Buddy Walk

Buddy Walk is this Saturday. This will be our fifth one? I think!
It is fun every year.
Join us if you can. We have 36 on our team this year.

I wanted to share our team's posters with everyone.
Caleb made these for us this year. He plans to have them printed out for his shop.
I think the posters are wonderful.
Don't you?

Update on Carl and Lisa

Did you know that Houston has a curfew?
You can not be out after 9:00 PM. At least, not in the area without electricity. Thank goodness someone is watching out for the homes left unmanned.

But Carl and Lisa are now up and running again.
Actually, they are here right now but soon will be returning home. It has been fun having them here.

Is that selfish?

From Lisa's Corner of Ike

I know, I know....three weeks and nothing posted and now two posts in one day.

I just got off of the phone with Lisa.
Still (at 2:00 PM today) they are without electricity and water but they received word via the radio that the Fort Bend area will be among the first to get electricity restored.
They are actually in Stafford (pretty far southwest of downtown Houston right off of 59) but Lisa said that they are serviced through Fort Bend so hopefully it will not be weeks as first predicted.

Many thanks for those of you who have expressed concern or called about the kids. They have a good attitude about all this. They are hot and tired. Carl is working in the neighborhood chain-saw-gang along with other men going from house to house and helping to get started with clean up. Lisa is working doing the domestic part of the clean up.

Keep all of the victims in your prayers. Please pray for their safety and that this experience will bring them closer to God and their neighbors. Soon this will be just a memory for them.

Many thanks for your expressions of concern for all of our friends in the area. There are many, many of yours and my friends, family, children, and grandchildren living there. And as far, as I have heard of those who we know everyone has escaped personal danger to themselves.

Ike

Just heard from the kids in Houston and they survived the night. Carl said he and Lisa did not sleep last night and at the early hour that I was on the phone with Carl he said the little ones were beginning to wake up.

I had been searching the internet for a map that has a pointer that says "Here are Carl and Lisa" and "here is Ike's movement" but no where could I find that map. I turned the TV off of my usual old movie channels and have it on CNN listening and watching for news of what the Hurricane has done to the people in that region.

Carl called and told me that he has lots of clean up necessary, huge tree limbs down, the fence separating them from their neighbors is ON the neighbor's car, knocked out one window and are without electricity and now without water. Lisa and the babies are coming this way but I am not sure if they are going to Lauren's house, (her sister) or here. The news says it can be up to three weeks before they get electricity there. So it will take weeks to get Carl & Lisa's cleaned up really considering the mess the lack of electricity has on us....freezers, refrigerators, washers, dryers and Carl tells me they are now without water so it is a mess but again........God blesses us and has protected us again.

First Week

We have completed a full week with students.
It has felt like we are doing marathon teaching with so many classes, advisory and planning periods. But ironically it feels like we have already been in school for weeks.

I am drained at the end of the day.
My feet ache from standing most of the day.
And my creativity is mushed....squashed....
And being a junior class sponsor means working the concession stand at the games....talk about work.....the fast food industry......a good reason for these kids to get an education so they do not have to do this sort of work for the rest of their lives.

The other day one of the older women at church commented that my job is fun. People often think that teaching art is fun and there are times in the day that it is. I guess if you like to listen to the tragic love stories of the young and wasted (I mean restless) watch football jokes (oops, I mean jocks) strut like roosters in the hen yard, see cheerleaders bounce their way into the rooms, hear the drummers parade down the hallways on football Fridays while you are trying to impress precious knowledge into the minds of a room full of wiggling teens and lead room fulls of kids to discover how to "make things pretty" in 45 minutes or less every day several times a day then sure, teaching art is fun.

But really for me.....I do like it. I love the drum roll down the hallway, especially knowing my own nephew is taking part in it. I cringe when the kids cry on my shoulder about their "loves" but understand that they believe this is the most important time of their lives and that the years to come will be the downhill side of their lives. (What a surprise they are in for. ) I grow tired of disciplining but when I can assist a young lady from being sexually harassed by boys, I am all over that.

