Did It

I finished up Christmas cards last night. Hannah is home sick again. Yesterday she tried to have the school call me to come get her, but they didn't have our new phone number and they didn't try any of the alternatives. Luckily, there was only about an hour of school left. She was really coughing though and she said it gives her a bad headache. She doesn't sound right, doesn't look right, and apparently doesn't feel right.

Last night while I was writing out cards, I came across some addresses for people I haven't been in touch with in a while. I got a card back from an elderly friend last year marked "not known". Since he was probably in his 90's, I figured he had passed on. I didn't want to get another card back like that so I called a nursing home where a woman, who was a regular at Mc Donald's when I worked there, has been for the past couple of years. She's still there. I did more research and the nursing home is about an hour and a half from us now. I called her today and she was thrilled. She said she doesn't get a lot of company. I told Keith last night that I was going to take Hannah and visit with her for a little bit one weekend day. She was from NC and returned here about 8 years ago from Lakeland. She was one of my favorite customers.

Thinking about that, it's so amazing to me that I lived an entirely different life just 15 years ago. No real hope of going to college, no real hope for much of anything. Because I was the "STAR"/hostess (that stood for store activities rep -- meaning I coordinated the birthday parties, chatted with the customers in the AM and refilled coffee, and other fun stuff) I was eligible for stock. I had the max withheld that I could. About a year after that, they decided that they were going to discontinue the stock option for hostesses. When I was paid out, that was enough to pay for my first year of college. After that and once I was going, I got information about grants that I was eligible for and that was that. My second year there, I met Keith. Isn't God just so good? I mean, that He had that plan for me, when I couldn't even imagine something so good for myself. Wow.

Okay, got off on a tangent. Just thinking about my friend in the nursing home brings back fond memories of a different time. She always liked her biscuits "skinny" (a little bit crunchy) with grape jelly. Her friend liked "fat" biscuits with strawberry jam. She passed on several years ago, as did the rest of my regular crew. I always kept in touch with them. When I ran for a position on the student activities board at the college(where I met Keith), it was my morning coffee group that collectively wrote and signed one of my two letters of recommendation. When I work with individuals going through rough transitions in their lives and looking for employment, I am reminded of the support and positive experiences that came from a pretty unspectacular fast food job. It's all what you make of it.

Keith should be home in less than an hour. We have an appointment to get our drivers' licenses today. If there is enough time left, we are hoping to get over and get our tags as well. That being said, I have to go hunt down all of the car titles.