Thanks and Giving

I love Thanksgiving.  It's my favorite holiday.  Don't get me wrong...I adore Christmas, but there's just something about Thanksgiving.  It's peaceful and relaxing.  The calm before the storm I suppose. For me, it's sweet time with family.  Of course, GOOD food. I LOOOOVE pecan pie.  It's not Thanksgiving without pecan pie. Thanksgiving is a time of thoughtful reflection.  It's giving thanks for blessings.  It's thinking about the year before and having another with friends and family.  It's embracing the past and looking forward to our future.

 

It's also all about homemade dressing, honey ham, turkey, hash brown casserole and whatever other delicious goodies family makes.  Did I mention my mom's speciality?   PUMPKIN ROLL!!!!!  Oh. My. GOODNESS.  I basically eat myself silly with that stuff.   

I'm also one of those people who shun everything Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. I just feel as though I need to protect Thanksgiivng.  It seems to get looked over with all of Christmas' glory.

But holidays lately are difficult for Stewart and I.  Even though we may be making progress in dealing with it all, pretty much any holiday digs into our infertility scars and hurts us.  It's yet another reminder that we haven't been successful in starting a family.  

It's cruel and it's unfair. 

It's hard.

It's hard being around your relatives and their small children watching them enjoy all the fun.  

It's hard being on the outside looking in.  Feeling like you're not really a part of things.  Like you're living on the fringes.

It's hard watching the kids being counted so they can draw names to exchange Christmas gifts for one another.

It's hard seeing CUTE little holiday outfits on the girls knowing I may never get to order something like that with a name embroidered on it.

So, I just watch.  Mostly try to turn away.  I try not to seem rude, but I just don't play with the kids. I watch them run around with all their cousins. And I'm sad because it's just one more year we're childless. One more year with all the other kids growing and getting older and we just continue to stay in the same place.

This year, as we do most years, we spend the actual day with Stewart's parents, his brother Jason and his family.  It's always a good time with good food and visiting and getting caught up.

Mary's famous (& delicious cheese-ball), my Buffalo Chicken Dip,
& Carrie made Crap Dip in the crock-pot.  Yes, We enjoy our food!

Stewart's mom, Mary, made delicious ham, chicken, dressing,
homemade rolls and several other goodies.

Mary and I being silly in the kitchen

Our cozy Thanksgiving table

Me and Stewart

We were all so busy eating, laughing and talking about what was going to happen next on The Walking Dead, I forgot to try to get a family picture of all of us.  I was going to say at least I got a picture of everyone on here, but I realized there isn't on of the Patriarch...Joe!  Sorry Papa Joe...I LOVE YOU!!!  We'll do better at Christmas!

Next, is Brewer Thanksgiving in Huntington, Tn with my mom's brothers and sisters(there are 7 of them), all my cousins and our families.  One brother and his family and one cousin and her family were not there.  We still probably had about 40 folks there.  Everyone brings a dish (or 2) and we eat our hearts out.  

This is the dessert table. Notice the TWO pecan pies there?  And yes, I had a piece of each. And yes, they were BOTH delicious.  I have to also mention that chocolate pie....holy cow!!  My Granny would always make one for me when we would visit and none have EVER been able to compare.  But this one, came mighty close!

Here is our Thanksgiving Family picture 2013.  It's a little blurry, but it's the best one we could get.  We had to take a BUNCH. My sweet, little cousin Brady decided he wanted to be in the picture. So we took one with him. But then he decided to show us his awesome photo bomb skills....we were laughing like crazy.

I had to get a picture of Maude and Wyatt in here...can't leave the babies out.  Notice those pretty little pillows they're making themselves comfortable on?  Those pillows were NOT to become dog beds when I bought them. But, I figured since it's Thanksgiving, I'd let them relax just this once.

Oh, who am I kidding?! They have completely taken over those pillows and they did it long before Thanksgiving!

Evaluation and PIE

This blog post is not about infertility. It's about what I do 180 days a year from 8:45-4:30, 5 days a week. (not counting after school hours, faculty meetings, tutoring, working at home, etc)

You may have guessed if this is your first time reading...yep, I'm a teacher!

