California for Stefani

Well this last weekend was the Canadian long weekend. We had a nice relaxing weekend here in sunny White Rock. We spent Saturday in Agassiz with my sister. After the flower show, we went over to my parents (who weren't home) and had a nice dinner of lasagna. We visited with Jos, Andrea and Owen for awhile and then went home around 6:30. Sunday saw us sleeping in a bit and then having coffee. One of our local restaurants has started a buffet breakfast for $8.99/person, so we walked (1 whole block) over and had a very yummy breakfast. We did go out to check out some ideas for a small pond and to pick up a lime tree for our California oasis in our back yard. Doug had a good idea for a pond and we got the necessary items on Sunday and on Monday. So now we have a 64 litre (rubbermaid containter) pond in our back yard with a lily, and a few other plants. A fish is next, or maybe 2 fish. Once we are all done we will post some pictures.

It was a nice weekend. I wish we could have spent more time with people, but it seems everyone is too busy, so that's ok... guess that is the downfall to not having kids. Doug is working on some school work and he managed to get a lot done. I worked a bit on pictures and got a few more pages done. I like the scrapbook using Creative Memories products. I am a little behind, but that is ok... I like looking at the pictures and remembering how much fun we had.

This coming weekend, we will celebrate the American long weekend in Las Vegas. It seems they figured my 40th birthday deserved a national holiday, so heck, why not enjoy it. I turn 40 on Saturday and we are spending 3 nights at Bally's in Las Vegas. I have 2 shows booked already... Le Reve and Mystere. Can't wait to enjoy the bright shiny lights of Vegas. I love cities and all the lights. We will go to some buffett's for food, and maybe even spend a day in the spa of our hotel. I plan to check out some of the free shows that the various hotels offer. Guess it will be a weekend of walking. Not sure exactly that I will do on my birthday, but just being in Vegas is enough.

This is going to be a shorter work week, which is nice. Not so nice for the paycheck, but worth it in the long run. We leave here at about 6am Friday morning... going to go to Denny's for breaky in Ferndale and then be at the airport by 8am... our flight leaves at 9:30am... can't wait. Instead of being at work, I will be on vacation... YIPEE!!!

I just read a post on craiglist about our old place The Morgan. We used to the caretakers there, but due to being overworked and underpaid, we decided to quit. We loved the concept of the job and would consider doing it somewhere else at some point. The place was filled with a lot of young people who didn't like rules and it was hard to deal with. We were told to enforce the rules, but when we did, then we were told we should be leniant... good grief... stick to one thing and follow through. It was hard living there though... we loved the idea of a pool, but the people so abused it, that the rest of us couldn't enjoy it. I loved having a pool in my own place, but the last few months I couldn't even step into that area. So I guess this year I will have to learn to swim more in the ocean since we are only steps away from it. We have a really nice place... it's about 1050 square feet with a huge balcony. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit. The living room is kinda small, but we don't need much for 2 people and 2 recliners. Our bedroom is pretty big and we love our master bath with the huge soaker tub. The biggest bonus is living right across the street from the beach. We can drive into our underground parking and giggle at everyone else who has to find parking LOL.

No big vacations booked until September. Then we are doing a cruise and spending some time in Florida. We are looking forward to meeting some new friends on the cruise. We met these people (Tim & Aislinn) on a cruise forum about a year ago and have been chatting ever since. We are also on each other's facebook. They are Mormons and it has been fascinating to learn about their beliefs. Turns out Mormons are Christians (or at least these two are) and it's nice to talk to people about their beliefs because I have been told (by media) that Mormons are not Christians. I think we all need to step outside of our box a bit and not put "Christianity" as a set of characteristics because there are no set rules for that. Mormons can be Christians just like anyone else. I think this world has a very small view of who can be Christians and boy will people be surprised on who will be in heaven with us. I think the whole concept of Christianity has to be opened up a bit. Too many rules and politics in church has made Christianity not for everyone, and Jesus was born on this earth for EVERYONE. God sent him down as a human so that he has a connection with us. I think we are due for a paradigm shift of our beliefs... I know mine has changed a lot in the last few years.

