U-turns

Today is a track day for my daughter.  My husband and I walk the track while she runs it.  I hope it doesn’t rain.

The end of the school year is often a frustrating event for many reasons.  It’s also bittersweet and full of fun activities.

We are about three weeks out from this years “end”.  My daughter gets out next Wednesday actually, a whole two weeks before me.

The kids are kinda loopy.  They have taken their AP Exams and are ready to be done with school.  I could go on a rant about things that aren’t great but I won’t.  Instead I’ll share what I’m thankful for today.

A note from a student.  He is in my AP Chem class.  Sweet kid.  Smart.  Mostly kind.  Unfortunately, not motivated to be in my class at all.  He will likely end the class with a C, which he has earned but he should have earned a B or A.  He just would not work.  I could not get him to work to save my life or his. Today I got a note from him.  The AP Government class often has the seniors write notes to their teachers.  I got a note from him and it was a sweet note, not just because he said Thank You, but because in the note he was able to see that he had not been the greatest student in my class this year.  His Personhood… awesome, studenthood…not so awesome.  I really liked that he was able to explain that he knew he could be better and do better.  I really think that is an important attribute in kids, to be able to recognize their errors, reflect on them and correct them, without an adult pointing them out.

I spent an afternoon recently discussing Judas with my daughter.  She was sharing different theories people had about him.  She asked where I thought Judas had gone wrong.  I told her that I believed Judas’s biggest mistake was not being able to believe that Jesus could or would forgive him.  I told her that even more than taking money for ratting Jesus out, Judas’s grave error was in not understanding the mercy and grace Jesus offered him.  If Judas had asked for Jesus’s forgiveness as he hung dying on the cross I am convinced Jesus would have given it.  I told her I wanted her to remember that no matter what happens in her life, that if she somehow ends up on road she didn’t mean to travel that God always always always allows U-turns and that she should never ever forget that.  I think its important for us all to remember that Jesus loves us, died for us and will always forgive us.  He died for our sins, all the ones we have committed and all the ones we will commit.  They are cleansed in his blood. We should never be so arrogant as to think we are above His grace and mercies. We should never be so arrogant to believe that other people aren’t worthy of His grace and mercies.  They are offered equally to everyone.  The very best and the very worst of humanity.  That’s what makes God such a mystery. His love incomprehensible at times.

Anyway today for a God that allows U-turns, people who learn from their mistakes and become better people, for having more time to write lately, for track practice because it gives me some extra exercise…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Hills!

My daughter joined a track club last month. She has been enjoying the workouts. So far I like her coach. She’s positive and encouraging. She encourages the parents to do the workouts too and so we did our first hill workout in about two years tonight. Hill repeats. Up the hill, down the hill, repeat. I think we were supposed to do it six times but we only managed five, which I felt good about. I was injured for a long time and I’ve actually been afraid to run hills because I was worried about my knee but the knee feels great and I feel great knowing I was able to push myself. We met some other parents tonight who also live in our town and so that was fun too!

I have always loved how encouraging and supportive the running community is. I wanted that atmosphere for our daughter. Running is more about personal goals, being the best you can be in practice and races. I LOVE Running! Tonight I remembered how much I really loved this sport and why:-)

To top it all off, it was a beautiful spring night. Green and flowers as far as the eye could see. Just more of, WOW, Everything is a gift from God moments. It was a great way to end a Monday.

Today for Running, Hills and Beautiful spring evenings…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Here’s a picture of the sunset at the park where we ran tonight!

Everything

Today at mass our pastor Father John gave his homily, if  I’m honest I don’t really remember most of the homily, probably because I thought it would be about the transfiguration, which was the Gospel today, but that wasn’t his focus.  I thought we’d get a homily about how we can all change.  Instead, as part of his homily, I heard, “Everything is a Gift from God.  Everything.”  That phrase caught my attention because just the other day I was listening to Alistar Begg, he’s a pastor whose sermons we listen to, almost daily.  He’s not Catholic, in fact, I’m pretty sure he thinks Catholicism is bunk but you know it’s fine by me, we all have our flaws, Ha!

