Quitting vs. Letting Go

I've been pondering something lately and I'm curious as to your thoughts. What is the difference between quitting (with its negative connotation) and knowing when to let go (better connotation)? How do you know when there's still something worth fighting for, or when it's smarter/wiser/better to let something go?

Compliments Rock!

When it comes to my church wardrobe, I don't have many options. I have about four skirts right now and three dresses. I've had those four skirts for anywhere from 5-8 years, and the dresses for about 3-5 years. But church clothes are the hardest for me to find and I really don't like to spend much time shopping, anyway, so it's been basically the same combination of outfits for the better part of a decade (hey, I've even had one pair of church shoes since I was 18!).

What does this mean? Well, it means that I need to apologize to anyone and everyone who sees me at church on a semi-consistent basis.

Secondly, you can imagine my joy--and complete and utter shock--when I get a compliment on a dress or skirt. It gets me by for another couple of years. Which may or may not be a good thing.

Sore Legs

On Friday, my sister was planning on swinging by to pick me up so we could pick up Jack from his dad's house and head over to Chuck E Cheese's. She and I talked when she was about 15 minutes away--"Be ready to go in 15 minutes so we're not late picking him up, okay?" I was thinking in my head, Okay, I've still got to walk Kobe, but I should be able to do that in just under 15 minutes and I can get back in change. That'll work. "Cool, I'll be ready!"

So Kobe and I headed to the park and when we were at the street to cross to the park, we saw a car that was having some issues. It was stopped and this young man--maybe a few years younger than I--was standing outside the driver's side of the car, car door open, trying to push the car himself while maneuvering the steering wheel. That plan clearly wasn't working, and I saw him slump back in the car and punch the car's ceiling.

As I'm seeing this unfold, I'm thinking of two seriously competing issues: my sister with her incredible penchant for being on time and utter annoyance if you're not (Mom: "She was running EARLY? Who runs EARLY?!") and that classic story you hear from the pulpit at church. You know, the one where the students of the religion class--I believe it's a religion class on the life of the Savior--head to the classroom to take their final, only to find a note on the door saying the final's going to be administered in another room across campus, and to not be late or they'll be denied the chance to take the final. All of these "obstacles" and "tests" are dotted along the way to the other room, a crying baby, a student who fell off his bike and is injured, etc. Those who stop and help those along the way pass the final; those who don't, fail. (Note: anyone know the source of the story? and even if it's a Mormon myth, it was still going through my head!)

Suffer the wrath of Nicole for being late, or fail this "religion final?" I thought I'd give the latter a whirl, so I offered help if he wanted it, told him I'd tie my dog up to the stop sign ("You can put him in the back seat if you want"), and off I pushed while he tried to steer. Luckily, his car was smallish and we started making some progress. Even more luckily, another saw our plight and stopped to offer pushing the car with his car till we got where we needed to go. Even better! So while we're being pushed, the young man said to me, "Thank you so much for stopping. Maybe 10 cars have passed me in the last few minutes, several of them have passed by several times, and you're the first person to stop." It was at that point that I was grateful for that BYU religion final story that guilted me into this choice. Extremely grateful. Sweet kid. Also, Kobe really liked him, giving him a few big, fat juicy ones on the poor kid's face.

We made it the half mile or so to where he needed to go, and Kobe and I jogged as fast as he'd let me (it was hot!) back to the house. Gratefully, *I* was not the one running late, so I actually got a few minutes to catch my breath before Nicole arrived. But as I caught my breath, I was very grateful for a story (or perhaps a Mormon myth) that circulated enough for it to be running through my head, guilting me into doing the right thing. Hey, sometimes our motives aren't always perfectly pure (guilt or fear versus love), but it's still great when we end up at the same place.

Uh oh!

This is potentially awesome, or potentially awful, depending on how you want to look at it (I see it as the former, but worry it's actually the latter):

My blu-ray updated its software today, and now offers



So movies/TV shows (on DVD) via Netflix, and current TV shows on Hulu? Bring it. I've been re-watching some classic Grey's today since I've been working most of the day. A Saturday. Boo. Thank heavens for software updates on my blu-ray. Yay!

What have you been watching on Netflix/Hulu lately? 

Hmmm.

Is it just me, or does Kirsten Dunst look stoned in pretty much every picture taken of her?

No, seriously.

