7 Quick Takes about What You Might See When You Put Down Your Phone, Doing Blanket Math, and Eating Food Like a Star Wars Character

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

—1—

The other day I was in the car with Phillip and our 12-year-old, and we decided to stop by the grocery store on our way home. Phillip was going to run in for something, and both of us were just going to wait in the car. I was doing something on my phone, when the 12-year-old was like, "Mom, look at the sky."

I looked out the window, saw nothing, and went back to my phone.

A few seconds later, he said, "Woah, Mom, did you see that?"

I looked up again just in time to catch a distant lightning storm lighting up the clouds in deep purples and pinks, and then go dark. It was far enough away that the sound didn't reach us at all, though. We got out of the car and sat on the hood watching the storm until it started to move away 5 or 10 minutes later, but it was a pretty cool experience.

It's not easy because so much of life is on our phones now (I wasn't just doomscrolling, I was checking my to-do list and scheduling an appointment for one of the kids), but when I can I should remember to put my phone down.

—2—

 

Our 22-year-old daughter received her mission call! In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, young adults can apply to be missionaries and then they're assigned to a certain area of the world by church leadership. 

You can learn why I trust that the process of assigning missionaries to this or that place is an inspired process here and here (no dartboards involved), but one thing is clear: you yourself don't do the choosing.

Before she opened her mission call to find out where she'd be going, I had this conversation with the 10-year-old:

Me: Where do you think she'll go?

10yo: I don't know, it's random.

Me: It's not random. They do pray about it, you know.

10yo: Well, I wasn't included in that prayer so it's random to me.

We were all making guesses based on her language experience and her personality, and in the end when she opened her call and read it we were way off: she is going to Omaha, Nebraska! 

—3—

I took the 12-year-old with me to do some errands this week. Our first stop was picking up a bag of books that were on hold for us at the public library. Most of them were for the kids, so I pulled out mine (The Collapse of Parenting) and set it on the car seat so it didn't get mixed up with the kids' books.

Our next stop was at the dollar store to grab a few things. The 12-year-old said he'd rather stay in the car and read his newly-acquired books than come in with me, so I rolled down the windows and told him to come in if he started overheating.

And then, with The Collapse of Parenting sitting prominently visible in the front seat, I left my child alone in a hot car to go shopping.

I wonder if that's in the book.

—4—

In a few weeks we're having extended family come visit the area, and we offered for everyone to stay here. That means we will have 15 people in the house, and we do not have a big house.

We can do it, make no mistake about that. But it requires some complicated logistics, and it's not as simple as it sounds because we're going to be relocating some of our kids to give their beds to the guests and everyone's personal preferences have to be considered.

I put together a literal spreadsheet of blankets, pillows, and what surface everyone will be sleeping on to keep it straight and figure out if we need to buy anything.

—5—

Getting a young adult child ready for their first year of college is hard, particularly when you live in another state so you can't just load up all their stuff in the car and drop them off at the dorm on move-in day.

You have to buy plane tickets and then think about what to buy here (mostly clothes that they'll need to try on and make sure they like,) what to order and ship to Grandma and Grandpa who live near his college (thank goodness for Grandma and Grandpa, and for Amazon), and what to buy when you get there like toiletries.

Again, there's another spreadsheet.

Everything feels really rushed, especially since we're trying to get it done before our family comes into town so we can enjoy being with them. And when I say everything is last-minute, I mean everything. We just made an orthodontic appointment to get his braces off the day before he leaves for school.  

—6—

I'm also trying to learn the ropes for my new calling at church. I was asked to be the remote seminary teacher for our stake. Seminary, in our church, is for teenagers and it's an early-morning scripture study class every day before school. Ideally it's in-person at a physical building, but where we live in New England people are kind of spread-out so that doesn't logistically work for a number of kids, who can opt to do it online instead.

It's never been difficult for me to leave one calling for another before, but this was difficult for me. I loved working with the kids in Primary. Not only that, but I thought I was good at it and fulfilling a real need with talents that come naturally to me.

However, I don't think teaching seminary over Zoom taps any of my natural talents. I'm not a morning person, I'm not good at tech, and honestly I don't feel capable of teaching an engaging lesson over Zoom to tired teenagers at 6 AM (I'm not sure that anyone is, honestly.) But I suppose that's kind of the point. If you never did anything that stretched you, you'd have less reason to be on your knees asking God to help you figure it out every day.

Anyway, it's going to be a demanding calling. The amount of meetings and training I've already had dwarfs anything I've ever done in the church before, and I still don't feel like I know what I'm doing. Pray for me.

—7—

Last week for the Educational Summer Vacation, we learned about Malaysia and read a folk tale about a sneaky little mouse-deer who schemes his way to some fruit from the rambutan tree. 

As I looked at the illustrations I thought, "Hey, I've seen those at the grocery store before!" They're not there all the time so I didn't see them that week, but they had some this time so I brought them home.

Not the ripest things in the world, but beggars can't be choosers. Also, we live in New England, not Southeast Asia.

My kids love it when I serve them unfamiliar food that requires instructions on how in the world to eat it:

Actually, they were pretty excited to try these. My son said they looked like something you'd see in a funny scene from Star Wars when they ask for food on another planet and have no idea what to do with what they're given.

Cut, pop out the white fruit, and spit out the pit as you eat it.

In my opinion, they tasted a little like grapes. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

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