The Holidays

I have not gotten anything accomplished recently on any of my entrepreneurial pursuits.  What has been accomplished has been Christmas parties, a graduation, a wedding, seeing clients who are struggling with the stress of the holidays, car drama, and more Christmas parties.  We turned down a couple Christmas parties due to schedule conflicts (and the fact that my little introverted self might have blown into a million pieces at another party).  The other thing I have gotten accomplished was to lose sleep obsessing over our need for a car as our lease is up in January.

I have been surfing the Internet for a month looking at cars, talking with our mechanic, (Euwayne from church who really is one of the kindest, most honorable men I know.  Shout out to Euwayne!!) and combing the classifieds, looking for options.  The problem is that I am a bit of a cheapskate with luxury tastes so I have been determined to find my dream car for dirt cheap.  A few days ago I felt I hit pay dirt.  A beautiful, red Lexus in the price range we had allocated.  I called the dealership and asked for information.

Now for those of you who don't know me, I have a baby voice.  Clients have told me they love it because it is soft and soothing, but on the phone I have often had telemarketers ask if my mommy is at home when I answer the ring.  Sometimes I just say no and hang up. (Brilliant right?)

When I asked for information the salesman said they had just raised the price on the car.  Chalk it up to lack of sleep but my brain told me that he just did it because I have a soft voice and he felt he could scam me.  I kept my composure and told him  no thank you and hung up the phone.  After hanging up the phone expletives ran through my mind at a  rapid pace and I had a strong urge to put my foot through the wall.  This is not normal for me.  I called my husband who got to see my rage first hand and the rest of the day I spent feeling shocked and ashamed of myself.

In the end, we decided to see if we could extend the lease on our car one more month (we can) and that we would give ourselves more time to look.  My dear husband offered to take over browsing for our car.  I imagine he's scared of a repeat of my emotional storm! What all this has left me with is a niggling voice in the back of my head saying, "You're never going to get these projects done.  You're letting yourself get distracted."  Sometimes the voice is meaner than that, but I choose these days not to listen to it.

Here is the thing...my life is mine.  I surrender it to only One and what I know is that He was pleased and I was pleased as we went to the parties, graduations, and weddings, of people who we care about deeply.  I think He was proud I was willing to walk away from a car I would have loved to drive.  It is the right thing to do to focus on others and managing some sort of sanity through a holiday season that is often hectic at best, and a source of deep pain at worst. (I'm thinking of friends and clients who have painful memories, difficult family situations, etc.)  So maybe the holidays put a pause on my projects, but I am committed to them.  I will never give up.  Knowing that, I choose to embrace all the holidays have to offer and look forward to projects that await me in January.

God bless all of you as you do the same.