Christmas Letter

I always write a Christmas letter and now that I have Creative Memories Storybook Plus, I incorporate pictures.  I do feel weird about writing the letter though -- I know some people hate them.  They say it is usually just people bragging.  Well it isn't so much bragging as it is highlighting the good things -- I leave out the stuff that I don't want to remember or relive!  I mostly just send this to people not in town with me to catch up.  I LOVE getting Christmas letters!

Twinkie

Twinkie was our first cat.  She came into our life because Kathryn wanted a cat and Mark had a friend who had a cat but couldn't keep her.  We adopted her in April 1997.  Kathryn was thrilled to get a cat but Twinkie really liked Kevin best.  She was a good cat.  She was quiet, but when she was hungry she would tear open the bag if we weren't home to fill her bowl!

I didn't think I would ever want a cat.  But because of Twinkie we ended up owning two other cats. Unfortunately she didn't like either of them.

Twinkie was a one of a kind cat and she really liked it when Kevin came home from college on visits.  As I said, she liked him best.

I do hope that I will soon be able to drive into the driveway and not look up to Kev's window to see if she is sitting there.

Twinkie, I hope you are having fun at the Rainbow Bridge...and I hope BC is being nice to you.

Change can be hard -- but it can also be good

I sit here nearly in tears after tossing and turning all night.  Mark and I are seriously thinking about moving.  We had a lot of criteria for a move.  We would only move if we found a better house that was one-story, no pool, in the same town we live in, and on the same side of this town...that was within our price range.  We may have found it but it hasn't been built yet.  We're talking to the realtor today that is selling some new houses.

In anticipation of another change, Kathryn came home this weekend from college.  The three of us will officially join Abiding Grace Lutheran Church and sign its charter today.  I have very mixed emotions here.  I absolutely had to leave my former church because the "senior pastor" preaches stuff that is repugnant to me.  (I totally put the words senor pastor in quotes because I think it is silly that he calls himself the senior pastor when he is the only pastor there.)  I'm grateful I don't have to listen to his hate-filled sermons anymore, but I hate what he did to a loving Christian community.  I feel he is a sick man and I'll leave it at that.  Abiding Grace Lutheran Church is a loving place -- and I would rather be there.

Last night, we spent a couple hours clearing out Kathryn's room.  We have probably 5 bags of trash at the curb, 5 bags to take to GRACE and a couple bags of yarn to donate to a knitting group.  Her room and closet seem bare.  This was where the tossing and turning came from -- I feel we are throwing or giving away her childhood.  She isn't a child anymore, she is an adult, but it is hard to see so much stuff go.  We still have boxes under her bed and her bookcase to clean, but her room is much different now! 

I haven't actually talked to my son in awhile -- I think I need to fix that today.

Time marches on.

How Short is Your Attention Span -- a small rant!

I use social media networks. Facebook is now out-of-fashion for the younger group -- since we, their moms and dads are on it. They have turned to Twitter for now, which I love. But both sites may be affecting our attention spans!

(photo borrowed from greencountryok.com)

A couple weeks ago, I went to the play "Oklahoma" in Oklahoma at Discoveryland. If you really want to see "Oklahoma" done right -- this is the place to go. They have a huge outside stage and real horses led by real cowboys! I digress. I was sitting on the second row and the family in front of me kept checking their smartphones to check in on facebook. Folks -- this is rude behavior when you are at a performance!

Did you get that if I was on the second row and they were in front of me -- they were on the first row! Even if you don't like the play, like the song they are currently singing, don't like the ballet part (raising my hand here); it is downright rude to the actors and the audience to check your phone.

Come on people -- we can all go two to three hours without being "connected".

Not thinking...or thinking too much!

So yesterday I went down the road to get my haircut and Kathryn went with me. I was driving back on the freeway and part of the time I was following an "Express Catering" truck (roach coach). I passed him and then about another mile down the road, Kathryn said "where are you going" as I was passing the exit to our house. I replied "hmmm guess I wasn't thinking."

In reality, this is what I had been thinking and told Kathryn as we meandered back to our home. "That catering truck reminded me of an ice cream truck and that made me remember that someone had posted on facebook 'If kids get ice cream trucks, why don't adults get margarita trucks?'...and this led me to think about the dacquiri/margarita shops in New Orleans where there are many flavors of the drink against the wall...and this led me to think about self-serve yogurt shops that have popped up all over the place...and then I remembered that Cassie's yogurt here in Grapevine has both cupcake batter and cake batter and I want to get in and see what the difference is...and that they had updated their fb page that they have a new flavor, root beer float, and I wonder what flavor they got rid of...

