90 Days of Dating: TGIF.

Y'all, I can't even lie to you. It's been a long week.

It's the last week of the quarter which means that us teachers have been swamped with make-up work from students who didn't care until the last minute. My team teachers and I have also had at least one meeting of some sort every day this week. This stressful week has led me to this reaction:

 

This photo is so kindly provided by my cousin, who found my impending mental breakdown a bit funny. He was kind enough to play with my hair for a moment, though, so I have to give him props for that. And yes, Meredith girls, those are Cornhuskin' sweatpants you see. It was casual day at school :)

 

Nothing exciting has been happening on the internet and too many exciting things have been happening in my classroom and I wasn't in an upbeat mood to write this blog post.

 

But then Katy Perry happened. And Jesus happened, too.

 

Let's start with Katy Perry:

 

This is a link to a video of the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth doing a lip dub to Katy Perry's "Roar". Roar is currently my life theme song as I'm pushing through until second quarter. I also have a soft spot for little kids with cancer. To this day, the best present I've ever received was a donation to St. Jude in my name.

 

 

 

If this doesn't put a smile on your face, I can't help you.

 

As if Katy Perry wasn't enough, Jesus popped in my mind today.

 

"When the whole world's against you, it's just proving that no matter what anyone thinks, says, or does, God's still for you."

 

My current job is the third greatest things that's ever happened to me. It's third behind Jesus and being born into my family. Yes, it has it's hard days/weeks (see top picture for example), but goodness. I have friends. I have co-workers who like being around me. I'm more supported than I could have dreamed. I literally had a friend come into my classroom today, take a stack of papers off my desk, and called back over her shoulder, "I'll be back in an hour." She knew I was stressed out and she helped fix it. That's how awesome my job is.

 

I went through some a-four-letter-word-that-I-won't-use-because-sometimes-my-dad-reads-my-blog to get to this job. Some serious you-know-what. But I have seen more and more each day that those were simply stepping stones to get me here. Yes, those stones were spiky, were made of lava, and had poisonous moss growing on them,  but I know how to be thankful. I am thankful for the daisies that pushed up through the poisonous moss along the way (known as a few of my awesome former co-workers) and I'm thankful that I know that I have the strength to be infected with the poison from the moss and keep climbing.

 

I can apply this gratitude to the fact mindset that this week it's been hard to be single. Fair week always is. I deeply want to go on a date with a sweet man who calls me his to the fair; always have, always will. Seeing couple pictures under the fireworks and the Ferris wheel does things to my heart, but Jesus is good, guys. He's so very good.

 

So I'm going sit in my grassy knoll of happiness, with the sun shining down on the me, and be thankful that there isn't poison ivy in my grass at this moment. I'm going to be thankful that Jesus hasn't given up on me, even if I am about to give up on the flock of humans that currently populate the online dating world. I'm going to be thankful for my students and be thankful for this fall weather. I'm going to rest easy knowing that the rough moments are the stepping stones.

 

I'm going to be most thankful for the fact that I know that I'm never alone.