More than One Way...

Yup there is more than one way to skin a cat, but anyway you do it, the cat isn't going to like it. We are getting ready to return our little miner back to academic hell, and now that she isn't going to be living on campus she is going to require a little bit more in the way of transportation.  Freshmen at mines are required to live on campus, and parking being a premium, they also recommend not to bring a car.  They really are pretty self sufficient there, they seem to have their own little ecosystem.

But this year, Emily will actually be living just across the street, in a good sized two bedroom apartment with Tyler (Tyler is actually a girl, while I'm a free thinker, I'm not that free). Anyway, we as Emily's parents are generously furnishing her with a vehicle for her college experience.  Yes, that's right we are taking the 1996 Dodge Dakota over there.  I know, "I can't believe that you are taking the truck you purchased when Emily was 6 weeks old, over for her to use at college". Yeah, we aren't very good at letting things go... but anyway, the dodge runs pretty good, not for over the continental divide on any regular basis good, but good enough for running around the giant metropolis of Golden good. Honestly, Emily really only needs to get to church, the grocery store and of course, church. 

The main trouble with the old dodge is that the speedometer has been flaky for about 15 of those 19 years we have had it. Numerous trips into the  mechanics have yielded nothing. Intermittently the speedometer just stops working. But Scott discovered an awesome app... it gives your speed right there on the screen.  So Scott downloaded it and tried it out, and when I say tried it out, that means that Scott held his tablet in front of him and ran up and down our street... well, it works, at that speed anyway.

I'll bet your sorry you missed that show!

Mercy & Justice

Why is justice blind, because it has to be. I have been watching the news (big surprise) and all the pictures of the illegal immigrants flooding the southern border. You would have to have a stone heart to not feel something for all the little children huddling together in the border patrol facilities. 

 (Picture from Fox News)

But what do we do? We didn't send our children off to another country. I agree that while they are in our care they should be taken care of, but that they shouldn't be in our care for long. We need to send them back, the law is the law. They are illegal, mercy cannot rob justice, and we can not bend the rules because of the innocent faces looking at the camera lens.  Bending the rules will only encourage more, and the flood gates will open endlessly.  If you disagree, get the law changed.

Twist & Tuck

Sometimes my husband and I are in perfect harmony. Sometimes we absolutely agree on every issue, but... that's only sometimes. Scott is sometimes a bit of an over-the-top perfectionist. While I often have a time vs reward mentality.   I think our differences can be summed up with a loaf of bread.

Scott - takes the time to twist the bag and use the little wire covered thingy to secure the loaf of bread.

Me - completely comfortable with throwing the little wire covered thingy away, twisting the bag and tucking it under the load of bread.

What was Said- What I Heard

Yesterday on Facebook, I read this:

Due to a structural concern in the design of the OM Building the Presiding Bishopric has cancelled all meetings in chapels of this design until the problem can be rectified. The Grand Junction 10th & 11th Wards will be having sacrament meeting only with the Grand Junction 3rd and 6th ward respectively.

What I heard was-

WAHOOO....you get a free Sunday off!!!

Now I know that I attend church of my own free will and that no one forces me there every week, so it's odd that I have this little bit of jubilation in my heart. I wonder if that is how heathens feel every Sunday.  Well, best to not let this become a habit.

Son-in-Law

WOW..don't think I've ever thought about that. No, I'm not making any announcements, Emily just officially got her drivers license in the mail on Monday. To celebrate she has made several trips to town this week and today on the way to the theater to see a movie with Kassandra I got a phone call:

Emily- Mom, I don't know what to do first?
Me - What do you mean?? (Thinking to myself 911 or insurance agent)
Emily - OK, how do I put gas in the van

Alrighty then... my hope is that my future son-in-law is someone very familiar with reality. Yes, someone that understands things like plumbing, cars, and public events. I hope he is a carpenter, or car salesman, someone who doesn't solve for x, but knows how to back a trailer.

Pioneer Day

"blessed honored Pioneers!"

Living in the wilds of the "mission field" we don't actually get the 24th of July off as a state holiday. So unlike my relatives in Utah, I get to go to work on Pioneer Day. Neither our ward nor our stake has actually celebrated Pioneer Day for about 15 years??? Maybe longer? Personally I think it stems back to a couple of Stake Presidents that didn't have any pioneer ancestors and it made them mad.

