Nearer, My God, to Thee

Today I'm hugging my boys a little bit tighter and cherishing them a bit more.

 
Today I'm praying for the grieving families in Connecticut. 

Today I'm thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ.
"But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world" Moroni 8:12

Lesson Learned

(He's not as innocent as he looks, I promise)

Remember all of those moms that drove you crazy because they let their children run wild at church or other events? I vowed I'd never be one . . .

Tuesday night is one I should just spend at home. Period. Matt is the exec. sec. in our ward, and so on Tuesdays, he's gone from 6 p.m. until whenever they get done. Well, our ward's night to have the building is on Tuesdays as well. Thus, all youth activities, most enrichment activities, and other activities (except the ward activities -- they usually plan for the weekends, thank goodness) are scheduled for Tuesday night. Well, this week the primary presidency decided to have a Teacher Appreciation Dinner at the church. And then an enrichment mini-activity followed the dinner. I signed up to do a craft at the enrichment activity, and who can't pass up a good, free meal! Usually, the enrichment committee plans a kid's class, but since this was a mini-activity, they didn't, and I knew they weren't go to have one. I figured I could handle myself and my son for a couple of hours, so I packed up Jackson with a few toys and off we went.

I will NEVER EVER EVER do that again! I felt like a horrible mom. My child was the one who kept running off, and within a few minutes I would be scouring the halls looking for him. Most of the time he ended up down by the bishop's office near Matt or with Matt or with the bishop. Either way, I continued to torture myself and stayed for nearly 2 hours exhausting myself trying to keep "tabs" on my 3-year-old. I'm so embarrassed. I know I looked like the mom who can't control her children. Jackson either won't listen, or he just doesn't understand. I think it's a mixture of both. Next time, I might show up to the dinner, but I'll just pick up my craft and go home. It'll just be easier that way.

Oh, and then my brother, who doesn't know this happened, sent me an email this morning with a link to a news story about a little girl being abducted (and assaulted) from an LDS church house in Maryland. Great. If I didn't have guilt and worry (which I did), I do now.

Do you love American Idol?

Well, this post is not about American Idol, but it is about something similar to A.I. On Monday, November 12 (this Monday for those of you, who like me, forget the current date on a daily basis), visit totalpopstar.com and vote for your favorite singer. If you go there before that date, you will just see the advertisement, or you could enter the contest, perhaps. Basically, this website is going to be American Idol on the internet, but it's not affiliated with American Idol. Who knows what will turn out from this?

How and why do I know about this website since I'm not a big internet surfer? Well, my big brother owns a small share in the business, and I'm advertising it for him. I'm interested to see if this idea hits the ground running. Perhaps it will flop, who knows. But I'm always up for watching brave people (you have to be brave to sing in front of who knows how many people) try to hit a note and sing a song. I can't sing, and I can tell when somebody else can't either.

Oh, well, just try to visit the site on Monday and we'll see what happens. It can't hurt can it? (Besides your ears, I mean.)

Quilling

Remember all of those times you were bored in a class, or in church, or just sitting at home? Did you ever find a scrap of paper and start rolling it and making shapes like this one?

Or like this one?

Or any of these others?
Maybe you're all a little more "in-the-know" and you know that this is actually an art form. Yes, unbeknownst to me, it is an art form that can be traced back to the 18th century. I just thought it was what one did when he or she was bored. I never thought to use these shapes and put them together to make neat accessories and crafts for your scrapbook pages like this:

It really is cute and I like the idea, but it's a lot of work, and I didn't know that paper rolling was a perfected art form. I found out while I was exercising and watching HGTV (to make the time go by faster), and they had an episode of DIY Scrapbooking all about quilling. At least now I can say I've learned a new vocabulary word and an art form at the same time!

A great product

Hey, all, I just wanted to post this link because I don't think I've mentioned it yet on my blog. (I'm sure some of you are going to be doing this, too, if you got the email from Katie.) My friend has created this product and started an online company where you can order it. Anyway, the product is the topless undershirt. It's an undershirt that is meant to give you a layered look and to keep you from "exposing" yourself when you're wearing a short shirt. It works as maternity clothes as well. The best way to describe it is to watch the video at the link below:

http://www.abc4.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=76509@video.ktvx.com&navCatId=8

Virtual Makeover

This morning as I was surfing the net, I totally came across this website. I decided to register and get a virtual makeover. I loved it. I kept thinking -- wow, I wish I could make myself look this good, and all I did was change the hairstyle. Victoria Beckham's look (above) was my inspiration. The program even let me change the hair color to match mine. I hadn't done my makeup or anything yet this morning, but hey, I thought if I could pull off the look, then I might not be so self-conscious anymore (yeah, right!). I'm not sure how to import my picture onto this post, but go try out the makeover, if you haven't yet. It was fun.

Snow in September?

