My toolbox!

I asked for a toolbox complete with tools for Christmas. My uncle gave me a gift card to Home Depot and we all know what that means...I got to go SHOPPING! :)

Mom and I walked in and immediately found the aisle with toolboxes. My uncle thought a pink one was necessary and had looked, but no luck. :)

We found one with lots of pockets and a sturdy handle and other quite practical things that we liked. We also bought a 6 piece screwdriver set in which the Philips heads have blue handles and the slots have red handles. I thought that made tons of sense! We found some needle nose pliers, slip joint pliers and a crescent wrench, too before the gift card was spent.

When I got back to Houston, I moved everything from the carryall that had been dumped in (I forgot to take a picture of the old. Sorry!) It was a blue plastic thing with two sides and a handle in the middle. No matter how much I tried to organize, I still basically ended up having to toss stuff in nooks and crannies. No bueno.

Here is the new one!



I've already used it! I've hung a little thing by my kitchen window. I've taken screws out of the wall from a shelf that fell months ago and I just hadn't gotten to the screws.

Who knew I'd get all giddy over a toolbox? :)

New Year's Eve!

I know I've blogged since NYE, but I'm just getting to the pictures from that night, so please excuse the delayed post!

As of 2pm on New Year's Eve, my home looked like this. I was expecting company around 6:00, and in a text conversation with a friend I referred to it as a place that a (stereotypical) bachelor would approve of. I was told that it could not possibly be as bad as I thought. So I took pictures! :) (Love you, girl!)

My bedroom...





Oh, AND the bed wasn't made!

The kitchen...



The dining room...



The hall...



Not everything was finished by 6:00, but all the cleanup was and Becca helped with the food prep! (Thanks, Bec!) so when everyone else arrived about 8:00 we were good to go!

The party was fun! It was low key: chatting, appetizers, champagne toast at midnight. We had a good time!

A List of Goals

I've already posted the intrinsic reflection items. These are just concrete things I'd like to do in 2010.

They are in absolutely no particular order.

1. Take a self-defense class
2. Pay off medical bills
3. Go to Chicago
4. Go skydiving
5. Take a course on gun safety, get a license to carry a gun and purchase one
6. Re-take the GRE (long story) and work HARD at completing my Master's degree
7. Go cash predominantly (I'm not sure cash only is even an option anymore)
8. Go on a mission trip
9. Plant things (I'm being vague on purpose) in my garden
10. Cook more regularly
11. Figure out why my wifi doesn't work at home
12. Use everything in my pantry before going grocery shopping
13. Re-read the Proverbs 31 woman study...focus hard on the character traits the Lord leads me too
14. Meet Angie Smith
15. Visit Crosspoint Church
16. Meet Brandi and Pete Wilson
17. Meet the first few requirements in Dave Ramsey's list of 'acting your wage' (I'm using my own words here)


That's what I can think of right now. 17 is an odd number to end on, but I'm okay with that. I can add more later if I want to! :)

Annual Review Continued

Since yesterday's post was pretty lengthy, I'm continuing the Annual Review today.

FIVE WAYS I WANT TO IMPROVE

1. I'd like to be a better friend. There are so many times I think about calling someone or I think about sending a note or I think about reaching out and touching them in some way...and I don't act on it. I want to 'think' less and 'do' more!

2. I'd like to be a better daughter. I want to pray for my parents more. As individuals and as a married couple. I want to talk with them and really listen.

3. I want to be a better teacher. I want to search out creative ways to teach a certain concept and not trust the old way all the time. I want to become more comfortable with the technology that is available to me so I can use it more consistently thus helping my students become better equipped for their own futures as well.

4. I want to live by cash and not by credit. This will mean making a budget each month and sticking with it. It will mean getting completely paid up with all outstanding companies and starting with a clean slate. I don't owe much, but I want to use cash more consistently.

5. I want to find a way to serve outside of my local body of believers. I'm not sure in what capacity yet. The homeless? The ill? The physically or mentally disabled? The illiterate? The temporarily down and out?

FIVE WAYS I WANT TO GIVE AND HELP OTHERS

1. I'm currently sponsoring one Compassion child. I like to help him out with other practical items too. I'd like to be able to sponsor a second Compassion child as well. Maybe in a different country? It's been fun to learn about India and William's life. I think maybe Ecuador next.

