Its been so long...

What an interesting week it has been so far! I am so not happy and not adjusting well to not having the Internet. I think for next month and the months after that, though, we will be able to afford it again. So...That means...Internet again!!! And blogging again!!!

Anyway, I wish I had pictures or something fun to put on here, but I don't right now. I had taken pictures in the last few weeks planning on posting blogs about them, but I am at work right now, counting down to the last day of this job as I have already started the new job.

Anyway, again...this week has been interesting. I have laughed. I have cried. I have been utterly bored. I have been suffocated by the heat. I have been in my brain a lot. I have been missing my sister. (This work transitioning hasn't left me much time for hanging out during the day at her house.) I have been learning loads.

On Monday, we had our first "Team Meeting" where we met each other, my other co-workers, and talked about rules and what would be expected of us more in depth. I am going to be a Chiropractic Receptionist/Assistant. Part of my job will include medical billing. Another part will be cleaning. Yet another part will be taking blood pressure and pulse, weighing and measuring peoples' heights and charting those things. I will be expected to answer phones, make appointments, greet people, as well as assisting people with electrotherapy. There is just a list of things I will do, and I am so excited about all of it.

I love the way the office smells, faintly of lemon soap. It doesn't smell like a hospital or even a clinic. It is so warm and cozy. The colors are all so cheery, tangerine, spring green, purple, mauve, dark stained crown molding and tan walls. The offices are all easily accessible, and the office just exudes welcoming and comfort.

Yesterday was my first real day of working at the office, and I basically just cleaned all the chiropractic tables and anything leather and made lots of copies. I made a lot of new patient packets. I also learned a lot. I asked about cracking my neck because I have been doing it for as long as I can remember. He explained to me that he doesn't recommend it because it is only further allowing a problem to exist. Basically your spine looks like this.

When you crack your neck, you are moving vertebra that are most likely already too loose. They are too loose because the vertebra above them or below them have "locked up." Because the movement in the upper vertebra or lower vertebra surrounding the loose area is so limited, the body tries to naturally compensate for it, making the middle area move too readily.

**I am not a chiropractor. I have no chiropractic training. I am just reciting in very, very layman's terms what I was taught yesterday.**

Today, I am at the bank until 2 and then to the chiropractors until 6pm. I am doing that tomorrow as well, and on Friday, the bank is giving me a food day as a going away party. They are making barbecue, taco dip (per my request) and some sort of dessert. It should be wonderful and bittersweet. I have made friends here. I have shared a lot of my soul here, but it is time for change.

I think as I learn new things I will be posting about them. I knew nothing about chiropractic before two weeks ago, and I still know so little. Yesterday, though, I adjusted my boss's back! He walked me through the steps of how to do it, and I did it! It was so strange and slightly awkward. When have you ever gone in for your first day of work and ended up having your boss lay down on his stomach and instruct you on how to adjust his back? It was very interesting, though. He laid on a table that has two movable pieces where your stomach goes. He lifted those pieces up, and I pressed on the thoracic area of his back so that it seemed as though the table collapsed under him, though it was only the two movable parts. Then he readjusted the table and we did that five times. Then, he instructed me to check his feet and eye ball them to see if one leg looked longer than the other. Indeed, one leg did look longer! So, we went through the motions two more times until his legs were even. How strange is that?!

When I asked him how his feet came into play there, he said his pelvis is tilted and it makes it appear that one leg is longer than the other when in all actuality, it is just his pelvis tilted in the wrong direction. Strange! I had a great sense of accomplishment, though. It was a lot of fun if nothing else.

To me, this blog seems boring. It seems to be lacking flair. I mean, how interesting can it be to sit and read about what my day is like. For some reason, though, I have just been so cloudy in my brain this week. I haven't been able to write well at all. I've been getting bored with my knitting. I've run out of real projects to do, and I'm beginning to realize how much I depended on my Internet. It kept me in touch with the world. I could find patterns at the drop of a hat. I could listen to music if I was bored or just needed to think. I feel as though my lack of Internet has just spliced my creativity. Whenever I was curious about something or needed some food for thought, I could just Google something. My questions could always easily be answered. I'm just getting bored without it. I'm getting bored and my brain is not being stimulated.

