Monday, March 14, 2016

The Purple Promise

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN IN JUNE 2014, but I failed to publish the post.  Here it is, two years late. 

Hard to believe it has been a year since I have posted.  I will blame that mostly on the absolute exhaustion that I have felt at the end of every work day.  DHL Global Forwarding has been my home for 12 years, but as of May 31, 2014, I have moved on.  I spent the first week of summer with my girls, just enjoying watching them swim and doing some serious deep cleaning and de cluttering.  I feel like I am just about to have my life back in order.  As much as I loved the old company, the changes there were not for me.  The world that will be when all of the migration work is completed is not something that I want to be a part of.  I have moved to a much smaller world and one that I feel like I have much more control over.  Chris Avent sent me a text message a couple of months ago and asked if I knew anyone who wanted to be an Air Export Manager in Atlanta.  He knew it would be a good role for me.  I wasn't so sure and almost didn't apply.  But in the end, his message made me think there were options out there.  I redid my resume and went to my first interview.  About half way through, I knew I wanted this job.  I wanted to be a part of the FedEx family.  I have so many things that I want to accomplish and I am going to be able to do that at FTN.  The years that I spent at DGF were invaluable.  The education I was given is surpassed by none in this business.  I worked with hundreds of people who influenced me, but the greatest were Rob Betzer, Chris Avent, Sherri Skalski, Monica Turner, Dawn Hoeflich, Mike McGinnis, Wade Sorensen, Bob Gardner, Shelby Lee,  William Diephof, Marc Carlstrom, Briana Bloodworth, Greg Simon, Tim Hale, Richard Schepp and Debbie Fowler (and not necessarily in that order).  I love them all and I miss them all, but I am happy to be in my new role.  I am the Air Export Manager for FedEx Trade Networks.  I am also the Warehouse Manager and the Gateway Manager at the moment....until we build the business enough to bring on the two other managers. Our new building is in the process of being completed and the world is all new. 

The Tingle kids found the blog

I always thought that this blog would be important to the kids one day.  It turns out, that day is now.  The girls found the blog without any prompting from me.  They remembered that we used to post and that the name was Life On Callaway Road.  They were reading years of posts and bringing Peyt and I in to read them too.  So I promised that I would start posting again.  I got to spend the day today with the Taylor Jacques family.  It was so much fun.  Jessica is having TWINS...a boy and a girl.  She is going to name them Calvin and Taylor.  She looks beautiful pregnant, but we always knew that she would. 

In other news, the Tingle Twins were in the Inman talent show last month.  The entire family came out to watch.  It was REALLY long.  We were there from 6:30 to 10:15 on a Friday night.  The girls had a lot of fun and Amelia only fell asleep for the last hour or so.  The girls were the 40th act out of 42.  They danced with two of their friends, Brooke and Cassidy to "Home Grown."  I bought them all matching cowboy hats early on and they got new boots for the venture.  I love Samantha's John Deere camo and pink cowboy boots and Sabrina's pink and brown leather boots.  Mema and Papa, Grandmother and Granddaddy, Michael, Rustie, Chad, and Jace all came to watch them with us. 

Amelia has been putting on talent shows like crazy the past couple of months.  As much as she loves to sing, dancing seems to be her absolute favorite activity.  I am hoping that she will take dance lessons next year.  She got a karaoke machine for her 6th birthday in Feb.  She did not have a party this year, though she really wanted one.  I felt bad for not doing a big deal party, but we just had a huge one for her last year.  As it turns out, her fifth birthday was the last time that I got to see Mema Shirley before she passed.  I am so grateful that we had that tea party.  Mema was all dressed up in green outfit complete with hat and white gloves.  She looked like a character right out of Downton Abby.  It has been pretty tough to get used to not having her here.  There are so many times that I think about her and I just want to pick up the phone to call to ask her advice. 

The girls have just started their second spring season for Fayette County Softball.  They played for the Black Widows where they came in second in the county last spring.  It was their first year and they played outfield most of the time.  This past season they played for Carole Mason and the Sharks.  Although they lost every game, we found out very quickly that Sabrina could pitch and Samantha could catch.  Samantha actually seems to be a natural born catcher, which is so odd considering all of the issues that she has had with her knees over the past few years.  This season, they are playing these two very important roles for Chaos.  Peyton has been working as the assistant coach....which he loves. 

Destiny had her best report card of ALL time last quarter.  She is beginning to focus a lot more on school.  I think that comes not only from being in high school, but also from joining JROTC.  She seems to really love that environment and I believe she will eventually join the military.  I would much rather see her in the navy or marines than the army, but we will see.  As much as she wants to be in law enforcement someday, she knows that the military is a great place to start and I can't and wouldn't try to talk her out of that.  I would be very proud for her serve.  She's bright and talented and they would be lucky to have her.  It could even give her a chance to see the world. 

Amelia is enjoying kindergarden.  She has made so many friends.  Most notably, Ellie Harper (whose parents are both teachers at Inman) and Clementine.  Clementine is a special needs child that Amelia just took under her wing on the first day of school.  Her mom is very excited about the friendship and Clementine talks about Destiny all of the time.  I hope they will be friends for a long time.  Ellie's dad is the gifted teacher for Inman and worked with us on the testing last year for Samantha and Sabrina to join.  He saw such potential in the girls over the past few years and wanted to give them room to shine. 

I have been at FedEx for almost two years now.  It seems more like forever.  I love my role and I love working with Chris again.  I've expanded my area of management to include, Air Import, Air Export, Distribution, and now Surface Transportation.  Still steering clear of brokerage and ocean, thankfully.

I will catch up the blog on everything else soon.  The girls are pretty serious about me taking the time to document.  I am thinking about giving them admin rights and letting them add their own posts.  They are so creative and it would be wonderful if this could belong to all of us.  I tried to give Peyton admin right s years ago, but I don't believe he has ever posted anything here. 

Maybe one of the girls can fill you in on our trip to Washington DC and New York that we took last year for vacation.