Their Compasses Work

We've always had a health club with a pool in our town, but at the end of summer last year it closed due to financial reasons.

No one was happier than my kids to see that it recently aquired new owners and was once again going to open to the public.

They advertised everywhere with a flyer that read, "Grand opening pool party, everyone welcome". It then listed the membership prices. Well, to me, it read like there would be free swimming, so we showed up on Saturday ready to swim. We soon found out that it was not free at all but $9 for the first person, and $5 for every person thereafter in our group.

I told them I wasn't interested, but took a minute to go say hi to a friend I saw sitting poolside. She said she read the flyer and thought the same way I did, that swimming was free, but since she already told her kids they could go, she paid $24 to swim for the afternoon. She said she was even charged for her infant.

The girls were pretty disappointed. We left and headed for the car and to go swimming at the pool where I work, which is free for us, when the owner came out and said, "Hey, what's it worth for you guys to swim today? Five bucks?" I thanked him, but told him no, I misinterpreted the flyer and we were just going to go somewhere else. Then he said we could just go in for free. Again, I thanked him, but at this point was feeling a bit awkward.

He finally left, and I asked the girls what they wanted to do. They had really wanted to go to this pool with it's fun slide and everything, but to my surprise they said no, they didn't want to go in for free because it wasn't fair. They said how could we got sit next to our friends and use the pool for free after they had to pay so much money?

I was pretty proud of them all. Their moral compasses are working.

I've Finally Graduated!

I went to church for the first 11 years of my life, then I was inactive for the next 27. About 8 years ago I started going again, and because the girls were little, I hung out in Primary with them, and was soon called as a teacher and then a counselor in Primary. I only got a chance to go to Relief Society a handfull of times, so when I was released from my Primary calling, I was pretty excited about getting to go to Relief Society and hang out with the rest of the ladies.



That first Sunday, as I enjoyed the freedom of going to Relief Society with the women and not having to teach in Primary, I left the room and was immediately motioned over by one of the Bishop's counselors who wanted to "meet" with me. Well, he of course had a calling for me. Dang, those Relief Society women act fast! They just snatched me up before I knew what was going on.



I only have to teach every third Sunday, so it's not as demanding as my Primary calling, but it IS so much more intimidating to teach my peers. Actual GROWN-UPS. Yikes. This past Sunday was my first time to teach, and I was quite nervous. I told the ladies that if they messed with the person sitting next to them, or asked me if they could go potty, it would definitely make me feel more comfortable!



I always felt like my calling in Primary was perfect for me, because after having been inactive for so long, I really needed to start over from the beginning, and teaching the very basic lessons to the kids was perfect. Now that I've got that down, I guess Heavenly Father felt it was finally time for me to "graduate" to Relief Society!

Nuthin' to See Here...

But there's new stuff at my other blog.

A Heart That Was Heavy And Full At The Same Time

We live in a small community in a small county. Our county has somewhere along the lines of 50,000 residents, so we're kind of a close-knit bunch. The small towns often come together to support families through cancer or loss of a home through fire or any number of other hardships.

Recently in our little town, we lost one of our young men who grew up here. He was a Marine, killed in action in Afganistan.

Our town puts up flags all along the few miles of highway that serve as our main street, during Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and Independence Day, and as soon as word got around that this young man lost his life, the flags appeared.

Soon thereafter storefront signs changed to show their support of this Marine and his family and we heard that everyone planned on gathering on the highway on Sunday afternoon when the family returned to town to show their support.

After church on Sunday we gathered the girls and headed down to the designated area on the highway. It was overwhelming to see the show of support from our small town. There was an estimated time of arrival, but we were soon told that it would be delayed. The county sheriffs met the family at the county line to give them an escort, and it seems that not only was our town out on the highway, but every town from the county line on in, was out in force, lining the highway, flying flags and showing their support.

Many of us stood in the sun on the side of the road for a good hour and a half to two hours to honor this family and the sacrifice their son made for our country. It only took a few seconds for them to drive by, but it was the most worthwhile afternoon I've spent in a very long time. To see this young man's mom put her hand against the car window as she passed by as if to reach out and touch all those who were there for her was worth it.

My heart was heavy and full at the same time.

A sign in town said it best, "Let us insure that our future was worth all his tomorrows".

It Sure Beats Being T.P.ed

I had a conversation today about having campaign signs stolen that reminded me of an incident from my teen years.

