"Back to Life... Back to Reality..."

Seems like those lyrics were in my head all day today as I did return to the working world and try to begin my school year. Things were off to a rocky start as I spent 5 minutes last night working on getting the alarm set to just the right time, BUT obviously forgot to flip the switch into the ON position!! I am blessed with a God that loves me, because I rolled over and woke up with enough time to get ready and still be on time. The first day back is usually filled with lots of meetings... and today was no different. We spent the entire morning listening to presentations and it was a struggle to stay focused. They say that the average person has an attention span equal to the number of years old they are. I'd say I hung in there with the 60-70 year old crowd, but after that, I was hurtin to pay attention!!

The kids spent some time back in a more normal routine and I think that it was good for both of them. I did get lots of hugs and love today which shows me that they noticed I wasn't around as much as normal. That made my heart feel good. Karis had a real treat today on her first day back with Suzanne. She got to ride with John and Suzanne as they delivered their latest foster baby to meet his "Forever Family". Suzanne said that Karis told the nurses at the Children's Home that she was going to get a new Mommy and Daddy tomorrow. When they asked how she was going to do that, she simply told them that Suzanne would take her to meet them. Guess I better step it up a bit or I might lose my job as Mommy!!!! :)

We have scheduled a meeting to talk about Graham's school year coming up and we are praying that things will be put in place to help him have a wonderful year. We want him to be able to hit the ground running rather than dragging feet like we did this past year waiting on things to happen. His teacher is a wonderful girl that I went to high school with. She is a quiet, calm, sweet girl. I think that will be a gift for Graham to have her... let's just hope she feels that way about him as the year goes on!!

Well, as reality has set in, the Tucks prepare to hold on for the ride. Don't blink ya'll, it's about to get interesting!!!

Life this Week

We have been BUSY! As summer comes to a close, we are trying to stuff lots of summer activity and fun into the days we have left. Here's a little of what we have been up to ...



* Zane is in the final weeks of his yearly training to start the football season. To ref, he has to attend class one night a week all through the summer. The exam is coming up and he is studying hard. This year will be a year of adding on-field experience for JV games and probably doing some sideline/clock work at Varsity games. While football season means I am a single mom a lot, it also fullfills something in Zane that is very valuable. His love for the sport and for what he is doing is a big source of happiness for him. It is well worth the extra responsibility on my part in order for him to connect with other guys who love the sport as much as he does. He has found a new friend in the process and believe it or not, I think that the football field will be a great mission field for him to live his faith out as he works with the players and other officials. This week holds three events for Zane in his football life, so our evenings have been a bit crazy. Who knows- one day you may see him on the field doing college ball! That would be a dream come true for him!!!



* The kids and I have been trying to catch summer and hold on to it! We spent a day at my sister's pool with the cousins and became raisins in the sun. Graham can finally touch the bottom of the pool and was a whole new swimmer. He was turning flips under water and swimming like a fish. That has been a cool thing to watch. Karis became less like a leach and was venturing out enough to have about 12 inches between her body and mine. Being born in January was a huge detriment to her love of the water. Graham started swimming at Trish's house when he was 8 weeks old. Karis was much older and never developed the same love for the water. Bath time has even become quite a struggle as we face the meltdown when it comes to washing her hair. Perhaps I should cut it shorter, but I can't do that just yet.

* School is around the corner. I spent two days at Mom's house in the mountains with two of my team members to get a up-start on the school year this past week. It was wonderful to spend time with them and toss around ideas and plans for the year, but it really brought in the reality of the fact that life is about to take some drastic changes for our family. It has been a challenge for me this summer to be home with the kids all day, every day. But at the same time, we have bonded and had some incredible fun together. In some ways, I am hungry to go back and return to what I feel called to do- teach. In others, I know that I will miss the care-free days of the summer that we have enjoyed. My stress level has been drastically different this summer. Looking forward, I know that there is going to be an extreme need for me to PRIORITIZE things in my life. My obligations are about to triple in about a week, and I don't want to lose hold of what is important. It makes me crazy when we are away from home 4 nights a week and the list of things to do never gets any shorter. Where do I draw the lines and say "No more?" As I have thought about these things, here is a short list of some things I plan to "put in place" once school is back in session.