Are we ready for that paradigm shift? I hope I am because I want to see it. I want to see everyone be accepted as children of God, no matter your sexual orientation, your religious beliefs, or your rebellious personality. Are we able to see Christianity outside of the box? Other than the basic acceptance of Jesus in our hearts and lives, there is great interpretation of how Christianity looks and we shouldn't judge others if it looks different than our small box. Step out of that box and see if it can look different. It is starting too for me and I like it... for once I feel a little normal in all the mayhem. Bring it on.

People like to use that line when they find out that something bad happened to a person. Can you imagine how God feels about that... every time something bad happens to us, we tell each other that it's God's fault. No wonder people have a bad outlook on our God... he is blamed for everything, even though it usually the fault of human nature, human error or just plain old human sin. This world is sinful, and along with that comes hurt and pain. There is no way around it, if we want to live here, it is what will happen. We can get through it though with God/Jesus. He will comfort us and even guide us how to get through it. I don't believe in that saying at all (for the most part). I think there are times when God tells us to do something, but life gets in the way and human choice makes things very painful. Do remember that God gave us choice in the beginning, and has never taken that away. Let me tell you a story... a story of a loss of a daughter... her name was Colleen...

About 5 years ago I was watching a TV show called Judging Amy. There was an episode about a teenage boy who was in the foster care system and it was mentioned how once kids hit a certain age in the system, that they would have a very little chance to get adopted. I light went off in my head... why not adopt a teen. We love that age group and we don't have a desire for babies, so why not... we had a decent sized house, good jobs and lots of love to give. I think it was about October at the time. So we got in contact with social services and started the process. They have a website with all the kids in the system, so we went through the website. We knew that the right person would jump out at us, and she did... her screen name was Colleen.

The process starts with a home visit and an interview... and we got that done right away. We also joined a program that specialized in connecting the older kids in the system to parents. When we explained who we were looking at, the head of the group said we would be a perfect match. Coleen was looking for a couple with no kids, people with a dog, someone who would be OK with her still spending time with an aunt, and other things that just perfectly matched with us. So away we went on the long grueling process that could take months and months. Turns out the group leader got us fast tracked through and the only thing slowing us down was some courses we had to take. They started in February and ended in late March... but we found out that we were fast tracked and could even meet Coleen part way through March. We did our home studies and were approved. Everyone liked us and thought that Coleen and us would be a great match. Everything was falling into place perfectly and we figured in about a month, we would get to meet our daughter...

Doug's family is different... some are really nice and some aren't. Doug's sister has some issues, and proceeded to phone social services and tell them a bunch of lies. In our system you are guilty until proven innocent, and how do you prove innocence on lies??? Within a day of her phone call, we got called to the office and were informed that we were not able to adopt, and in fact, we couldn't do anything with children. Our names were black flagged. We were devastated and we considered fighting it, but how?? It meant bringing his family through the mud... all the secrets, all the bad things in the past, etc... we just couldn't do that. Even though we don't like his family much, we didn't know if we could hurt them that badly, especially his parents. So we just gave up... and we gave up on Coleen, which I think was the hardest. Should we have fought for her more... did we choose his family (who we don't like) over our future daughter? I guess we did choose his family, but what could we have done? We are to honour our parents, and putting them through hell is not honouring them, even though they made mistakes.

So what do some people say when they heard our story?? I guess it wasn't in God's time!! So, we follow everything to what God tells us... everything falls into place as if it was meant to be, and then God rips it away from us? Good grief, what kind of God do people think we have... there is no way this was God. It was his sister and her hate... nothing to do with God. Put the blame where it belongs and don't blame the One who handed it to us, and who eventually comforted us through it all. There are times where prayer's aren't answered in the way we want, and that is just God saying it isn't time, or something like that, but really... if God gives you something, or lets things happen for good, he isn't going to rip it away from us, his children. Life is what screws with us... it's our sinful life here on earth that messes things up. It's people's choices that puts us at risk of being hurt and in pain.

