Natural Immunity

 Today is Day 3 of having tested positive for Covid-19, Day 5 of coming down with flu-like symptoms. 

Oh, the politics of not having had a Covid jab and then getting sick and testing positive! 

If you're in my position, you know that some people in this country are sincerely hoping we'll die for our sin of not getting the shots. Fortunately, no one I personally know has been that cruel to my face, but I still find it disheartening the implication from well-meaning people that if I had just had the jabs, I wouldn't be sick now--as if anyone could know that sort of thing. There is a lot of vitriol going on right now, however. Can you ever think of a time when people actually and sincerely hoped that others would be denied medical care and die in a horrible, terrible manner just because they were reluctant to get experimental injections and wanted to wait and see? To wish others to die horribly in order to be proven right...what a weird time to be alive.

Here's why I haven't had a Covid injection:

1. I'm highly, highly skeptical of shots that have not gone through rigorous safety testing--usually for ten years before being approved by the FDA (the credibility of the FDA is another story, of course) and used on the public. After researching the subject, I'm also highly skeptical of mRNA shots being successful (and any shots being successful against a coronavirus!) when they have never been successfully developed before in all the decades people have been trying to make them. In previous mRNA studies, the animals used in the studies have all died, and now, suddenly, we have "safe and effective" mRNA shots in less than a year!? I think I have done enough serious research to justify my own desire to wait and see. I also think that data from Israeli studies has justified my skepticism to a large degree where American data is skewed to fit a specific narrative. Setting aside all my other worries about government power grabs and the desire to resist having medical procedures forced upon anyone, not just myself, the data alone seems to be bearing out the idea that natural immunity is more broad and longer-lasting than the immunity to specific spike proteins provided by the jabs, the jabs also carrying with them some risk of short- and long-term negative side effects--some of which may only show up in the next few years. 

2. I have a strong immune system despite being middle-aged and overweight. Before this last week, I haven't needed to take a sick day for over five years. I didn't take one sick day last year, and I never took a sick day during the entire four-and-a-half years when I was driving a school bus. There are other things going on with me, but catching every bug that comes along has never been one of them. I decided that the risk of getting sick with Covid was more acceptable to me than the risk of getting the jabs and then possibly still getting sick with Covid. The injections seemed to pose more possibility of injury than the risks of Covid for my particular situation. Just before I got sick last Saturday, I had a bout of severe diarrhea which I think lowered my immune resistance. I know: ew! You didn't want to know that. But if people who are not medical doctors are going to lecture me like they are medical doctors, then they're going to hear medical doctor kind of stuff. (I'm sorry if you got caught in the crossfire there.)

3. Most importantly, twice now I have had strong spiritual warnings to not take the jabs (though I'm not saying that is the right answer for everyone). 

The first time was when my parents were getting the J&J jab earlier this year. My mom had been praying really hard about it, and that was the one she felt overwhelmingly that she and my dad needed to get. My mom has great spiritual acuity, so I thought, "Well, if Mom feels that way, I'll get the J&J jab, too," but as soon as I thought it, the Spirit slammed through me with a definitive, "NO!" When my seminary faculty all ran off to get the shots the moment they were available, I didn't make a big deal out of it but I did quietly explain why I wouldn't be joining them. They didn't agree with me, but they didn't argue with me. The fact that others might doubt my spiritual answers when they are convinced their own decisions are correct for everyone doesn't make me any less obligated to follow my own spiritual promptings. Yes, there is plenty of peer pressure among Church members, too, but no one should follow anyone else blindly.

