James

 Happy Sabbath

This has been a good, a busy, and productive week and I have been blessed.  I am thankful that I was able to get the work done I needed to this week. 

I am thankful that my direct supervisor is back and she has a healthy baby girl and will understand the stress of motherhood for herself...perhaps she will be a little more empathetic as she goes through her own journey as a parent.  I need her to help me to keep on track with my caseload.  I took on way too many people and don't want to let others down so I am not sending people out to others yet. I'll do what I can.

I am thankful for a warm home. God helped me to get a heating issue taken care of last year and this year, we have heat in our house to bear the coldest of days.  I am thankful for heat.

I am thankful for a memory to go to the store and pick up black sunflower seeds. That peacock came this morning after the blue jay discovered what I put out.  I noticed that the peacock would sift through the bird seed and really just pick out the sunflower seeds so I went to get a bag of that and got it out in time for him to show up. It is a joy to see him show up at my door and knowing I can give him something that will keep him healthy and full and give him energy for his day.

Although others may think this is a poor choice, I am thankful my son is eating mcdonalds chicken nuggies.  I grew up eating a 20 piece chicken nugget with sweet and sour sauce when my parents would head off to work and leave us kids home unsupervised for 2-3 hours as we waited for the other parent to return from a long day at work.  If I was not a vegetarian, McDonalds 20 piece chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce would be a staple for me...along with fresh salmon or trout, jamaican beef pies, lamb/beef shwarma, or chicken tikka.  Theres a lot of things I like but I'm a plant based vegetarian and plan to stay that way.  My son has been extremely picky and avoidant of regular foods since he was a baby and that can be because of the food allergies and autism diagnosis.  I saw there were no eggs in the nuggies at school so I encouraged him to try the school lunch.  He came home claming they were so delicious and he was so happy he tried them.  Because of that, I checked mcdonald's ingredients list and decided to buy him a 6 piece, small fry and oreo mcflurry and when he tried theirs, his mind was blown.  Although it's considered junk fast food by many people's standards, to me I am celebrating because he is branching out and getting much needed protein, vitamins, fats, and other things in his diet.  The oreo mcflurry is a treat.  He is no longer allergic to soy so he can get into other things like tofu, tempeh, and soy milk.  Maybe I will be able to get him to eat cereal with milk (regular dairy or the alternatives that are out here).  He's a big boy and he is eating big boy food and that is what I have been fighting for all this time.  My mother will still purchase gerber baby oatmeal for him to eat and wonder why I won't get it for him.  He is going to be a teenager in a few more years God willing.  He is 8. Even at 5, he should not have been eating baby food and I am and will continue to put my foot down on this.

God has my son eating big boy foods and I'm lovin it. 

I went to the mall yesterday when I finished work extremely early.  I had no business at the mall and didn't need to be spending any coin but decided to seek out a certain store at the mall instead of driving far far away to ikea and wandering back with even more stuff I didn't need.  I went to the mall and for some reason, could not locate that store.  I don't know what happened. I walked all around but did not lay my eyes on it.  I passed places with a mind to return and get something else I didn't need but I'm glad that didn't happen either.  I went into Champs and tried on a pair of nubuck wheat colored timberlands and they only had the men's so I tried on sizes that worked for me in mens.  Then I asked about the prices and they told me it was $50 higher than what I was expecting. In a rare moment of self control and clarity, I told them I would pass on purchasing the shoes.  I headed back past two others that had the tims but all had the same price. A lady chased me down and told me that there was an issue with shipments and to make up for the delay caused, they were charging more and the merchants were getting hurt in the process.  I heard her but at the same time, I told her I would look on amazon. I looked on amazon and headed out of the mall...went to Trader joes and wholefoods and when I got to my parent's home I zeroed in on some tims that were of the price I expected $150 and I purchased them with the expectation they were coming tuesday next week.  

I already have a pair of black timberlands that I wore twice and I picked those up because I felt the wheat nubuck would scratch too quickly and not look as nice.  I haven't had timberlands since highschool and remember begging my parents for a pair because they were the cool kids shoe.  I was listening to a sermon based in the book of James and talking about joy and things that give us joy.  I listened to the speaker talk about his experience for christmases he celebrated with his brother and family and the joy he had when he received gifts My mind went to the timberlands and how wonderful it would be to have them to wear soon. I went to my email to see if they had been shipped and saw a notification that they were but in the same breath, I saw a notice that they were delivered today.  I immediately jumped up away from my piano and went to the front door to see a box on my front porch.  To my joy, they delivered the timberlands I wanted within less than 24 hours.  I couldn't help but laugh and couldn't believe that I had my boots, but they were $50 less than every where else was charging and here in time for me to wear tonight for work instead of waiting until Wednesday.  

God is good!

I call this blog story James because for some reason, I have been in the book of James more than several times this week.  This morning I did something I usually don't do. I got up and played the entire book reading of James while I took a bath.  Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations.  If you lack wisdom ask the Lord for it.  There are so many verses in there that are for me right now in this season. 

I am thankful that I am still doing good at my part time job.  That guy who was involved in part of my poor decision making?  He has been I guess trying to make amends.  I still am trying to figure out myself for that whole situation. He has been coming around spreading positivity and light and at the same time, I am extremely cautious and pessimistic.  I am not used to people being this way.  I was shut down for something that did not need to be occuring and my immediate reaction was to shut him down for everything that he offered to be.  He wanted to be my friend and I didn't want his friendship.  He really is a nice person but I want to protect myself and I am still pushing him away and keeping myself closed off from everyone.I am no longer angry at him.  I can pretend that I am, but it's really hard to do and I'm sure he sees right through that.  Perhaps he is trying to get everything right because he is going to make a leap into management.  I think he would do well and deserves to be promoted if he continues working as hard as he does but just because you are taking those steps doesn't mean you have to be a friend to everyone.  Then there is this other person who I'm certain has been looking at me in that way.  They were recently promoted and I thought that by being promoted that would put an end to this person even trying to chat me up.  That hasn't stopped. I just want to go to work, earn my coint, get my groceries with some savings along the way and head on to my next gig.  

I know God wants me to be married. I know that God said I met the person before or will have worked with the person.  I just don't know who that person is.  I don't know when it will become plain to me that this man is the one and it is time to pursue that.  Right now, my mind is on my grind.  It's blessing myself with the things that I would like someone else to bless me with but I don't have anyone in my life that treasures me in that way so I have to treasure myself with Timberlands of all colors, perfume and all other manner of gifts.  I have a lot to think about and alot to do.  I have to keep myself from being distracted and be out here doing what the Lord wants me to do.  My mind has been all over the place lately but I am going to take a moment and go back over James again.  Maybe by focusing on these verses I can be on track for the new week.  I'm going to do that right now.  Happy Sabbath :)