Friday, March 31, 2006

The Dezimobile

Posted 2:25 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

This morning, I took my car, a.k.a. the Dezimobile for new tires. I have been going to Discount Tire for years, and really enjoy their service. I needed to replace two tires, then I was on my way!

On my way home from my mystery shop, I tried out the car wash across the street from church. For less than five dollars, I now have a clean car! Which means it'll probably rain tomorrow, but at least it looks good today.

Hooray for a clean car & new tires!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Everybody Rhumba!

Posted 1:51 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

I was listening to Michael Buble on my Ipod driving up to school this morning. I really enjoy his cds, his songs make me want to dance! David can always tell when I've been listening to him, because I'll spontaneously break into dancing. Several of the songs I heard this morning would go great with the rhumba. So there I was, in the clinician's waiting room, dancing the rhumba. No one saw, though.

It has been a decent week. Sunday night, we met up with several people for the kickoff of a new ministry for the under 35 crowd, called the Genesis group. We were to suggest some things that we wanted to see happen in the group, or activities that we would like to do. As the eternal student, I wound up being the scribe, and wrote all our suggestions down on a numbered list. I think we had the most on our list! We are hoping to start a Sunday school class. I really like our Sunday school class, however, we are quite a bit younger than the other couples and are not in the same phase of life. I'm excited to see what happens next!

Tuesday night was the Frisco band concert! I thought overall that we did very well. I liked the pieces that we played, especially the last one, which was selections from Wicked. David would laugh because I'd coming home singing that one every week after rehearsal. After the concert, we had a reception celebrating the band's two year anniversary! We had some complimentary drinks & cake. The percussionists all had a meeting and decided that we wanted to do a percussion ensemble. I think that's a great idea (naturally) and really hope we get to do it! The director said he'd get the percussion instructor for the high school to stay late and talk to us about repertoire.

Yesterday, I had a mystery shop & then a client visit on the other side of Ft. Worth! I didn't like the drive, but oh well. I was happy in the car with my Ipod! I also found out that I got accepted for some more mystery shops. I already have seven scheduled for the month of April! How cool is that?

And now for some sad news: I have finally conformed. I said I would never read The Da Vinci Code, and on the spring break trip, Leanne & I decided we'd go see the movie together when it comes out. Well, we decided that I should read the book before I see the movie. So, today, at the UNT bookstore, guess what was on sale? You guessed it! It is now on my list of books to read.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go back downstairs. I feel like dancing again!

Monday, March 27, 2006

In the Mail!

Posted 12:57 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

As you may or may not know, I have a Master of Science degree in School Psychology. I did my master's internship last year with Lake Dallas ISD. The next step was to take the National School Psychology exam, which I did while on my internship. Finally, it was time to send in for the application for a Licensed Specialist in School Psychology.

I went over it with my major professor/supervisor, to make sure I had everything filled out properly. I had to get three letters of reference, as well as my graduate transcripts. Well, I received my last letter of reference back in my box this morning. I finished up my application, got my transcripts, wrote a check (of course it would cost money) and put it in the mail today! I was really excited walking back from the post office in the student union building!

What happens next is that I'll receive notification from the board that they have received all of my documents and that everything is okay. I can then be called an LSSP Trainee. Then I'll send them another check, and they'll send me the state jurisprudence exam. Once I send that back and it is scored, then I'll be an official Licensed Specialist in School Psychology! So this was a big step today. My supervisor says that this will open up all sorts of doors for me. I'm excited about it!

Friday, March 24, 2006

Living a Lenten Life

Posted 1:51 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

A friend recently posted on his site about living a Lenten life. I thought about what he said, and decided to give it a try. The following is an e-mail that I sent him in reply to his post:

I look forward to this time of year. I agree with you, why can't we live life as if it were Lent year-round? I love the time of introspection and examining our lives. No, it doesn't always feel good, but neither does going for your annual checkup, and we all do that. It's also a time of renewing my relationship with God. Like the flowers & leaves growing on trees in spring, I see Lent as a time of regrowth: in the Church, in life, etc. We should continue this regrowth after Easter and beyond.

So where do we go from here? Can we live a sin-free life? Well, no, because we are human and fallible. But we can try to live and be the best people we can be. And we can ask God to help us, show us the way, which He will. I'm challenging you (and myself) to live a Lenten life. True, I could go back to drinking from Starbucks after Easter, but if I do that but don't learn anything from the experience of abstaining, what's the point?

