voluntary simplicity … my newest interest

So, during the past year, I’ve been doing a lot of considering about my life and how I’m living it and what I would like to be different and how to change it. And I think I’ve found a name for all of this: voluntary simplicity.

Not that I coined that term myself. It’s a movement that’s taken hold in America (and, presumably, other countries) in recent years, and focuses on choosing to live a simpler lifestyle–largely by doing things yourself.

I found this during my most recent possessions purge–you know, that occasional time in life when you just feel the need to go through all the things you own and get rid of the junk that you either don’t need, don’t use anymore, or didn’t even want in the first place. It’s been quite freeing this time–and even marginally profitable, since I sold some things on Amazon–and it got me thinking more deeply about what exactly it is that I want in life.

I hopped on the internet (as I so frequently do in response to tough questions, including those of the soul-searching variety), started looking around at some information about minimalism, and then suddenly came across the term “voluntary simplicity.” Aha! I thought. That sounds like just what I’m looking for. And, indeed, so far it seems to be.

Since that day, I have come across two websites that I really enjoy, both dealing with different aspects of this lifestyle. I have found them both fascinating and enlightening, and would therefore like to share them with you:

• Choosing Voluntary Simplicity Shirley lives and works in New England, and has been living a voluntarily simple life for several years now. I enjoy her quotes of poetry, photos of flowers, and discussion of their simple, rural lifestyle–and I especially love her from-scratch recipes! They’re always tasty, simple, and usually quite fast.
• The Simple Dollar Trent lives in the Midwest (Iowa?) and writes about how to get your finances in order, both through frugal living and through personal financial planning.

I also just got thinking, since I keep the above sites bookmarked under “personal development,” that I ought to share my two other favorite personal development sites with you all:

• Og Mandino If you’re not familiar with Og already, you really should be. He writings can work wonders i n your life. And someday I’ll have to explain the theory behind why it works so well! But not now … that’s a post for another day.
• Steve Pavlina (Personal Development for Smart People) Steve has an incredible personal story, and I find his articles entertaining, profound, and eminently practical. I’ve used lots of his ideas to help me break old habits, create new habits, and generally keep myself motivated to continue working on it all.

So, after that short digression, I shall now move on to the real point of this particular post: my new “piggy” bank.

I have been thinking long and hard about my personal finance situation lately. And yesterday, while driving to church and then waiting for Sacrament Meeting to start, I got looking through the new Ensign, which included a few articles on the same subject. The more I have looked through the official counsel from Church leaders, the more I have been struck with the idea that I need to seriously start a savings fund.

I have found that goal rather daunting in the past, from the way that I’ve heard financial gurus talk about it. They say, for example, to save 10% of all your income, and to build a reserve of several months’-worth of expenses. Although I did save 10% of my income for a little while last year, I found myself spending it too easily–and, as a result, I had little to nothing saved at any given point. And after that, it seemed so overwhelming to try and save up an emergency fund of several thousand dollars (especially given my current salary).

But I have found hope in the LDS Church’s pamphlet “All is Safely Gathered In,” in which they counsel members to build their emergency preparation storage (both of food and of money) just a little at a time. Church leaders have recommended that we save just a little each week, even if it’s only a few coins.

As I have pondered that counsel, I’ve found that it’s a do-able goal. I often have spare change sitting around, or a few extra dollars left at the end of a week, and there’s nothing (reasonable) to prevent me from depositing that money in my savings account, to help build up a reasonable reserve to use in cases of emergency.

So tonight, I held my own, personal Family Home Evening, where I studied a little more about the necessity of building an emergency fund, along with advice from various financial counselors about how to build that reserve and what to use it for. (I am finding, personally, that it’s vital for me to define, specifically, which events qualify as an emergency and which don’t. Otherwise, I’m all too apt to decide that  it’s really essential for me to buy that new shirt that I love so much–even though I can easily do without it, and that’s not really what the Emergency Fund is for.) I particularly enjoyed this article: Saving for Greatness.

After that, I picked out an old, empty pint jar from my obliging sister’s storage room, and decorated it with some pretty paper, designating it as my collection jar for the E-fund. I decided to forego the slit in the lid, since I figured it was just as easy to unscrew the lide once or twice a week, and it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to safely punch that hole in.

