Kitten update

Just a quick update on the kitties: they've been with us for almost a week now. It was nice being off on Monday for Memorial Day, as it gave us some time to get to know each other! They've slept in our bathroom each night, and have been really good about not waking us up earlier than normal (although they did wake me up about 10 minutes early last Sunday!). They are definitely family, and can't stand to be apart from each other. Hobbes picks on poor Olivia (he's much bigger), but admittedly, Olivia gives as good as she gets. In the picture above, Hobbes is the one on my left, my pretty Olivia on the right. And unfortunately, you can see my farmer's tan on my legs, thanks to a soccer game and pool party!

I thank God every day for the blessings that He has given me. I have a wonderful family, great friends, a job (hug your troubles, my good friend Byron always says--so, thank goodness for the dishes in the sink that I have to clean, because it means that we have food on the table. Thank goodness for the job that makes me crazy at times, because it means that we have a roof over our head and a paycheck, etc), a loving Father who gave up His son for my sins, so that I could live with Him forever.

Thank you for reading my thoughts and giving me your loving and wonderful feedback. I am thankful for each and every one of you!

May you feel His wonderful warmth and love each day.

Um, oops?

The reason for the title of the this post is....the kittens aren't brothers; they are brother and sister! The bigger one with the darker orange fur is the boy--his name is Hobbes. The lighter orange is, of course, the girl and we've named her Olivia (since Troy had wanted to name it Oliver). Olivia's not as active right now as her brother; I think that her surgery was more invasive, so she's got some recovery time. Hobbes, on the other hand, played hard when he got here. And, just like a kitten, crashed as hard when he jumped onto the sofa next to Troy. The picture on the top is Hobbes; the one on the bottom is Olivia. (Oliver if she had been a boy...logical name now is Olivia!). Just thought I'd share....

Blessings and His unending peace.

The Law of the Garbage Truck

My darling stepmother (admittedly, it's kind of weird to call her that, because she and Dad got married last July, but it's better than calling her "that woman who my dad married", so we'll go with this) sent an email with a message, called "The Law of the Garbage Truck". Here it is:

The Law Of The Garbage Truck

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so..... 'Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.'

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

So I've been truly living my "eureka" moment and realizing that I control my reaction to things, and that by doing so, I can glorify God. I struggled, to a degree, this past Tuesday, when one of the business folks on the project and I came to a part of the design of my screens that she doesn't agree with (and how!), and is perturbed because I won't do it the way she wants it to be done (because it would make the experience on our website inconsistent with other things you can do there). I have explained the rationale, and she doesn't care. And that's okay. I told her that she can escalate the issue by talking to her boss who will then in turn talk to my dotted-line boss. What I struggled with is my reaction--her stubborness and seemingly disregard for my logic and accepted structure of how we do things--well, it really irked me! I played out the various confrontation scenarios in my head--you know, what I would love to say if I a) had some big ones and b) didn't care about having to play nice and be a team player, and c) ignored the responsibility of me being a Christian and taking the "higher ground". As I did this, I could feel myself getting angrier and more frustrated. So I prayed about it and gave that to God. I also asked a really good friend to help me not take it back, because I think a lot of us willingly give our problems and burdens to God, but impatience or control or some other human quality makes us take them back, stupidly thinking that we can affect something wwaaayyy better and faster, and admittedly, something that suits us, not necessarily the thing that God would go for. What I mean is that God may have something in mind for me, like sending me off to the darkest areas of Africa when I pray to do His will. If I don't want to do that, then obviously I'm not going to give Him that part, because I'm afraid of what His outcome will be, not having faith that it will be perfect for me as well as not giving Him entire control.

Anyway...I'm so grateful to Him for being there, and helping me, and speaking to me through various media like the story above. He is good!

Well, the day is beginning--Troy had a friend spend the night, and I've got cinnamon rolls in the oven for them...then on to Troy's final soccer game and trophy party, and then...on to get my kittens! The 2 brothers just got fixed yesterday, so they were a little out of it. I'm hoping that they will be all right to go this afternoon. Gotta go kitten-proof the house!

Much love and His blessings on you!

Nail biting...

Watching the Spurs game, although I really should be sleeping! It's going to be a very long day tomorrow, as we have member testing all day, but...it's the Spurs! Game 7. Go Spurs Go! (I'll get over my anal-retentive grammar-loving self and not type it the way it should be, which is: Go, Spurs, Go! 'Tis a sad, sad thing.)