I hope to have the Internet back soon. I hope to be able to talk with you all again, soon. I hope to have my "normal" life back soon. I hope to get my routine back. I think all this change and adjustment is happening rather quickly between getting to know my father, re-building my relationship with my Heavenly Father, changing jobs and following His path and His will, getting married, becoming more faithful to the friends I've got and not having much creative outlet, I am feeling stifled and overwhelmed at the same time. Wish me luck on my new endeavors...well not so much luck as blessing! I'm sure I will get around to reading the comments eventually. haha

The Call Back

Well, my dad called back last night, just as he said he would. I had prayed before talking to him. I talked it out with God and told Him all my insecurities about letting my dad have a bigger place in my life now, and God was really encouraging me to open my heart to my dad. I don't have to trust that my dad will always make good on his word or that he will never hurt me, but I do trust God, in that He has a plan in all of this. If I get hurt by my dad along the way, emotionally, I will just have to turn to God to heal that pain. God wants me to love others. That was one of his greatest commandments. I don't get to pick and choose who I will allow myself to love. God wants us to love others. When He said that, He didn't say we got to choose which others. In my case, "others" is including even my dad who was absent for so much of my life.

So, while I had my dad on the phone last night, I told him how proud I was of him. I am proud that he calls so often and that he has a job. He said that it meant so much to him to know that I loved him. After that we talked for awhile about God and our purposes. My dad thinks he is called to share the Gospels, which I wouldn't doubt. His dad was a pastor, so he's had the background. He said he knew a lady that was having a hard time a few weeks ago, and he helped her out. She told him he was a guardian angel, and he told her, "I don't know about that." He said they got to talking, and he had an opportunity to tell her about Jesus. It was really nice to hear him talk like that.

I also told him that he doesn't deserve to carry around all the guilt he does. He apologized, and I am ready to move on and accept the apology.

After we had talked for a little while, he said he would like to come up the first of the month and pay for the car in cash. He has already talked to someone about getting it back to Kentucky for him, so it seems this is really happening. I told my dad it seems like a huge blessing from God right exactly when we needed it most. My fiance will only have one pay check next month, and if my dad does pay us $500 for my car, it will cover almost exactly what we need it to cover. My dad said it was like a miracle that he had asked about it, and I agreed with him. Like I said, his memory is slipping, but if it hadn't been, he wouldn't have asked about it again, and I wouldn't have explained our financial situation to him. There is no such thing as coincidence when God is involved!

Interview

This morning I had an interview in a new Chiropractic office in my town. It is opening on Monday, and they need receptionists/assistants, so I applied. It is time for change in my life, and banking was never the industry for me. It's just too corporate.

I am very intrigued by chiropractics. I know it is still new and somewhat controversial, but the stories are interesting. It would keep me around people and in the community, and it would also showcase my organizational capabilities. The space wouldn't be completely my own, but I would get to use it, the receptionist area during my shift. I really do think it is something that I could enjoy. Plus, it is a challenge because there is so much to learn. I know very little about chiropractics, and it gives me so much opportunity to learn.

The interview went so well. It was very comfortable, and I was just myself. I am really tired of being something other than who I am, and I think it is time to be honest with myself and those who love me. I like to help. I like to keep things clean and organized. I like to be busy, and I love to learn. I like to feel purpose, and I like to be challenged to meet deadlines. I also love to teach, and with this job, I would be given that opportunity as well.

Possibly the best part is that I would still get to work part time and even get paid a little more than what I make now. They believe in a holistic approach, and that is exciting to me. The wife is an occupational therapist with what seems to be a very bright and loving personality. The husband is the actual chiropractor, as well as athletic trainer and nutritionist. I feel like this combines so much of what people need. People need someone to listen. They need someone to care about them, and I feel like this business, these people, are going to do just that.

Wish me luck! I go back for a second interview on Friday this week, and hopefully I will get a job that I could love for a long time.

I'm feeling an emotional downpour.

For those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook, you may have noticed my status updates have been dreary as of late. That is because I feel dreary. Over the past weekend, I witnessed so much change in my life, and I have tried to become more relaxed about change. This was all just an overload, however.

My fiance and I looked at our first prospective house. It needs a lot of work done that he, his friends, and even my sister's husband are all capable of doing and doing well. Its the home his mom grew up in, though. It is tied to the family, and for that reason, I feel a connection with it. The only real problem is our credit, though. He's asking a reasonable price for the house, though I would still like to have a professional price the house for us. We just struggled a lot last year, and we are finally getting back on our feet, raising our credit score, and my fiance is being made to work less. We were smarter this time around, though. We shut off the cable and Internet before it got to a point where we couldn't pay the bill. We want to stay on top of our financial situation instead of letting it hit us like a ton of bricks, so I guess you could say it is a learning experience.

