The World's Most Beautiful Saturday

I've been thinking lately I should write more or write again or whatever. It's a much better hobby than phone scrolling!  Last weekend in San Antonio I made some notes in my phone about things I should write about, but then I never did. Maybe they will come later.

Today is the World's Most Beautiful Saturday and my heart started out full. Sunshine, cool/tolerable weather, brunch with Mr. Hickman at a new place (La Gabriella - I had avocado toast), errands, top down on the Jeep. Life is good. 

And one of my teacher friends posted this on Facebook this morning. 

All morning as we piddled around town I thought about making sure I got there right at 1:00 so I could make a donation and get something delicious because A) I love food and B) I love kids. Around 12:30 I ran to HEB to get ingredients to make dinner, then I headed on over to Miles's bake sale, excited about an afternoon treat!  

Now, I do not know Miles or his family. I know people who know them because we live in a big small town and he went to my schools. 

(Sidebar: all CS schools were my schools but now they're not my schools but they still are but also Elgin schools are my schools and I love them all with my whole heart although it's weird to have two schools be my schools when only one school was for so long. Makes sense, right? )

Anyway.

Here's what I know about him: he was a contestant on Master Chef Junior and his was born without a portion of one arm. The idea behind the "bake sale" was to raise money for him to get a prosthetic. Sign me up, right?!?

(Sidebar #2: "Bake sale" sounds like I threw together some cupcakes in my kitchen to pay for my Girl Scouts uniform. This kid's food is gourmet amazing, but I'm not sure what else to call the even so "bake sale" it is.)

When I got there, the line was SO SO SO LONG!  Like, a line I would not have stood in normally because it was too long. But it's the World's Most Beautiful Saturday and I had nothing else to do, so I waited. 

Miles was torching creme brulees as fast as he could while people chatted and waited patiently. Around 1:20 an adult made an announcement - only blackberry cobbler and creme brulees were left, but you could leave your name and order on a sheet of paper and they would get it to you later this week. They were all but sold out twenty minutes into their fundraiser! 

Not one person left the line. 

I decided I would just take whatever they had left when I got to the front of the line or at least make a donation, but I was really hoping for some creme brulee because it's my all time favorite dessert. I inched closer to the front. 

Person after person wrote orders on the sheet of paper. Creme brulees were torched. I got closer.

A man came up from the parking lot - maybe 25-35 age range. He stopped Miles's dad and said, "He did so great on Master Chef!  I mean, he's awesome!  Can I just make a donation?" 

The dad seemed surprised, replied "of course!" and called Miles over. The man then told Miles he should keep cooking and that he hopes to see him on Master Chef someday, then handed him a hundred bucks and walked away. 

Finally I made it to the front of the line. While Miles torched my smores and classic creme brulees, I heard his mom tell someone that their oven went out twice this week with all the cooking and that the first few customers bought all of the full sized pies before 1:00! 

Y'all.

Today, on the World's Most Beautiful Saturday I was reminded that people are good. For real. A kid is working for something he wants. His family is helping. And his community showed up smiling and happy. I thought I was going to cry with overwhelming joy right there, thankful for my sunglasses to hide my tears. 

Again, I don't know these people personally, and I don't want to steal their thunder on a great event, but it absolutely made my day. Their little event was a reminder for all of us who came that in the midst of political turmoil and divisiveness we're all just people capable of showing up for one another.

It was The World's Most Beautiful Saturday. All because of a kid with a bake sale. 

P.S. - I don't know how to get money to this kid, but if I find out I will definitely share a Venmo or something. 

P.S.S. - My dessert was fantastic!

Four Years Ago

It's Spring Break! I'm not sure I've ever needed to walk away so much in my entire life. It's made me reflective. 

During the day on Friday, several people popped by to say, "Remember the time we left for spring break and never came back?"  It was four years ago.

I'm working on my superintendent certification because Trey is making me, and this week's discussion post was about how HR processes changed as a result of COVID. 

Currently I'm reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. It's set during COVID. 

And I'm feeling reflective about what begin that spring break four years ago. 

