11.15.2023 I woke up super early this morning. I got up to let Barkley out and then walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water. In doing so I saw last night’s dishes in the sink. I loaded them in the dishwasher and scrubbed my crockpot. I unintentionally splashed some water on the kitchen floor, which I then cleaned up with a towel. I threw the towel in my laundry hamper, which I realized was quite full. I threw in a load of laundry, which then sparked another chore, and a

11.14.2023 This morning I was stopped at a stoplight at a major intersection. Traffic was especially heavy since it was nearing morning drop-off time at the nearby high school. As I waited for my light to turn green, I heard a siren behind me. There were probably 50 cars in my immediate vicinity. Some were already stopped, but the others quickly slowed down, pulled over, and let the ambulance through. The ambulance driver had to maneuver across a median and drive on the oppos

11.13.2023 I watched the movie Elf tonight. It’s one of my favorite Christmas movies. I’ve seen it a million times. I know when all the good one-liners come along and I can practically recite most of the movie verbatim. I know this movie inside and out. Or so I thought. I’m honestly not sure exactly how tonight’s deep dive began, but before I knew it, I was several articles and multiple YouTube videos in to a seriously deep, and very interesting Elf rabbit hole. I learned beh

11.12.2023 Okay, okay. It’s not crap. It’s stuff that no longer serves me. I loaded up the back of my car tonight with boxes and garbage bags full of items to be donated. And it’s all headed to Goodwill tomorrow. I implemented a new rule for myself over the summer. Whenever I got an Amazon box delivered to my house I had to fill the empty box with stuff to be donated. I was rocking this new rule throughout June and July and ended up doing a pretty decent purge of my closet an

11.11.2023 Today I had the honor of singing at the wedding of a beautiful young couple. The wedding ceremony was gorgeous and the church was full of love and support for these sweet newlyweds. There were many meaningful moments during their wedding Mass, but my favorite was, without a doubt, the moment when the groom began his vows. His voice cracked and then wavered a bit, as he tearfully promised his bride that he’d love and honor her until death do they part. The raw emoti

11.10.2023 Yeah, you read that right. But it doesn’t mean what you think it might. I am indeed grateful, but today it’s gratitude for nothingness. I had a whole day filled with nothing, and it was glorious. There was no school today. Originally, I had a full day planned for myself. I had several chores I was going to get done. I had some errands to run. I had a couple of work tasks I was going to knock out. I had plans for a very productive day. But I woke up with a hint of a

11.9.2023 Today my kindergarten class made muffins. We’re in the midst of a Nursery Rhyme unit and today was “Do You Know the Muffin Man?” day. We read the poem, sang the song, made a ‘rhymes with man’ list, and then made individual microwave mug muffins to cap it all off. At the end of the school day, I sat in my empty classroom reflecting on the day. The cinnamon smell was still lingering, and a few leftover supplies were sitting on my back table, but all other evidence of

11.8.2023 The Karens of the world have gotten a bit of a bad rap the past couple of years. I’ve heard all the jokes and seen all the memes. “Karen” has become synonymous with a middle-aged, entitled woman who demands to speak to the manager the second she doesn’t get her way. You can buy “Don’t be a Karen” t-shirts and mugs and greeting cards. There’s even a stereotypical hairstyle that’s been assigned to the name. Whoever started this has certainly gotten a lot of mileage ou

11.6.2023 I wanted to get a pedicure after school today. I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday. I’m way overdue for one and it seemed like the perfect thing to do on a Monday afternoon to kick off the week. As I drove to my nail place after work I was trying to decide what nail polish color to go with. I was leaning toward purple, but decided to make a gametime decision once I got there. Well, it turns out that my nail place is closed on Mondays. How did I not know this

11.5.2023 There’s this moment that I experience every once in a while with music. For me, it usually happens when I’m singing a tight harmony line alongside a strong melody. It’s this point when I hear the dancing of notes that fit together like a perfectly balanced mathematical equation. I know that’s a weird analogy, but I truly don’t know a better way to explain it. In this moment the experience becomes effortless and the lyrics, even though they’re not mine, feel like a n

