Why Today was Awesome.

1. I wrote "Irish wristwatch" on the board and told my kids to try saying it. Funniest thing ever. They took turns going around the room attempting it, and it ended up in a chorus of "Irish wrishwrashres." If you've never tried saying it, please do so now and then laugh at how impossible it is to do!

2. As we said our blessing before lunch, the student praying asked that "we won't yell at each other playing basketball this afternoon." Amen!

3. I walked in the workroom after said blessing to retrieve my lunch from the refrigerator. Someone (obviously an angel, or Jesus himself) put a dozen-sized box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the counter with a sign that said "Free - help yourself!" I looked around the workroom and set my lunch down, bracing myself for what was sure to be an empty box. Instead, I found 11 perfectly glazed delicious doughnuts. I always get to the workroom when the "Free - take one" items have already been taken and all that's left are crumbs and chocolate chips. Today was my day, and my inner fat kid jumped for joy at the glorious sight before me.

4. We got to lunch, and some of our church member friends were in the kitchen preparing dinner for tonight. Our church fed West Wilkes' football team before their homecoming game tonight, so our friends were there preparing food. These particular friends, along with several other church members, belong to the Yosef Club at ASU. They offered Jared and me their tickets (all 4 of them!) and their parking pass (if you've ever been to an App game, you know why this is incredible). We had already bought tickets for tomorrow's game, but it will be easy enough to unload those on somebody once we get to the game. You just can't turn down Yosef Club seats and parking! And, since we have two extra tickets, Mom and Dad are going to join us for the day. We can't wait!

5. My kids earned free gym time this afternoon. We started out by all shooting hoops, and my kids were impressed by my athleticism (i.e. I could at least get my ball to hit the backboard, if not actually make a basket). The kids dispersed to do other things, I almost got hit in the head by one of their basketballs, and then they started World War IV. What happened to World War III, you ask? Legitimate question; I asked the same thing. "We had World War III last year in third grade, Mrs. Blair." Fair enough. World War IV consisted of almost the entire class trying to hit one particular student with a ball. Don't worry, he had a fun time, too.

6. My students presented their history projects today, for which they had to interview a family member and figure out some of their family genealogy and history. It was so interesting, and it was great to see the kiddos so excited about their projects (they were even excited about history, but I didn't dare tell them that!). I really enjoyed hearing their stories, how an ancestor was a horse thief, and another ancestor didn't have records left in England because he was outrunning the English government. Crazy, and so fascinating!

7. We were invited to partake in the food that was left once the football team had gone back to school for their game. Free dinner? And no dishes? We were all over that one! Good food and fellowship made a wonderful end to our day!

...a weasel?

Today was a beautiful fall day! Cool breeze, warm sun, not a cloud in the sky as I looked towards the mountains...my ideal and perfect day.

For one particular student in my class, fall is not so beautiful and perfect. It's an allergy-ridden sneeze fest for him, and the sneezes and coughs were in full force today. Everyone said, "Oh it's beautiful! I love this weather!" except for him. He didn't complain; he's quite the trooper. He just sneezed his face off all day.

My students were packing up before P.E. and they were standing at their lockers. This boy had a coughing fit, and I asked him if he was okay.

One of the other boys piped up and said, "Yeah, he's...coughing up a weasel or something..."

The rest of the class and I collectively paused mid-whatever we were doing, squinted our eyes, and turned to look at this boy. He looked surprised, and maybe a little confused.

a weasel.

In fact, the class and I looked a lot like this little guy.

Once allergy boy got a grip on his coughing spell and could speak, he pushed up his glasses and said, "I think what he meant to say was that I'm wheezing. Wheezing...not weasel, wheezing..."

There was another pause, and we all cracked up. It was the hardest I had laughed all day! Even the boy who made the weasel comment laughed his head off. 

It was a great Monday, and so many funny things happened today, but I can't remember most of them. I tried to keep them in mind, but the weasel comment took the cake today. Hilarious!

Extreme Makeover: Kids in Worship Room, Part 2

I had full intentions of posting this blog last night, but my laptop had different ideas! It has been giving me problems recently, partially because the battery is completely dead and very swollen. If the power cord comes out (which is very easy to do on a MacBook), the laptop turns itself off. Then, my power button stopped working, so I could only restart it by popping out the battery. And then, I couldn't keep the battery in! Once I got it in, my track pad wouldn't left click, only right click...which isn't the most helpful button ever. Jared searched Apple troubleshooting forums and found a guy with the same exact problem I was having, and he said it was due to a swollen battery. We figured that was probably part of it. So we popped the battery out, and she works like a charm now! As long as I keep it plugged in.

