I love the month of May for lots of reasons. This year it means celebrating 4 years of marriage in an extravagant way, yearly vacation with my favorite person in the world, beautiful sunny weather, and the end of the school year. This month just makes me happy.
I thought I’d take a few minutes to update the blog on some recent happenings in the Baugher household. It seems like we’ve been running crazy the last few weeks and have had something going on every night.
I’ve had some temporary changes in my work schedule lately. The woman who is in charge of the Owasso family counseling office was put on bed rest for pregnancy complications a few weeks ago, and the clinical director asked me and the two other social service coordinators to help cover some of her cases while she is out. Now I spend my Tuesday evenings in Owasso. Other than having to work during the evening (I’m pretty protective of my nights), I am loving it. It’s a pretty different environment than being in the schools, and it’s refreshing to have a change of pace. It’s almost like a private practice setting in that the families call in seeking help and are motivated to make changes quickly. Also, the families are involved which is so nice compared to what I’m used to at the school I work in where the nurse can’t even get a hold of parents to pick their child up from school when they are sick. I feel like I’m pulling teeth just to get a parent to come in to sign their child up for free counseling. I do have some families in the school that will come in for family counseling at the school, but it’s pretty rare. I felt so energized after my sessions the other night. I needed that reminder of why I chose this field. Family work wears me out though (in a good way), keeping up with the dynamics and balancing having multiple people in a session.
I’ve had some other successes at work lately that I’m excited about. I just did a termination session with an 8th grade girl who made major changes in just a few months and I feel confident she will be successful in high school. Also, yesterday I did a session with a student who has some past trauma. I’ve been working with her for a few months and she refused to share any details about her past for the longest time. My supervisor kept telling me to go at her pace and give her space, but I was hesitant to do so. When I was in school, I was trained in a shorter term therapy model and so backing off wasn’t something I was used to. I followed my supervisor’s recommendations though and it paid off. Yesterday she opened up and we had such a great session. She shared about her situation and uncovered some pretty distorted beliefs about the situation that we were able to process, and it was so rewarding. It was another great reminder of why I’m in this field. When I was in graduate school I learned to capitalize on the successes because sometimes they are hard to see in the ins and outs of everyday counseling and frustrations at the school.
Matt’s work has been pretty stressful lately. He’s actually headed to Florida on Tuesday next week to work on a military project and has been working late this week on another project. I’m hoping he doesn’t have to spend his entire weekend at work He needs a vacation badly.
Outside of work, life continues to fly along. We had our AWANA awards night last night, and that’s always fun to observe. I’m telling you the youth in our church are incredible. They give out awards to high school seniors who have to complete rigorous requirements throughout their years in AWANA including completing 10 handbooks, memorizing over 700 verses, reading and summarizing each book of the Bible and sharing their faith multiple times. When I get bogged down in the problems of North Tulsa and get scared for the future of our youth, I remind myself of the teenagers at church. I’m actually planning to take a break from AWANA next year. I’m cautious to fill up my week nights with lots of activities and there are other things I want to get involved in at church that require evening commitments.
Other things that have filled up our time are our date nights (which have temporarily been moved from Tuesdays to Mondays because of my new schedule) and coffee nights, prayer nights, and men’s accountability groups in our Sunday school class. The girls meet for coffee one night a month just to chat and fellowship, and we also have a prayer night once a month to get together and pray together. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for our church family and the relationships I’ve built with the women in my Sunday school class. The prayer time is always a precious time for us. When the girls are chatting or praying, Matt gets together with the husbands for a men’s group.
I thought I’d take a few minutes to update the blog on some recent happenings in the Baugher household. It seems like we’ve been running crazy the last few weeks and have had something going on every night.
I’ve had some temporary changes in my work schedule lately. The woman who is in charge of the Owasso family counseling office was put on bed rest for pregnancy complications a few weeks ago, and the clinical director asked me and the two other social service coordinators to help cover some of her cases while she is out. Now I spend my Tuesday evenings in Owasso. Other than having to work during the evening (I’m pretty protective of my nights), I am loving it. It’s a pretty different environment than being in the schools, and it’s refreshing to have a change of pace. It’s almost like a private practice setting in that the families call in seeking help and are motivated to make changes quickly. Also, the families are involved which is so nice compared to what I’m used to at the school I work in where the nurse can’t even get a hold of parents to pick their child up from school when they are sick. I feel like I’m pulling teeth just to get a parent to come in to sign their child up for free counseling. I do have some families in the school that will come in for family counseling at the school, but it’s pretty rare. I felt so energized after my sessions the other night. I needed that reminder of why I chose this field. Family work wears me out though (in a good way), keeping up with the dynamics and balancing having multiple people in a session.
