First off...I got a pair of new shoes! I rarely buy new clothes or shoes for myself. Also I have a hard time finding comfortable shoes. Like my mom I have bunions, you know that bony bump and the base of the big toe. She had surgery to remove hers, I probably need the same but until then a cheaper fix is wearing comfortable shoes that don't put pressure on it and cause me pain (I can't handle wearing heals for long periods of time, like longer than 10 minutes). Anyways so I usually stick with sandals and flip flops...but it's getting a little cold to wear those to work. So I was super happy to find these cute suede flat slip ons at Kohl's this weekend. They had them in various colors but only in blue and brown in my size. Stephen said go with the blue. I really like them, they are comfy. And better yet, they were on sale and I had a 30% off coupon.
So now onto the more serious part of this post. Lately I've been meditating a lot on topics of appreciation, thankfulness and gratitude. And not because it's near Thanksgiving but because of things going on in our lives, job related and such. So sometimes I struggle with these. I work for an awesome small company where the owners show great appreciation to their workers. Stephen made an observation that I always tend to work for these types of companies. It's nice to be appreciated, recognized for your hard work. It makes you want to strive to do more and be better at your job. Unfortunately Stephen has worked for the opposite type of companies, you know those huge, giant corporate companies where the "little guys" are unappreciated and forgotten. I really commend Stephen because he's always had such a strong work ethic. He always puts in 110% and goes the extra mile. And that's hard to do when you're never shown appreciation, even a simple "great job!". So what's the solution? Find another job until you find one for a company like I work for? I mean do you ask the big wigs in your interview, "do you show appreciation to your employees?". Wish the solution could be this simple. But of course it's not. The only solution that seems right is to not dwell on being unappreciated or recognized - but to be grateful and thankful. And it's only through Faith, in my opinion that you could turn around and change your feelings about it all.
I did a search on "Gratitude" on Pinterest. And the above photo came up. It was like perfect timing and a perfect reminder to all that is going on in our family's lives lately. Makes me appreciate the jobs that gave us money to buy my new pair of shoes. Reminds me there are millions that are far off worse than us - that don't even have jobs or an opportunity to squabble about work.
My Pinterest search also came up with these. Love it, a whole site about simple things to appreciate. I felt like this one pertained to us right now too. Stephen has been putting in 10-12 hour work days, sometimes 6 days a week. 4 of those days he doesn't get to really see me or Madeline because of the shift he works - and he's doing it all to persevere in his career so we can pay for the roof over our heads and food on our table. It's challenging and straining. But instead of dwelling on it, we can appreciate taking off our shoes and socks after a long day.
