*If you haven’t read the two posts before this, now’s the time.

After spending most of the day lamenting to My People about the harsh side effects of holding a calling and working with women in general, I have had a moment of clarity. It came while I was wiping Junie’s bum. 

This is the thing. Right or wrong, these things happen for a reason. I am so grateful for all your comments, but especially Pat’s. Pat reminded me that forgiveness is a skill and we either use it or lose it.

In all honesty, if I had to choose an exercise in forgiveness, this would be it. No one stole my house or kicked my kid, I still have food to eat and friends who use Verizon to talk to. I’m blessed, it can’t be denied. 

We all have room to improve, and there is no doubt in my mind that while her methods were insensitive and not particularly well thought out, I could certainly be a better teacher. Besides, like my mother reminds me, we’ve all done something like this to someone at one time or another. And if you haven’t, I promise that you someday will. 

While I was changing Junie’s diaper this evening, I was internally monologuing about the bitterness this situation has brought with it. In one of my rare moments of silence (because I seriously don’t stop EVER), I heard the still small voice tell me, clear as a bell, “Look, you have a choice here. You can be bitter, or you can be better. Which one is it?” 

So I choose to be better. To be better at teaching, to be better at forgiving, to be slower to take offense and more careful with my own communication methods (because Heaven forbid I ever do this to anyone). 

And to my loyal friends who aren’t ready to forgive her on my behalf, and have friends in low places (Tanya), I’ll be happy to pass her address on to your sources. But you didn’t get it from me.

My Relief Society president just called. She wants to come and see me. Right now. 

I feel like I’ve been sent to the principal’s office. My stomach is a mess, that brocoli I ate with dinner? Not such a good idea. I have absolutely no idea what I’ve done, but I’m sure I stuck my foot in it somewhere. It can’t be a routine visit since we just had Visiting Teaching interviews two weeks ago. It can’t be a new calling since that’s not really her job. 

I’ve been racking my brain to think of all the possible offensive scenarios I’ve been entangled with lately. Too many to count. Perhaps it was something I said during my lesson last week. Or maybe my skirt was too short today (something I am guilty of on occasion…a little flash of snow in the south of France doesn’t really bother me).

I have no email to check, no blogs I want to read, no husband to lament to, and kids who are already tucked in bed. How do I kill time before that notorious knock rattles my door frame? 

Uh oh, there she is. Please, don’t add to my visiting teaching route…

I think Black Friday is a hoax.

I went out yesterday, dragging the baby and my sorry bloated self out of bed at an unreasonable hour to see what I could see. What did I see? 50% off. I’m sorry, but if I’m going to get up early on a holiday weekend and brave the cloud of morning breath wafting through the aisles, I expect at least 70% from Mervyn’s (who is going out of business anyway). I got nuttin’ for Christmas yesterday.

The only people who seemed to be getting a screaming deal on anything yesterday were the men. If you want something electronic, rising early seems to bring big, wide screen worms. But why should the stores reward all those men on the ONE DAY A YEAR they shop?

Here we are, killing ourselves off month in and month out to keep their clearance racks thinned, and on the most exciting shopping day of the year who gets the treats? Our husbands. Who are out shopping for themselves. It’s so very, very wrong. 

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t find anything yesterday since I couldn’t have paid for it anyway. But I did accomplish one fantastic thing: I signed a 6-month lease at The Quilted Bear in Ogden to sell the 233 Twilight T-shirts that have been taking up space in my dining room for the past week. Don’t ask me what T-shirts I’ll sell once they’re gone, I never want to see another piece of Twilight merchandise as long as I live. 

If you could sell any T-shirts to women at a craft store, what would you suggest? Seriously? What would you buy? 

Let me know. And here’s a secret: if the Twilight shirts don’t sell, I’m slashing the prices Wednesday. Shhh, don’t tell your friends.

On this special day of thanks, I feel compelled to express gratitude for a very important person in my life. Hugh Jackman. 

Ho. Ly. Crap. We went and saw Australia tonight. I think it was about Australia or something, but mostly it was about Hugh Jackman. Hot Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman with his shirt off. Hugh Jackman riding his horse. Hugh Jackman sweating. 

I am grateful for Hugh Jackman. 

The movie is epic and long and I think my salivary glands are exhausted from all the drooling they did during the three plus hours of Hugh Jackman and stadium seating. I can’t seem to stop saying his name.

Seriously though, it’s worth the $8.50 to see it on the big screen (clarification: to see Hugh Jackman on the big screen). It’s really like three movies all rolled into one. Imagine seeing Indiana raid the arc, visit the temple, go on the last crusade, then decide he really wasn’t done and find aliens, all in one night. Kind of exhausting. And exhilarating. Hugh Jackman stars in it.

