Mondays are days built for comfy clothes, crazy hair, and no makeup. I’m so glad that I have a job that lets me come to work just like that. When you’re working with little kids, especially ones between 12 and 18 months, it seems pointless sometimes to dress up nice. I’m more about comfort than style so that totally works for me. But that’s not what I’m grateful for today. Today I’m grateful for my super comfy leggings.

I have a specific brand and style of leggings that I absolutely love. I literally bought 3 pairs I love them so much. They come up pretty high, which means I don’t have to worry about them rolling down my love handles uncomfortably and they help tuck in all the fluff. They have side pockets, which are the absolute best pockets because you don’t have to worry about having to sit on what’s in your pockets. They are also incredibly soft and stretchy. Having comfortable pants seems like a small thing, but all day comfort is something I will always be grateful for.

Today’s thankful thought is a little dark, but I really felt it today and I think not expressing it wouldn’t be true to how I was feeling. I’ve never been diagnosed with depression and I don’t think I have it consistently, but I definitely have moments of depression. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are days when I just wake up not feeling like doing life and today was one of those days. However, today I’m thankful my belief that this life isn’t the end is so engrained inside of me.

When I’m in a bad depressive episode, my thoughts sometimes scare me. Thoughts like “I hope I get into a horrible accident so I don’t have to do life” or “I really wish I could go to sleep and never wake up”. I don’t have fully formed suicide thoughts and I don’t plan out ways to kill myself, but my thoughts can sometimes be in the realm of suicide ideation. I’ve only shared these thoughts with someone one time and it didn’t go well so I keep them locked away. Part of the reason I don’t tell anyone is because of that experience, but also because I know I will never do something to end my life so I don’t want to worry anyone. No one can fix this for me anyways. I know I will never kill myself with 100% certainty because I believe there is a life after this one. If I ended my life now, I would go to the next life without having fully lived out my potential. That would just bring more suffering and guilt to my soul, not relief from the pain. I would feel regret for not pushing through the suffering and seeing the rest of the amazing things in store for me. God has a plan for me and that doesn’t involve me killing myself in my 20s. The belief that there is a life after this one is something I have never questioned. I know that this life isn’t the end and I have Heavenly Parents and a loving Savior that will meet me on the other side. If that knowledge wasn’t engrained in my soul the way it is, I’m not sure what would happen. Like I said, my depressive episodes usually aren’t long or lasting, but they can be very very dark. I know people who struggle with diagnosed major depression who don’t have the same beliefs that I do and I’ve seen how hard they have to fight those thoughts to stay in this life. Dark days are real and horrible and challenging. I’m so grateful I was blessed with the knowledge I have so that I can have a glimmer of light to hold onto during my darkest days.

Who would we be without our memories? Do we become different people if we don’t have any recollection of what has happened in our past? We obviously can’t remember everything that has ever happened to us, but our brains hold on to specific moments. I often wonder what determines what our brains retain and what is deemed unnecessary. I’m grateful today for the fun, random memories that pop up unexpectedly.

My parents were in town a few days ago and they brought me a few ornaments to put on my new Christmas tree. I was putting my tree up today and saw one of the ornaments they gave me was one lovingly nicknamed “Stripper Santa”. As I was putting it up, the memory of how he came to be played in my mind. I don’t remember a lot of it, just bits and pieces. There was a year or two when I was in middle/high school that we bought paint-your-own ornaments from the craft store. One day we had invited Hannah and Suzzanne over to paint a few with us. I was doing one that had Santa on a star and decided to paint the star behind him a sparkly, bright purple. When I had finished, Suzzanne said he looked like a stripper because of the garish star color and all the glitter. That was such a tiny moment in my life, but I laugh every year when I put up Stripper Santa on the tree. I’m so thankful that memory stuck and is able to still bring me joy 11 years later.

Today I am grateful for leftovers. I was tired after a long week and it was so nice to be able to simply put food in my toaster oven and sit on the couch for the few minutes it took to be hot and ready. I love to cook, but it can be tiring to have to make food for every meal. I saw a comment about how one of the hard things about adulthood no one is prepared for is having to think of and prepare food three times every day. I think about that often. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about that struggle today because I had yummy, homemade food in my fridge just waiting for me to devour it. And the best part is, the amount of leftovers I have in the fridge will probably last me for the next day or two. Thanks past Kyra!

Today the babies were the loudest creatures on earth. I’m pretty sure they got together and planned how to make me go crazy. Sweet little happy Chelsea decided this week that she wants to be a screamer, because apparently having two in the class already isn’t enough. She also decided that she didn’t want to take a nap and 35 minutes was an acceptable amount to sleep once she actually fell asleep. Due to her new favorite past-time, she woke everyone else up. Then, after work, I drove down to Orem to have dinner with the fam. Oliver was there, not feeling very good and making sure everyone knew it. So I had about 12 hours of screaming filling up my day (minus the nap time). That’s a lot of noise for one day. Sometimes, the things you’re grateful for are brought to your attention when you notice them missing from your life. Today I’m grateful for quiet moments.

Even if you don’t work with screaming children, the world is full of noise. Traffic, music, TV, social media, people. They surround us and constantly try to get our attention, and what better way to get attention than to make noise? We have forgotten in our society how to be quiet and still and not need to have something capturing our attention at all times. But those quiet moments are some of the most important times in our lives. The moments when we can hear ourselves think and let ourselves feel. I’m having one of those moments now as I write this and the silence that is surrounding me is giving me the space to feel gratitude for it.

Everyone that knows me knows I am not a fan of winter. I get more depressed, I don’t like being cold, and I hate not seeing the sun as much. It’s not my least favorite season, but it’s a very close 2nd to last. I dread winter coming every year. Today, however, I’m grateful for winter.

It’s not winter here in Utah yet (in fact it was 65 degrees and sunny today) and I’ve loved having a really long drawn out fall, since fall is my favorite season. However, I have been waking up in the middle of the night the past few nights because I’ve been getting so hot in my sleep. I wake up sweaty and feeling like I’m laying on a hot bed of coals inside a volcano. I haven’t had AC or heat on in over a month and my apartment has stayed pretty much the same temperature that whole time. It’s been great for my electricity bill and super comfortable when I’m just chilling, but it’s a little to hot for me when sleeping. I open my bedroom window and I have three fans on when sleeping, but for some reason my bedroom just won’t cool down enough. The temperature outside doesn’t drop low enough yet to make a difference in the inside temperature. So although I have some problems with winter, I’m thankful that there will come a time in the near future when the temperature will drop low enough for me to cuddle up in my fuzzy blankets and comfortably sleep through the night.

Have you ever taken a personality test? One that tells you your color or letters? Or do you know your zodiac sign? Or, my mom’s favorite, which of the 4 types of energy you are? There are so many different ways we try to classify who we are.

I have four little babies in my class and they are all so different. Brooks is the loudest one. Everything he does has sound and energy and movement. When he laughs, when he cries, when he sees something exciting – all of it is done in the biggest way possible. He wants all the attention on him. Aidan is softer than Brooks. He loves reading books and getting cuddles and laying on the grass to watch the trees sway and birds fly overhead. But if you even look at him wrong he’ll start throwing hands and show you he’s not someone to mess with. He smiles and laughs easily and makes you feel like you’re the most amazing person in the world. Ezra is my introverted, quiet child. He just likes to do his own thing and doesn’t bother anyone if they don’t bother him. He’ll often just giggle to himself and randomly come up to you to show you what he’s doing before going back to playing by himself. He doesn’t laugh often or easily, but he’s constantly in a good mood and is a nice presence of calm amidst my other extroverted, energetic boys. My only girl is Chelsea. It took awhile for me to get a read on her personality because she never showed much emotion or personality until she was about a year old. She would smile and play, but it was hard to understand how she was feeling and what she was thinking. That’s definitely not the case anymore. She is sassy with a capital S. If someone is doing something she doesn’t like or touching something she has claimed as hers, she will scream at you until you back off. When I tell her “no”, she looks me dead in the eyes and does exactly what I told her not to do. Today she was especially vocal in letting me know how she was feeling. She brings a lot of personality to the classroom now but also a lot of light too. She has the brightest smile and will give it to you all day long. All you have to do is say her name and she’ll look at you, give you the biggest grin, and crawl over to give you a hug. She is small but mighty.

So it’s fun to take personality tests, but our spirits are all so unique there is no test that can truly define who we are. Of course everyone I know has different personalities, but I wanted to mention my babies because (a) I love talking about them and (b) they all have such personal, distinct personalities even though they are only 1 year old. How cool is it that we are all so different from such a young age?! I’m so grateful for personalities that give so much color and life to the world.

