Mar 19 07

March 19, 2007

Simple day today. Robert went golfing in Snowflake with his friend, Steve. That left me alone in Cibecue to catch up a little. Robert was gone from 8:00 to almost 7:00. He wasn’t golfing all that time. I couldn’t let him go up the road without a few errands on his list, including buying some fleece for a project I want to do in Relief Society this week. He did a great job. The fleece is adorable. However, I think he looked pitiful and got the good ladies at Wal-Mart to give him a little assistance.

While he was gone I made some cookies so I could have them for Sunday. We’re going to do a dinner after fast meeting, hopefully making this a continuing tradition. We’d like it to be a true potluck, but this time Pres Bonito wants it a little planned. So I thought I’d make cookies. I had this recipe called “Monster Cookies” I’ve been curious to try, so today was the day. The recipe said it would make 12 dozen cookies and it was not lying. I spent 4 hours baking cookies. The recipe calls for 1 dozen eggs, 2 lbs brown sugar, 18 cups of oatmeal, etc. So now we have many cookies, many, many cookies. Thanks heavens the Elders will be here soon.

I also did some scrapbooking, which is always good for my mental health.

Robert’s first spring golf score was 37, which was par for the last 9 holes at the Snowflake Temple Course. Maybe it was because he was golfing right behind the Temple President. Robert claims temple work can be done on the golf course now. He had 43 on the first 9, so his total score was 80. Not too bad for the first time out. Steve is a mediocre golfer at best. Fortunately, he’s a dear sweet man who is not intimidated by Dad’s good score.

We have had so much fun with out family this past little while that we’re having a hard time getting focused on our missionary work again. We’ve come up with a little project that we’re asking all of you to help us with. On the Today Show a while ago, which is pretty much my only form of education lately, they talked about a program that encourages us not to complain. They’re even doing it with school children. The idea is that you put an elastic band on your wrist and if you complain about anything you move the band to the other wrist. The goal is to go 30 days without complaining. Now Robert and I know ourselves pretty well, and that’s a bit unrealistic for us. So we adapted the program a bit. We’re doing the elastic thing, but if we complain we move it to the other wrist, then have 1 hour to move it back. If we go an hour without complaining we get to have it on the good wrist again. If within that hour we complain again, then we’re done for the day and have to start over again.

We’re inviting you to try the program with us. It would be fun to have your support. Robert will send successful 30-day completers a $50 check. (I just said, hey, you’re pretty generous with my money, and he replied he doesn’t think anyone can do it. Now there’s a challenge!) The reward requires some verification from another person, not that we question your honesty, but…well, whatever. Robert says that in the mouths of two or three witnesses are all things known. Also, we spent some time defining what constitutes a complaint. Since Robert is generally a bit more optimistic than I am, I felt this was definitely necessary. A statement of fact, such as I have a headache, is not a complaint. However, this stupid place out here gives me a headache is classified as a complaint.

How about it? Sound fun? Let us know what you think. The challenge starts Saturday, March 24, so do a lot of complaining all week and get it out of your system.

Now here’s a statement of fact, not a complaint. Our allergies have been awful out here. We started on Wednesday, March 7, when we went up to Snowflake to get Temple Clothes. It hit both of us when we went to lunch at Wilcock’s and has been miserable ever since. Sharon says Arizona is famous for bad allergies and that has certainly been our experience.