Long Week

I just finished a very long week and I am happy to have it draw to a close.  I spent the day at the Brick House with SUU graduation taking place there was a lot going on.  By the numbers this was one of our better days and the two day combination was significant.  The week with the catering and everything else turned into a very busy week and I am looking forward to not having to go to work tomorrow.   It will be an absolute thrill to rest from those labors for the day.  Next week should drop off a bit and that is fine.  We still have a few groups on the board and it would be nice if we didn't go completely dead with SUU letting out.  I'm sure we will continue to draw some folks in.  Well, I am exhausted and have an early morning meeting to get to so I am signing off.  Cheers!

Trim

This morning I had the opportunity to do some yard work and I took it.  The last time I mowed the lawn was just under a month ago.  The yard was looking overgrown and I needed to cut things back.  It felt so good to get out there with the mower and have at it.  I also took advantage of the morning and trimmed my hair.  It felt so nice.  I was looking quite scruffy so I shaved.  Fells good to be cleaned up.  Later I headed over for my last final of the semester and it was good.  I am so tired right now that I just need to crash out. 

Early Mornings

This week we have had a catering job that has had me up at 5:30 in the morning all week.  That is early for me especially since I don't get to bed until after midnight most of the time.  This morning was the last morning we had the catering and I am looking forward to sleeping in until 6:30 tomorrow morning.  It will be wonderful.  I am a bit tired as this week has worn me out.  It has just been busy.  I have a final tomorrow, that is my last.  Then we will have some busy days tomorrow and Saturday because of SUU graduation.  Once this week is over I may be able to breath again, maybe just relax for a moment. I don't know.  There is much to do.  Things don't stop, life just keeps moving but I won't mind having a few things slow down a bit with the semester drawing to a close. I've got plenty to do and want to go and visit with the principal at the high school to talk about volunteering with special ed and to talk about future opportunities.  They have a need there for special ed people and though I have a ways to go I might be able to find something to do.  We will see.

Done Passed

My math class is officially over, it is done and I passed.  So thrilled to be finished with that class.  It was the most time consuming and most difficult class I have ever taken.  Feels good to be finished, really good.  One more math class to go in my college education and I think I will be signed up for that one next semester.  I guess I better get to registering. 

Had day 3 of 4 for this catering job.  Jack came with me this morning because it was late start Wednesday and he really wanted to come along.  He hung out in the office while Tyler and I got everything ready and then he came and helped carry stuff in and set stuff up.  I think he had a great time being out there.  It was good to have him along.  Looking at just over 5 hours right now before I will be up and back to the Brick House to start on breakfast for the final day.  There will be sweet rejoicing when this catering job joins my math class in the done category. 

Nothing Right

We have this catering job this week for a group and there are a couple people in the group that like to vocalize displeasure.  One says our bread is too fancy and wants something, well, less fancy.  I just smile and try to make her happy and I bite my tongue as she goes through and steals bacon off the other sandwiches on the platter.  I'm thinking about bringing a loaf of bread just for her and if she wants to take her fixins off our fancy bread and transfer them to her non fancy loaf she can.  I don't know.  We are carrying out the order we were given and this morning I had some dude giving me an earful about how not all people drink coffee.  I am aware of this statement and agree with the man that not all people drink coffee.  As a matter of fact I don't drink coffee.  Anyway, nothing nice to say just mad because we don't have a hot drink available other than coffee.  Tomorrow there may a little hot cocoa for the event.  Frustration.  The same dude had something to complain about as I was packing up the breakfast dishes after delivering lunch.  Is there ever a time when you are not complaining?  I thought that would be a fine reflective question for the man.  Perhaps too forward and damaging to out utensils.  I am totally bushed and I am in need of a power nap.  Must fall asleep... for as long as I can.  The morning comes early and I am beat.  Must go to bed". 

Too Early

Had a catering job this morning and had to be out of the house before 6 am.  That is way to early for me people.  My preference is to not be awake that early in the morning but sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do.  The catering thing also included lunch so I was back and forth a few times today delivering food or fetching more coffee or collecting items afterwards.  It was a full day and I am tired.  I even caught a nap when I got home this evening, not very long it would seem but it was a nap anyway.  I sat and tried to do some math in preparation for the final exam but it was no good.  I was too tired to focus.  I will try again on that tomorrow though the catering thing will be happening all week.  I don't know how I feel about that right now but we will survive.  Well, off to bed so I can be up and awake too early tomorrow as well. 

