7 Quick Takes about Saying Goodbye, Spaceships Bigger Than My House, and Flattery Getting You Everywhere In This House

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

I've known for a few months that it was going to happen, but on Sunday I was officially released from my calling as Young Women's president. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basically everything is done by volunteers, and for the last 3 years my volunteer job at church was leading the teenage girls' youth organization. It was a labor-intensive calling, for sure.

People think the most energy-consuming part is planning a constant cycle of youth lessons and activities — which does take a good chunk of time, but the real work of the calling is invisible. It's praying for and thinking of ways to help the kids who are having a hard time. It's fielding phone calls from worried parents or dropping everything to go visit one of the girls in the hospital. It's helping them write college essays, going to support them in their school plays or concerts, or reading their favorite YA book so I had something to talk to them about. I won't miss some of the busywork and the meetings, but I will definitely miss being part of these girls' lives.

When I told my daughter I was going to be released as Young Women's president, her response wasn't what I expected. I thought she might demand immediately to know who the next president would be, or maybe that she would be sad (or happy?) that I wasn't going to be the president anymore. But instead, she said, "You mean you're unemployed?" Then, realizing that she had a calling at church in her class presidency, she giggled, "I have a job and you don't!"

—2—

The 14-year-old has been relying on her brother to pick her up from cross-country practice, but recently he's either been late or forgotten.

One morning I noticed that she'd left this note on the fridge, hoping that someone (anyone!) would come get her on time that day. Kind of the equivalent of sending out a "help me" message in a bottle.

You can feel the desperation in the handwriting.

After the last time he forgot, I went to go pick up the 14-year-old  myself and she was venting to me in the car. Trying to empathize (and also diffuse the situation with humor), I told her, "You have my permission to hit him in the head with a frying pan."

"How would that solve my problem??" she cried. "I don't want to hit him with a frying pan, I just want him to pick me up!"

Well then, I guess someone in this car is more mature than me.

—3—

The 14-year-old recently read The Martian and was dying to watch the movie. So one night we put the younger kids to bed, got some of her Halloween candy, and watched it together on Netflix. 

I enjoyed the movie, and luckily my daughter knows me well enough to tell me at every suspenseful scene what the outcome is going to be so I don't have heart palpitations.

There's one intense scene where Matt Damon is stuck on Mars rationing his food and the NASA crew on earth is desperately calculating whether they can get more supplies to him before he starves to death, and it was at that moment that my daughter chose to wail "Oh no, I only have two Nerds gummies left!"

And that's all you need to know about kids and how they work.

—4—

The only thing I didn't like about The Martian  was the ridiculously huge, sleek interior of the spacecraft. It looked like a cruise ship instead of a spaceship, with an onboard gym the size of a Planet Fitness.

Seriously, I laughed out loud when I saw their ship's exercise area. There were two rowing machines. Two. The ship was designed for 6 astronauts, surely they could have worked out some kind of turn-taking system instead of SENDING A SECOND MACHINE TO SPACE WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS.

But if you can suspend disbelief and just make believe that's what real spacecrafts are like, the movie was great. It was just like watching Friends and pretending their place is an actual New York City apartment.

If you're interested, though, here's a video tour of the real International Space Station:

—5—

Phillip is back from a work trip he just took to India. He was jetlagged and didn't really enjoy the trip, and is glad to be home.

Here was the view from his hotel:

It's hard to see with the clouds, but that's the ocean beyond the buildings.

Did you know that India spans two time zones, but in order to put the whole country on the same time they compromised and are on the half hour between the two? 

Phillip would often call us at 4 AM when he couldn't sleep, which for us was the evening of the day before, so the kids were like "Dad, are you calling from the future? Tell us what's going to happen tomorrow."

Layover in the Doha, Qatar; looks like we should just go on vacation to the Doha airport sometime.

—6—

Tonight, my boys are going trick or treating with friends for the first time ever. In the past, we've always gone out as a family and it was a total party. We have 6 kids so we never needed to go with a group: we had three families' worth of kids!

But now that the oldest two have moved out and the teenagers have their own plans, it's only the two youngest boys who want to go trick-or-treating so we had to find other families to go with. Because going out with just the four of us last year was BORING. I'm sure they'll have a way better time this year with their friends.

