(photo curtesy weheartit.com)Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and
place I belong. ~Jeb Dickerson
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Belong.
(photo curtesy weheartit.com)
Monday, February 21, 2011
Inspiration: Valuum, a Bloody Tooth, and a Mommy Tattoo on My Forehead
"I was talking to one of my friends online a couple of weeks ago, saying how all these little kids are always holding onto my hands or my skirt, and as I was saying that a random little guy crawled into my lap and just stared at me. And my friend and I agreed, I must have MOMMY tattooed on my forehead. No joke, these little kids run to me like I am a lolly pop or something. But I feel like Mommy even more to my students. When you are in the islands (and I am sure with many other places) you are not just the teacher. You are the one to fix ripped clothes or sew on buttons or whatever. But let me tell you, teaching Ebeye makes me even more of a mom to my kids than other places would. Things that parents would do in other places, well, the responsibility falls on me. Like going to the dentist...
I have spent the last two days taking 31 kids to see the mission dentists that came here. Any of you who are parents, you think you have gone through your share of calming down kids in your time, but I think I have you beat. I had 31 checkups yesterday, 24 of which needed either fillings or extractions, about half of which I needed to be present to hold hands and hold heads in place as kids struggled to get free of the impending doom upon them. After 3 hours at the
dentist yesterday, I got the list of kids who needed to come back today, and well, let's just say I have spent the greater part of my day keeping my kids calm and holding crying kids, getting prescriptions for Valuum (yes...), and I had a bloody tooth fly at my face... Watching the kids you love scream and fight, but having to hold them down, oh, I don't like it very much. But knowing that I can be there to hold their hands when they are in pain, and that they want ME to hold their hands, well, I can't say no to that. It is hard, but it is a job I am willing to take on :)"
Written exactly four years ago from today. Sometimes I can't help but stop and think about how incredibly different life can be for the same person, on the same calendar day, if you just add a few years in between. At times I am grateful for the fact that I am sitting on a cushy couch with a laptop on my lap, but other times, I find myself missing the challenges of life there, bloody teeth and all.
I have spent the last two days taking 31 kids to see the mission dentists that came here. Any of you who are parents, you think you have gone through your share of calming down kids in your time, but I think I have you beat. I had 31 checkups yesterday, 24 of which needed either fillings or extractions, about half of which I needed to be present to hold hands and hold heads in place as kids struggled to get free of the impending doom upon them. After 3 hours at the
dentist yesterday, I got the list of kids who needed to come back today, and well, let's just say I have spent the greater part of my day keeping my kids calm and holding crying kids, getting prescriptions for Valuum (yes...), and I had a bloody tooth fly at my face... Watching the kids you love scream and fight, but having to hold them down, oh, I don't like it very much. But knowing that I can be there to hold their hands when they are in pain, and that they want ME to hold their hands, well, I can't say no to that. It is hard, but it is a job I am willing to take on :)"Written exactly four years ago from today. Sometimes I can't help but stop and think about how incredibly different life can be for the same person, on the same calendar day, if you just add a few years in between. At times I am grateful for the fact that I am sitting on a cushy couch with a laptop on my lap, but other times, I find myself missing the challenges of life there, bloody teeth and all.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Rain.
A few months ago my friend Melanee asked me to do a rainy day photoshoot with her. We waited until the perfect rainy weekend and then made plans.
But we woke up to sunshine! Where did all the rain go?
Oh well, we had fun taking pictures anyway. It was already scheduled in, so why not? :)
This is definitely the top of the top for me. All of these pictures --> A+ !!!
But we woke up to sunshine! Where did all the rain go?
Oh well, we had fun taking pictures anyway. It was already scheduled in, so why not? :)
This is definitely the top of the top for me. All of these pictures --> A+ !!!
Halfway.
I just completed my 14th chapter, out of 28 I have outlined. That means I am halfway there.
Oh yeah!!!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Original.
Here, for your reading pleasure, is the original story I submitted to Guideposts. It is a tad bit different, but the message is the same. (I did not actually write it to be published, I wrote it originally to be shared with my family and closest friends, so you will see the format/voice is quite different than normal.)
Yeah, that’s right. That hot new metallic grey car in the garage is mine. Mine and Paulo’s. Spoiler and all.
“You sure are trading up!” the sales rep exclaimed. “This beats the Yaris any day.”
