Gut punch

I got some really disappointing news today. I applied and interviewed for a position within my department that just opened up. I have been a backup to the girl who was in this position. I have worked for 7 years in my department. My boss called me today and let me know they have given the position to someone else in our department. So not only, did I not get the job, I have to deal with someone who has very little knowledge of the job and less experience. It is a huge punch to the gut. Knowing how much easier it would have been on everyone involved to give the job to me, where very little training would have been involved. It makes it that much harder that I was picked over. My boss tells me that this girl has earned the job. Well, what the hell have I been doing? I feel like all my hard work has been for nothing. I feel trapped in a job that doesn't challenge or interest me and any attempts to find something new have been fruitless. I really thought I had this job in the bag. I don't understand what lesson is to be learned here. I don't want to be bitter and I don't want to backslide at work. Right now I am angry and sad. I don't look forward to facing my co-workers tomorrow. I wish I could just be gracious about this whole thing, but I just feel like I got backhanded.

Some people call it elevator music

I don't remember the exact time I started to notice the music in movies. I think I was in my early teens. It's amazing what a film score can do for a movie. It helps to convey so much emotion. Most people don't like to listen to this kind of music on its own, but I find it to be the most enjoyable by far over other music. I now have a playlist of over 650 songs from various movies that I listed to at work and sometimes at home. Even my 8 year old son seems to enjoy listening to them. I thought it would be fun to share five of my absolute favorites.

I know Braveheart was one of the first movies I watched and was not only blown away by the movie, but by the amazing score. There are many great tracks, but this one stands out and is pretty well known. This soundtrack remains my favorite by James Horner, closely followed by Titanic. Without further ado, here it is:

For the Love of a Princess

It's hard to say I have a favorite, because the scores are so different and some just speak to you more than others. I would have to say that Hans Zimmer is at the top of my list. I have several of his scores and I will shar a couple of my favorites. The first is from the film Pearl Harbor. It plays at the begining of the movie and is an incredible piece of music. Here it is:

Tennessee

Also by Hans Zimmer, the amazing soundtrack from Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End. I absolutely loved the new romantic theme he composed for Will & Elizabeth. It is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

One Day

Then there are the three amazing scores for each of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by Howard Shore. These are so much a part of these beloved films, I can't imagine one without the other. I love all three through their enitirety, but one of my favorites is from The Two Towers. It is the love theme for Arwen & Aragorn:

Evenstar

I will conclude with this amazing score from the movie Cast Away by Alan Silvestri. If I had to pick an absolute favorite song, this would probably be it. It's so moving and just beautiful. I fell in love with Alan Silvestri's work with the score to Forrest Gump, but this one even trumps that amazing score in my book.

Cast Away End Titles

I doubt many people will read this or listen to the music links, but this was fun for me to touch on some of my favorites.

This is where I am

Where are you? This is a question posed by one of the guys in my small group. There has been an enormous amount of spiritual growth throughout our small group, especially over the past few months. We have a blog and he wanted us all to post "where we are" on our spiritual journey. He thinks we are all on the same track. I admit this makes me feel ashamed. I am not there with the group. I feel like I am hanging on by the skin of my teeth. It's not a fun feeling. I feel guilt, I feel worthless. I know that I am not putting the time in. I am not stopping and taking time alone with God. I feel stalled spiritually. I know the problem is me. I feel like I hardly ever have time to myself, so why should I have to give up that little time that I do get? I am selfish. I know that I have it so much better than so many people. I am not "owed" me time. Still, I struggle to put my selfishness aside. After a full day of work and coming home to my family, I am beat by the time the kids go to bed. My brain is typically checked out. Getting up a little earlier in the morning would probably be the best solution, but I have a hard enough time getting up on time in the morning. I am always tired. I think the bigger issue though, is that I just don't have the desire. I want a closer relationship with God without putting the time in. I know it makes no more sense than wanting to make money without working for it. Unfortunately, this is where I am. Stalled - unable to get motivated. I've been here for a long time and honestly don't know how to get myself moving again. It is hard to admit to my group that I am not with them. I'm so happy for those that have grown spiritually, but truth be told, I am also intimidated by them. I can't keep up and I don't even know where to start.

Some Things Never Change

As a teen and young adult, I constantly struggled with issues of self-worth and lack of confidence. I have never felt particularly pretty and have struggled with feeling "freakishly tall". Fortunately, as I have gotten older, I have thought less and less about these kind of things. Perhaps it is because I have a husband who seems to love me regardless or maybe it is because I am often too busy to worry about these petty things.

