Shopping Weirdness

Today was my first day back to work after four furlough days, a week long vacation, and then Columbus Day. Dear mister Columbus, thank you for sailing the ocean blue and giving me a day off work. That is all. Dear Congress, thanks for nothing. I lost $537 out of my check last week because of you.

Ahem.

I had every intention of writing this post on my lunch break, but my first day back after two weeks away was kind of like throwing a marriage party for a tornado in a tiny room. See? I'm even writing terrible metaphors because my brain stopped working three hours ago. ANYWAYS, I wound up leaving for lunch because sometimes it is a good idea to step away from the chaos. So here I am at 5:30-ish in the afternoon with a *very* funny story from last week. Well, I think it's funny. If you don't think it's funny, just be gentle and give me a courtesy laugh.

So last week we did a little shopping. We heard of this A-mazing store called Gabriels and decided to check it out. Basically, take a store like T.J. Maxx and make it three times bigger and fill it with cooler, cheaper stuff that is better organized and doesn't smell funny, and you have Gabriels. I think we spent at least two hours in there. Maybe not. I don't know because I was in a time warp surrounded by two dollar shirts that actually fit and lots of cheap jewelry. I am relatively certain I lost track of what day it was.

I'm walking through their home-y stuff and marveling at all the different ways I could decorate my house, when I pass by a row with a young woman pushing a buggy. While she was shopping, she was also talking on her cell phone. I managed to walk by at an excellent time and managed to overhear this "jewel" of the conversation:

"Guess what??!?!?? I talked to my lawyer today. They wound up dropping one of my charges, so now I'm facing only one felony instead of two! Isn't that awesome!??"



:D

:/

:(

O.o



People, generally speaking, it is not good to talk about how many felonies you are facing while shopping. I don't know, it might, like, be sort of weird if an innocent blonde girl overhears you and then shared it on her blog.  O.o

I think I'll go eat some ice cream now.

Vaaayycaaation!!!

I know all of you must think I've forgotten about you, but I haven't! I was hoping that four furlough days last week would allow me to get caught up on everything. Instead, it turned into a four-day-catch-up-on-my-entire-to-do-list fest. I cleaned. And then I cleaned some more. And then I washed my car. And then I ran a million and twenty-two errands. Ahem.

Now I'm in West Virginia.....so there. It was probably a terrible idea for me to go on vacation, seeing as how my paycheck this Friday is going to be almost half of what it normally is due to the government shutdown. Oops. I'll look into the future and tell you, you can totally expect a finances-after-shutdown post because things are about to get rocky in the Casterline household. That's a story for another day though. 

Here's some pictures to make you jealous happy for me: 

Anyways, my life will go back to "normal" after this weekend, so I pinky-promise that things will get more regular around here. Until then, I hope you all have an amazing weekend!  :) 

"Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."  ~Psalm 90:2

Hello Government Shutdown

*taps mic* Anybody there? Oh, hey there. I think everything's working, all systems go.

I promise all of you I have not fallen off the planet. Two weekends ago we had one trillion and thirteen things going on. So last week I decided to take an impromptu week off from both blogs....basically because I felt like my brain was mush and I had too many dirty dishes. This past weekend I caught up on all of my cleaning. (Dude, I even mopped the floors!) So my brain is feeling significantly less mushy.

Well, except for the small fact that the government shut down today and I got sent home. I left out that little detail. The good news is, I will have more time to get stuff done, such as writing and cleaning my baseboards. Hahahahahahahahahaha just kidding, I'm totally not going to clean my baseboards. Who does that??!??

Here is how I see things:

Congress is composed of a bunch of toddlers.

They are fighting over who gets to play with the dumptruck.

The dumptruck is getting all beaten up and broken during the fight, but no one cares because no one really cares about the dumptruck. They just care about their right to play with it.

See what I did there? Metaphors are awesome.

Or maybe not. Don't judge me. The government told me I was not important so my ego is hurt today. 

JUST KIDDING. Who cares what toddlers think??

In all sincerity though, we need to be praying for our nation. While I do think that the issue of Obamacare is important enough for the Republicans to stand their ground, and I'm glad that they did, this government shutdown is going to have wide repercussions that go much farther than the stock exchange. Although I am fully aware that my help comes from the Lord, not the government, there are other employees who do not have that peace because they are not following the Lord. So pray for God to soften the hearts of our government and wisdom to make the best choices. Pray for the people who are directly and indirectly affected by this. And above all else, pray that God's will is done in this nation.

In times like these, I draw my comfort from one of my favorite sections of verses:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you--you of little faith? So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." ~Matthew 6:25-34