A Word to Women

Women: Remember, as we get older we are no longer having hot flashes. They are now called power surges!

From the Barb Johnson calendar

The caption reads, "You might be in menopause if you can't remember if you're coming or going!"

Kids Say the....!

A little boy took his pet iguana to school to show the other kids. If you've ever seen an iguana, you know it has a large flap of skin, called the dewlap, that hangs down from the neck. The kids asked what it was, and when the boy explained, a little girl said, "Oh! My grandma has one of those."

From my Barb Johnson calendar

Do It Anyway!

This was in our staff bulletin for this upcoming week. I thought it was well worth sharing.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
It is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

I DID IT!!!!

I was actually successful at adding links to my blog! I mentioned to Christa (Exqsme) that I would add her blog as a link if I knew how so she sent me the html language and voila I now have links to some of my favorite sites! If you haven't visited these sites, you should try them.

Thanks, Christa!

Out of the Mouths of Babes?

There is a committee of ten that has been established to study the feasibility of consolidating Knoxville and Abingdon High Schools. This committee met last Wednesday or Thursday night so their discussion was the hot topic at school on Friday. My fourth period students came in wanting to discuss the issue and the conversation went somethting like this:

Student 1: What do you think of the possibility of consolidation, Mrs. Garrett?

Student 2: It'll never happen because Abingdon is the one hurting, not us.

Student 3: I don't know why we don't just consolidate with Galesburg. That makes more sense.

Several all together: Yeah! We're closer to Galesburg. That's what we oughtta do!

Student 3: What would our colors be? I hope we don't take Abingdon's colors!

Me: What are their colors?

Student 1: Red and Green! Christmas colors.

Me: That's what they are at Lincoln High School! I had never seen that combination before I worked there. It worked out great for me. I have a lot of shirts to wear in December, now. (Couldn't resist giving them a hard time.)
Don't worry. Usually when schools consolidate, they don't take either schools colors. They establish a whole new set of colors and a new mascot so no one can be upset if theirs wasn't used.

Student 2: Well, I've been giving this whole thing a lot of thought and I think Galesburg, Knoxville and Abingdon should all consolidate! Just make it one big county high school! Then we could be called The Streaking Blue Commandos!

Note: Galesburg's mascot is the Silver Streaks, Knoxville's is the Blue Bullets and Abingdon's is the Commandos.

Be Good to Each Other!!!

9So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. 10Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Galatians 6:9-10

The Message

Just thought this was some pretty good advice especially since the source is so well respected.

This is a Test.

It is only a test.
If this were your actual life,
You would have been given better instructions.

Myrna Neims

Proofread, Proofread. Proofread!!!

Finals ended yesterday so today is a teachers' workday. I have had many things on my agenda, such as meetings, power point presentations, talking with chemical supply houses, writing lesson plans...plenty to keep me busy for the day.

I had attended all the meetings and called the supply house and had settled in at the computer to do my lesson plans. I began typing the plans for next week for each of 4 different courses. I typed Physics II, Physics I, Chemistry II, Chemistry I. As I was typing I was trying to hurry but proofread my work at the same time since a copy of each one must be submitted to the principal. I don't want something in my file which might indicate that maybe I'm not on top of the game. As I was proofing my chemistry lesson plans, I came to the section where I discuss the tie-dyeing lab we will be doing. I talk about preparing the solutions, soaking the shirts, putting the rubber bands on the shirts, etc. When I came to the section regarding the rubber bands I noticed a mistake. The statement was supposed to read, "Prepare the shirts for dyeing" I had written the statement with the "r" omitted from the word "shirts". (Think about it.)

I decided this was a great example of why we should always proofread!

Testimony Time

I was reading a post on another blog about the miracle God had performed on a mother and her unborn child. It is actually from the blog name "Exqsme". You can click on the highlighted name under comments on the post below this one and read it for yourself. If you need encouragement, I highly recommend reading it.

