Football

           Today is a bittersweet day for me.  I love football, so the biggest game of the year excites me!  But, it’s also the last day of football for several months, so that’s a bummer.  Luckily, teaching at a “football school” means that the season is never really over.  With West Rowan’s recent State Champion 3 Peat, most people who find out I teach in Mount Ulla have something to say about our football team.  Someone asked me last week at church how I liked working at a “football school.”  Like isn’t the word for it.

Wednesday was National Signing day.  Five years ago on that day, I watched my future brother-in-law sign for a full athletic scholarship to Coastal Carolina University.  As Ben put on that teal and white ball cap and signed on the dotted line, I saw the relief in his parents’ faces as they realized his college education was paid in full.  He will graduate in May and enter the work force; his football career is over.  But, thanks to football, he has an education to start a traditional career.  Last year, five West Rowan football players signed full athletic scholarships; This past Wednesday, four more young men were awarded the same.  Several more players were not ready to commit, but have offers on the table and will play collegiately. 

Playing football at West doesn’t just make you a better athlete; it makes you a better student.  It motivates you to keep your grades up.  It makes you believe in yourself.  It gives you role models to look up to if there aren’t any at home.  It gives you somewhere to be afterschool from August to December that keeps you out of trouble.  It gives you an accountability and support system as big as a football field.

As a teacher, it doesn’t matter if a kid gets a scholarship for being an underwater basket weaver, it’s a great moment.  But few, if any, of the kids that signed on Wednesday would have gone to college on scholarships without athletics.  Having taught some of the boys, I would venture to say that one or two of them were at risk of not graduating at all before they got involved with football. Now, they are going to college- for free! 

So, how do I like working at a football school?  I love it.  Go Falcons.

Snow Day

I was glad to see the snow come, and boy, will I be glad to see it go!  There’s always the good, the bad, and the ugly with snow days as a teacher: the good, no school; the bad, make up days; the ugly, Saturday school!  Next Saturday will be my very first Saturday school since starting to teach 7 years ago.  There is minor consolation that Skip ALWAYS has to work on Saturday, so I’m in good company.  Speaking of Skip, there’s more "good" to share.

Skip got to leave the shop around 4:30pm Monday.  Rather than hurrying home, he went on an adventure to find a snow shovel and some salt to prepare our driveway and sidewalk.  Although he was unsuccessful in finding a shovel, he hit the jackpot with a jumbo tub of sidewalk salt.  Instead of heading home with his treasure, he headed to Mom’s house.  He cleaned off her car and her porch and headed home after 6:30pm!  After we ate dinner, he finished his work preparing our house for the incoming ice.

Even with all the preparation, Skip had a terrible time trying to get to work this morning.  On his second try, he got up our treacherous road and headed into work, slipping and sliding all the way.  Before getting out of Enochville, he realized it just wasn’t worth it after nearly sliding into a ditch.  When he turned around to head home, he found 3 cars in the same ditch he scarcely avoided.  Two HOURS later, he had helped over 10 cars out of the ditch and was back at home.  He helped a sixteen year old boy, a young woman driving alone, and several slightly embarrassed older men.  The worker at the gas station near the ditch offered Skip coffee or hot chocolate for all his hard work. 

I jokingly called him Robin Hood for the rest of the day, but I really was impressed with his willingness to help others.  He never gets to leave work early or have a day off to just be lazy.  If it were me, I would’ve come straight home both days and parked myself on the couch (actually, that’s exactly what I did!).  But that’s not Skip’s way.  He is regularly putting others before himself and acting like it’s no big deal.  But, it is a big deal.  HE is a big deal.  I’m glad he’s mine.    

Year in Review

“They came to sit and dangle their feet off the edge of the world and after a while they forgot everything but the good and true things they would do someday.”

