Today I am thankful for softly falling snow that covers everything in a clean canvas.

Friday! It was another long day but I’m grateful to be entering another weekend.

During a meeting at work we were presented with a financial overview of the college. More doom and gloom. The difficulties with Illinois politics only adds to the stresses we already face. However, I’m thankful that the folks I work with continually try to stay optimistic and collaborate on finding solutions to our issues.

Because we already celebrated last weekend, we stayed home for the holiday. Patrick still made a delicious meal and we exchanged small gifts. He gave me a sweet necklace and bath items; I gave him a cookbook and silly toys for his office. I’m thankful for the low stress way we decided to celebrate this year.

I spent most of my day sitting on an interview committee. The hiring process has changed so much since I was first hired–there are a lot more hoops now–and I felt rather bad for the applicants and the stress they must be going through. Today I was especially grateful to be on the hiring committee and not the one in the hot seat.

Why is it that even after a long weekend, it still seems like it wasn’t long enough? I didn’t have too much on my work calendar today, however, so I was able to finish up some paperwork and visit department meetings to finalize schedules. I’m grateful to have been able to wrap up some items without a lot of stress today.

The snow keeps coming this weekend. I haven’t made it to the gym lately, but I don’t feel bad after all the shoveling I’ve done. Thankfully, we were still able to make it to a friend’s house for a birthday party where we had a lovely time.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day early today by going to a fondue restaurant in town. It had been years since I’d been there, and Patrick never had, so it was a nice difference to our usual haunts. Plus the food was wonderful and the process was fun. I’m grateful he thought of it and that we enjoyed ourselves so much.

SNOW DAY!! We got more snow than it seemed like we’d get by the time I went to bed last night, so I wasn’t sure the school would close. However, it did, and it looks so pretty when it’s white and glistening out, even though it means shoveling. I’m thankful today for what will now be a long weekend.

It’s been such a long exhausting week that I’m thankful to see the end in sight. We are supposed to get a ton of snow overnight, so there’s hope that we could get a snow day at school tomorrow. It doesn’t always happen, but it may, so I finished up some loose ends at work on the off chance it does. Fingers crossed!