Back to reality

This week has been one of the longest of my life. I arrived home from California on sunday evening. My sister's neck surgery had not gone as planned and that meant Aunt Amy was on Hannah duty. I love that little girl more than anything in the world but she is a handful! Sarah came home on monday, but still couldn't lift anything over 5 pounds. Hannah weighs a lot more than that, so I've been carrying her around all week. Wednesday I had to go to the doctor, and was told I needed to have some more tests run. Back to school on thursday just in time to discover that the sub had done almost nothing that I asked. I had the second test Friday. It was painful and awful, and my sister threw up in the middle of it! We are a wonderful pair.

I was stressing about my health this week and all the "what ifs?" that come with waiting for test results, and my aunt reminded me that although I couldn't change the results, I could change my thinking. I had a choice. I could continue to remind myself that my aunt and uncle had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and this things come in threes, or I could find hope. Psalms 23 says, "Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thou rod and staff they comfort me." I'm not alone.

Good news! Jennifer and I just bought Bon Jovi tickets for July. It's in Wyoming but what's 1500 miles!

It's my life. It's now or never.
I ain't gonna live forever.
I just want to live while I'm alive.
It's my life.
My heart is like the open highway.
Like Frankie said I did it my way.
I just want to live while I'm alive.
It's my life.

Jon BonJovi and Richie Sambora

Headed Home

Thank God, Spring Break is finally here. In less than 48 hours, I'll be sitting on the beach listening to the waves crash and roar. I feel so at home on the beach. Going to California feels just like going home. This trip is different because I'm going to look for a job. I think that maybe it's time to change the way I'm living my life. It seems like the more weight I lose, the more free I become to do what I really want to do. Hannah and Sarah will be moving out in May and my lease is up in June. Maybe it's time.

I'm going to spend part of this trip holed up in the John Steinbeck Museum in the library doing research for a class, but I plan on taking in the sights of Cannery Row and of course, lots of time at the beach.

High school hell

High school has to be at least one level of Dante's Inferno. My children are driving me crazy. No matter how hard I work--I just can't seem to win them over. I keep reminding myself that many of them are facing obstacles that I have never even dreamed of as an adult. They are fighting to fit in, fighting to be different, fighting to be seen, fighting to disappear. Some of them are so desperate for just a flicker of hope. That's what I have to remind myself when they roll their eyes, stomp about the room, curse, and fall asleep when I' m teaching my heart out.

I want to be happy right where I am, but more than that, I want to help these kids find peace in their own lives. I don't want them to be thirty before the find out that they matter.

Wherever I am

I have a confession; I'm obsessed with Jon Bon Jovi. Of course, there are the obvious reasons like his hair, his hands, his lips, and his velvety voice, but it is his passion that makes him who he is.

Passion. I think we all want to find our passion. It is a reason to keep on going. I never wake up in the morning, and ask to be ordinary. I want to love what I am doing and even on the days when I don' love it, I want to know that it is the right thing to be doing at that moment. I've tried to "find" my passion, but what I'm learning is that passions refuse to be "found". They wait and surprise you when you least expect it.

So, I'm trying to find happiness right now by not living in the past or the future, but in this moment.

Welcome to wherever you are

This is your life; you made it this far

Welcome, you got to believe That right here, right now

You're exactly where you're supposed to be

Welcome to wherever you are

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora