Weekend WOW & OLW

I'm joining Em @ Curious Firsties for her linky party Wednesday WOW. It is a time to look at you week and share WOW moments big and small in your personal or professional life.

My first WOW is professional. Since a new kdg teacher was hired, I went to school during the break to return tables and other things I had brought into my classroom for the kinders. Before the kinders came, I had been clinging to this large round table that took up a lot of space, but I just loved the table. When the kinders came, I had to move it out. So I decided I would try replacing it with desks, all of the other kids were at desks except the 6 that sat at the table. Then if I still had space,  I would put it back in the room. Sadly, I did not have room for the table, but I feel rather like Chrysanthemum's parents about all I can say is WOW. I can't believe how much more room I have!

My personal WOW this week is I got my first iphone yesterday! I had what they called a "Green Smart Phone". It had internet and everything, but you didn't have to pay a monthly fee to have it. You couldn't do much on it, it was very slow. I would tell people it was a smart phone that wasn't very smart! haha  I haven't gotten to do much with it yet, but I did sign up for Instagram. I think I am going to have to watch Delaney, she keeps taking pictures of herself and posting them. lol

I have been trying to think of my OLW, I had decided a couple of nights ago I was going to use priorities. This past year, I have come to the realization I have really let my priorities get all out of whack. I didn't have this problem while I was still married. My ex husband would not have allowed me to stay at school and spend hours upon hours. I doubt he would have been happy with me bringing all the stuff home that I do. I guess it kind of started to fill a void that was in my life, but as time went on, I let it get out of hand. Anyway, I said I was thinking about using priorities as my OLW, but I feel like once I realized my problem, I have made changes to correct it. I still have things to work on, but I am going to continue to make changes.

So it was back to the drawing board for my OLW.  What makes a year, month, week, day, etc... good or bad? I was reading a FB post and a girl was talking about the tough times that she and her family had gone through this year. As I was reading it, it hit me, it's all about your perspective. Is the cup half empty or half full? She stated one of the bad things was to narrowly escape the Moore tornadoes, when I read it, I thought to myself, that sounds like a good thing. Not, of course, the damage done to her home or how frightening it must have been but if you put it into a different perspective she could have put escaping the the tornado as one of the highlights of her year. 

That's when it hit me, I have definitely had a major problem with perspective.  I have had a very negative attitude about all things school this year and even last year.  I know that I need to start changing my perspective because I was ready to quit teaching, but I hadn't taught long enough to retire. It's rather ironic, we do an Organizational Health Inventory every year at school. We went over our scores today and  one of our lowest scores was in morale. Apparently, I'm not alone. During our meeting, we made a list of things that caused our low morale. It had such things as large classes, new curriculum, new teacher evaluation, not getting subs to come to our school which leads to classes getting split up, new, very time consuming lesson plan, etc... After the list was made we looked it over and realized that most of the things causing us stress, negativity, etc... were things that were completely out of our control. It basically confirmed what I had already realized at home...I need to change my perspective. So that's my OLW this year, I think as I work on changing my perspective it will help me deal with stress better. I think I will be a better Christian, mom and teacher.