Wednesday Night Ruminations

I'm not real clear on all the particulars, so don't quote me. But the Pasadena Ward is moving into the Foothill Building. I know that there are some construction issues at their building - there was some damage, etc.

Anyway, the upshot of all this was that we had to move our Stake Relief Society stuff out of the room they had allocated for us in that building.

Into 4 cupboards at the Stake Center on Duarte Road!!

We had "purged" that room a couple of times already, but we had way too much to go into those 4 cupboards. And I didn't want any of it in my house!!

You may ask, what did we have?

Lots of old props from previous Stake Relief Society events - conferences, programs, leadership meetings - some of them looked suspiciously like roadshow props too!

Leftovers from a number of Humanitarian projects.

Lots and lots and lots of fabric! Does everyone who purges their own house of fabric just assume that the Relief Society can use it?? (The answer is yes!)

Way too many white paper plates, plastic cups, knives and forks (where are the spoons??) and a veritable rainbow of colored napkins in many sizes.

A nice box of equally nice dish towels - these I think we can use - I can quit hauling mine to every event!

A fair amount of ziploc bags - but where are they when we are trying to find containers to send left over food home with people??

A lot of colored paper - in a variety of colors and weights. Pens, scissors, labels, and miscellaneous stationery items.

Batting - some of it attached to fabric - ready to go!!

An incredible number of white lace tablecloths of less than acceptable quality.

Lots and lots of bud vases. Where do they come from??

Floral wreaths, American flags, straw cornucopias, tiny baskets - "But we can use them as favors." (there are always either too many - or not enough!) Some big vases and some flower pots.

Old videos. No books though!

What to do with all this stuff?

Lucky for us the DI bin is in our stake's parking lot - I put a lot of the stuff there. I think my counselors were slightly aghast - but I said, "The D.I. will know how to get this stuff where it can be used. If we keep it here, it will languish on the shelves for another couple of years and then someone will throw it out because it's old and doggy looking. Let's give it away before it gets old and doggy looking!!"

I'm the president, so I got to have the final say!!

Of the piles of fabric - they are in the trunk of my car - and on Sunday I am taking them around to the wards - and women there can take what they want - and the rest will go in the D.I. bin.

Our little shelves in the stake center are full of the paper goods - the consumables I like to call them. And I think we need to rethink our next Women's Conference - our theme can be "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" and we can eat on the paper plates and drink from the paper cups - and bundle up the rest in nice gift bags - because everyone has a drawerful of them at home - and give them out as door prizes!

And run off our programs and flyers on different colors - since we have a few of every color there.

And I put the props in the "go to the dumpster" pile - but I bet someone rescues them.

I wish it was so easy and quick to purge around here!!

Just like it's easy to spend other people's money, it's easy to get rid of other people's junk.

But I do feel inspired!!

Mother of the Bride Dilemma - solved!!

In case you were worried about it - I did find a dress for the wedding reception. Now I just have to find shoes. Found the perfect ones online - so of course they were sold out!!

And just like you shouldn't tell people what you are going to name your baby - because then they will feel free to offer an opinion - I don't think I will post a photo!!

Besides, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on - 216 photos worth in fact!!

Suffice it to say, I was thrilled that I had to send the size ten back for a size 8!! That alone will make me feel like a million bucks!!

But it's comfortable, flattering, and I won't have wear a tight girdle to make it fit!!

See you there!!

This is the weekend that was!!

It's been crazy around here - Friday was hotter than blazes and the a/c went out in my car - the drive to LA that afternoon was reminiscent of scaling the Baker Grade!! Not pleasant!!

Saturday was a scorcher too - I spent it indoors making floral tote bags for the YW Transition to R.S. - "Blossoming in Relief Society!" Jennifer Menlove was our guest speaker and she did a great job!! She was one of my Beehives back in the day and I couldn't be prouder of her!!

We had 4 of the 5 senior girls in our stake attend with their parents and the ward YW and RS Presidents. It was a nice way to spend part of a Sunday afternoon - these young ladies will do us all proud!!

Then I raced home and finished putting together the dinner for Noah and Dawn's belated birthday celebration - at their house, since it was still very hot! Porter and Eve enjoyed the candle blowing!

And then my good friend Pam was in town, so on Monday afternoon - after she drove me to pick up my car - with repaired a/c function - we managed to squeeze in a nice visit!!

Now I'm racing around trying to get things in order for the arrivals of Hannah, Eliza and Theo!!

It's pretty crazy at school too - 11 IEP's to go - and got requests today for 2 more!! How can I call a halt to all this madness??

But Monday is a holiday!! And we are going to spend the weekend with some pretty special people - watch for photos - I know how to upload them - just don't have scanning capacity at the moment!!

Not sure when the anniversary posts will resume - it is a millstone around my neck, a to do item I'm itching to get checked off!!

Let's see how we do.

What is the world coming to??

So I posted on our family book blog about the new movie coming out based on the best selling novel Twilight.

I'm not sure why I stress over this so much. Maybe it's because I teach school and am reminded more than once a day that we have a culture that is driven by the media - for good or ill - and sometimes it seems more like for ill!

And maybe it's because the author is an LDS, BYU English major grad - and you know you should be happy that a "clean" novel is popular. But I'm really not.

There is a running dialogue in the world of the arts in the LDS Church that says that a Mormon can't really produce great art because an active, practicing member cannot dedicate his life to art and still be an active, practicing member. (I assume this refers to the fact that service in the church is a large part of an active member's life. And that such service would preclude having time to dedicate your life to art.)

Just looking at the life of Minerva Teichert negates the viability of such an argument. And there are probably other artists we could cite too.

But I'm really more concerned about the fact that the public continues to embrace mediocre writing as "great" writing. As if they don't really know what great writing is - and they probably don't.

I read Twilight - and it was tough - it was pretty badly written in my opinion, and I resented spending time on it - and even reading the ending first didn't clear things up for me, so I had to read the whole thing - I did skim, but it's a thick book!

The scene with the baseball game was pretty good - and the "stalking" in Phoenix was the best written part of the book - but the rest was pretty dispensible!

I usually like to read the stuff that is popular with the students at our school - and the whole series is very popular at my school - but I'm passing on this one.

Besides, the virtue of a predictable plot is that they are so - predictable!

FHE at the Temple

Tonight we attended a special session at the LA Temple for those who work the Friday shifts. The temple presidency officiated at the sessions. We had a chapel session beforehand that was inspiring. It was a pretty great experience!

And we had a potluck afterwards in the temple cafeteria, which was also pretty great!

And I ended up sitting next to a man who joined the church in the Monrovia East Ward back in the 60's. His first bishop was Claude Adams. And his wife is Betty McMaster's older sister. So we played "Walk Down Memory Lane" - which means I throw out names and she tells me if she remembers them.

I love reminiscing!!