I set the jar up on a shelf in my room, in a spot where I can see it easily and think of it often. And I have already donated a little over a dollar to the E-fund, which I plan to deposit in the bank at the end of the month.

 

musical monday: mormon folk songs and hymns

I have been thinking a lot about the Mormon pioneers in the last week or so and–while this is by no means an exhaustive list–I wanted to share a few of the songs that always remind me of them. Only one of them, so far as I know, is strictly a Mormon folk song, but the others, as I said, remind me of the Mormon pioneers crossing the plains.

First are two songs that I know from the BYU Men’s Choir: “We’ll Shout and Give Him Glory,” and “Whoa, Haw, Buck and Jerry Boy.” You can listen to “We’ll Shout and Give Him Glory” on YouTube, though the video has nothing whatever to do with going to Zion, shouting and giving glory, or the BYU Men’s Choir. Oh, well. “Whoa, Haw, Buck and Jerry Boy,” on the other hand, is nowhere to be found online (at least not that I can tell), and I am sadly unable to upload it to my blog. This song was written by Mormons, for Mormons, about Mormons. I love so many things about the words, and I especially like the thought of my pioneer ancestors singing things like this to try and keep their spirits up while they walked or pulled handcarts to Salt Lake Valley.

Next is a song I first heard performed by the BYU Men’s Choir, but have since been unable to ever find a recording of it by them. I do, though, have a recording by the BYU-Idaho Men’s Choir, in which my brother was singing at the time.  “Whistle, Maggie, Whistle” is apparently beloved as a comic choral song, particularly in men-only choruses. There are a few versions available on YouTube, such as this one (although I think the BYU-I version is vastly superior). I’m not sure this song even existed when the pioneers were crossing the plains, but it still reminds me of them nonetheless.

Finally is a beautiful folk hymn that is widely known as a standard of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. “Bound for the Promised Land” (YouTube) is a classic American folk hymn, and I find the MoTab version particularly stirring–so much so that it often brings tears to my eyes. I can’t help but think of my pioneer ancestors and their feeling that they were, in literal truth, bound for the Promised Land–which then always makes me think of my own journey through life and my own quest for the Eternal Promised Land.

Below are the lyrics for all of these songs. Enjoy!

 

randomness

While I love Idaho in many ways, I have found that I’m not so fond of snow as I remembered.

While I don’t love snow as much as I thought I did, I’m getting used to it.  And I still prefer it to heat.

As long as I’m on the weather–in many ways, I miss the great rain-storms in Texas.

I am more than curious to see how events will unfold after President Hinckley’s funeral (which I’m currently watching).  Who will serve as counselors to President Monson?  When will the announce the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency?  What will President Monson’s administration be like?  How will his General Conference talks change?

I’m frequently disturbed by the mis-representation of the quote that starts, “Anyone who imagines bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around and shouting that he has been robbed.”  While I love this quote, I’m frustrated that people don’t recognize that President Hinckley did not say this.  Rather,  he quoted it from an article in the Deseret News from 1973.  If you’d like to read the quote in full, take a look at the following article (just one of many in which President Hinckley used it): “A Conversation with Single Adults.”

I love teaching at BYU-Idaho.   I can expect so much more from my students than I could at a state university.  Plus, I don’t have to avert my eyes when talking to my students (because they all dress modestly); I can talk about the Gospel openly (which is nice, since it’s a strong vein in my thinking); and I actually feel like I’m a real member of the faculty (which I never really did at UNT).

I would be willing to teach full-time at BYU-Idaho, at least for a few years.  Especially if I could teach some linguistics-related classes, like History of the English Language.

If Sen. John McCain wins the nomination as the presidential candidate for President, disaster will soon follow in the Republican Party.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a major party-shift.

If McCain wins the nomination, I refuse to vote for him.  I will write in Mitt Romney as my choice for President.

I’m on tenter-hooks, waiting to see how things come out in the many primaries and caucuses on “Super Tuesday” (Feb. 5).

I’m wonderfully grateful for the in-depth coverage that has been given to this presidential race.

Although I love my new PC laptop, I still wish I’d gotten a Mac.  *sigh*

While I appreciate the great love that members of the Church–and especially the youth–have had for President Hinckley, I don’t quite “get” the deep sadness at his passing.  I have no doubt that he is much happier now than he has been for some time.  Meanwhile, the Church will move on here on the earth, and can only progress.  What is there to be sad about?  (I don’t mean to trivialize the grief of so many, I am merely expressing my own feelings on this occasion.)

