Saturday, December 22, 2012

Lyric Christmas

After a tough year, and especially after the terrible events at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I wanted to write some lyrics for an eventual Christmas song. I have always wanted to write a song, and I love Christmas music. The odd combination of all the negatives recently somehow allowed me to get into the right frame of mind to write what I had in mind. As I was preparing to write, I realized that I don't recall ever hearing a Christmas song that was a lullaby sung by Mary to her newborn. There are songs Mary sings (Breath of Heaven) and there are lullabies (the rocking carol), but I don't know of someone combining these ideas. So I wrote this.

Mary's Lullaby

Heart of my heart
Love of my life
Sleep with the peace
Of heaven tonight.

Sent as a miracle
Of God's selfless love,
You give us a glimpse
Of life up above.

I don't understand
Why I am the one
Who was entrusted
With God's only son,

But I'll give my heart
And soul to the cause
To nurture this spirit
Despite all my flaws.

Remember, my baby,
Though long be the night,
Though cold may be gripping,
God always shines light.

Monday, December 10, 2012

When it snows, it pours...

Yes, I know that's not really the old adage. But it is accurate for my day. Today is one of those days that, looking back, I realize it would have been better to spend it in bed. Perhaps the best way to describe it is to list all the things that went wrong.

1. It snowed quite a bit where I live over the last few days, and then turned bitterly cold and blizzardlike, preventing me from returning to my house from my in-laws' like I usually would on a Sunday night.
2. While most of the schools surrounding the one I work in called for a 2 hour late start sometime last night, mine didn't until 7:30 this morning (or at least, that's when they notified the teachers), making me stress out about not making it in for the beginning of school.
3. It took me 3 hours to make the usually-2 hour drive from my in-laws' house to my school this morning. This was probably equally due to the icy road conditions and people who were at times driving too slowly.
4. Nearly all the way to school, after I realized I would still be significantly late, I accidentally slid into the person in front of me at a red light. Luckily, she got out and inspected her car and couldn't find anything on it, so she told me to go on.
5. When I got into the child care center to drop off the boys, I heard the bell ring for the first of the classes I hadn't sent lesson plans in for, so I had to run with no supplies on hand to get to the classroom for that class. Needless to say not much got done that period.
6. My 6th hour freshmen were in rare form today, loud and complaining about everything, even after I told them I was having a crappy day and it'd be nice if I didn't have to yell at them, too. Sigh.
7. Just after school got out, I checked a message on my phone saying that my older son had woken up from his nap at preschool with really goopy eyes and they hurt and itched. Great.
8. I called to get him a doctor's appointment, but all the appointments were gone; I'd have to go to the walk-in clinic.
9. I drove nearly the whole way home before I realized I forgot my purse at school and had to go all the way back to get it.
10. By the time I got back from that, I had to go straight to the doctor's office to go to the walk-in clinic.
11. The doctor confirmed that my son had pinkeye and he couldn't go to preschool tomorrow.
12. At the pharmacy, they tell me that the kids' insurance wasn't working and that they were out of the eyedrops.
13. At pharmacy #2, the kids are running everywhere (literally!) while I'm trying to find cotton balls to wash the gunk out of my kid's eyes.

Needless to say, I am DONE with this day. Hence, we stopped one more time after all of that running, to get McDonald's for dinner. Once I hit "publish" on this bad boy, I'm going to have a beer and watch silly TV shows and then go to bed.