You Would See the Biggest Gift Would be From Me...

Lately, I've been sleeping in in the morning. Sarah has been happy in her bed until almost nine these days so I take the opportunity to rest my sesame-seed growing body in the mornings. Most days I go down and make Joel's lunch and breakfast and then crawl into bed for some more rest. It's a great way for me the start the day. It seems a leisurely wake-up creates a more relaxed atmosphere for me in the day. The other morning I laid there thinking about how I need to work harder on appreciating Joel.

I began to look back on my life and the times I haven't felt quite appreciated for the effort I seemed to be putting into friendships, relationships, jobs, etc. and I decided that Joel deserves the best I can give him and more. I know, I know you are thinking - "why write a blog about this, seriously...this is mushy-gushy personal stuff" Well, here's your answer -

Let me first veer off course once more: I've been writing for eHow.com lately. I write articles on stuff I know I about and you get paid a portion of the ad revenue from the visitors of your articles. It's really a cool deal, I've got about 22 articles written and seem to be making small steps everyday. I told Joel a little about it and he gave me the usual, "That's great, honey." so I thought he didn't care much about it. No big deal, it's my thing and I actually LOVE doing it even if I didn't make any money at it....Back to the story:

Saturday night, out of the blue, here's our conversation:
Joel: "Hey, where's that article website?"
Me: "Which one?"
Joel: "The one you write on."
Me: (Surprised look.) "Really? it's eHow.com"
Joel: "Cool."
Me: "Why do you want to know?"
Joel: "I'd like to read what you've written."

I was delighted. I didn't think he even remembered I was writing these. I maybe mentioned it to him twice. So, not only did he take a look at what I had written he was so praiseworthy of what I'd done. I almost cried. I felt so validated.

Since being a stay-at-home-mom I sometimes fall into that trap of feeling like what I do doesn't matter to anyone. I know I am doing the Lord's work by raising our child, I feel blessed beyond imagination to have the privilege of staying home. But there is that part of me that misses the graded progress that comes with having a job or being in school. I've found a great outlet in writing these how-to articles. I get positive feedback from other members and I have a chance to research and write - which is what I've really always wanted to do. (When I was in school I wanted to be hired to do research for a museum.)

Not all the articles are serious - one of them is called "How to cure a carsick dog" and another "How to know you are true Golden Girls fan" but some of them I take very seriously and hope they help some one else out there.

So, how this relates to my leisurely mornings thinking about I need to appreciate Joel more? Mainly it's that Joel finds the little ways that mean so much to me and makes my day with them (like writing 'Love You' with my eyeliner on the bathroom mirror before he left for work at 6am on Saturday morning). I am making a diligent effort to paid attention to the little things that mean so much to him, and return the love.