Seriously, Alistar was giving a sermon this week where he was talking about just being grateful for waking up in the morning and looking out the window and seeing a blue sky.  It was the same message I heard today from Father John.

When bad things happen its hard to see things as gifts.  We had a sad accident happen this weekend.  As we were returning home from work Friday we drove into our garage like we always do but we didn’t see our neighbors cat.  Sadly, after all was said and done, it didn’t turn out well.  Laina and I cried ourselves to sleep.  I encouraged her to paint a picture of  him the next day so she could have a memory and we printed out a nice picture we had taken of him a few months earlier.  We wrote a card asking for forgiveness from our neighbor and took it over the next day.  The wife is very sweet and very forgiving.  I don’t know that I would be that forgiving but it wasn’t her cat.  It was the childhood cat of her husband, who we actually haven’t seen since Friday night so I’m not real sure he’s quite ready to forgive us and I can’t say I blame him.

I was so upset at one point I told my husband he had ruined our entire weekend.  Totally unfair and untrue.  I prayed that morning that our neighbors would forgive us and then I called my mom, who else would I call?  I cried and told her what happened and as moms often do she helped put it all in perspective for me and I felt better after I talked to her.  Funny how at 47 years old I still want to have my mom make it all ok.

Anyway, such a sad start to our weekend but when I heard Father John this morning it forced me to look at the weekend as a whole and realize that lots of good things happened too.  The weather was amazing, beautiful blue sky for miles, warm, not too hot.  I went to a bridal shower for my cousin.  Very happy for him.  I guess I went to the bridal shower of his fiance but I’ve considered her my cousin for a long time already, such as it is.  We had a fun St. Patrick’s Day breakfast with our family and friends.  We ate corned beef and cabbage or tri-tip and potatoes, if you preferred, with Irish Soda Bread and other yummy side dishes here and there.  We ended our weekend by taking a drive down Sky Harbor Road.  If you live in our valley then you know that one of the very best things is our foothills in the spring.  Absolutely incredible any spring but with so much rain this year it is a total feast for the eyes!  Sky Harbor Road winds around one of our local lakes and leads up to a hiking trail.  It was just spectacular, so beautiful, I didn’t want to leave.  The amazing thing is it is only like 25 minutes from our house, if that, I love where we live in CA.  We can be at any of a number of amazing places in less than an hour and if we want to see the ocean, its’ just a little over a two hour drive.  If we want to be in a big city we are less than 3 or 4 hours away, depending on if we go south or north.  We almost never want to be in a big city.  I don’t think I will ever get my daughter to go back to San Francisco, she was not impressed when we went in January.

I’m off track.  My point was behind all these wonderful things was an ache in my heart for the pain we caused our neighbor and it hasn’t gone away.  I’m old enough to know it will lessen over time but I’m also old enough to know it will never go away.  I hope they forgive us.  They are nice people and it would be nice to get to know them better.  It was a reminder that we should know them better, that whole Love Your Neighbors thing.   It was a reminder that things aren’t permanent and in the matter of less than a second, everything can be changed.

Everything is a gift from God.  Beautiful things are gifts from God and sad and painful things are gifts from God too.  They both are designed to remind us that we are His.  Forgiveness is His greatest gift.  We can’t earn that, we can only accept that we have it.  It’s called Grace.  We can’t force others to forgive us when we’ve wronged them.  We can only ask for it, the important part there is we need to ask.  The second most important part is to forgive ourselves. We are useless when we wallow in self-pity.  We can not “Glorify God by Our Life” when we wallow in self.

We are His creation and He calls out to us, sometimes the call is painful and heart crushing but sometimes, like this afternoon the call is beautiful and heart filling.

I’ve seen deep sadness and brokenness in my own life turned to joy immeasurable, you’d think I’d learned this lesson by now.  Obviously not.  God’s mercies are never ending and His faithfulness is always true.  Our names are carved into the palm of His hands, carved. I am overwhelmed by this truth.

What a crazy weekend.  Lows and highs.

