Old picture of me going to school in my first car; I was not happy about my mom taking the picture.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Teacher’s Pet.”
Tell us about a teacher who had a real impact on your life, either for the better or the worse. How is your life different today because of him or her?’
I was blessed with several great teachers and I am afraid to start naming them because I would hate to leave someone out. What I have come to discover is that the good teachers shared many of the same qualities, as did the not so good.
The teachers who made the biggest impact in my life exhibited a calm strength. They were able to control their classes and discipline students, making for a pleasant atmosphere for a rule follower like myself. Most of the men and women who fall into the “good” category, made learning fun. There were some who lacked the skills or sense of humor for making it fun, but still taught well and exuded a contagious passion about their subject matter.
Most importantly, you knew these teachers cared about you. Yes, they were concerned about your grades, attendance and behavior, but they also cared about their students. I have seen teachers go to great lengths and expend personal dollars to help needy students.
These teachers always went the extra mile. One, who I won’t name, played games with his students during lunch. I wasn’t into that sort of thing, but thought it was over and above the call of duty. I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as they did, but many teachers would have (understandably) found something else to do with their time. These teachers formed life-long relationships with some of their students. They showed up at events and games and activities without being compensated. They cared what happened in the long-term and sincerely wanted to make a difference, so they did! I had a teacher, who my children also had, who prays over photos of his students and always inquires about my girls and their lives and mine as well.
Before I continue, may I say that I have great respect for anyone who teaches; it’s a tough job with less than adequate compensation. In the times we are living in, many children aren’t taught respect and many parents make their jobs more difficult by siding with their children, no matter the situation. I couldn’t do it.
I honestly don’t remember having a “bad” teacher, but I did have some I will call “mediocre”. These teachers made me feel like they hated to arrive, detested the time spent with us and couldn’t wait for the last bell to ring. They often seemed ill-prepared, dis-interested and seemingly oblivious to who we really were, other than a name on a list.
I remember deciding that some people just shouldn’t teach. I’m extremely grateful for the mostly positive experiences I had in school and will always remember many teachers with fondness.
Daily Prompt: Teacher’s Pet
Daily Prompt: Burning down the house
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Burning Down the House.”
The house is burning; all people and animals are safe and you can grab 5 things. What do you grab?
The first thing I would grab is my bible. It’s not that I couldn’t easily purchase another, but I am somewhat attached to the one I use on a daily basis. I am sure it would bring me great comfort.
Photos and my Shutterfly photo books would be important, especially the older ones that haven’t been scanned and stored electronically. When I have spoken with people who lost a home in a fire or natural disaster, one of the things they miss are the the photographs, the snapshots in time of a precious memory.
My journals are irreplaceable and something I have always wanted to leave behind for my girls when I’m gone so they could have an even better understanding of who I am and why I made the choices that I have. They are many and scattered. Hmm, maybe I need to rethink their storage.
My mother’s journal would also have to go with me because it is all I have left of her, as far as material things go, that resonates with her voice and her passion. I love to look at her cursive handwriting and read her deepest thoughts.
I guess lastly and in a more practical sense, my purse. It would contain my wallet and phone which would likely benefit me in the days ahead as I work to get my life back to normal.
I’m not someone who has a great attachment to material things. I throw away more than I keep. My kids will tell you that I kept “samples” of their artwork, but I’m not the mom who has every thing they ever did. I don’t have love notes from high school or pressed flowers or the first tooth I or my girls ever lost. I do have a collection of special items that allow me trips down memory lane, but I probably don’t experience the same cluttered journey of a pack rat. Sometimes I regret this, but not often enough to change my ways.
It’s hard to know what items you would really miss, because it’s all the little things that make the house a home. As long as I had my faith and my husband (and of course my kids although they are grown and gone), we could start over anywhere and with anything and be happy.
Daily Prompt: Pick a pen or a font
Photo from http://glugem.net/
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Pens and Pencils.”
When was the last time you wrote something substantive — a letter, a story, a journal entry, etc. — by hand? Could you ever imagine returning to a pre-keyboard era?
I still write by hand quite often. I honestly believe that the feelings and musings flow from me better when I am writing them as opposed to clicking on a keyboard. I journal in pen and write many of my “first draft” blogs in pen or pencil. I feel very fortunate to have a journal with some of my mother’s poetry and thoughts written in her beautiful hand. It’s like having a piece of who she was and I am certain that it would not have carried the sentiment and meaning if I had been handed to me on a flash drive.
There is also something very special about receiving a hand written letter. The penmanship seems to flow with the writer’s personality and even captures their mood. An email from a loved one is appreciated and can convey love and emotion, but receiving a fat envelope with that familiar scrawl on the outside trumps it every time in my opinion.
During school days, it was nice to see a note written by your teacher telling you what a great job you had done. It showed that they had taken the time to seriously consider your hard work and meant much more than just a mere sticker or gold star. Speaking of school; who still has their high school yearbook and doesn’t enjoy looking back at the silly “signatures” our young and immature, yet loyal friends left us to remember them over the years.
