Pay Day

It is the end of the month again and for some is their pay day. I don't know what that is like anymore because for the past five years I have not been part of the work force and sometimes I miss that. The fact that I got to be productive doing something for monetary exchange felt great. I do a lot of service here in the DR that gives me satisfaction but getting a pay check used to feel wonderful.


 It was that extra little cash I received each month to do whatever with. It was my own spending money I used to travel with. My first job was working as a cashier for Deseret Book downtown Salt Lake. I loved it because I got to meet new people every day and they would let us read as many books as we wanted like the library but you never had a deadline to return those books. You would take them home to read at your own pace. Never had to pay an overdue fee!


 My next job was working for Bonnevile Communications in their Spanish campaigns. I could have worked there forever but I had Cristi at the time and couldn't bear to live her with a sitter. When she turned six month old, that was it for me, I needed to be with my baby. The people there were wonderful to work for, My boss was Doug Borba, from Brazil and I became good friends with his secretary, Eva Diaz now Eva Doolin.


 My next job was working for Travelers Insurance as a claim processor. That job helped me learned all about the different health benefits some people had working for the railroad and made me appreciate those benefits some employers offered their employees because not all benefits are created equal very complex to understand and that is why they have experts like our son Andres I discovered that not all employers offered them. At this time I got more involved with helping at the Shop with special projects gluing folders for them so I quit that job and started to help out with our own business plus I also had child number two and it was tricky to leave the house.


 I became the gluing queen for Trade Engraving. We had NU SKIN as one of our great customers and produced a massive amount of work for them at the time. A few of our customers about 20% were great like them but the majority about 80% were little companies who would not be loyal to us and were hard to work with. We decided at this point to move to Tucson Arizona to start our own small  business and were there for three years. In 1991, my third baby was born but had to return back to Salt Lake because from our departure the business in Utah was not supporting itself. As a matter of fact it was the little business in Tucson supporting the big one in Salt Lake.


Back in Salt Lake I decided to work for free. Yes I got to Trade engraving every morning to work on collections because for some reason we were producing jobs and were busy but our customers got away with past due credit and every month we would sent statements to them of 30, 60  90 and over years of bad credit for jobs not paid. I don't know how that happened but it was the way that department managed accounts receivables. It was hard for me to imagine that those nice people were so dishonest when it came to paying their bills and had every excuse in the book why they weren't paying on time. The person in charge of that department was another family member who was a nice guy but had no spine. I came in to work for free to try to get those disgusting customers to pay their bills but it was too late. Many of them simply went out of business and others just went somewhere else and simply never paid. I understood how awful it was to be in a business you had to extend credit to be able to operate. But how ironic it was that when I ordered my wedding invitations, I had to pay before I took the job home. They had me pay COD when they never did that with anyone else I knew. back in those days not getting a pay check from Trade for doing their collections I decided to teach Spanish on the side at Read School in the afternoons and became good friends with Dr. Reid and their family. The school is also a family business but they knew how to run it well. I am sure they don't put up with bad debts the way we did.


At this time I also became the Honorary Consul of El Salvador in Utah, got super busy with the Salvadoran community and also worked as a parent advocate for the Family Support Center.  I remember that in he year 2000 I was doing all that plus I became a numerator for the 2000 Census. In 2002 I even became a Vista volunteer for AmeriCorps working for Bringing Hope to single moms.


Now, why did I do all that, I don't know but all those jobs taught me something and I got to meet tons of people, too many to count. I learned so much working for the single moms foundation considering that I was happily married and never in my wildest dreams would have thought that one day I would be part of that group of women. I do know that unconsciously, I was following my mother's foot steps who was always super busy and was never home but she had no choice. She chose to be a single mother. I had a good husband at the time. Now 14 years later that is my only regret. You can do it all but not all at the same time.


Today it would not matter if I worked that much because I don't have little children at home like I did back then. I had no business working so much for so little pay and no pay at all only because I loved being busy all the time. It was like a drug and I paid the price big time. How different it would be today if I had a job. This is when I should have one and how ironic it is that I don't!

Expat's life

The life of an Expat is great! we get to live in a beautiful island with all the comforts of home and are able to save some money in the meantime if we don't eat out all the time.  Later today I went out to eat lunch and almost spent as much as what I had spent in the supermarket for a whole week but the company was great and once in a while it does not hurt. As long as we prepare most of our meals at home, we should be ok.
My goal is to save as much money to get out of debt at once and for all. even though there is no Walmart nor Macys, there is Pricesmart and ZARA but so far we have stayed away from buying too much and that is the key. I saw how much Mari and my mom have in their home in Miami that they need to empty it out. I wish I could go next weekend to help out with the move but how? What else could I do? I was there for one week and didn't get to help very much because Mari is the only one that knows what she wants to do with all her stuff. I have decided to sell or give away all my belonging when I move again and only keep the bare essentials.

