Inspiration for the unemployed

Job Search Inspiration

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God is Able

Where I have been

Dear MomicRelief readers,

If you are wondering where I have been, I've been blogging over at ProlificMom . It's my other site...my other identity. The site was broken for a while so I spent some time rehabbing it. It's in limbo, so while I'm still trying to decide, define and refine the ProlificMom image, vision and mission, I'm using it as my blog site. If you want to catch up with what's been going on, hop on over to ProlificMom.

Please add me to your favorites and subscribe to my RSS feed. :-)

Here’s Your Sign

In the office building where I work the elevator doors and front walls are mirrored.  So, every morning I can check my appearance all the way up to the eight floor.  Then I get the same opportunity all the way down to the lobby at the end of the day.  This is useful for checking hair, makeup, shirt tucked in, everything in place, no boogies or hangers on, etc…  Then there is the other thing – the reminder that I need to loose weight.  It has become my mantra.  As I ride the elevator everyday I say to myself “I have to find a way to lose this weight!”  In fact I have been saying it over and over every day for months.  My wardrobe has shrunk to a total of four pairs of pants and a few skirts.  Fortunately we can wear jeans this summer and I have two pair that fit.  Enough said about that.  I think you get the picture.

Today, at work, the top article on my company’s intranet homepage:

 

 

 

Then I was on a break and decided to check out the headlines on the Yahoo home page and I saw this: 

Good golly Miss Molly, I thought I had gained a lot of weight.  This guy was a professional dancer, turned Ex-Husband of Brittany Spears (BS) turned full time dad.  It gives a new meaning to the name to K-Fed.  Apparently he fed quite a bit.  But I’m not making fun of him.  After all, this is me: ==>>

Then, after work, after riding down the elevator and once again checking out my womanly physique, I repeated my mantra:  “I have got to find a way to lose this weight!” (must lose 30 pounds!)

Well, that was depressing!  So, I decided that I wanted to stop at McIDontCountCaleries on the way home to get one of their fabulous MnM and ice cream concoctions.

Here’s MY Sign

The final blow came when I got into my car and noticed that someone had left a flyer on my windshield.

(Courtesy of this company)Does  everyone know that I want/need to lose weight?  This day has been like a universal intervention!  Message to Universe:  I know, I need/have to lose weight!

So, on the way home I had my ice-cream desert and tomorrow I will re-start my diet and exercise program.

Saying Goodbye is Hard

Letting go is even harder.

Max’s food dispenser still sitting in the kitchen.  Untouched since Monday evening.

Today we finally carried it out to the garage.  :-(

We miss the evening ritual of passing him around, talking to him like a baby while scratching his belly, and watching him sit on his “perch” on top of the coffee table while we watch baseball games.

Goodbye Max – you are missed.

Max, The Beloved Owner of Dalton

 

Max The Cat  2005 – 2009 (TBD)

Last night before bedtime we came to the unsettling conclusion that our beloved cat, Max, is missing.   We haven’t seen him for two days.  He probably, dare I say, “moved to the farm”,  “Bought THE BIG ONE”,  not likely to return…EVER.  

Max the amazing cat.

  He doesn’t do fancy tricks.  He is not snuggly.  And he rarely  ever plays with anything.  Mostly, he sleeps all day. Then he goes outside several times in the evening before bedtime.  Then, just before the wee hours of the morning approach – 3:30AM, EVERY MORNING LIKE CLOCKWORK – he jumps on the bed and meows to wake us up so he can go outside.  If we don’t  wake up to the meow he scratches the furniture as a last resort to get our attention.  The sound of claws on upholstery never gets ignored.  

Other cats have come and gone – to the same supposed farm.  One, we suspect, (our beloved Maizey Jr. – daughter of Max) now lives in a house down the street.  But Max, he stayed on and endures all of the love our family has to give.  His two best attributes:  Patience and Loyalty.  Max is the most incredibly patient cat we have ever known.  He allows us to hold him and snuggle him like a baby.  We  pass him from person to person over and over every evening and he never scratches, bites, hisses or tries to wiggle away.  He just lets it happen.    

We love him for his patience but adore him even more because of his  faithfulness and loyalty to our son Dalton.  Max doesn’t belong to us or to Dalton.  No, Dalton belongs to Max.  That’s right, Dalton is Max’s boy.   Most nights Max sleeps on or under his boy’s bed.  During the day he is the lone occupant of  the bedroom they share as he patiently waits for his boy to return home from school.   Each morning when he returns indoors after an early morning mouse hunt he runs to his food bowl for a quick bite and then immediately returns to the room where his boy is sleeping.  If the door is closed he sits outside and meows loudly as if announcing his arrival for a long awaited reunion.  

If ever a cat has been loved, it is Max the Magnificent.   We love him for his  patience but we adore him for choosing Dalton to be his very own boy.

Although we have talked to the children about the possibility of never seeing him again, and yes even the “D” word (DEATH), it hasn’t quite yet sunk in that this is actually the end of our co-existence on Earth.  Do cats go to heaven?  I don’t know.  To me it doesn’t matter.  He has fulfilled his purpose in life by providing our family with four years of great joy, and he has transformed Dalton into a gentle lover of animals big and small.

