A Man's best friends....Dogs and Cars

The summer is flying by and before long I will be getting up early and heading to work everyday. Since I started teaching I have been ready for school to start back by the time the middle of July rolled around. This summer is different! This summer has went by way too fast and I am no where near ready to go back.

I think I am apprehensive about this new year because I am having to move classrooms, as well as teach a different grade level. With a new grade comes new and unfamiliar standards, as well as new requirements from the state and a different set of teachers. I am teaching 5th grade next year instead of 4th grade and the good news is that I am only teaching Math and Science. It seems like there would be less pressure since I will only be teaching two subjects instead of 5, but 5th grade is a critical year where students are required to pass both the Reading and Math portions of the CRCT to be promoted to 6th grade. Too add more pressure, I will be co-teaching and team teaching which will bring the total number of teachers I am directly working with to 4 (possibly 6, depending on how many co-teachers we have) and means that I will be teaching some of the special education population. Just a lot of changes, as well as added pressure has me nervous about starting the new school year.

There is another reason that I am dreading school starting back! I have gotten some fun new things to play with this summer. One of those things was free and the other was NOT!

First off, there is Daisy! I got a new puppy as soon as the school year ended from a fellow teacher. Daisy is a bullador. At least that is what they are called when they are sold on the open market, but this litter was a complete accident. Daisy is 1/2 registered labrador retriever and 1/2 registered English Bulldog. She looks like a lab but has eyes like a bulldog. She looks at you like she is about to cry, even when her tail is wagging like the propellor on a helicopter. She also sits like a bulldog. She doesn't squat but sits squarely on her rump! She is funny and everyone who has seen her loves her! I just wish she would stop teething and biting on everything that comes near her face!

This is Daisy at about 6 weeks old:


Here she is again at almost 11 weeks...she is growing so fast and is going to be a HUGE dog!


Ahhh...and my newest toy! I finally got my dream car! On July 3rd, I went to Alpharetta and bought a 1967 Camaro RS Convertible. It is SHAAAWWWWEEEETTT! It is basically how I wanted a car. I wanted it to look nice enough for me to drive, but not so nice that I couldn't do a little work on it myself. It is a fun car to drive through the mountains.

I haven't looked at them in a long time because I knew that if I looked it wouldn't be long before I bought one. I was sitting at the 'rents house one day and decided that I would just check on Craigslist and see what the prices of them were running in a poor economy and at the top of the list was a 1967 Camaro RS Convertible. I called Dad and Mom over expecting them to tell me what any reasonable parent would tell their child. I expected to hear that I didn't need to spend the money and that I could wait to get it. NOPE, not in a family who LOVES muscle cars!! Dad said, "That's a good deal! Nancy, call the bank and see if he can get the money." Mom agreed and the next day the deal was done! Not how I expected it to go down, but I am happy with my purchase.

My dad has a 1966 Chevelle that is fully restored. My brother has a 1932 Ford Sedan that he is working on, as well as another 1966 Chevelle. So I figured that it was time that I joined the crowd!

Here she is!

Side View:


Front view......that's mean!



I am also still playing the guitar and I feel like I am getting better at it all the time. I love playing and am keeping myself occupied with one of these three things virtually every second of my day. I am considering and debating about whether I should post some videos of me playing guitar on here to get some feedback from the people who read the blog. I am nervous about that though because I am not sure how I will take the negative feedback. Maybe one day I will get up the nerve...maybe one day soon!

So that is why I am not ready to go back to school this year. I am not ready for the summer to end. I am enjoying this summer like no summer I have had since graduating college! I am content with where God has me right now and there is a peace that is indescribable being in this position. I am trying to stay in THE WORD and to stay humble so that God can use me to help others while I am trying to help myself. I am finding that more and more opportunities are presenting themselves for me to witness to people who do not know the love and forgiveness of living a life with Christ and to Christians who need some help along the way.

I thank God for his blessings and the toys that He allows me to play with in my free time. They are not mine but His and I know that He can take them away just as fast as he has given them to me. My prayer is that I will never let the possessions that God has blessed me with take precedent over the Creator who let me have them in the first place.

