Adventures in filling up the gas tank

Last night was an adventure. I get in the car and realize the gas light is on. I do not know where I am. I look up gas station on my GPS and of course select the closest one that appeared; Shell

GPS: in 400 feet make a U turn.
Me: there's a travel center right there. I don't need to drive another 400 feet. I don't need a Shell. The travel center is fine. I'll turn here.
Me: OMG!!!! THIS IS THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO 95N.

Hi, how are you?

Lately I do not like being greeted with “Hi, how are you?” I believe this is just a canned greeting. In most cases, especially in a corporate environment, the person does not really want to know how you are doing. They do not want to hear “Well, Karen, if you must know,I'm a little behind on some bills and am about to lose my house.” Not only do you not want everybody knowing your business, but after the 5^th greeting in 10 minutes you are completely drained of all energy and then just start lying; “I’m good, how are you?”

It wasn’t until my biggest loss on October 21, 2019 that I really despised this greeting and realized that I usually greet people with an actual greeting, not a question: Good morning, Welcome back, It’s good to see you, I can’t believe the weekend is over and it’s already Monday.  

 I realized that my greetings don’t ask anything of them.

I’m a social person. I LOVE TO TALK! And the corporate environment has shaped my greetings to avoid asking something of people. I want to be courteous and acknowledge their presence, but don’t want to invade co-workers privacy.

This has stemmed into other areas of my life. And after experiencing my biggest loss in October 2019, a shocking loss in November 2019, and then dealing with a major family situation in December 2019, I got to thinking about this phrase that quite frankly just stumps me.

Hi, how are you?

This greeting is one reason why people (like me this holiday season) avoid social gatherings. Since October 21 I fight the urge to skip church. I love God. I have a great relationship with God. I enjoy church service. I do not want a million people greeting me with “hi, how are you?” I don’t have an answer! I don’t want to be rude, especially at church where strangers are the least understanding. I don’t want to lie. I’m believing for better, so I don’t want to say something negative, especially at church where I’ll receive a lecture for not believing for better.

I HURT! I really hurt! I am emotionally raw and I sing praise songs and pray and while I pray the tears are streaming down my face. While I "Raise a Hallelujah" and lift my hands to God, I ugly cry! One can praise God in the midst of the storm, our praises just look differently!

Did you get that? Did you really read that? I still praise God. He has tremendously blessed me. He is getting me through each day. But I'm still grieving.

There are times I start to pray, I open my mouth and just break down and cry. What’s left is me calling on the name of Jesus. But let’s face it, I’m only going to be this vulnerable with my family and close friends especially at church and work.

Since I don’t have an answer to this canned greeting, I’m dreading these gatherings. I want to give gifts to my loved one, but I’m dreading the Christmas gathering. I don’t want to be alone, but I’m dreading the conversations with people. I don’t want to stay at home all day and watch TV on Christmas, but I don’t want to put on pants! Granted, I want to stay in pajamas any given day off from work J

In November 2019 my Pastor suddenly died in a car accident. His death has shocked an entire congregation and more. Since we’re all grieving, I do feel emotionally safe enough to cry or just say “I’m emotional” when I face this question at church. And I’m sure that everyone is facing their own personal battle(s) on top of Pastor’s death. So, my pain is expected.

I now face a new challenge. I want to avoid church cuz MY PASTOR isn’t in the pulpit. There are pictures and videos of him all over the place. Our church and pastor has a strong presence in the City and social media. Each time I walk in the building there are images of the Pastor, people are talking about how they are dealing with their grief. I’m trying to shift my thinking to my expectations for the new year. What exciting things are we aiming for next year? I'm trying to avoid grieving in public. 

No, I’m not depressed! I exercise. I sing praise and worship music, and have devotions. My husband and I laugh throughout the day and flirt with each other. I’m cleaning the house and sharing recipes with people. I just don’t want to face the questions, or “face the music” as they say. I don’t want to hear “hi, how are you?” a thousand times. Answering with “I’m emotional” invokes more questions everywhere else, especially at work!

ultimate dinner fail

I often try new recipes so we're not eating the same food every week. I found a new recipe to flavor the all too popular "pot roast" a little differently. This recipe called for wine.

 Since my husband and I don't drink, I usually buy the little containers of wine at Walmart that have a twist top. I only had white wine at home from my last Walmart trip, and this recipe calls for red wine.