2. I want to find someone that needs a little bit of help and provide that tangible item anonymously.

3. I want to do more random acts of kindness. Anything! Pay for the next car's meal in a drive-thru or the family at the table next to mine or a dollar in the vending machine. I want to find ways to be kind to people I know and people I don't know.

4. I want to create a sense of community in my little neighborhood. I'd like to invite my close neighbors over for a meal and start the process of getting to know each other.

5. I want to go on a foreign mission trip. It has been since summer of '05 when I went to Guatemala, and I would really like to serve Him by sharing His story with someone that has never heard it before.

Year in Review

I got an idea from Kelly's Korner to do an Annual Review of my life and goals in 2009. I decided it was a great way to reflect, so here we go!

FIVE THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR IN 2009
1. I'm thankful for friends. I love hanging out with my college girlfriends. We try to do it yearly and were able to over Spring Break this year. We scrapbooked and laughed and talked about things you talk about with people you've been friends with for over ten years. It was wonderful! I couldn't find a pic of all of us, but here is Amy and Julie from that trip. (Shan, do you have one of the four of us?)


Late this summer, I began to struggle with a lot of emotional upheaval. Thank you to all of you that encouraged me. You called me, dropped by unexpectedly, brought me smiles with your thoughtful gifts, wrote notes and wouldn't let me continue the slide into being 'off the map' like I was attempting to do. Most of all, you prayed for me, over me and with me. I love and appreciate each one of you! Some of these weren't taken this year and none of them depict the people doing what I'm referencing in this post, but they're still the people I'm referring too!


Jalen, I love our walks and talks (and Kolache Factory!) You make me smile everytime we're together. Love you!


You girls mean so much to me! Thank you for listening. Thank you for never giving up on me. Melody, thank you for the late night talks. All of you prayed with me and over me. Thank you for letting me cry. Amy, thank you for telling me it's okay to not be over something quickly.
Melody, Amy, Laura and AJ: Thank you for being my sisters in Christ and my sisters during this season. Love you!


Tom, thanks for understanding when I needed some time off with no responsibility. I treasured that weekend! I appreciate you listening and not asking questions I just didn't know the answer to. I know I didn't really answer your question earlier this week about my sabbatical. I'm enjoying what the Lord is doing in my life now. Thanks for asking and not letting me just hang in the balance. Thank you also for not pushing. :) I have so much respect for you and loved serving with you!


Jules! You and Heather were absolutely wonderful that weekend! I know I shocked you both when I broke down with tears and body shakes, but you responded compassionately to my weirdness! :) Thank you for stepping into the role of WC. You have done a phenomenal job and I LOVE watching the Lord use you in this way.


Meredith, I love our friendship. You help me have a perspective I wouldn't have otherwise. You teach me each time we talk and I love that about our conversations. Love you!

2. I'm thankful for my family, both immediate and extended. I love our traditions of gathering at certain places for certain holidays. I love the games we know we're going to play and the new ones we learn. I'm thankful for their advice through life's struggles. I'm thankful we all live within driving distance of each other so we CAN see each other as often as we do.

3. I'm thankful for good health. You never know how much that means until it's taken away. I struggled with health issues for awhile earlier this year and the amount of doctors, nurses, various hospitals and all the medical lingo can quickly become overwhelming. Right now, I'm doing fine and I praise God for that. (Which brings me back to the support of my friends during that time of uncertainy, too. Mark, you answered innumerable questions and helped me laugh about the 'big ass' needle. Thanks! Julie, thanks for driving and standing up to the old mean, grumpy guy! Meredith, you were a savior when you came and spent the night in case I needed to go to the ER after the first bx. Laurie, thanks for coming to sit with me when I did need to go to the ER several days later! I really appreciate all of you!)

4. I'm thankful for a new home. Moving was a little stressful since I had just come back from being out of the country, but it all worked out well and I absolutely LOVE my new place!


My bedroom after about 15 times of moving furniture!


The built-in cabinets I painted...ahem, three different colors before settling on this one!


My clocks and bicycles collection! (How many are there, Jalen?)


And my patio garden! I love having an area with greenery! A place to grow things and work outside in the creation that God gave to us. It was fun to help it go from this:


to this!

5. I'm thankful for a church family that has fun laughing and playing together. We are constantly in each other's lives. We grow together. We sharpen each other. We teach each other. We serve together. We stretch each other. We travel together. We work together. We are family.


Liz, Laura and Becca just before the rodeo! We were on our way to Josh Turner, I think.