Big Day for Jack

Today Jack was presented to the ward as having been interviewed and found worthy of receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and being ordained to a Deacon.  The ward did sustain him in this and during his first deacons quorum meeting I was blessed to confer the priesthood upon him and ordain him to the office of a deacon.  It was a great experience for me.  Had Dave and Dan in the circle with me along with the bishopric and the deacons quorum advisors.  It was a great privilege to confer the priesthood upon my son.  I am grateful for the blessing of being a father to wonderful children, for the opportunity to watch them learn and grow.  Truly it is a wonderful thing and it was great to feel of the Spirit today and to participate in this blessing for Jack and for our family. 

I do want to mention that as Jack was sitting in the chair and we were getting ready he decided to give everyone a pre-ordination high five.  It was funny.  It was Jack.  He was thrilled with this ordination and has been looking forward to it.  It certainly touched my heart when he went up and was sustained.  Grateful for his faith and his goodness.  Grateful for the faith and goodness of each of my children. 

Master of Ceremony

Is it Master of Ceremony or Ceremonies?  I don't know.  Suffice to say this evening I was the MC at the ward variety show.  It was pretty awesome.  We had some great acts and I was very much impressed with everyone.  Wow.  I tried to make it fun and tried to get some audience participation going on.  Had some good moments.  Some of the stuff I did was pretty dumb but whatever, you do dumb stuff in front of people some times and tonight I did a lot of it.  I started out as Paul Blart and used some cotton candy to liven myself up when the hypoglycemia was kicking in.  Some people had no idea what I was doing but others understood.  I had fun with teaching young men how to make a sandwich, an impromptu eating challenge between their mothers of the sandwiches they made, I did an impression of Luke Skywalker with the help of some youth, I pretended that I was going to cut Sister Faye's hair.  She was volunteered by the audience as someone with very nice hair, this is true.  I pretty much blew everyone away with I pulled a hot dog out of my pocket and devoured it in a second.  It was a lot of fun.  I didn't think being a dork in front of people would be as much fun as it was or that the people would enjoy it.  So many people asked me about that hot dog. Some thought I dropped it down my shirt.  Nope.  Just ate it.  I think they timed me at just over a second and Will, who was the official time keeper said it should have been faster because he was looking at his phone to make sure the time started and when he looked up I was already done and he had to then try to stop the clock quickly.  It was fun.  I loved so many of the performances.  They were wonderful and brought the spirit.  Great activity.  Happy I could participate. 

Because it is the day I want to note that we catered the Autism Conference again today.  I believe this was the 4th year that we have done it.  It makes for a busy morning which made for a busy day for me but it was a good day.  Certainly a full day.  Grateful for it. 

One Down, Two to Go

As of this afternoon I completed one of my finals.  Feels so good to be done with one.  There are two more to go.  No final in my workout class so nothing to worry about there.  Next week Tuesday or Wednesday will be the math final and then Friday afternoon at 3 for my education class.  It is quite thrilling to be at the end of what turned out to be a very busy semester.  The funny thing was that my two education classes were relatively simple and did not take over my life.  The workout class was just a matter of going and working out 45 times in the semester, easy.  The online math class however, yep, that one just about put me in my grave.  There are still 3 assignments that I have not turned in and at this point I may not turn them in.  I am totally burned out on that math class.  I still need to enroll in another math class next semester but I don't even want to think about that right now.  Well, grateful to be nearing the end of this semester.  Maybe I will be able to breathe again. 

Dang

I was just finishing up on a final project for one of my classes.  It is a group project and while I have my part pretty well done there are two members of our 4 person group that haven't done anything yet.  I can only hope my conclusion is general enough to summarize what they will be saying.  Oh my, I am completely beat and ready for bed.  I am still overwhelmed by the amount of work I have left to do.  After a few hours on the math tonight I finally had to give up so I could work on other things that are due.  Hoping tomorrow I can have the planets align and and get it done.  Now I need to try and get some sleep before tomorrow comes. 

