Answered Prayers

Confession: I am not a consistent journaler.

I wish I was. I love going back and looking at what I thought was important at that particular time in my life. It's usually kind of entertaining.

Last night, I was really convicted about the lack of time I have been spending with Christ and instead spending it with Facebook and Twitter or TV. Anything that is mindless and won't challenge me in any way. So I came home from Bible study and went directly to my journal to listen and write to the Lord and spend some time worshipping.

I ended up finding an old journal where I kept prayer requests from my junior year of college. I came across my prayers from October of 2009. They were interesting, convicting, and encouraging to say the least.

First, I prayed for where my future was headed for the next year and a half (which would have gotten me through graduation + some). It was really fun to see how the Lord led me through that time period which contained so much more than I could have ever imagined on the day those requests were written. Through that next year and a half I went through ups and downs with my parents as I decided to apply for a mission trip they didn't support, ended up on a different mission trip to El Salvador (a trip they did support), got diagnosed with diabetes, graduated, found and started my first teaching job, and was later laid off from that job. Crazy time period in my life, but the Lord's faithfulness was unimaginable.

Next, I prayed for a boyfriend/husband. That's still being prayed for.

After that, I prayed for the mission trip to Turkey that I felt the Lord calling me to. What I didn't know at the time was the Lord just wanted me to follow Him no matter where it lead, even if my parents did not support me. I followed. Ultimately though, God was leading me to El Salvador, where the strengths He had cultivated were used so much more fully.

Further down, I prayed for Him to calm my fears about teaching. I thought this was funny now that I am almost at the completed 3 years mark. There's still fears, failures, and growths...every day.

Lastly, I prayed for the continuous desire to fill my life with distractions. Clearly this is still an issue and probably will be for the rest of my life. I have this disease that prohibits me from saying no, which means my life gets busy, crazy, and sometimes unmanageable. Then, when I get home, I have no energy left for the really important things, so I mindlessly stare at the TV or computer screen. I guess this one is still being prayed for too.

I just thought it was fun to come across the Lord's great faithfulness in answered prayers.

• Sometimes the answer is no like the trip to Turkey. I was glad that was a no. El Salvador was where I was supposed to be. Not a single doubt in my mind about that. 
• Sometimes the answer is wait for God's timing. I am definitely still allowing Him to help me find contentment in the waiting. 
• And sometimes the answer is YES. He will take care of me and watch over my future because he knows the wonderful and rough things that are coming, and He is going to lead me through no matter how light or dark it may seem at the time.

Something about last night showed me how much I needed to be reminded of God's glory, perfection, omniscience, and power and to praise Him for those things DAILY.


Here's a verse that meant a lot to me during the time period in which these requests were written:

Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Chocolate is the Answer to Life

Last week, I was trying to teach my kids about segment and angle addition along with what it means to have a midpoint or bisector. After a couple days of practicing, writing, and solving the equations that are formed, I moved on thinking they got it. They took a quiz, and I realized they had NO clue what I was talking about. So like any good teacher, we practiced it some more, made a poster, drew pictures, and wrote lots of equations. 

On Friday, we came back to those topics in the warm-up, and they looked at me like, "An equation? You want us to come up with an equation without you giving it to us?? WHAT?" I was so frustrated because we had spent almost 5 days on these topics, and they still had no idea that you can add two segments together and get one big segment or two halves of something equal each other. (Banging my head against a wall here.) Bonus: We were going to take a test during the second period that I see them that day, and they were clearly not ready. At this point, I was at a loss with no clue how to help clarify things for them. 

BUT then I thought about all the delicious chocolate I have stashed in my filing cabinet.

Let's be real...chocolate saves lives. (This might be an exaggeration, but it gets me through good, bad, long, happy, sad...all the days.) 

It just so happened that I had a few mini Hershey's bars left. These are broken into 4 chunks, perfect for a demonstration of segment addition. I break one bar in half and the other bar I break into 1 and 3.

Segment Addition: We took each bar apart, counted how much they had separately, put them together and counted how much they had together.  (1+3=4 and 2+2=4) 

Midpoint/Bisector: We looked at the one broken in half and saw that 2 does in fact equal 2.