2nd is the grade and education is the game.

This is the 3rd year of the new Tennessee evaluation system for teachers. It's highly flawed and stressful. And that's all I'm going to say about that here.

My 1st evaluation of this year was last Thursday.  Because of the stress and the ridiculously long and detailed rubric we have to refer to, I become more and more nervous every time.  This is my 11th year of teaching, and while I'm confident in my abilities to teach 2nd graders, this whole process makes me doubt everything I know.

Anyway, I decided to do my evaluation lesson on Author's Purpose.  It's usually a pretty fun lesson to teach and the students always seem to catch on pretty quickly.  Plus I've found (and borrowed) several fun posters and activities from the web and teaching blogs I follow.

Soooo, what IS Author's Purpose you ask? Well, I'll tell you...It's as easy as PIE!

P-Persuade

I-Inform

E-Entertain

Get it?

Cute. Right!?

I LOVE using my SmartBoard to search posters in the web and trace them for my room.

I follow a wonderful 2nd grade blog. Step into 2nd Grade.  Amy Lemons is a fantastic teacher and has THE CUTEST ideas.  I follow her (and often) purchase her ideas, lesson, centers on Teachers Pay Teachers.

At the beginning of the lesson, I had the students sort some classroom library books I had already pulled. They took their book and stood next to the student who was holding the correct poster.  Then they had to tell me why their book fell into that particular category.  To all my Tennessee teachers, I made them give me their "evidence!" I done good, huh?

They did SUCH a good job!  I was really proud of them and the answers they gave me.  I feel like they did well with my higher order thinking questions I asked them.

All the while, my principal was sitting there typing everything we did and said into her iPad.  I have a good relationship with my principal, but when she's in there evaluating me, all my words and my brain turn to mush.  I have to totally ignore her and make a conscious effort to turn my back to her.  Although, she teased me after it was all over for NOT twisting my hair.  Apparently, I do this A LOT.

After our book sorting on our big Reading carpet, we moved to our desks and watched 2 interactive powerpoints I found on www.smartexchange.com.  My students really got into it and made me look really good. At least, I think that was the case.

Then each child individually used their assigned book and worked on this Author's Purpose "book report".  I can't remember if I got this from Amy Lemons' site or just pulled it off the web.

Again, they did great with it!

 

 

Next was a sorting mat using Scholastic book order forms I never passed out.  It turned out to be the best little activity.  Well, pretty much anything they get to cut and paste usually works out pretty well.  They looked through the little magazine, decided which book would match to each author's purpose and glue it in the appropriate column.

  

They were all so precise in completing this.

Each student made their own PIE.  They LOVED it! I told them to copy our posters for the front.

 

Underneath, they chose one book that matched, drew the cover and a sentence explaining why it fell under that category.

Our wall display.  The posters are what we used for our book sort.

I'd give myself a 5! I enjoyed teaching this and I'm pretty sure my students enjoyed learning.  I can guarantee that if you walked in my classroom right now and asked them about Author's Purpose, they would be able to tell you all about it.  Then explain how they know they're right!

Santa Pj's and The Little Couple

This blog is brought to you by the super cute Santa Clause pj's for little kids I saw online and how it made me sad, but how I'm determined to deal with the sad but also love the good I DO have in my life.

Also, Stewart and I watched a few episodes of The Little Couple on TLC last night. 
They adopted a cute little boy from China and are beginning the surgeries he needs because of his dwarfism. 

Oh Jen Arnold...can I please be like you when I grow up?

It made us both realize just how much love, but also fear and stress parents have to deal with sometimes. 
I think watching made us realize that maybe we DO want to become parents however that may happen.  The catch, though, is dealing with and I guess getting over the death of the original dream. Which is to have a child the traditional way and that looks like us. 

I know that ANY child we may have one day will be ours.  No matter HOW that child comes to us.
But it's difficult letting go of your original plans.  And I'm just stubborn.  I want what I want when I want it. HOW I want it. Dang it!!

I mean, I know having a kid is expensive, but adopting is even more so.  There are so many what's, if's and but's.  And I'm just tired. Can't one thing be easy.

