Friday, January 17, 2020

7 Quick Takes about Mantras to Calm Your Nerves, How to Know If Someone Has The Force, and Some Complaining About Home Depot

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

1


My 13-year-old daughter who plays the violin is auditioning for a big orchestra festival in February (fingers crossed; she's been having some wrist problems so let's hope it can still happen.) This past weekend, her music school sponsored mock auditions to help her get ready for the real thing.

As far as technical skills go, she's really good. Crazily good. The biggest hurdle for her is the nervousness before performing.

"Maybe you could try repeating a mantra to yourself just before you walk on stage," I suggested. "Can you think of one that might work for you?"

She nodded and replied, "Be vigilant. Strike first. Trust no one."

So she's obviously taking my advice very seriously.

2


My calling at church right now is working with the teenage girls, which means my daughters are often roped into helping me with things because they're the easiest ones to ask.

The presidency decided last minute to buy a case of notebooks for each of the girls to record some of their thoughts about the scriptures, and at the very LAST last minute (i.e: the night before we were handing them out) we had the idea to put an applicable scripture from the Book of Mormon on the cover.

I volunteered my 15- and 13-year-olds to mass produce them, and they were like little Santa's elves churning out 36 of these things in one night.



I helped a little, but not much.


My one regret is that I didn't take more pictures of the individual notebooks, as some of them were really different from each other!

3


A few years ago, my 3-year-old was diagnosed with allergies to peanuts, walnuts, and pecans. We went back to the allergist this week to check if he's grown out of them yet.

The first step was a skin prick test, where they poke his back with a little oil from the allergens, wait 15 minutes, then measure the welts to see how bad his reaction is. He showed negative for walnuts and pecans, so then we went to the lab to get it confirmed wit a blood test.

After the blood draw he narrowed his eyes at the lab tech and told her smugly, "That didn't hurt." (At least he didn't say "you're stupid," which is how he deals with situations he doesn't like at home.)

Pending the results of the bloodwork, we'll be scheduling a food challenge for walnuts and pecans later this month!

4


It was a beautiful weekend, you guys. Beautiful.

My daughter says she learned in her meteorology class that January is New England's coldest month.

In a weird, irrational way, the beautiful weather almost made me mad, as if it was somehow negating my recent trip to Florida. The entire point of that trip had been escaping the New England winter, so the fact that it was now 63° out was really making the whole thing look rather unnecessary.

Unreasonable emotions aside, I really enjoyed the day. I convinced my husband and daughter to take a walk with me, and then I dropped in to visit a friend who lives within walking distance while they continued on home. It was the nicest day I could have asked for.

5


Apparently I missed an incident that happened at home one day after school.

My 13-year-old licked her hand, told her 8-year-old sister "I have The Force, I can prove it" and then extended her hand and started walking directly toward her. The idea being that her sister would move out of the way, proving that she did, indeed, have The Force.

While this is a brilliant move I can't believe neither my brother nor I thought of while we were growing up, my 8-year-old triumphantly related to me afterward, "It didn't work, though. I didn't want her to say she had The Force so I didn't move."

"So what happened? She put her licked hand on your face?"

"Yep."

Sometimes even when you win, you still kind of lose.

6


In the latest episode of Why Did We Think We Could Finish the Basement Ourselves, we ordered a pallet of foam board insulation from Home Depot and were given the super-specific delivery window of 6 AM-8 PM.

I will never again complain about appliance repair people.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a good day for me to sit around looking longingly out the window for 14 hours, so of course when I ran out to do some errands that's when they came.

They left the pallet of building materials sitting in the slush on the driveway, and I'm really mad about it. It was partially shrink wrapped, so maybe it's okay? I told Phillip to deal with it so I guess we'll find out if it's ruined in the morning.

If it is, I'm not paying for it and I will fight that all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to.

Fourteen hours. That's not a delivery window, that's an entire square on the calendar.

7


Phillip started growing a beard. It's something he says every man should do in a lifetime. I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote from Confucius.

I have mixed feelings about it, but the interesting thing is that for the past week I've been running across articles on how scientific studies show men with beards are judged to be more attractive to women. Yesterday alone, I think I saw three of them.

Which is either a sign that I'll end up liking this beard experiment of Phillip's after all, or more likely, that Google is spying copiously on both of us.

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4 comments:

PurpleSlob said...

#5- Truer words have not been spoken.
My DH has a beard. After 2 years, I still hate it. But good luck with Phillip's!

Jenny Evans said...

He says he thinks this will just be a monthlong experiment. He doubts he will become a Beard Guy.

Rachel said...

Google is definitely spying on you, but it's nothing person. They spy on all of us. I've been on a marriage-long anti-facial-hair campaign. Angel's the kind of guy who looks like some kind of jungle warrior living off the land when his beard grows out....I much prefer the clean-cut look. My sister, on the other hand, always wants her husband to keep a beard because she thinks he looks like a teenager without one. haha!

Terra Heck said...

Best of luck to your daughter in February. She'd got this!
Did your husband talk to my husband?! Mine decided to start growing a beard too. He's always had a goatee but now it's a beard. He even bought beard oil! I like it all right but admit I like the goatee better.