REALITY CHECK...in many areas lately. I'll mention them in the order they come to mind, not necessarily priority. Maybe as I write, I can make some sense of all of the reality that is clobbering me!

1. I may not be as marketable as I had hoped. (And I wasn't wildly impressed with my marketable skills as a nurse with an eight year hole in my resume`.) I had my first conversation with a nurse recruiter yesterday. Realizing that I present much better in person, I need to learn how to manage this new way of doing job interviews by email/phone. I hate it! If I can call the person when I'm ready to talk, with all my information in front of me, mentally ready, that is fine...but impossible! I put my call in yesterday and 6 hours later, while I was on call waiting for someone in a billing department to take my call, the recruiter's call beeped in. It was late in the day and I knew if I didn't take it then, I was done for until the next day, so I took the call and of course, stuttered around as I looked for my materials and infomation so I could make sense. I had pushed a wrong button and couldn't find a number for the job, so that complicated things more, so I just launched into the other questions I needed to ask her. Basically, I came out of that conversation felling pretty dumb. She sounded very together and knew her "spiel"...and didn't seem to know much about the area of my questions. Somehow, I think that 60+ age on the registration blank, pigeonholes me before she has even seen me. I'm hoping for a better showing this Saturday at another hospital's Open House. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to write up a resume` for the first time in my life! (I have never had to do that before for ANY job.)

2. I'm functioning in the area of my non-spiritual gift for the second year in a row and it is getting to me! There is a lot of improvement. Last year I was working in two areas of non-gift. One area is totally delegated to others who do it sooo much better than I. This year, I'm co-working in an area of non-gift as I co-teach with a woman who is gifted in teaching. The more I work with her, the more sure I am that this is her gift...and it isn't mine. The saving grace for me...and the reason that I'm not more of a failure...is that my gift is exhortation/encouragement. I don't pick out the points as easily as she does...in fact, it is often tortuously difficult for me to see them. They just jump out at her. I've noticed that about my husband too--he is a teacher. My motivation in doing what I'm doing is to encourage people to do what they do well or aren't sure they can do.
The problem with working in my area of non-gift is that it takes so much of my time to that, that I don't have the time to do the "people"/one-on-one work that I need to do to develop a lot of things that have gotten started. I know that others are doing that, but I really miss the contact with people. I am not a cave-dweller and that is what I have to become in order to be prepared to teach on the Thursday nights that I teach.

3. Overall time management, although improving from what it was before I went out of town, is not up to par. I feel like I have a lot of balls in the air and if I'm not careful, I'm going to get hit in the head when they all start to come down. There is no way I'll be able to catch all of them!

4. I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with homesickness as in, I just want to go home! I want to see old friends and be where it is easy to get outside and get the exercise I need. I want to be in my one story house and work in my garden and get my house in order (as tenents keep tearing it up). It is not against people here. I have some good friends here. I just long for long time friends who know my kids and remember things about them and ask how they are...because they know them. I don't know if these feelings are ties to the upcoming wedding or what, but the fun of a wedding is when your friends around you are excited for you and your child (that they know). I guess that is what is missing from this happy time. I'm far from the people who are so happy about this whole event and love to discuss the details.
Well, I think that is about all the "reality" I can handle for now.
I will have to refer to something from my Bible study to encourage my soul so I don't fall into a hole. Actually, I do have something pretty great. We are studying Exodus 19-20 along with Psalm 19. Psalm 19 was talking about general revelation and the Exodus passage talks more about special revelation. One of the writers that I was reading (I think it was Jack Scott) said that in special (or natural) revelation, here is one of the things that happens:
Every morning when the sun comes up, it preaches a sermon. The light of God always triumphs over the darkness!

How is that for a cool picture? It might be enough to make me a morning person...almost:) That might dispel the darkness for today...and remind me that I'm focusing on the wrong "reality".
m