i blog for chocolate

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In honor of Teacher Appreciation week, I would like to thank my teachers for what they taught me.

Thank you Aunt Lyla from pre-school  for teaching me that if you sister tells your mom you drowned but you didn’t, you won’t get in trouble for jumping in the pool before the safety lesson was over.   She also taught me that if you take your shoes off in public, you may get your feet spanked.

Thank you Miss Craft for teaching me that teachers don’t have germs.  At least that is what she told me when she offered me a swig of her bottle of coke on day out at my parents’ plant nursery. She also let me go to the cafeteria to make a diaper out of napkins for my Betsy Wetsy doll and bring my cat, Gray Cloud, to school.  I always say that my first year of school was the best! It was downhill after that.

Thank you Mrs. Scott for teaching me to not write my name on the furniture in your class.  You told us that if we were going to write anything, it should never be our name.  I started writing my sister’s name on everything after that valuable lesson.

Thank you Mrs. Merck for hitting my desk with a yardstick when I was talking while other students were in reading group.  It is never too early to learn that the arm of the law is longer than you think.

Thank you Mr. McGaha for letting us take our chocolate milk cartons and wash them out and keep clay in them under our desk.  It may have been the 70′s, but you rocked!

Thank you Miss Lauritzen who read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to us in 4^th grade and then gave us each a full size Hershey bar.  I should probably dedicate this entire blog to you.

Thank you Miss Rice for teaching us songs in French and making us write something creative EVERY day.  We were blogging–we just didn’t know it yet.

Thank you Mrs. Montenez and Mrs. Wolfe for explaining all those parts in the Judy Blume books to us that we were too embarrassed to ask our parents about.

And thank you to my middle school teachers (it gets a little fuzzy here).

Thanks to Mrs. Wigington for believing in me,

to Mr. Greer for making history come alive,

 to Mrs. Stewart for making the pizza dough for me when I forgot and teaching me to sew,

 to Mr. Darity for kicking us out of shop class because we deserved it,

to Mr. Farrior for not laughing at my drawings,

to Mrs. Duncan who wanted to keep my tissue paper Snoopy collage for her son’s room and gave me my first D,

to Mr. Chambers who let Charles do the moonwalk before chorus,

 to Mrs. Joy for being fun in homeroom, and to Mrs. Robinson who was a really nice neighbor.

Thanks to my high school teachers Mr. and Mrs. Downing who taught me Economics and English,

to Mr. Allen who taught us that Evidence Demands a Verdict,

Mrs. Merrick who taught us how to type (the most useful thing I ever learned),

to Mrs. Gorham for taking us on all those choir tours and letting us shop at  Bloomingdale’s.

OK.  There are many, many others.  But this isn’t a book, it’s a blog. And I can read it and write it thanks to the people listed above.  I am truly grateful.

In case you missed Friday’s post, there is a new contest.  Check it out here and enter to win something NEW:  http://iblogforchocolate.com/?p=322.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week.  So like the bumper sticker says:  If you can read this, thank a teacher.

Last week a friend of mine asked, “Do you ever wonder what our kids’ teachers really think about us?” Apparently her child had told his teacher that if he got in trouble his mother would slingshot him to the moon.

Like one of my nephew’s teachers told new parents at open house, “I won’t believe everything I hear about what goes on in your home, if you don’t believe everything you hear about what goes on in the classroom.”

George was also telling tales last week.

Mrs. Oaks was discussing hygiene and good manners.  The basics:  cough into your elbow and don’t pick your nose.

George raised his hand to inform the class, “ I know a man who one time put his finger too far up his nose– and that snail—the one that lives in your nose– it bit off the end of his finger. “

Mrs. Oaks said that you could see all the kids that were leaning on their elbows or rubbing their eyes slide their hands as far away from their face as possible. 

So later she asked George if he really knew this person or had he just heard a story about him.

“Oh, my brothers told me about it.” 

That explains most everything at our house.

The “story” is actually a poem from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. 

I guess in this instance fiction is stranger than the truth. 

Or maybe just stronger. 

I am sure that Mrs. Oaks gave them a lot of good information, but one good tall tale is really all you need to help kids move toward a life changing commitment:  I will never pick my nose again.

 And for that, we can thank George.

But for teaching the boys to read, sharing their stories with me and not believing everything they hear,  I have to thank many teachers.