Anyway, in reading this post it prompted the memory of what my husband and I experienced when we were expecting Daniel. I feel it is good and encouraging to remember what God has done in the past. He deserves the continual praise and it helps give us faith for our current plights. (I believe this is scriptural, isn't it?) So I felt I should share the story of Daniel.

Sixteen years ago now when I was expecting Daniel I went to the Dr. for some standard tests. When the tests came back, however, the Dr. had some somber news for my husband and me. He told me that our unborn child tested positive for spinabifida (sp?). I didn't know what that meant so I asked the Dr. to explain. He said, "It is when a part of the spinal column forms outside the body. It results in deformation, paralysis and many times brain damage. The life span is typically short as well even if the child makes it to term." Very bleak news for first time parents who had already experienced one miscarraige. I asked the Dr. if there were any prenatal surgeries available to correct the problem. I had read about advancements in this area and was willing to go anywhere necessary to get the care my child needed. The Dr. told me that while prenatal surgery had made advancements, there had been no surgeries developed for this particular malady. I then asked, "Then what are my options?" The Dr. indicated that abortion was the only alternative. At that I responded rather matter-of-factly, "Then don't bother wasting the time and money on tests because I'm not having an abortion. My God can take of the situation but if he chooses not to heal, then He'll give us the grace to care for the child."

I'm not going to tell you I had no apprehensions. I had managed a group home for mentally challenged adults and was a case worker for the chronically mentally ill at that current time. I knew the challenges that we faced ahead and was well aware that I couldn't do it without God's help if He chose to bless us with a child of special needs. It wasn't what we had planned, but God has perfect wisdom so we waited what seemed an eternity for the child's arrival. I continued to do all I knew to do to have a healthy child, but knew that ultimately it was up to God.

When I was about five days overdue and as big as a Mac truck I stopped feeling the baby move. I went into panic. He had been so active throughout the pregnancy that I was very concerned something terrible was happening. I went to the hospital, tests showed he was fine. He was just too big to move! I went into labor on that following Friday and about 35 hours later on a Sunday morning, the Dr.came in and checked me again. He said he had some place to go but when he got back we would need to talk about what we needed to do. I said,"Whatever you gotta do just do it!" He smiled and left. He returned that afternoon and had me prepped for a Caesarean section.

When they opened me up they discovered the problem. The baby was too big to pass through the birth canal! Thank God! The Dr. also discovered that the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck a couple of times and had I delivered normally the cord would have tighted around his neck. There would not have been enough leaway or room for the Dr. to remove the cord in time and he would have died at birth!

That baby was 21.5 inches long and weighed almost 9lbs. Good size for a mother who only reaches 5 feet if she stretches!

Today that would-be mentally and physically challenged child plays in extra curricular sports, participates in marching band and is currently taking AP Calculus (as a sophomore)! This child has accepted Christ as his Lord and Saviour and has been Baptized in the Holy Spirit as well. I can't tell you the thrill it is to watch Him lifting his hands and praising God, laying hands on others in prayer, witnessing to his peers and teachers and being generally involved in ministry!

When God does something, He doesn't do it half-way! Isn't God awesome!

God has done so many miraculous things in my life it would take forever to list them all at once but I just wanted to praise Him one more time.

Want do you need to praise Him for?

Pray, People, Pray.....PLEASE!!!!

If you have seen the latest post on "The Dawg Howse", then my title needs little explanation. If you haven't, then you need to go there and read it. I was going to write about these events myself and saw that my husband beat me to it. Saved me time anyway.

The whole filming thing started Friday evening. I had already had a difficult day at school. We were scheduled to have meetings all afternoon with the only break besides a conference period (which by the way had been shortened to 20 minutes because of the shortened day for students) was a 45 minute lunch period. The lunch was being served at another building so we would need to travel there, eat and be back at our building in that time frame. All the teachers, staff and administration were eating there so the line would be long as well.

