Family Treasures

    If there is one piece of furniture that can bring back a lot of childhood memories for me, it is a certain rocking chair we had as long as I can remember.  I mostly remember that the chair always had a covering of some kind over it.  Some time in the past, some dog who will remain nameless, had chewed the seat of the chair.  You could even see the springs. We had to put a blanket on the seat and then cover the whole chair with another blanket.  But we still kept this chair.  It was important, even though it was damaged, because it was a family treasure.  My great-grandfather, Papaw Baldwin, had built it.  

    I vaguely remember that the back of it had a print of some kind. The seat was a sturdy red fabric.   I loved this chair because it creaked and squeaked whenever you rocked in it.  I thought that was fun to listen to as I rocked.  I would rock and rock in it until my mom couldn't take the noise anymore!  I never knew at this time that this chair was made by my great-grandfather many years before even my mom was born.  I never realized how old it was.  It was just part of my life. 

    I think my mom gave it to me when she and dad were getting ready to travel in their RV full time.  I was so thrilled!  I now as an adult had a better understanding of the value of the chair along with special childhood memories.  I kept up the tradition.  The chair with the blankets to hide its damage, sat in the living room and I rocked in it often.  Especially once I had my first child.  Hannah loved to rock in that chair.  I started the habit of rocking her to sleep in it.  It was our special chair together.  Even after Alpheus bought me a new, quieter rocker for a Christmas gift after Sarah's birth, Hannah only wanted to rock in Papaw's rocker.  I think we both missed the creaking and squeaking!

Here is a picture of Hannah helping me fold towels.  She is sitting in her small rocker.  Papaw's chair is on her right.  She still loves to rock too!

You can see that it still had the covering in this picture.  During our move to Florida it was damaged and you might be able to see the duct tape we had to put on the arm. One day in Floriday I decided to try to recover it.  I began pulling out the fabric tacks  and cutting away at the back of the chair.  Once removed we saw that it had slats and that one was missing.  At this point we stopped realizing we didn't have the talent or money to do this chair justice.  Back came the blankets.  

A few years later, for Christmas my sweet husband took the chair to a repair shop.  I asked them to leave the back open, because I liked the slats. I did request dark green fabric for the seat since green is my favorite color.  Here is a picture of the chair now in our home. The slat was replaced and the arm repaired. Now the chair could sit without being covered by blankets.  

It sits in this alcove at the bottom of our main stairs.  Next to it is the telephone table that was also made by Papaw Baldwin.  We have recovered the seat and evidently someone put bleach or something on it so we will need to redo it again.  On the table, we keep a picture of Papaw and Mamaw Baldwin at their 50th anniversary celebration.  By request of my mom, we also keep a phone similar to the one Papaw would have had on this table when it was in his house and my mom would visit.  No one in the family was certain about the dates of when Papaw Baldwin would have built these, but we are thinking around 1912.  Which is coincidentally also when this house was built by the Flora family. 

I love to sit and listen to my aunts and uncles reminisce about Papaw and Mamaw.  That is the real family treasure.  I love to tell this story to my girls.  I want them to appreciate the many ancestors that sat in these and talked and cried and laughed and loved.  I look forward to holding my grandchildren one day and telling them about Papaw Baldwin who made furniture.

If any Baldwin relatives have a story to share or a clarification to make, please leave a comment! 

Blessings ~

 

Wednesday Words (Books)

I would like to spend Wednesdays talking about books!  I love books.  One of my earliest memories was learning to read.  I remember that we always had a take home page from our Sunday school lesson.  I would sit in church and look over my page which was folded like a 4 page booklet.  I vividly remember figuring out that "G-o-d" was the word God.  I was so excited that I read the word but I couldn't say anything during church. 😆  Later in elementary school I remember going to the big library in our school to pick out a book that I could take home.  I was so excited about that!  We had some books at home, but not a lot.  Library day became my favorite part of the week.  

