Throwback Thursday

**Update: If you checked this before and the picture wasn't there, I'm sorry! You should be able to see it now. Live and learn. And thanks, Matt, for pointing it out to me. :) 

You know that #tbt you've been seeing so much of?

No?!? 

Really??? 

Just kidding.

But seriously...

Just in case you didn't know, it stands for Throwback Thursday. 

I think this is the first time I've participated in this, to be honest. But have I ever the gem for you! 

Today's is in honor of my brother...because this was the runner up for what Facebook birthday picture I would post for him. 

Polaroid- true throwback style

I can't decide what I love most about this picture: 

1. The awesome Dinosaurs shirts we're wearing. I think my shirt said, "I'm the baby, gotta love me!" (If the shirt didn't, I know I did ALL THE TIME because I am the baby, and my family does "gotta love me.")

2. All of those bags we're carrying for who knows what reason. Don't we just look ready for adventure?

3. The fact that I am bawling my eyes out and Dave's got his "I didn't do it!" face on.

4. My brother rockin' the sideways hat. (It's totally a Chicago Bears one, too.)

5. Mickey Mouse sunglasses. Yes.

Happy Thursday! 

Name Change?

I love, love, love summer break because I can catch up on doing some of the things that fall to the wayside when school is going on. I feel like a lot went on the back burner this school year because it was more demanding than my first two years of teaching. I had a longer drive, more meetings, and also had more going on in my personal life with Tim and I being newlyweds and homeowners with a long list of projects. (Yup, there are plenty of things I'd like to share from those adventures that will probably make it onto my blog at some point.)

I rejoice in having time to sit back and think about things. Of course I sometimes think while I'm standing at the sink doing dishes or poking around the garden rather than sitting or catching up with dear friends again, but nevertheless there is uninterrupted thinking going on. I don't know about you, but I find it really disheartening when life is happening so fast that there isn't enough time to digest what is going on. I get restless sometimes when I am rushed into processing things so I can move on to the next thing. 

One thing I have been contemplating is what needs to happen here. Sure, some writing about adventures from school, and probably some stories about what we've been up to, and maybe even just some musings about stuff...but what else? 

I look back at all that this blog contains and am amazed at how much has happened and changed since the beginning. Guys, it's been over 6 years since I started this blog. 6 years?!?!?  I am definitely not the same person I was when I hit "publish" on that first post. 

I feel like such a beautiful time was captured in the posts that are here, though, and I'm sad to have fallen away from blogging and chronicling further chapters in life. I'd love to get back into that. I am reconsidering the title of this blog, though. I named it for a specific purpose, but I think that moving into a different chapter in life means that it's time for a new title.  After all, I changed my name in real life to reflect a new chapter in life, so perhaps it's a natural point to change the name of my blog as well. I have a few in mind, and I'll continue to think about it.

Anyways, it's been good to post again. I hope that if you've enjoyed reading before or you've liked what you've read today that you will venture back again in the future to read more. :) 

The Crane Craze

I have been in Nebraska for a handful of years now but have been missing out on some really amazing things. I've learned, for instance, that there are markers for parts of the Oregon Trail that you can still see in various places. There are even some spots where wagon wheels made such deep ruts that they are still preserved in the hills and such.We also have Chimney Rock, a Willa Cather museum (she wrote My Antonia, a great book), some forts that were part of the Oregon Trail, and the great sand hills. We can get so comfortable in one spot that we begin to believe it's boring. That's really just because we stop seeking the adventures the areas we live in have to offer.

Turns out we are also in a prime location for the migration of sand hill cranes. They love the wide, shallow areas of Platte River and the nearby fields with leftover soy and corn to snack on during they day as they prepare to migrate to Northern Canada and Alaska. That's where they love to make their nesting grounds.

I looked online to get more info, and I chuckled at all of the events and tours and such. I always thought bird watching was boring.

I started looking up more and more, though, and found out 80% of the word's sand hill crane population comes through here.

EIGHTY. PERCENT. 

Mind=blown. 

My morning commute provides great chances to see these birds take flight in the morning as the sun rises, and sometimes on the way home they are resting and eating in the fields.

