Ugly Betty Strikes Again

No, this kid isn't Ugly Betty, but his team has had 2 monster Betty's this week. They lost to Viewmont, best team in Region 2, in a bit of a blowout on Tuesday night. The first time they played Viewmont, they lost by just a few in 3 OT's, but this time it was a little one-sided and they struggled to ever get anything going. Tonight, they lost to Taylorsville, the worst team in Region 2. Taylorsville was up for them and played well. Hunter had about 2000 turnovers and again, just couldn't get it going. There were 10 point leads for both teams at different times and when the buzzer rang, Hunter lost. Blame it on poor coaching, gimmicky lineups, senior night for the opponent, no offense, little defense, not enought playing time by #44, etc. . . . I don't know. They shouldn't have lost.

Here are the current region standings after tonight:

8-0 Viewmont

5-3 Hunter

4-4 West

3-5 Kearns

2-6 Taylorsville

2-6 Granger

So what about that kid in the picture . . . he got his letterman's jacket the other night and thinks he's pretty cool. He got asked to the Sweetheart's Dance. He didn't want to go with the particular girl who asked him. His mother would have made sure he did go and that he was a good boy about it, unfortunately the dance was tonight - Friday - and he sort of had a prior basketball committment. He wrote a note to the girl to politely decline.

In other news, just in case you think this kid is really cool and all of this is going to his head, he's still just a dorky 17 year old boy. The other night he was at our kitchen table doing hard math problems and . . . well . . . he's weird. He comes dressed in monochromatic non-matching gray sweats and sweatshirt. He disappears for a time (I was still strying to get Molly out of the bath when he first got there) and I find him laying on the floor of my room. While doing the assignment he decides to take off his socks and tried to hand them to me. He also kept rubbing his belly like it was for good luck or something. I told him to knock it off and he just laughed at me. His math teacher's husband is almost blind and she knows about mountains because she went to Hawaii. One of the kids on his team has terrible body odor and another one asked him the other day if his middle name was Judy. He skipped mutual because they were having a dance. He went last week because they played dodgeball.

Point of this blog post . . . I don't know.

Hair Success

It's Sunday. My aunt Karen lent us a different type of curling iron and told us to try it. I gave Molly her toothbrush and ipod to distract her and . . . miss blue eyes has some beautiful curls!

Not another "Trials" Lesson

I missed most of Sunday School today because I was hanging out in the nursery with Molly, but I did sit through all of relief society. The lesson: TRIALS. I don't like this lesson. It's always a downer.

Some of the discussion questions included:

Can you tell me of an experience when you overcame a trial?

Why does God give us trials?

What do you do while you are in the middle of a trial to continue having faith?

It might be that I just don't like the word, "trial." Instead, I have issues, occasionally problems, stressful situations, days, or months. Sometimes life is sucky and sometimes it is good. You just deal with it! Now, I am far from perfect and can complain with the best of you (unfortunately it is usually to my poor mother, since she's the only one who will listen to me most of the time). I've had my fair share of not dealing with things well. But, I don't think I have ever thought, "Oh this is a trial." I don't mean to discredit tragedies or terrible events that happen to people, but even the big things can be dealt with.

This is just life! We make choices and things happen. Sometimes things happen beyond any choice we've made. Sometimes we're lucky and blessed with wonderful things and sometimes were blessed with pain-in-the-butt things. It all evens out in the end and we just need to keep on pluggin'.

*********

Words of Wisdom I thought of during the lesson today that I've probably heard from my mom or my grandma:

• Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you just get rained out.
• If you're not happy, fake it, and eventually you will be.
• Whenever you start thinking about your life being bad, there is always someone who is worse off than you.
• It's not your problems that define you, but how you deal with them.

• Hymn "Have I Done Any Good in the World Today . . . If Not I Have Failed Indeed."
• President Hinckley quote when feeling sorry for yourself, "Forget yourself and go to work."

Hair

It's time for a more light-hearted post.

