The Things We Take For Granted

Most of us live our lives day to day and get caught up in the "now." It's not necessarily a bad thing but most of us forget about all the great people and things we are lucky to have. But then, when we feel like we're at our lowest low, we get a wake up call. That wake up call can be brought on by just about anything, the smile on your child's face, the compliment from a stranger, the embrace of a friend, or encouraging words from a loved one.

My recent wake up call was brought on by a special little boy, named Caleb. Caleb is 3 years old and he is the nephew of a friend of mine. I haven't had the honor to meet this special little guy but he has touched my life with out even knowing it. You see just recently he was diagnosed with Leukemia. As you could imagine the news was a shock to all his family and friends. I don't know exactly if Caleb knows or understands the illness that he is fiercely fighting but we all have hope that he beats this villian. Immediately after Caleb was diagnosed he started treatment but to his knowledge he's getting spider juice and he might turn into Spiderman. I have to say that Caleb's mom is one great creative woman. I don't know if I could come up with something so great like that on the fly. Even though Caleb would be thrilled to actually turn into Spiderman, I think he's already a super hero.

Thank you Caleb for reminding me that life is not only daily errands, chores, and bills. Thank you for reminding me to slow my days down, to appreciate the beauty of the life and the people that surround me.

CHBM Photo Friday: Light

This post was brought to you by CHBM Photo Friday, topic Light.

Customer Service...Ever Heard Of It?

So my friend and I were talking the other day and our conversation led us to the topic of customer service. She was telling me about a recent experience where she had called in to her job, she's a yoga instructor for a gym, and asked the front desk receptionist what days does the payroll week end and begin? The receptionist's response was "I don't know" and that was it. She didn't follow up with "Let me check or Let me find out for you," or anything to that effect. So my friend's next question was "Can you ask someone?" "I can't," she said "no one is here right now." Hmm...so I would think the receptionist would say something like "No one is available right now but when I find out I can give you a call back," but did she...nope. My friend was just a little upset and floored by it.

So what did my friend do? Well she drove down there, found the manager and asked him. She then went to the receptionist (she asked for her name before they ended their phone conversation) and told her when the payroll period was. My friend said that the look on the girls face was priceless, not to mention speechless and to add a little drama she told the girl to "wipe that look of your face because I'm only trying to help you in case another employee asks you the same question you won't look stupid again." (Yesss...hi five to my friend!)

We then started talking about how the "young adults" if you want to call them that, nowadays have no respect for people and no customer service skills. When we were their age, which was not long ago, less than 10 yrs., we were courteous and helpful. We never would have said "I don't know" and left it at that. We always went above and beyond, it was the right thing to do so why wouldn't we. So what's changed? Don't people care anymore?

I wish I could say that it's just kids being kids but that can't be the whole truth. As a parent now, I think it has to do a lot with a person's home life. Are parents teaching their children manners? How to be polite, helpful, and courteous? Are they setting good examples? From my own experiences I find that people in general are just grumpy and very impolite and for lack of a better word, that sucks! An example for you, everyday I smile at people when I'm out and about. There is no real meaning behind it only that I want you to know that I see you, and I acknowledge you. When I go to a store I always hold the door open for the person behind me and I'll say more than 60% of the time, that person will not say thank you. My 4 year old son does the same thing and even he doesn't get a thank you. So what do they do in the moment of politeness, well most of the time I'm ignored. Sometimes the person will look me in the face and still not smile or say a word and it really is upsetting. Maybe I shouldn't care about people's reactions or even expect a proper thank you but I'd like to believe that there are still manners being taught.

I don't know if you've seen them but there are some commercials on TV where you see one person being nice to another person and it's almost like a trickle effect and the entire commercial it's people doing polite things for another. I wish this really was the case but as far as I can see it's not which is so unfortunate. Really the would would be a better place if this would happen more often.

Well, I guess to each his own. All I could do is continue to do what I've been doing and teaching my children to do the same and hopefully once in a while someone will catch the polite bug and the trickle effect will occur.

Balance ~ Just A Thought

Balance, this is my new favorite drink of choice. It's one of the many different flavors of Vitamin Waters being sold and this particular one is a delicious blend of cranberry and grapefruit. If you haven't tried Vitamin Water I encourage you to do so because they are so good and refreshing and you get extra vitamins. A genius product. Now that I've marketed this product for free I'd like to say that I wish that balance for your life also came in a bottle. Isn't the thought just wonderful?

How great would life be if we could really open up a bottle and magically our lives would just fall in to place, complete balance. I know I'm not the only one that believes life to be a balancing act.

