Nathan Graduates

This was a wonderful day of celebration, made sweeter by the fact that there was a time when it seemed it wouldn't happen.  In the fall of his junior year, Nathan was discouraged and thought of quitting nursing entirely (turns out this is fairly common in for nursing majors, as it is quite demanding).  He considered changing majors and met with a career counselor for some guidance.  He told me he was going to stick with it until at least the end of the semester, but he guaranteed he would be making several C's.

Well, I am happy to report that Nathan graduated without a single C!  His career counseling also led him to realize that this is a great career fit for him.  He graduated with a job lined up in the Trauma Critical Care unit at UT Medical Center (his first choice).  We are so proud of him!

Proud parents

Three generations of UT grads

All the UT grads in the family

Nathan and one of his favorite clinical instructors

We finished the evening with some ice cream downtown.  Maybe not the wisest choice with all the crowds, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Goodbye to Gloria

When my Dad married again at age 81, my sisters and I weren’t quite sure what to think.  Gloria seemed sweet, though, and we tried to be supportive of Dad - knowing that’s what Mom would have wanted.

Well, Gloria was a good companion to my Dad and brought out a more emotional, affectionate side to him that I had not seen previously.  We worried when she was diagnosed with cancer and also showed signs of dementia that my Dad would be in for the heartache of losing another spouse.

Instead, he died after a very quick battle with pancreatic cancer, and Gloria was left to widowhood again.  This spring, just about a year after Dad died, she succumbed to her liver cancer and died as well.  

Gloria’s life was a testimony of how God pursues us,  She thought she was a believer, but it turns out she never understood the gospel until after she married Dad and started attending UBC.  She was baptized about a year later.  She remarked to me that she wondered if one of the main reasons God had her meet my father was so that she could know Jesus before she died.  It would seem so.

In preparation for her funeral, we hung out with Gloria’s two stepsons and remarked how we had always wanted brothers!  We also have loved getting to know Brad's wife, Missy (who I already knew from our homeschooling days in Johnson City).  Gloria and her husband Paul are both buried in the National Cemetery in Fayetteville, same as our mom and dad.   

My Journaling Journey

This is a post I've been kicking around in my head for a while.

I'd like to encourage those who've never even wanted to journal to give it a try, but mostly I'd like to encourage those who feel like journaling failures.  That is the way I felt for many years.

I've started several journals throughout the years that only have the first few pages completed.  I noticed when I went through my Mom's things after she passed away that she had a few similar journaling attempts (the one journal she kept successfully was our trailer journal - which was really more of a logbook of places we camped).  I wish she would have had the breakthrough that I did.  I think it would have been a blessing to her, and I would have loved to have those journals to look at now.

Anyhow, to illustrate how things have changed for me -  here is one little quiet time journal that covers January 2002-May 2008,  It is the first one I ever filled:

And here are my quiet time journals from May 2008-February 2019:

I went from taking 6 years to complete the pages in a single journal to going through more than one journal a year!  These journals have been the absolute anchor of my spiritual growth for the last 10+ years (a time period that covered a job loss, a major move, and the death of both of my parents).  I've discovered that writing down what I'm learning actually helps me REMEMBER what I learn! As I look back, I see God working in my life and answered prayer.  I see patterns and themes repeating that I don't think I'd ever notice otherwise.  A friend recently asked me why I journaled, and I said mainly because I find that I am less deceived by my own heart this way.  It can also be cathartic to share my feelings with my future self (which is pretty much the voice I write in).

So those are the spiritual reasons WHY I journal.  But I will also share some practical things that really helped me get in the habit.  Perhaps some of them will help you.

(1) Choose your journal type wisely.  I absolutely have to have a spiral bound hardback journal.  I usually journal on my lap.  I don't want a double page spread or something that doesn't fold back on itself easily.  And a regular spiral notebook isn't stiff enough for me.

(2) Choose your pen wisely.  I have some favorite pens (Pilot G2).  I make sure I always have one of those handy.

