I love a good compliment!  Who doesn't?  I love receiving them and I love giving them.  If you receive a compliment from me, you can rest assured it's sincere.  I have no problem in telling you I like your new hair cut or color, the new dress or pants you have on, or a kindness I observed.  On the other side of that, I really appreciate it when someone graces me with a genuine compliment.  I have a younger classmate in my graduate program and she has been so sweet to mention a couple of times that she likes my "style," that I always look really cute.  That sort of floors me because I'm doing well if I have freshly laundered clothes on, but I suppose I do have a particular style that I like.  I try to dress appropriately for a 39 year old mom of three, but I also try to not look too matronly on a daily basis.  If I had a bigger budget, I'd dress much better.  For now it's nice to have my meager wardrobe complimented!

Today, I wore my hair curly.  It's not cut to be worn curly right now, but with this humidity and the threat of lots of rain today, I had to go curly.  Before the first period bell rang, two other teachers had complimented my hair which made me feel much better.  I was not terribly pleased with it this morning and when I asked PJB if it was ok, she didn't even look at me and mumbled, "Yeah."  So, a couple of nice compliments helped me out.

Three compliments stand out in my mind as being the best of all time.  When Parker was nearly two years old, Jamie looked at me one day and told me I was a wonderful mother.  It was a sweet moment and I feel like it was maybe a little premature because, honestly, being a good mom to toddler Parker was pretty easy.  The other two weren't given to me directly; rather, they were said about me to another person who passed it along.  Those are really even better.  I was called "lovely" by a woman I deeply respect (I've never thought of myself as lovely), and I was referred to as "a real woman of God" by another person who I esteem highly who knew I was right in the middle of a pretty deep valley at the time.  Now, I'm so very hesitant to even share that last one because I am so far from being anyone's model of what a truly devoted woman of God looks like.  I say bad words; I gossip; I lose my temper; I don't have my quiet time everyday; and I'm incredibly prideful (surprised?  I mean, this post is just full of humility.).

Because I enjoy compliments so much, I tend to notice when others never give them.  Obviously, one has to spend some time with another person before they realize this, but for some reason this is a big deal to me.  It just really is!  Not to get all "sisterhood of women" on you, but I think we're called to lift each other up.  I'll not say much more about that, but it bothers me.  I suppose I think that perhaps they're following the old adage, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," and I'm just wondering why they never have anything nice to say.  I've really only known about three people this applies to, but again, I'm bothered enough that it has affected my perception of them as gracious individuals.

Moral of the story:  Compliment me if you want to be my friend.

Ha!  Not really, but kind of...  I'll praise you, too!

I don't really have any idea why I'm in this place, thinking about this today.  I need to be better about praising my girls -- I think of that ratio "they" say to use in the classroom:  Three positives to every one negative.  I don't meet that goal very often at all, but I'm going to be more determined to do so.

And...FYI...I suppose I'm doing pretty well in the weight loss thing.  Eight days and down five pounds!  I'm just watching calories, making better choices, and walking 40 minutes to an hour at least three nights a week.  It's beginning to work!  I've got to keep the momentum going because it's usually at this point that I think it's all good and I quit being so diligent.  Keep on keepin' on!