I have been incredibly thankful for a much slower month thanks to high school exams accompanied by half-days and due to some snow days.

However, I have been feeling incredibly anxious about life and questions of whats next and some-what of some quarter life crises. But God usually knows what I need to hear to reassure me.

In high school, I developed a 'disorder' of sorts in which I all of sudden would get anxiety attacks. I could be doing something and snap- I would hyperventilate. It was pretty scary the first few times. Most of the time I would be doing something stressful- like getting blood drawn. I remember it happened after school during dance practice (I was on the dance team at my school- I know, so cool right?) It was a really bad attack and they tried to call the ambulance and it was pretty embarrassing to say the least, which probably only added to the anxiety attack.

Anyways, all this I say because in a nutshell- I am a really anxious person. I worry. I stress. I try to plan and perfect. I mean, if you saw my agenda (planner) you'd probably think I was a nutjob. Seriously.

I have been constantly reminded in the past couple weeks though about trusting in God's provision for your life.

I listened to a Tim Keller sermon the other week in which he defined anxiety as 'to be in pieces' or 'multi-minded.'

My mind literally is in pieces and thinking in twenty-gazilion different directions, when in reality I need to be single-minded. Now I understand usually single-minded is used in a bad sense, but in this context it means to literally be focused on one thing; your assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Instead of worrying what next move He'll make with me, why not focus on the one move He has already done for me.

Keller also said "worry is listening to your heart and peace is talking to your heart." He draws this from Psalm 142 in which David reminds himself of his salvation:
vs5: "I cry to you O Lord; I say 'You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.'" 

So this week, I am trying to rid my mind of the "what-ifs" and "what shoulds" and remind myself of the "what He has done."

finding peace in the midst of anxiety

im the statue

Have you ever heard of this saying? Well today- I am definitely the statue. In fact, I have found that most days in teaching, I am the statue. I got an email today about my failure rate being too high. This means too many of my students are failing. I was then asked a number of questions in the email all about what I am doing to get the failure rates up. I am expected to report my answers tomorrow. Now I know I need to be encouraging my students to get better grades and contacting parents if necessary. But I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to feel like it is somehow my fault my students are not passing (at least that it is completely my fault...) A lot (I mean about 7 per class....) of the students come late every day, or do not come at all.(about 5 do not come at all)  A lot of them are just lazy and do not do their work. I do not have time to call 40+ parents (yup- the failure number is way high... about 40...) and talk to students individually every day about what specific things they are missing. It drives me absolutely insane. It is nearly impossible... but sadly, someone has to be blamed in the US public school system and the ones at the lowest end of the totem pole are teachers.  

I could literally go on for hours about this but I won't bore you. Just next time you hear someone is a teacher, give them a hug and thank them for trying. It is so hard to put your heart, soul, time, effort, LIFE into something with so little appreciation. 

So, today, like many others I am the statue. Maybe I will shoot for pigeon status next week...

im the statue

a little break

I cannot believe that December is almost over! It was a very busy month for us to say the least. Between work work work, Christmas shopping, some hard family times, some great family times, a Christmas tree, Christmas cards- okay you get the point & the list could fill this entire post. It was crazy busy!

Overall we have had a wonderful break so far- that last week of teaching was so long because we could taste Christmas break it was so close. I am trying to avoid thinking about work this week (other than on Wednesday which we have labeled our "work" day over break- we will literally be working around the clock to prepare for the next week- but then Thursday we will break again and put it off of our minds.)

Last week was busy but in a good way- I started off last saturday with a baby shower for my dear friend Katie and her baby girl Ella. I made the bunting in the background of this photo- I'll maybe share the DIY soon :) Cannot wait to snuggle with Ella when she arrives so soon!

Then we celebrated Christmas with my family & my brother-in-law's birthday. We also continued our annual tradition of going to see A Christmas Story & (my personal favorite) It's A Wonderful Life at our local vintage theater The Naro.

We packed our bags, said goodbye to Scuttle & our Christmas Tree and headed west to celebrate Jesus' birth with Josh's family.

