Future Opportunities

Heather called me yesterday and told me about a very exciting proposition that may be making it's way to my door soon. She had taken a continuing education course with her yoga instructor who asked her how many back up instructors she had for the studio (we only have 2 instructors at the studio- Heather and China- so there really are no back ups for them). Her teacher had been thinking about offering a training course at our studio to help train new instructors (yay!). It would be a shorter course that would allow the students to begin teaching a beginner's yoga course at our studio (it would not be a complete yoga instructor certification course (200 hrs), but enough to start teaching). Since I'd talked with Heather about teaching in the past, I was the first one that she called to spread the good news. The start time and cost are still up in the air; really the whole program is up in the air- it would depend on how many other students would be taking the course.

It's definitely good news, but I'm not sure what action to take. John and I have been working so hard on saving money and the thought of shelling out a few hundred or even over a thousand dollars to get me partially certified makes me feel sick. I definitely think that I wouldn't begin the classes until after we hit our savings goals in September. Other wise it would just push everything back (and we've been working so hard to reach our goal). On the flip side, I wouldn't want this opportunity to pass me by. It would definitely teach me more about yoga for my personal benefit and it would help me decide if I would want to continue my education further and complete my certification to be a certified yoga instructor, where I could teach all levels of yoga. It would also give me the opportunity to help out Heather more at the studio (teaching a class or two a week and filling in where I may be needed), allow me to help grow the company and the yoga community in our area and give me more opportunities to use my degree and business experience.

One question that I did have and was happy to hear the answer is that if I did complete the full certification, once I'm certified that certification will go with me everywhere, so when we move to Florida I wouldn't have to worry about loosing my certification or having to re-certify. Which, for me, makes this more compelling. I could get my certification up here, learn the business and then when we move to the Tampa area, open my own studio down there.

It seems like such a good opportunity. I just want to make sure that I make the best decision. I want to do what God wants me to do. Hopefully, He will put His two cents in soon.

Clearwater Beach Vacation 2010

We had a wonderful time away on our summer vacation this year in Clearwater Beach, FL! It was beautiful get away. and so nice to get away from it all.

Here's our condo. We stayed in the 2nd unit from the left on the bottom floor. The parking was beneath us on the ground level so our car stayed nice and cool during the day and we had a slightly elevated view of the beach:

Here's the living room of our home away from home. We had three sliding glass windows that gave us a panoramic view of the ocean. It was wonderful to open the blinds up in the morning to the view of the gulf:

Our view from the balcony:
From our beach looking south towards the pier:

Looking north to the residential area:
Day 1 of vacation (Saturday):
We arrived in CB about 3pm, checked and settled into the condo then headed out toward the pier to check the area out. We walked nearly every where we went. The pier with the marina, surf shops and many restaurants was just over a half mile from the condo so it made for a nice stroll.

Here's John and Leah at the CB sign at the pier:

Picture perfect- what vacation should look like:

The view of the beach from the pier:

John on the pier:

Leah and me on the pier:

Me and John on the strip:

John and me in the palm grove just off the pier:

The beautiful sunset God blessed us with on our first night:

Day 2 (Sunday):

We had some of the family over to the condo for a day at the beach. It was wonderful to see everyone and have a chance to catch up.

From the left: Kellie, Gerard, Steve, John and me:

Day 3 (Monday):

We had a quiet morning then headed down to the beach for a few hours before Tom (one of John's brothers) came with his girlfriend to meet us for dinner at the delicious Palm Pavilion.

We rented wave runners to pass the time. Here' s John on his:

Here's Leah and me on ours. The guy said that when I took my hand off the gas we would "float to a stop". Totally didn't happen. I'd take my hand off and it was like we hit a brick wall! There was no float. We had so much fun on ours we would scream and laugh. At a few times we'd get going so fast that we'd be scared and (silly me) would tighten my grip in the handle bars (and the gas) out of fear. lol! It was a blast!

Day 4 (Tuesday):

We had another lazy morning then walked down through the marina before our Segway tour at 2pm.

Here's some pelicans we saw:

The Pelican Club:

Here's Captain Memo's Ship- they would cruise around and fire cannons at the beach everyday. It was neat to see an old pirate ship out on the water:

Us on our Segways. We had a super fun time on the tour. Jean, our tour guide, took us onto the mainland part of Clearwater and guided us through the historic district. We got to see many multi million dollar mansions. The Segways were a lot easier to ride than I thought they would be.

Day 5 (Wednesday):

We went to Fort Desoto for the day. We started off with kayaking along the inter coastal water way around the Fort. When we were coming back, we came across a heard of wild manatees, one of which was begging to be petted. He would come over to the kayak and sniff at you then he would stick his little face up wanting you to scratch his nose and head. Then he would let you scratch his back before he rolled over for a belly rub. At one point he rolled over upside down and swam under my kayak and allowed me to hold a flipper in each hand. He was so sweet! In this picture, if you look close, you can see his face:

Getting his chin scratched and preparing for another belly rub:

After the kayaking we had lunch at a little picnic spot:

Me after lunch:

We then headed over to the Fort Area:

John and Leah at the cannons:

Looking at the artillery from the embankment above:

Me and John in a tropical paradise:

My best friend Amy told us to check out the camp ground b/c it has neat trees. She didn't mention anything about the wild beauty! We wanted to camp there so bad- maybe sometime soon...:

Day 6 (Thursday):

Deep Sea fishing on the Double Eagle. This was Leah's and my first time out deep sea fishing and catching saltwater fish. We spent the hour long ride out on the top deck:

Leah's first catch- a gray snapper. They made the funniest grunting sound when they were out of the water. They sounded just like pigs! Leah and I were cracking up!:

My first catch- a grouper. He had to go back b/c they only allow you to keep ones 20in or longer:

John's first catch of the day- a gray snapper:

John and me:

Day 7 (Friday):

We spent our last full day on vacation hanging out on the beach.