The second time was after the LDS Church's First Presidency message was released urging members to get the jabs, stating that they are "safe and effective." I admit that I was initially stunned and even angry about that. I had read enough about some of the serious adverse events of these injections to be shocked that the prophet (a brilliant and highly sought after heart surgeon in his former career) and other leaders could make a blanket statement about experimental mRNA injections being safe and effective, and even more stunned that they came out with a directive about it at all instead of urging members to carefully study and pray about their own personal circumstances, consulting with their medical doctors, and making their own decisions. Husband and I had a few very long talks about my feelings of betrayal in that regard, but he is wise and helped me set aside my emotion and think through things logically. In the end, I realized that I would rather be humble before the Lord than arrogantly tell Him what I think should happen and then suffer the consequences of being incredibly short-sighted. I do, however, always reserve the right to pray about and get confirmation from the Lord through the Spirit on anything the Church leaders have to say. It took a little doing, but I did put myself into the mindset of humility, successfully identifying and releasing the fear of having been proven wrong in front of others and, thus, suffering a severe blow to my pride. I was ready to get injected if that's what the Lord asked of me. So I went to the Lord in prayer and humbly asked if I should get injected. I can say I was honestly ready to do so. In fact, I expected to be told to do so. But the Spirit said, "No, not right now." It wasn't as forceful as the first time, but it was still a solid no. 

Days later, I started feeling flu-ey. Today, after having survived a few days of mild flu symptoms (low-grade fever, muscle aches, overly sensitive skin, earache, stuffy/runny nose, and a cough), I have slightly stuffy sinuses and a bit of a chesty cough left to deal with. I am hoping that I will not have any long-term repercussions other than natural immunity, and I judge no one else for either choosing to get the injections or choosing not to. I also don't claim to know the reasons for the "no" answers and my own bout with Covid. I am not trying to prove anything here. I'm just trying to do what's right. 

I can go back to work next Tuesday. As this was the second week of school, it was definitely not a great time to have to quarantine as the administrative assistant, and my faculty have had to pick up a lot of my slack even if I'm trying to do as much as possible from home. Husband is allowed to continue working, but he has to wear an N95 mask until next Thursday, poor man. He's finding it hard to breathe, much less teach, in one of those. Little Gary had to quarantine with me until next Monday, when he can go back to school. Elannah works outside all day, away from anybody, so she didn't even bother telling her work that I tested positive. Joseph studies at home, so this hasn't had much of an impact on him.

If you've made it all the way to the end of this long blog post, I have some really good news: my oldest daughter, Siân, officially announced her pregnancy. She is now into the second trimester, but after having suffered a couple miscarriages, she and Nathan wanted to wait a bit before announcing the pregnancy this time. I am so excited to be a grandmother again! I am excited to see my little grandson be a big brother. I love babies!

Souvenirs, Novelties, Party Tricks

Today is one of the first days it hasn't smelled like a campfire outside, what with all the smoke that has been blowing in from the big fires in California and Oregon and a big fire that was up one of the canyons in The Big City. It has rained a lot, which has cleared the air and spurred the weeds to grow even more lush and green than they already are.

July was a busy month. There was Sophia's wedding, of course, and at the end of the month Husband and I took our two youngest (the boys) on a road trip to Indiana to drop off my father-in-law's car so it would be ready for my in-laws when they moved into their new home. They had no desire to take a Great American Road Trip across half the country (they paid movers to haul their furniture and a professional animal mover to take their dogs and cats) but I saw it as an opportunity for both a little vacation and to show the boys some country outside our own state. We drove in a leisurely way over five days through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, and into Indiana and watched the landscape change from desert and mountains to rolling green hills and and fields of corn and soybeans and forests. By sticking to the smaller two-lane highways and mostly bypassing the big interstates, we got to see all the little towns and small cities that make up the heart of America. After spending a couple days in Indianapolis to rest and visit one of my brothers-in-law and his family, we flew back home and helped MIL and FIL clear out the last of their belongings from their house and say good-bye to their home of the last nine years before flying off to their new home and new adventures. 

Mum and Dad standing on their Utah doorstep for the last time. There were tears from my MIL. My FIL really doesn't get too sentimental about things like that.

Tower Hill at Adam-Ondi-Ahman, Missouri. This place has incredible significance to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and when we stopped there on a Sunday, we had it all to ourselves. It was so peaceful. I had been here once before as a teenager and had a strong spiritual experience, so I was very excited to be able to visit again and have the boys there.

Adam-Ondi-Ahman

We went to Nauvoo, Illinois, the Monday after visiting Adam-Ondi-Ahman--another place of significance for LDS people. We were able to take a carriage ride and a tour of the shoe shop and printing shop and stand on the banks of the Mississippi River. 

In Indianapolis, we visited Conner Prairie, a living museum of American frontier life in the 1700s and 1800s. Husband, Joseph, and Little Gary are re-enacting the hot air balloon trip that we took there.

