Bring on the Holidays!

This school year has flown by, but the last two weeks before Christmas break have just dragged on and on.  I am now ready for the break.  Holidays now are a bit bittersweet.  I enjoy the time as a family that we have together, but mom and dad have aged much in the last year and I know that this Christmas could be the last one we have together, or at least where we can enjoy each other. 

All of our other family is now scattered hither and yon, and soon to be even more scattered.  All of them have their own family now and it is fun to hear about their experiences with their kids, but we miss them and miss seeing the kids grow up.I guess that is just the way it goes. Life gets in the way sometime.
I get more reflective now.  I realize now more than ever the gift of God's love to us.   The blessings I have enjoyed throughout many years, are now just memories of the goodness of the Lord. 
Still, the house is decorated, the lights are up and we are singing Christmas carols and there are more memories yet to be made.

Blogging By the Wayside...

Well it seems to me that I have let my blogging go by the wayside.  Nope haven't blogged a bit since the school year started.  Guess I should make time to do it.  This school year is going much better than last since I know what I am doing now.  That always helps.  There is so much to do though to keep current with school work and grading student work, that by the time I check in on facebook, play a few games of Bejeweled Blitz I rarely want to do anything else on the computer.  Maybe later I'll become inspired to write, but for now, not so much.

Another school year is almost upon me. I can't believe it will be my 26th year for all of this. I must say though, I am having a real hard time getting motivated. ( and have been for several years, now) I enjoy the interaction with my students. That is not the problem, I guess I am tired of all the extra stuff we have to go through to teach these days. Lesson plans must be written in certain formats, and updated and organized. I guess if I was one of those teachers who was uber organized and did the same things every year this would not be a challenge,
I just looked at the files on my computer from last year and created folders for each of the classes I teach. I had saved everything, just not in files and certainly not in any chronological order. Well, since it was my first time teaching those subjects I would call what I did last year pretty unorganized anyway. This year I have a much better handle on things, at least that is what I am telling myself. I have a good idea of what worked and what didn't, or at least that is what I am telling myself.

47 is just a number

47 is just a number, right? I just celebrated my 47th birthday yesterday and it was a very good day. Lots of well wishes from many friends. The only thing that bothered me about this birthday is that it is only 3 years away from 50. Yes, 50!



I can remember celebrating friends 50th birthdays, they were so much older to me than I am now. I have to say that I do feel my age more physically, but not mentally, mentally I still feel the way I did when I was in college. I guess that is the way it is supposed to be.



Anyway, that is enough worrying about that, I won't be 50 for another 3 years, so for now I am just going to continue with 47.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

Nothing else to call the year that was 2009. It was only a few days in that I found out that the job that I loved and had worked so hard to prepare for in DeSoto was to be no more because of budget cutbacks. It was not a happy day but there was much more to come in the next few days and weeks. I turned 46 on the 12th of January and found out that my dad had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and would be having surgery at the end of the month. Praise God that he came through the surgery well despite the fact that we had an ice storm the day of the surgery. Here it is almost a year later and at 82 he is still with us. He is still going through treatments to stay the disease, but it is a struggle now to keep up his morale. It doesn't help that mom is also showing signs of memory loss. It is so hard to see your parents age. I am thankful for the years that I have had with them.
It was only a few days after dad's surgery that we lost Lindsay, my stepdaughter, David's 26 year old daughter to pneumonia,which developed from complications from the flu. This was before all of the H1n1 scare so we were shocked that something like this could actually happen. We had just had a wonderful time with her the week before celebrating a late Christmas. Neither of us understand why God took her at this time. I can't imagine the pain her mother and sister feel, but I do know the hurt that David went through at this time. A lot of painful memories were brought back in all of this from times past and it has been a struggle to get him through those emotional times. Remember to tell your children you love them every chance you get, you never know when you may not have them again.
God's mercies are new every morning and His grace truly is sufficient.
I have to say that I have been blessed with a job in a new place and although it has been difficult to adjust to a new place, new people and new curriculum. I am thankful for being there. I do believe God opened the door for me to be there. It has been a struggle to work in the classroom again. I seem to struggle everyday with what I am doing and at times I simply want to give up.
I really miss the fellowship of the really great friends I had in DeSoto- I have made new friends at the new place, but it is really not the same. I know in time it will be better.
Through all of this I have always had the support of my church friends and family, well recently I lost some of those folks as well. Right now we are like sheep without a shepherd. We are trying to be positive of course, but it is really hard when it has been such a painful loss.
Well , there are other bad things that have happened during this year, but I am not going to write about them all. I just am really ready for 2009 to go. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ,year. There are no guarantees for 2010 -I know, but at least the prospect of starting anew sounds hopeful in itself. So good riddance to 09 and welcome 10.

Well, it has been since the end of school in May since I have posted anything. I guess all the free time in the summer did not lend itself to blogging, just a lot of wasted time on Facebook. Well I am back at work now, first time in two years back in the classroom. I have started working for Life Charter Schools in Oak Cliff. It has been quite the challenge as I acclimate myself to a new job in a new place teaching new subjects. There is a reason I left the classroom in the first place and I don't think starting over in a new place changes that. I have school teacher burnout. I no longer want to write lesson plans, grade papers etc... I mean not just dislike, I HATE it. So, I am hoping and praying that God opens a door for me to once again move from the classroom to training teachers to use technology which is my first love.
Well enough of that, I know that God has a purpose for opening the door here at Life and I just must rest and trust that this is what He wants for me now. And....just keep on going.

The end of another school year is at hand.  Wow, they seem to go by faster now.  This is my 24th year of doing it on the teacher side of things.  This end of the year brings changes and new challenges. After 16 years I am leaving the DeSoto ISD to embark on a new adventure with Life Schools of Dallas.  They are a charter school.  I will be teaching Technology Applications, webmastering and graphic design at the Oak Cliff campus.

I leave DeSoto with very mixed emotions.  I have some really awesome friends there and will miss them dearly-but on the other hand it is time for me to go.  I need a change.

So right now I am excited and sad at the same time....and a little nervous too, who wouldn't be starting in a new place.  But I feel that God has opened doors for me and I am going to step through and trust that everything is gonna be all right....