Life Lately

I spend 95% of my time either doing elementary school things or grad school things... I try to squeeze a little bit of a social life in there sometimes.

Zac Brown Band

Sweet birthday present from one of my YL girls who is going to LSU in the fall.
Hate thinking about it because I am going to miss her so so much.

My desk is always a huge cluttered mess of papers, etc.
So flowers are always a nice touch! :)

One of the many reasons I hate dog-sitting.

Gotta make use of him somehow...
He is wearing "the grading glove." What a goofball.

Camo on camo on camo. Everyday. Even the girls.

Jamie's 23rd

Tennessee weather is crazy... and Chelc is clumsy

Mom's birthday, but she refused to be in a picture. Of course.

Still have a beautiful drive to work!

When Butch said "Start your engines" at Bristol

Action Research...
(even though there is only one picture of this,
 it is actually where I spend most of my time)
Almost done!

Fancy dinner

We visited Christine for SBXIII

Furman 

loves of my life

Christine's studio

Couldn't afford the Biltmore... so took a picture with a picture

My boyfriend is cooler than I am...
and he went to
Vegas,
the Grand Canyon,
Death Valley,
LA
for spring break
and somehow managed to be on Conan O'Brien!

[a post I started one day and finished much later...]

As I sit here and wait for my mentor teacher to get back to the school to pick up her kids (she had a meeting outside of the school), they are all playing on some website... communicating with each other somehow. They are all animals, telling each other to meet at so-and-so's den... I don't have a good segue, but... I can't even believe that I am 23 years old. When did this happen? Where did the time go? Where did this year go? I am about to graduate from grad school... with my master's. It all just seems so grown up. And it is kind of scary. When did I stop playing Jump Start 4th Grade and start applying for jobs? In the midst of job applications, I fear the unknown. I worry that I'm not making the right decisions. I know without a shadow of a doubt that God has called me to be a teacher, but where? What if I say yes to the wrong school? Or my even bigger fear... What if I am supposed to teach abroad this coming year? I know that I am being called back to Africa, but I don't know when I am supposed to go.

With the fear, doubts, and unknown comes great joy as God reminds me that I cannot mess up His plan. He reminds me that I have been confused before, but He has always made it clear in His time. I am thankful for a God that is full of forgiveness, grace, and second chances. I am thankful for a God who walks in front of me and beside me and in me all at the same time. I am thankful for a God that I cannot even begin to understand, and I cannot wait to see what all He has in store for me!

Thankful to know I'm not the only one who feels worn down by the world and so thankful that I can find rest in Him even when life is so overwhelming/exhausting/stressful. Basically, I just have so much going on that all I want to do is sleep! But true rest can be found elsewhere... (of course sleep is good too!)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." - Matthew 11:28

"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." - Exodus 14:14 [The LORD himself will fight for you. Just stay calm. NLT]

 "For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence." Isaiah 30:15

Although I have been on quite the blogging hiatus this year, now seems an appropriate time for an update- the beginning of a new year, a 6 day unexpected break from school (flood days, what?!), and a time of great busyness when I should be writing lesson plans...

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and hopefully I'll continue saying it for many years to come... but I LOVE hanging out with elementary schoolers all day long and attempting to teach them some things along the way.

Christmas break was a wonderful time well spent with family, friends, and the bugs in my hair. Yes, that's right... the kids have now given me the flu and lice. They are so generous and willing to share! Better get used it, I guess! It was such a season of thankfulness (a month late? I believe that every season should be a thankful season, though), love, and waiting.

School has been very stressful this year, and though that usually causes more blogging, this year I really haven't found the time. I had high hopes for this post, but here I am rambling as I search for words to type... so I will just revert back to my usual update of pictures. Soon hopefully I will have words. I want to write about my adventures of teaching third grade- the excitement, the humor, but mostly the faith and the trust that it has required and the joy that it brings.

 

 

 

First Grade

I can't believe how quickly my time in first grade went by! I am excited to get back to my third graders, but it was sad leaving yesterday! They made me a sweet, sweet book of letters about how they will miss me. I couldn't read it until I got home for fear of crying in front of the little 7 year olds. I am really enjoying this whole teaching thing (minus all the booger eating and being evaluated [it's so scary!]), which is really encouraging since it is what I have chosen to spend my life doing. I love, love, love it! Being completely exhausted and missing out on everything that happens after 9:30 pm is totally worth it. :)

Just a few first grade quotes:

"But I can't sit criss-cross applesauce or my boots will rub together and my sparkles will fall off!"

