Little Crystal Apple

My mom and I were at the Ohio Thrift store yesterday for their monthly half price event. I love going to that store. It relaxes me. I can browse through the shoes looking for new ones, or through the mugs and housing wares looking for special things. We found two pretty mugs with giraffes that were made in Japan and were very artistic and had comfortable handles and even though neither myself or my mom need any mugs at all, I had her buy them and someday I will take them home. :)

I love looking through the sweaters the most. This store makes sure that they are all facing the same way on the rack and are color coded, so I can begin at the beginning of one aisle and flip quickly through the sweaters, looking for my mom and myself. I throw things to her to try on and make my own pile. Usually sticking to brands I recognize and know would have been expensive new. My mom got 7 sweaters (one her first cashmere) yesterday and I got one. But earlier this vacation time I've gotten 5, so only 1 for me is good.

When I was in the small stuff section, I came across a small crystal apple. I usually don't collect apple things but I have one really pretty glass apple paperweight, also from the goodwill, with little bubbles in it. My students would come over to my desk and admire it. (Luckily no one threw it, as it would have been a weighty projectile.) Little apple trinkets always remind me of being a teacher and make me feel a little fuzzy inside. I picked it up and admired it. If it were 90 cents like the paperweight had been I don't think I would have hesitated, but it was 2.92 and not on sale. It also might be considered unnecessary clutter, which my dear husband has trained me not to accumulate. But I held it for a while and thought about it, and pictured it on a shelf in my classroom (currently nonexistent) looking shiny and meaning, a teacher is here. There must be parts of me that still want to teach.

Extreme Home Makeover

Fred and I watch Extreme Home Makeover on most Sundays. Usually it involves a family who has gone through or is going through something tragic, like incurable illness in a family member, or recent widowhood, or a serious injury in the line of duty that requires a member to be in a wheel chair but the house is not accessible. Also, the family is usually doing something exceptional. Like a member supporting others in a similar distressful situation, or caring for kids in the neighborhood. The Home Makeover team comes in and tears down the house and builds another, perfectly suited to the family's needs.

In the families where there is some sort of community outreach going on, the home makeover team will usually create the house with the service in mind. Such as a large kitchen for someone who cooks for others, or a big clubhouse for someone who has the neighborhood kids over for afternoon homework or play time.

For the families doing an outreach, when they come into the house that has been made especially for ease of continuing that outreach, the responses are different than the houses that are just for the family to enjoy. They come into the house so overjoyed, not for themselves, but for all of the people they will now be able to serve.

Last time I watched, a woman who has a muscular degenerative disease who is in a wheelchair and her son with extreme vision problems, both cook for and serve the kids of the community. She makes sure that they have enough to eat and cooks lots of dinners (One time she cooked Christmas dinner for 480 people from a tiny unaccessible kitchen without enough room for her to rotate her wheelchair.) and provides them a safe place to work on homework or hang out after school, most importantly she tells them that she loves them. I say most importantly because as a teacher, there were many times where I felt that that was the most important thing I was doing. Letting kids know that I love them. Lots of kids don't hear that very often. Parents are stressed, overworking, or just don't realize the importance of it, so I would do it as often as I could. The kids appreciated it so much.

As soon as she was let into her brand new house she was overwhelmed that she could have so much room and such a great kitchen and storeplaces for gifts and supplies, not so she could relax but so that she could serve the kids so much more efficiently.

I told Fred that this was her thing. It was what she lived for. I wonder what my thing is. What am I living for? Who am I serving? Who am I giving the position above my own concerns and cares and spending myself for?

I don't think anything or anybody right now, but I would like to seek the Lord to find out what that is for me. I'd rather not it be nothing.

When I was teaching I so enjoyed being there for the kids, letting them know I cared for them, loved them, and felt that it was my small something. (I didn't love the actual teaching part as much.) Now I have no something.

Tenor, Pregnancy, Teacher

I am a tenor in my barbershop women's chorus, and I have been listening to the two new songs that we will be doing this year. Unforgettable and the song for Cheers, (where everyone knows your name). If you don't know about barbershop music. There are four parts, but they have different names than in choral singing. There is the tenor (above the lead), the lead (the soprano in choral music, singing the melody), the baritone and the bass.

