Focus

It seems like there have been so many bad things happening lately. I have a friend that was in a tragic car accident a few weeks ago, and is now a young, heartbroken widow. There was a 4 year old boy in town that was run over by his sister on a lawn mower who has had a leg amputation and blood transfusions in just the past few days. Then there was the Boston bombing, followed by the explosion at a fertilizer plant that killed and injured several.

All of these things are horrible and unimaginable. I have not had to deal with the heartbreak of losing a spouse. I have never experienced losing a limb. And I have not been personally effected by a bombing or any kind of explosion. As I look back on my life, the worst thing I can remember ever having to deal with is the 3 miscarriages I had. I had two before Aaron and one before Austin. While these were very dark days for Robbie and I (not knowing if we would ever be able to have the family that we so desperately wanted), it doesn't compare to what others would consider to be 'dark days'.

One thing that I do know will never change is this: bad things are going to continue to happen. They always have and they always will. Whether it be accidents or pre-meditated terrorist acts, bad things are here to stay, and we can't do anything to change that. The only thing that we can change in most situations is our attitude and our focus. For example, in the case of my sweet friend that lost her husband, I am trying to focus on the good in that situation. She is the mother of 3 beautiful children that were given more days on this earth with their mama. God spared her life for a reason. He is just not done with her yet and, I believe, has great things planned for her. And that sweet little boy who is going to have to learn a whole new way of getting around and functioning in the world, has the potential to do great things with his life despite the handicap. And in the Boston bombing, there were only 2 (that we know about at this point) responsible, but there were dozens running back into the area to help, risking their own lives to help others. It is those people that I like to focus on. If those bombs can be made with items you can find at your local Walmart and can be assembled in less than an hour, then why aren't people being blown up every day? I choose to believe that it is simply because there are more good people than bad. We all COULD make a bomb or go into a public place shooting everyone in sight, but we choose NOT to. THAT should be our focus.

We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Any of us could get a phone call that will bring us to our knees. Or we could be involved in an accident that completely changes our world within a matter of seconds. But, worrying about tomorrow will not help anything. I saw a quote recently that said, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength." This is so true.

So for today, I will choose to focus on the positive. I continue to pray for all of the people that I've mentioned that have been touched by tragedy recently. I pray that they can see the blessings through their tears and that they can feel God's hand holding them through this difficult season in their lives.

Today I choose to focus on the fact that I was given another day with Robbie.

I choose to focus on the fact that God has put some amazing people in our lives.

Crawfish with friends.

My friend, Amie, at the Mandisa concert.

I choose to have fun with my family while we all have each other here.

This is my niece, Kaulyn, at her 15 b-day party.

 

 

Austin singing 'Call me maybe' last weekend.

Robbie, Josh, and Gabe singing 'Wanted: Dead or Alive' (using a hairbrush, fire poker tool, and shark water squirter as mics). Seriously good times.

Aaron and his friend, Patrick, singing YMCA.

I choose to be thankful for the two babies that I have had the privilege to hold,

while I look forward to holding my other three in heaven someday.

I hope each person that reads this has the best week you possibly can have. We all have plenty to complain and worry about, but is it worth our time and energy to do so when we are all blessed with so more than we deserve?

'For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Did someone need to know the area of their triangle??

If you read my last post, you know that I had a test scheduled for Thursday, and I am happy to say that we are on the other side of that now. I took off of work all week to teach myself everything I thought I might need to know for the test. The test included three different portions; reading, writing, and math. Reading and writing have always been strong for me. It can be a blessing and a curse. I can't read a Facebook status update without correcting the grammar and punctuation along the way in my mind. I even have trouble typing out texts in shorthand. It is easier for me to just do it the correct way than to think about what it would be shorthand. And most of the shorthand really isn't all that much shorter. The one I am most bothered by is the use of 'da' instead of 'the'. It's only one more letter, people. Please do not text me 'da' (unless you want me to completely miss the point of the text because of not being able to see any other word than 'da').

Sorry. I'm not sure where all of that came from.