And where else could I be caught drawing in class and everyone think I am doing my job?

Thanks Jackie for Missing Me

Hi, all.
Yes, Jackie, it is time for a new post.
I have been o-u-t-o-f-p-o-c-k-e-t!
First a week long trip to California with my sister where we had a great time with my nephew and his sweet little family (Linda's grandchildren). We drove up into the mountains where we stayed the weekend and went into the Sequoia National Forest. Then back to Lemoore for the babies 1st birthday party and remodeling big sister's room to be appropriate for a big 1st grader. It was really fun.




I never got to drop off my luggage at home before I got dropped off at the doctor's office to help Lee who was having to spend the day in the office having cancer cut out of his arm. What an experience getting to spend the day in a dermatologist's office waiting with a bunch of old men having parts cut off! By 8:00 PM when we finally got to leave we had made friends with some of the other men waiting for their results like Lee. One old man left looking like a rabbit with his ears bobbed. Another one looking like he caught his nose in a vise and wrapped it with a hand towel. Men sprang leaks and bled all over, puddling down their shirts and all over. Lee messed up the cafeteria pretty badly. (can't take him anywhere) But in the end we finally arrived home in one piece (well I was anyway, and he was stitched up pretty much.)

From there....a day or two of cleaning up, washing clothes and packing for a trip to visit my grandmother who turned 100 on Saturday. Yep! 100! And in good shape. She looks no different to me than when I was a child except she stopped putting the purple rinse on her hair so she has white hair instead of violet. She is the most beautiful 100 year old woman you will ever meet.

How lucky am I?

Now Let Us Pray

With four children within a five year and 5 month span you know I heard as many funny things coming from my children as the next lady heard from hers. My children were cute, my grandchildren are still cute and I am sure when they have children they will be cute. But we were so busy raising our children that by the time I collected the children, settled them down, stripped them off and got them in the bathtub at the end of the day my busy mind had forgotten what had taken place an hour before. I would sit there on the side of the tub drying off little bodies and would think, "something was funny today...what was it?". If I did not remember it then and repeat the tale to someone else then it was lost for eternity. Why is it that other people could remember the funny things their children said but I could not. It may have had something to do with the number of children in such a small range of time. I am not quite sure if it is that I had pregnancy brain or if I lost brain cells with each child I bore or if I just lost my sense of humor progressively with the birth of each child. Somewhere over the years I did regain my sense of humor. It may not be as sharp as some but still I know funny when I hear it....sometimes, it is what they say, sometimes, it is what you thought and sometimes, it is what they do. All in all, children do bring humor into our lives.

• Reagan is a five year old girly-girly. She loves to dress in princess dresses, put on jewelry and wear lip gloss and get her toes painted. As her mother tried to paint her toes Reagan kept up a ceaseless dialogue while she wiggled and squirmed. Finally her mother said, "Reagan you must sit still if you want me to paint your toe nails." Reagan replied, "But I can not sit still with my mouth flapping up and down all the time."
  

• Two and a half year old Reese was with me in the kitchen today. I had fixed her a small sandwich of toast and peanut butter and as I handed the sandwich down to her she looked up at me with her clear blue eyes and so sweetly said "Pwa". I questioned, "Pwa?" and she confirmed, "I want Pwa". So I knelt beside this precious child and put my arm around her and said a little prayer and thanked God for her food and her family as I thought what a wonderful job my son and his wife are doing with this child who would request a prayer before her meal.
  Amen.
  The prayer ended. I stood up and turned, pleased with life, I was ready to go about my business when Reese looked up at me so sweetly and politely repeated her request "I need Pwa-t". Stunned for a mere second. I thought there was a new twist to the request this time and it changed my whole perspective. Opening a cabinet, pulling out a small plate, I handed her a plate and she was satisfied.
  

