Wet Pants

Come with me to a third grade classroom..... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, 'Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat.' He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, 'Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!' Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, 'You did that on purpose, didn't you? 'Susie whispers back, 'I wet my pants once too.'

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good.

Demotivational Posters

I have always enjoyed these demotivational posters. The blogging one I had never seen before. And in honor of our team Christmas lunch this afternoon, I put the teamwork one.

Party Weekend

We had a full weekend. Friday night we hosted the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation party at our house. We had Mexican food, lots of fun and laughs.

Saturday the girls went to the Santa Wonderland at the Bass Pro Shop with Ma and Papa. They both sat on Santa's lap. An amazing feat for Kelsey but my mom said she really really wanted a candy cane. Audrey asked him for a microphone, a purse, a bracelet, a ring and a dress. Kelsey did not speak to him but beforehand said she was going to ask him for an itty bitty real kitty. I told her that Santa doesn't bring anything that is alive.

Saturday night we had my work Christmas party at the Duluth Marriott. It isn't the most exciting thing..most of the people I work with don't go so it is just hundreds of people I don't know. But they do have these giant shrimp that Randy looks forward to all year long. While we went to the party, the girls had their first real babysitter (they don't count adults as babysitters). Chelsea came over and watched them and they apparently had a great time and were great listeners. The picture below was taken by Chelsea's mom. The girls kept wanting to make funny faces so finally she said everyone make a funny face and you can see they are all sweet and Randy and I made silly faces.

Sunday we had our first church meeting in our new location...the Barrow Rec Center. The girls were very excited to go to a new "church" building. We will be there 8 to 10 months while our building is expanded and renovated. Audrey asked during class (I team teach her class) why their classroom looked like a jail. I asked her how she knew what a jail looked like. Apparently the block walls are jail-like.

Three days of work and I am off until 2009!! yippee!

Tag

I was tagged to post my fourth picture in my fourth folder from the My Pictures Folder. So here it is. This is Audrey and Trinity in August 2005 playing in the bathtub. They have always been best friends and still give each other hugs like they haven't seen each other in forever.

I tag Greg, Lia and Wendy - let's see those pictures!

Anger

So it has been an interesting week for me. At work a few days ago a coworker came to my desk and we were going over some reports and it became apparent that he was going to have to make some changes to his report. He became very agitated and began pacing around clinching his fists. Then he came back to my desk and muttered some ugly words and then started talking again. Within a minute he was at it again…pacing. Then he came back and punched my cube wall and really went off with the profanity.

Of course my first reaction was fear…this guy has lost it. Then I thought man he seems a lot like a 2 year old kicking and screaming because he is going to have to do something he doesn’t want to do. But he is in his fifties.

So what makes the difference? Did this person not have a parent telling them oh so many times to not whine, to use nice words, and to not say anything if you don’t have something nice to say? Did they never learn to count to ten if they are angry and to never react in anger? Or just as you get older you forget to be polite and have some level of tact?

With our advances in technology it is so easy to react so quickly and type out a message hit the “send” button and not think about what is being said or the consequences of saying it. At work we have a name for those messages…a flaming crap ball.

So here’s hoping a flaming crap ball does not show up in my inbox and my cube walls stay intact.

Gordon T. Watts: A man can rather accurately be measured, it has been said, by the size of a thing that makes him angry. (“Slow to Anger,” Ensign, Feb. 2003, 59)

Bow Party

Renee and I are having a bow party at my house this Friday night (the 5th) at 7:00. She sent out an evite but of course we didn't have everyone's email addresses and we also don't know if we have the right one for you. But anyway, everyone is welcome to come and feel free to bring relatives or friends. We will just be having some appetizers and have the bows (mainly Christmas ones) out for everyone to see. We will also be teaching you how to make a Christmas Tree Clippie which you will get to take home with you (picture below). Let me know if you want to come and I can give you directions.