Darrick, Dan, me, Mark and Liz at the Detroit airport. Jill was taking the pic! We're on our way to Rome!



Liz, me and Jill in Ephesus!


This is our group just before we went to the Astros game at Girls Serve Guys in May. We had so much fun serving the Paradigm men! (They did an absolutely wonderful job at Guys Serve Girls in February, but I don't have any pics.)


Me, Melody and Mark serving together at Houston Project! (More details at www.houstonsfirst.org I'm sure there's already info for HP:2010!)

I was going to do a FIVE THINGS I WANT TO IMPROVE IN 2010 and FIVE WAYS I WANT TO GIVE AND HELP OTHERS THIS YEAR, but I think this post is long enough as it is. I will save those topics for the next day or two. :)

Christmas decorations, teaching relationships and pictures

I was told the other day by a previously unknown reader that I hadn't posted in awhile. I did post a short ditty shortly thereafter, but thought I'd add another rambling to the archive. :)

This is going to be pretty steam of consciousness and not so much purposeful. You've been forewarned. :)

I'm taking down all my Christmas decorations today. I leave for Plano in the morning and a lot of what I decorated with this year is Mom's, so it's heading back with me. I had two gatherings this year, so it was fun to decorate for Christmas knowing others were going to come over and enjoy them as well. I know some people decorate for themselves and it doesn't matter if no one else sees it. I do that with some things too, but Christmas has always been different. In past years, I haven't done much Christmas decorating. Sometimes, I was so busy with going to Christmas gatherings, I certainly didn't have time to decorate my own place. Also, because I was going so much, I didn't have time to host anything...so no one was going to be there to see anything anyway. Guests or me! This year, that was different. I hosted two different gatherings and they were both super fun!

I didn't take pictures :( but I'll tell you about them anyway! I invited friends from work to come over. As teachers, it takes a lot of time to get to know one another. Even on our own grade level, it takes more time than other professions because we're in our own classrooms with children all day. We have our planning period and we have lunch. But imagine if you were only with co-workers for 1 hour and 15 minutes each day. And really that's the amount of time you have the possibility to be with them. There's still papers to grade, lessons to plan, etc so you're definitely not with them for all of that time either. And that amount of time is only with people on your grade level. Other teachers have different lunch times and different planning periods, so you don't have any time during any regular day to get to visit or have a chance to get to know them on a personal level. That was a longer explanation than I planned, but all of that to say: I wanted to make time to hang out outside of work and we all LOVED it! Barbara, Margaret, Kari, Ally, and Lolita came over and we just hung out. We chatted and laughed and enjoyed each other's goodies. It was fun! None of them had been over before, and I just really enjoyed having them. We even planned to do it again sometime!

That was on a Monday. The next Saturday was Celebration at HFBC and a group of us was attending together. Others were working the sound booth or attending with family and we made plans to come back to my place after for dinner. I made tortilla soup, which is super easy, and had the cookie swap cookies from Jill's Cookie Swap (see previous post) to offer everyone for dessert. Another fun time to have people over during this Christmas season.

All of this because I'm not going as much as I used to! And I love it! I'm not nearly as busy. I'm home way more. I'm cooking more often. I'm spending less money. I'm learning to say 'no' which provides me the opportunity to say 'yes!' more spontaneously and it's great!

Earlier this week I mentioned dropping my camera. :( I was able to use gift cards from students to purchase a new camera yesterday! So hopefully I'll be able to start posting pictures more often again. I'd like to get the pics off my old camera's memory card, which I'm told is not difficult, so I can post a few of them, too. When I do that, I'll post the recipe for the yummy tortilla soup. I served it at both Christmas gatherings and it was a hit!

And Filled with Good Cheeeeeerrr!

Hello Everyone!

Today was the last day of school for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! This is super exciting news! Since this week had been quite chaotic, I was expecting a for REAL crazy day, but it actually wasn't bad. The kids enjoyed working crossword puzzles and rebuses and other fun Christmas word games while listening to Christmas music and then we had the official Christmas party, also lots of fun! We played ANGEL (BINGO) and did a gift exchange. I'd never done a gift exchange with the kids before, but it went really well!

I'm hoping to get my camera fixed tomorrow and then can begin posting pictures again! I've decided I enjoy that :)

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I've had lots of thoughts and lessons that will probably find their way on here in the next few days. I just haven't had the time to formulate anything yet.

For now, I'm taking a deep breath and enjoying the most wonderful time of the year!