And Next Up: My Sense of Smell

As crazy as it seemed that my tastebuds were “awakened”, I’ve also noticed another sense changing… Keep in mind, you body completely replaces its cells every so often, and I’m definitely sure that this is the case.

My sense of smell has change.

My husband was eating his typical key lime greek yogurt. I used to love that stuff! Rich, creamy, and just a peak of sweet sourness. But this time, while he was sitting beside me, I smelled this sour, awful smell. It wasn’t to the point I was gagging, but I did not like it at all! What has happened to me? I used to be the dairy queen (mainly cheese), but now I don’t even like the smell of it. Stinky cheese? They were never stinky to me before.

Things have definitely changed…

Dairy? No thank you!

My House is Shaking…

Yesterday morning, as I was sitting in bed, I felt my bed shake! At first, I thought it was all in my head. But then it happened again. Then I started wondering if there was a critter hiding in my mattress (seriously.. I don’t live in the wilderness…). Then it happened again and again. I wen through thoughts of someone hitting our house, the neighbours doing something big enough to shake the rest the building (this would take a lot!), a reaction of an earthquake (which we’ve never had that I know of), and many other things.

This building is 50+ years old. So a huge concern was that maybe the place is going to collapse, but it all made sense when I heard a few large smashes.

Across from us is a school. On the other side of the school is of course the teacher’s parking lot. They have all of the construction equipment over there to dig it up and redo it or do some underground work or something. Everytime they dig up the ground or make some large movement, it causes a shaking reaction that reaches our building.

It is kind of scary knowing how old our building is, but at the same time, such a relief that it’s not all in my head! Whew!

God Cares, Even About the Small Things

I know, for myself, and possibly for others, it is so easy to retreat to our knees to ask God for help in the big things, but not always such a normal thing to go to our knees over small things. I’ve heard some people say that God doesn’t need to be troubled with our little things. But here’s the deal: God cares about it all, big and small.

Last week, I was on track to be at least 5 minutes late for my chiropractor appointment. In fact, with all the lights and traffic in the city, there should have been no way to even make it on time.

However, I prayed. Not on my knees, but in my head as I started out the driving, looking at the clock on my dash, realizing I was in trouble. And you know what happened? I hit every green light along the way (around 6), and even had a parking spot in a very non-parking friendly area. And the best part about it was: I even had 7 minutes to spare! There is now way that should have been possible. Especially not driving through a heavy pedestrian area. I couldn’t believe it!

So moral of the story, God cares about even the small things. Anything that seems important to us is important to God. He may not always have the answer we want (because God knows best), but He does have THE answer. Pray, no matter what!

The Penalty of Standing Out

I hate the way the world works sometimes. I hate seeing people in pain. I hate watching people getting picked on or bullied. I hate sin and wrong-doings in this world.

When I was going through my university years, completing my education degree, I had a desire to work with special needs children. It wasn’t because I looked forward to the extra work that often comes with special needs children, but because I wanted to make a difference. I knew special needs children were often put down and sometimes stared at as if the were a circus sideshow. I knew I could step up and be the voice of those children, and I knew that I could help those children feel as important as they are. But that’s not what happened.

At first I ended up teaching at a Native School. It took me awhile to learn the different dynamics needed to teach students who come from a history of anger. It was a definite learning curve in understanding the culture, the behaviours, and the thoughts about different things. But one of the things I found is that my classroom was often their safe place. My classroom was the one place they could count on someone being there to love them. I was a safe place for these kids.

Now as much as I loved being in that position, time would have me change again. This time, to a place where I wasn’t such a safe place. These kids did not need me (or at least felt like they didn’t). The attitudes were indifferent, the gratitude was gone. I really struggled at first to see how in the world I could make a difference when my students were convinced they had everything the needed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t my first year that I figured it out. It was my second and my third that really opened my heart. I realized that maybe I wouldn’t be able to reach all students, even though I try. But there is at least one in each class who needs someone they can trust; someone they can break down their barriers and let them truly see the inside that they keep.