How ironic

Well it is so ironic that I hurry so much to get home yesterday to be with Daniel and he leaves to go out of town for three days. How I wish I had known this when I changed my flight out of Miami so I could spend more time helping Mari and be away at the same time but nevertheless I keep telling myself how thankful I am for the few days I got to spend with sister Mari, her son Manu and my mom. Manu participated in a Chilean cueca dance contest, his first!


 We even got to see two cousins: Albert and Eric Allred. Albert was in town for the weekend and just before he left we met at Alejandro and Lexi's place. My mother had made ceviche and had already scheduled going over to his new place to eat with them. It worked out perfect. Ale and Lexi even have a dog Monte for Manu to play with. There is nothing that feels so wonderful than to be spending time with your family. I love sharing these moments the past few days with my mom and sister because you never know when will the last time you'll see them. I learned that at Mandy's wedding not doing that was the last time I was going to see Shirley.

I saw this posted on facebook today: "the empty nest comes in quickly. Do not squander your most precious privilege of participating in the lives of your children" when you become empty nester you realize how in the blink of an eye, You get to be alone way too soon and you regret the fact that you were way too busy doing so many things when you had a young family than to be with them.  Now my family is grown and they are far away.  I get to talk to them on the phone but it would be better if we all lived closer, each have to take care of their own family.

The other thing I find so ironic is the fact that my former husband worked and worked and worked so much and was never home when my girls were little and now he gets to spend all the time in the world with his two new daughters. I wish somehow he would realize how much our girls missed out on all the time he could have spent with them and would want to spend time with them now but he is too busy with his new family.  

Today Mandy said: “dad got a new puppy for his daughter Valentina.”  I pray for the day that when knowing about him and his new family would not bother me so much but it irritates me how much more of a father he is to those girls than he ever was to his biological daughters. I remember one time when I forced him to take a three week vacation and he almost had a heart attacked. He could never be away for more than two weeks but now he can be away from work for months at a time. All I can say is that I will never understand the phenomenon of how some men get a big kick out of being daddy to younger children because they want to feel young when they should only be happy with being called grandpa but no, not those insecure guys they love being sugar daddies. What a messed up world we live in!

Try your very best!

I left Miami this morning thinking of how much I miss my mom. She is so amazing. Her love for me and all her family is unconditional and only wants the best for us. She has always tried her very best.  I thought of how short life is and  how she at any given day could leave this earthy life the way my father's first wife just did. I also thought of my little sister and all her new challenges. I feel so grateful for the chance I had to be there with them this past week. We even got to attend church in the morning and to visit with Alejandro, Lexi, and even cousins Eric and Albert Allred who was visiting his brother. They were both  surprised since they had no idea I was even in town and that explains why we were with Ale and Lexi.




One thing I learned from going to church this Sunday is that we tried our best to go and went. We could have easily stayed home since we were late getting to bed but we at least made the effort. My sister is in the Primary and is doing the best she can to be there even when she is practically gone. A woman came to tell her how she didn't want her son coming to Primary because it didn't seemed organized or something like that and my question is to people like her, and what are you doing to help the situation? I found a post that describes this very thing about the world we live in from one of my favorite bloggers.

"This world is full of those who would sit back and criticize others, make snarky comments about others, tear others down or belittle their efforts. And why wouldn’t it be full of those people? It is so easy to be one of those people. Talking trash about someone takes very little effort. Finding fault with someone takes very little effort. What takes effort is to be that person who is out there fighting the fight, giving it their all, attempting to do something with their lives – that takes effort, and lots of it. It also takes courage to be the person to put yourself out there when there is always that chance that you could actually fall on your face, especially when you are surrounded by so many of those people in the world who are just watching and waiting for you to go and try and fall just to give them the opportunity to make fun or belittle your attempt. But stop for just a moment and ask yourself this question – if I was watching the person make the attempt and the person in the grandstands criticizing them…which of those two people would I feel the most proud of? Which of those two people is the person I would most like to emulate? 

For me, that is a very easy question to answer – I always want to be that person who is out there making the effort. I don’t care if that person is the one who tries and possibly fails, I just love that the person was willing to try in the first place! That is the person I most want to be in my life. There is something so noble to me about the person who is willing to try. It’s their efforts that make them amazing in my eyes. Maybe that’s because I know what it feels like to try and fail at things and I know how much inner strength it takes to get back up and brush yourself off and start again. I know how much you grow in that process and I know how much wisdom you gain going through those trials and failures and the will it takes to get back up and start again. And so I have gained a true appreciation for those individuals who choose to put themselves out there and TRY! I appreciate the EFFORT more than I care about the OUTCOME.

If I could give a gift to people it would be to help them focus on that – I would help them focus on their efforts and have them not worry about the outcomes. So many problems with people’s self-esteem or self-worth today come because of this messed up belief that it’s a person’s outcomes that defines them. That just isn’t true. 99% of the time you have no control on the outcome of a situation as there are a million other factors that come into play when determining an actual outcome. But 100% of the time you have ABSOLUTE CONTROL on your own EFFORTS in life. No one else can influence your efforts unless you choose to let them. You control your effort completely, and don’t ever forget that. Don’t worry about what “other people” might think or say or even what other people will choose to believe about you. None of those

“other people” are your judge in life anyway – that is totally between you and God and I am quite certain that He won’t give a lick of attention to what the “other people” thought. He knows exactly what efforts you make and that is all that matters.

Don’t ever let yourself hold back your own efforts out of fear of what others may say or think, or fear of the unknown, or fear of the outcome not being what you want it to be. Never curb your efforts based on something like that. Go for those goals that you want to achieve the most in your life. Make the efforts to get them. And then don’ t worry about the outcome of those goals – just focus on doing your part of the effort 100% and then trust that the outcome will be EXACTLY as it is meant to be. I can tell you that I believe in that with all my heart. I truly do. I have seen it over and over again in my own life. And nothing feels better than going to bed at the end of each day being able to say that “today I gave my best effort, and tomorrow I will do the same”. You can do so much more than you have even begun to dream of at this point in your life. Stop holding yourself back for all the wrong reasons. Be that person who is down in the stadium trying and never, ever allow yourself to be that bystander up in the bleachers criticizing those who try….

Give your best efforts to accomplish those goals that matter most to you. Focus on your efforts and then TRUST the outcome will be as it should be!" Amy

 When I read this blog post I thought of my little sister Maricela who is trying so hard at her work to be successful and she has done that. The day she told them, she was moving, they were sad and the owner wanted to know what he could do for her to stay. She is going away with her head up high that she tried her very best!

With the help of my litle friends

 What a day! we were busy in the mornng with a yard sale at Mari's house, and in the evening, we went to see Manu dance cueca on a national competition. It was the very first time he competed and did so good considering he only practiced 4 times.


At the yard sale I became more and more aware at a huge flaw my mother and I both have. We can't part from our things! She has a room full of stuff and all she took was some make up samples she sold for $35 dollars and that I think is a miracle because people there wanted everything for almost nothing. Yard sales are horrible and stressful that way because people know you have to sell your stuff and they won't give you anything for them.I was there to witness it all. Early that morning Mari woke up to start putting things out and the missionaries helped to take out the heavy furniture. Around  mid morning clouds started to make its debut and started to rain so we had to quickly get everything inside as fast as we could. Mari ended up selling a little over $300 and I guess that is better than nothing.
What I love about missionaries who are serving is the love they have for people and that can only come when you have a close relationship with Christ. How nice it was to see their service in action. This brings me to the next point I want to make about serving and exercising from a new research study I read the other day that just came out. I love the effect of exercising but even when I don't mind to exercise, it is nice to know that there is an alternative and its called service. a blogger wrote:

"I don’t hate to exercise. I really don’t but at the same time I don’t love it either. I admit it is good for you and I realize it is necessary, but I definitely don’t enjoy it to the fullest but I do it anyway if I get motivated enough. So when I read up on a new finding from a study that shows an alternative to exercise that has the same effect, only better, you bet I sit up and take notice.   Are you ready for it – Performing Acts of Kindness has a stronger effect then exercising four times a week!!!