Things I remembered today:

1) Work meetings from my bedroom. Lots of them. I worked from home from mid-March until June. I remember a particularly tenuous situation I had to deal with remotely - that was a challenge. But mostly I remember working with the windows open and the breeze blowing and the birds singing. And Zoom calls. 

2) I remember my 43rd birthday when there was some sort of benefit on the radio with all of these country artists, and we sat outside on the patio with margaritas while the sun set and the music played. 

3) I remember worrying about people who were "high risk." For us that was our parents. We were never too worried about getting sick ourselves (not sure why), but we wanted to be so careful as to not make someone else sick. 

4) I bought ten pounds of flour at Farm Patch because no one else had flour. I can do pretty much anything if I only have flour!

5) We planned to reopen schools that fall. The way that the people I worked with collaborated to put kids first while making every attempt to keep our staff physically and mentally safe was indescribable. From the superintendent to every principal, we worked together toward the same goal and cared for each other all the while. It was the pinnacle of what leadership can and should be. 

6) When school reopened, we opened a COVID testing center for our employees from 6-8 am every day. It was difficult to get in somewhere to get tested, so we got a bunch of tests and did it ourselves. If someone woke up not feeling well we were able to give them peace of mind or send them to the doctor. I think I worked the testing center at least several days a week (memory is funny). I bet I gave over a thousand COVID tests. And I never got COVID during that time. 

7) I think it was spring break 2021 when a vaccine was available. This memory comes up now because we had a vaccination center for our people and I worked there for a bit during spring break. I also got the vaccine despite political and other disagreements about it. I never got it again. Not for any reason except I just didn't.

8) I went to two funerals in a week. Both family members lost to COVID. The world close to me forever changed. 

9) I remember a zoom with my cousins. I don't see them often because I live farther away than most. The zoom was fun. 

That was both a terrible time and beautifully simple. I remember the sentiment that we never knew how busy we were until it was all taken away, and then further realization that all the busy and the regular day-to-day drama and small-problems-made-big were mostly irrelevant. 

Instead we stopped. We just stopped. And we cared about each other and we worked together and we appreciated all of the moments. 

And we realized what we had become in our business and in our sometimes manufactured discord. And we resolved to never do that again.  

It all started four years ago.

This spring break, whether you are one of the lucky ones who actually get a break or not, I hope we all remember the minute we knew it all stopped, and then soon after when we realized most of what we were worried about didn't matter anyway because we had the people we loved and the world conspired to come together. And that's what really matters. 

Happy Spring Break!

Trust and a Mild Case of ADD

I currently have no papers to write. I'm halfway through my superintendent certification (that Trey made me sign up for) and I'm done with classes until mid-January. No papers or discussion board posts for a month.

It seems I can't help myself from writing something anyway. 

We were in a leadership meeting today at work, and our Director of Leadership did a little activity about Four Things Followers Need. We reflected on leaders who influence our behavior daily and wrote down four things that make us want to follow them. He encouraged us to think of one work person and one non-work person. My non-work person was my mom. I'm not sure I can remember all four things I wrote down, but it was along the lines of honest, acts with integrity, listens, and...something else. My work person was TP and I don't even care that it was a predictable answer from me. I wrote down passionate, knowledgeable, fun, and...something else. It was a powerful exercise!

Then our presenter revealed the "four things that followers need" and had us categorize the characteristics we had written down as one of the four things. And lo and behold they all fit. It's like he planned it!  

The first one (at least I think it was the first one) was TRUST. Of course that immediately got me thinking about automatically flushing toilets. 

In short, I don't trust 'em. 

Not for a minute. 

(In hindsight it's possible I may have a mild case of ADD, but I digress.)

Sometimes these "magic toilets" flush while you're still sitting on them. That's a unique experience at best and a shock at its worst. And if they're so dang automatically super smart, why are they flushing when I haven't even moved? 

But what's worse is when you finish and dress and then wait silently for the auto-flusher to do its thing. And wait. And wait. 

