Fantasy meals

Things at work are going a lot better this morning. When I arrived I made it a point to make myself busy following up on some other tasks that I had pending from earlier in the week. Last night after Bible study I was talking with one of the guys who's been looking for work since he arrived in Spain last summer. He and his wife were married roughly a month before Chechu and me, and with the exception of finding a couple odd jobs here and there, he hasn't come across anything else. It's exasperating enough to have to look for work being single, but when you have a family to look after it makes everything ten times worse. He and his wife are contemplating moving back to London sooner than anticipated so that he'll be able to find work. After listening to his story I felt really grateful for the job that I have, even with its imperfections. While I'll definitely keep my eyes open for new opportunities, I no longer have one foot out the door as was the case yesterday.

I'm not sure why Wednesdays have become so stressful anymore. Due to last-minute schedule changes I wasn't able to attend the GOE with Rocío yesterday afternoon either. When we started together in January our meetings were set to begin at 4pm, giving us about 30-45 minutes to evangelize and/or meet with women who decided to come to the meeting. Generally if someone wants to attend we try to adapt our meeting schedule to theirs, and that's been the case as of lately. So now instead of meeting at 4, we generally start at 4:30 or a little after, which puts a huge strain on my schedule because I have to be back at work by 5pm. The fact that punctuality isn't exactly a cultural norm here coupled with the reality that meetings are usually prolonged because some of the women have questions or want to pray about certain issues leaves me totally stressed out because I can't be late getting back to work. So yesterday when Rocío called to find out if she could pick me up at 4:30 and from there go to the church to hold our meeting, I told her that I wasn't going to be able to go because it had gotten too late. She sounded kind of disappointed, but there was really nothing I could do about the situation.
So tonight I'm going to talk with Fátima, one of the church leaders, about it since she was the one who asked me to participate in this GOE with Rocío. I feel really bad about how the situation has panned out because I do want to participate. I just get stressed out with the scheduling/no-concept-of-time issues, and that inhibits me from putting my all into the meetings because I'm constantly worried that I'll be late. So I hope to get some encouraging words. Obviously with the GOE starting at 4:30 my schedule doesn't permit me to attend. But hopefully she can tell me about some other opportunities where I can get involved.

I'm still having craving issues. It got so bad yesterday afternoon that I found myself perusing Coldstone's, Applebee's and Chili's websites and creating fantasy meals- you know, like the fantasy video games people are so into nowadays. Except my action heroes were buffalo wings, a monterey-jack superburger, french fries and a big bowl of "Cookie Doughn't You Want Some" ice cream from Coldstone. Talk. About. TORTURE!
As expected, I got home last night after 11pm and begrudgingly ate my cup of garlic spinach and hard-boiled egg. Not horrible, but definitely not a fantasy meal.

I'm feeling better today, craving-wise. I hope to be able to get a workout in this afternoon during my break because that's really the only time I'll have. We'll see how it goes.

It's almost FRIDAY y'all!! :o)