After a wonderful Christmas visiting family, we headed south toward Atlanta to celebrate another birth- our nephew Edmund Michael Searcy. My heart melted- he was the cutest. Congratulations Kaitlin & Steven.

We came back home last night and we were greeted with purrs and kitty snuggles from Scuttle. It has been a good break so far and we are looking forward to a week of relaxing at home. My plan this week is to:

1. Begin our 2014 travel plans including a trip to FL to visit our favorite friends Dan & Ally and a European backpacking trip this summer (I am SO ecstatic!) 

2. Cook REAL food. Like the kind you get raw ingredients for- the kind of food I would make if I didn't work sixty hours a week. (also I am excited because I'll be testing some recipes from this cookbook I received as a Christmas gift!)

3. This sort of goes along with #2 but I am going to try my hand at re-creating this delicious meal I thoroughly enjoy/crave/dream about at a favorite local joint The Handsome Biscuit. 

4. Continue and maybe even finish A Brave New World.

5. Thrift. I miss thrifting. 

Any fun plans for the new year? 

a little break

meowzer...

Happy post-Thanksgiving Caturday... remember to shop small businesses today to support your home town!

xoxo,
Ally & Scuttle

meowzer...

an ode to my favorites

I promise this post will not be as depressing as the last few...

Here are five favorite things I am super grateful for today & everyday.

1. My husband. Not sure if I would have survived thus far without Josh here to support me and love me and care for me during this tough season of learning, long hours, and sheer exhaustion. He has totally 100% held my hand the whole way, let me lean on him for comfort & support, and provided me with words of wisdom during my roughest of days. I am so blessed to work along side him.

eating dinner in my favorite place in the world... Paris.

2. My home. I love this sweet little tiny apartment in Ghent. I love that we can walk places. I love that Josh lets me decorate & redecorate & then do it all again. I love the steam heat in the winter. I even love my tinier-than-an-itty-bitty-mouse bathroom. I love the way the sun shines in through the bedroom window in the winter. I love this tiny space we call home.

3. My cat. In all seriousness, I truly look forward to coming home to the little cuddle-bug at the end of an exhausting day.

4. Café Stella. Your mochas are to die for. Your cinnamon walnut coffee cake is the dreamiest. Your atmosphere is comforting. And your food rocks my world.

5. Band of Horses. My favorite band... this album has gotten me through many-a-days at Booker T... you rock.... literally.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day... I made an apple pie. My momma made everything else. It was a good day full of love and hair brushing by Savannah.

an ode to my favorites

a filament of light

Today I am feeling the weight of the brokeness of the world. Last night Josh & I went out to dinner and were talking about our future and what direction we are heading. This kind of led into talking about the struggles we face at our job.

I often get angry with my students. I am constantly peeved by the lack of effort, the lack of focus, and the lack of value for education. It is beyond frustrating to see a good mind wasted into things that will only set them back in life.

I try to understand but my patience runs thin and my worldview is often skewed to how I grew up and my own experiences and environments.

Last night though, I reminded my myself in our conversation that I have to continually think about where my students are at and what they go home to. A good portion of my students leave school and go to houses- not homes. Many of them do not eat meals at night. Many are fatherless. Many are mothers themselves. They are surrounded by a culture that glorifies sex, drugs, gangs, and violence.**

I forget that the hour and a half I spend with them is just a blip in their daily lives.

I have been burdened with the brokeness of the world last night and today thinking about this and other things happening in my own life that just remind me that this world is not the way it was intended.

It should be different. The pain and brokeness is real and intense and it has only been intensified in my life since working at Booker T.

Confession: I love Blink 182. And their song "Stay Together for the Kids" has been ringing through my head today. "It's not right. It's not right"

Putting aside my own struggles and pressures in my job, today has been especially sad. The reality is sinking in and I have been left with a deep longing for something more for my students, my family, and my friends.