This year while working on our Primary calendar, we decided to celebrate Pioneer Day on July 19th, with a trip "back in time". To be honest I stole most of the idea from family reunions and worked from there.  So we gathered all the Pioneer children and Jay & Jason gave them hay rides (along with their families) down to the creek bottom.  There the children each got a passport that allowed them to get stamps at each of the stations.  For stations, generous family members and friends stepped up to help.

We Had -
Oxen yokes
Branding
Washing
Quilting
Butter churning
Spinning wool
Candle making
Gold Panning
Roping

Plus, as a bonus, each of the children got a bag of hard tack and horehound candy!!! YUM YUM!!

Amazingly, I think the old people were as excited as the kids. We had 4 people between 75-80, and 3 that were over 80, including my Aunt Lois and Beth Forsgren (almost 88). One of the things I reminded the kids before we started was that the old people were very fragile and to be very careful with them.

My awesome friends Jinx & Fern came prepared with their oxen yokes and ATV. Barbara and Tim Austin came with painted lead for seeding the creek (don't tell the kids it's not real gold). Aunt Lois thankfully came prepared with the right kind of cream that she used her Grandma's churn to get us some butter. Sorry Shelli, I had no idea that table cream wouldn't turn into butter, but the bread that Kathleen and Nancy made was delicious with Aunt Lois' cream. Allison the Younger's mom Linda came and demonstrated spinning, my cousin Daniel and his wife Krystal came to make candles and brand pieces of wood. Beth and Aunt Lois had set a quilt up to show the kids the original Facebook, and Emily showed how to wash clothes on the old wash boards with creek water.

To top it off after Harriet showed up with fresh fried chicken and we wore the kids out with a sack race and a tug of war, the Chamberlain from the ward had set up their snow cone shack at my house for an awesome end of activity treat.

I hope the kids had a great time, I think the adults did, of course the older sibling ended up in the creek, who could blame them! Scott was on call, and since there isn't any cell service down at the creek, he ended up directing traffic and holding down the street. Of course he had made me an outhouse and helped get everything set up.

I'd like to show you a picture, but since I was to busy being a pioneer I didn't get any pictures. Maybe next year!!

Youth “Conference”

It has taken me awhile to decompress from this months activities, and while I’m still not 100% recovered, I have managed to finally gather my thoughts about the multi-stake youth conference 18 Lives and The Book of Mormon.  While information on this event was EXTREMELY lacking leading up to the actual event, when we asked Erik if he wanted to participate he was interested so we geared up.  There was registration that was due in March, but apparently that only applied to no one. So Erik attended several “practices” that we didn’t understand what was going on, then a couple stake leaders came to gin up some enthusiasm, because we only had about 35 kids that had signed up. The information they gave us was even more confusing and despite reviewing the web site numerous times, I still didn’t get the whole gist of the event.

BUT…still we pressed on.  It turned out that this event was a production at the Two Rivers Convention Center.  It was about a class of seminary students and through the use of pre-recorded video and live performances the story came together pretty good.  I don’t really want to take a lot time describing the actual performance (since it is available on DVD for $5), but I must say a couple other things and please understand that I say these things not so much as an arm chair quarterback, but as someone who actually gets in there, organizes things, and does them. Not to mention that if anyone in the stake actually cared to ask someone in my family to EVER do something we would seriously do it in a big way.

 1^st – The Venue

            OK, Two Rivers works great for craft shows, boat shows, banquet dinners, and the occasional prom. But as a performance venue it sucked. The viewing of the stage is difficult at best, not to mention audio and seating.  Two Rivers is not set up for any type of backstage area, as a result, most of our time was spent under Two Rivers, in the 100+ degree parking garage, that doesn’t have any restrooms. I could have understood using Two Rivers, if we didn’t have a couple of theatres in Grand Junction, like all the high schools, the college and even the Avalon. Plus, because of the seating and access to the event, there were all kinds of mis-information about how difficult it was going to be to get in to see the event. At one point, all the people in our ward were told that all the seats were gone, and if you did have some seats that you would need to be in them at least an hour early, and that you didn’t have the option of saving seats for people that you were waiting for.

