Chain Of Blessings

I am a firm believer that if you open yourself to receive, you will. I believe that if you put positive energy out into the universe positive energy will come back to you. I believe that allowing yourself to remain in a negative space will only cause you harm and stifle your possibilities.

Everyday and night I give thanks to God for all that he has blessed me with. Not the tangibles but those blessings which are often taken for granted. I thank him for the ability to breath, to speak, to hear, to walk, to feel love and appreciate life. I too am grateful for my family, friends, food, water and shelter amongst many others.

What I want to mention today however is an interesting chain of circumstances that have made me feel incredibly lucky and quite blessed. So far this year 2011 has been a great one! The moment that I got rid of that one negative in my life (my job with a not so great company) on January 14th 2011 (blessing#1) so many things have worked out in my favor! When I was there I was in 8 hours of misery.  I battled with finding my happy place because so much of my day was consumed with a place that did not foster happiness, and I had to do it everyday. That first week that I had my freedom to enjoy life, I jumped right in to work on our home! My first project was the coat closet, I had to make it pretty and I did! After posting the closet to a forum it was selected as a feature on Casa Sugar! (blessing#2) I didn't even know! I stumbled upon the feature when I was browsing around for other ideas. I was shocked and honored.

Then on February 10th I received an email from the Nate Berkus show saying that they discovered my blog and also saw my closet feature and wanted me to be a guest on their show! (blessing#3) That never happens, to me at least! I never wrote to them, I never blogged about them but yet they found me and I was on their show. During that trip I was able to connect with my friend Monica (blessing#4), she and I used to work together back in 2002-2004 in Atlanta. We began to talk about our prior employer Tax Partners who was bought out in 2005 by Thomson and Reuters and how apparently they had misclassified our position and owed several people back pay. She said they tried to keep it on the low and didn't make an official announcement. I left that company in 2004, so I wasn't privy to this information. Not to mention, Chris and I were in transition so any mail that may have been sent could have gotten misplaced. Monica said she received back pay of $2100 back in 2005, wow! Having knowledge of this, I began to wonder if I might be owed back pay and if being 6 years removed from this would put me outside of some statute of limitations.

Once the Nate Show was over and upon my return I emailed Thomson and Reuters on February 27th, just to see if they were aware of the Tax Partners thing. About a week later on March 7th, I was blessed yet again, with news that our local CW station wanted to interview me about my experience. (blessing #5) Shortly thereafter, The Nate Show called to let me know that they wanted to notify our local newspaper The Columbus Dispatch (hee hee...inside joke) about my being on the show so that they could mention it in the TV Listing section of the paper, which they did! (blessing #6) After all of the excitement of the show, watching it with my family on March 14th and having received one of the two designer gift shipments; I took time to reflect and give all thanks to God for the great experience and opportunity.

Then, the day after watching the airing of the Nate Show I received an email on March 15th...from Thomson and Reuters. They asked me to send them my address so that they could overnight me a detailed explanation regarding my inquiry. Not sure as to what they wanted to send and a bit anxious I replied back "an explanation showing that I've missed the back pay window?" They replied back..."No, it's good news." So as you can imagine I replied back with my address and phone number! A couple days later I received a letter that in summary stated "back in 2005 Tax Partners misclassified your position and you were not compensated fully for overtime pay...we sent you a letter on December, 16th 2005 along with a check in the amount of $2,534.05...but the check was NEVER CASHED!!!! We are able to re-issue this check to you." (blessing #7)

Had I never rid myself of that negative job in January 2011, I wouldn't have had the time I needed to work on my closet and blog more, which garnered the attention of the Nate Show, who due to their invitation to be on their show in New York in February 2011, got me an opportunity to be interviewed by the CW, referenced by The Dispatch; and also since they let me bring my friend Monica with me to the show gave us a chance to talk about our past employer (Tax Partners), which ultimately resulted in me getting back pay of $2,534.05 from 6 years ago in March of 2011! Talk about a chain of blessings and perfect timing. Now with Spring being here and our impending wedding, I'm a happy girl!

Life (a continuous blessing) has been so great lately and I'm certain it has a lot to do with ridding myself of negative energy, focusing on what makes me happy, and opening my heart and mind to life's possibilities. Even if I have to go back to work next week (which fortunately I don't...yet. Thanks for the support babe!), I will not forget all of the blessings and joy that I have received in this time. I take nothing for granted, and I am very aware that it's all God.

I wish all of you a happy Sunday!

Tatum