At the Indianapolis Airport waiting to fly home. This was the boys' first airplane trip. Fortunately, both legs of our trip went extremely well and the boys managed to snag window seats both times.

We stopped at a natural history museum somewhere in Kansas. Little Gary rode the big spider.

This is me and my grandson, Tyler, at my niece's wedding a couple days ago. When he saw me, he ran right up to me for a big, squeezy hug. I adore this precious little boy!

Sophia: from Miss to Mrs.

 Well, my sweet Sophia has gone from a Miss to a Mrs. 

(I'm going to warn you right now that I only have a few pictures that I took because I was so busy and because it often doesn't occur to me to take pictures when I'm experiencing a thing. When the professional wedding photos arrive, I'll post some of those. My own pics are, of course, pretty terrible. Sorry in advance.) 

The wedding went very well. I mean, it was absolutely exhausting, and as the mother of the bride, I was running around making all the decisions and putting out all the little fires that came up during the ceremony and reception, but it turned out very well overall. At least Sophia was happy with it, and that's what counts. 

Sophia in the car on the way to the venue. She was in very good spirits, and I loved having one last chance to drive with her as just my daughter before she became a married woman.

I totally underestimated how much food we would need. We had the wedding ceremony first and scheduled an hour between the ceremony and the reception during which the photographers could take all the family and group pictures. Just about everyone who was at the ceremony stuck around for the reception, and by the time we started putting the food out, people were famished. The nacho meat ran out about twenty minutes after we started serving, and we went through the nacho cheese alarmingly quickly. I sent Elannah to the closest Walmart twice for lemonade mix (it was such a hot day and everyone was dying of thirst) and a couple other things, but when we were in danger of running out of cheese and chips, she didn't want to make a third trip and risk missing Sophia's and Matt's waltz that they had been practicing for months and that Dalton and Elannah had choreographed for them. 

Elannah in the car on the way to the venue. She and Sophia joked and laughed and controlled the music selection during the drive.

Fortunately, the venue assigns hosts for each event, and our host, Susie, was so eager to assist me in any way that she happily made a list of what I needed and ran off to get it. Neither Elannah nor I had to miss the waltz, which was adorably and perfectly executed, and Susie soon returned with bags and bags of chips and four large cans of nacho cheese. By that point, however, the people who were going to eat had pretty much eaten, so I ended up with ten extra bags of chips and three extra cans of nacho cheese that we had to haul home, but at least we never ran out of anything except the meat! I used the receipt the next day to return the chips and the cans of cheese and got over $50 back, which was good because I had no idea how we were going to eat all of it before the chips went stale. 

I also had to teach a couple volunteers how to use the rented cotton candy machine, which was a trip. I had practiced briefly at home that morning, but I was still no expert after just the one try. My kitchen ended up covered in wisps of sugar, with more in my hair and on my clothing, and I was frantically grabbing paper cones to try and corral all the cotton candy before more of it flew out of the drum and continued coating myself and my kitchen in festive stickiness. 

My initial experience, however, taught me that 1) we should use the machine outside, and 2) I needed more than one person to wrap cotton candy on the paper cones because the industrial-size machine made so much cotton candy at once. Our final product looked very wonky and amateurish, and one of my volunteer ladies suffered a bit of a burn on her hand, but the cones of blue and pink cotton candy turned out to be a popular addition to the reception fare. However, never again. That was all the lifetime experience I need in the cotton candy department.

Around 9pm, Sophia and Matt left the reception as we all lined up down the sidewalk and clapped and cheered them out to their car and their new married lives together. After that, most of the guests also left, and the family members who were kind enough to stick around helped me break down all the decorations and clean up. I was limping by that point, but with all the help, we got everything wrapped up, put away, washed, swept, and mopped in only forty-five minutes. 