—7—

The kids already have bags of candy from a church trunk-or-treat event last weekend, so I asked my 9-year-old, "Do you have a piece of candy you'd like to give me?"

He offered me a pack of gummies. Meh.

"Do you have any chocolate?" I asked.

He said he didn't have much chocolate left, but he rummaged around in his bag and found a Crunch bar. "You can have this," he said, offering it to me.

"Oh, that's okay," I said, waving it away. "Crunch bars are your favorite."

"You're my favorite," he answered.

When an audible awww escaped my lips, he grinned and said, "Yeah, that was a pretty good one."

I'm in trouble.

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7 Quick Takes about Choosing Late Rather than Never, Speaking Japanese Like a Caveman, and Unconventional Cheesecake Flavors

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

I saw the biggest rainbow on my way home today. It was so wide and bright.

My 13-year-old pointed out that in this picture, it looks like the SUV in front of me is driving up the rainbow. 

—2—

We did it! We finished both projects that I thought it was too late for us to do this fall. At least I think we did.

We put down grass seed on the barren part of our yard, although we'll see if it germinates. It may be too cold by this point in the fall, but at least we tried.

Before planting, Phillip wanted to go break up the ground a little so he went outside with a hoe. I watched him working for a while and said, "You look like a farmer."

"You look like a farmer's wife," he shot back. Touché.

—3—

The other project was painting the front door. I took so long to choose a paint color, sand the door, and prime it, that I thought it was too late to paint it. But I decided that sometimes you've just got to forge ahead or it never gets done, and this was one of those times.

I won't lie, it was cold in the house with the door standing open while the paint dried (taping plastic over the doorframe helped.) We probably paid a little more to heat the house that day than if I'd had my act together and done this a month ago, but oh well. I love how it turned out so much that I'm still glad I did it.

A board for the new decking is at the bottom for illustrative purposes.

I plan to touch up the sidelights in the spring, at least the white parts. As for the gold in the middle? My decorating strategy is to pretend they don't look like that.

—4—

After painting the door and putting the knobs back on, I realized that we also needed to replace the broken doorbell to the right of the door.

I started to search for new hardware on Amazon, but the auto-fill results looked weird. I was confused until I realized that our browser's profanity filter was on.

Protecting our kids from exposure to inappropriate online doorbell descriptions.

—5—

I was so on top of my game this year that I was about to order Christmas cards. Before Thanksgiving! Before Halloween, even! But it wasn't meant to be.

I looked through all of our photos and I couldn't find the family picture, even though I distinctly remember taking it this summer and specifically thinking "this will be a nice picture for the Christmas card!" Several children corroborated my memory so I know I'm not just making it up, but the photo completely vanished, and now two of my kids have left the state so we can't take another one.

So I'm not sending out Christmas cards this year out of protest. They're expensive, anyway.

—6—

When I was volunteering at the temple on Wednesday, a Japanese-speaking sister came in who didn't speak any English. We have language translating headsets in the temple, but every language is on a different channel and I had to tell her which one.

I took 4 semesters of Japanese in college so you'd think that would not be a problem for me. Unfortunately, if you don't use it you lose it and I don't remember hardly anything. All I could say as I handed her the headset was "Nihongo, go" (Japanese, 5.) 

Yes, I really did spend hundreds of dollars to learn that.

—7—

At the request of one of the kids, Phillip made a pumpkin cheesecake. It was delicious, but somehow, a massive crack appeared on top while it was in the oven.

He was disappointed but the 13-year old told him "That's okay, my favorite flavor is crack."

"There are only two interpretations of that," he replied, "and neither one of them is good."

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7 Quick Takes about Internet Safety Tips from a 4th Grader, Interior Decorating, and Benign Neglect When It Comes to Gardening

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

What do your kids want to be for Halloween? My 9-year-old said he wanted to be a duck, so I picked up my phone to do a cursory Google search for "DIY duck costume" to get ideas.

In my hurry, though, I misspelled "duck" and accidentally hit the 'f' key instead of the 'd.' My 9-year-old gave me the side eye and quietly advised, "I don't think you want to search that up."

—2—

Phillip has been up to his eyeballs in work stuff as they're either rounding out or beginning a new fiscal year (I forget which.) He's been drowning in work and lately had to travel for a meeting that involved taking an Uber to the train station, riding a train there, flying back afterward, then Ubering home from the airport. He needs a vacation.