In a crowded bathroom you absolutely cannot leave the stall and hope it magically decides to flush before the next in a long line of women walks in. Because if it doesn't flush then YOU'RE the super gross non-flushing lady and everyone knows it. I mean, who doesn't flush? Toddlers and barn animals. That's it. Everyone else must ensure the entire transaction is complete every single time. 

And so you MUST wait. Sometimes you have to almost hug the stall door so that it thinks you've left. Sometimes you have to wave your arms, but not so high that they go above the stall door because who wants to be the lady dancing in the bathroom stall? 

Are these automatically flushing toilets really making our lives better? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no. 

I'm also ready to publicly admit that I, SGH, after years of battling these modern conveniences, have determined to always find the button and flush it myself. This prevents me from being the super gross non-flushing lady and the disco-stall-dancing lady, and it's worth it to me. I am a button pusher, and I am not ashamed.

And I always vigorously wash my hands. 

As a final note, in Mexico the "button" on the potties is actually a foot pedal. You step on it and never have to touch anything. If I ever pack up and move to Mexico people will think it's for the beaches or the serenity or the food. 

But it will really be for the toilets. 

PS - In case you're interested, the others of the four things followers need were stability, hope, and compassion.

How We Make Kindness Too Hard (or maybe it's just me)

Or, as an alternate title, Stop Overthinking and Start Showing Up

I've decided that we make showing love (and kindness) too hard. 

Maybe it's just me.

Here's a simplified example of how it goes in my brain when I think of doing a nice thing:

"I'm going to visit my friend! I should stop at Sonic and take her a diet coke!  But what if she's trying to give up soda? I could get tea. Sweet or unsweet? What if she's cutting down on sugar and I show up with a sweet tea? What if I bring unsweet and she thinks that's just gross brown water? Ugh ugh ugh. Stopping at Sonic couldn't possibly go well. I absolutely should not do that!  I might inadvertently offend her! Way too risky! What was I thinking?"

I also worry about what might happen if I do a nice thing for one person and another person finds out and then wonders why I didn't do something for them. They might think I don't like them. That would be terrible! I do like them!  (I mean, whoever they are...)

Woooooo!  Welcome to the crazy train! 

My kind, generous friend, who does not make showing love too hard, recently donated her kidney to her friend and coworker. You read that right - she gave him a kidney. I wanted to do something for her, and since I'm a proper southern lady that something needed to be food. Then I thought these things:

• What if she doesn't like what I cook?
• Are there dietary restrictions after you give up a kidney?
• How do you make good food without much salt?
• She's a good cook. She might be judge-y of my food. 
• AHHHHHH!!!!! This is a terrible idea!!!!!!!

But our current Bible study is about Bob Goff's book Everybody, Always, and it reminds me that our job is to show up. That's it. Just show up. So I researched good foods for post-surgery, did some cookin', and made a delivery. 

Sidebar - I love my friend and whole bunch and needed to put my eyes on her to make sure she was okay, so the delivery let me do that, too. I didn't quite care if she was up for visitors because I needed to see her. Sorry, E! :)

Anyway - I told myself over and over that even if they thought the food was gross and threw it all in the trash it didn't matter. My job isn't to be perfect. It's to give away love like Halloween candy at 9:00 pm when we all just want to go to bed. 

Fast forward to Lesson #2 from our Bible study (this past week), which is about catching people on the bounce. Goff tells an elaborate story about skydiving that I won't attempt to recreate, but the idea is that when people hit the bottom - because they messed up or life dealt them a raw deal or just because their plan didn't work out like they thought - we need to be there to catch them as they bounce back up. That's what love does.

Our tendency can be avoid people when we don't know what to say. Especially those of us who are charter members of "over-thinkers anonymous." We're worried we'll mess it up, embarrass ourselves, accidentally say the wrong thing. 

But who cares!  Who actually cares? 

We're making our jobs too hard. Show up. Love people. Be kind. 

That's it. The whole deal. 

It's Happy New Year for us school people, and this is my New Year's Resolution. 

Just show up. That's it. 

