I'm Conscious It Was A Great Week!

I just had THE most amazing week! I attended a Conscious Discipline Advanced Institute training on St. Simons Island, Georgia. It was a small group of about 45 educators, and we spent the week delving deeply into our own journeys with Conscious Discipline, as well as improving our skills at using it with children. Conscious Discipline is an adult-first approach to social-emotional learning that was developed by Dr Becky Bailey. The week certainly made for a terrific list of thankfuls!

First and foremost, I am thankful to Nikki, my preschool director, for introducing me to CD and for sending me to trainings, especially this one. They were long days, but they were filled to bursting with learning and growing!

Nikki, my co-worker Alyssa, and I flew to St. Simons last Saturday. I'm thankful for my husband for being our Uber driver to the airport at the crack of dawn (truly, it was BEFORE the crack of dawn) AND for picking us up a week later at what turned out to be way to close to the next day's crack of dawn than i would have liked, but more on that later.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the trip!

Our flight from Springfield to Dallas wasn't bad; a little turbulence as we approached DFW, but not awful (btw I hadn't flown since 2010). Then as we were lining up to board for our flight to Jacksonville, Florida, it was announced that we were changing planes, as there was a HOLE in the plane we were to take, and the pilot was not satisfied with the repair that had been made. We then had to rush from A concourse to C concourse (if you've ever been to DFW, you will understand the effort this requires), and board THAT plane. And the turbulence we had on arrival? They were a dress rehearsal for the turbulence ON STEROIDS that we had for the first 20 minutes after take-off. I was pretty convinced the plane was going to explode or drop from the sky (or both), but it didn't and we made it to Jacksonville in one piece.

We stayed at a magical place called Epworth by the Sea, a Methodist retreat center on the Brunswick River where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean on land that once was a cotton plantation. The grounds are breathtakingly gorgeous, with massive trees draped with Spanish moss and a view of the water. And you don't have to be part of a private event to stay there! It is open to the public, and the rooms are lovely. The rates are also considerably lower than they are elsewhere on the island. 

View from my balcony

Foggy morning

We arrived a day early, so we could spend a little time exploring the island before we got down to business. We had yummy fresh shrimp Saturday night at a place called Iguanas (and yes, I, too, would have expected it to be Mexican food with that name). On Sunday, we went back down to the village and toured the lighthouse and its museum. The original lighthouse was built in 1810 and was destroyed in 1861 to prevent Federal troops from using its beacon during the Civil War. It was rebuilt in 1872 and includes a caretaker's home and is still sending out a beacon that can be seen 23 miles out into the sea. We climbed up the 129 steps (made for a time when people had much smaller feet) and bravely stood at the top without falling off.

The lighthouse at St. Simons Island

The view from the top

Night view from near the pier

While we were on top of the lighthouse, we talked to a woman who recommended a restaurant for lunch. We not only took her up on the place, but also on her recommendation for the pecan-crusted chicken tenders. If you're ever on St. Simons Island, drop into Barbara Jean's for a meal. You can thank me some time between when the basket of hot rolls, jalapeno cornbread, and pumpkin bread appears on your table and when you find that each chicken strip is the size of an entire chicken breast and you have four of them on your plate.

Hungry enough?

My almost-cousin Debbie and her husband Mike live on the island, and I got to visit them! Debbie's dad once introduced MY dad as "my wife's sister's husband's sister's husband". I'll let you work that out on your own, but suffice it to say that while we aren't related by blood, we do share the same cousins, and since ohana means family, well, I consider us family. I spent Sunday evening at their beautiful home that incidentally was on a small lagoon THAT HAD AN ALLIGATOR IN IT. Mike claims alligators are more scared of us than we are of them (yeah, right) and dive into the water when they see a person, but I'm not buying that 100%. And no, I didn't SEE an alligator (it was dark), but the VERY NEXT MORNING, a neighbor saw one sunning himself and sent Debbie a picture of it.

We did not dress alike on purpose.

Gator young'un

The training started early Monday morning. At CD events, the table you choose to sit at becomes your table, and the others at the table become your event family, and we sure ended up with a terrific one. Bonus was that our "table helper" was Master Instructor Vicky Hepler, who had been the presenter when we attended the week-long CD Institute last summer. What luck!

