Blast from the past!

Last night I decided that I would try my culinary skills and invest in some time and effort in educating my children on the finer things of life. I searched my cookbooks, wrote down ingredients, went to the grocery store, searched the Internet on how to cook said ingredients, and then placed the delicacies in front of my children with a hopeful expression on my face. What could be better than pureed, butternut squash. Yummmy!!!!

Oh, this was going to be good. I could hardly wait for them to scoop the smooth, creamy, yellow vegetable into their watering mouths. The look of shear delight that would beam across their angelic faces as they let the flavors soak into their taste buds. The sounds of satisfaction with this new found taste as they would be asking for more. The suspense was almost killing me, but the anticipation was worth it.

But alas, my bubble was shattered. No looks of enjoyment from their beautiful faces. No ooohs and aaaahhhs as the flavors danced across their tongues. No jumping in line to get more. No praises for the efforts of their bedraggled mother. My ears were assaulted with gagging sounds. And then there were watering eyes, dry heaves, pinched noses, exclamations of disgust, and "Oh, Mom, this is so gross."

At last!!!! I have reached true motherhood. I went, I struggled, and I conquered. I feel true release from all the pain and suffering I felt as a child. I have reached a pinnacle of true bliss. No mother can truly feel the joy of laughing at their children's expense without having suffered first themselves. I feel I have passed on a legacy. From mother, to daughter, and then onto child. The cycle will continue. And . . . . I . . . . have come out the winner!!!! Oh, words cannot explain the deep satisfaction of knowing I have given my children an experience they will never forget. And, here I will now allow myself a cruel chuckle. Bring on the liver -- I can hardly wait!!!!

Remember, keep it simple!!

Do you ever hear the phrases, "You are making things too complicated. Keep it simple."?? How many times have we fretted over a problem or situation only to have a simple solution presented by a third party? Last night was such an occasion.

I love math. It is straight forward, black and white, there is always a solution, and numbers do not lie -- until I went to BYU and learned about imaginary numbers and my world fell apart. But I digress.

Shania was working on finding functions for plotted points on a graph. The short of it is, if you have a number in the y-axis and a number in the x-axis, by finding the function you can find any number on either axis. Sounds simple, right? Actually, it is and I usually have a good time at it.

So, here we were with a bunch of numbers for "y" and a bunch of numbers for "x". Shania and I worked those numbers in so many different ways we were going crazy. After we tried multiplying, dividing, using fractions, exponents, and trying everything again, I finally told her we needed to call her teacher because we were definitely missing something and I was sure it was something simple.

Well, the telephone call was made and as it turns out, it was a simple subtraction problem. It was so simple. I can't wait to see her teacher today and have a good laugh over that one.

Simplicity -- life is simple, the gospel of Jesus Christ is simple, the simplest and easiest route is usually the quickest, problems broken down into simpler situations are easier -- simplicity.

Okay, so now I have to get my butt off this chair, go take a shower, finish getting dinner ready for this evening, finish my telephone calls for church, exercise, finish the laundry, go through my "to-do" list for today which I'm sure includes cleaning of house, get kids' uniforms and everything ready for soccer tonight, pick up kids, have piano lessons, do homework and reading with kids, and . . . . Did I forget anything? Simple!!!!