A Decade is Done

The last ten years have been full, busy, challenging, and filled with blessings. In a few short months from now I will have been divorced for a decade. I never expected that to be the story of a decade for me but it has been. Before my own experience with I thought I knew so much. I quickly learned that I knew nothing. I had no idea of the pain and anguish that would come through that experience. I didn’t know of the sadness, loneliness, and depression I would have to endure. There were some difficult moments associated with this time in my life but I pressed forward, trusting in Heavenly Father, and doing all I could do to be true and faithful to what I knew to be right. I fell short often and continue to do so, but I keep trying. I don’t know what that is worth but I will just keep doing the beat I can. I will show the Lord my willing heart even when I stumble and fall. I think those have been lessons that have served to strengthen me over the last ten years. It has been a whirlwind. It has involved sacrifice and going without in an effort to better our situation. It has required long hours and lots of work. As the decade began winding down I graduated from college with a teaching degree. I am a semester in to my first year as a teacher and I love what I do. My kids are good people who try hard and though they have their own struggles and challenges, they keep moving forward. At the end of a decade I am still single. Dating was not a priority. I went on many dates in the last ten years but never got involved in a serious relationship or anything beyond just being friends. Perhaps as I move into this next decade it is time to shift gears and look towards the future and meaningful companionship.  We will see what the next ten years will bring. I am sure there will be much to learn.

New Things

This week has been filled with new things. After a short two week stint serving in the young men’s I was called to the Stake High Council. I was sustained last week as a high priest and a member off the high council. It was kind of a special experience as my name was presented to the members of the 8th ward. I felt their love and support as they raised their hands. It was a cool experience. I spoke for the first time in that capacity today in the 8th ward and it was a good experience. They didn’t throw tomatoes at me so that was good. 

On Wednesday evening I was ordained a high priest by dad. That was a peaceful and powerful experience. In that ordination and blessing it was made clear that experiences I have had in my life have prepared me for what I am asked to do now. President Heap then set me apart as a high counselor and echoed some of those same things. It was a special evening. 

School started on Tuesday. Things went pretty well for my first week. I think there is much for me to learn and it is going to take a lot of work this year. I love the kids and enjoy my time with them. There is an exceeding plenty of communication and I am going to have to get used to a plethora of emails every day. I am not used to the amount of email communication that is hitting me and it can be a bit overwhelming. I had two days where things went pretty well. The third day was a bit rough and I found that I wasn’t happy with my level of preparation so I made some adjustments on Thursday evening and went in to Friday with a much better plan. It was a great day.  I am geared up for Monday and have a better feel for what needs to be accomplished each day. I guess like Hannibal from the A-team, I also love it when a plan comes together. 

I was reminded of a few different experiences this week as I prepared to speak. The topic was Elder Renlunds talk from April conference titled Abound with Blessings. In the talk he uses the analogy of a large amount of wood with kindling, tinder, and fuel wood that are ready to catch fire. A match is required to light the fire before it can provide heat. This he compares to the blessings the Lord has ready to bestow upon us. We have to strike the match and light the fire which Elder Renlund refers to as activation energy. It is through acting in faith that we obtain blessings from God. We do not earn the blessing because the small amount of activation energy or faith we expend pales in comparison to the blessing received.  I was reminded of a letter I received from Jim some 27 years ago. He was serving as a missionary. I was of missionary age but had not done anything towards that effort. The letter was spirit filled and was exactly what I needed at that time. Jim loved to include scriptural verses at the end of his letters. That was cool but I didn’t really look them up because that would require effort to find my scriptures, figure out which book it was in and then navigate through chapters and verses to find the right one. Most times I struggled to understand it anyway. Well, true to form Jim included The reference in my letter. It was Alma 7:23-24. This time I acted, I found my scriptures, I opened up to Alma 7 and read the verses. This activation effort was like putting the match to the wood pile. I started reading the Book of Mormon and felt the power of it. It was always there but I would not activate the energy required to receive the blessing. I will ever be grateful for that letter and for choosing to act. It has been a great blessing in my life as I continue to sup from its pages and activate the energy required to receive it. 

Well, that about covers it. Grateful for new things this week and grateful for reminders of old things that have blessed my life. 

Perhaps An Update Is In Order

It has been a bit since I last wrote a little something here. A lot has transpired in the last 9 months. I will do my best to summarize the events of life. 

In December I completed my student teaching and graduated from WGU with a bachelors degree in special education. That felt good. Still does. The actual ceremony is on August 3rd in Salt Lake and I decided I would go ahead and walk. I don’t know that this is that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but it was a challenging journey in my life and feels good to have accomplished that goal. 

