I seriously had to give myself a shaking down – so to speak – this past weekend when I fell into the usual trap of allowing my current job dictate how much time I can put into my personal dream of leaving teaching and pursuing a non teaching vocation.

During Half Term a couple of weeks ago I had given myself a to-do list of the tasks I wanted to achieve whilst off with the kids. Two of the days involved doing something with the family, 2 was suppose to be linked to work, with the rest of the days devoted to updating this blog, working on the website and producing some craft products.

The reality was quite the opposite – I ended up:

1. getting a virus from school to where I was basically ill for most of Half Term
2. ended up checking some work emails
3. gave the virus to the kids to where they were ill – we didn’t go anywhere
4. no blog entry, website building…. nah da

So it would be an understatement if I said that my motivation was zilch when it came to going back into the classroom after the break. I still had the work to complete but more importantly I had to now put everything else on the back burner as I plowed back into working full time so as to not fall behind.

So this weekend I’d hit a point where my mood was quite…. low. This took me aback because I’d not felt felt like this for over a decade. Thank God I didn’t feel burnt out, however what I’d lost was my dream and it was that vacuous feeling which made any positivity disappear.

Ever since I’ve been on this blog journey, my mission statement was to write the children’s book which was Christ focussed. The other activities were to fund the time when I would be in front of my screen knocking out this book. This was my dream.

What I’ve slipped back into doing was earning an income which I know I’m not cut out for since having my children and which takes up valuable chunks of my other ministry – to be a mom to my kids.

Today was my turning point. I woke up at 3 am in the morning wondering (why I was so darn wide awake at stupid o’çlock) whether this existence has an ending if any/ was worth it (in the context of whether I still need to do the job I’m doing if it meant I lose my dream). I concluded that I didn’t want to be that person who worked in a job they hated because they had lost the opportunity to pursue anything else through fear.

Today between work I have therefore updated software that I hadn’t used since the summer/ since going back into the classroom. I’d also purchased a microphone which I should have done 3 years ago so that I could make e-learning videos, animation voiceovers etc. I’d updated the website and received information for a business account so that I can get straight on and purchase the domain for the website.

Finally I am updating this blog.

If there is one thing to drag me to a pit of despair, it’s the thought of living a life of “if only I had…” instead of “Right! Let’s be having ya!”

Today my dreams returned…

Summer is well and truly fast escaping me but what an awesome summer break it’s been. I feel as though I’ve been able to achieve those jobs that I would otherwise put off when working. And yet myself and the kids have been blessed with being able to take a mini break where we’ve visited a dear BFF of mine.

So the purpose of this blog entry….

A certain kitty has gone a little AWOL since an incident which I will call, “Mouse-Gate”. Mr Knuckles (the subject of my previous profile picture when I started this Blog) has a tendency to act as though he is guarding me whenever I am in the garden. It is truly a sight to see when I’d be weeding or cutting the lawn and he would make a point of standing a few feet away from me scanning the perimeter of the garden just in case a predator should suddenly appear and try to eat me.

Knuckles the Brave

In reality, however, of all my pets, this has to be the most fearful and yet the biggest of all the cats, but he does put on a good show.

I have just a couple more days before I am back at school and as always the Easter break went so so quickly. But I thought I’d log a moment where I had the opportunity to note just how great our God is.

Background: Before I had children you could class my stomach as the run of the mill rubbish tip – I consumed and enjoyed a variety of food and alcohol without any ill effects. But as soon as I fell pregnant with my dd I made the deliberate choice to cut out alcohol in line with doctors’ guidelines. I was an occasional “glass of wine on special occasions” kind of drinker so this was not a challenge to give up (despite being a teacher). The interesting part was the fact that I completely went off eating Pork, any crustacean be it crab meat (which I loved)/ shrimp/ prawns and any kind of fish. I couldn’t even bear to smell those food items being cooked – it use to make me feel physically sick. After I gave birth, I still could not get back into eating those foods and so to this day, I don’t cook any meals with them in. During my youngest’s pregnancy as well as the above, I also went off eating peanuts but my reaction to them was not as extreme during pregnancy as the other foods. I literally lost any interest in eating it.

So in both my kids’ cases they have been raised in a household where it has not been necessary to eat any of the above. My kids would ask me and I had to explain to them that it was not for any religious reasons at all – I just disliked the smell and taste of them and so I had (selfishly) taken the decision to just plain not buy them since it would be me having to cook and prepare them for dinner.

Fast forward 15 years later to two weeks ago. My ds saw me snacking on some non salted roasted peanuts and asked again why he could not eat any. Despite a “Mummy gut feeling not to” I logically thought that I had not any evidence that he might be allergic to nuts so I cautiously handed him one half of a nut. He wolfed it down and for the rest of day there was no incident or reaction. I had chided myself that my gut feeling had been wrong and perhaps I was over-reacting about the whole nut thing.

