Tag: #lessonslearned

It’s Only Pizza!

Everyday at the pizza place is different.

It depends on who and how many walk in.

When I leave to go home, God shows me a little snippet of why I’m there. Last night was no exception. I made mistakes.

Mistakes (1)

I work the front of the restaurant alone.

Lastnight, several families came in at once.

I was trying to take their order as quickly as possible and get them seated, so they could enjoy their evening meal. I need to stop moving so quickly.

Two families ordered beer with their pizza. The register has changed. You used to be able to tap the name of the beer and it would add it automatically, but we’ve added pitchers of beer along with mugs.

Now you have to choose the size, or it doesn’t know the dollar amount to charge. Just the name of the beer and $0.00 appear. I forgot to tap the ‘mug’ size, so I had just given 4 people free beer. 😦

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I addressed one couple about my mistake. They didn’t think anything of it. The woman came up to the counter to pay, and ordered two more.

Then there was this sweet, elderly couple sitting over in the corner. Sipping their beer and enjoying the pizza. I didn’t have the heart to tell them!

I told myself that I would suck up my mistake, and cover the cost of their beers, but God had other plans. God doesn’t want us to carry the burden of a mistake. He wants us to learn from it and move on.

The elderly gentleman came up to the counter holding an empty glass. He asked for a refill, and that’s when I apologized and told him I hadn’t charged him for the previous two. He understood and handed me enough cash for all three.

He placed the remaining dollars in the tip jar!

Something like this happens when I begin to rush. I make mistakes, but I continue to learn. The owner of the restaurant doesn’t want me beat myself up. He always says, “C’mon Barb! It’s only pizza!”

Either Way You Win

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I’ve Learned That

If anyone can cram life’s meaning into one Meme, it’s Maya Angelou. The words in this Meme have passed through my life at some point and time. lessons

Have a splendid day beautiful souls! xx

And only wear one catcher’s mitt, so you can throw some things back. Much love. xx Barb. xx

Follow Your Heart

My daughter left me a note of advice.

Reading this part makes me feel like I did something right. How many 19-year-old’s say this?

“Take this time while I’m gone to do things that fill you up and make your heart smile.”

This morning, I woke up feeling guilty about recent purchases. Does that ever happen to you?

I’m over it now because without even realizing it, I took her advice and acted on it.

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Photo Credit: Scott Stabile

As you see in A Doggo’s Life, our doggo’s are sharing a dog bed. I wanted our new puppo to have her own bed, so went in search of the perfect dog bed. In my mind I pictured exactly what it should look like, but 4 stores later didn’t result in that bed.

That was my mind, but what did my heart say?

Step One.

Back before Thanksgiving, my daughter and I were in a store where everything is pretty, but reasonably priced. I saw a rug that made my heart smile. My daughter saw my face light up, but she also knew we were setting aside all extra money for England.

Guess what? She’s in England and I still have money. Glory to God!

Yesterday, I went back to that store see if the rug was still there. It had been months, so what were the odds? Would it be on sale after Christmas?

It was in the rug bin along with one other rug.

It wasn’t on sale, but I had a price in mind that I was willing to pay. I found a sales lady, and inquired about the price of the rug. Full price was too much, but I’d walk out of there with it if she took $50 off.

Step Two.

The sales lady found an online coupon she could apply to meet my price! Then it became confusing.

She asked, “Is that the color you want? We have another one in the back that’s grey.”

The rug standing in the bin is a light color, which I gravitate toward, and it has pale gold shimmers running through it, but my daughter loves grey!

They grey one was equally pretty, and I knew my daughter would love it. What did I do? Like any good Mother, I loaded the grey one in my truck.

Score one for the mind.

Step Three.

I sat in front of the store staring at the rug laying across the backseat. The sales lady told me if it wasn’t right, to bring it back and get the other one, but I wanted to know in my heart what to do.

I found myself walking back into the store swapping the grey for the one I wanted. I followed my heart all the way through. My daughter will be happy.

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Looks like we found the perfect dog bed after all.

Giving Me Practice

I went shopping yesterday and left my phone at home. It was intentional, just to check myself and make sure it didn’t bother me, and it didn’t.

I spent years addicted to my phone.

The day I deactivated my Facebook accounts was the day they congratulated me for spending six years with them. They sent a notification, and I was mortified. Six years, and what did I have to show for it?

Thank you for all of your kind comments on my Blog posts recently. They absolutely terrify me.

It takes time for me to respond, because I still overthink the response. I don’t have the WordPress app on my phone, so I don’t receive immediate notification. I let notifications run my life for years.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing things with you that took a long time to admit. It may look like Blogging tips, but for me it was painful lessons.

It’s not even about me, it’s about the lessons, and being used by God to prevent someone else from going through the same heartache. It’s by God’s grace that I’m able to sit here and share. Palms sweaty and hands shaking along the keyboard.

I don’t realize all the activity on my Blog without the app. Two or three times a day, I open my laptop, logon to this site, and see that you have visited.

I read the Blogs in my Reader, and love on others. It’s natural to give love, and leave comments on what you write, but I stare at the screen in awe when that same love and kindness is returned.

Sometimes I don’t know what to say, so I just ‘like’ the comment, and come back later to respond. I don’t know how people do it that have 100’s of comments a day. I would be so overwhelmed.

