Love notes, parking tickets, classes canceled

I thought that the snow day yesterday was the greatest blessing I would witness this week in my life from God, but I was wrong. I had several today that left me astounded at how much He loves me and is mindful of me. Not that I didn't know that, I was just suprised at the varied ways it was manifest today.

First off, can I just say how much I love my job? I love my kids SO MUCH!! They bring me so much joy to be able to interact with them every day, to learn from them, to feel of the joy and excitement for life in it's simpliest (and best, in my opinion) form. This week has been an emotional one to say the least (for many reasons I won't go into right now) and I was feeling that today at work. Children are so close to Heavenly Father at this young age, I feel they can sense things: sense when you are needing extra love and comfort. All day long my kids showered me with 'I love you's' and 'you are the best teacher in the WORLD!' which kept me smiling and reminded me that God is ever mindful of me and was showing me through my kids. My favorite tangible reminder I received today I carried in my pocket the rest of the day was from Carmen, one of my students. Sometimes she will ask to see my name badge so she can use it to see the letters in my name to write them down. She asked if she could see it and a few minutes later she came up to me with this:

She quickly apologized for the tear on the first letter of my name. (she had torn it out of a notebook in the writing center) She is so sweet. I carried it around in my pocket the rest of the day.

Then later in the afternoon, I headed up to campus to class. I park in a covered parking lot on campus rather than buy a parking pass since I am only there 2 afternoon/evenings a week. I got a ticket on tuesday because I couldn't get the last of my dollars to stay in the pay machine-aparently it was too wrinkly) and I was running late to class and decided to take a chance that I would run out of time a few minutes early and that they wouldn't be monitoring it as closely. (I didn't know what else to do) Anyway, I didn't make it-I was 15 mins off and I got a $15 dollar ticket. Yikes. So, I was a little worried this time, and made sure I had a crisp bill to get into the maching lickity split! Well, I experienced a problem with the machine, it told me I had the wrong stall number and wouldn't let me process it and then it along with my 5 dollar bill, it spit out a 1 dollar bill. I happened to see an attendant checking permits as I was walking down the parking garage, so I went back and found him and told him my situation. He told me not to worry he would take care of it and put a warning ticket on my window that would cover my car from ticketing until 9 pm. I stood there astounded: unsure to believe he just said it. I thanked him, gave him the extra dollar that shot out and went on my way to class.

I got to class early and was getting settled and pulling out my assignment that were due when our professor came in and said 'Go home. Classes have been canceled."

News Release
***MEDIA ALERT***/January 31, 2008

EVENING CLASSES CANCELLED AT ALL

BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY LOCATIONS,

EFFECTIVE 5 P.M. FOR THURSDAY, JAN. 31

The president of the school had canceled the rest of the evening classes due to the storms that have been here in the 'banana belt'. (ha ha-that was a really good joke whoever told me that :) ) Again, I couldn't believe my ears. Not that I am so egotistical that I think the world revolves around me, just that it was very apparent Heavenly Father was mindful of me. Just when I thought I was walking alone, I was reminded I am not. Being in Utah near my family, I saw that all that time with them. My parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles were always blessing my life in so many ways. That I was getting used to as a normal occurance-but, it seems to feel different when it comes from different sources outside of your immediate family-It puts the truth that we are all brothers and sisters in perspective. We are watching out for each other on a much grander scale as I witnessed today.