Don’t believe me?  Well you don’t have to take my word for it – it is a study that was performed at Harvard University and the results were published in Psychology Today – it is known as the Mother Theresa Effect.  Here is what the study showed:

The Benefits of Performing Acts of Kindness

Research has shown that those who routinely engage in acts of kindness:

• Experience alleviation of stress
• Experience alleviation of chronic pain
• Experience alleviation of insomnia
• Experience fewer aches and pains
• Have a lessened likelihood of experiencing diseases and disorders
• Overall health is protected twice as much as aspirin protects against heart disease
• Have a significantly lower likelihood of dying of diseases
• Have markedly increased levels of Immunoglobulin A (antibody which boosts immunity)
• Have significant increase in Serotonin levels (chemical in brain that makes us feel good)
• Have decreased feelings of depression
• Have increased sense of happiness and optimism
• Have an increased sense of self worth
• Have enhanced feelings of joyfulness
• Have a boost in their sense of physical and emotional well being

The effects of doing acts of kindness have a stronger effect than exercising four times a week.

That is what I am talking about!  That is fantastic!  And doing acts of kindness is so much better than exercise, and WAY MORE FUN!  Not only that but you don’t even have to break a sweat doing it.  Even better :).

So if you want to get your daily workout in then go do an act of kindness see how much better you look because of it and I take that over breaking a sweat." Amy


Our family is known to have done a lot of acts of service in another post I will write about some of the amazing things we got to accomplished.

 

Daniel makes a quick stop

Today I met up with the love of my life. Daniel had a trip planned months ago where he would be stopping in Miami to take the next flight home so our vacation continuous.  Ale pick him up from the airport and went to Mari's so we could all go out to eat and then we checked in the hotel for the night. How sweet is that!



Yesterday was actually an official state holiday in Utah, and since we had just returned from the historical sites in New York from Joseph Smith era, I just want to salute those men, women and children who gave up so much including their lives so the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ would be known. 

The pioneers who came to Utah faced tremendous hardships to get to the state. They traveled with handcarts across the plains and many of them lost children, spouses, siblings as they made their way to Utah. They faced attacks by mobs and they faced snow storms and starvation. The stories from the journals of the pioneers are stories of tremendous faith and perseverance.

If you want to see an awesome movie about the pioneers I would highly recommend the movie “17 Miracles” which is out on DVD. It is an amazing movie and watching it will touch your heart tremendously the movie tell about many miracles that took place as they were crossing the frontier. It shows how much faith they had to have to endure incredible persecution. They had no choice but to move west crossing the mountains pushing hand carts and wagons not knowing exactly where they were going to end up but one day finally on July 24th, 1847 the Pioneers first arrived to settle Utah! Pioneer day is design to celebrate the settling of the state of Utah and it is celebrated each year with parades and fireworks and rodeos and many other fun activities.

I would love to be in Utah on this day next year and watch the parade from our apartment balcony and invite our kids and their families. Sydney is planning a family reunion in Utah next July.

Just do it!

My husband Daniel has commented on a phrase a guy made once about me. He said: When veronica wants something, Veronica gets it! It does not always work out that way because we don't always get our way on things we don't have any control but on the things we DO control I know we can make it happen if we try. I wanted to come to Miami to see my mother and sister and her son and here I am. I made it happened. I also wanted to visit the children this year: Andres, Cristi, Mandy, Herni, Ani, Pablo and Bianca and their family and that also happened. Why? because we planned it, we took the right steps to accomplished it and here I am. We even got to see Karla Alvord and her cute girls in Conneticut. I could not have asked for a better vacation.


In my life getting my way was for instance graduting from BYU that took many years to accomplish but when it was completed, it felt so good. All my travels around the world have also happend becaue I made the effort for them to happen like this wonderful trip this year to the States and when I think of it, this is not just me making things happen it is a natural law to make things happen when you put your mind to it. Going to Brazil for the World Cup for my sister Liz and her husband, going to Spain for Mandy and Spencer with his parents, going on a family reunion Cruise for my mother a few years ago, and for my little sister Mari is moving to Idaho. A  big reason why I am in Miami today, I felt the need to help my sister with the transition of the move because she has experienced a sad and complicated divorce similar to mine and needs to get away from so much drama. She is making it happen and it is a big step that she is taking in the right direction. She can only think for one day at a time for now.  She is considering the move to Idaho for one year until she can get her finances in order and then decide if she returns to Miami or stays there.


 While she resides in Idaho, Mari plans to save money and be able to slow down to spend more time with her son. My mother is going to be traveing back and forth now, between El Salvador, Mexico and Idaho. She was not too keen on the idea of Mari moving that far north but now she has approved the move knowing that it's the best for both Mari and her son. The moral of the story is that when you want something, just go for it or it will never happen. Just do it!






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