About 4 days later, we had Easter lunch with my mother and she offered me some nuts after the dinner (the kids had ice cream for dessert and mum felt bad that I had no pudding). In spite of my son having had his dinner plus dessert he again hovered next to me in the hope that he could eat some nuts. The same gut feeling returned but I ignored it only to the degree that I only offered him one nut (instead of half a nut). Within minutes of him eating that one sole nut, he began to cough violently as though his cold had come back with a vengeance. He then began to violently vomit. I grabbed hold of him and rushed him up to the bathroom by which time he complained of struggling to breath. He could still breathe except that he was wheezing. With eyes streaming, nose streaming and a wheezing almost asthmatic attack kind of breathing, I held onto him and prayed (see below). His breathing slowed as his body began to relax. He began to breath normally but still complained of a feeling in his throat that seemed to block his ability to breath fully.

Now I am logging this here for a couple of reasons:

1. Even at this stage in my ignorance I did not realise that my son was having a violent reaction to consuming one tiny nut. So a heads up to us mums – if I was to live this over again, I would not hesitate but to ring 999. As it was I foolishly thought it was just a coughing fit linked to a head cold he was getting over.
2. I was humbled by the fact that my son was so calm and had instructed me to pray over him. It never once entered my mind that I needed to pray over him. Lesson learnt – ring 999 and pray without hesitation, but it took a 6 year old to remind me in the moment.

I have never driven as fast as I did to get some anti-histamine medicine and give him a dose. By the time he had it (five to ten minutes later) he was already getting better. Mum suggested we stayed at hers for a few more hours and keep an eye on him before we decided to head on home. After 3 hours he was back to playing and his usual old self. That was two weeks ago and he has not had an episode since.

We have since had the doctor run some tests and we have now discovered that he is allergic to nuts, shell fish and dust mite (since I get a little OCD at seeing any accumulation of dust, this was a mega surprise to me because again we didn’t see any sign warning us of this). We now carry an epipen around with us and I am in the process of letting ds’s school know.

As far as being at home goes, our lives haven’t changed much at all – we are in a nut and shellfish free home and so groceries has not changed at all. But eating out has, going to school will change. My son groaned when I mentioned to him that it will be a good idea not to share his friend’s drink’s bottle just in case they have just eaten food that contains nuts – son’s response was a massive big protesting groan, so I guess for him this is quite a big adjustment now.

The bigger reminder for me – yet again – has been the learning curve linked to my faith. All these years of living as one who may have a family member with an allergy, made me remember Proverbs 20:24 which says:-

A person’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand their own way?

 How was I to know that by developing an aversion to certain foods to the degree that I found it nauseating to smell them whilst cooking has meant that this lifestyle change is not a big deal in our home. When I didn’t even know that the Lord was ordering our lives for the better He did just that. I mean in everything!

Our steps are truly ordered by the Lord and it is to Him that I give my thanks.

The past week has been quite a challenge in terms of routine due to the dreaded germ machines which are our kids. I had provisionally planned out work earlier in the week but had to cancel due to my son falling ill with a cold. The cold combined with a scratch on his knee made it a chaotic beginning to the week.

After school on Friday my son came limping out of the school gates like a wounded soldier and I was told by staff that he had taken a tumble during play. He knee took a bit of a knock and was slightly swollen but he adamantly refused to let me look at his graze.

Saturday morning he woke up and begged for me to carry him down the stairs. When I refused, he begrudgingly hobbled down the stairs wincing and moaning with each step. What he failed to notice however was the fact that I was noticing the occasions when he had forgotten he was so very badly wounded and would walk normally to get things like the tv remote or a toy. Since it was the weekend, I pandered to the required attention…. until bath time.

When it came to taking a bath, it felt like a moment out of a televised birthing show with my son being a mother in labour and me being a midwife. As he gingerly took off the sticky parts of the bandaid to expose the 1cm graze (which was now stuck to the gauze), I had to remind him to take long deep breaths and to slowly exhale. I felt in some respects as though I was removing shrapnel. Eventually with copious amounts of warm water the bandaid came free and we were able to wash the ‘patient’. In hindsight I reckon it was this delay which exacerbated his bug and contributed to him being ill.

As the Saturday evening came to an end I over heard the little trooper telling his older sister about how brave he was and what he had to endure with being so injured. The older sibling made sure to insert the appropriate teenage, “hmmmm” and “Oh really?” and she even convinced me that she was fascinated and genuinely interested by what her brother was excitedly describing.

