Feb Message

I have no idea if the girls I "supervise" ever use these, but I enjoy making them. Plus, They get my contact info, and the girls contact info with a month on it, so they can't really be confused on who they teach or to whom they report.

In theory.

In fact, only the old people (65+) do their visiting teaching.

I am definitely part of a lazy generation. Which is a shame, because I can honestly say that last month a met a girl because of visiting teaching that I am really glad I met. I think we will be bosom friends and drink strawberry cordial. We will not, however, watch Anne of Green Gables. Never. Ever. Never. 

Here, read it and consider yourself visit taught:

Personal thought of the month:

If you ever doubt the effect that one mother can have on the world, go to a Clark Reunion. 

Making Visiting Teaching Awkward since 2001

So, being a visiting teaching supervisor  (calling 2 of 3 until I was released from nursery today), I'm sure there are higher expectations for me to do my visiting teaching than there are for the other visiting teachers.  Now, when you get a visiting teaching assignment without any contact information,  you know that the girl probably isn't super active.

So figuring that if my sense of humor fails, I won't have her avoiding me glances at church, I decided to go all in , and if she raises her bid, I'll have to take out a loan, then confess to the bishop that I gambled my way into a visiting teaching appointment.

So my question is, if you got the following message on your door, would you be temped to respond, or just be plain creeped out?

XXXXXxXXX,
I am your new visiting teacher. Being fresh out of nursery, I have NO IDEA who you are, but I am confident that (depending on my mood) our time together with either be awesome or extremely awkward. 


I, personally, am aiming for 80% marvelous and 20% awkward, because, lets face it, 100% awesome would just be boring.


I, personally, am aiming for 80% marvelous and 20% awkward, because, lets face it, 100% awesome would just be boring. Unfortunately, you may never know how boring I am, because I have neither your phone number or email address. Get back to me with your contact information and, and I will agree to do one of the following, your choice:


a)Show up for visiting teaching with a drawn on unibrow.
b)Talk in the poorly delivered accent of your choice for the entire visit. 
c)Take you to Coldstone and sing my ice cream order.
d)Complete the entire visit in 7 minutes. We can even set a timer.


Send your demands with your contact information.


Don't tell XXXXXxXXX, but if she doesn't respond, I might attempt to up my anti. I'm not sure what an anti is ( I hope it's not an Auntie, because I don't want to up one of those), but I'll look it up. I can do that kind of thing, I have a dictionary.

And, because every post needs an image, have a copy of the visiting teaching take-a-long/cheat sheet (minus my contact info) I made to remind my "girls" (they really need a better term for that) to do their visiting teachingUse it. Love it. Cherish it.

Magnetic Charisma

I wasn't super excited about the enrichment crafts our "committee" did last week, but I cheated a little and made them my own. Instead of using the bleh wrapping paper they provided for the magnets, I used the gift tags I brought for the gift wrapping station (that no one used) and some scraps from the christmas book/scrapbooking station. Cheeting on magnets turned out to be awesome. I intended to give these to Mary (have you seen her magnet collection?) But I don't think that I can part with them. I'm in love with several of them.

My favoirtes are the Girl (which Sophie, Brett, and I each-without consulting one another- successfully predicted would be Carissa's favorite), the Gile (from Fragile), the peppermint swirl, and the brown reindeer. The ornaments are also pretty cute. I kinda want to buy my own stuff now and make a million more. My fridge might turn into Mary's fridge.

I also cheated on the coasters by decoupaging olive tulle on the tiles instead of the cheesy napkins I was supposed to. We sealed them up with Polyurethane. Came out pretty cute (I can't promise I'll get out the lights and take a nice photo of them later, but I might), but I'm not going to use them on my table because, even with the felt on the bottom, I think they could scratch my table if they are knocked and wobble a bit.

15 minutes of shame

What's the longest non-testimony you've heard on fast sunday?

I have a lot of testimony pet peeves, but I usually give people the benefit of the the doubt; some people were never taught that testimony meeting is for testimonies...

Today a lady crowned herself the Queen of Testimony Meeting ABUSERS— she spoke for FIFTEEN MINUTES:
about herself.
about her kids
about her grandkids.

If she was like 80, AND loosing it, I might let her get away with it, but she was no older than my own mother, and Mom, if you ever use testimony meeting as a captive audience to talk introduce yourself for 15 minutes, I just might take my pantyhose off and throw it at you.

you've been given fair warning, not to mention a lovely run on sentence.


