Things I'm Loving Thursday!

Hawaiian Hazelnut K coffee cups from Bed Bath & Beyond! So heavenly delicious! Mmmm....

I love the "Cool Nights" line at Soma and I have this new print and style in a short gown and LOVE it! I don't get too hot at night in these wonderful designs made just for ladies my age!

I'm so excited! We have a painter coming today to start our first time to repaint the inside of our 13 year old home as well as the outside west and east eaves that Bill couldn't reach when he repainted to exterior!

Got ours yesterday!

Ate here Tuesday night! So good at Northpark Mall!

What are you loving today?

Twisted Root

Bill and I ate here recently for lunch and had the most amazingly delicious burgers ever!!

Twisted Root Burgers is located on Commerce Street in Dallas in Deep Elum and if you haven't been here you must go!

They have a very unique atmosphere and absolutely delicious food!

Yes, I did let Bill order whatever he wanted and yes, that was a beef burger and fries! I had a turkey burger on wheat and sweet potato chips and they were so good!The decor is very unique and the staff is quite entertaining! You are given the name of a celebrity to wait for your order with. When they say for example, "Kojak" or "Eva Longoria", "Your order is ready!" it is quite entertaining as they share other facts and funnies as you get up and go claim your order!So true! So true! Lol!

Fun and very tasty! Great unique atmosphere!

Their sauces were amazing! The Chipotle one was my personal favorite and it was not hot! If you haven't eaten at the Twisted Root, you must put it on your list of places you need to visit!

Intercession = standing in the gap for others

Ephesians 1:17-18 says, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe!"

There are seasons of varying needs in the life of a minister. Right now is a high needs season. There are SO MANY right now, whom we are lifting up in prayer with very serious needs.

It is truly an honor and a privilege to stand in the gap and prayer prayers of intercession for others. It is amazing how at times like this, the expected feelings would be sadness, depression, and the feeling of being over whelmed and heavy burdened. Surprisingly God steps in and gives the intercessor an abundant amount of His Grace! I don't feel down but I am encouraged and hopeful! I am kneeling at the throne of the all powerful God who knows all, provides all, is all present and all sustaining. I am amazed and I am strengthened to continue to pray, intercede, pray on behalf of, and even plead with God for those I know and love.

Here are the precious ones I am currently lifting up to God in prayer:

The family of Carolyn Cavins as they grieve her recent passing;

The family of Bob Morton as they grieve his passing;

Chris Snow and his family as he fights cancer and we are confident he will beat this! Also praying for his precious daughter Carson as she prepares for dialysis;

Sarah Roberts as she so beautifully and bravely beats Leukemia! She is almost there!

My sweet Aunt Audrey who just lost her husband Tom Tope,

Her son and my cousin Bob Wimpee, as he has open heart surgery tomorrow at Baylor Hospital in Dallas.

Freddy Young as he recovers from major heart surgery! He is so precious and amazing!

Ray Bush as he recovers from Prostate Cancer surgery;

My sweet friend Lynn Patterson as she battles breast cancer;

A precious young pastor and his wife as they heal from resigning from a church and move on;

Elsie Calloway in the hospital with undiagnosed problem;

Ruth Brundrette who just fell and broke her hip last night;

The Snook family in Livingston as they face a new reality after suddenly losing Jay Snook;

I Chronicles 16:11 "Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually."

Lord I lift up these to you.

New Travel Pro Rolling tote!

Dillard's had this Travel Pro Rolling Tote on Sale for 1/2 price this weekend and it matches my new light weight bigger bag I purchased recently! I needed a new rolling bag for work since I now have to tote my heavy laptop back and forth every week day along with papers etc. So I was thrilled to find this available and on sale! I can use it for work everyday AND it matches my travel luggage that is lighter now that most airlines charge so much for your bag and it has to be under 50 pounds to not incur an additional charge! I also got the matching light small duffel carry on bag that can piggy back on top of this tote and I can then roll it all and save my back! I just had to share my recent find!

