affirmation

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last week, on wednesday, i had a terrible morning at work.

to begin with, i felt all yucky. tired, scratchy throat, a little feverish. you know those beginning stages of a sinus infection or a cold where you don’t feel bad enough to just give up and lay on the couch but you aren’t at 100%?

yeah – that.

then i ended up have a crazy busy morning doing something i absolutely hate. hate. hate. i was doing late payment collections, which in its entirety isn’t all that bad. but it also means i have to sort through each account and figure out why they have credits etc. i hate all things that have to do with math or accounting. like. death to it. i’m so lucky to have an accountant for a best friend or else the money side of my business would be in absolute shambles.

then in the middle of all this i got a nastygram email from a customer complaining about rental prices.

seriously? i wanted to throw my computer out the window and just leave. it took all i had to not break into those dramatic, heaving sobs of anger and despair. i just wanted out. out out out.

i typically never leave for lunch but that day i decided if i didn’t i might end up just totally losing it. so i got in my car and got a calorie laden lunch (the new chicken milano from quiznos. yum – also, emotional eater much?) and drove around listening to my book on my iphone.

i stopped in a random parking lot and rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof of my car and let the sun pour in. i did a lot of praying and asking God to just help me get through the next four hours with out killing someone. i seriously felt at the end of my rope.

then i got a phone call from the hubs asking if we could forgo our dinner plans and take a couple of folks out to dinner. there were two guys from texas here getting a feel for the area and having chris show them around so they could bring a youth group here for some mission work this summer. at that point i didn’t care what we did so i said sure. whatever. i went back to work.

i honestly couldn’t tell you anything about the rest of my afternoon at work. i think i’ve blocked it from my memory similar to something traumatic like a car accident.

but that evening we took these two guys to dinner at a little restaurant down the road from our house called the cheniere shack. they wanted crawfish. everyone that comes to visit wants crawfish. 😉 they asked me what i did. i hesitantly told them about my day job, carefully leaving out details that might bring the horrible day back to me. then i started talking about my blog and my shop.

words poured freely from me, describing what i blog about, how much i love handmade, where i find inspiration for signs, and how much i love to do graphic design. they were aggies, so i showed them my subway art, note cards, and a picture of a canvas made from one of my files. they were complementary and totally impressed by my work.

it is one thing to have someone tell you in an etsy message that they love their sign. it is quite another to see the way a person’s face changes when they look at your work into awe and admiration. i was floored that someone would like my things that much.

we talked a little more about me and then the conversation moved on to much more interesting things. we left and the guys went back to the church they were staying the night at. on the way home, i explained my horrible day to chris and how much i was dreading going back to work the next day.

he apologized for dropping this dinner on me at the last minute. he said if he had known how my day had been he would have done something different.

but you know what. it was exactly what i needed. being around positive and uplifting people after a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day was the perfect medication for my sour mood and rainy day outlook. their words of affirmation reminded me that my job is not who i am. it might be what pays the bills but it will never define me. and thank God for that.

and i told him as much.

so
thank you God for the words of affirmation that i so desperately needed.
thank you God for the fattening and delicious sandwiches at quiznos.
thank you God for sunshine and sunroofs.
thank you God for husbands who understand me.
thank you God for getting me through those four hours of work so i could really see your plan for me that day.

ps – turns out i was having some womanly hormonal issues going on… not the “i’m pregnant kind” but the kind that have to happen in order to get to the “i’m pregnant” kind. i was ovulating people. and it clearly does nasty things to my hormones!