to recognize me. Not to mention, I was able to watch so many baseball & football games I don’t think I could count them if I tried (GO ASTROS). Additionally, I deep cleaned my apartment which was much needed!

Anyway, thank you all for keeping up with my adventures throughout my sabbatical. I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful experience. What a blessing this time has been!

I will see you all in the morning,

Alec

It’s about two weeks until I start my sabbatical, and my mind is flooded with thoughts on how to make the most of it. Coming off of this Harvey flooding disaster, I guess the timing couldn’t be any better for a break. I’m thinking a lot about avoiding wasted time. A nap is not wasted time, right?

For the last few weeks I have been planning time with each member of my immediate family. A weekend away with my bride, a fishing trip with my number one son, a Casting Crowns concert with my daughter, a day trip with my mom and taking my youngest son to play in the woods. Also, there are several good friends that are going to get calls for lunch so we can catch up.

I’ve arranged to help our pastors visit home-bound and hospitalized church members, and volunteer at the Brazoria County Gathering Place, which has activity-based socials for people with Alzheimer’s and related disorders. I pray that God will help me bring some joy and comfort to people.
I also bought a new book to read entitled “How To Disciple Men”. Our “Blast and Cast Men’s Ministries” executive director contributed a chapter, so I had to check it out.

Sorry to end abruptly, but prospecting hour has arrived!

I spent the last week working in the Mission Mart.  It is the resale shop for the Grant County Rescue Mission.  The Mission is just like that organization in your town that provides service to “the least of these”: Shelter, food, and a chance to survive, sprinkled with the Hope, and held together by the love of He who holds us all in the palm of His hand.

So, people donate stuff (that is the kindest word I can use to describe it) to the Mission.  The Mission uses volunteers and some paid folks (usually residents of the mission) to sort through the donations.  Unfortunately, much of what is given is garbage.  It goes to the dumpster.  Things that can be sold are priced and taken to the floor or stored for such a time as they are needed there.  Clothing that is too used or dated (or too dirty!  Do you suppose if the belt is still in the pants, they were washed before being stuffed into that plastic bag?) to be sold is placed into huge bales.  It is sold, by the pound, and somehow transported to Africa.  Metal products that cannot be sold on the floor is saved and sold for scrap.  This way, even things that are completely unsuitable can be valuable.

In theory, this should all happen seamlessly.  Donations should be processed within 24 hours of reception.  Unfortunately, it has not been working this way. Stuff is piled everywhere in the intake area.  Bags and boxes of clothing are everywhere.  Stacks of books fill the space.  To make matters worse, the store they have in a neighboring community is switching from its normal format to be a Christmas Store.  All their non-Christmas stock is being funneled into this space.

My plan is to come in and whip the reception area into shape.  To do this we need to process what is in the area, and come up with a plan to make sure that we are not over-run, again.  I had planned to be back earlier the week before to line up volunteers, but if you read my last blog, you know that did not happen.  At any rate, I show up at 9 AM Monday morning.  I am pleasantly surprised to greet 3 additional volunteers from my church in the next 15 minutes.

To say that sorting through the things people give to the mission is humbling would be an understatement.  To speak, out-loud, some of the things I touched in the last week, would be worse.  At any rate, we cannot formulate any kind of plan until the mountain of donations is sorted, so that is where we begin.  The primary component of the pile is clothing.  The clothing needs to be sorted.  Things that could be sold need to be folded and placed into tubs to be priced.  The clothing that is not suitable for re-sale in the store goes into bins.  From the bins, it goes into the baler.  Tim, a resident of the mission, mans the baler.  When he has a sufficient quantity of clothes, they are compressed, bundled together, and a fork lift moves it to the stack of bales across the room.  When there are enough bales, they load them into a truck, off they go to Africa, and the Mission gets the money it needs to keep operating.

Monday comes and goes.  We have one bale which has been moved, and we are about 2/3 of the way into making bale number two.  Time to go home and shower.

Tuesday….no volunteers but me, today, and Houston (or Abilene) we have a problem.  The fork lift is broken.  No fork lift means they cannot move the bales.  Oh well, it will get fixed, so I keep on sortin’.  I have filled the bin by quitting time, so tomorrow it will get baled.

Wednesday….still, no forklift, and the powers that be have decided that some of the old storage methods are unsuitable.  They need to be torn down.  This means we have to shuffle.  Space is a valuable asset, and we don’t have much of it here.  I feel like we are doing one of those puzzles where you keep sliding the pieces, so you can move the piece you want into the space you want.  My mother in law shows up to help.  My pile of clothes to be baled is ever increasing.

Thursday….Rumors of fork lift and fork lift repair are rampant!  But no, it still does not work.  Interestingly enough, I have been fighting the urge, all week, to take this matter into my hands.  I am sure that I could find someone to get it fixed.  I am also pretty confident that I could raise the money to get it repaired or find a new-used one.  But I have been reading this book on humility and the previous two weeks showed me that I don’t get to plan or fix everything.  This battle is not mine to fight. I am a volunteer.  My job has gone from planning the future, making sure this backlog of donations never happens again, to catching up from the past.  All I need to do here is keep sorting.  Today, I have two volunteers who have come to help me.

My goal was to have this area sparkling by the end of the week.  Everything in its place and a place for everything.  Here is the reality on Friday afternoon.  There is a pile of clothing waiting to be baled.  And by pile, I mean pile.  It easily stretches 10 foot square.  It easily stands 5 feet tall.  We are probably 75% sorted.  The fork lift is still broken, and I think the place looks no better than it did when I walked in on Monday.  As I prepare to leave, someone else shows up with donations!  I am defeated.

Lori, Sasha and Betty, the ladies who run the store, on the other hand, are elated.  They cannot believe what has gotten accomplished.  They expected us to get done about 1/3 of what we did.  They tell me the fork lift will get fixed, the Lord always provides.  Tim, the baler dude, about talks my leg off now, and at the beginning of the week, we barely spoke.

I guess I do not get to decide what success is.  I just get to help.  And, I vow to stop making plans, or at least, I plan to!

As my sabbatical continues I realize how great it has been to have so much free time and to be able to use that time to bond and help others. This past weekend was busy, exciting and oh so tiring!

The weekend started off as I volunteered for the Muckfest event hosted by the MS society. It is a massive mud run similar to that of the mud run put on in Abilene for AYSA. The day for it was cold starting at 8 am at 40 degrees and ending around 4 at 50 degrees. Thankfully as bad as that sounds I was running around enough to be glad it was that cold. At the event, I was given the job as special ops captain so I would be dragged all over the event to help in areas as needed. The best part about that role was being able to talk and interact with so many people as the day went on.

Also, this weekend was my mother’s 60th birthday party. My sisters and I got together to surprise her and we all came up to take her out to dinner. Somehow she didn’t remember I was coming up after the muckfest to pick up stuff that was left there from the wedding. So it ended up being an amazing surprise when she saw all three of us arrive without any warning. It was great to hang out with my mother and family again and eat dinner together just like when we were all little.

Throughout my time with FD I have been fortunate enough to develop relationships with customers that extend beyond a business relationship. As a Select Producer I worked with Niedhard Minges Funeral Home in Cincinnati. One of their funeral directors is John Wiessmann. John and I have become good friends over the years. We both share common interest and hobbies like deer hunting, camping, sporting clays and the outdoors in general.

One of my hobbies that John began to take interest in is Taxidermy. Over the years I have mounted my own whitetail deer as well as close friends of mine. Last December, John contacted me to asked me if I would mount his deer and teach him how to do it. I quickly said yes and was very excited to pass this skill along. We both have had very busy schedules and have not been able to connect to complete the mount until now.

I have always enjoyed teaching someone something that they show great interest in and watch their skills develop. Some of my most fond memories as an at-need director was taking in mortuary school students that have never seen an embalming and train them on the process and the science behind it all. Over the weeks, I would watch their skills develop to the point they were embalming and I was just over seeing.

John came over on Thursday and we spent the day together mounting his deer. I am so grateful to have been able to spend this time with my friend and help him complete his whitetail deer mount! (The foam pieces and the pins in the images below are only there to keep everything in place while the glue dries. Once the glue is dried the pins and foam pieces will be removed.)

I would like to say thank you to Kris, the Board and my FDLIC family for giving me this opportunity/blessing to spend a week with my parents.  A special thanks to two of my sister who have been care givers for my parents for the last four years after my mom had a heart attack and now suffers with dementia.  Dad also suffers from lupus.  There have been many difficult days, but my parents are fighters.

Surprise!  Surprise!  I did not tell my parents that I would be coming to stay a week with them.  I rang their doorbell last Sunday morning and stepped in with my luggage.  Guess who is here for a week?   Dad gave me a big grin, mom ask the question, “what about Leonard?”  I assured her he would be okay.  Next question, “what about work?”  I assured her it had been okayed all the way to the top.  Her next reply was, “well I need to talk to him(Kris).”  I do not know about what nor did I inquire further.  She was in a debate with one of my sisters about finishing her breakfast before Church.  She asked me are you with them or me.  I took the fifth and kept my mouth shut.  I was thinking to myself this is going to be a challenging week.

I went to my old bedroom which I had not slept in for some 40 years.  On the bed was a note that said, “Good Luck!”  The other sister handed me a daily routine schedule.  This consist of taking vitals before breakfast, taking medications, encouraging activities during the day (puzzles, games, etc.), lunch and more medication, nap time @ 1:30, vitals again @ dinner and more medicine, daily walking & visiting around 6:00 pm and showers starting @ 7:30(that is for everybody).   Monday & Thursday are laundry days.  Wednesday & Sunday are Church days.  It was a great schedule, but I ran into two road blocks.  First, both of them got a cold (Doctor appointments).  It threw them all off schedule and me as well.  Second, Dad usually cooks breakfast and my sister cooks lunch and supper.  I became the fulltime cook for all meals.  Those of you know I only have a kitchen in the home because it came with the house.  I not only did all the cooking, but my mom, dad & one of our guest complimented me on the meal one night.

Dad and I would start the day by watching the sunrise.  It was our one on one time to talk about Church, family, sports (LA Dodgers to be exact), politics and solved the jumble word puzzle for the day.  Mom usually joined us around 9.  She can be stubborn, but I am too.  Our activities included word games, cards and her favorite, dominoes.  The key was to keep her busy otherwise she would sleep the day away.  I got my walking papers on Wednesday, but told her politely thanks, but no thanks.  She decided to let me stay.