I enjoy living a calm, quiet life, but to live that way, I turn off all notifications, and my phone is usually in another room of the house. I’m not quite ready to tell you exactly how bad it got with 6 social media accounts giving me a feeling of importance.

Wow. That slipped out.

I don’t run my Blog in the normal way, because if I did, it would begin to run me. Thank you for your love and kindness, and taking time to comment.

It’s becoming less terrifying with every response, and you are giving me practice.

The Dirt Roads

Just to clarify, I’m not starting a cleaning business.

My last post was an intro to some things I learned.

I believe every path of our past brings us to where we stand today. Some are paved, and some are dirt.

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I received the strangest looks from clients upon entering their homes. Some would actually say, “You don’t look like a maid.” I would reply, “Oh, I’m not. I’m a writer helping a friend.” On those days I wasn’t writing, I was getting up at 5:00 am to go help my friend clean two, 2,000 sq. foot houses.

I enjoyed cleaning the houses that were well kept.

You could tell that the people who lived there cared about their things. There was no clutter, but I could find dirt and dust. They were at work, but I wanted them to come home and feel a difference. For me, it was the tiniest of details, and the homeowners noticed.

One lady had a wall of family photos displayed, and I could tell they were framed with care. As I was dusting one, I noticed a speck of dirt on the inside of the glass. It was right in the center, and looking at the order of which the house was in, my guess would be it drove the homeowner to distraction.

One of my favorite jobs was working in a Custom Frame Shoppe, so I knew how to take the picture apart, get the speck out, and reassemble it properly.

When the homeowner returned and saw her house had been loved on all day, she called my friend that I was helping clean and said, “I don’t know who you sent to my home today, but I want her every time.”

It made me feel good that she felt the difference.

The home I cleaned yesterday is a well maintained home. He works all the time, and doesn’t enjoy cleaning in the little time he has off. The extra things I did were, watered all the plants and took the price tags off, cleaned the fridge inside and out, trimmed all the wicks of the candles so they were ready to be lit, and made the bed look like a dream.

We need to be willing to gain experience for the next part of the journey. I had cleaning ladies for 15 years, and had to put things back the way they were when they left. When I cleaned I didn’t rearrange.

My past homes have looked similar to a museum.

I’ve stayed at Marriott Resorts while vacationing, so I knew what the bed should look and feel like.

When people pay me for my time, it’s an exchange of energy. They used their energy to make the money, and give it to me for my energy spent on their home.

It’s nice to know at my age that I can still be passionate about work, and do things out of the box.

Today, I’m grateful to have lived on the dirt roads.

Learning with WordPress

I woke up at 4:30 am, and already had a Chemex.

I knew nothing about Blogging when I began, but here are some things I learned with WordPress.

What should be the name of your Blog?

When I opened a Medium account in August, it automatically connected to my gmail account, so it used my real name. Use your real name if you can.

When starting this Blog, I used Letitgocoach, because I thought it would reflect that stage of my life. Six years of Social Media later, I’m known as Letitgocoach, so will probably use that pen name in writing a book. We will see if Google can let it go.

Don’t delete pictures from your media library.

This one still causes me to sigh. Whatever you delete in your media library, disappears from the Blog you used it in. I have a years worth of Blogs with this weird little broken link icon instead of a picture.

When inserting a photo, or meme, leave off any alignment. Click the + button on your toolbar, choose ‘media’, and then ‘add new’, to upload your photo. Once inserted, you can click on the photo to see options. This is where you choose, ‘no alignment’, and type in a caption, or photo credit.

Mr. Smith reads my Blog from his phone, and told me he could only see half of my Meme. That is because I used to ‘justify’ the photo to the center of the page. By choosing ‘no alignment’, it floats around nicely on every device. Here’s one for Smith.

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Make your Blog easy to read.

I love reading, and following new Bloggers. While in my Reader, I click on the ‘Search’ option, and it pulls up a lot of newbies. There is no easy way to say this but, break up the page. It’s easier on the eyes, and more enjoyable if it’s not a 1,000 word paragraph.

Before clicking publish, I click ‘Preview’. This allows me to see what the post will look like on a Desktop, Tablet, or Phone to ensure it’s easy to read.

The Pingback. How to tag another Blogger, or insert a link in your post.

While reading a Blog post, and you see an underlined, or highlight word, it may contain a link. I will say ‘hello’ to my friend Kat. If you click on her name Kat, it will take you to her Blog.

You can place a link under any word in your post.

Highlight the word, and click the piece of chain link looking thing on your toolbar. In a new browser window, go find the Blogger’s site you want to tag. Copy their link, or any web address you want to use, and go back to your post. Paste the link in the URL window.

You should see your highlighted word in the box below. If not, you can type in your ‘link text.’ If you are referring to a previous post, you can choose it from the list. I click the box ‘”Open link in new window’, so it does. Click ‘add link’ and you’re done.

If you’ve been nominated for an award, and noticed all of the nominees highlighted, or underlined, this is how they did it. You will want to reciprocate.

This is some of what I’ve learned Inbarbsworld. If you want to learn everything there is to know about Blogging, I recommend Renard, in Renard’s World.