When Skip moved to West Virginia during our third month of dating, the family he was staying with gave me a card with this on the front just before I left to fly home alone.  I thought it was beautiful.  Our “someday” finally came in 2010.  Somehow I knew it would, even all those years ago in Charles Town, West Virginia.    

It all began when Skip proposed on my 28^th birthday.  (Actually, it began in December when Andrew proposed to Sarah and I was thinking Skip was NEVER going to ask!)  We began wedding planning almost immediately.  Since I am a planner, I loved every minute of the next 7 months.  I’ve said several times since that I would love to get married again- to the same person of course- because it was just SO fun!  I even took it in stride when Louanne informed Sarah and me that we had great taste in men and dresses and that we’d picked out the exact same dress to wear down the aisle. 

House hunting was just as exciting as wedding planning.  I had been stalking this adorable house for about three months before we got engaged.  I used the house credit as a bargaining tool to get Skip to talk to me about the possibility of buying a home.  I drove down the street and parked in the driveway at least a dozen times.  When we toured the inside of the house the day we got engaged, I knew I was home.  After visiting 3 other houses, Skip was convinced too.  We closed on March 12^th and Skip moved in shortly after.  We had two giant bean bags and a king size bed; that was it.  And yet, by the weekend of the wedding, we had enough furniture (thanks to my Aunt and Uncle and Nanny) to have Skip’s whole family stay at our house instead of a hotel.  When Skip came home for Thanksgiving after a month on the road, we were eating breakfast the next morning and Skip said, “I love this house.” I love it when we think alike.   

The life altering events of June 8^th have been somewhat bittersweet for our new family.  After the realization that Skip was not going to make a decent living selling insurance, he spent the better part of three months looking for a new job.  With a new mortgage and a honeymoon on the horizon, we were beyond stressed as Skip applied, interviewed, and was not chosen for even the simplest of jobs.  Then, on June 8^th, he pretty literally ran into Robby Gordon in the Concord Regional Airport.  He started working for him the next day and the rest is history.  History that included 6 weeks away from home, a 70 hour work week when he was home, and less than 10 days off in 6 months.  But even as we’ve grumbled and cried (ok, so I’m the only one that’s cried) we’ve known that this is the job that God intended for Skip at this time in our lives.  Remind me of this when race season starts again!

Financial Peace University was another life altering blessing for us this year.  Blackwelder Park did a big FPU focus during 4^th quarter growth groups.  We were encouraged to complete the course as a part of our pre-marriage counseling and ended up starting just a month after getting married.  Although I had to attend half of the sessions alone while Skip was traveling, the class has greatly impacted our marriage.  We are on target to be debt free -except our mortgage- in 2011 and have stopped using credit cards completely.  We discuss, plan, and evaluate our spending together monthly.  There’s a good chance that if you’ve spent any time with us in the past 90 days, Dave Ramsey’s name has come up!

We ended a great year by having both of our families to our home for Christmas.  Skip’s parents and Andrew, Sarah, and Ben came the weekend before Christmas for Egg Day at Mawmaw’s.  We cleaned for days before their arrival and I cooked lots of yummy things to eat and drink!  We broke in Skip’s new karaoke system until the wee hours of the morning.  My family came in on the 23^rd to celebrate Nanny’s 84^th birthday and stayed until the day after “white” Christmas.  Santa made his first appearance at 2000 Bunker Ct. to visit Hailey.  (We learned he prefers homemade cookies to the store bought we offered.)  This was the first year we’ve had a no presents rule with all extended family members.  It was a relief not to miss the gifts and to just enjoy being with the ones we love.  (Oh! And we really enjoyed spending time with our niece and nephews in Wake Forest just before Christmas!)

God’s word has promised, “to every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven” Ecclesiastes 3:1. Although it’s hard to believe that 2011 could come close to the excitement of 2010, I think the best is yet to come!

