no rain, no rainbow

I was having the worst day. The problems began at 6:50 this morning when I couldn't find my car key. I searched all over my house and finally came to the conclusion that I would, in fact, have to walk the 10 minutes to my neighbor's house to get the spare.

So I did. I texted my boss and my teaching bestie on the way to let them know. Got to Liz's house and she still wasn't answering her phone and her doorbell/call system thingy wasn't working. So then I was waiting. and waiting.

I texted Liz's neighbor Julie to see if she was awake. No dice.

Eventually, another girl in her building came out to walk her dog, so I got in the gate. I rapped (wrapped?) on her door and woke her up - her alarm didn't go off, so kinda good that I came over at 7:07am. I got my key and walked back home.

When I got home, I wrote a note to my neighbors to hang on the door - asking them to keep an eye out for my key. Maybe it was in the leaves outside on the ground - I wasn't sure, but I didn't want my car to get stolen.

I get all my stuff, the keys, my coffee, the note, and some tape, and headed downstairs to the door that goes outside only to look up and see my keys hanging on this little pipe by the mailboxes:

They were there all night. And after all that trouble I found them. Did I mention I even checked my mailbox before I walked to Liz's house? Isn't this always the way? Grrrrrrr!!!!

So annoying. I was 40 minutes late to work. (I hate being late.) I also had things to do - and spending 40 minutes trying to find keys was not exactly how I wanted to spend my morning today.

Drove to work and spilled coffee on my pants.

Got to work and barely get done what I needed to for my guided reading group before I have to get to a common plan - but I did get it done....I work well under pressure, annoyed or not.

#trudat

I just wanted to go home. I knew I had such a long day ahead of me - Thursday is the evening I teach grad school - and I just wanted to be in my bed under my covers, maybe with some chocolate, hiding from everyone. But, I had to work.

The rest of my day job was fine. Nothing super exciting. It was picture day and I usually get a new shirt or dress for the occasion, but I've been so busy that I haven't even had time to do so. The horror!

I left work early and called my bff. I thought she was mad at me, but she said she wasn't. But then, when I told her I had to get off the phone about 10 minutes later (after I talked about *myself* the whole 10 minutes) she finally told me what's up: That I never call her and I only do when I have to complain about my day or something else about me. Duly noted.

10 minutes later I sent her this:

Her reply? "lol, ok."

We're good now.

Then it was grad school, and I was expecting my bad day to go out with a bang in a true, craptastic way, but it was just the opposite.

We covered guided reading today and it was great. We had great discussion. One group presented on independent reading (one of my most favorite things!)

And then, at the end of the class, it happened. We were just finishing session 7 (of 8) and a few people came up to tell me that they have really learned alot. Another person said that there's so much that they can take back to their classrooms from our class.

It was all smiles and appreciations and then laughter over this:

When I showed them this, they all grabbed their phones and took pictures of it and loved it - because it's so true. We're all stuck in the Dark Evil Vortex of Late September, October and November right now - with first year teachers somewhere between Survival and Disillusionment - so it was pretty funny to see their reaction to this graph. Funny, because it's true and we all get it.

I don't know. I just expected this day to be so awful - and it was my students who cleared the rainclouds and brought the sun back out. Thank you so much! You made my day!

Who brought happiness to you today?

It's Friday Eve and I'm off Monday! Hope you are too!

Night,