2010 Embrace the Joy
My theme for last year was the theme of hope which helped pull a lot of us through this rough economic year. This year I’ve decided that my theme is joy so I will embrace the joy.
I’ve had a lot of joy to embrace this fall. I was able to have work every day as a substitute and was allowed to fill in for my friend still re-cooperating from cancer treatments. Her class was the 3rd grade GATE class with students who blew me away daily by speaking in complete sentences and knowing what an adverb was. It is a wonderful class that I grew to love, but I am happy that my friend, now free of cancer, will return in January. The most joyful thing was going to the same school everyday with a wonderful staff which I’ve known since student teaching days and a wonderful new principal. So I was so happy when the Principal offered me the Intervention job for 4th and 5th grade. This will focus on students who are low in Language Arts and will train me in a new field. I am enjoying my Writer’s Club and have done Open Mike and have begun to send out my writing. I also began a blog and a website.
What has truly brought joy into my life has been my oldest son who is now 17, a High School Senior maturing into a nice young man. He has gone from horrifying me to making me proud. So those of you with teenagers there is hope. The biggest change is that he is in love and so am I with this beautiful girl who is getting my agnostic, fish-hating son to go to church on a Friday night after enjoying a fish dinner. It has been wonderful having coffee and even tea with my son but - even more exciting - I am teaching him to sew. He is making a present for his girlfriend. It has become a family project with Engineer Don doing a prototype and Grandma W. helping him with the sewing machine. It brings back memories of my Mom staying up late to help me with my sewing projects, the simple joy of working together. John has finished his last year of Marching Band where they went to State finals in November. He will be taking Calculus classes at a community college which he can take for free and get college credit for. We were hoping that he would stick to the “community college and then transferring” plan but he has also applied to Cal State Fullerton and Cal Poly Pomona, so we shall see.
I have two years to rest before Benjamin, 11 hits the teenage years. I will have two graduations this year with him graduating from 6th grade. He broke his arm the first week of summer vacation when we were off on a bike ride. I had to spend the night in the hospital with him after he had surgery. Trust me he was not a good patient. He has been to Outdoor Camp in the mountains for a week in November and had a great time. Last spring he went to Catalina with his class. He is enjoying Spore video games, Bakugan, and Lego Bionicles and has an interest in animation. He is quite talkative to the point at which John and I have made up the expression, “Is he still talking?” Wherever did he get that from? When I see someone I know at the store, which can be frequent with all the students and teachers I’ve worked with, his line to me is, “Don’t you even start talking.”
Don’s been building a new computer since his old one died. My laptop has been continually in use by all, so I’m thankful that all computers are up and running. We had a wonderful Christmas with my Mom. We went up to my Father-in-law and Don’s sister‘s for Christmas Eve and had a delicious Mexican meal.
The greatest loss of this year was the passing of Evelyn Hegge, my spiritual mother who led me to the Lord. My other family was the Hegge family and I spent numerous times at their cabin. Her daughter Ruth was my Matron of Honor and has always been a dear friend. Evelyn leaves a legacy of Sunday school, and Child Evangelism children whose lives she touched.
New Years’ is a time people make goals and resolutions but goals never seem to work for me. My Transitions group has been talking about setting intentions. I went away for a day to make a dream board, a poster that depicts what I want my life to look like. I clipped magazine pictures that appealed to me and made a collage. I kept running into pictures of nice house interiors and a quote that sometimes you need to let others help you. Soon after without me even asking (begging or cajoling), the boys, led by John began cleaning up the house and getting rid of clutter. I went out one day and returned to find the Christmas tree setup by Don, John had put on the lights, and Benjamin had decorated it. Don made Christmas dinner with my Mom this year and I have discovered the joy in stepping back, “not doing it all.”
So here’s hoping that you will embrace all the joys, especially the little ones, and that you will achieve whatever intentions you have for your lives this year.
MJ for Don, John and Benjamin
PS If you can read this newsletter, thank a teacher and my editor, Wendy Danbury.