I took a job in January as a wellness coach at South Elementary. I loved it. Loved being around the students and working with them. The staff at south is wonderful and it was a pleasure to work with and learn from them. 

In March I interviewed for a position at Canyon View Middle School and was hired for next school year. I was thrilled with this but my goal had been to work at Cedar High. There were no openings in Sped at CHS at the time I took the job. Roughly an hour after accepting the position I got a call from the principal at CHS and he told me a position would open up and he wanted me. It took a couple of months for everything to come together but it did and I will be starting at CHS on August 8. I am very excited to get started and maybe a little nervous as well. There is much to do. I will be with the severe students that I loved when I was student teaching there and though it will be challenging, it will be a lot of fun as well. 

Since the end of January I have been focusing on my calorie intake every day. I set some goals relative to weight loss and have worked diligently to meet those goals. This has not been a quick weight loss program and has required steady and consistent effort in both diet and exercise. I have lost 53 pounds so far and have exceeded my goal. I have a new goal to reach my return missionary weight. Pretty excited about it and feel really good. The best part is that it is way easy to pay attention to what I am eating and there is no restriction on what I eat. I simply track the calories and then maintain a certain number of calories per day. The magic bullet of weight loss for me is not the quick and simple or the body trickery. Those work for folks and I have had some limited success with them. More and more it came down to simple math that made sense to me. Calories in and calories burned. If those burned out number those taken in then you will lose weight. Obviously starvation is not what I am advocating. I used an app, entered my current weight, entered my goal weight, looked at my lifestyle and the app provided me with a calorie goal for each day. In addition, I was determined to have some form of daily exercise as part of my routine. That has included elliptical, walking, hiking, other sports and yodeling. Only kidding about the yodeling. Anyway, feels good. 

I am currently working on the house. Came to an agreement with Jay and Sara on a purchase and qualified for a loan. Everything is in process at the moment and we should close on it in August. It is very exciting. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be a homeowner again. I have been busy on little projects that have needed to be done. I am about to finish putting a new floor in Jacks room. I took out his existing closet, put up a new wall making the closet about half the size it was and added 10 sq ft to the room. That isn’t much but it makes a huge difference in the space. 

The kids are all well. Jack came home from Alaska early. Picked him up 2 days ago. His allergies are really bad up there and he has been miserable. Happy to have him home. Missing Mr Andy and look forward to having him home in a month. Natty is living in her own place across the street in Amy and Dans basement apartment. I think she likes having her space and likes the convenience of being across the street as well. That has been since last November and it has been good for her. 

Ok, that pretty much brings everything up to speed. I will try to get back in the habit of being a regular record keeper again. 

Great News

For the last week I have been working hard to complete my Teacher Work Sample. It is a requirement for my degree from WGU. I have to admit, I didn't want to do this  as it seemed like it was just hoops to jump through and busy work while I was trying to get through direct teaching. I kept seeing that I should wait until my second placement in the elementary setting rather than trying to do it in my SPED setting. After talking to Dan about his experience doing it and having him tell me to just do it now, I decided to make it happen.  I knew several weeks ago that we were going to be moving into a 3 week unit in remedial math roughly 5 weeks ago.  I approached my Host Teacher about making it happen and he was fully on board.  It is supposed to be a two week deal but because we are on an A day B day schedule I made it a three week plan.  The nice thing is that I have now been teaching the class on my own for almost 6 weeks.  I love it.  We have a lot of fun.  Anyway, long story short, this morning I went up to a district meeting and while there received a message that my final task for the TWS had been evaluated and I had passed.  That is exciting stuff.  I am quite relieved to have it done as I prepare to move into my second placement.  Nothing looming over my head.  Wonderful.  Well, I am super tired tonight.  It has been a full week.  Grateful to have made it though the TWS and look forward to having everything else done early in December.  Lots to do still.  

Making Progress

Just wanted to get on and give a quick update.  I am making some progress.  After tomorrow I have one week left in my SPED placement at Cedar High School.  I have loved every minute of this experience.  I have been teaching the remedial math class on my own for the last four weeks.  I love those kids.  7 of them are severe students and the severe students are my favorite.  I don't have them all in my class but I do make it a point everyday to go in and visit with them at some point.  I am in their room in the morning welcoming them to school, visiting with them, bumping knuckles, giving hugs or whatever else. If I don't see them there I stop by their table in the lunch room on my way home for lunch.  I walk down the table and say hello to each one of them, we bump some knuckles, laugh and have fun together.  Highlight of my day.  I told my clinical supervisor the other day how much I am going to miss that when it ends next week.  I suppose I am looking forward to the second week of December when I will be done with everything.  I will come back over to the high school and visit with my friends. I had an aid today tell me that she hopes a certain teacher retires so I can take that spot. Made me feel good.  I would love to have a spot there but have no problem with the current teacher. She does a good job. One of the teachers mentioned that her position may come open as her husband has opened an office in St. George and they don't know how they feel about commuting.  I would love that too. We will see how things progress and hope for the best. 