It happened in the early 1980's. It was election time and there was a candidate running for supervisor who's last name happened to be the same as my first name. All around town were signs proclaiming, "MOODY" in big bold letters and under that, "supervisor".

Well very early one morning, round about 2am, My dad is awakened by someone knocking on our front door. He gets up to answer it, opens the door, and is astonished to see at least a hundred of Mr. Moody's campaign signs in our front lawn, along with a few of his 4'x8' plywood signs propped against the tree and cars.

Dad woke us all up to see this amazing display. I must say I was quite flattered to see my name all over our lawn. It was quite the tribute. However, my dad was FREAKING OUT. He knew we'd get in big trouble if anyone saw all these stolen signs, so unfortunately he plucked them all up out of the grass and stashed them in the garage before anyone else woke up and saw them.

I'm pretty sure my dad surreptitiously got rid of the signs, but thinking back I don't know why we didn't just call this candidate's office and tell him what happened.

None of my friends would ever admit to the mischief, but I pretty much knew who had done it.

At any rate, the gentleman in question went on to be elected and is now a senator, so I guess all those missing signs didn't hurt his campaign too badly. It did however, make a very shy, awkward teenager feel very special.

A New Blog

So, I decided to start a new blog on kayaking, because I'm such an expert and all now. It's called The Unlikely Kayaker. It has a total of two posts right now, the one featured here yesterday, and a kind of introductory post. Go on over and check it out if ya want...

Being a Dork Pays Off (Finally!)

(Being nagged by my teenager to update my blog also motivates me, so here I go.)

Back in August when I started my job at the school district, I received my first paycheck and immediately knew they had made an error and paid me WAY too much for just a few days work. So I called the office and told them that they made a big "whoopsie" on my paycheck, but they shouldn't feel bad, because nobody's perfect. The kind office lady told me no, it wasn't a mistake, that they spread my pay out over 11 months and that my check reflected that. Alrighty then!

Well, a couple weeks ago, someone from the office called to talk to me to let me know that when they upped my hours in November that that wasn't included in my regular pay, and I should've been sending in time sheets each month. By the way, she wasn't near so kind and understanding and I got the distinct impression that she couldn't believe someone who worked at a school could be so dumb. (In my defense, I work at the preschool level, so we don't do the higher math!)

Ya see, after the first paycheck incident, I figured the district office knew what they were doing, and so I never worried about my extra hours, because the nice office lady was going to make it all work out, being that she's so smart and all.

Well...luckily I log in every day in the class room, so I had a record of all my hours and I proceeded to fill out time sheets for the last 6 months and turn them in.

Anyhoo...this all coincided with spring weather, and my own case of kayak fever, and a pretty new tandem kayak that I'd been looking at, but couldn't figure out where the money to buy it was going to come from...and that's how being a dork paid off for me! The girls and I brought our new kayak home yesterday thanks to my inadvertent "kayak savings plan".

All weekend the weather had been spectacular (and I of course had been working double shifts at the restaurant so I couldn't enjoy it), but yesterday (heretofore known as "Kayak Day, Woo!"), was cloudy. It was still warm though, so I had no worries that when we got back from our kayak retrieving errand we could still go out for a paddle.

Just about the time we pull up to the house with our pretty new kayak strapped to the top of my car, it's starts to rain. Sigh. I was surprised though, that Miss Moo and Nat still wanted to go out. We put the seats, life jackets and a towel in a plastic bag to keep them dry, put the kayak on it's little cart and took off for the lake (about 2 blocks away).

We only got a couple weird looks for taking our kayak for a walk through the neighborhood. You can tell that Miss Moo is so thrilled to be helping me.

Here is my hearty "crew". As "captain" I sit in the stern of the boat (looking stern, of course) and the crew has to launch us, so I never get wet (hee, hee!). Also of note: this boat has a center seat area in case one wishes to paddle it solo, but I found out that if I strap the seat from my other kayak there, all three of us can fit. It was really a treat to all be in the same boat (cuts down immensely on the whine factor!)

You can see the rain on the lake. It never really amounted to much, or got us very wet, and we had so much fun!

Now don't you wish you were a dork like me?

(Side note: Sis, who was home on her lunch hour from work, had to help me unload the kayak from the top of my car because the little girls wouldn't be able to, and that's why we ended up walking through the neighborhood with the kayak, rather than driving it down to the lake, which made us look like DORKS, but since being dorky is working for me now, I didn't care!)