It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Weather is such an odd thing. Last week I did my daily forecast check to find that we were currently 1 degree warmer than Salt Lake. I look now and we are 50 degrees warmer. We had a high of 81. It was beautiful outside...a little toasty inside, but I was too busy to turn on the air...I survived.

I now hold the record for the shortest Visiting Teaching appointment of all time...I'm guessing it was about 8 minutes 37 seconds. I had Seth with me...he was my companion for the morning...as always. We entered the home and had a seat. I had recently had a long conversation with this woman, so no need for the initial chit chat--I quickly started into my lesson. I was not even finished with the first paragraph I was reading when I hear a vacuum cleaner start up...she has no children at home, so it was pretty clear who was doing some light cleaning.

I jumped up to find him in a ball on the floor. I guess he didn't quite expect the result he got when he pushed the LARGE RED BUTTON! He was a bit frazzled. We returned to her living room...this woman is easily distracted, so at that point I had a hard time steering her from vacuum talk back to the gospel. Something about "when you accidentally vacuum your comforters it stretches the belts on your vacuum..." I don't know that I have ever "accidentally" vacuumed my comforters--to be honest I don't think I've ever vacuumed them on purpose. Have you?



We spoke briefly about vacuuming catastrophes and then I heard the dead bolt on her front door and knew that Seth had left the building. Any inkling of spirit that had been there had already been sucked out by the vacuum incident (pun intended)--so I decided it was time to go.

Our quick departure gave me enough time to make a stop by Wal-Mart, before my Visiting Teachers came, to buy some replacement bulbs for the lights I've been trying to put on the front bushes. It was going to be quick and painless--I knew right where they were. We entered the store, I stopped the cart and noticed there were c7 and c9 lights...it only took me a second or two to decipher that I needed c9, however, in that 2 seconds Seth was gone. It took me 2 minutes to find him which seemed like an eternity. Why do I keep doing this to myself? The lights were right next to the pet supplies...I should have grabbed a leash while I was there!

I did get a nap this afternoon...not nearly long enough, but it did help. I was prematurely awakened by a phone call--a recorded message giving me a phone number of a law firm to call immediately concerning case #---. It must have been that I was still dazed and sleepy because I panicked. I immediately called to find out what I was going to jail for. This continued for about 2 hours until I finally got a hold of the lawyer and discovered it was the case of a wrong #. My # being the wrong #. Whew! I was afraid they'd found some street sign I stole in high school and had it finger printed or something...don't they have anything better to do with their time?!



SO back to my lights...when I plugged them in on Friday both strands worked, but there were many lights that needed to be replaced. Within minutes neither strand would work. I got the replacement bulbs today temporarily got one strand to work and then just as quickly no strands were working. So now I have two dead strands and $5 worth of replacement bulbs. I am feeling more and more like Clark Griswold...5 years ago I fell through our ceiling 2 days before Christmas and was dubbed "Mrs. Griswold" by some neighbors. I'll post a picture of my damage when I find one. Good thing I'm not cooking a turkey this year!!

Hurry back Jared. We miss you!!