Apple Picking!

A couple of weeks ago, Grey and I went apple picking with a lovely couple of ours, Susan and Will. We had TONS of fun and to show you, below are this lovely girl's pictures.



Isn't she beautiful? She's the photographer of our apple picking adventure.

Our group(Grey looks really happy doesn't he?):


What my life will be like in a few years - that of a very awkward church family photo:


The tree from the movie "The Ring"


The next two are from Grey attempting to launch me into the tree like cheerleaders do in order to get a really good looking apple. Needless to say, I couldn't do it.




Then we decided that maybe we should switch places...I had after all been doing my push ups :)


Still no luck...However, here is one of the final pictures with my sweet fiance


In case you were wondering, no I'm not wearing a mini skirt...I had gotten hot and so I had rolled up my pants past my knees.

Can you believe that in less than 60 DAYS, these two crazy people will be married! :) AH!


What happened to the apples you might ask? Well some of them went into an apple fritter recipe by the one and only, Pioneer Woman!


I can't say that I tried them (I'm not big on fruit desserts) but Grey said they were good! :) I'll take his word for it.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Yay for the Tigers finally pulling out a win! Oliver was SO excited that Clemson was doing well that this is where he decided to sit during the game (a commercial is on in the background).


-B

P.S. I love this little girl....Isn't my little niece absolutely beautiful?

Independent Woman

This past weekend, Grey and I had pretty wonderful, but hard to hear conversation.

It's a known fact that I am one independent woman. I have this thing where I feel like I need to stand up for myself, to prove to the world that I am capable of accomplishing things - thus the reason for striving to be really athletic, cooking a lot, getting my master's degree...etc. It's all to make me more capable of living on my own, to stand up for the female race and show people that women can be really successful.

This weekend, on the way back from apple picking (pictures are hopefully coming soon), Grey very gracefully and kindly brought to my attention that sometimes, my independent outlook on life can be rather hard on a guy who is trying to pursue. It's both Grey's and my desire that as the man, he pursue me! However, when I open the door for myself, refuse to let him do things like empty the litterbox, and pick my own apples, it's hard for him to be the gentleman that he wants to be and take care of me.

My pride took a huge hit.

But I realized that by allowing him to serve me in ways like opening the door or cooking me meals, I'm giving him a sense of joy - joy knowing that he's providing for me and taking care of me. It's not that he doesn't think I'm incapable of doing these things, but he purely wants to show me that he loves me.

So for right now, I'm working on graciously allowing him to serve me even when I think I am capable of accomplishing these things.

Thoughts?
-B

Randoms part two

1) I made my first big mistake as a teacher.
I gave one of my students lunch detention and called her parents to let her know that her child needed to pack a lunch for the next day. I was frazzled from a rough day at school and ended up apologizing for giving the student lunch detention and ended the conversation with, "Is it ok that I gave your child lunch detention?"
Whoops. :)

2) I have some of the sweetest ladies that clean my room every day. After that one particular rough day mentioned above, the lady came in while I was just sitting at my desk starring off into space. She asked how my day had gone and I told her that it was ok and asked her how her day had gone. She looked at me and sighed, and said, Well, ya know? I've always got to remind myself that there is always someone else out there who has it worse off than I do."
So true. I thanked her for reminding me that.

3)Apparently Oliver doesn't know that when you get out of the litter box, you leave the litter IN the box. The culprit is sitting right by his mess. :)



Also, Oliver almost broke into my stash of cat food. While I was taking pictures, he was behind the door trying to get in to the laundry room. He's a sneaky stinker.






I hope you have a good rest of the week!
-B

Randoms

1) I officially made a wedding playlist for the next two months. Ready?
Hey Soul Sister - Train
I told you so and Sweet Thing - Keith Urban
Fallin for you - Colbie Caillat
Just the way you are - Bruno Mars
Farmer's Daughter - Rodney Atkins
Someone to watch over me - Ella Fitzgerald
Boogie Shoes - KC and the Sunshine Band
All of Creation - Mercy ME
Forever - Chris Brown
I never told you -Colbie Caillat
Love Story - Taylor Swift
These are the nights - Making April
You got me - Colbie Caillat
Stuck like glue - Sugarland
My life would suck without you - Glee!!!!!!!!!!

