Life in General

Hello, blog friends (all three of you!)

Life has been interesting in my neck of the woods. Let's begin with school, shall we?

School is a sad place right now. Because of the economic difficulties, we lost 50 students this year. Loss of students = loss of funds. The school board had to make the hard decision to let our support staff (assistants) go. We will miss them dearly, for our school is not just a school; we are a family. These ladies (and one man) are our sisters (and brother) in Christ, and we are hurting for them. We will be making many adjustments around the school, and it means more work. But I am thankful for my job, and I feel all of us are.

Dale is at Combat Training in North Carolina. He enjoyed his ten days of leave with us - visiting friends, playing video games, sleeping in and eating. It was sad to see him get on the greyhound bus to take off, but it's what we've raised him for. When he is finished there, Dale will go for combat photography school. He will be stationed in Maryland for that, closer to us, so we may get to see him for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Joshua is, well, Joshua. I am sitting here having time to type this because HE is sitting at the computer in the same room working on a report that is due - you guessed it - tomorrow. He is becoming a social butterfly, and I love to see him interacting with his friends.

Church activities are keeping us busy. Roger and I are coaching Bible Bowl together ( a Bible quiz team.) This Saturday, we will take a team of four kids to a nearby church to compete with other kids over material from the Old Testament. I played Bible Bowl during my high school years and loved it - I could actually win at something (because it wasn't athletic - LOL!) It's been good for Roger and I to spend time together working on these things.

Dale in the squad bay. He has changed so much!

The family and Dale's girlfriend after graduation.

South Carolina Bound

It's hard to believe that the time has come to go and see my oldest become a Marine. How is it possible that the little baby, that I held in my arms, tiny fingers, tiny toes - how did he grow up? Where did the time go?

I haven't seen myself as aging - except for the fact that I can't read small print any more without reading glasses (it's a concession I'll make.) But my little boy has become a man, and I just don't know where the time has gone.

We've made a lot of mistakes raising this young man, but with God's help, we did a lot of things right. And now it's time to stand aside and watch him shine. I feel very blessed to have held that young baby in my arms - and I will feel blessed when I hold the young man in my arms very soon.

Graduation is Friday!

Finding Titles for Blog Posts

Finding titles for blog posts is really a difficult feat at times. It's probably because my mind is bouncing around on so many things.

Dale finished his first day of testing today. He tests for two more days and then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is the "Crucible." The crucible is 52 hours of very little sleep, very little food, marches with full packs, and general simulated battle situations. Please pray for him. We are looking forward to graduation on September 12 (if Hurricane Ivan doesn't interfere with that!)

School will get into full swing here tomorrow. I am teaching a sign language class on Wednesdays, and I'm looking forward to that. My schedule is now full with supervisory things and teaching. I'm glad - the first week of school was a little quiet in my classroom.

This weekend was Winning at Winchester, a three-day rally at the church where I teach. Singing and lots of preaching filled Friday night, Saturday and Sunday as well. What I enjoyed most was seeing people I haven't seen in a long time - people from the church we used to attend and people who had gone to other churches as well. The southern gospel music was good - it's not something I would buy a CD of necessarily, but I enjoy listening to it live.

So far, I've lost about 20 pounds with my new eating/exercising routine. It's really not about the weight loss, though; it will probably be two weeks before I weigh myself again. Tonight was the first night I really wanted to go back to my old ways and just eat and eat. Instead, I made hot tea.