Grammar Geek: Quiz #1

For those of you who may not be aware, I love English. Not the language necessarily, but the subject. You know, the stuff you'd learn about in an English class...reading, writing, and especially grammar. I could study it for hours (in any language)! One night Lee and I were doing our Spanish study together and he pulled out a grammar book from a class he had after his mission. I was pretty tired to begin with, but the new information on Spanish grammar and diagramming quickly woke me up and I got really into it. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect on Lee and he tired of it far too quickly. I kept reading it while he went to his wake-up help (and my sleep inducer): the computer.

I'm not sure why the study of rules intrigues me so much. Growing up in my house with an English teacher for a mother where you'd be interrupted in the middle of a story with grammar corrections, you'd think I'd detest the subject. On the contrary, it seemed to engender a love for perfection in speech. I'm not sure to what use this knowledge can be put, other than ensuring a little less panic during high-stress tests like the ACT, which are no longer a threat in my life. Lee once sent a link to a humorous article that pretty much described me. (If you follow the link, do not read the comments attached to this article). Here is an excerpt:

Another important thing to know is that when white people read magazines and books they are always looking for grammar and spelling mistakes. In fact, one of the greatest joys a white person can experience is to catch a grammar mistake in a major publication. Finding one allows a white person to believe that they are better than the writer and the publication since they would have caught the mistake. The more respected the publication, the greater the thrill. If a white person were to catch a mistake in The New Yorker, it would be a sufficient reason for a large party.

This is totally me! Finding mistakes in published stuff is guaranteed to make my day. In fact, I found one today. Unfortunately, it wasn't The New Yorker, so there will be no party. Nevertheless, I'm curious who else can see the error. Here's the sentence:

"That is one of the many qualities that make him the man we love to celebrate."

Let's see if anyone else out there agrees with me. Take a chance and tell me what you think is wrong and I'll follow-up shortly with what I believe the error to be.

(Disclaimer: Due to the content of this posting, the author of this blog denies any grammatical errors heretofore and hereafter published and assures the reader they are all typos).

Soccer: Take II

I am way cooler inside my head than in real life. I can always think of the funniest or smartest comments with imaginary conversations. Put a live human in front of me and suddenly I might as well be stuffed and hung on a wall! Even in this weakness of mine, every now-and-again, I surprise myself. Today, I think I made a friend.

My stomach has been on quite the roller coaster ride this week with highs of excitement and lows of twisting anxiety. I found out with only one week notice that Saturday (today) would be a soccer round-up for the summer woman's league. It has been several years and two kids since I last played competitively. My last attempt was pretty much pathetic...to say the least. My brain and instincts were still on par, but my body was definitely not. Remembering the tragedy of my last attempt, I started more conservatively today, not running around like a wild woman the first 30 seconds and then almost passing out. I hung back and made intermittent strategic runs. I passed more than I dribbled so as not to trip over the ball. After a bit, my confidence rose and I did some tricky stuff...successfully! Ok, maybe here's a good place to mention that the teams were horribly lopsided and the other side had mostly players that resembled cones more than soccer players. We pretty much wasted them, though no score was kept. (To give you a better idea of the situation, let's just say I was tempted to volunteer to be goalie for our time after a while...not a good sign for the skill level of our opponents). I'm not sure they really had any shots on goal. But, it definitely boosted my confidence and now I'm pretty much just excited about the whole idea of playing soccer again.

Back to my friend. We're pretty much identical in every way. She played soccer, I played soccer. We both want to play again after a serious hiatus. Her parents are from Argentina, I'm...well...I speak Spanish...and that's really about all I know about her. But I'm sure we'll discover many more things we have in common as we get to know each other! We decided to request to be on the same team so our paperwork got paper-clipped together. Definitely a new BFF. Too bad I thought of all the cool stuff to say in my head on the way home from the round-up. Luckily she had the sense enough to see through the dummy that runs my body most of the time and recognized my inner coolness. I'm looking forward to being her teammate.

Luke 9 Months

Height: 28 1/2 (50-75%)

Weight: 20lbs 14oz (50-75%)

Head: 44 1/2 (25%)

Luke is as cute as ever...and into everything!  He gets into stuff Annalee doesn't even know existed!  He definitely keeps me on my toes.  His big sister keeps a close eye on him for me and is quick to say "uh oh, Gucas" (Gucas is Lucas).  He gets a kick out of big sister and is always happy to see her.

