Don't Blink

Where did the month of November go? With the short weeks of school and the much needed days off, this month has flown by. I realized a few days ago that I haven't posted since the beginning of this month. I've had the usual up and downs of every day life without many extremes. How about a top ten list to summarize for you (in no particular order):

1. Hickory Hammers volleyball recruited me to coach for them this year and I gave up my year off. Yes, I am coaching Junior Olympic Volleyball again this year. I know only ONE girl on my team of 15 year olds, but I've got some major skill and potential on my team. Practices start this week and we have a tournament the last weekend of December.
2. Lincolnton Middle School volleyball has been a joy and a frustration. I love these girls and how they've improved over the weeks. We can't manage to pull together a complete game. We either start off really well or work on those come from behind games. We are 2-2 right now with our first home matches this week. I'm hoping playing at home will help them pull it all together. I am greatly enjoying this team - probably more than my high school teams.
3. We have been interviewing for the LA position on our team. We had a real winner the other day, but sadly he mentioned his WIFE thus making him off limits to me. We have hired a brand new teacher to fill the gap that Heather has left.
4. I LOVE my teammates at school! We are like family even to the extent that we argue and fight at times. We get along well and can joke and pick with the best of them.
5. Communication with Thailand has happened a few times this month. Sometimes just hearing the voice of that loved but deeply missed friend helps tremendously in regaining perspective on life in general.
6. Melissa made a CD. I'm proud of her effort and have no review at the moment because I've only heard a few songs on it. I'll let you know more about it later.
7. I've had some good times at church and specifically with Pastor Jason and family. I've had several good conversations with Krista. Madison, their four year old daughter, asked when I was coming to sleep over. Silas, our little man, has smiled and made my day on more than one occasion. Silas is having surgery on his ears early Tuesday morning, so keep him in your prayers. He is receiving implants that will hopefully give him some hearing in his deaf ears. We're praying for God's miracle for our little man.
8. I had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I finally got to eat until I was full at almost every meal! Honestly, I haven't done that in awhile. I had some good times with the family. Tim, Jenn, April, Joe and I played a card game called Phase 10 for at least four or five hours. I think we played that more than we played video games this year. I had some good times with the kids as well. I stayed an extra day and night and got my Mom and Dad time in too. We all pretty much crashed together but it was nice to not be in a house alone.
9. I am so glad that certain people - whom shall remain nameless - are on the same cell phone company as me now. We are free to talk whenever the urge hits now that it won't run up our phone bills. I feel like I have at least one friend in the world now (ha ha ha)!
10. Finally, my main motivation for writing tonight - I received a paper in the mail this weekend that reads "On behalf of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission, I wish to extend our congratulations to you upon the successful completion of the teaching service provision of the scholarship...again, congratulations on fulfilling your obligations as a North Carolina Teaching Fellow" WOOHOO!!! Free at last, free at last! I literally danced a little jig in the kitchen when I read it. I know some of you probably have already had yours, but I had to fight to make sure they counted last year towards my scholarship. Amazingly enough my plan is to continue teaching but at least now I'm not restricted to North Carolina!

So there's a "brief" summary of the month of November for you. I know it's rather long but I needed to get something up before Christmas gets here. There are many things I've missed too that are coming to mind as I reread my entry but I'll stop with what I've got. I'm going to dive into one of my new books that I got this weekend. I sold some old books to a used bookstore for store credit so of course I got some new ones! Happy November!

Bowling for Jesus

Wasn't that the name of some FCA or IV event? Sounds like that cheesiness we were all sucked into in college. But I did go bowling tonight with the kids from church. I had the best time with them. I honestly cannot remember the last time I went bowling. I explained to some of the gang that I had bowled on Tim's Nintendo Wii last Thanksgiving, but that's the last time I remembered "bowling." We had a battle of the sexes going with the winners having dinner bought for them. The winners also got to pick where we ate. We had a great turn-out with 16 girls and 13 guys. You know the guys whipped us. I greatly enjoyed my first game because I was on the lane with the middle school girls. We got to use the bumper guards. It took me FOREVER to get back into the swing of bowling. My second game was without bumper guards. It slowly came back to me but was by far one of my worst performances in years. I did have a good time with the girls in my lanes and then at dinner afterwards. I even stretched myself and talked to one of the "new" girls for quite a while too. It was fun. Krista brought the kids and we had Madison (who is 4) bowling on our lane with us. She seemed to be having a good time. She would lose interest in the ball before it got down the lane but turned away clapping every time (even if it didn't hit a single pin). Silas also bowled a few frames. He would roll the ball and then wave at it as it went down the lane. It was SO CUTE!

I'm very glad that we are "falling back" with the time tonight. I'm going to need the extra hour tonight. I watched bits and pieces of several movies today. For some reason, every time I sat for awhile I fell asleep. Not that I have any reason to be tired, right?! I did get my lawn done today (hopefully for the last time this season). I do feel somewhat caught up on my sleep. One channel had some of my favorite girl movies on today so I watched two of them. Another channel had the end of the world movies on today. I watched a little bit of two movies on that channel. Somewhat strange combination of movies today, but we'll not examine that too much seeing that I slept through most of them. Well I'm going to go take full advantage of my extra hour of sleep now.