Even with our Mexico fiasco in December, I totally believe that it was God sending us there and everything worked out so well, that it had to be God. It was two people's choices that changed our destiny and NOT God. Their choice to play with peoples' lives and to mess with our heads. I will tell you that story at some other time... it's also a doozy... we have had a few in our lives, but through it all, we are still strong and know that God loves us very much. I don't believe that we would be any less stronger without these experiences. There is no way God does this to test us, otherwise that would be very mean of him. Again... it's this sinful world that does this to us and it's God that comforts us and brings us through it. Remember, Jesus was sent to take away our pain, our sadness, our burdens... he carries them for us.

People may not agree with this, but heck, this is my blog, and it's my opinion, so please do not post negative responses to it. You won't change my mind and why bring hurt and pain onto a blog that is about me ;)

We spent that afternoon with my sister and her family in Agassiz at a flower show called Buds n' Bloom. They were selling their Rhododendrons and my parents where visiting with my other sister, so we figured we would join Andrea (my sister) and keep them company in Agassiz... do you want to know how Agassiz fits into my life??? If you don't, then feel free to stop reading this post because this will be mostly about my experience in Agassiz and how it affected my life.

I grew up on a mountain (Mt. Woodside) near the small town of Agassiz. My dad was a teacher at Agassiz Secondary School. My mom was a stay at home mom. Being a 1 income family was hard on them, but the sacrificed so that my mom could stay home (she used to be a teacher). Living on a mountain was not my idea of fun, but it was interesting. We had no neighbours to go visit, but we did have a huge playground... too bad I prefered to stay inside and watch tv LOL.

My life in Agassiz started in Kindergarten and it didn't start to well. I only knew German, so going into an all english school was a little tough on me and so I spent the first year of my school life hiding in the washroom. It eventually got better and I learned english and loved to read books and go into a world of my own. I had a few friends, but with me being so shy, it was hard to find friends. Then in grade 5 a new student showed up (named Monica) and she made my life HELL... she took the few friends I had and turned them against me and I would say for the rest of my school life it was a life of being bullied and being put down. I would befriend the unpopular kids and that didn't help either... I was bullied and nobody could do anything about it.

My dad was a teacher in the school that I went to from grade 7 - 11 and he knew about it and did the best he could, but what can you do about bullies??? If you tell on them, they just get worse. So I took it for the most part, and learned to ignore them. Thankfully I had amazing parents who always told me how wonderful I was and along with my faith in God, I managed to survive my school years. My last year (grade 12) I went to a different school and that was amazing. Here was a huge school that if you were a Christian, they really didn't care. I can totally relate to those kids that want to quit life in high school... my experience was horrible and I would never want anyone to live through that. If nothing else, it made my faith strong and I never faltered from that and knew that God was always there for me.

I have a few people on my facebook from those days, but not that many. I would prefer not to have any memories from those days of being bullied. I did get an apology from one of my bullies a few years ago, so that was nice. They aren't on my facebook, but I told her why I didn't want her on there. I accepted her apology but it doesn't change the past and those memories that come along with that.

So why the title of the post??? I drove through Agassiz today in my hot new car and it was an amazing feeling. I am not a nobody... I didn't let their bullying get to me and I made something of myself. I am a strong Christian, I have an amazing husband and my parents are my best friends... I also have an amazing car that makes me feel cool... sigh... it felt good to drive through and feel strong and proud of who I am.

I have been a Christian since I was about 4 years old. I have stood strong in my faith all my life and have always had God by my side. I would pray that God would give me strength as I dealt with the hurtful people in my life. When I said the F word at age 5 and had no idea what it meant (remember I only knew German), I right away knew it was a bad word and apologized to God for that right there and then in the playground at school. I have been blessed to have that comfort of God/Jesus in my life and it made such a difference. Thankfully I survived also because of my parents... they made coming home from school safe. I may have had a sucky school life, but I had a great home life. I had parents that cared for me and thought I was special... what more can one need than that?

We all have stories of sadness and woe... mine might not seem as horrible as those people who were sexually abused, etc... but it's my story. I survived it and as I turn 40 in a week, I can look back on that small amount of time and look at who I am now and I can be proud. I have a Mustang... what more in life do I need? HA HA HA... but there is something that just makes me feel like I have accomplished life... can one be that happy about a silly car? I think it's the spirit of it too... that feeling of ??? This is where I am not good at words... I can't explain that feeling inside me right now and how grateful I am for my Mustang and how I feel when I drive it. It may be taken away from me tomorrow (I hope not though), but that won't change how I have felt the last two months, so for that I am so very grateful.