For everything God sends to me good and bad…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Here’s a picture of our foothills.  They are amazing.

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Lent

So it’s been Lent for about a week now. Yes, I guess today makes it one official week. Growing up Catholic we always celebrated Lent. I think its kinda cool how other evangelical churches are starting to practice the self-discipline of Lenten sacrifice. My husband said Lent was a foreign concept to him growing up Protestant. When we were first dating he gave up meat with me and I think his family just thought it was the dumbest thing ever, at least that is the vibe I remember getting. When our daughter was 3 or 4 she gave up potato chips and we were out somewhere with his mother and I reminded her she had given up chips. His mom gave me an eye roll. I understand Lent can be a foreign concept to some people and that’s all right. Just because someone else doesn’t understand something I do isn’t really a good reason to stop doing it. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to believe educating people about why we love God is probably better than rolling our eyes back at them or writing them off. Actually, if you are a Christian, God made it pretty clear you are supposed to share Him with others through loving them, though that can be incredibly difficult at times.

During Lent, if you are Roman Catholic, which I am, we practice, 40 days of , Almsgiving, Sacrifice and Prayer. It’s a discipline designed to have us pause and consider the incredible gift God gave to us in His son Jesus, who loved us so much, He paid the ultimate price for our sins, instead of us. Some people think you can earn your way into heaven by being really good or trying to be. Some people think they don’t need God’s grace, either because they don’t believe in God or because they think just being a good person is “good enough”. The bible is pretty clear both those views are wrong. I’m not a relativist. I don’t believe that some things are true for me but not for others. I believe that Truth exists and you find that truth in the person of Jesus Christ. I believe all people can find truth in Jesus. Back to Lent.

We always practice giving something up but its not so we can get into heaven and it’s not because we are afraid of being punished if we don’t. It is to practice the discipline of self-control. Self-Control is a fruit of the spirit and you can make your self-control stronger by practicing it. Really, lets be honest, who couldn’t use a little more self-control? I know I can! Lent is a great time to practice this gift of the Holy Spirit. So, yes, we usually give up a food item or something we actually enjoy because it helps remind us that these next 40 days are different, they are special. God set them aside for us to remember Him in a special way.

We practice prayer together as a family, sometimes we will say a daily rosary, although we have’t started that yet but we do enjoy attending the Stations of the Cross, which I highly recommend, even if you aren’t Catholic, they are a beautiful prayer, a beautiful way to remember God’s gift and sacrifice. Almsgiving. We try to pay more attention than we might usually to those around us who could use our services somehow, maybe its a visit or a meal, time is really a valuable gift to give to others, so we try to be more open to opportunities during this time and opportunities never fail to show up, whether its visiting an elderly friend or taking a meal to a friend who just had surgery or whatever presents itself.

We also read more. We picked a book to read by Mathew Kelly, The Biggest Lie in Christianity. So far we like it and it has a daily video we watch that goes along with the book.

I really look forward to Lent every year. It’s an opportunity to slow down and really consider how I’m living my life, if my priority is always God or if I just try to squeeze Him in here and there to the bits of my life that I have left for Him. If I’m honest, its more the later.

So that’s Lent in our household. If you don’t practice the discipline of Lent, I encourage you to learn more about it and try it. It’s not about giving up chocolate, its’ about what the giving up represents. It’s not some “hokey religious practice” devoid of any place in a modern world.

Practicing Lent doesn’t make you a “religious” or a “spiritual” person. In fact, I really don’t like it when someone calls me religious or spiritual. It’s become a derogatory description lately. Like I’m somehow less of a person because I NEED a God no one can see or touch.  Maybe believing in a God that no one can see or touch, makes me more than one dimensional? If this life is all you are living for, maybe you are the one with the lack of vision and not me? Just a thought…

Practicing lent makes you a person who believes God can do a work in you when you focus on Him and the grace and mercy He has shown us in the gift that IS, not was, but IS His son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. I encourage you to get to know Him, 47 years and I’m still learning about Him everyday, his mercies and grace amaze me everyday.