Molly's hair is so thin and so fine I'm not sure what to do with it. I've tried to curl it with a curling iron before, but "hot mamma," "hot mamma," "hoooooooot mamma" prevails and she won't let me use it (or get it within 5 inches of her head). This is our second attempt at spongey curlers. Our church isn't until 1:00 p.m. now, so that gives us a few hours between bath time and church time to experiment. During the first attempt I had 1 in before it got pulled out and I never could get it back in. Today she left them in for probably 45 minutes . . . sort of. It was more like she

pulled them out and I put them back in for that long. The effect was pretty good. There was a little bit of curl. But alas, it only lasted a short time and by the time the bus left for church it was straight as straight again.

Oh well. Maybe next week.

We try pig tails every once in a while. We try pretty bows. Mostly, though it just gets parted to the side with a barrette. It's probably time to trim her bangs again, too, but that has potential for great adventure. We both have to be in just the right mood to do it.

If anyone out there has any hints on how to comb little girl hair, I'm open for suggestions (especially suggestions that survive car seats and rolling on the floor).

Political Rant

Politics make my blood pressure rise like bad basketball does. This really irritated me today, so it goes on the blog. Topic: Mitt Romney. Reason: He's a Mormon, so I'm supposed to believe he is honest, has integrity, is a good member of the Church and should have my automatic vote, right? Wrong. I don't like the guy. If he were in my ward, I'd think he was a pretentious weirdo who I wouldn't want anything to do with.

Watch this video. It is supposedly from a campaign stop in South Carolina. Here is the text if you'd like to follow along.

MAN: “What will you do to support the 99 percent seeing as how you are part of the one percent?”

ROMNEY: “Let me tell you something. America is a great nation because we’re united. And those who’re trying to divide the nation, as you’re trying to do here and as our president’s doing, are hurting this country seriously. The right course for America is not to divide America and try to divide us between one and another; it’s to come together as a nation. And if you’ve got a better model – if you think China’s better, or Russia’s better, or Cuba’s better, or North Korea’s better – I’m glad to hear all about it. America’s right and you’re wrong.”

Ok, now here is my political rant:

1) I think this may have been staged to make Mitt look like "Mr.-Patriotic-America-is-the-Greatest-and-as-President-I-will-not-waiver-from-that-ideal."

2) I think that perhaps the clip is taken out of context and there was more to what the man in the crowd said than was put on the video.

3) Maybe it wasn't staged. Maybe this is another example of Mitt pitching a fit. (Do you remember the Olympics traffic debacle? ) If so, here are my talking points:

A) In true politician style, he refuses to actually answer the man's question.

B) I'm not into the whole "We are the 99% thing," and as much as the Warren Buffet/Obama plan to have the wealthy in American be taxed higher to bail out our failing economy, sounded like an alright idea, I don't see anything wrong with wealthy people in the U.S. keeping their own money and doing what they please with it. I would hope that most extremely wealthy people would find ways to be generous and give back, but I don't think it should be a government mandate to do so. With that said, though, a person running for public office with intent to represent 100% of the population, should try to be a bit more understanding and sincere about helping those unlike himself.

C) We live in a nation where we have a protected right to question our government and challenge what we don't think is good and fair. If you don't respect that, can't answer a question that challenges your own beliefs, or look at both sides of an issue, you shouldn't be holding a public office. Since when does questioning your political leaders (or potential political leaders) make you un-American and make you "wrong."

D) Who is voting for this guy? He is so far removed from any sort of normal life. He's born to American aristocracy and has been groomed to be a politician. What does he know about "average" people? It's an honest question, "How are you going to help the people of the United States who aren't as well -off as you?"

E) Finally, for anyone who is still reading this, what in the world was Mr. Romney doing dropping the names of current and former communist countries? He's saying, "you better not challenge me or you must be a communist?" Duh! What is your problem. "I'm right. You're wrong. I'm 10 and going home to tell my mom that you don't like me." He was simply rude. He said flat out that the person was wrong and his opinion was not worth listening to. Who wants to be led by someone like that?

This is the problem with our country today. Any decent, smart, rational person who might actually have the ideas and know-how to get things done in our country is too decent, smart, and rational to get within 10 feet of politics, political offices, or guys like Mitt Romney.

Nice Mormon guy? Sure. Future president? I hope not.