Milestones/Quirks

• pulling up to standing and taking his first cruising steps holding on to stuff
• Carrots and most fruits go down happily, but watch out for squash, peas, and bananas to come flying back
• If he's unhappy or doesn't want whatever we're trying to give him then he bats at his ear
• Beginning to make sounds other than screeching (namely "guh" and "dadadada")
• 2 bottom teeth are popping through
  
• loves to drink from a sippy cup
  
• does great impressions of a rooster and a fire truck
• enjoys "singing" to the hymns at church
• mastered the ability to bang on his tray for more food or attention
• Successfully removed his diaper all by himself while waiting for me in the crib
  

This is one loud and wild, but very happy, little man.

Counsel from Elder Bednar

Elder Bednar is probably my favorite apostle (is that allowed??)!  I knew he was destined for greatness when he was the President of Ricks/BYU-I.  I sometimes snuck into his Q&A FHE sessions even when it wasn't my ward's turn just so I could hear him!  That is one smart and inspired man.  I was so excited when he was made an apostle (I was on my mission at the time).  So when my cousin's letter this week spoke of Elder Bednar, I read it immediately and thought I'd share her notes with you (I hope she doesn't mind...all I changed was a little formatting for ease of reading).

"Well, i dont have a lot of time, but i wanted to tell you a little about Elder Bednar coming. First of all, it was a question answer session. So that was nice. I got a few main points out of it. 

One, (he gave this answer in all his other firesides too) if you want to know more about anything in the gospel, especially Christ or the atonement, read the Book of Mormon as many times as you can in 6 months and at the end write a one page summary of the atonement (or your topic).  He says hes done this thing over 20 times and gains a bigger and bigger testimony everytime, and promises that it will work.

Another thing he said that we have to master in this life is how to 1)Do everything that we can possibly do but at the same time 2) "Get out of the way"...the Lord will do his work through us, but we have to get out of the way and let our pride down and know that we are simply tools in his hands.  

The last thing he really emphasized is that we must focus our lives on "why?"....which is the doctrine of the church. We too often only focus on/teach our children how or what, which is good, but if they dont know why, they will fall! He prophecied that to us that we will fall, our investigators will fall, and our children will fall if we dont teach the why. 

So i have the same invitations to all of you! Make sure we are asking the right questions in our studies, and teaching the right stuff. Also, work as hard as we can, but also get out of the Lord's way so he can do his work.  

I know this is God's work, and if we just stop and take a look, we will realize that if we weren't here the work would keep going, and we should just feel lucky enough to be used as a tool in His hand, and feel blessed to be able to receive the many blessings He is constantly giving us."

Somebody's Soap Box

The following is a real e-mail sent to all the sisters in our ward as a reply to another sister sending out a link with Conference activities for kids. I was curious what everyone's thoughts were on what she wrote. Here's her soap box:

Great idea Mary Ann! Thank you for providing this to the sisters. It is a fantastic idea to provide something for the kids to keep them quiet for the long sessions.

I never attend conference any more because the children were so noisy and disruptive that I would be mad and frustrated by the time I would leave. If you are in the back of the chapel, that’s the “play area.” When I did try to attend in years past, I was anything but “spiritually uplifted” from attending the conference. What is so frustrating is the inconsiderate attitude of the parents. They are so accustomed to “tuning out their kids” they are totally obvious to how rude and inconsiderate it is to the other adults in attendance. Not to mention how inconsiderate and rude it is to the speakers who took the time to study and prepare something spiritual for us.

I must give credit to the thoughtful parents that do take the time to teach their kids what behavior is acceptable at church and what is not appropriate when reverence is required. I really appreciate the parents who do take out their children when they are being disruptive and noisy whether that is in Sacrament meeting, Sunday School and/or Relief Society. This sets an example to the other children, too. It doesn’t need to be just crying that requires removal, but having a good noisy “happy” time, too is not reverent. I remember spending the first two years of each of my children’s life in the hallway at church. I don’t recall having the speakers in the hallway 40 years ago like we have now. I know it isn’t easy, but that is what parenting is all about. After all, if you can’t control your toddlers, what will you do when they become teenagers and they’re bigger that you???? At least my teenagers were bigger than me! Back in the “old days” we didn’t have “Nursery class” so we had 3 years to teach the kids how to behave at Church while we stayed in the hallway or visited the bathroom for a little more “encouragement”!

