I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by Dorcus Bishop and now must tell 7 random things about myself so here goes. . .

1.) I grew up in the south from age 11 and had quite the southern drawl. It now only takes a phone call to a friend back home or a trip down there to visit and the accent comes right back.

2.) I was in the Air Force JR ROTC program in our High School and worked my way up the ranks becoming the Squadron Commander my senior year. We had about 100 cadets. I won a scholarship from this organization and had the chance to continue in the Air Force in college and I would have been an officer. I chose not to continue but went on to receive a Bachelor or Arts in Elementary Education from UNC-Charlotte.

3.) I always had an interest in music and my parents did sign me up for lessons when I was about 8 years old. I never made it out of the first book. I learned to play by watching and listening to the evagelists when they came to our church. One particular person that took a little bit of time to help me get started was Sr. Betty Case. She showed me a few runs and then gave me a music tape of their family. I played that tape over and over and copied the piano pieces.

4.) I have many friends but probably the longest and closest friendship has been with Maresa Davis. I think we have been friends for about 27 years I think. I live in PA and she lives in NC but commucate almost every day by phone or email.

5.) I am working on and am almost finished with crocheting an american flag afghan.

6.) I enjoy going on camping trips with my husband and children in our camper.

7.) I am hoping to go see Dino in April! I could see him sooner if I could talk my husband into going to Branson this fall for one of his concerts. I just love listening to his piano playing and Greek humor.

I now tag Leora

$20.00

A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill.

In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20.00 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give the $20.oo to one of you but first, let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple up the $20.00 bill.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well", he replied, "What if I do this?"

And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

"Now, who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.

Many times in our lives we are crumpled, dropped, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.

We feel as though we are worthless . . .
But no matter what happens or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those that DO LOVE YOU.

The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but WHO WE ARE and WHOSE WE ARE.

You are special don't EVER forget it!

My Class is Growing!

It is exciting to see the Sunday School class growing. We had 19 this past Sunday. My group is just 8 year olds. About 8-9 years ago my sister in law and I team taught this class and at that time it included 7 year olds as well. We started running 50-60 children every week and that was way more than we felt we could handle. We had to have several "bouncers" passing out quiet seat prizes all through the lesson just to keep the crowd under control. After a few months of this we spilt the class and the 7 year olds went to a class of their own. I don't know exactly what the reason is but when we did this the attendance dropped tremendously. Now between the 2 classes we usually only have half of the students we used to. Some weeks I feel like we still have the same distraction problems as we had when we had the larger numbers. Other times we are able to get into discussions with the children that would have been difficult with the larger class. I pray we are making a difference in someone's life. My desire is to show them the plan of salvation and give them opportunity to accept Christ each week.

Fruitful Christian or "Religious Nut"

This is my next lesson series for my 8 year old Sunday School class. We will be studying the Fruits of the Spirit as well as some "nutty" behaviors or attitudes such as selfishness, impatience, proud, etc. Hopefully we will discover how to be a fruitful christian and refrain from being a religious nut. IITimothy 3:11 (I think this is the right reference. I'll have to go look it up again.) Pray for my class. I had 17 children in class last week with only one of them from an actual church family. (There should have been more church family children. Where are you guys?) The other 16 came from the bus routes. Thank You to all who help bring them in each week. You are helping to spread the Gospel.

One of Life's Lessons

I am a teacher so I know some of the situations teachers are put in and things they have to deal with. I am also a mother of four and sometimes I just don't know which way to go with things. Austin brought home his weekly folder with his papers and tests from the week. They are full of minus 1pt for the name or title being on the wrong side of the paper, minus 5 points for being turned in a day late, and one had a mius 10points because he accidently took the paper home in a folder that he should have left at school. All of this is off graded papers so I am now wondering if when I get his report card I will be seeing grades that reflect bad habits or academics. I understand the need for them to learn to turn things in on time and to follow directions. I'm just wondering if we should be taking points off from tests and graded papers for this. Maybe it's just one of those hard lessons they have to learn. I am not there in class but I do know my kids have problems following directions at home so if taking points off a test will help them with that I guess it's worth it. By the way, Austin is in 6th grade. I am holding my tongue for now because I feel the teacher is trying to establish a sense of responcibility here but I will be so disappointed if Austin misses the honor roll for this.

God is Able

I really believe that. I have some very close friends who are going through one of the roughest points in their lives right now. They lost a 2 year old son over 11 years ago and now another one of their sons is fighting for his life with cancer. You often wonder why and what will be the next thing they will face but all we can do it trust God and this point. If you can spare a moment please pray for this family today. The son's name is Allen and he is just a teenager. I went to North Carolina to see him when he went in for an operation on his brain to remove a tumor and it has been a whirlwind from there. He has been through alot to this point and is feeling really down right now. There are 5 other children in this family. They are all going through this together. Thank you in advance for your intervention on their behalf. There is power in prayer!

I told you I was sick!