IT GETS EVEN BETTER

Assuming you've read the blog post about The Testimony, I gathered one more tidbit of information that makes the story all the more fantastic. Wondering if ManyTalents/ExtremelyGifted is as self-involved as we were assuming (and somewhat hoping, now that I'm crossing my fingers for an encore performance when a couple friends are in town for next month's F&T meeting)? We've now got some solid evidence that yes, in fact, he is.

After ManyTalents/ExtremelyGifted sat down, apparently he leaned over to the person next to him and said, "What did you think?"

Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh . . .

Bachlor Pad

Holy cow, these people are so dumb! Which is entertaining for me, but three hours of stupid was a looooooong time. Even with kettlecorn and fun ladies.

Some of my thoughts:

• Trojan elephant
• dysfunctional is a big word
• flies have a mouse
• Vienna is nuts
• Jake is smarmy
• Ames is too good for these people
• The only contribution Vienna has ever made was her classic line about the super-nice Tenley: "She s***s rainbows."
• Michelle's new teeth are similar to Ross's in FRIENDS in the episode with the blacklight
• Blake is a witch-with-a-b-in-a-man's-body
• Michelle is nuts, but in an endearing kind of way. I think she knows exactly what she's doing.

Sacrament Meeting Funnies Part III

Good grief, was today's fast-and-testimony meeting epic or what? Kellie was to my right (RSP, baby!) and kept saying "Oh my gosh," and "I can't take this" in between poking my leg with "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" pokes. Seriously. I hope I can do any of this justice as I recount bits and pieces as best I can. I think only two current ward members have this blog address, so Angel and Aubrey, it's your chance to fill in any details I missed. I beg of you, PLEASE. :)

Like any singles ward (or any ward, for that matter), we have a Top 5--the same five people get up pretty much every month, right? It looks like we'll have a new entry into the Top 5, folks!

A couple people got up . . . nice, short, and sweet. Then this guy gets up--he moved into the ward five weeks ago, apparently--and starts off with how much he's been waiting to bear his testimony in this ward. He's just bursting and has to get it out; he wanted to get up the previous month but "something occurred" so he wasn't able to attend our ward that day.

He then started to talk for maybe five minutes about how he's an IT guy. A salesman. An entrepreneur. He had a company, but then didn't like the direction it was going, so he decided to get a real job as a developer (computer programmer). Now, he'd been told the learning curve was a month. But because he is "very gifted in many areas" he was able to get it down in 2 days. So after those two days, he didn't have much else to do. He'd get in to the office at 6am, have his work done by 9am, and then start asking people in the office if he could help them with their work.

He was brought in and told they were going to let him go. "But why?" "The reasons don't matter; we just need to let you go." "But what takes other people a month, I did in two days." "We need to let you go." Somehow, this lesson turned into a lesson on tithing because he usually just paid tithing once a year after reinvesting any earnings back into his company, but decided to pay his tithing on this one-week paycheck after his mother urged him to "pay your tithing."

So, again, because of his very giftedness in many different areas, he decided to use all the skills he learned in those few days with that company to start two new companies and, within days, he had more work than he could handle--it was so successful. So he's an entrepreneur again. 

He then proceeded to say that he's so busy with work and has slept very, very little recently. So little, in fact, that while on a date with a lady from our ward (whose name he did reveal from the pulpit), he told her he'd slept 5 hours in the previous 48. "Then we should call it a night! You should be home sleeping!" "No, I've had enough."

Yeah, I think we've all had enough. Seriously, it was the biggest kick to look around the congregation and see the looks on folks' faces. Kellie was dying next to me. Sometimes I had to look down at my iPad and focus on SOMETHING just to keep from laughing. The Bishop was trying to hold it together. It was really, really awesome. It was maybe a 12-15 minute testimony on . . . who knows what it was actually on.

Another Top 5-er got up next and Kellie was like, "C'mon, A, bring it back!" You know it's bad when you're asking A of "The Church is run by little, old men" fame (that was in her testimony several months back) to bring the meeting back on track. But she did a great job. Short, sweet, simple, and to the point. Perfect.

Then another guy got up. Another Top 5-er. And, at this point, the guy to my left said, "Oh no. Not this guy." He then proceeded to shake his head incredulously throughout the testimony. It was another long one . . . maybe 10 minutes or so. Unfortunately, I'd completely lost any mental abilities to focus at this point, so I was just reading notes from Fluhman D&C lectures from my BYU days on my iPad. But oh, that first long testimony. I wish you all could have been there so we could compare notes and funny lines from it. It was epic.