The Rose

Tonight we went to Beulah's "Young Women in Excellence." I've been to many of these functions in my life, but tonight was by far the best. Each of the fathers of the young women were asked to bring a flower that he felt represented his daughter, and then bring his daughter up and explain why the flower reminded him of her. It was so wonderful to hear so many loving things said about all these different girls. I felt like I was on the verge of tears all night. Husband brought Beulah up along with a pale pink rose and said that it was pretty and became even more beautiful when you look at its details.
It's a shame that so often in life I focus on the negative when there is so much to celebrate. Take Beulah for instance. She is such a lovely young lady--so smart and so curious and eager to do her best. She is full of passion and wonder and she can be so tender and caring. It makes us laugh when she mispronounces words like "lyric" and "hysterics" because her first exposure to them was in a book. She underestimates herself so much and I just wish I could rip all that insecurity away because she is a fabulous girl with a lot to contribute to the world.

The other night I woke up suddenly from a fairly intense dream. Everything was very dark and still and then I began to hear whispering. I leaned closer to Husband to see if it was just him breathing, but he was making no noise at all. I tried to go back to sleep but as I laid down, there it was again. So I got up to check the house and make sure no radio was on. I opened the kids' doors slowly, one by one, and everyone was asleep. I went downstairs and checked all the rooms. The house had never been so quiet. Or so dark. I felt completely spooked and I tiptoed through the dark to get back to bed. I closed my eyes and there was the whispering again. I thought to myself that I'm not ready to be going crazy.
And then it hit me. Of course. Husband's audiobook was playing on his mp3 player. By this time I was so annoyed, I turned on the light (barely apologizing to a startled Husband), found the player, and turned it off. As I went back to bed, I felt reassured that I hadn't been losing my mind and hearing voices. But then I wondered why it had taken me so long to figure out it was the player. Maybe I'm losing my mind after all!

Don't Do It

This was red ribbon week for at the kids' elementary school. As part of his homework, T-Bone and I had to listen to a CD of 6 or 7 songs with anti-drug/peer pressure messages on it and fill out a response sheet. I am very picky about my musical entertainment and this process was particularly tortuous for me. But we made it and by the time it was done, T-Bone had already filled out the sheet. "Hey, I thought I was supposed to fill this out," I said. He just looked at me in his unreadable way. I continued, "I see that you gave the songs a 7 out of 10." He smiled and said, "Yeah, and you gave them an 8 out of 10." I was going to change the score just to save my honor, but then I let him make the call and left it. Maybe he did like the music. I saw that he had marked that we had never discussed drug or alcohol abuse before this time. "What?" I said, "What about our lessons in FHE about the Word of Wisdom?" I did change his mark this time to indicate that we talk about it at least 2 or 3 times a year. So maybe this is something I can improve on. I know drugs are everywhere and that it's naive and foolish to think your kids won't ever be exposed to them. And I can't assume that just because my kids are good and smart, they'll always know the right thing to do and do it.

But honestly, if the school wants to hand out anti-drug music, let's go with Grandmaster Flash:

"Little Jack Horner,

Sat in a corner,

with no shoes and clothes.
This ain't funny,

But he took his money,

and he sniffed it up his nose."