It seems as though some of the problems of noise from the children are carried into Sunday School and Relief Society classes, too, i.e. giving them noisy toys to shake and bang. It’s as if the parents see that they aren’t crying they’re not causing a disturbance when they are laughing and banging their noisy toys such as trucks or their mom’s keys. They do make “quiet” toys which would be more appropriate for Church. Again, I’m sure this is because the parents are accustomed to “tuning this noise out.” Also, I think the moms know that most of us have gone though this, too so we should “understand”. However, this is no excuse. Just because we are grandparents now, doesn’t mean that we love being entertained by those happy, playful toddlers and/or fussy babies! Again, the purpose of going to Church on Sundays is to hear and learn the lessons that are presented to us and to spiritually lift us. We did not get dressed and drive all the way to Church on Sunday to be entertained by babies and toddlers.

When we leave Church on Sunday we should be able to keep the Sabbath Day holy. We should be strengthened to the point that we can deal with all the issues that will face us for the next six days as we go about our daily lives. I think of how often I will reflect on a message I received at Church in a lesson or talk that helps me keep in perspective why we are here and what we are supposed to be accomplishing.

I know I’m not the only “Grandma” that feels this way. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt any ones feelings that reads this, but I felt strongly that I needed to express this.

Comments anyone?? Love to hear them!

Live Footage

We've encountered some technical difficulties with the making of this film.  Unfortunately, since it is already terribly outdated due to how quickly these little babies progress each day, this is what you get!  So at the end when there's a black screen, imagine seeing the last shot of the previous scene one more time only in slow motion.  That's what is supposed to be there.  (FYI: Luke is traveling a lot faster and further these days.  It won't be long before he is doing the real crawl on his hands and knees) Enjoy!

Let-down Theory

After an intense emotional, physical, or spiritual experience, there tends to be a let-down.  I experienced this when I gave birth without an epidural.  Immediately after and for a few sustained hours, I felt amazing, powerful, and strong.  I was excited for my accomplishment and felt so good.  After a while, though, I become depressed, dejected, and disgusted at myself.  I felt weak and stupid and felt that everyone else saw me in that same way.  Unfortunately, it is the latter that has stuck in my brain.

Recently I had an experience that was so coincidental and such an answer to my prayers that I couldn't help but believe that it really was the work of the Lord in my life and others.  I felt happy to have been of service and grateful to be so trusted.  Only hours later, doubts crept in and I began to wonder if I had actually caused the incident instead of happening to be there at the right time.  I felt that I had compounded the problems more than eased them and once again felt helpless, sad, and disappointed.  

Why does this happen?  I know such is the case with new converts.  They have powerful experiences that testify to them of the truth and they follow that path.  Then suddenly, or slowly, the same wonderful experience begins to turn sour.  Questions and doubts fill their minds.  They begin to feel lonely and rejected.  Instead of strong they feel weak.  Suddenly all their flaws and mistakes are brought to the surface and they begin to view themselves in their carnal state.  

I can see from my own experiences how easy it is to succumb to those feelings in negative ways.  I am beginning to see the great humility and spiritual strength that the people of King Benjamin must have had to be able to turn to the Savior immediately.  Perhaps this is how Peter felt as he was walking on the water and why he began to sink.  But he did not hesitate to plead for help and reach out his hand. And we see that the Lord did not hesitate to lift him up.  Alma 34:31 says: 

 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and ^aharden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the ^bday of your ^csalvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and ^dharden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.

The let-down appears to be an essential part of conversion and coming to Christ.  The question may not be if it will happen, but rather how we will respond.  Will we harden our hearts and turn away from the only source that can bring comfort?  Or will we be as Peter and reach out our hand and our voices in pleading for the Lord to lift us up again?  

Perhaps this is what is meant in the Relief Society Declaration when it says we "seek spiritual strength by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost."