This is a Blessing, Right?

IF ONE MORE PERSON IN THIS WARD ASKS ME TO DO ONE MORE THING I JUST MIGHT LOSE IT!!! That is if I haven't already lost it, which I may have already done. So it all starts with my real calling as Enrichment Leader. Yesterday I spent at least 4 hours working on enrichment stuff. This morning I arrived at church early so I could put the relief society calender (that I had spent at least 1 1/2 hrs on) in with the sacrament meeting program. That was done, great! I was feeling better already. I then had a run in with the 1st counselor of the Primary.

I was asked to sub for the chorister for the next couple of weeks. So instead of enjoying Sunday School, I went in to scope out Primary. After watching a train wreck of Junior Primary singing time and deciding that I hated the way these women ran Primary, I returned to Sunday School only to worry the entire time that I was being set up for a new calling as Primary chorister. After the meeting I calmly walked down to Relief Society where I was bombarded with a hundred enrichment things, and an "oh dear, will you lead the music?" While leading the opening hymn I was struck by how funny it was that more and more people are turning to me for things they need. I also felt blessed that I was able to help. It made me feel better. It was a set-up.

After the meeting and after speaking with 5 more women, I finally stepped into the hallway to see a sister who looked a little distraught. I asked her if I could bring the treat to book club and she looked relieved. I felt I had done enough, but she kept talking. Apparently she serves with her husband as the youth activity coordinator (her husband is Stake YM Pres) and they are in charge of the pioneer youth trek. This morning we found out that our ward is being moved to a new stake and that 4 other family wards are as well. This couple will still be doing trek, but now they have 4 new wards to work with, none of which had been planning for a trek. So now the trek has been enlarged by 4x the youth and not enough help as Ma's and Pa's. This sister asked me if my husband and I would like to be called as a Ma and Pa, I told her I would love it, but my husband can't walk for more than 30 minutes. She was obviously disappointed until she had a new idea. She will call her assistant to be a Ma and call me as her assistant. Ta Da! Trek is on June 4 and if I am called it won't be for another week. I would be organizing and working with registrations (hmm, this sounds like a job I once had...) and keeping this woman sane. Sounds exciting.

It's a good thing I'm so wonderful or else I might be overwhelmed. ;)

I think I might just die.

Fresh Ideas

I know my last post made a lot of people worry, but I just wanted to let you know that the fever has passed and I am back to normal (well, relatively).

Yesterday I made a bunch of new centerpieces to put up on my website. I am trying to shake the old fashioned look and be more hip and modern, since that's what I really am anyway.

I am putting pictures of my centerpieces up here. Please let me know what you think and if you have any new great ideas. I WOULD APPRECIATE AS MUCH FEEDBACK AS I CAN GET, FROM ANYONE :)

Thanks!!!

Teetering on the Edge of Insanity

I would like to think of myself as the kind of person who would shun such trivial and mind-numbing television known as Reality TV. However, I am not. I am secretly in love with some of those shows, particularly VH1's Rock of Love 2. So, it's true that 80's rock wasn't really my thing, but I have developed some affinity for the lead singer of Poison, Bret Michaels. In Rock of Love, Bret is looking for his one, true love. He starts with 20 girls and over the course of some crazy challanges and interesting antics, he eliminates them one at a time. I have been watching this show for weeks and I am sickeningly addicted. Last night was the finale and the girl I picked on day one, actually was chosen as his "rock of love". While watching, I was so excited and nervous you would have thought I was on the show.

Anyway, now I have a dilemma. I am so intrigued by Bret. On the show he was the most perfect gentleman a girl could ever want. He was sincere, honest, smart, and down to earth, and I really like his music. He has some solo albums, and a new one that was specially featured on the show and I am really into it. This morning I found out that while I was sitting in my home watching the show and dying of anticipation, Bret Michaels was doing a concert in Sandy! How evil to have a concert and the finale at the same time! I was almost sad that I couldn't go.

So I guess there is something wrong with me because I have never liked wild concerts, nor have I ever been "enthralled" with any band or celebrity. I think I have regressed to teenager-ism. There is a concert tomorrow in Denver, and I actually was considering making the 7 hour drive to attend a concert! SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE ME!!! I need a healthy dose of adult right about now because as much as I would love to play like I was a freshman in college again, my husband would never go for it. Hmmm.... I am feeling very weird, maybe I should go lie down and hopefully I will feel like myself again soon.

Subbing

After reading Alisyn's blog latest blog entry, I decided to share my exciting adventures from the last two days.

I decided to substitute at my mother's school both Thursday and Friday for a second grade class. I arrived early Thursday morning prepared to take a beating, but was surprised to see a young woman already in the classroom. I stopped in my tracks, thinking that I had mistakenly entered the wrong room. It turns out, however, that she was the student teacher! No one had told me about this! So the deal was that I got to sit and do absolutely nothing the entire day while she taught and handled the class. AWKWARD! However, it turned out to be okay. She was very nice and told me to read a book or something and that I didn't need to worry about a thing. So I did what she said. I felt VERY guilty getting paid for a full day's work (2 days actually) when all I did was read. However, that's the way it goes. District rules.

The kids got used to me just sitting and reading but most were too shy to say anything to me, they just smiled and did a little wave. One child though came over to where I was to use the stapler.
"What are you doing?"
"Just reading"
"Are you really reading that?!" (the book is pretty big)
"Yup"
"Why?"
"Cause I wanted to"
"Huh..."
The child, with confused face and freshly stapled paper, then walked to his desk and sat down to ponder the wonders of the world and why someone would want to read a book that big.

