The thoughts, feelings, struggles, and accomplishments of a wife, mother, teacher, and ultimately a follower of God.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
No, It's Not Make-Up
She got so dizzy she took a nice little header into our end table right in the eye. It looks a lot worse than it is. She cried pretty hard and it started to swell up immediately. Poor kid.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Pixie Dust
Shortly after Jason and I moved in our house in the summer of 2004, we did a lot of painting in various rooms throughout the house. That summer my mom and I painted one of the spare rooms and put up a nice border that helped it seem pretty inviting for a spare bedroom.
This picture shows the border and some extra stickers I bought that went along with the border. I love the little saying. It is so cute and it works wonderfully for a little girls' room. Here are some more pictures of what we did:
I put these stickers on the wall by Audrey's bed. Meghan has one on her wall similar to Audrey's too:
The girls like how they each have their own Tinkerbell sticker by their bed. I am very pleased with how things look.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
From Toothbrushes to Money
I ended up taking the girls with me to "Toys R Us" because I thought it would be fun for the girls to pick out their own presents. Not to mention I had no clue what to get for them. They have plenty of toys they don't play with as it is.
Here is my conversation with Meghan on our way to the store:
Me: Hey Meghan, do you want to go to a special store for Meghan and Audrey?
Meghan: For Meghan and Audrey??? Yeah! What kind of store?
Me: It's a surprise!
Meghan: Oh, I like surprises.
Me: Me too.
Meghan: What are we going to get at the special store?
Me: We are going to get a special surprise for Meghan and Audrey!
Meghan: For Meghan and Audrey??? All right! Is it food?
Me: Nope. It's better than food!
Meghan: Is it toothbrushes???
Me: No, Meghan. It's better than toothbrushes.
Meghan: Better than toothbrushes?
I'm glad to hear that Meghan sees her dental hygiene as something so wonderful and better than food. I couldn't help myself. I busted up laughing pretty hard at that one.
Then on the way home from the toy store, Meghan just said the funniest thing out of the blue:
Meghan: It's my money, and I need it now!
Me: Meghan, where did you hear that?
Meghan: From the TV.
For those of you who are not familiar with that phrase, there is this commercial that is on TV particularly early in the mornings when I am watching the news as I am getting ready for work. It's a commercial about this law firm that deals with helping its clients with structured settlements to try to get them into lump sum payments. Check out the commercial here. It's the last commercial at the bottom of the page.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
School Answering Machine
For those of you who are not teachers or do not work in schools, this is a little glimpse into what I have to deal with often in my career. The thing about this message is that it's sad but true. Being a teacher is not an easy job, but I know that I am doing what God has called me to do. Hopefully you find this as amusing as I did.
SCHOOL ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGE TO PARENTS
No wonder so many people were offended!
This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School staff, a mostly well to do and mostly white area in California, supposedly voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine.
This is supposedly the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework.
The school and teachers are supposedly being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.
The actual outgoing message:
Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:
To lie about why your child is absent -Press 1
To make excuses for why your child did not do his work -Press 2
To complain about what we do - Press 3
To swear at staff members - Press 4
To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several fliers mailed to you - Press 5
If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7
To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8
To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
To complain about school lunches - Press 0
If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
I love Thanksgiving
I would have to say that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It seems as though it is one of the few holidays in the year where I feel that we truly enjoy being together as a family and just savor our time together. I know that some people get frustrated with Thanksgiving because essentially we should be thankful for everything God has blessed us with every one of the 365 days out of the year. So in theory, Thanksgiving shouldn't be that different from any other day. I just enjoy having the opportunity to be able to reflect and appreciate my blessings.
I have been blessed in my childhood with many memorable times. Thanksgiving is definitely one of them. Since my family shared about 3 acres with my dad's brother and his mother, I grew up very close to my cousins. We did everything together. We always had Thanksgiving and Christmas together. I would have to say that my most favorite and memorable Thanksgiving would have to be the one we had last year. Part of the reason for that is because my brother Andrew got married the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year. My entire family was there as well as all my cousins I grew up with.
