My Heart

Zaccheus Marquez

September 10, 2007 - December 27, 2010

Zacc lived only three short years. I expected to grow old with him and have him go deaf and blind before I had to say good bye. But alas, life is often full of detours. I had to say good-bye this morning and my heart is pretty achey.

He stole my heart with his "milk-it-for-what-it's-worth" eyes. I had a written and well developed plan on how I was going to get a Westie and ended up meeting Zacc, the runt of the miniature poodle litter. He was a timid little thing with the perfectly crooked teeth and an eye that would sometimes float the opposite direction he wanted it to. I couldn't walk away from him. I literally teared up and said - "I can't leave him there. I want to make him happy."

From the time we was itty bitty, he would say hello belly up...begging to be loved on. I loved that about him. You couldn't sit down without him sitting beside you and rolling over. He wanted for you to pet him - even with your foot.

I'm seriously so sad. I cannot believe how short his life was. I can't believe that he was healthy one day and completely helpless the next. There's nothing that I could've done differently....

So - the story begins sort how it started. I cry wanting what is best for my little Zaccheus. What was best this time was saying good-bye.

Or Something...

I had a break down last night. It was an all time low. The kind where you just throw yourself on the floor...flat on your back, cover your eyes with one hand and slap the floor with the other and let all your frustrations come out in the form of a waterfall we call tears.

Yes. It was a pathetic...and I mean, a PATHETIC sight. If I would have made any decisions last night I'd probably regret them in the morning. (Or would I? I still don't know.)

My parents suggested I get on my knees and pray, but at that very moment...I just needed to let it all out and have a pity party!!!!

And guess what folks. Today was an EPIC FAIL! Imagine if I hadn't let it all out last night? I think I'd be on the breaking news. Instead, I felt like I was walking through a field of wild flowers...or something.

I think this is what you call denial.

So - this is where I am in my life. I finally have the job of my dreams....And I'm beginning to wonder if I dreamed a little TOO dreamy. This is the HARDEST job I've EVER had in my life!

All I know for sure right now is that I will crawl to the end if I have to...but I will make it to the end...and I am SUPER EXCITED about my Christmas, Spring and Summer breaks! WOOO-HOOO!!

BBC Book List - Everyone Who is Cool is READING!

• Bold those books you've read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.
• Underline the ones currently in your read pile (you've bought then and plan to read them 'one day')

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (1 of 7)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I read East of Eden instead)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

18 of 100. I love reading, but this list makes it seem like I'm an amateur. Anyway - I'm curious what you've read.

COFFEE FOR CHRISTMAS!!

Hi friends!!

Have I told you guys that my Uncle Ashely Anderson sells coffee? I don't think I have!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!

Well, I just wanted to let you know that this coffee would make a great stocking stuffer or you could even get purchase this coffee before all your out of town guests come for a visit. You'll have awesome coffee waiting for their arrival!!

For every cup that you purchase you can know that not only are you enjoying a good cup of coffee, but you are affecting the lives of some great people around the world.

Get more info at www.elcampocoffee.com!!

Don't Miss Out, SPEAK LOUD NOW!

When you purchase this single, all the proceeds will help my friends at His Voice For Sudan build an orphanage in Sudan. Buy the song...Spread the word...Help orphans!

Thanksgiving

For the last month or so, I've been whining nonstop about the demands of my job and how I think they are unsustainable. Unsustainable because if I were to actually get everything done when I want/need them done...I wouldn't sleep.

I have heard so many people say that they are going into teaching because they can't find a job as though it's a piece of cake with extra icing and sprinkles on top. Well, I LOVE my job...and yet I CAN'T STAND IT! I love the teaching my kids, but there are so many things coming at you as though there is a "ball launcher" of assessments, new expectations and so many freakin' deadlines. And sometimes even your good kids are your worst terrors.

You begin to think that a larger paycheck and an endless supply of mojitos will help console you! (But you think about it and realistically it's not enough - you go back to ponder why it is you came in the first place...you remember and keep truckin.')

I've whined so MUCH, I am currently getting on my OWN NERVES. Which in my world happens a bit more often than I'd like to admit. It's not like whining actually helps....or gets the job done.

SO-------Thanksgiving. I'm going to focus on the things I'm thankful for:

1. Jesus loves me and although He doesn't take me out of situations I'd rather not endure - He sustains me. He strengthens me. He loves me.
2. I am alive and healthy.
3. My family is awesome! (They help me so much to get stuff done for my students. Not only that - They make me laugh. They encourage. They get on me when I'm being ridic. They remind me that life is short - enjoy it! I will never be old enough to stop needing my parents/family!!)
4. I have amazing friends! (It's a rarity to have friends this good and I don't take for granted on this jackpot I've hit.)
5. I have a job. (One I wanted for so long! And I get summers off so I can go to Casa Bernabe!!)
6. My students are good. We have our moments, but I'm really thankful for the parent support I DO have. Though sometimes it doesn't seem like much - one helping hand is worth a million dollars!!
7. I got to back to CB this summer and it looks like I'll be going again.
8. I have a car that I just finished paying off. (HAVE I MENTIONED HOW EXCITED I AM!!!)
9. My closet is full. I know this sounds so stinken shallow...I grew up with a really bare closet. I sometimes just stare at it in amazement that I could have this much clothes. (And FYI - it's not a walk-in closet...It's pretty dang small.)
10. I'm thankful that the star of the week's parents brought lunch for me one day this week!

I'll add more. Ten is a good number for now.

In Memory of Jonathan A. Harris

Job 19:25-26

"For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." God, help me to keep my priorities straight. I will see You one day, and how much money I had or lost won't matter, only how I used what You gave me, and how I acted in the trial. God, give me grace.

-Excerpt from Jonathan's Journal, January 13, 2007

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Jonathan was born April 15,1980 in Morrilton, AR to David and Yolenda Daniels Harris and died November 3, 2010 in Bossier City, LA after a courageous battle with cancer. He was a member of Shady Grove Baptist Church and sent from the church as a missionary to Spain.

Jonathan Andrew Harris came into the presence of his Lord. As most of you know, Jonathan had been battling cancer for many years, and as testimony to God's immeasurable grace, Jonathan continued to serve his Saviour in every way he could. He was a gentle husband who strove to love his wife Melissa as Christ loved the church. He was a careful father who sought to bring up his two little girls in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He was a humble son who honored his father and mother in all things. He was a treasured friend and brother whose communication was free from corruption and edified everyone around him.

Jonathan taught at Helmers Street Christian School for several years while going through intensive cancer treatments, making a lasting impact for the Gospel on all his coworkers and students. From a very early age, Jonathan had a burden to minister on a foreign field, and in 2009 he made the step of faith to begin full-time deputation as a missionary to Spain. The Lord, however, has seen fit to get more glory from Jonathan by taking him home, and transforming Jonathan perfectly into the image of Christ His Son. As Jonathan would want, let's honor his memory by honoring his Saviour, and striving to serve Him no matter what obstacles we may face in our lives.

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So, much could be said about Jonathan. He was faithful to the end. Spending the weekend with his family and friends makes me want to do so much better. To love the Lord more...To tell/show those special people in my life that I love them so much...to prioritize....

Please keep Melissa and her girls, Katie (8) and Emma(3) in your prayers.