Sunday thoughts

We woke up today to a winter wonderland. In general, I enjoy a good winter wonderland. But not so much on April 3rd. (Even less so on the evening of April 3rd, when the snow has not melted as it should.)

Still, I love Conference weekend. Even when certain members of my family don't love it as much as I do and try my patience. Repeatedly. But it is a universal good to me, and so it is still good, even when all the circumstances are not perfect.

I took 24 pages of notes between yesterday and today.

As I am tired and tomorrow will be starting far too soon, I will only post the highlights of one of my favorite talks tonight.


David A. Bednar

• We can have a sudden recognition of light, as when we turn on a light in a dark room. Or we can witness the subtle, gradual discernment of light, with the slow lighting of the sky at sunrise.

• It is the same with revelation.

• The spirit of revelation should be operative in the lives of every man, woman and child who has received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• The tools of the adversary can impair and eventually destroy our ability to recognize the Spirit. Each of us should pray and ponder what we should do to shun Satan's lures.

• The scriptures and the history of the church contain many examples of those who received revelation suddenly, completely.

• Most often, revelations gradually and gently distill upon our souls, as the dews from heaven. We are taught line upon line, precept upon precept.

• Some may think they fall short if they do not receive dramatic manifestations of revelation, but these are comparatively rare.

• Sometimes we receive revelation without recognizing exactly how or when we have received it (as a sunrise on a cloudy or foggy day).

• As we honor our covenants and strive to do good, we can be sure that God will direct our steps.

spt -- weather or not

I had big plans for this week: yard work, big time (for real).

The warmer weather and sunshine were finally working, I was finally feeling some motivation to get out there and make a difference. Pruning. Raking. Mowing. The whole shebang.

But yesterday was cold, cloudy, and very windy. It rained like crazy last night, and then the rain turned to snow. This morning, it even hailed for half an hour. Huh.

As much as I love hibernating, I don't really care for enforced hibernating. In fact, I feel quite irritable when I finally work up some motivation and energy at the same time, only to be foiled.

That's Spring in Utah for you. Who knows? Maybe the rest of the week will be gorgeous.

conceret and yard work

We all went to Max's end-of-the-year orchestra concert on Wednesday night. Eva called it a "conceret". I thought it was pretty interesting, Lucas and Eva less so. (It did run long, so it was a good thing we had her blankie and a lollipop to pacify her, especially since she was up past her bedtime.)


I took video of the orchestra playing, but it is too long for Blogger, and apparently I was too busy doing video and didn't get any stills of Max playing! Good grief. Max just started playing cello at the beginning of this school year and has made a lot of progress -- judging by the beginning orchestra's performance, I would say he's made more progress than the orchestra as a whole :). Listening to their pieces gave me a whole new appreciation for his teacher, as teaching beginners to play stringed instruments has got to be hard on the ears!

His teacher is retiring this year, and he had invited any past students to come and play one final song at the end of the concert. It was interesting in that many of them had not previously seen the music, so they rehearsed it in front of the audience! That final orchestra was so huge it took up almost the entire gym floor (which is why they couldn't have the concert in the auditorium).

Check it out! One of the girls had tied a ribbon to her cello -- it's almost as if we were kindred spirits.

Today I had a delicious stay at home day, and the weather was gorgeous, so I spent all morning doing yard work. Being the bugaphobe she is, Eva stayed inside watching Monsters, Inc. for awhile, then finally decided to join me outside.

How could anyone resist a delightful brand new box of sidewalk chalk?

She actually stayed outside for about an hour and a half, drawing, driving in her Little Tikes car (borrowed from Heidi), and helping me carry the weed piles to the garbage can. We saw butterflies, ants, spiders, and wood lice, and befriended them all!

After Scouts, the boys played with her on the tramp. It's not as fun for the boys when Eva is there, since they can't jump as high, but they are very good to indulge her.

This was her response when I called them all in to dinner.

Our big tree in the front yard is finally getting its leaves. It seems like spring has only just arrived here. Today was absolutely perfect, about 72 degrees with a breeze. But you know what? I just checked the weather forecast:

Friday -- 83
Saturday -- 88
Sunday -- 92
Monday -- 94

What the hell? I feel so gypped that apparently we're going straight to summer...