Joining the throngs.

So I am joining the throngs going to wordpress. It is totally an easier format to post. So Here I am. Come have fun with me.

the red crayon revisited

So I was extremely happy with myself. I had used money we had been saving for a tv to restock Kevin's closet due to the face wash incident. I then spent the rest of the money we had saved for a tv and got him a playstation instead. We bought what we needed and still had the money to spend on something fun although granted it wasnt' the tv we were planning on . Kevin's closet needs were handled so I bought the ps2 We have had fun with our little toy. Lots of fun. Sigh. Lots and lots of fun. I went to iron Kevin's shirts (the ones that had not perished) to find little red spots EVERYWHERE! Ack! Blood was my first thought. Kevin! Why are your shirts covered in blood?! And why did they come home! Ick and double Ick. Alas that was not the case. Red crayon. Yep you know the story of the red crayon in the wash. Oh yeah. Several of Kevin's shirts found their way into that batch and I hadn't noticed yet because the spots are small albeit noticable. I took acetone to the shirt and only salvaged 1 out of 4 shirts. It just didn't work on some of the shirts. Sniff. sad sad world.

successful working mothers and the primary program

So working as the secretary in the Primary Presidency has been an interesting ride. I love doing what I'm doing for the most part. I've had a couple of irritating things happen, more pet peeves or what not with individual memeber of the presidency. They are all wonderful women, seriously, I love them all. However, the irritating moments have all arrisen from one simple fact/action on the part of certain people in the presidency. What is the irritating behavior you ask? I am not a personal assistant. I am the secretary. If I have my hands full of doing something and you need one copy of a random sheet of paper and you've just been sitting there enjoying singing or sharing time and not doing anything yourself it is NOT cool to ask me, who has been going around doing the multitude of stuff that I have to do EVERY week and ask me to drop everything that I am doing and make a copy for you. Take the paper in your hand walk it down the hall to the librarian, they really are nice people, and have them make you one copy. Case in point. I arrived an hour early to church yesterday to do a whole bunch of stuff I was asked to do by the presidency (miking and seating arrangements, stuff that needed to be done the day of, actually I would have done it the day before but I had to work and between everything couldn't do it.) anyway back to my story. I arrived 1 hour before to help set up the stage. I was getting the programs together (with last minute stuff I might add that someone had asked me to do the day before), it was 20 minutes until Sacrament Meeting started, I had been scrambling for 40 minutes because NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE YET when an individual comes up to me while I am stuffing programs frantically because people are starting to arrive and asks me to make a copy for them because some teachers didnt' bring their copies of the program. I looked at said individual and said "The Master copy is in the cabinet." She said "I know but I need these done." I couldn't even say anythign I was so annoyed, flabergasted and what not. I just looked at her. She arrived 20 minutes before hand and wanted me to drop everything I was doing, which was everything that needed to be done, meaning there was nothing left for her to do and go make her a copy. My glare must have gotten my point across because she said "oh I guess I'll go make the copy myself." Um yeah, good idea. You see these individuals are extremely successful in their own respective work places. They are working moms with personal assistants, nannies and maids. It's not that they are purposefully trying to be offensive they are just not thinking that the church is not work. I am not your slave nor personal assistant. It is my job to make your job of caring for the kids easier. I take roll, make sure all the sisters get everything from the RS so they don't feel isolated in Primary, I make copies for the chorister and laminate everything, I also manage the bulletin board every month, make and hand out our primary newsletter, make all the assignments for talks and scriptures, and act as a liason for the parents. Yes the parents usually come to me when they have a question. I don't mind making copies for you too. Just not at the last minute, just not when I have to drop everything to make it for you, when you are not doing anything yourself. I don't mind helping you cut out the things you need for your sharing time just not when I'm balancing 150 copies in my arms and I have to find you the scissors, they are in the cabinet labeled scissors, just open the box, they are right there. Yes everything is labeled for your convienience. Yes all the master copies are in the closet. Yes I have folders put together for new teachers in teh closet. Yes