My two were just a little bit curious though when they heard a fit of laughter coming from the kitchen around tea time, as soon as I had overheard my son describe his 1 cm graze as being the size of the whole United Kingdom. The ever attentive teen had replied with “Oh Really?”, the fisherman’s tale son felt very pleased with himself.

And the mum laughed and laughed and laughed…

“To get to know God is to love Him.”

I’ve been meditating on something my minister had talked about during last Sunday’s service. He was talking about the right attitude believers should have towards prayer with a look at Ephesians 1:15 which says:

Very short blog entry today. My son woke today with the most horrendous cough and looked so poorly that I decided to leave him off school. The storms had kept us all awake last night and running on a total of 3 hours sleep, plus the school run did not appeal to me at all today. Instead, I thought that I would take a moment today to do a little housekeeping with my social media presence.

For quite some time my profile background image on Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and You Tube had what looks now to be a dated back drop. My online handle of “Showshannah’s Little Space” written in a fancy font looks so out of place and so I thought it good to get to grips with GIMP and create a new logo to sit in the centre of the profile image background.

The new look is below:

I’m just going to test out the new look using different devices but aside from maybe tweaking the colour of the logo/name to match the colour of the ribbons, I am quite pleased with the final result.

I wish I could take the credit for the new look but it was my teen daughter who suggested the modification.

And since she is exceeding her predicted grade for Art and Design, and I can’t draw for toffee, I thought it wise to heed her advice and try out something new.

So voila, a new feel to my web presence for 2018.

I am so pleased to be writing my first blog entry for 2018! WooHoo! Let it be a sign of things to come.

Work has been a tad bit lighter this week with it being the first week back for most schools and so I’ve taken advantage of being able to update some things on the work front, as well as researching into business startup (such a nightmare but as they say ‘knowledge is power’ ).

Earlier this week (Monday 8th January to be exact), my daughter was off school and true to form we had a little bit of Mummy-Daughter time which involved her with her headphones on, sat right next door to me on the keyboards. Whenever I would ask her anything I would get a “teenagey” response of “huh?” But it was cute nonetheless and a pleasant change from me yelling, “get out of bed” from the bottom of my stairs.

Whilst having this time, I was very poorly multi tasking and ended up getting distracted by a video by YouTuber JasonA just really relating to both the positive and negative impact social media can have on our young. In particular part of the video was about an incident which occurred on the 8th January 2009 and which catapulted a Sports Personality into the public eye and beyond. It was this part of the video which caught my eye the most and which inpsired me to have what he said as the title of my blog entry.

To paraphrase it a little – Tim was playing a match on 8th January 2009 when he painted the Bible verse John 3:16 under his eyes. He went on to explain that after the match his PR manager contacted him and mentioned about how on the 8th January, 94 million people had googled John 3:16 as a result of what he considered an act done primarily for himself. Tim went on to explain that after that year, he pursued his footballing career and the incident fell from media eyes. About 3 years later to the day, he had another match. He explained that his focus was moreso on the match and not on the verse itself. He played the match and was getting ready for a press conference when his PR Manager stopped him and explain the following:

• During the match he threw a 316 yd throw
• the Yards per rush for the match was 3.16
• the Yards per completion was 31.6
• His time of possession was 31.6
• the overall ratings for the match was 31.6

In spite of him not writing John 3:16 under his eyes nor making any reference to it,it yet again brought focus to what a mighty God we serve.

Tim explained that he “thought that night was just about a game” which totally blessed me beyond so many words.

The end of the interview saw him explain that all of us need to have a foundation in something bigger than ourselves and that God is so much bigger and can take things to do so much more.

Sometimes, when we do our day to day things, we can lose sight of our purpose on this earth during the time that the Lord has placed us here. And yet it doesn’t stop the Lord from continuing to take care of those He loves.

But when our foundation is firmly rooted in Him, bigger and better things are thrust into being in order to help others and make a difference, irrespective of the digital medium we use.

This has moved me so much that it just had to be my first blog entry for 2018, without a shadow of a doubt!

Of all the occasions during this past year when I’ve thought to myself that I would add to this blog, it was this day – the last day of the year that is 2017 – that I just had to log in to reflect on how this year went.

This blog entry very nearly just got interrupted by my teen daughter who nearly killed my laptop by tripping on my wire. And all for my sister’s macaroni cheese pie! *facepalms* So after my wail of fear as I caught the laptop at the very last minute, plus my daughter’s wail of fear at my wail (and then me getting her chastisement at scaring her), I shall continue.

One main thing that I have noticed about coming to the end of 2017, has been the fact that we are here, on the cusp of a New Year and I feel at peace. This has to be the first year in a long, long time where I can truly say that I feel a peace that surpasses all understanding. Given that this is grace-based I love how that feels.

