Get it right.

Tonight we put the kids down for bed and they were fairly quiet for a while. Then we heard Brita hysterically screaming at Benton about something. We figured Benton was getting into Brita's bed, so Peter ran upstairs to check. He came back down to report that Benton was in his own bed and Brita had said, "I was trying to get Benton to say 'Brita' and he kept saying 'Mom' instead!"

Putting toys away..

Me: Brita, put your magnets away.
Brita: I can't.
Me: Yes, you can.
Brita: But it's hard.
Me: You can do hard things.
Brita: But I don't have to and I don't want to..and stuff.

Please Release Me, Let Me Go..

I've had that song stuck in my head for the last six months or so.

Today I was released as the Relief Society secretary. Kind of sad about that. Mostly happy. I tried really hard to do a good job in my calling and I think I did okay, but I got really burned out. I'll really miss the people I worked with--the presidency is amazing. I'll probably even miss their little idiosyncrasies that drove me crazy sometimes. I loved being in the relief society and getting to know all the sisters. But at the same time I feel so relieved not to have to worry about getting everything done and keeping up on everything enough to keep the rest of the presidency up on everything. I think they might be a little relieved that I'm gone. I was kind of annoying. I think I made my job harder than it should have been, but I felt like if I let anything slip I'd be not doing everything that I could to help the sisters know they were loved and feel included. I still let things slip and that led to me just feeling guilty all the time. Nothing is more awful than knowing you're not doing everything you're supposed to be doing, which is kind of the story of my life.

I'm excited to teach in primary now. I have an amazing team teacher and I'm so excited to learn from her. I hope my kids like me. I know a bit about some of them, but I don't really know any of them. Hopefully I'm not one of those teachers that the kids hate. Or maybe that was just me that really didn't like some of the primary teachers that I had. Actually there was just one when I was eleven that I really didn't like. She tried to be our friend and didn't really teach us. I hated that. One of my favorite teachers was Brother Wickline. He hung people that misbehaved upside down by their ankles. And said that if you left the country you had to be rebaptized in the country that you were in. I loved him. I made one of my Sunday school teachers quit one time. Still kind of traumatized by that. I really liked her as a teacher, but she was kind of afraid of me and asked to be released.

Anyways, here's hoping that the incredibly relieved feeling that I have now sticks around for a while.

Long-winded ramblings.

I loved Ricks. A lot. I am so glad I went to school there. I'm glad I went to BYU first as a visiting student and I'm glad I went to BYU and the U of I afterward. Pretty much I loved my college career. Ricks was probably my favorite school, though, for a lot of reasons. For one I was in a department where most of the teachers loved me and treated me as a daughter. I loved my Ag teachers. For two I got to work on the Ricks college farm and clean out grease buckets and power wash tractors and stuff. And, you know, pick tons of rocks out of fields where they would put in parking lots and temples.

Another reason I loved Ricks is because of a teacher that I didn't like. His name is Dr. Holdaway and he is one of the best teachers I ever had. We didn't get along. Kind of at all, until a little over half way through the semester. He taught botany and was amazing at it. I took his class just a bit before he retired and right after he got remarried. he team taught with Dr. Weller.

We several fights throughout the semester, but one was about a lab I did where I was supposed to find out what kind of a sugar was in a certain vial. I ran all the tests and came out that it was water. Apparently it wasn't water, though so I failed the lab. I was pretty ticked. Especially since I did the test two or three times to be sure. So I went and talked to him to find out what was in my vial and find out how the test could have gone wrong. He refused to tell me and I stomped out of his office telling him off. Luckily Brother Weller was there to push me back in and we had a nice little chat and worked things out. I was so mad at Dr. Holdaway, though--probably why it took me about a week after the lab to calm down to go back to his office and talk to him. Wow, didn't mean to write that story.

