July Blog Challenge

Bloggy Moms Blog Challenge this month is all about childhood dreams and aspirations. Here's my entry.

When I was a kid, I dreamed about a lot of things lots of little girls dream about. At various times, I dreamed of being a dancer, a singer, and a movie star. But outside of those brief fantasies, the thing that really tugged at my heartstrings was being a teacher. I remember writing an essay in the third grade about my desire to be a teacher.

I was heavily influenced by several factors. I had a wonderful first grade teacher I adored who left during second semester to have a baby and came back to the school to show it to us. In second grade and third grade, I had another teacher I thought was wonderful because she would help me with math when I needed it and went to bat for me to fight school policy so I could check books out from the library that were beyond my grade level.

The biggest influence of all was my mom. She was attending college to become a teacher and prior to starting school I actually attended some of her classes with her and was entranced by the things they were talking about. Before all that though, she taught me. She taught me how to finger paint. She taught me how to write my name.  Best of all, she taught me to read and read well.

As time went on I turned my attention to other pursuits and interests and dreamed big dreams, but teaching was always somewhere in the background. It's said that some people have a gifting or personality for certain things. I've been told mine is teaching. I teach when I'm not even trying to. I've now graduated four students from our homeschool and I never get tired of the challenge. i love figuring out just how to explain something or illustrate it in such a way that the student understands it.

I never became a movie star and the major dancing I do is in my living room with a baby or toddler in my arms. The closest I've gotten to being a singer is singing in the church choir and a short stint doing some performances for charity. However, every day I have the honor of being a teacher. And I couldn't be happier.

Blog Challenge: Best Friends

This month's blog challenge at Bloggy Moms is on the subject of best friends, so I have to write about my friend that I'll call November. We met in junior year of high school. It was an inauspicious beginning, complete with insults, but it was a beginning nevertheless. We hit it off and became nearly inseparable throughout the remainder of high school. November left for college right after school to start with the summer session, while I stayed behind and ended up living in her room for a couple months while my mom was out of town.

In the fall, I joined her at college and we were roommates. Let's just say that two only children should not share a dorm room and leave it at that. It's a testament to the depth of our friendship that we survived the ordeal with our friendship intact. Then things got crazy. November got engaged and found an apartment. I got married after first semester and moved with my dh. We saw each other off and on the next semester and then lost touch as we went our own ways.

The great thing about true friends is that you can go months without talking to them, but when you do, it's like no time has passed at all. For the next couple of years, we would go months without talking and then catch up with each other again. Every time we talked, it was like old times. It's been like that ever since. We've kept up via letter, phone, email and now, Facebook. Over the years, we've weathered deaths of parents, infertility, straying children, a straying husband, divorce, health issues, and the general blessings and hassles of life. We've laughed together, prayed together, cried together and unloaded on each other.

A really crazy thing that can't even be explained is, although we've been best friends since high school, neither of us attended the other's wedding. However, that was recently made right, when I had the honor to attend November's second wedding, which was combined with a renewal of vows ceremony for those in attendance. I stood right next to the happy couple while they exchanged vows and right next to my wonderful dh at the same time and we reaffirmed ours. It was an incredible moment I'll never forget.

It will be 20 years this fall (I'm feeling old now), since we were first acquainted and I still count November among my best and dearest friends. She has impacted my life in so many ways and I thank God for the privilege of being her friend.