Endings and Beginnings are Synonyms

This morning, I have been reading in Deuteronomy.  I  devoured chapters 1-5 then my attention span petered out, so that's where I will pick up next time.

What I'm getting so far is that Deuteronomy, or at least the beginning of Deuteronomy, is like a Cliff Notes version of the events experienced and instructions given to the Israelites while they wandered in the desert before entering the Promised Land.



Seems to me like Moses is giving them a recap so that he can die, according to what God has told him, and then they can go in and take the land that God has been promising their people for generations upon generations.

Sometimes it takes a long time for God's promises to come to pass in our lives.



But God always, always keeps God's word.  And if it takes a long time, God always has a reason.  I don't believe God does anything at random.  God is very precise and intentional.  I really appreciate that; it makes me feel secure and taken care of.  Amazing God.



So, back in April I was laid off from my job.  I was devastated.



But time has passed, and tomorrow morning I will report to my new job!  So, in the meantime...

- I have learned to trust God even more, because all my needs have been met, one way or another, when the time came.

- I got to work a part-time job at Tuesday Morning, one of my very favorite stores in the world.  I got to do what I have always wished I could do; take really neat and cool products and arrange them on shelves to make them look nice.


(**not the store I worked at; I found this pic online.  just for the record.  LOL)

- AND I got a 20% employee discount at this favorite store of mine!

- AND I got to know a bunch of awesome people, and have come out of it with a few friendships I did
not have before!



- I started driving for Uber and learned again the awesomeness that is diversity.  I drove around with people with a wide variety of appearances, personalities, and STORIES!  And you know I love stories.  😳

- I got more practice interviewing, and learned to just BE MYSELF instead of trying to be what I thought the interviewers might want me to be.  And the interview I went into with the mentality of, "Screw this, I don't care, I'm just gonna relax and be me" - THAT is the job I was hired for!  So there!  LOL

- Finally, I have started back to Crossfit which is something that challenges me, increases my endurance, builds my strength, helps me to lose a little weight, and really just makes me feel awesome.



So that kind of feels like the final piece to the puzzle, and I feel now that my life is pretty much back on track at last!

So it's been a wonderful two months or so.  I've also had a lot more free time to work in my altered book/art journal, which has been very freeing and has helped my creativity to push out of the moss and overgrowth that cover it when I don't use it enough.


So, life is fantastic today.  And Lena's brother Danny just went for a walk and came back with a 6-pack of Abita Amber just for me!  So today will be that much more fantastic.



Here's to more good days to come!  Have a great day and a great week!

my name's blurryface and I care what you think

It is a little before midnight on this Friday evening.  All is quiet in my home.  I'm dying to create some art but have no good ideas.  Or, more accurately, everything I think I might do ends up just feeling like work instead of fun, so I've scrapped all those ideas and have opted to write instead.

A good chunk of my day was given to Uber.  

Funny thing... I often ask my passengers if the air conditioner is ok for them in the back seat.  And I laugh inside when I do that... like a private joke with myself... because, in all reality, I got that from the GEICO commercial about the bank robber guys waiting on a ride from an app. So funnyl  Gotta love it. CHECK IT OUT

Today, I drove a guy from here almost 20 miles to get to his job at McDonald's.

Seriously.  We crossed the Mississippi river, then went waaaaay down all the way to PLAQUEMINE... for this young guy to work a shift at McDonald's.  I promise you, we passed as many as 5 McD's on the way there.  I hope that's not the commute he takes every day... I hope he was at a friend's house and had to get back across the river to go to work, or that he was filling in; working a special shift at that location as a favor to someone.  Because, in my estimation, getting there probably cost him most of what he made in a part-time shift at a fast food restaurant.

Jiminy Christmas.

I also got another passenger for the trip home, just before I got on the bridge to come back over.  From Couyon's all the way to the Sherwood Forest area, which was another almost 20 miles.

I'm wondering why kids work so far from where they live, especially not having their own vehicles, and with restaurants and fast food joints ALL OVER THE PLACE, right?

(I learned today that "smh" means "shaking my head" - and so, here,  I will insert a sincere smh....)

Anyway.  Before all the driving happened, I had a late-morning Starbucks get-together with a relatively new friend of mine.  

