Sweet Spots of a HollyDay

November 28, 2017 In my 5th grade class today we were working with adages. One of the ones listed was 'Blood is thicker than water.' This adage brought to mind the people in my life related both by blood and water. While this statement is typically true I have also discovered that sometimes those related by water flow easier than those related by blood. Sometimes I find that I get along better with those outside my family and really have to work on the relationships inside my family. Right now I am trying to reconnect with my little sister. I love her to death but she doesn't always realize, mostly due to my busy life and schedule as I have grown up and am preparing to move to the next phase of life. More times than not I have brushed her off or told her I couldn't help due to my full schedule, but I realized that as life goes on the fuller my schedule gets and the more I have to work to make time for others. That being said my pre-new years resolution is to show

November 21, 2017 So much to do, so little time! Some people look forward to the holidays as time for family and fun, but I find that the older I get I see a to do list getting longer and longer and the holiday breaks away from school and work allow me to take a breath for a moment to catch up. Today I have a day off, but my to do list is a mile long, not just for today but for the entire holiday week. 10 Assignments due when I get back to school 4 loads of laundry to start the week and then a few more at the end Food to make Bedroom to clean Closet to get back in order Kittens claws to trim Christmas shopping to do Preparations for finals And then there are the things that I'm forgetting but will hopefully remember in time. As I look at all of these things and think about how little time I have, I have to remind myself what this particular holiday week is about. We are approaching Thanksgiving and in that I have so much to be thankful for. Instead of looking at

Tuesday November 6, 2017 For my birthday a few days ago my best friend gave me a jar of what she labeled 'Smiles, Quotes and Inspiration' so I thought I would take what I pulled from there to write today. The rules of the jar are simple, take one per day if needed but if it is a good day and you don't need a pick me up then save it for another day. The past few days have been okay and I have only pulled two notes and below is what they had to say: "Since a smile is a decision, why not make the choice?" "Courage doesn't always roar, sometimes it's the little voice at the end of he day that says 'I'll try again tomorrow." **EDIT:  Mary Anne Radmacher is the author of this quote!*** I don't know where they originated but I needed both of these statements. My goal for this month and the foreseeable future is to find the silver lining. No matter the situation I am trying to find the good and focus on that instead of dragging myself

October 31, 2017 Happy Halloween! My family never really got into the Halloween spirit but as I have gotten older it is one of my favorite holidays! As an adult it is the one holiday of the year that you can dress up all crazy and it is perceived as normal! Halloween is a time to express your creativity and be whoever you want to be. Typically my theme is Disney characters. Over the past few years I have been Astrid from How to Train your Dragon, Flower from Bambi, Joy from Inside Out and this year a Werewolf (Though I couldn't think of a Disney movie that specifically had a Werewolf in it, my original intention was just a wolf which could be from Beauty and the Beast). Seeing children so excited to dress up and get candy and seeing a neighborhood join together to go all out and come together is an amazing thing. Halloween is one of the times that gives the opportunity to really see the community come out and not barricade themselves behind doors and screens. So my challeng

October 24, 2017 "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." famous words of Robert Frost, but the question is... are there really only two roads? In life are there ever just two roads? We make decisions everyday but rarely are there only two options. There are always the two options of action verses in action but what about what action to make. Making decisions is hard, especially when you are stuck in a rut of wrong decisions. There are times when it seems like all we make is wrong decision after wrong decision, but when and how can one get back on the good decision track? There are points in life when it seems that no matter what we do we always seem to mess up. We make some sort of mistake, make the wrong decision, hurt someone we care about and it seems like we can't make it right. Sometime all it takes to correct is simply asking for help. Ultimately we can't do everything alone and especially when looking from the inside out sometimes we will miss the obvious

October 19, 2017 Reading is hard. At least those are the words we constantly hear. Yes reading is hard but it doesn't have to be. I love to read, but only those books that interest me. There are people who legitimately struggle to read, even books on topics that are interesting to them, why... I think it goes back to how they were taught to read. Many times in school we HAVE to read. It is a requirement in every subject but sometime the words are hard and those who struggle don't get the help they need so then what... they give up. They shut down and quit. These students go on to become adults that also do not read. Our minds need text, even just a little every now and then, so to have people who can't or don't want to because it is difficult to read just saddens me. As a teacher I hope that I can make reading enjoyable for my students instead of just a drudge. I hope they can create the pictures of the story in their minds and let it transport them to places they

