I AM SECOND

"I am Second is a movement where significance in life is a shared value among people of all kinds. Actors. Musicians. Business leaders. Your next-door neighbor. People just like you. Their authentic stories here on iamsecond provide insight into dealing with typical struggles of everyday living. You’ll meet people who overcame destructive lifestyles. Plus you’ll discover those who’ve tried to go it alone and have failed, yet still found a life full of hope, peace, and fulfillment.
We believe there is a reason why you are here. We all have needs and could use some help. Here you’ll find issues relevant to you as well as answers to challenging life questions. I am Second is designed to help people discover their purpose in life. Have you discovered yours? Visit the full site."
--I Am Second Blog

For those of you who haven't checked out Iamsecond.com, please do!! The videos are short, well made, and really inspire and encourage you. Check out Brian "Head" Welch's (former lead singer of Korn) testimony and how Jason Castro keeps the Lord in the center of his life. The website just launched on December 2, and is already turning heads. Check it out!!

Experiencing the Advent Season

The last several years I've really struggled during Christmas time. I'm not sure why. I think I let the old traditions become mundane to me and that I was never truly experiencing Christmas with the same zest that I once had. It even came to the point where I didn't even want to listen to Christmas music...at all. For those of you who know me, this is a big deal. I was the strange girl in high school who broke out the Christmas tape in the middle of July just because I couldn't WAIT for Christmas to come.


Though I'm definitely not that extreme this year, I'm definitely enjoying the Christmas season. I have a roommate this year, and we already put up the Christmas tree in my condo. Last year I did no such thing because I was alone and by myself. I've been listening to Christmas music on Pandora (the Peaceful Holidays station is my new favorite).


I think one of the biggest changes for me this year is my new outlook on the Advent season and the true meaning of the holiday.

This year I feel excitement for this season where we get to celebrate Christ coming to this earth. Not only do we get to celebrate that Jesus CAME to us, we get to wait with joyful anticipation for his coming AGAIN. For the first time during this holiday season, my hope and joy is focused on the right place. I feel like this new joy instilled in me is lifting weight from my shoulders, that a new light is shining in my heart. I'm excited to spend the rest of this month celebrating the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

This weekend, I went to a worship service and saw this video for the first time. I have now seen it twice and keep thinking about it. If you struggle with finding a balance between materialism, commercialism, and the TRUE reason for the season, this video is for you. Watch it and enjoy!

The Vacant House

The house had been vacant for months. As I drove by it everyday, I couldn't help but notice it's creepyness as it sat in a heap of aloneness. There was a mattress on the driveway and the biggest spider web and spider stretched across the open garage. I looked at that house every day. I wondered about it...How does a house just end up empty with nothing but a mattress in the front yard? I couldn't drive by that house without feeling strangely scared and uneasy. I just didn't like the feel of it.

One day I noticed a difference in the house. The spider web disappeared and soon enough the mattress disappeared too. Gradually I stopped getting the spooks as I drove by that old house. I began seeing a family. Two little boys who rode their tricycle in the driveway and a woman who worked hard to get the weeds from the front yard. I saw the man of the house taking many smoke breaks, in fact everytime I drove by. The vacant house had become a home, and I felt peace about that old house...Until tonight.

As I drove home, a police car whizzed by me with deafening sirens and I pitied the person he was after. As I drove down the road that leads me home I saw the bright lights and knew it had stopped at the house I had grown strangely fond of. What was going on that needed a police officer's attention? I'll never know, though I'll never forget what I saw. As I drove by the cop was jumping out of his car. That woman, who spent many hours in that same yard was standing with her two little boys at the bottome of her driveway. The smallest boy, only a toddler was wearing her sweatshirt. The older boy, porbably around 7 was only wearing his underwear. What happened in that house tonight that resulted in the woman rushing her half dressed children to the road? And where was the dad? Did he do something to those boys? I couldn't help but stare as I drove by, looking at that boy with no clothes on in 50 degree weather. My mind rushes through all the possibilities of what may have happened. I lift my prayers tonight to that family, to those children, that mother, and the house that I have ultimately cared for.

Times by Tenth Avenue North

This is a song by the band Tenth Avenue North. I love the words. If you haven't listened to it before, check it out! It touches my heart.

