Blessings and Trials

Sunday was my first day of serving as the 2nd counselor in the Young Women's Presidency. I admit that I was a bit intimidated even though I was super excited. I had no idea what the girls would think of me. My fears were a bit alleviated when they prayed, "and we are thankful for our new Young Women's...person". I couldn't help but smile :). There are currently five active girls, with three more coming in the fall. I am over the Beehives, so in a few months I will have a large class.

This presidency is amazing and they spend a lot of time making sure all their girls are getting what they need out of the program. I am quickly learning that the time commitment is quite extreme, something I could never have done back home in Provo with my two jobs. In fact, it will be a miracle if I can keep up with it all here. Activities are every Tuesday night with more activities falling on Saturdays. I have presidency meetings Sunday at 8:00am, missionary meetings on Saturdays at 9:00am, and various other meetings every Sunday at 2:00pm. On top of all that, there are supplementary things that the girls need, like an extra volleyball practice tomorrow night to prepare for the tournament on Saturday. Seriously, I was so wrong to think my husband was busy as Elders Quorum President. ;)

In other news, I painted a picture to release my creative tension. I like how it turned out, but am open to any suggestions or comments to better my skills.



Last Friday, my dog was trying to get me to play with her while I was on my laptop. She knocked it off the table where it was sitting and shattered the screen. We are able to still use it by hooking it up to a separate monitor, but it just seemed like one more hardship that we didn't need.

And now for a list of complaints I have to get off my chest in this week's rant:

First Topic:
We have resigned ourselves to the fact that most places we decide we need to go take us at least 25 minutes to drive to. This would have killed me in Utah. I was upset when it took me 20 minutes to get home from work in rush hour traffic. Now if I decide we need to pick something up at a specific store, there is a very good chance that we will have to drive to the other side of town for it. Apparently there are no department stores, electronic stores, or pet stores anywhere near us. I tried to search for a JCPenney (my fave back home) but they were all so far away, I couldn't even attempt to drive there without planning a two hour trip. UGH! I was spoiled living right by the mall in Provo.

Second Topic:
I am so sick of the bugs, spiders, and other gross things around here. Not only are they EVERYWHERE, but they are HUGE. Our Utah spiders having nothing of these monsters. Plus, tonight, in the purple lightening flashes, I saw two bats flying past me. It was sort of eerie.

Third Topic:
People who think I have all the time in the world and am sitting home bored on my butt. Just to set the record straight, I have many things that fill my time. I am searching and applying for jobs, helping my husband with homework, cooking meals, driving FOREVER to go shopping, and last but not least, catching up on all those things I haven't had time for in years like reading, painting, and playing the piano. However, a woman in my ward was convinced that I was bored and insisted that I come to help her with her home schooling co-op group thing for two horrible days, which leads me to my next rant topic.

Fourth Topic:
First off, I hate home schooling. I am trained to be an educator and spent many years in college learning how to teach children certain topics. It is rather insulting that parents, with no relevant education, presume to know how to teach kids everything from reading to biology. I have found that 90% of the time, the home schooled kids are poorly educated and socially awkward, and so are their parents. This co-op thing just proved my point even more. I was incredibly tempted to grab the mic and tell each of the foolish mothers how they were crippling their children with their own pride. Because, seriously, very few of those women had a college education and none of them seemed able to adequately teach pre-algebra, biology, world history, and Spanish, all at the same time.

Okay, I apologize for all the complaining, I just needed to get all that out of me. Thanks for listening. :)

Week #2: Adjusting

This past week was one of figuring out our place here in Kansas City. Now that the house was mostly arranged, I was able to focus on different things, like yelling at the city for not picking up our garbage, again, and feeding the missionaries.

Earlier in the week we accidentally found the public library near our home, so we went in and got ourselves library cards and I found two books for me to read and keep me from getting bored (just so you know, I haven't had time to start either one yet).

On Wednesday night I decided it was time for me to update my highlights. I didn't know a good stylist or have any idea where to go, so I decided I could figure it out by myself. I put it in my hair very carefully, making sure they all aligned correctly with my previous highlights. I waited the appropriate amount of time and then washed them out. When I looked into the mirror I nearly screamed as my hair was not the perky blonde on the box, but instead a putrid orange. I will admit that I cried. The next day I dyed my hair brown and it worked to cover the mess nicely. It was time for a change anyway.



On Friday we took the dog out for a stroll at a park about 10 minutes away from our home. This park is in a lovely part of town, with huge antebellum homes that were part of the Underground Railroad. The park was actually the site of the Battle of Westport, the last major battle of the Civil War west of the Mississippi. This was the first Civil War battleground I have visited and we had a fun time reading the markers explaining the battle and where the lines were. Godiva had fun running around and being scared of the huge geese in the pond.

At the park:





Friday night we fed the missionaries for the first time in our married life. I was channeling my mother's craziness as I hurried to clean the house and the car and fix the meal so that we could pick them up on time and make sure they were adequately fed. Somehow, in the mix of it all, I totally destroyed the dessert. I made brownies with marshmallows on top, but the brownies didn't cook evenly and the marshmallows burned on the half that was done. The other half of the brownies was literally runny fudge. I didn't realize my predicament until it was time for me to serve dessert. Obviously, I couldn't feed that to my guests, and I freaked out! Suddenly, I remembered that when my siblings were here, they had made brownie cakes (called that cause they ended up fluffier than normal brownies). I pulled them out of the fridge, heated them up in the microwave, scooped some of the melted marshmallows onto the top and served them with ice cream. Not even Alexander realized what I had done! So, thanks Natalie for totally saving my bacon, err, brownies. ;)

On Saturday, Alexander and I went to the Kansas City Irish Fest. It's the 3rd largest in the country and once we arrived we knew why. The festival was HUGE! It was in the courtyard of the Crown Center and at least 4 additional city blocks. It had 8 stages with different kinds of musicians playing at each one all day long and set up so carefully that you could only hear one of the stages at any given time, despite how close some of them were to each other.

They colored all the water in all the fountains green:



There were tons of vendors selling all sorts of wonderful things. We got really excited about the British grocery store that was selling all our favorite British foods and candies like Fruit Pastilles and Lemon soda (both my personal faves)! Good thing we didn't eat lunch before we went because there were dozens of food vendors and luckily for me they were selling meat pies and Scotch eggs and Alexander filled himself up with a sausage roll and fish and chips. Yummy! I would wager that the food rivaled what I ate in England, and was maybe even better.

Alexander thought he would be funny and wear his Scotland shirt. However, originally the word 'Scotland' meant land of the Irish.



On Sunday I was told I had been in the ward too long to not have a calling. Since it hasn't been announced yet, I won't tell you what it is until next Sunday. I will tell you that I was surprised and excited. :)

Don't forget to continue down to the previous post to see pics of my home. :)

Pictures of the House

Some people have been requesting to see pictures of my home, so I have included some pics of the rooms that are finished to quench your curiosity. Sadly, the bedroom, study, and back bathroom still look like a disaster so I don't have pics of those yet.

The Living Room, looking in from the dining room:


Looking in from the front door:




The Dining Room, looking in from the living room:





Today I made this floral arrangement, so now this and a green tablecloth sit on the dining room table:



Kitchen, looking in from the dining room (if you look carefully, you can see my laundry room and back door through the kitchen):








The Guest Bedroom:



My Craft Corner in the Guest Room:

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Our Front Bathroom (we actually shower in this one, but I do my hair and makeup in the back one cause the humidity gets so crazy). This bathroom is between 2 bedrooms (the guest room and the study) so it has two entrances:







Let me know what you think of the place. :) Tomorrow I will give an update of this past week's adventures.