10/30/08

I went out this afternoon when I got home and tried to photograph some fall color. Our leaves are still not very changed yet, but they are beginning. Look at the second picture... notice all of the beautiful colors popping through the leaf. I am thankful for the splashes of color God gives us in the fall. Constant reminders that He is always with us.

Genesis 8:22
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

I wish I had had my camera at school this morning. There was a heavy frost on the grass and there were leaves with frost on them that were so pretty. I hate that I get so busy now with school that I don't have time to capture the small things we normally walk by and don't even notice. I find that I am constantly looking for a photograph. I am always trying to imagine how something would look to capture a moment. I really hate I missed that moment this morning....

We have a fire in the wood stove tonight. Can you tell who is enjoying it greatly? They are the cutest things...


Off to read to the kids, grade papers and have some coffee. I love these cozy nights. :)

10/29/08

Thanks to all of you that gave your thoughts on the pictures from yesterday. :) She chose number 7. I must say I fell in love with those pictures. I may have to do something with them myself!!

Here is another fall shot from the fair. I love all of the colors. :)


I am beginning to see a small light at the end of my busy tunnel at school. I am thankful for the "check in the boxes." It will not be over till after Christmas but it is better. Of course, once January hits there will be a new busyness. lol

Today my two precious and "perfect" children got in trouble for the same thing at school. LOL

It wasn't a major thing, but their teacher (who has known them since they were born) said she hated to get them in trouble because it hurts her like it would a parent. I told her that she can't treat them any differently than the other kids and not to even think that way. They have to learn responsibility and if forgetting to turn in a paper gets them in trouble... well, so be it. It is so important to teach kids responsibility in the small things at a young age so that it grows and matures with them. Too many times I see people not want to make life hard for their kids but they are doing them a disservice. I didn't enjoy the fact that they forgot their paper and got in trouble, but I also have to give them enough room to grow in that area. It doesn't mean I am going to take my "hands off" of them and not make sure they are doing what they should. The reminding, etc... will get less as they get older because it will be more on them, but as a parent I know it is still my responsibility to help them until they are in the much older grades to give them that foundation of consistency in expectations and responsibility.

I have had people tell me before I am "too hard" on my kids. I don't see it that way... I see it that I care enough to make sure they are well-rounded children who are responsible and doing their best for the Lord. We can't please people always... but if what we are doing pleases the Lord, then that is what we are to do. When we please the Lord, nothing else matters.

I am reminded of this verse as I close tonight because this is what I have learned for myself and want for my children:

Colossians 3:23
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men:

10/28/08

I realize this post is filled with similar looking pictures. I needed to show a friend these at school and this was the easiest way. Plus, I need your thoughts... which one do you like more? My friend just moved into a new home and I told her I would do a photograph for her to frame. She wanted one in her dining room and wanted it with teapots/teacups and wanted it to look old so I changed them over to sepia. I borrowed a couple of teacups/teapots from Mom and began to shoot away this afternoon. I had the best time just photographing something for "art" again. There are twelve pictures in all... I realize that is a lot, but I wanted to give her some choices. SO.... what do you think?












Thanks for looking. I had no papers to grade tonight and it was glorious. I have enjoyed two cups of coffee and a bit of dark chocolate. Now I am going to go hang out with Steve. :)

10/27/08

We went to the fairgrounds this afternoon to pick up our things that needed to be brought back home. We also got our ribbons. :) The fairgrounds were so desolate and sad looking. I miss it already. When we picked up our ribbons, we looked at the comments made for the recipes. We were very surprised to find that Wesley actually DID win a ribbon! He won "Honorable Mention" on his chocolate pound cake! It made his day. The pound cake was very hard to see in the area so that doesn't surprise me that we missed it. It excited us all to get our ribbons. We are looking forward to next year and Mikayla is already deciding to enter more areas. lol Here are a couple of food pictures from Saturday. Today I counted with my students all of the different things we ate.... we counted 10!

Kevin and I eating our deep fried dill pickles. They were actually pretty good!

My home boy eatin' him a corn dog. :)
(I don't know why he had his hat like that... lol)

Tonight we ate at Chick-Fil-A for our school. We had a school night there and it was like a fundraiser sort of thing. I mention this only because my administrator asked me if I was going to put it in my blog. (His wife reads my blog quite regularly) lol In fact, he came up with this little slogan for me "I ended my day eating at Chick-Fil-A".... Kelly... please let him know it is here!

