The kindest surprise.

Sometimes its the little things.

A small thing can ruin your day.

Or a kind gesture can totally lift your mood.

That was me the other day.

I was tired.

Two 6 day weeks back to back made me cranky.

I mean, for real, I like being a part of the Speech and Debate team.

But this time of year is exhausting.

In general, I can fake it til I make it.

At least in front of the kids.

That afternoon, though, a little thing just crushed me.

Classes were over, but I had a two hour meeting to attend.

Not the fun kind with food and time to multi-task.

The difficult type with hard conversations and big personalities.

I walked in my classroom to gather my things and noticed a pile on my chair.

The copies I requested had been delivered.

I was super excited...


Then I looked more closely.

Only to realize that what I needed was single sided and grouped.

What I got was double sided, collated, and stapled.

It was stupid how crushed I felt by that discovery.

Its not a big deal, the copies could easily be redone.

This week, I am tired and stressed and I have a lot of stuff to do.

So even the short time it would take to remake some copies weighed heavily.

There was nothing I could do right then.

I headed out after checking in with my neighbor after setting up a few kids to work in my room.

Two hours later, I headed back to my room.

I anticipated needed at least another hour to prep for the rest of the week.

Ten minutes or so devoted to copy making.

When I walked in my room, I found the kindest surprise.

My neighbor had remade my copies and enlisted my students to cut them for me.

It was a small thing, but it made me feel about ten pounds lighter.

It still took me almost an hour to get out of there.

But because of that small thing, I ended the day on a positive note.

The little things are really the best.