Yummy goodness :)

Back again...this time I have more accountability. I have my family and my students in on my plans so I will be forced to keep going. I really do enjoy this as well. I have my students journal so why can't I?? I even changed the background of my blog to look just like their journals. :) So in the words of our friend Bible Geek ... Let's get to this yummy goodness. :)

The first day of advent I am so so excited!!! I woke up 6am-ish ..... everyone is still asleep!! I have refrained from waking them ... plus the quiet is nice. Allows me to get my to do list to to done.  I have so many things I want to share as we embark on our advent journey but I know I need to keep it simple.  In Matthew 22:34-39, Jesus gave us the greatest commandment. Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment . And a second is like it: "You should love your neighbor as yourself.

Life is chaotic! Bringing God into the chaos of our lives is what we are all required to do. Society does not make it easy. A national survey of the Kaiser foundation has shown that the average 8-18 year old spends 7 hours and 38 minutes a day on entertainment media. That is more than 53 hours per week. Research done through CARA- Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University has found that nationally the estimated number of all Catholics going to mass in a given week is 31.4%. When you think the precepts of the church tell us the minimum level of commitment to attend mass is on Sundays plus the Holy Days of Obligation. That is combined about 60 hours a year. Sadly that is not far off from the amount of time spent by our young people in entertainment media in a week.  I have seen entertainment media.... over Thanksgiving I saw Honey Boo Boo for the first time (oh my!) .... there is very little quality out there.   Matthew 6:21 states, " For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." Are we spending our treasure of time with the One we are to love with our whole being and the people we love most in this world?

This advent season as we prepare for the arrival of our Savior my family's to do is to focus on the great commandments and strengthen our light for Christ to the world.

I pray we can all become living, breathing examples of the great commandments to others.

Blessings this advent season.

Here we go again!

Well .. Two plus years since my last update. Again it was previous students that reached out and shared their love of my stories. An email and and in person meeting warmed my heart and here we go again! It will also be good to record the events of the next year as my husband is deployed to Afghanistan. It was a tough send off yesterday. What made it harder than other farewells is that all the kids are very aware what's going on and how long a year will be. The departure was a surreal experience and had a DJ. It was a party of sorts with none of the party goers wanting to be there. I pray that Bryan remains safe and that this year for the kids and I will be a year of self improvement and discovery. This upcoming weekend is goal setting weekend and readjusting to the new normal. Today was a rough start. I heard a radio show that talked about how everyone needs a desert time in their lives. It is those experiences that bring us closer to Jesus. The woman gave many examples in the bible of these experiences. One verse addressed was Deuteronomy 32:10. It is there described how God is always there and he is good and faithful. I needed to hear that as my shoe broke in school ..great custodian superglued it. I hit a drain thing and put two holes in my tire ... Three hours waiting with 4 kids and $350 was no fun. Despite the stresses of the first day I arrived back to work with support notes in my mailbox and many warm wishes from my colleagues and students, my oldest child Mary Kate was greeted with gummie butterflies, and my son Sean's classmates wrote notes of support and had patriotic ribbons for the kids to wear including my youngest two who also go to school there. Despite the difficulties of the day I continued to feel God's presence. It's in my daily life's chaos that I am embraced by God's grace. I am blessed to have so many people showing us love each and everyday. I am ready to embrace this year and look forward to blogging it too. I'm glad this day is done though ..day 1 done .... 364 to go... Good night!

I Was Missed .... Wow

As the end of the first full week of school ended I was greeted by a group of students I taught from last year. They shared with me how they missed my stories. Mmm...I really never thought my stories to be entertaining and that they would be missed. I didn't think that I would be the teacher people were eager to leave but I was a teacher they missed. Wow. So that got me thinking. I really wanted to keep in touch with my students once they graduated but I did not want to become the person constantly posting to Facebook. A blog though ... well that is a choice...people can either read it or not... they come to it....so I am going to give this a try. It would be a nice way to also have a history of what happens in the day to day life of our family....so this could be just for us. We will see where this goes.