Author: Jessica Ahrens

The “stop doing list” has come up quite a few times recently, and while it makes sense, it can be a very difficult concept. This might be the most beneficial part of my sabbatical. As I prepare to come back to work, I have marked several things off my “to do” list, and feel very accomplished. I have spent time with friends and family, I have gotten back out into the community, and I have helped those in need in our community. But I have also worked on my “stop doing list”.

In our society, we tend to go, go, go. In the beginning, I mentioned that I am not the best at resting. So, at some point in the evening, I have to just stop, and sit down. While reading “Losing Control and Liking It” it talks about the what if’s, and how you don’t have control over them. This just creates more stress. I have to let go of the what if’s and put them on my stop doing list, this frees up time and stress. This book also brought my attention to perfection and it’s need for it to be on my list. This can go so far, from Emily wanting to fix her own hair to the girls picking out their clothes.

Will and I took the girls to the San Antonio Zoo this weekend. When asking the girls which animal was their favorite, we were reminded that they are two completely different people. Emily’s favorite animal was the bats. Sarah, on the other hand loved the giraffes. While this sounds cute, we actually missed the giraffes and didn’t walk all the way back to find them. She procee to tell us how she played with them, rode on their backs, and laughed together.

Emily’s favorite part of going out of town is not the destination, while she did love the bats at the zoo, but the hotel. I found a hotel with an indoor pool so we could go swimming after the zoo. The water was a little chilly for my taste, but the girls had a blast. The girls might kill me when they’re older, but the picture below shows how wore out they were from our fun day! I did put Sarah back in the bed fully, just had to get the picture first, like any good mom 😊.

This month has allowed me to accomplish so much, but my favorite part was the time I had to devote to building memories with my family. See you all tomorrow!

The work/school week can get so busy and turn into just a blur if we let it. Our girls get the worst end of it at times, by the time we pick them both up from their respective places, get home, eat supper and get ready for bed. Therefore, I’ve tried to use my sabbatical to break up that monotony, make week nights fun and productive, and hopefully create habits that will carry on after my sabbatical ends.

Disney Scene It was so much fun when we had our Swat Tournament at work, but we hadn’t taken the opportunity to play it at home since I’d bought the game. Emily, my oldest daughter, is only 5, and still too young to have seen most of the shows associated with the first edition. She has been dying to play the game, but having played it many times at work, I knew that it took quite a while and kept putting it off. So recently, I knew what we had to do. It was a beautiful rainy day outside, and Will made some pizzas so we could get supper out of the way. We sat in the living room and played Disney Scene It. Emily did awesome! She asked for a little help on some of the questions, but her proudest moment was on all play when we were supposed to be finding the missing item, and she shouted “MAGIC BEANS! It’s the magic beans!” This was the correct answer, and she beat Will and me to the answer without a doubt. She did not win, but told her dad good job and asked to play again, which made my heart swell.

Emily and I baked chocolate chip cookies tonight. We waited until after supper to try them. They are absolutely delicious. However, when bringing them to the table, Emily brought me the one with the least amount of chocolate chips and said it’s because I “don’t really like chocolate very much”. Will and I quietly laughed and we enjoyed our cookies. One day, Emily will realize that it’s not that I don’t like chocolate, but that she loves chocolate.

Emily’s school had an Open House that we attended, and it was completely student led. Emily didn’t know beforehand that we were going, so she was excited when I told her. It was a student led event. The school is doing The Leader in Me, so I was highly impressed. The principal of the elementary is one of Will’s classmates. From the time we walked through the doors, the students were directing traffic, holding doors, and helping out. Emily showed us her classroom, her stations, what she’s been learning and answered all our questions. They served a meal afterwards with students as the servers there, too.

Children can teach us so much that we have forgotten or given up on. They always ask the question. As adults, we often stop asking after a few failed attempts. When I first started working for FDLIC, I asked my dad to switch over to direct deposit, his bank is in Abilene so it made sense anyway, but his answer was always the same, “I have to go to Abilene to make deposits anyway,” or “I’m going to an appointment and can just stop by the bank”. I was at the funeral home picking up Emily (she rides the bus to the funeral home since Will and I both work and someone is always there), and Ryon told me to tell him again to switch to direct deposit, so I did. Which version of his norm did he give me this time? “Sure.” Sure! All it took was asking one more time, using someone else’s name, and signing him up right then when he said “sure”.

My hope is that when my girls are older, they remember us sitting in floor playing games, they remember baking, they remember the colored bags from Meals on Wheels and the smiles they received, and they remember falling asleep in Mom’s arms while waiting on the car to be fixed. I also hope that I never forget the love that I see in their eyes, the compliments they give me on a day I don’t wear makeup or get dressed up, or the hugs they give.

