Be An Extraordinary Woman!

I've been trying to remember the last time I got away. I mean really got away. For a whole night. Without my kids. Without Brad.

I can't remember a time.

But that's all about to change! I am going to an Extraordinary Women Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. I leave tomorrow at noon. By myself.

I'm meeting my girlfriend there and we are planning on having a great time of worship together. We will be hearing speakers such as Chonda Pierce, Thelma Wells, Karen Kingsbury, and Stormie Omartian as well as hearing a concert from Matthew West. The praise and worship will be led by the group NewSong.

I found out about E-Women through my mom's Sunday School class. They invited me to go to one of the conferences that was held right here in my city last fall. After attending that one, I got online and checked out when I could attend another one. I saw this one in B'ham, and I immediately knew who I needed to take.

Without going into too many personal details, the girlfriend I am meeting has, well, let's just say, she's had a hard 18 months. Her life as she knew it was shaken to its core with one phone call. The man she trusted with her life had done something very untrustworthy and in a split second her life changed. She was forced to quit her job, sell her house, uproot her daughter and move. Through all this, she is standing by her man and waiting for him to return (I'll let you figure out where he is).

She has received very little, if any, support from friends, family, and sadly enough, their former church family. They are showing absolutely no support for him, and since making her decision to stay with him and try to work out their marriage, they are turning their back on her as well. Believe me she has reason to leave him, but she feels God has called her to stay in this marriage, and I support her decision. Brad and I have been a support for them from the beginning and will continue to be there for them. That's why I just knew I had to take her to this wonderful time of worship and praise to our Lord. She needs it. So do I.

This world can throw alot of junk our way. I know that and so do you. And the more "grown-up" I get, the more serious the junk seems to be. Junk that can ruin lives and tear marriages apart. You may not personally have any of this junk in your life (but you will, I promise), but I'm confident you can look around and see the junk everywhere. Junk like lying husbands, rebellious children, aging parents, fairweather friends, lukewarm churches, dead-end jobs, or empty bank accounts.

I don't know about you, but I am in need of a Savior. One to whom I can take all this junk to and throw it down right at his feet.

I'm ready, and I know He is too.

Preschool Graduation

So the Biggest Loser finale was last night-3 HOURS-and yes, I watched them all. It was awful. Yet again they s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d a show into three hours that could have been done in one. I'm telling you, this show disappointed me at the end. Brad didn't watch the first hour, watched some of the second hour, and got totally fed up and went to bed with 30 minutes left. Gogurt fell asleep with about 30 minutes left so I was the last one standing to see who the Biggest Loser was.

Helen won, and I thought I would be okay with that--until I saw her. She looked unhealthy, bones protruding, I swear she looked anemic. She weighed 117 pounds, and it wasn't a healthy 117 pounds. But anyway she won and it's over and I'm sorta glad.

When I crawled into bed, Brad wanted to know who won. "I'm not telling you," I said. He shoulda stayed up to find out. I found out this morning that after I fell asleep he got up and looked online to find out who won. That's so very funny (and slightly ridiculous) to me!

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On a more serious note, my preschoolers graduated yesterday! They wore their cap & gowns and looked very, very grown up. I even gathered up my courage and spoke a few words to the crowd (which was fairly large) about how proud I was of these kids and how hard they had worked this year. I thought I would get teary-eyed at that point, but I didn't. I was too nervous.

Even though they graduated yesterday, we had school today. It was just a fun day, a day to do absolutely no work or anything that even closely resembled phonics, math, etc. We did show & tell, went outside and played with sidewalk chalk, cleaned out our room and their cubbies, and went back outside. A real fun day! But before we did that, I asked them to gather on the rug for one last time. I told them how much I had enjoyed teaching them and how much I loved each one of them. And then I prayed out loud for them and their first year of school. After the prayer I was the center of a loving, but almost scary-can't-breathe group hug. It was wonderful.

I have taught long enough to know that no matter how many times I say I will keep up with these kids, I will eventually lose contact with them and their families. That's just the way it works. But hopefully I have made some sort of impact on them for this short time I had the privilege to be a part of their lives. I pray I showed God's love through my words and my actions.