I watched SO many light bulbs go on!! Such a great feeling but then was mad that I didn't think of it sooner. I explained this idea and drew pictures of these things happening, but they needed to physically see it happen.

The plan for next year:

1. Start with this instead of finish with it! 
2. Have 2 chocolate bars for each kid, let them break them apart, and put them back together to discover that we can add two pieces together to get the total piece. Or that two halves really do equal one another. 
3. I think I might do this with pie or cookies too so we can see the angle addiction postulate and bisectors of angles more clearly. (Any reason to bake, really.)

Chocolate solves so many problems.

Stealing is not wrong.

First baking post!!

Baking is probably my most favorite thing to do. People at work and in my Bible study last year are most grateful that I love to bake. My roommate got excited the other day when the baking pans came out of the cupboard. She knew something great was coming.

Of course I was making everyone's favorite...sopapilla cheesecake. Delish!

My roommate in college made sopapilla cheesecake fairly regularly, which was before I got diabetes, so you can imagine how much I ate. 

Then, a couple years ago, we had a mexican themed lunch at work, so I decided to try the cheesecake deliciousness myself. I didn't want to bother my roommate for her recipe, which meant I had to find one on my own. Enter: the internet.

All I did was Google sopapilla cheesecake and it brought up all sorts of recipes. I was completely overwhelmed and didn't know which one to pick. BUT I stumbled upon a blog, read through it and decided if a real person liked the recipe it was probably safe. 

And so my only rule for baking was born.

When looking up recipes on the internet, only use blogs not the recipe websites.

My Reasoning: If someone loves baking enough to write about it, then they probably made something yummy and might even help me learn something so I can improve.

My Findings: Every single recipe I have used from someone's blog has been devoured. The recipes I have used from recipe websites are ok, but there's always at least one ingredient that is a) uncommon or b) not measured right.

So, I stick with blogs.

Now you know my secret. Stealing is not wrong. Go ahead...Steal my secret. :)

Bonus: Here's the recipe I found for sopapilla cheesecake. Her blog has pictures, but I am not that organized. I put her recipe down below and added the changes I've made to it to make it have less fat. It's the easiest thing ever. You cannot mess this up. 

Sopapilla Cheesecake

2 - cans Pillsbury crescent rolls
2 - 8oz packages cream cheese, softened (I use 1/3 less fat cream cheese)
1 1/2 - cups sugar
1 1/2- teaspoon vanilla extract
1 - teaspoon cinnamon
6 - tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter (do not substitute)

Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray. Unroll and press 1 can crescent rolls into the bottom of your baking dish press the seams together.

In a separate bowl blend the cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tsp vanilla, then spread over top of dough.

Unroll the second can of crescent rolls and place on top of the cream cheese mixture pressing seams together again.

Melt butter and pour over top layer of crescents. Mix the reaming 1/2 cup of sugar & cinnamon together. 

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture generously over the top. You can make more if you want, but I've never had to.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until bubbly and bottom crust is slightly brown. Cool, slice and enjoy!

Worthless Idols

I've been dwelling on a situation for awhile now. I've been praying and seeking the Lord's will, but He just wasn't answering me in the ways that I wanted Him to. He wasn't doing anything in my time table, and I was becoming really frustrated. This morning as I was reading and praying, the Lord revealed a special truth to my heart. It was of course convicting but empowering at the same time. He knows how to break us apart just so He can build us up to be more like Him. It's beautiful and painful, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've been reading through the Bible chronologically. Right now, I am about 60% of the way through His Love Letter to us, which puts me in Jeremiah. The Israelites have been turning away from the Lord (for what seems like forever), and the Lord has been telling them about the judgement and captivity that is to come. This morning I read Jeremiah 16:19:

Lord, my strength and my fortress,
my refuge in time of distress,
to you the nations will come 
from the ends of the earth and say,
“Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods,
worthless idols that did them no good."

The Lord penetrated my heart and the things I've been dwelling on. They have taken precedence over my relationship with my Heavenly Father. They've become idols or false gods that are doing me no good like the verse says. 

Q: How can I be living a life that reflects the radiance of my Jesus if there are things that are more important (AKA worthless idols)?

A: I can't. 