 

Dear Beloved Max – Owner of Dalton – we miss you already.  

Thank you for enduring our love.   May your farm be full of a never-ending supply of big fat, juicy mice.

About Getting Older – A Little Bit of Inspiration

So I have been busy lately – very busy.  I went back to work.  Then I started gaining weight. More on that another day.  Then I decided to lose the weight.  The plan – I did it before so I know I can do it again – eat better (low carbs – that means no more candy, cake or ice-cream -  and more protein) and EXERCISE.  I’m not a fan of just exercise.  For me the activity has to produce something you can see, so I’m doing yard work – for now weeding and mowing. 

Today I’m mowing the back yard.  Half way through the job I notice that my thumbs are stinging - blistered with peeling skin.   Am I turning into a dainty little pansy in my older age?  Not that my age is anywhere near old. But I have to say that NEVER BEFORE have I EVER gotten blisters from just holding onto the lawn mower.  What’s up with that?  Is my aging skin not tough enough to take it?  Am I going to have to slow down and give up physical hard labor just to protect my suddenly delicate hands?

Next year I will be 40 but part of me still feels like I'm 15 and invincible, capable of doing anything.  This is good and bad…good because I’m not afraid to do physically hard labor, but sometimes very bad when I over exert myself to the point of near self-crippling mutilation.  Sometimes I just don’t realize my limitations until WAY AFTER the damage is done.  This I blame on the sweetest, toughest, most inspiring woman I ever knew – My Grandma Huff.  Sorry mom, you’re still a very close first runner up.  So, I had to stop in the middle of mowing to bandage my owwies, document the moment, and write this story before I cripple myself for the rest of the day.

About my Grandma -This spritely, slightly hunchbacked woman was a machine when it came to hard work.  She shared stories of her childhood picking cotton every day in the Texas summer heat.  As an adult she got out of bed before the sun almost every day of the 22 years that I had the privilege of sharing this earth with her and worked outdoors long into the heat of the day.  She was like an army of one in my eyes.  She worked the earth with her hands and never complained about scrapes, cuts, bruises or being tired.  I once caught her pouring LEADED GASOLINE on a bleeding, cut thumb and she didn’t even flinch at the pain.  Then she bound it with a rubber band until I thought her thumb was going to turn black.  No booboo strips or anti-bacterial ointment for her.  At that point I was old enough to stop her – so I took her inside and dressed her wound with ointment and a band-aid.  She told me that was how it  was done in the old days.  I would never have survived that because I’m a total coward when it comes to pain.

Its a wonder she survived her childhood to live well into her 80s, but Grandma was tough, resilient, hilariously funny, loved to pull pranks, and could guilt anyone into doing whatever she wanted.  She drank at least one full pot (sometimes more) of fully caffeinated coffee every day – even in the summer. Every year she decorated her house inside and out for Christmas, grew about two acres of garden and worked most of it herself from beginning to end.  Her house was immaculately clean.  She never owned a microwave or dishwasher, cooked almost everything from scratch using lard as one of the ingredients, and every  year she told us this would be the last time she would every be able to do any of it because she probably wouldn’t be with us next year.  I grew up just knowing she was going to die at any moment and we would never see her again, so when I was eight I decided that if and and when she died I would be buried with her because I couldn’t imagine living without her.  This went on for about twenty years that I can remember.  I don’t know how many years she said that before I heard it the first time.  I was blessed to know her and to learn everything that I could about the importance of hard, unglamorous dirty work.

And now back to me.  My thumbs are bandaged and I finished mowing the back  yard – not yet crippled, but I’m sure I’ll be feeling (regretting) this in the morning.  I’m also inspired to aim for my goal (the weight loss) and I’m not going to let something like the Texas summer heat, blistered thumbs and a few sore muscles (from head to toe) stop me.   I will lose this weight and my yard will look better as a result.

The Boy and The Balloon

This is the story of a boy…

and a balloon.

The Boy got a balloon at a car dealership where Mom told Dad not to go because she wasn’t interested in trading in her van for an Expedition or any other vehicle.

Instead of coming home with another vehicle, dad came home accompanied by offspring #3, #4 and #5 – all bearing huge car lot decorating balloons. Yeah for Dad!

The Boy played with his big beautiful balloon with great joy and delight all afternoon.  He played in the front yard…and in the house…and in the back yard… until alas the flossy red ribbon tied to the balloon slipped out of his nimble fingers and floated up, up, up and away into the balmy evening sky.

The Boy was suddenly inconsolably heartbroken because his shiny new blue car dealership balloon was going,… going… gone.  Huge crocodile tears streamed down the Boy’s cheeks.

THEN, big sister……

quietly and lovingly – and extremely generously – comes to the rescue with her shiny new yellow balloon.  “Here Boy.  You can have my balloon.” she said, with a smile and a gentle consoling hug.  And the Boy was happy again. 

See the Boy smile :-)

Thank you big sister:-)