I post these pictures below of the blacksmith in the "old" part of the fair. It was neat to watch him take that hardened metal and turn it into something totally different. A lot of times he had to keep putting it into the fire to get the shape he wanted. One thing I watched was that he never left the metal alone. He stayed with it and continued to heat it, shape it, heat it some more until he finally got the shape he had desired.




As I stood there watching I began to think of how the Lord is like that blacksmith in our lives. He puts us through the hard times to "refine" us... to get all of the impurities out and to change us to become more in His image. When He puts us through those refining fires it hurts. They are not pleasant and we wish we could get away from the fire more quickly. God never leaves us there by ourselves. Through it all He is standing there, feeling the heat, too. He is making sure those impurities are leaving and the true "metal" of our faith is shining through. The end product is that we are more like Him.

I can honestly say that I have seen the Lord work like that in my life. I am thankful for that refining fire. It has never been pleasant. There were days I wanted to throw it all in, but He kept putting me through the fire to create something new in me. I know I am still being refined, but I am thankful He is there with me and will never leave me.

I leave you with these verses and words of a song that go along with those thoughts of the blacksmith.

Malachi 3:3 (NASB)
He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the LORD
An offering in righteousness.

Romans 5:1-4
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

Rejoice in the Lord

God never moves without purpose or plan
When trying His servant and molding a man.
Give thanks to the Lord
When the testing seems long.
In darkness He giveth a song.

Oh, rejoice in the Lord,
He makes no mistakes.
He knoweth the end of each path that I take.
For when I am tried and purified,
I shall come forth as gold.

10/25/08

The sun has set over the NC State Fair for us...


This was our last day at the fair and I am so sad. I always hate the time when we leave it each year. There is always so much to do and we didn't get to everything we wanted to do this year! I think it is because we ate too much. Literally. We ate, and ate, and ate. I'll show those lovely pics tomorrow. lol I am beyond full right now and I don't think I have felt that way in a LONG time. I am thankful I don't eat like this every day!!

It was a bit drizzly when the day started out. We got there around lunchtime and stayed till about 9:00. There wasn't a lot of people for a Saturday there, but when the weather turned nicer, it got more crowded. It definitely wasn't as crowded as I have seen it in past years, though.


I had wanted to walk around and just capture parts of the fair. I did a little bit of that, but it was always a quick shot in passing. I am always worried I am going to lose one of the kids or get left by my family that I can't tarry in one spot long... unless we are eating. It was difficult at times to get some shots because of having food in my hands. lol Powdered sugar floated all over me at one point, and that included parts of my camera. I had to get rid of that quickly!


We did our annual ride of the Ferris Wheel with Daddy right before we left. I find the older I get the more afraid of heights I become. Last year I had a REALLY hard time dealing with being at the top, but I don't want to give up the tradition. This year I handled it much better. I tried to get some decent shots from the top, but it is always difficult when your car is doing swinging and kids are moving beside you wanting to see ponies down below us.... or if another little one's head kept getting in the way of my shots. lol

View from the top of the Ferris Wheel.

On the top of the Ferris Wheel... Kevin, Steve and Wesley

Me, Mikayla and Daddy (being goofy, but what is new) on Ferris Wheel.

Hope you enjoyed these views from the fair. I'll share more tomorrow. Can't believe it has already come and gone. Until next year....

10/24/08

More apples today. :) This is in honor of my students as we made applesauce and pumpkin bread at school. It was all yummy. :)


We also had a fun afternoon of creating. I let them use modeling clay and craft sticks to create pueblos and wood homes of Native Americans. It was hilarious to watch them work together. They had a good time once they understood it was "open-ended" and no right or wrong way to do them. I realize these Native American homes do not really look like they should, but if you could have seen the cooperative learning and fun these kids would have, you would understand why it doesn't really matter how the end product on these looked. They did the best with the materials they had. The giggles, smiles, concentrating faces and overall creativity were a joy to be around.

It seems I have been tagged, again, by my old friend Gretchen. She wants me to give an example of a typical day in my life. Well... here it goes:

4:34 am - alarm starts to go off. My clock is set 36 minutes fast just so I can hit my snooze button 4 times and still get up on time at 5:00. (I didn't used to do that until we got our Sleep Number bed 5 years ago. That thing is just TOO hard to get out of in the mornings! By the way, my number is a 30!)