This school year, I have been lucky enough to have a Conscious Discipline coach come into my classroom a couple times and work with me, and I was even luckier that my coach, Amy Speidel, was the presenter at this CD training. Amy and I found we had a lot in common when we first met, and it was delightful to get the opportunity to learn even more from her! On Thursday evening, Amy announced that we were going to have a little surprise, and instead of a LITTLE surprise, it was a GIGANTIC SURPRISE of the very best kind: Dr. Becky Bailey came up from Orlando to meet us and to present to us on Friday morning. Swoon!

With Alyssa, Nikki, Dr. Bailey, and Amy

All too soon, our training was completed and our week had come to an end, but lucky us, we stayed one more day AFTER the training ended and continued with exploration, this time, visiting beaches. St. Simons Island is not known for its beaches, but we found a little strip near the lighthouse and walked along it. We got to see dolphins swimming just off shore, as well as see an ENORMOUS cargo ship carrying around 1,000 cars inside it to points unknown. Saturday morning, after checking out of Epworth, we drove to Jekyll Island to visit Driftwood Beach, which has a post-apocalyptic feel to it, then spent some time at Oceanview Beach (more dolphins seen). We then drove to Amelia Island for a quick stop at the beach there (which was the only one with an abundance of shells) before returning the rental car and beginning our journey home.

Driftwood Beach

So, the journey home was not without defugalty, but we made it home IN SPITE OF THE LAST PLANE BEING HELD TOGETHER WITH SCOTCH TAPE. And the plane change. And the connecting city change. And the fact that the new flight (back to DFW) was two hours later than the one to Charlotte had been scheduled for, but we dodged a bullet there, because on THAT flight, it was announced that there would not be bathrooms available and they'd better go before they boarded the plane. And the LAAAAATE arrival in Springfield of 12:30 am and not getting home until 2:00 am. 

Jacksonville airport

Am I exhausted? Yes.

But am I ready for the week? Also yes, because I have new tools to use with my class and a bag full of seashells for them!

A Winning Week!

This week was much better than last week on the school front, largely thanks to Conscious Discipline. That's a pretty okay way to start out a list of thankfuls, right? Here's why it was better:

1. I employed the breathing techniques I teach my children on myself when my class was not making safe choices. They aren't going to be calm if I'm not, so calm I was. Most of these behaviors were happening during circle activities, so I just sat and breathed deeply until, one by one, they joined me. What you focus on, you get more of. When I focused on what I wanted them to STOP doing, we had chaos; when I focused on what I wanted them to START doing, we got calm. 

2. I didn't hyperventilate from all that deep breathing I did. 

3. We held a Spirit Week in preparation for the Chiefs going to the Super Bowl. We dressed like Mahomes, Taylor, and Travis. We did football drills (how I wish I could post the video I took of my class doing my version of drills!). We did cheers.

4. Probably my very favorite thing to do with my kids is to sit on the floor with them and sing right before breakfast. They crowd around me, and we sing our favorites, such as "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window," "Down By The Station," "I Have A Little Turtle," and, oddly enough, the theme from "The Mickey Mouse Club," which I introduced them to and they fell in love with. This time of playfulness and touch helps create a bond between all of us.

5. I get so many hugs in a day. Some are stealth hugs from a passing child. Some come from behind me and I have to wait until they finish to see who it was. Some are wrapped around my leg so I can't walk. Some nearly knock me off my feet. Nearly all of them include "I love you, Dillon!"

6. It was warm enough to play outside!

7. I am changing my approach to tattling by teaching the kids to use their "Big Voices" when they sense injustice. Example: 

    Child 1: Child 2 pushed me!

    Me: Did you like it?

    Child 1: No!

    Me: Tell Child 2 "I don't like it when you push me! Next time, walk around me."

    Child 1 to Child 2: I don't like it when you push me! Next time, walk around me!

    Child 2 (maybe not always meaning it, but it's a start): Okay! I'm sorry.

This week, I have heard two different children use their Big Voices WITHOUT HELP FROM ME! Progress!

8. We learned how to paint with watercolors, and we now have beautiful Valentine art to show for it.

On non-school related thankfuls, we are in Kansas City this weekend, as we had tickets to see comedian Nate Bargatze Saturday night, so I got to attend church live and in-person this morning, AND I got to meet our new associate pastor Rev. Stephen on his first Sunday at our church. My heart is happy.