—3—

I found a sleep history channel called Muse and Snooze that didn't end up helping me sleep very well, (the narrator's voice kind of scares me awake every now and then) but the channel sure is interesting so I think I'll start listening to it while washing dishes or something.

The problem is that I don't know how to work the interesting factoids I learn into natural conversation. So for the last week, whenever there's been a lull in conversation I've just been blurting out something random like "Did you know that Judy Garland's real name was Frances Ethel Gumm?" 

Follow me on social media for more tips on how to become the life of the party.

—4—

Something about this space drove me crazy, but I could never quite put my finger on why. Until this week.

Technically supposed to be a breakfast nook, but we don't need one and we do need a space for our computer so this is it.

After watching some Caroline Winkler videos on YouTube, I realized the problem was that everything was the same. Everything, from the furniture to the window grids to the curtain rods to the diamond pattern on the curtains, was 100% straight lines and corners. And the red curtains didn't provide enough contrast to the beige walls and the dark wood furniture.

I brought in a fluffy plant to add texture and color (actually, it got too cold for this fern to live on the deck anymore and that's what Bob Ross calls a "happy accident") and bought a round plant stand with curved legs from Amazon to change up all the squares and angles in the room. I also realized that the opposite wall was the perfect place for the painting my 11-year-old did last summer that I've been hanging onto forever and not knowing what to do with it.

I also love how this carries the green in the adjoining room through the space and makes for more of a transition. (Look at me, talking like an interior designer!)

When I hung up his painting on the wall it looked too much like one thing stacked on top of another, so Phillip had the idea to make a little photo gallery echoing the theme of my son's painting. I love how it turned out and it makes me so happy to look at as I sit here writing this!

The theme is Joseph Smith's First Vision, which you probably aren't familiar with if you aren't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

—5—

We also put the finishing touches on that big beige wall behind our living room sofa. I bought a more appropriately sized wall clock, hung it in a better spot, and added these wall planters with pothos on either side. The planters are dwarved by the size of the clock and the wall right now, but don't worry, the pothos will fill out and trail down the sides to balance it out. 

I've been assured that pothos are impossible to kill, and I can see a little bit of growth after just a few weeks so I'm encouraged. I was worried that there wouldn't be quite enough light for them, so we snuck UV grow lights in the track lighting fixture above the plants. I know, I'm a genius.

Photo cropped at the bottom to hide my 17-year-old's dirty socks.

—6—

Up until recently the weather has stayed pretty nice, so I was fooling myself that I still had time to finish some outdoor home improvement projects.  I want to plant grass seed in a bare area of our lawn, as well as paint our front door (we'd have to leave the door open for an afternoon while it dries.)

Even though I had a sinking feeling that it was too far into October and I'd missed my window, I started those projects anyway. I laid out big tarps to kill the weeds in the area I want to reseed, and I removed the door hardware and stuffed rags in the holes and primed the door for painting.

But then it suddenly got cold, and I doubt I can finish either project. So now it just appears I'm trying to make our home look as unwelcoming as possible with tarps covering the front yard and no doorknob on the front door. Maybe I shouldn't fight it, just lean into it and get one of those "GO AWAY" doormats to complete the look.

—7—

Speaking of other things that are too late, back in the spring my 9-year-old took a field trip to a historical society where he got a packet with a corn, bean, and pumpkin seed. Native Americans in this area planted those together and called them "the 3 sisters." 

We planted his 3 sisters seed packet in a random spot in the yard and forgot about them. The corn and beans never took, probably because we never watered them and the spot we put them in wasn't sunny enough, but a tenacious pumpkin vine did grow and produced one "pumpkin" roughly the size of an Olympic handball. 

I say "pumpkin" because it's still green and tiny and isn't going to make it to maturity. But that would have been cool to grow and carve our own jack-o'-lantern.

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7 Quick Takes about Adding a Little Tony's, Running in Sock Feet, and Wise Words from Oscar the Grouch

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Now that our youngest is 9, general conference weekends at our house are a lot calmer than they used to be. Everyone sits quietly and the kids sometimes get a piece of paper to draw on while they listen, and for the most part I don't have to do very much. They even hand out the snacks we eat while watching.