When I married Leonard 43 years ago, my mom told him she had a no return policy.  Dad and her wanted to keep me by the end of the week.  Words can not describe the memories of this past week.  My prayers go out to all care givers.  It is a ministry that requires patience, more patience, dedication and love.  My parents have always been independent and now my Dad says he humbly swallows his pride and let us help.  They are both fragile and I thank God we still have them.  I left today (Sunday) sad faces with one of them being mines.  Precious memories, how they linger, how they will ever flood my soul.  Thank God for two great parents.

These days have been very quiet and uneventful. Although I made plans to volunteer at a nursing home for a couple of days, there were conflicts that did not allow me to offer my time.  It just did not work out.  So I went another direction.  

Proverbs 19:21Amplified Bible (AMP)

This is the second day of my sabbatical, and I am finding it to be both spiritually and physically healing, not to mention mentally.  Last week I had to have knee surgery, so I am starting out at a turtle’s pace.  I have already started exercises.  Tomorrow I get my stitches out, and hopefully get rid of these crutches.  Although pain medication and I do not get along, I found it to be a necessary component for this part of the process.  So I apologize for not writing this yesterday.  I just needed a little time to clear my head.

Last night I began reading the book “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”.  Of course, this book is about the life and trials of the only begotten Son of God, recorded at John 3:16.  For those who do not believe in God, or his inspired word the Bible, it gives historical facts that Jesus existed.  In the book, Napoleon Bonaparte is reported to have said: “Jesus Christ has influenced and commanded His subjects without His visible bodily presence.”  What a powerful statement!

Before I sign off, I wanted to thank all those responsible at FDLIC for making this sabbatical possible.  I can not count the number of people in the Funeral Homes that I represent, that expressed their wish to work for a company that shows their appreciation in such a way.

Jas 2:26  Indeed, just as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.  Through their actions, FDLIC shows how they value their employees.

Thank you so very much!

Debra Self

I cant believe that 3 weeks have already flown by.  The first two weeks of sabbatical were a little busy with weddings and volunteering so it was really nice to have very little planned going into week 3. I started reading “The Shack” this week and am loving it.  This book has been on my list of books to read for sometime now and I am really enjoying finally getting a chance to read it.  I am hoping to finish it by the end of the week.  I’ve also used this time to get back into running seriously. I figured now that the weather is getting cooler, it is about time I start getting serious again and start training for my next half marathon.  The goal is to be ready to run the Cowtown Half Marathon at the end of February!

Along with lots of relaxing this week, I did have a bit of fun last Saturday.  I was asked to come back to McMurry to be a guest speaker for their LEAP leadership conference.  The conference was held for students that are currently at McMurry. 18 alumni in various degree fields came together to talk to the students about their journey since graduating from McMurry as well as provide any advice we wish we had known before entering the “real world”.  I was 1 of 4 alum representing the Computer Science department.  2 of the guys graduated before I came to McMurry so it was great to meet them and hear about what they are doing now.  The other alum and I graduated in 2015 together so it was really great catching up with him! I probably would never have talked to him again otherwise, so that was cool.  I have only been out of college for a little over 2 years, so it was a little strange sitting across from students so eager to hear what we had to say. Wasnt I just in your seat?!  I met a lot of really great students and by the end of the day I really felt like I might have provided some pretty good advice.  I was also given the opportunity to talk up FD which is always fun.  I did not know FDLIC existed until one of my professors gave me the information for the summer apprenticeship. Only 1 or 2 of the 50 something students in that seminar room had ever heard of FDLIC, so I took the opportunity to give them my version of who FDLIC is and the opportunities available to them through us.  I’m no recruiter, but I was able to speak from personal experience about what a wonderful place I have the opportunity to work for. I am hoping to see a little more participation from McMurry when apprenticeship and internship application come around in all departments!

After talking about my job and coding all day Saturday, I really am excited to get back into the swing of things!  I’m looking forward to spending this last week relaxing and finishing up a few small things around the house so that everything will be ready to go come Wednesday. Until next time! 🙂

I was still and He knew. My meditation was exactly what I needed to get my sabbatical underway. I spent my time reflecting on where I am. Not just in my life but with my relationship with God. I needed this time to listen with no distractions. I can now focus on the areas in my life which need strengthening. My relationship with God needs to come first. Sounds easy enough to say but I need to live it. I need to spend less time worrying about trivial everyday ‘issues’ and focus on if what I am doing right now is what God wants me to do.

Day 23 – Thursday, October 5th

Jonas did great on our two flights to Tampa to visit my brother and sister-in-law. Jordan, my brother, was still on a business trip to Finland, so we drove to Daytona Beach to enjoy the Atlantic coast for a few days. 

Day 24 – Friday, October 4th

We planned to go to the beach on Thursday, but a recent storm (just a storm, not Hurricane Irma) created rough waters and washed up lots of debris. Our AirBNB host recommended the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, which is the tallest lighthouse in Florida, and we had a great day adventuring. Visiting the Lighthouse Museum definitely made me appreciate the hard work of past generations.

Day 25 – Saturday, October 7th

Thankfully, the beach was open on Saturday or I would have had an upset little boy and an unhappy husband on my hands. We all had a great time playing in the sand, swimming, and surfing. It was wonderful to enjoy the day together.

Day 26 – Sunday, October 8th

On Sunday, we drove up the coast to St. Augustine and visited the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoo, which has an exhibit that contains every species of crocodilian in the whole world. AND since we’re members of the Abilene Zoo, our admission was half off!

After we enjoyed the zoo, we got some ice cream and drove back across the state to meet Jordan and Kim for dinner. We hadn’t seen them since last Christmas so it was fantastic to spend a few days with them.

Day 27 – Monday, October 9th

Kim had to work, but Jordan was able to take off to hang out with us for a couple of days. We met Kim for lunch and then went to the Florida Aquarium, also half-off with our Abilene Zoo membership. We also took the Wild Dolphin Cruise into Tampa Bay and a young male dolphin swam right up to the boat! My phone went dead, so Jordan let me use his to take pictures, but I only have a few of the files. 

Day 28 – Tuesday, October 9th

On Tuesday, we just hung out at Jordan and Kim’s house. Kim cooked a delicious dinner and then we watched some Netflix after Dave and I packed up to head home. It was nice to just spend time with them and talk.

Day 29 – Wednesday, October 10th

We flew safely back to Abilene and my parents picked us up and took us to dinner. It was nice to sleep in my own bed after a lovely vacation. 

Day 30– Thursday, October 11th

My sister was very kind to house-sit for us while we were away and I am very thankful that our toilet didn’t break on her. It waited until the night we got back! It’s an old model from the 50s and a metal piece rusted through. I am so so blessed to have my dad in town! He fixed the toilet for us while I had a relaxing last day on the couch. This sabbatical was such an rewarding experience! Thank you, Kris, and FD for being such a blessing!

Hola Amigos,

Over the last couple weeks I have made my way back to Texas, attended ACL Fest, and enjoyed some quality time with my parents & my grandparents in San Antonio & Laredo respectively.

The drive back to Texas from Los Angeles was beautiful. I was excited about the road trip before I left, but I couldn’t have foreseen the beauty I would experience along the way. From the peaks in CO to the canyons in AZ, I was stunned by the colors the Earth revealed to me. I have never been so mesmerized like I was while driving through the California desert. The mountains & the desert seemed to stretch on forever to me. Although my two shortest days of driving (8 & 9 hrs.) were through the desert, those days seemed to be the most exhausting to me when compared to the my 13 hr. trip on Sat, Sep. 30 through West TX -> CO. Anyway, the interstate trip was a grand success & quite enjoyable. By the Grace of God, I made it round trip with zero car trouble or severe traffic incidents.

I spent the weekend of Oct. 13-15 in ATX at Austin City Limits Music Festival. This was my fourth year in a row to attend (survive) the affair. This year was especially cool because one of my friend’s birthdays was on the 14th which was the day we were able to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers (his favorite band).  I too enjoyed their set not only because I love their music, but also because their bassist (Flea) provided a positive message of compassion & kindness towards one another. I felt as if this was appropriate considering the losses suffered in Las Vegas which revolved around live music. Upon concluding their set, the lead singer (Anthony Kiedis) exclaimed, “Thanks for keeping the company!” Those simple words rang so true to me at the time & still do. This entire sabbatical I have been focusing on spending quality time with family that I am not always so fortunate to see. I have been able to share & enjoy the company of those I love throughout my trip so for me, “Thanks for keeping the company” is almost like the motto for my sabbatical road trip. I am immeasurably thankful for this time as it has certainly been spent with good company.

Last week I spent my time in Laredo catching up with my grandparents & learning my grandmother’s top secret borracho bean recipe. My grandfather has become more & more frail the past two years so the time spent with him & my grandmother was really important to me. Additionally, I was able to stop in SA to bum & mooch off my parents! They were pleased to see that I was still in one piece after my weeks on the road.  I finally arrived back in Abilene on Saturday, Oct. 21 in time to celebrate ACU homecoming & visit with some beloved friends. As I write this, I am decompressing from my first community service day at Love & Care Ministries! The folks there are so kind. Not to mention, they have their meal services down to a science. Everything is so clean! I was quite impressed. I am looking forward to the remainder of my week there.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, I’ll keep y’all posted!

Peace,

Al

It has been a crazy busy start to my sabbatical so far so I apologize for the late first post. First to recap the first part of my sabbatical.

Week 1

The first week was spent preparing for my wedding. I feel like being off work during that time allowed me a crash course in marriage. As Chelsea took advantage of my free time to run an endless amount of errands and prep work. Now I don’t want to take much credit and seem like a did a lot because, in reality, it was Chelsea that made it run smoothly. My “errands” were more of go pick this up or be at X spot at X time. However, during this time we were able to grow a lot closer together and ensure everything went as smoothly as possible.

Additionally, we got to see a lot of family members and friends that we haven’t seen or talked to in a while. So that was nice to catch up with everyone from high school friends to some of mine and Chelsea’s distant relatives some of which I have never personally met.

Week 2

The second week was a lot more relaxing and stressfree. With the biggest event planned for my sabbatical done and out of the way, we were able to finally relax some. This week we were able to enjoy our honeymoon. We took a cruise out of Galveston and visited both Cozumel and Progresso. It was a lot of fun spending all the time alone together and learning a lot about each other. We each forced the other to try and do thing out of the normal. For example, Chelsea is a picky eater so I forced her to try some different foods while we were on the ship. While she forced me to just relax and sit since when I’m on vacation I like to be doing something the entire time, like going to a show or swimming but always something. However a few times she forced me to just sit with her and we would lay out on the deck of the ship.

