It seems that lately my posts all should begin with, "it's been a long time." Life has continued at its chaotic pace and I have not had the time or energy to write. But today is Saturday, and though I have a thousand and one things to do, I had the urge to write so I made the opportunity.

Work has continued to be very stressful but the reasons have changed. I have gotten used to the type of students I have and they got used to me. I still had problems on a daily basis and that is because they have problems on a daily basis. I continue to love and feel called to teach this type of student. Their lives are in such turmoil, much like mine always was. They are economically challenged, like I have been at points in my life. My parents were never really rich, but through most of my life were making a comfortable amount of money. When I was a child, that wasn't the case but we always had what we needed because my mom was extremely thrifty, great with a budget, and responsible. Both of my parents worked really hard. Then there was a time where they both had great paying jobs and we lived comfortably. But when I was a teenager, my dad became disabled and my mom was supporting us. A lot of my students have situations where one parent/guardian is taking care of them and their siblings. Often they have one person taking care of multiple families. By the time they get in high school, they are also working to provide for their families. In some cases, I have found that there are no parents or guardians and the high school student is the caregiver. They have rough lives and school is often the last thing they can deal with. The problem lately has not been the students but the disorganization within our school. We have had so many new teachers (myself included) this year, as well as new principals, that we have not been able to be a cohesive group. The saying goes, "it takes a village to raise a child." Well, I'm here to say, it takes an entire school to teach a child. If all of the aspects of the school are not aligned, the school does not run smoothly.

The best part is that our school knows of the fragmentation and we are going to be working on being a cohesive group for next year. It would be so much worse if the school was not aware of its own problems.

Outside of work, life has continued at its crazy pace. My parents took a vacation for the first time in 10 years and my dad had to be hospitalized. He is ok now but had another round with MRSA staph, which was in his leg this time. They got home safely and both parents are recovering from their vacation. :o)

One of the happiest things that happened to me recently was that I became a mother! I am the proud mommy of a pekingese puppy! His name is Earnest Hemingway and we call him Earnie. Now before you spelling police get me, I know that Ernest Hemingway did not have an "a" in his first name. We got Earnie in Hearne and wanted to pay homage to his origins. I found him at a shelter while doing a professional development. Our teacher coach sent us around town because one of the disconnects the teachers have with students is that most of the teachers live outside of Hearne. So she wanted us to discover the town to relate to the kids. And while on our hunt, I found a treasure! The teacher coach was very sneaky and sent animal lovers to the shelter. He was so sweet! He came right up to me and licked my foot. Steven and I have wanted a dog since we got married but were waiting for the time to be right. I would never make a decision so big without Steven so of course, I had to go home and see what he thought. I could not stop thinking about this dog! So Steven went the next day to check him out for himself and we came home with a sweet, very mischievous, and very cuddly puppy. He's about 9 months old they think and other than that, we don't know much about his life. He was a stray but was only at the shelter a week. It was a no kill shelter but the conditions weren't great. He ended up needing to be dewormed and had ear infections (despite the shelter saying he had been dewormed and was seen by a vet) but he's doing much better know. I look forward to seeing him every day. He has definitely made our lives brighter and keeps us on our toes. No matter how sure we are that everything is off of the floor, he still finds what we have missed!

Here are a few pictures from our visit to my sister's house. We are going to be trying to get a camera of our own soon but she was nice to let us use her's so we could get some pictures of our boy and not have to wait. He's so cute when he smiles!!

So much to do, so little time...

Since beginning my job two months ago, life has been extremely chaotic. Of course, looking back over my life, chaos seems to be one of the only consistencies. None the less, the last two months have been exceptionally stressful.

Firstly, starting in the middle of the year is difficult for any teacher. The students are used to a different person, have already acclimated to each other, and have had different rules enforced. On the first day of the school year, everyone is fresh and it is a new beginning for everyone. In my current situation, I am the variable. Ideally when you have a mid-year change of teacher, the transition should take place at the semester change. I was hired mid semester. And the former teacher did not enforce rules, teach the material, or build relationships with her students. So her failures as a teacher has created an extremely difficult situation for me.

The good news is, I'm making it. And I already have some great relationships with my students. But the difficulty of retraining, building positivity between my students and me, and restructuring has been overwhelming at times. And all of that doesn't include normal teaching difficulties of a new teacher - i.e. having to create all lessons from scratch, creating new materials, teaching lessons for the first time, discovering who I am as a teacher, etc. Then adding in the normal difficulties of any teacher - i.e. students who are never prepared for anything, planning to teach multiple types of classes, teaching multiple types of students, students with disabilities, students who are so extremely rude it's a wonder they have made it this far in life, students with varying types of family life, students who have no family life, students who absolutely cannot focus on school because home life is too overwhelming, students who never turn in work and then complain that they have a "22" on their report card, students who just don't get it, parents who just don't get it, explaining what a "cultural contact zone" is about a thousand times and students still getting it wrong on the test, and so on, and so on, and so on....

