I Did It!

I earned my National Board Certification! That whole big project, all bazillion pages of writing and hours of recording and months of stressing - it was all worth it!

And the way they tell you...up until a week ago, I didn't even know when I'd know. But then they sent out an email saying scores would be released on the 15th. Naturally, since I knew they ran on east coast time, I logged in yesterday just after 9 to see if, just maybe, I'd be able to get to my scores. And this is what I saw as soon as I hit "login"

Just like that! Ross and I were both shocked. I wasn't sure I'd pass, and I wasn't sure the scores would be ready, and I definitely wasn't expecting to see the congratulations there right away!

A whole lot of yesterday was hard and kinda crummy...but this was the best end possible! And then I got to run across the backyard, to my sister's place, and share a celebratory glass of wine with her and my dad. Hard to beat that!!

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I'm thankful today for our crockpot, because it makes delicious food while I'm not home; for my dad, working tirelessly to lift our family up and make sure we know how proud he is of us; for the internet, because it relieved me of that awful "running to the mailbox 10 times in an hour just to see if your results have arrived" feeling that I remember so well from the college app days; for my students - I could not have looked so competent without them; for my sister, for a million reasons, but today because she didn't tell my dad I'd passed, even though she knew, so I got to see him read my text and get all surprised and that was really fun; and finally for my husband, because that man read every.single.word I wrote in my National Boards. And it was not good writing. And he told me it was even while deleting huge passages of useless word soup that I'd written at 2 am. And he kept me supplied in snacks and bubbly water and backrubs while I wrote, and never complained once. Except about how the National Boards don't give you nearly enough space to answer all the questions they ask - he complained about that one a lot, as he eliminated every transition word I'd written. But they earned that complaint. So thanks, babe!