I’ve had some other successes at work lately that I’m excited about. I just did a termination session with an 8th grade girl who made major changes in just a few months and I feel confident she will be successful in high school. Also, yesterday I did a session with a student who has some past trauma. I’ve been working with her for a few months and she refused to share any details about her past for the longest time. My supervisor kept telling me to go at her pace and give her space, but I was hesitant to do so. When I was in school, I was trained in a shorter term therapy model and so backing off wasn’t something I was used to. I followed my supervisor’s recommendations though and it paid off. Yesterday she opened up and we had such a great session. She shared about her situation and uncovered some pretty distorted beliefs about the situation that we were able to process, and it was so rewarding. It was another great reminder of why I’m in this field. When I was in graduate school I learned to capitalize on the successes because sometimes they are hard to see in the ins and outs of everyday counseling and frustrations at the school.
Matt’s work has been pretty stressful lately. He’s actually headed to Florida on Tuesday next week to work on a military project and has been working late this week on another project. I’m hoping he doesn’t have to spend his entire weekend at work He needs a vacation badly.
Outside of work, life continues to fly along. We had our AWANA awards night last night, and that’s always fun to observe. I’m telling you the youth in our church are incredible. They give out awards to high school seniors who have to complete rigorous requirements throughout their years in AWANA including completing 10 handbooks, memorizing over 700 verses, reading and summarizing each book of the Bible and sharing their faith multiple times. When I get bogged down in the problems of North Tulsa and get scared for the future of our youth, I remind myself of the teenagers at church. I’m actually planning to take a break from AWANA next year. I’m cautious to fill up my week nights with lots of activities and there are other things I want to get involved in at church that require evening commitments.
Other things that have filled up our time are our date nights (which have temporarily been moved from Tuesdays to Mondays because of my new schedule) and coffee nights, prayer nights, and men’s accountability groups in our Sunday school class. The girls meet for coffee one night a month just to chat and fellowship, and we also have a prayer night once a month to get together and pray together. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for our church family and the relationships I’ve built with the women in my Sunday school class. The prayer time is always a precious time for us. When the girls are chatting or praying, Matt gets together with the husbands for a men’s group.
Our last coffee night was about three weeks ago, and I think I will remember it for a long time. I had arranged to ride with my friend Andrea to Starbucks. She came and picked me up, and this is how our conversation went once I got in her car.
Andrea: "You wanna know something"
Angela: "Sure"
Andrea: "I'm pregnant"
Angela "What! Are you serious?"
Andrea: "Yup"
Angela: "Congratulations! Are you serious?"
Andrea: "Yes, I found out on Tuesday"
Angela: "Oh my gosh, are you serious?"
Andrea: "I think I'll be due in December, I scheduled a doctor's appointment today"
Angela: "I can't believe it, you're really pregnant?"
The conversation continued and I'm pretty sure I asked if she was serious at least 10 more times. She had told me a few weeks ago what their timeline for kids was, and this wasn't it, so I really couldn't believe it. Then she made me sit through half the coffee night keeping her secret before she finally announced it to everyone. I kept looking at her and smiling when anyone would ask what was going on in her life. I'm so excited for her and Jason. I told her she is one of my first good friends to be pregnant who actually lives in the same area as me. I can't wait to babysit!
Even though things are hectic at times, I am loving our life right now, and summer is just around the corner.
Andrea: "You wanna know something"
Angela: "Sure"
Andrea: "I'm pregnant"
Angela "What! Are you serious?"
Andrea: "Yup"
Angela: "Congratulations! Are you serious?"
Andrea: "Yes, I found out on Tuesday"
Angela: "Oh my gosh, are you serious?"
Andrea: "I think I'll be due in December, I scheduled a doctor's appointment today"
Angela: "I can't believe it, you're really pregnant?"
The conversation continued and I'm pretty sure I asked if she was serious at least 10 more times. She had told me a few weeks ago what their timeline for kids was, and this wasn't it, so I really couldn't believe it. Then she made me sit through half the coffee night keeping her secret before she finally announced it to everyone. I kept looking at her and smiling when anyone would ask what was going on in her life. I'm so excited for her and Jason. I told her she is one of my first good friends to be pregnant who actually lives in the same area as me. I can't wait to babysit!
Even though things are hectic at times, I am loving our life right now, and summer is just around the corner.
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