Groceries for gratitude

I knew that I would have trouble finding a daily gratitude at points throughout the year, but I certainly did not think it would be the second day into this year-long adventure. My day began in a fury, and continued this way throughout. During my holiday break, which I know I am lucky to have, I quickly adjusted to my holiday morning routine. This routine did not include a 4:45 wake-up call. Also, I guess I was hoping that I had magically cut my morning events down by 25 minutes.

Before I knew it, 1:45pm had arrived, and it was time for planning. My students still seem to be adjusting back into the school groove, so although the instructional part of my day went quickly, it was rather bumpy. I had a 1:50 meeting today, so I was rushing to get the laptops plugged back into the cart to juice up for another busy day tomorrow, when with a sinking feeling, I only got up to a count of 18. I counted, re-counted; walked away, then came back and counted again. Hoping that the 19th computer would be there. It was not, nor was it in any hiding places around the room. I reluctantly went to report the theft, and then to my meeting... 15 minutes late by this point. I wondered who else besides myself was thinking, 'Good gracious! This lady needs to get her *&%$ together'.

As I pulled out of the DHS parking lot to pick up Russell from my parents' house, I called Paul. He was at the grocery store "picking up a few things", so said he would call me back later. I figured that he was just getting some fruit and salad to tide us over for a quick dinner and lunch for tomorrow. This grocery shopping act alone was enough to make me grateful because it was one less item to complete tonight once arriving home.

When I finally got home about 7:40, I quickly realized that Paul had shopped for the entire week, and had meals planned out too! He had also gone to the Whole Foods, rather than the Kroger nearest us because Whole Foods has the organic produce that I wanted to buy to start making Russell food. Paul knew that he could not do anything to fix my frustrating and disappointing work day, but he could ease the load by taking two of my least favorite weekly activities, grocery shopping and meal planning, off my shoulders.