Anyway, my biggest concern with the test was the math portion. I'm terrible at math. And I haven't had one day in my life when I had the thought, "how can I set this problem up like an algebra equation to solve for x". Not even once. If I have a recipe that calls for 1/2 cup of milk and 2/3 cup of water, I don't try to figure out what 1/2 plus 2/3 equals so that I can mix them all in one measuring container. I pour my 1/2 cup of milk into the measuring container, pour it out, and then measure of my 2/3 cup of water. I try to make life as simple as it can be. I feel math tries to complicate things. This is why we don't get along. But I had a goal and had to do what needed to be done to meet that goal...even if it required learning math.

I thought it was quite ironic that this was in my fortune cookie this week.

 

So over the course of the past week, I taught myself more math, geometry, and algebra than any teacher was ever able to teach me during my high school and college years combined. I used 2 different study guides that had practice tests, and I will also shamelessly admit to using Aaron's 6th grade math book to help me understand ratio's and percentages better. I even made myself do the challenge questions at the end of the lesson that you pray your teacher doesn't assign as part of your homework because they are SO HARD.

My friend Jen sent this to me last week. Summed up my thoughts exactly.

 

My test was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and I spent my morning in the library at SAU Magnolia doing some last minute cramming and praying. My head is now full of useless information. Let's just say that if you ever find yourself with a large holding tank in your yard in the shape of a cylinder and are curious about how much liquid it would hold, I'm your girl. But I knew I may need it for the test, so I learned it. The first test I took was the reading portion. I hadn't studied much at all for this part, but I found it to be very easy, and even had time to go back check my work before my time ran out. I left this one feeling very confident. Up next, math. I had around 45 questions to answer in one hour. This would be an eternity for someone who actually knows what they're doing, but not for me. The testing center provided me with 3 sheets of scrap paper, and I used all 3 trying to get these problems worked out. I had about 8 questions left on the test when my timer started flashing, giving me a warning that there was only 5 minutes left of this test. Eight questions and only 5 minutes. I felt my blood pressure going up and I thought I could pass out at any given second. I went through and just marked an answer on all of the ones I didn't get to in hopes that I had a chance of getting a few of them correct. And then it was gone. The math portion had ended before I was ready for it to end. Luckily it was a scheduled break time, so I went into the bathroom and FELL APART. I just knew that there was no way I passed that math because I didn't even get to see all of the questions. But I had to pull it together because I still had the writing portion to do before I could find out my scores. I calmed down a bit and returned to my computer. Once I started the writing portion, I was able to forget the math and focus completely on finding grammatical errors in sentences. It was lovely. Like, I really enjoyed it. At the end of the writing multiple-choice, I was given a topic to write an essay over, and a 30 minute time limit, and breezed right through it with plenty of time to check for errors and make a few changes. When that was complete, the computer asked me if I wanted to keep these scores and report them, or delete everything as if I didn't even take the test. But it hadn't even told me my scores yet! Since you only have to re-take the portions that you fail, I chose to keep the scores and send them to Harding (in hopes that they wouldn't completely humiliate me). Then my scores came up. The reading score was passing, but it was my math score I was surprised at. I actually passed it! Not only had I passed it, but I could have missed several more questions and still received a passing score. My only response to that was "thank you Lord". Well, that and tears. Which can be embarrassing in a quite, controlled testing center. But whatever. I PASSED MATH. These people did not even realize that a miracle had just happened in their presence.

Now that I've cleared this hurdle, I can apply for Harding's graduate school, and will begin taking summer classes next month. I plan to take 12 hours this summer, and then will only be around 20 hours short of earning my master's degree in education.

But for this week, I'll be glad to be back with my 1st graders. I've missed them so much. And I'll be so glad to be back into a world where 10 + 10 = 20 with no x's or y's that need to be found before the problem can be solved.

Y'all have a great week! 

My boys playing with an R/C boat in our pond last Sunday. Love this pic :)

Easter, Harding, and the Future of Me....

It is nearing midnight and I have too much energy to get in the bed right now. I think these 2 have a little bit to do with that...

We were on the 5th row!

Thank you Mandisa and Brandon Heath, for stopping by our town as part of the 3-in-1 tour on a Thursday night. My body will dislike you in the morning when the alarm clock goes off.

