Changes! Oh! So Thankful!

Welcome to latter Fall and enter the Holiday excitement!  I spent Thanksgiving much the same this year as in the ones recent past. I worked the whole week. This helps other drivers get home and gives me something to do to keep my mind active.


This year, I went into Thanksgiving quite sick.  Perhaps I should have rested more. However, I drove from South Florida to Chester, Virginia  and then on a load to North Liberty, Iowa.

It was my first visit to my company's corporate headquarters.  I went there with a mission. On Black Friday, I got up, got dressed for success, took deep breaths, prayed for not my will, but God's be done, and I went inside to make my petition.

SUCCESS!!!  Within hours, I was promoted to Systems Fleet.  This is the Over The Road division. It is a large pay raise, better driver utilization, and it opened my running area up to "anything east of the Rockies"!

My first week on the new fleet, I met up with friends and family enroute from here to there. I made a run back into an old friend, Dallas, Texas.  I have driven out to Denver, Colorado and encountered the first snow and ice for this Florida girl for 2011.

Today, I drop this load and I go park my semi.  Then I have a rental car set up and hotel accomodations.  I will be taking THREE days completely off duty, and off responsibility for my semi. 

I get to go see my daughter ALisha and my two grandsons!!!!!!!!!!! 

WHAT A BLESSING!

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December 7, 2011

I started the blog when I was parking to commence my trip to Pueblo.  I had a GREAT 3 days with my daughter and the boys!!!   Terran at 5 months old is a happy fellow, rolling front to back in a rapid fashion to go where he sets his mind to go.  Jeremiah is 20 months old and is alot of fun, able to interact, talk and express his preferences.

Alisha and I had the evenings free to hang out around her work schedule.  It was just a wonderful blessing all the way around.

I tease that now I have seen the friends and family that I wanted to connect with, and earned a week or so of the higher pay.  My first ice storm, and I was ready to go crying back to the Southeast Comfort Zone, BIG GRIN!!!

It has been very rewarding to blow the cobwebs out of my head by hitting the open roads again on long haul.  I'm already seeing some of the same places twice, whether I like them or not. 

It's a gift of a life out here, over the road.  I see places some people only dream of.  I get to meet people and hopefully share sunshine and positive energies with them.  There is a lot of time to think, pray, meditate and JUST BE.

Making my mind up to enjoy and to glean from where I land, I am very thankful for these opportunities.  This is my mindset this holiday, and my intentions going forward. To live in a place of fervent gratitude for all I am blessed with and to share all I can going forward. 

Thank you for riding along in my travels with my photographs, emails, posts, and blog. I am grateful for every offer of hospitality, every prayer, every text or call.

An entire season of THANKSGIVING,
Jan M. Olsen
~J~