I had not eaten all day. I didn't have time. I've been eating low carb for weeks now, so not eating all day is not nearly as difficult as it would be if I hadn't been eating low carb, but I was still ready for a little nosh. The boys had gone home earlier with my in-laws, so it was just me, Husband, and Elannah in the car. We went to the McDonald's drive-thru, and I ordered five plain hamburger patties and a large water. That hit the spot, and I was able to not cry even once during the long ninety-minute drive home while my feet and legs cramped and ached. I was in good spirits because Sophia was happy with the whole thing. Also, I looked forward to sleeping in the next morning and not worrying about the wedding anymore. It's done and dusted. I won't have to worry about Elannah having a wedding for at least the next nineteen months as she's serving a mission; the boys will have fiancees who will probably want to plan their own weddings, so I'm nearly out of the woods. After Elannah's future wedding, I may not ever have to plan another major party if I'm very, very lucky.  

Early Sunday morning, I drove Sophia and Matt to the airport so they could leave for their honeymoon in Cancun. Their trip went smoothly, and when they arrived, the hotel staff gave them a free upgrade to a suite and comped all their room service because they were honeymooners. Meanwhile, Matt's mother and her sisters have gone through his house and done a deep clean, so Matt and Sophia will arrive home to a sparkling clean former bachelor pad with barely any furniture that Sophia will quickly turn into a home for the both of them. I'm very excited for Sophia to start this new chapter of her life.

Additional pictures:

Matt's parents hosted a rehearsal dinner with a luau theme the night before the wedding. A local Hawaiian restaurant catered with kahlua pork, rice, macaroni salad, and grilled pineapple, so it was all very delicious, and I even allowed myself a little scoop of the mac salad. 

Dalton (Elannah's boyfriend), Elannah, and my grandson, Tyler, at the rehearsal dinner. It was so, so hot, but there was a blessed breeze that kept us all from dying of heat exhaustion. Tyler had so much fun running around and getting frequently scooped up for kisses by his aunts, uncles, and grandparents. His mama doesn't often let him use screens, so he was very happy to use Elannah's phone for a bit.

Matt's parents own a lovely home on a small lake. They let Joseph and Little Gary take out the paddleboat after dinner.

We ate our dinner in a tent that kept the hot sun off our heads and was large enough to seat all 100 or so of the guests, which included family from both sides along with bridesmaids and groomsmen and their significant others.

Husband and I and Matt's parents sat at the head table with the future bride and groom. Matt's best man (a childhood friend of Matt's) and Sophia's maid of honor (Elannah) made speeches, which were both hilarious and touching.

Husband at the luau looking cool. He has a Hawaiian shirt, but he refused to wear it, lol!

After the actual rehearsal, Matt and Sophia were busy greeting guests, and I barely saw them other than when we were sitting down to eat, so I don't have any pics of them from this evening, which is a shame. 

A Series of Life-Altering Bits of News

 Elannah received her mission call to the Tennessee Nashville Mission (English-speaking), and she's very excited. As her parent, I'm selfishly excited that she's going stateside. The world is getting weirder and weirder, and I like that she will be closer to home should something even more weird happen. Plus, maybe her father and I will get to go pick her up when her mission is over. While she won't get the opportunity to live in another culture and learn to communicate in another language, she is going to another part of the United States with a distinctive culture and accent, so I'm sure it will feel a little bit like going somewhere exotic while still being able to hit up a Walmart on her day off.

Because her preschool para job ended when schools closed for the summer, Elannah applied for and was offered an outdoor maintenance job with the city. She is now in charge of pond maintenance for a golf course. It's a 40-hour-a-week job with pretty good pay, and that's what she wanted in order to save more money for her mission. She'll also build up her muscles before she rides a bike on her mission for 18 months (she was specifically told she'll be on a bike). After just one week on her new job, she is already very tan despite using sunblock and wearing a wide-brimmed hat; but she's always been able to tan very easily. I don't know where that gene came from, considering her ancestry is from very pale people of Great Britain and Sweden. 

We only have a couple weeks to go until Sophia's wedding. Sophia and I took a second trip yesterday to her venue to finalize decorating plans, and that helped calm her nerves a little. She's no bridezilla, but she knows what she wants. I'm very proud of her because she has worked hard to make things on her own so that she doesn't need to spend hundreds of dollars on items that can only be used on the wedding day. She's figured things out, including designing and printing her wedding invitations and putting together all the flower arrangements, among other things. She splurged on her dress, but it's the perfect dress; it's like it was designed to fit her exactly. Husband and I splurged on the photographer/videographer. We want her to have fabulous photos.

