I am incredibly grateful for all the blessings I have in my life and I forget to express that gratitude often enough. Here's just a few of the things I'm thankful for today:
My family - we have our struggles, but I am so lucky to be surrounded by the incredible spirits of my husband and 4 children. They support me, love me, stretch me, help me to grow, amaze me, surprise me, teach me, and everything in between.
My extended family - I am lucky to not only have incredible parents and siblings, but to have incredible in-laws as well. It's an awesome feeling to know that I have many people there to support and help me in any way they possibly can, not just if I need them, but because they want to.
My friends - I have so many, and I am especially thankful for the gals I student teach with. There are 7 of us that are working at the same elementary school this semester and we all car pool together. They are pillars of support and love to me -and I'm not even sure they know how much they do for me. I hope that I can be that for them in return. We're all under a ton of stress and it's just nice to have each other - to vent to, to laugh with, to talk to, to get advise from, just to be surrounded by other that "get it" because they are there, too.
My cooperating teacher - she is amazing and I'm learning so much from her. We've become such good friends in a short amount of time. I'm so glad that I go to a church school and that the faculty prays and uses inspiration when making our student teaching placements. I don't think they could have matched me up with a better teacher. We just get along and she "gets it", too. She knows I'm stressed, I know she's stressed and we both work to help the other.
Living in Hawaii - This has been a theme to my day today. At my elementary school instead of having the traditional Turkey Trot they decided to hold Makahiki games. It was SO MUCH FUN! I played a lot of the games with the kids and we all had a great time. AND my Thanksgiving turkey is, as I type, roasting away in an imu (an underground oven, pronounced like the bird, ee-moo) here on campus. How cool is that? I so can't wait to eat it. I was a little intimidated by the whole process, just because I didn't know what I was doing. Not that it's a hard process, I didn't have anything to do with the actual imu - just my turkey. But I didn't know how to prepare it. Turns out just just need foil - lots and lots of foil. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Black Friday Sales - Cameron and I have really gotten into Black Friday in the past, but since moving to Hawaii we haven't done the whole early morning thing since it's all an hour or more away. But this year we've got our eyes on a few prize buys, so wish us luck. Cameron's looking to get a new laptop (I think he's jealous of my new beauty, well and his is old and pretty much sucks) and I want the Cricut Expressions with is under $200 on Friday! That's like 1/2 price! I totally missed out on a Cricut sale in October - an educators special that was too good to be true and I was totally bummed. But this is even better! I can't wait.
4 day weekends - well, aren't we all. But I have a lot of homework and assignments and various stuff that I need to get done in pretty much every venue of my life - home, school, business, spiritual, I could probably go on, but I do only have 4 days! But I'm determined to get as much done as I can. There's only 3 weeks of school left this semester and I have to get everything done so I can start my full-time student teaching in January (which is super exciting and super scary all at the same time).
Big Ideas - I'm still in they very beginning stages of my charter school plans and things are already taking a different twist than I had envisioned, but the dream is still alive and well. In fact we just printed up a few business cards to take our networking up to the next level. I'm just grateful that I live in a country that allows us the freedoms to take control of our dreams and make them a reality - the sky's the limit.
There's more that I could add to my list, but I think I'll end it there for now. Maybe 2010 will be the year of gratitude - it would be fun to list all the things I'm thankful for for a whole year. Hmmm, something to think about whilst I'm drifting off to sleep tonight. Mmmmm sleep, I think I'd better get to sleep, I have a lot to do in the next couple of days!