Happy Birthday to Me

Two years ago today, Skip set the bar on birthdays pretty high when he proposed in my classroom and whisked me away in a limo for a day filled with surprises.  Today, he ALMOST did it again.  Yes, he is in Argentina.  No, he wasn’t here to spend the day with me or to go out for my birthday dinner last night.  But, this morning, he managed to be the first person to say “Happy Birthday” and the first person to give me a present.   This isn’t just impressive because of the distance or the schedule he keeps when he is home.  It’s impressive because my birthday two years ago was about the first one he’d gotten right in five years. 

When we first started dating, Skip had a lot to learn about birthdays.  When we dated long distance, we had to plan trips to spend our birthdays together.  For his birthday that first year, I planned a weekend in Roanoke, got him great concert tickets, and a new wardrobe of clothes he acted like he wanted.  When my birthday rolled around I made arrangements to fly to visit him.  When he picked me up, he informed me he was going to take me shopping and let me pick something out.  He hadn’t so much as bought me a card.  A few years later, the NewSong schedule put him in Charlotte on my birthday, so I drove there and picked him up for a birthday lunch.  He came strolling out to meet me with my “present” tucked under his arm.  It was a T-shirt from a Winter Jam souvenir table.  It wasn’t wrapped, and there was no card. Happy birthday to me.

I point out these little birthday failures to say, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  When Emily delivered my presents this morning from Skip, I realized just how far our relationship has come and how much our love has grown and how blessed I am that I didn’t give up on him because of some imperfections.  He is busier now than he has ever been.  He works longer, harder hours and we see each other about as much as we did when we were dating long distance.  He had less than a week off for Christmas and had to prepare for a three week trip out of the country.  Yet, in all that hustle and bustle, he bought me a new sweater from one of my favorite stores, two new pairs of earrings, a matching necklace, a Starbucks gift card, and a new charm for my Pandora bracelet.  I still didn’t get a card; I got a hand written note that puts Hallmark to shame.

 At a time when I could’ve easily been feeling sorry for myself and our less than ideal situation; instead, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world this morning.  Happy birthday to me.  Bring on 30!

Let me Tell you About our Tree

I finally decorated the Christmas tree tonight-sans Skip who is making his way across country.  We put the tree and the rest of the decorations up last weekend when he was home but never got around to putting ornaments on the tree.  Decorating the tree is like taking a walk down memory lane.  The oldest ornament in our collection is a Christmas ball that says “Baby’s First Christmas” from 1982.  The newest is an “Our First Christmas” from 2010 bought to commemorate our first Christmas as a married couple.  While I was hanging ornaments tonight, I thought it’d be fun to tell their story in a top ten list.

1.       “Baby’s First Christmas” 1982.  My Nanny and Papa bought Brooke and me a Hallmark Christmas ornament every Christmas until we were grown.  Every ornament is dated and is in the original box it came in.  I don’t put the balls on the tree anymore, but the others all make the yearly cut.

2.       “School Desk.”  When I was in 5^th grade, we moved to Kannapolis over Christmas break.  My AG class in Eden threw me a going away party and gave me an ornament.  My teacher (whose name I can’t remember) wrote on the back of the desk, “from your 5^th grade AG class, Eden NC.” 

3.       “The Elf.”  The giant elf ornament has to be older than I am, but it always reminds me of Jenilee.  I’m not sure if she would remember it or not, but she used to love this ornament and played with it every Christmas at our house.  When you jiggle it, it looks like he’s dancing and makes a funny noise.  We laughed and laughed at this ornament when we were in middle school.

4.       “ASU colored ball.”  One of the first years that I taught with Emily Williams, her yearbook class made Christmas ornaments during their Christmas party.  Emily made me one with ASU colors and it was the first Christmas gift I got from a co-worker who became a dear friend.

5.       “Maxine.”  The Hallmark character Maxine has always reminded us of my Nanny.  When they made her into an ornament, we had to have her.  Every year when I put her on the tree, I think of all the Christmas presents my Nanny has given to me, from my Cabbage Patch kid, Tabitha, with the “real” hair, to my new car when I turned 16.  Every year that we get to spend another Christmas with her makes the sassy little ornament a little more special.

6.       “Pastor Skip ball.”  The first, and only, Christmas Skip spent in West Virginia, the Pastor and his family gave Skip a hand painted ornament that has “Pastor Skip 2005” written on it.  It was the first year we were dating, and the worst of all of our years together, but I love this ornament because it represents the first stage in our lives together.

7.       “Our first Christmas” 2005. I can’t even remember who bought this ornament, Skip or me, but I love it.  It actually has wedding rings on the bottom of it, which is funny because we didn’t marry until 5 YEARS later!

