A Heart Change...

It's been a while since I've posted and I've actually found out that many people actually follow this blog to keep up with my life....sorry to those of you (mainly my family) who think I'm either dead or nothing exciting is happening in my life....That is NOT the case and so here is the most recent update on my life. This one might be a little long. :)

Week before Christmas: Nortel announces Q3 earning and layoffs to come. 1,300 employees before Christmas and another 1,300 employees laid off by the end of Q1 2009. I won't go into the diatribes of my Nortel life, but many of you know I was miserable. About 2 months before the layoffs were announced I was moved into a different role within my organization. The position I was filling had been created for the girl that previously possessed the job. I'm not a genius or anything but I've got a good dose of common sense. I figured that since my position was created for someone, it could that easily be taken away...and as suspected, that was the case. I was laid off a week before Christmas break and believe you me this was NO surprise nor was I upset about it. I happily skipped down to HR and signed my life away...no I should say I signed my life BACK and received a very comfy severance package. Not too shabby. I of course make the decision not to tell anyone, I think only a handful of people may have known. So I begin my venture to find a new job....This story will continue later in the blog. Keep reading.

Christmas: Went home to Texarkana for a week, had a wonderful time with family. Although this Christmas was hard with now both of my grandmothers past away, we made it through and I was so thankful to get to spend a wonderful week with the people I love the most. Here are a few pics of my dad's side of the family...we're a fun bunch!

A Wig?

Hope in her dress

Crazy Uncle Phil :)

Here's a crazy house a couple of blocks down from our neighborhood....If you're wondering...50 Blowups...50.

D90 (New Camera) : I left Texarkana late the evening of the 26th. Upon arriving to Dallas I headed straight for the camera store. I have been researching cameras for a while a decided to purchase the new Nikon D90. The last time that I have used an SLR camera was in high school and it used film. I was a darkroom nerd and loved developing my own film and pictures. This camera is digital and also takes HD video....upgrade for sure. Here are some of my first pics with the camera and of our Christmas tree in our apartment.

Helen, GA: The week after Christmas, boyfriend and his family invited me to spend a week with them at a small resort in Helen, GA. The trip just getting there was crazy. Woke up at 5:30 a.m. the morning of the 27th. First of all, worst travel day EVER! Second, my wonderful boyfriend, while his intentions were good, booked my flight from DFW to Charlotte, NC and then with a 2 and a half hour layover proceeding my next flight from Charlotte to Chattanooga, TN, where from there we would drive 3 hours to Helen, GA. Ugh, just the thought of it wears me out all over again. So again, woke up at 5:30 a.m. got myself ready to go and made it to the airport by about 6:30 a.m. I've never flown US Airways, and nor do I think I will ever travel with them again. I waited in lines for almost an hour and a half...ridiculous! Finally got on my plane around 8:15 a.m. supposed to take off at 8:30 a.m. But oh no, what is this....a storm?! It is so foggy/rainy/bleh at DFW they delay nearly every flight. And since US Airways seems to be the redheaded step-child of DFW airport, we took off last. We sat in the plane... on the runway... for.... 3 hours!!!! I've never wanted to be in the air so bad in my life! We finally take off around 11:30 a.m. I arrive in Charlotte, NC around 2:00 p.m. and book it to my next gate to see if my flight to Chattanooga, TN hasn't already left. As soon as I arrive at the gate I ask the attendant at the counter if Flight 1627 has taken off....she says in a chipper voice "Yes mam, and there it goes." DEAR LORD HELP ME! I'm literally watching the flight that I'm supposed to be on, take off. Frustrated with tears in my eyes, I then ask the question of all questions, "When is the next flight out?" To which the nice lady replies "Oh, not until 8:00 p.m. tonight. We've already got you booked for it Miss Og-les-bee." ( I hate it when people butcher my name) My next thought: Well isn't that just ffaannnttassticc. NOT!

So needless to say I have to sit in the Charlotte airport for 5 hours, by myself, with only 2 bars left on my cell phone. WoW-life surely can't get any better than THIS! I cry...A LOT...I'm exhausted... hungry... and alone. I finally ended up eating lunch at around 3:30 p.m. and then wandered around the airport for the remainder of the time. One thing you should know about the Charlotte airport (since I know my way around it and all) is that they have these great, huge, white rocking chairs sitting all over the airport. They are so awesome and if anyone knows me, they know I love a good old rocking chair. I had been rocking for a LONG time, when all the of the sudden a man comes up to me and says "Mam is that rocking chair comfortable?" I replied, "Well it sure better be I've been sitting her for about 2 hours taking a nap in it." Turns out this man and his family are the one's who build these rocking chairs...pretty neat. If I ever go back I'm gunna buy one.