 2^nd – Calling it a Youth Conference

            I recall attending a few Youth Conferences in my day, this wasn’t a youth conference.  It was a performance, which is perfectly fine and would have cleared up a ton of confusion, if the organizers had simply called a spade a spade. As a result of this missed nomenclature many people in our stake mistakenly thought the performances were only for the youth. Not to mention that other than a two great talks by Hank Smith, that was it for the “conference” portion of the event.  Why we couldn’t just call it a multi-stake musical performance is beyond me and then the “mystery” could have been dispelled.

3^rd – The Spiritual High Myth

            I attended all three days of this event.  It was a nice production, it had a great script, great music, and impressive videography. The biggest problem that I have with this whole thing is the constant and never ending “this is so spiritual” comment that was told over and over to the teenagers by the organizing adults. OK look, just because you say it, doesn’t make it so. It was 100+ degrees, you had absolutely nothing for these teenagers to do in the down time (except write in their journals of course), and yet over and over and over they were told how special it was that they had the opportunity to be in this “life changing event” and “it was/is/would be an amazing spiritual event”.  Now I’m not one to knock having a spiritual event, but I really don’t appreciate when other people inform me that I am having one. You can’t make someone have that experience, nor should you make anyone feel inadequate for not having the same experience that Molly Mormon next to them is having. 

 

As evidence of this I provide a couple of historical events, the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, not everyone saw angels, not everyone heard trumpets and that was OK, the Lord didn’t need everyone to see or hear the same thing. Did that mean the people attending the temple dedication were bad people or didn’t have a testimony? Ughh…no.  Second event: when Brigham Young was speaking to the Saints after the martyrdom of Joseph in the grove in Nauvoo. Not everyone heard Brigham sound like Joseph, but some did. Not everyone saw Joseph’s visage in Brigham, but some did, and that is OK.

 

Telling teenagers that they are in the middle of a spiritual experience is pretty dangerous ground. What if for instance they aren’t feeling the spirit? Does that mean something is wrong with them? Or worse do they think some thing might be wrong with the doctrine and beliefs of the gospel? Like I said before, I remember going to a few Youth Conferences growing up. There were some teenagers in our ward that seemed to be experiencing a never-ending spiritual high. I think they cried constantly from the time we left the church until after the Sacrament meeting report that they were, of course, asked to deliver. Every talk, every seminar, every testimony meeting, they bawled, they sobbed and they carried on proclaiming their strength in the gospel. But remember…I have lived here a long time, and I’m cursed with an even longer memory.  Many (if not most) of these same dripping teenagers are now completely out of the church, even to the point of hostility.  At the time they were praised and adored by the adults in charge, and now they fight against the church with equal zeal and venom.

 

I watched from the sidelines of this event, other than volunteering to be a chaperone I had no business being there (other than as a helicopter Mom of course).  But, as I watched I saw so many things that I have seen before, the same plays, the same players with different faces, and sadly I have a feeling I know what the score will be in a few years. Maybe that is why I’m a little cynical in teaching my children about events like this.  Lives don’t change because of a large production at Two Rivers or a trek through Wyoming pulling a handcart. Lives change when you are open to opportunities of the spirit when you are driving in a car, standing in the grocery store, or handing water bottles out at the county fair. Lives change when you serve others, smile at a stranger or just listen when someone needs to talk.

But don't take my word for it...
Alma 37:6
"Now you may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means doth confound the wise."

The Gentle Cooing of a Dove

When I was growing up we hardly had any doves around the house. There were a ton of pigeons that lived in great fear of me after receiving my pellet gun at age 12, but I digress. We started getting Mourning Doves a couple years ago when some common Grackles chased them out of Palisade. I don't consider the cooing of doves a relaxing sound. I don't like the way they are always hanging around, they are too big for my bird feeders so they sit on the edge, dump all the seed on the ground then eat it.

This morning we were heading out and I noticed a big fat dove sitting right outside my back door. I told Emily to wait, and I reached for my BB gun that I keep by the door. Emily was confused, "Why don't you like doves? They are the universal symbol of peace." In that moment of clarity I realized why I don't like doves, I am not a peaceful person!!!



You Think I'm Old Enough to Know Not To Do That....

Yes, here it is day number 4 wearing a hat. Why are you wearing a hat Allison? Well, my hair was a little thick and long, my schedule was a little full, and my patience was a little thin.  So I grabbed my Mother's thinning shears, just to take a little out and make it through until I could get in to see Brenda..... yeah, I should have known better.