Report Card - First Week of School

Name: Amber Harder
Substitute Teaching - Media Center - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday


Preparation: A
Each day Amber worked with 4-5 classes of students in the Media Center. She made sure to carefully explain the rules and directions, and always had her materials prepped ahead of time. She taught the same lesson 18 times and is quite the professional now.


Social Skills: A
Amber did her best to interact with fellow teachers at the school where she was subbing. She frequently offered to help those around her. She was a big hit with the secretaries, and was even asked for her number on the last day so she could be called back again.


Physical Education: N/A
Amber walked to and from school everyday, so she was excused from participating in P.E.


Friendship: A
Students easily warmed up to "Mrs. Harder," and she was frequently greeted - by name - in the hallway as students were passing. On the last day, she received a hug from a student as the student was leaving the building.

Amber was also told, "You are the nicest teacher ever." It is curious, however, that this compliment was in response to the question she posed to the class, "How can we show respect?" All parties involved are still trying to understand how the question and response correlate.


Cooking: C-
While there were not a lot of food options available to use in preparing lunches, Amber neither went to the store nor got very creative with the food at hand during the entire week.
Needs improvement.


Spiritual Disciplines: A+
Amber remembered to pray for each of her students every day. What a way to start out the year!


Relaxation: B
While the beginning of the week started off hectic and full, Amber did take time to visit with two close friends during the evening hours, and she even managed to sit and read a book in the hammock on Friday. Keep up the good work!

Swamped or Blessed?

Sometimes I feel so swamped! There is so much STUFF in my schedule and I don't know how I'm going to get it all done. The tasks clank around like empty tin cans on a wedding car and all I hear is noise noise noise!

I was pondering this as I dropped off another chipmunk last night. (This is chipmunk number 6, in case you were wondering. Call me Snow White with how I attract small woodland creatures.) I get myself all worked up about feeling swamped and I turn into a major crabbypants. Particularly overwhelming this week is my work schedule. I said yes to a substitute teaching job as a librarian this week, but I also needed to put in hours at my other job. This resulted in me having to work 3-4 hours after school each day to get it all in.

I felt like screaming,

"Where's is my free time? Where is my house cleaning time? Where is my rest?

I have way more opportunities for work than there are hours in a day! How can I get it all done?"

But wait a minute.
I have way more opportunities for work than there are hours in a day.
I have work.
I have more work than I need.
I have opportunities to put in as many hours as I want and make as much money for my family as I need.

Not everyone can say that.

I am blessed.


I started to think of other "problems" in my life, and see them for what they really are - blessings.

What are your hidden blessings today? What are you crabbing about that you should instead be praising about?

Last Week and Next Week

Today is my transition day. Our house is transitioning and I am transitioning too.

Last week was a full week; two families, each with two small children, visited us and stayed in our home. One family stayed from Wednesday through Friday, and the other came on Friday and left just this morning.

Our house is transitioning from their visit. The booster chairs are making their way back downstairs, the kids books and toys are moving out of the living room and back into the basement, and the cheerios are being scooped up off the floor and put into the trash can. The sounds in our house have transitioned from little running footsteps, giggles, and squeals to the quiet hum of the refrigerator, birds chirping outside, and the wind blowing the leaves of the trees. I liked their visit, and I will miss their presence in our home. We are transitioning from being a household of 4 adults and 2 kids to a household of 2 adults.

I am also transitioning mentally today as I gear up for the 2011-2012 school year. Tomorrow morning we'll be seeing those yellow buses on the road again as schools open their doors to the excited students. Families across the state will be breathing a sigh of relief that finally the teachers have to keep their children occupied again. :)

I have been blessed with a substitute teaching job for the whole first week of school. I will be filling in as a Media Specialist at the school our future children will attend. I can't wait to check out the school and meet some of the teachers. I feel honored that I will get to kick off the school year with the students there. What a blessing.

So, today I transition. I take stock of the last week and the summer before it, and I look ahead to tomorrow and the days and months to come. Amidst all the reflecting, I enjoy the quiet moments of today.

Timing

Today I was blessed to spend my afternoon with a nearly-three-year-old. What a great kid. I was quickly reminded, however, that in the presence of children, one's own agenda falls by the wayside.