8.       “State Champs 2008.” When West Rowan won its first of 3 state football championships in a row, someone in the community made these beautiful ornaments with a hand painted falcon inside a snow globe type ornament.   I vividly remember that Championship game and how special this time of year was for all of our school that year.

9.       “Matching Snowmen.” The Christmas before Skip proposed, Ashley Erdman gave us snowmen with our name and the year, 2008, beautifully written on each.  At Thanksgiving that year, I remember talking to Ashley about her concerns that Skip hadn’t proposed and her fear I was going to give up on him before he did.  I realized then how mutual my love for the Erdman family was and that I was not the only one waiting impatiently!

10.   “Our First Christmas” 2010.  This one I know was bought by Skip for me last Christmas.  It was out first Christmas together as a married couple and our first Christmas having Christmas festivities at our house.  It snowed and we got to play in the snow with Hailey and her puppy.   Skip had two weeks off of work and we spent almost every minute of them together.

Reflections of a Former Fatty (part two)

 Some people blame their food addiction on stress or other emotions.  I honestly cannot point the finger at anything other than a genuine love of food.  I like to eat; it tastes good.  Some days it tastes better than others, so I eat more than others.  I wish it was more complicated than that, but it isn’t.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a stress eater.  Last year when attempting National Boards, it was all I could do to keep up with my points and find time to exercise.  I was stressed.  I was also busy.  Was I making poor food choices and not hitting the gym because I was stressed or because I was busy?  I’m not sure there’s a clear answer to that question.  I am pretty sure it wouldn’t matter if there was.  The end result would still be the same.

 Weight Watchers has taught me the importance of identifying “behavior triggers,” so I hesitate to down-play the motive behind the choices we make where food is concerned.   I bring this up, though, because there are many people out there that are putting off making a change because of an excuse.   They’re too busy to exercise OR healthy food costs more than Mickey D’s OR they’re stressed OR it’s that time of the month.  Regardless of the problem, I believe the solutions are pretty much the same.  Here's what helps me maintain my weight:

Heighten your consciousness.  It is unbelievable the amount of food we forget that we’ve eaten.    As much as I love food, it’s hard to believe I could forget a delicious encounter I had with a biscuit at 9am by lunch time, but I have.   Just a few weeks ago, Skip was telling me how he’d missed breakfast and was famished.  When I reminded him about the two donuts he’d had at church just an hour earlier, he was honestly surprised.  I could relate.

Stop eating by the clock.  This is a tough one for me.  I equate certain times of the day with food.  I like to eat breakfast during my planning and eat lunch with my friends in the workroom at 11:25am, and I like to have a snack as soon as I walk in the door after school.  While there is nothing really wrong with this routine, it causes me to eat sometimes when I am not hungry.  I used to eat an early dinner; I was done eating by 5:30pm every week night, and every night I had a snack.  When I began to eat a little later and eat when I was actually hungry, it eliminated my “need” for a snack.

Quit comparing.  As I mentioned previously, my friends growing up were skinny.  Friday night sleepovers were filled with chips and dip and regular soft drinks.  My skinny friends ate their weight in junk food and I couldn’t understand it.  We ate the same things and in the same quantities and I got bigger and they stayed the same.  What I failed to consider in my sugar induced coma was that Jenilee ran track and Becki played softball and was a cheerleader.  I was a couch potato.  But, if they ate a double cheeseburger, so did I.  Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that just because someone else eats something, doesn’t mean I should, too.

                Start moving.  Exercise is not a requirement if you want to lose weight.  It IS a requirement if you want to get healthy.  I’ve said many times that when I see skinny girls at the gym, I want to send them home with a Big Mac, but I’ve gotta admit, they’re probably skinny because they are there and not in spite of it.  A good workout routine will help you lose weight and manage you stress, which I hear can also help you lose weight. 

Reflections of a Former Fatty (part one)

A former student emailed me some questions today about my experience with Weight Watchers.  As my reply got longer and longer, I began to wonder why on earth I hadn’t blogged about weight loss sooner.  It seems a fitting topic in light of the fact that more candy will be given/received tonight than the other 364 days of this year combined. 

Weight has been an issue for me for as long as I can remember.  My earliest memory of “dieting” involves a packed lunch, a field trip to the zoo, and a Diet Mountain Dew.  I don’t remember what grade I was in, but I do remember being the ONLY kid with a diet drink in my brown bag.  And that’s pretty much been the case all my life.  None of my friends growing up had weight problems (unless weighing under 100lbs in 9^th grade is a problem).  Only a few of my friends since then have had weight problems, and in a contest I’d rather not win, I have always had the biggest problem (pun intended). 

