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**THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED! CONGRATULATIONS TO ZAHRA FOR WINNING THANKS TO RANDOM.ORG!!!**
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HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE! It’s … GRATEFULNESS FRIDAY GIVEAWAY TIME!
I want to start this post with a serious THANKS to every single one of the Gratefulness Friday Giveaway sponsors. These vintage lovers/sellers/passionate people generously donate pieces from their own collections and pay to have the prize packs shipped to each giveaway’s winner.
They do this because they support the mission of Sammy Davis Vintage, and they support vintage lovers like YOU! So to everyone who has participated in the past 11 Gratefulness Friday Giveaways, thank you for your donations and for doing what you do!
In addition to the excitement of today’s awesome prep-inspired vintage prize pack giveaway [that’s perfect for back to school!] thanks to New Old Fashion Vintage, I want to hint at some “future” excitement regarding Sammy Davis Vintage.
First, I’m happy to announce that one week from today I will begin working weekends at a Lower East Side boutique … so NYC vintage lovers can visit me and be personally styled in VINTAGE!
Not only am I soon working at a vintage boutique, but in a few weeks I am launching New York City vintage store tours! You’ll be able to visit the best vintage stores for your style taste with me as your guide and vintage-fashion-resource. If you’re interested in taking a tour, definitely shoot me an email so I can offer you an introductory rate first ;-)
And last but definitely not least, I will be speaking at two panel events during New York City Fashion Week. Official announcements coming next week, so stay tuned!
OK. Enough about me! Before jumping into today’s giveaway, I want to say a few things about today’s sponsor.
I first met Amelia of NOFV because I featured one of her pieces in my Shop Finds page. We started chatting on Etsy and soon learned that she was currently living in my HOMETOWN!
Soon after chatting Amelia up on the web, I paid a visit to my family and with Amelia as my thrift shopping buddy, my hometown Salvation Army! We had a ton of fun sharing deets on all things vintage fashion and pursuing our passions as 20-something women as we connected between the aisles of thrift fashion glory.
I’m so happy that I have the chance to share Amelia’s amazing New Old Fashion Vintage Etsy shop with all of you — and to announce that she is offering 20% off to all of you using the discount code “SAMMYD” in checkout!
OK vintage lovers, NOW it’s time to jump right into today’s giveaway … and the gratefulness Friday story that inspired it all. Keep reading after the jump to learn how to enter to WIN!
It’s Friday, so I hope many of you are either a.) gearing up for a fun weekend and counting down the hours at work until you can make your summer escape or b.) have already taken off for the day and are en route to somewhere sunny & fabulous now!
I’m spending the weekend relaxing and as you’ll read in today’s gratefulness story … NOT running! But I’m grateful for the opportunity to practice the virtue of patience.
Let me know what’s up with you, vintage lovers! Say hi on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and by shooting me an email, [email protected]
xx, SD
THANK YOU!
I AM GRATEFUL FOR … THE PRACTICE OF PATIENCE
Many of you know that one of my many passions in life — besides loving and learning everything about vintage fashion — is running.
I wasn’t a particularly athletic girl in high school, choosing to stay after school to work on the school newspaper instead of doing sprints at the track. So it really came as a surprise to me when more than a year ago, I learned that I possessed the gift of running.
Since deciding to “run outside three times a week” as one of my New Year Resolution “trys” for 2010, I’ve conquered dozens of road races, completed my very first marathon and most recently, hired a running coach to help train for the New York City Marathon on November 6th.
When I find a passion — and one that I am good at! — I have a tendency to jump right into it with a do-or-die attitude. I recognize that rather than look at it as simply “pleasure,” I admittedly create my own pain by creating “activity objectives” and “strategy” to reach my self-made goals.
Running began as an outlet for me to de-stress and return to the moment by connecting with the beauty that is this world for a quiet hour every morning. But with the realization of my running potential, the pleasure principles of the activity were replaced with objectives, strategy and yes, those self-made goals.
Not that all of those things are bad. But what I’ve realized this week — thanks to an injury I’m suffering in my piriformis muscle which has prevented me from running for nearly 3 weeks — is that sometimes our goals and desires cannot be reached at the speed and moment we wish to reach them … and this is more than OK.
Like many of you experience in your own daily lives, yesterday was a particularly hard day of ups and downs for me. One moment I was so frustrated thinking that my injury would prevent me from running the New York City marathon. The next, I decided to scale back my goals and remind myself that I could probably run it, just not to the speed I initially thought I would based on the training developed by my coach.
