Frustration... unappreciation

I stood outside in the freezsing cold yesterday pushing yet another wheelbarrow of manure across the frozen mud and thought about life (in a most negative way!). Times like these make me feel so unappreciated...it is so frustrating. I clean these darn stalls out every day and i know the horses sure don't appreciate it. They could care less! Yet every night I haul out barrow after barrow of frozen manure so they can have a soft, clean space to sleep on. Do they even care that I am busting my butt to complete dozens of artwork orders in order to earn money to feed and support them? At this moment I am rushing as fast as possible because I need to be at the girls' Christmas concert in 15 minutes...I am sure they could care less if I was really there or not. At least that's the attitude they portray...I wonder sometimes why I bother. The one thing I do at home constantly is laundry...empty pockets of a million tissues, soak and scrub stains out of favorite outfits, take the time to smooth and press wrinkled shirts, sort and pair up the socks, yada yada day in and day out and no one really gives it a thought (instead I hear about how I 'do nothing'). The dishes magically get emptied out of the dishwasher, and the piles of nasty wet food-covered dirty dishes get rinsed and washed. Our band follows the football team through 15 games all the way through the state championships, plus pep assemblies and rah-rah sessions for the team...and no one connected with the team or the administration gives a thank you to the band (or me for working 100+ hours of overtime for no extra pay). The band is by far the most unappreciated group in this school or any school I have been to. This is sad, since there is no group of students more dedicated! They have to be dedicated to practice 2+ hours a day and give up every weekend and get NO words of thanks or compliments from anyone else associated with the school or athletic department. The one place where I felt appreciated was walking out of the church in downtown Dayton where I just played a Christmas service gig...so many of the church members thanked me for playing for them...heck, and I did it because I needed the money....I got appreciation plus a couple hundred bucks!

Tis the season and all that, I just need to lighten up I guess. I was doing great financially, and then the Christmas bills came up on my credit card and cone again I had to dip into savings to pay the bill. Oh well, Christmas is only once a year, and hopefully everything will be appreciated on Christmas morning. if not, well, that isn't so different from any other day, so who am I to complain?