Dear Massachusetts,

Utah thanks you!

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me;

I cannot choose the colors He worketh steadily,

Ofttimes He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper and I, the underside.

Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver's skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

--Grant Colfax Tullar

A Look Back

While thumbing through my day planner the other day, I realized what a drastic contrast my life is now, compared to a short year ago. While I don’t normally share my "innermost reflections" with the WORLD-WIDE Web, this time, I have a testimony of God’s grace to share.

Last year brought more new circumstances than the rest of my life put together, it seems. God has been very good to bring me safely to the "other side" of many changes, problems, and challenges. With the next few posts, I would like to highlight some of these areas of personal growth and God’s work of grace.

Interestingly, towards the end of this last year, I was led to read Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place in my personal time. In this book, several truths were recurring themes throughout the book. Surprisingly, some of them were exactly the same lessons I have learned this last year. Since Miss Ten Boom puts the ideas in much better words than I could, I’d like to spotlight the book’s examples to explain part of my journey. So, with all of the glory dedicated to Christ, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you in the coming days.

Health Care Travesty!

As a member of Club for Growth, I support their basic principles of limited government, low taxes and economic freedom. Along with drawing together for support for candidates with the same values, they take a proactive approach to fighting legislation like the current health care reform bill.

One of their most recent actions is to create a pledge to be signed by lawmakers, candidates, and citizens who will work to repeal the health care legislation if it is constitutes a federal takeover of health care.

Please consider visiting RepealIt.org to sign the pledge. I don’t have to tell you what an important and consequential event this is, not only for us, but for our children and grandchildren.

Recall the words of the signers of the Declaration of Independence: "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Do we owe any less?

Official Utahn

Yes, I said Utah-an. Not as cool as "Hoosiers," I know. But I'm afraid I have become an 'official' Utahn. Recently, when I went back to Chicago/NWI (Northwest Indiana) area, this fact became apparent to me.

While I was at the SLC (Salt Lake City) Airport, at 7:15 in the morning, I was surrounded by young men with "Elder So-and-so" name tags, who were leaving for their two-year Mormon mission.

There was also the 'official sender-off' guy. Seems like he is always at the airport saying "Good-bye" to the boys leaving.

Upon arrival in Chicago, I was affronted with the huge cultural difference! I did not see one "Elder" name tag. What I did notice were the Jews, the Polish, rude people, the smell of inner city pollution, bossy traffic cops, crazy drivers, even black people! (No offense intended, we just don't have very many black people in Utah.) Each of these is a rarity where I live now.

My first stop was George's Gyros...for Chicago food.

The skyline is beautiful, as well.

But, all of a sudden, I felt a small tinge of something in my mind. I opened my phone and saw the picture I had taken. That would have to hold me over for the next two weeks. I missed the mountains!

I have absolutely fallen in love with the mountains out west! They take my breath away almost every day! Each season, each snowfall, each sunrise and sunset falls just so, and it is the most beautiful sight a person has ever seen...every single time!

Not trying to make anyone jealous here, but I did not notice how flat Indiana was until I moved to Utah.

Someone told me "In Indiana, you can see your dog run away from you for three miles! But, this is God's country!"

So, I guess I'm one of those hyphenated Americans..."Chicagoan-Hoosier-Utahn."

Yep, It's Another Blog

I am very happy to introduce my new blog: Teacher2Teacher! This is designed to be a resource for teachers. Included in the site are ideas for bulletin boards, motivational ideas, games, and other teaching tools.

You can view entries in chronological order. For your convenience, there is also a category list and search box.

This site is a "work in progress" and will grow with time. Part of that will result from user interaction. Specifically, if you have a particular idea you would like to see developed, enter it under "Questions & Comments." Any other thoughts or comments can be submitted here, as well.

I hope this can be a help to all of you.

Four Trees!

While growing up, one of our family's traditions was decorating the Christmas tree. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we would get our tree, sometimes real, sometimes fake, and set it up in the living room. Then, for one reason or another, usually there was a basketball in the gym, we would all make our escape and mom would be left to decorate the tree. (You thought this was going to be a warm, fuzzy, everybody-decorates-the-tree-together kind of tradition, didn't you?)

For those of you who think I have somehow missed out on putting up & decorating Christmas trees, have no fear! This year, I have had the "privilege" of helping to put up and decorate FOUR Christmas trees! That's right, four!

Our first tree was in our high school classroom at school.

We began with the six-foot "nostalgic" tree that had been set up there every December for who knows how many years. The ornaments & garland could only be described as worn-out & threadbare. Charlie Brown had nothing on that tree! After about five strands of colored lights, too many apple ornaments, and a paper star for a tree topper, the nostalgia was completely gone!

So, down went that tree & in came the seven & a half foot garage sale version. That's right, it was from a garage sale this summer. It only cost $10, but was 1/2 off by the time I made it there. To be honest, it is the nicest 'fake' tree I have ever seen. The tree is prelit with LED lights, and looks beautiful all by itself.

We all brought in a couple of ornaments and some candy canes, and it looks great! We have everything from sparkly dollar store stars, to great grandma's old-fashioned bulbs, silver snowmen, and a wooden bell from Israel, and hi-hat soldiers from Europe. Pretty fancy, right?

A couple of days later, the house tree went up. This was another garage sale find. Sadly, there were no pre-threaded lights, and it was not marked for 1/2 off yet. Still, it turned out great. Charity has six strands of red & white lights. (Yep, they bought 4 strands of white & 2 strands of red & switched out the bulbs until they had a white, white, red sequence in all 6 strands!) She had instrumental ornaments, a mini spinning disco ball to reflect the colors, snowflakes, and glass bead ornaments. That turned out great, as well.

Finally, the most special tree of all was the tree in our 1st-3rd classroom! Remember the "Charlie Brown Tree" that the high schoolers turned down...you guessed it! That was an improvement for the little kids. They were used to a 3 foot tree, so this was a real treat. Also, the old garland came with the tree. When I asked if we should put it on or if it was too ugly, they all replied, "No! It's pretty!" Thankfully, they agreed to only put two different colors on the tree, instead of five! Everyone got to hang some bulbs, and we put lights all around the classroom! (We'll see how long that lasts. ;-) I guess we kind of got carried away. But Christmas only comes once a year, right?

So, to "wrap this up," (bad pun, I know), I think I have become a artificial tree aficionado. I have special practice in pulling out all of the branches to make them look somewhat real, instead of looking like they have been in a box all year. You see, you have to start at the bottom & work all around the bottom layer, pulling each branch up just a little & out...well, nevermind. You don't want to hear all of that.