Priorities

The following is going around facebook but I thought it was a great reminder about life's priorities. Hope you enjoy and I promise to be back to blogging soon.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.' The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.'

Heavy Heart

I'm carrying around a heavy heart for several people I know. They could all definitely use your prayers. I have lifted them all up countless times.

First, is my dear friend Holly. She just miscarried her second child. My heart breaks for her as I know this path all too well. She was due three weeks after me and I was really looking forward to sharing this experience with her. I know God has great things planned for her but right now it just hurts. Holly, I love you and am praying so hard for you guys. You are so special to me.

Secondly, we learned this week that one of the third grade students has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She is a great kid, has a great family, and obviously this was an unexpected blow. Please join me in praying for her family, medical staff and friends as they begin this adventure of the unknown.

Finally, please prayer for one of my co-workers. Her elderly mom has had a rough couple of days and is in the hospital. She is struggling with heart issues and dementia among other things. Please pray for healing, peace, and patience.

Changes

Yes, you are at the right place. A million thanks to my friend Traci at Sweet Cheeky Designs who outdid herself on our new design. I can't even begin to describe how much I love it!!

For those of you who don't know (and I'm not sure who that would be) our "secret" is officially out. We are thrilled beyond words to be expecting a little Cramer in April! God is so good! I promise to not bombard this blog with all things baby (at least for now) so for those updates please continue to check the other blog. I will try and do better about updating both.

Enjoy the new look and have a great week! We are off to Ohio for what is sure to be a great wedding. Maybe we'll even share some pics with you when we return! :)

Please Pray for Nancy

So yes, I know it's been over a month but life has been CRAZY busy. School started, I switched grade levels, and I've had to deal with a skunk sprayed dog...again. Yes life is hectic, but I want to take a moment to ask you to pray for Nancy.

She is the same one I mentioned in my previous post. Nancy is a former co-worker and an invaluable member of the baby Cramer prayer team. They did not find lymphoma but did find a rare form of lung cancer. She is having surgery tomorrow to remove a portion of her lung. It is major surgery and she will be spending time in ICU. They doctors are optimistic they caught it early and can treat it but will not know for sure until after the surgery. Please pray for her, her family, and her medical team. This is the least I can do for her after everything she's done for me.

I promise to finish the Seattle post and tell you about this new school year. Perhaps this weekend....if lesson planing doesn't kill me first. :)

Please Pray---Updated

I promise to finish posting the pics from our trip soon. In the meantime, please pray for a former co-worker and good friend of mine. She has been a huge part of the little Cramer prayer team and I'm honored to be able to return the favor. I just wish it was under better circumstances.

I learned today that she is going in for surgery tomorrow to remove a lymph node from her neck. A PET scan indicated there were 3 areas of concern and the doctors are trying to rule out lymphoma. Her surgery is scheduled for 1:00 tomorrow. Please pray for her, her family and her medical staff. Please pray that it is not serious and that the doctors will get the information they need from the surgery.

Thank you in advance. God does listen.

Update
They found no signs of lymphoma! Praise God. They are still waiting on some biopsy results and she will require some further surgery but for now things are looking good. Our God is an awesome God!

Seattle

We arrived in Seattle on Wednesday and stayed until Friday morning. We had a great time and enjoyed the cool weather. We had perfect weather each day we were there. We also had a lot of fun taking in the sights Seattle has to offer.

We stayed downtown at a great hotel that was central to everything. I loved that we could walk anywhere we wanted! The hotel was a Double Tree but is housed in an old building that used to be a men's club. It is still called the Arctic Club and is absolutely beautiful. Rumor has it there are ghosts but we didn't see any. :( All in all our stay was great!

I loved the doors in the hotel. The ones from the hallways to the rooms were bright blue. I didn't get a picture of those but I did get the one to our bathroom inside our room.

And of course no trip is complete unless Brutus tags along. He he is contemplating the price of the snacks in our room.

Of course we had to do all the tourist stuff like go up in the Space Needle.

And take pictures of the skyline from the top of it.


We also did a tour of Underground Seattle. The place that does tours is in the old part of Seattle called Pioneer Square. This is the original part of Seattle that had to be rebuilt after a great fire. It has underground sections because they raised the city due to flooding problems. It was a fun and educational thing to do.

This is the front of the tour building in Pioneer Square.

These are skylights in Underground Seattle. You walk over them on the existing sidewalks never knowing what is underneath!

And of course we had to see them throw fish at the Pike Place Market.