Then, an hour later: “I can’t run the marathon at a slower speed! That’s not acceptable!” And still, yet another later my mind gently saying: “Just let it be, you don’t even know yet what opportunity may grow from this “down time” with your injury. Perhaps you will enter training again rejuvenated and with the knowledge you need to conquer two months of training!”
Let’s just say that I had a “good” attitude angel on one shoulder and “bad” attitude devil on the other, whispering and screaming different things in my ears.
So what do *I* really want? For this injury to heal already!!!
Which brings me to the point of today’s gratefulness post: The universal lesson I’m learning from this experience is to be grateful for the practice of patience.
Sure, our patience is tested everyday thanks to traffic, work and personal relationships and even just waiting in line for our food or for the ATM machine. We live in a very high-speed world and it can be overwhelming to “keep up” with it all both physically and in our minds.
But there is another sort of patience that isn’t just about the conveniences of the day: It’s about the character of our consciousness and the loving, sometimes faint voice in our minds that sweetly reminds us “we are perfect just as we are right now, no matter what our goals and expectations may be.”
I have the expectation of someday using my running ability for a professional purpose. This goal grew into a desire, which grew into a need and now because of my injury, a frustration. The practice of patience reminds me that I am still on that path of accomplishing my goals — and that it is perfect just as it is now, even if my ego’s evil voice (or devil on my shoulder) is telling me that “things must change.”
The practice of patience to truly love ourselves as we are now can be used in a variety of situations. Perhaps you’re frustrated that you haven’t found “the one” to live your life with yet. Or someone at work was promoted to a managerial position but you remain assistant — even though you’ve been there 6 months longer than this work colleague.
Patience tests us in work, education, personal lives and especially with our passions. No matter the situation, the practice of patience is a gift because it enables us to see that while ambitions and growth are positive steps to take, not having reached those goals now does not define us in this moment.
The practice of patience reminds me that there is no future and there is no past — there is only now. So while I want to run the NYC marathon at the peak of my performance, I do not need to take the “level” of my past and use that as a barometer of how I must perform on November 6. I am only what I am now, and that is what I will love and cherish to use for my future steps, wherever they may lead me.
I’m sure so many of you can think back to a situation where the practice of patience actually benefited you. Perhaps you waited to leave your job, and within a few months you were given a fantastic promotion that exceeded any of your expectations. Or perhaps you let yourself continue to chronically date to find the “perfect one,” and a few years later he unexpectantly fell into your life … naturally.
Whatever the practice, your patience is a beautiful thing. Today I remind myself that my injury is not a negative, but rather that there is opportunity is this obstacle. My patience will serve me for a bright future because I appreciate what and who I am now.
I can’t wait to learn how you remind yourself to love the natural moment of your life now … thanks to patience!
xx, SD
THIS VINTAGE PRIZE PACK FROM NEW OLD FASHION VINTAGE INCLUDES …
(1) ’80s white diamond on black print blouse with short sleeves and peplum waist (size medium)
(1) ’80s silver secretary blouse with shimmer “V” print (size medium)
(1) ’80s faux reptile belt in oxblood/burgundy color and silver crescent shaped buckle
HOW TO ENTER GRATEFULNESS GIVEAWAY #12
For a chance to win the entire vintage fashion prize packed listed above valued at $50, you must enter between today [Friday, August 5th] and by midnight on Monday, August 8th.
You can only enter once, and all winners will be drawn at random using the site random.org. Winners will be announced by Wednesday, August 10th.
Enter by answering the following question in the comment fields or Facebook comment fields below this contest post:
**Describe how the practice of patience benefited you or created a positive outcome**
OTHER IMPORTANT RULES
**Entrants/Winners must be legal U.S. residents of the lower 48 states (not including Alaska and Hawaii) and at least 18 years old as of August 5, 2011.
**For full contest rules and regulations can be found here
**All information submitted by contestants is subject to Sammy Davis Vintage’s privacy policy found here
SPECIAL THANKS TO GIVEAWAY SPONSOR NEW OLD FASHION VINTAGE!
Sammy Davis Vintage Gratefulness Friday Giveaways are made possible thanks to the generous donations of online vintage sellers.
To spread vintage love, I host these giveaways to not only introduce one lucky winner to the world of vintage, but to introduce all of you to an online seller with other vintage finds that you may want to give a happy home.
