What a Day!

Last workday of the year- well official one anyway. Found out this morning that I am moving classrooms to a different building, so I will be working hard all week to get things cleaned out, packed up, moved over and put away in the new room behind the teacher who is moving out of that room.

I came home, rode our exercise bike (now labeled with a Sharpie, "the Y" as we had to drop our membership due to $) and wrote 7!!! Donors Choose grants tonight. I will post them on here when they get approved by the DC staff. I'm excited and hope they get funded- all of them are under $150- several close to the $100 minimum DC requires, so please pray I can get them funded. Rob has written several more for his new school too, so please pray for his too. :) Thanks! If each of them get funded, I would be able to order books, literacy props (puppets and prop sets to go with the books), a tabletop puppet theater, a listening station with wheels that would be perfect for my kids to use, a puzzle box and several multicultural puzzles, a bunch of hands-on science stuff: butterfly & frog habitat kits, a see through plant box and well, lots of other neat stuff, and an incubator (yeah, if I get it, I'm going to be brave and try the chicks again). If you want to know what happened the last time I did the chicks, well read here and here and here, but don't read it unless you want to cry- well, maybe. :)

One of Barbara's friends, Rita, came over tonight and hung out with the kids. Barbara brought home our big bucket of legos today (I keep it at school now that they are so old and grown up). She and Matthew and Rita all played with legos and built some cool stuff. Kind of neat- it made me smile!!!! Then the girls watched The Little Princess- OH, I love that movie!!! Then I took the kids to World Market; while they walked around and just looked at stuff, I sat in my car and read a book- a long way gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

Tomorrow this computer will go back to Rob's high school as he says his final goodbyes there and leaves. :( I'm sad for him, but know God is in control and He must have some awesome things in store for my husband. Still I've been on the end of a pink slip before, and I know how hard it is to leave when you don't want to. My computer hasn't come back from the computer hospital yet, so until then, I'll be incognito or if something exciting happens, I'll run up to the library to blog. Until then, I'll be doing summer school starting this Friday, reading, and enjoying less stress and looking forward to some vacation away from a full work schedule.

Last thing I promise! I found this wonderful young lady's blog a long time ago- followed her story and then started occasionally commenting, anyway- she's a really neat person. God worked a big miracle and blessing in her life recently. If you want to see His work, go read her blog here.

Love to all!
Rebekah :)

A Brother's Love

I just had to quickly write that Robert made us so proud this afternoon. It made Rob & I both cry a little more than we already have in the past 12 hours. :)

Robert attends a different church than we do; Matthew also goes there on Friday nights for youth group and Barbara does too sometimes. I do want to say how much Rob & I adore the youth leaders at this church. They truly have taken our kids in and love them all very much, and it shows. They will never know how much their love of our children means to us. His church youth group was having a graduation cookout for their two graduates at the park down the road from here. He stopped by the house on his way there with a couple friends from church to get some foil and a game. He invited his sister to join them since she was also a graduate and she was feeling a little let down from yesterday. I know it's mushy-gushy of me to say it, but "awwww..." (tears....)

Rob & I both complimented him on how thoughtful and kind and just mature that was of him to think of her feelings from last night and think to include her... he, of course, just shrugged it off as nothing big. :) I do love that kid, child, ummmm, young man of ours!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes Your Best...

I think I am PMS'ing pretty bad. Since my surgery where part of the plumbing was removed, I don't always know, but this time I do. Must be part of why my emotions are so churned up these past few days. Still, I'm reflecting on some things, and just need to write them down to help. Sorry if you came along for the ride; I'll pause this crazy train so you can get off now. :) See you on the next ride. :) If you do stick with me, there is a "moral" to my story at the end that I learned from it all.

So what's bugging me exactly, Rebekah Rose?

