The Scattered Pieces of My Life

Last night as I was going to bed I reviewed my day. Overall it had been a pretty good day - with the exception of a few major glitches with homeschool...but I didn't feel all that great about my day. Then I had an epiphany. Yesterday was like starting a jigsaw puzzle. You first dump all the pieces on the table and it doesn't make any sense, but then you start making patterns by joining the pieces until you're able to see more and more of the final picture.

Here are some of my pieces from yesterday that I had to try and fit together. (As bullet points, 'cause that's how I roll)

• seminary. First day of,
• WAVA (Washington Virtual Academy), First day of,
• Tomorrow's seminary lesson to prepare (don't ask how long I spent on it...)
• laundry (like the poor, it is always with us)
• Nathan springing an old missionary companion on us (Hello Elder Metzger...)
• Realizing that I would need to make some sort of effort for dinner (see above).
• Having to go shopping for dinner....
• Meeting a friend at the store and discussing our 13 year olds - making a "date" with her to take Danny swimming 3 times a week with her homeschooled daughter and another WAVA student from our ward.
• Making dinner, cinnamon rolls for seminary AND FHE treat (I do double duty when and where ever I can)
• FHE - which consisted of taking my family to church and setting up for seminary and then trying out my "Plan of Salvation" lesson on them.
• another hour fine tuning today's lesson.
• iron a skirt for today
• sleep

I'm hoping the puzzle pieces go together a little easier today.

We Appreciate Your Patience...

I have spent about an hour on the phone today with Danny's new teacher, Mrs. Wilson. So...first parent/teacher conference of the year done. I like her - I think it won't be a problem working with her. I am a little concerned with a couple of other aspects of school.

First of all...it's the first day of school and we don't have his schoolbooks. We knew a week or two ago that this was a strong possibility, but I wasn't overly concerned - I just figured that most of his work would be online.

Second of all...got online this morning, set up Danny's account, went to his classes and guess what? He needs his textbooks. The online information does just that. Gives him the information on what to study.....hard to do without the books.

Third of all...later in the day the entire site went down due to technical glitches. I'm pretty sure it was due to all of the frustrated parents gettting online to figure out where the school books are.

Fourth....we still have to keep track of attendance. I had Danny do 40 minutes of P.E. and we found a book on his reading list for him to start on - "The Hound of the Baskervilles".

Maybe Sherlock Holmes could figure out where the missing books are.

Open Mic Sunday

Yesterday morning I was at the fall seminary conference. A guy in the last class related an experience that he had had in relation to "open mic Sunday".

He used to be a counselor in a bishopric and dreaded testimony meeting. He hated the long pauses when no one was getting up - he was the type that wanted all the spaced filled. As he sat there during a lull, his bishop leaned over and said "This is my favorite part. When no one is standing up yet and you can watch the faces of people as they ponder the Spirit and whether to get up - or just think about their testimonies" (I'm paraphrasing).

His comment made me realize how important the silences are in church, not just the noise we make.

In spite of that, or maybe because of that comment he shared, I got up today. I figure I need to get used to bearing my testimony - like the voters in Chicago were urged to do "early and often".

Talking 'Bout My Generation(s)

I love this picture. Even though I am obviously behaving badly in it. (I'm the one that looks like a little Dutch boy - which I'm not. Not Dutch or a boy)

Marcy is standing on a little chair in front, I am being held by my grandmother, Hellen Hanna, Mom is standing between grandma (her mother in law) and Great Grandma Ida Bell Luther Hunter Harrison Momany. I look at pictures of my mother - and find it a little weird that I am older than she ever was in pictures. Looking at this picture is a little stranger. My grandmother was born in 1912. I was born in 1959. She was 47 when I was born - and I look to be around 2 years old in this picture....let's see....do the math.....Hmm. That would make her about 49 in this picture.

I'll be 49 next month.

6 degrees of Wynn B.

I talked to Marcy a couple of days ago - she was out birthday shopping for Wynn. (BTW, happy birthday Wynn!) anyway, during the conversation I asked her if Wynn had served a mission.

She said yes,

I asked where.

"Mississippi & Louisiana," she said.

"Why didn't you say something while we were there?" I exclaimed. "That's where Steve served his mission."

I think as men get older they don't try so hard to find common ground. Maybe if they had to go to more bridal showers, baby showers and RS activities there would be fewer wars. And rumors of wars.

Pig In A Blanket

Last night was one of those "I wish I had brought my camera" nights.

Our ward picnic/campout was a luau - and the organizers took the theme and ran with it - whole hog. They cooked a whole pig in a pit - covered it with hot rocks and wet burlap bags. The idea sounds okay - after all, I remember having a pig cooked in our front yard when I was a teenager - but somehow it wasn't quite as good. I think the problem was that they didn't actually bury the pig - just covered it - so all the juiciness leaked out. Oh well, it was still good and I'm pretty sure it all got eaten.
Since I didn't have my camera,this picture will have to do duty as substitute. It was practically the same...except, instead of banana leaves they used burlap, we did have Polynesians cooking, but since we live in the Pacific Northwest - they were rather more fully clothed. Ditto with the spectators. The onlookers at ours also had leis...plastic ones from the party store. And I think there was only one or maybe two people with cameras.

Aloha.

TGIF?

Alex is easy to get shoes for - he's bought pretty much the same shoes for the past 3 years. Since they tend to last for the whole year I'm happy with that.

Whew...what a day.

• Seminary stuff
• furniture moving (preparing for homeschooling which will start on Monday)
• getting a package ready to send to Andrew
• more seminary stuff (oh yeah, seminary starts on Monday too)
• grocery shopping (and shoe shopping for Alex...and me)
• ward campout (okay, we're not camping, but we are going out there for dinner)
• and did I mention, more seminary stuff?

I did manage to sit down(on the floor, since I have all my living room furniture shoved into the middle of the living room)and watch the entire men's marathon from the Olympics. I'm nearly through catching up on it...anyway, I spent the time working on seminary stuff and putting pictures into a small album to send to Andrew as per his request - and then making waffle brownies to finish filling up the box for him.

Tomorrow may be Saturday, but my day will start early with the fall Seminary Conference at 7am in Everett. I guess I'll be up by 6am.