everythign is labeled for you. Yes I know her parents, yes I will find them for you. Yes I'll get you the budget information, yes I have an updated roll. yes. ok enough ranting. I'm done. whew! had to get that out! On a different note entirely the primary program was AWESOME!!!! I mean completely totatlly awesome! The kids did a great job. We had the traditional kids the did their parts perfectly and we had the fun ones who livened it up. We had one child who wanted to expound on his part but couldn't think of anythign to say so he said his part 3x "Adam was a prophet". Hee hee. We had one snaffoo. The first song was to be accompanied by one of the little girls who was going to play the harp. She had to go to the bathroom at that point in time. Well she wasn't there when it was her time to play so they went on without her. She arrived 5 mintues later. Well they decided to have her song sung again at the end of the program. Well technically we were done with all the songs when one of the sunbeams who has special needs yelled out "and now for one more song!" Lol I lost it as did most of the congregation. I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard. But he was right. We had that little girl come down right then to play her song. It was awesome! And my little Megan knew all the songs. She was up there singing away, smiling at her mommy and daddy then watching Sister Betsy like she was supposed to. It was adorable. I loved it completely. It totally made up for everything that happened before. We also had people coming from all regions saying it was the best one yet. Why? It was miked. Oh yeah baby. That was me... actually and Brian and sound expert who brought his mikes and helped us set up everything and run tests so that you could hear all the little kids in the very back of the cultural hall. Yep yeah for us! After the program we had a silly singing time. That was fun because Betsy had a variety of manners to sing songs. The kids got to pick a song and then had to sing the song the way Betsy had them pick on tongue depressors. Then they had all the teachers get up and sing too. Haha! Some of the older girls that I talk to a lot came out and hunted me down to sing with the adults. It was fun, mostly because I'm not a reserved person. All the teachers were up there singing like "I really really don't want to be doing this". Not me buddy. Hee hee. We had to sing as if we were singing underwater. So everyone was kind of mumbling singing. I decided to act up. Yes I got to reinact my child hood. I did this in primary when I was a kid so hey to have free licence to do it again I was game. I started "swimming" with my hands and puffing out my lips and swimming back and forth. I got some pretty funny looks from the teachers and I had the kids in stitches. I then started wiggling my finger between my lips like you do to babies and singing that way. Hey it sounded like I was underwater. I got the men, alas not the women, to do it with me. The kids loved it and started singing with us doing the whole finger thing too. It was awesome. Yes I was a hit. They got me to sing opera too, which I have a distinct memory of being in primary in the Valiant 8 class and getting my class to sing opera. We got into big trouble but we kept doing it. Ahhh the full circle. I loved it. I then got to hook up the tvs to watch our movie. I'm pretty good at hooking up electronics so it was a breeze just linking the two tvs together to show the same thing. I got comments like "can you come to my house and hook up my tvs, I can't get them to work." I was pretty proud of myself. The kids got to sit on blankets and watch some "living Scriptures" movie. They got treats and stuff. I noticed one of the little girls wasn't eating. Then it hit me. She had sciliac disease, meaning she couldn't eat anything with gluten. We had forgotten to get her something! Then I looked up and saw her mom. She was crying. "Oh crud" I thought. I went to talk to the mom and she told me that it's ok but her daughter was goign to go home and cry about it and she hates that. I guess this past month with the holidays and stuff the little girl had several parties that she didn't get to participate in because of her disease, felt left out and went home and cried. I went into scramble mode. I ran into Betsy in the hall. She saw my face and went "what's wrong?" Oh man. We both took off running to the nursery to see if they had non gluten food there. We lucked out they had sliced apples for their snack that day. They said to take as many as we wanted. We did and the little girl's face was incredible when we gave her the apples. She was so thankful to be able to participate. I was so ashamed that we hadn't thought of her special needs when we talked about the snack. We won't forget from now on. Thank goodness for the nursery is all I can say. Overall though it was a good day. ONe to live in my memory (ok I just typed mammory for some reason and had to rewrite it. weird) for a long time. My baby said her part perfectly and sand ALL THE SONGS. Yeah for my baby!

