Just Waiting

I'm hungry.

You know, it's funny, I wander around the house all the time about 2:00 AM and I don't eat anything. It's never a big deal. I think it's just because I know I can't eat anything that it bugs me tonight. The doc said nothing to eat after midnight. I can have clear liquids until 7:00 AM, but after that it will be nothing at all.

Which is why I'm still up. I figure it will be much easier than waiting around in the morning to drive over to the hospital if I can just sleep in a bit. Prima Donna was hanging out with me until just a little while ago, finishing up her homework and watching me make Princess's prom dress just a little more modest. I didn't want to have to try sewing with a bandage on my hand since it was mostly stuff I had to do with a needle and thread. I lined the sleeves which were sheer and put a small panel at the neck and one behind the lace up in the back. She will be much happier with it this way, although she loves it now.

We sat around after church and folded a huge pile of laundry during a movie. I think things like folding laundry will probably be hard for me for a few days, but I really don't know. That's the part that scares me the most, the fact that I don't know just how incapacitated I might be. In honor of that, I'm breaking my own rule. I'm publishing a selfie just for you! Please forgive the tired eyes, but it's pretty late here in Utah!


My life is always so full and active. I pack as much as I possibly can into every day. That's probably wrong, but I seem to mostly thrive on stress, so I tend to keep things moving here. I don't know how I will feel when I just have to sit by and watch everyone else doing things for me or without me.

I hope everything heals up quickly. I've already learned to type with a missing finger and I'm actually pretty good at it, so once the pain subsides a little, I'll update you on the surgery. I noticed the Dog Walker has already started two posts for you so he has plans to take care of me here if I'm not up to it, so please check back often and leave him some comments.  He loves your feedback!

Less than 10 hours now, so I guess I'd better get some rest. I know a little surgery on my finger is not a big deal

I keep telling myself that.

But why is it that for almost everything I do, I need my hands?

Guest Blogger: Scripture Mastery Poster by Elder Dog Walker

You all know that I'm a missionary and I have been serving for the last two months now. My sister Teach from her mission in Texas challenged me to read the entire Book of Mormon on my own before she returns home from her mission. She asked me if I had any challenges for her. I prayed about what I should challenge her on. Then it came to me. It said that I should challenge her to make scripture mastery posters. I sent her some examples that I made and I hope that it can help her to know what the scriptures say on the pictures.


I usually go to www.lds.org to find some good things to teach about for everyone who may not get the idea of how the scriptures make sense. I then find some good pictures on the Internet that may sound like they are part of the scriptures.

Book of Mormon: Enos 1: 4

Book of Mormon: Helaman 5: 12

I'll show you some examples to see what you think of them. I won't be able to show all of them to you, because it may take too long for you to figure out what the pictures have to do with the scriptures. And I had a feeling since Sister Teach has strict policies for her mission, I hope the scripture mastery posters I sent her are missionary appropriate. Otherwise, she may get in trouble by her mission president if they aren't being shown pictures that are LDS like.

Book of Mormon: Alma 41: 10

Book of Mormon: Alma 13: 12

Book of Mormon: Ether 12: 6

Book of Mormon: Mosiah 10: 12-18

I'm giving you a few scripture mastery posters I made and I hope that you can get the idea from them and enjoy them!

DARE Assembly

Today was the DARE assembly. Sport got to read his essay to about 300 people. He did a fabulous job, of course. He never seems to get nervous about being in front of people. Maybe it's just because he wanted this so badly.

When I first got to the school, I saw the DARE car parked on the sidewalk. I just had to take a pic for Sport since cars are his favorite thing in the world.

He received a bag of goodies for winning the essay contest. There was a water bottle, pencil bag, pencils, stickers, pencil sharpener, stuff like that, but the best thing was the glow-in-the-dark DARE shirt!

All of the kids, including Sport received the red t-shirts. They have different ones every year and I was happy to see that this year they had a pic of the DARE car on it.

I think I need to stop writing posts at 3:00 AM. This one seems a bit disjointed. Or maybe it's because we played (and lost) the second game of our basketball tournament tonight so our team is finished for the season. It was a good game though. I was the top scorer for our team with 8 points and Bossy had 7. Between the 2 of us we made exactly half the points for the team.

I've still got so much to finish up before my surgery on Monday. I got the official time today, 12:10. At least that means I won't have to get up incredibly early and have to worry about the kids getting to school by themselves.

I hope you enjoy the DARE pics. If Sport weren't so set on being an engineer like his dad, I think he might become a police officer just so he could drive that DARE car every once in a while.

DARE Essay Contest

Last week Sport was grumbling that his brothers and sisters have done tons of cool things and he wanted to accomplish something none of them had ever done before. It just happened that he had barely started the DARE program in his 5th grade class. DARE is a drugs/alcohol prevention program so I suggested that he could win their Essay Contest. None of his siblings had ever done that before and the winners even get prizes! We all know from his Chick-fil-A essay that he is an amazing writer, so this sounded perfect to me.

He was immediately interested so I suggested the most important part of trying to win would be to give it some time and not try to just throw it together at the last minute. That gave him about a week to get it done. He stewed over what to write and I finally threw out another suggestion, why not try to find someone with a sad story to tell.

So he did. He turned to the only person he knew who had used drugs in their youth, Gamer. The interview was short and sweet, but evidently it was enough, because yesterday when Sport came through the door, he announced that he had been chosen the winner from his class! Tomorrow is the DARE graduation so I will give you more details then, but for now, I thought you might want to read his award-winning essay. Drum roll please.....

    My brother-in-law is from Texas. His way of life was different from mine and yours, and he didn’t have very many rules. He lived in a small town and he was mostly ignored by his parents, so what did he do? He turned to drugs. When I asked him what it was like, he said, “Drugs are not good for anyone.” He took more drugs than he could count, and he did it because he said he was a dumb kid with nothing else to do. Do you think he took DARE? No way! Most students in Utah do DARE in the 5th grade. DARE is when a police officer comes and teaches your class why not to do drugs. If you were wondering, DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. I have learned many things in this great program and I hope I can use them in my everyday life so I don’t wake up one day to find out I’m just a dumb kid like my brother-in-law.
    There were many things that stood out to me in DARE. Some of them are things most people probably do not know, for example, mixing alcohol with medicine is dangerous. Another is that there are 75,000 alcohol-related deaths each year in the United States only. Alcohol also goes directly into the bloodstream. Tobacco is bad for you too. Many people do not know that there are more than 900,000 tobacco-related deaths each year, and tobacco interferes with the way the brain works. Smoking can cause lots of surprising problems also. It has 200 harmful known chemicals. It has the addictive nicotine chemical. Almost 50,000 deaths a year can be attributed to second-hand smoke. And these are only some of the things I learned in DARE.
    DARE can help me in my everyday life. It taught me that it is OK to say “No!” if I am offered drugs. I can use strategies like avoiding the problems by walking away. I can even change the subject and try not to get stressed. I can also use DARE decision-making by defining, assessing, responding, and finally, evaluating my choices. I can use this model to help me make good choices.
    DARE is very important. Without DARE, lots of grownups’ lives would be different. They would begin like my brother-in-law’s did, with drugs. He was fortunate to meet my sister and they married in 2004. They have some great kids now and a house and a dog. That’s because he wised up and got rid of the drugs. It’s too bad they didn’t teach DARE in Texas. Knowing how to make good decisions would have made his life much easier. Just like it will help me with mine.



Isn't he just awesome!!