No Strings Attached

Today I am so thankful for my wonderful and awesome wife!  Brenda is the love of my life and she is such a tremendous blessing to me!  Her love and support is unconditional.  No matter what, she is and has always been there for me.  She sees past my quirks and my idiosyncrasies, and still chooses to love me for who I am!  That unconditional love.  Even on my bad days!  Yes I do have them.  There are days when I get frustrated, whether it be with kids, work, or just everyday life, she is still there for me, takes me as I am and still always there to love me!  WOW!!!  What more can I ask?  We have shared this wonderful connection with each other now for over 23 years and it has been awesome and I am truly looking forward to the many more years that we have together!  My wife is the best and I would not have her any other way!  So a big THANK YOU and I am so GRATEFUL for YOU! goes out to my loving and wonderful wife Brenda Lorenzo!!!  You are truly the best!

I Blew it!

Hello Everyone!  I hope this blog note finds your day going well?  For me, now it's great, but last week it was not so great.  Yup, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky was not his usually bubly and happy self.  I had a bad day, wait let me rephrase that...I had a bad week!  Most of my friends and family know that I am just a overflowing bubly case of joy.  I usually don't let anything get to me and I am just an all around nice kind of guy.  Well, this past week, I BLEW IT!  Yup, I had a very stressful and bad week at work.  It was a particulary long week, we had some systems fail and and I am the lead on these systems.  So needless to say my hours were very long, about 12-14 hour days for the last week.  Not to mention the stress load that goes along with trouble shooting and trying to come to a resolution.  Well, I let all this stress get the best of me. 

I try never to bring the stress and issues of work home with me.  I try my best to leave them at the door when I walk out for the day.  However, that was definately not the case this past week.  I brought all that stress home!  OK, now you can see where I am going with this.  Not  a good thing!  I found myself all that week withdrawing from the family.  I found myself getting very quiet and not wanting to talk or letting little things get to me that normally I would not even bat an eye to.  That should have been the warning sirens right there.  MAYDAY MAYDAY...ALL HANDS ON DECK...but I was so consumed in my stress and the issues of the week that I did not see the forest for the trees so to speak.  Well this all came to a head on Thursday this past week.  I came home and was very quiet and not talking very much.  I was also letting all the little things get to me.  This is where my reality check came in.  THANK GOD for a spouse who loves me so much that she is willing to tell it to me straight.  My wonderful wife called me out!  Guess what, I still did not see it!  I said that I was not stressed and that I just had a very long week.  I tried to deflect and push back everything on her.  Well, needless to say once again, THANK GOD for a spouse who loves me and tells it to me like it is, she told me that she did not like this Joe that she was seeing and that I needed to change my attitude.  Well that night, I did some self-reflecting and praying, and YES I did now see exactly what she was saying.  I had let all the stresses of work come home with me and took all that baggage from work and off loaded it at home.  Not a good thing to do!  So I did apologize to my wife and told her how sorry I was for bringing the stress of work home and makeing my family take the brunt of it!

I say all this for everyone out there that may be stressing out and bringing all that junk with you to your familes or significant others.  Take stock in what they have to say to you.  Once again I am greatful that I have a loving spouse who is willing to tell it to me like it is.  She gave me a great reality check and a well needed attitude adjustment!

I sure thank God that His mercies are fresh and new every day.  I thank God that I can get up in the morning and know it's a new day.  I thank God that I can run to him and ask for forgiveness and it's there for my taking.  Because I know that I sure need it.  I also thank God for my wonderful wife that He has placed in my life.   She is a wonderful and loving spouse whom I truly appreciate.  She is so full of unconditional love and has the boldness to tell it to me straight.  Thank you Lord.  My prayer is that you have someone like that in your life.  Someone that is there for you.  Someone that can tell it to you straight and put you back on the striaght and narrrow.  Someone that can give you an attitude adjustment when needed.