I'm a ALDI shopper. I LOVE ALDI!!!! Thanks to Aldi, we've cut our grocery bill by 1/3. I'm shopping at Aldi and I've heard great things about their wine, so I buy a $4 bottle of wine. After all, this recipe will be the bomb, and I'll make it again in the near future.

This slow cooker recipe calls for browning the chuck roast on both sides, then adding a few ingredients at a time to blend in some flavors, and then add to the slow cooker, I have an instant pot. I LOVE MY INSTANT POT!! I can saute in the instant pot, and switch over to slow cooker; making this a one dish recipe. YAY ME!

The roast is browning. I've added the veggies, and now it's time to add the red wine.

HOLY CRAP! HOW DO I OPEN THIS?

Wait, I know what a cork screw looks like. I'm in the middle of cooking, and I'm wearing my jammies. I can't just drive 1 mile down the road and wake up my good friend LJ to borrow a cork screw. I'm creative. I find creative solutions to problems all day at work. I GOT THIS.

I need something skinny and long. The a beater that goes with the hand mixer. I walk to my kitchen table and slowly plunge my beater into the bottle of wine.......

and just like a volcano erupts, wine explodes up and rains down all over me, the table, the floor, and the counter.  .....sorry no pics! I was in the room alone and covered in wine, didn't stop for a selfie!


Luckily, my bathrobe was downstairs, cuz I had to strip out of my wine soaked jammies. Now, there's no way to remove the beater that is now stuck in the cork. I had to precariously hold the beater and tile the wine to pour out just 8 oz to add to this recipe.

After getting the slow cooker started, I moved on to mopping up the floor, and wiping down the counter. I take my jammies, the table cloth & placemats to the laundry room and squirt everything with Zout, praying that it works cuz I've had the same bottle of Zout for about 6 years.

My husband enters the room about an hour and quickly deduces it simulates a crime scene from Law & Order and asked "what happened in here?"

Well, what had happened was......

Later..... all of the wine soaked items have been thoroughly washed and there is no evidence of wine.
After slow cooking for 10 hours, the veggies are still RAW, the chuck roast is tough and it doesn't smell as appetizing as the picture on the recipe (which usually only happens with frozen dinner). It's then that I glance up as rolling my eyes, and notice red wine splatters on the ceiling, wall, and white zebra blinds.

Luckily I paid over $20 per gallon of Sherwin Williams Harmony brand semi-gloss paint at the advise of my sister cuz I simply wiped the splatters off the wall with a wash cloth! Our Zebra blinds are just full of character, and it only took me 8 months in this new house to leave my mark!

Kitchen cleaned
Clothes cleaned
Recipe tossed

What a great laugh though :)

Forgiveness

This month has been unusually busy at work. It's the end of the year, and we're trying to finalize all records that are still open. Plus we're trying to finish the year strong, so we're working very hard to manufacture and ship as much product as possible.

The last two weeks I've worked late all but 2 nights. I grow more tired every day, and that leads to "cranky pants." Noticing that I was slightly grumpy, I decided to take some preaching CDs to work. I grabbed some sermons on CD by Joyce Meyer that I've owned for several years. My main purpose was to plug in to some Word and focus on my work so I could meet all of these deadlines.

As I was listening to one CD for the 3rd time yesterday, the Holy Spirit started moving within me. Joyce Meyer gave an analogy from her personal life about how we "hold debts" over people's heads. Instead of forgiving our spouses, relatives, friends, and etc for their offenses we continually bring it up and hold it against them. As she continued, the Holy Spirit reminded me of something very important.

In 2008 a dear friend of mine committed suicide. In the midst of my grief, a lot of emotional baggage that I was already carrying surfaced. I was quite wounded. I started writing letters to the people who offended me just to work through all of this bottled up emotion. Over the years, I printed the letters and put them in sheet protectors. I then organized the letters chronologically in a binder, and added a cover sheet titling it "Unspoken Letters." This binder sits with my journals and scrapbooks.

I've never been able to let go of these letters. The Holy Spirit convicted me of hanging on to all of this baggage. If I truly forgave the offenders (for lack of a better word), I wouldn't be treating these letters with such importance. Why was I protecting these letters, and even decorating them like a book I wanted to publish? I gave these letters so much power over me, and I didn't even realize it.

This morning, I removed all of the letters out of the binder. I almost threw them away, but the Holy Spirit pushed me even further. All of the letters went into the shredder. It's all gone! All of that bitterness, pain, and unforgiveness were destroyed in seconds.