Friday on the way home I happened to have my camera with me because we went on a field trip to sing, and good thing I did! I was 15 minutes away from school and thankful I took the back roads instead of the interstate so I could see a field full of them!! I felt silly pulling over at first to take pictures, but it was worth it to stop and admire them.

 Just chillin' in the field, snackin' on corn. 

 More cranes coming to join the party.

It was nuts to see such a crowd of them just hanging out nearby!!! 

If you want to join my crazy bird watching craze, tune in to the live cam at the Rowe Sanctuary. The best time is around 7:30, and you should watch for at least half an hour to really get an idea of how BIG and BEAUTIFUL this spectacle is.

God has most certainly put so many amazing things around us; we just need to remember to take the time to admire them sometimes.

Serenading Pep Talks

Sometimes we all just need a little pep talk. 

You know that feeling: there's something you have to do, and you just don't want to. The self-doubt swirls and teams up with feelings of inadequacy and fear, and soon that one little thing you had to do becomes a great, big, stinky doubt monster that you wish you could trap in the closet and forget about.

I happen to be very over-dramatic, so I can really turn blowing something out of proportion into an art form.

This is what it can sound like in my head:

i can't do it. i'm not good enough for this. i don't even know what i'm talking about or what i'm doing. uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh. but i really am no good at this. it's going to be awful. 

Eventually I get whatever it was done...and get a big ol' knot in my stomach to go with the finished product. Sound familiar to anyone else??

As childish as it is, it happens all the time.

I'm working on the whole notion of "let go and let God," but I'm going to be working on that one for life.

Enter in pep talks in musical form.

Tonight as I prepare to give the chapel message tomorrow --

not for the first time this year, either...more like the third...but yup, still envisioning a boring disaster!

-- I'm turning to some musical inspiration to chase the great, big, stinky doubt monster away. I hope it helps to chase some of yours away too.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

If I'm going to start trying to do this regularly again then I'd better fill in a few important details before blogging much further. 

May 2013 brought some major changes. I left my first teaching job to get married to the love of my life! It was hard to leave such wonderful coworkers and all of "my" kids, but it would be an hour commute. No thanks. We celebrated our love with our wedding surrounded by our wonderful family and friends, and a new chapter in life began. 

I started job searching in the public school system. Truth be told, I don't have a strong desire to teach in a public school. Sure, subbing there could be okay, but to be there full time? I would miss having the ability to talk about God without having to watch my back at school. I doubt I'll ever stop being amazed at how much children "get" when it comes to faith. There's a reason Jesus tells the disciples that we should have faith like children, and I have the gift of seeing that every day and helping it grow. I ended up getting a call for a kindergarten job at a small Lutheran school, and things really fell into place quickly.

June was a blur of moving, visiting the new school and accepting the job, and going to Alaska with Tim's side of our family, helping with house projects, and getting acquainted with the new school. July was teacher meetings, classroom prep, planning out the year, house projects, and so was much of August before school started. 

There are pros and cons to being in a tiny school literally in the middle of cornfields, but it has been a wonderful place to be. Now I have 4 students in my class, and when I teach K-2 PE (yes, I teach PE and find that ironic since I loathed it in high school!!!) I have 13 kiddos. I'm enjoying being able to use things I've learned from the past 2 years, and I love having a small group of co-workers who are my family away from family. 

Some days it's hard with Tim's work schedule because we'll barely have enough time to say "hi" and eat before he leaves, but this is our family's version of normal. The 40 minute drive is beautiful, and we've only had a handful of truly yucky weather conditions to drive in, so I am thankful for both of those things. The only major issue I had was getting hit by/hitting a deer a week before school started on the way home from a late meeting, but even that was not nearly as bad as it could have been. The drive is a nice time to get mentally ready for the day ahead and wind down from the school day. 

Life with the man I love and doing what I love...it's a blessed life indeed. 

No More Monkeys Jumping Off the Bed

Once upon a time I was scared terrified of dogs. We're talking hysterical if one even looked my direction. 

My brother thought it was great fun to let my grandparents' Newfoundland out when I was playing in the yard. (That booger head.) My family says she was one of the sweetest dogs in the world, but when that big ol' Cassie dog came my way I saw my short life flash before my teary eyes as I ran and screamed for help. 