Thank you God for the many joys you bring to me... for caring that I like toys sometimes... and for letting me have some (car, my tivo, etc). God grants us the desires of our hearts and so far I can say that he has done a great job. I love you God (Jesus)

Today was friday (just in case you were wondering). It was a pretty good day. Started off with going to CruiseShipCenters ( www.cruiseshipcenters.com/stefani ) until about 1:30. No leads, but that is ok, I had a nice time there anyway. I don't always go for sales leads anyway... just show my face to show that I am part of a team. I enjoy that job but it doesn't really pay much. Most of my clients are as thrifty as I am and don't want to pay a lot for a vacation. I'm ok with that, but I could handle a few world cruise clients... I would like that LOL. When I got outside to leave, I noticed it was very nice and sunny out, so I put the top down on the convertible and cranked up the music (Newsboys). I decided to stop at BCAA and pick up a few maps for our trip next week to Las vegas and then off to the tanning studio. I spent 19 minutes making sure I stay my nice glowing brown. We started tanning over a year ago and just kept going because it's nice to stay tanned all year round.

I picked up Doug from work around 3 and we went home and proceeded to enjoy the nice patio that we have. It was sunny out, so we figured we would enjoy the great outdoors. Doug did a bit of weeding and then we relaxed. I hadn't figured out what we were doing for dinner at this point, but we finally decided on Spagetti Factory and then a movie after. We went to see Iron Man 2 and really enjoyed it. I love action movies the best and we usually only go to the theatre to see an action movie. We have occasionally gone for a comedy but that was mostly because we needed to get out and we need to laugh... so lets talk about laughing and happiness....

I love to look at the bright side of things... that is how I have always been. I try to find the good in the bad and always have good outlook on life. I am a Pollyanna personality, and if you don't know what that means, go rent an old Disney movie called Pollyanna and see what I mean. I have been told that it makes me seem less "real" and that I don't show my true emotions, but that isn't true. My true emotions are always there, but I try to not let it run my life. I may be sad, but why should the whole world know that I am sad. The important people know my true inner thoughts, but I don't need to let everyone know. Being a positive person doesn't mean you hide your feelings, it just means you don't always let those feelings control who you are.

I want happiness and laughter in my life... and I know God wants that for me too. He doesn't want his children to be sad and gloomy and so I believe he puts things in our paths to lighten our load and to make our life filled with joy. I think we are allowed to enjoy our life and do things to bring us that joy... go on vacations, go to movies that make us laugh, spend time with people who bring us the same kind of happiness. Life is so full of crap that who needs to spend more time in crap... which is why we look for friendships that encourage and uplift us and not ones that bring us down and make us cry when we get home (yes we have had those). It's why I don't apologize for spending our money on vacations and small get aways. Why can't we do things for ourselves that make us happy and bring us joy. Sometimes the Christian world thinks we have to do everything for everyone else, and not do anything for ourselves... bah humbug on that LOL.

It has taken us a bit to be happy again... after being sent home from Mexico we were down in the dumps for quite some time and even now we still get sad about it all, but what can you do... nothing... so lets look on the bright side, enjoy what we have, go on a vacation (my cure for anything) and drive with the top down on our Mustang.

Tomorrow is another day... hopefully it will be nice and we can drive topless (HEE HEE HEE)... things are looking brighter everyday and I want to enjoy all that the day has to offer. One of these posts I will let you know about our darker days in our life... yes, we have had those... after 22 (just about) years of marriage, it hasn't been all sunshine and roses LOL

It's thursday today. Not much of an exciting day but it was still a day. My sister had a baby girl and they named her Kaitlyn so of course I had to buy something Mickey Mouse for the newest Disney fan. I landed up at Walmart a couple of times to get things. No biggie though because it is less than 5 minutes away from work and I always like an excuse to drive my car. So for any new readers out there... here is a tid bit of info about me...

I have decided to start a blog again... not sure why... maybe because it's better than doing notes on Facebook.