I have thousands of pictures on my laptop, and we plan on moving them to Jared's external hard drive soon in case my laptop gives out completely. I decided to go through and delete old pictures that I don't care to keep anymore. I deleted about a thousand of them, probably! Jared and I laughed at old pictures and I found so many ridiculous ones that I had taken and forgotten about. We're talking blackmail quality pictures. So if I've ever had my camera out around you...be careful. ;) Just kidding, just kidding. But really.

Jared and I painted for a few hours yesterday afternoon! The room is almost done :) Jared made a lot of progress on his own the past couple weeks during the work day.

Completed yellow wall!

Green wall with border left to paint

View from the green wall to the entry side of the room

Notice the entry room on the left side of the picture above? We're painting in there, too!

Getting fancy, adding stripes!

I worked in the entryway room while Jared finished up the green borders and touched up several other places in the room.

The walls inside the room are completely done now! All that's left to do is the tops of the walls in the entryway. My spaghetti arms were getting tired - painting on cement blocks is about the most difficult thing ever! We were also joined by a swarm of mosquitos. We probably have at least 20 bites between us! The spiders were there in their great multitudes yesterday, as well. I painted in the entryway on the ladder with a big one above my head, unknowingly, for quite a while. I was less excited about painting in the entryway once I spotted him. I'm positive he was staring at me the entered time I was on the ladder painting.

We had a couple science lessons on spiders this past week. Poor timing. 

After the painting is done, we need to figure out what to do for furniture, curtains, maybe some decorations, and possibly some flooring options. And Jared is in the process of designing a sign/logo for the kids' ministry...so much fun! Be in prayer for the children's ministry at Millers Creek Baptist as we prepare and start using this location, hopefully by the end of the month!

Week in a Nutshell!

Another busy, great week! Jared and I had something to do every night this week, except last night. Weeks like this make me tired! It was a wonderful one, though, and it flew by. Jared's with the RA's (Royal Ambassadors, kind of like boy scouts, for you non-Baptists out there!) for a while this evening. They're having a campout tonight. Its a beautiful day in Wilkesboro, so I'm sure they'll enjoy it! I'm about to go shopping, which is always fun. Shopping in Wilkesboro isn't quite like shopping back in Winston, though...I miss Hanes Mall! :)

My kids were hilarious this week, as always. We learned about spiders on Wednesday during science and the kids (and I, I will admit) were pretty creeped out the whole time. A girl spoke up and said she was glad that they weren't spiders, or else I would be a giant and step on them. I told her she was probably right. Too funny!

In history, we've been talking about people coming to the New World. We discussed today how hard the trip would be from Europe to America on a tiny, dark boat, crammed up against other people. We also talked about how hard it would be to leave family members behind.

A boy went off on a 2 or 3 minute tangent during this particular discussion about how his parents say he's more like an adult than a child (true story) because he likes to watch the news and read the newspaper (I printed off a period table of elements for him earlier this week because he was asking me so many questions about the elements. Yay for curiosity!). He then went on to say when people get married, they expect it "to be perfect! But nothing can be perfect, because no one IS perfect. And you can't just ask for ANYTHING for Christmas because there is such a thing as a BUDGET, people! A BUDGET. You can't just spend money you don't have! And..." so on, so forth. It was hilarious. Kids were fist pumping and hallelujah-ing and amen-ing. These kids make me smile a lot!

Last night, I accomplished "counter-flossing," as Jared called it. He said he's adding it to his "list of things that only Beff can do." I saw a piece of pepper stuck between my teeth when I was making faces in the mirror (everyone does that, right?) so I flossed. Makes sense. I managed to floss the pepper under my gum above my front tooth, so when I smiled, you could see a big ole pepper flake under my gum.

Beautiful. How did I do it? Beats me!

I spent about 10 minutes trying to get it out, and then my wonderful husband performed a feat of dentistry and managed to poke it out. Haha thanks Jared! Who knows. I thought flossing was supposed to be helpful!

I'm so glad that tomorrow is the first official day of fall. I'm loving the weather up here, and the fact that I see mountains several times a day while driving around town! I can't wait until the leaves start changing. On that note, everyone on Facebook has been posting daily about pumpkin spice lattes. Because they encompass all that is fall. Apparently I'm missing out on something...I might be the only person on earth that hasn't been through a Starbucks drive through everyday for one!

