It's been a long time....

Hi Friends!

It' been a looooong time since I have written. But, it feels good to sit down and do a little blogging.

I just got back from the starbucks across the street from my apartment. I was grading my third grader's narratives...some of them were very good and I was quite impressed by their ability to come up with creative stories and descriptive language. Way to go third grade! The tricky ones were the stories that only had dialogue, yet had no quotation marks. WHOAH is me! haha. Anyway, as I was grading away, I felt happy because the coffee shop felt familar. I recognized all the baristas and realized one of them had gotten a new haircut. I ran into a fellow teacher and her adorable daughter, who is the spitting image of her. Also, I saw creepy old Ukranian man, who Ande and I met at my apartment Christmas party. He asked her to go to a Russian club. Needless to say, I avoided that character. But, anyway, it felt good to be out and recognize others. It's hard to explain.

After my grading, I was reviewing some old journal entries and I found one from the beginning of February of 2010...I had just come back from Hawaii and was beginning to take over my second grade class for student teaching...I wrote...

"It’s all going to hit me. Taking over the class, graduation, saying goodbye to people, moving out, looking for jobs, and hopefully starting a new one. This is all going to happen in less than a year. It’s like a huge gust of wind is forming behind me and is going to sweep me away. I am trying to have faith right now that God is with me and I know HE knows what HE is doing."

Think back friends, what were you doing in February of 2010? Are you where you thought you would be? For myself, I am not. I would agree that this whole transition has felt like a gust of wind that carried me away. I am surprised at where I am. But, at the same time, I can look back and see all the times that God has moved me so that I can learn what I have now. I think that I have a lot more learning to do too.

This past week was a looooonnnnnggg one at work. I was sooooooooo grumpy and tired and had to try my hardest to not let it show with my kids. By the end of the week, I was too tired to be annoyed and almost laughed when one of my kids brought in his book report...it looked like he had used it as a napkin for his breakfast and then ridden over it with his bike a few times. A lot of my kids would make very good characters in a book, their little quirks are endearing about 98% of the time to me (perhaps, other people would not have such a high percentage haha).

Well I am going to make a green smoothie and then head over to Edmonds to watch a movie with Ande, Jessica, and Anna!

Love your way!