move with the cheese

i promise all my posts wont be so frazzled and full of semi-serious word vomit. i will post articles, videos and pics that i find interesting- promise. until then, please bare with me.

for starters- and a bit of a side note - i am currently in a tornado watch AND a flash flood watch until 1am. this is like the 3rd one in the last 2 weeks. so i'm pretty excited [i live for severe weather for those of you that dont know] my fav. movie is Twister- dont judge me. ;)

okay so onto my day and the topic of this post:

today my grandma had surgery. she found out that she had breast cancer about a month or so ago. she went under some tests and found out she was healthy enough [at 89 mind you] to go through with surgery. Thank Jesus that the surgery went fine and it hadn't spread :)

so what does that have to do with cheese? [try and follow my dots] well my boss and i met at panera bread for coffee and a marketing meeting at the unlawful hour of 7am. so we chatted for a while, talked some business as usual [of which i will keep confiential] and talked about change. see in a nut shell, the company i work for went under some serious rebranding and merged with our sister company. needless to say our company was enduring some change.

i was not affected too deeply by the change since i was a recent hire. however, some of my colleagues had been there for 10+ years. they were the ones that were having to adjust to the new brand and new company.

my boss though, passed along this book that he had his team read about change when he was promoted to IT Director a few years back - before my time at the company :) he encouraged me to read this short little novel. so he dropped it off at my desk later in the day and i came home, ate some home made tacos [all ingredients from a can-thank you meijer], and sat in complete silence and read the little diddy. [if you know me, that statement right there is big change in itself. i A) dont like to sit in silence very often and B) im not the biggest reader ever - but i finished the book, granted it was in font size 14 and 100 pages]

the title of this little diddy was "Who Moved My Cheese?" but if i could, i would change it to "Hey! Who Moved My Cheese!?" because thats how most of us respond to cheese [or change if you will]. many of us are shocked at the change because we rarely see it coming or worse yet, know the cheese is coming but neglect to acknowledge it.

before my post gets miles long....

the summary of the story is this:
there are 4 creatures that live in a maze; Sniff and Scurry [2 mice] and Hem and Haw [2 Littlepeople the size of the 2 mice]. the story unfolds as the 4 creatures discover that the chunk of cheese they had been living on was beginning to diminish. the two mice reacted as one might should - dealt with the change and moved on. the two Littlepeople, however, basically freaked out and didnt want to move forward because they were scared and they were comfortable where they were. i'm not going to ruin the story, but i recommend it. it is possible the easiest read other than The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. [loved both books too btw]

here are a few quotes from the book that made the most sense to me, or i liked the most:
"the more important your cheese is to you the more you want to hold on to it" [as far as relationships go, usually the tighter you force your grip on it, the faster that person slips away- just for the forewarning ;) ]

"sometimes, hem, things change and they are never the same again. this looks like one of those times. that's life. life move on. and so should we" [i have learned this. be flexible and fluid, the more you are willing to accept the change the sooner you can pick yourself up and keep going]

"smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old" [basically, be alert to reality]

"the quicker you let go of old cheese the sooner you find new cheese" [frick, another relationship one- in my opinion- the longer you hold onto something you can't change or the longer you hold onto someone from the past, the longer you are withholding yourself from something or someone even greater- let it go and move on and a tip- dont bring up old relationships to your new cheese...lol!]

"move with the cheese" [dont be left behind- life changes, that the point of us living and experiencing! if we stay in the same place forever, we don't grow which means we dont experience which means we dont really have the opportunity to live]



okay so now going back to my grandma. today i read that book. i enjoyed it [let's be honest, everyone loves a short book with huge font!]. i was nervous and scared about my grandma's surgery. she is the closest thing to my mom and i wasnt ready to see my mom hurt if my grandma's surgery didnt go well or the test results came out positive for more cancer. now this is where the cheese and faith collide. i have to be ready for when that time comes. i have to. so i am smelling out the cheese. i know my grandma only has a handful of more years to live under her belt. she is 89 afterall. i love her dearly and i want to make it known to her. i have to have faith in the Lord that He will take her when she is ready. and i have to have faith in the Lord that he will prepare me for when i need to really be there for my mom. it terrifies me knowing that my mom will eventually loose her mom. and it literally can bring me to tears knowing that i could loose my mom too.

but we can't think like that now can we! that is cheese that is yet to come. so for today i will enjoy what i have, love hard on the people i care about the most, and be prepared for when someone moves my cheese.