Tis the Season... For Stinkers!

If you have every worked in retail, you will appreciate how difficult this time of year is.  The mall parking lot is CRAZY so instead of leaving the standard time to get to work on time, tack on 30 extra minutes or even an hour just in case.

It seems like every customer I encounter has the Christmas Spirit, but I still get some stinkers.  The ones who are stinkers are usually the kind of people who think the world owes them something.

We were so busy last Saturday that it wouldn't surprise me one bit that we sold out of a product.  I had a gentleman call the store around 7 p.m. on Saturday asking to purchase something over the phone.  The product he wanted to buy was sold out... but he INSISTED we still had some in our store because there was NO WAY we could have sold all TWO in 6 hours.  I went on to explain to him it was a very popular product and we have always had trouble keeping them in our store.  Not good enough, he went on and on how he spends so much money at our store and how could we do this to him.  He started naming off random names of people who also spend "thousands" of dollars at our store.

Was he trying to get my sympathy?  There was nothing I could do because we had nothing in stock.  After I calmly told him that one more time he got pretty mad and called me a liar... and some other things... nice huh?  I finally got the chance to look up what store in our district did have the product and asked if he wanted me to give him their phone number.  He did take it, then started explaining why he had gotten so mad.  At that point I was done with him so I gave him the phone number, wished him a happy holiday and got the hell off the phone... I had a handful of calls like that on one of our busiest Saturdays so I was pretty beaten when I got home.   What was the "had to have right now" product??? A Truffle Shaver....

I just wish people would take a breath, relax, and try to enjoy Christmas for once.  SO next time you are shopping and are annoyed with the store or the person helping you... take a breath and kill them with kindness.

You don't know if they just had a stinker and are trying to come back down from the anger adrenaline you get when dealing with a person like that.  You may even brighten their day and help them get back their holiday spirit.

Where is my white winter!?

I love snow.  I want snow!  My pet peeve is when people complain about getting snow or when it is getting "cold"...You live in WISCONSIN!  Get over it.

Everything is better when it snows, the ground is much prettier.

So everyone... Think Snow!  SO we can get rid of the mud and have some fun! WooHoo!

Plus, Georgia is super dirty now because of all the mud... I would like that to change.

Dreaming... useless dreaming

When is it time to give up on your dream.  When you have been rejected twice, three times or fifteen?  What if you have never really given it your best try, really given your dream the fighting chance it deserved.

When does a dream become unrealistic or unreasonable, when someone from the outside looking is says it is?

If someone tells you over and over again that it is impossible, it becomes impossible.  That should make you chase your dream even more.  Push you to chase it down and hold it in your hands so tight so it would never escape you.

Not a lot of people ever catch their dreams... the reasons for that may not be the same but the outcome is.  Broken hearts and broken dreams litter the ground.  The let down is always the same, huge, no matter how big or small the dream was.

So now what, now the the dream has left you in the dust.  You have outgrown your dream, even though you are only 24.  Past your prime, some people say, to have a dream like that.  Its time to find a new one, one that is "realistic" for who you are or where you are in your life.

Thats stupid...the point of having a dream is to make the impossible become possible.

Remember, having hope is different than having a dream.  Even though they walk hand in hand, they are still two very different concepts.

My dream was never to graduate with a bachelors degree or to work my ass off at a store in the mall just so people can assume I am stupid.  The fact is I am smarter than most of the customers who walk through those doors and the only comfort I get from their arrogance is the fact that I know I will be more successful than they ever will be.

It was to have a career that completely revolved around horses.  Some people think that is stupid, that I am just a crazy horse girl.  The truth of the matter is that you need to be tough as nails to be successful in the equine world.  I know I'm tough enough, I just don't have the funds to make it happen.

I altered that dream so I could get married and someday have a family.  I fill the emptiness of never reaching that dream with school, work, and time with my own horse.  Slowly I am realizing I will never really fill that empty feeling with anything but what is suppose to be there, a career with horses.

Its too late now.  I am "too old" to be starting a career as a trainer and I don't have the money to fund that kind of operation.  I've poured too much money into school to back out now... So what now?

School, work, and Georgia will have to be my substitute... My husband will always support me in whatever I want to do but my feeling to do "what is best" will always overcome my overwhelming feeling to follow my dream.

Its not going to happen for me... I can only blame myself.

I guess I will just have to put my whole heart into something I never really wanted, a career that never even crossed my mind until this last year.

My only hope now, not dream, is that my career will help me make enough money so I can feed my need to keep horses in my life.  I will forever Work to Live and will never Live to Work...

Great