Around 8:00 p.m. I make my way to Gate B32 to board onto my flight for Chattanooga, TN. Even this flight is delayed because of the fog and we sit on the runway for 45 minutes. I just can't seem to get enough of this! One amazing thing about flying in a heavy/ foggy cloud cover at night is flying above those clouds and seeing the city lights illuminate the dark sky...it's absolutely magnificent. Around 10:30 p.m. we land in Chattanooga, TN. FINALLY! I make my way off the plane and try to mingle my way through the crowd (even though I could fall over from exhaustion) to find Boyfriend. I haven't seen him in 2 weeks by this time, so I am VERY ready to see his sweet face. He's not in the greeting area where most other people are and he's not even around the corner from that. I'm thinking in my head "Ok he's gotta be here somewhere." As I make my way down the escalator towards the baggage claim I see from afar, my very handsome man. :) He's a ways away but we see each other.

Now I need you to pause for a moment and really visualize in your heard this scene. I see him, he sees me, what would you predict to happen next? Ummm let's think: maybe he would start walking towards me, or that maybe we would even pick up a slight pace or even bust into a sprint to embrace each other after not seeing each other for almost 2 weeks? WRONG....none of that happens. He stands there and just waits for me to reach him. Seems a little odd to me.

As I am getting closer to him I see that he has flowers behind his back. Well maybe he thought that if he were to walk toward me then maybe I would see the flowers?? I don't know, I can't figure it out, and I don't really care to. I'm crying so hard and I can barely stand it, all I want is a hug (and maybe a kiss:)) from him! You can imagine the intensiveness of our embrace when all of the sudden I hear a "click" "click" "click" sound. I'm to emotional to care and then Jonathan says to me, "Someone is trying to take your picture." (Now mind you, his family has not traveled with him to the airport to pick me up, it's 3 hours away. And for as long as I've been sitting in the Charlotte Airport, he's been sitting in the Chattanooga Airport as well.) On with the story.... As I look over to my left side I see this strange man with a huge camera taking our picture. Now I know what you're thinking: Flowers, camera....no he wasn't proposing people. Turns out Jonathan ended up meeting this photographer in the airport and hung out with him all day. So for the first time, our Hallmark moment actually got captured. Pretty neat huh?

Crying..but happy :)

Total surprise.. My face says "Who is this man?"

So after our little Hallmark moment is captured Jonathan introduces me to this guy and he wants him to give me a short photography lesson. WHAT? I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I just want to go to sleep, by this time it's already nearing 11:30 p.m. and I've been awake since 5:30 a.m. Ugh such is life. I end up getting a lesson, and 45 minutes later we are finally in the car.

You might have been asking earlier, "Why did Boyfriend book your tickets the way he did?" Well here's your answer: He wanted to show me a different part of the country that I have not yet seen, and the drive through the mountains would be beautiful. Well MISSED THAT. We drove in the dark, foggy, wet, mountains for 3 hours. We couldn't see anything and the roads were incredibly steep and windy.

FOG!

GPS showing the crazy mountain roads.

We finally arrived at....

at 1:30 a.m.

Ugh I am so tired from exhaustion I can't even see straight. I won't go into the details of our week but Helen, GA was a great trip. Lot's of antiquing, went to Anna Ruby Falls, had a great time with the Gaspard's and my wonderful boyfriend. I have pictures from the entire week at

Helen, GA Pics

It's a Hug the Day Day: A couple of weekends ago I house-sat for some of my most favoritest people near downtown. It was a Saturday through Sunday gig, so I asked Roomie (a.k.a Jen) to spend the night with me and we could piddle around downtown on Sunday and goof off. Sounds like a plan to me.

Now wait just one second....Have I introduced Roomie to anyone yet? I thought I did. Oh maybe not. Ok I might end up saving a whole nother blog for her since I could just brag on her for days and days, but for now I will just give the short introduction: Everyone... meet Roomie.

I know she's beautiful and on top of that she's my bestestestestestest friend in the whole wide world. Ok enough like I said I will post a whole nother blog on her later....she's that wonderful. No lie.

