Jill Victoria

There is the old saying that when God closes a door, He opens a window. I’m going to have to go with that right now.

Friday night I was out with David, John, Yoly and their cousin Zack and his girlfriend, Ilia. We went to Don Pablo’s for dinner and then planned to see Angels and Demons afterward. While at dinner, I got a phone call from my co-worker, Jerry. He told me that my boss was letting me go and that he would pay me the money he owed me. I’m not holding my breath to the the close to a grand he owes me. It would really come in handy, though.

Jerry told me that my now former boss said that when business picks up, he’ll bring me back. Again, I’m not holding my breath. I had a feeling it was coming to this anyways. I mean, the man couldn’t even afford to pay me $160 a week.

I’m really counting on Mary Kay to help me out while I look for a new job. If you want to host a party or get a free facial, please let me know and give me a call. My info can be found on my Mary Kay website.

Despite the bad news, I still had a lot of fun with everyone. Angels and Demons was so awesome! It followed the book really closely and it did a fantastic job turning one of my favorite books into a movie. I wasn’t disappointed!

Saturday night was the benefit dinner and dance for the Joseph Sams School. I had a lot of fun there. I got to dress all pretty and visit with the Coles and a lot of other people in my impending family. My mom and grandmother came as well. My grandmother is a big fan of Ferrol Sams, so she got to meet him. I hope that made her happy. She was happy at Christmas when David and I gave her autographed copies of his books.

David and I danced our first dance ever to “My Girl”. It was sweet. We also bid on a golden rose at the silent auction and won it. It really is pretty.

Sunday Lauren and I had our Mary Kay booth at the Taste of Fayetteville. Despite the rain, the cold and the fact we both got pretty miserable really fast, it was a productive time. We got a lot of leads and hopefully that will turn into a lot of customers.

After we enlisted David and John’s help in getting the tent and the table packed away, Lauren headed home and I went with David, John and Yoly to eat at O’Charley’s. We went to visit with family at GrandMom and Pop’s house afterward for Patty’s birthday. Pop seemed to be having a pretty good day. He at least knew who everyone was. We sang “Amazing Grace” for him as a family. It nearly made me cry. Even typing about it gets me teary-eyed.

Today I decided I needed a haircut. At least Mary Kay has been good enough to me that I could pay off some bills and get a haircut. I’m really happy with how it turned out, too. I’d highly recommend people going to The Ten Salon for their next haircut. You won’t be sorry! I told Leigh, the girl who cut my hair, that she gave me the exact haircut I have been trying to get other stylists to give me for a long time. It’s the best haircut I’ve ever had!

Now I have to look for another job. I’m not thrilled with it, but who would be? I know that God has His hand in everything and that I will be just fine. It doesn’t make this any easier. At least with my GPE job I knew that money would come in eventually. I guess I have the same situation with Mary Kay. I will make money with Mary Kay only if I put work into it. I have a lot of calls to make.

Please keep me in your prayers. Pray that God leads me to the job I need to have, whatever that may be.

Current Mood: Cool

My friend Meredith wrote a blog on her MySpace talking about spanking. I couldn’t agree with her more on what she had to say on the matter. Spanking is not a form of abuse as long as it’s an actual spanking and not a beating. There is a difference.

Spare the rod, spoil the child. Even the Bible says that spanking is acceptable. Several times.

Proverbs 13:24
A refusal to correct is a refusal to love;
love your children by disciplining them.

Proverbs 19:18
Discipline your children while you still have the chance;
indulging them destroys them.

Proverbs 22:15
Young people are prone to foolishness and fads;
the cure comes through tough-minded discipline.

Proverbs 23:13
Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones;
a spanking won’t kill them.
A good spanking, in fact, might save them
from something worse than death.


Proverbs 29:15, 17
Wise discipline imparts wisdom;
spoiled adolescents embarrass their parents.

Discipline your children; you’ll be glad you did—

I was spanked growing up. In fact, my last spanking I can remember was when I was 15 years old. After my mom popped me on the butt, I turned around and told her then that I was a little too old for that to affect me.

If I wanted to avoid being spanked, then I shouldn’t have done anything wrong, like disobey my parents. They found out that timeouts and restrictions didn’t really have an affect on me. So, their last resort was to bust my butt wide open. My mom used to tell me when I’d misbehave in public that she wasn’t afraid to pull down my pants in front of God and everybody and bust my butt.

And she would, too.