Home again

So I almost cried when Kevin came home today. Spencer wanted to play with daddy all day today (no I was not good enough) so when Kevin came home he was ecstatic. So was Megan. They played and got tossed around. Kevin's face was all lit up as were the kids. It was perfect. Seriously Perfect. It's no wonder the big thing about the church is families. This was heaven to me today. The kids were so adorable and Kevin was loving life. Kevin hadn't seen the kids for the last 2 days. He made it to kiss them goodnight 2 nights ago and they were asleep by the time he got home last night. I think they missed each other.

update

So Kevin is in his Surgical Specialites rotation now. This is, unlike general surgery (the last 6 weeks) where he gets assigned 3 different specialites to clerk in. His assignments, orthopedics, ent and neurology. When he tells people what he got they just look at him. Out of all the specialites these 3 are the ones that require the most work. You go babe! Yep the poor thing is exhausted. He's doing his orthopedics right now. He said the surgeries are incredibly physical (he held up a leg for 6 hours yesterday). He's tired and sore and the poor thing comes home and collapses only to have to get up and research the next day's surgeries. Average sleep time this wek 6 hours. The poor thing!!! That would be 16 hours out of the house and 2 hours of study time. Ugh. I've been trying to be a good wife and provide dinners for him when he gets home. On a different note did you know that certain face soaps will leach into your shirts (if you wear collared shirts like Kevin) and then when you wash the said shirt it will bleach out the collar so can't wear those said shirts anymore. Yeah that's what happened. I was stressed because nice shirts are expensive but hey, we've been saving for a tv and we took that money to buy him his shirts and his birthday present. Yes I broke. I got him a playstation 2. No tv but that's ok he has his clothes and his very long desired playstation. I did well on the game choices too. Fun stuff. Too bad he hasn't had a chance to play it yet. That's what the weekend was for. To hear him sit at the table and say "I'm exercising restraint." and look longingly at it was worth every penny. Also to see him ask if I asked about a certain game he likes and me to say "yes it's right there next to the playstation" have him look at me like I had given him the best surprise and then have him run into the other room to look at it. Yep I done good. Talking about doing good. I haven't seen Montse post anything so I'll let you guys know she and baby are doing good!

Note to self

Self, Do not fall behind on the laundry when your husband is in a surgical rotation. Especially when he has to go to work at 4:30 ish 5am in the morning. That means that unless you wake up that early in the morning with the clothes that he needs you need to be prepared and have it ready for him BEFORE bed time. Especially when he is so incredibly kind he would do it himself if he had the time. 15-18 hour days are not conducive to doing his own laundry. Self, seriously you are awake at 1 am waiting on the laundry to dry so your dh will have clothes to wear to work/school in 3 hours when he showers. At least you found a show on TV you like (top chef) and you've found out that diet coke does work for keeping you up this late. Too bad contacts do not. Blurry vision is not helping for the awakedness of you mind. Self you had a relatively easy day, sure it was a horrid day over all but seriously how hard is it to stick a load in earlier than 4pm? I guess that's what set you back self. The red crayon. Ugh. Work clothes would have been done around 10 had you not had to go to the store for stuff to clean the dryer so that other loads of laundry would not turn red. Still, yesterday was available as was the morning. Self, stupid stupid self we need to change and have a talk about procrastination. Laundry better be done. I am taking stupid self to bed. ugh. I used to do this ALL THE time in college? When did I get old? I mean seriously actually I was doing this 2 years ago... At least I think I was. Maybe I'm delutional....

did you know

1. That when washed and dried red crayon WILL get all over the clothes and the dryer and stay there. 2. Wiping the interior of said red dryer with 100% acetone will wipe ALL the red crayon off. :-) 3. Apparently, not tried yet but will first thing tomorrow, Cold water tide mixed with a cup of shout will get all red crayon out of clothes. We'll try this whole theory tomorrow.

cuteness all over the place

Like my little sassy girl before going to school? She's gotta have her skirts.

