Luaghter is good Medicine

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Mark Twain

Today I am taking my theme form Mary Poppins" “A spoonful of sugar”. I believe that laughter is truly medicine for the soul. In order to keep my soul and spirit in good health I try to laugh every day. I am happy that I have been able to rub off on my serious sister Racquel. She laughs easily enough at certain things but is much too serious about others. I view it as my duty to lighten her up a little and in turn let her convince me to take life a little more seriously. So, most of the time we balance each other out by helping each other see the value of each take on life.

Amazingly, I also have to force myself to take things a little less seriously at times. One example is at church when Bro. Burgess is preaching, I get into a mode of such intensity that when the more lighthearted Bro. Johnson gets up to preach it takes a little while to switch modes and laugh at his jokes. It’s not the Bro. Burgess never laughs it simply isn’t part of his personality to make jokes whereas Bro. Johnson is naturally funny. I am also not saying that Bro. Johnson never takes things seriously because there are times when he is deadly serious. In fact when he gets serious it seems even more important, because it is in so much contrast with his normal mood.

So the point of my little blurb is that we should all be conscious of how seriously we take ourselves and the situations that are around us. The more we practice viewing our world with humor, the better we will feel. We will have less stress and more peace. Life was not meant to be a constant worry. Especially to those of us who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. There are enough serious things that we cannot take lightly, so making mountains out of molehills simply makes our spirits sick. A spirit that has a weight on it takes a toll on our physical beings. That is why stress and fear can give heart attacks and high blood pressure. So ,I encourage all of my readers to strive to take life less seriously and try to laugh every day.

In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and.... snap!
The job's a game
And every task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree!
It's very clear to see
That... a...
Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go do--own
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way
A robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While gathering his
Bits of twine and twig
Though quite intent in his pursuit
He has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song
Will move the job along
For a
Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go do--own
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way.
(musical)
The honeybees that fetch the nectar
From the flower to the comb
Never tire of ever buzzing to and fro
Because they take a little nip
For every flower that they sip
And hence.. (echo)
They find... (echo)
(duo) Their task is not a grind
Ah (musical scale)
(End music)

Education Cash incentive

A classmate in my Intro to Ed. class posted this article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082103874.html

I am interested in what others think of this incentive. I think it has possibilities, but I can also see some drawbacks. Fist it will probably increase student achievement but what will it do to their moral outlook. What will be done with the money. That is a lot of cash to simply hand to an 8th grader. Also this might be an incentive for parent involvement, but whether that is a good thing I am not so sure. The parent involvement would often be for personal gain and might give many more of a reason for abuse. I think it might work if the children were given classes on how to manage the money and required to put a certain amount away for higher education or personal use after the age of 18.

Please comment on this article I would love to read others opinions.

MY Word of the Day

I found a new word to add to my collection of awesome words I constantly have to define to the people I speak to. Lol just kidding. I did find a new word though and (Bro. Thiel should be happy to know) I looked it up in the dictionary. So here is the word of the day.

OpprobriumOp*pro"bri*ous\, a. [L. opprobriosus, fr. opprobrium. See Opprobrium.]
1. Expressive of opprobrium; attaching disgrace; reproachful; scurrilous; as, opprobrious language.
They . . . vindicate themselves in terms no less opprobrious than those by which they are attacked. --Addison.
2. Infamous; despised; rendered hateful; as, an opprobrious name.
This dark, opprobrious den of shame. --Milton. -- Op*pro"bri*ous*ly, adv. -- Op*pro"bri*ous*ness, n.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
http://www.dictionary.com/

Classes

So I just started classes at PPCC ( pikes peak community college) for my third semester. I am taking 16 credit hours and 2 of them do not go towards my degree in Elementary Education.

1. English composition - online
2. Introduction to Education - online
3. Spanish II - online
4. Public Speaking - Mondays & Wednesdays from 11:30 - 12:45
5. Physical Education - Workout in campus gym for 40 min. 3 times a week
6. First Aid and CPR - Sep. 13th and 20th form 8:30- 3:30

Originally I was going to take my Spanish class on campus but the only classes that haven't been canceled are hybrid classes and the teacher is very hard to understand and not very informative about what needs to be done on worksheets. I had her last semester. I did well in the class but I don't feel I did as well as I wished. Hopefully this will work and if not then I will cave and ask her to take me into her class I have a few weeks to try out the online class.

Another of my online classes, Intro to Ed, is not as easy as I thought it would be. It requires a lot of work that is unconventional such as interviewing teachers and touring schools to see how they are run. I also have to start putting together a portfolio that will help with looking for jobs after I am out of college. I am hoping that I will be working in a private school when I do work; although, the Lord might lead me to work in a public school. One rarely knows what the Lord has in store.

Next is English Comp I. I took this class once before but did not pass because my papers were mostly late. I overloaded my schedule that semester. I am doing my best no to do so again and will try to asses how well I am doing prior to the drop date so that if I have to much I can drop a class. My teacher seems competent and I only have four papers to write opposed to six. I think it evens out though because we are also graded on our posts. Each week we have one to two posts that must be 200 words long and must make two responses of 100 to 150 words to other students posts.