I haven't felt well for over a week now and I kept thinking it would go away soon but it didn't so on Monday morning Matt informed me if I wanted to keep saying I didn't feel well, I had to go to the doctor. He made the appointment for me because he knew I wouldn't. I have seen enough doctors for now and have no desire to go back for a long time. I went to the appointment and discovered I had a temperature of 101.3 and had some sort of virus. See! I told you I was sick. I was given 3 perscriptions along with another sample medicine that I was to take for 5 days. I already take 2 for my blood pressure twice a day and now I have these others. One of them has to be taken 3 times a day and dissolved under the tongue. I feel like a druggie. It is now Friday and I have to say this is the first day I have felt better. I still don't feel completely well, but better. My sister was able to stop in for a few hours this week but wouldn't you know it, she was not feeling too well either. She did go with me to get my perscriptions so I wouldn't have to do that with 4 kids under tow. She sat down and took her blood pressure and it was BAAADDDD! I hope she is able to get that under control soon. Hopefully I will be back in full swing by next week and be able to post some pictures. Check out Leora's blog to see a great camera. I can't wait for my birthday. December 20th. That is the kind of thing I buy Matt and then "borrow". He wouldn't think of getting me a camera. Our first Christmas he bought me a rabbit skin to hang on the wall!

Yard Sale

I don't know why I bother to ever have yard sales. It is always so much work with so little pay and you are tied up for the days you have them. I decided to have one none the less and so I have today to look forward to getting it all out again. I started it yesterday morning and worked for hours putting everything out and pricing. I made a whopping $40! I had to gather the things together onto one table to tarp for the night and bring in other things so now I am dreading setting all of that up again. Matt is not in for yard sales at all. He would rather set things out with a FREE sign or tote it down to the local thrift store which is what I will be doing later today. I thought I was doing some clutter control and cleaning out the kids toys and clothes but when I took a look around the house last night I can imagine where all that stuff in the yard fit into our house. Our house still looks full. I think I need to go through again. Austin has the very first stuffed animal he was ever given along with every stuffed animal since. He just likes to collect them. He used to sleep with all of them but he has outgrown that and they reside around his bed on the floor. Well, it't 7am and I need to be out there setting things out again. Katlyn had a sleepover and they are already up so I think I'll put them to work.

Flat Tire

Matt has babied his truck for some time now and it seems like something is giving out on it every other day now. Today it was a flat tire. No biggie right? He was about 20 minutes from home so he called to see if I could save a tow truck fee by coming and getting him and taking him to get the tire changed. He called again before I left and asked if I would run into Manheim to get a tire and bring it to him. I did that and it took 30 minutes for them to get me on my way even with him calling ahead and telling them I'd be right there to pick it up. I was on a time crunch because I need to be home to get Phillip off the bus at 12:15pm.

Well, I finially was on my way towards Matt. I called to tell him I'd be there soon and he asked me to be on the lookout for a service station along the way so he would know where to take the old tire to exchange it off the rim. I forgot to look until I realized I was right within a quarter of a mile of where he told me he would be. I slowed down to turn into a parking lot where he was parked and then I glanced across the street from him and there was a full service station just a booming with business. Here he had sat for about an hour waiting for help to come and it was just across the street. To his credit there were several trees making it hard for him to see exactly what was over there. I waited for him to put the tire in and then taxied him across the street! We had a good laugh over that. They even had the very size tire he needed too. I told him he just wanted Nathan and I to come be with him while he fixed his flat tire. I raced back home to meet Phillip's bus which came within minutes of when I got home.

That was not the end of the excitement of the day. Austin played his first soccor game and they won! I was a proud mama. He played very well I thought. It was 90 degrees out there. I'm not a big cheerer because I'm always afraid I will be cheering for the other team. The games move so quickly. I feel like when I start to clap and yell they have already moved on to the next play and it may be the other team having the upper hand. At this point I'm ready to cheer for both teams. I think anyone that will play in this heat deserves some support even if it's from the opposing team. The kids all had great attitudes and they seemed to be out there to do their best and represent their schools. I like team spirit.

Budding Musicians

Austin has been taking guitar lessons for a few years now and has done pretty well. He started I believe in kindergarten but then took a year or two break before he decided he did want to learn after all. Katlyn is beginning piano lessons this week. When I told her I hoped she would learn well so she could play for church when she was older, she told me she was going to practice so she could play like Kim Collingsworth or Dino! Yeah! I love it! Katlyn is almost 10 and just starting and Kim started at I think 3 or 4 years of age. Hopefully she'll get further than I did. I never got out of the first book. When I was in college I met a man one night as I was waitressing and found he played piano for a large Methodist church and gave lessons. I thought maybe he could help me and I would be more committed than I had been in elementary school. I went to a couple of lessons and he was very strict about the timing which I just could not do. One day he asked me to stand up and let him play something and I thought he was going to play the lesson for me so I did but he played a song then stood up and asked me to sit down and play that same song. I did and I don't know how but I was able to play just what he had just played. He looked at me and said, "I hate you!" and walked out of the room. I didn't know what had just happened. He came right back and said he didn't know how to play a single thing unless he had the notes right in front of him or he had previously memorized the piece. Apparently I had just played something that took him a little time to memorize. I don't really know how to play a whole lot but I have been able to copy styles and songs over the years and it has helped me in my children's ministry and even one night when we were at the jail service and the guys started singing a song and I was able to pick the tune up and play it along with them. I was so thankful that night that I could do that because the guys really seemed to appreciate it. I did quit my piano lessons with that man because I felt I just couldn't do what he wanted me to do. Practice!

Anyway, now it is my daughter's turn and I hope she does well.