But then I watch The Little Couple.  I see how HAPPY they are.  How happy little Will is.  And can we just say how PERFECT it is that in all the whole, wide world, they found this sweet, little boy who needed them so much.  All they have gone through in both their lives seem to have led them to adopting a child with exactly what they are so well versed in.  And are able to provide all he needs in order to live a happy, healthy life.

That's GOD people.  

In every tiny detail of their whole story.  He is RIGHT THERE. 
Things like this are SUCH confirmation in my soul.
THIS is the sort of thing I'm talking in my other posts when I talk about having Faith and how I KNOW God is there in our tiny details. And how I'm able to keep going and look toward the future. Whatever that may be.
Life with a child or without.

So I guess the real question here is are we willing to trust enough. Whatever the Lord has planned for us. Are we willing to let go of what we expected and just allow Him to do His thing?

Life, Stress and Seasons

I can't believe I've gone so long without writing a new post...or maybe I can.

Life happens. Stress happens.

Stewart is about to finish his first semester of art school and has been working like a mad artist on a mission. He has made wire sculptures, painted and put together shapes to make a wood sculpture, cut wood in the school wood shop, and sketched and drawn his heart out.  I have accompanied him on numerous trips to Lowe's to buy all kinds of materials for all these school projects. 
Next on the list is that he has to make a glider out of his chosen materials.  It cannot be a copy of another design and has to fly in a straight line off a balcony for a certain distance.  
He has been busy.

So have I.
Being a teacher these days is not at all what I signed up for 11 years ago.  It's political, stressful, ridiculous and sad.  I actually took Monday off so that I can prepare for my 1st evaluation coming up on Thursday.

This frog made me laugh.  I need to be more like this frog.

In order to help us out with funds, I started tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30-6:30.
It's actually not bad.  One of the best things is that traffic is usually pretty clear and I can jet on home in about 30 minutes instead of the usual 45 minutes-1 hour snail's pace.  Plus, I feel I'm able to help some of our 2nd graders become better readers and build a stronger foundation in Math.

Right now, it's about 9:00 on Saturday night.
Earlier, we met our friends Chris and Carla and their 2 year old Charlie for dinner.
There is a GREAT pizza place around the corner. It was good to meet up, catch up and eat up for a bit.
Now, I'm catching up on my DVR shows while blogging.  Stewart is in his art room working on all his art stuff.

I LOVE our weekends.  I wish we were independently wealthy and could just stay at home.  All the time.

I guess another reason it's been so long since I've posted is that my feelings and emotions have and are changing about infertility and trying to start a family.  I'm still not sure how I feel...
But with Stewart in school and not having found a part time job yet, we are scraping by.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe with all my heart Stewart is where he's supposed to be and doing exactly what he should.  I'm so proud of him and we both know all the struggling will pay off one day soon.

But it also makes me glad I'm not pregnant or that we have a baby or small child right now.
I just feel like while Stewart is in school and we are surviving on just my income, now is not a good time to get preggers.

I know, I know, if it happens, it will be a wonderful thing and I know the Lord will take of us.  I also think He wants us to use our brain and be smart about things.

Stewart and I have discussed it all..as we do often, and have both agreed that if we're not pregnant by the time he's finished with school, we will probably be interested in looking into adoption.
But I'm not even sure I want to do that.

I'm beginning to wonder if we're too old.
 For a while, I was really woried about what people would think, but now I think I'm over that.
I'm starting to get to point in my life that I am beginning to to really not care what people think. Mostly.

Now I'm just wondering if I'll just be too tired.  There are a lot of positives in living child free. And Stewart and I love sleeping in.

Of course, now that the holidays are here, it brings up the hurt of not having a child or even the real hope of providing fun and magic for them during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Even though my emotions are in check lately, it's still painful seeing others post their pictures of their kids doing all the holiday things and seeing fall and winter family pictures.


I wonder from time time why Stewart and I didn't meet earlier.
He always says it's because neither of us were ready. Or he'll say I wouldn't have liked him them.  Who knows.
I DO wish we had met sooner. That we had been given more time to try for a child.
That we would have been able to discover we were infertile at an earlier age.
But we didn't meet when we were younger.  We met when we were in our mid-30's.
Already past prime baby making/having time.