The other day I told my friend that I had finished cleaning our house. 

Then I corrected myself, “Well, it is clean for us.”

Her house is always cleaner and more organized.  We do have one more kid than they do. 

George must really be messy.

Actually, Matt and I both struggle with our inner slob.  I remember when we were newlyweds we would collect all the shoes at the end of the week to see who had more lying around the apartment. 

Now, that is what you call cheap entertainment.

So I cannot fault the boys for their messiness, but I want to train them to do better.  After all God commanded us to” fill the earth and subdue it.”  We have managed to “fill” our house with all sorts of stuff.  (Probably not what He had in mind.) Now we just need to “subdue” it.  Subdue is the same word as conquer.  And I have to admit sometimes it does feel like I am at war and our home looks like a warzone.

But our gentle God has a way of pointing out things to us in such sweet, subtle ways. 

I love flipping through magazines, and lately every magazine I pick up lately is focused on cleaning.  Subtle Hint to me:  Put down this time gobbler and pick up a broom.

The P31 magazine I get (http://www.proverbs31.org/p31womanmagazine/P31WomanMagazine.php)  has a very convicting article on why we should clean not just how to do it quicker, easier, better, or greener.

Even in the Titus study I am in shows how God desires order from his people.  Paul left Titus behind to “set in order what remains.” And that is just the first chapter.  Later on, he quits beating around the bush and says encourage the young women to be “workers at home.”  You mean distractions like TV and Facebook aren’t new?  Women have always struggled with working around the home?

So the command remains, and so do the dust bunnies.  In obedience, I will cheerfully banish them and complete each task even though each one will need to be completely redone the very next week. 

And then I will be ready to start working on that other command:  Practice hospitality.

Recently we were delighted to find out that Matt’s cousin, Charley, and her fiancée, Kevin, are going to get married right here on the family farm.  Or should I say hitched? 

Of course, the first thing I did was make a list.  One of the first things on that list was to clean up the woods between our house and the grandparent’s house.  Not that it really needed to be done before the wedding, but we definitely wanted to get it done before the poison ivy came up.

I expected some complaining, but got none.  You see—our pre-teen just grunts.  Apparently, teenagers lose the capacity to verbalize grief especially when being dragged out of bed early on a Saturday morning. The other boys ran with abandon into the woods and chattered like squirrels as they collected sticks.

Being the tallest person in the woods at the moment,  (I left Matt tugging on sleepy  feet inside)  I expected to have to drag all the really heavy limbs to the truck.  Instead, the opposite was true.

Each boy searched out the largest stick he could find and heaved it to the truck.  You see they were not out to merely “clean” the woods, they were out to “conquer” them.  Only the largest sticks were worthy of their valor.  Each scavenged to find a stick bigger than the last or at least bigger than his brother’s last.

And I stood grateful.

Grateful to have 4 strong boys to take care of me now and when I am old and gray.

Grateful to have 4 boys with willing hearts who are not afraid of hard work.

Grateful for the promise of spring after such a snowy winter.

Hopeful that they will attack every problem and every obstacle in their path the same way they tackled those limbs. 

I could even see them with a future in politics:  Speaks softly, Carries Big Sticks.

Butler was so close. 

That is why I hate basketball.  All your hard work on the court can be destroyed in the last 2 seconds. 

Our boys just had a perfect basketball season. 

They lost every game. 

I actually prayed during one of the games even though up to this point in my life I never thought I should ask the Creator of the Universe to intervene in sports.

We will remember this year. 

 I cannot even tell you how many games they won or lost last year.  But this year will make an impression. 

 They will remember what it feels to lose. And lose again. And lose again.  

They will remember how they were treated by the other teams.

 They will remember the things the coaches said to encourage them.

From the encouragement they have received, they will be able to give to others.

I reconciled myself in the middle of the season that God may be trying to teach them something.

 I thought about how at my girls’ Bunco night each month there is a prize for the biggest winner and the biggest loser.  Even in Bunco, there are some rewards for losing.

Loss can be a great teacher. 

When you lose a game you reflect more, try harder the next time, examine every play with painstaking detail.  You come together as a team, you realize your own vulnerability– you look outside yourself. 

You become teachable.

Loss will teach you, if you will let it.

So even though they didn’t win, I searched their faces.  I wanted to see inside their hearts.

I don’t know what they will take from this season.  But I hope they know that losing doesn’t make them a loser. 

