How The Other Half Lives

I had the funnest day today! I was at the Texas Librarian Association (TLA) Conference and it was a blast. One of my fetishes is autographed books. Not just any books, but books that I love, and I love children's books. I also really love to hear authors speak about their books. Books, books, books! I spent all day doing both.

We heard Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson speak this morning and they were hi-larious. If any of you know who either one of these authors are, you know they are not typical children's book authors but they teamed up and wrote a clever book called Peter and the Starcatchers which is a prequel to Peter Pan. I also got to listen to Gordon Korman (don't worry, I didn't even know who he was until today...he's a very funny guy though), and I got to listen to and meet Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel. I'm sure none of you know who they are either, but let me just tell you that they are two of the funniest women I have ever met. I laughed so hard at their antics and stories that I cried. Seriously, if you ever find yourself wandering around a bookstore and you have an extra 15 minutes of your life to spare, go to the children's section and read Help Me, Mr. Mutt. I promise you will laugh. (I also got to listen to Laurie Keller and Nick Bruel yesterday...of course you don't know who they are but they are funny children's authors as well.)



Then I spent the remainder of the day standing in lines and meeting authors and getting books signed. I got 9 books signed...9 books! My collection of autographed books has now tripled. Just imagine your most favoritist thing in the whole wide world...now imagine that you get 9 of them!

So, none of the above really means anything to any of you, I know, and you probably just skipped right over all of that mumbo jumbo, but did you notice how many times I wrote the word "laugh" or "funny"? This is my job people! I get to spend my days with some of the funniest and most creative people on the planet! I took a day off of work so that I could go listen to people make me laugh so that I could then go back and make my students laugh and enjoy themselves while reading. And it wasn't really even a day off...I got paid for my "work" today! What is better than that? Please, tell me.

I Hereby Solemnly Swear...

...to never feather my hair.

...to never dress my children in matching plaid jumpers.

...to never wear a jumper of any kind myself.

...to kill all bugs that come into my house/apartment (or those that attack me outside), thereby helping to control the insect:human ratio (which is substantially disproportionate...insects could take over the world if they had a mind to).

...to never give a "miss-imony" rather than a testimony (i.e. "I'd like to bear my testimony that I'm going to miss ya'll so much!")

...to earnestly endeavor to improve my wardrobe...it's in sad shape people!

...to always have insurance, that way if I get in an accident and it's my fault, the other person doesn't have to fork out a $250 deductible in order to get their car fixed when it wasn't their fault (part 1 of the craptastic weekend a few weekends ago :)

...to not talk during an author presentation at a librarian conference when everyone is trying to listen and then keep talking after I have been asked to be quiet twice.

...to not take off my shoes during said conference and prop them up on the chair in front of me as if I were at home.

...that I am up to no good.

Yesterday I Met Me

I really really wish I had a picture of this woman but I just met her yesterday and it would be kind of weird to ask her if I could take her picture and post it on the internet. I would think it was weird, so I know she would too. Her name is Fern. Isn't that a perfect old person name? Fern? It's straight out of Charlotte's Web. I love it!
Fern is in my ward and she was the Family History Consultant before she was called to teach primary and I took over the F.H.C. calling. I went to her house last night so I could meet her and have her impart all of her knowledge to me (everyone has been telling me how great and wonderful she is and all I could think was "oh great...another amazing person for me to replace!").
Now, this wasn't one of those moments when you meet someone who has all of these cool stories and is fiesty and you think "Man, I want to be just like them when I'm 80 years old!" This was a true "That's me!" moment.
Of course Fern doesn't work, and I don't know what she did if or when she worked, but she keeps pretty busy during the week. She works at the temple, she volunteers at the Family History Center, she goes to the gym to do water aerobics (sometimes she takes walks around the neighborhood instead), and she travels all over visiting her 6 children, 30 some odd grandchildren, and 14 great grandchildren. And she has snow white hair. Not the Disney princess Snow White, but her hair is as white as snow. (I secretly hope my hair turns white...not yucky gray.)
She is also very tech savvy for her age (I met her son who was visiting and HE has white hair too, so you know this woman is old old). I was very impressed that she was completely comfortable with the internet and besides the fact that she felt she had to double click on everything, her computer navigating skills were far above those of her peers.
So it was nothing special...I just had a little epiphany that that was what I would truly be like as an old lady. The End.