I really needed to get groceries, but the puzzles and books I had set out were so much more enticing. Just when we were about to go to the grocery store, my little friend asked me to read a book to him. How could I resist? So read we did. Grocery store waited.

We got to the grocery store and my little friend spotted the shopping cart with the car on the front that kids can ride in. Wow. It was like Christmas! So we took our time maneuvering the gigantor cart through the aisles, and even stopped in the "pits" (aka cheese section of the store) to fix a "blown tire." We took time. We played at the grocery store. It wasn't rushed.

Two blocks from home, I saw his eyes falling shut. He didn't have a nap that day and was completely out by the time I pulled into my driveway. I snuck into the house to put the bag of cold stuff in the fridge, then I grabbed a book and sat in the car with my little friend for an hour while he napped.

I didn't clean the bathroom, or pick the green beans, or sweep the front step, but I was there to meet the wants and needs of a kid. That's timing I can live with.

Those 10 Commandments

Yesterday I learned in church that I should probably be stoned. You should too. They'll probably take us all outside the camp and stone us if they knew how poorly we followed the 4th Commandment.

Exodus 20:8-11 "⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

I'm not very good at resting. Resting is one of those things that I'll do if I have time. When a weekend comes around I don't think of the many ways I can put my feet up and take a break; instead, I think of all the things I can get done around the house. Can you relate?

This is something that I've been trying to work on, but it wasn't until Pastor Kevin shared this passage at church yesterday that it sort of hit me over the head:

Numbers 15:32-26
³² While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. ³³ Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, ³⁴ and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. ³⁵ Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” ³⁶ So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Wowzers. They stoned him for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. At first glance, this does seem a bit harsh. However, resting on the Sabbath is a Commandment. Why is that we can so easily hold up some of the 10 Commandments like "Do Not Murder," and "Do Not Steal," but we dismiss others like "Remember the Sabbath and Keep it Holy?"

God has commanded us to rest. Why have I not listened in all my 30 years?

Oh, I can come up with reasons.

• I'm really busy. (read: I'm really important and have much to do)
• That was for those times back then, things are different now.
• Have you SEEN my dirty house?
• But my friends are coming in from out of town.
• If I don't do the dishes, we'll get ants in the kitchen!
• I have to mow the lawn today because it might rain tomorrow.

The list could go on and on. After all, I've used items off the list for 30 years.

Here's the thing - Resting on the Sabbath isn't an option. It's a Commandment. God has commanded me to do this, and He knows what he's doing. After all, He designed me before the world saw me. He knows my intricate details, and He believes that rest is important enough to make it a commandment. It's about time I listen.

I've been pondering Pastor Kevin's words and wondering, what does it look like for me to rest? The particular rest he talked about wasn't the kind of "rest" we sometimes do when we sit on the couch and watch hours of TV - he encouraged us to choose activities that rejuvenated us.

Here are some questions I pondered throughout the day:

• What activities give me life?
  
• What activities are different enough from my day-to-day routine that I feel like I'm getting a break from work?
• What does work look like at home?
  
• What activities should I not do on Sundays because they are really work?
  
• Why is rest so hard for me?
• Am I strong enough to rest?

Zac and I had some great discussions throughout the day, and we committed to try and rest more on Sundays. My big chore at home is laundry, and his is dishes. We both agreed to not do those on Sundays. I'm pretty sure the world won't end, we'll still have clothes to wear and dishes to use for meals. We also agreed to avoid the house projects that were really work and weren't relaxing or rejuvenating. Things like landscaping, mowing the lawn, remodeling, etc. are work. Things like doing woodwork in the garage, playing in the garden, and stamping cards are fun. If they start being more work than fun, we'll adjust.

I'm still searching for more restful activities. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking something is rest, when it's really an item I can cross off my task list. For example, last night I picked a bowl of green beans from the garden and washed, cut, boiled, and froze them. I told myself it was a "fun" activity for me. It was "restful." Yeah right! Who was I kidding?!? I won't do that again. It was work.

So I now embark on a journey to follow the 4th commandment more closely. I look forward to the positive benefits rest will have on my life. Will you take some time today to think about what rest looks like for you?