Joseph is finally taking driving school so he can get his license. He paid for it himself, which is only fair considering how much we're going to end up paying in higher insurance rates, but I'm proud of him for taking the initiative. He doesn't know it yet, but my in-laws are planning on surprising him by giving him one of their cars because...

...my in-laws are moving.

They recently went on a short trip to Indiana to visit two of their other sons, and when we picked them up from the airport upon their return, I knew they were going to move. Something just told me. It was so obvious to me that I had a hard time not casually talking about them moving during normal conversations and had to keep biting my tongue, though I did talk about it quietly with Husband. They themselves didn't figure it out until a week later when they called Husband and I over and tearfully broke the news to us that they had just decided that day that they were selling their house and moving. When we told them we already knew they were going, they were relieved that we weren't angry. Of course we aren't angry! It makes perfect financial sense for them to move, for one thing. They bought their house here at a steep discount nine years ago because it was a foreclosure in a buyer's market. Now it's a seller's market and the house has appreciated over 100%, so they will be able to outright purchase a home in the lower-cost market of their new destination in Indiana, have enough money to pay off debt, and still have enough set by to allow them to make a few more trips to Great Britain to see their other four children. With debt paid off and no mortgage to worry about, their British pensions will be enough to support them now that the exchange rate has rallied a bit in their favor. 

The other reason it makes perfect sense is that they'll be moving close to two of their sons who have never had the chance to live near their parents during their married lives. One of them--my youngest brother-in-law--has two little girls who will get to develop a close relationship with their Nanna and Grampy as they grow up. The other son--Husband's next younger brother--is so excited to finally share holidays and family dinners with his parents, something he's wished for for a long time. How can we begrudge him that joy when we've been lucky enough to have them close by for nine years?

While we will certainly miss their presence just down the street, their move does give us an excuse to make a road trip once or twice a year. I love road trips. After Elannah leaves on her mission, we'll only have the boys living at home, so I want to make more road trips even if Little Gary complains he doesn't enjoy long drives. Suck it up, buttercup. Mama wants to drive to green places and see new things while I still can.

It's Not Them, It's Me

 You know how when you're in one relationship after another that keeps going wrong in the same ways you eventually have to own up to the fact that it's not them--it's you? 

This is the relationship I have with beds. I have to own up to the fact that it's not them, it's me. I'm just not good at sleeping. I can't do these amazing beds justice. No matter how much I whine and complain about how tired I am, it's never the bed's fault.

We recently got a new bed. It's a Layla double-twin dual adjustable bed, and it's fabulous. The mattresses have a firmer side and a softer side, but the softer side is actually soft--unlike many other companies that claim to have soft mattresses that still feel like you're practically sleeping on a board. In the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I'm Mama Bear. I like mattresses so soft you disappear into a ditch every time you lie down. The soft side of the Layla mattress isn't quite that soft, but it's very, very comfortable. I do not understand people who love a firm mattress. 

The bed we had before--a Casper king with a pillow topper--was absolutely fine, but Husband found this amazing deal on the Layla adjustable bed and snapped it up. This way, we can raise the head of the bed a little, which helps both of us as side sleepers breathe more easily. We had tried a foam wedge under our Casper mattress, and Husband liked it, but I felt like I was sleeping on a hill, which did not help me relax during my sleep. I would slide down during the night and wake up with my feet hanging off the end of the bed. Now, with two adjustable mattresses, we each have control over how high we want to raise our heads and/or feet. Neither of us raise our feet to sleep, but it's nice to have the head raised a few degrees.

Husband also surprised me with a 20lb weighted blanket because I can't stand sleeping under light covers that make me feel like I'm being tickled. I loathe being tickled. Try tickling me and find out how swiftly my normally non-violent self becomes violent. While it is difficult to turn over in the night under all that weight (I also need a body pillow between my knees and to support my arm), it's a great blanket. It feels like being hugged. The problem is that, as it gets warmer outside, I get overheated under that blanket and have to kick it off, so then I am left under only a tickly sheet.

Despite sleeping in this wonderful, comfortable bed, I still wake up feeling like I've been up for 36 hours and have been clenching every muscle in my body while asleep.

