The glad game...

Top photo: What VZ means to me...friendship. Bottom photo: paradise-a good book, glass of good wine, SKYPE, and a beautiful, secluded pool on Margarita Island...life is not all bad=)

My daughter Tori loved the Disney movie "Pollyanna". After seeing it as a young girl, she would often insist on playing the "glad game" rather than complain about things. As she has grown into a young woman, she still drags out the glad game to deal with tough situations in life-it's like a perspective check.

My Glad Game for this month goes like this:

After enduring messed up traffic patterns due to increasing numbers of police stops as well as ever increasing power and water outages, I AM GLAD I have been able to see first hand what a difference the little things make in the overall sense of freedom for an individual and appreciate the freedoms I have in the USA.

Even though my only five foreign hire teacher friends are leaving this year, I AM GLAD that I will be going to Ecuador this summer to learn Spanish and will have a perfect opportunity (and no excuses!) next year to make new friends with people from this community.

Despite the exhausting preparations for over a month for International Day at school, I AM GLAD that the fact that the FIFA World Cup is being held in South Africa motivated my students to learn about a continent and peoples who they previously would never have even thought about (Africa).

Being far away from family can be really tough, especially during challenging periods of a loved one's life but I AM GLAD that Clark is finishing his first year of college and is headed to Africa in 5 days, and that my sister Tami and family have hired Tori to help run their many businesses-starting with Stagecoach Marina this summer.

Even though our ferry reservation got mixed up and we had to pay for new tickets, stand in line for five hours, and fight crazy, chaotic crowds just to take a dirty, noisy, hot, all night ferry to get home in time for work, I AM GLAD that I live close enough to the gorgeous tropical, windsport paradise of Margarita Island that I can go there for a whole weekend of fun for less than $200.

Really...I AM GLAD to be living the life of a Gypsy...very very glad.

Thanks for following along...I AM GLAD YOU DO!!!