Rant Alert!

   
     By the way guys, I didn't just forget about days 24 and 25 of my blog challenge. Those days...really really sucked as far as topics go. Definitely not worth me trying to come up with something for them y'all probably wouldn't enjoy reading!

     Today I just really need to vent a little steam about something that has been getting on my nerves for a good while. I've been a good, tolerant little girl and kept my mouth shut, but it's just gotta come out today.

     I don't know about y'all, but my Facebook lately has been taken over by the skinny-crazy people. The people who are obsessed with losing weight, working out, anything they can do to make their bodies more pleasing to themselves.
     I've got people doing Zumba classes, people on every diet imaginable, people promoting this or that amazing new gym with cheap membership, people going group walking two or three nights a week, people running 5ks and marathons. It's basically the Fit Network, all relocated to my Facebook!
     There's this one new thing going around the FB world...Advocare. It's a pyramid-scheme company based on selling weight loss/energy/health supplements and promoting short-term plans for losing weight using Advocare products. Out of my friends, first a core group of several people started using this product, then selling it on the side. They were hooked, and they hooked their husbands and wives, their friends, and their families along with them. All of a sudden all of they quit having personal lives on Facebook. Every single post was 100% focused on promoting and selling Advocare, recruiting more sellers to be in their sales team, nothing but Advocare. No more posts about their kids antics, their husbands sarcastic comments, their crazy days at work...just Advocare.
     There are several things I'd like to fix with this picture. Facebook is a social network, not the place to conduct regular business. I realize it's probably a well-paying, rewarding job that you really love, but if you want to tie your business into Facebook, make a group or a separate page for it. Don't spam everyone on your friends list with your every post. A group or a separate page will allow you to post all you want, and everyone that actually wants to see it will. You can invite whoever you want to your group/page, and if they say no, you say okay and move along. Making the occasional comment or shout-out is great, but spam about a product I didn't want in the first place doesn't make me change my mind about it.

     Next, and this is a much bigger issue than just Advocare spam on Facebook, but it is connected. I realize I live in Mississippi, the obese state. I realize that our country as a whole has more and more overweight people each year. I realize that's a serious health concern that people need to be educated on dealing with. However...I am not obese. I am not overweight. Just because many people out there are dealing with this issue, it doesn't mean I have to deal with it also. I don't think it's fair to me, or to anyone out there who is already healthy, to basically be told to get healthier now because we'll probably be overweight one day.
     Schools no longer allow kids to choose whether to eat healthy snacks or to eat ice cream with lunch, whether they can pick between water and diet drinks or whether they can drink a Coke. Even high schoolers, who are by most people's definition old enough to make their own decisions about their food, have their choice taken away from them. My opinion - if you don't offer any choice at school, they'll just bring what they want from home, so what good are you doing?
     And it goes farther. The first lady recently announced that if her husband is reelected this fall, one of the things she's planning on tackling in the next term is cutting sugars, fats, and sodium from grocery store products. Now, as an adult and an American, I know that I have the right to choose whatever the heck I want to eat, no matter how horrible or how healthy it may be. I don't need the government making that choice for me. The way I see it, now you have the choice between Oreos or 100 Calorie pack cookies, whole or skim milk, Cheeto puffs or baked Doritos...you already have the option to pick your 'healthy' level.

