Floatation Device or Clutter?

     Okay so I started this book - honestly picked it up thinking how happy it would make the love of my life if I could just clean out our closet and office.  I have "things" - he thinks it's junk.... I think maybe one day I might NEED that "whatever" and then he'll be glad I saved it so we didn't have to buy it again.  Or even better I'll be able to help someone else out who needed something that I had held on to.  If you and I are close you know this is a problem - hello did you ever see the closet at work???  I always thought okay it's just a teacher thing but I'm beginning to see maybe not so much.  Oh okay back to the book - 

    "A well known Zen parable tells of a wanderer on a lonely road who came upon a torrential stream that had washed out the bridge.  He couldn't swim and was afraid to wade across, so he had to spend several days cutting down trees and vines with his small knife to build a raft.  The raft he built was solid, and the heavy raft carried him safely across the flood.  On the other side of the bank he thought, "This is a good raft - if there's another stream ahead, I can use it."  And so, he carried the raft for the rest of his life."

That's one of those "AH HA" moments for me.  I have a closet, office, living room and garage FULL of  rafts.  Big rafts, little rafts, purple rafts, cute rafts, old rafts - some haven't even been used - just got it "in case" , some expensive  - most were on sale lol : )   So now I need to have a raft sale or raft extraction as it were.  My life is so full - no just of stuff but -  of love and hope and unknown adventures that I don't want to keep hanging on to "rafts".  I want to be sure that when the time comes I have the "space" for whatever lies ahead.  Garage sale anyone??

     

Pieces of "Me"

Okay so still trying to see how to work this whole blog thing - I put together a slide show for you guys to see all the "pieces of me" these past few years - funny thing not one of these are in the classroom hmmmm. : )  Love to all!

New Role - kinda

I have a new role this year - kinda - maybe new is not the right word - different... can not think of the "RIGHT" word for it now.  Last year if someone came up to me and asked "What do you do?" I would have answered - "I am a teacher."  Ask me that now, just a few short months later and depending on the day, time or events surrounding the conversation, I'm not sure which answer you'd get.  What am I... christian, wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, educator, negotiator, student, woman, strong, listener, thinker, loving, generous, tough, romantic, silly, and encouraged.  Not to say that for the past 8 years all I was just a "teacher" - I was much more but that's what I titled myself as.  Now I guess I've been given a type of freedom to be.... ALL of me. It would seem to be easy to just be "myself" - I'm finding this tougher to navigate than I thought. looking forward to the adventures ahead especially with the company along for the ride - a little road map would be nice ; )

Where does it all go???

Well, Grace is 4 3/4 and Alex will be 1 in 2 weeks.  I am sitting back just wondering where it all went?  It seems like yesterday I was feeding Grace her bottle watching her little hands play with mine and tonight it was Alex in my arms doing the same thing.  Grace had dance last night- first time since summer break after her big recital.  She outgrew her dance outfit and both dance shoes - in 2 months.  Alex is eating big boy food - and loving it I might add.  He now hums when he's eating if he's enjoying it at all.  He is so darn cute.  He's climbing and standing.  Any minute now I'm waiting to see him coming running down the hall.  In a blink....

Grace told me the cutest story from school - if you don't already know, Grace tells and asks great stories and questions.  I have a resent example of each : 

Story from school - "Mom, did you know my teacher made us put a cotton ball in my hand and pretend it was cold - a cold baby - so I had to hold it really tight like this to keep it warm... and THEN she made me put a crayon in the SAME hand and hold it WITH the cotton ball - that was the cold baby - but it wasn't really a baby it was a cotton ball - in the same hand at the same time.... and then I had to write.  With the cotton ball and crayon hand.  It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life." cute right!

oh and question she asked - there's kinda a back story.  We were leaving Crosby and driving down 1942 - dark backwoods kind of road - no lights few stops - you get the idea.  It was getting late but it wasn't dark just yet.  In the sky we could see lightning.  It wasn't storm lightning it was heat lightning - anyways not really part of this story sorry.  We were watching it as we drove but the trees kept getting in the way.  Grace made the comment she wished the trees would all be gone so she could see the lightning.  So I explained how at one time this whole area ( where we were driving ) had been nothing but trees.  She wanted to know why it wasn't anymore - for streets and house stores and stuff - people cut down trees so they can "live". - So here's her big question that just made me tear up  little -  "But Mommy - does that make God grumpy that we are cutting down all this trees?"  Sometimes she just makes me proud to be her mom.  I wish there were more grown ups in this world who were a little bit more like Gracie Mae.

Grace is enjoying swim lessons - she's very cute.  Doesn't like to get her face wet though - which makes it a little hard in a pool full of water and all but she's a real trooper.  Yesterday was packed full of fun - school, the park ( Grace has been asking for weeks so we walked to the one in the neighborhood - Texas August 1:00pm - nuff said) then swim and dance - we all crashed early.

At the end of the day we all sit and do "3 best Journal" - even if Daddy's a work - gotta love the speaker phone and I can say we are blessed!  We might not have it all but together we have everything!!