Monday, July 30, 2007
Quality control
Okay, just to save myself in advance from all you editing snobs out there, I know that it is hole in the wall.
Sleep Tight
Well, we did it. We got a mattress. We ended up getting it at this whole in the wall place called Beds Beds Beds that sells the overstocked or the scuffed or dented stuff. (like it matters if your mattress has a scuff mark?!) It is a firm matress, but with a pillowtop so it has a little bit of a soft cushion on top for comfort. So, wish me luck. I am going to attempt to get a good night's sleep tonight without even taking a Tylenol PM.
Our neighbors, Mandy and Jessica (the lesbian couple with teh 6 year old twins) moved out a few weeks ago. We were actually really bummed that they left because we've gotten to be good friends. They left us their plastic backyard basketball hoop and Ethan has been enjoying that. I can watch from the kitchen window and say "Good job!" while I'm doing dishes. Try this on for different: Mikhail (pronounced McKyle) and Daemon, the twin boys, are now living with 1)their birth mom and her "wife," and 2)their birth father and his wife. All 6 of them under the same roof to save money. But, they had Thanksgiving dinner all together, they go on family hikes all together, and they had Christmas together, so you gotta hand it to them that they are trying their best to be a family. It's crazy.
Anyway, Ethan and I are going to start "school" next week. I'm really excited. They have a really neat art and education supply store here where I got a big school wall calendar, a couple of cool posters about shapes, numbers, letters, and colors, and some cute little wipe-off marker workbooks for pre-k. A few hours a week of set aside time to go in the study and have "school" will be fun, I think.
By the way, I am trying to gather up the best songs about shapes, numbers, colors, letters, and other basic stuff like that. Throw me your ideas (even if they seem obvious to you) just for fun. (Including Brite music songs, children's songs, or just regular American kid songs.) Also, is there a really good gathering/welcome song that we could sing at the beginning of school each time? I may commission you to write one, Zach. :) Or maybe I should try to bust out of my soul searching/serious songs and write a little diddy that's just clever and fun. I'm not very good at diddies.
Alright, going to go try out the new mattress.. Love you guys!
Em
Our neighbors, Mandy and Jessica (the lesbian couple with teh 6 year old twins) moved out a few weeks ago. We were actually really bummed that they left because we've gotten to be good friends. They left us their plastic backyard basketball hoop and Ethan has been enjoying that. I can watch from the kitchen window and say "Good job!" while I'm doing dishes. Try this on for different: Mikhail (pronounced McKyle) and Daemon, the twin boys, are now living with 1)their birth mom and her "wife," and 2)their birth father and his wife. All 6 of them under the same roof to save money. But, they had Thanksgiving dinner all together, they go on family hikes all together, and they had Christmas together, so you gotta hand it to them that they are trying their best to be a family. It's crazy.
Anyway, Ethan and I are going to start "school" next week. I'm really excited. They have a really neat art and education supply store here where I got a big school wall calendar, a couple of cool posters about shapes, numbers, letters, and colors, and some cute little wipe-off marker workbooks for pre-k. A few hours a week of set aside time to go in the study and have "school" will be fun, I think.
By the way, I am trying to gather up the best songs about shapes, numbers, colors, letters, and other basic stuff like that. Throw me your ideas (even if they seem obvious to you) just for fun. (Including Brite music songs, children's songs, or just regular American kid songs.) Also, is there a really good gathering/welcome song that we could sing at the beginning of school each time? I may commission you to write one, Zach. :) Or maybe I should try to bust out of my soul searching/serious songs and write a little diddy that's just clever and fun. I'm not very good at diddies.
Alright, going to go try out the new mattress.. Love you guys!
Em
Internship Update: The database works!!