Every time I start going down this thought path, I always come back around to my Faith.  I know there is a reason for everything.  There is a reason why Stewart and I didn't meet sooner.  There is a reason why it's still just us and our sweet doggies.
 And for me, that makes sense.  If I'm going to say I'm a Christian and believe in God.  I have to accept it all.  And that acceptance just starts to become natural.
 I DON'T understand a lot of things that do or don't happen.  But I trust in my Savior and I KNOW that He has good things for me.

So for this season of art school for Stewart and teaching 2nd grade for me and remaining childless, I am accepting it.
Also, life is just too short to go around depressed, trying to make something happen that just is not happening.

I'm learning to be happy in this season and all my seasons.

Short and Sweet

1.My  co worker, who has been on maternity leave, came to school this afternoon with her little girl.  I got wind of it before she arrived and hid in my room with my classroom door closed and locked.  I cringed every-time someone knocked on my door completely stressed about my reaction if she would have walked in.

2. I find it unnecessarily cruel that the feminine products are located DIRECTLY in the middle of all the baby supplies and the condoms, pregnancy tests and ovulation kits.  And that I had to stand DIRECTLY in the middle making my choice while a woman on one end was choosing baby food and formula and some guy was making a selection on the other end. 

3.  See picture below

It's all better now.....

Love and Marriage

It's our anniversary!!!  5 years. It seems like we've known each other for much longer though. In a good way.  It was that way when we just first met...it just seemed like home.  Ok, well, maybe not on the first date, but you get the picture.

The day was actually Friday, September the 20th  but we celebrated Saturday.

I was so worn out from a long week of teaching then meetings all day Friday for in-service and Stewart had a long week of classes and assignments.
So last night, we grabbed something and brought it home and ate while lounging and cuddling on the couch.  It was quite nice.

We debated over where to go eat.
There are several great choices in Downtown Memphis, but alas, we are homebodies and decided to go to Bonefish Grill at the Avenue Carriage Crossing in Collierville. (HOLY CRAP!!! everything I just typed just ERASED!!!  As I was freaking out, Stewart yelled out "hit Control Z!" and it worked. I got it all back...whew...see we were just meant for each other. now back to the blog)

Saturday was one of our 1st cool fall days so we thought it would be nice to walk around after we finished eating since it's an outdoor mall.

So, we spent a lot of Saturday just doing our own little projects.  Stewart went upstairs in his studio (just one of our extra bedrooms we converted to his art studio) to work on a school assignment and I spread out all my school stuff on the big table downstairs to work on some classroom posters and watched Hunger Games at the same time. (I CAN'T WAIT to see Catching Fire! I'm about to read all 3 of them over before I do) I eventually did my daily treadmill thing, then got ready and off we went.

I think Bonefish Grill is becoming our anniversary spot.
Everything from the atmosphere, to the service, to the food is just SO dang good!
We ordered chips with fresh chivche for our appetizer and they brought bread.
For our main dishes, I ordered the Maryland Crab Cakes with fresh veggies and pumpkin ravoili.
Oh. My. Goodness. Every bit of it was marvelous.

Stewart ordered Rainbow Trout and chose the Pan Asian sauce.  He gave me a few bites and it was fantastic.  The next time we go, I'm ordering something off the fresh catch of the day just so I can get the Pan Asian sauce.

I asked our waitress to take our picture and told her it was our Anniversary...she brought us a complimentary brownie!  It was covered in raspberry sauce and was topped with whipped cream. It was so yummy and RICH!

After dinner, we walked around the mall.  The weather was just perfect.  We spent a good bit of time in Barnes and Noble, then went back out and just meandered around before settling on one of the park benches and just sat and talked.  It was wonderful.  That is the best non-mall mall.  It feels like you're in a small town and everybody is out for the evening.  They have music playing from speakers that look like rocks.  There's even a town like square that you have to drive around just like in a small town.  It did not feel like we were still in Memphis at all.

