It's about time

I have lived in the same place for over two years now and I am just now getting around to putting

pictures up on the walls. 

 

Better now than never right!

 

 

 

I love this time of year.  There are so many beautiful colors displaying the grand finale of this growing season.  I love to see the plants grow and enjoy the yummy growing season.

 

I am going to miss the spring and summer though.  God's gift of life that we get to witness through the growing season is such a joy to see.  The great thing about our earth is knowing that we will get to see it again.  I sometimes wish it could be spring and summer all year long so that I can enjoy all of the life that it brings but I think it is better for us to see the cycle of life and death each year.  It reminds us that the things of this world won't last forever.  That may sound depressing but my hope is not in this world, but in the one who made it!

 

(Yes I do realize the irony of posting two black and white photos only to talk about the beauty of colors in our world.)

 

 

 

hopelessly flawed

I have been playing volleyball with some friends on Monday nights for a while and it has been a lot of fun.  I'm definitely no pro at the game but I do love to play and have a good time.
Well after the second game tonight I said to one of the girls that I am not sure how it is that we keep winning.  There was four of us and six of them and we were playing pretty poorly most of the time.  Bad passes left and right, and stupid mistakes all around.  Don't get me wrong.  It was a blast and we were all having fun but it didn't feel like we should have been winning. 

As I was driving home I was thinking about this some more and I realized that there have been so many times in my life where I don' t understand how things are working out for good.  I am "hopelessly flawed" and make plenty of mistakes.  I am always being too blunt or not saying enough and yet God still finds a way to use me for good.  I'm on the "winning" side because of Him.  In fact
the only reason anything good happens in my life is because of Him.

This even came up in a conversation with a friend over the weekend where she was explaining how a girl at work had been asking her about what she did over the weekend and the only thing should could ever think to share was what had happened at church the day before.  Well this friend has begun to ask questions about her church and my friend knowing that her church was pretty old fashioned and not very interesting (you had to work to take something home from the sermon because it was so dry some times but very truth bearing) was basically trying to convince her that this particular church wasn't something she might like.  She didn't want to deter her from seeking God and going to church but she didn't want the experience of church to be something that she couldn't get anything out of either.  Well despite all of her warnings the girl went with my friend to church and they began some deep conversations and eventually she became a Christian. 

God works through us even when we feel like all we can do is mess things up. 

Look at the Old Testament with Abraham, Jacob, and Moses.  Look at the New Testament too with all of the unlikely disciples that Jesus reached out to and taught to be his closest companions and missionaries of the Gospel.  They were a band of misfits.

All I can say is that I am glad He is looking out for me.

what are you looking at?

what are you looking at?, originally uploaded by noel_harmony.

Just popping in to say Hi and let you know that I'm still alive. Life has not really been so busy that I couldn't be on here but priorities have shifted some. I do enjoy hearing about what's going on in others lives and being ab le to share bits and pieces of myself on here but I've been trying to be much more intentional about sharing life face to face with people. I don't know if I could completely give up showing off fun pictures like this though!

and this little princess...

and this little princess..., originally uploaded by noel_harmony.

This was from the flight I took to pick up Joy and Gus.  We had a lot of fun at the airport and in the plane with only a few minutes toward the end of the flight where they were both a little grumpy and possibly in pain because of the shifting in air pressure.  That always gets me too.  I fell asleep in the airplane on the way to Texas and woke up in a ton of pain because I hadn't yawned or done anything to let my ears pop and there was a ton of pressure built up. 

The only hitch was that on my way through security the machines I had to go through indicated that I might have explosives.  The only thing I had on/with me at all was Gus and I while I know for a fact he can be explosive I don't think it was the kind they were talking about.   

It was so nice to have the whole crew up here (Symph and Caleb too) for mom's birthday and just at all.  I didn't realize just how much I missed having them around.  It will be nice when they move back in February to this area. 

 

wolf spider

wolf spider, originally uploaded by noel_harmony.

I love it when teachable moments happen.  I think they are so much more fun sometimes than the lessons I plan because they are unexpected and very relevant to what the kids are interested or need to learn at the right time.  Spiders just happened to be one of the lessons that we have been learning about lately. 

It all started at nap time a few weeks ago and I was just about to turn on some quiet music when I looked down and saw this "little" guy/girl and thought that someone must be playing a joke because there definitely wasn't a real spider this big in my classroom.  Upon closer inspection however it was definitely real.  I immediately grabbed one of our many bug boxes and began the chase.  I had to move a few cots (with sleeping children on them) and get down on my belly to find it under the heater but I was able to capture it unharmed.  When I turn around with my prize one of my students who hadn't fallen asleep yet was watching with wide eyes and said in a very impressed voice "That was a good catch Miss Harmony, a good catch." 

Well that good catch went on to help us learn about peoples fears (of spiders) and how we should be respectful of them and help them not to be afraid of them if we can.  We also learned basic facts about spiders and how many legs and eyes they have and how they shed their skin as they grow.  After researching for a few days, we found out that this was a wolf spider (the eyes placement was the biggest help) and that they're harmless.  One interesting thing about wolf spiders though is that they carry their babies on their back (the mommies do anyways) for about a week before the babies go off on their own.  We read some really good books with spiders in them (A Diary of a Spider, Charlotte's Web, and Once I Knew a Spider), and had fun making spider webs with yarn and paint.

Such fun!  I love my job:)

 

What to do when your car won't shift?!?!

I call my Daddy and he comes and helps me tear the car apart to find the problem then provides the string (rope) that helps keep it together so I can get home.  Of course he complains at first and says the I need to get a new car, but if my car hadn't been so old and he hadn't had a similar problem with his Javelin when he was younger then he wouldn't have been able to help me as much as he did. 

Thanks Dad!

I miss these cuties

I miss their momma too of course.  Fortunately for me I get to see them at the end of the month.  I'll be heading down to Texas to pick them up and bring them back to Maryland so Mom and Dad can enjoy some time together on the road coming up just the two of them (and their dog Isis too).

Hopeful!

This lovely flower is what I saw this evening when I came home from work. I was reading e-mails when I smelled something wonderful. Joy had been playing in the dirt earlier this week so I knew it was going to be blooming soon, because it had buds on it then.

I absolutley love having flowers any time of year and am truly grateful for the gift of them from my students. The bulbs were given to me by one of my students for Christmas. I immediately put them in a pot and set them under the kitchen sink. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to add water or not so I didn't and forgot about it for a while. About a month later I saw that they were starting to sprout some so I pulled them out to get some sun and a few weeks later this is what I'm blessed with.

I think they're called paper whites but I'm really not sure.

This next picture is my coffee table covered with many of the events of the week.

- the boogy boo mask that Joy loves to play and was left there by her earlier this week.
- bean bags I've been making for my students (our old ones were getting pretty dirty).
- valentine's in the works for my students (involving chocolate).
- and a book that I definitely didn't stay up too late to read because I was enjoying the reading of it so much :) (especially since it was reading I didn't have to do!).
- oh and a mug of crayons and pencils that Joy was using to color (fortunately on paper and not the cover of a new book!).

That's all. Have a wonderful weekend!