It broke my heart when the first student really let me in their life. The amount of background some of these kids hide is disheartening. It sometimes makes you wonder how they even function. It’s no wonder some of them put up a tough-front at school. Some of them are simply caught in that worldly struggle: the one where they are fighting between being good and doing what they know is right, and doing what the world expects and wants them to do. Absolutely the struggle gets worse as the generations get older. It’s sad in the very least, but it does, unfortunately, exist.

I witnessed something that brought this whole thing up in my mind. A situation that brought up a whole slew of memories.

One of my students is running for class rep in the upcoming school year. She’s an awesome student, wonderful in both academics and her Christianity. Unfortunately, she is one in very few that does not struggle with desires to be popular. She will not swear because others are doing it. She does not talk about inappropriate things because she has no interest. She knows what she believes and she sticks to it. She knows what is right, and that is what she does. And it has made her unpopular in her class.

Today, the vote was completed. And though she almost perfectly fits the description of the position she is running for, more votes were left blank than were voted in favour. My heart sank and my blood boiled a little. If there were legitimately good reasons for not letting her have the position, then I would accept that. But I know it’s because they are upset the one person they wanted to run wasn’t able due to his grades. Whether it’s an expression of bitterness or anger, is it right to decline someone that not only wants the position, but is ready, willing and capable of doing it well?

I don’t know what the right solution is. After all, voting is an expression of your opinion. But my heart aches in knowing that the reasons behind the reactions are wrong. And that bothers me. Someone who perfectly is capable of doing something so well, being held back by unpopularity, is wrong. It takes me right back to my whole philosophy of teaching, and that is that students are capable of more than they are doing, and standing up for those who don’t have as much of a voice.

I grew up in public schools where situations are much worse than I have ever experienced in my years of private school. I have seen “losers” beat up for simply not being good enough for others. I have seen the separation and isolation of those who needed the extra pull-out help and did not think like the others. I have seen students dragged from classrooms because they were acting out in anger about their situations. It’s not pretty.

One year, we did a fundraiser where the boys provided a lunch, and we bid on these “anonymous lunches”. When the bidding was done and every girl had her lunch, then the boys would reveal themselves and we would share lunch with them. I just happened to get one of those classmates that was always taken out for extra help, and who had problems with his anger, reacting from the situations he was in and the way he was treated.

I will forever regret the way I treated him.

I didn’t say anything mean, but that’s simply because I didn’t say anything at all. I was silent the whole time. And now I cannot even go back and apologize for being “snobby” because he was killed in a car accident several years ago (I think I was still in high school). That’s guilt that I have to live with, and guilt that started to change the way I reacted to people.

The one girl that was dragged from our classroom was probably the lowest person in our class. She didn’t always take showers, and she didn’t come from the most well-off family. In fact, I actually don’t know how she was treated at home. But what I do know is that people didn’t like her and daily made fun of her. I will never forget the one day she came up to me and told me that I was her role-model. I didn’t try to be anyone’s role-model, I just tried to talk to her and be nice when others wouldn’t. And look at the difference that made on her life. The simplest of acts I could have done, and it literally changed her world.

Now I’d like to say others followed, but they didn’t. I’d like to say her life changed for the best, but it didn’t. I did manage to get in contact with her again during university, sadly to find out she was pregnant and the baby’s father wanted nothing to do with her as soon as she became pregnant. As a matter of fact, he ran out with another girl and married her very shortly afterwards. And to make matters worse, he called social services claiming she was an unfit mother and had her baby taken away. In no way did her life get better.

I’m sad to say I’ve lost contact with her. My only method of contact no longer seems to work. I do pray for her, that things work out and she’s able to have her baby back in her life. I know she was fighting hard for him. But I pray God’s love surrounds her and God-willing, I will be able to connect with her again.

