Oh, I forgot to mention...

As you can see, we didn't go down to Houston today. Apparently, Ryan is not really interested in Rice U and didn't want to waste our time going all the way there for Junior Day.

I'm gonna freeze my patooty off!

It's 38 degrees outside and I have to get my butt up and dressed to go to Ryan's track meet today. I hate cold weather, but I love him, so off to the stadium I will go.

**Thinking out loud** I wonder, though, if I could just wait until this afternoon when it's warmer and get there in time to just watch the finals. Do you think he'd notice?

Update #1

When I got my mammogram, the tech told me that I could expect the results in about 10 days. Sooner, though, if they saw a problem. Well, I got my results in the mail today. I figured it would be for additional testing since this was my baseline and they had nothing else to go on.

Anyway, I got it and they saw no evidence of breast cancer!

One thing is crossed off my list already!

Get Well Soon!

My partner teacher brought cootie-laced airborne infection to school yesterday. LOL! She is actually pretty sick and now has laryngitis in addition to the rest of the crud she is dealing with. Despite the overwhelming urge to call her and say mean things, knowing she is unable to talk back, I won't. There are two good reasons for this: 1) Nothing good comes from kicking someone when they're down, and 2) She is holding our tickets and parking pass to the Texas Rangers game we'll be attending in a few weeks!

Bwahahahahahaha!!!

Seriously, please get well soon, Tammi! Call me if you need anything.

Oh, and in the words of our dear sweet Quannie-Moe: "Save my spot!" LOL!

Last Day of Spring Break

It's back to work for me tomorrow. Statewide testing in a little over a month.

Is it just me, or did Spring Break feel more like a weekend than a week?

*sigh*

One More Thing...

In reference to the previous post, I think I'm going to add a weekly update on my progress in OPERATION ME. I could really use the accountability.

Will you help to keep me straight?

Seeing Me For the First Time in a Long Time

I caught a glimpse of myself getting out of the shower today. Trust me, it is a visual you DO NOT want! I thought, "Did I look this way yesterday?" I was not pleased with what I saw, knowing that I've been too busy and stressed out to really see myself... for a long time.

I went yesterday to get my baseline mammogram done. Yeah, I know I should have had that done when I was 35, but I let life get in the way. The first year, my excuse was the babies. The next couple of years, it was TAKS time and I didn't have time for it. Humph!

Why is it always that way? As women, we tend to put everything and everyone ahead of ourselves, much to our own detriment. I know there have been too many times to count when I have put the needs of my family, my friends, or my job ahead of my own. I don't even know how many times I have been sick as a dog, yet I'd pull myself out of the bed and forge ahead on wobbly legs just so I wouldn't disappoint someone who "needed" me.

Now, here I am struggling with my weight and my blood pressure with my hair standing all over my head wondering how I got to this place. The reality is that I know exactly how I got here. I put life and everything in it first, and I've had nothing left for ME.

But now I'm at a crossroads.

What good to anyone am I if I am dead? Sure, they love me and will miss me for a little while, but they will keep right on living and breathing and doing all the things I like to think they won't be able to do without me.

And what if my mammogram does show a problem? Other than solving the problem with my jacked up hair, how will I be able to take care of my business? I have GOT to get myself together. I look over at my husband and my kids and KNOW that it's something I HAVE to do.

Damn. (I hope that doesn't offend your delicate sensibilities!)

The problem is that I honestly don't even know where to start with fixing all of this. I've spent soooo many years trying to be all things to all people that I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to be to myself. I know I have to prioritize, but there's so much that I need to work on right now that I can't even think straight.

There is a lesson here.

Never, never, NEVER allow yourself to be so far at the end of your priority list that you forget to do you. I know it is so hard for women who are wives, mothers, employees, church members, daughters, sisters... The list can be never-ending. But we must, Ladies, be willing to carve out time for ourselves. We must. If not, we wake up one morning, much as I did today, wondering how on earth we let our bodies, our health, our (hair!), our weight, finances... (You get the message; just fill in your own list)... get to a point where we do not recognize them at all.

We are more important than that. I'm more important than that. I just forgot for several long moments who I am and whose I am.

But now I remember.

And I hope you do, too.

So, if you will stand with me, I will make this journey. I really want you with me. And I want to be here, too. Not just for my husband or my kids or my students or my friends, but for me.

Now, where was I? Did I mention my hair is a mess? I'm gonna have to cut it and start over. Yeah.

Y'all pray for me, okay?

An invitation: Please Read!

A really close family member has a teenage daughter who is pregnant. The daughter just turned 16 and is very happy about it. The family's emotions have run the gamut, everything from shock and outrage to devastation, particularly since the girl admitted that she had indeed chosen to get pregnant so she could have someone to love her.

By all accounts (except hers, I guess), this child has been well-loved her entire life. What was it that could possibly have been missing? How could she possibly feel that bringing a baby into the mix would be the answer?

The girl I'm talking about comes from a good family. So does the boy. They have parents that are active in the church and in the community. The parents-to-be are very plugged in to their church youth groups. The Word has been firmly planted into them. Yet, they are still going to be teen-aged parents. Statistics. What happened here, and how do we address these issues in our community? And when I say our community, please do not think for a minute that I'm talking about race.

Maybe we need to open good, honest, dialogue here so we can address these issues before they crop up in our spheres of influence.

Have you ever been in the situation these two teens are in?
Have you ever felt you were unloved and, therefore, wanted to have a child to fill the void?
If you have been in this situation, was it really a feeling of wanting love or something else?
Knowing what you know now, what do you wish someone had told you as a teenager?
Do you feel the Church has a responsibility to address teen issues and sex in youth groups?
If yes, how do you feel the Church should go about meeting these needs?
Anything else on this issue you're wanting to add?

Feel free to comment on this post (and any of the others) with thoughts you may have on this subject, as I honestly feel we need to get to the bottom of this issue.

Spring Break

I'm a really good teacher. I've said that many times before, I know.

But I am so glad to be on Spring Break.

I love my job. I love my students. I love the smell of a school. I love the cacophony of sounds. I love interacting with my peers. I love wearing the various hats I'm required to wear each day. No two days are the same and I love that about my profession.

Sometimes, though, it is all just too much and I need to get away to refresh and to refill my internal bucket that has to give so much that it often runs empty. I need a break from everything I love about my profession. The kids, the smells, the sounds, the peers, the hats. It. is. all. just. too. much. sometimes. (I probably shouldn't admit that, huh?)

Although quite wonderful, teaching is an increasingly difficult profession to last in. That is, if you really pour your all into it. I know people often hear of teachers who enter the profession lacking basic morals in addition to basic grammatical, spelling, and social skills. But for teachers who pour their hearts and souls into the students entrusted to them, teaching can be physically and emotionally draining. More and more often, students enter our schools lacking social and basic readiness skills. More and more often the parents who send such kids seem to be increasingly detached. As a result, a significant increase in teacher workload occurs. Not only do we teach Little Johnny or Little Lucy to read, write, and do arithmetic (the easy part), but we also end up being the keepers of little souls.

I am still surprised by the number of kids who reach my classroom door desperate for attention and validation and... love. I know part of it is just a natural part of child development. But for some, the need goes far beyond that.

Every year, there seems to be at least one student (some years way more than that) who does not have the basic level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs met. They show up at school the first week wearing the same shirt and pants every day. Or they show up without a lunch or lunch money every day, yet the application for free and reduced lunch is never returned from home. These are the kiddos who show up at school each day without basic materials needed for learning. These are the kids who wake up at 5:00 am so they can get breakfast and clothing ready for their siblings and themselves before seeing those siblings off to school because no adult showed up at home to see about them. These are the kids who are sleepy at school because they fled with their families in the middle of the night from a parent's abusive boyfriend or girlfriend. These are the kids who know their only meals for the day are the breakfast and lunch they will get at school since there is no food at home. These are the kids who take off their socks in class because their teacher looked down and noticed the holes in the dingy socks that reached far above their tattered shoes. These are the kids who may have a parent or family member at home, but they are so lost in their own despondency that they rarely utter a word to their children.

And this is in the suburbs.

Good teachers are the ones who stretch their family's already tight budgets to buy several additional sets of school supplies in anticipation of the students who will inevitably show up without them. Good teachers scour consignment shops as well as major stores during the winter and summer months in search of new or like-new clothing and shoes for the child/ren who show up without appropriate clothing for the seasons. Good teachers devise a plan to send clothes home in the backpacks, an outfit a day, until said child/ren have them all. Good teachers buy hygiene kits ahead of time to meet the needs of the kids who will show up without a bath and with uncombed hair. Good teachers stock up on crackers and trail mix and other non perishable items for students who come to school hungry or will go home to a hungry house. Good teachers have the school counselor on speed dial or email favorites to address any issues that crop up from day to day. Instead of visiting the lounge, many good teachers eat with their kids to keep their fingers on the pulse of the class, making mental notes of the kids who need extra attention.

