Saturday, March 31, 2012

It's conference time again

Just finished the Saturday morning session of General Conference. Lots to think about. Keri and I spent the morning trying to help kids sit and listen. ;-)

image from Deseret News

I'm curious... with the many ways that the proceedings of conference are now available, I wonder how many people will be looking for the conference on Kindle again. Let me know, please, via the comments, if you would like me to format the conference proceedings for Kindle again. I'm happy to do it. Just wondering if there's a need.

Happy Saturday all!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Courtesy is not dead

Our middle child made a friend in the neighborhood. With her grandparents' permission, she went with us to a Family Home Evening activity with some friends a week or so ago. She seemed to enjoy herself, and it was no trouble to have her with us.

The next day she dropped by with a little note:


Just in case you can't read it in the picture, it reads:

Thank you from all my heart.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Drany,
Thank you for taking me to the barbque last night. I even enjoyed your company to.

from
Jesika

Isn't it nice to know that common courtesy is not gone from the world? Although I'm sure it's possible that Jesika thought of the thank you note on her own, I think it's much more likely that her grandparents gave her a little nudge. And even if she did think of it on her own this time, she had to have been taught at some earlier time that a thank you note is an appropriate response to a kindness.

So... this is my public "thank you note" to Jesika's grandparents. Well done.

Friday, March 16, 2012

What time is it REALLY?

Don't get me wrong. I like Daylight Savings Time. Having more daylight hours in the evening is a great thing if you ask me. I've always liked coming out of an early movie and seeing sunlight in the western sky. My kids love to jump on our trampoline and play at the nearby schoolyard, and I'm more liable to take an evening walk if the sun hasn't gone down yet. Overall, in my book evening daylight is a good thing.



I have to say, though... this week has been H.. E.. double hockey sticks.

I'm trying to remember... is this the first year the time change has been so early? It sure seems like it. Last week I was taking my kiddos to the bus stop as the sun was peaking its corpuscular glory over the horizon. This week I was driving them over there a few minutes after midnight (it felt like). What a difference an hour makes.

I'm sure I'll be happy in a week or so when my body quits thinking it's getting up at freakin' 4:45am. I've just been a tired, grumpy, critical, curmudgeonly sourpuss all week.

And I blame Congress.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Recognize this story?

When I was a young adult, fresh home from a Mormon mission, I worked for most of a year at a saw mill earning some money to return to college. The first few days of that job were brutal. The foreman put me to work building pallets by hand... just me, a stack of boards, a box of nails, and a hammer. I could barely life my arms at the end of that first day, and I'm sure I was sore the next morning. Looking back, I suspect that he was testing me-- trying to see if this skinny kid could hack a "real" job.

This is the mill where I worked, Great Lakes Timber Co. in LaPoint, Utah. 


After those first two or three tough days, my Dad handed me a short story to read. It was about a young man going to work in a mill or a mine or something. The old codgers around the place were convinced that the "kid" wouldn't last-- that the job was too tough for him and he'd quit. Of course he didn't. He stuck it out.

That story was my Dad's way of encouraging me to stick out the mill job, and I did. I worked there for about 10 months, as I recall, and I even got promoted. (I learned, upon my promotion, by the way, that the mill had a air-driven nail gun for building pallets. Kinda confirmed my suspicion that the foreman was up to something.)

Now that I'm the dad, and have boys of my own to teach about work, I've been wanting to find that story. I don't recall the title, who wrote it, or much more about it than I told above. The detail that mattered at the time was that I could/should be a finisher.

Does anyone recognize the story based on these watery details? It's not much to go on, I know, but perhaps you can help me out.

Oh, and this last  is long overdue:

Thanks, Dad. 


Saturday, March 10, 2012

I hope he believes it...



As a result a bit of contrariness and disobedience, one of our children had to do a "good habit" card today. The card read: write ten self-affirmations and read them aloud.  Here are the qualities he wrote about himself:
  1. artistic
  2. imaginative
  3. curious
  4. playful
  5. tries best
  6. smart
  7. cooperative (hmmm-- see the reason for the card above)
  8. obedient (double hmmm)
  9. likes games
  10. likes sport
I hope he believes these things. And I hope I don't do things that cause him to believe otherwise.

He is smart and imaginative and all those other things. I'm glad he thinks of them when he thinks about who he is. 





Friday, March 9, 2012

Spam on blogs

Has anyone else noticed a sudden up-tick in SPAM postings on their Blooger sites? I've had two in the last day.

Maybe if I posted more often than once every blue-freakin-moon things would be different. Whether that means more spam or less, I don't know.