Archives for 2005

It’s difficult to understand why my ex wants to maintain a good relationship with my family but yet does not encourage two of my daughters to do the same with me. I am very happy that all of my girls continue to visit with my dad and my sister. When Megan mentions that she is coming to visit me, daughter #2 basically tells her it’s stupid. That puts Megan in a painful position because she knows I would like her to have a good relationship with her sisters too. But the relationship my ex has with my family just eats away at me.

He kept things of my mom’s that my dad had given to me when my mom passed away. If Megan even mentions the idea of him returning them to me he goes off on her. I’ve asked my dad to speak to him but that gets forgotten. Maybe I should ask my sister to remind him.

This is probably going to be the last year I bowl – I’ve inherited my father’s degenerative joint disease and the joint in my middle finger is pretty messed up. But I guess I’ll go out with a bang – missed a 600 by 4 pins this past Tuesday night.

I want to sign up for the upcoming Pro-Am – Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Classic – Pro-Ams in January. I’ve always wanted to bowl in one. I took Vanessa to three of them. I even was a scorekeeper for one of them. Oh the lost art of hand scoring.

Somehow I let myself be talked into bowling in the USBC Women’s Championships to be held in Reno, NV. Entry fee was $100 – but that’s the cheapest part of the trip. Then there is airline fare, hotel, food and then the group is planning on going to San Francisco. Maybe that’s why I reluctantly signed up – I want to go to San Francisco. Hopefully, I can save up enough for this trip next June.

Jeff was raised Southern Baptist and my being Catholic didn’t lend itself for room to compromise. So I continued to maintain my quiet relationship with God. We would toss the idea around of trying to find a middle ground or even going to a Lutheran church but never did.

I had been working at Holiday Treasures for a couple years without any type of benefits. I remained active within the Miva Merchant community and thought I had a couple of leads there, but they didn’t pan out. I had posted my resume on Monster and watched for job openings in Birmingham. Flipping through the channels one night I stubble across EWTN and Mother Angelica was doing a catalog show. Electronic catalogs and ecommerce are my “specialty” so I went to checkout the EWTN website. They had job listings posted – one was for a Web Designer. At the same time, I found a job listing for Web Developer at the Baptist Health System (here in Birmingham). I wound up interviewing with both of them around April 2001 and then went into the “hurry up and wait” mode. The running joke was “who would get me first? The Baptists or the Catholics?”

Turns out that one of the site owners for a site I built, had ties with EWTN. He came over to me one morning, asked if I still was interested in working at EWTN and gave me a phone number to call. I wound up talking with one of the people who was part of the interview time from when I came in back in April. I went back to EWTN for a second interview with the webmaster – he gave me a great tour of the campus. I went back to my car and cried – I felt like I wasn’t “Catholic enough” to work at EWTN. Little did I know they were trying to find me so I could have a third interview with the company President. So God WAS trying to tell me something – I got the job at EWTN.

I started October 1, 2001. In the spring of 2002, we went to the EWTN Family picnic that was held at the monastery in Hanceville. The picnic included a family Mass. Jeff had never been inside a Catholic Church – it was quite a moving experience for him. He was so full of questions – now I know why I had put at EWTN. He started attending RCIA classes and I started the painful annulment process (I’ll save that for another time). It was a long process – Jeff was finally able to join the Church this past June 2005.

Looks like this may have to be one of those continuing threads.

Somebody should have reminded the “Brookie” where she was at before she decided to drop the f-bomb. I guess the crucifix on the wall wasn’t a reminder? Her dinner time “conversation” with her sons would have my mother rolling over in her grave – I was raised that there is a time and place for everything.

I was a little disappointed that more of the business uses for blogs was not discussed. I did learn that I don’t run in any blogging circles. But I should think about starting a Miva Merchant blog and get Megan to start one too. Then she would have a place to sound off.