I began getting serious about losing weight during my sophomore year of college.  I started walking with my dear friend, Meredith, whose parents had done Weight Watchers with great success and she was following the program with them.  I started counting points to the best of my ability and the number on the scale started going in the right direction.  It was a slow process, but it was a start.  That summer, I survived my first, real broken heart and that’s when my weight-loss took off.  In a matter of months, following Weight Watchers with a bootlegged, photo-copied points slider, I lost my first 25lbs. 

During my junior and senior years of college, I lost 20 more pounds, ten for Mere’s wedding and ten for Candace’s.  Although I was still the heavier of the bridesmaids, I remember feeling proud to be in my new body. I wore respectable size 10 when I graduated from ASU, a far cry from the size 16 jeans worn my freshman year.  That following September, Mom and I became official Weight Watcher members, and in April of 2005, I made my goal weight- 143lbs.  In December, I went to work part-time for the company.  Since then, I have never exceeded my Weight Watcher determined weight range. 

Making the decision to lose weight was hands down the most important decision I’ve ever made in my life.  And I cannot stress enough that it was MY decision, and if you need to lose weight, it will have to be yours, too.  If my Nanny or my skinny friends or my high school boyfriend could have made it for me, I would’ve been skinny years ago.  Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.  Losing weight takes personal determination, and inspiration can come from the darndest places.  And success can, too. 

I, obviously, am a huge fan of Weight Watchers, but I know that’s not the only thing that works.  My friend Ashley maintains a healthy weight eating all-natural and avoiding meat and dairy.  Megan lost the lingering baby weight after having Dylan by counting calories and exercising.  The method, as long as it’s healthy, isn’t as important as just making the decision to change your life.

Inspiration

            It’s been so long since I’ve blogged that I almost just shut the whole thing down and “retired” from blogging altogether.  But lately, I’ve had this undeniable desire to write.  I think about writing, I plan out how I’m going to start, and then I sit down in front of the television or play with my iPhone.  I hate it when I don’t make myself do things that I know I deeply enjoy.  So, on this Friday evening, I’ve cleaned the house and gotten a manicure, and I am sitting in the quiet of my empty house with my laptop on my knees. 

Part of my recent desire to write has come from inspiration from other writers.  I recently stumbled across Jon Acuff’s blog, “Stuff Christians Like,” while reading a tweet of Dave Ramsey’s.   I was instantly drawn to Jon’s candor and wit talking about things that Christians like, whether we should or not.  I spent nearly an hour reading old posts on my little iPhone screen.  Now that I think about it, I should have been spending that time writing myself!

I found another great blogger last week while trying desperately to find interesting articles for my 9^th graders to read about banned books.  For the Love of YA popped up on my Google search, and I knew this blogger and I were kindred spirits.  She loves reading young adult literature as much-if not more- than I do and is proud of it.  She’s a high school English teacher like me, and she reviews tons of new lit for teens and offers a teacher's perspective.  Not only did she make me want to write, she made me want to read, too which is something else I’ve been neglecting as of late.     

Another source of writing inspiration came from the most unlikely of places- The Salisbury Post.  I’ve had a love/hate relationship for with The Post for years.  They never seem to say exactly what I think needs to be said about the happenings at WRHS.  Just this summer they published a list of Rowan County students accepted to the School of Math and Science and failed to mention the students from West altogether. (I also find much of their reporting to be biased and unprofessional- but I digress. ) Sunday’s Verner Opinion piece, however, brightened my morning.  So much so that I was texting Megan about it long before she was up for the day.  The piece was titled “Let’s think Big on the Presidency” and satirized the obese condition of Chris Christie in comparison to the fit free world leader we have today.  I loved the wit and cleverness of every fat joke embedded in the text.  I really loved it because we were smack dab in the middle of Nonfiction and studying satire in my English class.  I linked the article to our class website and spent Monday reveling in the play on words and the seemingly endless synonyms Verner used for fat.  My students liked it, too and I succeeded in showing them how the real world is full of things that I try to teach them in class every day.

I’ve been so tempted to set a goal for myself to write or blog a certain number of times in a week or in a month, but that is so un-organic.  I believe so deeply in authentic writing that I never want to write because it’s a certain date on the calendar.  For that reason, I’ve decide to just recommit myself to doing something that I really love doing and not cheat myself out of the experience when something is on my mind.  I hope I can stick to that.  I hope I will write more often.  I hope you will read it, and maybe want to write something yourself, even if it’s just a grocery list!   

Joy

I love summer.  It’s one of the biggest reasons I became a teacher.  About a week into the summer every year, I ask myself how I find time to work and get everything done that gets done from June to August.  This one has been a little different. 

