The End of 'The Journey'

Changes will be coming, soon I hope, to this blog. I have not decided if I'll keep this url or change it. More likely I'll use it, just change things around. But we'll see. That depends on how much 'free' time I end up with in the coming days....

I've decided a change needs to be made to reflect where I am and what life is about now....this theme of being on a journey fit for a long time....and while I'm still on a journey and I like to be reminded that it really is the journey rather than the destination (as we're so often told) that matters....I've changed a lot since this blog and my newsletters started. Just as I have changed, so has my life.

It's a new season. And finally, I'm confident and excited about the changes that lay ahead. I hope to share them with you.

More coming soon.

Win a Wii !!

Over at Christian Personal Finance - there's a great give away going on!
You can twitter to win an iPod and/or blog about the give- away to win a wii (like I am here :-)

Check it out!
http://www.christianpf.com/wii/

Good luck!

Now...I'm heading back to work...

Today, this is how I feel

My Day

It all started when I first woke up to the sound of my pager going off. It went off five times in the space of an hour. Apparently this was the morning for everyone to freak about 'swine' flue and rather than drive themselves to the doctor, they called me in to do it for them. Paramedics are not taxi drivers...please don't treat us as such. And by the way....I wear gloves, masks and safety glasses for my protection, not yours. So if it makes you nervous and you ask me to take them off....please don't get offended when I refuse- and no, crying will not help- perhaps consider if you're sick enough to require Emergency Medical Services...as those who sincerely need us....don't give a crap what we look like.

Then when I finally got to the office (YB) all craziness was happening. I hate days like this when the weather is all screwed up...because it takes these guys FOREVER to get themselves sorted out. Some people show up for work, some don't and then get mad and I'm the one left to pick up the pieces of a shattered schedule. So we finally got everyone, well, most everyone, going in the right direction.

Enter Chaos: I ended up having some rather serious employee issues to handle. Two of which were team leaders who weren't, well, leading. Acting like 2 year olds is more like it. So in the course of dealing with them, one quit...not a surprise but still trying. I hate it when grown men act like small, spoiled children.

Business has been really tense recently anyway. The reason? Money and People...the two things it always seems to come down to. For starters we are busier than we have ever been. We have tons of invoices out there needing paid, lots of new ones coming in...in short we have no shortage of work. Our cash flow though sucks. One reason for this is that while job volume has increased, not all of our prices have. Which makes it tough since we've jumped from employing 15 to 30 in one season. So we've adjusted some of our prices and we are making cut backs to try and make it easier on us. Still, things are super tight. And the fact that some of these guys have this sense of entitlement ....they demand things rather than give us a chance to recognize their effort...something that doesn't go over well at all. We love to give our employees perks...but demanding it? Not so much.

And since when is it the employee's job to tell the Employer (that would be me) how to run the business? I'm the one who doesn't get paid, I'm the one paying them and all the bills, It's my freaking name on the door. I think that means I get to call the shots folks.... and if and when I want or need you to tell me how to do my job, I'll let you know. Thanks.

And it's only Wednesday.

On a brighter note, I had a really nice conversation with someone in the midst of all this craziness. It was great timing.




All Graphics Courtesy of Ennokni - "Daily Life"

My Absence

I've kind of neglected writing. No real excuse...just laziness.

My EMT shifts have been super boring and it's starting to feel like a waste of time. I know that sounds really bad to say that I wish people would get hurt/sick more....and I know that being there is important....still...because this is something I volunteer for it's not like I'm getting paid to sit and wait for the phone to ring...so I'm considering transferring to Wishard where at least I could work in the ER if I wasn't needed on a crew. So we'll see.

My other job, as a shareholder and employee in the family business has been chaos. In a good way. God has done a lot in my family over the last few months and even more in the business. It's been totally amazing. I know there's a 'recession' going on...but it's not hitting our market and we praise God for it! Business is going well, and our new product line is selling well. We are on our way to meeting our seasonal goal already.
This weekend is the Home & Garden show we are sponsoring so everything is a bit crazy with all the normal work plus this added stuff. And then rain on top of it all...so this will most probably be my only post this week.

School isn't happening....I had thought I would take some classes this summer but there just is no way I could manage a course load effectively and work 40+ hours a week. So I'm going to work this summer on evaluating my fall work hours and planning for school then.

The good news is that even with several set backs financially I'm still on target for saving for my trip to see my best friend Jody who lives in St. Lucia. I'm so excited. I miss that girl heaps! We were roomates in college and worked together in South Africa for several years. So we had lots of time in which to develop a really close bond.
Being away from all my friends is what has sucked the most about being stuck in Indiana. All my friends are either overseas or on the West Coast. I'm the only one out this way. It really is depressing.

There have been a lot of random thoughts and ground work is being laid for future decisions like ministry and school etc. But I don't feel that anything resolute has been decided. As the picture states...people aren't perfect and I'm still working through some crap. But thankfully I'm getting pretty good at just ignoring it all....although I think some might call that denial. At this point, I just really don't care. For the most part I'm still just putting one foot in front of the other and trusting God to see me through each day. For the most part, I do good to handle that. So as far as forward thinking...not so much....but a bit more than before. So I count that progress ....very minimal...but progress nevertheless.

So, I'm off to the gym, then home where I plan to work on some paperwork I'm taking with me and watch the NCIS episode from last week that I missed. Enthralling I know ;-)

Overwhelmed..........in a good way...I think.

snowed under

I will be writing a post soon...ish. Just as soon as I shovel my way out from under all the work I've got going on. Or at least work it down to a manageable pile!