Hi All. I have been thinking for a little over a year to start my own business. I wouldn’t quit my job, it would be something on the side. The only reason I have never started is because I am not a math guy. I am really bad at math, that’s why I have not started it yet. I would have a hard time figuring out taxes and all that stuff. A co-worker told me that there is software for that and that if i set it up it will just work. I went to a class about entrepreneurship at school and took one that the State offers for free. I want to go to another one that goes through tax stuff. So I am hoping by next summer I will have a new graphic design / web design business.
But the work I have to do to make that happen is monumental. I have to work on my portfolio, which will take months to get everything I want together and make more things for it. Then I need to get my branding down and social media. I would be a foolish designer if I didn’t do my own. But I would want to anyway, because it’s my company. I need to figure out if I use my name as the business or make one up. Then when i get all that done I need to make a website and social media up and going. Then the real work starts but hopefully I will be getting paid for it. I am hoping to be ready by April or May of next year. But i hope to get some side hustles before everything’s done just to make extra money.
Well August is almost here, that means the summers almost over. Summer is my favorite season of the year, which makes winter my least favorite. I love the warmth, and hate the cold. I live in the great state of Minnesota. Last year we had a few days where it was -50 degrees. So I stay outside as much as I can in the summer.
I have two small dogs and in the summer when I let them out and can sit on the stoop and just soak in the sun. The dogs love it too. They are not big fans of going outside in the winter either, when they do they make it quick. I hope I have time to kick back and relax on the patio and do some reading or watching Netflix. Another great thing about summer are Drive Ins. We have one about 5 miles or so away. They have 3 movies and it’s cheaper than going to see all the movies separately. The end of summer in Minnesota means the Minnesota state fair. Oh food and fun everywhere you can see. It’s also a great place to people watch. But I can’t go every year because to many people and too hot at the end of August. So I hope everyone has a great end to their summers and have as much time outside as you can. But don’t forget to put on the suntan lotion.
Hello All. I am an introvert. Actually I am a super introvert. But usually if its someone I know well I do OK, especially family. So Saturday night I had a wedding to go to. The only people I knew were my family and the bride. So luckily I sat with my parents and then my aunts and uncles came and sat with us. Everything was great and I got to see my cousin who was the groom and he married one of the nicest most fun people around.
I realized that I don’t get to see my extended family enough. I mostly see my aunts and uncles at weddings or funerals. It’s kind of sad. When we get together we have a ton of fun. Life is to busy and we are scattered a bit. But we used to see each other a lot more when i was a kid. My Grandparents on that side of the family had a cabin that we all went to several times during the summer to hang out. I have not seen one of my uncle in a couple years so it was nice to see and talk to him. I had fun at the wedding and also fun talking to my family. I didn’t freak out and start running for the hills or anything, and thank God I didn’t have to dance. That would have been awful.
Hi All. I had help figuring out one of my biggest problems. For the longest time I really didn’t think I was worthy of Gods love and anything else God had planned for me. I had that problem for 40+ years. Until some friends and a some religious helped. I like to go to retreats. When I had a corporate job I had the money and vacation time to go on retreats. I usually went on Holy Week or in October. My Franciscan fraternity also helped me with that problem. Basically I was told very few of us are worthy and really the only reason we can be worthy is with Gods help. So that really helped with my problem. If I don’t feel worthy I should remember that God can make me worthy.
So onto my new problem. As you all know I am taking classes to be a spiritual assistant. I have a problem with me being worthy of that position and also the fact I really want to do a great job and maybe put a little to much pressure on myself. Luckily I have great people that lead the class and are our mentors. Plus all the people taking the class are super nice and look to help. We are all in the same boat, and just want to be the best spiritual assistants we can be to help our fraternities. I will just have to pray a little more so the Holy Spirit can help me understand things a bit better.
God knows I need it. I can also spend my time better. Instead of watching TV and playing video games, I could be reading or watching my Word on Fire and Formed videos to help me learn about my faith. If you are a Catholic your Archdiocese may give you free access to Formed. Formed is a bit like a Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Kindle Unlimited for Catholics. You can study, watch, listen and read. It has a lot of Catholic teaching. And Word on Fire Digital. Which is created by Bishop Barron. Who is a well known Bishop and evangelist Word on Fire Digital is like Netflix for Catholics. It has a lot of content that most Parishes use to teach. Like Catholicism, Pivotal Players and the Mass. So there is no excuse anymore. Instead of bingeing Stranger Things, I can binge Catholicism or something else that will get me closer to God. So weather I am worthy or not God can make all things happen. He can even make this sinner worthy of his love.
