I went to the dentist today and it took two hours for them to do what needed doing! I was mildly shocked when I got out to my car and saw that it was 6:00. I think part of the reason it was such a surprise is that they made it a very pleasant experience. The assistant asked me what kind of music I liked. I said classical, Classical 89. She said, they didn’t have a particular station but there were three choices for classical. It was a satellite, thing. Anyway, the clouds did interrupt the flow of the music a number of times but at one point I was so fortunate as to get to hear Mozart’s bassoon concerto. I thought, Wow, what are the chances of that?” I love bassoon sounds. I don’t play it very well but it is my instrument. How time flies when you’re listening to nice music.
It is now 9:09 and I am still very numb. I’m a little nervous about when it wears off but of course am looking forward to it, also. They got me numb enough right off at the start. That is a very good thing!! I had a crown replacement put in. My other crown allowed some decay to get started under there. They noticed that on my last 6-month appointment. I had very little pain in the area but if it had been postponed too long, the root would have been involved and pain would follow surely. Why am I telling you all this?
Anyway, it was actually a pleasant experience. I felt very comfortable talking to the young dentist who is getting married this Saturday in the Salt Lake Temple. He’s a little nervous about the crowd but figures it will work out somehow. I really liked his assistant, also. She was fun to talk to. I learned something that I want to use when I go visiting for Relief Society. I want to get to know what kinds of books or music or movies that people like. It’s such an easy thing to talk about and feel good about. I made it easy today because I had my library copy of Pride and Prejudice with me on my lap. So they were curious. I can’t remember now what their favorites were but it was fun!
Well to finish this weird post off, I’ll just affirm that numb is good when a dentist is in your mouth!
I took a few notes last night as I watched the State of the Union address. President Bush is saying so much that he is going to do or that is going to be done. It seems so comprehensive. I wonder what is being done? Why aren’t these things already happening? Or have already happened? I did listen to the whole address along with “a whole nother round of applause” as Charles Gibson put it, repeated over and over through the speech.
Well then I listened to the Democratic response by the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius. She preferred it to be called an “American response.” She posed this question: What in the world does any of that have to do with me? Later she said, “We are tired of leaders who rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all.”
Our soldiers are an exception as my son was quick to point out but I thought, wow, that’s kind of what it’s like isn’t it? I mean, it’s supposed to be a big deal that some of us are going to get a check for $600 in the mail. I could use it as much as anybody–well not anybody but I am on a very tight budget. I just don’t see how that kind of thinking along with no raising of taxes, can help.
I just don’t get it. Let’s just say I liked her speech better than the President’s.
I sure hope I can figure out how to delete a lot of my categories. There are way too many. It bugs me to have to go down that whole list to get to the bottom. Holly thought maybe I would have to go through and take them out of each post. It would be worth it if it works! Maybe I will try a few and see what happens. Wish me luck!
LOL–After I posted this I realized I had left it “uncategorized.” So I’m coming back to say that I don’t like “uncategorized” as a category but what am I going to come up with??
Oh well, first I’m going to think about which categories I want to keep. Then I’ll put it in one of them.
I heard a poem today that I don’t really like. And since it was bothering me, I’ve decided to write about it. It takes more nerve than I usually have but I’m going to do it. The poem is entitled “Tomorrow Never Comes.” With all due respect and sympathy to the man who lost his wife in an airplane accident, I still want to just differ with a few of the ideas. I hope I don’t seem too hard-hearted.
It’s in the November 2007 Ensign on page 75. I’m going to quote a bit from it and then state my views.
“If I knew this would be the last time I saw you sleep, I would hug you tighter….” I don’t like living in fear-I don’t even want to think that. Faith tells me that it isn’t ever going to be the last time I see my loved one. Life doesn’t end in this life. We will see our loved ones again. Life doesn’t end ever.
“If I knew…I would plead with the Lord to protect you….” I do pray every day for my loved ones to be protected. I think it makes a difference. But I also know that we do all get to leave this life when the Lord sees fit. I’m not in any hurry for myself or my loved ones to go on…so that’s why I pray for protection.
“If I knew…I would be by your side, spending the day with you instead of thinking, ‘Well, I’m sure other opportunities will come…” Well, in fact other opportunities do come almost always, even in this life. The odds are in our favor. “And we would have a second chance to do things right.” In fact, we all have lots of second chances–repentance is a gift from God. There will be a day to revise things!
“…and the future might not come!” I think the future will be wonderful. Of course it will come! Part of it may not be what we think we want but even if we have to endure some really tough things, there is a wonderful future for us! A loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ see to that.
I’m glad I don’t know when. That wouldn’t work for me. I like it the way it is.
