A New Tradition

Jason and I started a new tradition - I read to him while he drives when we go on trips. It gives us something we can do together and fills our mind with knowledge. Plus, Biscuit, the dog, likes to sit in the backseat and cry unless a)I'm signing to him (which no one wants to hear, but there's something about a mother's voice) or b) I'm reading out loud. So naturally, we have opted for reading out loud. Biscuit sleeps like a baby and we get to learn.

We are on our first book like this - 41. The story of George H. W. Bush as told by his son George W. Bush. I don't care what side of the political party you fall on this is a good read. It's not all about being a Republican or super conservative, it is about a man's life - a good man's life. We are only about halfway through but the things I have learned about his character are awesome.

Some could say that this has a slant to it because his son wrote it and there is probably some truth to that, but at the heart of the book is a much greater story. I really don't think George W. Bush, could publish something about his father and his father's friends, close friends, yes - even Democrats, if it wasn't true.

It's about a man who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he chose not to go to college straight out of high school, but rather serve our country in WWII. Came back, went to Yale, but instead of taking the easy road on Wall Street and a guaranteed lucrative career he opted to move his family to Odessa, TX where they lived in small home that shared a bathroom with a family whose mother was a lady of the night. Doesn't really seem like this is a man who took the easy way and lived a life of luxury to me, like so many claim. I digress, this isn't a post about politics.

Getting to Odessa - most people didn't even know what Yale was. He took a manual labor job in the oilfields and worked his way up. All the while, with his wife beside him.

So a couple of things I've learned from this book or things that I have always known but been validated even more. (This isn't even all of the things that this book can teach you)

1) Humility pays off  - being humble about your accomplishments will take you farther than anything, being humble attracts friendships and enables you to lift other people up because you aren't concerned about yourself. Sounds like a pretty solid Biblical principle to me.
2) Work hard and never give up - George H. W. Bush was faced with a lot of diversity but never gave up. He rolled his sleeves up and did what it took.
3) Being comfortable and not taking risks can hinder success
4) Be genuine, be a good friend, keep your word
5) Be willing to support your spouse no matter what (learned that one from Barbara Bush) - it pays off
6) Have integrity, do the right thing no matter what the cost

I'm sure that there are several other things that have filtered through my mind and heart while reading this book. The lessons in this book are many. While it may be about someone's life, I think it's more about the picture of what characteristics a successful person embodies.

If you haven't read it, and are looking for a good read, with valuable lessons - this book won't disappoint. 

The next one on our list is the American Sniper book - sure to be a good read as well.

Lunch at Home

I rarely ever come home for lunch, and when I say rarely I mean, maybe once every 6 months do I come home to eat lunch. I use lunch-time as a time to get away from work and the house and go eat with some ladies from work, or pick up lunch and take it back to the office and do online shopping or something. I live all the way across town from work and when you get used to not having to drive long distances that 10 minute drive home just doesn't seem worth it when you can drive 3 minutes and pick up some yummy chicken that you didn't have to make yourself. One of my goals this year is to not eat out as much, which means seriously decreasing the number of times I eat out during the week instead of coming home for lunch.

Today was easy - I had a chiropractor appointment across town so going to the house afterwards was easy. I was greeted by to my two precious animals who as I am typing are staring at me

I'm not sure why I don't come home more during lunch. I get to spend time with my pets in the middle of the day and throwing something together to eat isn't that hard. Plus Gilmore Girls is on - how can you beat that? Now I'm reminded why I love coming home for lunch. 

Which makes me think about life in general. How many times do we do something like volunteer our time to help a local charity and we love it at the time, but we don't devote more of our time to doing it because at the time you sign up, spending your Saturday doing something like that is the last thing you want to do. But the feeling after you do it is wonderful. For me, I can also compare this to running. I once ran avidly - every day - rain, sleet, snow, shine - it didn't matter, I just ran, and I ran a lot. Now when I get home putting on my running clothes is the last thing I want to do, but on the days I do go run it is wonderful and I never regret going for a run. Just like I won't regret coming home for lunch today.

