Grateful Friday

It's conference weekend in October!  I think this is my favorite weekend of the whole year.  I love General Conference in October and April but I especially love autumn, so October wins.  The mountains are aflame with red trees and it makes my heart sing.

I'm looking forward to spending time with my family and spending time being spiritually fed and lifted.  

Mark's going to spend the weekend and we're going to squeeze in yard work between Saturday sessions (we promised Mark we wouldn't make him mow).  

I'm grateful for this weekend.

I'm grateful that tonight we're going with friends to see Nate Bargatze perform.  Adam and I have watched his Netflix special and he is funny!  It will be a good time and I will try my best not to turn into a pumpkin as I stay out past my bedtime.

I'm grateful for my glasses.

Yesterday we read a story about Benjamin Franklin and some of his inventions.  He invented bifocals!  I told my class that I had some.  "Did Ben Franklin make your glasses?!?"

How old do they think I am?

Then they all wanted to try them on and I told them they looked very fashionable.  One little girl who sits in the front because she can't see and has lost her glasses, said she could see!  It reminded me I need to see what I can do to get her some glasses.

I'm grateful for modern medicine.  I always am (see: Mark and all my other loved ones who are still alive because of modern medicine).  I have decided to try a new route with my neck/back/headaches.  A Spine and Pain Clinic opened nearby and if that isn't right up my alley, I don't know what is.  I went yesterday.  Assuming my insurance is OK with it, I'm going to get a nerve ablation and physical therapy. I called to report to my sisters and Marianne told me that it is good for her first year teacher daughters to read about my travails on my blog.

We're all in this together!

And speaking of that, I'm grateful for the teachers who share their stories with me.  I feel less alone too.  Yesterday another teacher had a student with an accident (number 2 and that is horrific) and a student throw up.  On the same day.

A different teacher cried when talking about low reading scores. (She may or may not be a 4th grade teacher with a lot of my former students....)  It feels so helpless and hopeless at times.

We have each other to laugh and cry and feel horrified with.  We try and we fail (the mean girl talk didn't really solve anything).

We try again.

And it's definitely not all terrible.  They think I'm funny (and not many people do after all).  Yesterday I sneezed and said, "I must be allergic to third graders!"

It slayed them.