So just moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, I sat down with my boss Doreen and we went through the database for the first real time. And it works! I mean, take a look at the thing, it looks great, right?" And the most exciting time you'll have with change management is when you're trying to implement it and the person happens to be the person who asked you to do the project, so they are super excited to give up the old and start using the new! "This is perfect!" She said. "I love it. Hopefully this will cut intake time in half!" Yay!! So after 3 and a half months, we actually have something to show for it that she can use from her wireless remote access anytime, and keep track of all the contacts for the school on these projects. Very cool. Who knew, back when I took on this project that it would actually work! And the timing and everything would just work out perfect. Hmm, somebody upstairs did, that's who... =)
Sunday, July 29, 2007
High Council Sunday
So guess who our HC speaker was today? Pretty fun to have John Byetheway follow Elder Chase Larsen who just returned home from his mission last Wed. Bro Byetheway was such a masterful teacher, taking things Elder Larsen had said and enlarging them and bringing them all together. He said Elder Larsen had given one of the best missionary talks he had ever heard (Dad and I agreed) and that he hoped he would come over once a week for the next 12 years to hang out with his son who is 7 and teach him how to be a missionary. The bottom line was that Elder Larsen had said that one day he had been able to be in the temple and as he looked into the mirrors he felt so good about who he was and what he was doing and he felt so clean and good that he wanted to feel that way forever. Bro Byetheway quoted (literally, from memory) from a conference talk in 1949 by Albert E Bowen, a member of the Quorum of the 12:
“Men are mortal and beset by human frailties. They are enticed by the pressures of immediate … desire to depart from the high standards of the perfect law. When they are under the influence of an exalted occasion, they make high resolves. They firmly determine to avoid past mistakes and to do better. But gone out from under the spell of that influence and absorbed in the complicated pursuits of life, they find difficulty in holding fast to their noble purposes … "
Then he read Mosiah 4:2, and said that the word "AND" in the middle is the most important word in this scripture -- that receive forgiveness of our sins, AND have our hearts changed. Oh yes! How can we sign up for the permanent change of heart??? Well, the sacrament table isn't on wheels, and its bolted to the floor where it becomes an altar every week for us come.....(and now more of the Albert E. Bowen quote:)
"So it is essential that they come again, and frequently, under the influence which kindles anew the warmth of spirit in which good resolutions are begotten, that they may go out fortified to withstand the pressures of temptation which lure them into false ways. Happily, if they refresh themselves frequently enough under ennobling influences, the spirit of repentance will be at work with them, and they will make conquest of some temptations—rise above them—and advance thus far toward their final goal.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1949, p. 139.)
He also read King Lamoni's father saying he would give away all his sins to know God -- A Lamanite investigator asking not where is the line so I can live right next to it, or please tell me just how good I have to be, or how bad can I be, but the change of heart where you say as Elder Larsen did, that he felt on his mission how good it felt to be that clean and doing what you know it right. So, a very fun Sunday. Fun to see a master teacher that close up. And remember Courtney Johnson, my WC contact person? She was there because they know the Larsens, so we got to talk, and that was really neat, too.
“Men are mortal and beset by human frailties. They are enticed by the pressures of immediate … desire to depart from the high standards of the perfect law. When they are under the influence of an exalted occasion, they make high resolves. They firmly determine to avoid past mistakes and to do better. But gone out from under the spell of that influence and absorbed in the complicated pursuits of life, they find difficulty in holding fast to their noble purposes … "
Then he read Mosiah 4:2, and said that the word "AND" in the middle is the most important word in this scripture -- that receive forgiveness of our sins, AND have our hearts changed. Oh yes! How can we sign up for the permanent change of heart??? Well, the sacrament table isn't on wheels, and its bolted to the floor where it becomes an altar every week for us come.....(and now more of the Albert E. Bowen quote:)
"So it is essential that they come again, and frequently, under the influence which kindles anew the warmth of spirit in which good resolutions are begotten, that they may go out fortified to withstand the pressures of temptation which lure them into false ways. Happily, if they refresh themselves frequently enough under ennobling influences, the spirit of repentance will be at work with them, and they will make conquest of some temptations—rise above them—and advance thus far toward their final goal.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1949, p. 139.)
He also read King Lamoni's father saying he would give away all his sins to know God -- A Lamanite investigator asking not where is the line so I can live right next to it, or please tell me just how good I have to be, or how bad can I be, but the change of heart where you say as Elder Larsen did, that he felt on his mission how good it felt to be that clean and doing what you know it right. So, a very fun Sunday. Fun to see a master teacher that close up. And remember Courtney Johnson, my WC contact person? She was there because they know the Larsens, so we got to talk, and that was really neat, too.
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