Excellence vs. Perfection
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Perfection is being right.

Excellence is being willing to be wrong.
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Perfection is fear.

Excellence is taking a risk
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Perfection is anger and frustration.

Excellence is powerful
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Perfection is control

Excellence is spontaneous
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Perfection is judgement

Excellence is accepting
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Perfection is taking

Excellence is giving
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Perfection is doubt

Excellence is confidence
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Perfection is pressure

Excellence is natural
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Perfection is the destination

Excellence is the journey
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-author unknown

I gave up on perfection a long time ago, but I'm liking this idea of excellence!

Out of the mouths of babes....

Mrs. Archibald is not my forit teacher she is one of my favorot teachers my favorot teacher is my mom but her rill name is Laurie but she is a teacher in primary she is called Mrs. M you see here my Dad he fixis hair and boy he duss such a bad job cass one day it was sunday and we have to wake up at 6:00-7:00 so win it was time to go my sister didn't have her hair dun...and so my mom was geting in the car but she was going to come back in and sow my mom sed to my dad fix her hair so my Dad did it and it looked offle so my mom haded to refixe her hair. THE END

essay written for school assignment by S-January 2008

On this date....

I know that today is NOT Pearl Harbor Day!

American Flag On The USS Arizona War Memorial In Pearl Harbor, Hawaii - January 2007

But December 7th was!

A few weeks ago, the kids and I were driving through town. All the flags were at half-staff (is that what it's called?) My kids know that when the flags are halfway down, this means something is going on that day. J asked my what had happened that day? I told him I had no idea. Then Z says "Mom, it's the day that Japan bombed us. Pearl Harbor Day! Duh!" Wow, PEARL HARBOR DAY! Why is this date not on my calendar? As a mother who "used" to homeschool, this was the kind of teaching opportunity that I would normally have taken advantage of, except I didn't know enough about it to even sound somewhat intelligent. Basically, I knew exactly what Z had just said, it was the day that many people lost their lives. Kind of as big of a deal as 9/11 is. If I want my children to be proud of our country and the freedoms that we enjoy, maybe I should be aware of some of these important dates. So today I found this cool web site Earth Calendar

Guess what today is?

Religious Freedom Day!

Each year, the President declares January 16th to be Religious Freedom Day, and calls upon Americans to "observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship." The day is the anniversary of the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.

Kind of seems like a day worth celebrating!

(I think this date should be on my calendar also!)
There's even a study guide you can download and use. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Passing on some Blog Awards

I don't know how most of you feel about blog awards but I love them. It sure is fun when someone gives you one and I love to read who others pass them on to. So Thank-you Magirk at Laughadaisy for this very kind award.

You made my whole day! And, Magirk, I love your blog too and getting to know you so I'm glad that we are new virtual friends!

Now I get to pass it along. I want to pass it on to Jenna at Momville, Angie at My 7 Kids and Rachelle at Price Family Happenings. These are 3 of my friends from when my husband was attending BYU almost 10 years ago. We all lived in the same ward in Student Family Housing and to make it even more personal, Angie and I shared the same walls. She lived right across from us. Jenna lived at the bottom of our stairwell so we knew basically EVERYTHING about what each other was doing. Rachelle lived a little farther away in the next building so she had a little more privacy from the 3 of us but not that much privacy! Good times! I loved them then and bloggin has been so much fun for me to reconnect with them and their families so because of that their blogs truely are treasures to me!

Also a few months ago, Holly at 2 Kids and Tired gave me this award. I got caught up in the holidays and didn't get it passed on so I'll do that now also. This was fun to get this from Holly because she is one of the first friends I met through blogging and I think of her as a very close friend, all through blogging. Thanks BFF Holly!

Now, I'm going to pass this award on to Cindy at 4 for Me, Nicole at Janibraska's Daily Treasures and Ashley at 3 Little Princessess I "met" these 3 when I first started blogging and over the last few months I feel like they have become my BFF's! I love to keep up on their lives and I find myself worrying about them when they don't post and very excited when they do.