“Don’t knock the Yaris,” I told him. “I loved that car. I am sad to see it go.” And it was true. With its Barcelona Red color and an interest rate through the roof, that little 4-door sedan had treated me well. It didn’t matter that it had no real power behind it, it had all I needed. Four durable wheels, a reliable engine, and a stereo system. And it was mine. Two summers ago, I proudly walked into that Toyota dealership with nothing but almost non-existent credit and walked out with a pink slip in my hand and a big debt to pay. But I didn’t care. I was the first person in my family to buy a brand new car -- the first.
“Oh,” she said as soon as she got in my car and saw the push button locks and the hand crank to roll up the window, “so really it is an old car that looks like a new car!” Teenagers these days, they have no understanding of reality. Sheesh.
“No Amaris, it really is a new car. It just doesn’t have power locks or windows, but not all cars have those.” She just nodded her head, but I could see she wasn’t sure if she really believed me or not. Whatever. Like I said, it was my car, my new-right-off-the lot car. “Actually,” I continued proudly, “it was the showroom car. And besides, this may not seem like a lot to you, but compared to my last car...”
Ah, my last car. A ‘96 Chevy Corsica. I bought Blue Steel three years before the Yaris, and it was a thing of beauty. Who cared that it had nine years on it? With only 56,000 miles the thing was practically brand new. And what a steal! A friend’s dad, figuring his daughter needed something a little more, you know, modern, offered me this car for $1,500. That may not seem like a lot, but when you are college student working part time for any possible extra cash it might as well be fifteen thousand, not fifteen hundred.
And then the phone rang.
“Tiffany, this is the finance office calling about your tuition.” Ugh. This was never on my Top 10 List of Phone Calls I Hoped to Receive. Ok, here it goes... “... and they were saying that we need to give you the money in cash for you to use for travel expenses and things like that.” What? Could you repeat that please?
Sure enough, I had received a special grant for kids like me -- those that were trying to better their lives by obtaining an education instead of following in the path their parents had walked down, the path that lead to bad luck and welfare; kids that were once deemed “a ward of the court” and lived their lives in the foster care system. And, get this, I was receiving $1,500, in cash, to help with “travel expenses”. Their words, not mine.
I drove that Chevy Corsica proudly until the day she died. And then I parked her on the street waiting until I could either come up with the cash to fix her or sell her to somebody who was looking for cheap parts. Hopefully I could get enough money out her to make at least a small down payment on my next car, small. Like, let’s say $800 to $1,000? Yeah, that would be nice. So there she was, living out her last days parked on Bing Street, when I received the other phone call.
“I have bad news,” my roommate told me. “Someone backed into your car, and it is smashed! I can’t even open the door to get in. I have the guy’s insurance information for you. He left it in a note on the windshield...”
Very long and tedious story short, his insurance not only gave me a rental car for a week, but appraised my very dead car at about double what I payed for it, despite the fact we found out the odometer had been rolled back 30,000 miles some years before. When I went to the auto body shop to grab my things out of the trunk and say goodbye to Blue Steel one last time, the mechanic glanced over at my car, now 12-years-old and with an actual 126,000 miles on it.
“Oh man, I bet you are glad to see that thing go.”
Looking up at him, I slowly shook my head. “No. This car was a huge step up from my last car.” But honestly, anything would have been a huge step up from an ‘88Dodge Colt Hatchback. In fact, I don’t know if you could take a step-down from it. But still, that Colt, in all of its rusty-top-and-cracked-vinyl-seating glory, took me places -- 30,000 miles worth. Somebody had dropped it off at the drug-rehab home for women and children where my mother was first a patient, later a worker. For only $500, paid in cash to the manager of the rehabilitation home, after a summer of hard work as a camp counselor when I was still a young thing of 19, that car was not only my car, it was my first car. And with the kind of love you can have for only a first car, I drove thing around town with pride.
Well, not at first. First I needed to learn to drive it. Stick-shift, you know. They didn’t give me any practice with that in Driver’s Ed.
My mom and I went out to an alley way near her house one afternoon and she gracefully showed the art of driving a manual. And then it was my turn, which was neither graceful nor art. Mom, still chipper, hopped back in the driver’s seat and showed me, slowly and clearly, once more. Clutch, gas, let-off-clutch, go. Giving a smile and a nod that I had it, we once again switched spots Clutch, gas, let-off-clutch, stall. In only took a few more tries before she threw her hands up in the air and said, “Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll take my car back to college and I will keep Petey the Put-Put Mobile.”
