Interesting day

I had a great time visiting the Mary Kay unit meeting led by a different area director this morning. I'm going to be joining her meetings this semester because the graduate class I'm starting on the 24th is on Monday nights, the nights I would typically have meetings with my own unit. My director is thrilled that I made arrangements to go to training meetings with another director. She, herself, has a number of recruits who live in areas where they can't make it to our meetings, so they're "adoptees" in other units. This means that they're still part of our unit, but they get their training from directors in their areas. It happens all the time.

I went to get my books and Ron's books for our classes, but some of the books, Ron wanted to wait on because he thought he might already have some of them. I tried to express this to the lady at Books-to-Go, but she misunderstood me and charged my credit card with the books that he didn't want, plus the books I was getting. I said, "Wait, did you charge me for these books (the ones he wanted) or these (the ones he didn't)?" She pointed to the ones he didn't. I told her of this mistake. She voided the charge on my credit card, but then couldn't put in the new charge because the machine wouldn't accept it. So I left without any books. Ron's going to try his card when he gets off of work.

From there, I proceeded to the Wichita State University campus to present my financial aid award from the Graduate School, and was informed that my award had been reduced because I wasn't using the whole amount. I ended up owing a dollar, so I paid it. Done. My class is paid for.

Then, I'm coming home thinking about how I had to leave the bookstore without any of the books I went there to buy (and they were all there), and I start looking around at my surroundings: Every 15 feet or so in the areas where people lived along the main roads, branches that had broken off of trees during the ice storm were piled higher than those piling them were tall.

"Wow," I thought. I guess my problems are kind of trivial compared to all of this.

I guess the lesson I learned was that I'll always be able to find something to complain about, something that upsets me because I wasn't expecting it. But there are still a few thousand people without power, and tens of thousands who have branches piled up at their curbs or whole trees that had to be removed because of the storm. And we don't have any trees because we don't have a house. We didn't have to clean up any tree limbs or deal with other complications that result from tree damage, and we have electricity now, unlike others.

Secondly, I guess I should be more thankful that I have the small challenges I do instead of larger challenges. I have a wonderful husband who loves and respects me, we have a roof over our heads that provides us heat at a time when lots of people are cold and living in shelters because their own homes are inhabitable.

Thank you, God for all you've blessed us with.