So In reality, I was just thinking too much to make my exit!

This Amazing Journey

When God shut a door on me a few months ago and it became apparent that Mark and I were leaving our church of 25 years, I had no idea what an amazing journey He would lead me on. I am so humbled and honored at the same time to be seeing his glory at work.

First, we started attending another Lutheran church in the area. I mentioned it in another blog post and going to Rejoice was wonderful. However, that's not where the journey ends.

A group of people that were leaving the old church met with the bishop and he gave us the go-ahead to start a Synodically Authorized Worshiping Community and at that meeting a "Launch Team" was formed. I got on the launch team simply because I had my laptop and I was taking notes at that meeting. I am the note-taker for the Launch Team. It is simply amazing and awe-inspiring how the Holy Spirit formed our group and works with us. Everyone in the group has such a gift to give (ok -- my gift is just that I can type fast). We have financial people, insurance people, a great techie guy who set up a wonderful website, people who know how to find a place for worship, we have a person who knows people at the synod office and therefore, knows who to talk to about various things, organized people who can organize a meeting, -- it is simply amazing!

We even found a part-time pastor who is GREAT. He could be hired away at any time, but I am going to let the HS handle that. I found it is much better if I just get out of the way and let God work.

When I left the old church and said that I would be willing to help start a new one; I had friends and family who said -- oooh that is so hard to start a new church. Well it hasn't been hard; it has been such a joy to be part of this. I can't even put into words how awesome it has been to see how God uses each of our talents (that He gave us to begin with) to make something wonderful. One of the themes of the ELCA is "God's work, our hands". This is so true with this endeavor.

We had our first picnic/worship service a few weeks ago and had over 50 in attendance. We will start meeting regularly on August 15 and I can hardly wait.

I am so EXCITED. One of my friends on the launch team even changed my ringtone on her phone to the the song "I'm so Excited" by the Pointer Sisters. I think I'll change her ringtone on my phone to be the same.

My new church got its name because we wanted to emphasize that Grace is freely given by God to each of us -- the new church is Abiding Grace Lutheran Church. Come join us if you are in my area! We start worshiping on August 15!

How many email addresses do I really need?

I have used kimingvtx@yahoo.com as my main email address for a very long time.  When gmail came out, I grabbed kimingvtx@gmail.com.  Then I realized that I could add another yahoo address to my account and I added mathtutorkim@yahoo.com.  Recently I was giving out my email address again and I always have to say k-i-m-i-n-g-v-t-x very slowly and it was getting tedious. Also if I have to update my resume, I didn't want to use that one.  So I created kim.saunders@live.com  (which I will also use, I guess, if I ever leave Grapevine Texas).  I also have a TCC email address.

I'm slowly moving some things to gmail in anticipation of getting my Droid Incredible phone.  However, I'm keeping all the email addresses  -- I should be pretty easy to get a hold of!

Why my marriage works

Mark and I are very compatible. Right now I am at work and I need to scan something for a friend. I know how to scan -- I scan old pictures alot. I can't get this particular computer and scanner to talk to each other. It prints just fine from the computer, but it won't scan. HMMM.

I think, "if Mark were here, he could fix it and then I could scan the item". See, we are just that compatible. He fixes computers, and I use them. I am pretty savvy on software issues, but hate hardware issues. If the computer can get the all-in-one device to print, why can't it get it to scan?

I need Mark here. Instead I think I will just take the object home with me and scan it there. Mark has recently bought me a cool new printer/scanner....and it works!

Thanks Mark. I love you bunches -- and not just because you can fix hardware issues.

Love of Learning or Learning for the next task

So last night I listened to an interesting podcast -- Bad Philosophy Episode 63 http://www.badphilosophy.com/blog/2010/04/19/episode-063-one-big-shiny-piece-of-paper/

Yes, my son, is on the podcast as well as a couple other college guys. They made some interesting points on this one. The podcast subject was prompted by the resignation of the Dean of the Honor's College at Texas Tech. He resigned because he did not agree with the university's administration's desire to achieve Tier One status -- or at least how they were going about getting it. Apparently research is a BIG deal for Tier One schools. When a professor has to do more research, he has less time to teach an honors course -- therefore, fewer professors were available to teach honors and they had to cut from 80 honors classes to around 50! That does not sound like progress to me.
I'm not really sure they talked about all that -- I read it in an article on the subject.