And that's the end of my random brain spill. I hope you've all had a great week too! Happy weekend!!

and BOOM goes the dynamite

Have you ever seen that youtube video? There's a rookie news anchor on some local TV station, and he's stuck doing the sports report. The poor guy is so nervous and, top of that, has no idea what he's doing. He gets so mixed up and stays about two or three plays behind the entire time, regardless of what sport is showing on the screen. It gets to a basketball game, and he's resorted to simply mumbling about the game. A player steals the ball and runs down court with it, scores, and the newscaster has his redeeming moment: "...and BOOM goes the dynamite." Its hilarious...look it up on youtube if you want a good laugh!

Today, my students, the little fourth graders, played the big old fifth graders in an intramural basketball game. A game that the majority of the school ended up coming to watch. My kids were so nervous! They are not an athletic group at all. That's how I relate to them so well...haha...but really.

The kids talked about the game all day, and we even stopped science class a few minutes early so that I could give them a pep talk. The fifth grade students outnumber them, and are really a good four to six inches taller than my kids. I guess there's a magical growth spurt between fourth and fifth grade? Either way, my kids went in with a great attitude. They were playing to have fun, mainly because they understood that it would be really hard for them to win.

The game started, and although they tried their absolute best, their prediction was correct. Fifth grade scored 5 or 6 points easily within the first five-minute half of the game. My students that had been on the court sat down, sweating, and got ready to cheer on the other half of our class that was about to go in.

"Get in their faces...no LITERALLY" was my personal favorite cheer.

The rest of my class ran on the court at the whistle, this portion having an even bigger height difference than the first half of the game did. They hustled and ran and tried their best to block the big kids. And then, it happened.

In a sheer moment of beauty, the shortest (and most athletic) girl in our class ran down the court with the ball. She barreled towards the tallest fifth grade boy, coming eye level with his rib cage, and tossed the ball up in the air with all of her might as he started swinging and waving his arms. Another girl in my class happened to have her hands up in the air at that exact moment, and by the grace of God, the ball landed in her hands. She swung around, hardly having time to take into account where the goal was, and shot the ball.

The crowd fell silent, seeing as how this was only the second or third shot actually made by my students. Time slowed, and...

BOOM goes the dynamite.

It was beautiful. Nothing but net. One goal for Mrs. Blair's class...and about 9 or 10 for fifth grade. My students spent the rest of the afternoon talking about that one shot, though. I was so proud of them!

Its the stuff movies are made of. Just wait for it, coming to a theater near you. :)

Have a great weekend, everybody!

And Cue..."Awww"

My students are so sweet. I stayed home yesterday because I wasn't feeling well, and they were excited to see me back this morning. We were getting ready to have our prayer time (they love praying, its such a blessing!) this morning, and a girl said, "my prayers were answered last night!" I told her that was great! And asked how so. She said, "I prayed that Mrs. Blair feels better and that she would be at school tomorrow, and you're here!"

It's amazing seeing fourth grade students that are prayer warriors. In my book, that term is normally reserved for adults, people that have had a long time to establish themselves in their faith. But my kids are different - we start every morning in prayer, and they all jump at the opportunity to pray out loud for their classmates and for our day together.

Dad emailed me today and informed me that his close friend and coworker of several years, Mark Watts, passed away unexpectedly and suddenly last night. He asked for our prayers for his office and the Watts family (you can keep the family in your prayers, too!). I've heard my students pray over and over for the same people everyday - people that they know that are sick or hurting in various ways. I knew that if I shared with them this particular situation, they would do the same for this hurting family.

We were about to say our blessing before lunch, and I told them that my dad's friend had died unexpectedly last night. They were all so sad for the Watts family and for Dad. They promised to pray for the family and all involved. A student asked if Mark was a Christian. I said, "Yes! He was, so we can be glad that he's with Jesus now," and a student proceeded to say our blessing and a special prayer for the Watts. I thanked them and we went on to lunch.

I asked my children to hang on for a second so that I could grab my lunch from the workroom. I walked around the corner to meet up with them, and there were my nine fourth graders, smiling at the ceiling and waving.
"What are you doing, guys?" I asked, laughing.
"Mrs. Blair, we're waving to Mark! He's up there with Jesus now. We're happy for him."

I almost cried right there. Sweet, sweet kids. Please keep the Watts family and the friends of Mark in your prayers!

A Riddle!

