Summer Time!

I don't know what I would do if I had a job that didn't follow a school schedule. Since August of 1985, when I entered Mrs. McLemore's P.M. kindergarten class, I have had a week at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week for Spring Break, and the summer months off. I hear that, in most occupations, you have to work all year long! No thank you. Teaching definitely has it draw backs, but they come to my mind less quickly during June and July.

I'm looking forward to this summer. We are, God willing, moving into a new house at the end of June. Our current apartment situation leaves a little to be desired, so we are excited about becoming homeowners. I think we are officially grown-ups now. Kris assures me that this actually happened already, but I still feel 13 most of the time so the fact that we are buying a house really seems weird. It's a cookie-cutter house with zero character, but it will be ours!

Reflections

We only have 2 days of school left. I'm glad. Some people assume that teachers have it so easy because we get 2 1/2 months off during the summer. Well, after 9 months of being in a room with crazy, needy second graders all shouting "MRS RIVES, MRS RIVES!!!," I feel entitled.

This has been a crazy year...truly the best of times and the worst of times. A lot has happened--things that are so easy to be thankful for and things that I know I need to give thanks for, but sometimes I just don't want to. John Newton said that everything is needful that God sends and nothing can be needful that He withholds. Confessing that I "needed" the hard stuff is very humbling. I'm learning to give thanks, as one of my favorite hymns says, "even when my heart is breaking."

i'm so not original

Ok--here it is. Not that anyone was waiting with bated breath for this. But I felt I could put it off no longer. It finally overcame me...the lure of checking other blogs to see if they have been updated, the satisfying sensation of eavesdropping with none of the guilt, the winding rabbit trail created by following one link to another, not remembering whose blog you were looking at first, all contribute to the inception of my own.

Modern day ebenezers. The ability to trace where you have been and the outline of God's sovereignty steadfastly highlighting it all. That is what this will be.

So, on with it. This is our last week of school. This week, I am basically a babysitter with a degree. Today is "Pajama, Movie, and Game Day." Can you say "over stimulation?" As I am packing up my classroom, I am struck by how much teacher crap I have. It is amazing the things that are "required" for an elementary classroom. The longer I teach, the more I am sure that my children, should God grant them, will never, as long as He is willing, set foot in a public school. Parents raising their children to fear the Lord and keep His commands--that is what is missing and as long as it remains this way, no amount of testing or tutoring or fancy teacher crap will make it better. So, having said that, I do this job the very best I can, and I end each day grateful that I will not have to relinqish the privilege of educating my own children to the state.