This was especially enjoyable as it had been at least 15 years since all of us have been able to be together for Thanksgiving. It was just like old times. There was my dad's brother and his wife, their five kids (my cousins) where four of them are married now with kids, my brothers, my little family and my sister with her son. It was great.
Here's all of us cousins. It's funny to see how much we've changed from all those family pictures from when we were younger. It was wonderful. I will never forget it. I just hope it doesn't take us another 15 years to get back together again, but it gets hard as we all have families of our own.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I Miss My Brother
Andrew and I have always been very close. He was always the one I turned to when something was going wrong, or if I just needed to vent off some steam. When I started college, Andrew lived only a block away from me, so it was really nice to be so close to him and to hang out whenever I wanted to. He was essential in helping me get connected with an awesome group of God-loving Christians. He has always been there for me when I needed him and even when I didn't. I have always depended on him to lend a listening ear or to help give me advice on something. I adore him. Andrew gets me like only a brother can. In some selfish way, I never really thought about looking elsewhere for friendships because I always assumed he would be there. He had always been there for me (location wise) until now. It's not like he isn't here for me now, but it's just different now that he is living two hours away from me.
Don't get me wrong, I am very happy for him and that he has gone back to school and gotten a new job and is supporting his family. I am very happy for him and definitely proud of him. I'm just sad for me. I guess I just always imagined that we would live close to each other and raise our kids together. I know our kids are still very young and there still is time, but I guess I'm having a harder time adjusting to the change than I thought.
I miss being able to stop by his store at any time just to say "hi". I miss seeing him at church every Sunday because he was there. I miss making his favorite burritos just because I knew that if I was making them, he would be there for dinner and take left-overs with him. I miss going to chick flick movies with him because Jason doesn't take me to chick flicks. He was there when I graduated college. He was the Best Man at my wedding, and I watched him cry the whole entire time. Just like I cried my eyes out when he got married. We just have this special bond, and I miss him so much. I miss watching how my girls adore Andrew and love playing with him. He was there when my girls were born.
Here he is holding Meghan the day she was born.
This is Andrew with Audrey about an hour after she was born. He is such a wonderful uncle to my girls. They adore him and look forward to seeing him. They still ask if they are going to see him, Lindsay, and David whenever we go to Nana and Papa's house every Sunday for dinner.
I guess I never thought about his leaving until recently. Maybe that's because I wouldn't let myself think about it because I knew it would make me cry. My oldest brother, Ted, moved away when I was only 14, so he was never really around when I became the person I am today. My sister Sarah and I are really close, but that is because we are sisters. We will always be close. My relationship with Andrew is just different. We have always looked to each other for support and friendship and that unconditional love only a sibling can give.
I made Andrew's favorite burritos a couple weeks ago and cried the whole time because I knew he wasn't there to eat them. Last week I was showing someone at work a picture of Audrey on my computer and I came across a picture of Andrew with Audrey and I started crying. He left a voice message on my phone today and I cried. Not like his message said anything important, but I just miss him terribly. I know this sounds weird, but I feel like a part of me is missing. I miss my friend--my brother.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
"Shupa"
Meghan continues to talk about Shupa and takes her along to many places. The other day when playing along with Meghan's stories about Shupa, I told her that Shupa came to school with me and got to meet all my students. Here's our conversation:
Me: Meghan, did you know that Shupa came to school with me today?
Meghan: Really? But Shupa's not here now. She's at home. She's a little bit sick.
Me: Oh, really. I thought she was fine because she came to my school today.
Meghan: Well she has a tummy ache. She's at home now because she needed to throw up in the toilet.
Me: Ew! Gross! Good thing she threw up in the toilet, huh?
Meghan: Yeah, and then she threw up on my bed!
Me: Ew! What are you going to do?
Meghan: And then she threw up on your bed and Audrey's bed!
Me: Well, I hope Shupa feels better soon. Maybe we need to give her some medicine when we get home, huh?