Oh, and HOW 'BOUT THOSE CHIEFS?! Two Super Bowl wins in a row! 

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Even When It's Hard

It's been a rough week. I've shed a lot of tears. something I don't do very often, and I've wished I could crawl in that hole with the groundhog and stay there until I'm sure of fair weather and sunshine and a lighter heart.

Such are the times when it's vitally important to remember there are still thankfuls out there. Here are mine:

Unseasonably warm weather perfect for much-needed playground time for littles (and the bigs who teach them).

Ice cream. Large bowls of ice cream.

A plethora of valentines made for me in the art center.

A new battery for an old but very reliable car.

Finding a brand new jar of moisturizer tucked away in a drawer, just when I needed a refill.

No. 7 brand of skin care.

A phone call from my Person saying she's coming to see me in March.

Learning to use Canva (thanks, Ashley and Abby) and using it to make a Chiefs-themed Spirit Week flyer for school.

An incredibly supportive husband.

My daughter celebrating her 25th birthday today. She is beautiful and smart and accomplished. In a few short months, she will have her Juris Doctor degree, then will sit for the Bar, followed by taking a position as a Public Finance attorney at a large firm that has already seen what a force she is after her summer internship there. Happy birthday, baby girl! You amaze me every day.

Whether your thankfuls are on the surface or you have to dig deep, find them, write them, link them.

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January Has A Happy Ending And Other Thankfuls

When last we met, I was lamenting how January was NEVER going to end. It still hasn't, but we are down to THREE MORE DAYS, and I think maybe I'll make it, although it's been hit or miss how I felt on any day. And this leads me to Ten Things of Thankful:

We had freezing rain on Sunday night and Monday morning, so school was canceled for Monday. This marks the fourth four day week of the new year OUT OF FOUR WEEKS. There's a thankful for you!

I'm taking my dad to a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so you know what that means? ANOTHER FOUR DAY WORK WEEK FOR MEEEEEE!!!

There has been rain, mixed precipitation, drizzle, fog, freezing fog, freezing rain, snow, sleet, sub-zero temperatures and wind chills, dangerously gusty winds, and little to NO SUNSHINE for those four weeks. That's the payback for getting days off, I suppose. But the sun came out this afternoon, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a beautiful sight!

I'm still working on the 1000 piece Frida Kahlo puzzle that I began two weeks ago. I have maybe half of it done and am hoping I still have all the pieces to finish it, as I found out Nora likes to smack the table with her foot and watch pieces fall to the floor. I anticipate needing maybe two-three more snow days to find all the pieces and get it done.

I didn't spend my ENTIRE snow day this week watching documentaries and working on a jigsaw puzzle; I learned how to make homemade soft pretzels! It's really not very hard and TOTALLY worth it.

Ta daaaa! AND with homemade cheese sauce.

Walmart had 100% cotton flannel sheet sets on sale for $16.00, and you better believe I bought a set!

I'm thankful for Wordle. 

I have the best job! Yes, it can be exhausting and frustrating, but I get more hugs and I love yous than you can imagine. We laugh. We sing. We dance. We play. We work. We keep each other safe. We are a family, and my heart swells with love just thinking about them.

Portrait of me. Note my curly hair and the green striped
sweater that I was wearing that day.

Let's hear it for the Kansas City Chieeeeeeeeeeeefs!!! AFC Champions and going to the Super Bowl! 

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How 'Bout Those Chiefs and Did I Break My Foot?

January is halfway over, February is a short month, and spring begins in March, right? There's a thankful to kick off this week's Ten Things of Thankful list! Moving on....

We had a three day work week! School was already scheduled to be closed on Monday in remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr., then the snow we received on Monday afternoon closed school for Tuesday.

Payback for having bonus days off is the kids are completely SQUIRRELY with the combination of snowfall outside and being cooped up inside due to frigid temperatures. Worth it.

My leaky, 100 year old home has handled these arctic temps remarkably well! Both furnaces have continued to work and the pipes did not freeze.

My husband was out of town all week for work, so double thanks that nothing happened to the house while he wasn't here. I hate having to adult by myself.

My friend Nikki's birthday was Tuesday, and the roads were clear enough that we made it out of the house and out to lunch.

