A brief rant on customer service.

remember choose your own adventure books? here's one for you:

you're staff at a furnitrue store. it's a weekday evening, and there is no one around. you're off soon so your boyfriend is waiting to drive you home. a young couple walks into the store. if you...

approach them and offer your help, as is logical to do in the sales industry, go to page 2.

sit down on the couch with your boyfriend and ignore the couple, and then proceed to kiss him and skip off away from the couple to so something that is more than likely completely not work related, go to below.

for the record, there is no page 2. because if the girl who was at the store andrew and i were shopping at last night had anything to say about this, she would have picked the second option. and we're going to go with that for a moment.

let me say something about customer service.

[inhale deeply]

it's important. it's ESSENTIAL in business. you do not need to wait on someone hand and foot, you don't need to follow them everywhere, you don't need to be humbled by how much you have to "serve" someone. BUT you do have to do your job, which is to be helpful. most people are grateful for it. sucks when they aren't, but awesome when they are.

having worked for four years at a catering company and one and a half at zellers, i know what it's like to just want to go home and not be at work. but the fact is, that until you're done you're shift - you. are. at. work. and acting like that is repulsive to customers. if we had been planning on buying anything there that night, let me tell you that thought is now gone completely. we found a place where the guy was super helpful, personable, and gave just the right amount of space with attention. odds are good we'll pay 1/3 more if we go with stuff from there, but customer service counts for more than saving money to me, and probably a LOT of other people.

end rant.

tree climber.

oh boy. i met with jill and we did measurements and talked about my dress and i am so very excited. this picture is not it. i just thought it was comical, and also could not post what my dress is, as andrew has been known to look over my blog. and that's can't happen, now can it!

159 days until i get married. honestly, i woudln't know that unless i went to theknot.com, which i do often. but it's fun seeing the numbers going down - especially when we started at 300 something!

i'm so very in love with andrew and i'm so excited to marry him. i'm excited for this summer in general - getting married, new york, being in jill's wedding and therefore learning how to make a bouquet, and more! moving into a new place, settling.. eek.

there's a chance i might be going to ottawa in march, which is really cool. for work!

i'm all over the place right now because i don't have much time and i'm excited about a lot. yay. i hope you're having a lovely day.

tap dance.

tonight, for some reason, i do not feel quite at home in my home (apartment). it's not the most super feeling ever. but it's not dreadful or anything. just weird. i've gotten quite used to not being here for evenings, perhaps that is it.

i am distracted. i am reading a book and i like to fall right into the words on the page, but tonight i can't. my eyes are aware that there are things other than my book. nothing in particular. i feel apprehensive.

in other news, i am a large fan of the mix tapes i've received over the years, and am going to make myself feel at home by listening to them while i continue reading.

wedding dreams.

the other day jill told me about her first wedding dream, and i welcomed her to the world of post-engagement wedding dreams.

so far i've had a few.

the first one was the wilted roses one. i had ugly pink roses instead of daisies, and they were pink at that - a color i would not choose to associate with very often. i just don't feel nice in pink. or like myself. so double whammy. triple if you include the wilting factor.

the second one was particularly disturbing because it was less frivillously upsetting and more legit upsetting. i dreamt i didn't want to get married and i was freaking out, and i wasn't marrying andrew (which my conscious self has concluded that my subconscious was onto the fact that if it wasn't andrew, it wasn't okay). that was unpleasant.

now this most recent dream was last night and it was about my friend's wedding, not mine. i dreamt i sent pictures of her in her dress to a lot of people (before her wedding), including her fiance. which is terrible and awful. in my dream i thought it was a good idea, until i sent it and realized how NOT good of an idea that was. i tried desperately to undo it but i couldn't. she cried and i cried and i knew i ruined something awesome for her.

ugh. dreams! i used to think they were random. they are not. i have had so many dreams that connected to my life at the time i was having the dreams. i remember having a really hard decision to make a few years ago and having dream after dream of me fighting things. it finally dawned on me that i was wrestling so much with this choice that my mind would put me through visuals at night of what i was putting it through during the day.

dreams are so interesting. that's all.

the immeasurable value in vulnerability, and how we see it later.

from time to time i have the privilege of chatting with a very fantastic woman who does not know how much she has changed my life first by just being, and second by engaging in these conversations with me. i do not recall exactly when this one took place, but i was reminded tonight of a discussion we had about vulnerability.

