Spring Forward!

Happy 7th birthday to my niece Elena! She is the first grandchild on my side of the family. I remember learning about her birth, 7 years ago, sitting at my desk when I was working for Pharmanex. I remember how long and difficult Rosalynde's labor was, and how the nurses refused to take care of the baby even for a little while so Rosalynde could get some sleep! I imagine Rosalynde is happy it is 2008 and not 2001.

So the time change took me by surprise. I did find out about it yesterday, just by chance. I'm still a part of the Davie Relief Society email list (from my Florida ward), and the Relief Society president sent out a reminder about the time change. Otherwise I would have had no idea! It was fairly painless, because our church doesn't start till 11:00 anyway, so getting to church at 10:00 (or what felt like 10:00) wasn't too terrible. And this week is Spring Break so we have a week off of school to get adjusted to the change. Not too bad. I do love the extra light in the evening, but the time change means it will be pitch black when I have to get the boys up and ready for school. Yeah, I know, I get no sympathy from any early-morning seminary folk out there, but it has been nice the last few weeks to have the sky turning pink and blue as I get up in the morning.

Here's the report from the week:

No word from UHC yet. I don't know if they met about my case on Friday or not. I'll probably call the UHC contact again tomorrow to find out if they met, and if they didn't, does that mean they won't meet again for another week? I actually haven't been anxious about it (I guess I'm getting used to waiting for things), but I know some of you out there ARE anxious, and I promise to immediately contact everyone when I hear word.

I caught a cold this week. I started feeling really miserable Tuesday night, and Wednesday I felt awful. I thought for sure I was getting a bad flu, my whole body ached, even my skin hurt! But Ben stayed home from work again on Thursday and let me sleep and rest most of the day, and now it's just a normal cold, which I can deal with!

Brigham had his VIP experiment on Friday. I emailed his teacher to try to arrange a time, but never heard back from her, so after getting Mosey from preschool, I just went over to the school to see if I could talk to her in person. Turns out Brigham's class had a substitute, which was why Mrs. Autry didn't write back to me, and Brigham's class was about to go to the library. But the sub said she'd bring the kids back a little early so we could do the presentation before recess. Brigham is fascinated by optical illusions, so we did a little presentation about the eyes. We told briefly about how the eye works, and Brigham handed them little strips of paper with two marks on it so they could "see" (or not see) where their blind spot on each eye is (should that read "so they could see where is their blind spot on each eye?" No hanging preposition, but it sure sounds weird!). Then we passed around a couple of papers with some interesting optical illusions, and I showed them how to make their own "floating finger" optical illusion (hold your hands up a few inches in front of your eyes, your two index fingers pointing toward one another, an inch or so apart. Then look at something just beyond your eyes and observe the "floating finger"). We brought sweet potato muffins (sweet potatoes are rich in beta carotene which is excellent for eye health), and that was it! We found a great website for optical illusion of all sorts. My boys and I were pretty entranced by it, and probably spent over an hour looking at everything. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ My favorite one is http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_mib/index.html. It will totally blow your mind!!!

Friday night we tried to look at Saturn with our telescope. I got a really nice reflecting telescope for the boys' birthday. It was like 75% off at Fryes, because it was missing this electronic hand control device. I finally found one on ebay (long story of several months trying to track one down, the company will NOT sell them seperately), and got it working this week. Saturn is at it's brightest/closest point to the earth all year long right now, and it is great time to try to see it through the telescope. But Ben and I are both really lousy astronomists and we could not manage to find the thing in the telescope's sights. I can see it in the sky, but I just don't have the finesse to get the telescope in the right position. There must be some kind of art to it, but I don't know what it is. We had gone to the school parking lot, but both Ben and I couldn't figure it out, so the boys just played in the playground instead. One of these days when the moon is out at a decent hour, we'll look at the moon. Surely I'll be able to find the moon in the telescope! Daddy, I wish you were here, you would have been able to find Saturn for sure.

Saturday was spent picking up the house (me and the boys) and repairing the back fence (Ben and the boys). Mister is an escape artist. Keeping up with his latest escape scheme is a bit like playing whack-a-mole. He has found the weak spots in our back fence, don't ask me how, and has managed to loosen the boards enough to make a gap big enough for him to get out. Grrr. But things are sealed off again, at least for the moment.

Today was a nice day at Church. On the drive up to the church building Brigham asked, "What would happen if Heavenly Father made it easier living on earth?" Wow, talk about a deep question for a six year old! I told him it would be like if he were never required to go to school or study. He would never learn anything, and he wouldn't be able to become what he wanted when he grew up. Good answer?

I was asked last week to give a talk on Easter Sunday. NO pressure there!! The topic is how to make the Atonement personal in our lives. I've been thinking about it a lot and reading various conference talks and stuff. My thesis will be that we can find personal meaning in the Atonement of Christ by consecrating our sorrows to the Lord. As a jumping off point, I'm using Elder Bruce D. Porter's talk about offering up a broken heart and a contrite spirit from the October Conference. I have some good ideas (I think) and I'll probably send a copy of the talk to some of you to look over before I give it. I would like to hear from any of you who wish to share about any experiences or anecdotes from your own lives when the Atonement has had deep personal meaning to you, and how that happened. I haven't given a talk in Sacrament Meeting since 2003, so I'm a little nervous! Actually, what I'm most nervous about is how I'm going to be able to stand at the podium. I really don't think I'll be able to stand there for 20 minutes without my legs giving out. I need to talk to the bishop about that so we can make alternate arrangements. Has anyone ever seen someone give a talk from any other position than standing at the podium??

All right, that was our week! Have a great week coming up everyone!