Family

I would like to take a moment simply to voice the fact that I miss my family. Whether we're talking blood family, family by marriage or chosen extended family, I miss all of you. When my immediate family has slowly moved away from me, I've had to adopt other family members. God has blessed me with some great ones, but even they have been far away lately. Sure I've had phone conversations and I've traded emails with some of them. I would love to be able to just drop in for a visit or stop by to say Hi (and hope they offer to feed me dinner). Sadly, some of my family has not been seen for months. Some of my family I see across the way at church so we at least know we're alive. Again, some are just voices on the other side of the telephone - thank goodness for cell phones and plans with unlimited minutes! I've had brief encounters with some girls that were adopted into my family when they played ball for me. They are all doing good things and making me very proud. I've had great phone conversations with some of my favorite younger family members (you know who you are). There have been days that I've missed some of my family members so much it hurts. I have this great bulletin board at school that has pictures of my family on it. Most days it makes me smile but lately it makes me a little sad because I miss the people up there. So if you are reading this and are a family member of mine, please drop me an email or give me a call because I miss YOU!

PS - We won our volleyball match tonight and are sitting in 1st place in the conference all by ourselves. We beat this team (who was undefeated in conference) 25-3 (yes that is a three!) and 25-12. I told the girls after the first game that we needed to kick them while they were down! I know that's mean but we had a statement to make. We start the second half of our season on Thursday and will hopefully keep our undefeated conference record alive!

Sickness and movies

I've been battling sickness for almost two weeks now, so I decided I was going to somehow lick this sooner rather than later. I took a turn towards the better on Friday. It was a quiet day at school - I love test days - plus the kids seemed to realize that Ms. Procita wasn't feeling well. I talked myself out of a doctor visit on Friday afternoon. I stopped into CVS and got a new Tylenol Cold Severe formula. If this didn't make me feel better, then higher drugs were going to be needed. I also stopped at my favorite Community Video Store and rented a few movies. I watched Invincible on Friday night. Great movie for a sports fan who loves the underdog. My dad will love this movie! I sadly went to bed at 9:00 PM. I slept until 8:00 the next morning. I kept some drugs in me and fell asleep whenever the urge hit me. I watched a few more movies this weekend. I recommend the movie The Gospel. Keith Menhinick will love this movie! It has great music and praising some Jesus in it. It's a modern version of the prodigal son in a downtown Atlanta church. It made me want to go to a black church! The final movie I managed to stay awake through was The Pursuit of Happyness. It was a good movie but I think it was over-rated when it first came out. Jaden Smith is a cute little boy and a convincing little actor! I went to bed early on Saturday night as well. I've managed to read some and am enjoying the book Blue Like Jazz. Today was a typical Sabbath for me - church in the morning, afternoon nap, and church again this evening. I managed to get through three hours of my counseling courses this weekend and comprehend them, despite the medicine. I think my remedy of Tylenol and movies has cured me or at least made me feel better. I'm heading into another busy week, but at least it's some practices and only two games. We do have a longest distance to travel on Thursday afternoon, but it at least got me out of some cheesy workshop I was supposed to go to. So I'm going to head towards bed and hopefully stay a few steps ahead of this cold. I'll try to update again soon.

Busy as a bee

I think I can relate to the bee this week. I have been working hard trying to gather pollen to take back to the queen bee. Here's my connection - I have been working to build relationships that I can hopefully take back to my King. I have made several connections with people since school started. Most of them I love to death, but I'm becoming more and more aware of their needs for Christ. I prayed for a good spiritual friend at school and so far have yet to find one. They are all nice but I have a feeling that I am the odd man out as far as spirituality is concerned. I do feel that Christian bond with some of the girls on my volleyball team. We haven't had many God conversations but sometimes you can just tell. I continue to pray for them. God has been faithful to answer many of my prayers this week. Things as big as finances and as small as energy to make it through the day. I've prayed for encouragement and reminders that I am not alone on several occasions this week. He answered in His own way with compliments from strangers and unexpected phone calls from friends. It's amazing how God works in His own way which is always best for me! I'm going to "class" now but wanted to update you briefly before I get lost in another week of busy-ness.

This week's high points

So it's been a very busy week so I'll hit the high points here for you:

1. School is going well. I have 90+ kids in my four classes. So far most of them are pretty scared/intimidated by me. I have a quiz to grade that I gave on Friday to see if they at least listened to me this week.
2. I'm undefeated as a high school volleyball coach! Note the Lincolnton papers link to the right where you'll find brief round-ups on the sports page about our games. You'll notice a difference if I ever start writing them for coach. We're starting to keep stats so it should be more informative soon.
3. I had the chance to talk to some of my Kings Mountain kids this week. They're liking 8th grade so far but wish I was teaching them instead of here at Lincolnton. I promised that I will see them when we play against each other in the various sports this year.
4. All of my Noogs who play volleyball made the JV team at East Burke. Several of my ABC Killers have made their school teams as well. I'm so proud I could pop.
5. Mini-Me is liking high school and even called to tell me about it. She has herself a new boyfriend in the first week of school. Let's just hope that he doesn't act all weird around her or she'll have her first break-up of the year in the second week of school.
6. My parents are safely in New York for my grandmother's 80th birthday party (which was today). I talked to them on Thursday night and really wished I could be with them. They are getting to spend time with parts of the family I haven't seen in years.
7. I've had emails from several friends from high school this week for various reasons. We are working on a "reunion" of volleyball players, managers, coaches, etc to help Coach Richards (from FTF) celebrate her 500th career victory. I need to sit down and count my victories over the years. I should be around 50 this season if not more. The question is how do I count the JO tournaments?
8. My counseling courses have arrived in the mail. Simply seeing the box sitting on my front porch made me very excited! They sent me the adult version when I requested the kid version, but I think I'll do the adult version anyways. I could very easily see me getting into the habit of doing these courses. I hope to start them soon.

There are probably several more things I'm forgetting but I thought I should post something to sum up this week before it escapes me completely. I'm very glad to have Monday off from school. We have volleyball practice because we have three matches this week. I'm heading down to GWU to visit Courtney and possibly swinging by Swoogers for some ice cream with the Kings Mountain gang. It should be a good end of summer celebration and hopefully I'll be ready to settle into the school/volleyball/church routine again. Have a great weekend!