And that’s what we did. For a few months, until my mother was completely sure I was not going to stall out on the freeway and kill myself, we swapped cars. Finally, when I think she could handle life without air-conditioning no longer, she drove herself up and we gave the cars back to their rightful owners. Later that day, when I stalled out at a red light and couldn’t get the darn thing to go, I called my mom in tears, begging her to help me. “Honey, you are 200 miles away. What do you expect me to do? You’ll figure something out.” That was it. Sink or swim. It took some struggle, and a few more tears, but swim -- er, drive -- I did. In my car, my very own car.
Now we have a new car down there -- our very own new car. With all its shininess and nifty little exterior doo-hickeys, it looks like a million bucks. And unlike the Yaris, this one does not come with an interest rate that would make you drop dead if I told you. No, this time we were “well-qualified buyers”. What a difference that makes! This time we didn’t have to beg for a loan and take the simplest car on the lot. No, this time around we had options. As Paulo and I have said at least 100 times since we signed the paper yesterday, “Praise God!”
Yes, praise Him for our new car!
And praise Him for the red Yaris!
And praise Him for the ‘96 Corsica.
And praise Him for the ‘88 Dodge Colt Hatchback and for its red Hawaiian print
seat covers!
Praise Him! For through these cars He has shown me that He does have plans for me.
Plans for me to have what I need, when I need it.
Plans for me to move up from where I have been in life.
Plans for me to be able to say, “Yes, I know He cares for me. If you don’t believe me, let me tell you about my cars...”
Yeah, that’s right. That hot new metallic grey car in the garage is mine. Mine and Paulo’s. Spoiler and all.
“You sure are trading up!” the sales rep exclaimed. “This beats the Yaris any day.”
“Don’t knock the Yaris,” I told him. “I loved that car. I am sad to see it go.” And it was true. With its Barcelona Red color and an interest rate through the roof, that little 4-door sedan had treated me well. It didn’t matter that it had no real power behind it, it had all I needed. Four durable wheels, a reliable engine, and a stereo system. And it was mine. Two summers ago, I proudly walked into that Toyota dealership with nothing but almost non-existent credit and walked out with a pink slip in my hand and a big debt to pay. But I didn’t care. I was the first person in my family to buy a brand new car -- the first.
“Oh,” she said as soon as she got in my car and saw the push button locks and the hand crank to roll up the window, “so really it is an old car that looks like a new car!” Teenagers these days, they have no understanding of reality. Sheesh.
“No Amaris, it really is a new car. It just doesn’t have power locks or windows, but not all cars have those.” She just nodded her head, but I could see she wasn’t sure if she really believed me or not. Whatever. Like I said, it was my car, my new-right-off-the lot car. “Actually,” I continued proudly, “it was the showroom car. And besides, this may not seem like a lot to you, but compared to my last car...”
Ah, my last car. A ‘96 Chevy Corsica. I bought Blue Steel three years before the Yaris, and it was a thing of beauty. Who cared that it had nine years on it? With only 56,000 miles the thing was practically brand new. And what a steal! A friend’s dad, figuring his daughter needed something a little more, you know, modern, offered me this car for $1,500. That may not seem like a lot, but when you are college student working part time for any possible extra cash it might as well be fifteen thousand, not fifteen hundred.
And then the phone rang.
“Tiffany, this is the finance office calling about your tuition.” Ugh. This was never on my Top 10 List of Phone Calls I Hoped to Receive. Ok, here it goes... “... and they were saying that we need to give you the money in cash for you to use for travel expenses and things like that.” What? Could you repeat that please?
Sure enough, I had received a special grant for kids like me -- those that were trying to better their lives by obtaining an education instead of following in the path their parents had walked down, the path that lead to bad luck and welfare; kids that were once deemed “a ward of the court” and lived their lives in the foster care system. And, get this, I was receiving $1,500, in cash, to help with “travel expenses”. Their words, not mine.