We live in such a hurry up and rush world that things like letters or even handwritten notes are more meaningful than ever. They have the power to cause up to pause for a moment and consider some of our quickly dying past times that perhaps we should rescue before they are forever a memory.
And with that, I think I will go write a card or letter, with a pen!
What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human hand-clasp. ~Author Unknown
Seed of faith
Photo from : http://www.onlinejewelryclass.biz
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “In Good Faith.”
Describe a memory or encounter in which you considered your faith, religion, spirituality — or lack of — for the first time.
I was raised to have faith and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have it. Thankfully, my mom and grandmother took me to church faithfully, and taught me to read the bible.
One memory I have that brings back a smile is when I received the gift of a mustard seed necklace. I don’t remember who it was a gift from, but I think it was on my birthday. It was a little gold chain, sporting a tiny orb which contained an even tinier mustard seed. The mustard seed may have been tiny, but it helped ingrain in my young mind the scripture promising that even a little seed of faith moved mountains.
I loved wearing it and if my memory serves me correctly, I believe it broke and was put to rest somewhere beneath the spinning ballerina in my jewelry box. I suspect when I was a little older, I thought I was too cool for a mustard seed necklace and chose to throw it away instead of fixing it.
In my almost 50 years, with all the bumps in the road, and the ups and the downs, I have often thought about that little necklace and what it symbolized. The promise has proven true time and time again.
Linen rose
Matthew 17:20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
It only gets better
The Prompt: Present-day you meets 10-years-ago you for coffee. Share with your younger self the most challenging thing, the most rewarding thing, and the most fun thing they have to look forward to.
The din of the coffee shop conveyed the morning rush but the sound of the tables being cleared and the bell on the front door were characteristic of the morning hustle and bustle and more comforting than annoying to a soul who thrived on early mornings, coffee and conversation.
She walked in as I was beginning my second cup, and although our manner of dress was similar, she was a good 10 lbs. lighter than me and her hair seemed fuller and shinier. There weren’t any signs of sun damage or wrinkles and when we shook hands, hers were smoother. She at first appeared a little shy and intimidated, so I set out to make her feel as comfortable as possible, knowing exactly how that feels.
Maybe she was a little shocked at what 10 years can do to a person in the aging department, but she would have never mentioned that. I was a little shocked that she showed up at all, knowing that she hates science fiction and would have had a hard time believing she was going to be meeting her future self. She isn’t very adventurous, so you see this was a huge leap from the norm.
She was anxious to get on with our meeting and probably to get back home and ponder on all this, so she pressed me to get on with what I came to share.
I said, “I don’t understand this any more than you do, but I am here to share with you a few things that will help you”
“In the next 10 years, you will grow spiritually, which will help you in every area of your life. You will learn to let some things go and fully grasp others. You will face the challenge of loss; the loss of people dear to you and the loss of your children leaving the nest. Both of these things will be tough and the pain will linger, but you will get through it.
The most rewarding occurrence will be the birth of your first grandchild. I can’t even begin to prepare you for this. You will be there when she is born and she will immediately steal a huge chunk of your heart. Her smiles and laughter and hugs will have a value that is unexplainable. Some of the most fun things you do will involve her and you will find yourself more adventurous because of her. She will motivate you to stay young at heart.
You will travel a lot and complete your list of visiting all of the U.S. and then some and finally go to Europe. You will have fun with your husband, even more so when the children are gone as you learn to depend upon each other more and realize what you have.
All in all, the next 10 years will test you but you will learn and grow from the experiences. You will learn to be comfortable with who you are and to just let go and live more often. You will lose the concern over what others think and delight instead, in what your Creator thinks. You will become stronger and more courageous. I can honestly tell you that most things only get better from here.”
My message was short and sweet and I told her that this was all I really came to say. She thanked me and we both got up to go. I knew she wouldn’t ask too many questions; it’s not her way.
And after all, the smile on my face, the confidence in my speech and the joy in my heart was telling. She was looking at who she would become and I don’t think it frightened her at all. This warmed my soul.
Can I just crawl in a hole now?
The Daily Prompt said, Time to confess: tell us about a time when you used a word whose meaning you didn’t actually know (or were very wrong about, in retrospect).
At first glance, I thought, “Hmm, I just don’t do that.” I’m one of those people who is so paranoid about actually misusing a word that I would simply refrain from using it unless I was 100% sure of its meaning.
Since I really want to write today I sat and thought about the prompt for a moment to see if I could come up with something. Lo and behold, I remembered WHY I don’t dare use a word I don’t know.
It happened in middle school, in front of a group of kids, most of them older than me.
Okay, so we all know that middle school is tough anyway. You are going through so many changes, some of which are wreaking havoc with your hormones and your emotions. Your accelerated physical development is surpassing your maturity level, making you feel like a freak of nature. Impressing the male species comes into play, because boys are no longer gross. For me, honestly, they never were, but I digress. Your feelings tend to shift between feeling superior to inferior, depending on who you’re around and life feels like a roller coaster.