Everyday we wake up wishing we had enough time, money, and patience. We want to be a better wife/husband, mother/father, sister/brother, daughter/son, friend, or employee. We try every day to reach these goals but some how we can't find a way to complete the task. Once in awhile we come very close and sometimes believe that we've actually made it until that unforeseen weight tips the scale and we find ourself off balance once again.

Oh how great it would be if balance for your life came in a bottle.

Through The Mist Of It All

I saw a double rainbow today.

Back in July, a couple posts ago, I felt like I was getting back to normal. Things were looking up and I was feeling good. Along with that came a job opportunity which made me think, hey this might be it, this might be the moment where I actually return to work after a year and a half of being a stay at home mom. Don't get me wrong I love my kiddos but I miss working.

Before moving to Colorado I was "Super Mom," seriously I was. After my first kiddo was born I was the bread winner for my family. I supported our family while my husband, who was actually just my baby's daddy at the time (LOL we didn't want to rush into marriage but that's another story) went to culinary school. I worked and he studied to be a chef. I was at home with the little one and he took a 3 month externship to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Majorca, Spain, and New York City. After he graduated he did get a job but I was still bring in the dough but that changed when we got a really great offer to work for the company that he is currently work for. Long story short that offer moved us out here to Denver. I was used to being the bread winner and when we moved to Colorado I gave it up. But it wasn't just giving up a job to me, it was giving up my security, knowing that I could support myself. It was giving up the place where I was just me, a co-worker, a friend, not a wife or a mother. It was just different.

Anyways, back to the job opportunity. I was offered a positon in an office where I knew I'd be a good fit. You know how women claim to have that intuition, well mine is usually dead on. So I was really excited and the hubby was very supportive and the only thing that we needed to work out was childcare. I started my search right away and I was lucky and found someone that was going to work out just perfectly until...she backed out on me. Uh...yeah...sucky!

So I quickly went back to searching for a replacement. I posted three classified ads on CL for nanny/SAHM/babysitters and got pretty much nothing. I emailed several people looking for work, they either didn't like the schedule I had or they were to expensive. Did you know that nannies charge $15 hour? The job I got wasn't even going to pay me that much. So long story short after two almost three weeks of constant searching, I got nothing. Zip, zilch, nada damn thing. I have to admit that it's been really stressful and quite disappointing. After all the effort that I put forth I come out in last place. People remind me that "everything happens for a reason" and as I know that this is true, it doesn't ease the disappointment.

So I had to go to the office today and let them know that as much as I was looking forward to working with them, I wasn't going to be able to. They were really understanding and that was great because there aren't that may places that would be so understanding. (See, I knew it was going to be a good fit.) So after leaving I decided that I'd go buy a dress. I probably shouldn't have since money is tight but hey I was feeling really down and I rarely ever turn to shopping when I'm upset.

I was driving home under the half-clouded, half-sunny sky, which was producing light rain and thinking about the day and dwelling on the position I just gave up. I was still feeling low, even after buying a dress, and I looked out my window to see a beautiful view. It was a rainbow. I quickly told my son to look and his smile was big and bright which brighten my spirits. When I went to take another look I noticed not only was there one rainbow but there were two. I was on a residential side street so I pulled over and told my son to jump in the front with me because there were two rainbows. We both sat for a few minutes and enjoyed the view. We were so excited and in that moment everything was better. It was almost as if God was saying, "I know your down but there is more to look forward to." My son and I shared our first double rainbow and although he may not remember I always will. Thank you God for the beautiful view and my beautiful son.

Blinded By Colorado Beauty

Isn't CO beautiful!!! Finaly after a year of living here we got to explore what this state has to offer. I swear I'm in love with this view!

Green Mt. Reservoir - Elliot Campground - CO

Ok so I'm being a bit lazy about actually writing about our trip but I promise I'll be back to update this post.

Getting Back To Normal

So for some reason I've been in a funk, since like May, just haven't seem like myself but as of yesterday I think that I'm final back to normal. I can't really pin point why or what brought me to such a low, I guess it was just a mix of things. You know how it is, life, it just happens.

So what was it about yesterday that got me back to normal? Well I guess it was that fact that I had a good day with the hubby, i.e. no bickering, and the kiddos were not as monstrous as usual (seriouly two boys can drive you mad). But what was best of all is I finally got to enjoy being with my normal (ok so we're each a little strange) girls, doing our weekly normal girls night out. It wasn't like we did anything extraordinary, we just went to a concert in the park like thing. Anyway, I find it amusing how something so simple can be so impacting but at the same time it makes sense. My CL girls are my friends and I know that because they can fix me without even knowing that they fixed me. Thank you friends.

Oh and my sister too, who sent me a video that cracked me up only because she know how silly I could be and totally picutred me being the girl in the Boom Chicka Wah Wah video. Thanks sis for getting me back to silly.