I just registered today for the Public Speaking class, so I don't know much about it. Fortunately Racquel is in the same class so we can share books and work together on our speaches. This is the class I wil drop if my schedule is too hectic before the drop date.

Racquel is also taking P. E. with me so we are planning on working out everyday. So far we have done well in this endeavor. My First aid and CPR Class hopefully will not be too hard.

There you have it. This is my thoughts on the last few days. I may post a few posts in both Spanish and English just for practice in future. We shall see. I had better get back to work. Adios!

Self-Discipline

Self -discipline - mental self-control used in directing or changing behavior, learning something, or training for something, reflexive verb to make you act or work in a controlled or systematic way
I lost the quotations I was going to use for this post but decided to go ahead and post anyway. I have been working on disciplining myself for a few months now. Anyone who knows me well knows that I tend to be messy or cluttered and that I am more spontaneous than disciplined. So I am working on and have been succeeding in getting some disciplines down. I still have room for improvement but now I only miss my routine maybe once or twice a week instead of whole weeks at a time. One way that I am working on this is by holding myself accountable to Sis. Burgess my Pastor’s wife. Last night I had a meeting with her to set goals for this month. 1. Lose 5lbs. 2. Fast one day a week 3. Set at specific time to study preferably with someone else so that we can hold ourselves accountable to each other for study periods. These seem like feasible goals and I even have a plan on how to implement each of them. Today Racquel and I set up a tentative schedule for study and workouts. Since I have proven to myself that I am capable of reaching a goal by being committed and not letting one failure discourage me I believe I will make it this time as well. Another thing that has helped me is the flylady’s website. Although I do not follow her plan to the letter because I am not the primary homemaker in my home her philosophy and main ideas inspire me. I do lots of things in 15 minute power spurts and I have also set aside me time every day. I even have free time scheduled. I am very excited and can’t wait to see if my plan works. Thankfully I do know that it will not always go exactly as planned but I will not let setbacks discourage me from keeping to it as much as humanly possible. “I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me.” Phil. 4:13 Well it’s time for bed I’ll try to write more later. Goodnight all.

Lost Phone & Crazy Hormones

I love being me. Being bubbly and happy go lucky most of the time is all right with me. When I suddenly start getting snappish I feel awful about myself. So this weekend I lost my phone really and truly. I didn't just misplace it because I have searched high and low and it is nowhere to be seen. Of course normally I wouldn't be so frantic about it but for some reason I decided to get emotinal about it this time. I got angry at my sister and cried because I didn't have the money to get a new SIM card. Fortunately my father got an upgrade in June but didn't like the phone he upgraded to as much as the one he has so he is giving it to me. I deal with crazy hormones all the time living with 5 women in one house has a lot of challenges.

Spontaneous camping trip

Sorry I’ve been so lazy about posting these last few weeks. I don’t know what got into me but I truly have been being lazy since heritage. I’m here to catch you all up on everything though just to tell you about Racquel and I camping. We very spontaneously decided to go camping this week. So Thursday we loaded up and went to an expensive campsite near Woodland Park and Manitou Lake. This is the first time ever we have gone alone so we didn’t venture too far out. Unfortunately where we went you had to buy firewood how ridiculous is that?
We got to the campsite around 7:00 and actually succeeded in putting up the tent before it got dark, although we really pushed it. It was quite interesting as neither one of us has set up the tent without dad there before. We did a pretty good job. As we couldn’t find the place to buy the firewood we decided to wait for a fire until Friday. Then we played a game of Uno while listening to a story. After that we tried to sleep. I forgot how hard the ground is to sleep on and got about 2 hours of sleep. After waking at dawn on Friday I got some breakfast and went for a walk. We brought Racquel’s dog, Tigger, with us and had to break him of lying down in the middle of our walks. During our walk racquel started to break out in hives. Neither one of us could figure out what caused them. The only thing we could think of was that her skin was cold. For a few years Racquel has broke out in hives every time she went out a did anything in the snow. We thought it ludicrous that she would be allergic to the cold but when this happened w3 started to really wonder. So when we got back to camp she put on a sweeter to get warm and the hives cleared up. Later on Mom came up and we told her about it. She then went home and looked online to see if there was an allergy to the cold. Sure enough there is. It is called Urticaria.(http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/allergy/AN00693) When we got back to the campsite I taught Racquel how to play the master’s edition of Phase 10 and we started another story. We love listening to audio books and never go anywhere without at least one to listen to. In the middle of our game we had a visitor. My Father takes orders for stores in woodland park and came by to see if we needed anything. Although we thought we were ok he called mom and said we need a hammer and an axe and some more sleeping bags. She arrived right around lunch time and we all went to the lake. After the lake we made a fire. And yes it is the first time I have made a fire on my own. I did a very good job and managed to cook some good hot dogs. In the evening we made smore’s and hot dogs and stayed up late listening to the story. I slept better because of the extra sleeping bags for padding. Saturday we broke camp and the whole family came up for some time at the lake. Dad likes to fly fish and has a new toy this year. He got himself a little fly fisher’s boat that is pretty cool. We had fun but decided that next year we will plan a little better and have more to do. We might even go for a whole week. We will also find a better place to camp hopefully with easier access to a swimming whole.