My daughter found out she received two more CALI Excellence for the Future awards for fall semester, bringing her to three for the semester and four over-all. These two were for Estate Planning for Charitable Giving and in State & Local Government Law. She is awesome!

On Thursday, my friend Ceason's husband brought his new motorcycle by school and took me for my second motorcycle ride of my life (the first was when I was 7 and was done very slowly on our street by our neighbor's cool Uncle Bud). I had a hella time getting my leg hiked over the bike (note to self: do something about this), but I didn't fall off! Winning!

I visited my dad this weekend. Due to the snowy weather LAST weekend, I wasn't able to go see him, so I stocked him up on orange juice, bread, lunch meat, eggs, ice cream bars, Pepsi and toilet paper. You know, the essentials. We also went out to lunch on Saturday. It was my dad's first visit to a restaurant since May, and he was craving a good, greasy hamburger!

Danna's BBQ in Branson and the burger was
delicious and not in the least bit greasy but he
was still happy in spite of the look on his face.

As I opened the back door of the Sequoia to unload the groceries, there was a crash and a 24 pack of Pepsi fell out of the back of the vehicle and onto my right foot before landing on the frozen driveway. This was followed by the SECOND 24 pack that did the same exact thing. Both boxes exploded on impact, there were cans lying in the snow, frozen Pepsi drizzled everywhere, and my foot hurt. It took me some time to gather up 48 cans and two soggy cardboard boxes, but when I finally got all the Pepsi mess AND all the groceries into the house, it turned out that only one can had opened (thanks in large part to my FOOT for taking the brunt of the crash). I opened one of the cans today for my dad and the Pepsi didn't spew out, so much relief that my dad won't have to open each one outside.

Wondering if my foot was broken.

Looks like a little bomb went off inside.

BONUS THANKFUL. The Chiefs won their playoff game against Buffalo. Next, they play Baltimore, and the winner goes to the Super Bowl. GO CHIEFSSSSSS!!!

Jason Kelce, Travis Kelce's brother, after KillaTrav's first of two touchdowns.
I assume my brother would do the same for me....

So many thankfuls, so little time. 

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I Did My Best

 Well, this will be fun! My laptop just said no and I’m left with writing my TToT on my phone or not at all. Here goes nothing:

1. We had a Snow Day on Tuesday. I had already made it to work before it was called, so I threw some salt on the sidewalks and went back home. 

2. It was cold and nasty all week, so we couldn’t go outside, but we managed to burn energy and stay entertained without the classroom imploding. 

3. Diet Dr Pepper has been on sale at Walmart for weeks. I know (inside source) it will be going up next month, but until then. . . .

4. Winter jammies are on sale just when they are most needed!

5. I am thankful for Rotel Cheese Dip (simply called “hot dip” in our family). It is family tradition to eat it during Chiefs games, and while I don’t do so EVERY game, I did this weekend and it was just what I needed. 

6. It’s not been the best season for my KC Chiefs, but they got the W at Saturday’s game, in spite of temps hovering around zero degrees with wind chill in the negative numbers. 

7. I’m almost finished with the David Sedaris book I’ve been reading through the Libby app. Feeling pretty accomplished. 

8. Can’t say enough good things about my heated mattress pad. Ahhhhh!

9. I’m thankful for streaming services. I watched movies all afternoon while working on a jigsaw puzzle. 

10. I’m thankful for a warm home. It’s 100 years old and there are certainly leaks around doors and windows and other curious places, but it’s still warm and cozy on a day when it didn’t get above zero degrees AND snowed. 

Made it! The type is so small on my phone that I can’t proofread, so fingers crossed!

Here A Duck, There A Duck, Everywhere A Duck Duck

 Here I am, getting my act together for the new y--ahahaahaaahaaaa! Maybe I should insert "trying to" in there. I MEAN well, but let's face it, my ducks are NEVER all in a row*. Oh, one or two follow me, but the rest are wandering. One fell in the lake. A couple of them are eating cheese like there's no tomorrow. 