It was a great year, but I'm sure glad summer is finally here!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

Here is to the best mom in the world. Thanks Amy, you are the best. This house wouldn't work without you. You are truly a Proverbs 31 woman, and you should be proud of what God is making you into. Happy Mother's Day! From Gogurt, Poptart, and Brad......we love you.

*****Thanks guys, you really surprised me with this one! I love you all very much!**********

I Gave Up On Twitter and I'm Not On Facebook

I really thought I would dig Twitter, and I do enjoy reading it occasionally and seeing if the people I follow have said anything lately. But as far as me "tweeting," it's just not happening. I am giving up on Twitter. Maybe not forever, but for now. I see how it could be useful, but I just don't feel like my (very, very few) followers really want to know what I just did or what I'm about to do. I just felt a little silly, ya know?

Now about Facebook. I have nothing against Facebook, but I personally have never even laid eyes on a Facebook page. I have a few people really trying to persuade me to get on there and I guess at this point I am just being stubborn. Could I be the last person under the age of 40 to hold out and NOT join Facebook? Maybe that would win me some kind of award? Or not.

When I first started hearing about Facebook, I was lumping it in with MySpace, etc., but now I know that it is a pretty safe place to connect with others. Basically I have no excuse other than my stubbornness.

One day I will probably break down and give it a try, but until then we'll just have to connect with each other here!

The Biggest Waste of Time

I might not have sounded superficial, but I sure sounded stupid! The Biggest Loser finale is NEXT Tuesday night! Hello? How did I miss that?

Tonight's show could have been renamed "The Biggest Waste of Time." Crying and drama and "Look what I've done, I'm just so proud of myself." They could have skipped right onto the weigh-in and the whole show could have been less than 30 minutes long. But instead it was 2 hours long. Blah. Blah. Blah. Let's get on with it already.

But anyway, we are fans nonetheless, and we got online and voted for who we want to see in the finale with Tara and Helen. We voted for Mike. It was not really a tough call for us. The daddy (Ron) asked everyone to vote for his son (Mike) and so we obliged. We really like Mike and Ron, but Ron really wants to see his son win this (and I think he really can) so we voted for Mike.

Hopefully next week's show is a tad more exciting than tonight's was and hopefully anybody but Tara will win.

Cartoon Mix-Up

I don't want to sound superficial, but I am really looking forward to the Biggest Loser Finale tonight.
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Brad's big trip is coming up soon, but I am still waiting a little while to post about that. Actually, I have a little trip of my own coming up in a couple of weeks. I will tell you about that later as well.
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Can I tell you that we bought a video at a recent Friends of the Library sale? Apparently no one uses a VCR anymore (except us) and they were trying to rid themselves of all their VHS tapes. So we bought four of them. One was a Barney video Poptart picked out. Barney is bad enough, but imagine my surprise when after she put the video in the VCR, we were watching SpongeBob. Yuck! Now I know some of you may allow your children to watch SpongeBob, but mine are not allowed to. So this was very disappointing.....then Poptart started crying and wailing, "But I love SpongeBob, and I want to watch SpongeBob." No darling, we're not watching SpongeBob. I guess it really turned out best for me though. I didn't have to watch Barney OR SpongeBob.
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Can I also tell you I've learned a great lesson this morning? Do not get on the laptop to post before leaving for work. It always takes longer than you thought it would, and you will be late for work.
It is now five minutes before we should be going, and Poptart is still in the bed!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Yesterday was the day of parent/teacher conferences at preschool. I spent 15-20 minutes with each momma telling her, or more appropriately put, assuring her that her child was ready for Kindergarten.

I don't remember it being that emotional for me, but some of these Mommas are taking it really hard that their babies are starting "big school" in a few short months. Six out of the eight mothers I talked to shed tears at some time during our meeting. I think that is really sweet, I'm just saying I never cried when Gogurt started to school. I was ready for him to be there, and he was ready to get there!

I feel so privileged to have been part of these kids lives this year. To help prepare them for next year has been at times a frustrating, but always rewarding, experience. I really do believe that each one of them will have a great first year of school next year.

But before they get there, they have to graduate preschool. That is coming up in two weeks. They'll wear their cap & gown, and I will present them their diplomas.

Mommas, get your Kleenexes ready.........