A child of God educating other children.

Tim and I went down to the cities to spend Easter afternoon with Dan, Maggie, Adrienne and the kids. We had a good time getting together. I can't wait for the next time!

Tim and Titus playing with Tigger.

Noah entertaining himself.

Ruby and I playing with the camera.

Subbing is going well. Tomorrow is a pretty slow day. I really don't even have a lesson to teach. We have a guest coming from the middle school to talk to the 6th graders about next year when we usually do math. Then they have 2 specials, then reading, just reading the first half of the story, then doing their state test practices. Hopefully I'll get a lot of things done to prep for next week and maybe longer. How nice that would be!

Oh, and it's still snowing up here. All day long, the ground was white and slippery when I left for work, and it still hasn't stopped coming down. When will it end?

Posted in: Easter, teaching on Monday, March 31, 2008 at at 5:49 PM 0 comments    

Thursday was terrible. Friday was much better. Thursday by lunch I was wondering how easily they could find a different sub, but thanks to the line of communication the teacher already had set up, when Friday morning came around student's attitudes were fixed thanks to their parents talking to them. Today Tim and I relaxed around the house and took things easy. Tim even cooked homemade chicken fingers for us tonight and let me choose a chick flick for us to watch! What a wonderful and caring husband. I really needed this day of relaxation. I have put off the school work that needs to be done until tomorrow though. Now I am praying that I will get a good night's sleep tonight and that I will be focused for everything needing to be done.

Thank you to everyone who has been lifting me up in prayers!

Posted in: cooking, relaxation, teaching on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at at 7:50 PM 1 comments    

It's before 9 and I'm having a chance to check emails and blog! This first week is going well. It's getting better each day as I learn what kids to watch out for and for what reasons. Monday and Tuesday I had the same problem with one student, which hopefully got fixed because we didn't have the problem today. Good progress! However, a new situation came up today with different students, which will have a stop to it tomorrow. God will help me, and the students will find out I am serious that when I tell them the consequences of something, I do follow through. I am pretty steamed about the situation I will be dealing with tomorrow. Please pray for wisdom and patience as I speak to the student that thought they could get away.

Also pray for the teacher I am subbing for. He originally took this 6 week leave as a paternity leave to take care of their new born and first born. He's been going to the doctor about his knee, and found that he tore his ACL, so will have surgery Friday, staying over night in the hospital. After his surgery he has to recover for 6 weeks, so now my 6 week assignment turned into a 7 week assignment. I'm excited about that, but I know I have to take this one day at a time with God's new strength every day. Pray that he will be able to care for his son with ease while recovering from surgery.

Posted in: God's help, teaching on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at at 6:55 PM 0 comments    

The other day we got 8-12 inches of snow. I was pretty upset at first, but then had some fun. Here's how it started:

We went to Target, the church, and the post office today, then checked our mail at the end of the road and got stuck! 2 neighbors came to help which was fun. Then Tim got unstuck and drove on home. Our neighbor gave me a ride to the house since he has a 4WD truck, and we found Tim stuck again in front of our garage!
I ran to get the camera and start taking pictures, and on my way back out I noticed our neighbor stuck who gave me a ride! LOL lots of fun! We got my car in the garage then, went to help the neighbor, by that time the city plow had come and pulled out neighbor out.

After that Tim was actually in the mood to go play in the snow, so of course I had to take advantage of that time! We built a snowman (my 3rd one ever) and then Tim built an igloo.
You can see more pictures at our web album.

Today was my first day of my 6 week subbing assignment. It went well, but I am still nervous. I would really appreciate all the prayers y'all can give me! My goal is to be in bed by 9:00, but it's 9:40 right now, so that didn't happen. But I should be in bed and asleep in time to get at least 8 hours of sleep. I'll be waking up at 6:30 every morning. So what to pray for: Wisdom for me to know how to handle different situations that come up. Peace with teaching a classroom of 29 students, both 5th and 6th grade. Joy that I will appreciate where God has put me where I am right now. And also pray for the students that they will be respectful of me, and that we can develop a relationship that will let things run smoothly.

Posted in: teaching, weather, work on Monday, March 24, 2008 at at 7:40 PM 0 comments    

I really really wanted and expected to have snow for Christmas Day this year with being in Minnesota, and especially with my family coming to visit. But right now with Easter on Sunday I was hoping to have all the snow melted and being able to see only grass even though it's brown right now. When I woke up this morning and went to eat breakfast I noticed quite a pile on our porch, so I checked out www.weather.com to see how long this is lasting. It shows that we'll continue to have snow 'til Saturday night! I was hoping that I'd get to see a couple blooming flowers for Easter, but instead we're getting a white one.