Teacher: The pilgrims came over on the Mayflower a long, long time ago so that they could go to church where they wanted to instead of having to follow all the king's rules.
Student A: I have a connection (they're big on making connections to everything)- my grandfather was in the army!
Teacher: Okay, well remember that this was over 300 years ago and it doesn't really have to do with the army...
Student B: Was this around 9/11?
Student C: Wait, were the pilgrims REAL people?

"When I was carving a pumpkin, my fingers were so cold that it felt like I was holding 100 beers... because beers are really cold."

Gah, they never cease to keep me entertained! Really going to miss those sweet faces.

Life according to my (and others') iPhone(s)

photo sesh with the best roomies ever

wearing pajama pants and dress shoes... in public

sweet, sweet babies

sky box with the swankies

College Game Day came to UT (and UT was terrible... again)

Dirty Guvs on top of Cafe 4

circus

twice in one picture

sunsets

pirate roomies- we will do almost anything for free food

beautiful girls that I cannot believe are seniors

tailgating

wish she was always a Red Saile member

lots of sunrises on the way to school

birthday girl

fort-building

it's official

homework in the eno

backpacking vicariously through our neighbors

Divine Appointment

It seems like I don't have time for anything these day, especially blogging (besides blogging for class...). I am so busy and so overwhelmed all of the time! That being said, when the heck does the working person go to the doctor/dentist/bank/whatever?! I knew that this was a struggle, but I never realized just how much I REALLY don't have time to go to the doctor until I had reason to go. Dad called continuously to see if I had made an appointment yet because I had decided just to put it off since I would probably never have the chance to go anyway. To get him to stop bugging me, I finally made an appointment. My regular doctor doesn't work on Fridays (of course- the only time I could possibly even squeeze in an appointment), so I made an appointment with someone I had never heard of just so I could tell dad I had gone. Then this appointment was so noteworthy, I journaled nearly every detail of it... So now I will copy that here.

9/1/12
Yesterday I went to the doctor for my arm, and the receptionist was one of my younglife girl's moms. I talked to her about younglife for a second and then was taken back to the room. As soon as the doctor (PA) entered the room I recognized her and said, "You're ******'s sister!" I told her that I was previously ******'s younglife leader and she told me that she recognized me as well. We have many mutual friends and have seen each other a few times at high school football games, etc. She began to tell me how her sister had gone to Ghana with her this past summer, and that it seemed to have had quite an impact on her! It was so cool to immediately be talking about Jesus. I asked what they had done in Ghana and she explained to me that she was adopting 2 girls from there. She showed me a picture of them, and they are precious! Since we were talking about Africa, I mentioned that I had been to Zimbabwe and wanted to return.

We both discussed how we would move there in a heartbeat if we could. She asked if it had to be Zim for me, and I told her that I would love to go back there since I had a few connections, but that I knew I could fall in love with pretty much anywhere probably! I explained that I was interning now (unrelated to Africa, but related to the reason that I thought I was seeing her today), but that I would love to teach abroad one day (which had really been put on my heart again during class earlier that day when we shared our cultural autobiographies and a few people had mentioned this). I love, love, love Zimbabwe, but since my interactions there were mainly with older kids, I have often thought that I would want to experience more young African children. The PA asked if I would ever be interested in Ghana (a place that I have considered many times before because once a native from there prayed over our church and spoke of his ministry there, and I also know people who have had life-changing experiences there [Katie Craze]), and I quickly and excitedly told her I definitely would be. She informed me that she was the main sponsor for the school/orphanage of one of her future daughters. She wrote down information for me about the organization, orphanage, and website. She also told me that the principal there is an American woman married to an African man, and that she is great friends with them.

The doctor then told me that she is off on certain days if I ever wanted to talk more about this. Lastly, she asked me if my parents were concerned about the safety of me going to Africa, and for any one who reads this blog, you know that is a huge worry of my mom's. I explained to her that my mom had constant nightmares while I was there. Apparently Ghana is one of the safest places over there! Not that I could convince Mom of this.... but maybe it will help? All of this was such Divine Intervention. I now know why I couldn't get in to see my regular doctor and got scheduled with this one. There was such a bigger reason for my tingling arm. I loved every word that we shared, but what stuck out the most was that THEY NEED AMERICAN TEACHERS at the school of one of her daughters.

It's not every day that you talked to your doctor about Jesus, and it's definitely not every day that you stay for an hour (no tests being done) just talking about ministry, church, and Africa because you know that you are there for a reason.