Best Handywork

Well, the black stallion or black lightening or midnight special made it's appearance at the pinewood derby this evening.  The car looked great.  It was the same basic design as Jack's 2nd place car of 2 years ago.  I thought we had it dialed in.  We had graphite on the wheels, pretty much everything.  We were slow.  I was looking at some of the cars that were running fast and there seems to be a trick with having the wheels off set a little bit.  We went for straight, well mounted wheels that would ride level on the track.  That is not the secret.  Ben Murray ran a really fast car tonight. His dad told me there is something you do with the wheels that causes the car to go faster.  Maybe I will remember this information next year and can set Andy up with the winning formula.  As it was his car did look great and he did win a handful of races.  After the official derby the kids like to race their cars down the track repeatedly.  Andy's actually got faster as time went.  Maybe his wheels got messed up or something.  Anyway, he beat some of the cars that were faster than his in the derby.  He raced once against Ben and lost but it was actually closer than I thought it would be.  Anyway, another pinewood derby down.  Feels good.  One more to go - unless of course we get the older boys competing or the men in the ward get down on this.  Could be exciting.  Andy did win an award tonight for "Best Handywork".  He was super excited about that.  So there you go, the Midnight Special came in with a win of some sort. 

Derby Time

It is that time of year when the scouts gather to race their cars down the track.  Actually, the derby isn't until tomorrow night.  We have only had the car kit for a few days and today instead of coming in and doing math I figured I needed to cut out Andy's design.  So I might have done it all. We had to move on it and I really had no other time so I cut it out, sanded it and shot it with a primer.  When I got home from my class I had Andy come check it out and he settled on black for the color.  We shot it with the black.  A while later I shot it with a gloss and then I borrowed a hair dryer from Natty sped up the drying process.  Once that was done Andy decided to go with the number 8.  His car is the 8 ball but that is not what he is calling it.  I think he said black lightening.  It is a pretty cool rig.  Hopefully it will do well on the track.  We don't have wheels mounted yet and we might be just a hair light.  I have some options to get us there weight wise but they are kind of ugly.  I might have to see what kind of fancy weights I can buy tomorrow afternoon so we can finish it up and be ready for the race.  Either that or we will super glue some loose change on it.  Looking forward to the big race and hoping we have a better car than last year.  I think we will. 

Beyond the Burn

I am currently beyond the point of being burned out on school right now. For the most part that centers around math.  I am just so done with it it isn't even funny.  I don't want any part of it any longer.  I am learning things right now that I see absolutely no daily application for and that really begins to irritate me.  I don't have the patience for some of this stuff.  I managed to get through the first of two math assignments today but the second one has been kicking my butt for hours now and I just failed to certify so I need to redo the entire thing.  That just rubs me the wrong way.  I am done for tonight and will pick back up with it sometime tomorrow but I am not sure when.  I only have one math assignment for tomorrow and I hope it is easier than what I am dealing with right now.  Dang it.  This really starts to get irritating and I am very much ready to be done.  Tired.

New Stake Leaders

This weekend was Stake Conference for the Cedar West Stake.  We have had a great conference and I enjoyed hearing from all who spoke.  We had a change in our Stake Presidency as President Schmutz has been called to be an Area Authority Seventy.  I certainly have enjoyed President Schmutz and am excited for his new calling.  I suppose I now need to refer to him as Elder Schmutz.  So we have a new Stake President.  President Heap who was serving as the second counselor in the Stake Presidency has been called to be the new Stake President.  He is a great man and I have enjoyed getting to know him since his call.  It is an exciting thing to have a new Stake President called and I am excited to sustain President Heap.  President Whetman was called as his first counselor.  President Whetman was first counselor to President Schmutz and is wonderful.  I am grateful that he will continue to serve.  President Tom Brison was called to be the new second counselor in the Stake Presidency.  President Brison had been serving on the Stake High Council after being released as a bishop.  He spoke on assignment in the 8th Ward recently and I was truly impressed with him then.  He has a soft yet powerful testimony of the Savior and I am excited for his call.  I am grateful for the great blessings of the gospel in my life.  I am grateful for the opportunities I am given to learn and grow and serve.  Whatever the capacity of that service is it brings me joy to serve my Heavenly Father.  I look forward to learning from this new Stake Presidency and am grateful for their willingness to serve. 