Following the Plan

So apparently I have a lot to say this evening and Kevin is busy so I will post my day. Today I couldn't withstand, I couldn't hold back, I spoke, out loud. Sigh. I failed miserably. You see I am a very outspoken person. *what no? gasp Me? you say* Yes, sad to admit it I am. Well, at least in large groups I prefer to hold my tongue. Actually it's more of if it looks like things are going well without me I'll give them their head if not I can't stand it and will take over the situation. This goes with pretty much everything. Don't like sitting around, I'll organize something. People can't make a decision? I'll make it for them. People can't say what's going on, I'll verbalize it. Except at church. Why church you say? Well because I am the Primary secretary. If I did start talking I would be afraid of overpowering the presidency with my um... how to put this delicatley force of presense? Yes I'm afraid of taking over the show. It's not my place so I just do the paper work. Occationally I'll try to slip in a suggestion but I try not to because well it's their calling and they have the stewardship over the Primary (kids organization at church). Well today I failed. Badly I might add. Yesterday as well. Sad, I couldn't help it. I took over. I am ashamed. I am telling my side of the story before I call and apologize to the presidency so here it goes. I hate a poorly executed plan. I am more of a we have a plan, the plan is working, let's stick to the plan type of person (STOP LAUGHING MOM AND DAD AND MONTSE! I really am. really, the rest of you believe me right?). I've become more of such a person since teaching 7th graders for 3 years. Man if that doesn't make you stick to a plan nothing will. So I digress here's what happened. We were practicing for the Primary Program today. This was the final run through and I was in charge of sound (meaning miking the joint). Now you see I have NEVER ever set up mikes for anything in my whole life and all of a sudden here I am in charge of a crucial piece of equipment. Needless to say I did a superb job and the sound was just lovely (I must add that I had the opportunity to disrupt the Elders Quarum not once, not twice but three times just for sound checks, that was really fun because the men didn't think I could get it together. It sure sounded better than anything they've ever done before for us. hee hee). Anyway, our chorister is Betsy. This chicka is 25 and an EVENT PLANNER. I mean serious event planner. She is the COOLEST and if my brothers would get it in gear they should come out and marry this little lassie. Anyway I digress again. Betsy's first event that she planned professionally was the March of Dimes banquet. Her latest the Capital 4th of July. You know the one on TV broadcast throughout the nation, the one that had Elmo this past year. Well that's Betsy. It's all her. She planned it and executed it. She even ran the evacuation from DC when it started raining and the Secret Service or the NSF or something called an evac of DC that night. Yep that was Betsy. Well she's running the show. So when I say that things were WELL PLANNED AND THOUGHT OUT you get the idea. Well people started having different opinions and changing the plan. They wanted kids over here. Sing in a different order. Teachers didn't want to do it that way, the kids needed to sit in order and in certain places even though because they had to weave through chairs they would be out of order when they got to the pulpit and even though this was the last run through certain teachers were going to express their opinion even though they couldn't make it to the first run through yesterday when we had time to make changes.. yadayadayada. You see how it was going. It finally got to the point where people were just griping and not listening to Besty, nor Monica (the president). We have a couple of preggo teachers who people have been tiptoeing around. Anywhooooo so it just started escalating. Having been around LOTS of people and situations I can read people really well. I tend to peg when people have an opinion and start getting upset. I went into "teacher, loud outspoken, handle the situation mode". I avoid this state as much as possible but I couldn't take it anymore. I started talking to each teacher, individually then made the changes (running them by the leadership of course.... what they didn't know, or actually they did know is I made things go back to the original plan) Kids started acting up because they saw some adults commenting and I gave them my teacher stare. They got noisy and they got me. Someone decided to try to change the plan and they got me. On top of all that I solved problems! Go me! I did a little McGyvering on the chairs so they didn't pop up, causing less things for the kids to play with. I must say I just flew into a whirlwind. In rereading this I sound like I'm bragging. I am so not, I'm just trying to give you the picture of what I ended up doing and why I usually avoid doing this stuff. I take over. I mean really take over. I mean there is no room for confrontation, forget what you were going to say because you will not get a chance to say it here, it's my way or the high way, got a problem here's your solution take it or leave in your face kind of me. It's the me I don't like being but in a way I totally get a rush when I take over type of person. It's the A type obsesive part of me coming out. I usually hate that part of me and I try to repress that part as much as possible, I failed today. Miserably. I guess on a high note I did get a rush out of the situation, people at church know how much I have been holding my tongue while there and I made Betsy and Monica happy because I put their plan back on track. (Note: had Betsy been at work and not at chruch she would have been the one getting the train back on track, it's funny the different types of people we become when at church). Another Note: I think I made Monica like me a whole lot more. Hee hee I like that woman.

