Labor Day Reflections - September 3, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,
As of this past Thursday, I had no plans for the Labor Day weekend, but things fell into place, and the holiday has been a rich one. Saturday I met Will, Andrea, and McKenzie at Logan's in Beaumont for an early birthday luncheon. (See Photo #1) They treated me to lunch and shared all the things going on in their lives. I can't tell you how much I cherish this opportunity to have my son and his family in my life. They found a cobalt blue beaded cross to give me for this year's birthday. (See Photo #2) I love it, and I love them. I was so happy to spend a few hours with them Saturday.
On the way home, I felt the urge to do something that Ray and I often did together--stop by an antique mall. I hadn't gone antiquing since before Ray died, and going this past Saturday felt like some kind of hurdle was gotten over. I stopped at the Antique Mall near Orange, Texas, and quickly went in to scan for cobalt blue glass pieces, which is all I'm really interested in buying or collecting. I couldn't believe it when I found a new piece for my cobalt blue bird and fowl collection in my kitchen. (See Photo #3) This one is a turkey-shaped toothpick holder. Somehow finding a new piece to my collection marks some kind of moving-on in me. I can walk into antique stores again.
God had other experiences planned for me on Sunday to mark the two-year anniversary of Ray's death. I don't know whether this is possible, but when my new battery that I just had installed in my VW Jetta on Wednesday died on me Sunday morning as I was leaving for church and with it died the computer in my car, I couldn't help but think that there was some kind of understanding I was to gain from this experience pertaining to Ray in my life. Rev. Fred Seay's sermon on Sunday had references to letting God help us in our life, and out in the congregation, I was realizing that my mind was tracking all kinds of worse-case scenarios about what had just happened to my car. I walked over to the church, by the way, and was about five minutes late for the service. As I was sitting there with my mind reeling and Fred talking about God in our lives, I came to the realization that whatever now happens with my car, this situation doesn't compare in any way to the magnitude of what I was feeling and facing two years ago. God did a funny thing in having me face this new crisis in my life on this particular morning. It's helped me put other things in my life into perspective, and I know He is with me and I will overcome this new setback one way or the other.
Phyllis Morgan has been a jewel in helping me with my car this past week. She gave me several rides to and from the Lake Charles Import Service and home from church on Sunday. In fact, she and I went to DeAngelo's after the service and caught up on each other's lives. With my boundaries about what had happened to my car snapping back into place, she played the role of setting my mind at ease about things I might have to do this week to get this problem solved. I love her for that.
I didn't mind spending most of Sunday at home by myself, thinking about the anniversary of Ray's death and remembering him with loving thoughts, especially since I knew I had an outing planned for today. Joan Vallee-Rettke invited me to ride along with her to Lafayette this morning to meet her son-in-law. Drew, Joan's little grandson, had spent the weekend with her, and it's about half-way from Baton Rouge, where he lives, to bring him back to his parents. With that as the catalyst for this trip, Joan also made it into a birthday celebration for me. She asked me to pick a restaurant for lunch, and I picked Prejean's, where I'd been just a little over a week ago. We had our picture taken with the alligator in that Cajun restaurant. (See Photo #4) Then we ordered a light lunch of eggplant, crabmeat, and shrimp. It was delicious. From there, we went to the Acadiana Mall so that Joan could take back some make-up, and we also stopped into Chico's and Cold Water Creek. I swear the clerks in Cold Water Creek are trained to comment on your jewelry. They did it again this time... Friends of mine from Lake Charles spotted me in Chico's, and I had the clerk snap a happy picture of the four of us. (See Photo #5) Cathy King and Rose Viau are both Theresian sisters of mine. The trip to and from Lafayette afforded Joan and me ample opportunity to visit on all kinds of topics. I hadn't really been with her since she flew to Wisconsin for a family wedding, and I heard all about it on this trip. She also sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and I feel so blessed. My family won't be celebrating fall birthdays until probably sometime in October, so this was nice to feel so special for my 56th birthday.
