Hi friends! I am linking up with Stephanie Stewart from Falling into First for a little introduction.
If you have made the effort to visit my little blog, you deserve to know a little about the face behind the computer screen.
Here are a few things you may want to know about me:
I Love My Family
I have an AMAZING husband. David was my high school sweetheart, my first date, and was (and still is) my very best friend. An Army officer for 20 years, he was willing to give it all up and settle down so that I could finally get my teaching career started and our girls could have more than one year in the same high school. God bless him. He is such a generous husband and an incredible father to our 5 terrific kids.
Our girls are in college and the boys in middle and elementary school. This picture is a couple of years old, so the boys have grown even taller, and I just want to FREEZE TIME. Can’t someone figure out how to do that??? I don’t want them to grow up any more, but I say that every year. And then the next year I love them even more. If that is possible. 🙂
My family has made me into the woman I am. I couldn’t teach without them. I couldn’t blog and create without their support. My life with them has colored the lenses I view my students and their parents through. They fill my heart and yet don’t mind sharing my time with my first graders. How amazing is that?
We Love Our Home
We live in Kansas City. If you know much about KC, you may realize that like many others in the area, I live in Kansas and teach in Missouri (which is always fun at tax time :P) We live on the very edge of Kansas- the family picture from above was taken in the park across the street from our house, and the Missouri River (the border in these parts) is right behind us.
Ours is a historic home that is full of projects! We have been working on it for years, and I am confident that we will never actually be done! Remodeling is a passion of mine, though, so that suits me just fine. If I could be another person in this life, I think I would love to be Nicole Curtis from Rehab Addict. Rescuing old houses one at a time sounds like great fun to me.
And There’s More
Another important part of our family are our dogs- Lillie, Buck, and Clementine.
They are AKC Golden Retrievers and we consider ourselves to be hobby breeders. We adore having puppies and bringing joy to the families who are thrilled to find healthy, happy pups raised by a loving family instead of a puppy mill. We don’t have litters too often, but when we do, it is delightful chaos in our house! Somehow, my daughters find the time to come home from college a little more often. Hmmm. I wonder why? Could they be drawn like magnets back home by the cute puppy pictures I send them? Guilty!
Sometimes You Just Need to Get Away
David is an avid hunter and outdoorsman, so when he retired from Active Duty, we bought a small farm with a cabin and a small lake within easy driving distance from our house. It is rustic and peaceful and a wonderful way to unplug and just get away for a day or two.
We all love spending time out there, but naturally, my husband, sons, and dogs spend more time there than I do. Here is one big reason why:
Ha! No thank you. 🙂
Ok, only when REALLY necessary.
Which, when you have had 5 children, is like every 20 minutes.
Trying to Make a Difference…
I LOVE my career. Teaching first grade is my dream job, and I adore my school and co-workers. It was such a long wait for me to finally settle down into a classroom (thanks to our moving around the world with the Army and taking off so many years to raise our brood), but I have finally found my calling. I know that God has placed me exactly where I need to be, and I thank Him everyday for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of my 20+ students each year. I pray that I am worthy of such an important mission. I will close this post with my favorite prayer that I have taped next to my desk:
O Christ, do not give me tasks equal to my powers,
but give me powers equal to my tasks,
for I want to be stretched by things too great for me.
I want to grow through the greatness of my tasks,
but I shall need Your help for the growing.
E. Stanley Jones
Thanks for joining me on this journey! Until next time…
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