For one of the sessions, however, we invited over a friend and her two young children, and that was a whirlwind. Forget listening, my new job was doling out new coloring pages and toys every 30 seconds when they got bored, answer 1 million questions that had nothing to do with conference, and prevent them from injuring themselves or breaking something. Not that I minded, I actually miss those days.  

Plus, I love the things that come out of kids' mouths. The younger one told my 13-year-old he's going to marry her (but not until he's 7), and the older one was watching my 9-year-old struggle to open a snack and advised, "You should ask my mom. She can push a car."

"It was probably in neutral," my 9-year-old told her.

"What's 'neutral'?" she asked.

—2—

What was my favorite general conference talk? Notable mentions definitely included "The Eternal Gift of Testimony" by Kevin B. Brown and "Jesus Christ and Your New Beginning" by Patrick Kearon, but my favorite was probably this one:

TL;DR: With Creole cooking, there's a seasoning called Tony's that makes everything taste better. We're trying to follow Jesus, but maybe our ingredients are inferior or maybe we have trouble following the recipe or maybe we make mistakes, but it's ultimately going to turn out if we just add more Tony's Jesus.

—3—

I was going through my camera roll to clean it out, and I realized that I have way too many pictures like this:

Seriously, how does anyone read instruction labels without taking a picture and blowing it up?

I stopped being able to read that teen-tiny Tooth Fairy handwriting years ago, and now the photo library on my phone is 50/50 pictures of my kids and pictures of the backs of spraypaint cans and Advil bottles.

—4—

My 19-year-old arrived in Nevada this week! She's serving an 18-month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

We've always interacted a lot with the missionaries that are serving in our area, but suddenly they seem a lot younger to me now that my daughter is one of them. So I would consider it a personal favor if, should you happen to meet a pair of nicely-dressed young adults with black name tags on, you were nice to them. Especially if you live in Nevada.

—5—

My 13-year-old's cross country meets always conflict with my 9-year-old's gymnastics drop-off half an hour away, so I usually don't get to watch them. But I did go and catch the end of her meet this week!

Cross country races are 5K (3.1 miles) and they kind of wind through the woods (hence the name) and when one kid ran out into the clearing about halfway through, he only had one shoe.

I assume it was sucked off in the mud or just fell off, but I don't understand why he left it behind, instead of stopping to put it back on and keep going. It couldn't possibly take longer to tie a shoe than the time you'd lose running lopsided over 1+ miles of sticks and rocks in your sock foot, could it?

—6—

After many years of raising boys and also being married to one, I've started to realize that emotional literacy is something that doesn't come naturally to XY-oriented people. Sometimes I need to think out my feelings to grasp all the nuances, but boys seem to be capable of genuine confusion about their own emotions or even be totally oblivious to them, which is wild to me.

Is this the male equivalent of poor spatial awareness? When I say I'm not good with maps, I can tell that Phillip doesn't even understand what I mean. Like how can you not be "good" at knowing where you are if you have functioning eyes and a brain? Well, I think I get it now. Their feelings are my maps.

However, I have no idea how to improve my spatial awareness and no idea how to work on emotional literacy with my boys at home. Suggestions welcome.

—7—

Lastly, I saw this on Facebook and thought I would share if you need a little weekend motivation. You can do hard things!

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7 Quick Takes about Bad Things, Good Things, and How to Find Kentucky

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

What a weekend. On Saturday, the president and prophet of our church, Russell M. Nelson, died. I always thought he seemed like an "unofficial grandpa" for everyone in the church. Just a few weeks before he died, he wrote this op-ed for Time magazine for his 101st birthday, which I thought was characteristic of the kindness and empathy that was so evident whenever I saw or heard him speak.

Soon the most senior apostle will become the next president and prophet of the church, and he'll rise to the calling just like President Nelson did.

—2—

The next day, I was about to speak at a friend's baptismal service when I got a text asking me if I'd seen the news: there'd been a mass shooting and arson at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan during Sunday church.

I usually don't talk about current events on the blog, but this felt really personal to me. It's not hard to spot a group of LDS people in their Sunday dress, and when I saw pictures of people huddled around after the shooting it looked like my ward family that I see every Sunday. I felt unsettled and started following the news about it way too closely.