Forgiveness is so freeing!

Growing up Greeson

Although they left this world, they will never be forgotten.

1. Church every Sunday & Wednesday
2. Black cow for dessert (ice cream mixed with Pepsi instead of milk)
3. Squash casserole, the only way grandma could get the kids to eat squash
4. Can’t died in the cornfield!
5. When the sun is shining while it’s raining, the devil is beating his wife
6. Better eat everything on your plate cuz there are starving kids in a 3rd world country who don’t have food.
7. All single adults and young people sit at the “kids table”
8. Grandmas cheesecake
9. Cauliflower salad
10. Summer vacations meant going to grandpa and grandma’s house 

THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER, STAYS TOGETHER! 

60TH Anniversary

Steak

I like steak. Most people I know, like steak. I do not eat if often since I love my heart, and high cholesterol runs in my family. During the Christmas vacation while my husband and I were traveling, we went out to eat to a chain restaurant. I ordered a steak and requested that it be cooked medium well. I learned that trait from my father! I used to order my steak well done because I was scared of E-coli, then my father made a pretty solid argument for medium well steak, and I’ve been ordering it that way ever since. After all, my dad isn’t going to convince to eat something that would make me sick!

I cut into my steak, and blood runs all over my plate. This was rare to medium rare, surely not medium well. I showed it to the waitress, and she agreed. It took this restaurant 3 tries to get it right, and by the time I received my steak I was so full on appetizers and side dishes that I could not enjoy the steak. I usually go to a steakhouse pretty famished, so when my meal comes to me and it isn’t cooked, I have to eat something!

The day after Christmas only 4 people in my dept came to work. So, we all went out to eat for lunch. We went to the finest steak house in the area. And since most businesses were closed on Friday after Christmas, we received prompt service. This restaurant is similar to Ruth Chris, but it is not a la carte. I knew I could get a good steak there. When I ordered the steak this time, I made sure I clearly stated medium well. When the waitress brought me the steak, she asked me to cut into it to make sure it was cooked right. As I cut into it, half of the people at my table started mooing, and again blood ran all over the plate. I assumed that the cook didn’t want to overcook it, so he or she was under cooking it. I told the waitress, “I would rather they cook this well done, then under cook it.” Only took them 2 tries.

Our first date night of 2015 my husband took me to a steakhouse. This time I ordered the steak well done, so they wouldn’t be too scared to actually cook it. The waitress explains to me what “well done” is, as if I’m blonde. I shake my head in agreement, “Yes, I want well done.” She walks away, and I mutter “maybe this time it will be medium well.

As I cut into the steak and saw it was medium rare, I chuckled and sorta fell back in my seat as I thought to myself “Really, Seriously!”. The waitress looks to me, and I said “I’ve been to 2 restaurants that can’t get this right.” My husband chimes in “so I bring her to a steakhouse!” The waitress was so embarrassed. Once again, I fill up on appetizers and my side dishes as I wait for them to cook my steak properly.

I look to my husband and say “I swear, after going to 3 restaurants, 2 of which are steakhouses, I’m convinced that no one can cook my beef right except for Dave.” We have several friends named Dave, but only one Dave grills out for us J

At least at this steakhouse, I was given a free dessert for my trouble; which I gave away to someone else since I’ve consumed enough empty calories this holiday season.

I guess the next time I eat steak; it needs to be at Ruth Chris or Texas de Brazil!

pet peeves

My father is a little OCD. He doesn’t like lights on in an empty room. Growing up, I often heard him nag us about leaving the lights on when we left a room. He would always turn off the lights.

I inherited this pet peeve.

 Have you ever noticed in Corporate America that conference rooms stay lit all the time? As I walk by an empty conference room, I always turn off the lights. My co-workers have noticed this trait about me. My manager chuckles at me from time to time because I can’t resist stepping into a conference room to turn off the light even when I’m running to the bathroom.

Recently as I walked by an empty conference room, or so I thought, I stepped in to turn off the light as usual. As I stepped in, a little voice came from the back corner. I nearly jumped, it scared me so badly. I bend over as I chuckle at myself, then apologized to the unsuspecting coworker. I explained my little pet peeve to her, and chuckled as I apologized again for almost turning off the lights leaving her to a conference call in the dark.

Now, I thoroughly check the conference rooms before I turn off the light J