Back to School

Dear Girls,

The carefree, fun filled days of summer are over and it’s back to school time again! I’ve been back since last week working in my classroom and making it beautiful for a new group of fourth graders. However, today will be their first day back.

After a long, relaxing summer vacation I’m excited to be back in the classroom doing what I enjoy most… teaching.

What about you? Are you excited to be back to school? Parents, are you excited to get them out of the house?

I’ll post a bit more later this week.

Let's have a great school year!
God bless,
Bernadine

The View Outside

I visited a friend recently and I just had to take a photo of the gorgeous view she has outside her back door. You can sit by her doorway and feel the most beautiful breeze, (God’s own air conditioning). I’ve had many opportunities to enjoy the view as I visited with her.

When I stopped by last week I was reminded by her daughter of what I usually did when I visited… It’s so embarrassing, but even though I enjoyed the company, the beautiful breeze usually lulled me to sleep and I’d wake up maybe half an hour later to find myself alone on the couch.

Wouldn’t you agree that I’m the most undemanding guest and my friend and her family the nicest of hosts? :)









"Friendship, said Christopher Robin, is a very comforting thing to have."
-A.A. Milne

Summers are for Spending Time With God

Without meaning to I seem to have started a “Summers are for…” series:).

The best thing about summer vacations is the fact that I have more time to spend with my heavenly father. Although I have set time to spend with God when I’m working, summer vacation gives me bonus time to spend with Him and I do try to take advantage of it.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16

If we look at the example that Jesus set for us you’ll notice that He always found time to talk to His heavenly father. Spending time with God for me means spending time reading and studying His word and spending time in prayer.

As a teenager reading and studying the Bible took effort, for but it wasn’t as difficult as prayer sometimes was. I mean, how do you talk to the God of the universe? What do you say to Him on a daily basis? However, I remember my mother would always tell me, “Bernie, prayer is just talking to God. Talk to him just like you’d talk to me or you talk to your friends. He just wants you to talk to him.” Those words freed me. Okay, I don’t quite talk to God like when my best girlfriends and I are gabbing away but I do talk to Him, all the time.

What I love about God is that I can talk to Him about anything and everything, and I do talk to him about every little thing. I even talk to him about those times when I can’t get my hair done just the way I want it :). There is nothing too big or too small for me to take to him.

Summers are usually my times of refreshing, spiritually, mentally and physically… Did I mention I love summer (minus the extremely high temperature of course)?

What do you love about summer?

Summers are for Writing

I know I said summers are for reading, but for me summers are for writing also… Along with my list of books to read I usually have a writing project going on in the summer.

This summer I’m working on a project that I started a few months ago after I spoke to a young ladies group. I spoke on the topic, Becoming the Girl of His Dream. Because of the positive feedback I decided to expand it into a Bible Study for individual or group discussion. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction...

Dear girls,
What do you dream about? You know the kind of dreaming I’m talking about, the kind where you write in your diary or talk with your friends, or just sitting and daydreaming, fantasizing about the woman you want to become, the type of lifestyle you want to live… beautiful clothes, big house, cool cars, a handsome guy…

For some unexplainable reason, before young ladies even know what it means to truly love we are in love with the idea of love, of finding the “guy” of our dreams, riding off into the sunset and living happily ever after. However in our dreams do we ever evaluate ourselves to see if we are the girl of his dreams?

Did I peak your interest? Well keep reading and I’ll tell you a secret that will help you in your quest to become the girl of his dreams. If I’m remembering my teenage years correctly, you probably already have a picture of the cute guy at school in your mind. Nevertheless before you get too excited, the “HIS” I’m talking about, it isn’t the guy you’re probably thinking about. Before we can become the girl of some guy’s dreams we need to become the girls of our heavenly father’s dream… Does that sound weird to you?

Do you know that God has bigger dreams for you than you can ever have for yourself?

Jeremiah 29:11 states:
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)

Your creator has big plans for you. He wants you to have a great future. He has such high hopes for you that before you were even created he designed a plan for your life. He created you for a purpose. You were destined to be a young lady of excellence, integrity and impeccable character. He wants you to achieve your dreams. But first, He wants you to be the girl of His dream. By now you’re probably thinking, “God has a dream girl? I wonder, what’s His type?” Well join me in this quest and let’s find out…

I’d love to hear your opinion on the following…

What characteristics do you think God’s dream girl would have?

How can someone become God's dream girl?

Photo credit: Microsoft clipart

Summers are for reading...

