Caution–this post may contain descriptions of disturbing images!!! Read at your own risk!!

I have turned into a “house-dress” wearer. Is admitting you have a problem the first step to getting over a problem?? Oh wait, I don’t want to get over it.

I remember my daddy’s momma (we called her Grannie-Ma) wearing “housedresses.” They weren’t quite muumuus, but not something you’d wear OUT. They were sort of ugly and unfashionable and I used to think I’ll never wear those.  (She also ate those orange marshmallow circus peanuts. Gross!!)  I googled “house dress” images and got 961,000,000 results. Trust me, my Granniema’s didn’t look like any of these!!

                   

Ooops.

 

I have two. They are both from the same pattern, but one is a salmon color and one is a faded, blueish/purplish. The blue one also has a bleach spot on it.  I put one on every Saturday, unless I have to go somewhere. I think they may have been originally purchased by someone (NOT ME!) as a swimsuit cover up. They are too big, they’ve been washed 1000 times and I love them. 

Why a house dress?? Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. I need to wear something while I do laundry and clean. When I do laundry, I have to go outside and downstairs. I can’t  do that in my pajamas.  So I’ve gotta wear SOMETHING.  And I can’t wear any good stuff, I may need to wash it.

I don’t wear them out anywhere, except maybe the drive thru at Sonic or Hardees! Even then, I try to hide. This is not a good look for me! Unfortunately, I think it’s sort of necessary. I wonder what I’ll do next that I swore I’d never do.  Uh-oh, if anyone sees me eating circus peanuts, just hit me in the head!!

Overwhelming, overflowing Thankfulness

Even though it’s not yet time for Thanksgiving, today I am overwhelmed by thankfulness.  I try to be thankful a lot, and not just in the month of November, but today, it’s not trouble at all!!As I sit here eating my slightly stale bowl of honey nut toasty O’s, I’m just full and running over!   I love, love, love how God gives us what we need!!

Tonight was our first night of AWANA. I love AWANA, I’ve been an AWANA leader for YEARS. I’m not officially in charge of AWANA at our church, everybody just assumes I am. I guess that means I really am, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t!  I have been teaching the Bible lesson for our TNT clubbers and doing Game Time for Sparks and for TNT. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. All summer, I’ve been praying for a Game Director. I even found someone who I thought would be perfect. So I started praying specifically that God would make him want to be my Game Guy! I did give him fair warning, that I was praying that.

We also have been wanting a man for our TNT boys.  I really feel like it’s so important for little boys to have a good male role model at church for them to look up to. We had a guy, but his job has made it really difficult for him to be there. So I’ve been praying for a man. 

Tonight, God answered my prayers and gave us just what we needed.  I’m so, so thankful for our two new Jasons!! We have a Jason for our boys and a Jason for Game Time!! Isn’t that awesome??

I’m also constantly amazed and thankful for the other leaders we have. We have two secretaries who check our kids in every week, greet them and keep up with records for us. They do an amazing job!! Our little kids LOVE them and know exactly who to go see and what to do. They’ve trained our kids to check in. I decided (since I’m sort of in charge) we should have a snack tonight.I sent a few text messages and ended up with enough brownies for all our clubbers to have two and some of us got extras to bring home! Not only that, one more email got me tubs of Kool-Aid mix, our ladies mixed it up, poured, and served. All I did was drop off a pan of brownies and pick up a clean pan afterwards!! Well, after I ate a few!!

I really do love AWANA, but some days, I feel tired and grouchy and would rather stay home.  I don’t – I always go and I’m always glad I do.  Our kids always make me feel better and the people who come and work with those kids week after week constantly amazed.  I am truly grateful and my church is blessed and lucky to have such wonderful leaders in it!!!

Bad luck with pointy fingers

Okay, I have this neat classroom tool I call my “pointy finger.”  It’s a finger pointer that I use with my document camera. I have big hands and sometimes when  I want to point something  out  to my students, my fingers and hands just get in the way.  So, several years ago I found a finger pointer.  The day we passed our media certification tests, my friend Robyn and I stopped at our local teacher store and I saw this tub of finger pointers. I like them, so she bought me a red one.  I used it  a LOT until one day, two years ago, an evil child in my class stole it!! He actually was playing with it in another teacher’s class and he made the student throw it away. The boy even tried to get it out of the trash and the teacher made him throw it away a second time. If he’d read  his email, he would have realized I was already looking for it and suspected THAT student had taken it. When the student was confronted, he said “it’s just a pointer.” That wasn’t the point.  That first one was red.

