legs and eyes

     I made it thru the first day of the new semester and my new group of students.  Of course I had 3 no-shows which made it a little easier.  So there were 4 on my crew.  One was a alumni from last semester, one in a wheelchair who has a brain tumor, one who is going blind and uses a cane, and a new students.  What a group!  My new young man lives in a group home and was fabulous, eager to learn and quite experienced.  It dawned on me that if I put Wheel chair guy with blind girls together they would have legs and eyes!  On top of it Wheel chair guy thought blind girl was cute and nice...hmmmm....a little crush maybe?  

    It is the first day of second semester.  I get several new students today.  I wonder what they will be like?  I will be teaching some students from scratch and some experienced...hummmm....how to do that?  I literally never know what will walk thru the door with these guys!  I have already planned lunch at Don's house because I think I will need to "debrief"!

    I must have felt I needed to get ready to do battle because I have all and I mean ALL the laundry done AND the ironing.  I did the bills and caught up on all things financial.  Well, there is that optional insurance that has been added to my morgage that I have to take care of yet...there is always something. 

     Ready, Set, Go teach!

A Dining Experience

      My special guy took my daughter and I to dinner last night.  It was so much fun watching Dana have a real dining experience.  First we got ready, she picked out her outfit and did her hair.  At Andiamo Don helped her order her first non-alchoholic drink, a "Shirley Temple".  She thought she was quite something with her fancy drink.  We had a soup and bread course.  We had a our main course and then dessert.  She loved the food.  She flirted with the bus boy who flirted right back.  She was a good conversationalist.  She was ablsolutely adoreable.  I watched her just blossom with the attention.  I am so thankful Don is who he is and accepts my special daughter for who she is.  What a great evening!

Sewing with Hope

     I sewed last night!  I remember watching my mom whip up these wonderful clothing items on her sewing machine.  I always had a new outfit for the annual class trip or a dress for the banquets in high school.  I took a little 4H class and we made a pillow case.  I was so proud of that project.  I recieved a sewing machine for college graduation and it has logged quite a few hours.  

     This past christmas I made pajama pants for lots of family.  Last night I made some for my daughter who will celebrate her birthday this week-end.  It was so fun to match the material with her latest obsession (Lakeshore High School).  It was so relaxing sewing with good music playing.  So much better than getting in the cold car, shopping for the perfect gift, settling for something not quite right and more expensive, and finally arriving home exhausted.      I could think while I sewed.  I thought about little Dana and how I used to make her clothes.  I truly made her gift with love!  I know that sounds like a cliche but it is true.  

     I listened to some news while I sewed and prayed for the people in Haiti.  I wondered, why me?  Why do I get to enjoy this great evening sewing and they are mourning and scrambling for their lives?

     I watched as a couple yards a fabric gradually turned into the shape of pajama pants.  In a just a couple of hours I saw this delightful item take shape.  With so many other things in life it takes so long so see the end result.  Sewing gives me hope that things will take shape...it might take until heaven knows when...or when we are in heaven!

      I am thankful, for my daughter, my mom who taught me to sew and hope, hope that things will take shape in my life and the lives of the people in Haiti. 

Consistantly Habititially Working on Life

   Why is it so hard to be consistant?  That is a question I have asked myself a million times as I try to stick with an activity that I want to include in my life like exercise, eating right or flossing my teeth. Maybe I have been going about this backwards.  Maybe I should look at the things that have become habits and see why they have "stuck".  For example this morning I am going to church.  A habit that I stick to.  I do not like getting up and getting the kids and I out the door.  The commute is long.  Most of the time I like the social part but sometimes I am not feeling particularly social.  I love the music and the sermon.  I go away feeling as if I am closer to God and know Him better.  I am blessed everytime I go.  

   Another habit that has stuck is getting up early before work.  I give myself at least half an hour before I have to get anyone else up.  I make myself a cup of coffee and I get on my laptop.  I read e-mail, morning devotions, and a couple of blogs about home decoration I enjoy.  I write like this morning.  I will skip sleep to do this because I enjoy it so much.  

