Humiliation

My new job at church is to teach the 16/17 year old Sunday School class. I have been at it for 3 weeks now, and they are all really stellar kids. I, however, feel the need to "build relationships of trust" with them. Maybe if we know each other a little better, there will be more discussion in class.

What luck! An invitation comes to help the seminary kids (including my class) prepare for the scripture mastery challenge by competing with them in a practice round on Friday Jan. 30. (For those who may not know, seminary as Mormons know it, is what all 9-12 grade students attend, usually BEFORE school every school day to study the scriptures- one book of scripture for each of the 4 years) Optimistically, I accept.

I somehow was under the delusion that they were studying Doctrine and Covenants this year, which I teach in Sunday School. I was of course, a whiz at D & C scriptures. (And I do mean, a GENIUS) What an opportunity to impress these youngsters! They will have new respect for me indeed! What a jolly good time we will have. (The name of my championship team the year I won BTW, was "The Burning Bosoms")

For those of you in the know of course, you know, that this year they are in New Testament. Naturally, these are the scripture mastery scriptures I know the LEAST. There are TWENTY FIVE of them. I have 9 days to prepare. Yeah, right. I began to doubt that I would come off so smart to them after all.

So, after hosting a baby shower last night, I woke this morning with renewed determination to study. Hmmm, I bet if I could download them onto my ipod, I could do laundry and listen to them all day! Great idea! I'll listen to them in the car, how great it will be for my children to hear them all day too! This will turn out splendidly.

I gather together my new, never asked for fancy-dancy ipod, and find a plug that fits. I google something obvious. A-ha! I am set. I hit "download". (can you tell I've never done this before?)

45 minutes later, I still cannot figure out how the ******* to get the dang stuff on to my stupid ipod. (Naturally, Jared is in very important meetings all day...so I can't even have him walk me through it) I have now wasted almost an hour doing that, and another 30 minutes blogging about my frustration. Looks like it's going to be another highly productive day.

Did I really sign up for this humiliation!? I am feeling REALLY old, and out of touch! It's a miracle I can blog at all...

P.S. Please no smart aleck comments about how "super easy" it is to download ipod songs,okayeee?

When does the "warm" in Global Warming start? Anything I can do to help?

As I speak, it is -22 F. That means 22 degrees below ZERO. That is NOT the windchill.

Of course, school is still in session. Which is why I had a "Christmas Story" scenario bundling up 4 of my kids after sending Jack on his way with Jared. We hopped in the car, went to pick up the first carpool stop, to learn that our school, not any others near us, has a two hour delay start. (As if THAT's going to help!)

So, we get to get in the car and do it all again in an hour and half. I say, we just stay home and bake cookies.

But, it'll have to be a REALLY cold day (in hell) before school is actually canceled so we could do that.

I love Minnesota, I love Minnesota, I love Minnesota....

Effective Time Management

In the spirit of New Year's Resolutions, I got online to Franklin Covey today to order my new planner pages. Boy, am I going to be efficient. A quick, 10 minute, time-saving, online purchase to be delivered right to my doorstep. The height of efficiency and convenience. Ah, yes. I am starting the New Year off on the right foot.
After 2 hours, and 2 phone calls to exotic "customer service" people all the way in India, I finally found a gen-u-ine, American talking person. Found out that after 2 hours on the phone out of the country, my order wasn't placed correctly after all, so I got to repeat all the info again. (I now have the items numbers memorized if you were curious)
I also now know, that if I want to effectively manage my time while shopping for time management supplies, I'm better off to hop in my car, drive 40 minutes to Mall of America, and pick up my own stuff!

Happy New Year!

So how was your New Year's Eve? We have had a tradition not quite making it until midnight around here, but the kiddos are now old enough that that just won't fly anymore. So, we had some friends over and while the grown ups played my favorite card game (Shang Hai), the kiddos ran around and did whatever they wanted until midnight. Then we banged on pots and pans to let our neighbors know we are even weirder than they think, and threw confetti all over my front porch. (It was about 2 below zero) We all got to bed around 2 AM, and we are starting off the New Year with a sugar, Diet Pepsi, and sleep deprived hangover. But it was fun!
So, please share, what did you do?
Happy 2009!