Schedule

For the next few days, I’ll be home relaxing and beginning to read the books I have chosen. I will also be going home to visit my family for my mother’s birthday and to see my sisters and nephew. The only other thing I have planned for this week is I will be up in Dallas to volunteer at the MS Muckfest. I will be sure to write about everything that goes on as they happen.

I have spent a lot of time planning for this sabbatical.  I have planned it to coincide perfectly with my 25^th wedding anniversary which is October 10.  I plan on leaving immediately following my conclave.  I am in fact, scheduled to meet Amy at the airport.  We are going to take a 7 night cruise from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and go to 5 islands to where we have never been.  We are going to spend a couple extra nights in San Juan, then I will return and line-up some folks to help me, as I work in the Grant County Rescue Mission’s resale shop.  The area where they accept donations is in a mess, and they need to get it organized.

We had my send off at conclave.  Kris prayed that I would get the sabbatical I needed, and not the sabbatical I wanted.  Well, there go my plans.  I couple of little things like Irma and Maria have severely messed things up.  The cruise line refused to cancel our cruise, which means the insurance will not kick in.  Our flight to Puerto Rico is still going.  Our hotels for the night before and a couple of nights after have closed and cancelled our reservations.  We cannot book an earlier flight home, as they are all filled with the folks who are trying to flee the island.  I won’t bore you with all the details, let’s just say we used the opportunity to “make lemonade when life hands you lemons” and spent more time on the cruise ship than we originally intended.

While we were on the cruise, we had the opportunity to meet a nice older couple.  One minute, I am looking at the steam coming out of the volcano on Montserrat, and the next, Phil (my new friend) is telling me he has Parkinson’s Disease.  He also tells me he knows exactly what this means for him.  As I am standing there talking with him, a young couple with a baby take my seat.  As I am supposed to be doing “deep thinking” on this sabbatical, I cannot help but stand there and be amazed.  In the presence of all this beauty, there is destruction lurking just under the surface.  There is an active volcano about 25 miles from me.  It made half of its island uninhabitable and forced 2/3 of its population to flee since 1995.  I also marvel at the speed of life.  It takes so little time to get from that young guy, holding his baby, to Phil, trying to make every moment count, while he is still able.

In all the other blogs I have read, lots of people say they can’t get used to the concept of not working.  Well then, take my advice….strand yourself in the middle of the ocean with no cell phone and very limited internet connection for an extended period of time.  It becomes pretty easy!  No desire to go to work here, and no ability to do so if I wanted!!!!

So, the extended cruise goes well, we have a great anniversary, and got in and out of Puerto Rico without “too much” trouble.  I do not, however, recommend vacationing in a disaster area.

Week one started at a campground in southwestern Ohio called Stonelick State Park.

Stonelick is a campground that Whitney and I have been going to for over a year. A couple things that we love about this campground is that it is small for a state park, and it is very quiet and relaxing. There are acres of Hiking trains and public hunting open to Squirrel and Whitetail deer. There is also a lake that is open to fishing and kayaking.

Because of my love for this park I thought it would be a great opportunity to give back, so I decided to perform my volunteer work at the park while I stayed. State parks really struggle this time of year because their summer help returns to school and leaves them shorthanded. There is a lot on the to-do list before the winter months. I started out working with a gentleman named James. Some of our duties consisted of preparing the bathhouses and shower houses for the winter months as well as cleaning them.  We also picked up garbage on the hiking trails and around the campground, and ground down tree stumps with a stump grinder.

The next couple of days I worked with a gentleman named Mike. Mike was not a state employee but a Camper Host. Mike is a retired Machinist from Goshen, Ohio. His job is to complete task around the campground for a total of at least 20 hrs. a week. In return his camping is free for the entire season. This will be my retirement job one-day 😊. Mike and I spent most of our time cleaning up all the grindings from the stumps James and I had ground out the other days. It is amazing how many loads of wood chips come from one stump. Through our efforts there are still over 100 stumps left to grind thanks to emerald ash borer.

My time at stone lick was not all work. In the evenings I was able to spend time with Whitney, after she returned from work. I was also able to enjoy one of my hobbies, cooking over a fire.

This was a wonderful experience and I am very thankful to have been able to start my sabbatical at one of my favorite state parks.

This last picture was of our first trip to Stonelick in 2016.

The end of my sabbatical blessing is near, and as I write this and reflect on the past several weeks, I realize now more than ever, that I am truly blessed!  Blessed by the family and friends that I have been able to visit, blessed by the places I have been able to go and the things I have been able to do, blessed by the great health and abilities to do all of those things, and last but definitely not least, blessed by this sabbatical time given to me.  Thank You Kris & FD!

Last week I visited my parent’s again, to work on Dad’s hot-tub house, and to take my two nephews deer hunting – one of them one weekend and the other the next weekend.   Actually, since my two nephews are grown and have their own families now, it was more like Them Taking Me hunting.  It was some great one-on-one time with them, just to get to visit and chat about almost everything from hunting and fishing, to house repair, to favorite foods, to the how and why I was off work for so long (that story was the most fun to tell!).  Didn’t see one this hunting trip, but did get some good pics from the trail-cameras, so we know they are there!

Dad and I finished the hot-tub house!  Well, at least the inside.  They still haven’t decided on the colors for painting the outside, so maybe we can finished that on Thanksgiving weekend if the weather is nice.  We dropped in a couple of windows, electrical wiring, got the insulation installed, drywall installed and painted, flooring installed, and windows and doors trimmed and base-boards done!  Might sound like a lot, but its a small room, and things moved pretty quick.  Then we got the hot-tub moved into place.  Had to turn it on it’s side to go thru the doorway, and we had about one inch to spare on all sides!  Glad my measurements were accurate (for a change)!

— Added a couple of windows

—  Then the not-so-fun job of insulation

— A bit of paint and trim, and a ceiling fan !   Done!

Missing my FD peeps!  and (almost) ready to go back to the office…..

hmmm……now what did I do with FD’s address….oh well….GoogleMaps !!!

I made a new friend last week.  Her name is Carolyn.  I had the pleasure of meeting Carolyn through my mother’s co-worker, Hillary.  Carolyn is Hillary’s mother in law.

Carolyn is married with three children, 14 grandchildren, seven GREAT grandchildren, and a dachshund name Lilly.  She resides in Orange, TX and has lived in her home, that was built in 1898, for 17 years.  She is a kind, loving, providing and strong woman who has been through three hurricanes.

Two months ago, Carolyn began preparing for Hurricane Harvey, and what was predicted to be one of the most powerful hurricanes to make landfall.  We have all seen the pictures of bumper to bumper traffic of residents trying to flee the path of hurricanes, or grocery stores stripped of all water, canned goods, generators, etc. How do you prepare for something so unpredictable?

Carolyn had attempted to flee the city when Hurricane Rita hit.  She took her daughter, who at that time was undergoing chemo treatments, and headed towards Tyler, TX. After inching along the highway, she realized they would soon run out of gas.  They exited in hopes of finding a gas station with gas, but had no such luck.  Carolyn and her daughter ended up sleeping in the car, in a shopping mall parking lot. The next morning, residents of a nearby church were distributing gas to those stranded in the parking lot.  Carolyn is forever thankful for their generosity.

This time Carolyn chose to prepare with prayer.  She took precautionary measure by gathering water, food, flashlights, candles, and checked in on her family to make sure that they were prepared as well. And then they waited (Carolyn, her husband, and Lilly).

Harvey hit and it hit hard.  News coverage and social media was flooded (no pun intended) of the devastation in Houston, Beaumont and surrounding areas. Roads were rivers, rivers were lakes, and lakes became residents front yards. You couldn’t escape the rain.

Carolyn’s home took in a foot and a half of water, and she was without electricity for four days.  The water was inconvenient, but no electricity, in humid Houston…I couldn’t do it. But Carolyn did, and she did it with a smile.

Carolyn’s husband runs a small air conditioning business, and his ‘office’ is his backyard.  Three of his work vans became ‘victims’ of Harvey and his materials were scattered like confetti.  As soon as he was able he decided to get back to work. A decision that was easily made; his services would be in demand and he is the breadwinner of the home. Unfortunately, going back to work took him away from tending to his own home. This is where I knew I could make a difference.

I wasn’t exactly sure how or what I would be doing, but the opportunity to help Carolyn and her family filled my heart with joy.

While driving to Carolyn’s house, posts that I had seen on social media came to life.  Homes destroyed, roadside trash EVERYWHERE, FEMA drop offs, empty school buildings, vacated cars. It was truly heartbreaking.

I spent the next few days cleaning and organizing Carolyn’s home.  In between sifting through tools, trash, AC parts and other miscellaneous items, I could sneak in some cuddles and kisses from Stormy.  Stormy showed up at Hillary’s home during Harvey, and by ‘showed up’ I mean she was swimming in Hillary’s front yard.

This blog is already much longer than I had planned for it to be, so I will get to the point.  Amidst all the devastation that Harvey caused, it also brought about a peace.   Peace that prayer and human fortitude can weather storms; peace that volunteering can truly make someone’s day; peace that it’s unlikely I will ever have to endure what all these folks did; and peace that good can come from something bad.

Good?  From something bad?  Yes, I saw it in Carolyn’s eyes and words.  She is strong and loves God and family.  Carolyn’s home is simple by most standards but her worth is not in material things but in relationships.

My sabbatical renewed friendships.  But the friendship I made with this stranger who is now a friend brought me peace and a remembrance of what in life is truly important.

(again – I can’t figure out how to rotate these pictures.  Sorry!)

I can’t believe I’ve already been back to work for a week!

I apologize for my lack of blogs, but I’m living in the dark ages and don’t have internet at home. It felt like my sabbatical zoomed by and was only 10 days instead of 30! Once I got back to work, I could tell I’d been gone for 30 days though- ha! Thankful for my coworkers pitching in, or I wouldn’t have made it through this first week back.

To recap, I spent my first week helping where needed at the Alzheimer Association. There were an array of tasks I helped with in preparation for “The Walk to End Alzheimer’s” fundraiser. My favorites were chalking sidewalks, baking cupcakes, and counting money! I’ve since heard that the bake sale alone raised $540 for the fight against Alzheimer’s with the total so far raised for “The Walk to End Alzheimer’s” in Abilene being $103,035.50! The next 2 weeks of my sabbatical were spent traveling the Seattle area with my parents. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with my parents for 2 weeks straight, but we had an incredibly blessed trip. The weather was gorgeous, public transportation was easily navigated, sights were seen, memories made, and attitudes stayed positive! My last week of sabbatical was spend recovering from vacation and taking care of little things around the house. It was good to get back to the gym and even though I’d walked all day every day for 2 weeks with a half marathon thrown in there, my legs could tell I’d missed a few weeks of Body Pump!