The hills are alive

Oh yeah baby! I am training my kids early. They stand no chance. They have no hope. Today was fleshy day (as are all Sundays), meaning all children under the age of 5 are in their undies all day after church. OK this was not my mandate but that of the kids. Soooo anyway as I was saying, today was fleshy day so here are my children after their naps sitting on a towel on the carpet, eating Count Chockula cereal (I know I know wrong on so many levels) and I turned on The Sound of Music. It was awesome, the singing the dancing, the Spenc refusing to go potty because he didn't want to miss a minute of "high on the hill was a lonely goat heard ladioladio lady hee who". Yep he was dancing and dancing because he didn't want to miss a minute of it. I paused it finally and he dashed to the bathroom to appear in point 2 seconds with undies in hand ready to resume the movie. Man, they were into it. THEY WATCHED THE WHOLE THING! They were very concerned about the bad guys trying to get the family. We had that whole section with me holding Spencer and Megan (yes they were nervous) and we were all yelling at the tv "Get down and hide! Don't let them see you!" and "Run Run Run family Run!". Yes it was a great experience it was me and my kids and the Sound of Music on Fleshy Day. Doesn't get much better than that. (It might have been better with Kevin but he had to go to the Hospital. I only say might because had he been there the evening would have abounded with sarcastic comments. We'll convert him to the Sound yet!!! I'll get you my pretty! *laughing diabolically thinking of converting Kevin into loving the Sound of Music as much as I do ah ha hahahha!* OK I'm back to my normal self. continue on to your regularly scheduled programming).

SOOOOOOO Much fun!

So I love new music made from old music. Yes I'm a fan of the remakes. Charlie recoreded his version of the Riverbottom Nightmare band. If it's not sounding familiar think muppets and Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas. :-) Enjoy!!

Please

"Mommy can we watch 'Monsters'?" "Only if you say Pretty Pretty Please." "Pretty Pretty Please!" With a grin on her face. "Handsome Handsome please!" from the little boy with a perplexed look on his face. You see Pretty is for girls, Handsome is for boys. "Ha! Handsome Handsome please too!" Yes they got to watch Monsters and I got to laugh at their cuteness the rest of the day.

A pinch of this a dash of that

So Jeanie and I had lunch the other day. Did I ever tell you how much I admire her cooking abilities? Anyway we ate pumpkin soup. It was delicious. Today I decided to make my own pumpkin soup. Following her pinch of this a shake of that recipe I made a batch today. OHHHHH sooo yummy so I pass on the recipe. one can of pumpkin one can of black beans one lg can of chicken broth left over rotisserie or whatever chicken you have on hand (about 2 handfuls) lots of garlic cumin 4 shakes of pumpkin pie spice salt red pepper (adds a smoky flavor) ** a touch of curry, not too much you don't want to create a curry, it just adds a little something. so I did this times two for the week and it is heavenly it. It tastes like a soup that you don't know what's in it but you can't identify what makes it sooo good. It's the pumpkin. Because after it's all done if you didn't know pumpkin was in it you just wouldn't know. But it is so yummy. This got a WHOA THAT'S GOOD from Kevin. Yes! Success!