I truly, truly do hate the world treats people that are different – people that stand out from everybody else. I had the position of popularity and I misused it once. But I promise to do my best to never misuse it again. When a situation arises where someone needs a voice, I wish to be that voice for them, to stand up on their behalf. Just because you don’t think the same as everyone else or do the same things everyone else does is not a reason to be treated so badly. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Make a difference in someone’s life. Even if it’s just one person you’ve helped, you’ve literally just changed a person’s entire world. Do what you can and don’t delay. You never know the good you can leave behind.

When I Realized My Grandfather Really Wasn’t Coming Back

Something happened today that really jarred my memory and brought me to write this post. I saw the following picture on Facebook and it got me thinking about my grandfather.

It took me right back to the moments where I can remember thinking about him and instantly started crying. Even now writing this, I can feel the water filling up in my eyes. I know many of you will say that you have/had an awesome grandfather to, but I’d like to take a minute to tell you about mine, and how special he truly was.

I guess it starts when my mother became pregnant with me. My parents were not married. I guess my grandfather liked my dad, but he was very upset about the whole situation and didn’t talk to my mother for days. However, being the man that he was, he still bought her a crib and everything she would need for me, even though he wasn’t talking to her. He was always that way, taking care of things even when he was upset.

Of course, as soon as I was born, he was completely smitten. My mother is a child of two, but lived very much a single child’s life. She never met her brother as he died on a surgery table a few months after he was born. That meant, I was the first and only grandchild.

My parents didn’t stay together very long. They did get married after I was born, but separated when I was about 4, officially divorcing when I was around 5. Where do you think we went back to? My grandparents. In fact, their home was very much “home base” my entire life.

My grandfather always spoiled me (and later my other siblings). I have pictures where my toys barely fit in the picture with me. My father told me that I would get tired of opening gifts because there were simply so many. I had this 6″+ man wrapped around my tiny finger. There’s no denying he loved me.

My grandfather was a used car salesman. In fact, it was my mother’s company that he worked for her since she dropped out of college to be home with me. The company was even named after my sister and I. But eventually he took over the company and changed its name since he did become the only one running the business.

I used to love visiting him at his office. My grandmother and I would get lunches for him, he would let me sit in his office chair, I would be called his “Number 1 Dudette”, and I loved the fact that everywhere we went, people always knew and respected my grandfather, and thus treated me as if I was a special person. I had never met anyone who didn’t know or like my grandfather.

If you could imagine the biggest realistic playground in the world, that would be my grandfather’s car lot. He gave me access to all the keys and vehicles in his lot. I can still remember the amount of fun we had pretending to drive the cars, and especially in exploring the only RV I remember him having. Only once did he ask me to backup a truck into a corner spot. My mother sat in the passenger seat with me, and I remember learning really quick to use my mirrors. I was so scared I would mess up his vehicles in this tight spot. But I did it! I still can’t believe he trusted me…

If I could compare him to anything, it would very much be the godfather. I’m not joking when I say that everyone seemed to know who he was. He was an amazing man when he was happy, but he was always a man you feared when he was unhappy. I don’t remember him every getting mad at me, but it was a general rule that when he came home, the remote control to the television had to be in the right spot for him to lay on the couch and watch what he wanted. He became upset if the remote went missing. There were just certain things you knew not to do.

Sometimes, my grandmother and him would fight. I’m sure there’s not a couple in the world who has not at least had one argument. Sometimes, or maybe more than sometimes, this meant he would stay at his office for the night. It was a conveniently built, small building that contained 3 rooms and a tiny hallway. One room was “the office”. The second room was of course a washroom. And the third room was his bedroom. It contained only a tv, a bed, and a mini fridge. It pretty much had everything he needed if he needed a night away. So it was a fairly normal occurrence for him not to come home sometimes.

The best thing about my grandfather was that he was always there for us. There was a time when we didn’t have the most money, and work was slow. My grandfather always provided what we needed, and then some. Most of you know that I have moved like 20 times with my family, not including on my own. The one person who was always there, regardless of where we were, was my grandfather. He never missed an opportunity to come and stay with us. (Of course I should say my grandmother always came with him as well, but I will dedicate a post to her another day.) He was honestly one of the biggest constants in my life.