I also read a couple of books which I’ll get to in another blog post. I’m not good at summarizing what I learned, so I’ll work on that this weekend. Hopefully, I can give y’all the highlights and not retype the entire book 😉

This is a test.

Last week, I had the privilege to work at Camp Able for my service project.  For those of you who don’t know, Camp Able is located in Buffalo Gap and is a equine therapy and horse rescue non-profit organization. There are over 30 horses on the property, many of which were abused or unwanted by their previous owner. Kiddos come from all over to ride these therapy horses. I will be honest, before starting my service project last week, I may have been slightly afraid of horses…  By slightly afraid, I mean pretty much petrified if I had to stand near one.  Now im sure you are thinking “Wow Alyssa, why did you pick to work at Camp Able if you are afraid of horses?”  That is definitely what both Nic and my Mom said when I told them where I would be. Last weekend also happened to be one of Camp Able’s biggest events of the year. The Night Under The Stars event was set to be a night full of great music, good food from some awesome local food trucks, and a really good time. I figured there would be plenty of stuff to do to help with the event and maybe I would only have to hang out with the horses in passing.  Let me just tell you, God had some other plans.  I went out to Camp Able bright and early Thursday morning ready to get dirty.  We were going to be doing some outside work to get the grounds ready for the event that weekend. By outside work, I helped take down an old tree that had fallen over and moved the wood to be used as firewood, took down a fence and even mucked out a horse stall! I worked along some awesome people and time went by so quickly! Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and a small van of kiddos pulls up into the driveway.  Out come these kids that are just SO EXCITED to be there! We took them up to one of the trails and helped them plant some plants in one of the troughs on the sensory trail so that other kids could see the plants as they rode by on their horse.  I had such a great time with these kids.  When we got back to the Tack Room, each one went right over to the board and figured out what horse they would be riding today.  Then, they started grabbing their saddles and with the help of the adults got ready to ride.  Now, here I am at 24, standing off to the side while these 7 and 8 year old kids are brushing and saddling these huge animals without a fear in the world.  I figured, I can at least try to not be such a chicken.  One of the ladies that volunteers at Camp Able brought me the biggest horse on the grounds (Buddy) and showed me how to brush and really just love on him.  While the kids went up the trail with the other volunteers, I stayed behind and got acquainted to Buddy. All of my fear was pretty much gone by the time the kids came back down from the trails.  I helped them put all of their equipment away and said goodbye.  That is when Carol, the volunteer that helped me brush Buddy,asked if I wanted to ride.  Again, the apprehension kicked back in.  Why am I afraid of horses to begin with?  Well, when I was about 9 or 10, I went to an overnight camp where I was put on this massive horse.  The volunteers working at the camp did not set me up quite right.  After alittle while on the trail, my horse took off running and no amount of pulling on the reins would stop him.  Someone ended up having to ride next to me and stop the horse, with me clinging to its back for dear life. That was it for my horse riding days, until last week when I decided to conquer that fear. I learned how to saddle a horse and with the help of Cary, rode Ms Annabelle up the trail and back. This really opened the door for me the rest of the week. I was so eager to be helpful and now I could actually work with the kids instead of sit back and watch. My fear was no longer going to keep me from getting to be hands on!

Friday morning, Camp Able gets buses of kids from different schools. Last Friday, we had 3 different groups ranging from 3 to 8 kids at a time.  All of these kids just beam happiness as they jump off the bus and literally run to Ms. Renee.  Although all of these kids are special needs,  you really would never know. They were just so happy and excited to be there that morning.  We got the horses saddled up and each kid on their respective horse and rode on up the trail.  I helped walk along side one of the horses for the first 2 sessions.  When the 3rd session started, we had way more kiddos than the last 2 groups and I was asked to lead one of the kids horses.  I helped lead a little boy named Aidan up the trail and down, laughing and talking with him most of the way.  At one point, he reached over and grabbed a big leaf from one of the planters I mentioned earlier. He was so proud of that leaf he showed EVERYONE on the trail and even took it back to school with him after.  At the end of the ride, we got Aiden off his horse and with a huge smile he gave me a high five.  It was so rewarding to see how happy and confident these kids were on these horses. Seeing that made helping so worth it, and if I had let my fear stop me from trying I would never have been able to witness what Camp Able truly is first hand.

Finally, Saturday was here and except for alittle wind, the weather was PERFECT!  We could not have asked for a better day.  We got everything set up and when 5 o’Clock rolled around cars started coming and the music started playing.  If you didnt have a chance to come out this year, I highly recommend planning to come next year. A few of our friends came out to the event and after helping park and other misc. tasks, we were able to sit back and enjoy the food, music and time spent with friends. This weekend was fantastic and I am so glad I was able to spend my time working with Camp Able.  I am planning on going out to help with the kids the next 2 Friday’s of my sabbatical. Hopefully, I will be able to make helping at camp able a regular occurrence. I literally went from being terrified of horses, to learning how to saddle and ride, to leading kids up and down the trail. There is no way any of that could have happened without alittle pushing from the big man upstairs.

“They say nothing lasts forever; dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.”

Carrie Bradshaw

When you look up the meaning of friend you find many definitions, one of which classifies friend as a verb which means to add (someone) to a list of contacts associated with a social networking site.  But if you dig a little deeper (into other sites), you will find definitions such as:

• Someone for whom you’re willing to change your opinions. Someone you look forward to seeing and who looks forward to seeing you. A friend is someone you like so much, you start to like the things they like.
• A fictional character from Mars.
• A person who would never intentionally hurt you, lie to you, deceive you, manipulate you, abuse you and who takes great care to be kind to you, honest with you, dependable and loyal. A friend trusts without question because they have never given you any reason not to trust them.
• Someone you enjoy being around and look forward to seeing. Someone who would sacrifice themselves for you.

Each one of these definitions holds a point (or two) of truth.  Except for the fictional character from Mars. I just found that comical; asking some of my friends to sacrifice themselves may be a little much.

How many friends do you have?  According to Facebook I have over a thousand friends; many of which are reading this blog (and please do not take this the wrong way).

During my sabbatical, I’ve had several opportunities to spend time with friends (both old, new, near and far).  And I realized –

1. I have some amazing friends.
2. In order to have friends (and keep them), it takes work. In other words, to have a friend, you must be a friend.
3. I’ve taken some of my friends for granted.

That third point is hard to admit, but all too true.

While visiting with friends, I found myself saying (too often), “Did I tell you about that one time…?” or “Remember when ‘such and such’ happened?”  Only to be reminded that I hadn’t shared such special moments with some of the most important people in my life.  How, why, when, did my life become so busy, that I didn’t take time for my friends?!

I’ll tell you how – I spend so much time focusing on things that I think are important (work, social activities, what’s for dinner, what show is on tonight), instead of things that are REALLY important (friends, family, faith).

How many times do you find yourself thinking that you know what’s going on in someone’s life only because you saw his/her Facebook status that day?  BUT, at the same time you see said person in public only to pass each other as if you haven’t the slightest clue as to who they are?!  Facebook classifies these people (and myself to others) as friends…I don’t think so.

This doesn’t mean that I’m going to ‘purge’ my social media of all the people that I don’t keep up with or speak to weekly.  It means that I have taken a step back, realized the importance of true friendship, what it means to be a real friend, and that I’m fortunate to have such wonderful friends in my life.

I may not have another consecutive 30 days off this year, next year, or in the next five years, but I do have vacation time, weekends, evenings, and holidays.  I want to use the time I do have to be more intentional when it comes to spending time with friends and family.

I think I know a lot, but this sabbatical has shown me there’s a lot more to learn, and I’m anxious, excited and ready for what’s next!

Side Note: I have realized how much I appreciate the convenience and expertise of our IT department. After multiple attempts, I gave up.  Sorry for the side-way pictures.

Sunday morning Mona and I went to Coastal Virginia Church or Cova Church where she attends.  The worship service was uplifting and there was a guest speaker that spoke about the missionary efforts to build schools around the world for the Pentecostal church.  He mentioned how God had to set certain things in place before each of the schools could be built.  For example, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the death or over throwing of several dictators in Africa and the Middle East all had to happen first.  He spoke about how they had to endure the hardship of those conditionals until God brought about the change that allowed their work to prosper and their dreams be fulfilled  He said not matter how daunting the obstacle, like the wall was, he and his group kept each other encouraged that God would make a way and that they needed to be prepared when the time came.  This went along with what Dr. Denman said about needing to encourage each other when things are not the way we feel they should be.

That evening we went to Bayside Church of Christ and Bro. Ross spoke from Acts 1:12-25.  It was the time before Pentecost but after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.  According to scriptures Judas must be replaced as one of the 12 Apostles.  The new Apostle had to be one who had been with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry and was an eye witnesses present at all His miraculous deeds.  Two men, Justus and Matthias fit the qualification and were prepared to step into the role.  They were not mentioned before this nor are they mentioned after this, but Matthias was sent out as one of the 12 to spread the gospel.  They didn’t know they would be called but they were prepared.

All three messages went hand in hand to confirm the message we were being given.

You might have heard the saying, “It’s the little things that make the biggest difference. “.

That phrase applied to me this past week as I helped Habitat For Humanity, working on the construction of a Habitat Home for a few days, and building cabinets in the cabinet-shop for a day, and also working a bit at the Habitat ReStore.

The little bit of knowledge I gained from them greatly increased my understanding of why and how Habitat works. From fund raising, acquiring properties, construction of the home, and basic cabinetry, to the purpose of the ReStore: to provide funding for the administrative side of Habitat, and to raise additional funds for a Habitat Home, if necessary, and to try to actually fund an entire home each year.

I hope that my little bit of help at Habitat will make just as big a difference in their lives, as they did in mine.  I learned so much about Habitat and the people there that they made a very big difference in the way I see them and what they do.  I plan on getting more involved with Habitat in the near future, so I can continue this learning and helping process!

What a great experience! And I am ready for more!

I titled my 1st blog “In The Beginning…”.  So sticking with the biblical theme, I’m calling this one “Revelations”.  Now before I get judged too harshly, I do know that the title of the last book of the New Testament is “Revelation” not “Revelations” (no “s”).  I just took a little creative license.  This is primarily about my experiences during my Sabbatical.