At times I feel like a Stretch Armstrong because I am pulled by so many things. And yet, I was still so excited to get my renewal contract for next year. I love teaching. Our teacher coach who has helped me so much tells me several times a week, "It will never be this hard again." Hallelujah! And I believe her.

I am so grateful to have my job. I love it more than I could have ever expected. But I would caution any future teacher to think very long, and very hard about accepting a mid-year position. Have a good support system of friends and family, be ready to pray harder than you have ever prayed, and be ready to work.

The new job has made life chaotic, but life itself has crept into the realm of crazy. Two weeks into the new job, my Mema died (see previous posts), which has effected me in ways I never expected. I never knew before, but I think of her several times a day. I miss her so much. I am so thankful for the time I got to know her as an adult. I cannot stress enough how much my view of her changed in my adult years and I feel this can only be a blessing from God.

During the weekend of my Mema's funeral, my Granny (dad's mom) showed up at my parents house and was distressed about my Granddaddy. He had been ill for quite some time and she was very worried about him. It turns out, he had a massive tumor on his colon, and had to have it surgically removed. The doctors have said that it was cancerous and that he may have cancer on his liver, lungs, and/or lymph nodes. Currently, he is in a rehabilitation facility to gain the strength to begin treatments. I have always been close to my grandparents and in light of having lost one grandparent, another being this sick is quite scary. But the story continues....

While my granddaddy was in the hospital recovering from his surgery, my father was put in the hospital as well due to a UTI. My dad is disabled, has suffered with MRSA staph infection in the past and any kind of infection he has now is serious. My dad is now out of the hospital but he continues to struggle with these infections and is very weak, weaker than normal, and is doing out patient rehabilitation. And we continue.....

There are many things in my life that are not known by everyone. Ok, that statement is confusing because all people have aspects of their life that are private. Or they should at least, in my opinion. But honestly, I am not at a point where I desire to keep my experiences private and plan to write about my experiences in a book in the very near future. But how all of this is effecting my right now is that I am having to deal with the legal system, am most likely going to have to testify in court, am having so many conflicting feelings, feeling strain on relationships that have already been tested, said strain has translated to my church life, I've been called at work to deal with these issues unexpectedly, and I feel as if I may be hit by other unexpected events at any moment that will bring this house of cards falling down around me.

Therefore, I say, life has been chaotic. But still I can say, life is good. A few Sundays ago was Holocaust Remembrance Day. I say that because whenever my life gets difficult and I feel as if the world is against me, I think of Anne Frank. Despite being in constant fear of capture, hungry, weary, hated, and alone, she could say, "Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy." If a Jewish girl in Nazi territory could say that in the 1940's, I think there is still hope for me. Besides, God will not leave us comfortless. He is merciful.

And there is always chocolate.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!


The Lord is ris’n indeed! Hallelujah!
Now is Christ risen from the dead,
And become the first-fruits of them that slept.
Hallelujah, and did He rise? did He rise?
Hear it ye nations! hear it,
Oh ye dead!
He rose, He burst the bars of death
And triumphed o’er the grave.
Then I rose, then first humanity
Triumphant passed the crystal ports of light
And seized eternal youth.
Man, all immortal hail,
Hail heaven, all lavish of strange gifts to man,
Thine’s all the glory,
Man’s the boundless bliss.

My Mema

My dear grandmother. It feel so strange that she is gone. She is beautiful. We found so many pictures of her young years that gave us insight to how vibrant and happy she was. I would like to post those in the near future.

This picture is the most recent picture of her still looking like herself. This was a few months before her stroke, at my wedding in 2006.

Our Pillar of Strength

My dear, sweet Mema went to be with our Lord last Tuesday. She suffered very minimally in the last days. She went to sleep on the Friday before and, as one of my students said, "slept her life away." She would wake only slightly when she was talked to but would quickly slip back into deep sleep. Steven and I went to be with my mom over the weekend before she passed, and on Sunday when we had to leave, I lingered because I knew this would be the last time I would see her alive. Saying goodbye was and has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. I never thought it would be so hard. She has become such an integral part of our lives that her absence is felt everywhere. I mourn for her but know where she is. I have even thought of what she is seeing, doing, and how she feels. Although I have always believed in Heaven and God, I have never felt them so closely as I do right now with my connection through Mema. I have never felt as much as I do now that Mema is living through all of us. And it is because of her, I live.