Day 1 was all about unraveling the details of what even happened at the church. On Days 2 and 3, the news started uncovering the shooter's hatred for "Mormons," and that was really depressing. By Day 4, I finally saw a good story pop up in the media. A Latter-day Saint in Utah unconnected with the tragedy noticed that there were GoFundMe campaigns for the victims, but none for the family the perpetrator left behind (including a son with medically complicated needs), so he set one up and so far, it has raised over $300,000.

Donating to this fund and spending a half hour reading through the comments was healing, which confirmed to me that being exposed to injustice creates a kind of energy that needs to go somewhere. It can go into anxiety or maybe even anger, or you can channel it into something positive instead. Christ can make miracles come from tragedy.

The GiveSendGo campaign for the Sandersons is here, and a list of GoFundMes for the other victims in Michigan can be found here. 

—3—

In lighter news, if you've ever been unable to memorize exactly which state is Kentucky, the Internet has you covered.

As someone who hails from the "chef hat" part of the country (I've always thought it looked like a water pitcher, though) I can tell you that this is really helpful.

—4—

It seems like something is constantly going wrong with our van. I stopped even mentioning it on the blog after the debacle in February where Phillip had to dismantle the entire engine. It just didn't seem noteworthy anymore.

A few weeks ago I drove over a screw in the road and barely made it home. Phillip patched the tire, and a few days later the check engine light came on. Phillip fixed the issue and then this week, the parking brake started randomly engaging and refusing to turn off, which was the problem we'd fixed back in February. I'll leave it to your imagination who got to do the troubleshooting on that one.

I suppose it's almost time to replace the van. In the past when we've disposed of vehicles, we've traded them in or sold them to a junkyard. With this one, I think we'll put a brick on the gas pedal and drive it off a cliff.

—5—

When I was pregnant with my 11-year-old, I spent three weeks in the hospital on bedrest, and most of it was just watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. It wasn't really a choice, it was just on TV every single time I turned it on. 

A few weeks ago the YouTube algorithm showed me one clip from the show, and because I watched it now it's showing me a ton and I have no choice but to watch them, too. 

The thing is, there are no full episodes on YouTube, only compilations like "Penny and Sheldon BFF Moments" or "27 Times Penny Said What We Were All Thinking." So it's like binge-watching the show, but jumping around through all 12 seasons in a disjointed way that makes no sense.

—6—

This week I tried to see my two oldest in a cross-country meet, but the race started late and I ended up having to leave just before they started running so I could pick up my two other kids at the library. And it was 20 minutes away so I couldn't even come back and catch the end of the race.

There will be other meets this season, but that kind of thing really bothers me. It's really irritating to miss an event that you want to be mentally present for as the unique human soul that you are... in order to do a job whose only requirements are a pulse and a driver's license. Pretty soon we'll have robot cars and then even those won't be necessary.

Actually, I can't wait to get a robot car. That will solve so many problems.

—7—

I've been re-reading one talk a week from the last general conference for my church and using it to create a weekly goal to improve in some way, and it's crazy how I can find something in basically every talk... I guess that just means I need a lot of work.

This weekend it's time for general conference again (see what that is here if you aren't familiar) and whoever you are, you're welcome to watch with us from home. I'm sure there's something in it for you, too. 

There are talks from 12-2 EST and 2-4 EST on both Saturday and Sunday, with an additional session from 8-9:30PM EST on YouTube or at the church's website. Or watch them later if you can't catch it live, which we'll do for most of the first session on Saturday when our kids are busy playing every single sport this town offers.

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7 Quick Takes about One Last Hike, Ordering a Giant Pizza, and Sounds to Wake Up To

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

After a week of online training at home, our 19-year-old daughter left for the Missionary Training Center. I'm really missing the sweet spirit she brought to the whole house, especially after she really put her life on hold to make Jesus her full-time focus. On her breaks between Zoom classes, she'd tell me about what she was learning or the things she'd been thinking during her morning scripture study, and it was really neat for me to be a part of that.

As great as it was, though, Zoom is still Zoom, and she's really enjoying being at the MTC campus where she can see her teachers and fellow missionaries in person instead of a bunch of digital squares with floating heads.

—2—

I've never cried at a college drop off; I think it's a little dramatic when I'll literally see them again in a few months. But sending one off on a mission feels more final: she's not going to be back for a year and a half! 