Meghan: Yeah. That's a good idea.
The thing that gets funnier with this is that when we got home and got the girls' jammies on to go to bed, Meghan insisted that she not get on her bed because Shupa threw up on it! The imagination on that girl is so amazing sometimes! Thankfully she was satisfied with my pretend washing and cleaning her bed so it would be clean enough for her to sleep in her own bed that night.
The Funny Things I Hear Being a Teacher
This morning everyone was buzzing about the results of the election. In honor of our election yesterday, we had our own middle school polling where the kids voted on the next president with all the same candidates as the national one, but we decided to add a few of our own school amendments. We found a way to make the wording so complex and completely unable to understand so the kids would feel what it really is like to be voting for some of those amendments out there. Some of our amendments were (in understandable terms) whether or not i-Pods should be allowed at school, not ever having to do homework but only if all your trash is dumped into the oceans, trading class rewards for having to do an extra math assignment, and whether or not after school detention should be extended an extra 15 minutes. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the looks on students' faces when they tried to understand what they were voting for.
With me working in the middle of nowhere in an extremely conservative community, it was no wonder the voting outcome for our school was for Senator McCain. When my kids walked in this morning, there were some severely somber faces. I had a kid come up to me this morning and say, "Mrs. Gordon, if Obama is our new president, does that make us an 'Obama-nation?'" I couldn't believe what I heard. I cracked up laughing so hard. Only in hickville would I hear a remark like that. These kids crack me up.
It's not just these sorts of things that I find amusing, but also the kind of political remarks you can only imagine they hear a parent say at home. I especially like comments like, "I don't like Bush because he is the one who raised our gas prices." I don't have enough time in my day outside of my normal lessons to explain how our president doesn't directly dictate the price of oil. There are so many other variables related to that, I wouldn't know where to begin. I teach English and Reading.
Maybe I should start taking down some of the funny things I hear my students say. I could write a bestseller some day...
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
My Girls are Precious
The funny thing about this house is the girls actually got stuck in it for a little while. Thankfully they weren't scarred for life from that experience. I don't even think they knew at the time that they were actually stuck. I had to get help from the man who built this house. It just so happened that the girls had accidentally pulled off the handle and couldn't get out.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
I Love My Job
Teaching isn't as glamorous as many make it out to be. Yeah, I get every summer and school holiday off, but I am expected to cram in 12 months of work into only 9 months. It isn't exactly all that easy. There's frequently irate parents to worry about as well as kids who think they already know everything. (Not like any one of us were ever like this at one time or another in our lives.) I would have to say that the most difficult thing about my job is the parents I have to deal with each and every day throughout the year. Just when I think I am free of a parent or two, I either end up with a younger sibling, or I have to deal with the student the following year as I teach reading to the entire middle school grades at my school. (That's currently just under 50 students right now, but that's still enough).
Being a people pleaser, it can become very difficult for me to be able to do what I feel is right and still keep these pesky parents out of my hair. I learned very quickly last year that I just need to do a good job being consistent and keeping my expectations clear in all things. That way people always know what to expect with me. Last year was a very difficult year for me as it was my first year teaching all on my own, but I would have to say that I survived with not too many problems. I noticed early in the year last year that not many people are quick to praise you when you are doing something wonderful, but then when you do something wrong, people come in droves just to point out your follies and to rub it in your face. What is up with that? I guess it's just human nature to look for the negative things in our lives and to point out others' wrong doings just to keep the attention off of our own inadequacies.
Looking back to last year, I can probably count on one hand all the times where a parent had praised me for something positive I had done in my class. It's not that I'm looking for these opportunities to be praised, but sometimes I just need that confirmation to know that I actually am doing something right and that people appreciate what I do. What can I say? It's who I am. I need that occasional reality check to see how I am doing. I don't even mind hearing where I could improve...I just need some sort of feedback every once in a while just to keep me on track. I just hate it when I go off doing something completely wrong and I am totally blind to the fact that it is wrong in the first place. Somebody, please tell me before I continue to prove my shortcomings over and over again.
