I’ll begin by updating everyone that Joseph Stanton’s surgery to replace his skull cap was a success and he is recovering beautifully from the surgery. They have to keep him at Memorial Hermann until the last drain can be taken out and that should be about Monday or Tuesday. Then he will go back to Nexus and hopefully be on his way to coming out of the coma. Thank you for the prayers and please continue to pray.
Yesterday I went for the first time with two girlfriends to The Nutcracker Market in Houston. If you have never heard of this event it is put on by the Houston Ballet in order to raise funds for their program. It lasts one weekend beginning on a Thursday through Sunday and they fill up the Reliant Center with vendors from all over the United States who are selling crafts, food, clothes, jewelry, toys, knick knacks and Christmas decorations. If you’ve ever been to Canton, Texas it’s like going down one aisle in Canton. 🙂 The premise is you must give yourself some form of ‘budget’ to spend because I think they crank up the air, spill in the oxygen (just like Vegas) so you feel like you have to buy buy buy.
The crowds were suffocating and in one little booth I was stuck standing in a corner because no one could hear me say ‘EXCUSE ME PLEASE’ and I was too polite to push. 🙂 Once the claustrophobia kicked in my ‘politeness’ left and I was like an offensive lineman throwing people aside like they were rag dolls. (nah, I wasn’t that bad…but you get the drift.)
I won’t lie, I bought a ‘few’ things I couldn’t live without…I will say I did get some Christmas shopping done so it wasn’t all for ME. We were there for 4 hours and we hadn’t even made it through 1/2 the market! I think it was a blessing from God when they dimmed the lights and announced the market was closing. God was saying, “Shannon, really? You’re just below your budget…you don’t need the ‘window guy that is anatomically correct’.” (side note: Okay, a ‘window guy’ is this cute little figure that is made of all different kinds of colorful stones that has a suction cup to stick to a sliding glass door so people will see that it is a door and not want to walk into it…this ‘guy’ has a red chili pepper for his ‘business’ it is toooo funny. And NO I did not buy one…but one of the ladies with me did. lol)
I tell you this market was ‘nutty’! 😉
I believe I walked out of there with a fair amount of loot that wasn’t over the top. I have a reason and a means for every single item I bought. However, I will say I woke up this morning feeling a tad guilty. But then I remembered what my counselor helped me see when I went to see her for the first time after 6 years (on Thursday)… that I am too hard on myself. She helped me to ‘hear’ the fact that I kept saying I ‘should’ do this or ‘shouldn’t’ do that. You see, I knew I needed to talk out everything that was going through my mind these past few months and I needed help to figure out why I seemed so out of sorts. Lost. This is why I promote counseling because first of all they are ‘trained’ to listen to key words and pick up on key emotions and body language. Second, it goes along with my plight to ‘expose’ all that is in the dark so that it may be in the light and at times that means to literally talk about it. Third, it just makes you feel good. 🙂
Any way she pointed out that being type “A” I am needing to feel accomplished and in the past few years I’ve been working so hard to get the book written and published and then speaking, etc that now it has all come to fruition my personality is not able to ‘rest’ in the quiet after the storm. She pointed out that maybe God is trying to tell me to ‘chill’ for awhile and build up strength before the next project. And to accept that I am allowed to be granted blessings from the work I’ve done, not to feel guilty if I can, for instance, go to some whacky market and buy a sacred heart made out of license plates. 🙂 (it IS cool)
Save me from me, Lord. 😉
Blessings
Shannon