Cheese Straws?

…what is that I asked?

As everyone turned their head at the table to look at the One Eyed Martian not from this neck of the woods. Just as I answered a 75 year old woman got a gleam in her just like she probably did upon seeing her first love or her first grandchild. With a new found spring, she leapt out of her chair and ran out of the room. Only to return to the table with 2 plates of home made cheese straws.

The One Eyed Martian was thanked for asking such a silly question and I had my first taste.

Well it has been a few hundred miles, a few longer months and a few less tears shed but I am in a new state with a new company and a new group of people.
I now have two residences again, this time the second one is out of state and no longer just down the road from where my family lives.
We have sold the house, moved up to the Northern part of the state to be closer to the In Laws, only to find out that my job in Oil and Gas was no longer needed, along with a few of my peers I was laid off.
A few more months of spiritual guidance, and white knuckled prayers for the summer, to be answered with a job, but this time in another state in the South. Not a state I would ever consider moving to, and pretty sure no one ever said “when I grow up I want to move to xxxx”.
But the answer to my prayer came to me, after simply saying. I am not going to fight it this time, I am not going to push, I am going to set down my bag of worry, and let you pick it up for me Teacher. I am going to believe with all my heart, and even when I don’t, I will let you know that I am human, but still praying to stay on that right path. Forgive me for being a man, but love me for trying and bless me for it.

So, the interviews came, the flight out to visit happened and then I was offered the job.
We have since made the traveling back and forth work, I have been lucky enough to be home every weekend, and my family is going to visit this down South state for Thanksgiving. To have my wife look at the homes and neighborhoods and to get a feel of what it is like here. The city we are coming from has mass suburban communities with lots of extras around it, and metropolitan living close by (art, opera, ballet etc). This place….well, not so much. The schools are not the best either, slim pickings there, and everyone with a family is trying to get into those neighborhoods. And there are not many homes built within the last 10 years, so many 20-30 year old homes. Hmm, Dean Martin comes to mind upon looking at the houses.
But, in spite of all the oddities here, the folks have been down right homey and friendly. With everyone asking about my family, and have I found a church yet and to make sure and catch a football game as soon as I can.

While my wife and I have even considered buying a home in our old state, we keep coming back to the same thought. Our daughters will be stronger if we are all together, family is the most important thing right now.

So it goes, all prayers are answered, some with a resounding Yes and others with a quiet no. Either way, I know that my presence in the world and my state of mind solely depends on me and my belief in all things good. I saw this past Sunday that Joel Osteen said, ‘it does not matter where you are in this world, you are always going to be you. No one can take that from you, regardless of where you are’.

Truer words were never spoken, but many still fail to hear it.

Believe, or worry………don’t do both.

Just because something isn’t happening to you right now, doesn’t mean that it will never happen.

I am on my last week here at the client site. I have been assisting them with data and reporting via my companies’ application, while they find someone to fill the position full time. Well, she has since showed up a few weeks ago and I am glad they got who they did. She is smart, college educated and ready to roll with the information I have given her.

Now unfortunately, I will be back at the offices without a new place to go. They don’t have another client lined up for me and very glad they don’t as really…what would I be doing for them? I have not had any formal training, any time to digest or trouble shoot the issues within our applications,… so for right now, I can be of no/little assistance to a new client who deserves someone better trained than myself.

I am trying, very hard lately to be patient and not be critical of the way my entrance into this company has been. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be in a new industry but at some point they have got to realize (and I think they do) that how they are interacting with the new hires is not working.
The air of avoidance hangs in the room when my manager is with me, as I suppose he is tired of telling me he does not know what he is going to have me doing.

I just finished typing out all the problems with my current situation and I deleted them all as I am not trying to capture the negative points and have them be a reminder of what is in front of me. (that is what a lunch break will do for ya, help you re-group)
I have been in this situation before, and I understand the problems in which our department and group are going through and just want to help fix the problem, but not sure how to do that without stepping on my boss’s toes and taking a larger leadership pseudo-position. Kind of what got me noticed, and not in a good way noticed, from  my last place of employment.

People tend to start fearing change and especially when it is good change coming from ideas that ‘they’ did not institute. So in the mean time I am just keeping my mouth shut and not doing much. I do however want to speak to my boss about my current salary and what else I can do to get it where it should be, not something for nothing but taking on a more responsibilities and maybe helping out the exec group, but that would take me away from what ‘he’ hired me for.
I feel as if he is a kid who has a ball that he is not playing with, not using, but he doesn’t want anyone else to play with it either. So he just keeps it tucked away.