Much to my surprise, I received one of those few golden tokens of praise today that will carry me a long way. After sending my students off at the end of the day, one of my students came back to my class to give me a bouquet of flowers and a thank you card his mom had gotten for me. I was just blown away. I could not believe it. This was totally unsolicited and greatly appreciated. It's funny how things like this always come at a time when I least expect it, and from people who I least expect to receive praise from. I guess somehow I am doing right by that family. I had no idea. I guess I will just have to keep on doing what I am doing--whatever it is. I don't look for thank yous like that, nor do I expect to have them every now and then. (I already learned that lesson the hard way.) It's just when super nice things like this happen to me, it just amazes me. I'm still speechless.
Thank you God for giving me those little bits of affirmation when I need them. This was just a reminder that I am doing exactly what He has planned for me, and that I am right where I need to be....for now.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Life Changes
A couple weeks ago Jason and I drove down the street to take all our old furniture out of the storage unit we were paying for while we had our house on the market. We wanted the house to seem as clutter-free as possible as that would be more appealing to buyers. It was a little hard for me to take those things out of storage because I was remembering all the feelings I was having while moving everything in there. All the hopes, dreams, excitement, etc. just seemed to be floating away. I still a little sad with the thought, but I know in my heart that God has something else in mind for us, but I just don't see it yet.
It has been nice using some of our old "forgotten" items such as our family pictures. I never realized how empty my house felt without my pictures all over the walls. We also decided to put our girls back in one room again. This past winter we went out and bought a nice bunk bed for the girls as we felt that Audrey was no longer needing her toddler bed anymore. Meghan gets to sleep on the top bunk, which she loves and is totally safe in, and Audrey has no problems getting in and out of bed on the bottom. That left us with an extra bedroom to use as we pleased. Jason decided we needed a little "office" with our computer there instead of a little nook we have at the top of our stairs. This was a task he decided to tackle all on his own this past Sunday while I was with the girls at a church function in the afternoon. I got some cute pictures which I will be posting within the next week.
The girls are just thrilled to be sharing a room again, and it is REALLY nice having a nice, bright room to work in. Especially when I am grading papers. Our computer nook just got too dark sometimes. The only problem that occurred with the great move around was that something funky happened to our computer. Everything has power, but it seems that the monitor isn't receiving a signal from the computer itself. I'm not a computer genius, but I do know how the basics of how a computer is hooked up. We tried everything to get it to work. It appears as though our video card might be messed up, but I don't know what we are going to do with that. The thing that upsets me most is that I have ALL of our family pictures on that computer from before I had the girls. Anyone know a cheap way to extract all those files???
Jason and I had talked about getting another computer anyways because we are always fighting over who gets to use the computer and when. This just seems to be the push we needed to make that final decision. My new computer should be here by early next week. I am so excited. I get my own computer! Yay! (I am currently using Jason's work computer until we can get our new computers).
Friday, October 17, 2008
Prophetic Dreams?
I remember when I was in college living in the dorms, I could almost count on having peculiar dreams every Wednesday or Thursday night. It eventually turned into a running joke with my roommate. She would always ask me what I dreamed about the night before, and we would sometimes laugh hysterically at the sorts of things my mind would come up with.
Last week I had a very peculiar dream that has left me wondering what the real meaning could be for this. This is not the first time something like this has happened. This is why I am wondering if God is trying to tell me something. I'll get to more on that later.
Last week I had a dream that a friend of mine, who is also a teacher at a sister school of mine, called me to tell me that there was a new teaching position available at her school. The school she works at is one I had looked into working at a couple years ago because it is a highly notable school in our area that also teaches the Core Knowledge Curriculum which is what I teach too. I remember in my dream telling her that I couldn't possibly leave my class and school because this is a place I truly enjoy being at and a place where I feel like I have a respected role in my school's community. I don't see myself leaving this school for quite a few years. I am a committed person. When I work somewhere, I stay for a long time. I also remember feeling delighted at the thought that I could be teaching the exact same thing I am teaching now, but only working MUCH closer to home than I do now.