Maybe I will remember that when I get home this afternoon and am not wanting to go run.

Plus coming home for lunch, I won't feel so guilty about stopping at Starbucks on my way back to work.

What Can I Learn?

Every Sunday morning I pray that God opens my heart so that I can hear what He would have to say to me from the preaching. As I mentioned last week in my blog, we are going through the book of Ruth and today our preacher spoke from Ruth 2. One of the first things he said was for us to ask God what He wanted to say to us - he probably always says this but for some reason I really picked up on it this morning. He also started by referencing Luke 24: 27 - "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." This tells us that everything in the Bible points back to Jesus and every scripture/passage points back to Him and He does want to say something to us with every word in the Bible. 

In Ruth 2:2 the Bible talks about Ruth going to fields to glean what was left of the harvest. I immediately wrote down in my journal "leaving some for the poor (giving)." I didn't necessarily mean only giving to those that that don't have everything I have but looking for opportunities to give in any situation. While I was writing the pastor went on to talk about what "gleaning" meant - in those days it meant that the landowners were commanded by God to leave the droppings, essentially, from their crops so that the poor or foreigners could come behind them and gather up the droppings for their table. While Ruth was gleaning what was left of the harvest Boaz came out and said "The Lord be with you," which shows his generosity and character.

So two things from this: Do I take what is leftover and help someone out and do I have the character of being cheerful in giving like Boaz did? The answer is more often than not I don't give what is leftover. Sure, I volunteer a lot of my time, but most any financial gain I have, I put it in the bank and save it up. One of my goals this year, that I set last week, before this message today, was to give this year - not just tithe, but give. Let me just say that God spoke and validated that goal this morning. Hmm..maybe this is why the pastor chose this book to start the new year with....

In that field, on that day, Ruth being from a foreign land and Boaz being a Jewish man of standing - what were the chances that they would meet? 100% - because it was God's will (those were the pastor's words not mine) And that really made me think this morning as well. We think, wow what a coincidence, but I have come to learn over the last couple of years that there is really no such thing as coincidences, just divine intervention. So this takes me back to what I wrote about last week - looking for a job, a friendship ending, etc. What are the chances that you're going to find that job - 100%. What are the chances you will find a new, stronger friendship - 100%. Something else my pastor said this morning that I wish I could take credit for is this - "When you give your life up to Jesus, you are then his responsibility." And that should give anyone who is a believer great comfort! 

The second chapter of Ruth goes on to talk about Ruth's character - she takes initiative, she is humble and hardworking. All traits that as women we can look too and model ourselves after. Ruth 2:12 - "The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge." Grace always takes the initiative - God's grace always takes the initiative even when we don't deserve it. More things that made sense to me this morning. 

By the end of Ruth 2 - Noami and Ruth's "luck" has changed and they have been moved from a place of great bitterness to a place of hope. That changed everything for them - Hope. 

To give, to be generous and of good character, to take initiative, to be humble, to be a hard-worker and to have hope are all lessons we can learn from the Book of Ruth. It definitely validated some of my decisions for 2015 and it gave me some other things to think about. In the midst of this life we often lose hope, but why should we, when we know who holds our future?

Where You Go I Will Go

A new year always bring new challenges, opportunities and new goals. Maybe you sat down like we did and made out a list of new year goals and what your priorities should be. We are almost through day 1 of living our goals - we waited till Monday so we could enjoy all the bad food and not working out over the weekend. We made goals out for Faith, Finances, Friends, Family, Personal, Professional and Physical - drawing on verses from Proverbs that the pastor in Church two weekends ago went over.