     To be honest, sometimes I honestly feel discriminated against in that I'm NOT obese, on a diet, a member of a gym, or otherwise on the 'Get Healthy' kick. I'm a small person, always have been. I've always been active, doing band in high school and walking when I was at college. In the last five or six years, I've had health problems (ie mono, twice) that caused me to lose a lot of weight I really didn't need to lose in the first place, and then I had to work at gaining all of it back. I'm still working on getting back to my normal weight from the last time I was sick, in December of last year. It's very hard for me personally to gain weight, and made harder to do in this lose-lose-lose world. I'm sure there are people who have thought I was anorexic or something, when all of a sudden I dropped 20 pounds from my normal weight and took over a year to gain it back. I know there are people that hate the fact that I can eat whatever I want and it doesn't show. I know it's something lots of people would love to do, but honestly it's something I get tired of. When I get ugly looks just because I order a milkshake, it's time for people to take a reality check. Sometimes the grass isn't greener on the skinny side.
     Please don't get me wrong, I'm in no way knocking people for being healthy or for trying to get fit. I am always on the cheering team for anyone who wants to start a new diet, or train for their first 5k, or just have fun with the Wii Fit Plus. I have so many friends that have changed their lives completely by joining Weight Watchers or by starting training to run, and I know how much a difference it's made for them. I love that they all had that much will-power and strength of commitment to see their goals through. I may make jokes about me never going running unless something chases me, but I really do admire the people I know that can get up every day and just go run and feel amazing when they finish. They're absolutely a special people. I just want to make it clear that I think it's all about our choice, our free will, to decide when and if we want to take that step for ourselves.

Day 23: List your top 5 hobbies and why you love them.

     Challenge day 23: List your top 5 hobbies and why you love them.

1. Reading: I love reading, always have. I can't really explain why, except that I grew up reading, from baby age on up. My parents read to me and told me stories before I could even understand, so from that time I understood books as something pleasing and comfortable and good. Now I read to pass the time in waiting rooms, to get relaxed before I fall asleep, to calm down after I get home from work, or to just pass any free time I have. I even 'read' while I drive, listening to audiobooks. Definitely makes those early morning drives to work less sleepy, and the evening drives home seem a little faster.

2. Crafting: Since Pinterest came about, I've gotten a renewed liking for any kind of crafty project. Anything that I have laying around the house that is on the plain side or that I don't particularly like has the potential to transform into something new. I always loved little art and decorating projects like that, ever since I got interested in art in high school, and Pinterest is just fuel to the fire :)
     My favorite seasons are coming up, the ones with all the good weather and good holidays! We haven't ever been big decorators, mostly just reusing the same things every year for Christmas and sometimes putting out one or two little things for Halloween and Easter. I did some pretty things for Christmas last year, and this year I'm getting even more creative. Hopefully soon I'll be able to show off pictures of all the new holiday lovelies I've added our collection!

For real! The first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem...

3. I love playing the piano, and I love singing as well. I've played the piano for fifteen years, and it's a great release for me. Best stress reliever ever made. Singing I like much better when it's just me, in my car, and I can turn up the volume of both the music and me, and nobody can hear anything I do. If any other car happens to catch sight of me, well then they'll just get a show of dancing like they've probably never seen.

4. I like to cook, and bake, and experiment with new things in the kitchen. My favorite thing to do is desserts, unique things that come out pretty and taste even better than they look. I'm not a picky cook. I don't eat spaghetti, but I've made up my own signature recipe that my family loves. I make a big effort to do things the old fashioned way, as much homemade as possible. Everything just seems to taste better that way!

5. This is probably my newest hobby, but I really do love to blog. I just started my blog about a year and a half ago, but I very quickly got hooked. I always hated having to write in a journal for school and I never could keep a diary, so I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed blogging so much. Maybe it's because it's so customizeable, or it's so easy and fast to just type your words instead of having to pen them out. Whatever it is, I'm glad I started.

Day 22: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10? 15?

Challenge day 22: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

     In 5 years, I will be 28 years old. I'd like to think I see myself still with BancorpSouth. I might not be in my current position as a teller, maybe a CSR or something, but I don't see myself leaving the bank anytime soon. I love the company, and I don't think I could find a better job anywhere else. I'm planning to finish out my Bachelor's degree through Ole Miss, though my major is still undecided. And I hope to be in a small house of my own somewhere in Pontotoc or Tupelo. As far as my love life in concerned, I don't have any plans except to pray and hope that God has something good in the works.

     In 10 years, I will be 33 years old. I hope that by then I will be married and have at least started a family. If I'm lucky and very hard working between now and then, we might can have our house built where and how we would like it to be. I wouldn't mind at all still working for BancorpSouth still; they're a fabulous corporation, but I can't say that my plans and career won't change. I might go for my Bachelors, fall in love with a totally different career, and be working somewhere I never imagined.

