care package rescue

as of friday, april 6th my student teaching is complete.


did it get any better than how i described it going in my last post?
well....
there were ups and downs, but it basically stayed the same for the entire 65 student teaching days.

running off steam
engulfed in the black hole of tiredness that - no matter how early i crashed asleep on my bed (10pm? 9pm? even 7pm sometimes!) - never released its grasp
seeing no one but 7th graders and the occasional roommate who happened to be around when I made my way from the door to my bed
having no life

words like chaos, crazy, .... even "hellish" are, in my mind, just putting it lightly.



at one point - about a month before finishing my student teaching - i was on the phone with my sister discussing how things were going in my life.

obviously this wasn't the most positive conversation.


i vividly remember being stressed out of my mind because
1) my supervisor was coming the next day to observe me and things weren't perfect
2) there was more than a little grading to be done ... ugh, isn't there always so much grading?!?
3) i was exhausted - mentally, physically, and emotionally - as always
4) i was down to my last pair of underwear and needed to do laundry, but that entailed:

getting cash -- finding a place to exchange the cash for quarters -- lugging my laundry to the machines -- waiting and waiting, then changing machines -- and staying up long past my bed time.

sundy replied, "you know things are bad when you only have one pair of underwear left."


we had a good chuckle about that, then the conversation moved forward.
(don't worry, everything worked out and i got clean clothes thanks to a lot of help from others :)



well, at the end of that week, i received a care package from none other than miss sundy sunshine-ray-of-my-life.


here are the contents of the package:

this is what her tender "may the sun shine on you today" card said -----

to my punkin lamb --

31 days to glory. {a countdown chain}

a pair of clean ones just to tide you over. {the underwear}

some sweet humor for the hard moments. {laffy taffy}

permission to feel sour. {sour jelly belly jelly beans}

a token to remind you why (for some beautiful reason) you started this journey to begin with. {a ring stating, "love is patient, love is kind, love never ends..."}

dark chocolate & pb for... well, just because! {dark chocolate reese's - my fave!}

and if all else fails, a means in which to forget about the stress and bless someone else for a moment in time. {butterfly thank you cards}

i believe in you; love, sundy

here is a close-up of the "token" {ring}:

her care package could not have come at a better time. that weekend was spent grading 260 human reproduction tests and diagrams.

here's a couple pictures of the stack:

the countdown chain helped my mental state enormously. watching the chain get shorter and shorter kept me going -- like the little engine that could.

i wouldn't have survived the entire thing with out help from sisters, brother-in-law, brother* (he helped in many ways, only one of which was laundry :), bishop and other church leaders, parents, prayers on my behalf, etc.

but i survived.

and now i need to stop blogging {aka procrastinating} and get to work on my senior project that is due in a few short days ------ if i can survive this last thing, i'm graduating at the end of this month!!! after seven long years since high school.

ok.
fine.
i'm getting to work.

but i'll be back soon, if the project doesn't kill me :)