Yesterday, our pastor started a 4-week series over the book of Ruth. We read through the first chapter and the pastor challenged all of us to memorize scripture and commit it to our long term memory. The scripture for this week is:

Ruth 1:16-17 - "But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Those are two pretty powerful verses. The book of Ruth starts out describing the trials that Naomi goes through. By the end of the first chapter Naomi has requested that her name be changed to Mara (which means bitter). She had moved away from her home, her husband died, her two sons married Moabites and then her two sons died.  At the end of the first chapter, Naomi's daughter-in-law begged Naomi to let her return to Naomi's homeland of Bethlehem with her. That's where the two verses above come from. 

So as I've been thinking today, it doesn't really matter what goals you set or what you try to obtain for yourself through the year - the best year you can have is by going where He goes and staying where He stays. Realizing that God has you where you are for a purpose, no matter what struggles you are going through. 

Maybe you are looking for a new job, maybe you want to move to a different town, maybe you just lost your job, or you've been hurt by a friend, co-worker or spouse. Maybe not - maybe everything is going perfect in your life right now. But wherever you are in life right now the greatest goal we could set is to go where He goes and stay where He stays. In that we will find the greatest happiness and peace. 

Here's to tomorrow - day 2 of keeping our new year's goals.

Looking Back

Looking back on 2014, it was a pretty great year. Today, Jason and I are going to sit down and make our goals out for the year. The preacher last Sunday in Church talked about the biblical ways to set goals or New Year's resolutions if you will. I most likely will be sharing those as well, because when you write them down and other people know about them, you are more likely that you will keep them.

But first I want to take a look back at 2014.

1)  A year a go today, I remember waking up, walking into my kitchen and thinking what a  mess. I had thrown a NYE party and I can't remember how long it took me to clean that mess up.
2) February brought the rodeo to town and Marcus and Christy (my two best friends, more about them later) came to town and a group of 6 of us plus 2 kiddos went to the rodeo together. Rodeo season always brings a lot of late nights and fun times!! February also took me to Las Vegas for a newspaper Mega-Conference. My first time in Vegas and I loved it - didn't gamble a bit, but I did see Celine Dion and I may or may not have shed a tear during "My Heart Will Go On"
3) March was one of my hardest months of the year and hardest months since I have been in San Angelo. I'm not quite sure why but I was just in a funk all month.
4) April brought a big birthday surprise for one of my friends and it brought Jason into my life. We had our first four dates and then he was out of town for 2 weeks, which seemed like the longest two weeks of my life. It took me a while to warm up to him. I knew I liked him, I knew he had husband potential, but I had been living a pretty care-free life and didn't really want another serious relationship, ever. So it took me several months before I decided that I would give him a shot at being my husband someday :) Now don't get me wrong, I completely adored him and the man that he was, but I was also a little leery.
5) May brought Mother's Day and my brother and sister-in-law came to San Angelo to surprise Mom. I think it had been 7-8 years since she had seen my brother on Mother's Day. May also brought a trip to Seattle and Oregon with Jason. Most everyone thought he was taking me off and I would never be seen again - we had only been dating a month. But he didn't. May also took me to Amarillo for work and a mentorship program I was in last year (2014). I was deathly ill and thought I was going to die in Amarillo, TX in a hotel room. That's all, there. I also graduated from Leadership San Angelo
6) June brought a trip to Naples, FL for work. It was hot, sticky and muggy - that about sums up June
7) July brought 4th of July - we spent the evening out on the lake with one of my co-workers. July was also Jason's birthday month! But he isn't big on birthday's like I am so not much to report there.
8) August - I sold my house, the first house I ever owned. I didn't have too many good memories there and it was definitely the close of a chapter. It also took me to Knoxville, TN for a MONSTER (career site) training. It brought a month of birthday presents for me. One a week leading up until my birthday day. I forgot my best friend's (Christy) birthday on August 20 and it wasn't until the 21 I remembered - I was devastated. I will not let anything be such a huge part of my life this year that I forget the important people in my life. We spent mine and daddy's birthday weekend in Fredericksburg with my parents. We also celebrated mom's birthday there too - it is in September
9) September brought my first Air Force Ball - we got all dolled up and had a great time!
10) October brought a trip to Virginia for another work conference and a few days of vacation. After three days at the beautiful Boar's Head Inn, we spent one night in the Shenandoah National Forest.  Jason had never quite done camping like that. We ate at a delicious restaurant, had a bottle of wine and pumpkin beer to go. We also did some hiking. Who knew camping could be so fancy - Jason certainly didn't. We spent the next day hiking and then some shopping and dinner at a fancy but weird Mediterranean restaurant. The next day we spent at Busch Gardens - a beautiful theme park. October was also the month Jason proposed - October 18. Followed by me saying are you serious, yes and can we go get some ice cream now.
11) November we spent Thanksgiving - my most favorite holiday - with my parents
12) December we attended many Christmas parties and events, spent our first Christmas together, spent time with my family, drank a lot of wine and I got a new car - an Audi - so now we are a little happy Audi-driving family. We also went to Fredericksburg for 4 days for a retreat with my coworkers. One of my mentors and all around best people I know, retired from the Standard-Times which had a significant impact on all of us that he coached and taught over the last 4 years. December is also when my two best friends, who I happened to introduce, got engaged!

