Crumpled Notebook

So this week has a been a pretty good and exciting week at work. The past 2 1/2 weeks I’ve been pretty stressed and overwhelmed at work since Armelle, our Case Manager, left us. I’ve been doing my normal job, working on some stuff to get together for a grant we’re applying for, trying to interview people and sort through the 40 resumes I received, on top of meeting with Armelle’s clients and do things for them. I’ve been going to work earlier and staying later than normal.

Monday though, I took a much needed afternoon off to go volunteer at the Youth Center, which I haven’t gotten to do in a great while. It was a lot of fun and a good stress reliever. We also (I think) reached a decision yesterday about who we’re going to hire. Let me tell you, it was hard. I had 3 final interviews with people who were just excellent. I would have hired any of the 3 on the spot had the other 2 not been a factor. As Major Tedd said, “it’s a ‘good’ problem to have.” I felt good knowing that most likely, there couldn’t be a “bad” decision. So anyway, I think we finally decided, but now I want to find some other organization that is hiring so I can send these 2 ladies there.

Anyway, that is pretty exciting. I’ve never “hired” anyone before. It’s cool. I actually get to make a decision in who I want to work with and what I want that position to look like. I get to do that today. I also had some discussions with my supervisors about the new project on our campus that we’re going to do, which is building a emergency shelter to replace what we use the rooms at the motel for. We got some fancy name for it, but emergency shelter will suffice for now. The plan is to get that done as soon as we can, and we can start working on it anytime after October 1st. Along with that, I talked to them about moving our offices to that campus, so that was accepted well and can probably happen in 2-3 months.

Finally, my non-work related, but still Savlation Army related, is that I threw out the idea for a program I wanted to do as a volunteer, geared more toward youth and stuff, and it sounds like it may work out.

So yeah, I’ve had a pretty encouraging week at work. I’m excited about my job and i’m really enjoying what I’m doing right now. It’s great to work for a place and have supervisors who really encourage your ideas and are willing to support you in the decisions you make, so long as it makes sense to do so, and trust me, I’m sure I’ve came up with a few lame-brained ideas that they were just like…eh, no. It’s okay though cause at least they listen to them and then tell me why they won’t work.

So, a funny thing happened to me at church yesterday. Well, not really funny, more amusing than anything. It would have been funny if I hadn’t realized something beforehand. As it is, its just mildly amusing, but funny thinking about how I could have embarrassed myself.

Anyway, I was at church yesterday morning. We were back in the newly renovated chapel which was exciting. Anyway, I’m just standing there, people are coming in, etc…. This guy walks into the chapel. Probably my age, a little older. No one is with him. I’ve never seen the guy, assume he’s never been there, so I’m waiting on the regulars to go talk to him (Jessica, Major Tedd, Franny). No one does. Now, I’m not one to be the first person to talk to new people, but here’s the deal. I see this young man, who is seemingly single since he is sans woman with him. I admit it. Anytime a single, young male walks through the doors of our church, it peaks my interest. Not to say I was like “oooh, check out that guy.” It was nothing like it. It was just like, “oh, single guy, in our church? I should definitely talk to him.”

So, as I’m about to take a step that way, all of a sudden I have a flashback of a conversation I had with Sara Wilson about a week ago. It went something like this:

Sara: “Hey, I saw (name of a girl I know) at the beach the other day.”
Melissa: “Oh yeah, did you talk to her or just see her?”
Sara: “Yeah, we talked to her. She was with some guy named (guy name). Is that her boyfriend?”
Melissa: “I have no clue. I haven’t heard if she’s dating anyone or not, but maybe. What did he look like?”
Sara: “(describes guy)”
Melissa: “Yeah, doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve ever met. Could be I guess.”

So, I’m taking a step toward this guy, interest peaked, and suddenly realize it’s probably the same guy from the conversation. I literally stumbled over my feet for a second. Not that I couldn’t have went to say “Hi, I’m Melissa,” or that I was even going over to flirt or anything with him, but lets just say my approach would have been a little different. Rather than, “Hi, I’m Melissa. What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do? (all the while being nice and interested in what he’s saying)”, it would have went more like, “Hi, I’m Melissa. Nice to meet you.” (Which is what it ended up being anyway after I sat down and he introduced himself to me). Yeah, just a little amusing. If I had talked to him without that knowledge I’d have looked like an idiot, not to mention a really bad person who could be flirting with someone’s boyfriend—right in front of her! Apparently he’s been to our church before, a couple Sundays ago when I was in Seattle. Apparently everyone already knew him.

Needless to say, the most amusing part is the “would have been” part of me going to mildly flirt with this guy who is very definitely the boyfriend of above referenced girl that I know. Not flirt because I was checking him out, but like I said, if a single guy walks into our church, I take notice!

So, thats my embarrassing story for the day.

So I dyed my hair over the weekend. I’m not sure why. I had to walk through the hair color isle at the store to get somewhere, so it was an impulse buy. At any rate, my hair was kind of a blondish-brown color. Depending on who you asked, they may already tell you my hair was brown, with some blond, or blond with some brown. I’ve always considered myself a blond, but in more recent years, a dark blond.

So, the transformation wasn’t nearly as noticeable as I hoped. I wasn’t going for drastic, just enough that people were like, “oh, your hair is brown.” It is definately darker, but not all that noticeable to me. It just seems to be evened out. It’s about as dark as parts of my hair already was. Don’t get me wrong, people did notice my hair seemed darker, but still not enough to comment on it. At this point, not a lot of people have seen it though. If I end up liking it, perhaps I’ll go a little darker next time.

I have to take a picture of myself in a new t-shirt I won (from ebible.com), so I’ll post it up and you all can let me know if the hair looks any different (if you aren’t fortunate enough to get to see me on a regular basis).

I’ve got to slow myself down. I realized tonight, as I’m coming up with more and more ideas of new projects I want to take on that I am seriously close to being overloaded. Sure, I may feel like SuperGirl right now, but its gonna stop soon.

I do this though. I feel like a kid on crack, or at least ADHD. I’m just going to have to force myself to chill out for a while until I finish some things before trying to start anything new.

As good as all that may sound (energy and overall happiness), its probably not completely good. But at least I realize it. Yes, Crystal, its one of those times, so be prepared for me, say about, mid-September :-)

Two interesting things happened today. Well, perhaps more than that, but two I’m talking about here. They were kinda different statements made to me by different people, but they both seemed to have the same outcome in my head.

Yeah, I don’t feel like getting into it. If you want to know, you can just ask me :)