A - Z Blogging Challenge 04.17.2026

 

It's Fri-YAY, friends.  Here comes the weekend.  And on Sunday, I don't have to write an A - Z post!!  Woohoo.  So one more day this week.  Yipeeeeee!!  

We are just home from an afternoon at Ascarate Lake where PC fished and I meandered, listening to my book, watching the world go by.  Lots of sunshine, a good breeze, a good read and my Prince Charming.  Just no fish.  Boo!

If you are just joining me for this challenge, let me explain a little about it. Participants are asked to write a post a day on a theme of their choosing for each letter of the alphabet.  With Sundays off for good behavior.  My theme is glimmers or little blessings in my life.  This week, I have written about kitties, libraries, mountains and blue jeans.  Quite the Duke's Mixture, as my mom would have said.  

Today we are on the 15th letter of alphabet and that would be O.  Here's more.

O is for Opportunities

I am working through the Prayer Journal for Women:  52 Week of Reflection, Gratitude and Prayer each Monday morning.  One of the things readers are asked to do each week is contemplate the things they are thankful for.  Every week, PC is at the top of the list, along with my daughters, their husbands and my grandbabies.  I always add my home and my health to the list and then I write that I am thankful for opportunities.  

What are the opportunities I am grateful for?  So many things!!  But often when I talk about opportunities, I am thinking of unexpected chances to do things or experience things.  Little strokes of luck. Or an occasion when someone has extended themselves for me. 

When I was going through the divorce from my daughters' father in 1990, I had just begun working fulltime as a librarian.  When I started that first school year in the fall of 1989, we were married. By Thanksgiving we were separated. By Valentine's Day I was moving out of military housing and into an apartment with the girls.  Several opportunities came my way.

ExCet Exams

Because I graduated with teaching certification in Tennessee, I was working under a Texas emergency teaching certificate that was only good for one year.  During that first year of employment, I had to take and pass 3 ExCet exams that would certify me to teach in Texas.  

• The first test was a general education exam about pedagogy and educational theories and practices.  

• The second was an art education exam testing knowledge of various periods of art and architecture, specific pieces of art and architecture (even furniture) and teaching procedures in an art classroom. 

• The final test I had to take was in library science and covered the accepted practices in managing and maintaining a library, library history, processing, cataloging books using the Dewey Decimal system.  

The first administration of the test was early in the fall.  I was married and thinking that after my husband finished Officer's Candidate School out of state in the spring, we would be receiving orders to move elsewhere.  I didn't take the test.

The second administration of the test was right after the Christmas holidays.  I was broke, preparing to move into an apartment off post, and had had zero time to study for the exams.  I didn't take the test.

The third and final administration of the ExCets was early in June.  This was my last chance.  I had no option but to take the tests - all 3 - on the same very loooooong day.  The Texas Education Agency handles teacher certification and testing, among many other things, and they promised to notify me by late July whether I had passed the tests and could keep my job as a librarian for the El Paso school district.  

Waiting is the Hardest Part

I took the tests all day long on a Saturday in early June.  It had been 10 years since I had graduated and thought about anything education related.  Because the accepted practices in education were not necessarily the same as in Tennessee, I studied most for the general education exam.  

I didn't know how to begin to study for the art and library science exams so just prayed a lot and did my best.  

The library science test was semi-okay.  I felt like I could pick out the right answers most of the time from the choices provided.  

The art exam was horrendous.  I was given photos of the legs of furniture or cornices on the exterior of buildings to identify.  It was really awful.

The general education test turned out to be the one I felt most confident about.  Maybe because I had studied so hard for it.  

When I turned in my answer booklet for the last exam, the waiting game began.

In the Meantime

When I had signed my first year contract with the district under my emergency teaching certificate, I had to determine whether to get my paychecks once a month for the 9-month school year or to have them divided over the 12-month calendar year.  Because I thought I was going to be leaving El Paso, and this was long before direct deposit to the bank, I opted to receive my checks over 9-months.  Which meant at the end of June, I received my last paycheck for the 1989-1990 school year.  

Now I was separated and awaiting the finalization of my divorce, waiting to see if I had passed the ExCet exams, and without a paycheck.  

Thank goodness for opportunities.  I was hired to work as a summer school librarian and hired the teenager girl next door to stay with my daughters while I worked 7:30-2:30.  But my paychecks for summer school didn't start until the end of July.  

Thank goodness for opportunities.  I was hired as a Pizza Hut waitress at the restaurant around the corner from my apartment.  So I would work all day in a summer school library, come home for a couple of hours and then waitress at Pizza Hut until midnight most nights.  Get up and do it all over again the next day.  

Thank goodness for opportunities.  We had the tips I made to live on until I finally got a summer school paycheck.  Those were some lean days and tough times.  

Making the Phone Call

Shortly after the 4th of July holiday break in summer school, I started panicking.  I felt like I had to know if I had passed the ExCet exams.  If not, I would have to try to find a fulltime job here in El Paso doing who knows what or move back home to Memphis and stay with my parents (they agreed to help me for a maximum of a couple of weeks) and find a job there.  

Somehow I found the phone number for the Texas Education Agency - this was before the Internet -  and called to ask if the ExCet exams administered in June had been scored.  They had not.

I waited a week or so and called again.  No results yet.

I waited another week - so we were into the middle of July now - and a new woman answered the phone.  In tears, I explained my situation.  She put me on hold for a few minutes then returned to my call.  This angel whispered to me that she could lose her job for sharing any information with me but she could tell me that I had PASSED all 3 exams.  I could have kissed her.  I was so thankful she put her job on the line for me.  And I was flabbergasted that I actually passed all 3 tests.  With my tip money, I sent that sweet, sweet woman a dozen red roses.

Now I had to wait again for the official results to be mailed to the school district and for a copy to be mailed to me.  

It was the first week of August or later when I was finally able to go into Human Resources and sign my official contract for the 1990-1991 school year.  Then it was 7 weeks before I would get my first paycheck of the year.

So I continued librarying by day and waitressing by night.  Renita, continued to watch the girls after school and in the evenings while I was working at Pizza Hut.  She would often bring the girls in for pizza and so I could see them, help with their homework, then she would take them home to bed and crash on my couch 'til I got off.  Once I finally got started receiving a paycheck from the school district again, I quit that waitressing job but was so glad to have had it.

 

Little Blessings

It may sound like this was a disastrous time but there were so many little blessings that helped me through.  

• First, I was able to get an apartment immediately in a complex with an elementary school across the street; Brennyn could walk to school
• Lauren was accepted in a free PK program at the high school where I was working; PK was over at noon so on my lunch hour I would dash home with Lauren and leave her with a neighbor, Pat, whom I paid to babysit
• Pat would pick up Brennyn at school when she picked up her kids and watch Brennyn and Lauren until Renita came home from high school
• Renita would watch the girls until I got home from Pizza Hut
• I would often change into my waitress uniform in the car on the way home between school and Pizza Hut
• I was fortunate to be hired for a summer school position and a waitressing position
• And I passed those dreaded tests and kept my library job in the coming school year

Opportunities.  I have been blessed.

Your Turn

Aren't I a lucky lady?  I have had so many wonderful folks cross my path and give me a chance for this or that.  The Human Resources person who hired me for my first librarian job...angel.  I had no experience, had been overseas for 6 years and out of school for 10 years.  And she hired me!! All the stars that aligned and prayers that were answered so that I could support my babies and make it through that difficult time.  

Would love to hear about little blessings or opportunities you have experienced.  Please leave me a comment below.

Off to bed.  Wishing you a wonderful weekend with time for YOU!!

Hugs and kisses,