The Story of My Life

For whatever reason, I’ve never been one to have a favorite Bible verse. I’ve always been drawn to Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God,” but that’s more because it’s a constant reminder that I need moreso than that I just love it so much. However, I think that is rapidly changing. I’m about to become a favorite-verse type of person, and that verse is going to be Psalm 51:16 -17 from The Message translation:

Going through the motions doesn’t please you,

a flawless performance is nothing to you.

I learned God-worship

when my pride was shattered.

Heart-shattered lives ready for love

don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

I am utterly in love with this verse and the way Eugene Peterson chose to write it because it literally is the story of my life and my salvation. I spent most of my high school years putting on a flawless performance of the perfect Christian student, only to have my pride shattered – and shattered is the perfect word – shortly after graduation. I spent the next year with a shattered heart, daily feeling the pain caused by those broken shards. I wrestled with God on more than one ocassion, begging and pleading to have my pride back and my heart mended like new. Eventually I came to realize that I could have all those things and so much more with God. I had never escaped His notice.

That’s the short version.

I read a Psalm a day to my students as we begin class, and yesterday Psalm 51 came up in the rotation, so I was again reminded of this verse. During 1st Period, I was reading through the chapter and these two verses sneaked up on me, taking me by surprise. It was all I could do to hold back the tears that were on the brink of flowing. I was simply overcome. As I looked beyond my Bible into the faces of those precious students in front of me, I wanted so badly to be able to communicate to them what I have learned the hard way, and what those verses mean to me.

It’s been a rough week at our school. Several students have been expelled, and several of them have been students that we were all shocked and surprised to learn had been engaging in the behavior which resulted in expulsion. It’s my hope and prayer that their pride has been shattered. The flawless performance had some flaws after all, but that’s not a reason to remain prideful, nor a reason to give up. It’s a reason to turn to the God I pray we were able to teach them about and surrender it all. Allow the shards of shattered pride to lie on the ground in a beautiful mess. And then be still and know that God will pick them up, mend the pride, and give a new life, where flawless performances are neither the norm nor are they expected. A heart-shattered life is all He needs to make us new again.

Pumpkin Cookies

I’m on a personal quest to eat as much pumpkin as I can until November 27 when I enter into full-fledged Christmas mode, so tonight I made some pumpkin cookies to satisfy my pumpkin gluttony. They were so tasty I thought I had better share the recipe. Not sure where this recipe originally came from – I received it from my Grandma.

Pumpkin Cookies

1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnnamon
1 tsp. soda
1/2 c. nuts (optional)

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Sift all dry ingredients together. Add to first mixture and beat well. Add nuts, if desired. Drop by spoonful on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

I like to add a glaze to mine by mixing powdered sugar and milk until desired consistency is reached.

Enjoy!

This is Currently My New Favorite Thing

If you didn’t already know, I am a 24-year old young woman, who tries to maintain a mature, respectable persona, but yes, I am a Twilight fanatic. I am counting down the days until New Moon comes out on the big screen (twelve!) and holding my breath until I can buy my tickets. So when I saw this SNL spoof last night I was a little worried it was going to make me mad. Instead, it made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I can’t get enough of it!

If the YouTube won’t work, try this link http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/11/07/votd-firelight-snl-digital-short-parodies-twilight/

Dapper Is as Dapper Does

On our school’s campus we are blessed to have a thrift store where, as faculty and staff, we can get clothes for ourselves and our family for free. Ryan and I were perusing the racks and shelves the other day when he picked up a plaid scarf. He tried it on, and asked me if it looked good; I quickly eyed it and told him yes. That was that. Ryan immediately began wearing this scarf everywhere. While it did look good, it also looked a little weird. See, my dear and wonderful husband is…well…a bit of a slob (and I love him for it! most days…). He’ll pick up the first thing he can find and put it on in the morning, regardless of whether or not it needs ironing or has an inkstain. He’ll walk out the door without so much as a glance in the mirror. But in this scarf, he’s transformed. He looks quite dapper, if I do say so myself. There seems to be an extra bounce in his step, and I’ve even caught him looking in the mirror.

But wait, it gets even better. He was examining the tag on the inside of the scarf the other day and was asking me if it was any kind of name brand. I looked at it and was quite surprised to learn that it was, in fact, a name brand, and a pretty darn good one at that! The label read “Christian Dior.” Whoa. My sloppy husband is now wearing a Christian Dior scarf? It’s kind of more than I can process. I’m starting to feel like I’m sleeping with a stranger. But it’s a rather classy stranger, so I suppose I’ll take it.