My brother is no longer a booger head, and I am no longer terrified of every dog I see -- just some of them. I even have two furry space heaters to share the bed with. (I'm sure 5 year old Michelle would look at 25 year old Michelle like I'm nuts.)

One of Squirt's nicknames is Little Brother. Technically he is about 4 years older than Danny, but we go by size. Sometimes we call him The Problem Child because he's good at escaping if there is a gap in any part of our fence...and then doesn't quite seem to know how to find his way home. 

Lately his new nickname has been Little Hop Along. 

Squirt has been sleeping on the bed since we moved to the house. He was crated at the apartment after a few too many mornings of finding "presents" when he had free reign. At night he will usually snuggle in and stay put until the morning (unless there are storms, but that's another story).

A week and a half ago was one of those rare nights where he got up for who-knows-what-reason, and we got woken up by the heart-wrenching sound of scream-crying a dog only does when something is super painful. He still hasn't 'fessed up about whether he fell or jumped off the bed, but his paw was swollen immediately. I just wanted to cry. We iced it every few hours, though, and carried him around a lot.

The vet verified that he broke one or two matchstick sized bones in his paw, and we felt like terrible dog-parents that he got hurt when we knew we should have just crated him. He got a splint and meds, and a little later he got the Cone of Shame for trying to take his bandages off. We got to take that off when he got home, though, and he's left them alone since then. Apparently he isn't always a forgetful old man who forgets what he's learned. (Yes, Squirt, we are on to your "selective" hearing when we say "No"...)

He's gotten his own little suite next to the bed filled with a pillow, blankets, and the stuffed frog he adopted a while ago. He still whines a little when we first go to bed, but I think I pout more than he does. He can nest to his hearts' content and stretch out as much as he wants there. 

At his check-up the vet was pleased to hear how he has barely slowed down. He isn't allowed to jump on or off the couch by himself, and I don't let him do the stairs, but everything else is pretty much the same. He will only have a splint for another week or two. Oh, she also gave him a much more dapper red bandage, too. I think he appreciates it much more than the purple.

Danny has been watching out for his little brother, though. He has sniffed him from head to toe each time Squirt has come back from the vet, and he's careful not to run him over lately. I'm sure things will go back to normal when Squirt's splint is gone, though. 

These are things that 5 year old Michelle never would have dreamed of dealing with, and they are certainly things that I didn't expect when I first got him. I wouldn't trade our pups for anything, though. It's an adventure, and I'm sure it's helping Tim and I hone some skills for the future.

Here's hoping that nothing else breaks in this house any time soon. I think we've had our fill for a while. 

"Outgoing Guts"

"And by the way, everything in life is writable if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath

Confession: I fell into the self-doubt trap. 

I have been on a long hiatus from writing in general. I've written in my personal journal, but that's it. Sure, at first part of it was a change in the amount of free time I had as I juggled wedding planning, teaching, and working on the house. If I'm honest, though, it was bigger than that. 

I got sick of how blogging changed some of the relationships in my life. I wrote a little about what was going on in my life, but life was bigger than words in a post or two. I'm not the kind that spills every detail or feeling to everyone I meet. 

It made me so sad and frustrated when I would talk about something with someone and get a response that they'd already read about it on my blog. That was like the end of the conversation. The salt in the wound was perhaps that some of the ones I heard that from were people I heard less often from anyways. I would think, "Um, okay, but I brought it up with YOU to get your input...and because there is more to it than what I wanted to put out for everyone's eyes. But you don't want to hear about it, so that's cool."

There is a difference between knowing a person's blog and a person.

I ended up running out of steam. I just let myself stay frustrated for silly reasons, really, and then just didn't care for a while. I started missing it, though, and began pulling up the blog to post again.

The blank posts were intimidating. Anything I started seemed insignificant in light of all life's recent changes, but I didn't feel like posting about things many people already knew about...so what to write about?? It was easier to say nothing and close the browser than try something out. 

But I haven't stopped missing it. I still don't have as much free time as I used to, but we can always find time for things we are passionate about. I'm done letting self-doubt stop me from writing. It's time to find my "outgoing guts" and get back to it.

To those of you who blog, have you ever noticed your blog having any effects on your relationships?