(3)  Think about your type of writing.  Since engineering school, I had switched to printing and never looked back.  I realized I was losing my ability to write well in cursive.  So I decided to try journaling in cursive, and I found myself writing way more! 

(4)  Find your voice.  For years, I had tried to write as if I was writing to God or writing prayers.  It was just not my thing.  When I started writing mostly to my future self, it got much easier.  You also probably want to decide if you want to make your journal ultra-private or not.  If you do, you're going to have to come up with a disposal plan for when you die!  I decided I did not want to keep them that personal (which means I sometimes dial back a little on details).  Then Rebecca asked me one day if she could inherit all my journals.  I said yes (sorry boys, but she's the one who asked!).  So in addition to writing to my future self, in the back of my mind I'm writing somewhat to her, too.

(5) Don't just write your thoughts - copy scriptures, quotes from devotional books, etc.  I remember so much more from books I read now.  Sometimes my posts get a little diary-ish.  I don't worry too much about that.  I also keep a thankfulness list starting in the back of my journal going forward and sometimes keep a prayer list there as well (though I now mostly use a prayer app on my phone).  I would not want to have a separate journal for all of these things. 

(6) Lighten up.  Don't worry about punctuation, changing voice or tense or anything else that brings out your inner grammar Nazi.  You have no need to impress yourself.

(7) Review your journal(s) often (there will soon be more than one!).  If you're writing to your future self, your current self needs to read what your past self wrote.  You will be surprised how much you glean from this.

This year, I'm getting the treat of participating in a journaling group with my old church in Johnson City. I'm hoping this post will encourage some journaling newbies from that group!

My new journal!

Christmas 2018

Greetings to all of our friends, old and new!  We hope you are enjoying a wonderful December!  This time of year we always reflect on the past year and God’s blessings to us.  We write this letter as a communication to our friends but also as a reminder to ourselves. 

We had some difficult times early in the year when my father, Don Schaefer, died of pancreatic cancer in February.  I am fortunate that I was able to clear my schedule and spend his last five weeks with him and my sisters in Arkansas.  I am glad that my Dad knew the Lord and that he is now with my Mom in glory, and I’m blessed to have a special bond with my sisters!  We spent countless hours together this year cleaning out our parents’ home, and we sold it last week.    So many memories! 

On a happier note, some awesome news is that our daughter, Rebecca, was married to Joseph Obenschain on May 26^th!  It was a beautiful day of celebration.

She and Joseph are living in Richmond, Virginia where Joseph is working as a helicopter pilot with the National Guard and Rebecca is working as an administrator at an engineering firm.  We are thrilled that they will be spending a whole week with us at Christmas! 

 Also this year, Noah graduated from high school!  This was not just an achievement for him but marked an end of an era for me.

I am now a retired homeschooling Mom! Noah headed off to Lee University (in Cleveland, Tennessee – just about 80 miles from here), where he has a full tuition scholarship and is double majoring in theatre and psychology (yes, he is the offspring of two engineers). He is loving Lee and the college life!

Our other boys are in Knoxville.  Nathan is finishing up his last year of Nursing School at the University of Tennessee and is hoping to work in critical care. 

Caleb is working full-time as the Sony expert at Best Buy.  

Terry is still flipping houses (see his work at H2HRenovations.com).  I worked a brief internship at an environmental engineering firm this fall.  It was fun, but I’m still not sure exactly what’s next for me – whether it’s career or ministry or a combo.  I was asked to lead a team of women to Lesvos, Greece this past summer to work with refugees (and Terry came along as our bodyguard, driver, and porter).  Looks like we will be going again next year – this time we’re planning to take both men and women to work directly in Camp Moria!  It is exciting to how God is working in the European refugee crisis.  And we’ve fallen in love with the tiny town of Panagouida on Lesvos, which is becoming a little home away from home.

One fun memory we had this year was when we took a brief vacation at Cedar Point, OH, and rode roller coasters for two days.  Rebecca was able to join us as she hadn’t started working yet, and we flew her to Columbus and surprised the boys by meeting her on the way up.  