Exciting right? I'm trying to get in the mushy gushy mood so my husband-to-be will have plenty of loving once we're married. :)

2) I love Mercy Me's "All of Creation" song - particularly the verses that say,
"Separated until the veil was torn
The moment that hope was born
and guilt was pardoned once and for all

Captivated but no longer bound by chains
left at an empty grave
the sinner and the sacred resolved"

and

"the reason we breathe is to sing of his glory
and for all he has done praise the father praise the son and the spirit in one."

It's a good reminder for me that we are given so much hope in this sinful world. Our only purpose for being in this world - hence the reason we breathe, is to purely sing of his glory, to bring him praise, and to worship him.

We went to Renewal this morning and one thing that both Grey and I took away from the service was when Matt talked about taking the Lord's name in vain. He said that we think that taking the Lord's name in vain is so bad but every time we profess to be followers of Jesus and we do something that contradicts that, we are in essence doing the same thing as using the Lord's name in vain. Ouch.

3) We went to the Clemson homecoming game this past weekend and while I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and hanging out with Grey's fam, I hated it. I was brought back into a world where gorgeous girls dressed so immodestly that it made me sick. The bad part was I was so jealous. I know I can't control what Grey looks at and believe me when I say that I completely trust him. But - I was in a situation where I no longer had control. I wanted so badly to punch all of those girls in the face. Sinful thoughts of comparisons started coming back and by the time the evening was over, I was absolutely sick with what I saw when I looked at myself. It was like my sophomore and junior years in college were back. I had worked so hard at having a healthy body image and I felt like all of it, within 12 hours, was shot in the foot.

However, I realized that those thoughts were purely from Satan himself and that I was a beautiful creation in the Lord. I read a blog some time ago where it talked about how painful a girl's comparisons can be. The summary of the blog was this - that Jesus didn't die so we would feel good about ourselves when we looked in the mirror or so we would fit into what the world deemed as being beautiful. How selfish of us to even think that way. Here we've been given the most beautiful gift of salvation ever - eternal life with the King of Kings and all we can think about is how the Creator's creation isn't good enough. Jesus didn't die so we would think of ourselves as beautiful in the worldly sense. Nope - Jesus died so we would think of ourselves as beautiful worshipers of the Most High. He died so we would have hope that after living through a painful world filled with sin and comparisons, we would get to celebrate for all eternity with him in Heaven.
What can you be praying for?
That especially as the wedding approaches, I wouldn't be tempted to compare myself with other girls or think that if I was skinnier or blonder or prettier that Grey would be more of a lucky guy to be marrying me.

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend.
Next weekend? APPLE PICKING with Susan and Will!! :)

76 days till we're hitched!
I love you all and thanks for praying!
-B

Fall

As one of my beautiful friends Sammi wrote,
"There is something about the fall air that just refreshes my soul." Yep - so incredibly true. It smells different. You can feel the coolness of the air coming down from the mountains. The leaves start changing colors. The humidity gradually decreases. It becomes jeans, tshirts, and flip flop weather.

Thursday was officially the first day of fall so in honor, here are my top reasons for loving it.

1) God's beauty is shown all over with the changing colors
2) The air gets sweeter and cooler.
3) I start craving warm cookies and hot chocolate
4) Hot tea becomes a must in the mornings
5) Candles make an entrance
6) Winter smells of gingerbread, pumpkin pie, and peppermint floating around in the air
7) Football.
8) Home Alone and Elf start making appearances
9) Sorry if this is too much information, but I absolutely adore snuggling. With cooler weather comes more snuggling. Grey appreciates it :)
10) Grey also is a dear and allows me to put my ice cold feet on his back so he can warm them up. In case you can't tell, he spoils me :)


EK! I'm so excited!!!!
Below is a picture of Michigan State's campus during my infamous tattoo trip 3 years ago IN THE FALL!


:)
-B

Realization

This is why I am where I am:

During the second week of school, the kids had taken a test (during a 90 minute block) and I was trying to get them to start on a fun activity introducing the next unit. They were being miserable - absolutely miserable. I couldn't get them to cooperate or do anything that I asked them to do. I finally threw my hands up in the air and asked them why they were being so miserable. I had one kid who looked at me and in front of the whole class said,
"Ms James - even when you're yelling at us, you're still giving us more attention then we get at home."

