You really have no idea of a person's past.

This is a double-post with my other blog but I just found the story so sad and yet so inspiring, too.

I had an end of the year luncheon with my boss and other people in our positions. Another coworker and I were talking about grandchildren/grandparents and how she AND her kids all grew up with lots of family around and how I spent my summers with my grandparents. My supervisor listened to us and then said, “You are so lucky to have known your grandparents.” And we both agreed. My supervisor related the following story to us:

Her father was black and her mom was white. When they married, her mom’s family disowned her. Her father was 30 years older than her mom, so his family was already gone when D came along. After her father died, her mom’s parents got in touch with her and asked her to come by and mend the broken relationship and to please bring D with her so that she could get to know her grandparents. She was 8 years old. They went and visited and had a lovely time. The next day the grandparents called to say how nice it was to have the mom back in the family and how wonderful it was to meet D. BUT for future visits they had to come at night so D wouldn’t be seen.

D is one of the most put together women I know (next to my mom and mother-in-law). She handles her duties, our afterschool program, the yearbook, the Sunshine committee and is on probably a hundred other committees as well. She handles it all with such aplomb. She's very rarely even short, though I know she has to be sick of some of the doofiness I pull, not to mention the time crunches and selfishness that tends to be inherent in so many teachers. I would never have guessed she had this kind of hurt in her background. What she went through is enough for young people these days to give up on life and live off the government whining about how they didn't get a fair break.

Oh, please! Get over yourself. What other people think about you is none of your business. If you let yourself be swayed by their stinkin' thinkin', then you deserve to be unhappy. But that's YOUR fault for buying into their thinking! (Talking to myself here!) You are never going to make everyone happy or like you.

That's just the way it is!

Life as we know it...

Some days it feels like this is all there is...it's as good as it's gonna get, so deal with it! Then you get an eye opener. Mandy Young came and spoke to our Sunday school class. She has a rare disease...so rare, she's the only one in the world with it...that affects her immune system. She's been in comas, had seizures, and had one of her legs amputated. But there she was standing in front of our class with a huge smile on her face talking about all these incredible things that and ONE would have laid me out. I came home and looked up her website (www.mandyyoung.com) and read her mother's perspective and it made me think of Kelli Hopkins. I met her when we attended Eastridge and I've kept in touch with her via Facebook and her blog. It reminded me of how incredibly blessed I am. I have five healthy children and a husband who loves me despite all my flaws. I wish I could remember that before I start my whinies...

Cold night in Georgia

Last night was cold here in Georgia. Slushy stuff (can't call it "snow"...more like snowy dandruff?) fell from the sky all day, so not only was it cold, but it was wet. That's calls for Beef Stew or Chili in my book. Since I was especially hankering for some veggies, beef stew it was! Since all school events were canceled (ice is a concern on Georgia roads since both Georgia drivers and the DOT aren't set up to handle it), I got the stew going on the stove and then we all huddled in my bedroom with the door shut and the mini-heater going. Nights like these mean that our ban on kids watching television during the week is lifted so the tube on and we watched the news. But eventually American Idol came on with the top 10 guys. I can't say that any performance really caught my ear, but I can say that the neck tattoos caught my eye! Seriously, this year's crop of men have some serious tattage going on! Doesn't that hurt?! I mean more than getting a tattoo in a "normal" spot. And one of the dudes neck tat was in color! Oooooooooo.

Course then my mind had to continue on the normal progession and it occurred to me that neck skin also tends to show age pretty quickly and that really neat name scripted in ink will slowly, but surely, stretch. But then I thought, hmmm...just makes it big print for all his aging buds! But the picture tatoos? Some things just don't need to be stretched is all I'm saying.