I have concluded that this little trip really symbolized our lives together – ups, downs, twists, turns, fears, joys, yelling, waiting (lots), but most of all – SPEED!  We were reminded that life goes by fast.

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”  

James 4:16

Our prayer for you this year is that wherever you are this season, you will trust God and enjoy the ride He has for you!                                

Oh Baby!' It's Grand!

It started with a boat . . .

The first year we were married, Terry was really wanting to buy a competition ski boat, I had about $10K in savings that I brought as a "dowry" when we got married, and I suggested that he just go ahead and buy the boat!  He agreed but said that surely there was something I wanted that I could get some day as a sort of payback.  I said, "Well, I've always wanted a Kawai baby grand piano."  He said when we got a place that was big enough for one, I'd get it.  Well, about nine years later we moved into a house that was plenty big enough for a baby grand, but I decided it just wasn't really the time.  I still played my upright, and I think secretly I was worried that my kids would destroy a nice piano.

Fast forward to 2019.  We are on our second competition ski boat.  We don't live on the lake anymore, but we haul our boat to Melton Hill Lake to ski.  Terry's brother, Scott, was itching for a new ski boat of his own, and he approached Terry with the idea of joint ownership.  They would buy the boat together and keep it at Scott's dock. Seemed like a great idea.

So, Terry brought up the grand piano.  How about now?  He mentioned how I had just gotten inheritance money from my Dad's estate, and wouldn't it be nice to do something special with some of it? 

So here it is.  My baby.  My Kawai baby grand.  I play it almost every day and think about my parents and the sacrifices they made to pay for lessons and listen to my endless practicing.  The piano is beautiful, and we did not have to sacrifice our dining room for it - only do a little rearranging.  I even had black furniture in there, so it all goes together.

Merry Christmas to me! 

Fall Hikes 2018

It seems that I never get to do as much hiking as I would like to do in the fall.  This year we only got out twice.

The first time was when Terry and I hiked to Angel Falls Overlook in the Big South Fork, Tennessee.

But we also got to hike with my sister and her husband to Hawksbill Craig, and iconic spot in Arkansas that I can’t believe I’ve never been to before.  Cross this one off the bucket list!

I’m sure I made Terry nervous by getting so close to the edge.  But that is honestly part of the fun for me.  At least I promised not to make a selfie at the edge!

Life After Homeschooling Internship

Now that my homeschooling days are over (see here), I have decided to embark on a sabbatical of sorts - hopefully taking this school year to reflect and think about what is next for me.

In my “past life” (pre full-time motherhood) I was a chemical engineer.  I’m not sure if it was the best fit for my strengths, but I did enjoy all my assignments.  My career started as an intern at Texas Eastman, and bless his heart, my Dad took some photos of me there and tried to make a chemical plant look good.  

I ended up spending my entire chemical engineering career at Eastman - working at Arkansas Eastman in Batesville, Texas Eastman in Longview, and Tennessee Eastman in Kingsport.  

Now, 30 years later, an environmental firm in Knoxville hired me as an intern!  This spot was supposed to go to a college student, but they agreed to give me a try.  It was fun being in a lab again and doing nerdy stuff. 

The building looked a little better than a chemical plant

Jacques and Andrea (my bosses)

I can’t talk about the actual research I was working on as I signed secrecy agreements, but it was interesting, and I learned a lot.  There was a lot of biology mixed in with the chemistry which took some getting used to.  I really did not like having to wear gloves all the time to keep from contaminating things!  I enjoyed the people I worked with, especially a PhD South African named Jacques who was forgiving of all my mistakes and laughed at all my jokes.  I thought I proved I still “had it” technically, but when my internship ended, I wasn’t offered a real job of any kind.  It was a bit disappointing and made me question my abilities.  But I also determined that I really didn’t want to work 40 hours a week anyway.  So whatever is next for me, it won’t be this, and that’s OK.