Ok back to the story, so Sunday morning we had the most wonderful day. We woke up went to Bread Winners in Uptown for our "Fast breaking" breakfast, then went to grab coffee at Starbucks while we waited for the super huge Anthropologie (which I know I've mentioned it before but here it is again) MY FAVORITE STORE to open, and there got inspired to redecorate our apartment. Yay FUN! Oh, and can I just say, it was the most gorgeous day ever! This is what Roomie and I refer to as a "Hug the Day Day"... pretty much sums up itself. We also stopped by a great furniture store called Again & Again where we fell in love with re-made vintage pieces that were so unique. Definitely inspired us even more for the apartment. Here is a sketch Roomie drew for inspiration:

After that I wanted to take Roomie to a little treasure in Highland Park, The Highland Park Pharmacy. This was the highlight of our day. The HPP is owned by a lovely couple S & W Williams and this pharmacy is also a restaurant/soda fountain, all original flooring, counter, etc. It is a timeless vintage building that one can easily fall in love with. Now if anyone of you have been following my blog you know that November of last year I was treated to a Mavericks Game where I sat court-side and had THE time of my life. Turns out that it was on S & W Williams tab. I haven't ever had the opportunity to thank Mr. Williams for my court-side experience.... until we walked in the pharmacy. Upon walking into the vintage building Mr. Williams is working like a busy-bee sweeping, cleaning, dusting, greeting. Sitting down to the counter Mr. Williams comes to greet me with a smile and I introduced myself and thanked him for a wonderful first-game experience with the Mavs. We ended up talking to Mr. Williams for a good hour, we talked about his children, the pharmacy, the food, the history, the soda fountain, what his best selling food and drinks were. We had an absolutely wonderful time with this man. We will now have to make a regular trip to the pharmacy to visit with Mr. Williams and this timeless pharmacy soda fountain. The grill cheese is his best seller by the way ;)

That same evening Boyfriend and I had a date night before he went off to Vail to go skiing for a week. He surprised me with a wonderful dinner at the Gaylord Hotel and swept me off my feet with such genuine charm. He had to get me good considering I was missing out on a week of skiing in the mountains with him, Haha. Here is a picture of the Hotel as we were leaving:

The Job Search & Heart Change: The story of my job search continues. The week after I returned from Helen, GA and Christmas I was getting ancy to get back to my job search. I had found several places to apply but no replies. A good friend of mine mentioned a position at Gateway (my church) for an administrative assistant. Didn't sound too appealing o me at first, but my friend seemed to think I would be great at it. Eh, I had my reservations and decided to not think about it. Last Tuesday, Nortel made the announcement that they are filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy... which in turn means no more severance package for Laura. Yeah... bad deal.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and the only job that was in front of my face was the one mentioned at the church. I called, received an initial interview with HR that I thought went very well. I was immediately (and I mean literally 10 minutes after I left the parking lot) called back to meet the pastor I would be assisting. Had the meeting with him on Friday and called me back for another meeting this past Wednesday. On Tuesday the game got interesting. I got the most random phone call from ...COCA-COLA ENTERPRISES offering me a job. Whoa. Now grant it, if we were to weight the two jobs side by side there would be many many more pro's on the Coke side than on the Gateway side. Coke is offering: the same position as Nortel (Sales Forecast Analyst), significant pay raise, closer location, an opportunity to grow. Gateway means a complete lifestyle change: 25 minute drive to work, significant pay cut, happiness, another move for Roomie and I, and a job that I feel like I am naturally gifted to do. I had to do a lot of praying, deliberating, and checking the condition of my heart. Although some may see this situation and think that my decision would have already been made up for me, I choose to see something else. I really do believe that this was a test from the Lord. I've learned very quick from my experience at Nortel that my happiness has no price tag. Plus just thinking about working with extensive statistical forecasting models for the next 5 to 6 years of my life makes my stomach turn.

So needless to say, well, thankful to say, I was offered the job at Gateway and accepted. I know it may sound crazy to some people that I took the job at Gateway, but just thinking about the job at Coke didn't make me excited. The thought of what I will be doing at Gateway makes me leap out of my skin with excitement and joy! I start this next Tuesday and I'm very excited. This decision will require a deeper level of committment on my part and I know my life will have to be adjusted to the choice that I have made. But more than anything I am willing and GLAD to make those adjustments. God is faithful and He has never left me nor forsaken me, even though this was a test of my heart and character, I think I passed with flying colors.

I Sorry: I know I haven't posted in a while so here's my official apology. I've just been going through a season in my life and sometimes I don't get inspired to blog until it's all over. My life is going to start getting a little bit MORE interesting in the coming year so I am going to be more disciplined about this as time goes on. Just leave me a comment or two to let me know you're out there.

Website of the Day: Twitter is the newest phenomenon apart from MySpace and Facebook. It's addicting as heck and fun to boot if your friends are on it too. On the left side of this page you can see my daily and sometimes hourly updates of what I'm doing. Twitter is a way to keep people informed. Plus it's a GREAT way to keep stalk people... and basically be a creeper. Haha. Enjoy. www.Twitter.com