Awesome, the Christian and Christian Dior

Damn they don’t make ‘em like this anymore

Hot Dead Guys: Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is best known as the father of the Beat movement, and while being the founder of a ground-breaking movement gets you major hotness points in my book, he’s got more going for him than just notoriety and rugged good looks. To me, he’s kind of got that bad boy thing going on, and speaking as a good girl myself, we all secretly want the bad boy.

I was pretty much sold on the bad boy thing already, but a quick glance at his Wikipedia page gave me even more to swoon about. Kerouac often gave conflicting stories about where he came from. Hot. He was bi-lingual. Double hot. He was honorably discharged from the Navy during World War II on psychiatric grounds, being diagnosed with “schizoid personality.” Hot. He was a witness to a murder his friend committed and helped dispose of evidence. So hot.

Even if you’re not into the whole bad boy thing, he’s still totally hot. I mean, look at the fact that he wrote constantly, taking his notebook everywhere. That really revs up this English teacher, I assure you. Or take into consideration the fact that he had an influence on numerous great authors, like Hunter S. Thompson and was friends with Allen Ginsberg.

I figure Kerouac is kind of the Justin-Bobby of Lowell, Massachusetts. And if you get that reference then congrats, we can be best friends for life.

I’d go on a road trip with you, Jack. All you have to do is ask, which I suppose will be difficult from six feet under…

How I Basically Fail at Everything I Try to Do

I’m not quite sure what came over me, but about a month ago I decided I would do the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. I’ll be honest: most days I would rate myself a good wife, definitely not great, and there is most certainly room for improvement, so why not give this challenge a go? It seemed pretty seamless to me. I would receive a daily email giving me that day’s challenge, I would do it, and Ryan would think he was the luckiest man alive. I was to not say anything negative about my husband, either to him or to someone else, and I was to say something I admire about my husband, either to him and/or someone else, for 30-days. Easy enough. The best part would be that Ryan would just think I had transformed into this angelic being overnight – he would never know it was an email prompting me the entire time.

So Day One’s email arrived in my Inbox. My challenge was to thank my husband for choosing me above all other women. That sounded nice, easy, and very true. I mean I am very thankful that Ryan chose me, so why not tell him? I went for it. We were sitting on the couch one evening, both on our laptops, when out of the blue I said something along the lines of, “I just want to thank you for choosing me as your wife. It means a lot when you could have chosen anyone else, or no one at all.” We had a nice moment, and that was that.

Day Two. The challenge was to thank Ryan for some way that he serves our family. Okay…I decided to say thanks for all the things he does that I have no clue how to do, such as take care of the Jeep, change light bulbs, and empty trash (okay I can do those last two but I so totally do not). So I thanked him, he told, “You’re welcome,” and on we went…but I think he was starting to get suspicious.

I must interrupt this story to let you know that I find it seemingly impossible to keep a secret. If I know something that someone else does not, I just have to tell them or I feel like I am going to explode. So by the time Day Three’s challenge arrived in my Inbox, I had already spilled the beans to Ryan. I let the cat out of the bag and told him about the challenge. He replied, “Oh, I wondered why you were being so nice.” Strike one. I continued doing what the emails told me to do, but naturally Ryan was becoming suspicious. Every nice thing I said or did – whether the email told me to do it or not – was being scrutinized. I got a lot of, “Oh, did your email tell you to say that?” A valid question I suppose.

Strike two followed swiftly behind. Ryan and I have a way of relating to one another that is very much based on mutual teasing and harassment. It’s just what we do. But of course part of my 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge was to only say positive, uplifting things to my husband. So by the time Day Four rolled around and I had been making “your mom” jokes to Ryan, calling him a loserface, and threatening to kill him with a knife, I realized my ship was sinking fast. Strike two.

Strike Three came around the second week of the challenge (yes, I said second week), when I began opening the emails, skimming them, thinking about how that was a nice idea, and then swiftly deleting them without a second thought. Basically I was done. This challenge had beaten me and I was more than ready to wave my white flag and surrender.

And that is why I am a horrible wife.

But as of Saturday, Ryan has H1N1, so now is my moment to shine. I’m a regular Clara Barton these days, nursing the sick and ailing up in our guest room, bringing him everything he needs and being super nice and sweet. Take that you 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. Just because I deleted your emails and verbally abused my husband doesn’t mean I am a bad wife. In the words of Kelly Clarkson, some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this.

Happy Black Poetry Day!

October 17 is Black Poetry Day, which I think is awesome. So, in celebration, I thought I would post some of my favorite poems by Black poets. The English major in me found it hard to just choose a few!

We Wear the Mask – Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

~~~

I, Too, Sing America – Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.

