Author: The Secular Catholic (Page 6 of 9)

Hi Everyone.
Like many of you, I used to have grand plans which went out the window once real life started. At 19 I had it great, I worked at the mail room of the same company my dad and some other family members worked at. I had my grand plan running well. I would spend some a few years in the mail room and move up to a computer job. Anything to work on a computer and not do manual labor. I don’t have a problem with manual labor it’s just my body wasn’t made for it. I was and still am five feet tall and was eighty pounds. Now I weigh around 120 – 125. I used to have to push this huge cart miles a day. We had internal mail routes. I was the warehouse route. I would push a big cart I could barely see above around the warehouse and production areas of the office building. It was an OK job but hard on my body. I would go home sore but I put in a hard day of work.

One of the things I would deliver are these 20-40 pound suite case like things full of paper from one plant to another. Once they hit my plant I would deliver them to shipping and what they used them for I will never know. Another thing I would deliver is copy paper. Those boxes are HEAVY and at eighty pounds and five feet tall I did what ever I could to deliver them. But I used to think, I have a job and a great retirement package. My father retired at 55 years old,with 37 years of service and my plan was to retire at 55 with 35 years of service.
We would get our full retirement package early. After eight years I moved up to a computer job uploading things onto the mainframe.
I was happy and things were doing well. Then at year 22 they laid off almost my whole group. I was on second shift so I could go to school to be a graphic and web designer in another department where I worked.
Well it threw me for a loop and it was nine years ago and I am just recovering now. Now things are going OK, but I need to get my stuff together. I need to go on a budget so I can pay my bills.

My new plan as I have said earlier is to start my own business doing design on the side for extra money. I want to have everything Paid off in five years ten tops. So I can start thinking about retirement. My great pension is no more, luckily I was smart and started my 401k when I was young. So I need to make another plan and stick to it and make sure I can retire when I am sixty five. So I will make a plan and like Dave Ramsey says I will eat beans and rice and live like no one else so when I retire I can live like no one else. Or at least live OK.

Hello all.
It’s about time for fall to start where I live in Minnesota.
Usually in September and October. My Family has been members of a local car club and around that time we make a fall leaf rod run.
The car clubs route we go through southeastern Twin Cities and go south from there to Redwing. It is a beautiful drive and once in Redwing we have lunch and drive to the top of a bluff near town and you can look at the whole town from up there. From there we go north through Wisconsin. There are small towns to visit and a couple of my favorites are Stockholm Wisconsin and Haggar City Wisconsin.
Both are fun to visit. There is more to do in Stockholm and the only real reason we visit Haggar City is to go to a Drive in restaurant that has the best chicken around.We do a bit of driving but the mileage isn’t that bad, it still take a good chunk of the day because the view is so lovely. Around Redwing there is a lake that has many eagles and we just sit and watch eagles, lake and the fall colors. Also the people we travel with are a ton of fun also and sometimes we make a mystery run of it. It’s a bit like a find it game and we make many stops to answer questions on the sheet of questions and usually pick a card. At the end of the run we usually eat supper and whoever has the best poker hand gets a small trophy or something. That is my favorite car cruise because it’s fun, pretty and we are always looking for something or doing something. I’m a real introvert but this is usually a lot of fun even for me because many of these people I have known since around high school age. Most are my parents age but many of us kids do it also because it’s what we grew up doing. Much fun is always had by all. You never know until you try.

Hello All.
I would like to talk a bit about saint Francis.
Most people know Francis and animals and nature.
And he did love that, but he really rebuilt the church.
Francis first heard God at a small church in San Damiano Italy.
And he heard God tell him to rebuild his church. Like most guys he took it literally. He went and got the supplies to fix the church he was in since it was so broken down, he also fixed some other churches also.

Eventually he realized that rebuilding the church was just not fixing them but making the church better and more people following the Lord. He started the Friars Minor and he and the brothers, they were also called the brothers of penance. They also devoted themselves to poverty and God. They Preached to everyone and begged for the poor. Soon many people wanted to follow him a. A woman named Clare wanted to follow him also so they were called the Poor Clares. Soon many people followed him and several were family people and couldn’t leave them to follow Francis so he created the Secular Franciscan Order or Third Order back in his time. It was made of people like you and me, people that didn’t want to be Brothers or Sister and just wanted to live out the Gospel but within family.
Jesus was a true rebel, he did things very differently than any one else.
St.Francis of Assisi was also a rebel. The Franciscans tag line is
we bring the Gospel to life.

Being a Franciscan is fun and rewarding. Our fraternity has ministries we follow. One is helping the poor, we do that several ways. One by giving money, another by filling grocery bags for a food shelf that give people thanksgiving day food. Another is helping get things for a homeless place for people to stop in and get out of the cold and have something warm to drink and get new socks and such. There are many more. Saint Francis’s spirit is everywhere. My hope is I become a better Franciscan and person. Luckily I have my Franciscan family to help me.

Hi All. I will be telling more Walmart stories. Some Black Friday some everyday Walmart silliness.
I will first tell you about my second black Friday. I was a veteran by now with a year under my belt. One of my managers said i would be helping to run things and over all help out at electronics.
On Thanksgiving morning I was told we had everything ready to go and were preparing for the next few days. All I remember is the SouthPark episodes where it is Black Friday on the show and the gritty head of security runs the place like a real police force. Black Friday is coming.

Thanksgiving night came and we had special deals for Thanksgiving. One was a great deal on a tablet. We also had good deals on video game systems like Xbox Ones and PlayStations. Xbox’s were in jewelry. and PS4’s were in sporting goods where they could be locked up and be sold more securely. Once the sales hit I was super busy in TV’s and video games right off the bat. I was behind the electronics counter getting Nintendo 3d systems to sell when the crowd for the tablets rushed one of the assistant managers to grab a bunch. He tried to push back the crowd but the person up front pulled back and punched him. After that people just swarmed. I slammed my hands on the counter and asked people to get back but nobody listened. The manager was taken in the office in the back to get taken care of. There was a one per person limit but that went out the door once the manager left.I was back helping people find specific deals when there was another rush for TV’s and people became angry that they couldn’t pick up their TV right there. We made them go in the back and pick them up at the dock with their slip of paper stating they get one. I talked to one of the workers that unloaded the trucks and he said people tried to stab workers to get them. The police were there already up front to make sure nobody went nuts up front by the registers. After my break I came back I saw more people being rude and mean to get the product before others and people were using their carts like cow pusher on an old fashion train. About an hour after my break all of our registers were going non stop. I was asked to go to garden department to run that register. It was only so the person that works their could get their lunch break. I said yes because I am a good worker so I went over and Immediately remembered all the extra Christmas toys were behind a barrier in the garden area. That and it was very cold because we didn’t have real walls in two parts. Just fences and a tarp on them. Being out there for an hour was not fun but at least I wasn’t there for the whole night. It was very busy and people had no patience to wait. After my hour I only had a couple more hours to go until I could go home. I spent the time back in electronics getting people set on all the sales and checking them out and getting video games. It was a long night and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.