Hello all. I will tell you one of my favorite things when I was a kid was professional wrestling. It started with the AWA back in the 70’s and early 80’s. That was a local group before WWE. Then WWF came around and a bunch of my favorite locals went to the WWF then they switched names to WWE. Back in AWA I had a few favorite wrestlers, guys like the crusher, Baron von Raschke aka “the Claw”, Mad dog Vachon, Greg Gagne and of course Hulk Hogan. As a kid I was into the good guys and shunned and boo’ed the bad guys. Everyone except the Weasel Bobby Heenan. He was my favorite bad guy. When he and Hulk Hogan went to the WWE, I went with them.
This was the Golden age of WWE. And a whole new cast of characters came to wrestle. Guys like Hulk Hogan and Andre the giant were fun to watch but then a real bunch of people came out like. Jimmy Snuka, Iron Sheikh, Junk yard dog and the great Rowdy Roddy Piper. I loved Roddy because he was a great heel and had a great attitude. But I was a little Hulkamanaiac. Guys like the Hart foundation and SGT. Slaughter and more. So many to name I just loved to watch wrestling.
I was really into wresting into the mid 90’s, then the attitude era came and everyone became a jerk and there seemed to be no good guys left. I used to root for Luke and Butch the BushWhackers. Then I stopped watching because it wasn’t fun anymore.
Then about 3-5 years ago a friend who was really into wrestling told me I should come back and watch. And if i started next week it would be a great time to start. It was going to be a draft for which wrestlers went to which show. Either Monday night Raw or Smack down on Tuesdays. So I watched and there were a few wrestlers that I liked There were good guys like John Cena, Aj Styles, Finn Balor and bad guys like The Miz and Kevin Owens. There are so many good wrestlers but my favorite where the female wrestlers. Becky Lynch, Naomi, Natalya, Charolette Flair, Sasha Banks and More. After watching a few womens matches I quickly found that they were some of the best actual wrestlers and fun matches. I liked new wrestling it didn’t have the attitude era problem where everyone was bad or didn’t care and there were not real good guys. But something is missing. I believe that the people that run the WWE the McMahon family. Should have the younger McMahons run things. Vince McMahon is the one that has been running things since the early 80’s and he needs help or needs retire. I think his family would do a good job running things. But you can’t say no to Mr. McMahon. It’s still fun even though I wish the stories would be better. But I love my favorites and still watch. I really think the AEW or All Elite Wrestling will take a lot of wrestlers and also their fans to the new organization. Let’s hope that who ever wins the wrestling war does right by the fans.
I am a big geek and I love fantasy and sci fi books. One of my favorite series is the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. The last Dresden book he wrote Skin Game in March of 2015, so I have been waiting awhile. But he just tweeted that he was done with the book and it was out to editors. I love the Dresden books. I love Harry Dresden and all his friends.
You might think since I am a staunch Catholic that I might not the like Dresden Files books, that since they have magic and evil spirits and such I might not like the books. But you are wrong. Even though Harry may not be a Catholic but he believes in what the Church does. One of Harry’s best friends is a man named Michael Carpenter. He seem like a blue collar man and really he is. But he is also a knight of the cross. A man that wields a sword with a nail of the cross on it. There are other knights of the cross and they have similar swords. Also he has a big dog named Mouse who is smarter than he seems because he is a Foo Dog. Also his step brother is a white vampire Thomas and a friend on the police force Karrin.
Lets just say I really like Harry. He is a wizard but not just any wizard. He is a wizard that tends to take a beating. He doesn’t give up if he is right.He also always tries to do the right thing. It’s the people around him that give him a lot of his power. Harry has a ton of magic power but not as good at being subtle at it. I can’t wait to read it.
Hello Everyone. Sunday’s reading was one of my favorites. When I was young I really felt bad for poor Martha. She worked her fingers to the bone to help Jesus and then he just says Martha Martha! You worry and fret. Where Mary just sat and listened like a sponge and tried to understand. My priest had a great homily to go with it. About how we are just not about prayer that we need action to go with it. How Mary was right and that Martha wasn’t asked to do anything and she just did it. Also Martha was a good friend of Jesus’s because she can tell Jesus to have Mary help her. There are still times I don’t get it. But every once in a while I do.
Hello all. I hope you are all having a great week, at least the start of it. I’m going to talk about the Holy Spirit today. It is often thought as the lesser of the Trinity. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. My Grandma used to tell me about the holy spirit when I was a kid. It was along with just offer bad things up and also to go with prayer before bed. I was a kid and didn’t understand it yet. It wasn’t until I was a Franciscan and met someone that truly taught me about the Holy Spirit. She would tell us about the Holy Spirit and what it could do.