I think we could & should repent from our sin, turn to God & spend time in the Word. So that is my goal for me. To spend more time in the Word, more time in prayer. I have a notebook, that can be a prayer journal.

That being said, I recently figured out how to download podcasts. I subscribed to our church's podcast, as well as a couple of Christian women's radio programs. They involve a Bible study, which I think will help me to get more involved with the Bible. I've also subscribed to a couple of online devotionals for women, and am really enjoying them!

So that's my take on living a Lenten life.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

New Toy!

Posted 4:51 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

When I was on the spring break trip, Leanne had a cool gadget on her Ipod. It was a transmitter, by which you could listen to your Ipod on the car stereo. I told David about it, and today he told me to go get it for my Ipod. So I went to Target, and bought it! It's called an iTrip, and it works really well! Hooray!

Monday, March 20, 2006

Spring Break, San Antonio Style!

Posted 12:38 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

Last week was my spring break. I had an enjoyable first part of the week, with some of the highlights including: lunch with my dad, completing another mystery shop (my fourth this month), and spending all day Wednesday with David! We went to Ikea, which was an adventure in itself! It looks like we'll be buying some bookshelves from there.

Thursday morning was the start of the junior high spring break trip. I wound up serving as co-pilot & navigator in the church's van, with Leanne driving, and the six junior high girls as passengers. The boys were in two cars driven by parents. We met up with the other church, First United Methodist Church of Duncanville, around Waco. The trip down to San Antonio was pretty uneventful, and we made good time.

We spent part of the afternoon at the Alamo and exploring the Riverwalk. I wound up with three girls in my group. I found a cute shirt for me and a mug for David! Dinner was at Fuddruckers. Excellent burgers, they even have a veggie burger! Yay, veggie burgers. We then went to the church where we were staying, which was Travis Park UMC. It was a really neat church, I peeked in the sanctuary and it is beautiful! The girls stayed in one room, the boys in another. We had a devotional led by the worship leader from another church, and then it was time for bed. It was a giant slumber party!

The next day, we went to Fiesta Texas! I had the same group of girls, since we were all sporting ponytails, I dubbed us as the Ponytail Princesses. We had all kinds of fun. I even let them talk me into going onto a few rides I wasn't sure I wanted to go on. Luckily, they were lotsa fun and I had a blast! We also kept making up dances for everything (e.g. the standing in line dance, sitting on the ride dance, eating dinner dance, etc) which was admittingly goofy, but fun! And I wasn't always the one requesting the dance either. We also gave each other high fives for everything! There was a lot of love in our group.

Friday night, we ate dinner, then went back to the church. We played games, did a devotional, and tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the air conditioning was not working in the church, so it was a sauna in there! Besides that, the church was neat and I enjoyed staying there.

Saturday, we went to Sea World! I was really excited about it. We (the ponytail princesses, all dressed alike in our trip t-shirts) saw three of the shows, the dolphin/beluga whale show, the sea lion show, and of course, the Shamu show. All of them were really great! The Shamu was probably my favorite. We sat high enough we didn't get wet, but we had a great view!

I also went on one of the roller coasters, called the Great White Shark. The line was really short, so that made it even better! It was a really fun ride! I lunched on the obligatory funnel cake that you must eat when going to a theme park. Mmmm, funnel cake. We went to the penguin encounter, where a boat-load of penguins were playing, swimming and being penguins. We saw the coral reef and shark aquariums. We saw the Clydesdales (which made no sense until I found out that Anheuser-Busch is a sponsor of Sea World parks). Lastly, we did the dolphin encounter. I had lotsa dolphins swim near me, and got sneezed on by one (gee, thanks). That was really enjoyable.

The trip back was fun, the girls fell asleep in the van, which gave Leanne & I a chance to talk. So talk we did. It was really a neat time of bonding with her, as well as the kids. I might possibly go to a conference with her in January, if time/money allows! We got back at the church a little after eleven. I came home and after giving David his souvenirs (I also picked up a mug for him at Sea World), promptly fell asleep. It was a great trip, and I'm so glad I was able to go!