I didn’t realize until just recently that there was some lag-time between the passing of the President of the Church and the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency, even after Brigham Young had cleared up the succession problem.

One of the most destructive weapons against the productive use of our time is the invention of decent computer games.  I am currently obsessed with Jojo’s Fashion Show, and a few weeks ago was obsessed with Chocolatier.  Now I can hardly stand not being able to play Chocolatier 2.  And I am addicted to the 60-minute trial scheme.

I have been trying to work up the courage to leave the country for a few years as soon as I finish my doctoral degree.  I’d love to teach English abroad, perhaps in Mongolia or Jordan, perhaps through the Peace Corps or the BYU Kennedy Center for International Studies.  And I frequently think that I’d like to learn a “less-commonly-taught” language like Arabic, Hebrew, or Bengalese and then work as a contract linguist for the FBI and/or NVTC (National Virtual Translation Center).

The BYU-I English Department Secretary recently emailed all the faculty, asking for some help with a special project.  They are collecting favorite one-liner quotes from our favorite authors.  *chuckle*  I think I can do that.  My pick of my favorite favorite quotes ended up at about 2-1/2 pages.

I recently bought the actual album of Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations.  Not just the downloaded version, but the real-life CD, which I can now keep in my car and listen to whenever I want.  Oh, joy!

A few weeks ago, Mom and I watched the movie Dan in Real Life.  I loved it!  From the previews, I thought it was going to be a screwball comedy.  It wasn’t.  And it was so much better than I had expected.  Even if you’re not a Steve Carrell fan, I highly recommend it.  And if you are a Steve Carrell fan,  I still recommend it, as it’s an unusual example of his dramatic acting skills.

 

what’s going on

I know it’s been forever since I really updated my blog, so here’s the run-down.

computer troubles

Soon after Mom and I got home from babysitting in Colorado Springs, my hard drive died.  Meaning that I couldn’t do anything on my computer.  I was so sick of putting more and more money into that computer, that I decided to just get a new one.  I’d really been wanting a Mac PowerBook … but I decided instead to have it custom-built by a local computer shop, for about the same price as my Mac would’ve cost.  I’m crossing my fingers, now, that I won’t regret that decision.  So in the meantime, I’m using my mom and dad’s old laptop computer.  It’s not too bad, but it’s not mine.  It doesn’t have my music on it, and it has a habit of freezing up when you’ve been on the internet for a while.  Meanwhile, I haven’t heard anything from the computer shop about my new machine since I ordered it last week.  Pray for me, folks.

new calling

Just after getting home, I also got released from my old calling as FHE coordinator.  Instead I was called to teach the Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class.  Which I love.  I’m not so comfortable with the New Testament, but I only have three more lessons of that, then some General Conference talks to round off the year, and then we start Book of Mormon next year. But, the really funny part: Mom and Dad have also both been recently called as Gospel Doctrine teachers.  Which makes three of us — or the entire household, whichever way you want to look at it.

sick

I’ve been feeling really sick lately.  Some of you know that I’ve had this recurring problem with nausea.  Well, My Brother The Chiropractor recently suggested that it might be my gallbladder.  We’ve checked a couple of things, and that does, indeed, seem to be the problem.  So I’ve been taking pills (mostly made of beet-root) to help thin the bile, and things are so much better.  I won’t go into detail, but my appetite is more regular these days, among other things.

However, I woke up this morning with an awful sore throat.  It’s been one of those days where I feel too sick to work — headache, tired, and coughy — but not tired enough to just sleep.  It really stinks.

holidays

I had a good Thanksgiving, with plenty of family.  My brother and his sister came from Colorado, so I got to see The Princess again — since I got pretty attached to her recently, that was very nice.  I also went to Pocatello with my oldest brother, along with Damber and their family, where we walked around downtown to do some children’s holiday activities — The Queen got a reindeer painted on her face, among other things — and then watched the annual Christmas parade.  That’s always a fun time, since absolutely everyone in Pocatello knows Kip. He got waved at a lot during the parade, not to mention getting tons of extra candy.