Another fight, and the one I meant to write about, was when I went to tell him that I was going to be taking off for potato harvest. I told him that it was a school approved absence and a mini-internship and he didn't buy it at all. He swore up and down that there was no way he was honoring that and my absences would count against me this wasn't high school. So I went down to Dr. Walkers office and brought him back with me to say that, yes, this really was a legitimate thing. Turns out Dr. Walker and Dr. Holdaway were rivals since grad school, so that was fun. I think I induced more yelling in that hallway than any other student. So then he said that my absences wouldn't count against me, but there was no way I would pass the test and I'd be accountable for all the information that they covered in class. So I, of course, vowed to ace their stinking test. And I did. I didn't work all that hard in college, but I did for that test and it was so worth it. I think I got the second highest score and the only thing I missed was something that they had covered in a lab that I hadn't made up yet.

I hate it when people tell me I can't do things. I don't know why I need to prove people wrong, but it makes me much more productive. Sad, but one of my greatest memories was having Dr Holdaway and Brother Weller look up my score and tell me that I had done well. Take that. I eventually got over myself and we were semi-friends. Every time I walked down their hallway they would say, "Here comes trouble." I think they still cringed when I stopped at their doors to talk to them, though. I am so glad that I had such an amazing botany professor, though. I wish I could remember half of what he taught me.

Oh THAT kind of an animal

Brita: I'm thinking of an animal that starts with a 'h' sound.
Mom: A horse?
Brita: No. I was thinking of a house.

Crash and burn

I once did a demonstration for a new member discussion where I made a rocket out of a tea bag. I did it all the time, but this time it didn't work--like the rocket didn't take off. I burned Peter's hand fairly bad. And I burned my hand. It worked in Peter's parents car when I tried it before the discussion, though, so I'm not sure what happened. And I'm pretty sure I never told Peter's parents that I started a fire in their car before. I guess there's a first time for everything. Don't worry, I didn't crash their car.
This random memory brought to you by S&W. S&W used to be owned by growers, which makes even the random memories just a little more special.

It's over

So I hosted play group today. It was so incredibly stressful, And I have no idea why. I was stressed all day yesterday and last night I couldn't sleep and when I did sleep I had a dream where no one came except my neighbor and another lady, but they both just hung out in the one lady's big black truck and wouldn't even come in. And then they talked to the relief society president in the truck too. And this morning I was trying to clean my house and it was just stressful and then no one came until about fifteen minutes late and it was like my dream was coming true, except for the fictional big black truck, but then people came and played and it was fun. The End.

Lazy

So Monica was talking to Pamela today about various things and that fact that Monica and I think we're incredibly clever and probably no one else thinks that we're as clever as we think we are came up. Which of course lead to a conversation about our new recipe blog.
Pamela: So what is this all about anyway?
Monica: Well, Melissa was doing recipes and sending them to me and I was making them and Andrea was eating them and commenting about them so people were asking her for the recipe and she was too lazy to give it to them so she made a blog that Melissa could post them and she could just refer people to.
Pamela: Oh, that makes sense.

Yep, it's a good thing people understand my level of the lazies.

Rhyming

Brita has learned to rhyme recently. She's still not perfect at it, but she does pretty good most of the time. Today she was hanging out with Monica and the following conversation ensued.
Brita: Light and Bell rhyme.
Monica: Not really. Light rhymes with tight and bite and kite and things like that.
Brita: And what does bell rhyme with?
Monica (Thinks of something not appropriate to teach a three-year-old and can't think of anything else besides the fact that she doesn't want to corrupt my daughter.)
Brita: Bell and hell rhyme.
Monica: Yes, yes they do.

The Fairest

Last Saturday we were driving around, going to a bunch of stores and stuff and Peter asked Brita if she wanted to go to the mall.

Brita: Like at Grandma's house

Me: Um..sure.

Brita: You know, Grandma Collett. She has the book.

Me: What book?

Brita: Snow white. Who's the fairest of the mall?