"Here's your new phone, Lizzie."

I wish I could express to you how great the past two days have been. God blesses me so very, very much.

My Thursday started off with my going for a good hard uphill run and then having a yummy breakfast of some bacon, a fried egg, and a piece of toast. Then I made Mrs. W's Chocolate-y Claire Cake for the cast party, packed, and left for A's house where I studied for the ACT, cleaned her car with her, and planted a huge bed of flowers. Oh, and sent scary pictures of us with blue hair to our boss, with the subject of the email being: "Micom advertising. Lizzie wants your input." Bwahaha. If that didn't surprise him, I don't know what would.

Then we left for the cast party, had a lovely time, came home, slept, woke up, had breakfast, and went into work. The Cards scored 6 or more runs, so we went to Mobil and got coffee. Well, I got hot cocoa with half&half, I got Mike a Revy with French Vanilla creamer, and Abby got Hazelnut Cappuccino with French Vanilla creamer. I had two vases of flowers, one of irises, and another with some cute purple wildflowers.

Mike started my day off with "your crash course in Quickbooks." Which happened to be bank statements for like the last 6 months or something. Then he decided he'd make me happy by telling me to go look at my shipping area. They brought back a 16ft box truck completely filled. And dumped it all in the back. *scary*. It was claustrophobic back there. He found a really old brown phone in one of the many boxes of office phones we got in, and he then he said the title of this post. Haha. :D So later when I found a cute peach colored phone about as old, I put it up on his desk.

The day was just wonderful. Everyone was in an awesome mood and just *happy*. I think it was the best day of work so far. I think I've already said that before. That's why the "so far" is in there.

Right before A. and I left for lunch, I asked my co-worker, Isaac, if he would mind stopping at Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cake for A. He said that he would, and Mike walked in at the end of our conversation and asked what we were talking about. Isaac told him, and he quickly said, "No, I'll take care of it. I was thinking that we'd go out to Applebee's for dinner."

My mouth probably dropped open. I was completely shocked that he had thought about it and was going to do a going-away party for A. Dude.

And we did. Everyone successfully pulled it off, and A. was completely FLOORED. Oh my. She almost started crying when Isaac told her what we were doing.

So yesterday was pretty great. My day was so good. And I don't think that A's last day could've been any better. God is good, and knows exactly what we need, even if Tuesday night I was freaking out and wondering how on earth I was going to make it through the week, nontheless get my license so quickly.

The brothers and I are spending the day working outside. Speaking of which, I need to go get to work. I've finished the flowerbeds in the front, but I need to plant sunflowers and work in the back flowerbeds while Jed is mowing.

Happy weekend to you all. I love you.

Lizziebeth

"Everybody says that change is a good thing..."

What a past two days...

God completely blows me away with how powerful He is.

So a couple of weeks ago my friend, A., had a job offer dropped at her feet. Work was slow at Micom, we were working less hours, three days a week, gas and car expenses add up, etc. So she prayed about it, went in for an interview, took the tests, and then yesterday she found out that she got the job. It's at the same place where her brother works. (My brother works there, too.) I found out last night when she called me. Yesterday was stressful. It started out with me waking up, checking my work email and seeing work waiting for me that my boss had sent me, taking care of that, going for a run, checking and doing more work, VPN-ing in to work and taking care of some things, replying to a letter, eating lunch, going on a walk with Momma for a couple of hours, weeding the flowerbeds with Momma for awhile, coming inside, checking work email and seeing an "call me ASAP" email, calling into work, VPN-ing into work and dealing with some more stuff, trying to study for the ACT, Dani getting here, visiting with her, A. calling and telling me that news.

I was just stressed. A.'s quitting makes huge things change for me. I've prayed about it and talked to my parents about it- I'm going to continue working, but that means I'll be working from home until I get my license, which I'll now be spending my every waking minute in the car practicing. I'll be working without A., who has pretty much become one of my best friends over the past couple of months. Packing by myself, eating by myself, dealing with customers by myself, etc., etc.

So I am s.c.a.r.e.d.

I spent the night worrying about everything concerning work. :'( Dani was incredible and she spent the night encouraging me, giving me hugs, and taking my mind off of the day I was so dreading to arrive.

I was so stressed that I made myself sick. I got sick last night after dinner and wasn't feeling well again until around 10 this morning. My stomach ached and I felt nauseous, dizzy, and shaky. I know... I sound like a complete wimp.