This year has been a journey with a big learning curve and I thank God that as I come to the end of this year I have no regrets. Isn’t life something, when a person can look back at a year and actually see progress? This is progress in terms of learning from life’s curve balls or unpleasantries. All the previous year ends would always see a regret that I shoulda, woulda, coulda but this year feels different.

At the beginning of this year I was working on a project with a big IT company which gave me a taste of what it’s like to not be highly stressed out as a classroom teacher. It taught me to take hold of any opportunities that come your way and to not fear. The position was a leap of faith for me due to the fact that it was not permanent, and I had kids to raise and a mortgage to pay. But I saw that I can actually leave the classroom and that there was life after the security of being a teacher. I will forever appreciate the opportunity given by Google Education and the confidence that such an experience gave me.

The death of my dad in March, taught me about the enigma which is bereavement but more importantly about how important it is to allow oneself to grieve. It was by far the bring-you-to-your-knees moment in the year but yet, it gave me a deeper sense of empathy towards those who lose a close relative and it enabled me to focus my direction of  prayer when praying for those who are grieving. It taught me that rather than it being a temporary blip in one’s life, it was in fact a change or modification of what our journey is as human beings, how interconnected we are and how important it is to carry out our purpose on this earth. It was and is a sacred experience which is on going.

The end of the IT project plunged me back into the prospect of being in the classroom and in a way I went through a period of grieving again (being honest in this blog). Although I kidded myself that substitute/ supply teaching was a means to an end and that I was bringing new resources from the last contract back into teaching, my heart, love and drive has actually gone. But again it is with no regrets. Even though I was away from teaching for basically an academic year, to witness the scale of changes that have taken place in that short time, has sealed it for me that it is finally time to let go of being in the classroom or the front line, so to speak. So as I approached the end of 2017 I have been exploring the many different options to enable me to still care for my children but also to be able to explore new frontiers away from teaching.

As I have had a gap since working in September, I have been able to return to my first love – to create something from nothing. This has taken the form of having the time to programme a solution in Python to help out another teacher whose speciality is SQL, to getting back to making all things craft-like. In 2018 I am aiming to creating a self marking assessment test which feedback immediate levels for students – of course this being dependent upon not getting called out too often. Plus also looking into the idea of making craft items that I can sell. Ideas and brainstorming but now with the confidence of knowing that I can explore these things as well as others.

So here I am, witnessing the afternoon pass by as I approach 2018.

We are on the cusp of a year of many new opportunities and experiences and I thank God that through Christ I am strengthened enough to eagerly explore them.

Recent events involving my youngest has had me review what we as parents put ourselves through and it is with this in mind that I refer to this blog entry as Santa-Gate.

It all started back in November. A dear friend and sister in Christ came to my local city to visit us and drop off presents. I had placed the presents behind the sofa in the hope that said child would not notice them until I could find a better hiding place.

Alas I was wrong.

Instead, he came from school and promptly peered behind the sofa.

“What’s that, mummy?”came the curious question we all dread.

“It’s mine.” was all that I could come back with having been caught off guard with the question and chiding myself that I did not remove the bag of gifts before he got home.

What came after, was a triumphant punch and hop in the air followed by, “I knew there was no such thing as Father Christmas! It was you all along Mummy!”

I felt bad that a little bit of childhood innocence had disappeared but I played it down and mentioned that it wasn’t just me but people who love my son very much who have worked really hard to give him a good Christmas. I also capitalised on the moment to remind him of the Gospel and so I asked him who ultimately provides him with these presents. I was greeted with a confused look. I then pointed at the bag of gifts and said, “where do you think these presents come from, son?”

After a thoughtful consideration he piped up, “Asda!”

So after that face-palm moment I mentioned to my son that there are still children who believe in Santa Claus and so he must be wise and considerate and not say to them that he doesn’t exist. Of course totally bypassing any regard for the feelings of other children in his class, he went about getting into heated Santa debates with his class (likening to Brexit) and was a little put out when his cohort would not entertain the fact that there was no Santa.

But that day? That was the day that Santa “died” in our house.

Or so I thought!

Just this past Sunday, I popped into Tescos after church with the little one in tow and as we were leaving there was a man who was dressed up as Father Christmas just by the entrance of the store. From quite a distance my son spotted the bloke and had his eyes fixed on him. As we walked past him, Santa motioned his hand so that my son could give him a high five. My son had this smile on his face as if to say that he ‘knew’ that the man was not the real Father Christmas but nonetheless he slapped a high five onto the open hand and continued walking.

As we walked to the car, little man began to skip and the smile on his face was golden.

“Do you believe in Father Christmas now then, son?” I asked

I got a giggle and a very positive nod.

So at some point in the future, I will cross that bridge again when I come to it, in terms of having that chat again about Father Christmas

But for now I am milking this while I can.