Word of the day from my perpetual calendar:

Look for the good in every day,
In every person who comes your way.
Look for the good, and whey you do,
You'll also find it inside of you.

When I saw what it said this morning I had to laugh. Last night my best friend and I were talking about our situations at work. She said something about having to practice being as quiet as a mouse because she had been reprimanded for her mouth. This morning as I drove to Hardees to get a biscuit, I thought about all that we've both talked about and I decided that she should really refer to herself as a hamster because they've got her spinning her wheel in a cage. I also thought I should regard myself as a fish living in a fish bowl. But I'm going to work at changing that. I'm going to work at being a hummingbird. They flit silently about and leave joy in their wake. If I can detach enough from what is going on around me to follow my calendar's advice I believe I can do almost anything.

My calendar also brought to mind a conversation I had with my mother last night. I told her that I had received a teacher's gift from Taylor, my drama queen. It's so ironic that all of us should receive gifts from her mother when she is the child that gives us the most trouble. Yesterday I saw another side to Taylor. She aggravated herself and Daniel enough that she wore herself out and actually took about an hour nap. That's only happened one other time.

Well, today is the day to clean rooms and just chill. I'm told that we might get to leave after lunch today. I've got an eye doctor's appointment at 3:45. It's time for bifocals folks. And I've got a ton of laundry to do. Tomorrow I'll be at school until 9:00 and then I'll be spending the day with my brother. He's got to get his ID renewed and we're going to Franklin. I'm hoping I can convince him to go see the new Indiana Jones movie with me. If not, I'll take in a matinee one day next week.

Well, it was an interesting day. My assistants were the only people who brought their children to work with them. In all there were 8 of them (that's twice what we normally have in the classroom) and none of them had brought anything to do with them. It gave me a lot to do. I sat and observed quietly as some children were excluded from activities, some got their feelings hurt and others went off to pout by themselves. I found some things for the smallest ones to do but no one monitored their activity.

I had interesting conversations with Missie and Dawn (my new friends from school), I completed my permanent files, collected items from the sensory room, printed out some other activities to work on and chilled. When the principal announced that we could leave, I booked it out of there. I'd been there since 7:00. I'd had enough.

One of the things that Dawn asked me was if I missed my old school. I answered truthfully- I miss my friends. I miss Vicki, Mary Jo, Lisa and Teresa. I miss some of my kids from there. But then I think back on where I was this time last year and I see how far I've come. So, no, I guess I don't miss the old school so much at all as I do the people that got me through my rough times.

When I came home I found some synchronicity in my e-mail. I found an e-mail sent to me by a cousin about a teacher who did an experiment with her class. She had them each to write down all the names of the children in the classroom and find one nice thing to say about them. She took it home and made each child a copy of it. Years later when one of the students died during the Viet Nam war, she discovered that each of those students had kept their list including the soldier they had all come to pay their respects to. I forwarded that to all those I thought would appreciate it.

Then, Nefertiti had sent me the verse from Psalms that says "Be Still and Know that I AM GOD." I sent her back, Psalm 37:7. And then I opened my Hazelden reading to find:

Today's thought for Hazelden is:

I've started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things. Waiting can be very, very powerful. Time is a valuable thing. If you can wait two years, you can sometimes achieve something that you could not achieve today, however hard you worked, however much money you threw up in the air, however many times you banged your head against the wall. . .
--The Courage to Change by Dennis Wholey

The people who are most successful at living and loving are those who can learn to wait successfully. Not many people enjoy waiting or learning patience. Yet, waiting can be a powerful tool that will help us accomplish much good.

We cannot always have what we want when we want it. For different reasons, what we want to do, have, be, or accomplish is not available to us now. But there are things we could not do or have today, no matter what, that we can have in the future. Today, we would make ourselves crazy trying to accomplish what will come naturally and with ease later.

We can trust that all is on schedule. Waiting time is not wasted time. Something is being worked out - in us, in someone else, in the Universe.

We don't have to put our life on hold while we wait. We can direct our attention elsewhere; we can practice acceptance and gratitude in the interim; we can trust that we do have a life to live while we are waiting - then we go about living it.

Deal with your frustration and impatience, but learn how to wait. The old saying, "You can't always get what you want" isn't entirely true. Often, in life, we can get what we want - especially the desires of our heart - if we can learn to wait.

Today, I am willing to learn the art of patience. If I am feeling powerless because I am waiting for something to happen and I am not in control of timing, I will focus on the power available to me by learning to wait.
From: The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie