Sunday, August 14, 2011

blessing #8 - a new body

went to church at South Dade today - it was good :) they used to be about the size of West Cannon but after hurrican Andrew hit lost a lot of people (because of the damage to the area, etc). but anyways.... definitely super solid, super loving group. I got to hang out with some kids while their parents were at choir practice :)
also, studied some of how Philippians 1:9-11 (Paul's prayer for abounding love) relates to I Corinthians 13 and I John 4:7+ ... pretty neat.
And David's here now - we just ran to Walmart to pick up some groceries. He's staying with the pastor for now, and they invited us over for dinner with their kids / grandkids :)  good fellowship, sweet people. Pull-apart biscuits and stew :)

God is good.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

blessing #7 - 3 days down.


This week I had "new teacher orientation."  Lots of [free] breakfast, sunrises and sunsets, gorgeous clouds and spontaneous rainstorms (in Miami (that's what they all call the general area, even if Miami is 45ish minutes away) there are lots of random rainstorms. Perhaps it's like another peninsula I know, where the weather "changes" every five minutes . . . usually the rain doesn't last long, but sometimes it's sideways rain. Those are the days where umbrellas are purely decorative. :)  "My" camper door exits to the North, so I can peek out and see beautiful clouds or sunrises or sunsets any time of day, basically. Like a few minutes ago, I peeked myself over to the door and there was a lizard just chilling between the screen and the door. This post is totally stream of consciousness, Amanda-style (which means I throw in some complementary punctuation in or out of its proper place). He didn't want his picture taken, so he let me take a picture of the screen with his little body slightly blurred in the background. Anyways. 
We went over policies, procedures, curriculum stuffs, et cetera, with The Administrator. It was great fun. We got to jump into our classrooms, and apparently this school is super flexible with their teachers as far as decorations. After spending countless hours in rooms where flexibility is basically frowned upon, it was super refreshing to see teachers painting their rooms purple, green, blue, et cetera. . . and rooms full of raccoons :) yeah, Ms. Johnson! (the 1st grade version).  I got to meet with last year's fifth grade teacher; prettier than Idina Menzel, and has a cute li'l bump :) she gave me a good run-through of all the fun of fifth grade.... like safeties, the fifth grade end-of-the-year trip (like "sixth grade camp" at Crestview - fifth graders are the bigshots at my school here. :)  her time schedule (YAYYY) and lots of other fun things. :) Also got to go to "Get Smart" with Habyibah (4th grade!) and her mum (the amazing teacher superstore = store FOR teachers, not selling teachers) and only spent less than half of the amount "gifted" to each teacher at ma school.  Got some neat stuff - my classroom "theme" is going to be rather international - thinking Acts 1:8 or something similar, or praying for the brothers in chains, or ...)taking suggestions(
Also stopped at "Whole Foods" and found an amazing hummus - it had lemons in it. OH MYLANTA. : )


Now doing some research on family "devotions". . . thoughts? opinions? suggestions? - i.e. regularly scheduled, spontaneous, how often, is it / are they important? Something I need to research, that's all woot woot. 
^^^
~~~~~~Scripture to back it up, comments preferred on the blog, please. (not on FB). 

anyways, it is a blessing to have the first 3 days of orientation "done."