Glad to be reminded of this verse as I struggle with this:

10I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^a no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:10-11

So after a long frustrating day of being painfully aware of the brokeness that exists in and around me, I sat at my favorite coffee shop, read a favorite book (Brave New World), and reminded myself of something a dear friend told me. In a culture full of darkness, I am but a filament of light in their lives. Regardless if they realize it or I realize it, or if it changes anything, I am there and it is not total darkness. Some good exists.

a filament of light

back to the basics

After much needed rest & time off, I am ready to get back in the game at work. I was able to reflect a lot on my last post, my mental breakdown of Monday, and my whole approach to teaching in general.

It has been good. Thank you for all of the support after my last post- I did not intend for anyone to pity me about the situation, I am fully prepared for worse days in my life. It is nice to know though that I have so much support.

One of the biggest things you hear among teaching circles now-a-days is "up the rigor in your class." and "raise the ceiling." So that is exactly what I have done. My team and I make honors tests and give it to our "regular-ed" students. We continue to ask higher level questions and make higher-level activities. However, my students are struggling. They are struggling so badly and I think that is adding to both their frustration and my frustration. I continue to ask & think to myself, "Why aren't they getting it? It's such a simple assignment! Why are they failing my class assignments? They are in high school now, if they can;t do this simple task, how can they do real life?!" I realize how harsh this may sound- but when the majority of my students are failing, you have to stop at some point and assess.

My students can not analyze a photo or political cartoon or answer a simple question or write a complete sentence or read information and answer related questions or analyze a map.

So after a couple months of throwing information at them and hoping they can do the assignments like I listed above, I realized: I have to stop wishing & hoping and instead show them how to do something.

So tomorrow, I my students and I are working on answering questions by looking at the question mode. "How? What? When? Why? Where? When? Explain. Discuss. Identify." We are going to answer all of those related questions about making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

I said back to basics didn't I?

back to the basics

man oh man.

So not be dramatic or anything, but Monday was probably one of the most stressful and worst days of my life. Here's the scoop.

It started when I woke up at 5:15am. (I mean does it ever look like it's going to be a bright & sunshiny day at that wake-up hour?)

I felt awful- head cold, congested, chest tight, head ache kind of thing. Now in normal people job that usually means a sick day. But for teachers there is so much prep work involved in trying to get a sub and then ensure the plans are all there etc. It is kind of a headache. Plus I had just spent the previous day slaving over my lesson prep for that day. So I mustered up some energy and drudged along to the school.

The moment we walked upstairs it began to get hotter and hotter and hotter. And then continuing on to our classrooms it got even hotter. I opened my door and BAM!- a waft of hot stagnate air hit me.

The heat had been turned on from last weeks shiver-fest in Virginia, but never got turned off for the heat-up over the weekend. Consequently, when the temperatures were in the upper 60's & 70's over the weekend, our rooms got no ventilation.

I should also note that our rooms have no windows (the 1970's was just not a good decade for building well... anything really) 

So now I was (still am) sick and had to stay in the hot, hot, humid room all day.

Then the students came in, and it was every 10 seconds "it's hot." "it's too hot in here." "I can't concentrate." Many of my students could not stand it that they just up and walked out. You could say my stress levels were... high to quite high/out the roof, over the bay, and into the depths of the state above us.

It was a nightmare. And it was real. My patience was tested and I surely failed- tremendously. I got angry with my students. I do not know why I am so ashamed to type that on here. But let's just say a whole new Mrs. Henderson came out and looking back, I hated her.

After some refelction on the day and some good sleep Monday night, I went to school Tuesday and tried to be the Mrs. Henderson I wanted to be and was overly aware of my demeanor to the students and tried to push through the day. However, during the last block of the day when my voice had quickly deteriorated into a wimpy rasp, I knew I should probably plan for a break Wednesday.

So I am at home coughing, blowing my nose, drinking hot tea, taking medicine and trying to fight this thing before it gets worse.

Although I cannot stop thinking about how my students are doing- If the sub is competent or not. How I am going to play catch up when I get back. Just goes to show, no matter how mad the make me, I really do love my students- even the times I want to scream at them and when they drive me to be a mad woman.

Oh the life of a teacher.

Also, here's a little sneak peak of the Booker T. Washington yearbook... The best part?
We'll be right next to each other. Just like our rooms. Just like our life.

man oh man.