     In 15 years, I will be 38. Maybe at that age my husband and I will be busy with our children's various activities. Ball practice, or music lessons, or homework, or Bible drills, whatever they want to be involved in. I hope to still love my job, whatever it may be. And I hope to be content with my life, however it turns out.

Day 21: If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?

Challenge day 21: If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?

     This one is a fun topic! I've been waiting on this one, because I have a fun answer :)

     If I could have one superpower, I would choose to have Jedi powers! That's right. I watch Star Wars, yes. My parents raised me right. I watch Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Lonesome Dove, John Wayne, movies where people blow stuff up and fight with guns and swords and do 'manly' stuff (my dad tells us we have to balance out the estrogen movies with stuff like that, haha). 

     Jedi powers are awesome. First, they have the whole telekinesis thing, the ability to move things with their mind, which I have always found completely awesome. I would love to be sitting at my desk, or laying in my bed, and be able to think "Book, come here," or "Pen, come here," and have it glide right over to me. 

     Second, they can influence the way others think. You know, the "These aren't the droids you're looking for," thing. I probably wouldn't use that so much, but I can't say that I wouldn't use it if I got pulled over or something. "Officer, this isn't the speeding car you're looking for..." 

     Third, they have hyper-aware senses. If someone they're tuned into walks into the building, they know. If anything bad happens to someone they're connected to, they can sense it. I think that would be pretty cool to be able to sense people walking in and out of your house, or if your kid got sick at school. The hyper-awareness almost extends to knowing the outcome of a situation before it even occurs. That's probably the most appealing thing to me. I'm a planner, and any knowledge of an event ahead of time is almost calming to me, and definitely makes me more comfortable knowing that I am more prepared for what's coming.

     Last, and I'm not sure if this qualifies as a part of their power, but it's definitely connected to it. Jedi's have lightsabers, and those are freaking awesome! Who wouldn't want to tote a lightsaber around? I'd want one like Mace Windu's...purple! 

Day 20: Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood - Dedicated to my grandparents.

Challenge day 20: Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

This blog is dedicated to my grandparents, Barbara and Larry Hale, who I love very, very much.

     This past weekend we went up to Memphis to get my mama, granddaddy and grandmama settled into their hotel. My granddaddy has multiple myeloma, cancer of his bone marrow, and has been taking chemo all summer. He's starting his most important treatment soon, intensive chemo to get his system ready for a bone marrow transplant next month, that will attempt to send his cancer into remission. He felt really good Saturday for the first time in a long time, so we all went out to eat where he wanted, at Cracker Barrel so he could get a steak and fried apples. He even felt good enough to sit outside in their rockers afterward for probably an hour talking to all of us. Definitely the best day we've all spend together in a very long time. 

     Being up there with them, just spending time like that, got me thinking about the many times I've stayed with my grandparents, or that we've gone on vacation with them, or all the Christmases we've had over there. Most of my happiest childhood memories are ones with them in them. Life was so simple and so laid back when I was at my grandparents' house. I have never felt less than amazingly loved and one of the most important things in their lives. They call me their 'loving' grandchild, because I have always loved crawling up in their laps and hugging and kissing on them, but really I think I got that from them. I was their first grandbaby, and I was probably the most loved baby that ever lived. Not much has changed since then; I'm still hugged and kissed on constantly, I'm still spoiled by them, and I'm still loved beyond measure.  

