You Guys

I had to go to the Toyota dealership last weekend to get a recalled part replaced. When I dropped my car off, the Toyota man asked me to come inside to get some information from me. I didn't really see the purpose of our long conversation and was ready to get out of there, especially since the whole time he kept referring to me as you guys. "Let me know if you guys have any questions." "We'll see you guys later this afternoon." Who are you talking to?! Is there someone sitting next to me? I certainly can't see anyone. If it's a man, would you mind telling me what he looks like? I totally should have replied, "We have enjoyed talking with you. "

Mother's Day

I've been wondering about the punctuation of Mother's Day for the past few weeks. Why is the apostrophe before the S, rather than after it? Doesn't this day belong to all the mothers? I found the answer today after I learned about Anna Jarvis, the woman who worked hard to get Mother's Day recognized as a holiday and then campaigned against the holiday once it became a commercialized Hallmark holiday. It was she who insisted that the apostrophe be where it is:

"She was specific about the location of the apostrophe; it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world."-Louisa Taylor

The interesting/sad thing is that she never had any children of her own.

Now on to more cheerful things...

This one time I had this sister who talked about all the wonderful things I had brought to her life on her blog where she always uses the phrase "this one time." Now I'd like to share with you a few of the wonderful things that my Mamasita brought into my life:

- A love of literature (I tried to give credit to my grandma for this once and my mom corrected me)

- A knowledge of how to sew (I still need a ton more practice before I'm going to get to her level, though)

- An example of selfless love

- A knowledge of how to pick out pineapples at the grocery store

- A love of the Gospel

- An addiction to good chocolate (none of that waxy business for us)

- A love of laughter

- And basically a bunch of other things that have to do with love :)

Anna Jarvis would be so proud of the non-Hallmarky cards that she received today.

She got an "authentic" gift certificate (apparently if you write "authentic," it makes it so),

a beautiful card illustrated by my bro-in-law (not his wife, the art major, for some unknown reason),

and a note that was cut up word by word, inspired by some hole-punch circles on my bedroom floor and Elder Scott's talk from Conference.

Love you Mom!

(and I love these *high quality* pics I took on my phone)

Jump On It!

In a recent dream, I was in a backyard that was covered in luscious, green grass. As I was walking around, I came upon a certain section of the yard that was extra bouncy. I soon discovered that I was walking on a trampoline. I've seen plenty of ground level trampolines, but I've never seen one that is covered in grass. Now my roommate thinks that I should market the idea. She is often heard saying, "You should market that." I have no idea if such a thing would even be possible to make, but if someone figures it out, I would totally buy into it.

Proof

Here's some photographic evidence that every child needs a mom:

One child did all of this in a manner of minutes while I was trying to teach the rest of the class about the dreaded schwa (aka upside down e).

And here is the same student's desk right after we took the state standardized test:

This desk was clean before we started...and this was a regular pencil with an eraser.

And the winners are...

List three people that show the same courage and sense of fairness that Harriet Tubman had.

1. Justin Timberlick

2. Amilia Airhart

3. Justin Bieber

I'm glad to see that kids these days have such a good understanding of what it really means to be courageous and fair.

Two Parts Hydrogen, One Part Oxygen

Apparently, I had water on the brain last night (not the buildup of fluid inside the skull kind, luckily) because both of my dreams were centered around H2O.

In my first dream last night, I was hanging out with a pregnant friend when her water broke. Not long after that, her water broke again. I don't really know much about pregnancy or birth, but I'm pretty sure that this is not how it's supposed to happen. Even stranger than that, she didn't do anything about it. She just stood there like nothing had happened and continued on with what she was doing. Meanwhile, I was freaking out that she wasn't rushing to the hospital or calling a midwife or something. Again, I'm not an expert on pregnancy, but if your water breaks, you should probably act on it.

In my second dream, I was living in a house with a bunch of girls I know. I looked into our backyard to find an enormously large water fountain. I inquired about where it had come from and they told me it was from Anne. Anne Treadwell? Yes, they said. Anne Treadwell is a lady who knows everything about the history of the English language and comes to my district at most once a year to train us in reading. Haven't figured out how she got in there. Later on, they all ran out in their swimsuits and jumped into the fountain, which apparently was heated like a jacuzzi. In addition to the fountain, there were plenty of other gadgets which would squirt water all over the back yard. One was on the porch, but if you opened the door, it would spray right into the house and get on the carpet. I commented on how poorly planned it was and the response I got was, "Go hit that switch in the living room." So, I followed directions and water started squirting in four different streams throughout the room. Good idea. Let's soak all of our belongings.

Seeking Treasure

Last night, my dream took place inside a toy store. I was there observing a young couple and their son, who was on a hunt. He was crawling around the store, in search of small coins or other trinkets. More specifically, he was looking for those which were marked with a very small, round fleck of gold on them. Once he attained enough of the special gold-flecked objects, he would be allowed to return to his father.

Unlike most of my dreams, everything in this one made sense-everything except that the boy was trying to be reunited with his father. His father was right there in the room with him. Then, I remembered what I had learned yesterday about small flecks of gold in Elder Ballard's talk in General Conference. I finally was able to pull it all together. The little toddler was moving along through life with his parents cheering him on and giving him direction, but they couldn't get the gold for him. He had to work towards attaining each piece on his own and if he kept on searching for the right treasures, he would eventually reunited with his Father.

Once again, it has been a wonderful Conference weekend. If only I could dream like this more often.