Gratitude vs. Discontent

Hi all! How was your Tuesday? Mine was okay. I am really looking forward to tomorrow because I can stay home from work and play with my baby. Wahoo!

We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka: LDS, Mormons, etc. My husband and I were asked to speak in church the Sunday following Thanksgiving, and our topic is gratitude. Let me tell you what, I needed this topic to be assigned to me.

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that I am unhappily employed. The job is fine, blah blah, but I truly dislike being away from Kjersten, my daughter. On the days that I do work, I see her maybe three hours at best. Lame sauce. My job is uber boring right now too. They say that it's feast or famine in this position, and I've been perpetually famished almost since I've started. If any of you lot are acquainted with the Deehr family, you will know that lack of activity is not good for our nervous systems; we get nervous if we're not doing anything. I try to be a good employee and occupy my time well, but I can only read for so long, shoot the breeze with so many co-workers before I start feeling guilty, and move my car so many times (downtown parking requires you move every two hours. Lame sauce again.). Today, I had about 1 1/2 hour work out of the eight that I was there. That's no good.

Now that we've got the discontented part down, how does gratitude work into all of this? This job opening came at a time when I really, really needed to start working. I hadn't had any interviews yet, and was extremely discouraged about the whole job-finding process. The pay is not worth my credentials, but I am learning all about drugs and alcohol, an area I can use some education in considering I've never drank or used drugs in my life. The people I work with are great, though I'm not so impressed with the company.

Let me summarize: the best marriage advice Jonas and I received was to "Be happy now." And gratitude has to be in that equation; how I can be happy without being thankful? So my situation may not be everything wonderful and good, and I need to be okay with that. I need to make the situation the best that I can. Then end.