Grateful Friday

1- I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It is a distant pinprick but it is there and it makes me feel like I eventually will get a handle on things.

2- I'm learning so much.  Every day.  Too much really because it doesn't all stick.  Still.  It's exciting to be learning.  It's keeping my brain bendy.  One big takeaway I've learned?  If I'm calm, so are my students.  Wednesday, fresh off the heels of a collaboration meeting which was in a foreign tongue I don't understand (acronyms), I was stressed.  And I was stressed because as usual I felt like I was racing the clock.  And my students didn't behave so well.

Yesterday I took a breath and reminded myself to be calm.  Frequently.  It helped.  We were all less frazzled.

3- I really appreciate the people I work with.  From the first time I stepped into that school a few years ago, it felt like a happy place and where I wanted to be.  It still feels that way.  And it's not because of the bathrooms that resemble gas station bathrooms in Idaho.  You know the type and how clean they aren't.  It's because of the people.  Everyone is friendly and supportive and goes out of their way to check on me and encourage me and smile at me and make sure I know there are donuts in the teachers' room.

4- I'm grateful for my kids.  It was fun the other night to check in with Braeden and hear about how much he and Anna are enjoying their classes.  Emma is in high gear getting ready for France.  We've called them her "Freparations".  The other morning we both had a come-apart in the 7:00 AM hour which I will attribute to high emotions and low sleep.  Before I got to school she had texted me an apology.  She's a grown up mature girl and the only problem she truly causes is that she's going to France like some kind of deserter when I always want her down the hall.  Mark has been a pretty good sport about his newly abandoned-child state.  The problem is he's 1) spoiled rotten and 2) used to being the center of my world.  He's rising to the occasion and is kind to me.  And it's been a few days since I've cried because I feel guilty about him coming home to an empty house every day after school.  So there's that.

5- Adam always and forever makes me grateful.  He makes me laugh and rubs my back and tells me philosophical arguments about how this is all going to work out.  He pitches in and goes with me to Walmart when neither of us want to go within twenty miles of Walmart.  He always steadies the rocking boat.