I am in love.

Ok readers...don't fall over out of shock from reading my title yet. I'm not in love with someone but, I am in love with something.

What am I in love with??? Well, I need to address something first, so you will have to wait!! Hahaha! Please don't leave!!!!! Just bare with me for a few minutes here. Thanks, you're the best readers, ever!

OK, here is what I need to say: THANK YOU!!! My deepest and most sincere thanks to all of you who so encouragingly responded to my post yesterday. I seriously cannot imagine life without you all to continuously lift me up. God is SO SO good to me. He never stops reminding me how much He loves me through the people He has surrounded me with...even if we aren't near to each other physically. So, thank you all 100 times over for lifting me up - I can't even begin to explain to you how much it means to me to have you by my side.

OK...now for my love interest!! So, as most of you know, either from talking to me or from yesterday's post, I had the amazing opportunity to spend time with a Boy Scout troop last night, teaching them about the wonderful world of bugs. I had the time of my life, kids. The absolute time of my life! I have certainly found my calling. I am, without a doubt, a teacher. It's so funny, because all through my life I've had people tell me I should be a teacher, but I always thought they were crazy - like, certifiable! But, as most of you know, about two years ago I started falling in love with science outreach education...say, what?? Well, as much as I enjoyed my times with the kids in CS, I never lead something on my own - I was never the actual teacher. I've only ever been like, oh what would you call it...? An engager, maybe?? Basically, I did all the fun stuff - playing with the bugs with the kids, flipping through picture books with them, looking through microscopes with them, stuff like that. I never stood in front of them and actually taught a lesson.

Well, last night, that's what I did - ALL BY MYSELF!!! {And some wonderful advice and suggestions from KReddick, of course...not to mention prayers that I'm certain went up to the Lord for me, because I definitely felt His hand in it.} It went wonderfully well, I am very happy to say. It was definitely a task, putting together a presentation for the kids and coming up with something (on the fly...yeah, I didn't get to prepare an actual talk...yikes!) that would be interesting and engaging for the kids. Well, I'm going to go ahead and say that I did a decent job, because those kids had question after question, after question!! It was so great!! One thing I am going to have to figure out though, is how to get around answering some of those questions...maybe I should show them boring pictures of insects instead of cool ones...kidding! But, I had slides for a 20min, 30min tops, presentation...it took almost an hour!! They had soooo many questions! Even the parents were asking questions. They loved getting to look at the specimens I brought and Tevye and Little Bubba, my darling MHC (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches), were a big hit. Like I told my mom: there were 3 categories of reactions to my MHCs, 1) CAN I HOLD ONE?!?! Please?!?! 2) Uuuhh.....I want to touch it...but I'm reeeeally kinda nervous...ok, I'll at least pet it 3) I'm just going to peer over everyone, catch a glimpse and not get any closer, thanks. Haha, it was great. I couldn't get any of the parents to touch them...I was kind of bummed about that. Ah, I had so much fun!! I loved it. I was definitely born to do this. I cannot wait to do it again. This was definitely a "merry adventure."

Oh, I think at some point I'm going to go on a collecting trip with the Boy Scouts and maybe have a merit badge day were we work on some of the projects they have to do for their insect merit badge.

On a side note, last night gave me the confidence I was lacking for my first day of subbing coming up on Friday. I'm subbing at my high school...weird...for the art teacher. I was, and still am a little, really nervous about it, since I haven't ever been in that teacher/authority position. Now, I know, I know, subs get the short end of the stick a lot when it comes to respect and stuff like that, but after last night going so well, I'm much more confident and excited about Friday. Wish me luck! I'll take prayers too :)

Well, that's about all I have to report - I am definitely in much higher spirits than I was when I wrote my last post. Funny, how and hour, or less, of something joyful is sometimes all it takes to lift you out of your slump. I'm off to make myself presentable for the day and go galevanting around with The Mamma.

Blessings to all. Shalom!
~MW

Birthdays to Boy Scouts

Hello my happy readers. I trust you are all fairing well on this {for me} gloriously rainy Monday. I do apologize for having not updated in a while...it's just been one of those weeks...you know, the kind of week where you just don't want to do anything and so you don't and thus have nothing to report and your brain is kind of void of any form of coherent thought...yeah, it was one of those.