My toes in the sand:

John was feeding the seagulls baked lays. We tried to feed them some of the almonds we had, but they didn't like them.

Two seagulls just soaking up the view and catching some rays like us:

A beautiful sunset:

We had a blast! I really didn't want to leave, but we had to. :*( I can't wait until we go back. Hopefully the oil spill in the gulf won't completely destroy that area. I kept feeling like our time there was so short and that we needed to make the most of every moment b/c soon it may all be gone. At least we had our time while we were there.

Busy Bee, Jaded at Work

It has been too long since I've been on here. I have been soooo busy and time has flown so fast I can hardly believe it!

To bring you up to speed:

I had my final ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and the radiologist found NOTHING!!! Yippie! No more doctor's appts! YAY! It was such a relief to know that the whole ordeal is over and done.

I've been working a ton. Strangely, it's still only 40 hours a week, but with the Saturday's, it seems like so much more because I'm there 6 days a week. Most of the time I would have gotten a half day off, but the past week that has not been so. One of my coworkers was on vacation and the other is laid up in the hospital. I thought she was faking for a while (she's pretty tight with an old employee who faked being sick, forged doctors excuses and was able to stay on short term disability for months at full pay, I figure that she picked up a few tricks from her. It would only stand to reason that she'd lie about her health since she has slowly been releasing info to me about other things that she'd lied to me about). So, with two out and without a boss, we have been super short staffed.

My new boss, Liz, started yesterday. She just moved here from Gainesville, Fl. I really like her a lot. This job is a promotion for her and it's nice to have someone who is familiar with what my job is and the challenges that the teller line faces every day. So far it seems like she's in our corner. We'll see how long that lasts. I believe that she will always support us, but our opposition is tough. The big wheels at work have started laying down the law with our sales even more so than before. I really should have seen it coming since they took away some of the products that we were able to get for sales (that were the majority of our sales), yet required the same output as before. It reminded me of when Pharaoh told the Israelites that they needed to make the same number of bricks, but they were not allowed to have any straw. The only difference is that we aren't building the pyramids here. Anyway, they've really been hammering us down about what they consider to be "real" referrals for sales. What used to count no longer does and regardless of how much work we put into the sale, if they have the slightest reason to believe that the customer was even remotely considering buying what we were selling before we talked with them, we don't get credit for it. I referred over twice as many sales than I got credit for last month just for that very reason. Jaded. And shafted. That's how I've felt for the last month at work. Needless to say, I'm not really excited about my employer at this moment. Thankfully, Liz is here and will hopefully help us.

On a brighter note, my house is clean. :) I feel like it's been ages since the thing has been cleaned from top to bottom and it feels so nice. I've been so swamped at work that I'd just clean this now and that later, so it's been clean, just not spic and span all at once.

We have had some killer rain shoot through here the last couple of days! Whew! Those storms have about killed our flower garden at our front walk. We had so much rain two nights ago, that it was spilling over the edge of the gutters because it couldn't drain out fast enough. That water was then pounding our prize flowers on the front porch. It not only beat the flowers down, but washed all the mulch and the dirt away, leaving behind only sad flowers with exposed roots. :*( So, John, as faithful and sweet as ever, went out two nights ago and fixed the flowers for me. He used all the left over dirt and mulch we had from planting them a few weeks ago and fixed them up beautifully. We figured that they'd have a chance to recover from the damage. Then it rained again last night. Again we had so much rain that it over flowed the gutters and caused the same damage. Again. John's been out there again this evening cleaning up from the mess. He has also installed an additional line of defense- some edging along the back of the garden and some larger much chips that (hopefully) won't float away. I'm just praying that the rain that they are predicting for the next few days will be lighter. These flowers need a chance to recover from their beatings.

Things at church have been going well, too. The Busy Women's Bible Study is progressing along well. We started with about 40 women and now we have a core group of about 12 ladies who have dedicated themselves to the study of God's Word and Holy Tabernacle. I love coming to class each month and listening to their questions, it always sparks such wonderful conversation about God and His Word. Also, Mindy's planning of our Babbie Mason concert this September is gearing up. I'm so excited about the whole thing. It will be a blast. One of the things that we will have are cardboard testimonies. God has been working on me so much over the last few months and has given me the courage to not only face the fears of my past, but being to embrace them as such a blessing, that I'm thinking about volunteering to hold my testimony up in front of the crowd. After all, it's not mine to begin with, it's His.

Also- Praises for God: My best pal and yoga teacher's sister was dealing with a terrible cancer and has (for the time being) beat it. The last tests show that as of right now, she is cancer free! YAY! Now, just more prayers for their mom who's recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Whew, I've had so much to say! It's been too long.