Right Tool

I have been struggling with a math assignment for a few days.  I kept running into problems with the calculator, it was needed for this assignment.  Anyway, we were playing with logarithms and on my Casio graphing calculator there were some things that seemed to be missing.  The letter e is used heavily and for some reason I could not find just an e on the calculator.  I'm sure there is a way to make it happen but I am not seeing it and have put multiple hours in just trying to find the right combination to get the appropriate answer. No luck, ever.  Today Makayla brought me in her TI-84 which is the calculator the class called for.  The Casio has been fine up to now but has been a bear trying to work this logarithm thing.  With the TI-84 it was a lot easier.  I guess that's what I get for rolling with the lower priced competitor.  The right tool makes the difference. It is certainly nice to have this assignment done now.  It is almost over.   

Writing

I have spent so much time on math that I found myself rather enjoying a couple of reports that required some writing.  Isn't writing wonderful?  Well, sometimes it can be a less exciting venture if you are stuck with a topic that really doesn't mean much.  At the same time that type of topic can be one that generates a lot of creativity.  Anyhow, I had a couple of reports due.  One is finished and turned in while the other is part of a group project.  I wrote out my assigned part which happened to be a summary.  I don't know how effective the summary will be as only one other team member has worked on the assignment.  I might have to redo portions of my summary so that it more fully encompasses the entire report.  We'll see.  The short is that this was a nice change of pace from hours and hours of math.  Don't get me wrong, I still have that to do.  I'm just putting it off for funner things.

Sinus Pain

There is something in the air today that has just about made my head want to explode.  I have a lot of sinus pressure.  Well, I had or I could feel a lot of sinus pressure building up.  I took some sinus relief medicine and am hoping I got to it in time.  It seems to have stalled on the pressure building side of things.  That is wonderful.  I might be counting down the number of math assignments I have left as well as the number of days remaining in school.  I am really looking forward to being done with this semester.  I still need to get signed up for next semester and I need to take a test so I can be admitted into the college of education.  I don't know how well I will fair on a test.  There is a lot I have not studied in many years that would probably show up on a test like that and I might just completely bomb it.  That is an expensive test to bomb.  I must needs get the practice tests and put in a good deal of time learning and refreshing my memory. 

Well, I am completely stuck on the latest math assignment.  Funny enough it is the same math assignment I got stuck on last week and when they figured out there was a glitch in the system they sent a  revised schedule and this assignment came back in the line up.  Not happy about it.  Still stuck and struggling to get the calculator figured out.  I wish that part of it wasn't such a mystery.  I do have a few papers I need to get drawn up so I need a break from the math anyway.  Maybe I should write a few extra papers just to steer clear of math for a bit.  Not going to happen but I wouldn't be found complaining if it did.  Sinuses aren't the only thing causing me pain today. 

Onward

There isn't a lot of slowing down in life.  It just seems to keep going.  So what do we do?  We press forward, we continue onward. There was the talk a few conferences ago, I don't remember who it was that spoke, I suppose I could look it up.  Anyway, the message was that hanging in there is not a principal of the gospel.  It was part of the message anyway.  I have managed to almost eliminate hanging in there from my vocabulary and focus more on pressing forward.  Pressing forward with faith in Christ. That doesn't mean that life is roses and there are never any problems. On the contrary, pressing forward involves pushing through and carrying on during the hard times as well as easier times. We don't give up, we don't quit, we carry on.  This math class has required that I press forward when I have not wanted to.  I have had moments when I wanted to quit, when it took everything I had to keep going. The assignments keep coming.  I can't just hang in there and hope to progress.  I have to work, I have to study, I have to try and I have to do.  Sometimes that work turns out great and sometimes that work requires that I work even harder to progress.  Whatever the situation, we must have the faith to keep going. 