The first verse I listed (Proverbs 13:24) is one I like most. By disciplining out children, we show we love them. The phrase you hear from some parents to their children is “This hurts me worse than it hurts you”. A parent — or rather, a sane and descent parent — doesn’t want to hit their children! They don’t want to have to hurt them in any way, shape or form. But a good parent knows that sometimes you have to be tough if you’re going to teach your children. If you love your child, you want them to grow up to be respectful, polite, hard working and good members of society and to please God with their lives. Letting your children do whatever they want with no consequences just teaches them that they can do as they please when they’re older and get away with it.

Jesus said we are to give good gifts to our children. When a child wants a loaf of bread, we don’t give them a snake. Discipline is a gift we give our children. It’s not an easy gift to give, but it’s one that lasts a lifetime and does save them from a fate worse than death.

Did I like being spanked? Nope. But what child likes to be disciplined? We all want to be able to do what we want with no consequences for our actions. If we don’t teach our children that doing the wrong thing has consequences from an early age, then we get what we see today: spoiled, trouble making and disrespectful children who think that the world owes them something. I saw it every day when I was a substitute teacher.

I believe in spanking and my children will be spanked when they disobey. I want to teach my children right from wrong, no matter what it takes. And I dare anyone to say I am an abusive parent for correcting my child so that the judicial system doesn’t have to do it later.

And now for another topic:

I’m glad it’s Friday, even if I do have another work day of sorts tomorrow.

David and I go to our first wedding planning meeting with our coordinator, Leslie. I’m glad that we’ll be able to start the planning with someone who can actually make the stuff happen. David and I have thrown around ideas and so have family and friends. We like a lot of suggestions we’ve heard, but we also want to make sure that it’s mine and David’s personality that shines through the most in this wedding. I want it to be unmistakably about Jill and about David.

Hopefully the process is an easy one.

Current Mood: Bored

I had a thought when I walked through a set of automatic doors today. I love those type of doors. I always feel like a Jedi when I go up to them and they open. Or like I’m royalty and they open automatically for me to pass through, because obviously my hands are too delicate to touch a door.

Anyways, the thought was that we walk up to these doors and know that they will open for us. We approach them with such confidence, not breaking our stride. We can have faith that these doors will open for us all on their own without us having a hand in it, and we won’t walk into them. Yet we have a hard time accepting that God can open a door for us to pass through.

Of course I mean a metaphoric door. We find ourselves heading towards a door that is closed in our lives and worry that we can’t get it open. My life has taught me that if God brings you to a door, it’s going to open. Sometimes whether you want it to or not.

In three days I will be 25-years-old. I’m excited about this birthday because, for some reason I’m not even sure of, I see it as a milestone to reach. I’ll have lived a quarter of a century. I’ll be halfway to 50 and five years closer to 30.

Honestly, 25 years doesn’t seem like that long of a time. I think of the people I know who are older, wiser and better at living life to the fullest than I am. Even people who have been married as long as I’ve been alive or longer. Those numbers seem a lot more impressive. Twenty-five is almost a laughable number of years when it comes to experiencing what life has to offer.

I think we grow up with ideas of things we’re supposed to do and accomplish in our lifetime. Sometimes those objectives even have a time frame in mind. For me, it was to drive by 16, graduate high school at 18, move out by 20 and be married by 22. Obviously, half of my life plan didn’t work out how I expected it to.

When I turned 22, I was really upset that I hadn’t moved out or met the guy I was going to marry. I felt like a failure. I was living at home working part time as a substitute teacher and I hadn’t been on a date in my life. My reasoning for setting age 22 as my goal for marriage was based on the fact that the majority of the women in my family were married either before or at age 22. My grandmother got married at 17, my mom was 22 and so was my cousin Rachel.

I’m very glad now that I didn’t get married at 22-years-old. Not only would it mean I wouldn’t be with David, but I honestly wasn’t ready for something like marriage. I wasn’t mature enough or even stable enough in my own life to be a part of someone elses.

So much has happened in my life since I was 22. I was reading old blogs from that time of my life on my MySpace blog. I have changed so much since then, and that was only three years ago. Now, I am in a place in my life; emotionally, financially, spiritually and mentally, to be someone’s wife. To be David’s wife, specifically.

God knows what he’s doing. That’s plainly obvious.

I thought I was ready for the marriage door to open at age 22 because I decided that was the time. I’m glad that that door stayed closed for another three years. Now it will open automatically for me when I approach it this next time.

Things will always happen when they’re supposed to.

Current Mood: Cool