1. I must work hard to accomplish as much as possible at school to minimize how much work I bring home. It is not unusual for me to have between 2 and 4 hours of work to do at night. That usually translates into time spent after the kids are in bed. My goal is to reduce this amount of time as much as possible so that I have time and energy left to spend with Zane.
2. I want to meal plan and prep on the weekends so that dinners can be as quick as possible while still being healthy. One of the shows I saw a few times this summer while folding laundry, was a lady on the Food Network who prepped for her meals and put all components in ziplocks on the weekend. Each meal was ready to eat within 20 minutes or so.
3. Zane and I have to establish a "Date Night". With him gone so often doing football, our "us" time becomes non-existant. When he is home, I want the kids to spend time with him and what happens is that there isn't any time left for us. Ideally, I'd love for this to be once every two weeks, but I'd be ok if it was at least once a month that we had a sitter and went somewhere by ourselves.
4. I have to make time for me. Since Karis came along and our routine changed to include an infant, time for myself ceased to exist. I became last on the list. As she is older and more independent, it is time for that to change. On a small scale, I would like to earn the right to go to the bathroom alone. On a larger scale, I'd like to take time to do some of the things I need to/want to do for myself.

The list of things that needs to happen before school starts is long... but I will start the endless journey with one step. If I can accomplish these things, then others can be tackled at a later date.

* Finally, as an end to this rambling post, I will share with you a little about the series that we are currently involved in at The River. It is called "OverFlow" and it is about how we are called to allow Christ to flow from us into the world we live in. Last week we focused on abiding in Christ so that we might be full of life as he promises. This week, Joey asked us to focus on sharing the love of Christ in our Jerusalem- our close circle of family, friends and co-workers. We were challenged to select someone within that group that we were going to FLOW onto. We are then to pray for them, listen to them (develop a deeper relationship with them), love them (in a way that isn't obvious or ostentatious) and then to share with them. The first three are going to be very easy for me... the last one will be the challenge. I'll keep you posted on how things go!

We have a busy week ahead. Monday is the week of BULK ITEM PICK UP in our zone. This means that we need to really spend some time tonight in our garage and purge the big junk that needs to take a hike. If you are in the market for some junk, come ride through our neighborhood... looks like there is a bunch out there! Tuesday is a workshop for me at school and I planned to "open" my classroom. I'll work a full day while my dear, dear mother has my kids. Zane has a scrimmage game on Tuesday night, so he'll be gone all evening. Wednesday and Thursday will be mad cleaning days as we work to evict the dust bunnies who have declared squatter's rights in our house in preparation for our Life Group to come to our house while Smitty and Meredith move. (Those of you in Life Group, we are thrilled to have you... we just don't want to scare any of you away with our clutter!) Friday, Zane has another football game and then we are into the LAST weekend of the summer before school starts! In between all of that, I hope that we can go swimming at least one more day and that we can inhale the sweet smell of summer before the rat race begins!!

Satan's After ME!!!!!!!

Ever had a day like that??? Well, here is a re-cap of how active he has tried to be in my life today (and it is only 1:58 pm as I sit to write this, so I am sure he has other things in store for me!)

This morning started off wonderfully. Zane kissed me goodbye as he left to go to his state-wide football ref meeting. I was enjoying some quiet snoozing time as Graham played in the living room and Karis slept. I wasn't asleep, but not totally awake. I had a ton of awesome thoughts about some things I could do in my classroom this year, ways I could be a better teacher, things I could do to minister to families of middle school children as an outreach of my faith, ways to share my love for Christ with others around me who I am in contact with day in and day out... just awesome time with God. He uses that quiet time with me... I just don't make enough of it! I glanced at the clock and saw that it was close to time for me to get up, get the kids dressed and we would have enough time to stop at Hardee's for a Sunday morning treat of a biscuit and juice before church. I thanked God for all the blessings in my life (including my cozy bed!) and then pulled myself out of the "dreamy" state. I firmly placed my feet on the floor to begin my joyous day, and from that moment on, Satan was on me.

He started as I got to Karis and she said, "Mommy, can you help me... I wet." (For those who didn' t know, Karis has been potty trained this summer and has had amazing success. She transitioned quickly from pull-ups to real underwear in a matter of two weeks and has been accident free for the past 5 weeks. She has been sleeping in real underwear and often doesn't potty until well into the morning- hours after getting up.) NOT TODAY! I pulled off her wet clothes and went into her room to find a wet bed- a very wet bed. No biggie... accidents happen... we can wash these things and move on with the glorious day God has planned.

We finish getting ready- everyone dressed and out the door in plenty of time to hit Hardee's and make it church on time. After we are out the door, I realize that my pocketbook is in the van... and I hold my breath to see if Zane left the door unlocked after he got the checkbook out this morning to go to his meeting. Of course not... he did the responsible thing and locked it behind him. So my beautiful children are dressed for church and ready for breakfast, standing the driveway waiting to get into a van that is locked. What to do? Well, most people would go back inside, BUT we were locked outside and my keys to the house were.... drumroll please.... yes, you guessed it- in the VAN!!!!