Twelve Jack

Today is the twelfth birthday of Jack.  Hard, very hard to believe that he is now 12 years of age. For his birthday Jack wanted to celebrate with a meal under the golden arches.  It was tough to venture in there after being gone for a lengthy time.  Anyhow, we managed to survive the playland and the dining experience.  We then made a trip up to the folks house for a little cake and ice cream and the opening of presents.  Jack was pretty disappointed in the clothes but then warmed up to them and everything else after he opened his new nintendo 2DS.  He is loving it and all Andy can talk about it getting one for himself and wanting to download certain games onto Jack's device.  Fun to see their excitement.  Well, I have been trying to focus and get math done for the last hour but I can't keep my eyes open and am getting no where.  I called it quits for the day because I am spinning my exhausted wheels and getting no where.  I'll be back on it tomorrow.  For tonight however, I am grateful for my children.  They are good people.  I am grateful for Jack.  The big one two.  Crazy how fast the time goes but I am excited to have him join me for priesthood meetings and the like.  Should be a lot of fun.  Must call it a night as I can no longer keep my eyes open.  Happy Birthday Big Jack.

Can't Stay Awake

Today was just a struggle.  Maybe the 5 hours some sleep last night wasn't enough because I was struggling to get through my math today.  I couldn't keep my eyes open and couldn't concentrate on the problem.  I had a silent prayer a bit ago and that seemed to have made the difference.  Well, that along with some ice cream that I awarded myself a spoonful or two of every time I got through a question.  I was able to focus and suddenly the I was able to concentrate, understand what the problem was asking and then complete it.  Struggle.  Now I seem to be wide awake but need to go fall asleep.  I'm sure I'll be able to manage it once I lay down. There's only a couple time when not being able to stay awake is a problem; when I'm driving and when I'm trying to do homework.  Well, there is also the reading and I have drifted off in conversation, then there is the occasional movie in the theater and more frequently at home - especially if I have seen it before, I've also managed to fall asleep whilst typing this blog/journal.  I can successfully sleep on a bench in Disneyland and really have no trouble sleeping on airplanes.  I can sleep while standing in line but that can get embarrassing.  I do enjoy a good power nap.  Well, I think I shall quit now before I begin the drift. 

Humbling Experience

Jack and I were invited to go and meet with the Bishop after church today.  The Bishop first met with me to ask if there was anything he needed to be aware of when visiting with Jack to talk about the priesthood and when conducting the worthiness interview.  I couldn't think of anything that would be different or of concern.  Jack will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood on the 24th as we have Stake Conference next week and will not be meeting as a ward.  Then the Bishop invited me to have my Sunday School Presidency speak on the 24th.  It's going to be a busy day.  Anyway, Jack came in and joined us and the Bishop talked to him about the priesthood and the duties of a deacon.  He talked about some of the young men leaders and had a really nice visit.  Jack got to ask questions and wanted to know about camp outs.  It was a neat visit.  Then I left and Jack had a worthiness interview.  He passed.  Later this evening we went to his priesthood preview and got to hear from Chris Maxwell, one of my old 11 year old scouts who is acting Deacons Quorum President right now.  He did a marvelous job.  We heard from Sean Hiner who is the 2nd Counselor in Young Mens over the deacons and also the scout master.  He was great.  Finally the Bishop spoke and shared some powerful thoughts about the duties of the Aaronic Priesthood.  There are 5 boys that will be moving up this year.  First there is Jack and then he will be joined by Tobler Dotson, Caleb Simmerman, Conner Faye and finally Xander Bishop.  It is exciting to see these boys growing together and I appreciate very much how good they are to Jack.  I have watched both Tobler and Caleb do little things, little acts of kindness towards Jack and I hope he is beginning to see them as friends.  Friends are a bit of a disconnect for Jack, he doesn't recognize those bonds or whatever you would call it, but I see these boys not worrying about that and just trying to be kind, patient and inclusive of Jack and it stirs my heart with profound gratitude.  I have hope that in a quorum Jack will begin to understand friendship and I hope that these young men that surround him will embrace him and just love him as the Savior does and that Jack will do the same in return.

For me this experience is a humbling one.  There are some tender and special feelings that I have as a parent.  There is a lot of joy in my heart for this key event in Jack's life.  I am grateful for the trust that Heavenly Father has placed in me with Jack and with all of my children.  It is a sacred trust and one that I hope to be worthy of.  Anyway, I am excited and I am grateful and look forward to the coming experiences.       

