what i did today......

Woke up super early and drove a pack of sleepy teenagers to seminary. I picked up some doughnuts to celebrate the end of our carpool. It has been three interesting years with these kiddos. We have all changed so much.

Grabbed DJ's cummerbund, tuxedo shirt and bowtie up from the cleaners. I'm super curious to see if they were able to remove the STANK before his concert tonight.

I paired socks....wiped down counters and checked my email and then ran off to work.

Today was a combination of amazing, fun and HOLY COW. Once a month Nordstrom's hires a bus to transport shopping retirees to the mall. Lucky for us....lots of those ladies also like Macy's. So our counter was more than a little busy. And in the middle of all of it we get these choice experiences....

A woman who wants a makover while there are 10 other ladies piled up around her to shop. Then she hands you a handful of bras, pants and a shirt to "hang on to" till she gets back with her husband. When she finally gets back she wants me to use her coupon to save more money. The coupon only works if you use a Macy's card of a gift card and her current gift card is short 47 dollars. So I have to use her husband to buy another gift card for the remainder and there by save her $23....oh, and can you hurry? She's in a hurry. I forgot to mention that there are five people lined up on each side while we are trying to take care of her too.

My other customer was well dressed and put together but when she started slurring her words, I knew I was in trouble. She was dying to get the gift with purchase and two glosses would qualify. With every repeated sentence i knew that I was doomed. She was very sweet and very troubled. Every time we would test the glosses she would forget what they looked like and we would have to start all over from the beginning. I felt terrible. She was either on medication or on something else or both. Once we got to the counter to check out she wouldn't stop complaining about what was in the gift. Everything was negative and wrong and why couldn't I give her doubles of the things that she wanted? It took me 10 minutes to check her out and even then she started saying....give me samples of whatever you have. She wanted extra samples on top of the samples she was getting for free. I was super duper patient. I knew that if I just kept repeating myself it would come to an end....and it did.

The next customer saw all of it and I could see them rolling their eyes while they listened. They did compliment me after she was out of earshot. They were incredulous that I didn't lose my cool at all. And you want to know the reason why>??????

AUTISM!!!

My blessed boys have given me such a beautiful gift. I can take anything. Nerves of steel, patience of Job, stamina to withstand any amount of rotten behavior with a calm, cool, serenity in my countenance.

Bless you Ty and Spence!

The good part came when I met two fun ladies that really appreciated my sense of humor. They thought I was hilarious and they were too fun to hang out with. Best of all they thought I was only in my 20's. I knew they needed to update their prescription lenses but no matter. It is incredibly gratifying to provide great customer service. They loved it so much they brought another friend to the counter to meet me and we had fun too. Win...win...win.

After it was all said in done, I scooted home to make it in time for Dj"s concert but alas....it didn't start at 7. It was already over. I'm really upset that I missed it.

Tomorrow is a day off. We send DJ off to San Francisco with the choir for a competition and a commandment to enjoy himself thoroughly for five days. Guy and I have tomorrow off together and the plan is to take Ty and Spence out for some real good fun. We need a nice long visit.

tonight I'm going to take a hot bath and put a cleansing mask on my face to try and erase the day's troubles.