Boy Caught with Pants Down, Mother Laughs Earlier this week, a young 4-year-old was attempting to use the toilet when his mother laughed at him. Fortunately, the boy was too groggy to register the fact, and will not be scarred as an adult as a result of the incident. "He had been really sick for a day or two with a fever and bad congestion. When he started crying about an hour after we put him down, we were worried that he was going to hurl or something," the father tells reporters. "I went in to see what was wrong, but he was too loopy from the medication to tell me." At this point, the boy's mother guided him to the bathroom to wipe the snot off his face, and the boy (who had been screaming and howling horribly up to this point), automatically pulled down his pants and used the potty, crying the entire time. "After he was finished, he reached for some toilet paper to...uh, dry the dew from his lily, and it was at that point..." the boy's mother tells us, but she breaks off due to a fit of the giggles. "Well, he was so out of it that he used the same bit of toilet paper to wipe his nose, and then he threw it into the sink instead of the trashcan or toilet," she sputters. "He was very groggy," the boy's father explains, who also laughed at his son. "It is a regrettable incident, of course," the father tells reporters, "and one we hope will never be repeated." "But you should have seen his face," the shameless mother snorts. Thankfully, once the boy had relieved himself, he quieted immediately and went to bed. As for the laughing parents, justice was served by both mother and father catching the same illness. Both are currently miserable, but the boy is feeling much better and not allowing either of them to rest. Mormon Missionaries Mocked Again When LDS missionaries left the church building in Centralia, WA, last Sunday, they were shocked to find that some unknown party had vandalized their car. "You just aren't safe anywhere anymore. If your car isn't safe in a church parking lot, where will it be safe?" one Elder mused. The vandals had used soap to write such phrases as "Just Married" on the back window, "True Love," on the front, and marked the rest of the windows with hearts and flowers. When asked whom the Elders thought had vandalized their car, one Elder said, "Now that is a good question!" They have no idea who the perpetrators may have been. Unfortunately for the missionaries (but rather to the amusement of everyone they passed), they were forced to drive their car home in this condition. Damage was estimated to be at a loss of 15 minutes for cleaning the film off the windows, but the estimated cost of snickers from passerby, priceless. Woman Does NOT Meet Other Woman She Met Online Today Centralia resident Wynne Urien, traveling with her son, returns home from Seattle where they were visiting with family members. "Originally, we were supposed to be up there for four days, but my son got sick, so we didn't go up until yesterday." Urien's plan had been to meet up with a fellow blogger while she was in the Seattle area, but her plans were further complicated by her contraction of the same illness that her son had. (See related story, "Boy Caught with Pants Down, Mother Laughs") "We came home again on Sunday, and I considered dropping by her [the fellow blogger's] home, but decided not to because I didn't have directions, she would probably have been at church at the time, and snot was raining from my nose. I don't think she would have appreciated me dripping on her children." Urien further explains, "Well, she didn't exactly know I was going to be there. The only notice I gave her was an obnoxious comment on a blog posting, and I don't even know that she read it. I should have emailed her," she sighs. When questioned about how she felt about this near miss, the online friend, a Mrs. Carrot Jello, replied, "Frankly, I'm quite relieved. When you make a friend online, you never know what you're going to get: a flatulent bean-eating Texan? A tiny shopaholic sushi addict? And then when you meet them in real life, well...the weird only gets weirder. I mean, have you read her blog? The girl is a complete psycho, and she never explains what a muskadillo is. And how did she get my address, anyway? I think she's stalking me."

What I Did During My Last Hiatus

Question: If you are sitting around in a presidency1 meeting discussing an issue that the Bishop2 is concerned about (in this instance, general cleanliness of ward3 members), and you ask the other presidency members if they've ever heard of FlyLady, and they say, "oh, no—what is that?" do you:

A. Backtrack rapidly with: "Oh, that's too bad, because I don't know what it is either."
B. Attempt a distraction technique: "Hey! Look out the window there! Is that Sheri Dew4 running through the backyard?"
C. Tell the truth: "It's a woman on the Internet who has program that helps you organize your life along with your housekeeping."
D. Break wind.