• This graduation didn't go exactly like I had envisioned. S moved out on the same day and wasn't talking much to any of us, so it felt like she was mad at us or hurt or something. She refused our help with moving her things out to the truck she had arranged. By the time she left it just felt "icy." She wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't eat with us, wouldn't sit in the same room with us.... What did I do wrong? I tried my best to be good to her- no, I wasn't perfect. I blew up and lost my temper a couple times when she and the other kids didn't do their chores or help out around the house and left everything or most of it to me. But I also bought her almost anything she asked for- special food, a few clothing things, personal care stuff, gave her $ for things she needed if I had it... I just am left feeling like my best just wasn't good enough. My brother-in-law, Scott, said something to me that didn't really hit me until Friday/Saturday. "Sometimes you do the right thing but it doesn't always turn out right." When he said it, I thought, "Yeah, that's true." But it really started to sink in later this week. I know that we did the right thing on this one, but it just didn't turn out the way I envisioned. That doesn't mean it's my fault or that I necessarily did anything wrong. I always take the blame for everything, and that's wrong. I am not responsible for anyone but me and the raising of my children and the teaching of my students. But I am not responsible for other's actions, and I have to get this or I am going to keep being a mental case.
• Money- I overspent, I guess, this past week on food/decorations (really food) for the graduation party here, and on things for K graduation/1st awards, ice cream party, gifts for a few kids at work... Now we're going to run out this month. I shouldn't have bought the stuff, but I really felt led to buy the Bible for one kid and something that would remind the other one of God's love when he is in a bad place. I could have not done for Barbara, but that wouldn't have been right after giving Robert a party, and it wasn't a ton that I did- tablecloths, recycled the yard sign from last year, didn't do balloons this year, most of the expense was in food. I don't know how we're going to make it through this summer with Rob's final paycut in his check and me not making any income... I know it's called "trust" or "faith" but I've never been too good at that spiritual trait. I just know that I am on my knees at God's feet telling Him that we are a little in trouble, and would He please come to our rescue somehow. He always has, and I know He will, just don't see the path yet.
• My work- I am mostly just tired, and I wonder if this isn't a bit of the famous "burned out" feeling. I am drained emotionally, physically, mentally. It's not the kids that get to me, but the morale at our school is through the floor awful, the gossiping and talking about other teachers, the lack of support most of us feel, the lack of leadership it seems we have.... I don't want to leave the children, but I need a change of some kind. I put my name on the transfer list and asked God if it was His will to open a door for me. The county put out a hiring freeze, so I guess the door isn't going to open. I want to know what I'm teaching next year and where I'm going to be located, but it would seem I may not get to know that for sure until August when it's time to go back. So I have to semi-prepare for the possibility of x, y, or z and just hang. I have given myself a summer assignment to somehow accomplish- learn how to not care about other's opinions or what people say/do. That is an almost impossible task. I have to get better at sticking to my motto that I made for myself this year- "At the end of the day when I get into my car, the only thing that matters is this- 'Did I please God today? Did I do right by my children? Did I do right by the people in my classroom?'" If the answer to those questions is "Yes!" then I have to be happy with that and let the rest go.
• Before I write this, I want to put in this "disclaimer"- I don't have perfect children & have never claimed to. So if you know me personally, please know this is for me only to just reflect on things. I'm not talking bad about my child or saying anyone is horrible. My kids are great kids who are normal and very imperfect at moments just like everyone. Boy did I miss my Barbara Rose this week. It was nice to have a quieter house for sure at times, but it was too quiet at times too. :) I looked forward to picking her up on Friday night at RDU after her first adventure flying, thanks to her aunt & uncle blessing her for graduation with a surprise trip home to see grandma and grandpa and "home." I messed up and forgot to order her graduation cake with all the craziness that was this week. I felt so bad and so guilty I cried myself to sleep Friday night. I know it was just a stupid cake, but that's who I am. Then Saturday morning I got a boat load of attitude so bad that I quickly quit feeling guilty about just having ice cream cake instead. So I guess at least that was good. I overcooked, intentionally; I am like my Momma that way- better to have leftovers the next day than not enough food for your guests and be embarrassed and scrambling to fix more. I also knew that not all of those invited would be able to come, but I thought more would than we'd heard from. It bothered me how few came, but I thought I was just being my PMS'y self so didn't say much. Found out at the end of the day that it had bothered Rob too. But when Barbara went to bed, I could tell she was trying not to cry. When we talked, she did cry and said how she felt bad that I had spent so much money and so few had come.... Then she just killed me because she bawled and said, "Mom, they forgot me." Of all her friends, only two could come- the rest all had other things or reasons or just didn't come. Only a couple coworkers of mine and a couple families from church came. I know it was just a busy weekend, and it wasn't personal, but it hurt to watch my daughter cry because she felt bad about our $ and because she just felt bad. It stinks to see your child hurt and know you can't fix it or do anything to lessen it. It stinks to know your child knows you don't have much $. Man, do I love that child, even though she thoroughly ticked me off earlier in the day. And, I did talk to her about that too for sure. We'll see if things improve on her attitude.

This has me thinking about God too. I saw in an infinitely tiny way how He must feel about us. He has prepared this wonderful meal, a great feast and then He sent His own kid out to invite us to all join, but only a few came. So He sent out more reminders, more invitations, went even further out to invite strangers to join Him in celebrating His kid and all His accomplishments. Why did He do that? Because He loved His son so much and through His son, He loved all of us enough to invite us into His home. Still so few came. Though God is thrilled for the guests who came and so very happy to have them in His home and enjoying His buffet, He is saddened by those who didn't join for whatever reason.

God, forgive me for all the times I have ignored Your invitation, for the times I fall short and "miss" Your blessings and the wonderful things You prepared for me. Help me to not do this so much.

Okay, I'm leaving for church now. Thanks God for loving me. Please help my emotions to swing back in their normal, happier frame of mind because I don't much care for this side of the swingset. :)