Now I’m all pumped up for Christmas.  Although I’ll be mostly working on my dissertation and my teaching plans for next semester.  Which brings me to my last point:

working

I’ve been hired to teach part-time at BYU-Idaho, starting in January.  I don’t know how long the arrangement will last, but I at least have a job lined up for a few months.  I’ll be teaching two sections of English 111, freshman composition.  I’m getting pretty excited about it.  Plus, Mom’s been helping me shop for some new clothes, since they have a fairly strict dress code for teachers.  And a new wardrobe is always good.

 

happy st. george’s day!

Yup, today is St. George’s feast day. And you may have noticed from the side-bar, we’re currently reading a bunch of St. George legends for my Medieval Lit class. Good timing, I’d say.

Here’s a little about what’s been going on for me lately.

Mormon … is she, or isn’t she?
The other day I mentioned to a girl in my program that I’m Mormon, and she responded, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem like a Mormon — very together, centered.” I had to laugh as I told her that, during my first semester here, when I told another girl that I was Mormon, she had exactly the opposite reation: “You don’t seem like a Mormon to me.” This seemed to mean, that time, that I wasn’t pushy about my religion. Exactly opposite reactions, yet I took both of them as a compliment.

BYU baseball
I went to Fort Worth Saturday night to watch BYU baseball against TCU. Unfortunately, BYU didn’t score at all that particular night, although we’d won on Thursday and lost, but scored, on Friday. So, the most exciting thing that happened during that particular game was that I got a full paragraph of Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi translated from Old English — I’ve been working on it all semester long as part of my final paper for Medieval Lit.

getting up early
Friday night, I slept out on the futon, since both of my roommates were gone, and I just felt like “camping out.” Then I slept in really late the next morning. The good news about this is that I woke before my alarm went on Sunday morning — a sure indication that I’m no longer sleep deprived. So this morning I got up at 6:16 and worked out before coming home to finish homework (and blog). I’m hoping to keep this up until the end of the semester — I’m much happier and more productive when I get up early and go to bed early.

I’m also much happier when I work out, and even though I haven’t been for almost a whole month, I can already see and feel my biceps growing. And I’m really serious about that — it’s not just psychological.

IndieFeed podcast
If you remember, I posted an entry a while ago about the podcasts I subscribe to. At the time, I had only just started subscribing to the IndieFeed Alternative & Modern music station, so I didn’t really know whether it was at all good. Well, now I know.

It’s great!!

They play all kinds of different music, many of which you can buy on iTunes and many others of which you can only get by visiting the artist website. Naturally, I like some better than others, but it’s great to be able to hear what’s going on in the music world out there.

One of my favorite songs that I’ve gotten to know from IndieFeed is “Ikea” by Jonathan Coulter: “Ikea: just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen … Everyone has a home, and if you don’t have a home, you can buy one there.” I love it.

If JoCo is not your style, though, they’ve got lots of other folks on IndieFeed: Mates of State, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Calling All Monsters, Tom Thumb and the Latter Day Saints, Snowden, +/-, The Dead Science … you name it, they got it. The DJ also usually has some nifty trivia tidbit at the end, which is fun.

quote of the day
In the meantime, I’m still obsessed, although I don’t have time to indulge this particular obsession right now.

I bet she’s tougher than that — she runs with vampires. (71 points)

The last quote, which no one guessed, was from a Muse song (shocker!), “Blackout.”

 

Ensign thoughts

I’m not sure if I’ve really mentioned this before, but I’ve been really into Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series lately. I found her books obsessing enough that I stayed up all through the night to read them. Both of them (although on different nights, about three weeks apart). Anyway, Margo recently mentioned to me that there was a story by Stephenie Meyer in the December 2006 issue of the Ensign (from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), called “Hero at the Grocery Store.” I quite enjoyed the thing — it reminded me in many ways of her fiction writing.

I also got looking today at the January issue of the Ensign (actually, I was thinking that it was the December issue and was looking for Stephenie Meyer), and I was amused and slightly dismayed to find an article in it entitled “Home Teaching the Single Sister.” (Sorry, I can’t find the HTML version to link to, but the pdf version of the whole issue is here.) I haven’t actually read the thing yet, but a preliminary glance seems to indicate that it is mostly about single mother sisters (as opposed to just single, unwed sisters … who probably warrant an article of their own … see rest of post to appropriately gauge level of sarcasm intended). What amused and dismayed me is the idea that single sisters are apparently such a mystery to the general membership of the Church that we have to actually address separately the question of how to home teach them. I get frustrated by this kind of thing, since it seems to me that people should be able to just treat us like … well, people. We’re nothing other than that. Just people. We happen to be single, and we happen to not hold the priesthood (though I, personally, think there is a general lack of understanding of just how close a tie sisters have to the powers of heaven, but that’s another post). But that’s all. Just treat us like people, take an interest in us personally, and that’s all we really need.

