Buried Hopes

My 3rd period secretly made me a birthday card today. They had the period to finish up a worksheet and study for the test on Friday, and I offered them markers in case they wanted to use them for their study guide. One girl used the markers to make a card, and all the students secretly signed it. My favorite message on the card: Happy Birthday Mrs. Rich. You are my favorite teacher. For real. I meant to make you a card! For real. Ya girl. For real... again. Alright then. I LOVE YOU! They are so cute :)

The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. * 14 The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. 16 You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. Today, I am choosing to believe that the Lord is good. Even when He doesn't give me what I want. And, even more than that, I am choosing to believe that there is a reason why I am not getting what I want. I believe that His purposes for me are greater than my short-sighted wants and desires. And I believe that His purposes for me are good. They are good for the Kingdom, and they are good for me. I believe, Jesus... please help my unbelief.

Ways I am exhausting myself to make more money this year... After school supervision on Monday... this is a pretty sweet deal, as I get to do work while I watch the kids. And some of my favorite kids stay after school. Grading papers-- I started this job last year, grading lab reports and quizzes for a community college professor. The professor is the sweetest lady, and we get along really well. And I kind of like grading papers for students other than my own. Tutoring privately-- I have one student that I will be tutoring every Wednesday in math. She was in my summer school class and is the most precious girl. And her house is gorgeous and overlooks the mountains, so I really like going there :) Tutoring with The Scholar Group --I am really excited about the group. The leadership and educational philosophy is fantastic. The only issue is finding the time to tutor for them in addition to everything else on my plate. So, I am thankful, because all of the above will help us pay our bills...

So, I usually get pretty good deals combining coupons with sales at the grocery store, and it helps our grocery budget stay reasonable. But, I recently switched my salary from a 10 month pay schedule to a 12 month schedule, which means that I will now get paid all year long (and not have to rely so heavily on summer school), but my monthly take home pay is about $400 less. Which... is a lot. Especially considering that we were barely making it before. It means that one of my bi-weekly pay checks does not even cover our rent. And we have to rely more on Tom's part time job, my part time jobs (I have three extra jobs this year!), and budget cuts. So, I have been doing more research on couponing, instead of just relying on the grocery game, and man, there are a lot of blogs out there! They are really helpful at finding the best deals at CVS, Walgreens and Target, as well as finding the best printable coupons. And just by following them for the past 2-3 months, my savings have dramati...

My honors students took a quiz today. I walked over to one student who was finished his quiz yet intently drawing a picture on the back of the paper. "Can I take your quiz, or would you like to finish your picture?"I asked... "Just a minute," said the student. So I walked around to pick up more quizzes while waiting for the student to finish drawing a little ninja on the back of his paper. After picking up the first student's paper, I went to pick up the paper of another student at his table. He had his paper turned over and was obviously finished, but he was holding his pencil as though he had more to write. I asked him if he was finished, and he hesitated... "Do we all have to draw a picture?" he asked. I assured him that no, he did not :) I love my job.