A really smart guy I know named Kris says, “It takes 30 days to form a habit”.  Truer words have never been spoken.  Man, a guy could get used to this. 🙂 Overall, I’ve had a very positive experience.  I suspected going into this that my favorite part would be delivering Meals on Wheels.  I was right.  Jennifer and I always enjoy doing volunteer work, and Meals on Wheels is an organization that is near and dear to our hearts.  I also really enjoyed reading “The Fred Factor”.  It’s my favorite of the reading I’ve done for the office.

I also really enjoyed going to San Antonio for my mom’s 85th birthday and hanging out with the family.  My mom was supposed to come home tomorrow after 6 months at my sister’s and having numerous doctors’ appointments.  Unfortunately, she took a really nasty fall Friday morning and spent the day at the hospital.  Fortunately, nothing’s broken, but she’s really banged up.  Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

As a kid growing up in the ’70s, I was a fan of rock music.  Now I’m a fan of classic rock music.  It’s the same music just 40 years older.  One of my favorite bands is Styx, and my favorite song of theirs is “Too Much Time On My Hands”.  I”m starting to get the concept.  I started my Sabbatical with a pretty healthy list of things I wanted to get accomplished.  It was awesome having the time off to take care of everything.  But after a couple of weeks, the list was pretty much done, and I found myself not feeling useful.

I started the 1st grade in 1969.  That’s right.  You heard me.  I started my 1st job June 1, 1979 less than a month after my 16th birthday.  I’ve been working or in school ever since.  That’s been the hardest part for me.  Work is what I know how to do, and I HATE feeling like someone else is having to cover for me.  I don’t even like it when it’s crunch time and you have to lean on your co-workers to get over the hump.  I’m looking forward to staring at a spreadsheet tomorrow.  Deal with it Mark Owen.

When you ask an FDLIC employee about the company atmosphere, more often than not one of the 1st words that will come up is “family”.  I miss my family, and it’s time for a big ole FDLIC family reunion.  If you’ve read any of my previous blogs you may have noticed that I ended some of them with “ciao for now” a habit I got into when I wrote friends after I moved to Abilene from San Antonio in 1979.  But since this is my last blog, I’ll just say:

See you tomorrow.

When I began this sabbatical journey, I was concerned about the amount of rest I needed to get, and how in the world am I going to sleep for eight hours! Ok, I figured it out!! I actually stressed about it a little.

Here is what I am learning: Jesus WANTS to give me rest. And He says that the way I receive rest is to be yoked with Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

When I am yoked with Him and I flow with Him, I find there is nothing heavy-hearted, ill-fitting or burdensome. Things will fall into place. I won’t be weighed down, anxious or stressed. I find that a life yoked with Him is anxiety and worry-free. Oh, and sleep comes much easier without the stress.

So, as I am flowing with Him and following His lead, I meet Karen Watts, through my friend, Cherry Bivone. Karen owns and operates a lovely clothing boutique called “Gifted Garments”. Gifted Garments ‘helps to beautifully clothe local women in need’ at no cost to them. Clothes, shoes, purses and other accessories are donated and given away! Its a lovely place!

After I interviewed her briefly, she informed me that does not take any monetary donations, just clothing. Her biggest need is getting extra large and plus size clothing.

If you have items that are at least extra large, in excellent condition, and you want to be a blessing, Karen is more than willing to accept them.

Mona and I got up bright and early to attend the Woman’s Ministry Workshop lead by Dr. Elaine Denman of TN.  There was a good crowd and we secured seats close to the front so we would not miss anything.  As the hostess welcomed us all to the event, announced the day’s agenda, speaker and topic I realized that I had the right speaker, but the wrong event. This was a one day ladies seminar not a two day workshop.  However, we were there and it sounded good so we stayed.  Dr. Denman’s topic was How Real Are You? Relationships, Encouragement, Authenticity, Love in a Fake Society.  It was amazing!  The scriptures were taken from Philippians 1:9-11, Colossians 3:1, Ephesians 1:3-14 and Hebrews 10 – 11:1-15.  She talked about how our 1st and primary goal in life is not to be successful, make lots of money, drive fancy cars, have a million Facebook friends or Tweet followers but to Serve and Glorify God by having a true and personal relationship with Him that is actively cultivated every minute of every day.

How do we do this?  By prayerfully asking God to:  (1) Bless me with every Spiritual (not worldly) blessing;  (2) Chose me to be a holy and blameless instrument for His use;  (3) Adopt me as a true daughter (or son) freely immersed in His Grace, Redeemed and Forgiven;  (4) Chose me to Be a Praise of His Glory; and (5) To be included in Christ marked and sealed with the Blood of the Lamb in the Spirit of God.  Those are some TALL PRAYERS!  Dr. Denman illustrated how the Heros of the Old Testament showed these traits even in the midst if all their mistakes and imperfections.  Hero’s like Abraham, Issac, Jacob, David, Soloman and Rehoaboam.  They were able to accomplish all they did not because they were perfect, but due to their unwavering faith.  It also showed that is was generational.  A Mother with a strong devoted life of faith has a daughter who knows God but sees faith as more of an obligation than a choice.  That daughter has a daughter who doesn’t see what all the fuss is about has not use for God.  What happened?  The Mother allowed her daughter to see her faith but didn’t instill in her the reason for her faith.  Because if that, the daughter had nothing to give the granddaughter.

The blessings we receive from God are not for our benefit.  They are to show His glory, grace and mercy in our lives.  This will attract others to have Faith in God and want to serve Him because He is Good and Worthy to be served.

I could go on and on but I think that’s enough to get the meaning.   The seminar lasted from 9 am to 3 pm with lunch provided.  Many women renewed their commitment to Christ and some had questions about living a Christian life.  It was a wonderful experience that left Mona and I strengthened and more committed to be beacons to draw others to Christ.

When first offered the opportunity to take a sabbatical, one would think you would be ecstatic.  A full 30 days, paid and I CANNOT interact with work AT ALL?! Wow…who wouldn’t be?!

Well, I can tell you that I was not.  I didn’t know what to think, or what to do.  I don’t know how to NOT work.  And honestly, the thought of reflecting on myself, my relationships, and many other aspects of my life was quite terrifying.  Work has a way of keeping one busy, so it’s easy to overlook or ignore the outside world or your inner being.  I mean think about it, you spend most of your week at an office, where you’re completing tasks, only to go home after work or on the weekend to tend to other tasks you didn’t get to during the week while at the office.  What are you supposed to do for 30 days without miscellaneous tasks, responsibilities, meetings, etc.?!

But despite my fears, anxiety, and the unknown, I chose to take a sabbatical.

I am now on week 3 of 4, and apologize for just now blogging.  Never fear, Ray – three (if not more) blogs are coming.

I mentioned that I didn’t know what I would do without work…well, it turns out that I have found plenty to do!  I will not bore you with every detail of each day, but instead I will touch on some of the memorable and unexpected moments of my sabbatical (so far).

Week One (& half of two) – traveling

During my first week of sabbatical, I chose to travel.  I figured the best way to disconnect was to disengage myself from Abilene.  If I hadn’t left Abilene, you might have seen me trolling the office parking lot.

So, on Friday, September 22^nd after saying my “goodbye’s” and “see ya in a month”, I took off to Dallas.

I spent the following 12 days visiting with family, friends, and eating WAY too much food (hence a habit I will elaborate on in a later blog).  I have three sets of Aunts and Uncles, several friends, and my little sister who currently live in Dallas.  Seems like plenty of people to keep me busy, right?  Right, but not so right.

I have some very special friends and family that voluntarily took time away from work, to spend time with me – for that I am so thankful and grateful.  My first week was SO GREAT! There was sleeping in (if you count until 8am), great company, delicious food, new adventures, shopping, napping…OH MY GOSH NAPPING, just SO MUCH GOOD!

My second week was very different.  It finally set in that I couldn’t expect my friends and family to hang out or visit with me at 2:00pm on a Tuesday…they were at work.  Just because I was on sabbatical, didn’t mean that everyone else was.  Reality set in, I was alone and couldn’t rely on anyone to tell me what to do next, or keep me busy.

Remember, how I said I don’t know how to NOT work…I also don’t know how to NOT do, or go all time.  Growing up I always lost the quiet game, and heaven forbid you ask me to be still for five minutes.

As I sat in my Aunt’s bedroom (alone), I began to reflect on myself.  I will admit that I tried to avoid this, I scrolled through TV channels, played with my hair, reorganized my suitcase, I even tried to master the ‘smoky eye’ (key word – TRIED), but in the end I still found myself staring out the window watching cars drive by wishing the leaves would change to a brilliant red, all the while analyzing myself.

Without getting too deep, here are a few (okay, several) points I realized about myself (and other things)

• I do not enjoy being alone.
• I cannot do a smoky eye
• I really enjoy cooking. I’m not very good at it, but that’s okay.
• I drive like Danica Patrick in Dallas traffic.
• I love to love.
• I can sleep without a TV on.
• I enjoy visiting with strangers.
• I don’t like pomegranate (at least not in fruit shakes).
• I like deviled eggs.
• French onion soup taste nothing like the dip.
• I am on my own journey. And it’s beautiful
• I love my job.
• I miss my coworkers.
• I enjoy working out (no, that’s not a typo).
• I have separation anxiety (from my dogs).
• I may be too stubborn.

And above all else

• I AM BLESSED.

Last Week

The past week I have spent in Brownwood with my grandparents at their ranch. I fixed some fence and took out some old fence. The fence I fixed was because of fallen trees or where animals such as wild pigs have run through the fence, and the wires are tangled or cut. Periodically we have to drive the perimeter of the fence to make sure there are not any major issues and fix the small ones. We also have to remove old fences at times to keep the cows from getting tangled or cut by the old fences and causing more problems.

Also, yesterday I had a great birthday! Thank you for all the Facebook messages, emails, and texts wishing me a happy birthday! It was great hearing from a lot of people from work and friends throughout yesterday.

This weekend

It is around lunchtime Friday and we are about to head to Dallas. Erika has some Speech Therapy training that is supposed to take 3 hours this afternoon; then we are going to go to dinner. Then tomorrow is Ben’s wedding! Other than that we plan on doing some shopping and something fun such as TopGolf or some other fun evening activity tonight or tomorrow night.