The last half hour of Thursday the secretary "borrowed" me to go and teach the music class. It happened to be a sixth grade class and the lesson plan that day was to be an animator and while listening to Beethoven's 5th draw a picture of what the music reminded them of. When they had finished they got to watch and see what the animators of Fantasia had thought of for the same music. Cool idea. The kids were a riot! I had some of them share their ideas and pictures with the class. I hadn't told the kids the name of the piece of music beforehand, but one boy drew a picture of Beethoven pounding on the piano cause he said the music reminded him of Beethoven, even though he didn't know who composed the song. Another boy drew a picture of a unicorn whose droppings were rainbows. He said the music didn't remind him of unicorns but Fantasia did. I thought that the world would be a much better place if the cats and dogs of my neighborhood had droppings that were rainbows. At least my garden area would be colorful (lousy cats!!).

Today was just as delightful and I had fun spending time with my mom. I got to eat lunch with her and spend recess in her classroom! By the way, I think it's cool that if you are the teacher at an elementary school you get recess too! I definitely need a job that offers recess at least twice a day.

A Week's Worth of Ramblings

I'm going to tell the story backwords, starting with today and going back.

I think I am getting sick. Actually, I know it and I also know that my body is totally fighting it. I absolutely hate colds, so I decided that I won't get them anymore. Saturday night I started getting a sore throat and I knew I was in for it. I always get a sore throat first and then the full-blown horridness of the sneezy, runny nose, headache, achy body miserableness. I have filled my body with all sorts of vitamins and liquids so I hope I will slide through this quickly. I have to do another internet radio show this weekend (did I tell you they made me a regular?) and I really don't want a stuffy nose to make my voice sound worse.

Conference is always wonderful. I love the spirit is brings into our home. I also love the excuse to sit home and rest.

My in-laws came up this weekend, they had tickets to 3 of the 5 sessions of conference and they wanted to see us. We went up to Bountiful last night and spent quite a bit of time chatting. I think things are going much better with them. At least I didn't spend the whole night hating them and they gave me orange juice for my throat (I think I drank a whole gallon).

I had a couple of consultations this week, and I actually got a contract signed. I need more than one though so I worked hard this week sending emails and posting ads around. I had a huge week in regards to hits to my website, apparently people keep looking but I am still waiting for them to call. I guess starting something new will always be harder than I expected it to be.

Bridal Fair #1

So I think we made it. We successfully survived the first bridal fair ordeal. Ordeal doesn't sound like the right word... how about baptism by fire, yes I think that's better.

And what a fire it was! I was totally burned out by the end. Perhaps I should start on Friday morning. After a long Thursday night of creating and fixing my marketing pieces I thought I could print them out on my computer and be done with it. By noon on Friday I was completely and utterly discouraged. Seven hours, several gallons of gas, and two nervous breakdowns later, I had accomplished very little beyond picking up a few supplies at Costco. Everything went wrong with my marketing pieces and I had to reformat them all. In the end with the help from my wonderful and supportive husband, I was able to figure it out.

We went to Provo High School at 8pm to set up for the bridal fair and with my strong brothers (and sister) we got the whole thing done fairly quickly. I will post pics below. After the set up was finished around 10:00, we ran a few more errands: Walmart, my storage unit, my parents, Wendy's (we hadn't eaten since lunch), and finally Kinkos (my third visit that day). We spent the glorious hours of 12:30-2:00am printing and cutting fliers. It was great! I think it was actually the most productive part of my day aside from setting up. I finally was able to lay my head down on my pillow at 3:30am, only to wake at 7:30am to rush and get ready.

At the bridal fair my savior, Alisyn, came to the rescue and we rushed to finish setting up. 15 minutes before the show started we were told that we could take up the space next to us because the people hadn't showed up. So in the end we had a huge space! Al and I rushed to recenter the backdrop, but boy was it worth it!

Because of Anna and Al's beautiful daisy balls that were hanging from the backdrop we got tons of girls stopping to look at our booth. We were the only bright colors on our row so people were drawn to us like flies. All in all, I think it went very well. My website hits have been fairly high since the bridal fair, so that's great. At least people are looking. I have been looking too. I checked out all my competition and from what I can tell I have the most variety and the most visually interesting backdrops. I also have the lowest prices, so cross your fingers that the phone starts ringing.

Ketchup

Have you ever felt kinda empty inside but you don't know why? It's sort of like a hollow sadness. I have been feeling that way today, like if one more little thing were to go wrong, I might just sit down and cry. The funny thing is, not too much has gone wrong today, so I don't know why I feel this way.

So the bridal fair is this week and I have been crazy trying to get my act in gear. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a vinyl sign from online and I have been waiting to get it for the past week. I had already sent them an email last week and made 3 unanswered phone calls, so today I sent them an email saying that if I didn't hear from them by tomorrow I would take legal action against them. Apparently that scared them as I got both an email and a phone call in which I was told that the store had closed and they were issuing a full refund. Yeah right. Whatever. It was only $30.

I made ketchup today. My Great Grandmother, Grandma Ellen, to whom I was very close, used to make this homemade ketchup that I grew up loving. I was 12 when she died and I had a very difficult time adjusting to eating food without that wonderful condiment. I have a special fondness for eating it with the traditional breakfast Grandma Ellen used to make when I slept over (which was nearly every weekend for 2 years). We would eat fried eggs, toast, bacon, oatmeal with raisins, and orange juice and we always had ketchup with it. When I got married I decided enough was enough and I found the recipe and started bottling it. I was amazed when it tasted exactly how I remembered it. This is the 3rd time I have made it (cause I keep running out!) and all day long the house smells like spices and it brings the sweetest memories of my childhood. Someday I will also learn how to bottle her version of dill pickles and green beans (not together), but for now this is good.