Now I ask for help from the Holy Spirit when something big is going to happen. It’s usually if I speak in front of a crowd or if I have to do something important. Sometimes before meetings I will ask help from the Holy Spirit to run the meeting well and Earlier in June I went to a retreat and had to read a bible reading and on the way up I asked the Holy Spirit to not screw it up or mumble as I usually do. The older I get the more I am able to understand. I have been praying a lot to do well in Spiritual Assistant class. It is something I take very seriously and don’t want to screw it up and and also I want to really grow as a Catholic, Franciscan and a person. So I will keep praying to the Holy Spirit to do Gods will and to un harden my heart. I pray to the Holy Spirit that I listen for Gods will and I ask the same for everyone.
Hello all. As I have said in the past. A good chunk of my day is not design related. It’s fulfilling orders. Which i don’t mind but it’s design I love. Well my boss came to me a few days ago and said he had a idea for an ad. And it would have multiple versions of the ad. So he told me what he wanted. It was something i could really get sink my teeth into. I could pick fonts and all. He wanted to make old time wanted posters for this ad. It would be an insert for orders being sent out. So looked for cool font’s and worked on Photoshop to get the pictures right. After I thought i was done I printed it and brought it to him. He said to move the picture up a little so you can see it when it’s folded. I did that and he had me print a hundred or so. I was finally really happy working on and printing this project. Then he came to me the next day and gave me another. Well it’s Friday and we have four of them already and are not stopping yet.
We also received a large influx of products for me to take pictures of and to Photoshop. Work is good and stuff is coming in. I think we had 5 to 10 products for me to work on. Monday will be working on order fulfillment. We are only open on weekdays so people order online and we have to get them ready to go. So at least I have Tuesday to look forward to. I can’t wait for Tuesday and I can’t wait for more projects.
Hello everyone i will give a little bit more to my Walmart story. So i got through a good chunk of training on Saturday when my department manager comes and asks if she could help her with some things. She wanted me to help her put back returns. After someone returns something at Walmart it gets put behind the customer service area and start of the day someone from every department has to go there and pick things up. And since it was just before black Friday and everyone else was busy preparing she had to us do it. She said it would show me where things are so i could help out on black Friday.
We did that and she was correct by the time we were done i knew where most things were. At least the areas where the major things went. The one thing i was not ready for was the time i was going to be on my feet. After a couple days there my feet were so soar i could barely walk. After lunch i would get up and someone would ask if i was OK. I told them i just started and they nodded and said get a good pair of shoes. One person told me exactly what shoes are better for being on your feet all day. But sadly they were out of my budget because i haven’t gotten paid yet so i had no budget. I waddled out and did my job. after the rush ended my manager took me aside and introduced me to the rest of the team. There were a couple people that were there a long time. But most were there a year or less. I liked them all and most of us got along really well. Things were going OK and then it was Thanksgiving day. Nobody gets Thanksgiving day off at Walmart. To my surprise they actually had turkey and potatoes and such for the people that worked there. So i come in ready for the big day. My manager comes to me and tells me my main job will be telling people where things are. So my hours were 11:00am to like 10:00 pm. I was working overtime today. Things started well there were not a ton of people yet and the sale didn’t start till 5:00 or 6:00 pm.
At about 12:00 o’clock people were getting antsy. And not everyone knew where everything was going to be at. The big deals would be in the aisles and were wrapped. We had a few gentlemen that were very smart and brought camp chairs and sat in front of the 60 inch TV that was going on sale at 10:00 pm. They have been there since before noon and of course were first in line. I had a late lunch at around 2:00 pm and had turkey, mashed potatoes and all the works. By the time i got out and hour later it was starting to get more busy. People were in lines for the sale and the maps of where all the sales were came out. I love the fact that some electronics were in grocery by the milk. Makes no sense but hey what could happen. At about 3:00 pm security came. We have a couple police officers for the front of store and some very old or very out of shape people for the rest. After they walked in I was thinking even i could deal with most of these folks and I’m short and not in shape. Then the doors opened for the sale. I thought it was odd that we stayed open before but if you were getting black Friday sale items you had to wait out side or if you came super early like the guys with the chairs you were good. They came in like a wave of water. Most seemed to run for electronics. I was showing people where thing were and i had a map of where everything was. About six o’clock my manager came to me and asked to open the photo register because all cash registers up fronts lines were almost to electronics already. I told here i have not been trained on registers yet, so she had another employee go with me and train me during Black Friday/ Thanksgiving sales. I was going as fast as i can but i was new to the register. People started to get mad, some at me some at my boss that she would put a new employee in that position. I was just happy to have a job. But luckily it was time to check out and go home. I survived my first Thanksgiving and pre Black Friday. But I had to come back at 11:00 am the next day. I should get to that some day soon.