When Nanny fell and broke her hip five weeks before I got out of school, I knew that my summer and my entire life as I knew it was going to be different.  Although I was thankful that the timing worked out to where I could become her primary care giver during the day, I was very aware that beach trips and lazy days poolside were going to be few and far between.  And that’s ok.  I have been claiming the verse in Ecclesiastes 3 that says “there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven.”  This is my time to soak up every last bit of wisdom and love that I can from a woman who lavishes it onto me.  This is my time to pay her back for every dollar she’s stuck in my purse when I wasn’t looking, every day she picked me up from school, every person she’s sworn to despise forever just because they hurt my feelings.  It’s the first summer I haven’t worked since I turned 15 and the one with the biggest paycheck.         

Lately the notion of having fun, having joy and just being plain ole happy has come up again and again.   When Skip left for the last race, he told me to “Have a fun week.”  This aggravated me to no end in light of how he knew I would be spending the week; I was not going on a cruise, I was spending the week at home-alone- with several doctor’s appointments on the calendar, watching my Nanny process a cancer diagnosis.  When I expressed by doubt that fun was in my future, he pressed on, encouraging me that I had the week to “read whenever you want, meet Kimberly for walks, and spend time with Nanny.” While I do enjoy all these things, I still would not equate them to having a fun week. 

When the new sermon series began last week on JOY, it really got me thinking about the difference between having fun and having joy.  Joy is promised to come from the Lord.  We can experience joy simply because we are saved and we can experience joy through our worship of our Savior.  Nanny always says, “Now I’m not bragging, I’m just stating a fact…” so let me borrow that to preface this next sentence.  I’m not bragging, I am just stating a fact that throughout this summer, I have experienced an abundance of joy.  At times, I’ve even had a great deal of fun.  But I honestly cannot remember a day that was not filled with joy and thanksgiving. 

Since we entered this season after Nanny’s fall and the discovery of the mass in her lung, a lot of sweet friends and family members have said to me, “How are you?”  The first word that comes to mind is lucky.  I have a husband who is patient when he is only home for four days at a time and I spend all four of them cooking breakfast for someone who is not him.  I have a Nanny who has outlived all of her siblings, who was there when I went to college and there when I returned, who bought my wedding dress and helped me plant my first tomatoes.  I am the one she would rather be with than anyone else in the world.  Some people will go their whole lives and not be that to another person.  I am so lucky to have been loved like that for nearly 30 years.  How can I not be joyful?  What better reason is there to rejoice?

We will be finding out more this week about what is ahead for Nanny.  We suspect that other health factors and her personal wishes are going to limit treatment options.  My prayer is that whatever lies down the road, we can maintain our joy and make the most of the time we’re given.  Having fun is not always an option, but having joy is.  I choose joy. 

Thanks for your prayers.

Writing about Writing

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love to write.  What I love even more as a teacher is “teaching” others to love to write.  Even though my curriculum does not provide much time for creative writing, I build as much into the semester as possible.  The biggest thing I do with my Honors class is a Multi-Genre project that spans the semester and allows students to choose their own topic and genres and work through their own writing process.  At the end of each semester, the projects are due.  While I evaluate their work, I also use them to evaluate my effectiveness as a teacher of writing.  Did I instill at least a part of my passion for the written word into at least some of my students?  Today was judgment day for this batch of freshmen, and I was thrilled with what I discovered.

One of my favorite students (yes I have favorites) turned in an impressive project titled “My Life.”  Not only did he volunteer to share an excerpt first, he shared with evident pride in the effort he’d put forth.  Earlier in the semester, I learned that this student’s father had committed suicide when he was in middle school.  During class, another student told me that he had written a poem about his dad and included it in the project.  After class, a colleague of mine who is a friend of the student’s family stopped by and asked to read his work.  He shared with me that this was the first time since 6^th grade when the incident occurred that he has ever talked -or written- about what happened with his dad.  He has refused counseling, avoided conversations with relatives, and left his mom wondering how to help him cope.   Last night, at the end of his ninth grade year, he asked her to read his poem. 

In the four years that I have used this project in class, no piece of writing has said more to me than the poem written by this young man and it had nothing to do with the words on the page.  All semester long, I plead with the students to write about something they are passionate about.  I vow not to read their daybook entries, and I stay true to my word.  I beg them to put their emotions down on paper and promise they’ll feel better if they do.  I believe that this student trusted me enough to give it a shot, and I believe that it worked.  I pray that he will continue to use writing as an outlet and have the courage to share when he feels that it’s necessary. 

Writing is something we don’t have to outgrow.  As I’ve hovered under my covered the past three weeks and written down words for no one but myself about the reality of Nanny’s fall and the changes my family is experiencing, I’ve been reminded of the cathartic power of writing.  I am more determined now than ever to introduce this passion to each impressionable student that comes my way.