I would also like to thank People Magazine for appropriately naming Hugh Jackman the sexiest person in the universe (next to Jason, whom they would have named sexiest human had they known of his existence. He has to keep a low profile, you know, secret agent stuff).

Do you think Jason would mind if I got a poster of Hugh Jackman for our bedroom?

Our house is a war zone. Two boys = a continual stream of kung fu/ninja/boxing/WWF moves that rotate from room to room, depending on where I am sitting (since they follow me everywhere). Sometimes I think these antics are aimed at squishing my little June Bug since she’s often on the bottom of the pile. It’s a good thing she’s practically made of rubber, otherwise she’d never make it. 

Tonight I heard her whimpering from under someone’s elbow and realized she might not survive this time. I yelled frantically at the boys to move. This was casually ignored. I am starting to realize that mother’s instructions are often confused with “white noise”. The match continued and I began to worry that my only daughter might actually die. 

I finally snapped, put down my book, and peeled the boys off of her, swatting both bums on the way. Harrison took this personally–he was pretty ticked off that I’d dare spank him now that he’s five. I composed myself and tried to hug him. It was like hugging a shrieking cactus. He was mad and yelling and Rex came running to his defense. 

Rex got right in my face and said, “Hey, he’s a good guy, Mama! He’s a good guy!” What can I say? They’ve got each other’s backs.

And FYI: My eleven-month-old daughter loves necklaces. She knows how to put them on and has been wearing them for the last week. I don’t think my boys even know what necklaces are for, since I’ve seen the boys use them as whips, jump ropes (not successfully), and belts.

I love having a girl, she’s totally worth protecting.

Has anyone else noticed that the random, impossible to replicate, groupings of letters at Comment Checkout have finally changed over to random, easy to type, non-words? Who was the mastermind behind this apparent blogger revolution? Shake their hand and buy them a new keyboard, that’s what I’d like to do.

Those letters were always keeping me from commenting, even on the wittiest blog entries. I’d write some fantastic reply and then get hit with “zpqxscvxksm8s#2$%#&”. Um, not. 

You know, it’s almost like the new checkout letter phrases on Google are real words. “Cainurl” and “trivrask” sound like they belong somewhere. Maybe it’s a secret language. A conspiracy, and the only way to learn the language is to comment on blogs (like this one) all the time, taking careful note of the new world wide order words you run across. 

Only people who leave lots of comments can gather all the new code words to unlock the secret language of the future. 

You’d better leave a comment, I’d feel terrible if we left you behind.

Harrison has discovered that prayer is his new secret weapon.

Two days ago we lost the remote. He and I probably searched for a solid ten obnoxious minutes before he pipes up and says, “Hey I know! Let’s say a prayer!” We hit our knees then and there, in the middle of the living room floor. 

With all the faith and fervor of a hopeful five-year-old, he asked that we could please find the remote so he could watch Kung-Fu Panda (because we know Heavenly Father wouldn’t want him to miss that). He finished his prayer with a resounding “amen” and we opened our eyes. Would you believe that as I lifted my head I was staring directly at the remote?

The next day he realized he’d misplaced both his Indiana Jones whips. Since he can’t watch the movie without being in full head dress (he makes me draw chest hair on him all the time), this was a serious problem. He very quickly decided that this whole prayer thing works, and again, hit his knees. Ten minutes later, he had both whips in his faithful little hands.

Last night before going to bed, Rexy lost his swan. Swan is really a very tiny goose, about the size of a walnut, that he takes with him everywhere (along with elephant and giraffe). Swan is always falling into cracks and crevices, and while reading bedtime books I heard Rex drop Swan behind the bed. We got down and looked and looked, but Swan was nowhere to be found. 

You know how it played out. Harrison was thrilled to hear that Swan was missing because it meant he could exercise his incredible new-found faith. We all knelt, Harry prayed, and within seven seconds Swan was back in Rexy’s hot little hands.

Would you like to know the significance of these three little prayers? Harrison got in trouble at school yesterday for spitting. He was pretty upset about it, especially after I made him apologize to his teacher after school.

As he knelt to pray this morning, I heard him pour his little five-year-old soul out to Heavenly father, asking that he could listen and not talk at school and be good for the teacher and be a better boy and be kind and learn to keep the commandments and get a new Kung Fu Panda costume. 

Watching my boy discover, on his own, the power of prayer, and then seeing him apply it is possibly one of the highlights of my entire life. Harrison is proof that God is involved in the details of our lives. Nothing is insignificant to Him if it matters to us. 