I had been looking at the Baggellini collection but it was far more expensive and actually heavier. Bill was pleased with my choice and my purchase! On our next Disney trip I can use one for my carry on and Bill can use the other as his and then I can piggyback and roll them while he wrangles his golf clubs and his bag!

Labor Day Weekend at the Skaar house!

Matthew 11:28 says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

I am truly enjoying this weekend to rest after my first two weeks back at work full time as a public school speech pathologist. Last weekend I worked ALL weekend online getting all my student's records, goals, arded time for speech, and then doing my schedule of services. I started doing therapy this past week and I am SO thankful for this weekend of rest! Friday night we drove to Waco for our Alma Mater's first home game and it was glorious! Baylor won over TCU 50 to 48! TCU played a good game and they will go on to have a great season I am sure but so will we! It was an extra surprise and blessing to end up getting to sit with my cousins, Gay Lynn and Bob and their spouses and some of their children, as well as near Brad and Jeannie H., (my husband's best man from our wedding) and my daughter and her husband and their best man and maid of honor, Stephanie and David! All of us are Baylor graduates! So much fun was had by all AND BU won the game! So sweet!

Now we are enjoying the rest of this holiday weekend with today, a wonderful morning church service where Bill spoke about "Virtue" from II Peter 1:5 "For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith, virtue" Virtue = moral excellence

We are enjoying keeping Zeus and Gabby this weekend as their human parents are out of town. We love dog sitting!

We are also loving all this college football! A&M is ahead of SMU right now.

I'm so sad that A&M is wanting to leave the Big 12. The future is uncertain for our conference now. Oklahoma Sooners will probably be next to leave and OSU will probably follow. So so sad.

Really makes me miss the good ole days of the Southwest Conference. Looks like Super Conferences might be the thing of the future.

This was our dinner tonight! We grilled out while the puppies had playtime out back in this cooler weather!

The men in my house this evening! Bill, Brad, and Quinlan is in from Baylor for the holiday weekend!

Oh, yes, Zeus was so happy to smell and hope for scraps after our dinner! Yes, he did get some scraps and some bones to chew and enjoy!

These shrimp kabobs from Schwans were a great compliment to the steaks and so easy!

Me supervising puppy play time in the back yard while Bill grilled!

Zeus supervising the grilling!Gabby frolicking in the back yard! She may be 16 but she still loves to trot and explore around the grounds!

Zeus loves being at Aunt Pam's house! Ahhh.... this is the life!

Such cute sweet furry friends! Our guests for the weekend and each a joy to us!

I hope you are having a restful, relaxing, fun, Labor Day weekend.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and make himself enjoy good in his labor. Even this, I have seen is from the hand of God."

"Calgon!, take me away!"

This is my happy place! I love Epcot World Showcase Lagoon, specifically the Italy, France, Canada, and England sections! If I could go anywhere right now it would be there right now, and stay a while! Yes, I'd get a table on the back porch of the Rose & Crown in the England section and gaze out over the lagoon and sip iced tea under a table with an umbrella! Yes, or go to Saratoga Springs, our home resort and sit out by the pool that also overlooks the lake and Downtown Disney and read a book and sip Diet coke! Ahhh....if only I could go there now!