I have issues. It's definitely me, not the beds. 

By the way, Little Gary got our Casper king bed. The bed takes up 2/3 of his room, but he's never slept so well.

Mildly Interesting Photos from My Phone

 In my attempts to become an accomplished woman of the Regency era, I have taken up needlepunch and embroidery. I've always been fascinated by the needle arts--especially lush embroidery like crewelwork--and when I saw people reviving needlepunch, I was totally on board.

My first attempt was not terrible, but it wasn't great, either. This, below, is an unfinished canvas. It's supposed to be a dandelion plant, by the way, and not a distorted happy face. Unfortunately, I couldn't find monk's cloth anywhere in my town, so I improvised with a tight-woven upholstery fabric I found at the fabric store. I used Chinese-made needlepunch tools I ordered cheap from Amazon to see if I enjoyed needlepunch before I invested more in some really good, more expensive needlepunch needles. The Chinese ones weren't terrible, but I quickly realized that I was using the wrong yarn. For standard needlepunch, you need a bulky yarn, like rug yarn. The problem is that I have collected enough worsted weight and sport weight yarns to reach to the moon and back, and I'm running out of room to store all that yarn. I would rather use up the yarn I have than buy even more yarn, though hoarding yarn is not unappealing to me. But whatever yarn you use, you really do need monk's cloth to do this right.

I started experimenting with using two strands of yarn in the needle before giving it up altogether because the loops kept coming out, which was very frustrating. Plus, the fabric was very difficult to punch through. I was frequently in danger of jamming the punchneedle into my thigh in my efforts to pop it through the fabric.

I then ordered a mini needlepunch needle from The Oxford Company (high quality) so I can use worsted and sport weight yarns. I also made a new frame by taking the canvas off of a sturdy canvas frame, removing all the staples, and then cutting up and nailing on some carpet tack strips I bought from Home Depot. 

Carpet tack strip has wickedly sharp little nails. I made sure they were angled away from the center of the frame so I can stretch and hook the monk's cloth on the nails (the monk's cloth finally arrived in the mail!).

Since I don't want to repeatedly puncture myself on the tack nails, I also bought some dense foam pipe cover from Home Depot, cut that very raggedly with the miter box and saw because I was too lazy to go all the way upstairs to get my scissors, and then wrapped the pipe cover over the frame. Once the monk's cloth is stretched onto the frame, the pipe cover will keep my arms and hands safe while I work.

I don't have any new punchneedle artwork to show you. Life got a little crazy, so I haven't managed to start one, but I'll show you when I do. I'm sure you'll be all agog at my accomplishment. Mr. Darcy will be sure to count me amongst his half-dozen accomplished women by the time I'm through.

In other news, I have been working on organizing my pantry. Again. It is a never-ending project despite all my attempts to train everyone in the house on where on each shelf different types of pantry items are to be stored. Hopeless. If they see a hole, that's where they shove cans willy-nilly regardless of my instructions. Either I have to be the one to put all the groceries away or I need to stop buying things. Both of those are probably good ideas.

Husband used some scrap board left over from the deck project to make me some extra shelves that sit on the back half of each of the main shelves. This makes it far easier for me to see what is in there because I'm not stacking cans so high. I'm still working on the bottom shelves, but you can see my progress.

I guess you can also see what I tend to keep in my pantry. It turns out I have an astonishing number of cans of pureed pumpkin. Huh. Who knew? Not I, until very recently. I still have a boatload of Indian spices I bought in bulk, and I'll need a spot for those. I guess I'll need to make pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pie in order to free up some space.

In other other news, I walked into work one day a couple weeks ago and found a vase of lilies, a six-pack of Diet Coke, and a red plastic bag containing limes and a large chunk of ginger (to make ginger and lime Diet Coke, which is my favorite, but which Coca-Cola once again stopped making). The note was from Skyler's wife in gratitude for my being willing to edit Skyler's school papers so she didn't have to. Lol! They have a toddler and a new baby who cries all the time due to colic, so I'm sure editing school papers is the last thing she wants to do. I have a much easier job than she has at the moment. Skyler is an excellent writer and easy to edit, but I certainly wouldn't have the strength anymore to raise babies. At this stage of my life, I have chosen the grandmother option for child care: enjoy them thoroughly and then hand them back when they're cranky or have a dirty diaper.

