Sometimes You're Right; Sometimes You Learn Something

In one of the places I taught preschool, I had the classroom right next to the kitchen. Sometimes it was a good thing. Like when we all needed emergency nap time cookies and I could get that taken care of. Or when we were short-handed and I could make lunch while the kids were playing in centers and not be that far removed from the classroom (and I had an aide who was watching the kids).

And that time that the oven caught fire because some grease dripped off the pan onto the heating elements. I noticed it right away. And I panicked! My aide and I both stood in the doorway of the kitchen, slack jawed, and just stared.

"The oven's on fire!! What do I do?" I screamed. (I am more embarrassed than you can possibly imagine about that right now.) There were flames shooting out of the open oven and I was frozen in place.

The toddler teacher came running down the hall and slammed the oven shut. Then she grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and took a deep breath before opening the oven again. The flames had mostly died down, but she sprayed the extinguisher on what was left of them and calmly put that fire out. Then she asked if maybe I wanted to take my kids out to the playground for a little while.

What did I learn? I learned that maybe I don't think so well under pressure. However, I learned that I retain information best when I use it. Theory is great, but practice is better. I also learned that any experience you survive is a learning experience. You can bet I know what to do with an oven fire now!

For this month's Secret Subject Swap, Karen sent me the following prompt: "November is a time for being thankful. Tell us about an experience that was difficult at the time, but that looking back you are now thankful to have gone through."

I had a big grin on my face when I got that email. I don't know if Karen knew what she was getting into with that question! To be honest, there are a few stories that I'm still not ready to tell and a few more that aren't completely mine to tell. All in all, I think I've had a fairly easy, fairly fortunate life. Sure, I've had hard times. I've lost friends; I've lost family members. I've had dreams shatter right in front of my eyes.

But I'm here. My life right now isn't without hardships, but in all honesty I like where I am. If I look at those hard times and get sad about them, then I'll be stuck in the past. But if I look back at them as part of the journey that got me to where I am, how can I not be thankful for those trials?

Welcome to the Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado

The Momisodes

Spatulas on Parade

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

Never Ever Give Up Hope

The Lieber Family Blog

Rena’s World

Dinosaur SuperheroMommy

The Bergham Chronicles

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Just a Lovely Day

Someone Else’s Genius

Climaxed

The Angrivated Mom

By the way, if you enjoy reading these challenges are you're interested in joining in, just let me (or Karen-she's in charge!) know!! we'd love to have more friends join us!