Goin' Home

Tonight I went over to my parent's house. I don't get over there as often as I would like sometimes because it takes me about an hour to get down to good ol' Red Oak and on top of that, there is traffic...yucky blucky traffic with all of the people that live in the suburbs and work in the city. After a perfectly craptastic weekend (no, I won't go into details on the blog), I was still suffering the side effects yesterday and a little bit today. The closer I got to my parent's house, the better I felt. We didn't do anything special...just the usual: my dad shows me all of the funny e-mail forwards he has received in the last month or so, my mom asks me if I need any Avon, we discuss the cat and share funny cat stories, my dad shows me the work he has done in the yard, we talk about my nieces and nephews, etc. etc. I didn't really stay long either. As I drove away though, I found myself singing along to a Queen song and smiling. So apparently I just needed to be home, even if it was just for an hour or so. :)

In other news, I met myself as an old woman today. It was kinda neat...

Marching Orders

When I was younger, the word "conference" to me meant that there was no church...it was a free day! Then as I started getting active in youth programs and such, I realized that it only meant that for my family. Apparently everyone else went to church on conference Sundays as well as regular Sundays. The first time I ever attended General Conference I was 16 years old. Back in those days (yes, the "olden times" of the early 90's) we had to dress in Sunday dress and go to the Stake Center to watch it. I was so proud that my sister and I actually went to the Sunday morning session and was telling one of my leaders as much when they smiled and asked me if we were going to stay for the afternoon session too. What? You mean there's more than just Sunday morning? Yes, there's even two sessions on Saturday too. Oooooohhhh! Light bulb! That's why people refer to it as conference weekend. The next conference, I went to all four sessions. (I felt a great need back then to be the perfect Mormon so I could get into BYU...both of which never happened but that's another story...let's just say I was really naive.)

I owe a great deal to my youth leaders who took me under thier wing and had the patience to teach me (a girl who had been going to church basically her whole life) about the gospel, of which I knew very little about. My favorite youth leaders were the Jarrard's who gave me countless rides to church, activities, and yes, my very first General Conference. The Jarrard's loved General Conference and used to say that the counsel we received were our marching orders for the next six months. They probably still say that. "Okay, we've got our marching orders for the next six months. Let's get to work!"

Now, there have been times when I have attended all four sessions, and there have been times when I have listened to one talk the whole of conference weekend, but the older I get and the more I grow in the gospel, the more I look forward to General Conference. I really get excited about it. (And it doesn't hurt that I can watch it in my own home in my pajamas either...I'm just sayin'.) I love to hear the familiar melodic voices of our prophets and apostles. I love to see their familiar faces. I love it when they look right into the camera and speak directly to me. And most of all, I love the counsel and encouragement they give us. My two favorites from this conference were Pres. Uchtdorf and Pres. Monson.

So, my challenge to you (and to myself) is whether or not you listened to all four sessions or you didn't hear any of it at all, take 15-20 minutes of your time this week, get on the church's website, pick a talk, and listen to it.

Hut...2...3...4! Hut...2...3...4!

Shew! That STANKS!

I'm not talking about stink here...I'm talking about STANK! So I work part-time at the LDS Bookstore here in Dallas and I absolutely love it. We sell books, but we also sell other favorite LDS things...such as candles. I heart candles. I have bought many a candle with my employee discount. Candles can smell yummy, flowery, memorable, just plain good, and sadly downright nasty. For instance, there is a candle that smells (to me at least) like rootbeer. I heart rootbeer. I do not heart rootbeer scented candles. It. Be. Stanky! For some reason, someone decided this would be a good candle to put in the bathrooms at the bookstore. It sits back there in those nasty bathrooms, in that little room with those old out of print books all day and burns, burns, burns. (No, the out of print books are not in the bathroom...the bathrooms are in the out of print room. Just clarifying.) I was so glad last week when I saw that it was almost burnt out. The wick was just this little speck in the bottom of the jar. I thought to myself, "Thank goodness! That must have been a candle that never sold so they decided to just go ahead and use it. I hope someone has the sense to put a more appealing scent back here so we don't gag when we have to use the bathroom." I come back this week and I go into the bathroom and the stank hits me...rootbeer/bathroom/moldy carpet. Good night nurse! Is that candle still not finished? How is that possible? It was flickering out last week! I look and lo and behold, someone has put a brand stinkin' new rootbeer throw-up candle in the bathroom...

I really need to move

This is the "grassy" area right outside my bedroom window where Ben has been reported to be seen tromping around. I am a little concerned as you might guess that it is not live grass anymore but dead grass. Notice how it is neatly contained in this area and the deadness does not spread outside the fence, nor does it go past the tree. I think Ben is trying to poison me by putting deadly chemicals in the ground that will seep into my bedroom so that when I walk around barefoot, the skin on the bottom of my feet will absorb these deadly chemicals (probably Anthrax) and in turn poison me. And I bet he has the secret antidote and is fantasizing that I will get sick and he will be the only one to save me with it. Ugh! I so do not want to be saved by creepy Ben. I am NOT walking barefoot in my bedroom anymore.