baby brother's b day.

My little tiny baby brother turned 13 today.  Thirteen...geez.  I left the house when he was 6, and now he's 13.  That is sad and insane.

It seems like the only thing I deem worthy to blog about is the fact that I am SO ready to get back to VA and get back to Little Sam and the rest of the growing brood.  Its weighing on my mind a whole lot.  I am really excited about it and I hope that the Lord blesses our plans to move out.

Our borrowed car got broken into on Thursday night.  I had just gone through one of the worst experiences of my life...the All-City concert and evaluation with my girl's choir.  They killed sight-reading.  Not the "killed" as you would say, "Man, Nells Kline kills that guitar solo!" But "killed" as in , "Wow...somebody killed that cat."  It was terrible.  We got back really late and parked in front of our apartment which is not in a gated area of our complex.  At around 6:20 the next morning, someone rang on our doorbell.  It was the neighbor from downstairs she was on her way to work and saw that the doors on our car were wide open and the driver's side window had been smashed in.  They stole the radio and a tent that I bought for Olivia's birthday.  I suppose I shouldn't have left it in the car, but it's a butterfly tent for a two-year old.  Who's gonna look through a window and say, "Man i really want that $15 set up for my kid...let me just smash this window in...."

This is the second time this has happened to us in the past year.  The first time was right before Thanksgiving.  The first day of break, in fact.  That situation I could sort of understand being that it was right before Christmas and people were getting desperate for money to buy gifts and such.  But this time was just senseless.  There are even reports of people in Dallas who are awakened to the sound of their car alarms, to find that their car has been set on fire.  The last time this happened in Dallas, it was a cop car.  What is that about?

I watched No Country for Old Men a second time in the theatre the other day.  I caught a lot more this second viewing than I did the first time.  But I really picked up on the theme that our world is changing so fast and that I'm becoming one of those "old men" whom this country is no longer fit for.  What I see as sensible and proper and moral is no longer a thought in the minds of my students or of those who live in my community.  We're about to elect a president based on a popularity contest.  What are people thinking?!?

This break in hit home the fact that I was unbearably homesick.  When I heard the words, "your car got broken into" all I could think about was, "these kids are driving me nuts."  It may have been a student of mine, but more than likely wasn't...but that's where my mind jumped right away.  Needless to say, the next words out of my mouth after thinking that were, "I want to go home." 

We fixed the window, spared no expense.  And we're shopping around for cd players.  

As they say on that movie "Sliding Doors" when quoting Monty Python..."Cheer up, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

Monday, monday...

Man, this past weekend is one of those that will stick around in my memory for some time.  

We started it off right by picking up our new, pimped, borrowed car:

Yes sir, a Crown Victoria.  Only the best.  The thing has a system in it rigged for a Jumbo Jet.  It's so loud.  If ever I drive it to school, I'm planning to tell my students that it's the same car I had, but X-ibit pimped it out for me.

We headed out to a little restaurant called Sardines where they have live jazz every night.  I recently had a dream about this little restaurant.  I dreamed that I went ahead and quit my job, and headed to Sardines, requested for them to play "Misty" as I sang along.  After hearing me sing, they offered me a job there for as long as I wanted to stay.  They called me "the missing link"  here are some pics...

On the way out of the restaurant, I caught 2 of the trio and told them about my dream, and the drummer said, "wow, that's a pretty good dream."

Anyway, on the way out, it was one of those knock-out Texas sunsets.  Really beautiful.

Then on Saturday, we headed out to Dallas which is only about 45 minutes away from us.  We went to Urban Outfitters and watched "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" at the Angelika film center.  We love this place.  Here's some pics of part of the Dallas Skyline.  

I don't have anymore pictures to post.  I have a terrible habit of bringing my camera with every intent to take pictures, but decide to enjoy myself instead.  I don't like to take pictures if I'm having too much fun.

We had a really great weekend.  Today I was dog tired at school.  Mondays are always terrible, but this one was doubly because it marked the beginning of one of the longest weeks of the year- the week before spring break!  4 days and counting!

*slush slush slush*

It snowed like CRAZY today.  I cancelled my after school rehearsals even though we needed one really badly and went home.  I went directly home and started making a meatloaf.  It was the kind of weather that made you want to wear thick socks and eat oatmeal and bake cookies.  It was supposed to get worse over night and be terrible in the morning, but the snowing has stopped.  And true to form, Fort Worth ISD still has not cancelled or even delayed school, even though EVERY OTHER DISTRICT HAS.  That's because we have kids who don't get fed if they don't go to school.  S'quite sad.

We got our tax return back today and then immediately paid off one of my credit cards.  Man, it was so painful, like ripping off a band-aid.  So our return has basically cut in half.  I'm sure it'll be better for us in the long run or whatever.

I am unbelievably excited about spring break.  I really wanted to get up to VA beach to scope out jobs and places to live, but the tickets are like $1000 +  that's kind of a lot.  So instead of going up, we're staying put and it'll be great because we haven't had a break where we just stayed home and didn't have anyone over.  We'll really get a chance to just relax which will be great for any potential shingles that try to come my way.  It should be fun.

shingles again?

No, I'm not totally sure that I have the shingles again, but man, it hurts!  I'm trying to take it easy  more often, since I found out that the shingles is caused by stress!  I am stressed--I'm a MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER!

In other news, we did TAKS reading testing today which meant a lot of me standing, walking, running, rushing, wiping, snapping, pointing, shushing, sweeping, sweating and etc.  (so I suppose shingles again wouldn't be such a huge surprise).  I can't wait to get out of here!  I am just so ready to not work ever again, really.  Well, no, not really.  I feel like I'd have to make some sort of contribution.  Not a knock those of you avid readers who are homemakers, I would totally be down for that, if I weren't such a busybody.  For example, last summer break, I got a job at starbucks because I was so bored.

