Some things I've been up to lately

I like to use pictures with my blog posts. However, for a person who carries a camera in her purse everywhere she goes, I am not very good at remembering to use it. With that in mind, I took this picture about a month ago when B and I were walking the dog, intending to save the photo for just such a night as this--when I want to post a bunch of blah, blah, blah about nothing in particular and want a photo to go along with all that blah, blah, blah. Viola--I am ready.

Tonight we had our Young Men/Young Women Christmas party (yep, I didn't take pictures). I was in charge of it (or the Laurels were but none of the Laurel presidency attended). It was a fun night. We played games. I think the game that was the biggest hit was one that one of the other leaders invented for the evening. We all sat in a circle, each took turns rolling a die, anyone who got a six ran into the middle and put on welding gloves. Then that person had to try to unwrap a package that had been wrapped about twenty times. If you were the last to unwrap it, you would win whatever was inside. There were two dice going around separately. It was very fun and funny. Even the leaders got into it. We had a white elephant gift exchange. We brought cans of food and donated them to the bishop for needy people in the ward. We had donuts and milk for our refreshments. And I didn't think to take pictures. At these activities, I'm too busy managing the universe, I suppose.

I have gone activity to activity to activity--finishing one, starting on the other, trying to look ahead and keep things in motion--probably all year. So many activities. Always something to do and always something on the horizon that I need to work toward. In recent memory, in October I had the Evening in Excellence.

Here is a photo showing the decorations--this photo just does not do it justice. Even though the colored material seems small in comparison to the gym, they are taller than the average person and when walking in the room, the decorations appeared fuller and more interesting than this picture shows. Anyway, this was a lot of work. The theme was something about the Country Fair in Excellence. I delegated parts of it but I had the decorations and the games--the main things. After this was over in October, my next big thing (with 1000 little things in between) was the Recognition Evening in November.

This is the picture of the refreshment table. My counselors made the value signs (although the blue one is MIA in this photo). We had ice cream (white=faith) and candy and things in the value colors to sprinkle on the ice cream. I borrowed this idea from my very talented sister-in-law Cori. It was particularly a hit with the little kids who came. The girls said we should do the "value color" idea with fruit. That sounds good, too. We had four special speakers and all of them did a wonderful job. I felt like this activity went well.

I asked a wonderful woman to substitute for my lesson this Sunday. I had to off-load something. My next big thing is that I host a personal progress evening at my house next Tuesday. My own kids hate it when I do the personal progress at our house because they have to help clean. I need to think of some kind of refreshments that we haven't had this year and make them--and I'm running out of ideas for food I'm capable of making and capable of thinking up. Then we do baptisms that Friday and I am the only female adult driver (so I can't get sick or have something come up). Then I have a presentation the Sunday before Christmas, along with the presidency and advisors (I have my five minutes already prepared). Then some leaders, girls and I are delivering gifts to the widows in our ward on the 3rd Tuesday. Then, then, then, then, then. I'm leaving stuff out of this recitation and I haven't even gotten to the end of the month.

Fun and interesting times--never a dearth of things to do--never.

"Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation . . . ." Lectures on Faith, 6:7a.