So A. talked to our boss today. I ran away and did stuff in the back while she talked to him. We were both sooo nervous about how he'd take it. Both of us were completely shocked. He handled it soo differently than I thought he would. He basically congratulated A. on getting such a great job and for moving up and was really supportive of her. We were either thinking that he'd be upset, or just in that, "Well, that's life, so we'll make it work" mood that he's in sometimes. He gave her permission to go anytime, he didn't need to have two weeks notice... He wasn't upset in the least.

God is incredible. A. and I were so stressed out about today, and even if it had been a bad outcome, God will always, always, always do the best for us, so it was dumb for us to be so worried.

We went out to lunch and had Chinese. It was nice. :) So today turned out to be a fairly wonderful day and people were happy. God completely blows me away with his mercy and power. Wowie.

:) Here's something funny for you.

Monday I brought in a small candy dish with Starburst jellybeans for me to snack on throughout the day. I came in this morning and I noticed that the jellybeans were spotted and looking different. They were. Someone had eaten my jellybeans and then gone out and gotten new ones and put them in my candy dish.

And they thought that I wouldn't notice.

So Isaac came up, I questioned him, determined that it wasn't him because you can tell when he's lying about something.

I picked up my bowl and walked with my clicky heels to the back. I stopped right in front of Mike and stared him down.

"I don't know anything about that. I didn't do it. It wasn't me."

More staring.

Silence.

Nervous laughing.

"Wal-mart didn't have any, ok?!"

Staring.

Silence.

More nervous laughing.

More nervous laughing.

"Good job apologizing."

And I walked back to my desk.

:) I love the relationships that I have with my boss and co-workers. They make me laugh a lot.

Later I was like, "So did you just take my bowl of jellybeans and put them on your desk and eat them all day? Or did you just keep snitching from my desk?"

"Well, I had one...'Oh man, these are so good!'"

"I know they are. They're Starbursts."

"Ok, today's goal is to find Starburst jellybeans."

:)

Tonight I spent about two and a half hours practicing driving. I parallel parked like 10 times without ever hitting the trashcans, so that's good news. :) It's been raining SO much here and then tonight we found out that rainwater had gotten into our well-thing or something. So our water is contaminated and Daddy and the brothers had to go out and fix it. Unfortunately, I drank some. Then had A. drink some to see if it was just my sick taste buds that were off. We're still here, so we must be ok, huh? Poor A.... I'll have to break the bad news to her tomorrow.

God continues to blow me away, like I've said twelve times already. But I don't think I could ever say it enough. Because he truly does.

Love to you dears,

Elizabeth

Work Stories

So yesterday was quite eventful.

The owner of Lucky House came in. He's a pretty awesome guy, and the fact that he owns the best Chinese restaurant in R-town is happy. He was such a nice guy, and I was pleasantly surprised after a rough day. Actually, just a rough afternoon. Actually, the entire day.

It started off with me blowing up at A for something completely ridiculous. I'm such a jerk. Thankfully she's a darling and doesn't hate me for it.

Then I was happy because I got to go on a walk with A. during lunch break, and just had a lovely time.

Then my boss was dealing with a ton of junk with one of my co-workers. I hate, hate, hate when that happens. It just makes me feel absolutely horrible because there is so much yucky going on, and when it comes to the surface and rears it's nasty face when I'm in the room... Eh.. I've pretty much decided that the certain co-worker that I'm speaking of is a conniving little brat that needs Jesus very badly. Well, along with the rest of my co-workers... I need to be spending more time praying for them.

Then another thing happened with another one of my co-workers and that *really* upset me. So I went and clocked out, sat in a corner surrounded by desktops and read my Bible. I just felt like sobbing. I know that sounds like such a baby thing to do. But lately I've been so emotionally exhausted and feeling mountains of pressure by everything that I need to get done and yesterday was not the day for bad things to happen. So the best thing for me to do was to sit and have some quiet time reading my Bible and praying, right? Plus, it doesn't hurt for my co-workers to see me reading my Bible. That's not the reason I did, but I guess it could be considered a form of witnessing, right? I don't know, but God knew my actions, and I don't think that I did the wrong thing. Maybe not the most responsible and mature, since I needed to just take some time away from things.. I don't know how I feel about what I did...