Last Few Days of Sabbatical (Monday and Tuesday)

My sabbatical ends Tuesday evening, and I will return to work Wednesday. Surprisingly I look forward to a lot of the projects I left off and the people I work with. I feel blessed to work at a company where I miss the people and type of work we are doing when I am away.

On Monday, I plan to help Emily Beeksma move into her new house! It was good timing that she closes on her house today (Friday) and needed help Monday moving in while I was on sabbatical.

My service project is coming along slowly. I continue to help Children’s Grief Connection with their website, but their hosting/provider, Neon, is moving slow. They designed the homepage, and we provided our feedback. Once they get it set up where I can help build out the rest of the pages and make tweaks to the site, I will hope in there and help them finish the rest of the pages and some other ideas they have. I hope they finish soon so I can hop in and make a bigger impact on my sabbatical, but told CGC that I would help after my sabbatical was over as well.

My week at Global Samaritan has come to the end but not the last time I will work with these wonderful people.  I enjoyed my time helping at this worthwhile organization.  I witnessed the dedication and the genuine concern for others by the ladies who I saw daily.  It s a daunting task to inventory and document all the items which have been donated by generous companies and entities.  I was still typing up inventory sheets from July (that reflects the sheer volume of goods received into their warehouse!) mostly made up of hospital/surgical/patient supplies.  Kathy, who volunteers daily, has been in charge of entering in this massive amount of data and is a kind and dedicated person. She appreciated all the assistance we at FD have given to their cause.  Ester, who is in charge of coordinating/planning is truly a shining example of someone who, despite some health challenges, carries on to make sure the task is complete.  The other ladies I encountered also worked with passion and dedication.  They all demonstrate the reading of the day in “The Book of Mysteries” Day 255, The Masterwork which clarifies that to accomplish great works the key is… “God must do it.  And you must let Him.” That the secret is “If you live by the Spirit of God, you fulfill the will of God.” These truths are evident in Galatians 5:22. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Thank you Kris and FD to make it possible for me to take a Mini-Sabbatical and help where I could with this outstanding organization!

So week three started off with things getting back to s normal routine after Tim and Bethaney’s wedding. Then Tuesday morning I received a call from Shannon’s sister Janeen that their mother had passed away. My mother in law had been suffering from dementia for a long time and had been in a long term care facility in east Texas for years. Still it was difficult to witness the loss for Shannon and Janeen. We traveled the next day to help Janeen with making arrangements. Luckily they had purchased a preneed a little over a year ago so a lot of the decisions had already been made. I helped where I could. I must say that I felt truly blessed to have worked for FD for all these years- to apply some of what I have learned over the years in a way to make them more comfortable during this difficult time. Although this is a loss here (and a relationship I would have loved to have improved), we count it a victory because we know Connie was a believer in our Lord and Saviour and we will be with her again! I do ask for continued prayers for this family as there are still decisions to make and some of them will be trying.
I have been working with the Jim Ned Valley Heritage Preservation for my service project. I am helping to raise awareness and funds. The Preservation is a non-profit organization set up by a Jim Ned Alumni to help preserve the histories of all the communities in the South Taylor County area. A building was donated to the Preservation by the American Legion for a place to develop a repository of family and community collections like photos, old documents, full community newspapers and articles, yearbooks and more. Through volunteers and limited funds, the inside of the 105-year-old building has now gone through the demolition stage and shows much needed roof repair or complete roof replacement. The rock and brick walls are sturdy with very limited cracking. This area is very close to my heart as a fourth generation Tuscola girl and I love the idea of retaining this heritage for future generations.

I am continuing my daily devotion each morning and I have to say it is still my favorite time of the day!

I can’t say thank you enough to Kris and the Board for allowing me this time. It is a blessing eveyday!

I made it to DFW with no problems.  I had 1:20 mins to wait, before my 10:25 flight, so I found a Chili’s right across from my gate and had breakfast.  With 20 mins to spare I went to the ladies room, called Mona to tell her I was on my way and sat at my gate.  And sat.  And sat.  At 10:20 with no one else around I went to the next gate over to ask about it.  The plane had left 10 min early.  I had missed my flight.  I was DEVASTATED!!  I had not heard a sight page for the flight boarding or leaving at all.  In tears I went to Customer Service to see when the next flight would be.  While talking to a woman who was more concerned with going to lunch than my flight, to my dismay the next flight didn’t leave till 6:30 pm!!  There were 2 possible earlier flights but they were not definite.  I was put on standby for those 2 and put on the 6:30 flight.  I went to a chair sat down and cried for 15 minutes with Mona in my ear telling me to calm down and breath.  Once I resigned myself to my fate, I promised Mona I would pull myself together, check on my suitcase which was on the 1st plane and just relax.  We hung up.  I cried a few minutes more then checked on my bag.  I found a Starbucks Lounge wait in, set my phone alarm for 2pm (30 mins before the 1st possible standby flight) settled in and fell asleep.  The other 2 flight didn’t make so I had a late lunch, went to my new gate at 4:45, did and early check in and stayed there will time to board the plane.

I arrived in Norfolk at 10:15 EST, retrieved my long waiting suit case and walked out of the airport.  There she was.  My best friend, My sister, My long distance partner in crime,  Mona Carter.  I walked over to her and we hugged, cried and Praised God that we were Finally together.  It had taken 15 years and all Frazzling day!, but we were finally together.

WARNING – Long post ahead.  Its been over a week yall. You knew it was coming!

Now that I finally have some free time in my life, I figured it was probably time to make my first sabbatical post.As you can image, my first week of sabbatical our wedding was the #1 focus. I have been planning this wedding since Nic proposed to me in December of 2015. Yes, that is a really long time but I had my heart set on an October 2017 wedding and I mean we really couldn’t complain about all the extra time we had to prepare. My main goal when we started the planning process was NO STRESSING. I did not want to end up a ball of tears on the floor the week before the wedding because I had so much to do and no time to do it.  I bought a little here and there and tried to space out the big things like cake, flowers, etc so that the week before the wedding would be stress free. I was so happy to accomplish this goal and spent my first week of sabbatical finishing up the small things. Surprisingly, the week actually went SUPER SLOW! I think I was probably just really excited for the wedding and after waiting for what felt like forever, I was ready for it to be our turn.

For those of yall who didnt know, our wedding was on a Sunday.  There was actually another wedding that was happening the Saturday before ours. Because of this, we were not going to be able to decorate or even bring any of our stuff to the Grove until Sunday morning.  This was really the only stressful thing about the whole wedding.  It takes about 20ish minutes to drive from our house to The Grove.  Knowing we had a very short time frame and also knowing we were going to have to make a few trips back and forth to get all of the decorations, cake and flowers, we decided to get smart and rent a cabin. Copper Cabin is an Airbnb and is literally 1 mile from The Grove.  We were blown away with how awesome this little place was.  It was filled with charm and the owners were so sweet. They even went as far as leaving us everything we needed to make sausage/meat spaghetti.  We probably could have lived out there. The link to the cabin will be below. Check it out!

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/17773872

Anyway… we were able to bring all of the decorations to this cabin and when Sunday morning rolled around, we were going back and forth 2 minutes instead of 20! That, along with all the help from our family and friends was the only reason we were able to get that place decorated.  The Grove is an absolutely beautiful place.  I fell in love with it the first time I walked through the gate and with it decorated up I really could not have been happier.  Everything turned out exactly as I had pictured it and I really would not change anything.  The weather was fantastic the entire day. Dan was a real blessing to have officiating. Dan if you are reading this, Nic and I really cant thank you enough for how special you made our ceremony.  Between the BBQ, chocolate foundatin, photo booth and cake Nic and I had a blast and we hope everyone else did too.  Our wedding went off without a hitch and there is not one thing I would change.  It was literally perfect. And the best part of the whole thing? I got to marry my best friend. After we left the ceremony, Nic and I went back to the cabin to wait for everyone to bring back the decorations. We sat on the porch on metal rocking chairs, looking at the stars and that is really when it sunk in.  I cant speak for him, but I seriously could not have been any happier at that moment, looking back at the day spent with our family and friends. I cant wait to see what God has planned for us next.

Now that the wedding is officially over, the second week of my sabbatical will be focused on cleaning up and getting reorganized.  This week, I will also be working with Camp Able to get ready for the Under the Stars event on Saturday. If you arent doing anything on Saturday, you should definitely come out! Its promised to be a fun night filled with great music and good food! $9 gets you in the door AND helps feed a horse!

Id like to thank everyone who came out to our wedding on Sunday. It really meant the world to us to have you there!

P.S  I would like to point out 1 very major thing.  There was NOT ONE giraffe in that entire wedding.

Sincerely,

Alyssa Alvarez <3

Hola,

Over the past eleven days I have been overwhelmed with the kind of love & hospitality that can only be found when in the presence of precious family & friends. As you all are aware, I spent Sep. 30 – Oct. 2 with my cousin. The time spent hanging out & playing with baby Audrey was so sweet. The innocence of a child is such a beautiful thing. I cannot imagine the weight of the responsibility in rearing a child. Having to find the right balance between equipping them to be independent & sheltering them from the ugliness that exists in our world is such a difficult task. Being able to disconnect & vicariously indulge in the innocence of my baby cousin’s world was a much needed retreat from the norm for me.

My night in the tipi was fun! It was pretty much just camping. I had a great time learning about Native American culture and going stargazing. The morning after the tipi experience, I was able to check out the Grand Canyon which was amazing. I had a hard time grasping the sheer immensity of the canyon.

From Oct. 4 through today (Oct. 10) I have been staying with my family in Newbury Park, California. The days spent here are always bliss. I was telling Drew & Taylor a while back that explaining my family gets confusing in a hurry. To simplify, my father found his birth mother in ’08. The people who I’m staying with are the youngest of his three sisters & her family. Being told you have a bunch of extended family that want to meet you can be kind of an intimidating thing as a teenager. You’re worried about getting along, and anxious about what kind of people they may be. However, my father’s reconnecting with his mother has been one of the most treasured blessings in my life. My aunt, uncle, & their kids have always had a special place in my heart, and it had been too long since I had visited them. I saw this sabbatical as a chance to catch up & get some much need quality time in. And that is just what I did. I was able to cheer at several soccer games over the weekend, enjoy the beautiful nature in Malibu & Thousand Oaks, and simply hang out. Oh, and I visited some neat record stores too. I am so happy I was able to make this trip happen. Despite being a little bummed about leaving, I feel so full of love & hope leaving this place. Plus, Austin City Limits Festival is this weekend so there’s no time to be blue! I’ll catch y’all up on my adventures soon.