     My granddaddy was a farmer my whole life, and my grandmama either helped him in the field or stayed at their house to work in the garden or spend time with me if I was over there. Many of my memories with them are from the times they let me go with them to the fields, or of walking with Grandmama to the creek behind their house...things like that. Most kids didn't have such a precious, simple life like that, but I wouldn't trade anything in the world for those memories. I loved walking to the creek with my Grandmama, especially if it had just rained and I could walk barefoot through the mud. I remember getting to go to the fields with them if they were working, and riding the tractor with Granddaddy, and drinking the best, coldest water out of their water jugs and snacking on the salted peanuts Granddaddy always had in his shirt pocket. In the fall when they harvested the soybeans or cotton, they'd let me play in the trailerload of shelled beans or fluffy white cotton bolls. It was kind of like having the biggest sandbox ever full of little soybeans, or laying on the biggest pillow ever. If they worked in the garden I would walk behind them, digging in the dirt for marbles - the plot where their garden was used to be an old houseplace. Over the years we found dozens of marbles there. My first marble was a little periwinkle blue one. I still have it. Grandmama was never too busy to take time out to fix me biscuits and gravy for breakfast, or watch me ride my bike in the carport, or push me in the swing that used to be in their front yard, or walk me to my Mawma's house next door. At night, after they let me stay up way too late watching tv with them, they'd tuck me into my bed under as many blankets and quilts as I wanted, all of them soft as can be from being washed a hundred times. 

     I can't remember ever being unhappy with them, or wanting to go home, or wishing I had someone else to play with when I was at their house. If it was just me and them, the I couldn't be happier. I wish everybody had memories with their grandparents as wonderful as I have. I hope one day I'm as loving and as patient and as giving and as strong a role model of a grandparent to my grandchildren as my grandparents are to me. If I'm half the grandparents they are, I will have accomplished something great indeed. 

I love you Granddaddy and Grandmama.

Here's some of our pics. Please excuse them not being the best quality, most of them are old photos scanned into my computer on not the best quality scanner. But for my purpose, it's the picture and not the quality that counts here.

My grandmama and me, I'm about a year old.

My grandmama and me the day Molly was born

My granddaddy and Molly, Caleb, and me on Halloween, 1998

My grandmama mowing the yard, letting me ride in the leaf catcher

My granddaddy on one of our vacations. He wouldn't ride a real horse, but he said this one was safe :)

Family pictures, I think I'm about 13 here.

Our vacation to California. Behind us is the Pacific ocean.

Christmas card pictures, 2005

Another Christmas picture

And another :)

My loving grandparents

Christmas picture 2006, by my granddaddy's airplane

Christmas picture 2007

My Grandmama, Mama, and me on dressing making day last fall

My grandparent's Christmas card picture maybe three years ago

This was the last family picture we had made before my aunt Tiffany died in 2004, the last time my original family was all together. I miss her very much, and I know my grandparents do too. This week makes 8 years since we lost her, and I know that makes this week for them especially tough. 

A few years ago my uncle got remarried to an amazing lady named Barbara, and she has a fabulous daughter Molly's age, Lauren. Gable couldn't have picked anyone better. No one could ever replace Tiffany, but Barbara is the best mom Caleb could ask for and I know she loves him like he's her own son, and we love her just like she has been with us all along. Lauren has been great for Caleb as well. I don't think he'd know what to do now without an older sister to fight with, haha. Hopefully sometime soon I can convince everyone to do another set of family pictures, this time with our new additions :)

Playing Catch-Up - Days 17, 18, and 19

Challenge day 17: What is the thing you most wish you were great at? 

     Hmmm...this one is a hard one! There are a lot of little things I wish I could do better, like sing or speak Spanish or sew. I think most of all though, I wish that instead of having my talents spread out more or less equally over a large range of things that I could swap some of that over to being really good at just one or two things. I think it'd make a lot of things easier for me, like picking a career haha. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to do all the things I can, but sometimes I wish I could just pick one! But I don't think I could ever give up my art and crafting for my piano, or reading for cooking and baking. I wouldn't want to trade being able to speak Spanish to make my bookkeeping and math abilities better. So I guess I'd have to answer that I don't really have one thing I'd wish to be great at. I'd rather just be good at all the things I already am.  