About a week ago, a dear friend and former teacher, Becky Hancock, asked me to share on Facebook my top 10 favorite books, one per day.  Well, I am not really good at keeping up with things like that so I think I will do a three each week here on the blog.  

Of course, the only book I read everyday has to be at the top of my favorite list and that is the Bible.

Probably my favorite books in the Bible are Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st/2nd Samuel, 1st/2nd Kings, 1st/2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah,  Esther, the Gospels, Acts .... Well, maybe you noticed a theme here if you are familiar with the Bible.  I love history.  The stories in these books of the Bible are amazing and inspiring!  I follow a daily program that makes sure I read through the whole Bible in a year otherwise I would definitely camp out mostly in these.  

My second all time favorite book is 

I tried to read this book in college at the recommendation of my English professor from a discussion we had about Paradise Lost.  Even though I was used to the old language of the King James Bible, I really didn't understand this book at that time!  I saw it again in a modern language version as a homeschool mom and thought I would give it another try.  I have now read it in about three different variations of English.  I love it!  We ordered the audio book that had character voices and background sound effects. It is wonderful.  For 6 months we listened to it in the car on the way to and home from church (15 minutes one way).  The girls loved it so much we did it a second time all the way through.  It is a hard read to try to rush through.  No, you need to read small portions and really let your mind meditate on the Biblical truths and godly lessons.  To think that John Bunyan wrote it while in prison for preaching the gospel is amazing!

My third favorite book is 

My favorite TV show growing up as a young girl was Little House on the Prairie.  I remember one day going to the library at school (6th grade) and I found a book on display called Little House in the Big Woods.  I was over the moon when I realized this was the beginning of the story of Laura Ingalls.  This became my favorite series that I would read over and over as a girl and then to each of my daughters when we homeschooled.  I remember reading this first book to Hannah and Sarah each day just before nap when they were 5 and 4 and Faye was 2.  Aww, sweet memories!

My greatest joy would be to get to read all three of these favorites with some grandchildren one day.  You come this granny's house and we are going to have some read-aloud time!😀

So what are your favorite books?  Next week I will share more books that I have loved.  

Blessings,

Eva

Tuesday Teacher Talk (6/23)

I love teaching!  I can remember teaching my stuffed animals (and my twin brother when he would cooperate) in my room for fun.  I will never forget the first time I was allowed to teach a class for a week of church camp.  I was 16. I only had 5 students but it was wonderful!  I loved thinking of ideas for the lesson and getting all the materials ready.  I remember being thrilled when the kids enjoyed it and called me "Miss Eva." I remember being so excited when, at 18, I was allowed to be a full-time Sunday school teacher at my church.  I worked for hours getting my little room all set up.  I remember thinking that I wished I was teaching every day and not just on Sundays.  I knew then that this was the job I wanted.  I knew teaching was a lot of hard work. I knew it cost time after school hours. I knew that many times it would make me sad to see children struggle or misbehave or treat others unkindly.  Yet, I still couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life then!

After graduating from Radford University in December 1994, I was blessed to get a long term substitute position at the same school where I had gone to middle school and where I had been student teaching that fall.  God opened the door and I was so happy.  It was as if God was saying, "See, I have made you for this.  This is your calling."  Then the devil tried to steal all of my joy in those months from January to June, but God prevailed through some very difficult trials in my classroom.  He showed me that I could do all things through His strength.  As I sent out over 200 resumes later that summer I just knew God was going to place me somewhere that I could make a difference.  That I could be a positive influence on children.  Well, again I would learn what a positive influence teaching them would be on me!

I truly enjoyed the first 5 years of teaching before I had a family.  Once I had a family, it became so much harder.  I was torn between spending the majority of my effort on my job which I loved, and taking care of my family which I also loved.  After we were blessed with two baby girls, I just knew I needed to focus on being a mother and wife and teaching was taking too much time away from them.  I was missing so much of their young lives while I was at work.  I decided to pray and ask God to show my husband if I needed to stay home and not teach.  I had a month before I would have to sign the next year's contract.  At the end of that month we were out taking the girls for a walk in the double stroller when my husband shared with me that he felt it was time for me to stay home with the girls.  Hallelujah! I was so excited.  I told him about my private prayers and how God had answered them.  We stepped out on faith that God would take care of that second income for us somehow!