The guys did talk though about the value of a college education and the difference in getting a "universal education" and getting a degree to allow one to go to work. Universities were formed to do both I think. However, as Kevin said, some people just sleep through the classes that don't help them in the job market and manage to pull C's. They possibly listen more in the classes that they might be using in the marketplace. Most universities have a core curriculum that includes math, English, history, arts, etc. This is designed to give the student the universal education.

When did we get away from learning something just to expand one's mind and get to only learning what one needs to learn for the next task at hand. Where is the love of learning? Can we get it back? Should we?

Note: The guys on the podcast are Honors students. Kevin graduated with Honors last year and the other two will graduate next month. I think they tend to have more of the "love of learning".

I've Cried and Now it is Time to Rejoice

After a long 7-month battle at church over whether the Pastor and his stupid hand-picked council would lead the church out of the evil ELCA, they won the first vote. (When I say stupid -- I mean the people on council are either stupid and/or just easily swayed by the zealotry of the pastor). I suppose they will win the second one too in 3 months. Over this time, I have seen just how much a psycho zealot he is! He used the sexuality statement to get many people riled up over the ELCA, but truly he just wants to leave because he is a little man and he has issues and he wants all the POWER!

Ugly things have happened at the church. We actually stopped worshiping there after Christmas and started visiting Lutheran churches. We were delighted to be back in a Lutheran church because whatever he calls this church, and he will continue to call it a Lutheran church, it has become anything but Lutheran.

So now, where is God leading us? If the bishop wants to start a new church -- we're in. However, if he chooses that it is not best for this area, we have already found a new church not too far away.

Mark recently wrote an email to those that want to stay and fight and he wrote "At some point it is time to move on. Church should be a joyous event and celebration not a battle. The Church is not a Pastor or a building, the church is US! We can have a loving, living, learning, Lutheran Church without him and at any location. If the Bishop will support such an effort this may be a better investment of our time and energy. Let us take this challenge laid before us by our Lord and run with it. He has great plans for his people if we follow his lead and get out of the sinful battles of man. This is not easy for me to do, because I too don't want to "lose" to him. However, I try to think of it as a win as Christ is leading me on a different path. Carefully and prayerfully consider the path that we should take. Make sure it is one the glorifies God and does His work. " I couldn't have said it better!

Oh and BTW the church home we have found is Rejoice Lutheran! Rejoice indeed!

A Lutheran in an Episcopal Church

I've been Lutheran all my life. I like liturgy. This past weekend I went to St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Stillwater OK with my daughter. (She's Lutheran too but likes the Stillwater Episcopalians more than the Stillwater Lutherans). The order of the service was printed in the bulletin, but they actually use the hymnbook and the BCP (Book of Common Prayer). Kathryn helped me find my place in the book as necessary. There are many similarities in their liturgy and a Lutheran liturgy -- except the sermon is early in the service and the announcements (at least at this church come later).

During the announcements, the Pastor made a comment about the Billion Dollar Drive that OSU just kicked off and he looked at a man across the aisle from me. I glanced over and realized that I was attending church with Burns Hargis -- The President of Oklahoma State University!

How cool was that!

More cool than that was spending my daughter's birthday with her in Tulsa, getting back to Stillwater in time to go to church and having Frito Chili Pie at Coney Island afterward! Happy 19th birthday Kathryn.

Education Seminar

So now that I am working in the education field, I was invited to a seminar for my morning job. The exciting thing to me about the seminar was the location -- Cowboys Stadium with free parking! I knew that I would probably never have the opportunity to go to the stadium especially with free parking again. That is a magnificent building. We also had lunch served to us and it was delicious, served on real plates with real silverware!

The seminar was to go over technology in education. One thing I learned is that we can each have a windows.live account and we all have 25 GB of storage in "the cloud". Wow -- so I set up my windows live account and stored a picture. In Microsoft Office 2010 it is possible to save directly to your own "skydrive". You can also choose which files are private and which your network can see. Your network is the friends you choose to be in your network. Seems pretty handy to me.

Another website that I learned about is last.fm It's a cool website where you can choose your own music and make playlists. I might make one for "working on the computer music" and one for "cleaning house music". (The second one won't be used much). I really don't know how to make the playlists -- I haven't played with it yet.

We had some good speakers and I probably learned a lot -- some useful and some not so much. I did get a tour of the stadium and got to go into the locker room where each locker cost between 9 and 10 thousand dollars! We were not allowed to touch them. They said that this room is the most rented out room in the building. People have cocktail parties in there -- and some have proposed in front of their favorite cowboy's locker! There is no odor -- no equipment is actually stored in this building!! It is brought over before the game and then taken back to the other place afterwards!

