Chance of Tears, 100%

It was fair to middlin' humid in young women's today.

I've been in R.S. when there is a "changing of the guard" and there were no tears. Ditto Primary. Ditto Cub Scouts (duh). I doubt if the young men's presidency chokes up too much when they have a new presidency installed (yes, yes, there are always exceptions!). The outgoing presidency was "invited" to go up and share their feelings about young women's. That's pretty much when we lost it. Yeah, me too. It was truly a bawl fest. At least my voice stayed in my normal range - none of that extra high squeaky stuff.

The new YW president gave us all a present and then later (after the girls had finished signing it), a card. I didn't look at the card until we were on the way home. I totally cracked up. Evidently the Laurel class president was in charge of getting the cards signed - and they ended getting passed around in Sunday School. Here's a sampling of the comments:

I (heart) U

Your the best!!!!! I Love You! (with heart under exclamation)

You Rock

Thanks so much for all you've done. You're a wonderful person and we're going to miss you!

etc...

Those comments were all sweet, but what really cracked me up was this:

Thanks for the Young Women! - James

Learning Curve

I was talking to a couple of the other seminary teachers on Thursday morning and we all agreed that this was the longest week. Ever. We were all sleep deprived to some degree or other, we had all spent more time than we really had on lesson prep, and were more than a little glassy eyed at the thought of an entire school year of this...possibly years.

I figure it's like starting any new class or job. It starts out busy - there are lots of one time tasks - or occasional tasks, then it settles down as you get into a rhythm of study and teaching. At least that's my hope. I'm fortunate to be a "morning person" - 6am is not terribly early for me - but getting up at 4:45am does take some getting used to. It's easy enough to get up then, it's just hard to maintain any energy at, say, 5pm. Twice this week I fell asleep as dinner was cooking. Not for too long, and nothing burned, but it does raise a bit of a red flag. I think I'll have to do my dinner prep earlier in the day. Thank goodness for crock pots and microwaves.

Does anyone have any great crock pot recipes?

Joy Cometh in the Afternoon.

It's too bad I don't know a song about the UPS man.

Daniel's school books and supplies have arrived. You can see the excitement in his face. I now just have to find a place to put it all.

An extra room would be nice.

Help!

My dear husband is getting me an ipod nano for an early birthday present. We were looking on the Apple site and they have a cool option. You can get free laser engraving on the back of your nano. It looks to be around 30 characters a line/2 lines. What should I have engraved?

Options:

• My name with the word "rocks." below.
• My blog title "It'll feel better when it quits hurting."
• "Steve West Rocks the Free World"....

Open to suggestions...as you can see, my sleep deprived brain is not really at its sharpest right now, and while I'm at it, what's your favorite nano color (see picture - there is also black)?

One Talented Guy

Jan van Eyck, Man in Blue Turban

Nathan is quite the renaissance man. Not only is he performing in a talent show tonight, he is also taking treats that he made from scratch.

Talent: Playing the piano blindfolded. He hasn't ever had piano lessons, so the piece he chose is going to be played with one finger. He was feeling that as a talent it was a bit lame, so I suggested he play it behind his back - that being more than a bit awkward, he chose to do it blindfolded instead. Did I mention that he hand knitted the scarf he will be using for a blindfold? Now that's talent.

Treat: Jam bars. They are in the family cookbook. It's great that he likes them and can make them, but I thought I had a two year supply of homemade blackberry jam, and he is quickly working his way through it with his signature dessert (he has taken it to at least 3 singles functions in the past month). Looks like he needs to head out and pick some blackberries for me.

Jam Bars
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup quick oats
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup jam (blackberry or raspberry are our favorites)

Sift together dry ingredients; stir in oats and sugar. Cut in butter till crumbly; pat 2/3 of crumbs in 11x7 pan. Spread with preserves; top with remaining crumbs. Bake in 375' oven about 35 minutes.

A Fond Farewell...

Pretty sure that tonight was my last young women's activity. I spent most of the time working on seminary stuff - but I was there in body, if not quite all there in spirit.

I met one of the bishopric counselors in the hall and he said that we (the yw presidency) will probably be released Sunday. So...one more Sunday in YW. I will miss that - I like being there for the classes - even if the subject matter is stuff like "Don't have sex", "If you do have sex, don't have an abortion"oh, and my favorite, "Don't have sex". Just kidding. Sort of. We probably don't have more than 2 or 3 lessons a year that touch on that subject. Of course those aren't the real titles. I haven't looked ahead that far to see what exactly the seminary lessons are like in relation to that, but after reading some of the epistles, I guess I need to be prepared to talk about a variety of subjects - more or less related - AND I'll get to do it in a coed setting. Fun.

Attack of the Nakedish Art

I'm pretty sure I've never seen this statue with a towel around it.

I'm feeling a little better about WAVA (Washington Virtual Academy) today. No, we haven't received Danny's books, but we were able to do more of his courses online. I didn't realize he would be taking "Intermediate World Art". I remember taking Western Civ in high school and being somewhat embarrassed at the videos that showed nakedish art in our coed classroom. I'm not sure if it's better or worse to view them at home, but at least I will be commenting on them, not the adolescent young thug in the next seat.

On a similar note. Stephanie is taking a figure drawing class this quarter. She'll be contributing her own nakedish art to the world. Or at least to her instructor.