Al

Fall is in the air, and I guess you could say this is the autumn of my Sabbatical.  This is my favorite time of year.  I love the crispness in the air.  One of my old football coaches used to call it “hittin’ weather”.  I can’t say that I do much “hittin'” any more, but I’m sure going to enjoy the next few months.

I started my Sabbatical with a pretty good list of things I wanted to get done while I was off work.  I am happy to report that each item has now been checked off my to do list as well as a few items that weren’t on the list.

I got a little ahead of myself with my reading.  I have finished my daily devotional book (God’s Promises) as well as my other book (The Fred Factor).  God’s promises transitioned from how to handle things you may be going through to how to live your life as a Christian and into “God’s Plan For Salvation”.  As I stated in my previous blog, I think this would be a good reference book if you were looking for scripture to fit a particular subject.

I love “The Fred Factor”.  It is my favorite of the motivational books I’ve read, and there isn’t a close second.  I love the fact that I don’t feel like the author is trying to sell me another one of his books or a program at the end of every chapter and that it is based on a real life person and situation.  When I wrote my last blog, I had read through chapter 4 which is the first chapter of the 2nd section.  The first section defines what a Fred is.  The second section explains how to become a Fred by discussing such things as the importance of building relationships.  The third section uses Fred as an acronym to explain how to develop other Freds – Find, Reward, Educate, Demonstrate.  The final section discusses what’s going on with Fred the postal carrier (the original Fred) and “The Fred Spirit”.  The book is well written and easy to read but also is timely and substantive.  Mr. Sanborn incorporates some great quotes to make some of his points.  I highly recommend this book.

This is the last week of my Sabbatical.  Reality is going to pay me a visit Monday morning.  I plan on dedicating the bulk of my remaining Sabbatical to down time.  It’s time to recharge the batteries and gear up.  I mentioned my mom in an earlier blog.  She has been in San Antonio staying with my sister for the last 6 or 7 months and has had numerous doctors’ appointments.  She is supposed to come home some time this week.  I’m looking forward to returning to some sense of normalcy.

Until next time, ciao for now.

This time tomorrow I will be in the air on my way to Norfolk, VA to spend a week with my best friend, Mona Carter.  This journey has been 15 years in the making and I am soo excited I CAN’T STAND MYSELF!!!!

Mona and I met online on a Vin Diesel fan site. ( Yes I know but it’s ok, Trust Me! {:^D )  We became friends on the site and started talked off site as well.  This went on for about 5 years and after the site closed we remained close.  We have been there for each other through some dark days.  She was not a Christian so I shared my faith and the promises of God with her.  She begain to do the same and became my sisters as well as friend.  This made our friendship even deeper and opened up another dimension for us to grow together.

We will be attending a seminar about Women’s ministries and administering to women in crisis.  We will also be volunteering at a Women’s shelter for at least 16 hours as part of the seminar.  We are both so excited and can’t wait to serve the Lord together, worship together then CUT UP FEROCIOUSLY!  In a perfectly respectable manner of course. (prayerfully)  {:^D !! {:^D !!

Day 19 – Sunday, October 1st

My aunt invited us over to eat lunch after church. It was great to spend some time with family and not have to cook.

Day 20 – Monday, October 2nd

I organized our once-chaotic bathroom cabinet while listening to an audiobook. It is so nice to have functional space!

Day 21 – Tuesday, October 3rd

I spent most of Tuesday getting ready for our trip to Florida, but in the evening, my sister and I went to the Dittos for Kiddos consignment sale. I consigned some items this year and we got to go early. I bought Jonas a shopping cart, which he absolutely loves! It was great spending time with Rachael too.

Day 22 – Wednesday, October 4th

Haley and I went to lunch and then later Allison came over and showed my pictures from her trip. It was so nice to catch up with friends. That evening, Dave and I went out to our friend Kyle’s house and I captured this beautiful sunset. What a gift!

Blessed? YOU BET! Everyone says it, but it’s true- what an amazing gift 30 days is!

I was beyond blessed to spend 2 weeks on an amazing vacation with my parents in the Seattle area. My dad is a planner (I come by it honestly!) and loves maps, so he had each day organized by area town. He also had all our public transpiration worked out which allowed us to spend as much time possible enjoying the sites and and not spending all our time getting there. The Chihuly museum was one of my favorite things we did in the city. He’s from Tacoma, WA which we were also able to visit. They have a public bridge there with some of his glass sculptures, so that was an added bonus!

After traipsing the city for 4 days my feet and legs were worn out! I was a little worried how I’d do with my 1/2 marathon after all the hill climbing we’d been doing. I never knew streets could be so steep! Thankfully, I had picked the flat (compared to the rest of Seattle and NOT Abilene, TX) Orca Half Marathon. It was about 5 min over my PR. However, it was 2hr 29min which made it under 2 1/2, so I was pleased with my results. I did not see an Orca, but it was by far the most beautiful run I’ve ever done! And later in the week I got to “ride” an Orca….

We spent some time enjoying God’s beautiful creations which was a nice change of pace from the hustle and bustle of the city. We visited Mt Rainer (a volcano!) and even though it was overcast and we couldn’t see the top, it was a beautiful day full of waterfalls and even a bit of snow. We enjoyed some coffee by a fire at a lodge in Paradise, WA while looking out the window at snow on the ground in September- that’s a memory to treasure! We spent a couple of days at Olympic National Park from mountains to the rain forest to the beach! Such variety and ample opportunity to see God’s creativity and to take a moment to rest in the quiet of nature. Even the roar of the ocean is a quiet compared to the hurry and buzz of every day life.

We made our way to Canada via ferry where we ran into friends from church! And while in Canada we met some people from Texas that knew a friend of my parents! Small world. Another highlight of the trip was having High Tea in a garden in Victoria, BC!

To end the trip, we got to go to church with Anna Robbins! We had lunch, saw her stunning view, toured her home town and learned about native plants! We also got to see Jyl Lopez on our drive back to Abilene after flying into DFW. It was wonderful to hug their necks and fun to see 2 remote offices 🙂

This was an all around amazing trip. I feel so blessed by FD for the time off and my parents for the memories. And best off all, I’ve had time to recover from vacation before returning to work. This period since the trip has definitely been a time of rest and it’s been incredible!

So begins my mini-Sabbatical. Thank you Ray for the blessing prayer you prayed with me on Friday for my send-off.  I began my day as I do, early in the morning (5 am) as I have always been an early riser.  I sit out on my front porch waiting for the sunrise and listen to the world.  There is the soothing sound of the wind blowing gently through the trees and the comforting sound of the crickets telling me that all is well.  I read the day 251 in The Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn so graciously given to us by Kris.  This day’s reading is appropriate as it is titled The Miracle World.  The story is asking us to imagine the world without light – to always live in darkness.  The miracle is that the sun, through the grace of God, rises each day to chase the darkness away.  I think this is telling us to be mindful of the beauty of the world and that this beauty reflects the love God has for each of us.  Without the light, we would not be able to appreciate the gift we have been given and without God we would only live a dark life. Today I begin my service to Global Samaritan Resources and I will hold this day’s teachings in my mind as I am taught how to record the inventory for this outstanding organization.  I think that they are playing their part in bring the “light” to others in need.  As Psalm 19:1 states “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

I finally saw the sun again!  For a brief 45 minutes this past Friday the sun appeared from behind the clouds!

I have been at my parent’s house this past week, and although it hasn’t rained a lot there, it has rained some every day, except Friday and Saturday(today).   I have been building a “hot-tub” house for my Dad this week.  My Dad is soon to be 84 years young, and was out there helping me all day long,  between rain showers.   He is a joy to work with, but this week has tested my patience.  Not meaning that he is “a pain to work with”, but rather patience as in my dad has one “speed” (slow), and my “speed” is quite a bit faster than his!  But we still managed to get the little house framed, roofed, and siding installed.   They decided to add a couple of windows (a change to the original plans), but we can do that later, no problem.

I am back in Abilene this week to work with Habitat For Humanity for a few days, yes probably building a house, and also at the Habitat “ReStore” store for a couple of days.   Some people may think that I have not had any “restful” time with all this house building.  But for me, this type of activity is very relaxing.  This sabbatical is not only for resting the body, but for also resting the mind and soul.  Creating and building is my way of resting my mind.  I can let everything else on my mind just go away for awhile, and then focus on the one project.  And the tired feeling at the end of the day helps me to sleep better at night!   Now that I’m on the subject of sleep and rest, I don’t believe I am getting ‘exactly’ the required 9 hours of sleep per day….bed time at 10:30 pm, up at 7:30 am, a one-hour nap after lunch, and a nap after dinner….(my Dad likes to nap, so I might as well too!)

Next week I will be returning to my parent’s to finish the inside of the hot-tub house.  Walls, ceiling, flooring, and some painting.   Here’s some pics to-date. More to come later after the final product.

— Foundation —

— Day three —

–Day Five — (windows to be added next trip)

Sunrise one morning….look closely….yes, it’s starting to rain.

I am continuing my mission of being mindful of all the blessings God has given to me. It has definitely been an eye-opening experience and one I plan to continue after my Sabbatical.

Day 15 – Wednesday, September 27th

I had the change to consign a lot of Jonas’ baby stuff we don’t need anymore in the Dittos for Kiddos sale. I spent Wednesday adding tags to my items and then got to spend a little time shopping at the mall. I do most of my shopping online so it was quite refreshing to walk around a bit and try on shoes.

Day 16 – Thursday, September 28th

 I am very thankful that Jonas had a good day at school. He is still adjusting to being in my mom’s class and sometimes gets a little overwhelmed with emotion, so a good day is a huge success.

I also worked with my assistant director for the Christmas musical I am directing at church and we now have an outline of the acts. I can’t wait to see the kids share the love of Jesus in our 3rd annual Christmas Variety show!

Day 17 – Friday, September 29th

Dave and I went to a wedding and my sister babysat for us. I love having my family close by so Jonas gets to spend time with them and Dave and I get to out alone now and then.

Day 18 – Saturday, September 30th

I tried my new pressure cooker to make dinner tonight. It cooked a chicken from frozen in an hour and a half and it was so tender and juicy! I am definitely a fan!

The last week has been an amazing week and challenging week as well. It was amazing because I got to spend the weekend at the ranch with grandparents and extended family and my wife shot her first deer with her bow. It was very relaxing as well as fun working on things around there which included taking a bone out of cows mouth (meant to get a picture of this).