I'm growing up and going to seminars again!


Few days later -- played with last.fm awhile and still like it, but I won't be making any track lists because that option costs $3 a month which isn't worth it to me. So I just pick a "station" and see what happens. I did find that unlike some people, I can't concentrate if music is playing loudly!

Who the Heck am I?

I've been trying to figure that out. I am ...
a Christian, a wife, a mother to adult children, an owner of dogs and cats, a friend, a tutor, a math geek, a reader, a scrapbooker, a computer user, an instructor to adults learning about computers, a napper, a tv watcher, and many other things.

I've been through many stages in my life....childhood, teenage years, college, career woman, early marriage, kids at home, substitute teacher, PTA mom, homeschool mom, and now empty nest....I wish I could figure out now what/where I am supposed to be. Maybe this is it for now, but God isn't finished with me yet.

Was I a Helicopter Mom?

I wonder if I was a helicopter mom. I certainly went to enough parent/teacher meetings to know the teachers and administrators on a first name basis. That was until I didn't want to know them anymore at all and I became the teacher and I slept with the administrator.

Then my students went off to college and I may have given them some advice but I never called a professor or administrator of a college.

But it was made very clear to me last week that I was not an overly protective mom. Last week, I heard sirens coming down my street around 8:00 pm. They turned on the side street next to my house and out of curiosity I walked over. There was an ambulance, a fire truck, and a police car. There was also a neighbor girl sitting on the sidewalk. Other neighbors came out also and I heard the story...they had been rollerskating and this little girl fell and broke her arm. I watched as they loaded her onto the gurney and prepared to rush her to the hospital.

About 10 or 11 years ago, I had just begun homeschooling and my son and I decided to go for a bike ride. (PE class I guess). Well he rode into a parked car and hurt himself. We rode back and he told me that his wrist hurt. I gave him some advil and told him to take a bath -- I was going to Dallas to meet some friends for lunch. I came home a couple hours later and he told he that it still hurt. I probably gave him some more advil. A couple hours later, when he was still complaining about it, I took him to the emergency room where after an x-ray, they told me that he had a broken wrist!

He didn't get any sirens, he didn't get to ride in an ambulance. He got to sit at home while his mom went to lunch and then he finally got to ride in my Honda Accord to the hospital.

Helicopter mom -- definitely not! Neglectful -- not always!

It's a New Year

It's a new year and a new decade. I've heard many of the arguments of how to say this year -- Twenty Ten, Two Thousand Ten, or O-Ten. My preferred way is to say twenty ten and to write MMX.

This year, Mark and I will probably be finding a new church home. It is somewhat difficult to leave a church you have been involved in for over 25 years, but it is time to move on. We may have already found a place, but we will wait until some things at our older church have changed. It is scary and exciting at the same time. Mark and I are very ELCA Lutheran in our thinking, believing, and worshiping. Our current church is not.

I'm going to try to read at least 26 books this year. I really need to make more time to read. I also want to finish Kev's Texas Tech scrapbook as well as start and finish the 2008 and 2009 books. They will probably be a hybrid -- some old fashioned scrapbook pages as well as some digital pages. Of course, I need to start my walking dvd's again.

I'll check back in a few months and see how I'm doing!

The Audacity of Individuality

In the past few weeks, while my kids were in town and I talked to other parents of similarly aged kids, I realized again that my kids are "different".

When talking about all the social aspects of college, I realize that Kathryn just isn't a "normal" college freshman. She didn't want to go greek, she likes going to class, she loves learning new things, she doesn't always wear the standard college attire, she usually gets about 8 hours of sleep each night, and most of her social life is at the Canterbury Center and at church. I suppose she was never the "normal" high school student either, but since she didn't go to high school, it wasn't as noticeable. Everyone who knows Kevin, knows that he is a proud nonconformist.

Today, I was reading an article in the Dallas Morning News about Chris Howard, who is now the first black president of Hampden-Sydney College, a predominantly while all-male school in Virginia. The article is well written and I'm sure he is a great man. But one of his quotes made me go 'aha' -- that's the definition of my kids. I'm quoting the DMN (article by Jessica Meyers) which is quoting him -- (no plagiarism for me) .

"He's started telling his cadre of male students to stub their toes, be humbled by the complexity and subtlety of experiences, and to embrace ambiguity. 'I call it the audacity of individuality,' he said. 'So many people tell you what you should be. Follow your passions first and acquire sets of skills that empower.'"

So that's my Kevin and my Kathryn -- they each have the audacity of individuality!

Woohoo -- I'm so proud of them!