Many thanks to all for your prayers and concerns. I can feel them working--I really can. It is such an amazing thing that He cares about us so much, so much to prune us because He doesn't want us to stay the way we are. We are a new creation; we are the "leaven in the dough" and the "salt of the earth"--He made us for His purpose. It's amazing what a good attitude, one that comes from the LORD, and the prayers from those He brings into my life, can do! Dude, I'm not only coming out of the valley, I'm heading towards the Mountain of God! (one of my favorite songs from my favorite bands Third Day). He is so good!

Much love and His comfort.

Playing

No, you didn't land on the wrong blog. I'm just playing with the templates...I'm liking this one...

Last night Don and I went to dinner at a small town, family-owned Italian restaurant called Figlios in Bracken. Yummy! I would highly recommend this place to anyone who craves Italian food. The staff is very friendly, the place cozy, and the food delicious. We then went to a house in Alamo Heights to see some kittens. A friend and dear coworker of mine had asked me, not knowing about Honda, if I wanted a kitten, as her next door neighbor was foster caring for some cats. Found out that there were 2 orange kittens, which, in Don's book, is a must-have requirement. Don wanted to check out the kittens before the rest of the family fell in love with him/them, as he didn't want to be the bad guy if he didn't really like that kittens. He feels very strongly about not wanting kittens who hide from you--he wants kittens/cats who are not skittish, ones who will approach you and sit on your lap and take command of your world. Well, these kittens appeared to be able to do that in spades! The mama cat, who's only about 9 months old herself, was very friendly. She had 4 kittens (actually 5 but the runt didn't make it)--3 boys and one girl. The girl was a white with brown-tipped ears, almost Siamese-like, the other boy was a white one with an eye infection, and the 2 orange boys. One of them, whom Don has already named 'Hobbes' (after Calvin and Hobbes) is a darker orange on the top and white on his belly, and his hair is a little bit longer. The other is a lighter shade of orange, but more like the tabby striped orange cats. Pretty blue eyes. Cute, both of them. So....given the fact that Don's already named one of them in his head (Troy wants to name one of them 'Oliver', after the movie "Oliver and Company", which, if you didn't already deduced, made me bawl when I saw the movie), it appears as if we'll have kittens in the house again. Don agreed in the car that they'd be mostly indoor cats! The kittens will be taken to get fixed next week and then we'll get to bring them home. We've not discussed and agreed on it formally, but...it's a sure bet that that's what is going to happen.

In all of this, God is so good--He placed my coworker Ann in touch with me, knowing that we were severely lacking in orange kitten-ness. Praise His name that He cares so much about these seemingly minute details of our lives.

Thank you, Father God, for all that you are, and for all that you give us.

Blessings and His peace.

It's been a while....attitude....

Wow...didn't realize that it had been so long since I'd posted something. I cannot tell you the week I've had, and some amazing illuminations thrown in there for fun. So...I've been in this "funk", this "valley", call-it-what-you-will, it's been a downer. I walked up the valley walls a bit, and then something pulled me back down. Work has been hectic; lately it seems to have been one uphill battle after another. I feel like I've compromised more than just a couple of times on certain aspects of the screen designs. A good friend and coworker had mentioned that I have a tendency to be "high-strung", which, while I will admit that it is true, still bothered me nonetheless. No one wants to work with a drama queen, and it's gets tiring being one at times! So....I told him of my quest to have a gentle spirit. I wrote down the words "gentle spirit" on my calendar before a 4pm meeting with our technical folks to discuss one aspect of the design. I thought I'd done a good job of having a more gentle spirit than I'd had before, and the meeting went all right. Just all right.

More questions of the design came the next day, and I found myself telling the person that I really didn't care how he coded the system. More and more I found myself becoming nonchalant about the whole thing, all the while trying to accommodate and be a "team player". I had a one- on-one meeting with my boss (he is really good about those things--I'm sure he dreads when every other Tuesday comes around. Why he schedules those for only 30 minutes is beyond me, and I profusely apologize to the person who is right after me, as mine always run over. I like to talk, okay? Talking is my love language.) and I told him, although in hindsight I probably shouldn't have, that I was teetering towards apathy. Frustration should not lead to apathy, but I think at times it is human nature to do so at times, as a defense mechanism. I went from that meeting to another meeting in which I shared other frustrations, apologizing all the while for doing so.