When my family made the official decision to move from the east coast to the west coast, my grandparents offered to bring my sister and I out at the end of summer so that we could spend the extra time with our father. It was a fair bit of a long drive, but even then my grandfather trusted me with reading the map (before GPS systems). I almost think his belief in me helped me grow to the independent woman I am today. I have a lot to credit him for.

They stayed with us at our new place for a few days. Early in the morning, him and I would get up and drive to a hotel or another homey restaurant to eat. He was not a chain-restaurant type of person. Even back in the town he worked, he had one particular restaurant he preferred to eat at, and everybody knew his specials and what he enjoyed eating. He always preferred the homestyle cooking. In fact, he met my grandmother while she was waitressing at such a type of restaurant. My family and I have visited that restaurant a few times and imagined what it must have been like. They still have the juke boxes and the old stools. Sometimes it’s nice to preserve history rather than to embrace change.

We then took a trip to the “big city” so my grandparents could see it before they left. We had a lot of fun. At one point, we lost my grandfather in the big mall. I’ll never forget him driving around on those motorized scooters for people who can’t walk well. He had even gotten an orange smoothie and I guess spilled it all over the machine. If you knew my grandfather like I did, you would picture him using colourful language for the time he was mad, then acting like nothing ever happened.

I don’t remember how we ever found him, but I can tell you it was one of the hardest good-byes of my life.This wasn’t just moving a few hours away, this was a four day drive across the country. Of course they would come visit again, but the visits would never be as frequent as before. What I didn’t know was that my tears would get worse before they ever got better.

Literally two or three days after we returned to our new home, I got a call from my grandmother. It sounded like her for sure, but something was a little different. She asked to speak to my mom pretty much right away, so I gave my mom the phone and sat on the landing of the stairs. My mother took the phone into her room which was at the top of the stairs. The next words I heard told me pretty much everything I didn’t want to hear. She said, as she began crying, “Oh Mom!”.

My grandparents had been involved in a car accident on their journey home. An impatient driver went in their lane to pass a semi-truck and didn’t see my grandparents van coming at them. My grandmother was in the hospital, a little bruised but otherwise ok (she would later need nose surgery to correct the alignment). My grandparents’ friend who was helping them drive home had so many broken bones, including ribs and shoulder, and would also need counselling for what happened (he was driving at the time – completely not his fault). But my grandfather didn’t make it.The speed they were traveling on the highway, and the impact of a completely head-on hit left the vehicle in shambles and took my grandfather with it.

Immediately, we packed and drove back to the city. I thankfully had a great aunt and uncle who lived just outside the limits and welcomingly invited us in until we could all make arrangements to fly home. My mother was able to fly right away to be with my grandmother, but there were 4 more of us to fly, and we had to wait for a cheaper ticket to afford it.

It was so strange when I got home. Being in my grandparents house seemed so normal. I mean, I was only at my “new home” for less than a week. I had no attachments to it and didn’t even have to act like it was supposed to be my new home. I had come home and it felt like life should be normal again.

I know I cried a few times, but I remember just having the attitude and thoughts of “My grandfather is just at his office, staying the night like he usually does. Sometime he’ll come home.”

I still remember it as clear as yesterday: My mother and I were sitting in the living room, on separate couches, not talking much as we didn’t for a while, and her saying the exact same thing that I felt – that Grampy was just at his office and sometime he would come home. And it hit us right then that we had to realize it was wasn’t true, that Grampy really wasn’t coming back. I broke down (just like I am again now) because he was always there, for everything! How could he not come back this time! How could the one stable thing in my life not come back! It was so hard to accept.

Sitting in his house, seeing all of his old stuff, going to his office, it was all so hard to do when you realize the person who has always been there for you, the person who has loved you your whole life was suddenly gone. My nickname would never be used again, except when telling stories of him. My promise from him of giving me my first car would never come true. My life was drastically left with an empty hole that I’m not sure was ever filled again. Nobody could take his place, and I could never have been prepared for that instant change in time.

Life is not fair, and it never will be. The devil is waiting for any opportunity to attack and make a mess of things. He knows which strings to pull and he knows how to make things hurt you more than anyone else. He knows he can damage us and take away everything that means the world to us, which is why it’s so important to turn to God when you’re hurting, to let Him hold you and tell you that everything is going to be ok, because one day, it will. One day, when Jesus returns and we are taken to Heaven with Him, there will not be anymore pain, there will not be anymore death, there will not be anymore tears. I don’t know what my grandfather’s relationship with Christ was like. I know he sort of had a falling out at one point, but he insisted my mom make sure she took us to church. So I only hope and pray that he had a good relationship with God, because it would be so nice to run into those loving arms I miss so dearly, the loving arms that were missing during both of my graduations and my wedding, the loving arms that were taken away from me way too soon.

I miss this man more than anything, and truly just thinking of how much I miss him brings me to tears almost instantly. Hold your loved ones close and make sure you let them know how important they are to you. You never know which instant will take them away.

Detective Teacher

Have you ever had to do anything crazy? Have you ever had a mystery as a teacher that you’ve had to figure out? Sometimes I wonder if I watch too many detective shows (CSI, Murdoch Mysteries, Bones, etc…). I’m always fascinated by the way detectives are able to figure things out. What is even more interesting is that Evidence and Investigation is also a unit in Grade 6 Science. So I’m able to share my fascination with my students.

While camping this week, I had a series of unfortunate events that caused me to practice some detective skills. And without sharing any specific names or details as to the people that were involved, here is the story:

Tuesday afternoon, we come back from afternoon field studies, and one of my students had lotion all over her sleeping bag. So I cleaned it off, and figured it was just a prank (doors to the cabins don’t lock the best).

Tuesday evening, when we returned from the evening activity, there was lotion on another student’s bed and blue handprints on our door. Then the 6 girls in my cabin started plotting ways to catch who it was. They were checking fingerprints, thinking of places to hide and catch them, etc… It was a JOB to get them to sleep that night.

Wednesday morning, I assumed nothing would happen during breakfast, but low and behold, there was toothpaste on a girl’s bed AND MY BED/PILLOW. I didn’t react though, because I had it dropped in my ear by that point that somebody thought one of my cabin girls was doing it, and I figured if it was, then reacting by anger would not get me the results I wanted. So I played it off like it was no big deal, and listened to the plans the girls told me I should do to figure it out (hiding on the top bunk, pretending to sleep during afternoon field studies, etc…).

We went to lunch, and of course came back to water on two of the girls’ beds. One soaking the sleeping bag, one just on the mattress. So I began thinking without telling the girls.

Once they left for afternoon field studies, I knew I had to hide somewhere that nobody had talked about, especially if it was one of my own girls. So I swept out the concrete floor the best I could (it’s so dirty), packed my large and small suitcase (it was packing day anyways so I figured it wouldn’t be suspicious), strategically placed them where I thought I would be most easily seen, and hid as close to the wall under the bed as I could. Throughout the hour and 15 minutes, my arm went numb, the floor was cold/dirty, but I knew I had to do what I could to catch whoever was doing this.

At one point, one of my girls ran in and was asking if I was in the room. So I whispered to her that I was under the bed (I knew it wasn’t this girl) and she told me she figured out that whoever did the blue handprints had to have gone to a certain field study that day because it’s the only place that had the blue chalk (the kids are divided up into study groups for the week and get through 2 stations a day). I told her thanks for figuring that out, and reminded her not to tell anyone where I was.

About 5 minutes after she left, the door opened again, and another one of the girls came in asking if anyone was there. She then jumped up on all of the bunk beds to check to see if I was hiding there (as they told me I should do). Thankfully, she didn’t think to check under the beds! I was basically holding my breath, I was so nervous she would see me. She then went over to her bag, took out one of her permanent markers, and wrote the word “STUPID” on her own mattress, and quickly ran out the door. I didn’t stop her in the act and instead waited to see what she did after she had left.