Instead, I have to figure out how to manage a caseload of 80 special ed students who have speech therapy services and completely set up my office at my 2nd and new to me campus, from scratch! Oh, Lord, can I do this? I am totally over whelmed! I am in panic mode! But no one can tell. I smile and say hello and utter positive phrases. My palms sweat and inside I am screaming. Why do I have to do this at 52? Why can't I simply have a manageable number of students to serve? ASHA recommends 30! I have 80! When I was lead I worked hard to get each therapist at 60 or under, that is manageable but 80? Yikes! I had this high of a number about 13 years ago when I first moved here but after much assertive self advocating they came to see that this was forcing me to do a type of "hit and run" minimal therapy and they changed my assignment. On top of this we are having to learn and use an additional new web based data system where all the special ed audit files will be accessible. We are supposed to have two screens for our computers so we can view the audit file while conducting our work in the new file in e-sped and then we save our work, archive it, and then have it ready for pick up each week for the data people to input into the other data base. Yikes! My palms are sweating again! I've read that is a stress response. Ya think?! Anyway, we also have to do our schedule in another web based site called Caselite. This allows big brother to over see our schedule and our attendance and delivery of services. It is very time intensive as well as the other two aforementioned. Then we are going to learn another new system and website (this makes 4, so far we have to use), where we will document our daily data from every therapy session we perform. We haven't been trained on it yet but we will have to backtrack and input our data from when we start services this week. I am sweating more now as I share my thoughts and starting to chuckle nervously like some of my Autistic students do or maybe like some of my Tourette's kids do, nervous ticks. Then if we want to check our pay and our new salary for this year we have to go into another website "Skyward Financial" and figure out how to find OUR pay information and make sure it's right. Ok, sure! I don't even know what my Skyward password is from last year and I understand they have changed them all anyway! Isn't this crazy, I'm working somewhere I don't even know exactly what they are paying me this year and I don't have a password yet to get into their system and check that ! CRAZY! Next, we have to become proficient at Skyward Student website to find our student's schedules and info etc to be able to set up a scheduled time to serve them. However, their schedules always change some in the first 3 or 4 weeks of school but we must do our schedules and "publish" them in Caselite ASAP! I don't even the speech materials for GPHS moved into the new location/office I had to assertively advocate for this week and then it is going to need a vigorous scrub down, some paint, a rug I will have to buy, some lamps, stuff to go on the walls that I will also buy and more. Oh, but I need to have my caseload set up in Caselite and my schedule asap as well as print out all my 80 student's schedules from Skyward and print out their IEP's from E-sped and their frequency they are arded for services from e-sped and start putting my therapy data daily into a website we haven't been trained on yet, and check my pay in Skyward - which I don't have a password for yet, and schedule and attend ARD meetings done on E-sped and archived and then printed out (oh and they took our printers away!) we have to print to a copier across campus and run half a mile to go get our confidential papers printing out over there and sift through what's on the deck of the machine! Then have any new E-sped ARD's etc ready for pick up weekly by Harding that scans those into their data base.

I could go on and on but I'll stop that dribble here.

See why I am wanting to be in Orlando, or at Aulani in Hawaii? Man!.... why do they expect us older folks to automatically be proficient at all this computer stuff when we didn't even have computers in college!!! I typed my college papers all on a typewriter!

Oh, Lord, can I do all this? (I'm sweating again!)

I have really good people skills, I LOVE doing speech therapy and I am really good at that too! I even like doing paperwork and am really good at that too but now everything is paperless!!! Why can't I just do my schedule and data etc on paper like I've done for over 25 years!!! It worked well and it is what I know. Oh, God, help me learn all this, get really good at it, make a difference in these student's lives and remain positive, kind, and efficient! I can't do this God, without your help! I am in panic mode! I want to just run away! I fell like I'm on the verge of tears every once in a while but then another co-worker shares their worries and I realize that I CAN do this, for 2 more years, I can do ANYTHING! But as of January 31st, 2013 I can hang it up, say farewell, walk out the door and never return! I plan to go ahead and finish out that Spring and work until the end of the school year and retire for real in May 2013 but it can't come soon enough for this ole gal! God help me! Seriously, Lord under gird me, help me, give me the brain and body strength to do this and to do it well, excellently, not just get by buy hit a home run. I want to do such a good job these next two years that they beg me to not retire! But I AM retiring!! (I'll still work 2 days a week but for some rehab company that will let me do just the things I enjoy the most!!) OK, Lord, lift me up, I need some supernatural help here. I am doubting myself big time so I need a Big God to convince me otherwise and give me the Grace, Strength, and Wisdom to do this! I'm counting on you God!

Psalms 28:7 "The Lord is my strength and my impenetrable shield; My heart trusts in Him and I am helped!, therefore my heart greatly rejoices and I will praise Him!"

Thoughts kindled by this movie...

My wise and wonderful husband accompanied me to see this excellent movie this evening. I was very impressed with the story and the emotions this movie evoked in me. I cried, laughed, cheered, clapped, and left with a new appreciation for my parents and a realization that they had raised and taught me right.