Allow me to tell you also that my dizzy spells had started up again at the beginning of the week. About 4 years ago I was diagnosed with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (check out the link, all ye who laugh at me when I talk about my crystals coming loose in my ears!). I wasn't sure if the spells were due to this, or because of allergies; I deduced the former because I was taking a heavy duty decongestant. I just had not made it to the doctor's office to have them perform an Epley maneuver (it helps get the crystals back where they need to be).

So, it's difficult to be 100% positive when you're feeling overwhelmed, tired, and dizzy all the time. So, I prayed about my frustration and my attitude (I had let my frustration spill over in a conversation with another friend who actually called me on it--he asked me if I needed an attitude adjustment, to which I told him I did! Thanks, Byron, for calling me on my bad self! You are a good man, sir!). I knew my attitude was not glorifying God. I was doing the opposite of James 1:9: I was not listening, and being very quick to speak and to anger. Not good! So I prayed at work that Wednesday morning, out in my car parked on the balcony facing some trees. I pray in my car before work, all the while watching the tree limbs move as the wind blows. It's so very comforting to me--it makes me feel as if I'm watching God's handiwork with the Lord Himself passing through it. It's amazing.

I was on my way to a meeting about an hour later, and I heard myself saying these words in my head: "Laura, you control your reaction to things. You control your attitude. No one else can do that for you. It is purely in your control." Oh. My. Goodness. Are these not the same flippin' words I've told my husband and my sons? Did I think that they applied to others and not to me? How liberating these words were! I agree that the words are so cliché, so belonging on a motivational poster, but still, they were so very true.

I feel that my heavenly Father was speaking to me that morning, and I've felt a sense of calm that I haven't felt in a long time. I'm still dizzy (I went to the urgent care clinic last night and the doctor said that I had fluid in my ears, and gave me four prescriptions. 4. Fluid is causing my dizziness. Yuck. *crosses fingers* hope it'll go away soon), but it seems to be getting a bit better.

Don's best friend Amr, whose son Michael is one of Troy's best friends, and I played hacky sack at the boys' soccer practice last night. Normally we have 3 people playing; last night it was just us. He has tried to explain the need for a Zen-like state of mind when doing the hacky; I was just too much of a spaz to listen, as I sooo didn't want to embarrass myself and make him think that he wasted his time playing with me. So, as I was explaining my epiphany to him, we agreed that I should incorporate this newly found peace in my hacky playing. Wowsers! It worked so well!

So, I need to make this a habit. I need to grant myself the permission and the responsibility of determining how I am going to react to a situation. If I hold myself accountable, I can aspire to do the Lord's will, and bring Him glory. I ask for any and all help y'all can give me in this!

Thanks for being my outlet and my sounding board. More to come, but I'll not belabor this post, as it's a big honkin' one! Apologies, apologies! May I make it up to you? Read below:

May a rainbow gladden your eyes
May soft winds freshen your spirit;
May sunshine brighten your heart
May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you
And may God enfold you in the mantle of His love.

Blessings and His infinite peace,
Laura

Laughter

It's been a long day at work...not too many meetings, and we did do a team lunch for a co-worker who is going to another area, but the afternoon ended up being a challenge, in that we had a big discussion on how our screens should look, given the technology that will be "under the covers". Don made fajitas tonight (what a good guy!), and told me to "go check out the computer", meaning that he's done what he needed to do on it. I'm checking out different sites and blogs, and listening to the boys on the computer in Greg's room. Makes me GTM. There's the occasional "No", "Shut up", and "You're a newb", which can get bothersome at times (it really does get tiring being the moderator), but what makes me giggle is the laughter that they both share, sometimes at each other's expense, but more times because of something funny. It's a nice noise; one that I want to hear forever.

I plan on going to bed early tonight. I've found myself getting into the bad habit of going to bed closer and closer to 11pm, and waking up to find that the dark circles just don't seem to be going away! I always feel weird going to bed before Greg does--it's a comfort thing going back to my childhood. I always felt safer when the lights were on when I went to sleep, knowing that someone was downstairs. Can't explain why.

Well, there's been no sign of Honda, so I can only pray that she's not in any pain, and that I'll see her once again in Heaven. Don mentioned just yesterday that he needs an orange cat in his life, so...perhaps we'll get another. I'm pleased to say that he's seriously considering buying into my philosophy of having a 95% indoor cat, with supervised outdoor visits. Woo hoo!

Getting sleepy, and it's only 8:42. So, I'll say many blessings and His peace. G'night.