As I was getting out and saw what she had done, the girl that had originally come in to show me the chalk said that she had just seen the other girl leave, and wanted to know if anything happened. I quickly told her yes and showed it to her, and she came up with the brilliant idea of pretending that nobody had seen anything and going to tell her that something else had happened. And wouldn’t ya know, the girl who did it was like, “Something else happened? What happened?” And I just calmly smiled at her and told her she could go look if she wanted, and continued to walk over to where the other teacher from my school was to discuss how I should approach the whole situation.

I’m telling you, the things we, as teachers, have to do sometimes!

Do you have any interesting stories, any ways you’ve had to discover something going on in your classroom or on a trip? I would love to hear them! Leave your story in the comments below!

My Rib is Injured… Again!

Several summers ago, I got sick. The worst part of getting sick for me is always this nasty cough that I get. This particular summer, the cough was so bad that I heard a “snap” following a hard cough. I didn’t notice anything at first though I had a huge feeling that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t until later that I figured it out.

I jumped in my father’s truck that he had let me borrow while working away. And as soon as I had jumped up into the seat, I felt it. It was a tight feeling at first, but then quickly developed into a bad pain. I could barely turn the steering wheel. In the short 5 minute drive to the trailer I was renting, I knew I had to call my mother to come drive me to the hospital. I had to wait a fair time for her as I was about 45 minutes away, but she quickly came and took me to the hospital.

The hospital was about another 30 minutes from where I was, and the wait at the hospital was about 2 hours. The problem was, by the time I was registered and sitting in the waiting room, I was having a hard time breathing. All I can remember is intense pain and focussing on low and shallow breaths.

We waited for awhile until my mother decided to check where we were on the list, only to find out that we had been bumped down rather than up and the wait from that point was longer than 2 hours. It hurts to breathe but I’m not a serious case? My mother was mad to say the least.

We hopped in the car, and headed to the next hospital an hour away. It was a shorter time than I would have had to wait at the first hospital, and this hospital took me in right away. The only problem was, I had popped a rib muscle, which the doctor promptly told me hurts as much as breaking a rib (crazy pain), and there was nothing they could do except give me Tylenol 3.

Now some people I knew would have gone crazy over Tylenol 3. My mother had a mini freak-out session about how I might become addicted to it, but after telling her everything would be fine, I got my prescription and was on my way.

It was a painful summer. The T3s didn’t touch the pain hardly at all. I always walked around with one hand putting pressure on that rib area. It was awful. Nothing but time was able to heal that wound.

Once again, I was sick a few weeks ago and the cough has mostly gone but not completely. I know my body has suffered a little more than normal (didn’t help when my chiropractor asked what happened except I had been doing nothing but sleeping and sitting on the couch, trying to get better), but my body still seemed in decent shape. I worked out this week and everything seemed good.

Last night was a chest workout, and even though I warmed up and stretched, in the very first exercise (bench press), my rib started to hurt. I can’t remember if it is the same side or not, but I’m pretty sure I popped a stupid rib muscle again. It hurts so bad and I have to put pressure on the area to even try to take a deep breath. My abs are also starting to hurt because of the way I have to modify my body when I need to cough. It’s miserable.

I had just gotten well enough to start back in the gym and this is what happens! Ah!

To be honest, I wasn’t going to complete my workout last night because of the pain. But as I sat in the locker room, looking at my open locker as I was going to change, I got mad, closed and locked my locker, and went out and did the incline dumbbell press. I’m pretty sure it was a very dumb idea. I’m pretty sure I made it worse. I had written down to do 4 sets of 12, but after 3 sets, I knew I was being ridiculous. I shouldn’t be mad, although it was hard to not at least be disappointed.

So here I am with heat packs and taking it easy. I would much rather be in the gym but I’ve done my damage and I should know better. Injuries are something to take serious and it’s very important to know when to quit. So learn from my mistake and save yourself some pain. I’m all about lifting heavy and “sucking-it-up” in most situations, but I felt the pain and knew I should have quit. Next time, I will.