Wow, what a weekend! A busy and incredible weekend. Our children's retreat was absolutely wonderful. We were blessed to spend so much time with the kids; we haven't been able to meet with them very often in the time that we've lived here in Wilkesboro. We were amazed at their knowledge of the Bible. It was an incredible blessing to be with them and hear their thoughts on things...and watch them goof off and play silly games, too, of course!

Sunday night was Jared's ordination service and the blessings just kept coming! It was an amazing service. Jared's dad gave a wonderful charge to him, which was so special, coming from a pastor dad to a pastor son. Our pastor gave a charge to the church, and then the ordained folks in the church were called to pray for both of us and lay hands on us as we sat at the front of the church. Jared got a certificate and that was that! Talk about a powerful night...we couldn't be any happier to be serving here. :)

And now, for a riddle. Jared gave this to me when I came home today, and I was sleepy and perhaps a tad delusional. School days do that to me! Its a tricky one, but it made so much sense once I figured it out (I guess that's the point of a riddle, right?) thanks to the help of my lovely husband. That is, after he got done laughing at my ridiculous and completely wrong guesses. Read it and see if you can guess it more quickly than I did!


"This was written by a boy in California in response to an offer from a gentleman in Philadelphia that he would pay anyone $1,000 who could write a puzzle he could not solve.

He failed to do so, and paid the $1,000. The answer is one word, and it appears only four times in the Bible. It has five letters.

Who Am I?

Adam...God made out of dust, but thought it was best to make me first.

So I was made before men to answer God's most Holy plan.

A living being I became and Adam gave to me my name.

I from his presence then withdrew, and more of Adam never knew.

I did my Maker's law obey, not ever went it from astray.

Thousand of miles I go in fear, but seldom on earth appear.

For purpose wise which God did see, He put a living soul in me.

A soul from me God did claim, and took from me the soul again.

So when from me the should had fled, I was the same as when first made.

And without hands, or feet, or soul, I travel from Pole to Pole.

I labor hard by day, by night, to fallen man I gave great light.

Thousand of people young and old, will by my death great light behold.

No right or wrong can I conceive. "The Scripture I Cannot Believe."

Although my name therein is found, they are to me an empty sound.

No fear of death doth trouble me, real happiness I'll never see.

To Heaven I shall never go or to Hell below.

Now when these lines you slowly read, go search your Bible with all speed.

For that my name is written there, I do honestly to you declare."

I want to know your guesses! I'm thinking you're probably going to get it more quickly than I did :) Hint: If you are going to consult a Bible, go more the King James route than a more current translation. Post your guesses and I'll let you know the right answer tomorrow! Good luck!

A Forklift for Mrs. Blair

We went outside for recess today in between rain storms, and my students were worried for the sake of my khaki pants. The playground equipment was wet from the rain that had just ended, and I usually sit on part of the playground and watch them as they play. One of the girls said, "Mrs. Blair, you should have brought out a chair with you!" I said yeah, I probably should have.

Then one of the girls said, "No wait! You could just sit in that!" And she pointed to one of these on our playground:

What is that, exactly? Anyways!

I laughed and said, "Okay yeah! I'll just climb on up there."

And the few girls around me giggled and said, "We can just pick you up and toss you up there!"

And then another girl spoke up. "No, to get Mrs. Blair up there, we'd need one of those...forklift...things."

Nothing like fourth graders to raise your self-esteem! :)

Extreme Makeover: Kids In Worship Room, Part 1

Today, Jared and I got started on our next big project! Our house is, for the most part anyways, unpacked and settled, so we are moving on to our big project at the church.

This is a room that is underneath the gym at MCBC. At the moment, it is all white. And cobweb-y and spider-y. However, it is going. to. be. awesome!

Jared and I were given permission to paint/decorate this room in any way that we wanted. It is our room that we'll use on Sunday nights for Kids in Worship, and it isn't used for anything other than our ministry. Jared did a bit of research and reading about kid's ministry rooms, and we picked out three colors (and chalkboard paint!!) to use in the room. 

We took a trip to Lowe's Hardware this afternoon. They had a few choices. Yikes.

We settled on the three colors that are circled! Each wall will get one color. It'll be bright and colorful and awesome. We have a plan in the works to involve the kids in decorating the room, too, once we have the big-time painting done.

And about that chalkboard paint...

There's this random post in the middle of the longest wall. Instead of keeping it all one color, we went ahead and put chalkboard paint on it today! We thought it would be fun for the kids to have a small place to write on/decorate.

Then we realized we had plenty of chalkboard paint left, so we went ahead and painted around the door, too! I got close to nature today as I held hands with spiders and ran my head into cobwebs. Joyous occasion.

Pastor Jared examining our handiwork! :)

 We were surprised at how easy it was to paint with the chalkboard paint. I guess I was expecting it to be more difficult, but it covered the wall really well and we got it knocked out pretty quickly!

We can't wait to get the room finished. Having a consistent place to meet with the kids will be wonderful, and we're hoping that it'll be a comfortable and fun place for them to hang out!

And this has nothing to do at all with the room, but I saw it when we were at Lowe's. "How the most watched couple in the world are getting it right."

Sound strange to anyone else? Come on, People magazine! :)

Football and Fruit

Yay for Labor Day Weekend! I hope everyone has enjoyed a long, relaxing weekend. And let's be excited...fall is coming quickly!

On Saturday, Jared and I made the long haul (except not at all long, luckily!) to Winston-Salem! We visited each parents' house, picked up some more of our belongings, and then all of us went to the Liberty vs. Wake Forest football game. Normally I would pull for Wake at a Wake game, but as a pastor's wife, I'm called to root for LU. :) We sat in our navy blue and red Liberty t-shirts in a midst of black and gold. Sadly, Liberty lost, but definitely held their own against Wake and only lost by 3 points! For the sake of Wake's fans, I hope that they play better the rest of the season than they did against LU. We can blame it on the rain, I suppose ;)

I love football games, mainly because I love football. I also love being around family while watching football, and people watching at games always promises to be entertaining. However, people watching only depressed me at the game on Saturday. A young married couple sat in front of us with their friends, most of which were probably a few years older than us. We deduced that they were Wake alum, with the exception of the wife in the couple in front of me. She was so excited to be at the game, and she was about one of the nicest people that I've ever briefly met. We talked for a short time at the beginning of the game (because I hit her with my rain poncho - oops) and she was very sweet.

As the game began, the wife cheered and yelled for Wake, and then cheered just as loudly for Liberty. She wasn't necessarily a fan of either, so I guess she figured she could pull for both teams equally. Her husband quickly turned to her, and with a very sharp tongue and colorful language, told her she couldn't cheer for Liberty. She was there to cheer for Wake.

Not long in to the first quarter, a Liberty player was knocked out cold on the field. I didn't see him get hit, but he didn't move a muscle as the pile of players slowly got off of him. The husband cheered and yelled and clapped as he watched the motionless player. She asked him to stop, and he said, "What? I don't care if he gets hurt!" The player eventually was helped off the field, and everyone in the stands clapped and cheered, WFU and LU fans alike...except for the guy in front of me.

As the game progressed and the guy shut down his wife, cussing, over and over and over again, her mood and body language quickly changed. She went from being peppy and clapping, to pulling her knees up, resting her chin on them, and hardly saying a word at all.

My impression of him was obviously not a very high one. I felt terrible for his wife, and wondered how anybody could ever be so rude to a young woman that seemed to be so nice. I was sad for both of them, and almost mad at a complete stranger.

Sunday morning in church, the pastor spoke out of John 15, the vine and the branches passage. I listened as he talked about producing fruit, and Jesus' call to the disciples to produce fruit. My mind immediately went to the Wake fan in front of me the night before. "What a lack of fruit," I thought. He was so openly and downright mean, there was no way he could produce fruit if he didn't change his attitude, I thought.

My thought process started changing, however. I consider myself a nice person. I started thinking about how many "nice" people there are in our world today. Nice people. The kind of people whose hearts get blessed on a regular basis. People that don't have a mean bone in their body and would never hurt a soul...but could it be possible that they are lacking fruit, too?

I was challenged by the sermon yesterday morning. I examined my own life, wondering what kind of fruit I was producing. Verse 13 of this passage says, "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." Jesus ultimately laid his life down for us at the end, but he laid his life down daily for his disciples and for the multitudes that he served. That is what true fruit looks like. How willing am I to do that, and how many friends do I have/know that would do that for me?

While you and I may not cuss and cheer when we see people unconscious on a football field, simply being nice to others is not what Jesus meant when he told us to bear fruit. Being nice is too easy. Stepping aside and getting yourself out of the way so that God can shine through...less easy! I am challenging myself to find ways to bear fruit, and I encourage you to do the same.

To live like Christ, we have to love like Christ. Think about how different our world would be if people stopped trying to simply be nice, and started truly living more like Christ lived. Pretty amazing, don't you think?