I know things would be different if Keith and I were planning to start a family.  Which I think we are?  I am totally ready to make more worshipers of Jesus!  But it is all about the Lord's timing.  Everyone (mainly Arianne) thought Keith and I would be announcing pregnancy the December after we got married...boy where they (mainly she) wrong.  I just thank the Lord for his perfect timing.  I sometimes wonder if I did get pregnant how much my priorities would change...how really stressed or less stressed I'd be.  I've just been thinking about motherhood for so long that I can't imagine myself being anything BUT grateful, peaceful and excited about being a mom.  I've had 3 years of amazing marriage to think about it.  My family is ready, I've got my degree, my husband has a Masters, and we have a Savior who is totally Sovereign .

7 more school days until spring break!  I cannot wait!  Our big plans include:

- car shopping- possibly

- resume building

- movie watching

- food chomping

- FEIST WATCHING!- she's finally coming to Dallas on like the 16th of april...which isn't during spring break, but I have to include her in a list of "big plans" c'mon!

I'd welcome some snail mail.  I miss getting things in the mail.  I am such a stationary/greeting card collector.  If you write me, I promise I'll write you back and make it well worth your efforts.  There's just something about getting a real letter rather than an e mail.  Blech, "e-mail" we even abbreviate the title.

Dog tired...I hope people are reading this.

Faithful...

God is so faithful.

My last blog was about what a piece of junk our car is and how I know it's going to just implode some day soon.  After Keith and I talked about it for a while, we decided that we should maybe start asking around to see if anyone would be willing to let us borrow their car for the duration of our time here in TX.  So as I mentioned, a friend of ours was going to let us use his car, but that was on the condition that he would buy a car he test drove today and decided not to buy...you get it.  Well, that same friend is the guy who sends out e mails to the church when someone has a need.  So last night I sent him an e mail I composed asking our church body if anyone could let us use their car.  He held the email until after his test drive, and then sent it at around 4:30 this afternoon. By 7:00 this evening we had two offers from people in our church insisting on us taking their cars for as long as we need.

One of them, Adam is his name, just bought a new truck and used to drive around this PIMPED out Crowne Victoria that he souped up like crazy.  I'm not sure if this is the same car he's offering, but he kept saying, "come over tonight...or whenever, i'll clean it up for your guys, leave the keys in it.  come get it whenver, it's just sitting in my garage."  

The other is a woman in our church named Whitney who has a large family.  She offered us her '98 Ford Expedition.  She told me that she and her husband have this car so that people can use it.  She gave me this lengthy list of missionaries, a rabbi, and other people in need who have used the car in the past.  She insisted that we take it, because it's just sitting in her driveway.  

God is so amazing!  We didn't really expect such a quick response so we didn't really have time to think about what we were really going to do.  

The truth is, we can't really even drive our car for more that 20-30 minutes at a time without it acting funny in some way.  The overheating thing is just the most recent.  Every time I get in that car, I feel like something terrible is going to happen, or that I'm going to get pulled over or what have you.  Despite these car problems, our lives haven't slowed down at all.  We have lots of activities going on, not to mention just going out to get out of the house!  We have had to make plans according to how much of a risk we wanted to take with the car.  It has been such a liability.

So I think we've decided that we're going to "split time" between the two car offers.  3 months to each car so that we don't have one person's car for the entire 6 months.  It sounds sort of complicated, but I think it may be the better thing to do.  We have to check with our insurance and everything, but I read online that insurance usually goes with the car.  

We also found out that the state of TX is doing this thing (as of 2 months ago) that if your car is a 1996 or older (that's us! we've got a 1990) and if we make under a certain amount (i've read 41k-61k) the government will give us a voucher for $3000 to put towards the purchase of a new car that is a 2005 or newer.  This would be ideal for us, so we are exploring this too.  If ever we bought a car, we may buy it right before we leave and then just tow it behind the U Haul.

Of course these plans are if the Lord wills!

Then, Adam sent us an e mail with this verse:

Romans 12:9-13, " Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality."

man...God is so amazing, I can't stop thinking about it.

New Blog

I'm not quite sure what this blog of mine will be about, but I'm resolving to post regularly and I'll try to post things that are somewhat interesting or worthwhile.  

Here's something interesting:

I went to Wal-Mart today to go grocery shopping, I shopped for about 30 minutes and then stood in line for AN HOUR! I thought at first it was the lady in front of me, because I noticed she was bagging her own groceries.  Then when it was my turn I realized it wasn't the lady who was before me, but the cashier.  Now, I'm not sure how they train Wal-Mart cashiers, and I haven't anything against them, but man....She was like scanning the brands instead of the bar codes.  It took 15 minutes alone to get checked out.

In other news, our car is FOR REAL on it's last leg.  Here's a list of the problems we're having with it:

- a broken axle

- steering fluid leak

- 3 bald tires

- over heating

- a dying a/c

- the automatic locks and automatic seat belts on the right side only have stopped working

- leak in the radiator

- misfiring starter something??

- failed inspection 3+ times

yeah, I have no clue what the heck is going on with this car.  A friend of ours may be letting us borrow his car for the last few months we'll be here in TX.  We are looking to buy a car once we actually MOVE to VA so that we don't put a bunch of miles on a car that we just bought.

We're under a tornado warning.  It has been in the 70's for the past few days, and tomorrow it's supposed to snow.  Go figure. I can't wait until spring break, hoping that it will actually be springy, and that we have a car that works.  2 weeks!