Week 10 Day 4

I woke up this morning so tired. I don’t know if I’m not sleeping at night or what is going on. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m sleeping but not waking up rested. Can’t say it hasn’t happened before, just wish it wouldn’t happen anymore.

Today work went well, though it was very busy. I was making the final changes to our tutoring program’s schedule. And everything seemed to be ready to go, until tutoring actually started after school. Between the tutors who did not show up, and the tutees who had not registered but their parents had simply told them to come and showed up, I was rearranging groups left and right.

To my utmost surprise, the tutors did so incredibly well. I couldn’t believe it. I was so proud of how they took whomever I gave them, some had researched things ahead of time, and did such an amazing job tutoring these other kids. It was mind-blowing! I really think the tutoring program brought out the best in the students.

One student in particular, that regularly gets in fights with other students and causes a whole series of issues almost daily, was supposed to be tutoring with a second tutor since this is part of the three week probation period. The tutor he was supposed to be with did not show up and I had put them with three grade 3 students. I was honestly a bit nervous. But out of all the tutors that had their tutoring topics ahead of time, he’s the only one that had researched educational videos to help the kids not only with math, but spelling as well. And the best part was, they loved him and were interested in what he was doing the whole time. I just was completely blown away.

I didn’t leave work until approximately 7:30 pm. By then, my husband wanted food quickly so we went out to eat. I have been mainly eating fruits and veggies as carbs throughout the day, and so when we ate this higher carb supper, tiredness swept over me quickly. And so we went home, and my husband told me to take a nap. What time did we go to the gym? 12:30 a.m.

I was tired, had to drink a coffee, but my workout went rather well. I still don’t like mountain climbers, and likely never will. But it was mainly a shoulder and triceps workout and despite the circumstances, it went well. I even managed to fit in my 12 minutes of HIIT. I was a happy camper!

We then went home, ate, and I think finally went to bed around 4:00 a.m. Let’s just say tomorrow is going to be a long day!

God Only Knows…

So the weirdest thing happened to me this week, and it can only be explained that God was providing me with what i needed before I knew it, and it happened in the strangest way. Here’s what it was:

As far as the dynamics of the school, grades 5-8 are all downstairs. Because we are all together, we share in our options classes. Junior High had an outdoor adventure this week, and so it was simply grade 5 and my grade 6s in our area.

Options happen every Tuesday and Thursday and prior to this year, we have ALWAYS cancelled Options during the week that Junior High was gone. And that’s why this year was so strange.

The grade 5 teacher came to me on Monday saying that he knew I needed a break and was considering teaching a his Choir class so that he would have both grades 5 and 6 and I would have a spare. Normally this would not be a spare for me anyways because I teach the Junior High French at the same time. And as much as he seemed to stress that I needed a break, I could not figure out why!

Tuesday came, and he told me he had decided to teach Choir that day and went out of his way to tell me that he would keep them as long as he could so I could have a break and was just making sure that everything was ok and convenient for me. I was in total disarray trying to figure out what I did to require such a break!

I knew Choir class was almost an hour, and decided to use my time wisely: hence the government call that I have blogged about earlier.

The best part is, not only was Choir scheduled for just shy of an hour, but he kept the kids overtime!

Now picture this: just gone through the worst, most frustrating call I’ve ever had with the government over such a huge issue in my life, got treated incredibly rudely on the phone, was left so emotional afterwards, and yet had the spare time to regroup myself. eat some food and manage to level out before my students returned. Now tell me that isn’t God’s timing!

You see, I didn’t plan on that call. I definitely didn’t plan on that spare! Yet for some reason, somehow, God impressed upon my co-worker that I needed that particular time that particular day with the right amount of time to deal with something I needed to deal with. I had no idea. I had no idea why things were going the way they were, and yet it all made sense in the end. God had this planned and provided me with what I needed to do it.

I cannot sing God’s praises enough. The very fact that He sees everything – the beginning and the end – and knows everything in between just humbles me. My God has it all under control before I even realize it. My God provides everything I will need when the time comes. My God is more powerful than I could ever imagine. My God is truly the God of Love.