Just a few minutes before the lunch break an office worker comes around passing out a memo from the Principal that he wants copies of our semester exams which weren't even scheduled to be given until the middle/end of the next week before we could leave the building!!!

I went to the principal and explained I could not get them all finished by that time. I'll skip all the messy details of our conversation (no I did not raise my voice, curse, etc.) but I ended up skipping lunch and being late for the meeting and still had one more to write... from scratch!

The principal gave permission to turn it in on Monday. This brings me back to the begining of the story and Darrell's article on the mad house we called our home this weekend.

We were all scheduled to work on sets for children's church at the church on Friday. I left Darrell and Ashley there to work while Daniel and I called at least eight families and drove around town trying to find the equipment needed for this project! This is above and beyond checking with the immediated families of the boys involved first! You know how the rest of the weekend went.

Sunday night after church, I ended up photo copying pages out the student workbook and cutting and pasting to make an exam for my students then making a clean copy this morning before getting to school. Of course when I got here, all of the machines were being used so I had to go to the office and get the secretary to make me a copy (teachers aren't allowed to use theirs so the secretary was kind enough to use her code) so that I could meet the second deadline I was given.

"Why do I get stressed when going to a job I like?" (See previous post) I'm STILL wondering!!!

Note: Do I really need to explain why I gave this post its title?

"My Philosophy of Life"

My son had to write a ten page paper on his philosophy of life in his honors English class. He is a sophomore in high school and only 15 at that. I told my husband, "How much of a philosophy of life can a kid that age have? I don't think I could write 10 pages on that subject and I have a masters degree!" Darrell said that he could probably do it but then writing is what he does for a living. Even he admitted it would be a challenge, however. I remarked that my paper would be one line, "Life is short. Eat your dessert first!"

The paper was due today so I had an opportunity to proof read the final draft. I have to admit, I was amazed. Daniel discussed how the decisions of all those who came before him affected who he is and what his philosophy is, essentially stating that ultimately it is his choice. He made his case for why being a witness and seeing lost souls saved is the most important thing in life. This touched my heart that a 15 year old kid could be so mature in his thinking (spiritually at least).

So I began to wonder, how many adults have really contemplated their philosophy of life? I would like for you to share yours. Obviously, I don't expect a 10-page paper, just a quick comment would suffice. Let me know your thoughts.

Back to Reality!!!

Well, break is over. It was great while it lasted but now it is time to return to the everyday grind of reality. As I was driving to work, I began feeling stressed. I started analyzing why? I happen to like my job so why would I stress over returning to work? HHMMM

I realized while getting ready for work that I have misplaced a set of tests and my gradebook sometime during the break. No idea what I've done with them. I got to school and someone had been messing with all the computers. No need to worry, it was a company installing new software and working on the system. They called our tech guy and told him to reboot every computer in the building. This had to be done before the students and teachers got on them. The company didn't call Phil until 7:00 am this morning. The kids enter the building at 8:10 and the teachers before that. I quickly hurried around the building helping Phil accomplish this task. Not only had the company left this mess, they had also disabled the anit-virus program on the server so we had to wait until that was reconnected before we could use the internet (which I use almost daily in class lectures).

I then went to use my overhead projector (throwing it back old school as Sarah would say) and remembered the bulb had blown just before break and hadn't been replaced yet. I had to track down the tech guy who had to track down numerous bulbs and then come to my room to see if he could fix it. (He's still trying to deal with computer issues mind you.) At first it appeared it wasn't the bulb at all but he finally got it going. I get my lecture underway reviewing the Bohr model of the atom, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and then begin explaining the Aufbau principle and electron configuration all the while asking myself if I need my head examined. What teenaged kid wants to come back from a two week Christmas break and listen to this!!??? I wasn't too sure I wanted to listen to it and I like the subject!!! All of this occurred during the 1st hour I was at school!

Ironically, today's events were not all that out of the ordinary. I went back to re-evaluate my intial quandry. Why do I feel stressed when going to a job I like? HHHMMMM, I wonder!