I’ve always considered myself lucky to have grown up in a small town, and now I am excited to be raising my daughters in a small town. Yeah, there are not many places to eat, but we learn to cook, we know how to entertain ourselves, and we know pretty much everybody.

When it came to choosing my service project, the first thing I knew for sure was that I wanted mine to be in Winters. It’s been a while since I worked in Winters, but when I did, I used to deliver Meals on Wheels. I enjoyed getting to see everyone on my route smile when I brought their food, or answer their questions, or just have a little laugh. Therefore, I chose Meals on Wheels, which has changed quite a bit. We used to cook the meals in Winters, then deliver them, rotating each week by church. Now, Abilene’s Meals on Wheels Plus has taken over our community when we didn’t have the means to continue. We still rotate weekly by church, but each day is also rotated as far as who drives to Abilene to pick up the meals for Winters and Ballinger. Ballinger meets us in Winters to get their meals, and they pick up every Wednesday. My mother-in-law and I went together to get the meals on Tuesday, which gave us an opportunity to spend time together.  While it makes you a little sad to think of these people in their younger days (I knew most of them before they were “elderly”), it also made me so happy to see that they would be waiting by the door, on the back porch, or watching their favorite T.V. show because that means they are doing good! My grandparents recently moved into a nursing home because they don’t know who we are and can’t take care of themselves, and because my grandfather had his mind the longest, he wanted to take care of my grandma and wouldn’t let us get them Meals on Wheels.

I also joined my dad at Lion’s Club that week, something else I haven’t been able to do in quite a while. The program was given by Larry Collom, one of our EMTs. He and his wife who is also an EMT had gone down to Houston as some of the first responders. It was amazing to hear him tell the tales. They were often the first people at the shelters and helping transfer people to hospitals, or to the doctors and nurses set up in the shelter who could render aide to these people. One of the shelters had an entire makeshift ER setup. The thing that stood out the most was not the amount of people, it was the people who were there by themselves. Anytime they moved or were transported, they’d grab both their trash bags to carry with them, which were now all their possessions.

Our Sunday School subsides during the summer months, and starts back up again after school starts. We’ve added an extra classroom this year so I can continue teaching the kids I had last year without holding them back for the younger kids in the class, and I am stoked. We are learning the meaning behind Lord’s Prayer, how to use the Bible, and have the same weekly Bible Lesson as the other three classes. One of my Sunday School students is the daughter of Emily’s kindergarten teacher.

I love that I know the people I deliver meals to, I love that I can join a Lion’s Club meeting just to hear a good program, I love teaching kids in Sunday School that I know.

The first week of my sabbatical seems like it just flew by! I felt like I had accomplished little, until I sat down to write this blog. I thought I could include everything I had done in this, but I think I’ll just stick to the highlights!

The first day of my sabbatical was spent at the Winters Dove Fest. This is a nonprofit organization that brings the hunters and community together for a meal, music, and raffles. Unfortunately, no one I sold tickets to won any of the guns (sorry!), but we did have a good time! I got to see a lot of people in the Winters community, and even some family members I don’t get to see often.

I have always heard that I am a lot like my paternal grandfather, and never having the opportunity to get to know him, I’m not real sure whether this is intended to be a compliment or not. Much like him, I do not believe in yard work. While I have not taken things to his extreme as of yet, and cemented my whole front yard to avoid mowing, our hedges are a little out of hand. I have now trimmed all the hedges in the front of our house and feel so accomplished when I can look out our dining room window without seeing our hedges out of hand. The girls also enjoyed it, because they got to play outside the entire time I worked on them. The mayor even gave me a shout out on Facebook! (Life in a small town 😊)

Probably the most important thing I’ve done, and the hardest for me, is rest. I am a list maker and a planner, and I like to mark items off that list. It makes me feel accomplished and successful. However, I’ve had mono for the past 6 weeks or so and had strict orders to rest, and that’s hard to do with two girls, a full-time job, and City Council. This has been the perfect opportunity to just relax and rest when I get tired.

This week has also given me time to spend with some friends, one in particular who is about to move to Indianapolis. Paige and Leslye lost their mom last year, and have had a rough year. Leslye and her four-year-old are now moving for her husband’s job. I am happy to be here for them once again, and love getting to see the circle of friends, old and new, come together to support these girls who have been through so much.

This coming week will be a busy week. I will be helping with Meals on Wheels. Our meals come from Abilene, so we have a van that one person takes to Abilene in the morning to pick up the meals, then several people run the routes once they get back to town. The churches rotate by week, and St. John’s Lutheran has this week. We have a City Council meeting on Monday to set the budget and the tax rate. Exciting stuff, I know. It is also my youngest daughter, Sarah’s third birthday on Thursday.