Unfortunately for me, my lack of confidence has reared its ugly head again, and not in a place I would expect it to. For awhile now, I have been a volunteer on our worship team at church. Singing at church is nothing new to me. I started singing in the children's choir at my parents church when I was 5. I continued on through high school and even joined the adult choir for a few years. Then I kind of stopped attending church on a regular basis. It was a few months after Caleb was born that we were invited to the Church we now call home. I was immediately taken with the contemporary worship style. Where I was used, to choirs growing up, this church has a band. I remember thinking how I would love to get up there and sing praises with them. I also remember thinking I could never be as good as the people that were already up there doing it. It took me a long time to even talk to anyone about trying out. I wanted to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. I wanted to make sure it wasn't about me, but about using the voice God gave me to bring Him praise. So I had my audition and it went well. I was told I would start out by singing with the praise team for awhile before I would do any solo work. This was a great start for me. It was kind of like being in a choir, albeit a small one. Still, it helped me to get used to being on the stage. I found it amazing that I would be pretty nervous during practice, but then we would sing during the service and I would be blown away by the congregation and hearing them worshipping with us. It never ceased to amaze me that my nerves would disappear as soon as they started singing with us.

After singing with praise team for a solid year & a half to two years, I felt ready to be challenged again. I approached Kerri, our worship leader at the time, and told her I would like to do more than just praise team. A month later, she had me on the schedule to sing with her. I was so excited. Then it was rehearsal time. I had gotten used to singing the same harmonies that Kerri would sing during services. When it came to singing with her, I needed to learn different parts, so as not to constantly double her part. I got really frustrated because I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. I started having these bad feelings of doubt. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this. I even talked to her after practice and told her I would understand if she never scheduled me again. She was very nice and reassuring about it. It ended up being fine and I started to get more comfortable. She always scheduled me to sing with her, so she was kind of a buffer for me. She sang the main harmonies and I was a back up to her, sometimes even singing melody when I didn't know what part to sing. I didn't get much direction on what was "right or wrong", but I felt pretty decent about what I was doing. I still had my monents of insecurities, but when things went well, it was so worth it.

Fast forward to last spring. Our worship leader announced she would be moving away. Our new worship leader, Dave,  had been a volunteer for over 10 years and I happen to be in the same small group with him. I was excited to see what changes he would make, and looked forward to getting more opportunities to sing, since Kerri would be leaving a pretty big hole. So, I started getting scheduled, sometimes as the only female singer up there at a time. I was thrilled and scared at the opportunity. Standing center stage and trying hard not to let all my insecurities show. I don't want people to focus on the fact that I look nervous, or worse yet that I don't know what I am doing. I want to be used by God as a tool for worship. I've been having a tough time. Dave has made some great changes and has an amazing passion and talent.  He challenges us with doing songs that haven't been done in a long time, or brand new songs. This does cause me difficulty though, because there are so many songs I don't know. I listen to the recordings and try to hear the harmonies, that a lot of times just don't come to me. I get so frustrated with myself, because I want to do a good job. I don't want to be dragging the worship team down because I can't keep up. I have been looking at it that God is doing a great job of keeping me humble. I just wish I could feel more confident and not so afraid to ask for help when I am struggling to keep up.

I love to sing. It is one of my favorite things to be able to do. I know there are many people out there that have much more talent than I do. Still, I think God gave me a decent voice and I want to use it for His glory. Still, I wonder if I am going about this all wrong.

Definition of Insanity

I've seen this quote a few times, "What is the definition of insanity? It is trying to do the same thing the same way over and over again expecting different results."

This really resonates with me. How often do I approach something the same way over and over expecting that this time things will go the way I want? The answer is a lot. I got to thinking about how tough our mornings have been with our son Caleb for quite awhile now. His dad goes up, wakes him and grabs his school clothes. He brings the clothes down to the living room so Caleb can watch TV while he gets dressed. That's where we run in to trouble. Caleb has to be nagged and finally yelled at to get off the couch and start getting dressed. Sometimes resulting in them running late in the morning because Caleb is not cooperating. Twice in the last week, his dad even forgot to give Caleb his meds for his ADHD, because they were running late with all the fighting to get Caleb to even get dressed. During all this, I am finishing getting myself ready and getting the twins up and ready for daycare. All in all, the mornings have been stressful for quite some time. Thing is, we kept expecting Caleb to just do better each morning. It should have been obvious that we needed to change the routine, but we kept going at it the same way. Finally, Robert & I had a talk Monday night about changing things up. I told him he should make Caleb get dressed up in his room and he is not to come down until he is dressed. Also, to take the kitchen timer up and tell Caleb he has to be dressed within the 10 minutes on the timer. So, we tried it on Tuesday morning and it has worked so well! He is now racing to get dressed in 3 minutes or less and he is so proud of himself when he gets downstairs. The last 3 mornings have been night and day different for us. Gone is the fighting and frustration. Instead, we find we have more time in the morning and the tension is gone. It's amazing what that one fairly small change did. Caleb is much happier in the mornings now and I know that has to help start his day out right. I know there will still be mornings where we have issues, but I am so glad we found something that is working.