Give me a break. We just hit fall, and today winter was here in full force. Arrgh! Let me enjoy the nice, cool, crisp weather for a month or so. It rained all morning, and by the afternoon, snow was covering the ground, and it was sticking! You've made your surprising entrance, winter, now back off for a while so I can enjoy the seasons in their proper order.

Sick

For the last few days, I've felt quite yucky. When I was thinking how to describe it to my husband, I thought of Brian Regan, "Everything on my inside wants to be on my outside." If you haven't had a chance to watch his stuff, I highly recommend it! I've never laughed so hard in my life. Many people own one of his DVDs, and I know you can find them online.

Thoughts on reading

So after about two months, Matt and I finished reading the final Harry Potter last night at 12:45 a.m. It seemed to take forever, but then I remembered when I read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. My brother owned the unabridged version, and I really wanted to read it; so he lent the book to me while he went on his mission. It literally took me two years to read that book. I really crammed the last few months before my brother got home to make sure I finished it. All of the French history and background really tripped me up, and Hugo puts some in about every other chapter. The whole process was long and tedious. I remember understanding the book better because of the history, but I swore I would never read the unabridged version again. One time did it for me.

I do enjoy reading, but I'm more of a light reader. I prefer the easy stories. When I first decided I should read Harry Potter because I was going to be a teacher, I couldn't get through it until I started reading it aloud for my fourth grade class. That's when I started enjoying it. Yet, I've never finished the second book all the way through. The rest of the series I couldn't put down, although books 4, 5, 6, and 7 I read aloud with Matt. I much prefer it that way -- we could really discuss what was happening together. I've really enjoyed reading every night with him, and I think I'd like to keep doing that. Maybe we can read more educational books so that I don't feel like Joey from Friends --- remember that episode: the one where he buys the V volume of an encyclopedia set from Penn and Teller so he sounds educated in conversation?

I love a good thunder/lightning/rain storm. It always seems to clear the air, and something about lightning and thunder is intriguing. Of course, lightning is very scary up close. I remember on a family trip as we were driving between Baton Rouge and New Orleans lightning struck in the median on the freeway not ten feet from our car. Deafening and bright is how I'd describe it. My ten year old brother (at the time) was scared, but the rest of us thought it was pretty awesome. In Virginia a few years ago while visiting my in-laws, we watched the most magnificent lightning show I'd ever seen. Spider wed-like lightning raced across a pink sky. Very neat. This morning we woke up to the thunder. We've opened the windows, and I'm enjoying the rain sounds outside. Once upon a time when I was very little I was scared, but now it's therapeutic. I guess my feelings would change if it started flooding . . . better count my blessings!

A great find

I'm the type of person who loves a broad spectrum of music, yet I hate to buy it. I hate buying a whole CD just for a few songs that I really like, I don't have an iPod, and I usually listen to my mp3 player when I exercise. And I don't like to support the pirating software junkies. I'm not anal about those things, but I do like to be honest. I love to listen to music when I clean or when I'm just relaxing. My wonderful husband found this great website for me: Pandora.com. It's a radio station that you can put in what type of music you like and the database will create a website for you. It's completely legal as you can't download the songs, and you can't "rewind" a song, and you can only skip a certain number of songs during an hour. You can put in multiple artists and songs so it can figure out what music you like. Also, as you're listening if it plays a song you don't particularly like, you can scroll over the song playing and give it a "thumbs-down." Basically, the more information you put into the database, the better selection of music you get. I set up an account with an email address and password. You can also create multiple radio stations in your own account. I think if you buy a subscription you can do more with it like request specific songs, not just a genre. For now, I'll take the free music.

Updates

So I've decided to do a post updating you on a few things in my life.
1. The Leprechaun's batteries are dead! Yipee! No more awful lyrics running through my head.
2. Our new car is wonderful, and I don't miss the old one at all.
3. Remember my garden? Well, so far I've eaten cabbage, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, and (as of yesterday) cantelope. It's been very successful and very tasty. I will do things differently next year, but it's been a fun learning experience.
4. Adoption: Well, we haven't heard anything yet, but we're still waiting. A few family members and a friend have passed on our information to people they know who are looking for adoptive parents. We wait patiently and prayerfully. It's easy to pray, but the patience part is sometimes hard.
5. Jackson starts preschool again on September 5. I'm very excited for him to go back, and I'm sure he's ready for more friends again. It'll be nice to be out of our summer non-routine.
6. Matt is still working two jobs -- they haven't replaced him as BYU Radio Manager. The "guys in charge" are still figuring out how they want to handle that position. In the meantime, my husband is one tired guy.
7. Oh, yes, and I did cancel my software order from that door-to-door salesman guy. I received my refund and deposited the check immediately after mine had been deposited. Hopefully I will not get a knock on my door in September asking me for the remaining balance -- I don't want the software!!
Well, that's all I can think of right now. Perhaps I'll think of more things later.