Typos and Other Major Transgressions

I am a pretty great speller.  I remember studying for spelling tests in elementary school and almost always making a 100!  I'm really good at grammar too; I make a living teaching it.  So, you can imagine my embarrassment when my Aunt called me out on the typos in this blog.  I try to spell check, really I do!  It's just when it's your words, you don't always catch the wrong ones!  As many times as I've read and reread my posts, I have never noticed a published typo! 

Even since the typos were brought to my attention, I have been trying to find time to get online and try to find them and fix them.  I've mentally obsessed over this way more than I should have.  Since I'm kindof a perfectionist, this came as a big blow to my pride.  It also came, however, with a good lesson learned...

I have a tendency to find fault with others when I shouldn't.  I resist correcting the facebook walls of others on a daily basis.  (Sometimes I share errors I've seen with my English teacher friends and we cringe at the thought!)  I used to circle mistakes in the church bulletin instead of listening to the sermon. On a non-grammatical but equally shameful note, just last week I corrected Skip for singing a song lyric slightly wrong.

As appreciative as I was for my Aunt's candor, a part of me was embarrassed (and in utter disbelief).  My mom, who reads my blog and prints it off to share with others, had never mentioned my mistakes.  When I asked if she had ever noticed, she admitted she had.  Yet, in all the bragging and discussing we've done since I started this blog, she'd never said anything about them.  She didn't feel the need to point out my flaws; she appreciated the good stuff and moved past the rest.  That's love! And that was the lesson.  Love more, judge less, and proofread.

Fitting In

     Skip and I started visiting churches almost a year ago.  It was a tough decision to leave my home church of 16 years, but ultimately, we felt that was the direction God had for us.  We’ve settled at a great church just down the road from our house and have been trying to get plugged in.  That’s hard sometimes when Skip is on the road and I am left to join in on activities alone.  We’ve made a great “friend couple” in Kimberly and Jason who look after me when Skip is away.  We’ve joined a Sunday morning growth group, are going to Financial Peace University on Sunday evenings, and I go to Zumba in the FLC twice a week.  I’m putting faces to names and learning my way around the many classroom buildings.  But, I’ve been struggling with feeling like Blackwelder Park is my church.  I still feel a little like a visitor.

     At my home church, I knew everyone.  The church was much smaller and I had grown up there.  People knew me and missed me when I was gone.  I sang in the choir, did special music solos, even had the lead in a Christmas play or two over the years.  I was the “it” girl at church.  People liked me and wanted my opinion and asked me to serve on committees.  This did nothing for me spiritually, but it was great for my ego.  And is probably a little to blame for feelings I’ve had toward my new church.

     Last night, God began to speak to these feelings I’ve been having through Crazy Love, a book I’ve been reading during my devotion time at night.  The chapter was about being lukewarm.  Here are the scriptures that stepped on my toes and woke me up a little:

       “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.” Luke 6:26

       “But all their works they do to be seen of men; they make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted by name in the marketplace…” Matthew 23:5-7.

     Wow.  Talk about a smack in the face.  I’ve been focusing on my feelings of not fitting in rather than focusing on the growth I’ve experienced in my walk with the Lord.  My worship on Sunday morning is genuine and my fellowship with my Father is growing.  So what if not everyone knows my name.  Maybe that will come with more time; maybe it won’t.   I don’t think it’s wrong to want to feel a sense of belonging, but I can’t make that my focus.  I have to show up with a servant’s heart and a willingness and longing for worship. Someday, I still hope to feel at home at our new church home.  But, if I never make the “in crowd” at church again, I know my place in the Kingdom is secure and the King knows my name and misses me when I’m gone. 