God did provide in many amazing ways so that I could stay home and eventually homeschool our girls.  God brought us two more children during this time.  Now I was a mother to four energetic and beautiful girls.  We enjoyed homeschooling, gardening, and spending lots of time loving on God's people.   If I had been teaching full time I would never have been able to spend so much time with our church family and friends and experiencing so many amazing adventures.  For 10 years I enjoyed being a full time homemaker and teacher.  Yes, I was still teaching. And I was privileged to teach my favorite people.  It wasn't perfect.  Some days it was super hard.  But each day was full of love, prayers, and forgiveness and hope.  

Things change and so did our lives.  God brought us to a new stage in our lives and I needed to go back to work.  Putting our children in private school was a blessing but it was also hard.  I missed all of the time we no longer had for the adventures of old. I missed spending an hour each day (not all at once) reading great books with my children.  I missed seeing their faces as they learned new things.  Yet, they had wonderful new adults to follow as role models.  New friends to talk and play with.  Teachers who were better experts in their field of knowledge to teach hard high school subjects.   And I was able again to be the teacher God had made me to be to my new kids.  My kids.  Sometimes when I say that people mistake who I am speaking about.  I say "my girls" when I mean my own children.  I say "my kids" when I talk about my students.  For the year or two that I have them they are "my kids." Even after they go on to the next grade, I still think of them as my kids.  I love them and always want the best for them. 

So this is where we are now.  In those early years with my babies, I never dreamed I would stop homeschooling and go back to teaching.  Yet, it has been good in so many ways for my girls.  I guess there are some regrets I will always have though.  There are books I never got to read with our youngest daughter.  Or the family trips we haven't taken because getting time off is hard to do. I guess every parent hopes that their decisions are for the best in the long term.  My greatest comfort is that God turns everything for our good and His glory.  He is the redeemer.  

Whatever teaching adventure God brings in the future, I hope I remember to be thankful, because it has always been so good to walk in His will.    As of now, I plan to keep teaching at the small Christian school that has been the home away from home for my girls.  We have two left in high school.  This year Lydia is a ninth grader and Faye is a senior.  I am praying that this will be a great year for them both.

With the covid pandemic, it may be quite different, but I am confident that God will sanctify me through this year, as He has the last 26 years of teaching!  As of now, I look forward to being the 5th and 6th grade math and science teacher.  I plan to share the things that I am going to be working on this year here on these Tuesday Teacher Talks.  Future entries should be more practical, but I wanted to share a bit about my journey to this point.  

Blessings!

Blogging Again

I am excited to be blogging again. I started blogging years ago in order to document life and share it with my mom who lived 12 hours away from me.  Then we moved back closer to my parents and I went back to working outside of the home.  Blogging was put on the back burner. 

Today I want to start again.  I feel the desire to blog again for a couple of reasons.  As I look back over the posts from my old blog, I love to see the things that I wrote about and reflect on the goodness of God and how much He has done for my family and for me.  So I want to continue that saving of memories again.  

I also feel that there may be a group of teachers out there that might be likeminded in our calling to teach and would benefit from my years of experience teaching in both the home and school setting. I know I have certainly learned so much from others!

I will also be documenting my journey to get back to a healthy weight.  I am using the Trim Healthy Mama plan, so if you see me write THM, that is what it stands for.  I will be honestly sharing the ups and downs of this part of my life as it may help others who are struggling with obesity as well.  

This blog will be about all parts of my life I am sure: my church family, my classroom, my personal growth, and my dear family! 

So we will see what each day brings and how this writing things goes!  Even if no one else enjoys it, hopefully one day my daughters will be blessed to read it and feel that they know their mom a little better. 

Here I am Lord, use me if you wish.