Catch Up

It's the first real day of the semester for me (both classes I TA for meet this afternoon/evening), and it's the Laurels' month to plan activities which always seems to mean a ton of work - so you all are spared my usual rambling stories. (Oh, who am I kidding? I'll still ramble, it would just be even worse if I had more time!) I promise I'll get back in the swing of blogging. (Now that the semester is starting and I'll have something I want to avoid, I have no doubt I'll be in blogging mood quite often!)

So what has been happening since the burning toilet? The bishopric asked the youth to participate in the Christmas program this year - it was a program the choir has done before, but then they used to adult "speakers" to read scriptures around choir and special musical numbers. This year the bishopric wanted the youth to do the reading, and our instructions from the bishop were to involve every youth and especially reach out to less actives. We spent quite a bit of time trying to assign the parts so that better readers had longer scriptures, but we also had a month to work with all of them on enunciating and all that. Only the choir was concerned with putting on the "best, as close to perfect as possible" program more than making sure all the youth were included and had a positive experience. It proved quite the stressful month - one of the mothers was concerned that her daughters, who are excellent readers, but were also already members of the choir and so already participating in the program, should do most of the reading so the poorer readers wouldn't "detract" from the ward's experience. Only, as her daughters were in the choir and there weren't quite enough scriptures to go around, I hadn't assigned them parts at all - assuming (correctly) that some people wouldn't show the day of and they could fill in for that, or if not they were still a part of it. We discussed that at least once a week for the whole month. Then the choir pianist wanted the youth to come to every Sunday choir practice and to use all Wednesdays in between to practice with the choir - which would have meant trying to keep them quiet and reverent while the choir rehearsed while waiting to read their one scripture. And two of the YW, whose mother happens to be in the presidency, decided not to participate at all - and she let them. We did manage not to meet with the choir until the last practice, but we still went through all the scriptures with them every Wednesday - worked on pronunciation, enunciation, confident speaking, the works, and they worked hard and improved greatly. It didn't stop multiple adults from "offering" suggestions (some not so gently) during dress rehearsal, then pointing out to me how poorly some of the youth read afterward. I found the whole thing rather distressing - I felt sort of like a mother bear protecting her cubs, and they had no idea how hard it was for some of those kids just to stand up there, much less read in front of people! But the Sunday program was exceptional, and there were people sick so the concerned mom got to hear her daughters read after all. It's one of those things that in hindsight I certainly stressed over more than I should have - but on the other hand I don't know how to try to make all the adults with competing interests happy while at the same time ensure that the youth both perform well and have a positive experience while doing it. And for the primary presidents out there - I'll be much more sympathetic next time you want to vent over the annual primary program!

Over Christmas break I finally got around to finishing a project that has been in my garages for years (literally). When I first moved in to my house in 2002, I bought several furniture kits instead of buying finished bedroom furniture - I stained and assembled the bed, nightstand, and entertainment armoire pretty quickly, but the other piece sat in its box for a couple of years before I even touched it. Then I had a YW looking for a personal progress project who decided it was something she'd like to learn - and we got it stained before she whimped out and it sat in the garage for another couple of years. (She's a college sophomore now!) So I finally decided I should get it put together, and here it is! And it's been so much fun, because I can finally fully implement my mother-disapproved strategy of never folding underwear - each piece has a drawer and in it goes in one happy jumble. :)

The YW are always after me to host slumber parties for them, so when I got back from Christmas we had one. It was smaller than usual with some tied up with holiday plans, but we had fun. Everything went smoothly as long as one of the older girls was here - she decided what they would do next and they all did it. But she is allergic to cats and has trouble sleeping here so left about 10 pm - and all cohesiveness went with her. It took some persuading, but the remaining girls finally accepted that they didn't all have to do the same thing at the same time, and then peace was restored. I went to bed around 1 am, as they were starting another movie, and was up at 7 am when I heard the first stirrings - the one girl who went to bed when I did was up and ready to watch the movie that got voted down the night before! But they were all gone by 11 am, and I had a lovely nap. We did have fun, they just wear me out sometimes - which is my only clue that I really am a grown up after all. Oh, and my papasan chair (the cat's favorite) suffered a few serious wounds, but fortunately none fatal. They just aren't very sturdy chairs, certainly not up to the task of holding multiple squirming YW or of being stood on!

And here's one more photo of my crazy crew. We made a care package for our one-and-only missionary's birthday last Wednesday, full of little gifts that tied in with a scripture (eg, animal crackers with a scripture reference from Noah's Ark) and with letters from the whole crowd, and they sent along this picture. It truly represents them in all their glory.And that's all she wrote for now. I'm fine. The cats are fine. It's cold, but sunny and snow-free. My favorite basketball player is back from the injured list. And financial aid money came in this morning. What more could a girl ask for?