Everybody, always. 

Unoffendable

Our current Bible study is called Unoffendable, and it's by Brant Hansen.  Our Bible study group is both the best and worst because we are real and the same people in church we are out of church and also sometimes we get busy and don't meet for a few weeks. We're not consistent, but...well...it's cool. It works for us. 

Anyway, the study addresses anger and the idea of "righteous indignation" and how sometimes Christians think it's their job to be mad about all the stuff that other people do wrong (but really it's not). It's a video series, and Hansen states in the first week that he's on the autism spectrum and also has a vision issue that makes him move his head in unusual ways. This might be one reason I love him so far - he just is who he is. 

In week one, he talks about how Christians use the example of Jesus turning over the tables in the temple as a reason we should get super red-hot mad and throw a fit about all the "sinners." Then, in his direct, no-nonsense way, he says, "You're not Jesus." Jesus is holy and omnipotent and has the capacity to judge with anger. We're human, so we just don't. 

Sidenote: I put sinners in quotation marks on purpose. I think some people look at others as sinners, but...dude...we're ALL sinners. Don't kid thy-self. ;)

Jesus taught us to love others. Matthew 12:30-31 says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these." So basically that's like, our #1 job. 

Today's lesson was still about anger, but it was also about stress. How humans are the only species that get ulcers based on some atheist scientist's book about zebras (for real). We enable our fight or flight response about things that may or may not actually happen in the future and then get used to living in that mode rather than just using that response when we really need it. Basically, we stress out about scenarios of what might happen instead of living in the moment. 

Ouch.

But the real kicker today was that we become caricatures of ourselves the older we get. We become more extreme versions of the people we are today. So think of who you are today, and picture the extreme version as the old lady or old man version of yourself. It's an interesting thought.

Stated differently, what do you want people to say about you when you're an old person? 

Today I said I wanted people to say I am wise. I still want that, but I want to add that I hope they say I have integrity and can be counted on to treat all people with love. If those things are what I want, I need to keep them a priority while I'm still such a young whippersnapper. 

I adored this question and wanted to share it. Your Sunday night pondering - what do you want people to say about you when you're an old man/old woman? 

The Mother of the Graduate Post

This post has been rattling around in my head for a minute, so it's time to give it a go. 

This afternoon my baby boy graduated from high school. Holy. Moly.

When your kid starts kindergarten, you don't assume that during the weeks leading up to his high school graduation you'll be praying that he passes all of his classes. But for some of us out here, that's where we found ourselves 13 years later. And our kids are awesome. 

So this post is in honor of my baby boy - a kid for whom the academic grind never came easy but who got it done anyway. He's one of the smartest people I know, and I'm continually amazed at how quickly he learns how to do something and then makes it happen like it was nothing. 

This week I was reminded of the time Keaton won a cooler at the fishing tournament in our neighborhood. After he brought it home he outfitted it with wheels and holders for fishing rods so he and his buddies could roll it down to the pond and take it fishing whenever they wanted. I think he was about ten, and that was only one of many times he built/constructed/dreamt up something and then just did it.

When he competed in gymnastics he always seemed happiest when his teammates did well. 

He knows all of our neighbors by name and talks to them regularly. (Trey and I can't claim that skill.)

He visits his grandparents because he just wants to spend time with them. Even the ones who live two hours away.

He is kind and fun and the most hard working person I know. 

And because I apparently can't have a post without making it about school, here's that part:

He took his last day of school picture his junior year with the parking lot attendant, and his favorite people in the whole school were the attendance office and counseling office staff where he worked as a student aide.

During his senior year of high school he finished 8 certifications through ASE (Automotive Service Excellence).

And now something for the school people:

If you were of the very, very few of Keaton's teachers who thought to yourself "this kid is irresponsible," then I hope you can reflect and know how wrong you were. He has worked since he was barely 15 and has skills for life that many adults don't have. He has a servant's heart and would do just about anything for you whether he knows you or not. School not being a kid's favorite thing in the world is not a character flaw. 