I was getting tempted to walk out. It really felt like someone taking advantage of an opportunity to further their own agenda in a situation that would make others seem rude to interrupt, and she really wanted to publicly introduce herself.

Saucy Tom

I hope the bishop doesn't change my calling after this.

And who do you get your advice from...

I decided to google to see if I cold find a way to get smells out of glass jars...ie. tomato sauce jars, salsa jars, pickle jars. Jars are very useful for storing food it, but when they reek, I am a little weary.

So, as many internet questions do, this search led me to several forums. I was scrolling down looking through the responses, and every single person had something rather...um.... odd as their "quote."

So, I asked myself, how is it that every single person in this forum are blatant druggies?

A moment later I noticed the address bar...


Oh. Well then... I um... Ya. I'll ask someone else about the jars.


ON A SOMEWHAT RELATED NOTE,
In church yesterday, I asked brett if he had any lotion. I was, of course, being a dork. I knew he didn't have any. However a girl sitting next to him offered me some of hers.

Now, usually I use unscented lotions, and I found that I really enjoyed the smell, and kept smelling my hands. Then I wondered If I really did like the smell, or if the scent simply had addictive properties. This was the lotion:


I mean, anything that leaves you constantly sniffing your own hands in Sunday school has got to be messing with your brain cells, right?

Seriously though, it smelled really good.

R.S. Baking with food storage

I learned some useful stuff at Home making tonight... I mean Enrichment... I mean "extra relief society meeting."
Someone came from Macey's to show us how to cook with "food storage."
He was a 3 presenter (as in, on a scale of 1 to 10).

1. I learned that Morning Moo Milk does not contain Milk.
They recently added Plastic to their powder to extend the shelf life.
Yum.

He recommended the other brand they cary.

2. I learned that the Morning Moo VMS "chicken strips" taste Nasty as heck. No one liked them at all.

3. I learned that the VMS "taco" mixed with the powdered "tomato paste" tastes alright... better than some peoples cooking.
4. I learned that he VMS "taco" mixed with the powdered "tomato paste" gives me instant heart burn and bubbly gas.

I'm becoming more and more motivated to learn how to can my leftover soups and chili's and such...

repentant legos

So, for some really stupid reason, the primary decided that Fast sunday was a great time to have a teacher improvement meeting for an hour and a half after church.

At the end I had two minutes to equate the prop they gave me with a gospel principle.

I had two Legos, and repentance.

I totally rocked it.

Now if only they taught me how to get 11 year old boys to stop being so melodramatic every time one of them farted.

90%?

In stake conference to day, someone referenced a survey (I wish I had the reference) where the LDS church paid a research group to survey people. I think it was somewhere here in california, but I don't remember for sure, I wasn't really thinking about that part

After pulling out (Discarding) responses from LDS Members they got the following results:

90% of people believe that they will be with their families after they die. Not 10%, not 50%, but 90%.
0% said that their church teaches that families remain together after death.

You know what I call that?

Instinct.

Oh, superbowl.

a conversation in my primary class that took place on Superbowl sunday:

Jack Jr: "Sister Valantine, are you rooting for the ____________ ?"(I swear he said cardinals... but i'm pretty sure that is baseball)

Me: "Jack, I am one of those strange people who find watching sports utterly boring. My father doesn't watch sports, my brothers don't watch sports, and my husband doesn't watch sports. I don't know who is playing today, and I could care less who wins."

Jack:(has this fascinated look on his face, like when a 10 year old boy who has just discovered something he had no idea existed) "So, today is just like a normal Sunday to you?" (he sounds genuinely confused).

Me: "Yes Jack, it is a normal sunday for me."


and then the boy who never shuts up just stands quietly still for a moment to process what I have said.

Tis the Season to be Purple

Deep Purple.

There are two things I have been somewhat obsessively interested in lately. One is Purple Tops and dresses, the other is cheek & lip stain.

I won a "color season" consultation with an 80ish year old womann at a Relief Society service auction. I never win anything nearly as cool as I've donated, so bid this just cause it was funny (and cute). Lucky me. The lady had brought a 30 year old color analysis book with her so we could get all excited about it.

