Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, Sound the Alarm!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have done what I previously thought was the impossible: I've completed this school year.  It was painful, slow and painfully slow, but I'm happy to say that I've done it...and I've learned a few lessons in the process.  Some things I've learned (that I've always known but I didn't know how true they were until I had the constant reminders this year):

*Change is hard and changing jobs is hard especially when you loved your old job and you really didn't    want to leave it.

*Children need structure.  C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.L.Y. I knew this, but I didn't realize the huge difference between the amount of structure a child from a broken home needs versus a child from a home where mom and dad are both investing in them.

*I should never put things off. EVER. Do you know how many times I was up until 1-2am working on report cards that had to go home the next day?  Everytime Actually that never happened ;).

*My "to-do" list will NEVER be completely done; I shouldn't hold it against myself when I go to bed at night and there's not a "check" next to even item.

*I shouldn't let the way others treat or view me change the way I view myself.

*People are hard to love - all the more reason to try (who doesn't like a good challenge???).

*The job of a teacher is NEVER done (until summertime that is).  Actual teaching only represents about half of what's expected of me.

*I need more sleep as a teacher than any other job (except motherhood) and it actually hinders me from getting sleep (hmmm...starting to sound like this is motherhood...)

*I have infinitely less amount of patience when I'm tired.  infinitely.

*Living intentionally and working in an intentional manner is far better than flying by the seat of your pants - especially when teaching. (not that I've done the latter...)

I could keep going and going but I'm feeling a little sleepy and Catching Fire is catching my attention...you know, the book I bought LAST SUMMER but didn't have a second to read it during the school year - yeah, that one.