*legendary story - once upon a time ago, I worked at a law firm with a sweet but dingy girl named Kay. She had just finished typing some letters that had been dictated (raise your hand if you ever used a dictaphone). She brought one of them around to all the secretaries and read it to them, because she thought it was so funny. In essence, the attorney had dictated "...let's get all our ducks in a row..." but Kay thought he said "let's get all our dicks in a row." One of the secretaries gently told her the phrase was "ducks," NOT "dicks," and she was so disappointed. "I kept picturing all these different dicks lined up, short ones and long ones and fat ones and skinny ones. Oh, well!" And off she went to correct the letter. 

Anyway, mine are DUCKS and I'll always be trying to round them up. Caught the one responsible for writing the Ten Things of Thankful, so here they are:

1. My class had a delightful holiday season! They were sooooo excited for Christmas! We did lots of seasonal activities and drank hot chocolate and sang Christmas songs and made gifts for our parents (and wrapped them ourselves!). We played bells to "Jingle Bells," and then to "Jingle Bell Rock," which led me to telling them about this cute dance some girls did to that song. I pull up the scene from "Mean Girls" and show it to them without thinking about it possibly being a little inappropriate for the audience. Which it was, but they didn't notice that part, and they asked to see it EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

2. I had eleven days off. Of those eleven days, I only spent three of them in my home, but it was worth it. My daughter (the almost-attorney) was home, my son and daughter in law (the doctors) came back for a couple of days, and my brother and niece (my sister in law recently had knee replacement surgery and wasn't able to be with us) came for a few days. We also went to Tulsa to spend time with my husband's sister and her family. It was all lovely, but I had to go back to work to get some rest!

My dad with his grandchildren

With my son

My kids: daughter, son, daughter in law

With my brother

3. Oh, one of the reasons I was exhausted from the festivities is because my husband shared his MAN COLD with me. He spent the week BEFORE Christmas huddled under a blanket in his recliner, coughing, checking his temperature (he never had one), taking a COVID test (negative), and going through a box of kleenex. The day before Christmas Eve, it was MY turn for the cold. I spent the duration of it wrapping gifts, grocery shopping, cleaning, baking cookies and making caramel popcorn, fixing meals, feeding cats, returning to work. No blanket. No recliner. I still have the dregs of it more than two weeks later, but there's a light at the end of the cold tunnel.

4. The long-anticipated addition of a garage and workshop to my dad's house is going well. It's all framed now, roof on it, and it's going to be fantastic to have the space.

5. Dealing with this construction project has taught my husband and me that we are never, never, EVER building a house.

6. I am thankful for cheese. I had a lot of cheese over the holidays. I'm currently in a 12 step program for it.

7. I FINALLY completely straightened and organized the closet in my classroom. It's only taken five months of being in that classroom to get it done. There's a duck! Next project is to finish organizing the observation room that is attached to my classroom. That duck takes off just as I get close to finishing the project, but I feel my duck corralling skills are on point right now, so we shall see if I can get it done.

8. I'm thankful (thanks to my daughter) to discover the Libby app for my phone. I haven't been reading very much the past few years, and now that I can just pick up my phone and read a book, I've returned to being a voracious reader! I'm reading David Sedaris's "Theft By Finding Diaries 1977-2002." I have enjoyed his readings of his works on NPR for years, but I didn't know very much about him. Let's just say that if I didn't already know he was alive and well, I wouldn't have thought he would have survived the 70s.

9. Speaking of my daughter, big shout out to her for her hard work so far in law school. She just got word that she received her second CALI Excellence for the Future Award. Don't ask me to explain this, because I can't, but it's a nation-wide program that around 200 law schools participate in where the top grade in each class is recognized. She got a CALI in the summer of '22 in Professional Responsibility, and she was just informed she got a CALI for her just-completed Estates and Trusts class. We are so proud of her!

10. Hey, I just remembered that I, too had to pass an exam. Long, dull story, but in order to fulfill a grant at work, I had to take a standardized exam (Missouri Educator Gateway Assessment/Early Childhood Education and never mind that I have LIFETIME CERTIFICATION K-6 and had a minor in early childhood education). Oh, and I also had to pass it. Our student workers who are education majors must also take this test in their content areas to graduate and receive their teaching certification, but they also prepare for it as part of their classes. I had not taken a standardized test since I took the ACT in 1978, so I was a wee little bit stressed about taking this one, but I NAILED IT. Yay, me!

Start your new year the TToT way and join us every weekend for the Ten Things of Thankful. Write a post. Link it up. Read and comment. Rinse and repeat.

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