This reminds me of something I was talking to my brother-in-law about the other night. At the time we happened to be talking the pressure to marry that singles get in the church (in particular). I told him that I think the leadership, and just the older and/or married membership, of the church have a hard time understanding just how great the pressure is, because they have either been married so long that they’ve forgotten, or they got married so young in the first place that they never really experienced it. I think this is true about the marriage/single divide in the church in general. It frustrates me that the divide is so huge, and I have a hard time understanding why that is. I have several married friends who are able to still relate to me on a normal, human level, regardless of the number of children they have or the length of time they’ve been married. But I also have a large number of married friends who don’t seem to be able to do that anymore. I understand that there is a huge shift in the focus and responsibilities in a person’s life after they marry, but it seems silly to me that singles and marrieds shouldn’t be able to relate better regardless. What’s happened to the common denominators that bring us all to the same level? In the end we are all in basically the same position, trying to do basically the same things, just doing it under somewhat different circumstances. Why can’t we focus on that?

I can’t tell you how to make it go
No matter what I do, how hard I try
I can’t seem to convince myself why
I’m stuck on the outside (30 pts)

The last quote was from “It’s a Wonderful Life” — congrats to Elliespen (as usual). And oh, for those of you who know him, AT (aka Thurbs) got his mission call. He’s leaving for the MTC on May 9, 2007, to go to the Spain Malaga Mission, and he’s way pumped!

 

with apologies

So I realize it’s been ages since I posted anything. Hopefully the last post explains some of that. I flew to Idaho to be with my family and attend the funeral of my oldest sister, Laraine, and was gone about 10 days for that. I’m doing all right about it, myself; I’m more worried about a few of the other family members. And I certainly don’t evny my parents, who have to battle the legal issues (Laraine was killed in a car accident, and she left no will behind, including no power of attorney or anything), nor her daughter, who’s in the hospital with a severed spinal cord and is paralyzed from the waist down. I certainly have much less to deal with, even though it all adds up to significantly more than I’m used to.

The day after Laraine’s death, I was sustained and set apart as the Relief Society President in our student ward down here. That’s been keeping me pretty busy these days. It’s been great, though, and in many ways I’m very excited about the calling.

School is also quite time-consuming. I find myself just barely keeping my head above water, both with the classes that I teach and those that I take.

I recently joined Netflix, which I’m very excited about. I think when my roommates move (in December) and I’m in my own apartment, I might forego cable and just keep myself entertained with Netflix movies. They have a huge variety of DVDs to rent, including movies, TV shows, and documentaries. The first one that’s coming in the mail for me is Jeeves and Wooster, so we’ll be watching that this weekend. You’re allowed to have up to 500 movies in your queue, and I already have 375 waiting for me. I’ll keep you abreast of how things go.

The last quote (from before Laraine’s obituary) is from the writings of Paul the Apostle, Romans 8:31.

Well! If that isn’t the best I ever heard!

(This is a bit difficult to get without the following line, but that will give it away pretty easily. So, since it’s a fairly general quote that might come from just about anywhere, I’ll give 78 points for anyone who gets the source I have in mind, plus an extra 10 for the appropriate following line.)

 

high and dry

All right, so my two roommates both left this morning to go home for a little while. For that matter, so did two of my good friends, and others have already left … Clearly, it’s the beginning of the between-summer-and-fall break. I’ve been left high and dry. And I have mixed feelings about it.

I will be working full-time all next week, since the girl who was working the afternoon shift at work quit this past week. Beginning Tuesday, I’ll also be training the three newly-hired front desk workers. That should be fun.

I’ll be all alone in the apartment this week, which will be nice in some ways. I can use a little alone time and the quiet atmosphere for some much-needed pondering. On the other hand, though, it makes life very … well, quiet.

Did you know that John Hancock, before becoming a member of the Continental Congress, was a highly skilled smuggler? Yup. He took great pride in evading the British customs officers and helped to foster the all-important American spirit of insurrection. (I’m watching The History Channel right now, which is running a show called “Rumrunners, Moonshiners, and Bootleggers”.)