Losing with grace makes them winners.

OK.  So it has been a while.  We have some catching up to do. 

I wanted to thank each one of you who told me that you must not have signed up correctly because you haven’t been getting any updates from my blog.  Nothing is wrong with your computer skills.  My writing skills though needed a re-boot. 

Just yesterday George pushed his toy motorcycle all the way through the woods to his grandparents’ house to get it charged up.  Grammy passed him on the golf cart, but he didn’t ask for help.  When he arrived Pop Pop told him that he was quite a determined little boy.

 George looked up at him and said, “I don’t know what that means, but could you plug this up for me?”

Maybe I lacked the mental energy to keep pushing this blog.  Maybe I decided that going on a golf cart ride would be much more fun. Maybe I just started chasing butterflies and ended up across the field. 

But something got my attention.   Now I am inspired again.  People like George inspire me.  Several other people and events have lately inspired me.  I hope that they will inspire you, too.

First, I want to introduce you to my friend, Penny.  Penny and I pray together each Thursday with several other moms in our Moms In Touch group.  I had no idea she wrote books, and she didn’t know I had a blog.  Obviously, we only discuss God and our children, so finding out this tidbit was a pleasant surprise. 

Penny has accomplished something fairly amazing.  She has finished a novel.  I told her that this alone was something to celebrate, yet she has also been selected as a Breakthrough Novel in a competition that Amazon is hosting.  Here is her plea, and I hope that you will consider helping her out.  I just posted my review for her novel which should appear in 48 hours.  It does take some time to read and review the excerpt, but  I find that reading young adult fiction makes me feel youthful.  So maybe this will rewind your clock a little bit, and you can check off “Encourage someone today” from your to-do list.

Friends and family,

 I’m sending this email to share something very important in my life.  If you know me from childhood and high school, this probably won’t surprise you.  A few years ago, I made an attempt at writing a book, but I never shared it with anyone but my husband, Eddie.  In January, I entered it in a contest on Amazon.com.  In March, the book was selected as one of the 1000 picked out of 5000.  Yesterday, I found out that it made it through this month’s cut as well, being chosen as one of 250 out of that 1000.  In April, my manuscript will be reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly and the judges will narrow the competition to 100.  In May, it gets cut to 3.  Those three will compete for 1st place, a publishing contract with Penguin Books and $15,000. 

 I need everyone’s help.  During this month, the judges will look at reviews posted on Amazon.com based on an excerpt of each entry.  The more positive feedback my book gets, the better my chances for making the cut.  So I’m asking each of you to take the time to read my prologue and first chapter and then honestly (but favorably, I hope!) review it.  If you are in a position to pass this on to other potential reviewers, please do so!  Forward this to everyone you know!

 

Here’s what you have to do to download and review my book.  You must have an account with Amazon to vote.  Go to http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011.  To the right it says “Read Excerpts Without a Kindle.”  If you happen to own a Kindle, you can skip this part.  Click on the application you can use and it will download a free file onto your PC or IPhone.  Then you can type Crossing Points or Pen Milam in the search space and click ‘go’.  The excerpt should come up and you can download it for free. 

My book is a young adult fantasy novel called Crossing Points.  It has strong religious undertones, in the style of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”  This contest is not geared specifically toward Christian work but popular fiction, so I need your help that much more to get it noticed.  Thank you to each of you who will take the time to help me move forward.  Writing a novel has been a dream of mine since I was in middle school, and this is a book that promotes our Christian beliefs, so I hope you will support it by reading it!

Love and thanks to all!

Penny Milam

Do you ever feel that God may have put you here on earth to make other people feel better about themselves?

Do you ever think to yourself in the middle of one of your stories that the person you are relating this hilarious event to is actually GLAD that she is not you?

Has anyone ever said about you, “It could be worse–we could be like the _____?”  (This did happen to us in the church parking lot one time.)

Do you ever look over while you are typing a blog and notice that there are 8 M&M’s under the chair in your TV room?

Do you ever wonder if the 5 second rule is really just an urban myth while you pick up M&M’s off the floor and eat them?  (OK I am just kidding about that one.  The M&M’s are still on the floor. . .for now.)

God made me with a sense of humor.  He knew  I would need one.

So in keeping with my calling in life, I will now relate all those things currently in my life that will make you feel better about yours:

I still have Christmas decorations spread all over the ping pong table in the basement. 