This week’s sponsor is NEW OLD FASHION VINTAGE! Please give her Etsy shop a look, and let her know that Sammy Davis Vintage sent you!
Please support the Gratefulness Giveaway sponsors by visiting their online shops and saying hello!
Thank you for supporting vintage sellers to spread vintage love!
HAPPY ENTERING & GOOD LUCK!!!!
SPECIAL DISCOUNTS FOR VINTAGE LOVERS!
Patience is a super important part of a New Yorkers life! Especially when you commute via public transportation everyday to midtown which is always packed with people. A little patience goes a long way, and sets the tone of your day. Be patient, and smile! :)
Living in NYC I feel like sometimes patience can be hard to come by. However, it recently played a major role in my life. I had been working in communications for a nonprofit for a little over a year. During the course of that year there had been a huge restructuring, which resulted in a large number of my fellow employees being let go, combined with just a general amount of consistent turnover. Morale as you can image was low and sometimes it was a struggle to come into work. As a result, my department slowly dwindled down until it was just me. I had to shoulder a lot of responsibility and yet was still considered just an Assistant and was being paid pretty marginally. A lot of my friends were telling me to quit. Leaving the company just didn’t feel right to me, especially considering I was the only one left. I decided to be patient. As a result I was not only promoted but received a raise and I LOVE my new boss.
I’ve learned the biggest amount of patience when it came to my major – music education. Just a year ago, my parents basically threatened me if I did music – they would deny the idea of college if I ever chose such a thing. It was painful to hear such things from my parents, to know that they were taking me away from something I truly loved and felt a deep calling for. On top of that, I was rejected as a music major but only accepted as a minor, which I then felt would push me behind to graduate on time. I was impatient to know that if this music thing was really what I was supposed to do, but then I realized that God was working His way in my life. For my first semester in college, I had to prove to the music department that I had the abilities to be considered as a Bachelor’s of Music, so along with patience, I had to have perseverance and a lot of self-discipline. Long story short, their minds were changed after I re-auditioned. I am now a Music Ed major – my ultimate dream. The best part is that when I told my parents, they were okay with it! It took them a year to fully transform their mindsets. I was amazed and finally realized that some things are seriously just worth waiting for.
My first year of college was also the first year I became an assistant coach to the University High School girls varsity lacrosse team, and I was all but prepared for the 6 months of practice and strategy training ahead. I played lacrosse during high school in SoCal and came away with extraordinary new friends and confidence, so I thought to extend those wonderful benefits to new players by coaching. But as it turned out, the team had become a rag-tag group of misfits during my two-year absence. It took weeks of grueling conditioning, strategy lectures, skill drills, and teamwork exercises to whip the girls into shape–all of which require the utmost level of patience from both coaches and players. Even then, problems arose every step of the way, and more than once I felt unappreciated and defeated. But after losing five consecutive games, the team finally won the first game of the season and our stats began to rise. All it took was time– if not a little more conditioning. That is how the UHS Girls Lax team hit CIF in 2010: Patience. Endurance. Confidence.
N
Patience is gained by an understanding of the word. Having had children and now grandchildren – the word has been tested over and over again. It is a lesson learned through the eyes of children – on listening and hearing what they are saying – and not hurrying them along. Thank goodness for them – as they have helped me re-learn what patience really means – all over again. – By re-learning this, I am have become a better listener not only to my grandchildren – but in life itself.
When you have patience you have time to understand the unique gift of that individual. You also have the time to think about a situation and be in the moment to learn the life lesson being taught by the relationship. There are many ways to solve problems – and the results can be better than if rushed.
patience is something you can’t afford to lose when working with kids, I was an ESL tacher for over two years and some of the kids required an extra amount of patience from me. If you start thinking about the future ( when te present isn’t as you wanted) maybe you’ll get frustrated and the urge of quitting will knock on your door. So whenever you think that what you’re going through isn’t what you expected mentaly repeat this phrase: “This too shall pass”
Well I have to admit patience is something I am still working on, but I have learned to sometimes remind myself to just take a breath and relax a minute. I used to have a terrible commute to work in my car and I would get so impatient with traffic. But I found my patience most of the time and it probably saved me a potential fender bender and a few stressful moments.
I learned patience when i keep entering contest for free things and i keep losing but i learned that one day i would have to be patient and calm that i might will be able to win something like win this but i haven’t won anything yet so i am just being patient.