The life of a missionary is really busy and focused, but she does have one day a week to do her personal stuff like calling home. And guess what? I missed her call this week. I wasn't even doing anything fun, I was organizing junk in the attic and left my phone downstairs.

It was irritating, but we did just drop her off at the airport on Tuesday so it's not like it's the end of the world. I guess we'll have to establish a time frame so I don't continue to flake out for the next 18 months. Because that would be just like me.

—3—

On her last week here, our daughter wanted to do "last" things with the family before leaving. We played some family board games, went to one of the kids' soccer games, and went on a family hike/walk in the woods. 

Phillip in particular was happy she wanted to go to the woods. We've been making the kids go on family nature hikes since we were carrying them around the trail in backpacks. Half the time they complain about it bitterly, but in the end they always seem to remember it fondly and appreciate it just as they're about to leave home.

"I did that," Phillip pointed out to me as we were walking behind these three clearly enjoying being in nature. He sure did, because I wasn't a hiker before I met him and he was the driving force in fostering this.

Granted, the 19-year-old is going to Nevada on her mission where I assume she won't being seeing forest like this for a while so she probably wanted to soak it up while she still could.

—4—

I've been working on the wall behind the couch. Our old wall clock somehow felt too small and too big at the same time (too small for the wall, but with a chunky and overbearing frame.) So I found one on Amazon that was bigger in inches and lighter in looks:

It was delivered in this box and I know you don't tip Amazon drivers, but I kind of felt like I should when he handed me what looked like a 30" pizza. 

—5—

Next step, I'm going to attempt to add a little color and life to the walls by hanging plants in these wall planters on either side of the clock. 

I found some nice-looking pothos plants on Facebook Marketplace, but after I brought them home I realized I'm likely going to kill them while trying to transplant them into the wall planters and I will have wasted $20.

I've gotten lucky at not killing plants lately and it's gone to my head, but I really don't have a green thumb at all and this was probably beyond my skill set.

—6—

A few years ago, I started listening to sleep meditations on YouTube at night when I need help winding down (or sometimes in the middle of the night when I wake up and can't get back to sleep.)

I like Jason Stephenson, but then I started feeling the need for more variety and occasionally started listening to Down to Sleep and the Spanish-language channels Zentopía and Easy Zen.

Most recently, I found an Irish guy named Stephen Dalton. It seems like he gets an idea for a new story series and writes a bunch of them. Right now I'm working my way through his "most boring" series. They're so boring I don't really remember what they're about, though. 

I've actually tried out other channels that I liked at first, but after getting scared awake at 2AM with a Pampers ad at full blast I changed my mind.

—7—

Recently, the Facebook algorithm randomly showed me this:

I may have recorded this one and set it as my morning alarm, and also set the same artist's good night song as a nighttime alarm to remind me to go to bed.

When Phillip heard my bedtime alarm going off he asked, "Did you write that with AI?" I don't know. Did the guy use AI to write it? Now that I think about it, it sounds he could have. Maybe the whole video is AI and there is no guy. Maybe nothing is real and we're all living in a simulation. Who knows? But I like the song so we're just going to leave it at that.

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7 Quick Takes about How to Confuse a Bird (It's Not Hard), Missionaries in Training, and Feline Photography

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

I had an idea for a new living room layout, so I spent about 4 hours one morning measuring everything, making a mockup of the room on the computer, then testing it out by moving the real-life furniture around a bunch of times... and in the end it all went back to where it was to begin with, except we swapped locations of the birdcage and the bookshelf.

I was a little irritated, but not as much as Pringles (the bird). When she flies out of her cage now, she gets disoriented and can't find her way back. She keeps flying to the bookshelf, getting confused at why it's not a birdcage, and then just sitting there squawking for help until someone picks her up and carries her back to her cage.

It's been almost a week and she's still confused. I totally understand now why they call dumb people birdbrains.

To be fair, though, for the first days after the change, the kids were also walking to the birdcage to get a book before self-correcting and saying "Oops, I pulled a Pringles."

—2—

I also redid this corner of the living room. Here's the 'before' picture.

Jesus on the right, a church statement on the importance of the family on the left.