I drove that Chevy Corsica proudly until the day she died. And then I parked her on the street waiting until I could either come up with the cash to fix her or sell her to somebody who was looking for cheap parts. Hopefully I could get enough money out her to make at least a small down payment on my next car, small. Like, let’s say $800 to $1,000? Yeah, that would be nice. So there she was, living out her last days parked on Bing Street, when I received the other phone call.
“I have bad news,” my roommate told me. “Someone backed into your car, and it is smashed! I can’t even open the door to get in. I have the guy’s insurance information for you. He left it in a note on the windshield...”
Very long and tedious story short, his insurance not only gave me a rental car for a week, but appraised my very dead car at about double what I payed for it, despite the fact we found out the odometer had been rolled back 30,000 miles some years before. When I went to the auto body shop to grab my things out of the trunk and say goodbye to Blue Steel one last time, the mechanic glanced over at my car, now 12-years-old and with an actual 126,000 miles on it.
“Oh man, I bet you are glad to see that thing go.”
Looking up at him, I slowly shook my head. “No. This car was a huge step up from my last car.” But honestly, anything would have been a huge step up from an ‘88Dodge Colt Hatchback. In fact, I don’t know if you could take a step-down from it. But still, that Colt, in all of its rusty-top-and-cracked-vinyl-seating glory, took me places -- 30,000 miles worth. Somebody had dropped it off at the drug-rehab home for women and children where my mother was first a patient, later a worker. For only $500, paid in cash to the manager of the rehabilitation home, after a summer of hard work as a camp counselor when I was still a young thing of 19, that car was not only my car, it was my first car. And with the kind of love you can have for only a first car, I drove thing around town with pride.
Well, not at first. First I needed to learn to drive it. Stick-shift, you know. They didn’t give me any practice with that in Driver’s Ed.
My mom and I went out to an alley way near her house one afternoon and she gracefully showed the art of driving a manual. And then it was my turn, which was neither graceful nor art. Mom, still chipper, hopped back in the driver’s seat and showed me, slowly and clearly, once more. Clutch, gas, let-off-clutch, go. Giving a smile and a nod that I had it, we once again switched spots Clutch, gas, let-off-clutch, stall. In only took a few more tries before she threw her hands up in the air and said, “Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll take my car back to college and I will keep Petey the Put-Put Mobile.”
And that’s what we did. For a few months, until my mother was completely sure I was not going to stall out on the freeway and kill myself, we swapped cars. Finally, when I think she could handle life without air-conditioning no longer, she drove herself up and we gave the cars back to their rightful owners. Later that day, when I stalled out at a red light and couldn’t get the darn thing to go, I called my mom in tears, begging her to help me. “Honey, you are 200 miles away. What do you expect me to do? You’ll figure something out.” That was it. Sink or swim. It took some struggle, and a few more tears, but swim -- er, drive -- I did. In my car, my very own car.
Now we have a new car down there -- our very own new car. With all its shininess and nifty little exterior doo-hickeys, it looks like a million bucks. And unlike the Yaris, this one does not come with an interest rate that would make you drop dead if I told you. No, this time we were “well-qualified buyers”. What a difference that makes! This time we didn’t have to beg for a loan and take the simplest car on the lot. No, this time around we had options. As Paulo and I have said at least 100 times since we signed the paper yesterday, “Praise God!”
Yes, praise Him for our new car!
And praise Him for the red Yaris!
And praise Him for the ‘96 Corsica.
And praise Him for the ‘88 Dodge Colt Hatchback and for its red Hawaiian print
seat covers!
Praise Him! For through these cars He has shown me that He does have plans for me.
Plans for me to have what I need, when I need it.
Plans for me to move up from where I have been in life.
Plans for me to be able to say, “Yes, I know He cares for me. If you don’t believe me, let me tell you about my cars...”
Friday, February 18, 2011
Bobblehead.
If you want to see why I am a bobblehead, check out this link:
(or you can raid your neighbors magazine basket...)
It's here!
:)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Hunger.
I have spent the last four days stuck in bed, not because I am sick, but because I am weak. I miscalculated what my stomach could handle and made an incredibly delicious homemade mac-and-cheese Thursday night... with a flour, butter, paprika, chicken stock, and milk base, add in some cheese to melt and top it off with a dab of Dijon mustard, oh, it was good.
Good tasting, anyway.
