My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

Although entirely unrelated to this post, that is totally a song title post :). Isn't that a great song? I actually own a CD with Peter, Paul, and Mary's greatest hits. I like the CD. I was raised on a lot of folk music from the 60s. Let's face it, I was raised on a lot of music. It's why my playlist is such a plethora of genres and decades :). Plethora... Julie used that word on Saturday, and I like it :). Although I generally include this CD in the group of gifts from G&G that came during senior moments... Also in this grouping: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (we'd never seen it, much less asked for it, and somehow it ended up being my birthday present when I was really hoping for The Three Musketeers -- because I thought Charlie Sheen was HOT in that movie.... hey, there's another "famous crush" of mine from back in the day!); Frank Sinatra's Duets on CD; and the cream of the crop (which I've mentioned before), a VHS tape of Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii. It's not that these are bad gifts by any means. They are just rather odd choices for a 14 or 15 year old, unless said teenager has requested those gifts. And I can vouch for the fact that that particular teenager (i.e. me) did not :). But, I love telling the story. So, I say it was a good trade :).

Wow, I had a super-busy weekend! On Friday I ran out to Wal-Mart and transferred all my pictures on my camera to CD (finally). There were 400 of them! Wow, I've been taking some pictures lately! They spanned November through February. Apparently I was living it up :)! Which would be accurate, seeing as my fun trip to the Northeast, my trip to Julie's, and my trip to Atlanta, along with 3 other girlie nights were included in this 400 pictures! And I said I was vaNILLA... I'm such a liar ;).

Oh yeah, so... My weekend. Okay, so after that, I ran home with all the good intentions of doing school work. However, life usually has other plans for me, so I never got around to doing much schoolwork. Okay, I'm not going to lie. It wasn't life's fault... it was mine. I decided to eat my $1.00 jalapeno poppers for lunch, and figured I didn't really need to do schoolwork at that time. It was much better to savor each popper by watching the rest of Dirty Dancing. So, I took my own advice, and that's what I did :). Well, you know what they say about good intentions ;).... Toad the Wet Sprocket says it's hard to rely on them... I'll have to concur. So, by the time I was actually free to do some schoolwork, it was time to start getting ready for the Temple trip. Several of us from church went to do baptisms, and I rode up there with Stefanie. That was fun. Then she and I came home, stopping through Wendy's on the way home. The prices have gone up! I ended up just getting a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, because I am too cheap to pay $1.19 or $1.29 for fries or a frosty to accompany it... What happened to all of these items being $.99? Anyway, Stefanie and I had a good ride home, just chatting away. I'm such a talker.

Saturday I woke up early, because there was a Stake Relief Society Enrichment Meeting to go to. I could not believe how cold it had gotten over-night! I rode with Virginia, Joan, and Pearl. The meeting was awesome. It was all about preparing ourselves, and becoming self-reliant so that we can lift others and help them become self-reliant and prepared as well. There were several different 30-minute classes we could attend. I opted for the ones on bargain buying, food storage, provident living, and then looked at all the other displays for the other 30 minutes of my time. They were great. And there was some great granola snacks (I mean, this was delicious, and I wish I knew who made it), along with a great lunch served at the end. That ended around 1:30, and I got home sometime after 2:00. I talked to Juliebean and got my Juliebean fix for the month (that's what it seems like these days, since we don't seem to talk on the phone as much anymore... But when we do... It's a blast! We talked for probably a total of 2.5 hours! We killed the battery on her cell, so she had to call me back on Jon's, if that tells you anything about the length of our conversation :)). I finished my second article review for the crazy class, and got another article read and annotated for that same class's big project, which is due March 6th. Sigh... I washed 2 loads of clothes, talked to Christina, and watched half of a movie. Oh, and I took a nap, because I only meant to close my eyes, and that was an hour-long blink. Oops. At least I got done with everything I HAD to get done with by today :). And a little extra...

On Sunday I got up and went to church. One of the mothers of one of the nursery children told me the neatest story. She said, "You guys must do a great job teaching the children. Joshua came home last week and told me all about the Holy Ghost. He told me the Holy Ghost doesn't have a real body, but He has a spirit body. And then he said that the Holy Ghost goes, 'Woooo.'" She laughed, and I laughed, and I said, "Well, I didn't teach him that last part! She laughed and said, "Yeah, I know that was his invention... He's been watching a lot of Scooby Doo." It just feels good to know that the children do listen, even at age 2. Sometimes I'm not sure if they are getting anything out of the lessons, because they are all moving around and getting out of their seats. So it is neat to learn that they do learn stuff, and that they are paying attention, even if they don't seem to be. I do love the nursery kids. In fact, this same little boy came over to me while I was cleaning up the toys yesterday to prepare for lesson time, and he grabbed my arm (I was bent over, picking up the toys), and hugged my arm. I thought it was just so sweet. The kids are just so neat, and this calling has been so rewarding and I have really enjoyed it. After church, I worked on reading some more, but dozed off again... for another hour. Virginia called and woke me up, so I ended up going to her apartment to watch a movie, burn more family DVDs and eat popcorn. Yum! So, I have 2 of the 6 DVDs burned for each of us now (that is a total of 5 each). Yay! I didn't end up leaving until about 10:00, and I still had to get a shower... Not to mention the other stuff I needed to do! Of course, I was so wide awake, I didn't fall asleep until after 12:30... I'm tired! But, I'm wired! So, I'm good :).

*And Mrs. S has guessed the movie quote correctly!*