My Girls are Precious

I know it's natural for all parents to adore their children. There are many times throughout the day where I find myself thanking God for the wonderful blessings he has given me in my girls. They are so very precious to me. Maybe part of it is because I am such a HUGE sentimental person. I get that from my dad. Sometimes I wonder if he looked at me and my sister like this when I see my two girls walking down the sidewalk like this.

I picked up the girls from daycare this afternoon on my way home from work, and I couldn't resist the opportunity for a great picture.

The thing that makes this so precious to me is that this was all on their own. I didn't prompt them to start holding hands. They just did. The other thing that makes moments like this extra special is just that things like this happen all the time with my girls. They are the best (and sometimes the worst) of friends. They adore each other, and they play so well together. The other day they spent the whole entire day playing happily together. They were so content just playing with what they had and they didn't need me or Jason to help entertain them.I took the girls to a craft sale in town the other day, and they were so happy to pose for a picture like this. Many times they even insist on wearing similar clothes. It's times like this that I am reminded of me and my sister, Sarah. We were always wanting to dress up alike and act alike. I even used to pretend I was deaf just like her.

A couple weeks ago we were at my school for their fundraising event, the Harvest Festival. We all had a blast. They had a costume contest, but the girls were too interested in playing. The weather was wonderful, and I have no idea why the girls didn't burn up. Audrey especially enjoyed the tricycle track.

Meghan enjoyed stuffing her face with chocolate chip cookies.

The next day after my school's Harvest Festival, a family from church was having a party and BBQ at their beautiful place. They live on the east side of town on a 1-2 acre little farm. Their place was absolutely amazing, and definitely a place Jason and I have dreamed of having. They had a beautiful house which sat on this golf course of a yard. As the yard led to the back, they had a little play house village. They had about 4 different houses for the kids to play in! My girls were in heaven! Here's one of the houses:

As you can see, there is a balcony and from that there is a slide. On the other side, there is a swing set. The girls had a blast. Here's another one of the houses:

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.

We got to go on a hay ride, bob for apples, paint pumpkins, roast hot dogs, make smores, etc. We had so much fun that day. That is definitely a day I will remember for a long time. I am finding that the older my girls get, the more I am enjoying life with them and appreciating being able to share these little "firsts" with them.

I am so blessed.

I Love My Job

I love my job. There are many things I love about my job from the kids I come in contact with each day to the fact that I am always learning something new. I know deep down in my heart that I was created to do this. I was born to teach. Some teachers are made, but only some are born to teach, and I am one of them.

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.

Life Changes

This past summer Jason and I put our house up for sale. There was a lot of work that went into doing that and maintaining the house. Most of the house maintenance fell on my shoulders as I was conveniently home all summer. I feel that it was a positive experience for us to have our house up for sale because we became more aware of some of the minor problems we had with our house. We also got to hear that there were many prospective buyers who thought we had a nice house and it was well taken care of. This did help me become more satisfied with what I have as far as my own home. I needed that. There are some times where I still see our house as the disheveled house we once had when we bought it as a foreclosure about four and a half years ago. Unfortunately, God had other plans and we decided to take our house off the market last month. I was somewhat disappointed because I was liking the idea of having a different house with more possibilities, but I should be happy that I even had the choice to get a new house and that I can still afford to pay my mortgage.

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).

Prophetic Dreams?

I know that throughout the course of time, many have wondered about the meanings and purposes of dreams. There's always the scientific write-off of saying that dreams are the thought processes that are occurring in our brain when it is converting short-term memory into long-term memory. Sometimes I'm not satisfied with the simple scientific answer. I am looking for something a little more deeper. I know that there must be a logical explanation to some of the more unique and impressionable 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.

Here I Am

Here I am. I am actually blogging.

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.