The tenor part can be quite high and when warmed up and singing with the chorus, others have told me that how high I can get is impressive :) But here in my own home, singing with the learning tapes is so high it always gives me a headache, and I can't do it for long. So, I just realized that I need to practice along with my part, but an octave down and then it is comfortable. That is what I have been doing for the last half hour. But it took a while to realize it, so I have a headache from the first 15 minutes.

I could be pregnant. My boobs feel different, a little fuller and bigger, and my poops have been strange - insistent and frequent. I have read online about the boobs thing, but not the poops. (Sometimes I hope that no one is actually reading this as I am honest to the point of embarrassment, so if you have read it, no need to comment.) But there is no need to buy a pregnancy test yet, as my ovulation time could have been as late as the 24th and you need to be 10-12 days past your ovulation time for any kind of accuracy in the tests. So I am hoping and waiting.

I'm not sure what to write about most days, my life is not that exciting right now. Nothing about funny things my toddler said or did, no anxiety about not getting enough sleep with a baby around, no job to stress over or to tell little stories about, no crazy maniacal principal who has it out for me, no angry parents to e-mail me, (not that there were many of those when I was a teacher).

I was thinking for the last week or so about the "exit interview" I forced on the assistant superintendent of the Mountain View Schools, when I was let go (not tenured). The unfair part of it was that there was no consideration given to the many people who thought I was a great asset to the school district. The previous principal (who had been there my first year), the parents who loved me, the other teachers who heard so many complimentary things about me from our fellow students, the opinions of the mentor teachers who had observed me over and over for both years, none of them were considered. The only person who mattered was the principal, who ran the school and staff with fear and unreasonable behaviors and lies. Even though the district heard from the teachers many times about her behavior, it didn't matter to them, they kept her for the second year and listened to her in the face of all of the positive things being said about me. It was so unreasonable.

So, I had been rehearsing and ruminating how I would have expressed all of that if I'd been able to think that clearly at the "exit interview". At breakfast on Saturday (Fred and I went to our favorite place, the Country Gourmet on El Camino. We go there every Saturday and split a breakfast.) I told Fred my thoughts (he has a way of injecting sense into my concerns and making me look at things differently.) He said that it could have been a few things. One, they were just lazy and did not want to look into things fully or Two, they were idiots or Three, they wanted to close their eyes to the truth and put their hats in with the principal (whom they seem to like, at least enough to keep her for an additional year.) I did feel better after he said that. It really had nothing to do with me.

I am able to get a lot of exercise this year having my days free and keep my stress down which could help with the getting pregnant thing.

Hymns

I really appreciate the hymns I have learned over the years in the Lord's Recovery. As I sing with the christian group that I am currently meeting with I get frustrated with the overall shallowness and lightness of the hymns we sing. I look at the kids standing with their families, some looking frequently at the clock and others singing with the same gusto as their parents. But most, showing the same lack of interest as most everyone around them. Church is more of a chore I think. It is what good Christians are supposed to do on Sunday. It makes them fulfill the spiritual duty to the family. It must add a little meaning. But I wonder what the kids will walk away with. How is a true relationship with God established?

As Fred and I look back on our being raised in the Recovery (I suppose I can go into all of that history at a later date.) we see how much stress was put on our inner life relationship with the Lord. Seeking Him daily on our own. Praying through Bible verses every day. Memorizing. Praying together, seeking the leading of the Lord as we pray and building on the prayers of others, and what I appreciate the most, Singing Hymns.

I would say the majority of the benefit came from being in the midwest and in the high school and college trainings with Tutus Chu. But not just Titus, there were many other brothers. Fred calls them our heroes. Brothers who have given their lives to serve the Lord, constantly seeking and trying to teach us how to seek as well. He can't see the heroes that the kids in our christian church have.

This morning we were singing a song about how things change and are never the same, which is true for the initial salvation experience, but for second generation kids, raised in Christianity, nothing ever changes, and this is the kind of song that makes it stick out to them how much things are really the same, whether or not they are interested in church, or attentive in their high school gatherings. The more you sing about things changing and never being the same, yet live out sameness, the less real God can be to you. They must grow up to think that they were just lied to and pursue christianity only to the level that will please their parents, or just leave.

