10 Years Later...

        This past September 20th, marked ten years since my accident happened.  It's hard to believe it's really been that long.  I was asked by my college to come back and speak about what God has done in my life over the last ten years.  The opportunity was such a blessing.  It's amazing how God still continues to use my story to bring glory to His name.   This song, Never Once, has become my life song.  A song that reminds me everyday that despite any obstacles, I truly never do walk alone.  .

 

 

 

 

A Visit to Charlotte

                                      We went to visit the Billy Graham Center in Charlotte.

 

 

My little nephew Noah and I are matching as we cheer on the Illini from North Carolina!

Love this guy!!

Noah- 6 months

New Year...New Resolve

I'm not one who usually sets a lot of goals each New Years. Sure, I like to reflect on the past year, but I've never been the one to say I'm going to do this, this, and this. But this year, I feel like the last few years have been sluggish years and I want this year to be the year where I really enjoy life and live life. That I bring energy to life and that life doesn't drain energy from me. I want my goals to be attainable. So small simple goals is what I'm hoping to achieve this year.

I want to:

-use reusable grocery bags at the store
-memorize verses weekly
-allow myself to buy one new clothing item every other month
-meet with a financial advisor to start additional saving investments
-Start looking for houses
-look into maybe going on a missions trip this summer
- encourage one person every day via email, letter, verbally, text, etc.
- buy only items that provide my body with nutrients and are beneficial
- walk on the treadmill 3 days a week (in addition to other cardio)
-be more assertive in overall areas of life (friendships, socially, professionally, etc)
-fast once a week
- work towards possibly doing a marathon distance (on elliptical of course)
-call dad at least once every two weeks
-stretch everyother night at min.
-eat more veggies

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas!

Brave

My friend and I have this saying......it's something that we use to tell each other in college..... We would say to each other to "be a brave lil solider" whenever we were scared/intimidated of something....

Brave….

Do you ever have one of those times when you try to keep it together but as soon as you leave somewhere or see someone close to you, you lose it? Today, I had one of those moments. A long story short, I’ve had 5 laser vein surgeries and more to come in the future. Supposedly I have broken valves in my legs that need to be “shut down” and rerouted to other veins. Well rightly so, one of my biggest fear is not being able to feel my legs. During the surgery, I’m awake for it all, but they numb your leg while they insert the laser rod. The Dr. numbed my leg and started to prick the needle in my leg. While I knew that this numbing was only temporary, I laid on the chair struggling to keep myself composed. It wasn’t necessarily the pain but rather the emotional reminiscing. It brought me back to Sept. 20. It brought me back to the day that I was not able to feel my legs. I made it through the procedure and left her office. As soon as I got in my car I lost it….completely. I started bawling like a baby. I called my mom and just cried to her. I can’t explain why I was really even crying other than I don’t ever want to NOT feel a sensation on my leg (sharp, soft, or painful). I want to feel something/anything and not nothing. I was brave….so brave. While maybe I was acting like a kid in wishing I had my mama around and crying over some stupid needle that I got pricked with…..the truth is even big kids get scared and need to be brave.

Oh and if I ever have kids….I promise you I will not have an epidural that numbs your body….if my mom didn’t have one with twins, then I won’t either!!

Teaching

It’s been such a LONG time since I’ve sat down and written. My heart misses it. I just love writing. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the reason I got my recent job. I talked up about how much I love teaching writing and feel like this new school needed someone who had experience working on a writing curriculum. Whatever may be it got me this new job. It’s hard to start over again at a new school. Feeling like the only person who doesn’t know how everything operates is a bit intimidating. On top of that, it’s a new staff of teachers who don’t know my story. But all in all, I am blessed to have a job again and things are going ok at the moment. I never really thought I’d end up working with low income-Title One students, but now my second year working in a low income school, I’ve come to realize the impact I can have on them. I’ve realized that these kids have such little support/if any at home. Today I ask a kid where his mom worked and he said Subway. She supports 3 kids on a Subway income. I asked another kid today if he had any brothers/sisters and he said that he was the only child. He said that his mom had other kids but that he thinks they died. He went on to tell me that she had an abortion but that he didn’t know what that meant. He asked me if I knew. I said yes, but told him that was something his mom would tell him when he got older. I went on to tell him that I was so glad that he was here and how lucky I was to have him in my classroom. I’ve become use to sending plastic bags of food home with kids every Friday so that their family has something to eat over the weekend. I’ve become use to students being taken out my class to have literally a dentist check up right outside my door. I’ve become use to kids asking me if we can take a field trip to somewhere via Google Earth because they have never seen outside of this area. And I’ve become use to these kids calling me mom mistakenly.
I don’t always enjoy my job. I haven’t always wanted to teach. I haven’t always felt called to teach. It’s tough and it takes everything out of me. But these kids make me look at my own life and feel so blessed at what I have.

Michigan 2011

THE FAMILY

Spending some quality family time at the beach.