I started to think last night and got very worried, and upset. Wondering if what I am doing is the right decision, the right path, that I should be on. Our lives, our home, the girl’s daycare and my wife’s work is all in another city….I am the only thing that is outside of the norm.
What if we move here and my company lets me go as I don’t have anything to do, any work or projects to be on? I am no longer part of the healthcare club, and don’t have long enough tenure in the O&G industry to take on any real leadership or Sr. roles. What if my wife now has to take on the lead role for bread winner again and I stay home with the girls, what if we sell our house and end up being stuck in an apartment if i do lose my job..What if, what if what if……………………………………………………………………………STOP.

I took a deep breath and relaxed and said to myself what I say to so many. Either you “TRULY” believe that there is a higher presence, a higher cosmic reason, a sense of providence as to why you are here right now, this second of this moment, OR if you don’t truly believe, then yes you can begin to worry that everything is randomly swirling around us out of control with no meaning or purpose for anything.

Either way sir….DON’T DO BOTH!

I remembered a passage by Eckhart Tolle saying something about happiness and the Now. How we only have right now, this minute, there is no future state of being happy, only this Now is what we have and we can choose to be happy Now…or be unhappy Now…no other time, but right NOW.

Sleep finally came to me, and I thanked all the heavens above for my favors and blessings as if tomorrow never came, the life I have had up into this moment, this Now….has been mine and it has been brilliant.
I will continue to come to work each day, and be mindful of my impatience, and keep it in check. I will continue to say the same prayer everyday, “dear lord, let me be of assistance to someone today”.

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”
Eckhart Tolle

 

All will be OK…

Well here it is, the end of the year. I have been going through the collections of pictures that I had throughout the year and tried to consolidate them all into one album for the year.

In looking at them, you would find it hard to believe that there was any disruption in the year due to me being out of work. In fact, I found that there were a lot more happy moments and smiles during the year than I recalled.

Last night I sent an email to a friend of my sister’s, who is currently unemployed. About 3 months. She took a leap of ‘faith’ and left her job to move to another city. She wasn’t happy where she was, and in what she was doing. She quit her job as her boss was not very respectful of her work requests. The final straw was having her schedule changed to have her work on the weekend in which her Niece was graduating from college. She had asked off for it months ahead of time as she knew it was important to her family for everyone to be there.
So she quit after having her boss change the schedule on her, disregarding how important this was to her.
So I sent her some of my learning points that I went through and realized that I was being very upbeat about my recommendations. To believe, to let go and to get out of your own head as your mind will keep you trapped in your body.
I told her God had a plan for her, as if he didn’t, she would not still be here. He would have come and taken her home.

My wife presented me with a Christmas gift that really shook me and brought tears to my eyes.
In all the years I had been meaning to do this one thing, it had never gotten accomplished until this Christmas.
She framed my 2 degrees for me, my undergraduate degree and my new MBA degree.
It shook me to see them, it made me remember how far I had come from a small little town, to working out in the oil fields, to sleeping in my car and moving to another city just to start new and then go back home to start college in my 30’s.
It really ignited a spark in me, to stop feeling scared, to stop feeling as if I was not worthy of working or being employed and it was just plain luck that I have the job that I do.
I surrendered again and realized ‘all things for a reason’. I am where I am supposed to be, learning and doing. I am giving thanks and now I am being ambitious again, not just for me but for my family.

I know God knows this is not some self-aggrandizement statement, some ego or me pounding my fists, but me believing that I would not have been given all these skills and ambition, just to see them go to waste.
My job is just to ‘believe’ and to give thanks for what I have and to just know in my heart that ‘all will be OK’.

I told my sister’s friend the same thing, to surrender the worry to a higher being and to acknowledge that you “know” like you “know the sun will come up tomorrow” that you will be employed again. It is not your job to know when….it is your job to believe, and allow the Universe to set things up for you.
I am very excited to see what the New Year will bring, as I am not the same person I was a year ago.
Each year I start the year with some word, some purpose for the year, and I believe that 2013 was the year that I didn’t’t have a purpose. 2012 was Wisdom and Prosperity, I found more Wisdom but lacking in prosperity as that was my first layoff for the summer.

2014….maybe it will be one of Gratitude, for all the blessings that I have as of late, or have always had but just now beginning to see them again.
I don’t know where we will be this time next year, in our original home, or in a new city, but wherever it is, I want us to be together, happy and joyful about our lives. Less stress, and more abundance for us. Our girls will be turning 4 and 3 this upcoming year, so we have another year to figure it out as my oldest will be in school at 5.

Do I still get worried, sure….but I close my eyes usually and find when I open them, my hands are clasped and my head has been bowed, and I feel a warmth in my heart knowing that “all will be OK.”