I know I need You
I need to love You
I love to see You, but it's been so long
I long to feel You
I feel this need for You
And I need to hear You, is that so wrong?

Now You pull me near You
When we're close, I fear You
Still I'm afraid to tell You, all that I've done
Are You done forgiving?
Oh can You look past my pretending?
Lord, I'm so tired of defending, what I've become
What have I become?


I hear You say,
"My love is over. It's underneath.
It's inside. It's in between.
The times you doubt Me, when you can't feel.
The times that you question, 'Is this for real? '
The times you're broken.
The times that you mend.
The times that you hate Me, and the times that you bend.
Well, My love is over, it's underneath.
It's inside, it's in between.
These times you're healing, and when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you're falling from grace.
The times you're hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry, and are tempted to steal.
The times of confusion, in chaos and pain.
I'm there in your sorrow, under the weight of your shame.
I'm there through your heartache.
I'm there in the storm.
My love I will keep you, by My pow'r alone.
I don't care where you fall, where you have been.
I'll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends."

and ACTION!!

My word!! I have spent the last five days trying to get this computer to work! I've tried everything: prayed about it, clicked every button possible, spoke to a Dell woman for two hours and 45 minutes and cussed ($%@!*#). Nothing helped. So today I was planning on taking my dear laptop to the school to get fixed but thought I would try ONE more time at Panera...and wallah!! It's working. I just don't get it. I came here on Saturday...and nothing. It was so frustrating because everything worked EXCEPT the internet...you know, my favorite part.
Well, whatever the problem was, I hope it's fixed and never happens again. Stay tuned to some fun blogs about my birthday celebration with Erin and my trip to see Janelle in Kansas City!

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged!
Good ole' Cindy Matzat tagged me and now I must share some random things to the world!

Here are the rules:



1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Random things most people may not know about Cassandra Dawn Chambers:

1. I almost burned up in a house fire when I was six months old.
2. I love listening to opera, watching opera, and SINGING opera!!
3. My dream job would be to sing in a professional choir or vocal group...preferrably a black spiritual choir.
4. I model my singing voice after Rosemary Clooney and my mother.
5. I once wanted to go to culinary arts school and have a cooking show called Cooking with Casey...and totally practice sometimes when I'm alone!!
6. I sometimes hold a phone to my ear when I'm singing in the car so that the Branson traffic won't think I'm crazy!

Hmmm..... now to tag some others:

Carissa Lilly

Kate Fried

Shauna Caldwell

Erica Smith

Kristin Hanley

Abby Kuiper

Wing Night!

What do half priced wings, The Soup, and old TBN Christian movies all have in common??
You guessed it!! Fun hangout time with Drea Smith and Marcia Emsheimer!
The three of us have quite a little thing going. We take advantage of the Sunday special at Applebees and enjoy some delicious half-priced wings. Since we like to watch somebody make fun of all the bad stuff on TV, we watch The Soup on E! (if you haven't seen it...check it out!) Usually if we have time, we like to flip through the channels to TBN to see what they're playing. The last time we did this, they were showing a movie from the sixties or seventies called Barrabbas. These old movies are so funny to watch because they are poorly made and usually have pretty awful acting skills. This week didn't disappoint. TBN was showing a movie about David. We had some great laughs. Here are some pictures from our Wing Night. This week was extra special because Jana Sharp joined us! Enjoy!

Learning me some Character in St. Louis!

This weekend I went to a Character Education Conference in St. Louis. People travelled from all over the US to listen to great keynote speakers such as Hal Urban and Eric Liu. Overall, I feel more motivated and inspired as a teacher and can't wait to try some things I learned in the classroom. I got to go up there with 6th grade teacher, Kristi Lamb. Before the trip we didn't really know eachother at all. I enjoyed getting to spend time with Kristi...we definitely made some fun memories.

Since our hotel was only a block from Busch Stadium and the Arch, we decided that when in Rome do as the Romans do...and we began our quest to go find some tickets for the big Cardinals game. I had never been to Major League baseball game so I was pretty excited about the idea. I even had Cardinals t-shirt in my car (pretty sure I can find ANYthing in that thing!) Well, for any of those who have ever been to a major league anything, you know about the somewhat scary people that stand there on the corners of every street, wearing the signs that say "I need tickets." Since we were with our new vice-principal, Mr. Beckwith, we let him help us get tickets from one of these guys. Of course me being the naive Bransonian asked to have our picture with them. Here's our picture with our ticket boys!