A few days ago I was at a dinner with some co-workers and we ended up talking about Christmas. A lot of my co-workers already have Christmas decorations up and I mentioned that I haven’t taken my Halloween ones down yet because I have no Christmas ones to replace them with. My boss told me she might have an extra tree her family never used and if I wanted it I could have it. I told her if she has one that she wants to get rid of I would totally take it. Fast forward to today when I get a lot of messages from the parents of the kids I teach. They were responding to a message my boss sent that I hadn’t seen. She sent a message to all the parents at the Academy saying there is a teacher without a Christmas tree and they wanted to get her one and wondered if anyone had an extra they don’t need or had one they’re getting rid of. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It made me so grateful for the community I’m surrounded with in my work.

I’ve had a handful of bosses over the years and all of them have been pretty great, but I don’t think any of them would have done what Brooke did. To me, our conversation about the Christmas tree was a passing moment and I figured if Brooke didn’t have one that was ok and that would be the end of it. But instead of just saying “oh well” and moving on when it turns out she didn’t, she cared enough about me to put effort into getting me that Christmas tree. I’ve talked to her quite a bit over my months at Rooted Academy, but she doesn’t know how I struggle with depression in the winter. She doesn’t know how much I love Christmas. She doesn’t know that surrounding myself with Christmas things during cold Decembers brings me joy and helps with the depression. But God knows. And He knew that Brooke was a perfect person to help me because she has such a big heart. But it wasn’t just Brooke’s efforts that made me so grateful. There were several parents that said they didn’t have trees, but would be willing to buy one or go in on one so that I could have a tree. Brooke never said that it was me that needed the tree, yet these parents were willing to help out a teacher that wasn’t their kids’ teacher. And the person that said they do have a tree I can use wasn’t the parent of any of my kids. All these parents were willing to do this for someone they might not even know. I’m really excited to have my own Christmas tree and I’m happy that it will have so much more meaning now than if I just bought one at the store. I am so humbled by the charity I saw today from my boss and from the parents and am so grateful for their kindness.

This morning I spent over 2 hours talking to one of my favorite people. We hadn’t spoken in about a week and I was missing the sound of her voice and needed that vitamin H in my life. Neither of us planned to talk as long as we did, but once we start talking it’s hard to stop. I could talk to her everyday and never get tired of her. She’s my person, my ride-or-die, my platonic soulmate, my sister. Today I’m so so thankful for my best friend.

You know when you have that person who makes your life better every time you talk to them? Who you can sit with and do nothing because you’re so comfortable around them and simply sharing the same space with them brings you peace? Who can make you laugh in any situation, no matter what’s going on? Hannah is that person to me. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when she wasn’t in it and I never want to find out what it would feel like if she wasn’t. I’ve written and erased this sentence so many times because I literally can’t put into words how much she means to me and how grateful I am to have her in my life. I could write pages and pages about her, but I want to keep this post relatively short so I’m just going to highlight a few things. She gives me motivation to keep going in life and work for my goals and dreams. She is smart and talented and gorgeous. I’m so proud of her for overcoming the challenges in her life and continuing to push on. She lights up whatever room she’s in and has this amazing talent of making people feel like they are the most amazing person in the world. I feel very blessed and privileged to be her friend.

There was something my mom said when I was young that has stuck with me all these years. She told me that the connection Hannah and I have is probably so special because we were really close before we came to this earth. She was joking a little bit, we don’t know what our pre-mortal life was like, but as soon as she said it I felt the truth of it resonate with my spirit. Our relationship is unique and I’ve never met someone who has a relationship that’s even similar to ours. I honestly feel as if my soul knows her soul and is connected to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had made a pact to go through mortality together because we knew we would need each other to get through this life. Regardless of any of that, I know Hannah was deliberately placed in my life and is one of God’s greatest blessings.

Yesterday I watched a movie called The Upside, which is about a paraplegic man. I’ve been thinking about him a lot today and about all the people in the world who have physical or mental disabilities. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live your whole life not being able to do certain things. It’s not the person’s fault, it’s not God’s fault, it’s just one of those unfair things about life. I’ve worked with people with physical and mental disabilities and have friends and family that struggle as well. Thinking about them all today made me so grateful that this life is not the end. I’m so thankful that there will come a day when paralyzed people will be able to move and depressed people will feel eternally happy. When someone born without arms will be able to hug their loved ones and those with OCD can live without their compulsions. There is so much in this life that is unfair, but I am thankful that all that is unfair in this life will be made fair in the next.