~~~

Facing It – Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way–the stone lets me go.
I turn that way–I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet’s image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I’m a window.
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

~~~

The 1st – Lucille Clifton

What I remember about that day
is boxes stacked across the walk
and couch springs curling through the air
and drawers and tables balanced on the curb
and us, hollering,
leaping up and around
happy to have playground;

nothing about the emptied rooms
nothing about the emptied family

Hot Dead Guys: Gregory Peck

I’ve had a thing for Mr. Gregory Peck for quite some time now. It all started with Spellbound, a Hitchcock thriller co-starring Ingrid Bergman (that lucky dog!), and of course was only heightened by Roman Holiday (I hate that Audrey Hepburn!). If that wasn’t enough, he played the legendary role of Atticus Finch for goodness sake! How can you not be in love with this man?

His film repetoire is quite impressive, but so is his off-screen reputation. In 1947, he signed a letter admonishing a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of reported communists in the film industry. He was outspoken against the Vietnam War, and made himself an enemy of Richard Nixon due to his liberal activism – a turn-on for sure. I love a man who stands up for what he believes in.

And I love Gregory Peck. Too bad he died the same year I graduated high school. I think it’s his boyish good looks I love the most. So let’s enjoy them, shall we?

You know, Gregory Peck is even the type of man that makes me want to say, “Baby, how’s about you puttin’ on that Revolutionary War costume tonight?” Oh yeah…

Mmmmmteenybop

Well, I’m eight weeks into my Middle School teaching career, and I just adore these kids to death! I love them for so many reasons, but one thing that makes them fun to be around is that they bring back so many blissful memories of this horribly awkward age for myself. A few months ago I blogged about my emo phase, but I had a wacky music phase way before age 18. Yes, my musical heritage would not be complete were it not for a threesome that’s all but forgotten: Hanson. What’s that? You don’t remember Hanson? Well, let me help you out there!

Now you remember. To put it lightly, my 7th-grade self was purely obsessed with these fellas. Of course, my adolescence would not be complete without my two sidekicks and bestest friends, who also conveniently were sisters, Beverly and Jennifer. Beverly immediately laid claim to Taylor Hanson. I fancied Isaac myself, and Jennifer got stuck with Zac because they were both the youngest (and he was all that was left!). We proceeded to spend the next couple of years of our lives totally infatuated with Hanson. We wore out the tapes and music videos. Our walls were covered with posters which we spent countless hours dreamily staring at – we even purchased those horrible teenybopper magazines just for the free Hanson posters! I think the low point of this Hanson infatuation came in the form of delusion, when we decided it really was a good idea to write each brother a letter professing our love because they really were going to read them and really were going to fall in love with us. I will never forget that my genius self wrote to Isaac something along the lines of “since you’re the least popular brother, the chances of us actually getting together are better than most.” Classy move, Noel. Needless to say, he never wrote back and my married name is not Hanson. But what did I know then? I was being fueled by teenage hormones…heck, watching that “Mmmbop” video even now gives me the willies!

I say that the letter-writing campaign was the deluded low point, but actually that’s not true. There was an even lower point that is embarrassing even now to admit. At some point during our Middle School career, a high school boy by the name of Mike Vinney came onto mine and Beverly’s radar. At the time, we thought he was the closest thing to a live Hanson brother we were going to get – long hair, corduroy pants, skater shoes. I realize now there were tons of guys like him wandering around America in 1998 and they really weren’t that exciting, but we were from a small town, okay? We became a tad bit obsessed with Mike, noticing him every chance we got, and trying to make sure he noticed us, which I’m pretty sure he did not do considering we were, like, 12, and he was a good 17 or 18 years old. In a word, I’d call it stalking, ‘cuz that’s what we were doing. Again, delusional. Hormones raging.

I can’t really pinpoint when exactly our Hanson infatuation cooled down…high school perhaps? Or maybe once they completely solidified their status as a one-hit wonder. Perhaps it fizzled out once we realized Mike Vinney was not interested in a couple of children. No matter what, it’s safe to say they aren’t listed under “Favorite Music” on my Facebook page. But they’ll always have a special place in my heart – how could they not? I really feel like, in a way, they were my “teenage awakening.” My interest in them coincided with my interest in boys in general, which is really what Middle School is all about, right? That’s what I spent my work day dealing with anyway.

Autumn Sunday Afternoon

I am so lucky to live in such a gorgeous place! Ryan and I enjoyed a nice walk around our school’s farm today. I was hoping to capture some of the pretty fall colors, but I don’t think the leaves are quite at their peak yet. Probably still need a couple of weeks. But here are some of the highlights anyway

Then, I was lucky enough to catch a beautiful fall sunset this evening. I wish the pictures had turned out better, but the sky is still incredible! Hoping to get some outstanding sunset shots when we go to Ohio in a few weeks. Ohio sunsets take the cake!