I really love this world of blogging! It's a fun way to keep up with old friends and a great way to meet new friends. So thank you to all of you who stop by and read and comment....or not comment. You all make me feel loved!

It's late....Not tired....What to do? BLOG!!!!

I am a sunbeam teacher. This means I teach the 3 year olds. I have 5 children in my class that come regularly. I am a mother to 6 children of my own and 4 of them are older than 3 so teaching this class should be a piece of cake, right? Today was my second day teaching this class. Today was also the second day that they "kicked my butt!" (Sorry Mom about the language!)
I came home from church at 12:30, changed out of my church clothes back into my pajamas, ate a slice of leftover pizza, climbed back into bed and slept for 4 HOURS! Got up with a bigger headache than when I laid down, fixed my family chocolate cake and ice cream for dinner, and then called my dear friend in the Primary Presidency and cried in her ear for the next 2 hours. I have a new plan of attack! It involves a rope, food, and a big smile! I will not be defeated....yet!

I wanted to share a little update on my "procedure" last week. The diagnosis: NOT Cancer! I have 25 cm of raw colon (sorry this is a little gross) which explains the severe bleeding. I am experimenting with some meds to find what will work and I am suppose to eliminate ALL stress from my life. Sure...Bring on the Prozac!!!

(I wanted to share a picture with this story so I went into Google and typed in "picture of stress". I found this little stress test. It's called:

THE CATTLEMAN'S STRESS TEST

The Stress-Test consists of viewing a photo of 2 Dolphins...

-The dolphins appear to be nearly identical when viewed by stress-free individuals. The test is not sufficiently accurate to detect mild stress differentials, but is very accurate on individuals with higher stress-levels.
-Deviations in appearance between the 2 dolphins are indicators of potential stress-related problems and the deviations, if any, may also indicate the source of stress.
-If you experience significant deviations, you may want to consider taking things a little easier...

Here's the image... Ha! Ha! Dad, this one was for you! How's your stress level today?)

And "Once there was a snowman tall,tall, tall?"

On Saturday, A went to a birthday party. In order to stop feeling sorry for herself because she was not invited, S went outside to play in the snow with the little neighbor girl. S came in a about an hour later, very excited about the snowman that they had built. She was very insistent that I needed to come right away and see it. She had been gone a while so I was expecting...a snowman. J was sitting at the table laughing to himself. He said, "Oh, you're going out to see Sludge." I asked him what he meant by that and he said, "It's just a pile of sludge." S was very offended by his comment. I told him to be nice. I told him I was sure that the snowman was great and "sludge" was kind of a harsh word to use on something that his sister had worked so hard on. He just continued to laugh to himself. I opened the back door and there was....

Sludge!

I think he's the cutest pile of "sludge" ever!

Cool Tip!

I just found this fun way to put a signature at the bottom of my posts. I'm checking it out to see if it works. It looks like it does. YEAH!!!!!

If you want your own signature, this is how I did it. I went to the webpage http://www.mylivesignature.com/
I clicked on the Don't want to register PROCEED button. I chose the first one, create a new signature, then the first one again, using the signature creation wizard. From there I just followed each step until I got to the Finished page. I clicked on Want to use this signature? I then clicked on generate HTML code, them the top choice, generate a choice for my handwritten signature. Then I copied the html code.

From there I came back over to my blog page, went into the settings page, then formatting. At the bottom of that page it says POST TEMPLATE. In that box paste your html code and (drum roll.....) Ta-Da! Your signature will automatically be in your post box when you are ready to post.

For all of you who already knew how to do this, SORRY! But I just get so excited when I figure something new out all on my own, I just want to share it with EVERYBODY!!!!!

So, go get your custom signatures!

I'm doing the Friday Dance...Calvin and Hobbs style!

Comment Graphics at pYzam.com

These two seem so intense in their little dance but that's sort of how this past week has gone. Bring on the weekend! I'm ready!