Well this seems scarey again. It’s been almost two weeks since I wrote on here. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I think I’ve been having some “growing pains.” I’m having a lot more situations where I have to express myself and I’ve not been impressed with how I’ve done. I had done a pretty good job of avoiding awkward situations with people by being so content with my life as it was, just interacting with my family and doing the minimal friendly talk at church, enjoying hobbies, etc.
Well I need to just “suck it up,” as my daughter-in-law frequently says to her kids. I just looked that up on Google because I had always thought that Annette had made it up herself. But then it occurred to me that maybe she hadn’t. Sure enough, I put the phrase with quotation marks around it in and got: Teach Your Children to “Suck it Up!” Surprise! Yesterday when she told Maddie to “suck it up” I told her that I liked how she was with her kids. They’re tough! She said it’s good except when you’re sure your kid’s got appendicitis and she’s doing such a good a job of “sucking it up” that the doctor doubts that she’s got it.
Okay, this feels therapeutic. I had no idea that I would come up with this until I was here writing. It is good advice for me from me. Writing is good. I’m not very good at it but people will just have to tolerate me until I get good. In the meantime I will just “suck it up” and get on with it. 
Thanks, Annette
Today my two little babysittees and I found some sheep to use for scripture stories. We already have two sets of toys designated for Daniel and the Lion’s den and Jonah and the whale. The little rubber whale had a big mouth but it was only partly open. I carefully cut his mouth to it’s full extent the other day so now he can actually swallow Jonah! He needs a lot of help to “vomit him out on dry ground” but it’s okay.
I used to think it wasn’t appropriate to have toys for scripture characters such as the little Book of Mormon figures that are sold in some stores. I felt like it trivialized the scriptures. I don’t feel that way any more. I really enjoy the times we get out the lions and four little wooden people along with an angel from one of our nativity sets and act out the stories. I got the angel out last year long before Christmas because we needed an angel to “shut the lions’ mouths” for Daniel’s story. I explained to Maddie that real angels don’t need wings.
One story I’m really looking forward to doing some day is Noah and the ark. That would be great fun! I’ve already got lots of animals that would work–we just need to find an ark! I suppose if I were really ambitious and creative we could make one. We could do that for the story. Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that some more.
Hi everybody–I just wrote a post about my harrowing teaching experience and I realized I didn’t have to post it right now because I didn’t feel satisfied with it.
I think I was too wordy and not fun at all. I just couldn’t put it out there as if I had to. Nobody says I have to. I know I haven’t been posting daily like I fully intended to do and I almost dread looking back at what I did say about posting every day. I thought of doing one about being a liar when I started up again.
Well at least I am doing one right now. I will repent and start over. I will not say that I am going to do one every day. Maybe I never did. I don’t remember exactly what I did say. Just forgive me, okay?
“To know what you think, write.” That’s not exactly a quote even though I wanted to set it off like that. Holly said something like that to me the other day. She had heard it from a history teacher. I thought how true that is. I’ve especially noticed when blogging, that once I start writing, I come up with things I hadn’t even thought of before.
So, there are a couple ideas that I want to delve into more and this seems like a way for me to find out where I’m coming from. I’m hoping it can be some self-therapy. If anyone else gets anything out of it that will just be a bonus.
I was talking with a couple of ladies on Saturday evening and the one said that we just need to forgive ourselves more. I’m thinking, I suppose so. No big deal. I’m good on forgiveness.Then the next morning I somehow connected that thought with the struggle I’d been having to get a lesson ready to teach this coming Sunday. I wondered why is it that even though I have a great subject–prayer–and lots of insights and examples from the scriptures, I feel like I can’t put it into words that will be good enough?
I wondered if the trauma that I felt as a kid at not having anything to say, being made fun of, embarassing myself in front of people, never feeling like I could talk like “normal” people–was still eating away at me and causing me to want to over-compensate. Could this be a forgiveness thing? Could it be that just doing okay was not even an option for me…with me? It gets pretty scarey when nothing I think of is good enough. Maybe I have never forgiven myself for being so shy and tongue-tied and being judged badly for it by others–peers. I really felt like a failure.
Well that was a few days ago and then another idea came kind of like this: How good do you have to be to be loved? You don’t have to be very good at all. “Love is not a measure of the one being loved but of the one doing the loving.” (Clark Swain in the March 1972 Ensign. I still have that article.)
It was a comforting thought. I think it led to the feeling of forgiving myself, for one thing. I also had the feeling that the pressure was really coming off of me, because it was my own self that was being so hard on me.
Well I could re-word some of this to be better but I have been on here longer than I meant to be. I think it has been therapeutic.
It is good enough. Happy New Year!
