bitter. sweet.

fail whale

Whew. Yesterday was like an overload of failure. A whale-of-a-fail day. Work was good, but things went downhill pretty quickly after 3 p.m.

It was nothing major, just a frustrating series of inconveniences and plans gone wrong. Even Miles was driving me crazy; he's adorable but it's like he gets bored and gets into everything, making as much nose as feline-ly possible. Sometimes my reactions to him makes me question my ability to ever raise a child.

I took a 1/2 day of vacation today to recover from yesterday and to conquer my long list of errands (mostly to correct yesterday's failures). I started out in Antioch at the Cricket store. My broadband modem needed upgraded to be compatible with Windows 7. When I walked in, a woman was arguing with a customer service representative. I sat and waited until someone took my modem to "flash" it. It had probably been 20 minutes and this lady was still arguing about her bill. The salesperson really had no authority to fix the woman's mistake and I felt sorry for her having to put up with an angry customer.

I know it can be frustrating when your bill is wrong or the product you bought isn't functioning correctly, but hey, grace and peace will get you a long way. I didn't love waiting for my modem, but I sat quietly and smiled at the employees when they looked at me. I might not be able to make their entire day great, but if I can be one customer who is patient and kind, I'll take it. And they didn't ignore me. One of the guys checked three times to see if my modem was ready. When it was done, I went to my car to plug it into my computer. (I didn't want to get all the way home to discover it wasn't working.) I couldn't get it to work, so I took my computer inside and kept trying. One of the guys came over before I even asked and offered to help. He got it working for me.

My next stop was Sears to return a shirt that I got yesterday. I had ordered it from Land's End. I know people in America are generally getting larger, but it doesn't make sense to me that an XS shirt would look like I was wearing a sail. Easy return.

Then I went to Home Depot to make a copy of my house key for Jennifer. I walked in and a man standing at the front door asked me if I needed help. Thank you! Home Depot is like the mecca of masculinity, and when a 22-year-old girl walks in wearing business casual, that should raise some red flags. I was very appreciative of the nice guys who got me what I needed. Errands complete after 2.5 hours, and I started home.

Being in my car makes me disturbingly aware of some not-so-great reactions I have. I think you can learn a lot about a person by the way he/she drives. I spend a considerable amount of time in my car, and I find myself being angry and frustrated and talking out loud to other drivers (even though they can't hear me): "Hey buddy! The speed limit is 55! What is this 45 business? Oh, you're on your cell phone?! Hang it up!!" OK, it's not always that intense, but it's not right. This might come as a surprise to some of the people who know me. I think I'm a generally pleasant/sweet person, but sometimes even when my intentions are good, my mind-speech is bitter.

Today I slowed down as I approached a red light to let a car waiting in the turning lane merge in. But the car was taking forever. "GO! Sheesh, I'm trying to be nice. Take advantage of it!" Mmrp. The Bible says the tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set of fire by hell. Whoa, that's pretty intense. Even if I can keep my words to myself, I'm sure James 3:6 applies to my heart too. I need to work on that.

I really like my new computer so far. I'm excited to explore Google Apps more to optimize my blog. I want to learn some HTML basics too. Today I deleted my Facebook account. Don't worry, you can find any info about me on my "Facebook" page (see sidebar links). I'm not in school anymore and I don't really use Facebook for communicating anyway (GMail, holla!).

Grace and peace,