Her funeral was beautiful. My sisters and I sang, Olivia and I gave little speeches, and the ministers who spoke knew her so well, it was a real comfort. Everyone mentioned what a grand lady she was - that everywhere she went, she was dressed "to the nines." The process was very difficult and exhausting but honoring Mema was so important. She was and is so important. Mema was actually my great grandmother. She lost her only natural born daughter, my grandmother, and adopted my mom and her sisters when they were young girls. My mother was in a girl's home, her sisters in foster care, and they would have been adopted to different families, because in those days, they did not try to keep siblings together. But Mema mustered the strength, as she always seemed to do, and adopted them.

I am posting the speech, I guess some call it a eulogy, that I wrote to read at the funeral. It tells how I feel better than I could repeat everything. Life is going to be very different now. I never knew her absence would be felt so profoundly. But her absence is also a presence - because every time something reminds me of her, she's here. God's blessing to us who are left behind.

"When I was in 7th grade, I was given an assignment to write a meaningful poem. I wrote about Mema, her life, and how much she had lived. Writing about Mema would have not occurred to me but a summer storm changed me in a way that can only be credited to the handiwork of God.
The previous summer, my mother had packed me off to Mema's, and most likely, she sent me off complaining. Going to Mema's at that age seemed like a chore. I couldn't sleep late, I had to dress nicely everywhere we went, and all there was to watch on TV was news and Young and the Restless - both very uninteresting to this young girl. The highlight of a day at Mema's was walking along the stepping stones and drinking fresh sun tea. I did not know at the time how instrumental my visit would be in changing my view of the strongest woman I'll ever know, and even greater, how profoundly what I would learn about her would change our relationship and my life.
One night of my visit, a violent Texas thunderstorm attacked the area spawning tornadoes. Mema's mobile home (she hated when we called it a trailer - she was a fancy lady) in Goodrich, with its thin metal walls was the last place I wanted to be. Although she did not admit it, Mema was scared too because she sat up with me through the night to wait out the storm. That night, I learned how much this sometimes mean, very set in her ways, but always strong and loving woman had lived.
She told me of her childhood, her years with her daughter, and the difficult years that she rarely spoke about. I was fascinated. Through my very poorly written poetry in the 7th grade, I tried to capture the essence of this woman and chronicle her life that I had learned so much about that summer night.
Being a historian, I am fascinated by the fact that her life is a perfect reflection of the 20th century. She was so proud of being born in the year that women gained the right to vote. She never failed to exercise this right and encouraged us to do so as well. The night we sat up, she told me about growing up in the Great Depression. She said they didn't know when the depression hit because they were already so poor. She said she would dream of a candy bar, wake up and realize it was a dream and then try to go back to sleep so she could dream of the chocolaty goodness again. She said it never worked but she would try anyway. She told me of going to work chopping cotton and the back breaking labor it entailed. She told me of how she moved out of the country and into the city, and her years as a real Rosie the Riveter during World War II. She also told me of times with her daughter Paula, about dressing up just to go to the movies or out to eat. She told me of raising my mom, her going off to college, and then getting married. She told me of Grandaddy, her mother, and all of those I would never get to know. I was captivated.
I wrote in my poem that Mema had lived. I wrote Mema has lived poverty, that she had lived work, she lived happiness, death, strength and love. She lived life. I ended my poem, probably in a feeble attempt to be artistic by saying that Mema had lived and I had not. But the truth is, I have lived too. Because this precious, strong, valiant warrior lived, so have I. Mema continues to live in all who have been graced to know her. My appreciation for her strength grows exponentially as I age.
So in closing, my dear sweet, strong Sparrow, you will always live. Rest in the arms of our Savior where your strength is no longer needed. Thank you God for giving us this precious gift."

Busy, Busy

Things became very busy for me after my last post. In my last post, I challenged myself to basically, "let go, and let God." I really hate that turn of phrase because I hear it most often used by televangelists that I dislike. But, it is a useful phrase, especially when trying to remind oneself to live by faith and know that God's love and grace are sufficient. So I remained calm about my job situation, began living each day knowing that tomorrow was an unknown. This was not easy but it is miraculous at how little time I actually had to live in the unknown - that is, the unknown about a job. Within a week of posting about how I wanted to stop worrying about everything, I got a job interview with Hearne ISD and two weeks later, I started teaching Social Studies for 9th and 12th grades! God never ceases to amaze me!