After all these adventures, we headed east to Spokane to see the Gordon family. But more about that later. :)

Vacation 2009

What a great vacation we had. We started in Seattle for 2 days, drove to Spokane for the weekend, reconnected with old friends, drove a scenic route back to Seattle, stayed another day, took the Amtrak to Vancouver, went to Victoria, back to Vancouver and home to Dallas. Of course that is the condensed version. :)

What? You want details and pictures. Well, stay tuned....

Road Trip

I'm so ready!
Ready to get in vacation mode.
Ready to finally celebrate my birthday present.
Ready to explore new parts of the country.
Ready to see my old college roommate.
Ready to experience her crazy life with two kids and one on the way.
Ready to spend time with the hubby and reconnect.
Ready to celebrate 5 years of marriage.
Ready to just go with the flow and have fun.

All I need to do now is pack. :)

We are off to Seattle/Vancouver for 10 days. I can't wait to go and can't wait to get back and share the trip with you! See you then.

Remembering

On this Memorial Day it is only fitting that we honor the heroes in our lives. I have many veterans in my life. Both of my grandfathers fought in W.W. II and my dad fought in Vietnam. I'm so proud to honor them on this day. I only wish I had paid more attention to the stories growing up. Hindsight truly is 20/20 but I can continue to honor their lives.

I am reminded each day as I drive to work of the sacrifice many have made. You see I pass Pecan Grove Cemetery, a 57 acre cemetery established in 1870. I never really paid much attention to it until last year around Memorial Day. It was then I noticed the flags. As is common, volunteers had placed American flags along the graves of all the soldiers. What was uncommon was the placement of Confederate flags around 200 of the oldest grave sites there.

Honestly, I had never really thought about those veterans of the earliest wars of our country. I often wondered why we should designate a difference between veterans. I have since realized that we take for granted what these soldiers did for us. Without them, who knows how much history would be different. So does it matter which era a soldiers fights in? Of course not. I am proud that we have embraced all veterans regardless of ethnicity, gender, or political beliefs and honor them each and every day. Happy Memorial Day and may we continue to honor ALL the men and women who bravely fight for our freedom.

Small Towns

Having grown up in a small Texas town and currently living in another I find myself making lists about their quirks. Today I added another.

You know you are in a small town when you drive by the local car wash and see a farmer washing his tractor.

What are your contributions?

One Year

Just a preface to say if you want the latest update on our journey click here. If not just keep on reading!

Can you believe we just celebrated a year in the new house on Sunday? Time has certainly flown by and there are many of you who still haven't even seen it! I find it hard to believe that there are still some boxes we haven't unpacked (mostly books) and rooms we haven't decorated. I guess I'll have to get my butt in gear next week over spring break! This also means it's time for another party. After all, this kind of thing calls for a celebration! Keep your eye out for invites.

Prayers for the following

Please join us in the following prayer requests. It has been a rough week.

Please pray for our friend Brian and his family in Ohio. His dad has been down a rough road lately battling infections on top of cancer. His cancer has resurfaced stronger and he was moved into hospice this week. I know they would covet your prayers during this difficult time.

Please pray for my friend Aimee's friend who just had her triplets at 30 weeks. They are doing well but please continue to pray for them and their parents. I can't imagine how scary yet joyful this must be.

Finally, please pray for us. We have had a lot of things happen this week that have really tested our faith. Please pray that we will not lose hope in our journey and will continue to focus and rely on God.

Thank you all!

A Great Cause

This is our friend Jay. He is doing an awesome thing by shaving his head to help cure childhood cancer. Please consider donating to this wonderful cause. I know we will be making a contribution again (so keep your eyes out Jay!) Thanks!

Photo Tag

So, Holly tagged me to post a photo. The rules are simple. Open the fourth folder and post the third picture. What a walk down memory lane this was!!

This picture was taken four years ago at school. It is the year we celebrated Italy for special events. We were doing a taste test of pasta sauces. The kids got to make their pasta look like the Italian flag with marinara, alfredo and pesto sauces. As you can guess the pesto did not go over well. This was the same year I had the small class from you know where. They weren't bad kids, just high maintenance!

Thanks Holly, that was fun!

Also, on the topic of school, please send up prayers on behalf of one of my student's families. They are in midst of a major crisis and could use some thoughts and prayers. Thanks in advance.

Be sure to check back this weekend for the December update! Have a great rest of the week.

M.I.A.

Yes, I know it's been a really long time. And yes, I know you all have missed me. And yes, I even realize it appeared as though we dropped off the face of the earth. All of that being said, December was super busy for me at work and then all of a sudden it was January! I can only promise to do better in 2009.

There is so much to update you on so I will probably break it into several posts. Here we go for the remainder of November. For Thanksgiving we went to Ohio to see Joel's family. It was cold (by Texas standards) but not snowing. It was MUCH colder there for Christmas and we were glad we had already been! We had a great trip.