It sounds so Debbie-Downer-ish, but I don't think it is. Realizing I will never be perfect on my own but being able to sit under his glorious grace and mercy fills me with such joy. He should be my strength and my refuge instead of me worrying about this situation on my own. He wants us to share the things weighing on our hearts and minds, so he can carry them for us with his infinite strength. 

My encouragement to you: If there are things weighing you down (I'm sure there are...let's be real here), they may have become an idol in your heart. Let the Lord have them and then trust that His plan for you is perfect (easier said than done, I know, but it's a process). It may not be your timing or the way you think you want it to work out. BUT his plan is worth waiting for, and the way we find that is by seeking after the Lord FIRST instead of seeking after worthless idols. 

I am so thankful my life belongs to Him. I wouldn't have it any other way...sometimes I just need reminders. 

Twitter Math Camp 2013

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending Twitter Math Camp 2013. This conference is quite possibly the nerdiest thing I have ever been a part of, which is (of course) awesome. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into when I agreed to go with two of my coworkers, Jonathan (@rawrdimus) and Andrew (@froynboy), but I knew I was in for an adventure.

Thursday morning we walk into Drexel University and begin seeing all these amazing math teachers. I immediately feel inadequate and overwhelmed by the greatness in the room. I am definitely a noob to the MTBoS and teaching in general and (I am fairly certain) the youngest attendee at TMC13. So there were a lot of reasons for feeling that way, BUT thankfully that didn't last long!

I started off in the Geometry morning sessions where Tina (@crstn85) and Megan (@mgolding) shared some great ideas to help make my Geometry classes/lessons more powerful and meaningful. The second morning we had some great (and deep) conversations about what is important for the students to learn from Geometry, mathematics, and classroom structures. Almost immediately, I knew I had some major changes to make for this upcoming school year. I also realized that few of us were feeling super awesome about the new school year and we all have things to improve upon. Bonus: this is where I made some cool new friends...Jessica (@algebrainiac1), Lisa (@lisabej_manitou), and Stephanie (@reilly1041).

Fawn's (@fawnpnguyen) Conway's Rational Tangles and the Game of SET session and Jessica (@algebrainiac1) and Anna's (@Borschtwithanna) Effective Cooperative Groups and Group Tasks session were other personal favorites that kind of go hand in hand. Fawn's session encouraged me to do more fun things with my kids that tricks them into thinking deeply about math. I teach the traditionally lower performing students, who don't think they could ever be good at or like math. The two and a half years I've been teaching have pretty much been my attempt at breaking away from the traditional classroom model, but it always ends up looking more traditional than I want it to. Goal for the year is to implement more problem solving and meaningful group tasks into my classroom that doesn't always end in one right answer.

Now for my BEST take away from TMC13. This happened at Interactive Notebooks. I have attempted to use interactive notebooks the last two years and failed somewhere around February. I didn't really know what I was doing wrong, and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working the way I wanted it to. Enter Megan. She presented an organized approach to interactive notebooks that made it finally click why it had not worked for me before. I wasn't requiring enough structure for my kids. I also think deep down I didn't really care whether they kept track of it or stayed organized. (At least my actions in class didn't reflect my caring about the notebooks.) It also helped SO MUCH for me to create my own notebook during the session. Sometimes I just need to experience the doing of something before it makes sense. You should definitely consider joining the #INBjamboree.

Basically, Twitter Math Camp is the best professional development I have ever been to, and I will not miss the awesomeness next year. 

The top 10 fun/crazy things from the weekend:

1. I rode a train and a subway for the first time.

2. Jonathan, Andrew, and I survived a ride in an unmarked cab. I do not recommend trying this.
3. Mary (@marybourassa) was a pretty awesome roomie!
4. Food Trucks changed my life. 

5. Insomnia Cookie is the best late night snack. Ever.
6. I learned a new word...nerdgasms. It's a real thing especially when exploring Desmos.
7. I ran five miles with some new sweet friends! Thanks for pushing me Lisa (@lisabej_manitou) and Anna (@Borschtwithanna)!

8. Straight guys are afraid they might actually like jumping pics, so they refuse to join me.

9. We got to see some #merica sights.

10. I survived 5 days with the crazies alone. Love them a lot. Glad I got to hang out with them.