April Fools Days Gone By

This year I did not pull any April fools pranks--mostly because I just didn't care enough to do so. However I did get a good chuckle remembering April Fools pranks I used to participate in.......

--Such as putting alarm clocks in the heating vents
--kool aid in the shower head (I simply stood by on this one, it seemed a bit more mean than funny to me)
--silverware in a bucket of water in the freezer
--filling up someone's basement doorwell with balloons filled with tootsie rolls and confetti
--filling someone's car with same balloons
 --wrapping saran wrap in front of a roommates door and filling the opening with balloons
--tying the doorhandles together from opposite facing bedroom doors
--placing a mattress in front of a roommates door
--a strategically placed poster of the joker from Dark Knight to a poor roommate who is creeped out by said joker
--snap-its under the toilet seat or on the hinges of doors

The last one had me laughing out loud. I had an old roommate who tried to pull this on myself and the girl I shared the bathroom with. She put snaps under the toilet seat. You know, the snaps that you get on the fourth of July that you can throw on the ground and they make a loud snap sound, yeah those ones.

Well, neither my roommate or I were home much and were both tiny girls. So the snaps never went off. My roommate playing the prank was disappointed thinking that she had simply missed the snaps going off. Well a few days later we had a game night at our apartment. One of the boys went in to use the bathroom. Shortly after he shut the door we all heard a long snap followed my this poor boy making a yelping/screeching sound. Everyone turned and watched the bathroom door when he came out, curious as to what on earth was going on. When he came out he exclaimed loudly that he thought our toilet had just blown up on him. My roommate who had played the prank suddenly burst out laughing and sheepishly told us of the prank. 

Disease called Perfection

I have recently come to recognize a disease that I have suffered with for my entire life, one that I am constantly trying to overcome. It is a disease of the need to be perfect. For as long as I can remember I have felt a strong need to be perfect. Perfect at school work, house work, cooking, craft projects, event plans, dating, friendships and so forth. Part of this need for perfection I have come to realize is based on pride and part of it is based on a strong desire to genuinely be a good person.  The true irony in this is that when I see others around me who are not perfect I never give it a second thought. All I know is that I enjoy spending time with this person or that because they are fun and not afraid to be themselves. Why can I not be so kind to myself? Often times I see only the flaws in my own life and wonder why anyone would want to spend time with me when I am such a mess so often.

The pride part of perfection is the part that everyone around me sees. The part of me that has to be perfect at homework, perfect in dance class, perfect at cooking for others, and anything else I try that others will see. When I go to activities or am asked to share a talent I spend tortuous hours making sure that whatever I am going to share is perfect. I can't show anyone what I am doing until I am convinced it is beyond critique. I refuse to share my talents until I am certain that those around me will be impressed by my accomplishments. Part of this is pride, part is my lack of confidence in my own abilities. This is part of a vicious cycle that I have ever so slowly been learning to recognize and therefore stop.

Then there is this other part of the disease called perfection that stems from a deeper place that is more difficult to address. It stems from the fact that I really do want to be a good person, to treat those around me kindly and fairly, never to be cruel or unfair to my friends and family; to be able to face the Lord with clean thoughts and conscience. Yet I am a human being. Perfection cannot and will not be achieved in this life. It is a difficult lesson for me to learn. Accepting the imperfections is the first step. Sometimes I will be cruel or unfair, sometimes I will judge too hastily or unkindly or lose my temper with those I care about. I wish it wouldn't. But it has happened before and will happen again. As a human it will happen. But when these events inevitably occur all I can do is ask for forgiveness from the person I have offended and try to do better next time.This is all part of the painful growing process each and every one of us must endure. We will all offend each other, and be offended at some point in our lives. Then we learn to forgive and move on from past grievances.

There will also be times when I have thoughts that I should not. Or waste too much time watching the television or fall asleep before I read my scriptures. These are all things that I struggle with frequently. Yet I know I will continue to commit these transgressions. I was in a church lesson the other day when the teacher spoke of a misconception she had had since childhood that she could not truly repent of a particular sin until she stopped the sin completely. Yet is is important to repent constantly, always try to do better the next day. I realized that I have also had this misconception. I tend to put off repenting until I am certain that I will never, ever be tempted to commit that sin again. I want to show God that I am sincere in my repentance, to go and sin no more. Unfortunately, I am human, and therefore will continue to sin. I can still ask for forgiveness and then try my utmost to abstain from that particular sin to the absolute best of my abilities. However, if I should fall again I have to get up and try a little harder next time. This does not mean that I am less sincere in my repentance or my desire to be righteous, it simply means that today I fell down and tomorrow I will try harder not to.

These thoughts are not stemming from any great grievance recently occurring. In my ward, however we have had some very interesting lessons on the problems with trying to be perfect-or rather how we handle life when we fail to be as perfect as we would like. Today my bishop and his wife gave a wonderful lesson in Sunday school about this disease called perfection and it really brought to light to me the fact that I also suffer from the disease. But there is hope, that is the bottom line. Perfection will not occur, and it is vital to recognize this fact in order to keep going.

Grrr......

