A Busy Season of Life…!

This has been an insanely busy season of life, but one filled with many blessings.  Along with the trials, God always provides times of joy and peace.  I think that is one reason I have been able to continue along with as much faith and strength as I have. 

I don’t often share the difficult things that are going on in my life because I don’t like dwelling in the trials… I don’t like focusing on the difficulties.  I think to some extent it is one of my faults because I live life pretending as if nothing is going on.  I talk to a handful of people but for the most part I stuff it all down and pretend like nothing is happening.  I know that it frustrates the heck out of Matthew. 

In fact, I bury myself in my homework to avoid the pain, the fear, the frustrations of everything else.  I have become a pro at holding it all in and pretending that I am invincible and managing fine.  One of these days I may crack under the pressures of life… or maybe I will learn to work through it all… we shall see. 

I found out that my Grandma had passed away as we were coming back from vacation… the next morning we got up early to head to the hospital for Matthew’s seizure study.  He has been having symptoms that appear to be seizures where he is unresponsive for a time and that wanted to see what was going on.  My anxiety was through the roof during the study and I was emotionally drained for losing my Grandma… but I didn’t want to cry… I didn’t want to lose it at the hospital where Matthew was being recorded for three days… so instead, I shoved my emotions down and focused my energy on my edTPA.  I used all that pent-up emotions to complete my final “assessment” to get my teaching certificate.  It was a TON of work, but I had three full days stuck in a hospital room. 

Working on my edTPA at the hospital... 

I was very relieved at the end of the study when we found out that Matthew was not having seizures… it sucks that the stress of fighting the system (L&I and Social Security) is affecting him to the point that his mind shuts down which is why it appears as if he is having seizures.  We still don’t have all the answers to all of this symptoms but at least his brain is not being “fried” by these episodes. 

I was also very relieved when I finished my edTPA and submitted it for review… but of course anxious to have to wait the three weeks to get the results… I had plenty to keep me busy though… Matthew went in for his Carpal tunnel and Cubital tunnel surgery, so I took a couple days off work to care for him and then set him up with home health PT services.  I finished up the quarter at school and completed all my homework assignments for my last master’s class.  I worked like crazy to set up my master chair committee.  I worked on things for my grandma’s memorial service (created the program and PowerPoint).  Finally, I graciously amended an IEP so they could submit it last minute as a safety net IEP.  All of this was on top of the normal day to day things I had to do… as you can see… life is busy.

In this time there have come about MANY blessings… I enjoyed a week off from my college classes to relax.  I received many compliments from district office in regards to writing safety net IEPs… they even delivered flowers and a card.  Of course, one of the biggest blessings was receiving my PASSING score on the edTPA.  Now that this test is over everything else I have left to do is super easy… just logging my regular work hours and small assignments to get me through this last quarter of school.  Finally, in honor of passing the edTPA, I went on a shopping spree for new clothes and found out I fit back into large shirts… woohoo..!  Life is busy… and hard… but it is also good.  

Flowers and Card from District Office... 

The day I PASSED my edTPA..!