Even more tired.

What a full couple of weeks I've had since I last posted.

Today I am just plain tired.

4 hours of sleep last night, 5 the night before, Bill's been out of town, and it's been my week to teach seminary. I just received an email stating that we won't be having seminary next Wednesday due to testing. That's the day my team teacher starts her week, OF COURSE. She's lucked out 3 or 4 times with having an extra day off thrown in. I'm trying not to have bitter feelings about it hahaha.

Hallelujah for Fridays.

 Here's a headless pic of what I looked like after painting for 5 hours today (which I started after cleaning house for 3 hours, which I started after teaching seminary).

 I'm a mess when I do anything. Good thing those are the jeans I detest (from our last family pics haha) and the Legend Guinness World Record shirt from that time we attempted but didn't succeed. Just looking back at the post makes me... tired.
Can I be done yet??

I thought I had a picture of my nearly-awesome half-done bathtub tiling job on my phone somewhere, but I don't, and I'm just too beat to go snap one right now.

I do, however, have a picture of my nearly-done piano.

 There are a few touch-ups that need to be made, but I think I'll do those another time. Like maybe next year. Or maybe never.

I do like it so much better than before, so I'm considering it a win.

Hopefully I will soon get a chance for an extended post about our Fall break action. There's some good good stuff to share.

In the middle of the ride.

I love the song "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

(I am in no way recommending you view the music video for this song, however... I just looked it up this morning and found it to have nothing to do with my interpretation of the song, not to mention it was a tad... disturbing.)

My favorite lines from the song:

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything will be just fine

Everything, everything will be all right, all right.

Bill had attended a church meeting a year or two ago with {Elder Holland, I think... I will have to double check my facts}.

He came home with the perspective that we are ALL currently "in the middle."

The middle of the plan of salvation/happiness,

in between our pre-existence and paradise (or prison).

This middle part, although long, tiring, full of ups and downs, good and bad, joy and pain,

is so so important.

I'm just trying to keep on keepin' on... to endure well... among the crazy business of life.

Anyway, here is what I've been in the middle of the past week:

It was Homecoming week for Legend.

This year Bill was able to come promote himself at the parade... Yay! 

Mar and Cass helped pass out candy and cards. Those girls rock.

 

After all the work Bill has put into promoting his company locally, he has recently found out that he will have to change the name due to some technical legal issues. He is in search of a new name that has NO POSSIBLE problems (trademarks, etc).  I think he needs it THIS WEEK. Ugh. Such a discouraging turn of events. But, to quote my favorite missionary, we will survive.

Thursday night was the Homecoming football game. It was fun to meet up with friends and ward members to cheer on LHS.

Friday night (also the evening of the Homecoming dance), our ward had a special youth temple baptism trip planned. I'm pretty sure that was a bit of a calendaring snafu, but the youth who were NOT attending the dance, spent the evening at the temple doing baptisms.

 We actually had 4 or 5 more youth show up after this picture was taken, so a pretty good turnout considering the scheduling conflict.

On Saturday morning, Mar, Bill and I went to the Parker Road clean-up.

After all the years we've lived here, with our family participating in this event too many times to count, I have to embarrassingly admit that this was my first time.

It went well. It was a lot o' work, and it got pretty darn hot by the time we were finishing up, but we were able to finish with a sense of service to our community and a job well done.

I think I mentioned that I decided to antique/glaze my cabinets. I actually worked on them ALL DAY two Fridays ago, and didn't quite get finished but was literally so sick of working on them that I took all of last week off (not to mention we were just so darn BUSY all week). Here's a shot of a few of the finished ones:

I like them much better antiqued, so it was definitely worth the effort. I have set a goal to totally complete them this week... in the middle of all the other regular busy-ness going on.

Also last week:

I grocery shopped. 5 stores... I'm a bit of a tightwad and always trying to get the best deal. It's so exhausting!

I gave the Sisters a haircut

A family that was renting their home in our ward was given 24 hours to move out of their house, so I spent some hours helping them pack and load up

Celebrated 2 friends' birthdays by going to lunch with them. One of the birthdays was at the end of May... I'm a little behind, don't you think?

I took a dinner + a freezer meal to my neighbor (with the 7 kids)

Went visiting teaching

Spent most of the day on Friday at the temple (4 sessions total)

Just trying to document why I'm so darn busy all the time. For my own memory's sake. Today I am working on a sweet little baby quilt for my newest little granny-daughter, then we are having some investigators over for a lesson with the missionaries tonight, which means a little house tidying is in order.

Gotta run.

It really REALLY isn't easy being green.

A quick update on my past week.

I taped. And painted. And top-coated. And antiqued.

Then I did it again, after searching online for the reason WHY I was getting "tiger stripes" on my cabinets. On Thursday, Billy-my-hero came home and hung the finished cabinets (top and bottom of what I call "the long bank" - I had yet to start the other two sections of the kitchen). As we gazed upon them, trying to ignore the tiger stripes (I had even repainted the doors on the top of the long bank due to the same problem), I felt very VERY uneasy.  Could I live with their imperfection? They were oh-so-smooth, but... tiger striped. AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH.

I decided to sleep on it and see what I thought when I went downstairs and saw them the next morning. On Friday, I went to buy new paint. A different brand, a different type, a different color, still very very expensive. Then I ONCE AGAIN removed all the hardware (third time for some doors), re-taped, PRIMED, and began my project all over. The new paint takes much longer to dry... 16 hours before re-coating, to be exact. My garage and table space is limited, which means I can only do so much at one time. The primer had to be brushed on because it's too thick for my sprayer, and I elected to brush the paint on the cabinet frames this time, since they are relatively covered once the doors are on anyway, and it would save me time masking off my entire kitchen space (for a third time).