Correct answer:

A or D would be the most effective, though B might work as well.

What I did:

I took option C, and told them what I knew about the FlyLady and her program. They thought it sounded wonderful. Five minutes later they had made the decision that the ward would host a "De-cluttering and Organization" class (basically "Housekeeping 101" but with a less offensive title), one class a month for the next five months, and I would be teaching it.

Um. Excuse me? What? Who, me?

Anyhoo, I finished the LAST CLASS this month, and it will no longer be eating my time! Hooray! If you would like to see how I happily ripped off FlyLady methodology and re-packaged it for our ward, you can click here to download the documentation for the entire five months' worth of classes! Whee! (No, really. Click. Download it. Really. I put a lot of work into it.)

But that wasn't the only thing that took me away from the computer this past little while. Oh, no. Oddly enough, this other thing also originated in a presidency meeting.

This time, we were talking about Enrichment5. (I am the Enrichment Counselor6, you know.) The idea was we were having a modest Enrichment Night that was going to focus on scripture study, and, since I was in charge of it, I managed to work PIRATES7 into the theme.

Then the Bishop, who happens to be married to the Education Counselor8 whose home we were meeting in, walked in and eavesdropped on the meeting. It just so happened that he was wanting to do something with scripture study for the entire ward. In yet another five minutes' time, I was suddenly in charge of a much more ambitious ward activity.

Sigh.

At least I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed putting this one together, 'cause, hey! Pirates! Cool!

Take a gander at this flyer that went into the Sacrament meeting bulletin:


I made two of these posters to sit outside of the chapel for a few Sundays—because flyers in the bulletin just weren't enough (they were enough for me, but I got outvoted):


(Sorry about the cat. He thought I made the posters just for him to sleep on. Dork.)

And then I got to make my own treasure! This is what a bucketful of pea gravel, a can of gold spray paint, some serious glue, and a few cheap acrylic gems from WalMart will get ya:


...and I made a WHOLE bunch of it, too.

Anyway, the whole thing is now over, and I am relieved. See? I'm lettin' my hair down:


And now that I am free from all of these things, I should be free to come back whole-heartedly into the world of bloggin', right?

Alas, NAY.

An old "friend" of mine has popped up, and he's a pretty demanding fellow.



More about him later.

*sigh*


*****************************************************************************

This blog posting comes with helpful footnotes for the Mormon-impaired. Hooray!!

1. In this case, a Relief Society presidency meeting. Basically, three to four women sitting around plotting how to take over the ward.
2. Busiest guy in the ward. And you never, ever want to babysit his cell phone, believe me.
3. All the LDS folk that live in a geographical area, like three blocks in Utah, or three counties in Kansas.
4. Author of such inspirational books such as "If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard."
5. The bane of my existence. It usually involves food and lots of women and cutesy evenings based around a theme. We always spike the punch with multivitamins, which is where it gets its name.
6. 2nd counselor in the RS presidency, also known as "the workhorse."
7. Pirates have nothing to do with people of the LDS faith. Or Mormons, either. I think some investigators were confused.
8. 1st counselor in the RS presidency, often heard to say, "man, am I glad I'm not the 2nd counselor!"
9. Yeah, these footnotes aren't all that helpful, I know. What are you going to do about it? (Keep in mind, before you respond, I HAVE A SWORD.)

Free Monkey to a Good Home

Here's the deal: Jake received some goodies in the mail this past week from one of his grandmothers. She sent him some monkey-related items—which Jake adores—but he already has a copy of this particular movie, and this is the second monkey that grandma has sent—how many monkeys does a boy need, anyway?

He has agreed to share the love and send the extraneous monkey paraphernalia to some other kid/adult/canine/parakeet/etc who doesn't have this much monkey love in his or her life.

So, are any of you readers in need of a monkey in your life? Leave a comment if you're interested, and I'll do a random drawing of those interested in...oh, two weeks, then throw the monkey and movie in the mail to you.

And I may not be around much* for the next two weeks or so (I've been procrastinating church projects again).

* When am I ever?