All in all, a blessed day

Who knows why the Lord had me take the 2 year old today, but it was nice to be over at my parent's and not be trying to get work done. It was nice spending that time with Grandma and B. I do believe she was blessed by it, and my parent's enjoyed having B. there as well. It amazes me just how much the Lord blesses my time with B. He is an extremely mellow child when he is with me, and it allows me to take him places without too much concern. We went for a walk around the block and he was perfectly content just to sit in the stroller and watch things, pointing out a car every once in a while. I was slightly concerned about when he woke up from his nap, because he is normally very cranky, and when a kid is not in his normal surroundings, one never knows how he is going to react. But the Lord was gracious and he was clingy, but not cranky. Even his mother was blessed to hear that.

It was interesting as the Lord showed me what it was like to take care of a kid "on my own turf" so to speak. Usually I am at the 2 year old's house, taking care of him and the girls, but this time I was at my parent's house and had brought some work to do (in case he took a nap). This may seem oversimplified, but it is amazing how you are not able to get anything done except taking care of the kid, when you are taking care of the kid. Not that I was chasing him around the house or anything, but even when he is playing by himself, there is a certain part of your attention that has to keep an ear or eye open to what he is up to. Not the sort of environment that lends itself to serious study. So..just another interesting experience.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord has had me minister to this family, and how He continues to work, teaching me new things and drawing me closer to this family. And even the fact that the 2 year old's personality fits together with mine so well. And then to think that the Lord knew this all ahead of time, orchestrating things so that we would end up where we are today. Even when you take into account the trials and "bumps in the road" of getting to where we are today, it is still pretty amazing how the Lord works.

Ok, I'm rambling on way too much, but it will be interesting someday to see just how the Lord uses all this for His glory. And I do pray that the more my parents and grandmother get to know my friends from church, the more the Lord would use them to be a witness. Who knows, perhaps it will be a 2 year old or a 4 year old who tells them about Jesus and leads them to Christ.

Saturday aka Life Happens

Guess my plans for today were not what the Lord had in store for me. My plan was to get up and go to Eastman for the morning, then go over to my parents and Grandma sit. Well, at 8:45 this morning I received a slightly frantic call from the 2 year old's mother asking if I could come over and watch the kids because her husband needed to be taken into the doctor. So the long and the short of it is that I ended up bringing the 2 year old over to my parent's house while the girls went to another family's house. Needless to say, no work for Eastman has been accomplished, but we have spent time with my Grandmother which for right now is probably a more worthy pursuit in terms of lasting value. There is a part of me that is like, "Oh Lord, I really am trying to get this done...." but I guess this is the point where the rubber hits the road as far as trusting Him to help me finish the grad work. The 2 year old did finally fall asleep on the couch at 4:45 and by that time I was ready for a nap myself!

Just Plain Tired

After being at school and working for 11 hours, I am just plain tired. Not complaining b/c I got a lot of work done...but sometimes it is a bit overwhelming. Whoever says that teachers have it easy because they work "8-3" and have summers off has not spent much time in a classroom recently.

Passion and Purity.

So I have recently finished reading Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. While I've started reading many Christian type books over the past few years, this is the first one I've completed. A friend of mine and I have been both reading it and discussing it as we go, which has been a huge blessing. It amazes me how many things she talks about that I've thought about, but never heard anyone else verbalize. At one point towards the end of the book she talks about how "the custom of 'going steady' is another form that impatience takes" (p.153) and says that "unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention?" Since college I've not been into the whole dating thing and have had a "wild" idea that it would be great to skip the dating phase and go straight from friendship to engagement. So it was pretty awesome to hear someone else echoing a similar thought.

Recorder Music Fuge Around the Clock

Eastman Here I Come (Or So I Thought )

Now that teaching is winding up, I'm also trying to get back into the grad work thing. The only way I can access SPSS (a program I need to use for the next step of my project) is to go to the computer lab in the dorm--not much fun when you don't live "on campus." So I thought I'd go over for an hour after school and check it out. Well, as I was walking towards Eastman, I saw one of my former students and stopped to talk with her. Then her mother came by and proceeded to talk to me for the next half hour. In the course of that half hour I saw another one of my students. After finally ending the conversation with the mom, I ran into a person from church. By the time I actually walked into the building it was 5:15. At this point, I ran into my adviser who said to me, "What are you doing here?" "Well, I thought I'd stop by the computer lab and check out SPSS, but after being waylaid by various people, I'm thinking of just going home." Her response was, "Yeah, the computer lab can wait for another day." At this point I figured, might as well listen to my adviser, who just happened to be giving me some advice. Needless to say, after 45 minutes and four conversations later, I gave up and came home, not once stepping foot into the computer lab.

Saturday Morning

When I find myself tired and discouraged, it is often hard to "lean not on your own understanding" in a situation. Granted, I know that the Lord is at work in all the situations in my life, and that He works "behind the scenes" in so many ways that I can't even contemplate. But in the rebellious state of my heart, I don't want to rest in that knowledge and trust Him to know what He is doing.

There are times when I can only cry, "Lord, what is going on in me? What are you doing in my life? and Is it always going to be like this?"

Emotions are a scary thing and I realize they need to be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit, but there are times when, in my own weakness, it feels like I can't take it much longer.

Recorder Geek am I

I did it! I went and checked out the local American Recorder Society chapter and I was so blessed because walking in the door right behind me was someone I knew from church! Yes, I was the youngest person there, but that was ok, and now I actually have music to practice--something I haven't done for five years. Yeah, I'm excited. Goodnight!

LOL!

You Are French Food

Snobby yet ubiquitous. People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Saw this quiz on lydee's site and decided to take it. I hope I'm not the snobby part and I had to look up ubiquitous (ever present), but the second sentence is actually true. How this all relates to French food I am quite ignorant of.

Mondays

Well folks, it's 8:30 and I'm ready for bed. Gotta love the good old school schedule. Today was the first Monday of the school year and it was very productive. Hip hip hooray! This is quite momentous as productive Mondays are not my forte.

And now for something completely different:

I've decided (if I don't chicken out of it) to go and check out the local American Recorder Society chapter. It meets every other week, so I think that might be doable as far as being "out on a school night" goes. As much of a recorder geek I am and would like to be playing something other than beginning string music, I am hesitant as this is completely out of my comfort zone. The whole going and not knowing anyone there does not sound like fun and I'm not sure if I will last until 9:45. So...we'll see. It would be a good networking opportunity (in addition to the playing part). So...unless the Lord makes it very clear that I'm not to do this, I think I will be dragging myself to the first meeting tomorrow night. Me and my bass, that is (and the other four recorders I'm neglecting to mention.) Yes, in my geekiness, I will show up to the meeting with not one or two recorders, but my bag containing the whole consort.

Some Days....

So, yeah, I just found a left over piece of squished bug on my bed.

A Honkin Horribly Huge & Hairy Bug

As I was sitting on my bed and conversing with the friendly teaching assistant, I looked up and noticed this huge (I mean huge! It was the size of my thumb) centipede type bug crawling up my bedspread towards me. I quickly put my laptop on it while I went to go get a sneaker to kill it with. When I got back, I cautiously lifted my computer up and the thing jumped out at me. I promptly screamed, dropped the phone, and frantically jumped back all while trying to kill it. Meanwhile, the friendly teaching assistant probably thought I was being attacked, and almost didn't believe me when I said the bug was the size of my thumb. It was horrible! I've never been that up close and personal with a bug that size, and I've never screamed unintentionally when dealing with bug killing situations. This was worse than the time in college when spider eggs hatched on my bed. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to crawling into my bed tonight.

Writing and Waiting

Frustrating evening...I was trying to change one of my guitar strings and broke the new string. So somehow I managed to get the old string back on and had a "cool down" session with the Lord. As I was playing some of the songs I had written a few years ago, I was thinking, "O Lord, it would be nice to have something new." Two things popped into my head. 1) was a comment lydee had made during our two weeks of having to be "creative on demand." 2) The other was that I should write something on the topic of waiting...the main subject at hand in my life right now.

So after playing around for a few minutes, I had a short chorus to a song based on the words "Be still and wait on the Lord, Be still and trust in Him." What a quick answer to prayer! Right now I'm picturing using it with my kids to create a class composition. Having them come up with verses, perhaps a recorder part....we'll see what happens. That's all, I must go to bed. Goodnight.

Mt. Pemetic

Here is one of the Maine pictures. It was taken at the top of Mt. Pemetic. More to follow!

Beach Time

Some people say that getting to know a family and being a "mother's helper" type of person is preparation for having kids of your own. I don't doubt it as today I learned a couple of good lessons:

1) When taking a 2 year old to the beach that has a pier, be sure to pack the stroller. Yeah. We took B. to the beach today, his one and only desire was to boat watch and so the first thing we did was to go over to the pier where the "boat parade" that was going by. We then proceeded to start walking the pier, which I shortly calculated was a very long pier. That + 2 year old who likes to be carried + no stroller=very tired Gina. Thankfully he walked part of the way and my partner in crime carried my water bottle.

2) Make sure you have another person with you when you order take out and have to wait 20 min. while tending to a 2 year old. One person waits for the food while the other person entertains the kid and chases after him.

All in all it was a very fun experience. I was surprised at how content B. was at just sitting and watching the boats go by. I know I love doing that type of thing and could do it indefinitely, but I never knew a 2 year old could have such an attention span as well. As he continues to learn how to talk, it never ceases to amaze me how many times he can say my name in such a short amount of time. He has also recently started saying "Bob," as in the talking Bob the Tomato who lounges in the back of my car. We almost had a crisis when B. could not reach/find Bob while we were driving home. Thankfully we had french fries and my partner in crime was able to pacify him with those. I wonder how many times mothers wish they had a third arm, of the "go go Gadget" type in order to tend to kids in the backseat while driving.

So life goes on and the Lord is faithful to continue to make it interesting. All kidding aside, I am very thankful for these type of "distractions" that keep my focus off of myself and onto blessing others in the midst of my own struggles. He is good, and in the midst of it all, He is (slowly) teaching me how to wait. Slow only because I am a slow learner. But even that He knew ahead of time, so it's not an issue. Anyways, keep looking up, because He is good even in the midst of circumstances that don't make sense from a human perspective.