Sunday Thoughts

I really, really enjoyed being with my family for Christmas. First of alll, I got to spend time with some of my most favorite people! Secondly, I got to spend time with some of the most awesome people. And thirdly, I got to spend time with some of my awesomest and favoritest people! Parents and siblings and cousins and nephews! I was sad that I didn't get to see my oldest sister and her family though. :(

Little bro is so tall!!!

It started snowing as I drove to the airport to head back to Seattle. I ended up waiting for a good 7 hours in the South Bend airport before even boarding a place. 

This is my "YAY! I'm-finally-on-a-plane-and-I hope-we-get-to-take-off!" face. :)

After another 30-40 minutes of waiting on the runway we did get to take off and go to Chicago. Even though I had missed my original connection in Chicago (by 4 or 5 hours), God was so kind as to give me a seat on another plane that had been delayed in taking off. Once I got to Chicago I had another 4 hours of waiting in the airport before we boarded the plane. Snow does crazy things to airports! I ended up getting into Seattle at 4am on Monday morning. I didn't end up going to school that day. ;-)

Made it back to Seattle! Yay! And then got a haircut. :)

Autumn is gone... long gone really. Winter was already here. Now I'm fairly certain that winter is on it's way out giving way to spring rains. The picture of the dusting of snow in my previous post was all the snow that we saw this year. It's always possible that we'll get another dusting, but it doesn't seem likely to me. I'm sitting at the window as I write this, and looking out I see vibrant green grass that needs to be cut again. It only dulled in its bright hue for a few weeks, but never got to the dull brown that the midwest sees during the bleak mid-winter. I awake in the mornings to birds twittering outside my window. Such a cheerful waking-up sound! We've been getting lots and lots of rain lately. Not just the constant autumn/winter drizzle, but rather some good heavy downpours. The rain pounding on the ground is a very pleasant sound but I really feel that I need a good dose of bright, warm sunshine. So much so that I was actually checking weather reports down in Oregon and on the east side of the Cascades to see if it would be worth a Saturday drive. Alas, they were cloudy and rainy too.

One of our recent spring rains. It is coming down hard!

It has been a really bad cold and flu season here. I'm still a young teacher, so I'm not surprised that I've been getting sick a lot, but it sure is exhausting and annoying! ;-) Someone at church commented on the fact that I've been sick a lot and went on to say they were concerned about my "fragile health". Well... that is certainly the first time I have ever had my health described that way. Typically I say that overall I'm really healthy. I'd rather think of it as a young teacher building up her immune system. ;-) Truth be told though, I have been perpetually fatigued the past couple of months. Just absolutely beat by the time three o-clock rolls around each day. It is probably in part just that I've been fighting bug after bug, and probably in part that my job has been emotionally demanding, but it finally dawned on me that probably the biggest slice of the puzzle is that I have been lacking Vitamin D! Last year I was consciously thinking about how I needed to be ready for the lack of sunshine and how I needed to be taking vitamin D to supplement for the lack of sunshine. I didn't get sick as much last year and definitely wasn't as tired. I began taking it again this week so hopefully I'll see an upswing in energy and general health. ;-) Perhaps a dose of sunshine is in order to jumpstart my energy again. I wonder what the forecast in Arizona is for this next weekend...

I am still loving where I'm living. The family that I live with is such a blessing to me on a daily basis. It continues to amuse me just how similar my growing up years were to the kids of the family. The books on the shelves could have come from my parents library. Movies that we watched when we were little... traditions through the holidays... even phrases our parents used! Anyways, all that to say that I am feeling very blessed and very at home with where I'm living this year. Please begin praying with me as I begin to look for my next living arrangement as this one is just temporary. I can stay until December, but know that the summer is typically the best time to move. 

On another note, I think the school year is getting easier. Over Christmas break I took a lot of time to reflect on why I was struggling and none of what I came up with was surprising. It was a lot of what I had already verbalized, but had not yet thought through completely how it was affecting my every day living and teaching. Upon returning to school in January I resolved to switch my focus from trying to get everything done, or even what I though was important done, and instead focusing on just living out each day in love. I decided to switch from trying to get through the lessons and loving as I went to loving as I went and letting the lessons be the vehicle of how I went through the day. I had to actually say to myself that for the month of January it didn't matter how much I got through. I needed to just focus on loving my 21 students. And you know what? It made a huge different in my stress levels. Living love, letting curriculum just be the means. The class size is still a huge challenge for me. I want to give every student the attention they need and have time to deal with heart issues that arise every day and have time for great communication with parents and still teach every lesson thoroughly and meet the curriculum goals that are set for 2nd grade. But the thing is, I can't. There's no way I can do all of that with 21 students. So I'm back to the basics: loving my students and shepherding their hearts. 

I'm still struggling with church... Please pray. I'm not growing and feel very stagnant in my walk. I'm praying for wisdom, a soft heart, and the Lord's leading. 

After many, many, many prayers, lots of patience, and a long time of looking, God granted me a car. It is an electric blue 2003 Mazda Protege5. I've been enjoying the good, firm brakes and the fact that it only has 62,000 miles on it. Woot woot! I didn't ever think that I would be able to afford a car with such low mileage. I need to take it to the mechanic for some squealing belts, but other than that it has been functioning wonderfully for me. Praise the Lord for his new mercies with me!

Introducing Zwingli!

I expect Zwingli and I will enjoy many Bunbury-ing adventures together. ;-)

I read a new book this weekend. It is called "The Lost Princess: A Double Story"by George MacDonald. It is an older book with a very interesting premise, several profound statements, and great insights into the ugliness of the human heart when it is centered upon self. The book is a book meant for children, and so many of the lessons that can be drawn from it are not proclaimed openly but rather woven into the story. It's a good one to pick up and read! I also read "The Giver" by Lois Lowry this weekend. I'm still thinking about that one and trying to decide what I think about it. Have any of you read that one and have thoughts on it?

I just noticed that all my past pictures have disappeared from the blog. Sorry about that. I've looked for a reason why and apparently there's no good reason... it has happened to other blogger.com bloggers. I was also hoping to find a way to get them back up and visible (some of those Yellowstone pictures were just breathtaking! and I'm sorry that they have gone!) but there seems to be no way to put them all back on except manually. That seems a bit tedious. I hope it doesn't happen again! Perhaps that just means it's time for another cross-country roadtrip so that I can take more pictures. ;-) 

Well, I think that's all for today. As always, I appreciate your prayers! I love hearing from you! :)