That was it.
Even when my days are horrible (like last Friday when I had a parent come down to the front office yelling), I still have to realize that Jesus has me in this high school for a purpose. I need to love on those kids like their mommas would because for some of them, I'm the closest thing that they've got to a parent.

Doesn't it break your heart?

I'll never ever ever forget what that kid said to me.

Holding Fast

This week has been rough.

Starting with last Friday, I've had something happen in my classroom every day of the week that has just left me standing there asking myself what in the world I've gotten myself into.

Last Thursday, one of my classes was particularly rough so I had warned them that come Friday, no fun and games, no partner work, no "cool" activities - just straight lecture, notes, and practice. Friday, one of my students decided to announce that she was bored and that my class was no fun. Yeah, ok. I was bored too but oh well. :) I gave them a review sheet for their test at the beginning of the next week and for the next 20 minutes, she refused (down right refused) to do work. I asked her to get to work several times and she just said no. (I'm still fine at this point, I can handle this.) She then got out scissors and paper and started cutting strips of paper to make a fan. She took her delicately made fan and started waving it around the classroom. I walked over to her and stuck my hand out asking for her fan. She refused to give it to me and again I asked her for it. Still no. So, (my bad) I went to grab it. That tipped her over the edge. She then stood up, started yelling at me, and even threw a few choice words in there. I went to call her mother in class right in front of her (got no answer) but that apparently pushed an even bigger button of hers. At that moment, I called down for an administrator to come down and escort her out of my class. No one came. Yikes.
What a way to end the week huh?

Every day this week, I've had someone blow up in my class yelling curse words at me because I've apparently done something silly like:
1)assigning 7 math problems for homework (apparently 7 is too many)
2)taking a kid's test from him when I caught him cheating
3)Assigning lunch detention to 4 kids who randomly walked out of my class on Wednesday and never came back (it should have been an automatic day in ISS but apparently lunch detention was bad enough)
and other random "my bad" things.

Thursday, I was so frustrated when I got home that by the time I got ready for bed, I still had not cooled off. Jesus and I had a long chat though about what righteous anger was and I went to bed happy.

Come Friday, I was fine. In fact, Friday morning, I had a total God wink by seeing a beautiful sunrise on my way to work. Friday was going to be a good day. It's the day before the weekend, we had a pep rally at school, and I was going to get to see Grey after! :)

Was Friday a good day? No. I had a fight occur in my classroom that completely tipped me over the edge. By tipped, I mean, crying uncontrollably from 12-2 during my planning that I didn't get to have because I was covering someone else's class. (Those kids were scared at all the tears coming from my eyeballs.)

It was a rough day. By the time Grey got to my apartment, I was curled up on my bed trying to sleep (at 6:45) because I had a horrible headache. To give you a mental image of what Grey saw when he looked at me, as soon as I got up from the bed, my nose was so full of snot that it started pouring out. So I had to hold my hand out and catch it all. My face was bright red, my eyes were puffy, my lips looked like I had red lipstick on, I had glasses on with a half up ponytail that had fallen out. To make matters worse, my so stinkin sweet hubby to be simply looked at me and said, "Have I told you today how beautiful you are?"

Yep, I lost it...again. More puffiness, more redness, more snot. He's awesome.

Aside from that though, I've really been struggling, especially after this week, of whether or not this is the place for me. I really love my students and I've already seen multiple times how this is such a mission field (the fact that my fiance and I do not live together is just unheard of to my students). However, on the inside, it's really tearing me up. I want them to succeed in life so badly. I want them to respect their parents and myself and have goals that they desire to attain. Teaching is hard. Teaching lost high schoolers is even harder.

My only saving grace has been the fact that I am a sinner just like my students. If my loving God can have an unlimited amount of patience with me, why can't I at least try to do the same for my students?

All week I've had Mercy Me's song "Hold Fast" stuck in my head:
To everyone who's hurting
To those who've had enough
To all the undeserving
That should cover all of us
Please do not let go
I promise there is hope

Hold fast
Help is on the way
Hold fast
He's come to save the day
What I've learned in my life
One thing greater than my strife
Is His grasp
So hold fast

Jesus has His grasp on me. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will make it through this year. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will be able to show love and patience DAILY to my students. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will be able to come back day after day and give it all I've got.

So please pray for me that I would have continuing patience and love for my students, that I wouldn't become quickly frustrated with them when they do things that I've deemed as stupid, and that I would represent Jesus to my lost world of students.