True to Kellie and Stewart form, once we got home, we promptly changed into our pj's, poured ourselves a glass of wine and settled in front of the PlayStation and killed zombies together.
It was a perfect Anniversary night!  :D

Life (Stress) of a Teacher and my Constant

It's that time of year again...where I meet myself coming and going, have several pens stuck in my hair and behind my ears, am a paper grading, lesson planning, paperwork completing, behavior managing, sight word teaching frenzied machine.

I feel just like this.....

....and this. All at the same time.

Plus, our school changed hours. Instead of 8:15-3:15, we are now 9:00-4:00.  I am trying, but I very much dislike this new time thank you very much.  In my opinion, that is way too late to be getting out of school.  We live about 30 minutes from my school, but with any kind of traffic, it usually takes me about 45 min to an hour. One way!  When fall and winter hit, it will be dark by the time I am halfway home.  yuck!

I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older, or the teaching profession is just getting way out of hand with its demands, but I am already frustrated, stressed, and feel overwhelmed. It's WAY too early in the year to feel that way but I do.
I think I may need some meds.
Or wine.
Yeah, wine sounds good.

With all my demands as a teacher, all my emotion about my infertility seem to be almost nonexistent. And that's weird.
It makes me feel ambivalent.
Sometimes I wonder if I really even want it.
Then I see someone's vacation pics of their family with young children with their whole family and that familiar heart ache returns.

Or, I'll see someone announcing their pregnancy on Facebook and I get pretty sad. But at least these days it seems I'm able to bounce back a little quicker and not slip into a 4 day depression.

When I go shopping with my mom and she stops to smile at someone else's cute baby in the stroller I want to cry because I want her to experience being a grandmother.
And she would be a fantastic one.
The best one in the world.
I want to give her that and I want to have a child who would get to love on my mom in return.
But for some reason I can't. At least not right now.

Which brings me to the fact that I wish I could just know.
I wish I could just know if Stewart and I will ever conceive.
If  I could just know if it's a yes or a no, I could plan accordingly.
If it's a yes, then I could wait impatiently for that time to come. And begin planning.
If it's a no, we could grieve, then begin to heal and start working toward adoption.
It's the DANG not knowing that is so unbelievably hard to take.

In the midst of my living, teaching, being tired, frustrated, excited to see students each morning, spending time with Stewart and the dogs, sometimes I get a text, or Facebook message.
I get messages from people I know who share their story of how the struggled with or are now struggling with infertility!

I'm ALWAYS amazed because most of the time I never knew. After sharing their struggles (and many times their HAPPY endings) they tell me thank you for writing this blog.
Many of them talk about how they were embarrassed or kept quiet about their struggles because it was so difficult to experience much less try to explain to anyone else.
I am humbled. To think that just my writing about how I feel as a way to cope has helped someone else....that's just kinda crazy.

But it's a wonderful reminder that I'm not alone here.  I'm sad that I'm not alone because I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.  But the knowing helps. And apparently I've helped others. And for that, I'm so grateful and amazed.

Which brings me to a friend I've known for quite some time.
He is not struggling with infertility, but with hearing loss.
I'm talking total and irreversible.  He woke up one morning a few years ago and it was just gone.
His Dr. can not determine any reason.  He can no longer hear and they don't know why.  He's been keeping me up to date lately because he's at the very beginning stages of getting a cochlear implant.
He is one of the silliest, funniest people I know. (Guess that's why we're friends.)
But he shared with me that he feels like his love of socializing and being around people is almost nonexistent because of his hearing loss.  I can only imagine.

He and I have been texting lately about our different struggles.   And even though our issues are world's apart...they really aren't.  Neither of us understand why, there is not really an explanation for either of us and both of us are hurting and struggling to live our lives in a normal manner.

Yeah, those are common threads, but our Faith is our Constant. (anyone who watched the tv series Lost a few years back will understand that reference).  In the midst of hurting and wanting to know why, we are able to listen to each other and pray for each other.

Sometimes life throws a crazy curve ball at us.  Most of us have been there.  I hear stories all the time about struggles of friends and their friends.  God never promised that life would be easy, but He does promise that He'll always be there to help us through. And right now my friend and I are doing just that.

So if you know someone going through anything at all...just pray for them. Then tell them from time to time that you're praying for them.  You never know, the very day you just happen to mention it may be the very day they needed it more than ever.