Good teachers are now the safe place to run for many kids, a sanctuary as it were. By some grace of God, we are endowed with the ability to mix just the right salve to heal bruises to little hearts and bring encouragement to fledgling dreams. What a responsibility.

What an awesome, terrifying, and utterly draining responsibility.

Teaching is a difficult, yet rewarding profession. The course content, though a huge undertaking in and of itself at times, is really the easy part. Being the nurturer of a young person's dreams makes it so much harder and so much more precarious. How does one do it all and have anything left for their families at home? Why would anyone want to enter and remain in such a profession?

Just ask a good teacher and he or she might tell you that seeing a student open wings they never knew they had makes it all worth it. Or maybe it's when you receive a letter from a student telling you that if it were not for you believing in them, they would never have made it. For some, it may be seeing the face of a child the moment he "gets" a concept. No matter what the particular story is, most good teachers will agree that the reward is in knowing that you, in some small way, at some appointed time, made a profound impact on someone else's life.

And that, my friend, is what it is all about.

So please take every opportunity you find to fill up the bucket of a good teacher you know. This can be done through a kind word, a note of encouragement, a simple compliment... The sky really is the limit. The profession needs it, and our children need it, too.

Happy Birthday, Ti!!

Today is my beautiful sister's birthday. I can't believe she is 26 years old already. I still remember her, three years old, chasing my sister Tiffany down the street while yelling Tiffany's nickname (much to her mortification!) for all the world to hear. I also remember her as an eight year old, skinny and all legs, when she came to stay with me in Killeen one summer. I still see her, lying on the floor with headphones on, singing the theme from "The Bodyguard". God, she had the world's worst rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing"! I'm kidding! LOL!!! Then I think of her as a young woman who moved to a new city to attend art school and, later, acting school, following the dream in her heart.

To me, each of those moments seems like yesterday when they have really been years. Seriously, where has the time gone?

Happy 26th birthday, Tiara! I hope life brings you all the blessings and favor your heart and hands can hold this year and always!

Love,
Nikki

That Darn Insurance Company

We recently had to change insurance companies. For the past nine years, the fam and I had been on hubby's health insurance. I guess I was totally spoiled rotten with the good benefits we enjoyed. Since he was economic victim number 5, 457, 912, we had to get insurance through my job. Wow is all I can say.

Just wow.

The differences are startling. I have no idea how people survive with this so called health insurance. One would think that a public school district would at least add good insurance benefits. Humph!

It looked fine on the surface... but then I actually had to use it this week. No problem because I'm insured, right? Well, I called the insurance company because I noticed my copay amounts were not printed on my card. It turns out that there are no copays. Sounds good, right? WRONG! It is all deductible and coinsurance. So, where I used to pay a $20 or $25 copay and the insurance picked up the rest at 100%, this company had a $350 deductible that had to be paid BEFORE they will pay anything... even for an office visit! After that, I would still have to pay 20%. Now, call me crazy because this may be how it is for most people, but this is not at all what I have grown accustomed to. The really bad part is that, when I need to take Ryan or the girls to the doctor now, I will have to pay a deductible of $350 for EACH of them before the insurance pays anything for them. They do stop the bloodletting at at a cap of $1,050 (three individual copays for a family), but still. I think this whole thing stinks!

Is it just me? Is this what you have had to put up with? Have I just been too spoiled to realize that this is what insurance coverage has been reduced to?

I'm Back!

I've taken a couple of months off to focus on a few things that needed my attention. Now that it's all taken care of, I'm able to focus once again on my blog.

Has that ever happened to you?

Do you ever find yourself at a place in life where you know you have to make some changes, but you don't know where to start? I have been there lately and had begun to feel very overwhelmed. I just had to stop and breathe. Then I pulled it together and kept it moving.

If you ever find yourself in such a place, stop sooner rather than later. Take a deep, cleansing breath, pull yourself together, and keep it moving. You're no good to anyone if you're dead.