The story doesn't stop here. I talked to my friend before church started the other day and I told her about my dream. She said that she actually thought about calling me that week because there actually was a position available at her school. She knew that I had looked into working at her school and that I would be interested, but she thought I wouldn't want to leave in the middle of the school year. The other reason why she didn't call was because the position was practically filled by the time she heard about it, but it started to make me wonder what God was trying to tell me.
Is this why my house didn't sell this summer when we had it on the market? Maybe it could have been because the housing market is pretty lousy these days. It's so easy to explain things away. Hearing this news from my friend made me wonder, but I soon started to shrug it off.
While sitting in church just moments after talking to my friend, our pastor started his message which included a passage in Genesis about Joseph when he shared his prophetic dreams with his brothers. He soon got persecuted because he told his brothers that they would be bowing down to him, but that is beside the point. God sent Joseph dreams which were like promises of what was to come.
By this point, I was starting to wonder, "Okay, God. I get it. Is there something you are trying to tell me? You got my attention now, but what do you want me to do with this?" Just a couple months ago, I was so eager to sell my house and move to Brighton which would provide a better way of life for me and my family. I would be working a lot closer to my school and Jason would be closer to his work too. It just made sense to move...at the time.
Now I am left wondering if God wants me to leave my school sooner than I had imagined. I love my school and the people that are there, but sometimes I get really irritated with how small it is and how far it really is. The other reason why I imagined myself staying longer is partially because it has been said many times before that my school hires a lot of new teachers, or teachers who only stay for only a couple years and then they move on to other schools. I don't want to be another one of those teachers. I want to be the kind of teacher who stays awhile and really establishes something special. I guess I can still do that, but maybe it will just be in a shorter time period than I thought.
I still don't know what God wants me to do with this, but I know now that it's not just a coincidence. If anything, maybe God just wants me to pray about it and to start pulling myself away from where I am because I might not be there as long as I had planned. Maybe He has a greater purpose for me elsewhere, but I'm still left wondering, "what next?"
I guess if I already had an idea of what the big picture is and what His plan is for me, then I probably wouldn't feel the need to depend on God so much. I guess I'm just going to send this off out into the abyss of the unknown and just pray that God will guide and direct me through this. I guess what matters is that I am still part of His ultimate plan. Whatever and wherever that may be.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Here I Am
I have several friends and family members who also blog, and I never really thought this would be something I would be interested in doing. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the blogs of my loved ones, but never gave it thought as to whether or not I should try doing this myself.
I feel that this is more for myself than anything else. I know this sounds really selfish, but it's true. I have so many thoughts, feelings, desires, fears, hopes, etc. bumping around in my head that I thought it might help me to be able to have some sort of filter. I find myself laying awake at night thinking for what seems like hours just trying to process all the information and ideas that are going on in my head. I thought this might be the best way for me to try to sort through all the things I am thinking about, and hopefully be able to see things in a different perspective.
I am definitely planning on posting things about how my life is with my family, my struggles and accomplishments as a teacher, and anything else I see worth sharing. Please feel free to respond, share, or even ignore what I have to say (I get that already as it is being a teacher, so don't worry about hurting my feelings by ignoring me). Sometimes it's kinda nice to know that I'm not the only person out there who might be struggling with what I am going through.
I chose the title of my blog, "Undeserving and Blessed" because there are so many times in my life where I have felt that I am undeserving of God's love and blessings he continuously lavishes on me. There are so many times in my life where I have failed to recognize and acknowledge God's blessings and provisions for my life, and that is what makes me so undeserving. I am undeserving of His love, His grace and mercy...I don't deserve anything. The only thing I deserve in my life is to die because I am born a sinner and I will die a sinner. The only thing I have for me is that I have willingly accepted and welcomed God's love for me in my life and I choose to follow Him because of His love for me.