Everything about the process showed the handiwork of God. I was substituting at the high school here in town and talking with other certified substitutes like myself and I became nervous. Some of them had been subbing for 3 years and not found a permanent position! There was no way we could live on substitute salary for three years! But I tried to stay calm, remembered that "what will be, will be," and began discussing with Steven the possibility of moving to the Houston area were jobs were more available. On the particular day that I found out about Hearne, I had discussed, yet again, with another sub about how she hadn't found a job in 2 years. So on my lunch I decided to take a look at job availability in Houston's ESC region. I included my region in the search "just because." I immediately saw - "Hearne High School History teacher." Hearne is only 15 minutes away! Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has said do not email or call principals because that's a good way to tick them off and not get an interview. Instead, you are supposed to go through human resources. But the name and contact information listed was the principal. I said a quick prayer, and emailed the principal. I didn't really have anything to ask because the ad was pretty self explanatory, so I just said a little about myself and said I was interested. I received a reply within 10 minutes! The principal wanted me to fax my application and paperwork directly to him. A few days later I was sitting in the best interview I have ever had. And then.....I had to wait. It was just nearly unbearable. By this time I wanted the job so badly. But - I continued to remind myself - whatever happens, God has something for me. God will not leave me comfortless. And He didn't! Just when I was about to give up and thought I hadn't gotten the job, the principal called and offered me the position!!!!

Since the end of February, I have been teaching 5 sections of World Geography, and 1 Honors Geography to 9th graders and 1 section of Honors Economics to 12th graders. It is a really rough school and challenging every single day. But I have already connected with my students in so many ways. They don't like that they have to work hard in my class and I have already had to give detentions for misconduct, but mostly these students need someone who cares about them and their success. I have felt like I have been swimming against a current most days. Not only am I starting mid-year, I am starting mid-semester. The previous teacher left because she could not handle the atmosphere. She actually told the students she didn't like them. She gave up around Christmas and they had not learned anything since. And what they were taught before that is sketchy. I actually had a student say in detention that he had been so disrespectful because he was trying to see when I would give up. My heart hurts for these kids because they are and can be good people. They just need a chance. They feel as if everyone has given up on them, that they are prejudged, disliked, and disrespected. And the truth is, it's true. Some of them have done bad things but do they deserve to redeem themselves in our society? Of course. Are my sins less because of who I am and where I grew up? Not in the eyes of God. I think of my parents every day and where they worked for so long. My parents taught the worst of society in the prison system. And sadly, some of my students have aspirations of being in prison and some will end up there. But my parents taught offenders to give them another chance. What an inspiration.

As hard as it has been so far, I thank God for what He has given me. Like I said, every step of the process has shown the hand of God. They interviewed 12 candidates and told my students that after I was interviewed, there was no choice, that I was "above and beyond." That made me feel so great!!! God put me in a school where my specific talents will be utilized every single day. He placed me in a comfortable, compassionate, and caring staff that I can and have already leaned on for support. I am getting to teach Social Studies, something everyone told me would be difficult if I weren't a coach. And next year, I get to teach real history, either World or US! And we don't have to move away from our town and Steven gets to start school in August! God is amazing. And no one can tell me otherwise!

Sha-na-na Live for Today...

My dear sweet cousin over at "Our Journey to Hannah Claire" and "The Griffin Family Herald" reminded me of a principle that I constantly strive to live by but lose sight of at various times. You would think with a blog called "No Day but Today" it wouldn't be so hard but alas, I am imperfect. That's right, I said it. And it is true, I am fallible. Thus I need constant reminding to live in the day that I have been blessed with.

My cousin, (if she doesn't mind being identified as such....too late, sorry!), mentioned that in her adult life she has always been striving for what the next big thing is. For example, when she and her husband got engaged, she anticipated her wedding, then buying a house, after that, graduating, and so on and so forth, without taking the time to enjoy what she had worked for. This spoke to me so clearly because I am exactly the same way. I always feel stressed to strive for what is next. I feel the constant need to be concerned about what the next big step is and I am consumed by anxiety about preparing for what is next. So what about what is now? I just graduated from college, (the luster of saying that has still not worn off so get used to me proclaiming it for a bit longer), and before I graduated I was was already worried about the next thing - getting a job, perhaps grad school, Steven starting school, where will we make our home, are children down the line somewhere, if so, when?! But WHY? I just finished something that took me years to complete, consumed my entire life, and I am not even stopping to enjoy what I have done? Is this the curse of man? I'm beginning to believe that I may be cursed.

So here is what I propose for myself thanks to my cousin's wonderful insight -- I will enjoy what I have accomplished and have faith that God will take care of me as He always has. If I worry, does that make God work faster? Uh, absolutely not. If I don't worry, with everything fall apart? Probably not, even though it pains me to type the words. What will be, will be! Were we not told to "think not of the morrow?" I have often been told to not borrow troubles by my wise old dad. It is a life long struggle for me not to rush on to the next thing or worry about what is next. But where will that kind of life leave me in the end? In the same place I would be if I worried less and trusted more in the Lord. Because we all know there are two "definites" in life -- death and chocolate, because I can't live without dying and I will die without chocolate. :o)