Day 18: What has been the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

     The hardest I've ever had to work at forgiving someone was when my fiance and I broke up. When someone you don't know or who doesn't have a large impact on your life wrongs you, it isn't fun but it isn't life changing. When its someone you love...its much harder to first recognize it, and then to deal with it, and then let it go.
     My fiance and I were not very far away from actually tying the knot. We had been together for years, and been through some very difficult things together. He had joined the Marines while we were together, and we managed to stay together through the long distance and the mental craziness that comes with that. He came home, and suddenly everything changed. My fiance wasn't the person I fell in love with, and he didn't care. It felt like everything he did was to test the limits of my commitment, see just how far I'd tolerate him going to break my trust. After months of that, I knew I couldn't handle it forever. I told him I couldn't agree to marry him until we got things straight. He told me that I was the one with problems, he had everything figured out, and when I got my life straight I could give him a call. I knew I had made the right choice. I gave him back my ring, drove away from his house, and never looked back.
     Afterward I found out he had been cheating on me, and somehow everyone knew but me. He even had the nerve to tell me he would stop seeing her if I'd come back. I think that hurt more than anything else, knowing that even though he was my only, I was his second best.
     It's been three years since we broke up. Nowadays, we're friendly to the point that we chat on Facebook. It took me a long time to get to that point. It took a long time to get to the point where I didn't think of him with anger at what he did, or sadness for the life I might have had if he hadn't done those things. Now I know that I am so much better off, and have had such a fuller life and will continue having that life. But it took a lot of prayer, a lot of late night talks, a lot of really having to make myself believe that I had come out on top. And to be honest, I still sometimes miss the companionship I had in him, the way we never ran out of things to talk about, the amazing dates we had without spending over $5, the happy, spontaneous, warm person I became when I had someone to be fun and loving with. But I hope, and believe, that one day I'll have another chance at love and it'll be a thousand times better, because this time it'll be forever.

Challenge day 19: If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

     This is an easy one! I'm probably in the minority with my answer, but I would rather live here in North Mississippi where I already live than anywhere else I've ever been, and I've been quite a few places. 

     I'm a huge home-body. I don't want to be far from my family. If you need an airplane to come home to visit, that's entirely too far. Pretty much, if you have to drive over an hour. that's too far too. 

     My ideal home would be somewhere in Pontotoc, Oxford, or Tupelo, but out in the country where I can build my house on a lot with tons of trees and privacy, no neighbors right up in your backyard, no traffic noise, no busyness right next to you. Your house is where you go to be at home, to be yourself. It doesn't need to be somewhere you can't get comfortable.

     Hopefully with my new job, all the saving up I'm doing will help my dream house become my real house very soon! There will be MANY blogs to follow if that happens, so just be ready!

FYBF: New Job Fun!

Borrowed from thedomesticatedme.blogspot.com

     

     Anybody else SOOOO glad it's finally FRIDAY?!?!? I've had a great week, but I don't think I've ever been so ready for a Friday to get here. I'm finally finished with my training for my teller job at BancorpSouth, and my brain is tired! There's so much information to absorb and remember, so many procedures you have to be familiar with and follow to the letter, all kinds of forms to know and remember which one to use and when. After two weeks of all that I was getting a little bit of information overload. 

     This week I finally got to begin working a teller window on my own - with a little supervision from my trainer Cori, just to make sure I'm being a good little teller. I worked the drive-through for the first time tonight as well; I think that's my favorite thing so far. I like actually working much better than reading manuals and working computer simulation modules! I'm a very hands-on, learn by doing person so I've learned much more working the window than in the simulations. 

     Next Monday comes the big day...I leave the training nest for a window of my own and all the fun stuff it comes with. I already got my first BancorpSouth t-shirt, but I'm really excited for that little nameplate saying Alyssa to sit in front of my window :) Y'all can all come see me down at teller window #2. 

     Honestly, I'm more excited than nervous. My trainer has been great at letting me work with her and covering all the topics I need to know even outside the manuals. I don't think I've ever been so thoroughly trained at any job, and I'm very thankful for that! Working with money, especially some of the bigger transactions, you want to be as careful as possible and as sure of yourself as you can. At this point both my bosses and I want me to focus on being correct, not fast, but I can already tell my counting out is getting faster and easier, and I'm more sure about processing my transactions. Next week will really seal the deal for me as far as really hammering in that learning!   

     Monday when I get my in my window and all the cool accessories, I promise to take pics and update. See y'all back then!