It's always been important to me to have a picture of Jesus on the wall, but I've never been crazy about His "I'm not mad, just disappointed" look in that particular picture. Over the years I've thought about buying this one painted by the same artist with a slightly different facial expression, but the cheapskate in me couldn't pay $25 plus shipping for a nearly-identical picture where the corner of the lips turn upward instead of downward. 

So I did some research, bought this digital art print from Etsy, and got it printed out at Walmart. They don't print 10x13s, so I printed it as a 11x14 poster and trimmed it down. Then I printed out "The Living Christ", a more recent church statement on what we believe about Jesus, and put that beside it. (That wasn't as easy as it sounds, since the PDFs I found weren't high enough resolution so I had to copy down the words and format it all myself.)

Then I realized that everything was beige and brown: the wall, the decor, the frames, the cabinet. The new corner could use some color, so I went to Lowe's and got a plant. It's an ivy, so assuming I don't kill it, it will eventually trail down the side of the cabinet and look really nice.

Tip: Take the 'before' picture at night and the 'after' picture in the daylight and it will look like you did more to spruce it up than you actually did!

—3—

Now I've turned my attention to our other "all beige problem" in the living room. The sofa is beige and the wall behind it is also a giant expanse of beige, with a poorly-placed wall clock that is too small for the area it covers. I need some color to break up all the beige, but as a minimalist I don't want to hang art (there are already focal points on the other walls) or use throw pillows (they will just end up on the floor). So maybe a lamp with a colored shade?

I uploaded a picture to ChatGPT and asked it to add a floor lamp and an end table. It put the end table in the middle of the room and the lamp in the doorway to the kitchen... I think I need an AI that is at least more familiar than me with the principles of home design, because even I know that's not where you put a lamp.

Anyway, the living room is in progress and I have some ideas. I'll keep you updated.

—4—

Our 19-year-old is now a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! This week she started online classes from the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Next week she'll go to a physical MTC campus for another two weeks, and then she'll head to Nevada where she'll be sharing the gospel with whoever will listen for the next 16 months.

She's always been a really good kid, but since she's been thinking about and preparing for a mission in earnest there's been a noticeable change in her. Quadrupling the amount of time you spend studying the scriptures each day and eliminating scrolling social media would probably change anyone for the better, but it's more than that.

She's focused and excited. The promises in the scriptures are becoming very real to her, because she's going to be trusting God to help her do very hard things, like talk to strangers from Nevada who might not care what she has to say and might not even be very nice about it. She just wants to become someone the Lord can work with; she's willingly handing over her K-dramas and hanging out with her friends for the next 18 months to focus on what He can accomplish through her, and I'm thrilled for her.

This week she's busy with Zoom classes and meetings for most of the day, but she does come out every once in a while to warn us that she may have to unmute and say something. (Now that she's a kind-hearted missionary, the "so stop acting and sounding like a zoo out here" part is implied rather than spoken out loud.) 

—5—

The 13-year-old just participated in a cross-country relay race. Because of the other kids' sports schedules I wasn't able to go, but I seriously wish I could have. 

It wasn't a normal relay. You could wear any uniform you wanted (and I mean any uniform, there were people in tutus and inflatable T-rex costumes running this thing) and use anything for a baton (my daughter's team used a Birkenstock.)

This was the first year our school participated in this particular relay, but I hope they do it again next year because it sounds like a sight to see. There's something for everyone here, even if you don't usually enjoy watching people run.

—6—

When we got home from a camping trip a few weeks ago, it was an extremely hectic time and there were about fifty Very Important Things happening over the next few days that required our full attention. At one point Phillip told me "I put all the camping stuff up in the loft" and I remember sincerely thanking him, because neither of us really had the time or bandwidth to put it all away. 

Well, this week I went up in the loft to get something, and saw the camping stuff lying all over the place as if he'd flung it all up there with a trebuchet and left it exactly as it fell. Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

THANK YOU REDACTED.

(Phillip swears he was planning on going up there to organize it at a later date, I just beat him to it. I'm 90% sure he's telling the truth, so thank you partially reinstated.)

—7—

My friend Anna is out of town visiting her sister, so I'm going over to her house every day to feed her cat. The cat is her baby, so I try to send pictures or videos every few days because she misses her.

Do you know how hard it is to get a non-blurry picture of a cat??

They're worse than kids. They never stop moving, ever!

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