Last night we went to the local YSA dance, which was really a lot of fun. We ended up getting there right at the beginning, before anybody else had really arrived. We spent about 30 minutes playing “volleyball” with beach balls (the dance had a luau/beach theme going on …), and that was a blast! It reminded me a lot of the good days in Cinnamon Tree at BYU, when basically the whole ward would get together a big game of volleyball in the courtyard. I enjoyed that. I met several new people, including a girl who has just barely moved into our ward, and a couple of girls from one of the Dallas wards who were in the MTC together. And, most important of all — I got to watch Erin shake her booty. Along with Michelle, which was really quite entertaining; those two look like twins when they’re dancing. Oh yes, and I also found people to teach my classes during the two weeks when I’ll be gone.

I just found out yesterday that the tentative Spring 2007 UNT class schedules are available online, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I am planning to take. I was excited to see that they are offering a class on Medieval English literature, which I will probably take. I expect I’ll also take a class on American Lit. And maybe I can get started on getting permission for extra Special Problems courses and get going on metaphor, LDS literature, computer-based corpus linguistics, et cetera. For that matter, maybe I could take one or two of the computer classes and/or foreign language classes I’ve been looking into.

The last quote was from “Hello, Dolly!” Mr. Horace Vandergelder is really hilarious, and I’ve always liked Walter Matthau in that role. No points for you!!

Do you really wanna have fun, or are you just saying you wanna have fun?! (10 points)

 

odds-n-ends

So Margo and I helped take care of the dinner before the fireside on Sunday. We had a good time. Our friend Nikki is in charge of those dinners, and sometimes she’s a bit shorthanded, so we offered to help out. We had spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and chocolate chip cookies as dessert.

After that, we all trooped into the chapel to watch BYU-TV for a while. The part we watched was a talk about personal revelation. It was really very good, and he brought up a lot of important principles concerning revelation. Things that the people in our ward need to know and practice.

Also on Sunday, Erin had a really bad migraine and ended up staying home from church. Since the light hurt her eyes, she tacked up a blanket over the window in the living room. Sometime before we came home from church, she decided to move it and herself into the bedroom, since she didn’t think it would have been nice to make us sit around in the dark in our own living room, talking quietly so that her head wouldn’t hurt too much. When Margo and I got home, we found her sitting in there, in near-complete darkness, huddled over her computer and trying to finish the homework she had due that day. The three of us chatted (quietly) for a while, and then Erin said that she thought we should keep the blanket up indefinitely. I wasn’t entirely keen on that, since the darkness it creates is almost depressing to me, but I agreed that we could try it for a week or so and see how it worked out. Well, this morning, when I got out of bed, I was really very cold. Well … chilled. It’s hard to be actually cold in Texas. But I started thinking that the blanket over the window might not be such a bad thing after all. It’s probably helping us save money, for one thing.

Oh yeah, yesterday I talked to the office at my apartment complex to see if they have any efficiencies or one-bedrooms that I could move into in December. They don’t know yet what’s available in December, and won’t until early November. But they informed me that I could sign up for a transfer, which are offered on a first-come first-served basis, and I have to pay a thirty-dollar application fee. And, on top of that, there’s a two-hundred-dollar fee for transferring once the apartment is assigned to me. So I think I’ll be checking out a few other complexes in the vicinity to see if I can find something cheaper — which I’m pretty sure I can.

I only have one and a half weeks left at work. Good thing, too — today somebody made me so angry with her presumptuous impretinence that I nearly blew my top. I won’t go into detail … but I will say that it is someone I rarely work with there, and I’ve never yet been so angry at work. Generally, I quite like my job there. Most of the people I work with are very nice, very cooperative. And they generally like me, because I’m also nice, conscientious, and I actually do the work I’m assigned. But it will be nice to get back to teaching.

We’re watching a Bones re-run on TV tonight, and I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t seen it for some time, and I’d forgotten how much I love this show. Booth is wonderful! In this particular episode, he’s being very protective of Brennan, since someone shot at her earlier, and it makes me really jealous. And also very anxious for the inevitable moment when he finally just takes the plunge and kisses her. *pause* I really need to start watching my real TV-boyfriend, Josh, again. I haven’t seen him for some time, and it’s clearly having an adverse effect on me.