Blessed

     It was a normal morning.  I took the extra time to fix coffee and ran into my room exactly 7 minutes before the bell rang.   At 8:40am, I had hardly noticed that Megan hadn’t been in to say good morning and “love on” my Success kiddos.  The morning was going quickly.  When our new guidance counselor, Erin, came to my door and asked to speak to me privately in the hall, I (who am usually terrified by those kinds of things) wasn’t even alarmed.  Until she said, “Megan has been in a car accident.”  Megan was fine but Anna had “head injuries.”  They were taken by ambulance to the hospital.  I decided in an instant to leave and go be with them at the hospital.  I planned to go alone.  I even suggested I go alone.  Angi and Lee, two other Freshman Academy family members, had other plans.  They were going.   When I reasoned, “we can’t just shut down the freshman academy for the day,” Erin said, “no, but we can shut down guidance and we’ll cover for y’all as long as you need.”  In the panic of the moment, I took a huge sigh of relief and took off for the ER. 

     12 “short” hours later, Anna is stitched up and at home watching movies with her grandma and favorite aunt.  Megan is bumped and bruised and having her moments, but she will be ok too.  We joked today in the waiting room that she’ll now be making her kids sit in car seats (like Anna was properly today) AND wear bicycle helmets until they’re 40. 

     There are so many other outcomes that could have come out of this day.  It’s hard to believe that at the end of it, anyone could feel more blessed than yesterday, but I think we do.  Even Megan and Matt.  In a time when teaching in more frustrating than ever, when state rules changes daily and teachers find out by reading the daily news, when kids value their sneakers more than their education, it’s such a blessing to feel the arms of an entire high school reaching out and hear prayers going up for one of our own.  

Dads

I have never really had a dad. Growing up, I saw my father mostly on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  When he divorced my mom when I was an infant, he pretty much divorced me too.  I don’t say this to sound pitiful.  Truth be told, I had a much better childhood than most of the people I know with a mom and a dad.  God knew what He was doing.  He gave me an awesome Mom and put several Godly men in my life to be great stand in fathers.

In middle school, I met Jenilee and when we joined at the hip, I got a new set of parents.  A dad came built in.  Darol was a great dad.  He took his family to church every time the doors were open and when my cat Boss died, he came over to my house and buried it for my grief stricken mother and me.  He cooked breakfast all the time and went to all of Jenilee’s (boring) track meets.  When we went out to dinner, he paid for mine too.

The summer of my freshman year in college, I started working with the youth at Phaniels Baptist Church.  Since I was pretty much a kid myself, I got “adopted” by a lot of the parents of my youth.  That’s when I got Ronald Taylor.  Many know Ronald as “the fish man.”  He’s Brett and Andrea’s dad.  They know they are two lucky kids.  I got lucky when Ronald came into my life too.  For the past five years, he’s cooked for my Relay for Life team after he got off work, on a Friday, for FREE.  Before we got married, he gave Skip some words of wisdom.  I didn’t have a Dad to do that, so he it for me.  A week or so after we got  married, he called and asked if Skip was treating me right.  He’s an awesome dad.

Dan Talley was another father I got from my time at Phaniels.  Since he had three kids of his own, he knew a little bit of how to deal with a 19 year old kid.    I had so much to learn, I’m amazed I made it a summer, much less 7 years working with their youth.  My first year, I did everything wrong, so I was pretty surprised the following spring when Dan called me at school to ask if I wanted to come back for the summer.  He was one of the deacons who hired me the first time.  He saw how much I loved the kids and he liked me.  He spent the next several years defending my honor every time I did something wrong or the preacher called me in for “a talking to.”  He went to camp with us one sweltering summer and forced us to wash cars to raise money for mission trips.  He cared about every kid in the youth group with his own daughter Michelle, and he cared about me.  He was a great dad.

Dan got to meet The Father this weekend.  Dan loved to hunt.  Apparently, he was hunting Saturday morning and God called him home.  What an amazing way to go.   I think maybe that was the beginning of his reward for a life well spent.  He was a devoted man of God.  He was a deacon; he was a Gideon.  He was on the youth council for years after his own children graduated.  He was one of the many men God put in my life to show me what Godly men look like.  Even though I haven’t seen him as often lately as I once did, I’m going to miss him.  He was a great dad.