11.3.2023 Sometime during my tween years, I attended a sleepover birthday party for my friend and neighbor, Emily. Emily was a good friend of mine, and I had a lot of fun at the party … until about 1:00 a.m. By 1 a.m. I was tired. Really tired. And I became extremely irritated by the dozen other girls, talking and giggling in their sleeping bags sprawled out on the floor in Emily’s basement TV room. By 1:15 a.m. I was doing everything in my power to remain calm and not embarr

11.2.2023 I have had a wish-well heart in my classroom for many years. It’s really just a pizza pan with a large red heart hot glued on it, but what it represents is something much cooler. I have little pictures of each student on magnets, and if a student is absent we put their picture in the heart and then “wish them well” until they return. I have an assigned wish-well helper in my class each month and they are in charge of keeping the wish-well heart up to date. They also

11.1.2023 I wasn’t going to do this. I’d resigned myself to taking a year’s hiatus on my November daily gratitude posts. I’ve honestly been stewing over this the past couple of days, knowing that November was about to begin, and I decided 2023 was a no-go. I had a lot of reasons. None of them were especially good reasons, but I had a lot of them. So when I woke up today and still had this whole journaling thing on my mind, I had to reconvince myself that this was a bad idea.

11.30.2022 I wasn’t sure if I was going to do my Attitude of Gratitude posts this year. I love the practice of reflecting on my blessings, but I knew this was going to be a super busy month and I wasn’t sure I was up for a daily commitment to journaling and posting. I was still wavering back and forth on whether or not I was going to do this, all the way up until about 10:30 p.m. on November 1. The thing that finally convinced me … a note from Millie. Now let me tell you abou

11.29.2022 I spotted it Monday morning while out on the playground. Everyone spotted it. It was impossible to miss. There it was, across the street from our Kindergarten playground, a giant inflatable snowman just standing there waving at us. I have no idea who lives in this house across the street, which, by the way, I will now and forevermore refer to as the snowman house. Perhaps it’s a family with young kids who begged their parents for the biggest snowman they could find

11.28.2022 Tonight my prayer group met at my friend Nancy’s house. We sat around her fire pit catching up and sharing about our lives. Nancy had a pot of coffee ready for us when we arrived, and she poured me a cup before we headed out to her backyard. She pulled several creamers out of her fridge and started to reach for another one. She stopped before she grabbed it though, and said, “I’ve got pumpkin spice too, but I know you don’t like that one.” Her comment caught me off

11.27.2022 I stopped into a few stores this morning. I wasn’t really in the shopping mood, but I needed a couple of things and wanted to hit a few sales. I had an ‘in and out’ mentality. The universe, however, had a different plan. The stores were crazy and crowded. Michaels, Home Depot and Old Navy all seemed to be short-staffed today. I think that’s kind of par for the course right now in lots of industries. It was noticeable in all 3 stores, though. Long lines were met wit

11.26.2022 I’m back home in Arizona and I’m in full-on Christmas mode. I got the rest of my decorations out this afternoon and I’ve been busy hanging lights and decorating trees all night. My whole heart is merry. This little remote control (or my clicky lights as I like to call them) is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I have 5 outlets connected to it with Christmas lights plugged in to each one. So, with the simple click of the remote I can light up 5 different are

11.25.2022 Tonight my parents and I watched the movie White Christmas. For any of you who have not had the pleasure of watching it before, White Christmas is an old movie musical starring Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. It came out in 1954 (I googled that) and it’s a story about two Army veterans turned performers. They meet two sisters (also performers) and together they work to save a bed and breakfast that their old general owns. It’s got music and dancing and romance an

11.24.2022 When I first sat down to write tonight, I got a little stressed. I actually put my laptop away and scrolled on Instagram for an hour (cuz that always helps everything, right?) before opening it back up again. Why the stress? Because I was having trouble deciding what to write about tonight. Typically, when I reflect back on my day there’s something particular that pops out as an obvious blessing to write about. Today, not so much. Don’t read that wrong, though. It