Well, she decided I was a "Winter." This is probably the last season I would have guessed, and am not yet convinced; however, f I am a winter, these would be my colors"

So more or less out of curiosity (and denial) I played with what little purple make up I had, found that purple lip gloss looked surprisingly not purple on my cheeks, put on my dark purple tank top (my only purple clothing item... only wore once or twice) and decided that purple is in deed my power color. Not my Favorite color, mind you (I still see purple clothes and think "ick"... can't quite picture my self putting them on) but I really like how it looks on me.

Moral of this story is that now I want this purple wine lip and cheek stain at Sephoria fairly badly (and highly tempted by the berry tarte one too)... as well as the clinique black honey purplish lipstick (though since it isn't know to stay, not so much. But must excersize self control because I haven't even tested it out on my skin yet AND because I am saving up so that in January I can take belly dancing or tennis classes through the community, unlike last time when I wanted to but couldn't because I was too poor.

No title

So, an ex RS Pres from Ut had the cutest names for her kids (and the cutest kids). After being released as RS Pres, she was put into primary, which more or less means I had not idea that she was pregnant until she was about 9 months ( I mean primary, she may as well have moved out of the ward). And because my lack of spawn denied me the secret pasword to hang with the playground clan, I had no idea what her baby's name was... then I found her blog today.

Zion, that is right, she named her baby Zion... way to break your good name streak.

Well, as my teacher once pointed out, people are going to look at you like you are crazy no matter what you name your child, so so if that is the name that they like, then good for them.

Primary.

I keep trying to go to bed, but then I keep thinking of more things to share. I feel bad because I know that when I write a plethora if posts in a single day, they are less likely to all be read... definitely better when I stretch them out.

But, at last (atlas... or is that just a map?), I find my self doing it.

Topic 1. Primary. For any Non LDS readers I may have (Do I have any? I have invited some, but don't ever get comments from them it seams) Primary refers to church, particularly the part for children. The rest of this will probalby make little sense.

Brett and I were called to teach in primary. Last week we started out by subbing for Valiant 9... possibly to stay there, and possibly to get put on the 6's. Last week after church, the pres. was vague and we were left not knowing if we are still on 9 or not. We showed up and taught 9 this week, so I think this is where it is at.

There are a few things that I don't understand why they changed. For instance, when I was in primary there was only ONE CTR class, and ONE Valiant. I miss the joys of whatever the heck those other classes were called. I liked having cool names as opposed to CTR(AGE) or Valiant(AGE). ALL I remember is that I was once a "Merry Miss," and as cheesy as that may be, I don't see why they had to scramble it all up. I also don't understand why they call teachers in two's. I always had one and only one teacher.. They are pretty vague about how to split up the responsibilty though. We can teach together or take turns... Strange.

Well last week we were told to teach, the schedule was in the lesson, and brett and I prepared pretty well, I think. Show up to find they had already done that Chapter in the scriptures. THey are ahead. I don't know how, but they are. THAT WAS A HORRIBLE FIRST IMPRESSION. I was worried about keeping children under control when there first impression of you is that you have no idea what you re doing. We played a lot of hangman that week (Scripture words, of course), I stalled by having them tell me what they remembered about the last lesson while brett tried to skim enough of the next chapter to stumble horribly through a lesson of boring scripture reading (bear in mind hte attention span of a 9 year old during an unprepared lesson).

Last week they all showed up right after sacrament meeting (which let out early), and were sitting quitely in there chairs so we decided to start. Big mistakes. 9 yr olds can sense the difference between 35 minutes and 50, fyi.

This week I decided my mother was right when she pointed out "tecnically you don't have to show up into the class until the 10 min break is over and it is time to start class." I stalled for 7 minutes talking in the halway, and spend the next 3 minutes chatting casually with the kids. I also started writting letters on the board and I tell you the children were intrigued. I refused to tell them what the letters where until it was time to start, so when I did start, they were paying attention. THey were trying to unscrambe the 19 or so letters, only one of which was a vowel (good luck).

In Nov our class has a scripture to have memorized for the primary sacrament meeting. I told them that each letter on the board was the first letter of a word in that scripture (in order, of course). This is a trick my mother used to use to help me memorize exact sentences when I was younger, and I tell you, it really worked. I did it a bit differently in that They didn't know what the sentence was before I wrote the letters up, but they had fun guessing . I wasn't planning on the guessing part ( I was going to tell them) but they actually did surprisingly well at guessing most the words, and you can't argue with kids who are actually enjoying memorizing....

better yet , after the lesson (and the one obligitory game of hangman because they could only focus for so long) I started writting up the letters again as a review and they started saying it before I could get the letters up. Wow.