Shortly after we looked at that house and made our pro-con list, my friend called. My friend and I have been friends since kindergarten, for 15 years. We have seen many hard times. We have experienced a few good fights, but we always came back to each other in the end. This time, I don't believe that is the case.

She and her room mate, my other friend from high school, called and put me on speaker phone. I had sent my high school friend and e-mail last Friday apologizing for the fact that I can't come see them more. I don't have a car anymore since the transmission blew up. From there, it turned into a back and forth discussion about how I apparently am not "reciprocating" their efforts to continue our friendship, how they are trying so hard to keep it alive and I just don't care. I tried to explain to them that we are just in different places in our lives right now, with me suffering such a huge loss less than two years ago, me getting married, and me wanting to start a family soon. I'm also no longer a college student, and my priorities have changed. I guess that's not allowed, though.

I was served with an ultimatum. They said to me, "We know this sounds like a terrible thing to say, but we want all or nothing." They did not want to catch up with me later in life because they acted like that was a ridiculous notion. They wanted me to come see them more than "once every two months, and we want to talk to you more than once every two weeks." I understand that they want me to call more. I could have called more than I did, but I could count on one hand the number of times my high school friend called me in the past two years. In all honesty, I expected this from my high school friend. This isn't the first time I've felt stabbed in the back by her. My 15 year friend completely threw me for a loop, though. She had just come to my house a week or two ago. We had been talking on the phone a lot, and then all of a sudden, nothing. By the time I realized she hadn't called me in awhile and thought I needed to call her, I guess it was too late. I did call her. She sounded like something was wrong, and I asked her about it. She said there was nothing wrong and asked if she could call me back later.

I have heard her use that line so many times when someone calls her and she doesn't want to talk to them. I knew I was the problem, but I just felt it was immature not to just tell me she was upset with me. I didn't feed into it, and apparently, that was the end for her. I had even sent her a text message saying I didn't believe that she was fine, and she said she didn't know what I was talking about. I told her that her voice was giving her away and when she was ready to tell me what was going on, I would be there to listen. Where in all of that does it sound like I don't care?

So for the past three days, I have been running over and over this in my mind, trying desperately to figure out where I went wrong with my 15 year friend. I thought things were going so well. I thought we were fine. I had no idea she thought I didn't care. I had no idea she felt like I didn't want her in my life anymore, and I don't feel like this was entirely her opinion. I think she was swayed by the opinion of my high school friend, but there is nothing I can do about it now.

I just feel so betrayed. I talked to another of my friends yesterday and asked her if we were still friends because as I had assumed, they have already told our other friends about this. She said she was still my friend, but she just couldn't believe I would send them an e-mail "like that. It was like you don't even care anymore." Again, I was dumbfounded, but at this point I was just angry. I asked her if she even read the e-mails and if she read the e-mails from my high school friend to me, and she said she hadn't read them. She was just told about them, but conveniently, after that, she said she was not getting into the middle of this. My intention was not to bring her into the middle of it anyway. I am just shocked that no one wants to hear my side of the story, and no one respects the fact that I am always going to be different from them.

I feel like I can't trust any of the friends I thought I had that are my own age, and it is leaving me feeling very naive and ignorant. I am feeling so much pain at the loss of my 15 year friend because we really were very close, and none of this seems fair. I wish I could understand, but a lady I know commented my status on Facebook saying something that I feel like God is really trying to reiterate to me right now. I don't think she even realized it, but she did give me much comfort.

"Not that it will make you feel any better about losing two people you cared for, I thought I would remind you that people come into our lives for different reasons. Some stay only a few seconds and some stay a lifetime. Your friends apparently served their purpose in your life, and a change was due. You are a very strong, caring, intelligent woman, and you will find a way to see the good in this when you are ready. Love ya!"

So, I guess the choice is up to me. Am I ready for this change? Am I ready to let go of my childhood? Am I really ready for all the growing up? Am I ready to follow God's plan for my life instead of my own shallow goals?

Yes. Yes, God! I am ready to follow Your purpose and find peace in it.

P.S. I want to send out a huge personal thank you to all of the ladies that stepped up to see how I was doing and offer your nuggets of wisdom. I know who my true friends are, and I know you guys will always be my security net. Thank you so much for that!