Today, for Lent…I Give Thanks!

Praised Be Jesus Christ…Now and Forever!

KOR

Sewing…

Today my girl and I have a sewing lesson, so I’m thankful for that. She has a bit of a cold and so I’m thankful I haven’t caught it as I am running a half-marathon on Sunday. We are supposed to make blankets. She picked an animal fabric and if you know her then you know she totally loves animals. I picked a bright fabric with Swans on it. It just looked happy to me. The forecast for Sunday’s half has rain in it. Luckily we have run in the rain once and also a heavy drizzle so as long as its light I think we’ll be ok.

Christmas was really nice. New Years was fun. I made it to midnight and wasn’t tired at all. I love ringing in the New Year with my family.

There has been lots of sunshine, hopefully the rain doesn’t bring back the fog. I don’t care for fog.

Sunday is Epiphany and our run is called the Dia De Reyes run. We run the course all the time. It’s basically our training course for our half in Monterey, so it will be familiar and believe it or not Fresno is really pretty and green right now. The foothills have greened up and the Eaton Trail is a nice trail to run on in the early morning. We are having people over in the afternoon to celebrate our run. We will have tacos and Rosca de Reyes or Three Kings Cake. There is a baby Jesus baked into the caked and the person who gets the Baby Jesus is supposed to host a meal on February 2nd for family. February 2nd marks the end of the Christmas season for Catholics.

So today for sewing lessons, health, running, sunshine and good times with family and friends…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Smile at two random strangers…

Well, I tried to smile at people I didn’t know, but I think I may have just scared them.  Between fighting off “something” and needing to grocery shop, mail all those Christmas cards I wrote up and needing to grade another stack of finals tonight, my smile may have looked a little more like a smile from this guy:

Image result for The Joker

which, frankly, may have concerned some people…It was fun to note, however, how many strangers a person can come across in a day, especially when out and about.  I made an effort to smile at the lady at the post office who held the door open for me.  I smiled at the old lady who took a really really long time in the meat section of the market buying a pork shoulder, as I wanted one too, I had no choice.  I smiled at the people in the game store I went to today to shop for Christmas gifts for my husband and there are always students I encounter on a daily basis, who I don’t know, but who I always try to say Hi to and smile at.  

Hmm…many opportunities to brighten someones day with a simple upturn of the lips.  It’s somehow reassuring to have someone smile at you.  It makes you feel like everything, somehow, will be ok.  I think that’s why it’s even better when its a stranger.

So all in all I enjoyed this challenge and hope I didn’t scare anyone with my smile…

Today for getting my finals graded, for broccoli, its a super food and I’m hopeful it will lead to me getting rid of this “something”, for guitar lessons, my recital is tomorrow, and for Smiles…I Give Thanks!

KOR

I’ll leave you with this song by “the” legend…

Donate unwanted used books to charity…

I did this about three weeks ago when we did a major consolidation and room clean up so sadly I don’t have any more to donate. We donated several boxes of books. I love books! I have many books on my bookshelf that I haven’t even read, but I hope one day I will. Maybe, when I finally decide that this will never be reality I will donate those as well. There are just too many books in the world and at the same time not enough. I say this because I have two books I’m working on off and on and in reality are no where near completion. I have two friends who have recently released their own novels and I admire their persistence and willingness to share stories they love with others.

The first is a story called Always Darkest by Jessica and Keith Flaherty. It’s a cool story about a demon and the daughter of an arch-angel falling in love. I really enjoy well thought out characters and character development in a story and you find that here. It was a good read and the next one should be released soon, I think. Here’s a link to buy the book, which I think is totally worth it: https://www.amazon.com/Darkest-Arbitratus-Trilogy-Jessica-Flaherty/dp/1681604469 and here’s a link to her blog http://demonsrunlit.com.