October 17, 2017 Inspiration In a biblical context the root word literally means 'God breathed.' Yet how does that apply in everyday life? Sometimes we are asked what inspires us and where our inspiration comes from and how many times do we have an answer for that? When we look at creative writing typically people say they are inspired to write. So how does inspiration, God, and creative writing go together... they are all connected by life. God breathed the life we have into our beings and from there we are able to go throughout our day and enjoy the world we have been blessed with. Inspiration for writing typically comes from our experiences, what goes on in our everyday life and what we see. Without the breath of life we wouldn't be here to write, therefore we would be squandering our opportunity to share with others the unique experiences of our life if we didn't write. So my charge to you... keep writing, as often as possible, about whatever you can find in

October 12, 2017 Oh how great it is to feel like you are making a difference! I am on my way to becoming an elementary teacher and today at my internship (in a 5th grade class) I finally saw and heard a difference with my students! I was working with the 'lower' ( who we shall refer to a R & J) students practicing multiplying decimals. The teacher suggested that I go over problems such as, 1.2 x .4 so that's where I started.  We walked through the first problem, and they seemed to understand and got the first one right so then we did another and it too was right. I had a feeling that they had only been working with one decimal place and so I game them a problem like 3.593 x .3 to see if they actually understood what to do with the decimal. As I thought they recorded their answers with only 2 decimal places instead of 4. I showed them my answer worked out and they looked puzzled. J asked why I have so many numbers after my decimal and with that one question it was cl

October 10, 2017 Responsibility. As we age we take on more responsibility. In the home perhaps it is chores, at school more freedoms,  at work bigger projects. Whether we like it or not, responsibilities are added to our plates throughout life. How we handle them is our choice. There are those that take new responsibilities in stride and continue as normal, but then there are others who look at new responsibilities as a burden that can not be overcome. They then whine, moan and groan, sometimes even giving up altogether. They blame others for this new challenge and dwell on the past 'better' time when this was not their problem. I see it everyday yet I have no idea what to do about it. How to combat this negativity. Our society is already suffering in so many ways, yet the next generation has the potential to change the tone. As a teacher, I will encounter both types of students... but how do I help them overcome... I have not yet figured out. I hope that once I have a

October 3, 2017 N- Not sure how I feel U- Uncertain about the future M- Mentally exhausted B- But smiling and making the most of it anyways Life is full of ups and downs. There will be good days and bad days, but no one needs to tell anyone that... we all live it. We don't get to choose what happens in life but we typically can choose how we handle it. Just the other day I had a great topic and I was excited to write about it for today's post... but as I sit to type after a long day whatever that thing was I no longer remember. Today I am numb as described above. Life sometimes comes with many changes all at once and the only thing we can do is roll with it. Today may have not been the best but there are blessings in each and every event, we just have to take time and find them. Good things to note even through this difficult day: I have a living God. I woke up this morning. The sun was shining and now the rain is nourishing the ground. I do not have a headache.

September 26, 2017 Drought. We are typically in a drought. Burn bans and water conservation are not foreign to my little corner of the world. I know that around the world there are areas that have much worse conditions. Places that deal with bigger problems and who would consider the amount of rain we get as a blessing regardless, for us rain is not as common as we would always like it to be. Today it rained. There were short periods of down pour that you couldn't see through and longer sections of light drizzle. As I sat in class and noticed the drops hit the window I thought about our typical first reaction to the rain. Many will tell you they love the rain, typically because of the calming sound of the drops falling on the roof, ground or whatever it lands on, yet when they go outside they bundle up and hide from it. Rain jackets, rain boots, hats, umbrellas, waterproof this, that and the other, the list goes on. There are many reasons for this and typically I will shield my

September 19, 2017 Mom. We all have to have one to be alive yet each one of us has a different relationship and experience with our moms. For me she is all things positive. She nurtured, raised, and helped shape me into the woman I am today. Without her I could not imagine life. For me September 19th marks the day that her mother brought her into the world. I find the older I get the more and more I appreciate my mom and realize her wisdom. I can't put into words what she means to me and yet I thought I would write just a little something about her anyways. I am blessed beyond measure to have my mother so present in my life. She is my cheerleader and my coach. She always encourages me to do my best in everything and advises me along the way. She is always near but far enough to let me try on my own so I may learn and grow. If I succeed we celebrate but if I fail she is there to pick me back up and encourage me to try again or try something different. Regardless of the situat

September 12, 2017 This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to the coast and assist with the clean up from hurricane Harvey. The amount of work that needs to be done is great and as the time passes the volunteers and workers become few and far between. As we drove through Aransas Pass there were some buildings that were completely leveled and while their neighbor had minor damage. This was not the first time I had seen devastation to a community. I have helped with the aftermath of a fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, as well as clean up from the tornado that tore through Moore, Oklahoma a few years ago. This past summer I also had the opportunity to drive through the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and see the beginnings of regrowth after their recent fire. The difference in those occasions and this one had to do with me personally though. I had grown up going to Port Aransas and Aransas Pass and therefore I knew what it had looked like before the destruction.