Today (Monday, August 6, 2012) is the first day of the new school year for Melissa and our kids, but not for me.\u00a0 I turned in my keys last Saturday.\u00a0 I am cleaned out of my classroom and someone else will be teaching sophomore English at the school.\u00a0 It was quite a strange feeling, walking out the door and leaving a perfectly good job behind.\u00a0 As I drove away, I was looking for a fitting soundtrack from the radio, but it was Saturday afternoon and that’s a lousy time to listen to the radio.\u00a0 ZZ Top singing “She’s got leeeeeeegs. She knows how to use them” didn’t quite fit the mood.\u00a0 The closest I got was Tom Petty:\u00a0 “You don’t … have … to live like a refugee.” I feel a bit refugee-ish.\u00a0 I’m living in someone else’ house, I’m unemployed, and I\u00a0am just trying\u00a0to get out of the country! \ud83d\ude09 So this morning felt very odd, too.\u00a0 Melissa needed to be out the door by 7:00 AM with the kids in tow.\u00a0 The alarm went off at 5:45 (much better than last year’s 5:00 alarm!).\u00a0 Melissa got herself ready while I worked on breakfast – we’re one of those minority families who have a hot breakfast together, even when things get rushed – and then started assembling lunches.\u00a0 Lunches will be a bit more challenging this year as we\u00a0attempt to continue our recent habits of severely curtailing processed foods and grains.\u00a0 (And we really don’t want our kids eating the school lunches!)\u00a0 So the lunch today: peanut butter and jelly on homemade bread, cheese stick, cherries, grapes, a small baggie of kettle corn and water.\u00a0 Breakfast: omelets and the banana bread Melissa made last night.\u00a0 The kids were roused out of bed at 6:30.\u00a0 Melissa and I both worked to keep them on task as they ate breakfast, dressed and groomed for school. I drove them to school at about 7:10.\u00a0 We prayed on the way.\u00a0 A couple of years ago, I had started a daily routine of praying for the three oldest each day before they headed off to their classes.\u00a0 Now all four are in school and we are definitely needing to keep\u00a0that habit alive. Before I could get back home (it’s only a mile and a half), Melissa was calling to ask me to bring something she had forgotten, so I made a second trip.\u00a0 Once fully home, I did some push-ups and sit-ups and went for a two mile run.\u00a0 I was out of the shower a little after 8:00, made the bed, cleaned the kitchen and then sat down with my new prayer journal and my Bible.\u00a0 The idea for dropping my job is for me to give myself fully to funding.\u00a0 But it has been impressed upon my heart that a big part of that process MUST be the strengthening of the foundation of my faith and spiritual life.\u00a0 If I don’t emerge from this semester much closer to my God and Savior, a great opportunity will have been squandered.\u00a0 Don’t we always make the excuse of “too little time” to justify our lack of serious attention to prayer and Bible study?\u00a0 I know I have – plenty of times.\u00a0 Well, that excuse is gone.\u00a0 And I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying my prayer and study time.\u00a0 I have been missing out.\u00a0 When I have shortchanged my spiritual disciplines, I have shortchanged myself. Obviously, I need to get to work now.\u00a0 I have a list of things to do – including everything from making an orthodontist appointment for The Drama Queen (who managed to lose her retainer over the weekend)\u00a0to getting sermon information to Shelbyville First United Methodist Church where we will be preaching and sharing next Sunday.\u00a0 It may seem like a weird prayer request, but if you think of it, could you pray that we would locate Drama Queen’s retainer?\u00a0 We have confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was not among the chicken bones, coffee grounds and used kleenex of the past several days, and we have no idea where else it could be.\u00a0 I desperately want to find it before her appointment.\u00a0 Replacement will be expensive … and I’m unemployed!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today (Monday, August 6, 2012) is the first day of the new school year for Melissa and our kids, but not for me.\u00a0 I turned in my keys last Saturday.\u00a0 I am cleaned out of my classroom and someone else will be teaching sophomore English at the school.\u00a0 It was quite a strange feeling, walking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10635,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10634\/revisions\/10635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}