Of course our tickets were in the nosebleeds, but that didn't stop us from having a good time!

AND would it really be a good game without a foam finger??!

I randomly bumped into Elisha Stenzel at the conference, so she came to the game with us! The game was awesome and went into record books because all four runs of the Cardinals were Home Runs!! It was amazing. They won 4-3 against the Padres.

Overall, I had a really good time. These last two pictures are me exposing Kristi to the amazingness and slight danger of hanging out of the car to catch beautiful Jesus clouds (one of my favorite things EVER!) Nothing like making memories with new people!

A Break from Daycare!

For some reason, when I find myself with an empty chunk of time during the day, I always think it's fun to go steal my neice Isabella from daycare to just play with her. She's five and this is her last summer before kindergarten. I have childhood memories that take me back to when I was two years old. I suppose everytime I go pick up Isabella, I hope I'm adding to her database of fond memories...and I just love her. For those of you that have never met Bella, she is pure sunshine!! She is a ray of light in a dark room. She is somewhat simple, meaning she assumes the world is good and that everyone is here to be friends with eachother. She notices things that most people never would...the sparkles on the sidewalk, the clock hanging on the wall in an obscure shop, and she can spot a pack of gum in any room, purse, or pocket. She's one of my favorite people...ever. When Jesus speaks of the "little children" and their innocence...he's referring to kids just like Bella.

This last week, I found myself with such a chunk of time and had a grand idea! I could steal Isabella from daycare AND introduce her to Kenzi, my dear friend Erin's little girl. I had to go get both girls from daycare and we decided to go where every kid wants to eat: McDonalds! Kenzi is three and is also a sweetheart. The two girls hit it off from the get go.

People at McDonalds got a kick from these two cuties and their attempts at eating Happy Meals and ice cream. Bella drug her whole braid in her ice cream and it didn't even phase her! Let's just say our table was an absolute MESS when we left that poor fast food joint...but we all made some fun memories!

Fun at Brandy's

Last weekend, I was sitting at home and just had absolutely no plans. I was just sitting there, knowing there were about a hundred things I SHOULD be doing. Have you ever experienced this? I had already spent all day by myself and just wasn't in the mood to be alone. I called a few people, but everyone had plans...
So I called my awesome sister Brandy, who invited me over to play games with her husband Matt and friend Sharla.

Brandy was watching my beautiful nephew Jacob so I got to play with him and let him sleep all over me. He is SUCH a doll!

Though it was approaching midnight, Brandy was still in the process of making homeade bread! It was delicious right out of the oven at one in the morning!

I enjoyed playing games with Brandy (on the right) and her friend, Sharla. It's good to have family around me. I can always count on them when life brings me to the bumps in the road where I just don't want to be alone.

Reaping the Benefits!!!

The day has finally come!! After taking care of my many potted plants on my patio, I finally have ripe tomatoes and I'm so EXCITED!!

These are my first two! We ended up eating them a few days later. I almost felt guilty since I've watched them grow from so tiny. Alas...I'll get over it!

Marcia and I have enjoyed watering these little guys! I'm just so excited I got to play a part in God's creation! Yay for patio gardening!

eMINTS Week!!

How summer flies!! Earlier this month, I spent four days with a bunch of lovely ladies, learning all about the amazingness of technology in the classroom. We worked super hard and there was not a day my head didn't hurt when I left Cindy's house!

On the last day we decided to enjoy our favorite pastime: EATING!! Cindy decorated the table beautifully and we all brought our favorite foods and recipes to share.

Pretty much my favorite part of the whole meal was that we were going to be featured on Cindy's blog, What's for Dinner? Each week Cindy posts her menu for the week, the recipes, AND beautiful pictures of the food! It's pretty cool. To see the pictures and recipes from our fun meal, check out her blog. My food was the spinach artichoke dinner!

A few thoughts before sleep

We attracted a lot of attention we traveled because we were poor and Jewish and my mother was handicapped. I was real conscious of that. Being Jewish and having a handicapped mother. I was ashamed of my mother, but see, love didn't come natural to me until I was a Christian.

