—1—
Phillip has taken over all food-related duties at home, which is turning out great because he likes cooking and I hate it. He's also doing the grocery shopping.
The rule in our house is that when someone comes home from grocery shopping, everybody has to drop what they're doing and come help put it away, so we were all in the kitchen unloading groceries. Pulling out a bottle of the hand soap I'd asked him to buy, I said, "Oh, this is the wrong soap. It's orange, and we always use clear soap."
My 9-year-old son looked at me disapprovingly and said, "I think you meant 'Thank you, Dad, for buying all the food.'"
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| This moment is brought to you by my 4th grader, Miss Manners. |
Wait, does this mean that my 9-year-old is actually listening to me when I say that to him?? I mean, I'm thrilled, I just didn’t expect him to use my own words against me so perfectly.
—2—
I've spent a lot of time this week planning this year's bulletin board in our Primary room at church. Bulletin boards are like birthday party decorations: as a general rule, kids don't care or notice them at all, so unless they're involved in it somehow you're just doing it to impress other adults. So I wanted it to be something interactive.
Since we're studying the Old Testament at church this year, I had the idea to make a path where we stop once a month and add a picture of a Bible story to the path. We'll take a few minutes to talk about how we can be brave like Esther, or whatever the story is, and if they actually do it they can add a footprint sticker to the path the next week.
The part I'm proudest of is that I made this board without buying anything. I repurposed the burlap background that was already there, used lettering I found in the Primary closet, and made the border with tissue paper (also found in the closet.) I think I want my family to put on my tombstone: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." That's what makes me happy.
—3—
We keep getting severe-sounding letters from our auto insurance company. Ones that come in official cardboard envelopes you have to sign for at delivery. Our car was totaled in October, and they keep pestering us to mail them the title. Which we already did, a month ago.
I finally got around to calling them about it, but they wouldn't tell me anything because I wasn't on the title of that vehicle. So Phillip had to call them. After he explained the situation they said to ignore it, they'll take care of it and we won't get any more letters.
We got another one by certified mail the next day.
—4—
I liked this article about 5 conversation-starters that might lead to gospel conversations with other people. These are ways to ask people about how they answer life's Big Questions in a non-denominational way. Kind of a guide to go beyond small talk. If you need that kind of thing. Which I do.
I really like to share my faith and talk about what's important to me, but most of my friends and acquaintances outside church aren't religious or particularly interested in talking about it, so it doesn't happen often. (My life is basically the opposite of my son's friend's missionary experience in Brazil, where he would just board a city bus and say "Who wants to hear a message about Jesus Christ?" and people would raise their hands.)
—5—
I recently got a phishing text that read: "Hey old man, how's it been going lately?" I laughed briefly and then deleted it.
Later in the week, I read a New York Times piece on a scam center in Myanmar where workers were punished for a low response rate to their "hi" texts, which made me wonder... did I just tank a stranger's performance review?
—6—
My 21-year-old daughter got a Pimsleur subscription for Christmas to learn the basics of Japanese before she does a research internship in Japan this summer, and you're allowed to add other users to your account so guess who's using it to practice her Spanish?
Seriously, my Spanish is so weird. I've been studying for almost four years so at this point, I can read anything and get the gist of it. I know the words for 'overbite,' 'stunned,' 'flint,' and 'kidnapper,' but I still struggle to verbally put together simple sentences without hesitation, so this is the perfect thing for me.
My daughter (who researches everything, which is probably why she got the internship) tells me that Pimsleur was developed to optimize the intervals at which you review a concept in order to commit it to memory. After a few weeks on Pimsleur, I can totally see that.
—7—
I could detect the sarcasm in this one, but barely.
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