Ah, wonderful freedom!

Well friends, I'm sitting in my living room enjoying a thunderstorm on my 4th day of summer break and thinking how good life is. For all my complaining, I sure do love my job during summer break!! The year ended up turning out all right - the kids and I both managed to survive. About a month or maybe a little more before school got out, on one particularly pitiful night of tears of frustration (and maybe a little desperation too) over school, Marc encouraged me by telling me that one thing that I'm good at is loving him, so I ought to try to take that skill with me to school. From then on I prayed every day on the way to school that God would just help me love the kids...and wow, what a difference that made in my attitude! I don't know that I was any more successful at teaching these crazy kids, but I think I made it through the day with a whole lot more hope and I hope the kids gained something from my attitude change. So all in all, I have to thank God for one more year survived. It was a tough one, but at least God gave me my third period which was full of wonderful kids that I loved. Next year I am only teaching physics and I'm looking forward to that...maybe I can get a little bit better at teaching :). One of my fourth period kids (the devil class) told me on the way out the door on the last day of school "I'm so happy for you!" - ha, made me laugh aloud! Apparently some of the kids in that class felt my pain in trying to wrangle ridiculous freshmen who've already practically smoked their brains dry.I'm so glad that God regularly uses my husband to change the way I think or change my attitude or my actions. What a blessing that is!

So, now it is summer, glorious summer! So far I've sewed a baby dress, tried a couple new recipes, read 2.5 books, planted some flowers, cleaned out my closet, done laundry, actually made the bed every day, worked out every day except yesterday, slept in, gone to bed late, talked to a loan guy about mortgages, caught up on world news... I love having TIME! and the brain power to be a little bit creative! This beginning of the summer kind of feels like one giant exhale. So goooood!

Here's that dress! I got the idea from a booth at the poppy festival (we went to a poppy festival in Georgetown in April) - it is made from a pillow case!