My Grandma changed my view on this though this morning when I got her e-card and the first line says, "Praise Him with white for his spotless perfection." Thank you Grandma for refocusing my mind as we get snow this Easter weekend!

Posted in: on Friday, March 21, 2008 at at 8:52 AM 0 comments    

I usually leave the cooking up to Tim when it comes to making pancakes. I tried making some when we were first married living in the apartment and they totally didn't come out right. I think I tried it another time after that, and then again last night. I don't know what it is with me and making pancakes, I just can't get them right. I think I'll continue to let Tim do the cooking when it comes to pancakes.

I'm baffled though 'cause I have no problem cooking anything else. Like today, I was in the baking mood, so I made some garlic cheese biscuits (like you can get at Red Lobster) for the first time. They came out perfectly! And then for dinner I made spaghetti and green beans. Wonderful dinner, but last night my pancakes were a flop!

I don't know what my deal is with trying to make pancakes. I seem to have no problem cooking anything else. Hmmm.

Posted in: cooking, pancakes on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at at 7:20 PM 0 comments    

I realized today that God's peace is all over mine and Tim's finances. We've been following Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for around 8 months now and I have no worries about our finances. Yes there are times when I would like something that is not a necessity, but everything we need God has provided us.

In the devotion I am reading through and other Bible Studies I have done especially about marriage, it seems that money is the most popular thing that stresses people out. Even at our youth Bible Study last night talking about what kinds of things we put before God, and someone brought up paying bills.

I have so much to be thankful for because God is in control of our money. God is the one providing everything we need. All of our money belongs to God, so Tim and I give God back the portion specified in the Bible, and then we work out our needs (not our wants) for the month. And everything extra is going on my car right now to get us closer to being debt free. Which next month I should be blogging about my car being totally paid off!

Posted in: debt, debt free, finances, financial peace, money on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at at 11:59 AM 0 comments    

I am so excited for our youth group! There is a guy who use to lead the youth praise band at his church and has moved to town to attend the tech school and volunteered to help kick start a Jr. high and Sr. high youth band. We have so many talented youth in our church, so it is very exciting to see their talent put to use. Some of them help out with Sunday services, but we have a lot more students who are not involved on Sunday mornings.

Tonight was the first night for our Sr. High praise band to play for youth group. They did an incredible job. I am really proud of them. Last Tuesday was their first practice and tonight their first time to play. What a good job at jumping in there and getting it started! Wednesday will be the first night for our Jr. High praise band to play. I can't wait to hear them. I like having worship by music in youth programs.

Posted in: ministry, youth praise band on Sunday, March 09, 2008 at at 11:02 PM 0 comments    

I only worked three days this week, but I am still tired. Monday David and Adrienne came up and visited for a little bit so we got to see Noah and hear his adorable laugh. They are down in Texas for a wedding so Tim and I are dog sitting for them. Tuesday I was home all day with the dogs, and then subbed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Subbing was fun, I had the same 6th grade class all three days. I prefer being in a classroom for a series of days. Friday I also subbed for an after-school program, so I worked from 7:40-5:50. That made for a really long day. We're also not used to taking care of two other beings beside ourselves, so that has been tiring. It was a good run for us to figure out if we ever want a dog or not. We never talked about wanting a dog before, but I think we can say we agree that it is not for us.

Posted in: dog sitting, work on Saturday, March 08, 2008 at at 3:52 PM 0 comments    

I started my devotional by Elizabeth George over this week. I half heartedly started it a few months ago and barely got into it, but lately God has really been working on my heart, and especially my mind. God has really opened my eyes that my mind has really been something I have struggled to keep focused on God. It's always been easier to focus on negative things for me and has taken all my strength and God's to keep my thoughts on what is righteous and true.

I have also been trying to be more in tune with what God is trying to tell me or where he is leading me throughout the day. I'm getting a lot of practice with this at Wednesday night small group with our 8th grade girls. We were going to split up into 3 smaller groups and take prayer requests first, but almost everyone had the same type of prayer request so we stayed together and talked about what was going on and how they feel about it and how they can make a difference. It was really awesome to find more about what the girls go through at school and everything taking place around them. And eventually our conversation lead to some Bible verses that were actually in the lesson for the week.

I am really excited to go through the process God has started me on this week of how to love God with all my mind. The girls in my small group want to do a slumber party some time, and I mentioned to them about incorporating a Bible study with it and they were really excited. It's nice to know when God is working in me, and see him working in others as well. How great it is to know that He loves us so much!

Posted in: Bible Study, Elizabeth George, Loving God with All Your Mind, ministry on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at at 7:44 PM 0 comments