I am concerned for my own kids, how Fred and I can give them what they need to have a relationship with Christ. One that is real and true and can last them through the happy as well as the frustrating times; without them being raised in the same unique Christian environment we were raised in. I can see that it won't come from what we are experiencing now. Can we be their heroes?

My dad was one of my heroes. I could tell that whenever he needed to say something to my sisters or me that he would pray about it first. His words came from God to us. I think that many times he was instructed not to speak at all, so he just kept praying.

Anyways, Fred and I are preparing to lead our OAG (One Another Group, basically small group meeting) this week and I am picking some hymns from my old hymnal that are on the topic of trusting God. No problem, since there is a whole section on comfort in trials and trusting in God. I hope that we can be the heroes to those in our group and that we can be proper heroes for our kids.

Movie Weekend

We've been seeing movies!

We saw New Moon. How many husbands are there who are ready to take their wives to see New Moon??? Not so many, I have the best one. He thought it was a little long and whiny, but I liked it, about as much as the book, which was the slowest of them all and more of a necessary lead in to books three and four. There were about 15 of my students there yelling each time Jacob removed his shirt.

We saw North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief at the Stanford Theater. Very fun. I haven't seen either of them and it was so great to see them on the big screen as my first time. North by Northwest was especially suspenseful and well done.

Then today we saw The Blind Side. Wow. That was really heart warming, and a true story. During the credits there were pictures of the real family with Michael Oher. I loved Sandra Bullock's character. I aspire to be like that someday, strong and fighting for what I think is right, in spite of any obstacles.

Thanksgiving

We kept little kitty out of the bedroom last night to see how my nose and face would do. The poor soul meowed almost all night long. (Fred said, my head was under the pillow, but I did dream about cats and there was a lot of meowing going on.) I did wake up well and was able to go back to sleep after getting up around 6:30, which I couldn't do the day before because of the sneezing and blowing of the nose.

We had a lovely thanksgiving dinner this evening, friends from our church, who are on weight watchers. I am going to visit a meeting on Saturday to see what I think, of course I wouldn't officially join until after the baby is born. Who knows how long it will take to get pregnant, but you shouldn't diet while trying to get pregnant or the body will think that there is not enough food to go around. So I am enjoying the periodic small bowl of Haagen Daz.

I also tried a Skinny Cow treat tonight, a yummy ice cream sandwich. Wow. So good.

The couple have a daughter who is 10, and she and I talked for a long time at the end of the evening. I do so love talking to kids and they love being listened to, so it was fun. I do miss kids. So much. I keep praying for direction in what I should be doing now, we'll see. I was looking online for a job and there is basically only one and it is about 2 hours a way at a private school, which would mean that I would get paid much less than public school. Hmmmm.

Allergies

Ack, have been experiencing allergies for about 2 months now and have no idea where they are coming from. The pattern is that from the minute I wake up in the morning, my nose is draining clear fluid, actually dripping from my nose, and I am sneezing, big body temperature raising, loud sneezes. My whole face itches as well, on the inside. After a few hours my stuffy nose clears out and I am okay for the rest of the day, decidedly better outside the apartment than in, with a little periodic sneezing. Other days the allergies seem to go on all day and I feel exhausted by the sneezing.

Was talking to my friend Amy this morning, on a lovely walk around the Stanford Dish, what a great view of the bay and lots of houses and trees and buildings, and she said that she had allergies going on 4 months and when she went to see a respiration specialist, his first question was whether or not she had cats and whether or not they slept in the room with her. Then his advice was to not allow them in the room anymore and to use the nasal rinse stuff for a month and see how things became.

She found herself dramatically better.

How I hate to admit allergies to my dear little kitty, whom I love, with all of her "I don't really like you that much" ways.

When we are about to fall asleep kitty walks up on the bed and looks for the crook of my left arm and then first puts each of her feet chilly on my arm, and then, Fred says, like a truck making the back up beeping sound, backs her butt up into my face. I usually try to adjust her body so that her side is in my face instead of her butt, but usually wake up with her butt in my face.

COULD THIS BE THE PROBLEM???

Will try to ban her for a while and see if there is an improvement. Will feel immensely guilty and sad as her plaintive mewing self sits outside of the door. Alas.