Being a first year teacher is hard.  To compound things I am, as you know, a mother to two boys.  We also just moved to Arizona from Washington and Husband is currently very busy helping his aged father gracefully navigate the state of befuddlement he is rapidly descending into. Life is very challenging for me right now and if I stop to think about it all, or even focus on just a tiny corner, tears spring to my eyes.  I feel I need to work harder, do better at, be better in almost all areas.  I am tired and my mind spent when I get home from teaching everyday.  I am struggling to stay one day ahead. And so on the weekends, I wake up early.  I get dressed, laced up my shoes, and tiptoe out the door with Haley, our dog, happily tugging at the leash.  Most mornings I get out alone (well, me and Haley get out alone).  Sometimes Cody wakes up and wants to join us creating an entirely different walking dynamic. This morning it was just Haley and I.  We walked for almost an hour.  The city woke up around us.  The pieces of my mind that I felt I lost during the week, slowly returned to me with each passing step.  But that was not all I found on my walk this morning. I found three quarters and two pennies.  Not a bad find for a morning walk. But it gets better.  As Haley and I rounded a corner in a quiet neighborhood I spied a rather beat up looking thin red book lying face down where the road’s edge met up with some tuffs of struggling grass.  I am a book lover and so naturally I picked it up.  And turned it over. One of my favorite children’s books and one that holds great meaning for me.  Shortly after Cody was born, during the time he was in the hospital struggling to grow and survive, a friend of ours gave him a small version of The Little Engine That Could.  Symbolism. It is not in the greatest of shape, but not too shabby for a first edition 1930 hardbound book that was just lying there by the side of the road. Little pieces of my mind, 77 cents, and The Little Engine That Could – all on a Saturday morning walk.