Author: elsims

Sorry it has taken so long since my last post. This topic I’m blogging about today I wanted to do it justice. I didn’t just want to slap it together. This is about a movement. About a person being obedient to God’s word no matter what. To continue year after year to gather Christians of any and all denominations to praise and worship God just for who He is. Not asking for a single thing, just glorifying him. This day last week, I was in Bluffton, South Carolina to be a part of this movement. Why South Carolina you ask? The person who God gave the vision and who has continued to be obedient is my mother. Whatever she needed I wanted to be there to help. Even though I have not seen his vision, I want to help it come to fruition. So I helped to crochet the gifts that were past out to anyone who praised and prayed with us.

I also attached the beads and bagged our unique one of a kind crosses. Lol. Every one of them came out different so therefore no two were alike. They are ornaments.

My mom’s friend Constance, put the bows and handles on the programs, which were fans you can use on a warm day or in a warm church service. She also snipped and clipped to add the finishing touches on the corners.

Other people who believe in the vision and who is committed to honoring God helped in countless other ways. From the food, various soups and chilis are provided to everyone after the main event.

To the set up and decoration of the location.

To the clean up afterwards.

To lending their voices in songs of praise and worship.

Unity in the Community Praise and Prayer calls us to come together as God’s people and on this day last week, we did. This was not a church service. Even though words were spoken, no one was there to provide the word as a preacher or teacher. We were there to sing praises to God and lift Him up. To pray to God and thank Him for all he has done and all that he will do.

“Do you believe in God? Do you believe in the Bible? If you answered yes to both of these question, then let us look at Genesis. God created one man and one woman. So if we are all descendents of that one man and one woman, we are all related. So look to your brother or sister next to you and say, I am your sister or brother and I love you.” These are words that were spoken at the Unity in the Community Praise and Prayer gathering. I believe they were the most powerful words said that day. And not just because they came from my mother. Lol. But because they illuminated the connection between us all. The vision that was bestow upon my mom was for all believers of God to come together the Sunday after Thanksgiving and unite in praise and worship. If you answered the questions with a positive response, we are related. Then why do we as a people allow ourselves to be divided? Why do we allow ourselves to be separated by skin color, continents and hemispheres. We are so focused on defining ourselves by what separates us but never acknowledges what we have in common. GOD! He is the answer.

If we as believers of God, descendents of Adam and Eve, brothers and sisters, woke up each day believing these things and acted upon them, how much better would the world be? If we lived our lives as Jesus lived his, where could we go wrong? Unity in the Community would not just be a one day event. We would stay honoring and glorifying God with our praise and our actions. We would make God proud. We would give God joy. We would not let others divide us from our brothers and sisters, our family. Please don’t think that I am on my high horse, everything I said applies to me as well. I am quick to separate myself from others with my skin tone. But I believe one of the best human beings I know is my co-worker Melinda and I never notice her skin tone. I looked at the person she is and her heart. And I would wage a war on anyone who hurts her just like I would for my own brother.

This post opened up an awareness within me. Now I can’t go back. To ignore it would be disobedient. I am not saying I will change overnight. I am saying that now I need to be more aware of my actions. Aware of the things I do and say to divide me from others. Ways for me to bring unity in my own community. Did any of this make sense to you? Were you touched in anyway? What can you do better as a person, as a believer. I’m going to be honest, I don’t expect a single comment on this post. And that’s fine. If you do want to talk about this, please feel free to call me, 419-213-9391 or email me, elsims27@yahoo.com. You can also text me.

I just want to acknowledge my mother, Rochelle, for continuing to be obedient and to persevere each and every year to bring God’s vision to fruition. I would also like to thank all who came out and all who helped in any way. God bless you.

Black Friday, which does not even start on Friday anymore, is only a few days away. There will be deals that you may not be able to get throughout the year. This may be a tradition in your house to patronize these sales by waiting in line and being one of the first in the store. Or if you are like me, you will go online to grab a couple of items. I like the deals but I don’t like waiting in line or the crowds. I have no real tips on how to shop on this particular day/weekend. I do however have a few tips for this day and the rest of the holiday season.

I worked for 7 years at Target. Seven holiday seasons. If you have ever worked in retail you know that it can be rough. No vacation days off from mid November to after the first of the year. Mandatory to work on Thursday/Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. Longer store hours. Less family time. Not really exciting for the workers. And yes we realize what we signed up for by working in retail. We even realize that customers are going to be a little rude. What we don’t sign up for is to be disrespected. So with all my ex-team members in mind, here are a few tips.