i do not care for being vulnerable. i can tolerate it in small doses. i cannot, however, find it in myself to appreciate it or see its value when it hits unexpectedly, in the moment that it hits. moments of extreme vulnerability have happened throughout my life, and most specifically since the age of 16, without my consent, because apparently it does not require my consent to happen. the nerve.

i have spent a great deal of time thinking about the unfairness of its various sources, loathing myself for being weak enough to allow it to happen, and viewing it as a complete sign of being inferior in life. inferior to what? to nothing but my expectation for myself. for anyone else i'd see it as healthy, or needed, or would point out the benefits. yet time and time again i find it in myself to hold me to another standard, not because i find myself worthy of it, but really the opposite. i find myself very unworthy of a lot of things, and therefore seem to try and set my goals to a standard above what i hold for others, so as not to let my unworthiness stand in the way.

enter moments of vulnerability, and how this all relates to the discussion i referred to in my first paragraph.

i was presented by my mentor, and friend, with the idea that vulnerability was an essential piece to our human existence as followers of Jesus, if that is what we are choosing to be. it is one of the best reminders of our humaness, and therefore also of our ungodness. those are not words. but you get the idea. it's a reality check. at least it is for me.

without moments where i've had to be vulnerable - when i've had to say "i'm not quite good enough for that", or "i need to ask for your help", or "i have to say i'm sorry for what i've done", or "i was wrong, i was wrong, i was wrong" - where would my need for God be? it'd be there, but i'd have a hard time seeing it with my ego in the way.

there are just some things i cannot do.

believe it or not, this is a hard lesson for me to learn. i am still learning it. i am a proud, proud person. i do not like to be helped if i have not asked. i like to solve problems. i like to be good at things, and i like to stand out. none of these things are bad - but when they take my focus away from my inherent need for God in my life, they become dangerous, venomous, and destructive. i do not wish to make God sound like a crutch - i have heard many people make that analogy when they talk about people who follow Jesus. that is not my intent. because i think that if i didn't think there was a God, that i would still think of myself as really rather flawed. and so because i DO think there is a God, it does not make sense for me to think that me as a flawed person could make better decisions than he could.

sometimes my flaws make me feel downright broken. i can think of a few moments where i've been so sad, so torn apart inside, that all i could do was curl up on the floor and sob so hard. it hurt a lot. there have been some things in life that have made me feel like i could never be okay again. and it's in moments like that, when i know there is nothing that i myself could do to help me, that it is clearest why i need God. and i need him just as much at any other moment of any other day. but it is in night, not day, that we will notice a light around us the most.

this is what i re-learned today. it's a painful lesson. and i very much doubt that i am done learning it. but i am happy to sit back, to think, and to feel peace. because as much as i fight so hard to hold on to control, i've never felt so much peace as when i let it go.

different things to me.

it's a new year.

life changes so much hey?
one of the things i told my jr high girls over and over, is that the three years after you graduate from high school are some of the most life changing years of your life. there will be more change later, but these set a foundation for who you'll be in the long run. you figure out who you are.

those years are more or less done for me now, and i'm happy with the outcome. and now begin another set of change filled years. starting with this past one. i'm now engaged (anyone reading this blog regularly or even semi regularly will be more than aware of that fact), and began to learn more than ever how to work with someone else and not just with myself. it's hard. and it's good.

this new year, i'm getting married in. i'm going to live for the next 6 months in a home with some wonderful girls, and enjoy every moment of it. then i'm going to make my home with andrew, wherever that ends up along the way, and enjoy that too.

this year, i welcome. it brings exciting things.

someone hear our chatter.

exactly 6 months until my wedding day! excited!

january. this is the month where everything gets kicked back into gear and things really get moving! we had our first shower, out in altona. we are now thoroughly pampered chef'ed and tupperware'ed out the wazoo. which is wonderful. i am very excited about making ourselves a home, and filling it with things that are new and quality. weddings are a wonderful help for getting a newly married couple really off on their feet, and i am so thankful for generous and supportive family and friends.

we get to do premarital counseling, which is very neat. i'm looking forward to it.
i get to really get going on decorations and invitations and that kind of thing.
we'll do the measurements for my dress at the end of this month.
as soon as spring dresses hit the rack, i'll be shopping for my bridesmaids.
we get to pick out a ring for andrew.
we find an apartment and start thinking about paint and furniture and stuff!

i'm just really excited. for it all.