Over all a much better lesson. THe kids were worse about following along in their scriptures (and we only had something like 2 verses)... except for one kid. I had brett do the lesson (though I had a supplementary part we didn't have time for) and He started drawing on the board as he was telling the story... and they loved it. Of course, when he stopped drawing they were distracted and demanded more drawing.

Now they hinted (not the children... but when we were called...slight subject change) that they don't like to split up young couples, and that is why we were paired together (not all the teaching pairs are married, or even boy/girl) but brett and I thought it was funny, because he is new in the ward (but I grew up there) and neither of us really know any of the other young couples, so isolating us with kids in our first weeks here isn't exactly the best way to socialize us in the ward...isolating new ward members seams a bit screwy to me.

Anyhow, I suggested we take turns, one teaches while the other goes to sunday school, and the other watches them during sharing time etc while the teacher of the day goes to R.S./priesthood meeting. Brett still wanted me there for the lesson, and that might be a good idea to be together for at least a few more weeks, but I did stay with them alone for the last hour while he left. (what can I say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE singing time with sister Haladay(sp?). it took a bit of of seat rearranging (they were feeding on each other's inattentiveness) but we ended up with some attentive heartfelt singing and the most impressive 2 minutes of reverence I have ever seen from 30 children (our class is only 4 but this was after sharing time while waiting for Junior primary to join us for closing exercises. Then they were perfect during closing excersizes.

Not 100% perfect, but much better than last week, and, as Brett pointed out, Elders quarum is not much better than primary classes... there is snickering in the back, whispering, not everyone is paying attention...

Okay, well, this is long, and probably dull, so I will falsify the time on this so that it doesn't show up at the top of the page and intimidate you from reading mky other new posts. (monday, 3:34 am)

Thanks June

(I stole this blog Idea from her.)

I typically Hate Cheesy LDS Merchandise. However, many in this line makes me smile. Guess which one is my favorite.

Get yours before Blogging makes them old and stupid.

Coupons

So we had a service auction 2 weeks ago... I figured that while I was posting stuff, I may as well share with you the gift certificate made for it. Don't even try to print and redeem it. I only made one and I happen to know who has it. You should be able to read it if you click on it.

Every time I look at it, I want a pair of Haley's earings... not really sure what they look like, but from what I can tell they are pretty cool (watch, they are probably stick ons.)

A cookie update from mia madre

my mother tried that some recipe and told me the same story about 30 years ago. seriously That was before email it spread by word of mouth and they passed the recipe along with the story in RS


(please excuse her bad punctuation and such. I've corrupted her with IM'ing.)

Eclesiastical Harmonica?

Today I heard something I'd never heard before

Harmonica in Church.

We went to see Brett's dad and step mom, who were speaking in Church up in Sugarhouse, and like usual, they had a musical number in between Speakers. In this case it was an old man on a harmonica, with a Piano accompanist that slowly joined in... It kind of caught me off guard... Harmonica?

It was, infact, lovely, but - as is the often the circumstance with harmonica's- quite depressing. I found myself torn between thinking I should learn to play the harmonica, and feeling like I should ask him to play at Brett's funeral... not that I am planning for his death, but it would be a shame to leave such harmonica skills to waste.

Then I wondered if I could make a living playing harmonica at funeral servicces.

10 evidences that I am a Brat

1. A couple in my BYU (married) Ward wouldn't send me a family photo for the directory, so I ripped their wedding photo off of Facebook, and used it.

2. Sometimes I make fun of people... and I enjoy it.

3. I publish not-so-flattering
pictures of other people online because I look hot, and obviously how I
look is more important than how they look (take my engagement photo for
example, chosen explicitly because my hair looked good).

4. I gave my father a hooker musical for his birthday.

5. My mom says I'm a brat (she says it is because I am the youngest child)

6. I dared to kick Brett out of Char 101.

7. I told a couple that is still in our ward that all the people I liked in our ward just moved out.

8. I pluck Brett's eyebrows when he isn't looking.

9. When I am mean, its naturally only because I have every right to be.

10. I tell the sweetest most generous lover in the world that he is annoying and that he talks to much. (Sorry Brett. I've tried to stop, but I can't.)