5:00 - shower/get ready

5:30 - put water in microwave for the kids oatmeal, get oatmeal ready and awaken my sleeping family. My wonderful husband has the hardest time getting up. ha!

5:35 - go back to our room and finish getting ready have a small quiet time devotion

5:55 - kids should be dressed, hair combed, shoes on and ready for breakfast.

5:55-6:05 - finish preparing lunches for the kids and myself. Usually I have most of it done the night before.

6:05-6:20 - breakfast, check email in case parents have emailed

6:20-6:30 - finish up odds and ends with the kids hair/clothing, brush teeth and get in the van

6:30-6:40 - travel to school... unlock back gate at school

6:40-7:30 - work as soon as I get in to my room. The kiddos do thirty minutes of reading for their book minutes.

7:30-7:50 on Tuesdays/Thursdays - have Teacher's Meeting

7:30 - 8:00 on M, W, F - continue working at my desk feverishly to get things accomplished for the day, the week, the next week, the next month, etc. Oh yeah... greet students as they walk in the door.

8:00 - 3:00 - Oh, goodness. There isn't enough room or time to write all that is done between those hours. I teach Bible, Spelling, Writing, Phonics, Language, Math, Reading, History, Geography, Science and whatever else happens to fall in a day between those times. Throw in there three reading groups, stapling daily papers and trying to grade on them, tests, Campbell Soup stuff, Christmas play stuff, voting stuff, well.... can you tell I don't sit often?

3:00 - 3:30 (IF I AM LUCKY, which is not often) - finish up the day, pack up and leave. Usually I do not leave school till 4:00 or later. Depends on what has happened in the day. Today I didn't leave until after 5:00.

4:00 - arrive home exhausted and with no mental abilities.

4:00 - 4:30 - try to allow the kids some outside play time before hitting homework again. That is usually when I am on the computer.

4:30 - whenever - finish up homework/ keep checking email in case a parent emails me. You truly never know when that will happen

5:30-6:30 - have some kind of supper that usually my wonderful husband has cooked. I have no energy to even think of cooking by this point. If I had to do it, we would have cereal every night, probably.

6:30-7:30 - kids baths and read to them... on a good night. Devotions and prayer time.

7:30-7:45 - get the kids to bed. I would not be able to snuggle with them or I would not be awake to grade papers

7:45 - 8:00 - blog, check email, gather things for grading papers... possibly put on a pot of coffee now that it is getting colder.

8:00 - whenever - Grade papers and try to stay awake long enough to do it. Check email. (Yes, I am obsessive over email, but I can't stand to not get back to my parents.)

9:30 - 10:00 - try to get to bed and read. Which... this is funny because I don't always read very much. I usually fall asleep.

10:00-10:30 - turn the lights out eventually after I have laid in bed with my book about to fall on my face because I have already gone to sleep. Wake up with enough thought to put the book up, turn off the light, turn over and sleep until it is time to do it all over again.

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

10/23/08

These are some wonderful apples we bought at the Farmer's Market the other week. Can't remember the name right off, but they are really good and sweet. I can't stand a mealy apple and that is why I don't enjoy Golden Delicious or Red Delicious. My favorites are Gala and Pink Lady. They are crisp and sweet. These are similar to both of those that I love... whatever their name is. lol (and, no, they are not the "Rome" apples that are written on the handles of the bags. lol)

It has surely been a busy week. I had so much left on my desk to do today but I finally just brought home the papers that needed grading and knew it would be there when I returned tomorrow. I'll be glad when I can "x" off some of these things from my "to do list." Of course, I do love being busy so I should see that as a blessing. Idle time is not always good.

I was able to talk with my friend Sal today. :) He called from San Diego. They are moving back home in December/early January and I am tickled. It was so good to hear his voice. We email/blog regularly but there is something about talking to a person that makes you realize how much you miss them face to face. He and his wife, Morgan, are dear friends and it will be nice having them closer. They are actually building a house not far from ours. I have been able to go photograph it for them as it is being built. It is exciting to see it all unfold.

I wanted to show my flag picture again. I used this one on my Powerpoint presentation for the voting at school. This afternoon Steve and I went to vote. We are thankful for the opportunity to vote early. It is a blessing to know I have done what I am supposed to do....