I think that about covers the mildly interesting pics I found on my phone. Thanks for taking a glance at them. Enjoy the rest of your day, because I wish you all the best!

Little Wins and Great Satisfactions

 I didn't know it was Administrative Assistants Day last week until I walked into our daily morning meeting at work and was presented with flowers, candy, and a card on which every single one of the faculty had written a note of appreciation ("You complete us," wrote Tanner, who has an understated and dry sense of humor that makes me belly-laugh). What floored me was that it wasn't an afterthought, and the fact that they planned ahead and coordinated this little presentation was what made me very nearly tear up right in front of them--I didn't cry or anything, but I think they could tell I was truly touched.

Speaking of work, I normally feel like a fish who is trying to climb a tree--in other words, stupid and ignorant--when it comes to having conversations with the faculty about pedagogy or deep gospel topics. These guys are whip smart and highly educated in their field, and I cannot add anything new or very insightful to their discussions. I mostly just listen. They are also the cream of the crop of gospel teachers, as they have to beat out some intense competition in order to become seminary teachers; you'd be surprised how many wanna-be seminary teachers there are compared to how few actually make it through the program and get hired. While I love the guys on the faculty like brothers, I usually feel pretty ignorant around them--not that they ever treat me with anything less than respect and true camaraderie.

Recently, however, I finally got to speak to a subject about which I actually know something. 

One of the teachers, Neil, is moving to the East Coast after this school year is over to teach Institute (religion classes for young adults, ages 18-30) at a university, and he and his wife recently visited their new city and bought a 1960s mid-century modern home with a very large yard. They're having it remodeled (it needed some repair and updating) and putting an addition onto the back.  

I immediately expressed interest in his new house, so Neil happily showed me pictures. He said he and his wife want to go quite modern in their decor, so I brought in a stack of my more current Architectural Digest and Better Homes & Gardens magazines so Neil and his wife could get some inspiration for their house and their massive yard, for which he was very grateful. What surprised me, however, is that, instead of just taking the magazines home for his wife to look at, he sat down during some of his free moments and went through the magazines very thoroughly and then sought me out to discuss his ideas about decor using images from the magazines as inspiration. I am not an interior designer or decorator except in the most amateur of senses, but I have done a lot of study on the subject and some experimentation in my own house. I was able to give him a little lesson on the goals of mid-century modern design; what parts of his new home he should leave alone and where he might want to make changes; and some ideas about the best types of materials he could use for his various projects. He is also excited about color and has even come up with a color palette he likes, so we've talked about how to bring those colors into his house. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed these conversations--not because I get to school him a little (or, rather, not only because of that) but because I love watching Neil's superbly analytical mind take on such a different type of project. I love having this connection with him. He's like an onion: for every layer you peel away, there are a dozen more underneath.

Today, during one of our in-depth dives into color, I mentioned a very basic truism about decor: go neutral with your expensive purchases, like couches and other big furniture, and pull color in through paint, throw pillows, draperies, and rugs--items that are far cheaper to buy and which can be easily switched out as your color tastes change. It was a true revelation to him, and he gushed for a full minute about how brilliant that idea is. It was nice to be in the position of blowing his mind for once. We also hashed out color options for the exterior of the house and how to have exterior colors speak to interior colors. I helped him think outside the Utahn houses-painted-mushroom-colors-of-brown box, and I saw his eyes start to sparkle with new ideas. 

Most satisfying. 

My other win today was that I learned how to create a flyer in Word and then came up with a flyer design for graduation ceremonies that even Husband complimented (Husband's bachelors degree was in Film Studies and Graphic Arts, which included a lot of graphic design). Thanks, YouTube teachers who are willing to share their knowledge for free! From YouTube channels, I have also learned all about creating informative Excel spreadsheets, which I had absolutely no idea how to do when I first started this job. Now I'm doing formulas and graphs and everything! 

If it sounds like I'm bragging, I am a little, but not because I'm thinking I'm all that. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not the world's biggest loser. It was a rough week last week, emotionally speaking. 'Nuff said.