7 Quick Takes about Under Armour, Decorating with Inspirational Quotes, and How Our Pets Are Like Toddlers Only Smaller

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

—1—

Well, general conference this past weekend was fantastic. Even my 8-year-old said "I liked it this time, and not just because of the snacks! Does that mean I'm getting older?"

Conference snacks are famous in our family. Every time, we tape pictures of the speakers to different treats, and when people speak the kids get to eat the snack they're on. (We also write down notes from their talk on a piece of paper and save them in a baggie to talk about later.)

I think it's a net positive because it does get the kids excited for conference and I think they actually are paying more attention, but sometimes I wonder.

When Elder Stevenson got up to speak, one of my kids squealed "It's Mr. Cheese Balls!" and thundered up the stairs to retrieve the bag.

Not knowing what else to do, I yelled after them, "Be respectful! It's Elder Cheese Balls!"

—2—

I particularly liked our prophet President Nelson's talk (when he stood at the podium, my 8-year-old whispered "He was mozzarella sticks last time...") who said:

"Today we often hear about 'a new normal.' If you really want to embrace a new normal, I invite you to turn your heart, mind, and soul increasingly to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Let that be your new normal."

Bad things have come out of this pandemic. Some of us have lost loved ones and economic stability, and even those who haven't are completely sick of our lives being so disrupted for so long. 

But there have also been good things coming out of it, and I hope you've seen them. If not, I'd seriously suggest looking at this page. It's by suddenly having our schedules cleared out to focus more on them that virtually all the good changes to my family's life over the past 7 months have come.

My other favorite talk was "Eyes to See" by Michelle D. Craig. It's a 10-minute listen and well worth it:

—3—

Because my kids need fall clothes, we've been doing some shopping. My daughter wanted to try Kohl's, and since they accept Amazon returns there I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and return some items while they shopped.

It turned out to be a ridiculously long process because the Wi-Fi was spotty, the QR codes on the return emails weren't scanning, and I had to keep getting back in line and waiting to try again after something didn't work.

The good thing was, while I was waiting for a million hours in front of this display of Under Armour water bottles, I realized something:

I've always vaguely wondered why Under Armour's logo was an 'H.' After staring at this for so long it finally dawned on me that the 'H' is actually a 'U' and an 'A,' you guys. Mind blown. #themoreyouknow

—4—

After finally returning my Amazon packages, which could not have taken longer if I'd walked the to the warehouse to put them back on the shelves myself, I went to find my daughters.

We explored the sizable clearance racks, and when I say 'sizable' I mean practically half the store. (I {heart} Kohl's now. Where has it been all my life??) There were a lot of nice things, but as is often the case with clearance racks, there were also some more... interesting items. 

Pulling something pretty heinous off one of the racks and trying to find something positive to say, I told my 14-year-old that it would "probably look good on the right person."

Raising her eyebrow and putting the offending item back on the rack, she said "It would just be really hard to find that person."

Even Phillip got in on the clearance action and found some pants. "It says here these pants are for Thanksgiving," he announced, pointing to the claim on the label.

Watch out, turkey dinner and pumpkin pie. Here we come.

—5—

My girls have also been hard at work painting their room. They came up with a color scheme and have mostly been doing it themselves. I only go up there once in a while to help or see what's going on.

They finally finished painting and touching up, and now they're working on putting the room back together. Last night I went upstairs to check out their progress, and they're in the furniture rearranging and redecorating phase.

Not exactly what we'd envisioned when buying my daughter a felt letter board last Christmas.

It's like HGTV over here, really.

—6—

We've been enjoying our pet rats, especially taking pictures of them eating. 

So cute. I don't have a picture of this, but I like giving them veggies cut into tiny triangles so it looks like they're munching on pieces of pizza.

Because they never stop moving, it's actually pretty hard to get a non-blurry close up of rats. They're a lot like toddlers that way.

Supposedly you can litterbox train rats, but ours are ignoring our best efforts and continuing to poop wherever and whenever they feel like it. Which is also a lot like toddlers.

—7—

If you're familiar with Unremarkable Files, you know it's not political. Like, ever. That's on purpose.

However, I will make this one and only exception by sharing a text my 16-year-old sent me this week:

The fact that I'm currently being Rickrolled by my own daughter means parenting has turned out to be everything I thought it would be and more.

Click to Share: