Friday, December 1, 2017

7 Quick Takes about #LightTheWorld, Last-Minute Dental Substitutions, and Dates that Aren't Really

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

1


Happy December! What's your favorite thing about this month?

If you haven't heard of it, I want to tell you about a campaign called #LightTheWorld. Every day from now until December 25th, there's a new prompt for something you can do to follow Jesus' example and be a better person.

Do you need a kick in the pants to get out of your head and your to-do list? This would be it.

#LightTheWorld comes from my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) but is created for and is applicable to any Christian, Mormon or not. You can learn more at mormon.org, or, if you prefer musical montages to text, watch this video.

(There are many things I love about being Mormon, but one you can really see in this video is how it makes the principles of the gospel so concrete. There's nothing abstract to us about being followers of Jesus Christ: it's in the little things we do, all day, every day.)


Disclaimer: I'll tell you right now that I will fail miserably at doing #LightTheWorld every day, but that's okay.

Life is about progress, not perfection.

2


Over the weekend, we went to an art museum and my daughter, who's learning Latin in school, stopped to examine a Latin inscription in the stone wall of one of the galleries and translate it to us.

Then we overheard the person behind us repeating it to her boyfriend word-for-word as if she was figuring it out herself... including the word my daughter mistranslated.

Impressed, the boyfriend asked, "You know Latin?"

"Yeah, a little," she shrugged, clearly trying to be very humble about her thought plagiarism.

It took all we had not to start laughing until we left the room.

3


Something we do every Christmas is go watch The Nutcracker. In the past I've hesitated to spend a lot of money on tickets, but I really haven't loved the shows we've seen so I decided maybe this is one case where price is actually an indication of quality.

So we decided to buy tickets for an expensive show this year and see if it was worth it.

Since the really good seats would have necessitated a home equity loan, we ended up in the second row, practically looking up the dancer's noses.

It was kind of cool to be so close, though. Not only could you see each individual muscle working as they were dancing, we could also see offstage where the dancers didn't think anyone was watching.

We enjoyed seeing the long-robed Father Christmas boogie backstage like he was at a nightclub to make his friends laugh, and also watching Godfather Drosselmeyer dance majestically offstage and immediately start playing with his phone until it was time to go back on.

So if you're going to a show and you have to choose between the nosebleed seats and the second row, pick the second row. It's highly entertaining.

4


You know you're the sixth child in the family when... your first joke is about bathroom humor.

We were all sitting around the dinner table, talking about Christmas presents. My 11-year-old said she didn't know what she wanted, so I told her I'd just buy her a giant poop emoji pillow which she thought was pretty funny.

When the laughter died down, my 1-year-old seized the opportunity to one-up me. With perfect diction, he shouted the word "poopy" to the whole table, and then covered his mouth with both hands and started laughing maniacally.

Well, that just undid the entire family and now he won't stop. Someone get me out of here.

5


My three oldest kids had a dentist appointment scheduled first thing in the morning, but I didn't realize until about 11 P.M. the night before that my 9-year-old wouldn't be able to go because he had a field trip at school that day.

I have no idea how strictly they enforce this, but my dentist's office has a $50 missed appointment fee if you don't cancel 48 hours in advance.

Luckily, I had my 3-year-old with me to take his place, so no fee for us! I can now add this to the list of reasons I have so many kids.

Plus, I've been meaning to schedule the 3-year-old's first dentist visit for a month  but it seems I can only remember between the hours of 1 and 3 in the morning.

6


It's been a busy, crazy month. One of those months where you barely have time to talk logistics with your spouse about basic things.

My mom was here and offered to babysit so Phillip and I could have a date night, but every night on the calendar was packed. So we picked an afternoon, chose a Panera that had wi-fi, and determined to get all our planning for Christmas done.

Maybe not the most romantic of dates, but this was the only way it was ever going to happen.

As we pulled out of the driveway I was thinking about how it had been a while since we'd gone out together and exclaimed to Phillip, "We're on a date!"

"Sort of," he said. "This is more like a business lunch."

7


I love a graffiti artist with a sense of humor. 

I assume this sign originally said the name of the security company in charge of this parking lot, but I kind of like how it takes things to the next level by appealing to a higher conscience instead.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

It wasn't until I uploaded the picture to the blog that I noticed someone had scribbled beneath it in Sharpie: "And me! Jim!"

So remember guys, behave yourselves. God and Jim are watching.

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3 comments:

April said...

The next time I think about misbehaving, I'm going to remind myself that God and Jim are watching �� That made my day lol

Laura Darling said...

Love the graffiti! And I am cracking up at the girl pretending to know Latin. That's hilarious!

Terra Heck said...

Instead of WWJD (what would Jesus do) we can now go with WWJJD (what would Jesus and jim do)! Think it'll go over?! I took Latin all four years of high school. I remember very little of it. Kudos to your daughter for taking classes in that language.