Cute Boys and Walmart

The cute boys pictured above are my two younger children. Ben (3) is on the left and James (5) is on the right.

Leaving my job as overnight people greeter on Friday morning, I noticed that the merchandise supervisor at Walmart was marking a bunch of kids' clothes down to a dollar. I went back later in the day and got these matching outfits for Ben and James. I got a bunch of other things too, 15 items in all, for $15.

I've been learning to appreciate the job at Walmart. Working from 10pm to 7am five nights a week is hard and I'm often ready to leave by 4am, but the fact that I'm using it to fund my midwifery education makes it worth it.

Standing at the door leaves a lot of time for thinking. Here are some things I've noticed:

Ways that Being the Overnight People Greeter is Like Being a Midwife

• You spend hours looking like you aren't doing anything.
• You have to be able to just wait around.
• Being able to read people matters.
• After hours of using your keen powers of observation, you'll need to fix something, then go back to waiting.
• It's important to have a good sense of humor.

To help motivate myself to keep showing up at the Walmart, I've made one of those fundraising chart thingies to keep track of how much I've raised for midwifery school. I'll warn you now that in the coming weeks and months I'm going to be extending my fundraising to friends and family.

Here's my chart:

That little colored in bit is the $500 that I have in my midwifery savings account. The goal at this point is to earn/raise $13,000. I'll post pictures of my chart as it gets colored in.