7 Quick Takes about Joining the Club, Cleaning the Kitchen, and the Language Learning Process in GIFs

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

—1—

I got my first mammogram on Tuesday. 

When I called to make the appointment, the receptionist asked "Is this your first time?" I said yes and she answered jokingly, "Welcome to the club!"

Except I'm not sure it was a joke.

When I got to my appointment, I changed into the gown/shirt thingie they give you and took a seat in the waiting room. It was full of women in their 60s and 70s flipping through magazines, all wearing identical loose-fitting tops with drawstring closures, with smooth jazz tinkling from the speakers overhead. It was like a weird combination of a nursing home and a day spa. 

Then the smiliest, friendliest tech (also an older woman) came in and said she wanted to go over everything with me first because it was my first time, and overall she just seemed really pleased to be inducting me into the Secret Society of Old Ladies.

My membership card arrives in the mail next week, and then I think I can start getting discounts on Werther's hard candies.

—2—

Saturday and Sunday was general conference, a worldwide broadcast from the leaders of my church. They take turns giving 15-20 minute talks on different spiritual topics to teach, inspire, and motivate. 

It may not sound like a super-exciting way to spend a weekend, but trust me, this is something I look forward to for months beforehand. 

My kids also look forward to general conference snacks, which are marked with speakers' pictures and can be eaten during that person's talk.

For the most part, the kids listened while building with Legos and drawing on themselves (okay, just my 10-year-old did that.)

She decorated more, but the bottoms of feet are gross so just use your imagination.

My favorite talk was one called "Be Perfected in Him," about how Jesus works to cleanse and perfect us. It's not a superficial change but one that goes all the way to the core of our identity. Just give it a listen, you won't be disappointed.

I also liked listening to our prophet, Russell M. Nelson, whose talk dropped the following truth bomb about how partnering with Jesus brings rest to our souls:

"Now you may be thinking that this [keeping Jesus' commandments] sounds more like hard spiritual work than rest. But here is the grand truth: while the world insists that power, possessions, popularity, and pleasures of the flesh bring happiness, they do not! ... [And] the truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it."

All in all, it was an excellent conference and I'm excited to think more about it more in the months ahead as I try to do life.

—3—

To tell you the truth, I dislike carving jack-o-lanterns. It's been several years since we last attempted it, but whenever we do it always turns out the same: Phillip or I end up doing most of the work because the knives are too big for the kids to handle, and then there's a big mess to clean up and (big surprise) Phillip and I end up doing most of that, too. 

But I don't know, the kids are getting older so maybe it would be fun this year.

I was just thinking about this the other day, when my 10-year-old came in and asked "Mom, can we do pumpkins?"

So I told her "Sure."

Then she skipped out of the room yelling, "Yay! Exploding pumpkins!" and I suddenly realized I had no idea what I'd just agreed to.

—4—

My kids had Wednesday off for Yom Kippur, and we spent the first part of the day cleaning. I sent the older kids and sent them upstairs with a toilet bowl brush and some hazmat suits, and then brought the younger kids into the kitchen with me.

Our task for today was emptying the kitchen cabinets and wiping out all the crumbs and debris that collect in there over time. It turns out tiny people are quite an asset in this chore:

I could never get in there and deep-clean like that.

And while I know it wasn't ethical to use small children as chimneysweeps all through the 1700s, I understand now why they did it.

—5—

I mentioned a few weeks ago that my 6-year-old's pediatrician commented on how long it's been since the last flare-up of his Reactive Airway Disease, and then he came home and had one almost immediately.

Well, he just had another episode on Thursday, making it twice in less than three weeks. 

Not only have we pulled the nebulizer back out of the closet, but he's had to miss gymnastics and even a few days of school. I know it's not the worst thing in the world so I'm definitely not complaining, but it is kind of a bummer.

—6—

I continue my quest to learn Spanish, and I can only say one thing for sure: brains are weird. The way we learn information just seems so random. 

Progress isn't linear, so within the same day or week you cycle between feeling like this:

and this:

and then you find out there's another verb tense besides the 10 you just learned:

Seriously, how many do you need?!?

And although most of the time I feel like a complete rockhead, recently I was driving behind a pickup truck that had a cardboard box in the back with Spanish writing that I read and registered before realizing it wasn't in English, so there's still some weird osmosis thing going on that I don't quite get.

—7—

My 10-year-old will take literally any opportunity to make dessert. Anytime there's a potluck of any kind, she asks to make something. Family Home Evening? She'll volunteer to bake treats. Having a friend over? Well, making brownies together would be such a fun activity while she's here!

This can be a little annoying, as I didn't think to buy stock in Nestle Toll House before she was born, but sometimes it also comes in handy.

The other day I was making curry for dinner and she asked if we could have naan with it. I didn't want to make it but said she could if she wanted, so she whipped up a batch from scratch, rolled them out, and had them in the oven in under 10 minutes.

Considering I didn't know how to make mac and cheese from a box when I got married, I'd say she's doing pretty well.

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