Day 5: Describe an Adventure You Had This Year and Day 6: Any Words of Wisdom/Advice for Anyone?

Day 5: Describe an adventure you had this year.

Once again I am a bad blogger.  Not having a computer that works at home and refusing to drag my laptop home every single night has not helped either.  Not to sound redundant, but an adventure that I have had this year is starting my position as a school counselor.  When I was working on my Masters degree and when I did my internship, I had always had my heart set on becoming a high school counselor.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would become an elementary school counselor (and even stranger to me) that I would absolutely love working with kids in grades kindergarten through four!  I have all different types of things that I do every week (sometimes every day but not always), which include but are not limited to the following:  individual counseling, small group counseling, classroom guidance, RTI meeting coordinator, 504 plan coordinator/writer of 504 plans/504 plan reviews, coordination of testing weeks in October and April (I'm still amazed that I pulled that one off in October, pretty much all by my lonesome-it included distributing tests to all of our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade teachers, figuring out appropriate places for our students who have IEPs and 504 plans to test, and rearranging some schedules to make sure that all classes still had their specials, like art, phys. ed., and music).  I also have been in charge of Thanksgiving food basket distribution for needy families at my school and I have also been in charge of our Giving Tree program this holiday season.  Thanks to the generosity of the teachers and staff in my building, the children of 10 families in my building will be able to have holiday gifts this year.  I would estimate that there are easily 50-60 gifts sitting in my office right now, and I am sure that I will be getting more in before the due date of Wednesday this week!  It has been an adjustment but I really love my counselor position and hope that it will not be one of the positions that gets cut for next school year, as my district still has to make $2 million in cuts for next school year. 

Day 6:  Any words of wisdom/advice for anyone?

I am generally an outspoken person but I am learning that there are times to voice your opinion and times when you should keep your opinions to yourself.  I think that there are many people that I know that would benefit from this.

Also, enjoy each day and try to live it to its fullest.  Life is too short and goes by way too fast.  I feel as if I'm going to turn around and McKenna will be 18 and heading off to college already.