Skimming Off the Dross

"That which is to give light must endure burning."

--Victor Frankel

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Don't EVER EVER EVER Shop at JCPenny's

Finances and unemployment have been the family stress factors as of late. There are some hopeful prospects around the corner, so we're laying lots of prayers at the Lord's feet.

I've moved up to the next level in my PSP class. I've learned so much and am eager to learn more. I've spent the better part of the summer organizing all my psp, jpg, gif, png, and ttf files--many many many long days & late nights to get that project finished. Now I have several thousand emails from my PSP groups to sort through and discard. My goal is to be done with that by Labor Day. I'm not so sure I'll make the deadline that I set for myself, but I keep my fingers crossed.

My aim is to start this school season with my head less cluttered and more on task for accomplishing something. Additionally, I've discovered digital scrapbooking. So between that and my PSP lessons, I'm feeling confident about finally finding something to succeed at.

I'm also trying to find time to get back into my quilting, but it's hard to find the motivation. or inspiration. The fact is that I really do need to finish the quilt I was working on when Abigail died. It was the Christmas of 2002 that my friend bought me a block of the month club. She bought a club for her too, and thus we were bound to each other to keep up with each month's blocks. We worked all through the months of 2003--that summer was especially productive. We did most of the block-sets for the quilt during those summer months.
We finished the very last set of blocks in November. December was the final task, which consisted of border and backing. We were on our own for getting the final queen-sized product quilted. I had only hand-quilted before that, so this was my very first machine made quilt. I was setting out to get my border pieces put together when we found out that Abigail's heart had stopped just days before her due date.

All these five years later, I've not yet been able to get back to finishing the quilt. I also have fleece that I bought to make Abigail a winter bunting bag, but she died before I could get it done. I guess I could say that my summer has been spent going through my goal planner and getting myself set up for getting back into my pre-baby-death interests & hobbies.

It hasn't been easy, and I often wonder if I'm ever going to be able to have a life again. I like to think that I'm doing my best, and that in due time I will have accomplished a lot more than I give myself credit for. Somehow I trust the Lord to work it all out for me; that He never leaves me or forsakes me.

Other dramatic things this summer: garage door broke some major parts and nearly fell off it's tracks and onto our car. We couldn't get the car out for a week while we waited for the mgt company to send a garage door guy out here. The guy came and took assessment of the damage so he could write an estimate for the mgt company. They have to approve all the parts and services, and the guy can't get back here until next Monday (assuming mgt approves it all). The guy did help dh get the car out of the garage, but now it has to sit out in the scorching sun--don't like that idea much, but we'll cope.

Then our son got fired for ordering me some bath mats. He works (or at least he USED to work) at JCPenny's catalog center taking orders. They had sent me a free shipping coupon in the mail, and it expired on the 18th. So I cluelessly sent my son to work on the 17th with list and coupon in hand, asking him to place the order for me. During his break, he put in the order for my stuff and then went out for a cigarette. When he came back in, the supervisor sent him home and told him he had to go to Human Resources the following day.
The next day he went into HR and told them what happened. They actually fired him--all because he made an order for some bath mats for his mother. Neither of us had any idea that such a simple thing carried such a stiff penalty.

I know this much and that is I'll never ever ever shop at Penny's again--and I'll tell everyone I know from here to the Netherlands not to ever shop at Penny's. I mean, what a crock of crap! It's not like he was stealing either time or merchandise. I feel bad--really bad. I got my son fired. I just had to have those stupid bath mats, and they waved a free shipping coupon in my face. I figured Penny's would be glad to have another sale. NOPE. To be certain, the world has gone stark raving insane!

Oh well. We live & learn. He went in today and applied at the phone center for Victoria's Secret. He wasn't home an hour, and they called him for an interview. He goes in next Tuesday to jump through their dog & pony hoops. He's also got applications in with the phone centers for Sprint and T-Mobile. We'll see what comes of it. Saying lots of prayers for my boy...

Checking In

How fast a month will zoom by. I've been absent from writing. I'll catch up with that soon enough. I decided to dig deeper into this PSP graphics thing and really make a go of it. I've worked countless hours sorting gobs of jpg, gif, png, tub and psp files. I bundled some of it up and moved it to my other hard drive so I could ease up the load on my main drive. I can't believe how disheveled everything was. I had so many zillions of images that needed sorting &/or deleteing. Now that I'm relatively caught up with that, I've got another zillion emails that I've saved with the intention of gleaning more images to save. I'm sure most of it will get dumped, but I'm determined to get through it before the Labor Day season change embarks. Come hell or high water, I WILL get organized and more on task. Depression's a bitch, but I'm determined to battle it like a warrior of Salvation. God will NOT be mocked, and I'm determined with my whole heart to prove His Victory to be True!

So I've beem MIA from many of my watering holes; unable to say in words all that befalls us. We're in a very bad patch whereby every aspect of our lives are being attacked. Nevertheless, I am fully persuaded that what He first began, He will see through to completion. Be Back Soon...