My rental business was quiet this past week. No one called with emergencies, and Ted was just finishing up a few odds and ends for me. Rents started coming in on Saturday. I had to handle a new situation with one of them, for I had a letter ready to give to my oldest tenant. Her floor has warped, and there is no way I'm going to go through what I went through last winter with trying to repair such a thing with so much stuff in a house and a family trying to live through such a thing. I've given her notice that next August I won't be renewing the Section 8 contract. She has almost a full year to find some place to go. I won't fix that floor until she is out. I've encouraged her to move out sooner than a year from now, but with giving her that much notice, my conscience feels good with this move. Ray used to feel just sick when he'd go over there and see how she was treating our house. Now, with this excuse, I'm getting rid of a tenant he wanted out so many times and just didn't have the heart to confront. I can't fix this floor, though, with her there, so I see it as another hurdle of mine, and I feel good about it. This tenant took the news very philosophically, and it went well.
School continues to bring me pure pleasure. I don't know why I never used the Creative Thinking techniques that I learned how to apply in the classroom during a practicum I did in 1995 in my classroom. I guess it's because AP training that I received didn't go in that kind of direction, but now that I'm starting to apply some of them, I can see how enriching this is going to be for my curriculum. Glenda Williams, our new Academic Assistant Principal at St. Louis, is encouraging all of us to use the new Bloom's taxonomy in setting our learning objectives in the classroom. In this new taxonomy, "creating" something is at the top of that pyramid. With these creative thinking techniques that I'm adding to my lesson plans, I'm getting my students up to that level as often as I can now. Friday the eight girls broke into pairs and took the Rite of Passage paradigm they'd learned about and applied it to the Battle Royal chapter of INVISIBLE MAN. We haven't discussed their symbolic renditions of this yet, but I put these large-sized post-in papers on the wall in the classroom, and each one looks unique and very astute about this topic. My course just got richer and probably a lot more fun. Some of the girls were dying laughing in figuring out what to draw and include in their posters. I think this is a good thing.
I got kind of shocked at the faculty meeting Friday afternoon. We've lost two key people at our school rather suddenly. Bill Simon, our principal, is taking a recruiting job at McNeese State University, and we've also lost our counselor. With Glenda Williams being new to her job, Jim Hughes, the other assistant principal, has a lot on his plate, especially since our building is under construction for a new library. Please hold all of us in your prayers about replacing these positions. Already one person has stepped up to the plate. Gisele Pucket, who came out of retirement to teach a couple of math courses for us, has agreed to take on the counseling position. She retired as a counselor, and I'm sure will do a wonderful job. God is asking her to do a big job.
My brother Lee got off on his trip to Bolivia on Friday. It's going well from what he's said in a couple of emails. The team from Texas Children's Hospital in Houston is doing many open-heart surgeries on children and saving lives. I called Lee's house Thursday night to wish him well, and his eight-year-old Hannah answered the phone. What a nice conversation I had with her! She told me all about so many things, including her first week with a new teacher. She and her sister Jessica have swapped bedrooms, and they're in the process of getting settled into their new spaces. Hannah now has the deep lavender room, and Jessica has the yellow one with the antiques. I'm sure this is serving as a nice distraction from missing their dad.
I got together spontaneously with Brenda Leger on Thursday. Without much notice, we met at a new cafe called Renee's in the Capitol One Building. (See Photo #6) From the photo, you can see that there's a view of downtown Lake Charles from the windows. We went searching bowls for our upcoming Theresian retreat, but we didn't find any in that particular gift shop. We bounced around ideas for where else we might look. Our Theresian group is going to exchange soup bowls this year and bring them each meeting for the simple evening meal provided. Whomever's soup bowl you receive will be your prayer partner for the year. I found a nice one later that day at Tuesday Morning, but I also looked some more when I was in the Antique Mall on Saturday.
It's been a few weeks since I've told you about cute things that Abbakadabra has done. She scared me the other day, getting up into one of the top windows in the house with seemingly no where to jump down safely. (See Photo #7) She's a smart cat, though, and she found a ledge that she could maneuver, and I lured her down with the cap to one of my Diet Lipton Green Teas. She loves those things. They're her favorite toy.
Wish me luck with my car tomorrow. I don't know whether I'm going to have to have the car towed to a VW dealership or whether Ramon Capeles, who replaced my battery on Wednesday, can help me with this. I know everything's locked up with the computer down. I don't even know how they can get the car out of Park to tow it. Surely, there's a way to solve this problem... I'll tell you about it next week.
Lots of love, Linda
"Whatever you do may seem insignificant,
but it is most important that you do it."
--Gandhi