TToT – Community

October 25, 2014 Off By Lisa

The Fab Hub rolled his eyes and sighed at me when I told him I didn’t know if I had ten things for my list this week.

I’m not really sure when my husband the cynic became my husband the positive thinker. But the gesture did serve to make me realize that hearing those words out loud made me less than proud of myself.

It’s been a challenging week here for sure. Kdizilla is having a bad run at school and it has been frustrating for everyone. For a while, I let that dark cloud eclipse the many things of good in our lives. As I looked back over the week, though, those many good things came swiftly and clearly to the forefront. I know that we are part of a loving and supportive family – immediate and extended. But I also found that much of the good in our lives lately has stemmed from being part of a strong and wonderful extended church and school community.

I’ll start with last weekend, though, because I can’t skip mentioning the terrific trip we had to see Disney’s Frozen on Ice last weekend. My Mom, the Hub, Kidzilla, and I all took off after school to a favorite amusement park not too far down the road for their very kid-friendly Halloween festivities. Kidzilla donned her ’80s Rocker costume and we had a wonderful evening enjoying the lights and rides in the park, the Halloween-themed music, a fun trick-or-treat adventure, funnel cake and hot chocolate, and more.

We stayed overnight at a nearby hotel and the next morning had a terrific breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. Am I the only one who thinks hotel bacon is amazing? It was a great spread, very reasonably priced, and just what we needed to start a busy day. Oh, and I have to mention that we got a terrific deal on the room thanks to Hotwire, which I had never used before. Score!

Later that morning, we sat in too-good-to-be true seats for Frozen thanks to my sniffing out an online promo code. We had not-quite-center ice seats on the floor level of the arena and the show was awesome. We had a great lunch at a place we discovered near the park last year and then headed home. We had a wonderful time – a delightful fall weekend!

Thanks to my Mom’s brilliant idea to go after school on Friday, enjoy the park in the dark, stay overnight and then drive home during the day after the ice show, we arrived home before dinnertime and before dark. So much better than hitting the road after the park closes and then having a long drive!

So that gets me thankfuls for great deals on tickets and hotels, beautiful weather, a wonderful time, and another set of great memories. Now for the week…

As the week unfolded, Kidzilla continued to struggle with behavior in school. I haven’t talked about it too much or too often here except in fairly general terms, but Zilla (like her parents) lives with ADHD and a few associated co-conditions. She has been doing extremely well learning how to manage all of that over the last several months and we are so proud of her. Recently, we’ve hit a bad stretch of circumstances that have proved difficult for her and it’s been a challenge to get her back on track. It is easy to sink into frustration and upset, especially when it comes to your child having difficulty in school. But as I look back over the week, I realize that there is much to be grateful for in all of this.

First, the Hub and I have a well-equipped arsenal of knowledge and strategies with which to help Zilla. We have supportive family. My Mom, especially, has been a great source of guidance for us this week. And Zilla’s teacher has noticed Zilla’s struggles and contacted us more than once to figure out what’s behind the behavior lately. We are grateful for a teacher who recognizes that something is amiss and cares enough to help find out why and remedy the situation.

When I was at Zilla’s school to volunteer this week, the woman who manages the school cafeteria stopped me to let me know how many lunch snacks Zilla has left. (We keep a supply in the school kitchen for days when there might be an item Zilla should not eat so she can have an alternate treat. Jell-O, for example, may seem innocuous but has dyes so she can’t go here.) She also asked me to take a look at some food coloring ingredients with her to determine if they would be OK for Zilla. It is so comforting to know that people are looking our for our girl so she doesn’t get hold of foods that will adversely affect her. But I also loved that this person knows exactly who my daughter is, recognizes me as her parent, and is willing to take the time to ensure that things go well for her in the cafeteria. That doesn’t happen everywhere.

That same day, I ran into a retired teacher from Zilla’s school and friend of my Mom’s who happened to be in the building. She asked how my new business was going and offered to send me information that will potentially bring some work my way.

Try and follow me on this one…my Mom ran into a former colleague of mine who also happens to be a former student of my Mom’s and a former schoolmate of mine and a fellow parishioner and parent of our church and school, respectively. (Still with me?) Anyway, she asked Mom how I was, what I was doing, and as the conversation continued, it led to this person telling my Mom that she may have some potential tutoring clients to send my way.

I had a very positive initial consult with another potential student’s parent this week, thanks to Super Sister making the connection for us. And as a side note, this parent has a student currently in Super Sister’s class and could not say enough about how much she and her student love my Sister. I am so glad that her students and parents see the wonderful teacher she is becoming and that they love and appreciate her for it.

I could probably list a few more things here, but those were the big highlights. We are so blessed to be part of a family and community where people know and care for one another in ways like these. It makes working through the tougher days that much easier.

In other news, we are truly grateful for a kitchen that is so full of fresh CSA vegetables that we will likely need to freeze them or share them because it is simply too much for one little family. The Hub’s parents usually share this delivery with us and my Mom, but they are away so we have a whole lot of produce to deal with! There are a few people in our parish community I can think of who will probably be happy to share some veggies with us and help solve our “problem” of overabundance. And I suppose there is always the option to freeze those things that might freeze well.

I’m going to go a bit strange here and say I’m thankful for the argument discussion the Hub and I had last night after Kidzilla was in bed. Not that we enjoy disagreement, but I think we’ve both been stewing on a few topics lately and it was much better to get things out in the open and talk about them. Life isn’t perfect, but it is good to know that we have a relationship such that we can disagree and work through those disagreements without fear of the whole thing falling apart. That is not true for everyone.

I know I’ve hit at least ten but let me add a gratuitous photo description here of one more item. We have again had the lovely opportunity to observe nature up close. This time a handful of robins let us snap a few photos while they hung out in the trees in front of our house. I tried to post the photos but sadly, because of the lighting,  you can’t tell that they are robins in the photos. You can’t even really tell that they are birds unless you knew they were there. Bugger. That would have been a very cool thing to share. So take my word for it that they were very cool – three of them sitting all in a row in the tree, then flitting to different branches and re-arranging themselves while the three of us watched them.

And coffee. The Hub’s of course, because it’s amazing. But I have also allowed myself to indulge in some Dunkin’ Pumpkin on more than one occasion this week. I was honest, though, and told the Hub I cheated on his coffee. He won’t drink flavored coffee, so I can’t convince him to brew the pumpkin at home.

What are you thankful for this week? What things have made you happy? You know what to do…share ’em or link ’em!

Have a wonderful week!

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Ten Things of Thankful