Except perhaps Kung Fu Panda. Don’t see how He’ll make good on that one without a little help from me.

And it’s kind of freaking me out. Take your mouse and click (pick) my nose, over there, on the right, to read this week’s column.

And then like, ten thousand more for total vampire hotness. The Twilight movie rocked. And I have to tell you, I was almost glad I didn’t have a human to come home to afterwards, I think I might have been disappointed with all his humanness. I am a Jacob fan, but ladies, Edward is so indescribably hot in this movie, I couldn’t keep the cat calls from flying out of my mouth (sorry to all the quiet 16 year olds sitting around me).

Now for the real news: the T-shirts.

300 T-shirts is a crap load of merchandise. And I have this problem. I’m not the type of salesman who can sit around and wait, selling T-shirts to strangers as they approach me/line up (I wish). I feel connected with every single person who wants to buy a shirt from me and therefore am compelled to immediately swap life stories and make them one of my best friends. This takes time and doesn’t help with the sales much.

But.

We all know about my rocking door-kicking angels, right? How I kind of am the luckiest person on the entire planet? Let me tell you, I have the coolest angelic groupies in the entire universe. I don’t know if they check my blog, but just in case I totally need to give them props and eternal love right now.

While I was selling my T-shirts (I sold them at the Cinnemark in Layton because there wasn’t a line at Tinseltown –  AND I DIDN’T SEE ANY OF YOU) up and down the waiting line, I kept meeting groups of girls that I really liked. So I was talking to this group of teachers, telling them about Jason and how hot and wonderful he is and how long I’ve been alone with the kidlets. I then told them that I’m trying to sell enough T-shirts to pay for our Disney World tickets (the rest of our trip is already taken care of) so he wouldn’t have to worry about them. 

Suddenly this girl behind me, who I’d just sold shirts to, pipes up and says–are you ready for this?– “I can get you free tickets to Disney World, I work there.”

Free tickets? Yes. To Disney World? Yes. Hopper Passes for an entire week? Yes. Four free Disney World Hopper Passes tickets for an entire week? Yes Yes Yes. 

How can I describe my feelings? It was like all my hours and hours alone, all the stress and anxiety of trying to contribute to our financial welfare, all the disappointment from my T-shirt guy’s website crashing and being unavailable to process orders during the 48 hours after Good Things Utah (hence hardly any sales), the piles and piles of stupid Twilight T-shirts taking up four seats in my vehicle…in that moment I knew that I was not alone, nor was I forgotten. Heavenly Father has heard every prayer, both uttered and silent, and He loves me. 

So I kind of bawled a little, got her info and gave her mine, and went on my way. 

Am I still up to my eyeballs in T-shirts? Yes. Do I still owe my T-shirt guy a few thousand dollars? Yes. But people are buying them and they will all sell, I have no doubt. 

So, if you need to order any shirts from now on, please email me at regardingannie@gmail.com. I’ll take order payments through Pay Pal and send you a shirt myself, because I need to move my stock. I’ll update my blog with the inventory I’ve got ASAP. 

And if you’re in Layton or anywhere near it, I’ll be the crazy lady with the red wagon and silver Sequoia selling T-shirts tonight around the mall/movie theaters. Look for me at the Cinneplex (or whatever it’s called) front parking lot. I’m loud, I’m blond, and I’d love to meet you. I’ll be there by 5pm.

And tell every friend in the universe to bring $15 bucks. PLEASE visit my website stupidtwilighttshirts.com and check out my inventory. Live in Davis County? Pick them up from me.

I have gone completely insane.

Okay, so my T-shirt sales haven’t been so great (even though people claim to love them) and I’ve had this goal of making enough money to pay for both my trip to Georgia, and if possible, tickets for Disney World in December when we go get Jason.

In a desperate moment of idiot craziness, I decided to throw caution to the wind and BUY 300 shirts to sell this weekend. On the streets. With my red wagon. 

I am an idiot. 

So here I am, with no one to watch the children tonight since every elligible female and her mother will be at the midnight showing of Twilight, and a crap load of super duper cute T-shirts. I’d love to go to the blog meet and greet tomorrow in Sandy, but unfortunately I’ve sold my soul to the T-shirt devil and will be peddling my wares until my wagon falls appart or I keel over spent and exhausted from shouting things like, “Get your STUPID Twilight T-shirts here!” and “Please buy my STUPID T-shirts so I can feed my family!” and “Get them while they’re hot, I’ve only got 287 left!”

So if you are at the Layton Hills Mall this evening and see me wandering aimlessly around with my red wagon, please make a big scene and pretend like you think my shirts are The Bomb. Hey, I’ll reserve one for you.