So, I was so bummed about my lost pointy finger that my sister brought me one that she had She didn’t use it much and I was being such a whiny baby, she brought me hers. I think she got it at the book fair.  This one was blue.  I can’t find it.  I have a vague recollection of putting it somewhere “safe” while I was out for a week last year for my gall bladder surgery, but I can’t find that safe place.

On Saturday, my other sister and I had lunch right down the road from the teacher store and my sister needed  a tree for her Sunday School bulletin board.  I got a new pointy finger. This time I got a green one.  So we get to her church and she’s working on her bulletin board. I pulled out the “read” poster and the pointy finger that my sister bought for me and put the trash in the bag from the teacher store and threw it away. 

I post something about my pointy finger and my friend Debbie asks what it is. I start looking for my pointer to take a picture of and show her. I can’t find it.  I’m looking all in my giant school bag (where I put the poster)  under the couch, inside the folders inside my giant school bag and I can’t find it anywhere. I’m beside myself at this point. I’m downstairs telling Robyn and Josh the sad tale of woe regarding the universe’s plot against me having a pointy finger and I remember bringing in my bag of library books from Robyn’s car.  I tear up the stairs and there it is, my lost and now found pointy finger. I don’t know why I have such a hard time keeping up with them. They only come in four colors and now I’ve had every color except yellow.  Really, it’s not that hard, is it??

I wanna go there!!!

I love the author Nora Roberts. I adore her writing style, her characters and the pictures she makes in my head. I also love that she writes books in a series, which makes me happy.  Her newest series is the Inn Boonsboro series, which includes the books “The Next Always,” “The Last Boyfriend” and coming in November “The Perfect Hope.” These books are all set in Boonsboro, Maryland and involve the renovation and creation of Inn Boonsboro. Here’s what I love about this series: each suite in the inn is named after famous couples in literature who lived happily ever after. There’s a Nick and Nora suite, Titania and Oberon,  Marguerite and Percy, Jane and Rochester. My own personal favorites – Elizabeth and Darcy, Eve and Roarke (from her own JD Robb novels) and  Westley and Buttercup!!

Here is the coolest thing ever! You CAN really go to the Inn. Nora Roberts and her husband really bought an old inn, redid it and fixed it just like the Montgomery brothers did in the books!! Each suite is designed specially to match it’s couple. Each suite also has it’s own amenities designed specially for it’s couple. Is that not the coolest thing EVER?? I want to go there. The hardest decision would be. . . which room would I want to stay in??

 

You can check it out here: http://www.innboonsboro.com/

Just what I needed

For the last few days, the little inspirational devotion books I read  have been hitting me hard. They have addressed some needs in my life, they have picked at a few scabs where I am wounded and then smoothed a layer of Neosporin right over those sore spots and slapped a band aid on top! 

Last Thursday, two of my books referenced the same Scripture. Different books, different authors, different publishers.

Psalms 139:1-3 

O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

One of them went on to verse 6, but verse 4 seems to get me all the time:

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

My mouth gets me in trouble quite frequently. . .

 

Today one devotion is titled “The New Normal.” It talks about one of the hardest things to get through in grieving some of life’s most difficult things is having to accept that what we have NOW, is the new NORMAL way of living for us.  My sister and I had almost this EXACT conversation the day we drove back from the Keys and our mom had just passed away. The whole world was going on just like always and our whole world was all of a sudden, off kilter. But Robyn (who is a hospice nurse and a gerontological nurse said “but this is going to be normal for us now.” Today would have been my parents 51st wedding anniversary – but we have a new normal now. 

Another one of my books says “I can brighten up the dullest of gray days. I can add sparkle to the routine of daily life.” Well, if you’ve looked outside where I live, it’s a pretty gray day. I don’t expect we’ll see the sun all day. But this unexpected school holiday is a chance to catch up on my laundry – one of the routines of daily life that I just HATE. I absolutely HATE laundry. Hate, hate, hate it!!! But, if I choose I can let God add sparkle to my gray day filled with laundry. 

My third little devotion is from my Women of Faith Infinite Grace book.  I just started re-reading this one and today my lesson was by Mary Graham and is called “Flooded with Grace.” it’s about a woman named Geraldine who used to live in New Orleans, but relocated to Texas after Hurricane Katrina.  Again, as I sit home from school today because of Tropical Storm Isaac, and listen to the rain fall, and remember concerns last night about rivers cresting,  I’m  overwhelmed  and feel a bit flooded myself. 