See, when I get really upset about something, I'll normally blow up and tell that person about what I'm mad about, get unreasonable, and just make no sense. But when I get hurt about something, I get really quiet and just want to go away and be by myself. Those are the things that happened yesterday. At the end of the day, my boss was intent about figuring out what was wrong with me. But when someone asks me that after I've been sitting and thinking about it for an hour and a half, I totally forget or just don't want to let them in, because, obviously, they've hurt me.

So this is how it went when he walked up to the front of the counter to the side of where my desk is:

"So are you having a bad day, Lizzie?"

"You're not supposed to ask that question."

"Yes I am, because I care if you're having a bad day or not."

"No you're not..."

"Why are you having a bad day?"

"*avoids question* You could probably say that I am."

So I walked back, avoided eye contact, and got my stuff out of the break room. Swinging my pink water bottle as I walked along. (Raise your hand if you know what that means!) So I came back and he was like,

"Lizzie, what's wrong?" (Do you think my boss gets that he's working with a oh-so-emotionally dead 17 year old? I think so.)

I think I avoided the question again, and then the conversation moved on to something like,

"Your flower looks really nice."

"I know."

"Where do you get all of these flowers?"

"From my backyard. Mom and I garden on my days off."

"Man, I wish I had flowers in my back yard..."(His back yard is a concrete slab with some weeds here and there.)

"Haha."

"Actually, I don't. Because I would never water them, or weed them, or even look at them."

And then he told me to tell my Mom that he liked her flowers and we both moved on with our lives.

Touching, really. ;)

Or not.

But anyway, after all of that rambling, I've decided that you'd need something to laugh about.

Dee S.

She's a bright one when it comes to computers.

That sounded wretchedly mean, but seriously.. OH MY.

So I've been dealing with Dee for over a month. We sent her a computer and she wrote and said that her hard drive wasn't working, that they had done the tests or something and that's what the problem was. So I checked with Isaac and we decided that we'd just ship her a new hard drive, offer to have her call Isaac for when she received it to help her get it put in her computer, etc. So we sent her the new hard drive and early this month she emails us again and says that her computer is defective and that she wants to send it back for a refund. So I emailed her a UPS return pre-paid shipping label and told her that all she'd have to do is drop it off at the UPS store. So last week she emails again and is like, "I need to know your model number for the hard drive that you sent me so I can send it back. I don't know which one is mine, and which one is yours and I want to know by the model number." We don't keep the model numbers of each hard drive on file, so I emailed her back after she called and talked to Mike and told her that we don't have that on file. Mike was like, "You need to email Dee. She called me to day and *uh* she is so dumb." I was feeling like he was just overreacting because he had to take an Amazon caller when he didn't really want to. So she was like, "Ok, I'll just send back the one that I think is yours tomorrow." So last Friday we got this hard drive back. She emailed and was like," have you received it yet so I can get my refund?" So the fight that A. and I had was concerning this deal. Ha. Not. fun. I emailed her and told her that we would give her a partial refund on Monday. I issued a refund to cover the shipping back. She was, for some reason, expecting a FULL refund for this hard drive. This FREE hard drive that WE shipped her for FREE. So A. called her.

Oh. my. This was in the middle of the co-worker mess.

This lady is seriously the dumbest person regarding computers that I've ever heard about. She was like, "I sent the hard drive back to you, so why am I not getting a full refund?" A. explained to her the deal and that we needed to have the *computer* back to be able to issue a refund. She was like, "Oh, you mean you need the *case* back?!" "Yes, we need the computer back! The hard drive is just what stores the computer information on it, it's not the entire computer. When you ship this back to us, you should have the computer/case, and the power cord in the box." "There isn't a power cord. Doesn't the power cord plug into the hard drive?" "No, the computer is what you kept. The power cord is the thing that plugs into the back of the computer and then into the wall. It's black, about 5 feet long..." "Yeah, but it plugs into the hard drive." "No, ma'am, it doesn't plug into the hard drive. *repeats what she said earlier about what a hard drive is*"

So A, finished talking to her, her and I almost *died* over how ridiculous that was and how Mike was not overreacting when he said that.