Last Friday was the Easter egg hunt for the first graders at school. I'm not sure I would've made it last Friday on the amount of sleep it seems I will get tonight. We had our regular testing all morning, and then went out in the afternoon for the egg hunt. It was a warm day (which was really just luck, seeing as how our current weather seems to be a little bi-polar) and it was nice to see all of these kids with their cute little baskets running around looking for eggs. They were instructed to get only 6 eggs to start with, so they would walk right by (or even step on) eggs that did not prove themselves worthy enough to be one of their chosen 6. (For girls, this meant glittery or cute. Boys would pick it up and shake it, listening for the sound of coins.) Good times.

Austin with his friend Grayson

Austin's class

After school, we headed up to Little Rock to spend the night. We let Aaron miss school altogether that day to go up to Searcy with the youth group to spend the day at Harding, but I am not ready to talk about the fact that he is now old enough to be in the youth group. I will get there, but these things take time.

We stayed in the same hotel as the youth group, but didn't get to see them all until breakfast Saturday morning. One of the first things that we heard about was that John Luke, Cole, and Sadie (As in Robertson. The Duck Dynasty kids.) (If you don't know that by now, I'm sorry. Duck Dynasty is really the only reason I even care to own a TV.) were also at Harding for Spring Sing weekend. We had one guy and one girl in our group that literally injured themselves to get their pictures taken with John Luke and Sadie on Friday.

My friend Lane with John Luke and Cole.

 

Oh to be a teenager again....there is not enough money in the world that could get me back there.

We spent all day Saturday on the Harding campus. This is where Robbie and I met, so every place we entered made memories flood back. I love that place. It's been 15 years since I graduated, but I actually got to see several people that I went to college with. There were familiar faces all over the place (including the aforementioned Robertson kids, who probably think that the Walnut youth group is a little crazy, but only if you call crazy standing outside the bathroom waiting on John Luke to walk out so you can follow him to his next place. Otherwise, I'm sure that is completely normal behavior.) Robbie and I walked all over campus, we sat in the infamous Harding swing together, kissed on the steps of my sophomore dorm (which is where our first kiss happened back around 1995), and walked down memory lane together. If I ever come up missing, check Harding before you report it. You may find me sitting on a blanket on the front lawn reading a book, listening to the birds sing, and fighting off the seemingly endless amount of squirrels. It is my happy place.

Our youth group just before going into the Benson for Spring Sing

My love...

And then there's Spring Sing. I grew up going to Harding's Spring Sing show every Easter weekend from the time I was little bitty all the way up through the high school youth group trips. It's a song and dance show put on by the students (mostly freshmen) that is a competition between social clubs. It is also the only time that it is completely acceptable and normal to walk around campus passing people who are dressed up as zombie's, Indians, or computer geeks. I was in the show as a freshman in 1995, and this was the first show I had been to since I was in it. The show was much more high tech than it was back in '95. The use of fire, costumes that light up, confetti falling from the ceiling, and fog machines were not even thought of in my day. We were doing good to get our costumes duct taped together and pinned on in time for our first appearance. Kids these days don't even know what they are missing...

After the show, I had an appointment set up with a lady from the Adult and Extended Education department at Harding. I've been throwing around the idea of going back to school to get my master's in education, but I've been fighting it and coming up with excuses on why it wasn't going to work out. But over the past few weeks, God seems to be pushing me into it. For every excuse I've given, He has somehow swooped in and taken that excuse away. It's as if He's saying, "bring it on". And because I can't out-do God, I decided to just listen. So Saturday evening, I sat across the desk of this lady that told me what I need to do to get started in this program. I left there with my application forms, curriculum plan, and schedules in hand. The first hurdle I must overcome is passing the Praxis test to get into the program. I have scheduled the test for next week, and am taking off of work next week so that I can study and hopefully have a chance of passing all 3 parts on my first try. And to be honest, I'm scared. I am not a fan of math. Especially when it goes to mixing letters and numbers.

This. Just this.

I will spend this next week relearning formula's, algebraic operations (Did I really just say that?), and I should probably focus some time on the reading and writing portions as well. I made a 55 on my first math practice test, so I have a ways to go, and only one week to get there. Prayers would be appreciated.