As a child summer was my favorite time of the year. During Summer time slowed down to a crawl. There was no rush to get up in the morning to catch the bus for school, no homework assignments, no schedules… What was a girl to do with all that time? Why read of course. From I discovered the Bobbsey Twins, Famous Five, Secret Seven and a few others when I was about seven or eight, books have been a huge part of my life especially those lazy summer days.

I am an avid bookworm and when I was younger I was hardly ever without a book. I read on buses, during recess at school, at the beach, at the dinner table, I even tried sneaking a reading book into church. I got caught though so that was the end of that.:) I can remember as a teenager getting so caught up in reading that I’d forget to do my chores, until I heard the angry, “Bernadine!” which meant my mom was home. The "Bernadine" instead of the usual “Bernie” meant she wasn’t very happy with me…

Today I’m still very much a bookworm and still love summer days where I can curl up and lose myself in a book, maybe that's why I chose teaching as a profession, I didn't want to give up my summers:).

What about you? Do you enjoy reading? What are some of your favorite books? What are you reading right now?

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” Dr. Seuss

Change Begins With Me

If you’re a Bahamian or if you’ve ever visited the Bahamas you’ll probably know that Paula Dean and her butter aint got nothin’ on us when it comes to our peas n’ rice, cracked conch, fried fish, and of course potato salad, coleslaw, and macaroni and cheese, followed by guava duff, coconut tart and a lot of other tasty delights. By now the average Bahamian reading this, self included is already thinking about Sunday dinner. For this reason many of us are always fighting the battle of the bulge

Believing that a nation’s health is directly related to its wealth officials from the ministry of education have been having a series of workshops with teachers about integrating healthy nutrition choices into different subject areas of the primary school curriculum. The objective is to get the youngest members of our society along with their families excited about making good nutrition choices then we can begin to change our communities, our islands and our nation.

At the end of the workshop we were asked what we learned. The majority of teachers talked about making changes in their personal lives, eating smaller portions, eating more vegetables, reading food labels etc… To an outsider it may seem like what was being said had nothing to do with integrating healthy choices into the school curriculum, however for me it showed that we got it! We realized that if we wanted the change to come to our classrooms and our schools, our communities then it has to begin with us...

This is the way it is with life, if we want changes to come then we have to be willing to become the vehicle of change. So hopefully when September comes, (after much practice this summer), I'll be able to set a good example for my students by making better nutrition choices myself.:)

Note to teens: Remember one of my summer tips was to avoid too much fast food which can cause you to pack on the pounds. So how about joining me in my attempt to make better food choices this summer?

Summer Time

Today it officially begins….

“What?” You ask.

My summer vacation… *big grin*

The exams papers have all been graded and report cards all handed out. On Friday afternoon I signed off at school for the last time until August 24th. So today marks the first day of my summer vacation.

YES!!!

Right now thoughts of summer (minus the heat) are as refreshing as that glass of ice tea. So bring on the lazy days of summer.

As usual my summer to do list includes a list of books I plan to read. Among them are Do Hard Things by Brett & Alex Harris and Facing Your Giants by Max Lucado (recommended by my bloggy buddy Iris). I’m sure I’ll think of a few other things to do this summer but for right now that sounds like heaven to me.

As you can tell, I'm excited about summer, how about you?

*Photo: Microsoft Clipart

Summer Time Tips

1. Drink lots of water. It keeps you hydrated and does wonders for the skin.

2. Use sunscreen if you’re going to be in the sun for an extended period of time.

3. Get out and get moving, don’t spend the entire summer in front of the television or computer.

4. Avoid too much fast foods… remember summer pounds are easy to pack on hard to take off…

5. Relax… turn off the television, read a book…

6. Take a nap, go to bed early, rest... Before you know it September will be here again.

Summer Wedding

On Saturday July 14, 2007 I had the honor of standing up beside my cousin Melvina as her maid of honor as she committed her life to the man of her dreams. Their wedding ceremony truly honored God and his place in both of their lives. As their pastors performed the ceremony both of them spoke about the characters of Mellie and her groom Julien. They spoke about how both of them had dedicated themselves to service to God and community as singles and God enriched both of their lives by bring them together. (Yes there were tears but since my job was to mop up the bride's tears I couldn't let them fall.)

Count down....

One more week for students and then another week to finish records. Yes! In exactly two weeks my vacation begins and I can hardly wait. My plans...?



I have several new books that I'm looking forward to curling up with. Besides the new, I plan to visit some old friends like Captain Rayford Steel, Buck Williams & Chloe Steel in the Left behind series. I've read the entire series but they're worth reading again.





Also, I'll definitely be reading one or two books from my Grace Livingstone Hill collection again. Beyond the reading,(and some writing projects of course) I don't have a definite plan yet but for now that seems like heaven!