The second is a story called The Caves of Corihor by JD Shiner. Admittedly I haven’t read much past the first chapter. The premise is the Ca drought has been brought about by terrorist somehow. Like I said I haven’t read it but I find it an interesting idea. I need to read this one soon because part II comes out this summer! Here’s a Amazon link to that book but remember I haven’t finished this one so I’m not sure…https://www.amazon.com/Caves-Corihor-J-Shiner-ebook/dp/B01LHWEAGE/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544494894&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+caves+of+corihor

I have two stories of my own that I’ve been working on for awhile. One is about a runner trying to make a come back and the other is about a dragon named Olivia. Sadly, I haven’t had any time to write on them lately and I’m thinking I really need to lay out a plot line. I tend to write free flow, whatever pops into my head and I’m finding that’s just not a very efficient way to actually finish anything.

My husband has a series he’s working on with an idea I find intriguing. As it’s his series I won’t divulge too much but I find the idea really fascinating and he is a great writer, despite what he thinks.

I LOVE books! I enjoy writing as well. In another life I might have majored in English or at least devoted more time to writing but so far my path hasn’t quite gone that route. I think I could spend more time writing if I was more intentional. It seems one life lesson I have learned this year is intentionality and it just occurred to me that may well end up being my One Word for 2019.

Living life with intention. We are working on a family mission statement because we believe our family needs to be intentional about how we live the One earthly life we have.

Today for a nice lunch with Jason, unsweetened black iced tea from Starbucks, dried figs (I love them), music! (Listening to all the recital pieces at my daughter’s piano school, beautiful!), and last but not least for books…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Be kind to yourself…

Does getting new socks count? I got some comfy cozy new socks because I really like the brand. I didn’t really need socks so I guess I’m going to count this.

Today we did the annual Jingle Bell Run in our town. Fresno, Ca has a lane that is pretty popular, it’s called Christmas Tree Lane. It’s in an older neighborhood with million dollar homes and really old, tall, beautiful pine trees. They drape lights on the trees and practically every house on the lane gets decked out. Local high schools have provide murals that are displayed and home owners put up their own decorations as well. You can find all of Santa’s reindeer along the lane as well. The run is a 5K and today I felt really good. Before the run my husband and I ran six miles in our neighborhood so we ran a total of 9 miles today and I felt good! It’s so nice to be running without hurting again. I just have to remind myself not to get too excited and push too hard or I might find myself back where I was, miserable and in pain.

I love to run and since the half we always run was cancelled this year because of wild fire smoke, we have signed up for a different half on January 6th. It’s on a route we train on almost every weekend so I think it will be okay. I’m feeling strong, which also keeps me sticking to eating healthy. Well today we did go to a rib place and had at least one side that wasn’t the greatest but for the most part we stuck to the plan.

Well, for a fun run today with our daughter, for a fun horse drawn carriage ride in the afternoon, for love, life, and family…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Here’s a picture of a house on the lane from this morning and a couple of the lane in the evening :-)!!

Tell someone a joke…

I accomplished this by telling not one, not two but three jokes!

Picture this, a room full of bleary eyed teenagers and their wide awake teacher ready to start the day…

Class, I have a joke for you:

What did Gold say to Copper in saying good-bye?

A: AU CU later…

Bleary eyed teens: Eye Rolls and a few smirks…

Teacher:

Ok, how about this one:

What did the doctor say about the sick element?

A:Well if I can’t Curium guess we’ll have to Barium.

Bleary eyed teens: Eye Rolls and a few actual smiles!

Teacher: Ok, Ok you will love this one…

I told a Chemistry Joke

A: I got No reaction

Bleary eyed teens: actual real laughs and eye-rolls! Teens are a tough crowd, gotta love them…

Today, for being a teacher, for a nice dinner with my brother in law and his family, Pieology Cauliflower crust piled high with veggies and no cheese…tasted so good, a beautiful mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, health and getting home safe…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Give someone your undivided attention…

We had SEL training at school today.  SEL stands for Social Emotional Learners.  I am happy to say I gave the teacher my attention instead of sitting on my cell phone, like a lot of the other teachers, LOL!  Maybe they had something important going on, who knows…

Today for a nice lunch with Jason, getting caught up on my grading, decorating our Christmas Tree, getting home safe…I Give Thanks!

KOR