I have lost my hair 3 times, and some days consider that those were the best hair days of my life.

I sometimes feed my kids pop tarts and cereal all week long. (Ok, Ok sometimes they eat that on the weekends too.)

The one day that I did try to make breakfast last week (cinnamon toast!!!), it burned.  Seriously, there was smoke.

I checked Will out of school to  go to the orthodontist office last week.  We were there on the wrong day.  I had the right location, the right time and the right child.  Can I at least get partial credit?

I have started 4 books since Christmas and finished none of them.  But I have read several magazines cover to cover.

My husband was helping me out by taking the baked potato soup out of the oven.  Somehow he sloshed the soup onto the door, and it went inside the door between the exterior glass and the interior glass.  (OK if this has happened to you too, you are starting to make ME feel a little better about my life.  If you can now tell me how to get it clean, I will feel tons better.)

Even though I have survived cancer, I still get mad when I can’t find my car keys.

My kids are closer to their Bible reading goal for the month than I am.

Jack did show up to his basketball game last week with 2 different colored socks on.  (He does this on purpose for some reason.)

So I hope that some of those things make you feel better or at least normal.  I was recently bemoaning to my mom the fact that all my friends’ houses are so neat.  My mom said that I needed to find some messier friends.  But maybe my purpose is to be their messy friend who makes them feel better.  Yes, that must be it.

I am loving life today.  And not JUST because we had a snow day.

I do enjoy those though.  We played Monopoly and went sledding in the dark after eating down at GG’s house. 

Since February is the month when we actually talk about love, I thought I should write this month about how much I love living and all the things I love about life.

Last month marked the 5^th anniversary of my cancer diagnosis.  I am beyond blessed to be here.

In Cancerland there are two benchmarks.  The first benchmark is at one year.  At this point many patients have already completed their treatment.  I was still in treatment at the one year mark.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I knew I only had 6 more months to go, and some of the worst was over.  Whew.

The next big milestone is the 5 year mark.  When the doctor first talked to me about my prognosis, this was an important number to me.  How many people with my cancer live to see 5 more Valentine’s Day?  Of course, there are many factors that play into this number.  The prognosis is affected by the size, spread and nature of the cancer.  Going into surgery I knew that my prognosis was good unless they determined that my cancer was at an advanced stage.  It was mostly stage 2 with some stage 3, so that is why I got drugged (chemo) and zapped (radiation) in addition to surgery.

So, 5 years is a big deal. 

George was only two when I got sick.  I remember feeling devastated that he might not remember me. 

Now I am devastated thinking about what they might actually remember:

 “Remember how Mom used to scream like a banshee in the mornings to get us ready for school?”

But I didn’t have to yell at them this morning.  And that is why I love snow days.

Today is Will’s birthday.  He is 11.

He loves for me to tell him the story of his birth.

It was one of those moments in life where everything seemed normal, and then suddenly it was not.

I was just settling in, hoping for a nap because that is what happened after I got an epidural with our first baby.  But anyone with more than one child knows that no two kids–or their births– are alike.

Will’s heart rate started to dip.  The doctor looked up at me and said, “We need to have this baby in the next 10 minutes.” 

I just stared at him.  Labor with Brady was long and difficult. I pushed for 4 hours.   Was he kidding?

Apparently not.

 In seconds our room filled with equipment, lights and lots of people in blue outfits scurrying around.

The panic didn’t last long.  In less than 10 minutes my little blue boy was born. 

Instead of the usual congratulations, there was silence. 

Instead of Will being placed on my stomach for me to admire, he was whisked off to a metal table and surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses.

Still silent.  No crying.

Finally I looked up at my doctor and asked, “Is he OK?”

He hesitated as he looked over for a signal from the other team then finally said, “Yes.”

I finally got to snuggle him and said, “So you’re the little guy who has been kicking me awake every morning at 5:30.” 

Will still gets up early.  He sets his alarm so he can get up and shower before school.  He is usually dressed with his book bag ready before I make it out of the bedroom.  The other morning he even got breakfast set out for everyone without me asking.

He is growing up fast.  And I think he is growing up just fine.

 I love you, Will!  Happy Birthday!

We woke up to a Winter Wonderland today.  Apparently many people across America did.  LOVE IT!  Feels like Christmas now.  Hope you enjoy many fun Christmas activities with your family today!