Friday, October 1, 2021

7 Quick Takes about Nature Trying to Impress Me, Tips for Parents of New Drivers, and How You Know When Things Are Wholesome

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

1


I've been seeing some pretty amazing sights lately. This was the scene when I was leaving the grocery store on Monday:

The camera does not do justice at all to how bright pink the sky was in reality.

And the other morning as I drove my 8th-grader to school, the fog was so thick we could hardly see. 


Funnily enough, the camera was able to see way better than we were; when we looked at the side of the road our eyes couldn't even make out the telephone pole.

2


I was listening to a youth leadership training meeting over Zoom for my calling at church (currently, I work with the teenage girls.)

At one point, my 9-year-old heard the speaker say "Youth are capable of much more than we think they are" and she latched right on to that. In fact, it's become her go-to argument for everything.

"You want to slice up that watermelon? How about I do it instead." But MOM, remember what they said in your training meeting?

"Put that outside, you cannot go down the stairs on a skateboard." Kids can do more than you think they can, you know!

"No, you can't use Dad's power tools outside in a rainstorm." But. The. TRAINING.

Her latest desire is to bike the two miles to school, which she could totally do if two-thirds of the route wasn't straight down a busy highway with no shoulder.

Any lawyer would be proud of her thorough argument, but in the end we compromised: one morning a week, I'll ferry her across the highway so she can bike to school from there. And just to sweeten the deal, after school she can ride to the public library to check out books and read until I come pick her up.

3


Speaking of terrifying things kids can do, my 17-year-old drove me into the city to pick up her sister from orchestra. And we didn't die once!

She even navigated a crowd of people going to the theater, where everyone was disregarding the traffic rules, passengers were getting out and dodging between cars, and people would just up and park in the middle of the street waiting for a valet.

Of course, it probably helped having giant yellow "PLEASE BE PATIENT: STUDENT DRIVER" magnets on the car. Those little magnets are the best $6.99 I ever spent on Amazon. With them, people wave you in front of them and don't honk at you when you hesitate and miss an opening in traffic. They're magical.

4


It was almost time for my 13-year-old to go to bed when I saw him playing Minecraft on the computer. 

I started to object to video games right before bed, but my 15-year-old assured me it was alright because "we're playing together and it's wholesome!"

It would've made a much more convincing argument if the 13-year-old hadn't been at that moment aggressively stabbing at the computer keyboard with his index finger muttering "Die! Die! Die!" 

5


As he was getting ready one morning, my kindergartner wanted to know something: why do we go to school?

"So you know things," I told him.

"Why do you have to know things?"

"Uh... so you can get a job, I guess?" What I really meant was it's too early in the morning for this conversation, can you please just find your shoes so you don't miss the bus?

"Hmm," he said, considering for the first time the idea that school serves a purpose. "That sort of makes sense!"

6


We finally signed the paperwork and are getting a new roof. It was a tough decision. I mean, it's a lot of money and spending a chunk of change like that is always a tough decision.

But it was also tough because you have a dozen different shingle colors to pick from, and I don't know... a roof's a roof. I actually thought our current roof was gray and didn't realize until now that it was actually brown. (We've lived here for 10 years and that's how much I care about the roof, apparently.)

The roofing company gives you a tiny sample booklet of the shingle colors, but it's not the same as looking at a whole roof so they also gave us a list of addresses they've recently done so we can see how the finished product looks.

So last weekend, Phillip and I spent date night trying not to look creepy while also driving slowly and deliberately past strangers' houses and gawking at them. 

It was a tough decision, but ultimately we decided to get the gray roof I'd assumed we already had in the first place.

7


Fall is coming and in our house, we're looking forward to General Conference. I'm hoping it's because of the spiritual enlightenment and not just the treats, but to be honest it's probably a little bit of both.

If you're not familiar with what General Conference is or what I'm talking about, you can read about it here, or watch this short video narrated by the perkiest missionary our church could find:


If you want to virtually hang out, I'll be watching on Saturday and Sunday from 12-2 and 4-6 in my time zone (EST), and you can also catch a session from 8-10PM on Saturday, too. Everyone is welcome, regardless of religious affiliation or whether they're wearing pajamas.

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1 comment:

PurpleSlob said...

Man, I sure wish I'd known about those magic magnets when my girls were learning! Now I know what to get for PP's 15th birthday!! lol