She emailed about five minutes later and said, "I can't find the power cord. You never sent it to me. I have one from my other computer that I can send... let me know what I should do." I emailed back: "It's fine that you can't find the power cord. Just go ahead and ship us back the computer. Put it in a bag and then use bubble wrap." She emailed back in about five minutes and said, "I found the power cord!! It'll be on the way tomorrow!"

I'm fully expecting to receive this box back with just the power cord in it. That would be completely realistic with how this situation has been going..

I will forever love you all just as long as you know that a power cord for a computer doesn't plug into the hard drive and as long as you don't think that the hard drive is a computer.

Then A. and I left and went to strike the set. We painted a ton and I'm covered with black paint.

I got home and my camera had arrived. :D

I hope your Tuesday is full of joy and hope.

Jesus is greater than all of the stress, so let Him take care of it.

Bethan

Let your walls fall

So I was trying to rest on my bed while I was listening to the same Pandora station, and this song came on.

See this post. This was back before Christ was my hope and strength, and I think you can clearly see that. :'( So this song that I heard while I was laying on my bed came on and it reminded me right away of that post.

Here are the lyrics.

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside

So let 'em fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide but you find
That the shame won't disappear

So let it fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now
We're here now, oh

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

This was me. I built my walls, I hurt people, I pushed them away.

What absolute destruction I caused! You don't even know an 1/18 of it. I am forgiven.

God's grace. I was so clearly saved by the grace of God. He knew my hateful heart. He worked in me. He showed me His overwhelming love. I am such a sinner.

Reading that blogpost now amazes me and the words, "Once I was blind, but now I can see" are running through my head.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by His awesome power right now. It might hurt so badly when He works in me, but oh, how He teaches me.

I have no more words. God is enough. Always and forever, He knows the truth.

Willa shared this when I woke up this morning,

"Seek peace and pursue it."

Bethan

Whoa.

So my emotional self is all over the charts today.

I don't have a *clue* why, just... meh.

I feel like I need to sob. :/ But I don't have any reason for that, because I am *so*, so blessed. It just seems like everything is weighing heavily today.

Maybe because it's because I registered for the ACT. Ha. That's probably it. I think that could turn anyone's day into a bad one.

Actually, I think it's because I know I need to do:

Language Arts

Adv. Math

Study for the ACT

Study for my MCAS exam

Reply to 5 letters

Reply to an email

Clean

Anatomy. Lots, and lots of it

Think of a reply for bad feedback

Dump out dead flowers

Laundry

Deal with people.

I tell you, that last one... It gets me *every* time. People exhaust me. *I* exhaust myself worrying about their problems.

Do you have a good verse coming to mind? Post it, because I need encouragement.

So. The things that I've gotten done today:

Woke up.

Went for a run and pushed myself further than I was planning.

Read encouraging and sweet posts from my friends.

Ate a very yummy breakfast

Registered for the ACT

Did research on how to register for my MCAS exam.

Checked on work stuff

Studied some for the ACT outside in the sunshine

Mowed the grass

Ate a super yummy lunch.

Listened to the beautiful video that Willa posted

Tried to mow the grass again. Out of gasoline. Stink.

Came inside and got ready to go for tonight's performance.

Painted my toenails red and blue to match my awesome costume. (haha.)

Went and got my laptop, Bible and devotional, and Christi's letter

Was awoken to the ridiculous amount of junk that I have sitting around downstairs.

And here I am.

Maybe it's just reality hitting after yesterday's incredible day.

Yesterday. It was so great. I went to work, a little nervous about just not wanting to have another bad day there, and God blessed me. so. much. I think yesterday was the best day I've ever had at work. The Y's took me out for Mexican. It was crazy good food. Mmmm. We got to work a full day. It felt *so* good to be busy all day. I cannot even express to you how happy it made me to see all of those boxes. One of the shipping orders was us getting to ship 9 computers to New York. All in separate boxes. Weeee! I came home and within 2 minutes of being here, I had purchased my first camera. A Canon 40D with two lenses. I had won it on Ebay after my Momma spent the past hour keeping a close eye on it. I'm praying that everything with it will check out. The guy is supposed to ship it today! :D

I'm listening to my Tenth Avenue North Pandora Station, and it's hitting the spot. Good music.

Now. I'm going to go get some things done. I'll try to write Christi, and I'll do my Bible reading and have some nice quiet time.

God is good, even when the days are bad. He absolutely amazes me each and every day.

Be truthful and remember His grace,

Elizabeth