I've recently started reading this book called The Color of Water by James McBride. It is just as the cover of the book says: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. Throughout the book, the author reflects on his own childhood; about his mom and his memories of not understanding why his mother was a different color. The rest of the book is in the voice of the mother, from an interview with her son many years later.

I was reading today at the Imax, and these few sentences really stuck out to me. These are the words of the mother, recalling her own childhood as a poor Jewish immigrant during the Great Depression. I'm not really sure why these words hit me so strongly. I think a lot of it has to do with my own recent study of the Fruits of the Spirit: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal 5:22-23).
It is becoming more apparent to me lately that we can't show ANY of these fruits to people without the Spirit of Jesus Christ IN us. These qualities and attributes don't even come naturally to man without the help of God.

These words also remind me that it is only IN CHRIST that we are saved. The woman never felt that love came naturally to her UNTIL she became a Christian. Even as a believer in the Jewish faith, she wasn't able to show love to her own mother. Only in Christ was she able to truly love and feel compassion for her mother.

Glad I got that off my chest...now I can sleep.

Scrabble Bliss!

Tonight I had the special opportunity to hang out with two of my favorite people: Emily AND Jennifer Freeman!! Being especially fond of words, we decided long ago that a game of Scrabble was in order. Playing with Jennifer is a real treat. She cares nothing about points, but only about getting the words properly spread out over the board. Rules bend and pretty dang near break off with the necessity to place great words on the board. We had words such as quince, swiveled, and piqued. It was definitely a good time. Emily won, I was second, and Jennifer was a close third.














Another great part of the evening was Jennifer's invitation to cut her beautiful flowers from her garden so she could share the art of arranging flowers with us. Emily's is the huge bouquet...mine was rather small in comparison. :)


I loved hanging out with these girls. It is so good for me to be around people who love and challenge me.

Randomocity #1: Counterfeit Money

I know this is a random topic, but it really got me thinking today. I am working at the Imax this summer. You know, selling tickets, doing concessions, ushering, and whatever else they tell me to do. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it's helping to pay the bills.

ANYWHO... When selling tickets we are required to check out all the 50 and 100 dollar bills to make sure they are not counterfeit. You know the routine...the clerk takes your money, pulls out the black magic marker and draws a line on the bill. If it is yellow, it's genuine....but if it's black...it's definitely counterfeit.

And that leads to my pondering question of the day: What happens as a ticket worker if one of my customer has a "black" bill? Do I call the police? Do I refuse the bill given to me by an 83 year old man wearing a visor? Do I have the right to tear up the money in a thousand pieces and throw it in the customers face? I know that marking the big bills is standard routine but nobody has ever (in any job) told me what happens if the dreaded line turns black. Am I the only one who thinks about such things? And these questions lead me to an even bigger question: What would happen if I was the customer and I was the one with the "black" bill?? I don't think you could ever come back from that!! What if they ripped it up in front of your face and all of a sudden you were out $100? What if they called the police on you? How do you explain that you might be able to teach twenty-five fifth graders how to reduce fractions but NEVER in a million years come up with the brains to create fake money?? Would the police come search your house, your car, under your bed?? Could I lose my job? These are serious questions. My mind is whirling with all the humiliating possibilities that could happen from such an event. I suppose what I have learned from this new irrational fear of mine is that I should never ask for or accept bills larger than $20 increments, whether it's from a bank or at Country Mart, stocking up on the extremely reduced prices of Blue Bunny ice cream.

Hello...Is anybody still here???

Alas!! I have returned! After over six months of absence and feeling like I was betraying a good old friend, I have persuaded myself that this blogging thing is good for me. It's good for my mood, my stress level, and my soul. It's funny to me...blogging, that is. Sometimes I don't ever feel like I have anything worth saying unless I have a picture to go with it. I like it when a blog tells a story and has illustrations to go with it. I also feel like I'm never able to blog unless I can make an amazing plug about what God is doing in my life. Granted, God is always doing something in my life...sometimes the message just remains hidden. The more I read my friends' blogs, the more I enjoy the blogs about everyday nonsense. You don't always have to have a deep message, pictures, or even a point at all. This is my new mission in blogging. If I have strange thoughts that make no sense, I am going to share my weirdness with the world! So look out world and meet the new and improved Chats with Casey....complete with not always having pictures, a point, and guaranteed to shout out pure randomness!!