Chocolate Rx

Chocolate Rx

Stressful day:

• "Substitute teach" in a class where the "real" teacher is there and teaching.  Try to keep busy "helping," and not look or feel awkward/guilty that I am getting paid, but she is doing all the work. ("Real" teacher's paperwork is not finalized and school needs someone who is "legal" to be there until paperwork goes through.  That "legal" person is me.)
• Go on-line to pay for college student's books, only to find that she owes $645 MORE in tuition, even thought she has scholarship money that exceeds the amount of tuition, and even though yesterday, she owed NOTHING. Try to navigate through BYU's very UN-user-friendly financial web page to figure it out.  (The whole BYU website is VERY hard to navigate.) 
• Call BYU to figure out the above. Be told that because of FERPA laws they can only deal with the STUDENT (who by the way knows NOTHING about how this all works).
• Call student to try to educate her on how to take care of the above.  Then spend 40 minutes on the phone with her trying to help her navigate the unfriendly BYU website to deal with a schedule issue. (In the end decide to just live with the schedule as is.)
• While on the phone, try to listen to angry husband ask where 16-year-old daughter is with the Suburban which has all his football gear in it.  (He has to leave for football "RIGHT NOW!" and said daughter is not answering her phone.)
• Deal with upset 10-year-old who is trying to figure out how to get to the mutual swimming party with his dad and brother after football practice. Make arrangements for carpool ride to drop him at swimming party after football and for dad and brother to bring his swimming suit with them. 
• Persuade angry husband to take the truck while I go "find" 16-year-old daughter.  Check the park (where back to school bash is happening and where she is supposed to be as part of student council.)  Not there.  Tell Stuco advisor to have her call me if she shows up. 
• Drive to high school. Find daughter who is mad because she had to stay after cheer for a captain's meeting and is now late for stuco.  Trade her vehicles.  Go find husband so he can have the football gear-filled Suburban.  Trade him vehicles.  Prepare to go home.  14-year-old son realizes he left his football cleats home and needs them.
• Go home, get cleats, take 16-year-old and two neighbors to back-to-school bash.  Deliver cleats. (4th trip to the high school today-the first two trips didn't even make it into this "stressful day" list.)

Finally home. 
Way stressed. 

Rx-Quickly eat 5-10 mini Twix bars.

Awww.....I can feel the stress begin to wash away already.  It's just like magic!

P.S.  The calming effect of chocolate is much quicker with the "pure unadulterated stuff" like a Hershey's bar (straight chocolate no added carmel and cookie) but I had to make do with what I had.

P.P.S.  The magical calming medicinal powers of chocolate were discovered by me when I had 6 small children, and Kent was the bishop.  Sunday was ANYTHING BUT a day of rest.  After church, I would lock myself in my bedroom, eat a handful of Hershey's chocolate kisses, lay on the bed, and wait for them to work their magic so I could face the rest of the afternoon alone in a house full of stir-crazy children who I was supposed to be helping to "keep the Sabbath."

P.P.S.  I'm sure that I'm now WAY over my weight-watchers point limit today.  (More stress-I might have to eat a few more Twix bars.)

In Common

In Common

President Thomas S. Monson 1927-

Raymond Tracy Monson 1908-2000

Vera Eva Wittwer Hardy 1904-2002

What do these three individuals have in common?  They all share the same birthday-today-August 21st. And.... I am related to all three.  President Monson (My mom's first cousin) was born in 1927 and is 85 years old today.  Grandpa Monson (My mom's dad) was born in 1908 and would have been 104 today, and Grandma Hardy (My dad's mom) was born in 1904 and would have been 108 today. Happy Birthday to my awesome family members!!

P.S. an interesting note:  President Monson always liked his "Uncle Ray" and visited my grandparents often.  He talked about them occasionally in conference talks or other addresses.  He was eleven when my mom was born.  When my grandparents named my mom "Ann,"  he told Uncle Ray and Aunt Tweet that he liked that name, and if he ever had a daughter, he was going to name her "Ann" and then there would be two "Ann Monsons."  He did just that, and now there ARE two "Ann Monsons:"  Ann Monson Hardy and Ann Monson Dibb. 

Home Again, Home Again

 Aw, for two nights I had ALL my children HOME (well sort of-they were out visiting friends etc., but they were in LOGANDALE, and did SLEEP under my roof.) Last week, we picked up Analise from the airport, retrieved Kaylee from BYU in Provo, and Dallin (who is home from Rexburg and living in Henderson) came out for the weekend. The reunion was short lived as Dallin is back in Henderson (but not so far away as Rexburg), and Analise went to Provo for a job interview, but it was great while it lasted.  They all go back to school (Dallin at BYU-I and Analise & Kaylee at BYU in Provo) in a few weeks when school starts in the fall.

Dallin at his summer job working for the scaffolding company BRAND at the airport in Vegas

Analise (far right) at the Sea of Galilee (I may have to edit this-I'm not SURE if this is where this pic was taken. I'll ask when I see her)  She has been studying at the BYU Jerusalem Center since April and just got home on Thursday.

Kaylee (third from the left) with her BYU summer term roomies at the Provo temple for baptisms.