My stomach and my taste buds disagree on the definition of "good". So, after a rendezvous with an IV bag in the Urgent Care center last Friday (after many rendezvous's with a barf bag), I have been pretty much bed/couch bound as I have only been allowed to eat clear liquids for a few days. Today, however, I had a banana, a piece of toast, and a small bowl of rice. I am moving on up. Although my body gets tired quickly, my brain is alive and well, so I have been writing (in spurts, between sleeping, and watching TV shows online).
Guess what I wrote about today? Making delicious food while in Ebeye. It is what flowed from my fingertips to the screen. I bet you can see what is on my mind right now. I cannot wait to eat. But no more mac-and-cheese, please no!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Envy.
"Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge."
~Robert C. Shannon
Monday, February 7, 2011
Squeeze.
Writing takes time, but sometimes I do not have time to give. So I have to find time to squeeze it into my life. Like right now, for instance... I had exactly 22 minutes before I needed to walk out the door to pick up my husband and then I will need to come home, cook, eat, and on and on. But instead of my usual time wasting, I took those 22 minutes in my hand and used them. And I got a good start to a chapter down. Just like building a lego house, if I add a little bit here and then a little bit there, pretty soon those little pieces become something big and great. It's all about having that little piece in your hand and knowing where to place it.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Premature.
During some "free time" today (if such a thing exists for a teacher -- I guess it is more like, "During my time-I-decided-to-ignore-my-ever-growing-pile-of-STUFF-and-take-care-of-me time...") I went online to find out about publishing a book.
Bleh.
I had in my mind before this that I would be completely happy with self-publishing, and this google search just made that option look even more do-able. The whole getting your book published thing, well, it is quite a whirlwind of craziness that seems almost impossible to navigate. To publish you must have an agent. To have an agent, you must write a stellar proposal that will be rejected for the tiniest flaw. To avoid the tiniest flaw you must find someone to help prepare it. To find someone to help prepare you must sell your idea to them... and on and on. Sheesh. As if the writing part was not overwhelming...
But before I face this big step and battle it out with myself and the publishing world, I must first write the book.
(FYI -- I will try the publishing thing, and if it works, GREAT. And if not, there are tons of ways to self publish (and I am not talking Lulu.com here...). Either way, this book will be on my hand and hopefully on a bookshelf near you at some point in the nearish-future.)
Bleh.
I had in my mind before this that I would be completely happy with self-publishing, and this google search just made that option look even more do-able. The whole getting your book published thing, well, it is quite a whirlwind of craziness that seems almost impossible to navigate. To publish you must have an agent. To have an agent, you must write a stellar proposal that will be rejected for the tiniest flaw. To avoid the tiniest flaw you must find someone to help prepare it. To find someone to help prepare you must sell your idea to them... and on and on. Sheesh. As if the writing part was not overwhelming...
But before I face this big step and battle it out with myself and the publishing world, I must first write the book.
(FYI -- I will try the publishing thing, and if it works, GREAT. And if not, there are tons of ways to self publish (and I am not talking Lulu.com here...). Either way, this book will be on my hand and hopefully on a bookshelf near you at some point in the nearish-future.)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Progess.
I didn't write, but I sat down and organized my thoughts for about 40 minutes, a little pre-writing if you will. And that totally counts. Guess I am really am not in a slump after all. And now I have direction again. Boo-yah!
Blah II.
I took my complaints of my slump yesterday to my biggest fan, Paulo. "I am losing focus," I wailed. "I used to be so excited, and now I just want to sit around and do nothing. What is wrong with me?!" And, being my wiser half, he pointed out something very important: In the past seven days I have (ahem) given a presentation to the school board, had my yearly evaluation and did all the massive amounts of paperwork that goes along with that, made quarterly report cards, had company over for a few days, worked all day on Sunday at our Open House at school where I convinced three new families to send their students to our school, and continued my everyday activities that make up being a teacher, a wife, and an individual. This comes after three weeks of being sick while travelling around the world and later halfway across the country. So no, I am not in a slump, I am tired. And being tired, well that has an easy remedy: sleep. I have blocked off this upcoming weekend to do just that. The only thing on my schedule is church, but even that... I think I will just sit in the back this time, none of this "Be-in-the-middle-of-everything" mentally that I so often have. I will go in, I will go out, and I will go home. And then I will sleep some more.
Oh, how glorious that sounds!
Oh, how glorious that sounds!
(Photo curtesy of weheartit.com)
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