TAKING THE KIDS TO CHURCH

Being with a 7 and 10 year old during LDS church services offers a different set of challenges.

Instead of sitting quietly, there is a lot more movement.

And discussion. Of just about anything, during the time you are trying to be quiet.


And usage of paper.

And pencils.




But some great pictures to take home at the end of services.

And a greater appreciation of what their parents go through every week.

And some good memories.

YES, A GIFT CARD FOR STAPLES, PLEASE

So many things in our lives are completely out of our control.

I cannot change the weather - although I can live where the weather is almost perfect. I have no influence on the state of the economy - although I do my best to financially support my local Target. And I cannot control the chronically depressed state of several individuals in my immediate family - I just try to keep their medications current and prescriptions active.

Living some twenty years as an military spouse, I have learned to accept multiple (and sometimes complete surprise) moves - assignments in which my husband could not let me know anything about until years later (including calls in mid-day to say, "Honey, I'll be gone for a little while" and then nothing else for a week) - and even once when he brought his "wife" home around midnight when they were working late enough on a mission (to which I replied, "so you DO know who you are sleeping with the rest of the night, right!?")

We even got to live ten years in the state of Maryland - which, by my limited definition, was hell.

So maybe I became just slightly MORE than a little compulsive about the small number of things which I could control.

I became (and have remained) adamant about certain brand foods, even through the period of lower-enlisted poverty - Kraft Macaroni and Cheese - Ben and Jerry Ice Cream (when available) - Simple Green (back when you had to hunt for it) - Dove soap (long before the dippy "2/3 lotion! Be proud of your self!" campaign began).

And I believe my clinical obsession with office supplies developed along these same lines.

My third job (after becoming a mother) was with a non-profit health organization - and I was the one in charge of ordering office supplies for THE ENTIRE STATE. Well, for that particular non-profit organization. And for the 47th smallest state in the United States. Which is actually only 240 square miles larger than the county I live in right now.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that big a deal.

But it started this fixation on ANYthing that is sold in office supply place - folders, paper clips, markers, Pendaflex, desk organizers, bulletin boards, white boards, memo pads, three-ring binders, spiral binders, stapler removers, calendars.

Except pencils.

I hate pencils - I mean I HATE them. I must have repressed some memory of being abused by a No. 2 Ticonderoga sometime in my childhood and just have not discovered the correct therapy to overcome it.

However, I am now establishing SPAWM (Society for Prevention of Abuse by Writing Mechanisms) as a non-profit mental health resource for all pencil-abused individuals who need assistance in their tragic plight.

So now I am, once again, IN CHARGE OF ORDERING OFFICE SUPPLIES.

I am so happy.