Fabulous

What a day.  I loved it.  Got up and went to the ward clean up party this morning.  The city is doing it's neighborhood spring clean up which means residents can stack a pile of stuff out on the street and they will come by and pick it up.  We are scheduled for Tuesday so we went out as a ward and helped clean up yards and haul things to the curb.  I ended up with others at Sister Smiths home.  We put in some work.  Sometimes I get a bit irreverent when I am out and about working.  It is all just to try and make the work fun but I wonder if I offend people some times.  I don't know that I did and think people follow my sense of humor well enough.  Anyway, that was a good time.  I then had to head to the Brick House for an AYSO catering thing we were doing.  We hosted them for their sign ups and provided sandwich platters, chips, beverages, etc.  It went well and we are going to do trade with them and get some sponsorship recognition going on.  After much of the day at the Brick House we headed home and I went about getting more yard work done here.  Did some additional tree trimming in the back and then ripped out three groupings of roots/stumps from a shrub.  It was fairly brutal.  I had Andy out there working with me and we had some fun.  Sure do enjoy spending my day in the yard enjoying being out and about rather then inside working on math. Avoiding math truly made for a fabulous day.  My body is pretty well beat after digging up those roots.  I am feeling a bit on the tired side.  Must rest.   

No Wind

I have been to math hell this week.  I certainly didn't sluff on the work or put forth zero effort.  Countless were the hours I spent laboring through the chapter and trying to learn the material.  I thought I had it down pretty well.  The chapter review last night went well.  I did another one this morning for good measure.  I wanted to keep the info fresh.  It also went quite well and I was feeling quite confident with the math problems encountered.  All was well until I took the test.  I blew it yet again.  Another failed test.  I am discouraged to say the least.  I thought I had this stuff down but apparently I do not.  What little wind was in my sails this morning is now gone.  I am spent.  There is another assignment due right now but I am empty inside.  I don't have it.  I can't figure something out and right now I am tired and I don't care. 

4 Hours Ahead

Well, here I am writing the blog and getting ready for bed roughly 4 hours ahead of my schedule the last two nights and nearly 3 hours ahead of Monday night.  What a thrill!  I am actually doing laundry right now and have never been so happy to be doing that.  Folding clothes never looked so inviting.  I did spend the more part of my day working on math but I finished an hour or so ago.  Don't worry, I have more to do tomorrow, a big test and then more work from the next chapter but that is tomorrow.  Right now I am caught up and I am caught up ahead of schedule.  Feels good. 

I do have to say that I had a weird experience over the last few days.  Usually as I sit and work on math I get very tired very fast and struggle to get through it.  For the last few days as I have worked long and hard hours I have not been sleepy and struggling to focus.  That part was there (maybe that was my problem). Tonight as I was working through the last assignment of the day I began to struggle staying awake and so I took a 20 minute power nap then came back a wrapped everything up.  Feels good tonight though it has been a very frustrating week. 

So, laundry to fold.  I'm excited.  Maybe I'll even turn on a show while I fold.

Let it end

I have nothing left in the tank.  I'm empty.  Can't keep looking at math.  It has been the majority of my days this week thus far.  I'm not done yet today but it is now 1 AM and I'm done.  It is to a point now where I am just angry, I've grown tired of swearing which doesn't seem to help at all and I am done.  Wouldn't you know the assignment I am on requires a calculator, which I have, but it is solely written for the TI-84 and I can't figure out how to do it on my graphing calculator. The same buttons on the TI calculator just give me a Syntax Error message and so i'm done.  I have tried to figure it out, tried different combinations of buttons, nothing is working so forget it at this point.  It is no longer worth my time tonight.  I can't keep up this kind of load for the next three weeks.  It is taking over my life.  I'm done, well, until tomorrow anyway. 

UPDATE:  I have issues.  It is now 2 AM.  I went and found my calculator handbook and looked through it.  It didn't help at all but I did open up the assignment again and just kept plugging along.  I managed to figure a few things out and have completed the damn assignment.  Now I can go to bed with a little less worry and heartburn.  I have a really hard time quitting something and as much as I wanted to quit and give up I couldn't.  I did punch the punching bag a few times when I went to get my calculator book. That felt nice.  