She is just great, and a lot of fun.  Also very smart, from my observations.  She's had a lot go on in her time on earth so far, and I think she has wisdom that others lacking her experiences might not have.  I really enjoyed talking to her and hope we can get together again soon!

Really though... she completely spilled her guts to me, telling me a lot of her life story and all.  I kept my guts tucked safely away in my... wherever you keep your guts... in my "guts compartment," I guess.

Funny thing, the way I am.  She shared with me, having accepted my assurances that I would neither judge her nor break her confidence.  I am *SO* anxious about telling the darker parts of my story for those very reasons; fear that I will be judged or criticized... I'm not so much worried about anyone telling my secrets; I'm not of the opinion that my story is anything exciting enough to leave someone dying to run and repeat it to the first person they can find, heh...

But my story is MINE; it's ME, you know?  And sometimes I feel terrified to take the lid off in the company of another.  There's nothing even THAT bad or shocking; I'm just scared in general and, in all honesty, pretty defensive.  smh  LOL

Maybe "talking about Nicole" will or won't come up in time; who knows.  That discrepancy just stood out to me and I've been thinking about it today.

Ho hum.  Tomorrow we are taking Lena's brother to tour the USS Kidd, a WWII-era warship docket on the river, downtown.  

Then taking him to walk around downtown and find a place to eat.  It should be a good time, minus the potential heat and humidity factor.

Think I'll get a snack and the hit the hay.

My thene song for the day is this one:  BLURRYFACE

My Life Lately

Hello!  It's been a few weeks... plenty has been going on; let me share some of it.

First of all, surprise surprise, it turns out my job with LDAF is going to pay me FAR MORE than I was making at Albemarle, not less!

 ha ha...

 I mean substantially more.  God is so, so good to me.  I start Monday.  I have to remember, today, to call and make sure of what time I need to be there, as well as what time I get off...

...so I can plan when I will go to CROSSFIT!!



I have started Crossfit again... well, actually, I went to a class this past Monday and have been in so much pain since then, I have not yet gone a second time.  Maybe today.  But, believe me, the pain is REAL when you have to white-knuckle the edge of the bathroom sink, grimacing, to slowly lower yourself down onto the toilet to pee.  Just sayin.

Two months of not much, then one hour of severe intensity can just about kill a person.  We did this:



Arch hold is laying on your stomach, lifting your chest and thighs and extending your arms like Superman.



Hollow rocks are... basically, laying on your back in the shape you would be in if you were laying in a hammock...

 (obviously, this is not me...)

...and rocking forward and backward like a teeter totter.  😀

Then, the part that did me in... AMRAP means "as many reps as possible" AKA as much as you can do... in this, for 3 minutes... rest 2 minutes... then go at it from wherever you left off... four times.

Power snatches...




Burpees...



and Air Squats



Hence, the miserable state in which existed my quadriceps, obliques and probably a few other muscle groups whose names I do not know.

Seriously... I was hobbling around like an achy old man, even yesterday!


Again, I'm contemplating going again today, but not sure.  The workout lists practicing handstands.  My head does not like being upside down, ever since that traumatic brain injury in 1992.  We're talking explosive dizziness.



 But we'll see.  Maybe I can get the workout adjusted around handstands.

In other news.. Lena's older brother has been staying with us for a few weeks now.  He will be here a few more weeks.  I like him; he is easy to be around and has a great sense of humor.  He had not seen Lena for almost 15 years so this was quite the reunion!  She begged him to stay longer than he had originally planned so they could spend as much time together as possible.  I am glad to see her reconnecting with some more of her family.  He is kid #4 and she is kid #8, out of 8 kids in their family.  All the siblings are spread out all over the place.  She also got to see another brother recently... kid #5, if you will.  Now she has a picture of the 3 of them together, and I love the happiness on all their faces.

Tropical Storm Cindy is just about through, I believe.  Got a little hard rain here in Baton Rouge but not much more than that.  Any mention of "possible flooding" gets most people nervous down here, after the August flood last year... but we are ok.

I am gathering some really interesting stories from my Uber passengers.  I'd like to work some of those into blog posts as well.  I used to have a separate blog about different people's stories but I think now I will weave all that into this one blog.

Okay, that's all for now.  I continue plodding my way through the book of Numbers.  Today I finished chapter 35.  Good stuff!

Have a great day!