A clean house, some awesome visiting teachers, and a perplexing movie

Oh the joys of a day off from work--thank you Christopher Columbus, you've given me a much needed day off! After 4 loads of laundry and cleaning the spare room, which is really our junk room aka where we throw everything we don't know where to put--needless to say, we've got a lot of junk. Anyway, it's all spiffy clean and ready to take more of our endless junk for months to come---and I'm sure it'll come. My visiting teachers came by today and it was a welcome visit, didn't really talk to much about spiritual things--sometimes I get the feeling that they are (well one of them) is reluctant to speak about God, kind of embarrassed. Well, I can sort of understand that, if you are not comfortable in your own skin, speaking about spiritual things can kind of be like putting a giant spotlight on yourself. Anyway, their good and I'm good--trying to be a nice person and not bite everyone's head off. So I went to see The Duchess and it really perplexed me---is that really how people back in 18th century England behaved? I don't know...I usually walk out of chick flicks going 'whoopie! she got the guy and they lived happily every after' but boy, this was anything but happily ever after. Cookies are done and time for FHE---whoopie for cookies!

Press Forward, Be Valiant, and Over-Blog

So, I woke up with Press Forwards Saints stuck firmly in my head---funny how God works sometimes. It's a great hymn: Press forward Saints, with steadfast faith in Christ. Not always an easy thing to do but nonetheless it's the trying that really matters I suppose. I've come to realize that I'm a good person but not very valiant, although I think I'm getting better at that. There was a time when I would see an injustice and not have the courage to stand up and say 'dude, that is so wrong' but, maybe it comes with age, nowadays I speak my mind--I think more people need to speak their minds when things aren't going quite right. The world has conditioned us to be 'tolerant' and 'open-minded' etc...but those ideals have also stripped us of our courage to speak up for truth and righteousness. I'm not talking about homosexuality or anything like that--I'm talking about forgiveness. There are several people in my life that seriously need to forgive others for their offenses. I've tried to talk to them but I fear that my 'butting in' will damage my relationship with them--it's a fine line. I got the prompting (about 6 months ago) to give an article to my friend called 'The Peril of Wedges"...I'm going to bring it to work with me on Tuesday, I just hope that she doesn't get offended because lets face it, she's highly emotional and loses her temper quite often...so I think I'm right to be nervous but I just know that this article is going to strike a cord with her. So.....that's an attempt of mine to be valiant and courageous---to give her what she needs even though she might not want to hear it. (Yeah, I know 6 months late!) Eek! That's scary! I guess since I have to wait up until 1:30 to take my medication it's made me quite the chatty Kathy tonight. Well, if you can stand the randomness of my thoughts--and that one day they'll be all spiritual and the next I could be talking about John getting thrown up on again by the dog--well you can handle just about anything.

Look, We're gettin' all fancy!

Wahoo...after months of envy....we've finally figured out how to make our blog all fancy schmancy! I know...ya'll are jealous of our coolness but hey...not everyone can be as cool as we are!

My thoughts about General Conference

Well, for us on the east coast, conference just ended. I managed to watch all five sessions. For the most part. I am sure I nodded off a little and I was doing some school work and listening through another bit of it, but for the very most part, I watched all of it.

A couple things impressed me. I noticed during the first Saturday session, including Pres. Uchtdorf, there were four foreign born speakers. Also, Sundays second session had two foreign born speakers. That is six in total. I do not remember this happening before. I think that is cool. I know we are a world wide church. I know we have missions all over the world. It is really cool to see the foreign speakers. And they were not from all the same place. Maybe two from Brazil, one from France, one from Uruguay, Germany of course. Anyway, cool stuff.

Speaking of Uchtdorf, his talk on hope was awesome. I am not one to take notes during conference, however I am thinking I might change my ways after this because I cannot remember exactly what he said about things we hope in lead us to charity and things we hope for lead us to faith. Is that it? I am not sure. I liked his talk none-the-less.

M. Russel Ballard (I think) used a phrase that I am going to ponder for a while. Superficially righteous. That phrase has been ringing in my ears since he said it. I think it has been ringing in my ears because I am very critical of myself, always have been. First, I am trying to come up with a definition of that phrase that I am satisfied with. Second, I want to make sure that phrase does not describe me.

Pres. Monson rules. I truly enjoyed his talks. I cannot remember all of his talk from priesthood session but it was good. I remember liking it. I eagerly anticipate being able to get these talks in print and being able to review them again.

I do not remember feeling this way about a GC for a long time and I am pretty excited about it. Anyway, if any of you have thoughts to add about conference or can help me in my pursuit of understanding, please leave a comment or shoot an e-mail. I know I have some pretty smart friends and family and hope you can offer some of your insight to me.

My good boy! Usually.

Here is the picture of my little buddy. His name is Shadow. Most people think that since his name is Shadow he must be black but not our boy. He earned his name by following us everywhere we went in the house. He's about 2 years old, only weighs about 20-25 pounds, and we've had him for about a year and a half.

When Kathy and I decided we wanted a dog in addition to the four cats I insisted that we get one from a rescue. We found out that Rawhide Rescue, a local NJ animal resue, was having an adoption day soon in a local Pet Smart. Kathy had seen a different dog online that she really liked from them so we went to look at her. Well that dog had kind of a tramatic past and with both of us working, we did not think that dog would be right for our lifestyle.

But I saw Shadow, or as he was named then, Fausto. He was real small, just a six month old puppy at the time and he was way cute! We spent some time with him that day and decided he would be right for us.

We later discovered that he came from Arkansas. Apparently the owners of the resue Shadow was in down south wanted to go on vacation and they were leaving soon. They spread the word that if the dogs they had were not taken before they left for vacation, they were going to put them all down. So Shadow was one of six dogs rescued from Arkansas. Rawhide Rescue named all of the six dogs "Lucky" in six different languages, so fausto apparently means lucky in some language. But we renamed him after a short time with us and we feel like we are the lucky ones.

New Week

Well, not too much going on. This is going to be a crazy few weeks ahead of me. Tomorrow is a half day so we can have back to school night. I have to take a personal day on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday I will go to work and them Friday I have a mentor workshop. The following week we get two days off of school and then the following week we get another day off. Don't get me wrong, in no way am I complaining.

We finally got the king sized bed. It's nice. I like it a lot. Although the dog still manages to push into me in the middle of the night and try to push me off. He's such a little dog, but he wants a lot of room.

Well, I wish there was something more interesting to talk about, but, none-the-less, this will have to do.

Been a while

I know it has been a while since I have posted so now is as good a time as any.

A few things are going on, actually. School is in full swing and Kathy and I, after nine years and a weeks worth of marrage, have purchased a king sized bed. So looking forward to that! We are actually sitting at home as I type awaiting its arrival. Also awaiting the arrival of chinese food, but we bought that many times in the last nine years.

Schools going well, so far. I hate to say it but I think I am enjoying this years group of kids more than last years. I think I was on guard the beginning of this year because last years group gave me such a hard time, but I feel like I can relax a bit more right now. A couple kids who are trying my patience, but that will always happen. What stinks is that we had a few kids last year who were really neat, but we also had a few who just seemed to take pleasure in getting under our skin. That is really anoying.

Well, anyway, such is the life of a school teacher. I do not want to dwell on the negative. I truly am enjoying this year so far and I am doing all i can to keep the trend going.