And if you're one of the many, many teachers who sat next him and told him he could do it when he just didn't seem to care, or if you're an elementary teacher who let him wiggle and reminded him he could do anything he set his mind to, or if you're someone who took late work and only penalized with a lecture because you knew he learned what he needed to in your class and it was all about the learning anyway...if you're one of these teachers then the Hickmans and this mom thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are the best of the best. 

So here's to Keats and all the other kids who looked in the mirror this graduation week and finally let it sink in that they made it. And then they took a deep, joyful breath because where they go from here is all up to them. 

I'm not naïve enough to think he's perfect, but if you ask me he's pretty darn close. 

We love you, kid! And we are so very proud of the exceptional human you are!  

2022 Year in Review

I keep thinking that I need to write and that I should post a year in review. You know, for posterity and such. Here goes:

In 2022, I finished my doctorate (#humblebrag). I'm Dr. Storm. It still makes me giggle because it's kind of ridiculous.

Trey started a new job. He kind of single-handedly ran an incredibly successful wire department where he had loyal, happy employees and sent millions of dollars spinning around the world every day (#wifebrag). The bank sold, and there was some uncertainty for a time. But by May he had started at a new bank in the area - kind of a "start up" I guess. I can't think of anyone else more qualified and able to help build an organization from the ground up. 

Tucker moved out, and we all survived. I mean, he lives 18 minutes away with traffic, but this could be traumatic for a Mother (he mostly calls me "mother"). He's a great kid/young adult human who takes care of his business (#mombrag). He hasn't starved yet, which is one thing I was legitimately worried about because I'm not there to remind him to eat. He LOVES his work with A&M football and has a great boss who inspires him, appreciates him, and holds him to a high standard. He also has grown out what I'm told is an "epic" mullet. College kids, right?

Keaton started his senior year of high school. This could be traumatic for a Momma (he mostly calls me Momma). He takes about three classes where he mostly does what they need him to do and where I'm pretty sure he charms the teachers into letting him work on his timetable. He's also taking an automotive class at the end of the day, so he spends the last part of his school day every day working on cars. He loves it so much. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity for him. Also, he still works at the cafe (since he turned 15!), and now he's server. He didn't work for about a week during Christmas, and the last two days of work have been so great for him. He's come home both days talking about how much he loves meeting people and chatting them up and such. 2022 also got him got a big, loud truck. High school kids, right?

Trey's sweet mom took a fall early in the summer, and she spent about four months in the hospital and skilled nursing. It was tough on everyone, but no one more than her. We are especially thankful this year to have her home. It's worth noting that her husband of over 60 years spent all but two nights sleeping on a couch or pullout bed in the hospital to be with her. We all tried to pitch in, but Trey and his sister were devoted to helping their parents on the daily. My husband comes from good people. He's lucky he found me because I come from good people, too (#daughterbrag). We sure do love Mimi and are so very grateful for her, especially this year.

In May, I started the Very Best Job on Earth. I'm serious - my title is "Director with the Very Best Job on Earth." I have the wonderful pleasure of leading the elementary principals in my district and co-leading the Curriculum and Instruction Department. The educators I work with are dedicated to helping prepare kids for any opportunity that comes their way, and I get paid to learn from them and look for ways to support them. I get paid for that! Even when it's hard, it's a dream. 

And now we look toward 2023. I need a learning project - I've often considered trying to learn Spanish, but lately I wonder if I should take piano lessons. Fun fact - I have weirdly crooked  pinkie fingers and don't use them when I type so I'm a little concerned that could impede my ability to learn piano. I should write more - I like writing. Maybe 2023 will bring a little of that. It will certainly bring Trey and me a life with two grown children!  We like each other a whole bunch, so we'll miss the kid-parenting but we'll likely find some other adventures. 

I used to tell my high school kids that high school is wonderful and fun, but if those are the best years of your life then you're doing it wrong. That's how I feel about another year older and phases of life ending and beginning. It's really up to us. If we believe the best is behind us, then we're probably doing it wrong. Cheers to 2023!

Happy New Year!