• And last but now least the cute:
  I offered Reese chocolate kisses, "would you like a chocolate kiss".
  Sweetly Reese leaned in kissed me and I handed her the chocolate.
  Although I tried to tell her the candy was a chocolate kiss again, I asked, "would you like a chocolate kiss?" Reese leaned in kissed me and I handed over the kiss.
  I gave her one to give her mother. She leaned in kissed her mother and then gave her the chocolate.
  

I think I shall keep chocolate kisses at my house for that girl.

Lonely Away from Home

What do you do when you are alone in a new town and lonely?

Holly is off to college for the first time ever, in a new town, alone, classes will not start for a few weeks still, no job but searching for one and lonely. She met people at church Sunday morning but few students attend evening services and she left "crying like a baby".

Okay, it breaks my heart. Luckily a few days ago she talked me into doing a facebook account and I added her name along with others. Today she IM'ed me through our facebook accounts and she is l-o-n-e-l-y. It was by accident I left my computer on with my facebook account open at 5:30 when Belva came over. An hour later when I returned there was Holly's message. Now at nearly 9:00 I still have it open and have kept up a slow dialog with Holly and hooked her up someone else there by texting a mother who texted her son who contacted Holly and now Holly will at least see another familiar face.

Today I am thankful I live in the 21st century.

What do you advise a lonely girl?

A Second Childhood

Today marks the beginning of a new phase in my life. I guess you could say it is the beginning of my second childhood. Now after over twenty years of being over a thousand miles from home my sister and her husband have moved close....real close. Just a few shorts steps between us....maybe a quarter of a mile downhill. How fun!

Although we have communicated through email daily and sometimes several times a day and I usually know what she is doing every day, it is not the same as living next door to her. Now she can be a part of our coffee time with Mama and Daddy.

Holly thinks it is a conspiracy. They arrived last night.....she leaves for college on Friday. But we will all be here when she returns.

I believe it is God working in our lives....yet again. A position became available just a few miles from here...not in a big city.....but in the country. After years and years of saying the only positions available for Doug's qualifications were on either the east coast or the west coast and then plop....one just 30 minutes from here.....God works in our lives!

I think it is extremely exciting to know that God works in our lives. As I look around I see so many wonderful things happening that I recognize as God's work.
Big things...little things...things that you would think would not be important to God but we are His children and he wants to bless us.

It is my prayer today that as Linda and Doug begin this new phase of their lives they will find fulfillment and happiness living among family.

Chocolate Cake and Hospitality

This afternoon I came home and made my Grandmama's chocolate cake.
Anyone who knows me well knows the cake I am talking about.
This afternoon as I baked and made the fudge icing and turned the plate round and round as I pulled the fudge up the sides of the cake my mind was stuck on my grandmother. I remember seeing this cake in my grandmother's kitchen on her green dinette table almost every time we visited her. I remember once she made a German Chocolate cake and I was disappointed because I did not like coconut back then. (I wised up eventually and found that her German Chocolate was as good as her Chocolate but I was young and stupid.) The next time we visited she had both cakes. She was such a serving woman. Not timid and weak but hospitable as she could be. She could never understand what was so special about her cake but she humored us all by making it over and over. I wonder how many times she has made it. We went to visit on Friday nights when I was a child. We lived relatively close and could make the trip in a half hour. If we did not make it on Friday I guess we would be there on Sunday for church and dinner. She was quite a cook as so many women from her generation but she was the best.
My dad says that there was always someone staying over at their house. The house was always full. The kids would just double up sleeping and make room for someone else.

Tonight is JG's last night with us after four months of spending weeknights here and weekends with his family while he started his new job locally. Monday the family will move into their new home in a new location. I am both excited for their family and sad to see him go. Although it was hard on JG and his family at least JG was not lonely. He may have preferred that sometimes and meals were always late late for a city guy.

Grandmama's chocolate cake is in honor of JG tonight.
I will miss having him here.
A full house is so much more fun than a lonely house.