We flew into Columbus on Tuesday. After we landed and walked through security, I realized that I might have a tiny problem. You see as we were walking, we met a really big guy. I wasn't really paying attention, but Joel did a double take and then said, "I think that is James Laurinaitis." I stopped and looked and sure enough...it was James (For those of you who don't know, he plays on defense for the Buckeyes. I also happen to own his jersey). That is when I realized I might have a problem, because I considered approaching him and getting a picture. In fact, I would have if he wasn't approaching security to get to his plane. I should have stopped him, it would have been a great addition to the game room!

We enjoyed Joel's family for Thanksgiving and ate too much! We came back home on Saturday and headed back to work on Monday! Just in time for my birthday. The big 3-1 was uneventful but I did get a trip to go see my college roommate and her family in WA state! I'm very excited to plan the trip but am waiting to see how things play out in February. I can't wait to see her!! That will be a post for sure as we are talking about spending time in Seattle and going up to Vancouver. Fun stuff!

That's it for now. I'll update December in the next post! Have a great week and a blessed 2009!

Things I'm Lovin'

Here are some things I'm lovin' this week. Tell me what is on your list.

I'm lovin' my new scrapbook from our trip to London that came in the mail from Aimee. She did such an awesome job and I can't wait to find time and journal in it. Thank you, dear friend, for such an amazing gift. And to add to the enjoyment it was a surprise package on a week I needed a pick me up! God is so good to provide such an awesome friend!




I'm also lovin' the cool weather. As I drove home on Friday, I had the great pleasure of watching our latest cold front move through. Mother Nature outdid herself with the cloud show. I couldn't resist taking pictures, as it was the most beautiful sight. Of course, the pictures don't do it justice!


Finally, I'm lovin' that my Christmas cacti (is that the correct plural?) are starting to bloom. Since we have moved so much in the last year, and because they are finicky about being moved, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, they are blooming! I love it and just had to show you the evidence.


Have a great week and enjoy all the things you are lovin!

What have you done?

Last week was busy for me. We went and early voted (so we are entitled to gripe if we don't like the outcome). I then spent the rest of the week getting ready for Halloween at school. I made scary eyeball cookies and bat cupcakes for the kiddos. It was time consuming but well worth the effort when the kids got so excited. So without further adieu...here are pictures.

The bat cupcakes turned out so cute and the kids loved them.

The eyeball cookies were a big hit!

These are the kiddos goofing off with silly glasses and vampire teeth! Who knew $2 could buy so much fun!

And here they are goofing off with the eyeball cookies.


Hope you had a safe and fun Halloween. We are getting ready for our patio party this weekend. We are breaking in the outdoor fireplace. It should be fun!

This week marks the beginning of National Infertility Awareness Week. Please pray with me for all the families who have been and continue to be affected by this. I plan to post throughout the week some stats and suggestions on how to be supportive. Please check here for these postings.

Don't You Love It??

My new look that is! I do! Hopefully because I love it so much I'll be more anxious to visit it and write more. A HUGE thank you to my friend Traci at Sweet Cheeky Designs. Please go check her out. She does great work, is easy and fun to work with, has great prices and is doing it all to help her son Riley (who is just precious). I know she would love the business and you will love the results.

Random Thoughts

The title is your warning. This is just random thoughts/ideas from the last month. Take it for what it is.
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First off, I love the flowers that Joel sent me a few weeks ago. He went out to L.A. for what was supposed to be a 4 day business trip. He ended up staying a week and a half. He knew I wasn't happy so he sent these to me at work. I guess he is a keeper after all. :)

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Secondly, I want to know how a large school district can be $84 million over budget. Just curious....
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Next, I've started going for acupuncture treatments....and I LOVE IT!!! It is so relaxing and has really helped with some of the problems I've had. My only regret is not researching it and starting treatment sooner.
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Also, keep your eyes posted for changes to the blog. My dear friend Traci (whose link you will find in my blog roll) is working on changing things up for me. I know the final product will be great and that you will all be knocking on her door for a makeover too!
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It is fall!!! I LOVE this time of year. We went to the fair this last week and had a great time. I also drug out all my Halloween decor and I have a to do list already for next weekend and yes, it involves buying some pumpkamelons!!
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Congrats to my best friend from college, Teresa. It seems as though her daughter Sadie is going to be a big sister in May. T and B will certainly have their hands full with 2 kids under 2yrs. I'm excited to meet the new addition and pray for a happy, healthy pregnancy.
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Finally, ask us about the wedding in Afton, TX next time you see us. It was my cousin's and was quite the adventure. I promise you will be shocked and will laugh at our perspective!!