President JFK was tragically assassinated on November 22nd, 1963 so I was 3 when this novel was to have taken place. We lived in San Angelo, Texas where my father chose to start his practice as a young budding orthopedic surgeon. My mother also had a degree and was a licensed dietitian. She then had 3 children so she chose to stay home and be a domestic engineer. She was truly the perfect mom, wife, and homemaker. She had a bachelor's degree from TWU in Home Economics and then her Masters in Dietetics. She made such wonderful happy memories for us as she kept a spotless house, made a cake from scratch every week, varying between Devil's Food Cake, German Chocolate, and a mouth watering white cake with amazing white icing, all from scratch! She cooked fabulous meals every night and served them always on a lovely table setting and presentation! She polished silver, ironed and starched just about everything, made bread and biscuits from scratch, served in the Junior League and the Doctors Wives Association and taught Sunday School at First Baptist Church! She was truly outstanding and made each of us kids feel loved, nurtured, and that she was proud of us. She was the absolute BEST nurse if you were sick! She'd make you literally go to bed and she'd set up a little bell by your bed to ring if you needed her! She even sanctified a special pan in our house as "the vomit pan" so if you had a stomach bug it went right by your bed so you didn't even have to run to the bathroom to throw up. She was amazing. I was so blessed.

My point in elaborating above is that once Daddy set up his practice he agreed to let Mom hire a lady to help her with her household management duties. Mom was thrilled. She found a wonderful young lady, Hispanic, named Mary who wanted the job. Mom worked right alongside Mary on the days she would come and Mary was a great help to Mom. We all considered her like family. My parents referred to her as someone like their daughter and they saw in her great talent and potential. She was smart and they saw this. They challenged her to go on and get her college degree at ASU and they would help her. She did! She went on to become a teacher and remained a close friend of our family thereafter. I always thought of her as a friend of the family and never, ever as "the help". My parents would not have ever tolerated a label like that or an utterance or thought resembling anything of the sort. I was never taught any ideas or stereotypes of this sort and was quickly corrected or informed by my parents if any idea or suggestion of racism or bigotry was ever presented to me as a child and later a teen. I am SO thankful I grew up in a home with parents who's background reinforced right over wrong and the fact that all people are equal.

My mother grew up with her mom being a Christian single mother, a nurse, who had to work hard to support the two of them. My mother was sent to live with an older Aunt and sometimes her grandmother so my mother's mother could stay as a live in nurse for several elderly people. My mother grew up with humble circumstances and it helped, I'm sure, to mold her into the amazing mother she was to me and my brothers. My mother dropped out of the Junior League when she realized how much time it was taking her away from her family. I always admired her for that.

My dad also grew up in a Christian home and with a hard working father who did civil engineering. He was the 2nd of his siblings to attend college (Baylor) and he went on to Medical School and earned everything he had. He was a very loving, kind, gentle, father who taught me how to swim and loved to play his guitar and sing in the evenings at home. He also bought pretty Living Bibles for our whole family one year and had us sit down once a week and do a family Bible study! I just loved that. I still have that specific Bible he bought for our family times of study. He worked hard and was a deacon at First Baptist Church. He loved to make model airplanes and rockets. He wore a Mickey Mouse Timex watch, even though he later could afford any designer watch he desired. He drove his car until it was SO old it was embarrassing to us! He just loved driving his old Oldsmobile into the doctor's parking lot and parking it beside another doctor's exotic car! He was so funny how he relished not fitting the stereotype of a well to do doctor! He had a great sense of humor and many friends. He spent too much time with each patient and his nurses would get mad at him because his schedule was hard to juggle since he would go over the time they had allotted him for each scheduled patient that day. He was a great Papaw to my kids and my nieces and nephews and he would not tolerate any racism, prejudice or bigotry at all. I am so thankful and realizing just how blessed I am.

I am very grateful to have been raised in a Christian home with parents who took me to church where as a child I learned a very simple song that holds an eternal and relational truth, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world!"

Proverbs 17:6

"Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children."