For dinner tonight we had some Italian chicken from the crock-pot. Luckily, Erin was in communication with Kimberly, since it turned out that we didn’t have one of the ingredients. Kimberly graciously consented to provide it from her own stores, and in return we allowed her to eat with us. And Margo made no-bake cookies for dinner, at my insistence. Yumm!!

I’ve been having a super time with the 2007 IKEA catalog the last few days, dreaming about what I would get to furnish my own apartment. As their website says, it puts all kinds of ideas in your head.

The last quote was from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. And in case I neglected to mention it (which I’m pretty sure I did), the Shakespearean Festival was fabulous. Especially Brian Vaughn in Hamlet. Stupendous, even. Vaughn is, without a doubt, one of my favorite actors on the legitimate stage.

Ninety percent of the people in this world are fools, and the rest of us are in great danger of contamination. (13 points)

 

adventurous sabbath

Last night, there was supposed to be a YSA fireside in Plano (north of Dallas). So Margo, Hector, Jim, and I tried to go down there for it. “Tried” is an operative word in that sentence. And really, the whole thing could probably be put down as my fault. Here’s what happened.

After church, Jim asked me if I would get directions for the meetinghouse in Plano, since he’s the ward clerk and therefore had to stay after church. He usually gets done by around 6:00 pm, but we needed to leave here around 6:30 to make sure we had enough time to find the place. So I readily agreed to find the directions. I asked around a little after church, and no one was entirely sure where the fireside would be, but someone thought it was probably at the Roundrock chapel. That sounded all right to me, and from what I could tell from the bulletin board at the church, there seemed to be only two chapels in Plano. When we came home, I got online and found the address for the Roundrock chapel, along with the driving directions (thanks, GoogleMaps!). I also found that the Roundrock chapel is the stake center, so that seemed likely to be where the fireside would be held. Just to be on the safe side, I thought I’d get the directions from Roundrock to the other chapel, in case we got there and found that wasn’t the right place.

Jim and Hector (who is also a clerk in our ward) came over about 6:00, and we decided that Margo would drive. We set out, with directions in our hands and hope in our hearts. But fate seemed to be against us. First, there was a whole debacle with the tollway … but that’s for another day. In any case, we got off at the correct exit in Plano and followed our directions until all we had left was to turn onto Roundrock Trail and find the chapel. But we couldn’t find Roundrock. After several miles, we decided to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. The man at the counter didn’t know where Roundrock Trail was, but he did have some maps that we were able to use to figure out where we’d gone wrong.

We finally found Roundrock Trail and the chapel … but there was no one there. In fact, there was some kind of construction going on, at least in the parking lot, if nowhere else. So we figured it must be at the other chapel. Good thing we wrote down those directions, right? We followed the directions with no trouble, until — once again — all we had left was to find a street called Legacy and then find the chapel. But we couldn’t find Legacy (does this sound at all familiar?). We did eventually find the chapel, and there were at least a few cars out in the parking lot, so we got out and went inside. It didn’t take us long, though, to figure out that this wasn’t actually the chapel. We think it may have been a Korean church — we’re not sure. We got back in the car and continued down the street … and finally found the chapel. For real, this time. There were some cars out in the parking lot, and there was a group of three young adults standing outside, which seemed to us like a good sign. So we went inside.

There were people there in the building, and we thought we were in the clear. We were about half an hour late, but hey! at least we’d made it, right? Wrong. About the time we got to the chapel (where you’d expect the fireside to be held), some folks sitting in the foyer asked if we were looking for something, and could they help us? We explained that we were looking for the fireside, and they all looked a bit blank. Apparently we weren’t in the right chapel, after all. One of them finally found an events calendar that actually said which chapel the fireside was being held in, and they gave us directions to get there. Margo prudently asked them, though, how long it would take us to get there, and they estimated about 20 minutes. By the time we got there, the fireside would be over.

So we went back home instead. And ate cookies that Hector had brought us. And life was good.

At least we can say that we made a darn good effort to get to the YSA activity, next time the bishop asks.

“Look, Daddy, a bear!”

“No, honey, that’s a frog. Bears wear hats.”

(21 points)

I’m a bit disappointed that no one seems to know the last quote, but if you get this one, it might help. In other words, the last quote is still open for point-getting. I also have to add that Erin is barred from guessing on today’s quote, since I just quoted it to her the other day, but she can still get points for the last one.