Happy Anniversary, my Love!!!

This post is dedicated to my incredible husband, Nate.

Today we are celebrating our first anniversary. Our year has gone faster than I ever expected. We've learned to love, we've fallen farther for each other, and we've shared experiences and have memories from our first year of marriage that can never be taken by anyone. That is something special. No one else in this entire world will have our memories, our inside jokes, and the understanding that we have for one another.

Nate has been a great teacher, a wonderful friend, and the best bed-buddy I could have ever asked for. :) This year I've learned more about myself than I thought possible. We agree that we've learned how selfish we really are, that it's hard to love sometimes, but that at the end of the day, crawling into bed with your best friend by your side is one of the greatest joys in life. We've grown in our culinary expertise (!) and experienced a few flops as well... (*cough*zucchinichips*cough*)

We've had a wonderful weekend with family. My parents came down and Nate's parents came up. We spent the day with my family and met up with Nate's side for a spot of shopping and supper at a Habachi grill. Most of us caught the flying shrimp- although, I did get two chances, and that's my only excuse for catching it. Our parents surprised us with a husker stone for our yard and we took some family photos with it. Charlie is especially fond, as you can see. We ate yummy cake- a replicate of our wedding cake by the same wonderful baker- mmmmm! Emily and Brian came over, and the night was a wonderful reminder of how incredibly blessed we are by our families.

Today was a great day. We started it off with pumpkin spice lattes and the Buffalo Run. (We didn't run, especially not after pumpkin spice lattes!) We watched my best friend run and she did great! You can see her waving in one of the photos- mid race. :)

We then stopped at my brother's house to see his newest basement remodeling project, visited with my parents who were still in town, and found ourselves in the Celebrate section of the newspaper! What a great suprise! Our parents are the best!!!

Breakfast at the golf course was next- and the weather couldn't have been better! The company couldn't have been better!!! We so enjoyed each other today- a pure joy and blessing for our hearts. We went to the movie, The Time Traveler's Wife, which wasn't as good as the book, but still pretty good.

So, we're blessed. We're thankful. And we look forward to the life ahead of us- together!

Still storming.

I'm really not trying to be Debbie Downer. But school is really overwhelming me right now. We have what seems like a MILLION meetings- and no time to catch up on classroom stuff. By the time I've sat through a meeting or two, cleaned up the room, and gathered my ducks to sit down to do some planning, it's 5 o'clock and my carpool is ready to roll. Eeesh...

So I'm bringing things home every night to work on and the frustration continues to build. I've been challenged by the sermon this last week at Berean- BC talked about how our society "lives for 5 o'clock and weekends". I don't want to do that- my calling is a 24 hour deal- at school, at home, in the car, on Monday morning, and on Saturday night. I don't get to decide when I'm going to live for the Kingdom and when I'm going to complain about "only 3 more hours" or "is it Friday yet?".

So, this post is honest. I'm frustrated and overwhelmed. This post is not written in defeat, however. I know this is my mission field and I'm excited about the challenge. I just hope God makes me a little stronger for this next season and gives me wisdom to work smarter not harder. (And a few more hours of planning time would be nice. :)

Take care, friends!

Storms and flowers

I love rain. Physical rain. Loud, fat, storming rain. Rain that invades my lungs and wakes my imagination. I love the inspiration I get from rain to be better; to love better; to create better.

This year I feel like it's raining in 1st grade. Although, not the wonderful, fresh fall or spring rains that I love. Here's an interesting and great metaphor that I received in an email today.

“little flowers never worry when the wind begins to blow…even little flowers know if it never, ever rains then they’d never, ever grow.” Sometimes as educators we may feel like we are facing storm after storm. As I learn and grow in this position, I am acutely aware storms are part of the job. But not the most important part, the rain is needed to harvest the positive outcomes.

It is ringing so true. I feel like this week has been a storm after storm after storm week. And I never open these "Lincoln educators" emails....but for some reason I did today. I'm glad I did. :) Keep growing, little Heather, keep growing!