In spite of all that, I think I was a pretty confident junior high student, one of the young and the restless, managing to keep most of my fears at bay. I went to a very small school and I knew everyone, making some things easier.
This particular day, if memory serves me correctly, there were approximately 4-5 kids around, and we were talking during lunch break. We were just hanging out, each of us trying our best to be the center of attention, or at least capture the attention of “the one”.
For some reason, there was a discussion of an older person who drank a lot. I don’t remember any details of the conversation or even who we were talking about, but boy do I ever remember my faux pas! I decided to put my ever-growing vocabulary to use and described the poor man as a “slush”. Yes, I said a slush. Have you ever heard of that? It means the same thing as a lush if you are 12 and speaking of something you know not.
In my defense, I have always had a large vocabulary and didn’t often make this type of mistake. Imagine my horror when one of my best friends called me out on it. We couldn’t just pretend that it didn’t happen and forget it, nor could I slither off into a hole somewhere and stay there until summer. No, we had to announce the blunder, repeat it and laugh hysterically until everyone within earshot had begged to be in on the merriment. I was mortified and wanted to run to the office and call my mom and go home (after I choked my friend to death on the sidewalk). Things like this can be very traumatic for a pre-teen.
This wasn’t the only time I wanted to die at school, but it’s definitely one of the most memorable and probably single-handedly responsible for my inability to think of a time that it has happened since.
Daily Prompt: Sweet sixteen
Me and my Celica
Remember the year I turned sixteen? Must I? What a tumultuous year, a year filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, a veritable roller coaster.
Looking back, meandering down that passionate, tormenting, and at times exciting path makes me smile now. That is, after I reassure my racing heart that those days are over and we have lived and learned plenty since then.
To highlight the good first, I got a brand new car; a Toyota Celica with a moon roof. My dad put money down and I made the payments working at my part time bank job.
Dancing was one of my favorite past times and that year and much of my solace came from lessons at Miss Debbie’s School of Dance. I could work out the frustrations and stress of being a teenage girl through jazz, tap and ballet. My introversion which I mistook for shyness back then disappeared when performing in a recital.
I suffered what I thought was my biggest heartbreak ever that year and went on to begin a new relationship which would deliver an even bigger one.
Seriously, I must add that this year was a defining one for me and not in a good way. I lost myself in a young man and gave up on my hopes and dreams and settled for what I had somehow began to believe was all I deserved, much to my wonderful mother’s chagrin. I won’t elaborate on all the whys and what could have beens, because I believe in the end, I learned a lot and some of that made me who I am today.
There is no reasonable explanation for why I made some of the choices that I made, but thankfully, God is merciful. Although, I suffered plenty at the hands of love, I made it through that fire intact, albeit singed and in need of tender loving care.
I think sweet sixteen is an oxymoron, and I know many who would readily agree with my assessment. As for me, I’m much happier now as a forty-something, confident, life loving, secure, blessed and highly favored, woman of God.
Daily Prompt: Your Time to Shine
Early bird, or night owl?
That was the question. This is an easy one for me. I have always been the early bird.
By around 9pm my mind is done for the day, as far as providing intelligent, insightful conversation or coming up with any grand ideas. As a child, I remember begging my night owl sister to go to bed when I did because I was scared of the dark. She often relented because she has a heart as beautiful as morning dew on a rose.
To wake up early, and enjoy the beginning of a brand new day, fresh and new, is exhilarating to me! My thoughts are clear, my body is refreshed and my soul wakes up grateful for this life and another day to really live it!
On the rare occasion that I do “sleep in” until around 7:00, I feel like I have most likely missed something. I want to be awake to see that sun rising to usher in a new day, full of hope. Next, I want to enjoy the flurry of activity that follows, especially the bird song and others waking up. Although I’m annoying, I feel like I help to wake them up happy and move them along towards a joyful day.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius
Daily Prompt: Immortalized in Stone
Today’s challenge from “The Daily Post” reminds me of the scriptures in the bible about the potter and the clay.
The question was: Your personal sculptor is carving a person, thing or event from the last year of your life. What’s the statue of and what makes it so significant?
The sculptor in my life would be God and the carving would be me. My hopes would be the following scenario. My expression would be one of awe and reverence. My position would be a yielded and submissive one. My heart would be visible for all to see and somehow carved to show an openness, a place to give and receive love.
My hands would be shown as doing and my feet also in motion, on their way to help. There would be stages shown in this carving as I change and grow. There would always be room for improvement. It would somehow express the spiritual side of me because the physical isn’t what is important. If the carving were just to depict this past year, it would look the same as many prior years; there would be growth and change and failure and successes; all moving me towards the final me that God created me to be.
I am very thankful for this “prompt” today because it has caused me to think and reflect and meditate on this past year. I’m grateful for the positive growth in my life and the wisdom that comes with age.
Long walks and dark chocolate 