Now, God loves me and he will never give me more than I can handle. He guided me to pick up my cell phone before we left the house- it was the only thing I had. So, I figure no big deal. I'll call Zane and have him run home quickly to unlock it for us. Before the first ring, the call goes into voicemail... his phone is turned off! AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! So, plan B- call Nana. Mom was coming home from the mountains this morning and it was early enough that I thought she might be still on the road and could swing by to at least let us back in the house. Nope.... no answer on Nana's phone. Ok... I then try Zane a few more times and then Nana again and begin to realize that we might be stuck outside for a while. I take a chance and try to call my sister. They live close and even if they have headed to church, it is close as well. Meredith's phone goes into voicemail also, so I try Micah. He answers!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! Micah comes to the rescue and attempts to use a coathanger to get our van open. We use a variety of items- including a ninja star from Graham's Transformer toy he was taking for the ride. No luck, so Micah says for us to drop him back by his church and for us to take their van on to church with us. By this time, it is 10:27 and church starts at 10:30. Nothing like being on time!

Ok, so we drop off Micah (who we have decided gets the superhero status for today!) and head toward church. My kids are complaining that they are hungry, as well they should be since they hadn't had breakfast yet. Well, unfortunately, I now have transportation, but no pocketbook with money to buy them anything. I simply say a prayer that Lindsey will understand and feed them once I get to church. We make it to church in time for me to get them ushered in and grab a seat. I let out a sigh and collect myself. I give Satan a little "humph" and a "so there!" as I begin to focus on the message for the day. He did lots of things to end my joy and to keep me from making it to church, but we overcame.

About 5 minutes into Joey's message, my chair makes a funny noise. Those of you from The River will understand my concern. For those of you who haven't visited, we have some chairs who have been less-than-kind to a few other members and dumped them on the floor during parts of the services in the past month or so. The last thing I wanted was to end up on the floor with a loud crash... I think that might have been the straw on the camel's back for me. So I begin to focus on sitting VERY still so as to not disturb the delicate state I think my chair is in. I found myself battling between listening to Joey and focusing on being still (doesn't sound hard- but it was). I finally told Satan to leave me alone and let me listen. I prayed that God would hold that chair together through the rest of the message.

As I listened, I knew that Satan didn't want me there because I needed to hear the things that were said today. We are starting a series called "Overflow" and it is about how we need to let Christ overflow out of us and into the world we live in. Joey used the Gatorade analogy... "Is it in you?" If we drink from the living waters of Christ, we will be filled with him and when we go about life, we will have it oozing out of us and onto others. Just like in the commercials... the athlete drinks in the Gatorade and then as they sweat and play, the color drips out of them. As the start of the school year gets close this is what I need to think about everyday... will my words and actions "drip" with the love of Christ or will I just pass by folks without any effect on them.

I firmly believe that Satan was scared of me this morning when I woke up. I was having an awesome time with God and Satan was afraid to let me continue that. It was a challenge to remember whose I was this morning... I wanted so badly to just throw my hands in the air and say "WHAT ELSE CAN GO WRONG?!?!?!" (If you've ever felt that way, let me warm you that if you ask, often times you are shown what else can go wrong... and trust me, there is always something else!!) Instead, I kept turning my attention back to God and asking Him for guidance, patience, help, and lots of other things. He gave me those and much more. He sent help in the form of my brother-in-law as we were able to make it to church. He gave me patience to not lose my cool with my kids who were VERY GROUCHY and not-so-understanding of our situation. He held my chair together and kept me from being very embarrassed during the message. He spoke to me through Joey's words and helped me to see some things that I need to do on a daily basis so that I can be overflowing with His love in my life. He had Donny pick one of my favorite praise songs to end the service with so that even though I missed the praise portion of church this morning, I got to sing one of my favorites to show my thanks for all of God's help. God is good... even in the crazy bad times.

So, I post this saga of today to warn you. Satan is out there and he's lookin for a way to keep you from being close to God. I think that the closer you get, the more actively he pays attention to you and focuses on ways to distract you. I find comfort in the fact that I made him nervous today. Am I glad that I had the drama in my life this morning... well, I'd have preferred to have a joyous morning that included breakfast at Hardee's and a pleasant ride to church. BUT, the rebel in me is a little thrilled that I managed to go a round with the little red guy and come out singing the praises to my God and King!

I hope that you all are having a wonderful day and that you will ask yourself, "What am I doing today to make Satan a little nervous about me?" If he locks you out of your house and van... call me. I'll come get you AND take you to Hardees! : )