Oh today.

Ohhhhh today.

Oh woe is me.

My baby won’t sleep well, I have to continually pump milk, my husband is on the road and won’t be home till late, I haven’t been able to prep dinner yet, the glass baby bottles I ordered showed up and I’m such a dumbass I ordered 4oz instead of 8oz and will now have to sell these on ebay and order new ones.

Oh woe the f is me.

Woe. Or, if you prefer Joey Lawrence. Whoa! or Keanu Reeves. Whooooooa.

So in my incapacitated by baby actually napping on me status, I’ve been making my Google Reader blow apart at the seams by going through the Oh the Joys Blogroll and adding a gazillion new sites to check in on. In my frenzy, I found this.

Yeah. So let me reframe my above tale of woe into something more grateful.

I love my baby. I may not love spending quality time with him awake round the clock, but I love my baby and I’m so grateful he’s with us.

I have the superpower ability to pump milk for my baby. I have not run out. I have enough. He is not hungry. Nor am I. And if I so chose, I have the finances and the clean water to make formula.

My husband is coming home to me. He’s safe another day. And he’s not off with some skinny bitch secretary.

I have food for dinner to prep. Organic, grass fed, food.

Ebay. Lord. I’ll probably make a profit on what I spent on the bottles. So I’m a dumbass. This is not new information.

So. Philanthropy. Which goes along with my Gen X Grandma Values I’m trying to work into my life.

My college sorority has asked the alums to send them products to donate for care bags for a local women’s shelter. I had finally cleared out all the sample sized stuff I had that would be practical. It’s sitting on the end of my bed ready to be mailed. The philanthropy post brings me back around to the gratitude of having enough to share, and chips away at my fear of “but I could use that!” When? Let it go. Bless someone else.

The thing I regularly do is tithe. And here’s how I have been going about it, I share this to be a part of the Philanthropy Thursday concept, but also because this might inspire you to determine your own level of “enough”.

My second year teaching I estimated what 1% of my paycheck would be and rounded off. 10 dollars, twice a month. My third year of teaching, I made it 2% (20 dollars, twice a month). This year, even though I am not working, I have decided to go ahead and increase it again, to 30 dollars, twice a month. We have enough.

For me the key is where I chose to send my money. One check goes to the church we attended before we moved, and I will continue to send my money there as long as we don’t have a home church in the land of the vices.

The other check is the one that is closer to my heart. My grandma (mom’s mom, not dad’s mom from the other post), died at the end of my first year teaching. She had lived in a tiny town with a tiny church that she was a member of for 89 years. 89 years. My great great grandma helped build that church congregation. There are few members because there are few people in the town. When were back for the funeral I knew this was a place where I could feel good about sending money. 240 dollars a year was a percentage of their budget. My money would matter to them.

But it’s really a selfish thing. Once a month, I sit and I write out a check. The entire time I write the check, enter it in the ledger, and address the envelope, I am thinking of my grandma. And I feel grateful for her. I remember. It’s my own monthly communion.

So there’s my Philanthropy Thursday.