Cows often chew on anything from bones, turtle shells and sticks. Sometimes they can get them stuck in their mouth, and we have to put them in the pens and squeeze shoot to take the bone out. We also had to mow the roads and areas around the house. As it rains a lot, the grass grows tall; then we have a few weeks of no rain, the grass dies which it makes vulnerable to grass fires. It was great to get outdoors and spend time with family.

The beginning of this week I spent moving my grandmother into Wesley Court Retirement Center. This is something that was not planned as part of my sabbatical, but I spend three solid days packing, organizing, and moving. I know my first post I discussed I wanted to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. While being at the ranch, I spend a lot of time with my dad’s side; this gave me almost a full week with my mom’s mom who lately has been lonely and health declining. Being on sabbatical has allowed me to be there to help her move, keep her stress down and make the process as enjoyable as possible.

This weekend I am heading to the ranch again. Next week my plans are not solid yet, but I will spend time hopefully back at the ranch. I’ll be updating again shortly!!

The second week of my sabbatical involved preparing for and attending the wedding of our oldest son, Timothy. It is hard to believe that he is old enough to marry.  He was almost one when I started working at FD. Time sure flies!  He married a sweet girl he met his freshman year in college. She truly is the answer to this mother’s prayer as I have prayed for his wife almost since he was born. We are bless to have her in our family.

I am so thankful for this time to help where I could and to spend time with family and friends and focus on these important relationships. 

First, I just wanted to say how saddened I am about the devastating news from Las Vegas.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and their loved ones.  I will restrain myself from getting on my soap box too much (difficult as it may be), BUT I will say that I am thoroughly disgusted by those who choose to politicize such tragic events instead of just trying to be a comfort to those who are suffering.  As I like to say, “politics” – “poly” from the Latin root word meaning many and “ticks” which are blood sucking parasites.  OK, I’ll step down now.

One thing I’m really enjoying during my time off is having the time to take care of all the things you never have time to do when both spouses work or for single parents…  So far, we have had a gun safe delivered, met the cable company at the house to upgrade some equipment, gone to the AT&T store and reworked our account, met an electrician at our lake house, and soon to meet the DISH people at the lake house to upgrade some equipment.  This to do list has been growing for awhile.  It’s been awesome to finally have the time to take care of this stuff.

I have refrained from writing about my devotional book until I was far enough into it to have an opinion to express.  The book is entitled “God’s Promises”.  It is basically a compilation of biblical scripture.  There is no text other than category headings and Bible verses.  The 1st section defines Jesus and the role he is to play in our lives.  It says, “Jesus is your…”  Every few pages has a different word following this opening phrase.  “Jesus is your Savior” which is then followed by scripture to substantiate it.  The rest of the section works the same way.  After Savior, the rest of the words are “Love, Lord, Peace, Forgiveness, Deliverer, Fellowship, Example, Companion, Brother, Guardian, Security, Sufficiency, Fulfillment, and Everything”.  After each word are a couple of pages of scripture to prove the point.  The 2nd section works the same way.  It says “The Bible is your Infallible Authority, Deed of Inheritance, Guide for Life, Stability, and Strength”.  It seems that the 1st 2 sections use scripture to establish the authority for the role that Jesus and The Bible are to play in our lives.  I have read the 1st 5 1/2 sections so far.  The remainder of the book seems to use scripture to explain how to handle specific situations you may encounter in your life.  The 3rd sections is “What to do when you feel Discouraged, Worried, Lonely, Depressed, Dissatisfied, Condemned, Confused, Tempted, Angry, and Rebellious”.  The 4th section is “What to do when you are Experiencing Fear, Mentally Disturbed, In Need of Courage, In Need of Patience, In Need of Peace, Lukewarm Spiritually, In Grief, and In Doubt About God”.  The rest of the book, or at least the sections I’ve read so far work the same way – giving categories of things you may be going through and providing quite a few Bible verses to help you get through them.  I think “God’s Promises” would be a great reference as a guide to daily living.

I have accomplished most of the things that I set out to accomplish when this journey began.  I have about a week and a half to do the rest.

So until next time, Ciao for now.

I am writing this on the last day of my sabbatical. It has been a really great time, and has seemed to go by pretty fast. My last blog was done in the middle of our cruise. Since then, we visited Quebec city and Montreal as the final two ports. Quebec city is a really interesting place. I had been there for a meeting decades ago, and saw some of it then, but we had a really good time walking and touring the old city for a whole day this time. The old city reminds me a lot of old European cities that I see on television. It has a lot of fairly narrow cobblestone type streets and a plethora of small shops, restaurants, galleries, etc. that make for a great walking tour. The various outdoor musicians added to the experience. We first took a bus ride that gave us an overview and some history, then spent several hours walking the streets. It was a thoroughly enjoyable time.  The weather was in the 40’s and 50’s, so it was quite a reprieve from Austin heat.

The last port of call, where we debarked, was Montreal. We had never been there before, except for the airport. They have an old city as well, but it didn’t really seem much like Quebec. It was a lot more metropolitan and huge. The old city did not seem much like a place to do a walking tour. We did a bus tour around much of the city. The Notre Dame cathedral was a truly awesome place, but very dark inside. Maybe it doesn’t have a lot of electricity. We also got a great view of the city from Mount Royal (Mont Real). Whereas Quebec was a very quaint and unique place to visit, Montreal was mainly just a big city and didn’t quite live up to our expectations. All in all, the cruise was a really good time, providing both quaint, pastoral settings on the eastern seaboard and quaint, city settings in Quebec.  As a plus, all of our travel plans went off without a hitch, even American Airlines!

My sabbatical has been very enjoyable, though different than I expected.  Going in, I was expecting that I would have to find things to do.  In fact, I was having to find the time to do things.  I made the mistake of having a list of 11-12 things to accomplish, or at least kick off, during the 30 days.  I finished or started seven of them, so I made some pretty good progress, but at the expense of having a lot of time to simply chill out and reflect.  I was able to do some of that, but it was less than I was intending.  I was overly ambitious in setting too many goals and expectations of what I could accomplish in 30 days.  Part of that was I wanted to get out of town for a while rather than just staying at home for 30 days.  We did that, and had a good time doing so on our cruise.  Between planning, preparing, traveling and cruising, that took probably 10-11 days, or about a third of the time.

The book that I am reading as part of the sabbatical is called Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins.  To paraphrase the book jacket, the author talks about various ways of surrender that can be done in the midst of everyday life.  The idea is to remove inner blocks to happiness, love, joy, success, health, etc.. It’s a rather long and thorough book, and I am almost half way through, so there is more to come.  I have found it to be very insightful and explains things in a bit of a different way that sometimes leads to an aha! moment.  I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to have a better insight into why they act or react the ways the do in various circumstances.

Looking back, 30 days goes by pretty quickly.  Also, a lot can be done/experienced in 30 days!  I am very grateful to have had this time to go off in a somewhat different direction that usual.  It has been a great and rewarding experience.  I wish to thank Kris for coming up with the idea (which originally sounded pretty far out), and the board for approving and endorsing it.  People whom I talk with outside the company are all totally floored that a company would do this for its employees.  Well, that’s just one more thing that sets up apart from the rest.  I feel very blessed to be a part of this company, as I’m sure all of you do as well.  I don’t expect to be employed during the next sabbatical opportunity (I should have retired by then).  So, this is a bit of a bittersweet signoff.  Best of wishes to everyone.  I hope you had/have a wonderful sabbatical as well.

Hey y’all,

So this morning (Oct. 1) I woke up to the same disgusting news we all did. As a result of the recent violence, I will be forgoing my stay in Las Vegas & will be heading straight to LA on Wednesday after my night in the tipi tomorrow. My condolences & prayers are with the individuals & families of those who were lost & injured last night. It’s been a grim ~24 hours. I can’t help but feel a mourning in my soul for this loss of human life.

Al

The “stop doing list” has come up quite a few times recently, and while it makes sense, it can be a very difficult concept. This might be the most beneficial part of my sabbatical. As I prepare to come back to work, I have marked several things off my “to do” list, and feel very accomplished. I have spent time with friends and family, I have gotten back out into the community, and I have helped those in need in our community. But I have also worked on my “stop doing list”.

In our society, we tend to go, go, go. In the beginning, I mentioned that I am not the best at resting. So, at some point in the evening, I have to just stop, and sit down. While reading “Losing Control and Liking It” it talks about the what if’s, and how you don’t have control over them. This just creates more stress. I have to let go of the what if’s and put them on my stop doing list, this frees up time and stress. This book also brought my attention to perfection and it’s need for it to be on my list. This can go so far, from Emily wanting to fix her own hair to the girls picking out their clothes.

Will and I took the girls to the San Antonio Zoo this weekend. When asking the girls which animal was their favorite, we were reminded that they are two completely different people. Emily’s favorite animal was the bats. Sarah, on the other hand loved the giraffes. While this sounds cute, we actually missed the giraffes and didn’t walk all the way back to find them. She procee to tell us how she played with them, rode on their backs, and laughed together.

Emily’s favorite part of going out of town is not the destination, while she did love the bats at the zoo, but the hotel. I found a hotel with an indoor pool so we could go swimming after the zoo. The water was a little chilly for my taste, but the girls had a blast. The girls might kill me when they’re older, but the picture below shows how wore out they were from our fun day! I did put Sarah back in the bed fully, just had to get the picture first, like any good mom 😊.

This month has allowed me to accomplish so much, but my favorite part was the time I had to devote to building memories with my family. See you all tomorrow!

This is the last day of my vacation after my Helpers of People leave.  I have been working for a long time, and this is the first time I have been off for two weeks straight.  After delivering Meals on Wheels the first week, my husband (Darrell) and I went to San Antonio and I spent some time with my daughter (Michelle) and all three of my sisters (Cathy, Janet and Sandra).  I haven’t been able to spend much time with my daughter this year, and it was really nice to see her.  I am very close to my sisters.  We are not only sisters but also good friends.  I love spending time with them and catching up on their lives.  I also went to a birthday party for Darrell’s Mother while I was in San Antonio.  Both of Darrell’s sisters and their children and grandchildren live in San Antonio, so I was able to see most of his family also.  We came home Tuesday in time to take out my foster friend.  He has autism and we have been taking him out once a week since 1990.  He also spends Christmas and Thanksgiving with us.  I spent the rest of the week relaxing, reading and getting some things off of my to-do list.  I feel more rested than I have all year and it was great to get some things accomplished at home.  I want to thank my co-workers for taking care of things at the office so that I could take some time off without worrying too much.  I work with a great group of people and I feel very blessed to work for such a great company.