What I didn't mention in here were are monthly dates at Whataburger on the 8th of every month, the numerous hours we spent volunteering in the community, our Friday night dates at our favorite spot in town, Tuesday night dates at the movie theatre, joining an engaged/married group at or Church and completing multiple series on Netflix, trips to San Antonio to see friends and shop. And much more.

I don't know what 2015 will bring, 2 weddings (ours and Christy and Marcus') for sure, a lot of wine drinking as usual, and an end to our 8th of every month trip to Whataburger. Other than that, there are a lot of unknowns. Whatever may come though, I know that our goal is to keep our focus on God and listen to his whispers.

That Guy

Jason is going through a civilian assimilation class. It's a class that everyone getting out of the military has to go through if they are getting out within the next two years. This class is supposed to give them the resources they need to transition to civilian life. As Jason is telling me about the class today he makes the reference that he is "that guy" in class. You know the one that asks all the questions and has all the right answers. That guy that raises his hand and then tries to help others understand what the teacher is saying. Yeah, Jason is that guy. Which only validates why I love him and why I'm marrying him. 

Often we look at those people and talk about them behind their backs. We call them things such as brown nosers or teachers pet. And we say that like it is a bad thing. 

Since when is this a bad thing? 

Since when is asking questions and having the right answers a bad thing? 

I think the worse thing is not knowing, not being informed, not making an effort. 

I remember those people in high school that were "those people." I was not one of those people. Frankly, I didn't have much respect for my teachers and my sights were set on much bigger things than anything my teachers had going on or thought they could teach me. And I can honestly say that not one thing any of my teachers in high school taught me even sticks with me now. (Sure, I had some decent teachers - so if you are reading this and you were one of my teachers, you made the fb list, so this probably doesn't apply to you) I knew from a pretty young age that I didn't want to learn from anyone that valued sports more than academics, judged someone based on who their parents were or weren't, or someone who made you literally give up a spot on a team so one of the more popular people could have it.  So growing up, I wasn't one of those people. On the outside I'm sure I looked like one of those people. I played sports, I made good grades, I didn't get in much trouble, overall from the outside I looked like one of those people. I guess there was that time that I told one of the coaches she could kiss my you know what if I had to play another hole of golf. I don't think my parents were even mad at me over that one, maybe even a little proud I stood up for myself. Sometimes I even refused to answer a question in class even if I knew the answer because I didn't want to give the teacher the satisfaction of thinking I actually wanted to participate. Sorry, mom and daddy, if you're reading this. 