I Need a New Topic

Seriously?  Am I going to write about math again?  Yes I am.  I have nothing else to write about today.  I've been doing math all day.  I started around 8:30 this morning after 7 hours away from it.  I stuck with it until 2 PM when I had to leave for a group meeting on another class.  At 4:30 I was back on the computer doing math.  At 6 I had to go to work.  At 9 I was back on math for an hour when we took a break for scriptures and prayer and then reading to the boys.  At 10:30 I was back on the math and just finished at 2:30 in the AM.  The good news is that I am now caught up.  The bad news is that I have three more assignments due tomorrow.  I also have a test on Friday I think and a few more assignments due by the end of Friday as well.  I am about fed up with this crap.  It's a good thing it was some festival day at school and there were no other classes. I am completely blown away right now with the volume of work being dumped on.  Time to go sleep for 5 hours and then get back to more freaking math. 

Failed to Certify

Andy was up puking all night last night.  That was fun.  He didn't go to school today.  I didn't go to my work out class which is fine.  I worked on math and finished the first assigned section for the day.  Then I went to my regular afternoon class.  It was fine. When I got home I let the boys play on the computer and I decided to do a little yard work for a bit.  Then we had dinner and fhe and all the other good stuff.  At 10 PM I sat down to do the second lesson assigned for the day in math.  It is just now 1:30 in the AM.  After busting my hump trying to learn this crap over the last 3.5 hours I failed to certify.  I'm pretty much sick of this crap.  I pretty much hate this math class.  I'm pretty much done for the night.  Now I will get to try and certify on the one I can't do tonight tomorrow along with two additional sections.  On Wednesday there are three additional sections.  On Thursday there is a chapter review.  On Friday there is a chapter test and there are multiple sections of the next chapter due.  What the freaking hell?  This class is really starting to piss me off. 

Conference Joy

Last night at the Priesthood Session I was moved when President Monson stood to speak.  This morning I was once again touched by the Spirit when President Monson stood and spoke to the world in the Sunday Morning Session of General Conference.  His message was short but powerful.  He spoke about choices and how our choices determine the direction we go.  I don't know how much longer we will be blessed to have President Monson.  He is looking frail and his age is catching up with him.  I am so very grateful for his life, his dedication to the Lord, his sefless service in the work of the Lord.  I don't fully remember when he was called to the first presidency, maybe it was when President Ezra Taft Benson was called.  Anyway, for the majority of my life he has been a member of the First Presidency.  Truly he has been an inspiration over the course of my life and I am grateful for what I have learned from him. 

Conference was wonderful.  The messages were powerful and uplifting.  I am looking forward to them coming available on LDS.org so I can begin reviewing the messages shared.  I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and and hope that the choices I make in my life are those that will lead me closer to him. 

April Conference

I love conference weekend.  I love to sit and listen to the conference sessions and enjoy the Spirit of the meetings.  I had to run and take care of a few things at work during the morning session so I missed a couple of talks but was very excited when it was announced that Elder Halstrom would be speaking.  I delayed leaving the house until he spoke and it was worth it.  I also caught parts of both Elder Stevenson and Elder Renlunds talks.  I am looking forward to reviewing them more fully when the conference proceedings are available on LDS.org.  A highlight of the day came in the Priesthood session when President Monson spoke.  I was thinking that maybe he would not speak as his health is declining but he stood and spoke and it was awesome.  He only spoke for 5 minutes but it was powerful.  Looking forward to tomorrow and the messages that will be shared. 

The conference center is decorated with wheat grass looking stuff.  Well, the podium is decorated with it.  It actually looks really cool.  I am waiting for someone to fire up a weed whacker and just clean it up a bit or maybe just someone to walk in with some scissors, cut down some grass and make a smoothie.  Well, the long grass inspired me to fire up the lawnmower after conference and give the lawn a mow.  It was great, therapeutic, one of my favorite things to do.  Makes my day when I can work a bit in the yard.

Well, must rest.  Conference starts in 10 hours.  

What Life?

Today I have not life.  My life consisted of my work out class, work, study for math test, take math test, go to work, come home and work on more math.  It is now 1 AM and I just finished with the math that was assigned today.  This math class pretty much sucks.  That is all I have to say about that right now. 

My kids got to sit around the house after school and through the night.  I don't like that.  I don't like that they sit here and look at electronics while I am doing math homework or at work.  It pretty much freaking sucks.  I am looking forward to the semester ending.  I don't know how much more I can stand.  There has to be some sort of balance and lately there has not been.  There has to be some part of me that can be all about the kids doing something.  Right now it is really hard.  I don't really like what we have to do right now.