I know that God loves me. I know it in head as sure as I know my own name! But sometimes my heart forgets and needs a little more convincing.  I mean, why on earth does the One who can speak anything He wants to into existence even bother with me? But  then, something like this happens and I get it. If we were working today, I’d have stuck my 27 on my calendar and thought “Today would have been my parent’s anniversary” and then I’d have been so busy, it might never have crossed my mind again. But I’m not at school. I’m home – where I have much more time to think. And dwell. And brood.   So the One who loves me best gave me just what I needed – and He gave it to me through my books I’m reading. Does He know me or what?? 

The End and a New Beginning

They’ve been friends for years.  Two of them met in middle school  and they connected with the other two in band camp before their freshman year of high school. They survived band camps, strange musical productions and  hours of bus rides.  They are “The Four Musketeers.”

I’m not good at many things (this has been reaffirmed to me this week!) but I am a good aunt. I work hard at being a good aunt. That means that I’ve sat thru lots of events I may not have wanted to, because of my niece and  nephews.  One of the things I’ve been around for years was Band. Both my nephews were in the band and Josh  met Cameron in middle school band.  They clumped up with Derrick and Zach in high school.  There were lots of times when the four of them ended up at downstairs at my sister’s house, or in the car, or at dinner. . .  There were times I felt like I had four nephews in the Band instead of just one! 

As they graduated and went to college or to work, I wondered if they’d still stay friends or drift apart. For a while, Zach drifted away, but he’s come back around again.

Last weekend, the four of them spent the weekend together, in Georgia.  It was sort of like their last hurrah. Cameron will never be just “theirs'” again. 

Last night Josh came home and said Cameron was spending the night here. Alli had decided she was staying in their apartment with her girls and he had to get out. So, 3 of the 4 played video games and stayed here last night. Another, one last time.

Today, Cameron got married. It  was a lovely wedding. As Alli’s dad walked her down the aisle, the four of them, along with Cameron’s other friend, played the Bridal Chorus on their instruments. It was incredibly touching. 

Through the years, there’s been lots of pictures.  Sometimes, all four of them, sometimes two, sometimes three. Others have wandered in and out.   Birthdays, prom, band concerts, just fooling around. 

I just had to have one more today!

Why I LOVE the Olympics

I absolutely ADORE the Olympics. If school is in session while the Olympic Games are going on, I always have my students watch as an assignment.  Except for 2004, when we had no electricity thanks to Hurricane Charley, my family watched the Opening Ceremonies right on to the end, as much as we can.  My Aunt Mary Ellen taped the Opening Ceremonies for me and we watched them later!! My nephews learned in 4th grade that to write an essay, you have an introduction, three points and a conclusion. So, here are my three reasons why I love the Olympics.

First, the Olympics make me proud to be an American.  I don’t care if we win or lose (that’s a lie- I always want us to win!)  but I love it when people represent us well.  When we do win, there’s NOTHING like seeing our flag rise up (higher than the rest) and hearing our National Anthem.  It just gives me chills.  I love it when the athletes sing.  (Note to US Olympic Committee – before you give athletes their pass and their credentials, make sure they can sing the words to the National Anthem PROPERLY! That’s a pet peeve of mine!)

Next, I admire athletic ability. I have NONE, but I do appreciate the skills that I see.  I have the utmost respect for athletes who come knowing that they most likely won’t come close to winning a medal, but they come to represent their country anyway. I love good sportsmanship and  I admire the hours and hours of sacrifice spent in training.  Even though I can’t play anything, I can appreciate the heartbreak of defeat or the heart-pounding thrill of victory. I love that we all get to share in that!   I love the stories that they share with us, and I’m not ashamed to admit, sometimes I cry!

Last, (see, I used transitional words!) I love that our country truly is a melting pot, salad bowl, whatever you want to call it. So many countries have people who all look the same and their names all sound the same. We don’t!  When you look at our athletes, we’ve got some of everything. We’ve got blondes, brunettes, redheads! We’ve got names that are very “American" sounding, and some names that could be from any other country in the world.  What a country!!

The Olympics! Just the sound of it makes me smile. Even though the Games only started on Friday, I’m thoroughly enjoying them. I’m hoping for that one moment that will stay in my mind forever, like Mary Lou Retton's perfect 10 vault, and Kerry Strug's crumbling to the the floor, and then vaulting AGAIN! These are the moments that we love.  Don’t' you love the Olympics??