Anyways, I digress. I said all that to say, that now, I am "that guy." You know, the one that has the right answers, the one that is always looking at how to do something better, whatever my boss needs I will do whether it is 2 in the morning, a Saturday, vacation days, etc. Yeah- I'm that person. And yes, sometimes people give me a hard time about it. But here's the thing, I'm not being fake, that genuinely is who I am. I'm 27, I want to be successful in my career, I want those around me to be successful and have the support and resources they need and fortunately the people I work with are people of integrity and leadership - why wouldn't I want to be that person? 

Is it worth it? Yes. 

And I'm marrying "that guy"

And I hope our kids are "those people" (if we ever decide to have children) 

Being "that guy" is not a bad thing. 

Saying Goodbye

I've written some over the last couple of years about my Daddy and Mom and how influential they have been in my life. A true guiding light in my life who has taught me the value of hard work, a good work ethic and integrity in the workplace. They always taught me to treat people fairly and work hard, because nothing in this life is free or just gets handed to you. Those values, I believe, are what has carried me in my career the last four years. Both of my parents instilled the foundation for me to be successful and without that I wouldn't be where I am today.

Today was the beginning of a long goodbye to one of my mentors who has helped to lead me through my career and has combined what my parents taught me about work and this specific career path. I had the opportunity to start working with Barry when I was in Circulation back in 2011 when he first came to the paper to take our Finance Director position. Being a Circulation guy from way back we had an instant connection. For anyone in the newspaper business, you know, those circulation people stick together - it is a very unique position to be in. A lot of our time spent together from 2011-2012 was compiled of a lot of sarcasm with sarcasm on the side. My boss had already taught me a lot about the circulation and the newspaper business so my reliance on Barry was minimal. I often told him that I came by my smart a** ways naturally. So that was the beginning of our working relationship. 

Today was our last weekly 1 on 1 meeting. I didn't come prepared with anything to talk about in hopes that he had prepared something for me. Sitting down I asked him to impart all of his wisdom on me to which he replied that, that would take longer than our scheduled 30 minutes. What he did have for me though did not disappoint me and I'll get around to that later on. I had the opportunity when I moved into advertising in 2012 to start working closer with Barry. And the last 6-9 months I've had the opportunity to work even closer with him since my boss has taken on an expanded role. He has taught me what battles to pick, how to respond, how to look at things a different way and included me in anything that he thought would be helpful for me to learn. No matter what my questions are he always answers and is a straight-shooter. With him, you always have to be prepared to hear an answer that you may not want to hear. He has taken the time to teach me when he could have just looked towards retirement and done his time in the office. 

A lot of what he has taught me, I can't put in words. The things I can put in words that he told me today is this: 

1) Have patience...No matter how quickly you advance, be happy where you are and look for opportunities to improve in your current position 

2) Always look for opportunities to improve your organization 

3) Don't let the small things become big things and follow the 2 e-mail rule - if something can't be solved in 2 emails, it is time to pick up the phone or see that person, in person

Of course there was a lot more to the conversation, but these were the highlights. And I'm sorry,  but you just can't get that guidance from a book. 

It crossed my mind as I was leaving his office that, that would be the last time I left his office from an official 1:1 meeting. It's hard to comprehend at 27 years old that the people that have been so critical in shaping your career are moving on and you still have another 30 years ahead of you without that person's guidance. Somehow I always thought I would work with these people forever. The same goes for parents - we never think about the time they won't be here to teach us anymore. And it makes you a little uneasy on how do you move forward without them. 

There will be others that help to shape my career throughout the years, but Barry is one that I will never forget. I'm sure that the term "sewer monkeys" will be something I remember forever and I may even use it at some point in my career and give employees something to talk about :) 

Maybe someday I will be someone's Barry and I think more than personal success, the influence you contribute to someone else success is the greatest measure of your success. 

As I move through this life he makes the list of most influential people - he gets to be #3 since my official boss and others haven't retired yet. 

1) Daddy and Mom

2) Barry 

I saved the tears from falling as I walked out of his office today, but I still have to make it through a couple of "going away events."