Why do some people just assume that they are entitled to anything and everything regardless of consequences? What makes them think that they have the right to walk all over everyone else? They think that they can just take whatever they want whether or not it belongs to them.  If it doesn't belong to you, then you do not have a right to steal it.  Not a hard concept for anyone with half a brain.  Gahhh!!! Why do I have to deal with stupid people? Well, stupid person.

Blog

Everyone should read this blog.  I know some of the family but not Avery herself--but this girl is my hero.  I made the link to the post that just about made me cry but you can navigate through it to see how she's doing now.   It's a blog about a little girl named Avery who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was four years old. 

http://avery-j.blogspot.com/2011/06/coconut-club-aka-short-hair-club-party.html

Random Happenings

A few random happenings from days long gone and some not so long gone.  The stories are probably funnier for those who know the people involved. So Shawesome and Sunshine, I guess this post is mostly for the two of you.

KGB and Beemer watching some hospital show on TV where a girl can't get a transfusion because her religion prohibits it.
Beemer: I've never heard of a religion that prohibits transfusions.
KGB: Well they're usually smaller groups.  Probably cause they all die!

KGB, Beemer Melody playing with legos.  Melody is making a castle.
Melody: This door does not look like the door I am looking for.
KGB: Your face is a door.
Melody: I know, that's the problem!
(brief pause as KGB and Beemer burst out laughing)
Melody: Wait what! Hey!!

Beemer and her cousin James.
James (sing song voice as he bounces down the stairs): I found my pocketknife! I love this pocket knife it's my favorite it's so cool!
Moments later he comes back up holding his hand.
Beemer: What happened? did you get cut?
James (sheepily): um, yeah. with my favorite pocketknife.
Beemer tries not to laugh. 

Melody, KGB, Beemer, Mitch, Boss
After Melody's graduation the boss house went to her parents for dinner.  Afterward they were driving home and not everyone could find seatbelts.  Hence in the back seat Boss, Beemer and Mitch were laughing hard and being enjoying playing "corners"(much more entertaining with no seatbelts) when Mitch said the fateful words "Just don't get pulled over and we should be fine."
Well not five minutes later we saw red and blue flashing lights behind us.  Melody began muttering as she pulled over and we all groaned at Mitch for jinxing us.  Oh and the inevitable scrambling to try to hide the fact that we only had one seatbelt for three of us. Yeah.

After a BYU vollyball game as the boss house is trying to find someplace to eat dinner.  They disagreed on which way to take.  Finally Kami won stating that the stairs would be quicker.  Stairs, on the BYU campus are horrendously steep and never seem to end.  It's like going through a never ending tunnel of stairs.  However, not being from Provo, we were clueless as to the treachery of said stairs.  Halfway up KGB and Beemer stopped to catch their breathe for a moment.
KGB: Whose idea was this again?
Beemer (turning to look at the offending party growled out): KAMI!!!!
She didn't mean to growl like that ... it just sort of came out.

Melody, Boss and Bemer trying to settle on playing Life Star Wars or Life Pirates.
Boss: Ok lets do a paper rock scissors.  Melody, you be a Jedi and Beemer you be a Pirate.
Melody: Ok
Beemer: Can I be the Jedi?
Melody: No I'm the Jedi.
Beemer: But I want to be the Jedi.
Melody: But I'm already the Jedi.
Boss: Ok I think we should just play star wars.

This and That

Some days I feel like my life has been boring. I have never traveled anywhere, or won any contests or had any adventures that people would feel like hearing much about.  But then I think of the little adventures I have and think, maybe it's not as boring as I think. A few tidbits......

--running around St George lingerie shopping for a roommates wedding, a town in which there is none to be found. All the while in high heels
--watched a friend of mine catch a wedding bouquet and promptly throw it at the girl next to her yelling "It's yours!!!!! Take it!!!"
--another friend had a truck crash into her house. Yes, a truck, through her master bathroom and into the bedroom. Two feel over and it would have killed her.
--Last summer I went camping down at Zions. We couldn't find one bag of tent stakes, it was a windy night. Sometime during the night when the tent hit me in the face and the wind was blowing the canvas up under me I thought it was a wild animal and I jumped on my roommate who was next to me shouting something about a bear. She was far from amused however.
--KGB and I can apparently hold conversations in our sleep. Completely random yet entertaining ones from what I'm told.

Weird Dreams

Caution, if birds creep you out, you really should not read this. 
Most of my life I have had very vivid dreams. I generally remember a great deal of them, and they are pretty adventurous. Lately I have still been having very vivid wild dreams. However, almost nightly now I have been dreaming about dead birds. Now, dead birds creep me out immensely ( I mean really, who doesn't get a little creeped out by loads of dead birds), so it's horrible to have them all over in my dreams. Usually I am dreaming that I am going about my day either running off to work or going to the gym or something but I have to keep moving to avoid all the dead birds on the ground. And last night I dreamed that I was just trying to get into my old apartment but I had to climb the railing to get up there because the stairs were covered with bird carcasses. It's creepy! And not just one type of bird, although usually pigeons, but also little yellow and black birds as well.  It's weird. And creepy. And gross. I don't even like any birds at all anymore. Hmm, I wonder what the symbolism of so many dead birds is? Any suggestions?