What a privilege it is to be able to vote. I have been reminded of this verse a lot lately. The others I used in my Powerpoint presentation. We all need food for the soul from God's Word.... especially with the topic of voting.

II Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Matthew 5:13, 14, 16
ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.

10/22/08

Flowers around the Farm area at the fair. :)


Enjoy this lovely pic of me and the kids from today. We had Book Character Dress Up today and Wesley was a baseball player, Mikayla was Nicki the American Girl Doll and I was one of the kittens who lost her mittens. I realize I am behind my children and you can't really see my costume, but I was doing good to get this one taken!! (brown shirt, brown pants, a tail, some ears, and some whiskers/nose drawn... cheap and effective. lol)


Crazy, busy day and it will be a crazy, busy night. It is just Steve and myself dealing with all of our K-2nd grade AWANA kids tonight. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can......

10/21/08

A harvest capture from the State Fair. We always love to go in the "Farm" section and let the kids pick the crops and send them to market. I enjoy seeing all of the crops we grow in NC and take pictures of them to show my students. I seem to always learn something new and this year was no different. :)



I thought I would show some updated pics of Sampson and Isabelle!! They are now a little over 12 weeks. I can't believe we have already had them 6 weeks. I am seeing the kitten "look" starting to fade. I guess they would be considered around Wesley and Mikayla's age now if we were thinking of cat years/months. lol They are so much fun and doing really well. They are still spazzing at night when we are trying to sleep so we can't let them stay in our room but I enjoy them cuddling with me before I go to bed. Usually when I grade papers they are right there... chewing on them and doing their own grading. My poor students have to deal with some teeth marks on their work. lol They also like to climb on LOTS of things and are amazingly agile.

I scared poor Isabelle when I was taking these pics tonight. The flash startled her and she began to run from my camera! I had to calm her down to get this shot!

Speaking of those papers... well.... there are a lot waiting for me! Better go for now...

10/20/08

Today was a teacher workday and I got a lot accomplished. I got most everything on my list completed. I still have some things to finish, but overall it felt good to mark off things from my list today. :)

I helped my best friend with a project tonight. She is in graduate school and had to do an art project reflecting a theory she has been studying. I thought it turned out quite well. Hard to describe, but it went well. :) I just enjoyed spending time with her. When I got home I found a nice surprise... Steve had fired up the wood stove!! It is around 44 degrees here tonight and he got her going. Our first cozy fire!! I am very thankful for the heat! (I realize some of you from up north are probably laughing but remember, 60 degrees down here in the south causes us to get out our winter coats...)

Want to know what we did a lot at the fair? We ate... and ate... and ate some more. Here are just a few examples. lol

Steve got himself a huge turkey leg... he said the beginning was better than the end. lol I guess he feels they look better than they eat!

No fair would be complete without the taste of cotton candy... at least for Steve and the kids. They kind of have a "deer in the headlights" look, huh?

Funnel cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Yes, I have a goofy grin...

Kevin got his annual deep fried peanut butter sandwich. He said it was beyond words yummy. Next week we're trying the deep fried macaroni and cheese. Leave it to us southerners to clog up some arteries....

It was quite chilly, you know, so we found some coffee. Our coffee loving daughter "begged" for coffee and got some. :) This was regular so she could only have a couple of sips. Later that evening we found a booth that sold decaf so she got her own cup... and drank it all. lol

Blooming onion... of course!

Farmer's Market ham biscuit. Steve said they were the best EVER.

Lunch... where I had my annual footlong hotdog. :)

10/19/08

Today was another beautiful fall day. It was still a bit chilly, though. Getting closer to starting up the wood stove! Yahooo.... :) Coffee tonight!

Had to capture a "fair rides" moment last night. I love the challenge of photographing the fair at night. I thought this turned out pretty well.


I wanted to share my fireworks pictures from the fair, too. Fireworks have been a great challenge to capture... I wish I had had my tripod, but I thought they turned out alright. This is the FIRST time since I have really begun photography that I have been pleased with any of my shots. I took one zillion, fifty eight million of them, but these were the ones that really turned out. :) The Ferris Wheel was moving during the display and it made for a nice "foreground." I realize it is in all pictures, but I was trying to create a moment, here. lol The plus side of the wind blowing us and causing us to be REALLY cold last night was the fact that it took away the smoke from the fireworks so you could actually see them better. :)

Grand Finale