So, Tuesday was my birthday, and I must take a moment now to thank each and every one of you who took the time to call/txt/email/facebook me to send me your thoughts, wishes, and love - definitely made my not so thrilling day a blessed one. This was a very strange birthday for me. For as long as I can remember I've had friends around either day of, or shortly there after, to celebrate with me...and, for the first time in my 23yrs I didn't have any of my beloved friends with me. Don't get me wrong, being with my family was definitely nice, but this birthday made me really realize how dearly I love my friends, and that they have truly become my family, and I miss them all dearly. So, I have been in a bit of a funk about that... This is no tantrum about not having a party or something ridiculous like that, this is simply my heart-breaking realization that I miss my friends much more than I thought I did. Thinking about all of this and reflecting then lead me to a terrible realization: next year is going to be even worse!!! I don't know anyone in MN...oi, if I thought this year was bad, I won't even have my family with me next year. I'd better toughen up and put on my big girl pants now, eh?? Ugh...can I just stick all of my friends in my pocket or a tupperware container and take them with me??

Well, that said, I must admit that I've been a little off this week, due to all the above..err...dwellings, I suppose we could call them. But, my family was so great. The Mamma made me dutch pancakes like she used to do when I was in high school...I did have to get up at 6:45 to partake with the fam, but it was totally worth it. The Mamma and I proceeded to munch on the leftovers throughout the rest of the day - heavenly! And then...I spent a rather hefty part of my afternoon {J-Hump, please overt your eyes...} window shopping online with Miss Ricci...it was awesome...we had so much fun! My evening consisted of a Valentine's Dinner Prep Meeting, followed by Bible study, and finally, my ultimate birthday present: the Season Premier of LOST!!! The only thing that could have made that better would have been being with all my peeps at the LOST party down in CS...I was definitely there in spirit.

Probably one of the best things I did last week was dig my rickety, I mean lovely old bike out of the garage give it some TLC and take it on a nice little 3mi ride. Nothing, huge, I know, but it was beyond great to take it out for a spin and do some work on it...I also discovered, that much as I had suspected, I am severely, severely, out of shape...working on remedying this situation :)

I did finally get my new phone on Friday! Oh, I am so in love with it...I have named him Reuel. Can anyone guess where that comes from?? You get a gold star if you can figure it out. :D

Saturday was quite a full day: took Faja to the airport, had a morning visit with Gela, Alyssa, and Samantha - that was simply delightful, had a mid-day coffee date with Lu - also wonderful. And then, my dear ones...I did it...I - CLEANED - my room!!! I still hadn't unpacked everything from moving up here in December...awful, I know. But it is now done, and it is awesome. Have some pictures us, and everyone seems to be happy. Mid cleaning though, I stopped to have a spot of tea and lost it...the missing all of my friends and not seeing my here-friends very often and not having a job/outlet finally got to me and I broke down. I simply felt lonely even though I had seen a ton of people that day, that might have been enough to put me over the edge. I felt better after allowing myself to put a label on what I was feeling instead of just pushing it under the rug and pretending like nothing was wrong. This is hard...that's about all there is to it.

Anyways, congrats to the Saints on their Superbowl win - props, kids. Although, I must confess that I boycotted the game with KT and went to Borders instead. It was nice to visit and sympathize with each other about feeling lonely.

But, now a new week has begun and it's off to a crazy start! Tonight I will be undertaking the task of teaching the local Boy Scouts of America troop about....you guessed it, BUGS!! I'm really excited about this, but pretty nervous, this will be my first outreach education endeavor all on my own. I brainstormed with KReddick last night and got some awesome ideas on organizing it all and cuing in to how the kids are responding to the subject matter. So, for the rest of today I will be polishing that up and getting ready for the kiddos! I had intended on taking another bike ride today, but the forecast is for rain...all...day...long, which I love just not when I had planned to be active. Ah well, such is life.

Best wishes for the new week to you all!

Shalom,
MW