This week my goal is to complete the project, if humanly possible.

I am so so tired of painting for poor results.

I take full responsibility... I'm sure my problem is due to the dye I added to my milk paint. The cabinets looked great (no tiger stripes) until I put the top coat on. For whatever reason, the top coat (which gave the cabinets the amazing professional finish) reacted to the dye, resulting in the stripes, no matter how many times I repainted. Lesson learned.

The good news: I think I'm really going to like the new paint color. The finish is still a good quality finish, just not quite the perfect professional finish of the all-sprayed rock-hard General Finishes Milk Paint and High Performance Top Coat (which I will definitely use for some of my other oak cabinets... I will just NOT add dye. ever. again.).

They will be a bit glossier. Yes, if you look closely you will see some brush marks from the primer underneath. But the color is lovely and makes my house look updated and fresh. I hope next week to post the final result. Whatever it is, I will be happy with it.

Youth Conference 2016

**WARNING**

Another picture overload ahead.

This is less than 10% of the pictures, but any more would be a little much, PLUS the BigMac just can't handle all the pictures, so it's taken me loads of time just to get this far.

But it's Monday, and I always try to post on Monday (because I'm usually doing Lo's blog, too).

Here's the quick rundown:

We started Thursday morning at the church.

After a prayer and a devotional, we snapped a couple group pics, piled into cars, and headed on our way.

The youth helped set up camp, and these fine ladies tidied up the latrines.

Seriously, they are so awesome.

After camp was pretty much set up, we took a break for lunch...

...then started in on some fun team games.

For the first one, I had frozen 4 of Bill's t-shirts (shhhhh.... I didn't ask), and each team had to see who could defrost theirs enough (without tearing it... I was hoping to salvage them, wash them, and return them unscathed to Bill's closet) for someone on their team to put on. It was pretty hilarious watching these teams try to come up with ways to melt the ice.

The yellow team were the winners, and much of their success was due to having a highly competitive leader helping them out. They may not have torn the shirt, but they may have burned it a bit. Oopsies.

The red team was 3rd runner up (nice way to put last), and I'll have to say, their shirt was returned in the most usable condition, so they are first in my book {wink}.

They could still smile about it, though.

After that we played some more team games... like the pendulum relay...

...the fruit roll-up relay...

...the paper plate relay...

...the wet sponge relay...

...the team writing race (they had to spell the word "forward")...

...the Twinkie-eating race (they had to unwrap and eat them with their hands tied together)...

...and the cheesehead game.

The winning team (yellow) won head massagers... ahhhh, sweet victory.

After the games, we had free time at the lake.

Let me just say, we couldn't have asked for a lovelier spot and a more perfect day.

After dinner that evening, we had a fireside.

Mar and Lynnea sang a beautiful song to start things off.

Then Bro. Weed gave a great message.

Afterwards, the youth did some skits until dark, then we played a fun night game that the YW had prepared. Unfortunately, I neglected to snap any pics of it :(

I think this is the only picture I have of the beautiful mountain right behind our camp.

The next day we had planned an activity we called a "Burden Hike."

I was nervous that it wouldn't turn out as good as I had hoped (it was a Pinterest find without a lot of detail), but we had carefully planned the hike (mostly uphill with some stairs), and had asked some of the adults to help put dirt in buckets along the way. The youth were asked not to talk, and told DON'T LET YOUR BUCKET TOUCH THE GROUND. We sent them up one by one with either one or two buckets. When they got to the last incline before our pre-determined meeting place, Bill would ask each one of them if he could help them with their bucket(s). Most accepted the help, some didn't. 

Once everyone was at the top, we had another devotional, then we talked about how this activity related to life. OH. MY. WORD. Those youth made some pretty amazing connections.

 I think it turned out to be the most memorable part of youth conference for the youth.

Hunting down all those buckets (and living with the smell of pickles in our garage and vehicles because we got a lot of our buckets from Firehouse Subs) was totally worth it!

After lunch, we had a couple of classes.

Our first one had a rain delay, but our awesome YM president just rolled with it.

The weather cleared up, and after a snack break, our next class was given by a member of our Bishopric and his wife.

Then we had a color throw.

I felt like the committee thought I was a little nuts, but I just felt like this would be an activity the youth would really like. I had to clear it ahead of time with the campground, and then one of our committee members whose daughter works for THE COLOR RUN, was able to secure leftover packets of color from various runs FOR FREE.

 Yep, I was right. The kids LOVED it.

Once was not enough for most of them, and since we had some extra packets, they did it over and over until they were literally covered with color.

We had free time in the lake afterwards... to help get all that color off.

 It was so fun to sit on the shore and listen to the kids laugh and have such a good time together.

After free time and dinner, the youth assembled together for another fireside.

...followed by an amazing testimony meeting.

(On Sunday, one youth said it was the most powerful testimony meeting he had ever been to. That's what it's all about, am I right?)

The next morning we had a devotional and breakfast, then packed up camp.

I nabbed some jumping pics because... well, you know... I love jumping pics.

Plus, camp was pretty much packed up, which is a great reason to celebrate.

The kids played some fun group games (courtesy of EFY, which apparently has the best group games ever)...

...we had an egg toss with the food committee's leftover eggs...

...ate a quick lunch, then had awards...

(the youth did the awards for the adult leaders)

...jumped into cars and made the drive home.

By the time Bill and I got to the church to drop off our kids, everyone else was gone, baby, gone.

Seriously, quickest drop-off and pick-up of kids I've ever seen.

All the work, stress, and effort was worth it.

That doesn't mean it wasn't without hiccups, but luckily those were minor and unimportant.

I'm so happy it was a success, and so so happy it's over.