I remembered back to when we were taking Caleb to a counselor to get him diagnosed with ADHD. He told us that kids with ADHD need routines and they need clearly set boundaries. I'm really greatful this came back to me and that it seems to be helping my son. I love to see him smiling and happy.

Wake-Up Call

So it's been a long time since I've written a blog. To be honest, I haven't felt like I had anything interesting to write and I was feeling discouraged that no one would ever find me interesting enough to read about. I think I'm realizing now that this blog is for me. I just need somewhere I can be completely honest and not worry about any consequences.

So, I got called into my boss's office the week before Christmas and endured a very difficult meeting that I was very ashamed of. I was told that my attitude has declined towards my job so much, that if not corrected, I could be let go. My job performance is still very good, but it is obvious how much I detest my job. I couldn't deny it or get defensive, because I knew it was true. I have been in this funk about my job for at least a year and have been unable to make heads or tails as to why. If I'm being honest, it's really been since I returned to work after the twins were born. I don't like my job, that is not a lie. I'm tired of it, tired of customer service. I need something new, something challenging. It's more than that though. I feel trapped. I resent the fact that I have to work full time while I pay someone else to watch my kids. I feel like I am missing out on so much in my little boys' lives. I don't see how it will ever be an option to not work full time and my little men are already 2. I have freinds who are fortunate enough to get to stay home with their kids. I am so jealous of that. I know that they make sacrifices to do that, but I feel those sacrifices must be so much more worth it compared to my sacrifice of working full time, to still not make ends meet. That's right, my hubby & I both work full time and we still don't have enough to pay our bills. We have pretty much struggled financially for our entire marriage and I am so over it. I can't help but feel like it is never going to get better. So, what to do? How do I change my attitude about my job? I think about trying to move to another department, trying something new, but will that really work? Will I just end up back in this funk? I hate that I feel this way and hate more that I don't know how to fix it. Mostly I hate that I seem to have lost hope.

Oh, the guilt

It all started last Thursday when I left work early to take the twins to their checkup at the doctor. They were sleeping when I got to daycare to pick them up because she forgot about the appointment. They were less than thrilled to be woken up - to go to the doctor no less. I got Jonah out of the car first and put him on the floor of the van on Josh's side while I got Josh out of his seat. Well, Jonah toppled out and I tried to catch him with my leg (why I thought that would help, I have no idea) and I managed to hit his face up against the side of the van. He ended up with this awful looking skin burn/bruise right under his left eye. Needless to say, he screamed. Both boys cried throughout the visit at the doctor and wanted nothing to do with the doctor himself. Fast-forward to the next morning. Jonah woke me up at 6am screaming. I walked in and found Thursday night's dinner regurgitated all over his bed. His dinner had been scrambled eggs. You get the picture. After dicussing with Robert, we determined I would stay home with him. An hour later, he barfed again. Then I decided to feed Josh some breakfast. He ate his entire banana and proceeded to throw that up all over his highchair. So, both twins were apparently sick. Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon. We were invited to a cookout by our next door neighbor. He wanted a get-to-know your neighbors gathering. We just moved in in February and hadn't met very many of our neighbors. We barely walked across our driveway and Jonah ran right up to his charcoal grill. Despite the fact that at least 4 grown-ups screamed and tried to grab him, he was just too fast. He grabbed it and immediately let go. I grabbed him, ran him inside and ran cold water on his hands. He was laughing at the way the water felt. As soon as his hands were out from the water he started screaming bloody murder. I had to put him down because he was thrashing so much and then I had to corner him in his bedroom. I gave him a cold wet washcloth and put some aloe on his hands. It was sooo sad how hard he cried. So, any chance of a mother of the year award was lost this weekend. My poor little guy is a hot mess.