Now all I need to do is recuperate from it, and get my voice back from screaming on all the rides!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Dezi Rollins: Sunday School Teacher

Posted 4:29 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

A few weeks ago, I signed up to be a Sunday school teacher. I'd thought about it before, and decided to do it. Yesterday was my first class. Our church usually does lessons in three week rotations, where you teach the same lesson three weeks in a row, while the kids rotate around based on their grade. Since it's spring break, they're doing a two week rotation instead.

Our lesson is on The Lord's Prayer. We start off by taking up a collection and doing songs led by another adult. Then we go into another room to do the lesson. First, we started off by reading the prayer, then going through each line, discussing what it meant. I had K-2nd grade yesterday, it was a lot of big words for them, so I was trying to explain in a way they'd understand. I was supposed to ask them questions based on the lesson. One of them was asking what Heaven would be like. One kid thought it would be like a big school, where you learn stuff all the time. Another thought it would be exactly like Earth.

We then had different scenarios and had to decide which part of the prayer went with the scenario. They didn't always guess right, but they tried hard! The next activity was to make a prayer rock. They chose a rock and decorated it with markers while I read the poem that accompanied the lesson. It was really cute, and each kid got a copy of the poem to show their parents.

For snack, we had pretzels. I didn't know this, but found out that the pretzel was invented by a man who wanted a snack that reminded him to pray. The outside of the pretzel is shaped like a heart, to remind us that God loves us. If you turn the pretzel upside down, the middle is supposed to remind you of how you cross your arms to pray. I've been eating pretzels for years and never knew that! Imagine that, learning something as I'm teaching others! How cool is that?

Friday, March 10, 2006

I'm Pooped!

Posted 11:16 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

This has been a good week, for the most part. I spent the majority of the week trying to get sick, and yesterday it finally happened. Nothing too serious, but we decided it was best that I stay home. After calling in to the clinic and my supervisor, I went back to sleep, and slept for much of the day.

It paid off, because today I feel much better! I had two mystery shops scheduled for today, not too far from each other. Really, I could have walked from one to the other. The first one went really well, this was a place that I have gone to before, and have really enjoyed the service there. Today was no exception. The other shop, I had to write a not so flattering review. I felt bad, however, the person did not respond in the way they were supposed to, and their company needs to know that.

After completing my shops, I went out to Vista Ridge Mall. Since we are having guests tomorrow night, I was asked to use our gift certificates to purchase some more pillows for the guest room. After consulting with David, I also purchased some other things, which I will talk about on our website. I'll also post a picture, however, Blogger is being uncooperative with uploading pics, so it'll have to wait.

I've been busy the rest of the afternoon getting the apartment ready for our guests, as well as getting the present ready for a family wedding tomorrow. I'm not finished cleaning, but what I have finished looks really good! I also received my first paycheck today for my mystery shops! I was really excited. Not a whole lot of money, but hey, it is money and a fun way to earn it!

Friday, March 03, 2006

Being a Youth Counselor

Posted 10:00 AM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

David & I both wrote articles on why we like to work with the youth. They will be put in the church's weekly newsletter, as a way to drum up some more volunteers for youth counselors & Sunday school teachers. As picky as I am about my own writing, I think the article turned out well. Here it is:

Why I’m a Youth Counselor
by Desirée Rollins

August 4, 2002: My new friend David & I had our first date the night before, and here I was, coming to a youth event at his church! I had worked with infants through preschool-age children before, but never youth! As I got closer I wondered, would the kids like me? Would they think I was a complete dork? I found out where I was supposed to be and realized: it was an outdoor service, we were going to sit on the grass & I was in a skirt! Plus, most of the kids were bigger than me, and were jumping up and down and doing various hand motions during the songs. What had I gotten myself into?

Despite my rather interesting introduction to working with youth, I really came to enjoy it as time went on. It was really amazing, the connections I had with some of the kids. I connected with kids that I never thought I would connect with. I love to work with the youth because I can remember going through many of the same struggles that they go through today, and I can help them through it. I love it when they discover that they are not alone in the things that they go through.

Is it challenging to be a youth counselor? Absolutely. It is also one of the most rewarding challenges that I have ever had to face. For me, it has helped to strengthen my own faith, while helping the youth with theirs. I have enjoyed being a youth counselor, and look forward to many more years working with the youth. Even if they think I’m a complete dork.