Things are busy.  We have had some crazy things happen at the Brick House and fortunately have been able to navigate through it.  It certainly isn't without its challenges but I have been able to stick to my busy schedule with students teaching and trying to get through everything else I have to do right now.  Good times.

So, there it is.  Sorry for the absence on the blog.  Just one of those things.  Hopefully I can keep up a little better.   

The Student Teacher

Today was the 6th day of school.  I have yet to really sit down and record any thoughts and figured it is appropriate to do so. I am the student teacher.  I don't know that there is another student teacher in the school at the moment.  As a WGU student I started on day 1 of the school year and that was pretty fantastic.  I've been able to sit through course disclosures on 6 separate occasions now.  They are perhaps the most exciting part of the new year. I think students probably tune out for these though they contain lots of good information.  As a parent I find myself bombarded with them at the beginning of the year or the semester. I admit that I don't read every detail and when I sign the document and hand it back to whichever child it belongs to I hope that they remember to turn it in so they can get the 50 special points or whatever points are assigned to my signature being on the form.  I am sure it is something teachers are required to do since they all do it. I wonder how I could make that a simpler thing?  It is already simple or can potentially be simple.  Some teachers tend to get a little too excited about their course.  Gotta love the disclosure. 

I have been assigned to work with James Davidson.  I met Davidson a couple of years ago as part of an optional assignment I did for one of my education classes at SUU.  He worked in Annie Drapers class with her when I was doing the growth mindset presentation there. I didn't realize that he was in special ed back then but it turns out that he is the department head. I have thoroughly enjoyed being his shadow. He is tall and thin and I am short and stocky so my actual shadow presence doesn't quite match but that is ok.  We get along pretty well and I enjoy asking questions and learning from him though I try to be cautious about asking too many questions. 

The students.  Love the students.  I am a shy person to begin with and I am also a guest in the school so it has taken me a bit to feel comfortable with the students but I am working on getting to know names and getting to know them. I find that I like them and like to learn about them and to show interest in what they are doing, hope to do etc.  One of the classes we have is an extended learning period where all of Davidson's cases are enrolled in the class.  These are all students with IEP's that he works with. I got to visit with several of them over the last two days about things they are interested in and are considering for careers and post high school life.  That was pretty cool.  A lot of them aren't all that certain but have some fun ideas.  Another one of my favorite classes is a remedial math class that Davidson teaches.  I have really enjoyed being in there with those students because the math is on a level that I can understand and many of these students are severe special ed which I happen to quite like.  They are wonderful. I have also spent some time in the severe classroom though it is broken up into two sections, those that are more mild and then those that are severe severe.  I have not done a lot with the severe severe but the mild severe is a great group. Lots of fun. 

My time here is going to be short.  I think I am realizing that more and more and I get a little sad to think that this is not a permanent thing for me.  I would love to be teaching at this school.  I like the faculty and love that I can walk there. I stroll home for lunch each day and that has been great.  Fortunately my next assignment is at South and so I will continue to walk to school.  Hopefully at the end of the student teaching I can find a position. I would love for it to be at the high school though I have no problem with South where I thoroughly enjoyed my pre-clinical experiences last spring. 

I don't know how hard this student teaching thing is really going to be.  I am having a lot of fun and just trying to absorb all that I can at this point.  I know there is so much more to learn and being the teacher of record would require me to do more that just being a shadow. I will do my best to pick up what I can during this time. 

Camping Out Back - Sunday 8/12

Tonight Andy and I are camping out in the backyard. There is a meteor shower in the forecast and we are going to try and see it. I may be fast asleep before the festivities in the sky become visible. Maybe not. Andy set up his tent and I am situated under the stars on an air mattress. Wonderful. Of course right now I can't see a thing because I am staring at this screen. No worries, I will soon put this away and stare at the night sky. Well, I am grateful for the time I am able to spend with my kids. This little outing is not my first choice for where I would like to sleep tonight but it is important to Andy so it is important to me. Jack isn't having any of the camping but we did get out and walk the canyon park trail earlier tonight. Good times. Well, grateful for the blessings of the gospel in our lives.