Thankful

Here are some things I have been thankful for over the last few days...
- Steve got home early yesterday
- no line at the Assessor's office
- no line at the DMV
- tooth sort of feels better
- Steve's truck should be all done tomorrow
- Tomorrow is FRIDAY

I'm sure there were others, too, but that's just what's coming to mind. I figured that was better than focusing on the negatives like the $600+ bill to fix the truck, the cats eating my leather shoes, and that my tooth still kind of hurts (meaning that it may have actually fractured under my crown with pulling the tooth being the only solution) :-(

I do have to share the one "you're kidding me" moment I had yesterday.

During recess yesterday, I ran out to my car to get something. On my way through the office, one of my kids was heading into the counselor's office with the University student who is interning with our counselor this year. When I got back inside, I stopped by to see what was up. I knocked on the counselor's door and heard, "Come in." I opened the door and stuck my head in. The intern was there talking on her CELL PHONE, but my student was not. Here's our dialogue:

Me: "Do you know where Mayte is?"
Intern: "I'm on the phone right now." (said rudely)
*several second silence while I try to process what she just said*
Me: "Yes, and I am looking for a student you just had in here who is not here anymore!'"
Intern: (to the person on the phone) "I'm sorry, hold on just a second."
(to me) "I think she got sent back to your classroom or something."
Me: "Right."

I closed the door with a half angry/half "surely she didn't just say what I think she said" face and left to go to my room to look for the student. (Allow me to be sarcastic for a moment...) For some reason they kind of frown upon children being left unattended...especially since the student was either alone in class (a big no no) or she was taking herself out to recess, involving leaving the building and walking across the street behind our school (a bigger no no).

Our counselor was eating her lunch in the teachers' lounge, so as I walked through, I asked HER if she knew where Mayte was. She said she sent her out to recess, which was fine because that's where she was SUPPOSED to be. I briefly recounted the above interchange with her, so we'll hope that doesn't happen again!

13 days down!

165 days to go! I have an awesome group of kids this year, so I'm actually looking forward to those 165 days! So far my class is 21 kiddos...8 boys and 13 girls. They have their own little personalities and issues, but overall, they are a great class.

I have several personal goals at school this year that I can tell are already affecting my attitude at work. The first is to stay more organized than I have been the last two years. I tend to be bad about using something and setting it in a "junk accumulating area." Then I either can't find it later or spend time cleaning up messes I could have avoided. After the first day of school, I was SO proud of myself for putting things away as I was finished with them and was telling Steve how my classroom was already staying clean. His response was, "Ok, that was one day..." Smarty pants!

Goal number two is to keep a positive attitude. Last year's class was a challenge, but when I focused on the negative, things never got better. So, I'm really trying to be thankful for each child and for each day. It's going pretty well, too. That doesn't translate into never getting anyone into trouble or never begging for a foot rub in the evening, but it's helped me recognize all the blessings I receive each day.

So anyway, school's going well, home's going well. :-) Steve's got Saturdays off now, so that has been an INCREDIBLE blessing! I was telling him just today how much I have physically and emotionally relaxed because I know that each week, I have that guaranteed day that is just for us. It's also given him a lot more time to work on praise and worship music and just find some time to kick back, so that's been good to see. We've set Tuesday aside as our "no TV day," so we're using that evening to do Bible study together. We get so much more accomplished on Tuesdays since we're not tempted to spend the whole time watching TV!

Well, I guess while Steve's at worship practice I will go see what else I can get done this evening!