1. Team members, cashiers, sales associates, whatever you want to call them, are people. People with feelings.

2. Majority of the people you will encounter are probably working for minimum wage or a little more. They don’t get paid enough to put up with your shit. If you have an issue, ask for a manager. But they are also still people with feelings.

3. If an item that you want is not in stock, it is not the employee’s fault. We think that it is stupid as well to have items in the ad that we do not have. The ads are the same for all stores in the area but all stores don’t get the same stock.

4. If you waited to the week before or a few days before Christmas and the store will not have an item until after Christmas, your fault. That does not give you the right to cuss at or be mean to anyone who is working in the store.

5. Yes I know that you have stood in line, probably in the cold, waiting for that one special item. Once the doors open, please no pushing, fighting or running. It is not that serious. Let’s us be courteous and considerate.

6. This is a statement that doesn’t just apply in the holiday season but each and every day. We do not get paid to clean up after you. When you leave stuff laying around the store or a table of shirts totally trashed, we do have to clean that up. But cleaning up grown people’s messes hinders us from coming to the registers when the lines get long. Or keeping areas stocked with the items you want because we can’t put the product out due to you having shoved a bunch of items you didn’t want in that location. If you decide that you no longer want an item, just give it to the cashier at the register. Do not leave it laying all around the register. We have carts that are sorted out to go back to the departments where they belong. When you hand it to us, we can put it in those carts. Makes sense right? Yes damn good sense.

I don’t know when the holidays became strictly about buying things. And at this point I don’t care. What I do care about is how the holidays have become a time to be rude and disrespectful to workers and others. We should be treating everyone with the spirit of the season not the just the people we know and love. I always say you don’t know what that person is going through or how their day has been going. To acknowledge them with a smile and a kind greeting could mean so much to them. As workers, we are not asking for special treatment. We are just asking to be treated like human beings.

Let’s be better. Better people. Better customers. Better representatives for others to follow in our footsteps. You don’t get a pass because you are stressed due to overloading your holiday season. Or because the store doesn’t have what you are looking for. Don’t go to people’s jobs acting a fool. For the people who have worked in retail, share your stories. Have you encounter any rude and disrespectful customers? Do you have any uplifting stories of proper customer behavior? Please leave a comment in the box or feel free to email me at elsims27@yahoo.com.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I have enjoyed a three day weekend with not a single post created. I thought of plenty of stuff but not one that would create a full page. More like a Facebook sized post. Then I thought about doing a post that contains a few smaller ones. And it does sound like a good idea. So that will be something I will work on for the future. The only worth while thing I did this weekend was crochet. I have at least two projects that I want done by December 20th and I just started on them. I am not a person that is always in the mood for crocheting so it takes me a while to finish a project. I only like to crochet blankets, don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I will maybe make a scarf and rarely a hat. Never clothes or any items that I consider complicated. I use crochet to relax and none of those things are relaxing to me.

I won’t bore you with all the intricacies of crocheting but I will bless you with some pictures of blankets that I have completed. This will be my third year at my job and I have crocheted a blanket each year for our gift exchange. This year will be the same gift but different design. Here are the two previous blankets.

Of course this is the blanket that I made for the MS walk this year. I will be doing another one for the walk in 2018 as well.

I have made blankets for babies, kids and grown ups.

Here is my masterpiece that I created for myself. I have another that I will make but it is a little intricate so I am being lazy about it. Got all 170 plus squares made but not put together yet. One of these days.

I used to be a part of a crochet ministry at my church. We made blankets for the sick and shut-in, our pastor, and for the pastor of individuals who were in our ministry but didn’t attend our church.

Ok my mom made this last one but she did it as part of the crochet ministry. I believe the funds from the sale was used to purchase more yarn for the ministry.

The one thing that I want to do but have not started is creating blankets for the homeless. That will be my main focus next year once I finish my MS walk blanket. I have put it off long enough. I am even thinking about starting a ministry to teach others to crochet and have them help to make blankets. Or squares to combine together to make blankets. The squares are usually a challenge because everyone crochets a little different, but we can make it work.

With that being said, anyone interested in learning to crochet? I will provide the yarn and the crochet tools to get you started. Like all posts, feel free to leave a comment or email me at elsims27@yahoo.com. If you are interested in learning to crochet, you can text me at 419-213-9391. I didn’t usually answer numbers I don’t know so that is why I didn’t suggest calling.