    So there are two activities that are now habits that I don't even have to work at.  I see that both of them I enjoy.  Both of them make my life richer, feed my mind and soul in some way.  Both of them have a set time, they are on a schedule.

    With my new habits I think I need to find a way that they are enjoyable.  I need see how the new activites enriches my life.  A scheduled time for the new habit seems to be key.

    

   Maybe it is as simple as putting on a pair of favorite flip flops and get going?  Brrrr it 8 degrees this morning!

    

    I work with special education young adults (18-26).  I love the students and the work.  I do job training by teaching my students custodial skills.  My philosophy of education for this population has been developing.  I now believe that these students should be as independent as possible.  Anything I can do to make that more possible I commit myself too.  An example is our toilet paper holders.  They were so difficult to open and close that students had to constantly come to me to get them opened.  I was able to inexpensively purchase new ones that operate like the ones in our homes.  I have not had to help a student since.  I look for things that we can take on so they can add more skills to their toolbox (sometimes literally).  We have been sorting recycling.  Space is tight at school and we found an out of the way alcove to put our bins.  The students get the recycling boxes from the classroom and then bring them to the alcove to sort into bins with plastic, paper, cardboard, aluminum and newspaper.  They are good at it and we are helping the planet!  So why am I writing about this?  My administration wants to take this away from my students.  When I asked why, I was told because it has to be dropped off to the recycling center too often.  I now drop it off on my own, problem solved.  Wrong!  Administration now is complaining that they don't want it in the alcove.  So today I will move it into the laundry room.  This is really a test for my administration.  Does she really care about the students and their independence or does she have be in control.  Every staff member tells me the later is true.  I hope she proves them wrong.

Its all in a day

I was watching a Master Piece theater movie yesterday and one of the characters talked about how her father would have his children write in two columns.  One column was for the morning and what you thought would happen that day and one was for the evening where you wrote what really happened. If I had done that yesterday the two columns would look nothing alike!

I went back to work after Christmas break.  I work as a special education vocational instructor.  My young adults do custodial work in our school.  First off I discovered we had no water in half of the building.  I altered the cleaning plan to accomadate this fact.  Then one of my students reported there was water coming from one of the rest room ceilings and then all *&^(&% broke lose as pipes began to burst all over the large lunch room.  No one knew how to turn the main water off at first.  The fire alarm went off several times. Staff worked on sopping up water.  Plumbers were called.  Students were contained in classrooms.  One of my students arrived late and slipped in the water.  We had no water for 2 hours while the plumber fixed the pipes. Many staff thought we should cancel school because its not legal to have classes when we don't have rest rooms but the principal thought otherwise.  I could never have predicted yesterday!

Today I hope to actually clean the school with my crew.  I hope to work on insulating my upstairs (my home renovation project), pick up a perscription, do some bills and get some christmas thank-yous in the mail.  We will see how that all turns out...today is another day!

One thing I wanted to do more of in 2010 is to read the Bible.  Not books about the bible, although they have their place too but the actual book itself.  This morning I eagerly (well maybe not eagerly because it was way to early in the morning to be eager) went to the Bible and guess what the lesson was about?  Waiting!  Waiting on God to answer.  How typical of me to rush in with my shiny new years resolution to read the Bible and grab something from it.  How typical of God to say, that is not quite how I work.  God says that He is God not me, it is His timing not mine.  "Be still and know I am God".  How typical of God to have a lesson waiting for me just not the one I expected!  

The toughest part of starting this blog was choosing a name!  I finally settled on flip flop for several reasons.  I own 28 pairs of flip flops at last count.  I love how easy they are to slip on and off, how inexpensive  they can be and how you can change color and style with your mood.  I think they represent a life style too.  I like a casual informal style in clothing and home decorating.  I like to be comfortable.  I seek to by comfortable in my own skin at whatever stage of life I am at. So here is to a new year of wearing flip flops, making informal comfortable spaces in my home and becoming more of the person God intended me to be.