Putting God first

Well, summertime is finally here, that ol' ball park man is back in gear....ahhh...got carried away with an old Kenny Chesney song.

But it is summertime! That means no work for me and trying to fill my days with as little as possible. I pretty much lay around all day until I realize there is something that I need to do. If you are jealous, I understand!

This summer is a little bit different than my past few summers. I am more content with my life right now than I have ever been. Don't get me wrong, there are days that I wonder where my life is headed, considering I am 28 and single! The people who are my age all seem to be either married or quickly getting engaged, and that is a little stressful. But to be honest, I am not looking for anything or anyone at this point. I have finally gotten to a point where I can accept everything that has happened to me in the past and be content with the place God has me.

When I say that I am not looking, I mean that I am not actively searching for someone. I figure that I have made enough messes out of relationships, broke enough hearts, and had mine broken enough to know that I don't know what I am doing. I have tried to have relationships that I want and for whatever reason they all fall apart. I figure that maybe letting God lead me into a relationship will have more success than I have found on my own.

There have been many times in my life that I have been disobedient to the call of God in my life. I have realized that God does not like it when I do not listen. In the past, I have always unintentionally put relationships and other things before God. I have always tried to look good to the people around me and impress the girl that I was with, at the expense of my relationship with God. I needed a nice truck that other people wanted and I needed a girl who was pretty, not really worrying about their relationship with God.

I believed that if I could spend some time with them, that their relationship would grow along with mine. Together we could have a godly relationship, even if it didn't start out that way. I do not say this to say that I have a closer relationship with God than those people, many times it was the complete opposite. I would not let God be the center of the relationship, and many times it would become physical and emotional long before God was ever introduced.

I have found that it is near impossible to "inject" God into a relationship. God is kind of like a marinade. A marinade tends to work better if the meat sits in it for a while from the beginning rather than trying to brush it on or inject it after the meat is tough and dry from being cooked. God is the same way. I have found that I HAVE to include him from before day 1, through prayer and following his lead. I have always started a relationship then prayed that God will clean up the mess. I ask for help after we have already cooked in the sin that a relationship without God brings. Needless to say, it hasn't worked!

In the past couple of years, God has taken 2 things from me that I had put between me and Him. They were both painful lessons, but I have grown in my relationship with God now that these two stumbling blocks are out of my way. Those 2 things were my truck, and "THE GIRL". I loved both of these things more than the world itself, and at the time, even more than God himself. My truck was a 2000 Toyota Tacoma and it sure was pretty! My girl was the girl that I had always wanted despite what God and the people around me told me.

God doesn't want to play second fiddle to anything in our lives, and he was playing 3rd, 4th, 5th; maybe even lower in mine. God warned me that if I didn't straighten up he was going to begin taking things away from me. I was praying one night and God said 3 words that were clear as day to me, "Don't get cocky!" I had it all, and God had blessed me with it. I had my truck and my girl. What more could I ask for? God was telling me then that I had better remember where it all came from or he would take it away.

January 2, 2008:



I lost my truck! I hit ice and wrapped it around a couple trees and broke a telephone pole. I was left looking like this:



God then told me that if I kept living with something other than Him being the central figure, I would lose the number one most important thing in my life. I wasn't really happy with God at this point and decided to be stubborn. I continued doing things the way that I was doing them with no regard for what God was calling me to do. And a few months later, you can guess what happened. The broken neck, 13 staples to the head, and a liver transplant does not come close to the pain that losing "the girl" caused.

The awesome part of this story is that through all of the loss, something greater was gained. My life is now God's and there is nothing that comes between my relationship with Him. I have found the peace in Him that I always looked for in someone else or in something. I do not know what God has in store for me, nor do I know the road he has laid out ahead of me. I do know that I will follow him and fight with him because he promised that "No weapon that is formed against (me) shall prosper." I live each day with that promise and will continue no matter the army or adversary this world brings against me.

I am looking forward to a great summer with no expectations other than to enjoy the life that God has blessed me with. I am undeserving, but thankful. Thankful for my health, family, friends, and everything else that I have. I hope that each person who reads this has a wonderful summer and walks in the path that God has laid out for them. There is peace in that path!