Grateful Friday

We are all exhausted at school.  We keep saying to each other, "And school hasn't even started yet...."

The school nurse gave a presentation yesterday and stressed us all out.  A lot.

Every day I get good ideas from my fellow teachers about dealing with masks and face shields.  We are decorating our rooms with splashes of color and cheer but there is a heaviness too as we are physically and mentally hampered by a virus I wish I'd never heard of.

I'm grateful for our principal.  We had our first day of professional development meetings yesterday.  He wore casual clothes and said that after we were done, he was ready to help in our classrooms.  He would lift or load or hang up anything we asked.

He also said, "Summer school was our guinea pig and it worked!  Learning happened.  We can do this!"

I will love when the kids arrive.  They will save us from our stressed-about-the-virus-angst.  (Or at least they will distract us from it a bit.)

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I'm grateful for my family.  Mark checks me like a barometer when I get home from school and administers hugs as needed.  Adam sustains me when I am spent.  Emma and Braeden and Anna are a witty text away.

I'm grateful for my parents.  They are a dear and loved light in my life.  When I feel gratitude for my siblings (and I do--we're a hard headed opinionated lot but we love each other), I know that credit for the gift of brothers and sisters goes to my parents.

It is Tabor's birthday today.  He's 40 which seems impossible in a little brother who I remember holding the day he came home from the hospital.  Welcome to your 40s.  I hope you like Advil.

We were placed in families for a reason.