Working on the weekend sucks.

I brought home a pile of work this weekend, something I hate doing, but the thought of doing it during the daytime next week in addition to creating payment applications for our clients was unthinkable.

Here's the gist of what my work entails today...

Take 1.5 inch high stack of copies of last month's invoices from subcontractors and suppliers and sort them by job.

Take job invoices and sort alphabetically by sub and supplier.

Track sub invoices and track their subcontracts to make sure they haven't overcharged.

Track change orders.

My work described in a word? BORING.

I know it's almost Halloween, but COME ON!

I'm standing in my bathroom, curling my hair this morning, when my son comes to me and says, "I just killed a black widow in the garage. See?"

I almost burned my head whipping around to look at him holding a jar lid with a curled up black widow in it. Spiders give me the willies. Seriously. Ask me sometime about my episode in the shower... But the POISONOUS ones? They really REALLY give me the creeps. I took the lid from J. in morbid fascination, and used a credit card to turn her over to see the infamous red hourglass. Of course, the only thing that could possibly happen did, since I was obviously in the middle of a terrible nightmare: two legs uncurled and twitched in a horror scene of epic proportions. I can't believe I didn't drop the lid as I screamed!

We dropped her in a jar so my husband could see. Today at my son's school they are having a fundraiser where they can pay a dollar and wear a hat all day. My son, being the class clown that he is, went to the garage to find some funky hats from my husband's collection we keep in a cabinet in there. The scary part is the spider had its home among the hats on the bottom shelf, and my son said he saw a big black spider, so he knocked it out onto the floor of the garage, and he caught it on the floor by one leg, and it was trying to escape, and my son hit it with a metal thing to kill it (HE THOUGHT!) and he grabbed a lid from the jar of nails, so he could bring it to me.

I've lived in this house almost 5 years and this is our first black widow.

Now, I have a greater appreciation for Jazzy's horror. She moved to Oregon, and in their new home they killed 5 black widows within the first month.

I'll never sleep the same again!

Film Noir SML

Well, tomorrow marks another milestone for me at work: My 7 year anniversary of working here. Seven glorious years working alone in an office, doing books and lovin' it. Or something like that.

(Insert wavy flashback lines)
FLASHBACK of Two Years Ago, filmed in black & white...

*Scene begins with sillouette of someone outside office door, visible through the glass*

Cue VOICE, film noir style...

"Monday morning hit me harder than yesterday's salami on rye." (SML enters shadowed office, wearing high heels, taking off trench coat and hat, turning on the radio, sitting down at computer)

"News on the radio can't be any worse than this sludge they call coffee." (SML begins typing)

"It was just like any other day. Same old story, same old line. The days had a way of blending together like the sea of faces rolling past me through the smoke at the club last night."

(Large black rotary phone on desk rings. SML picks up, says hello, nods...after a few moments she pulls receiver away from her ear, looks at it with confusion, and slowly hangs up)

"Something wasn't quite right. I knew it as much as I knew Bush shouldn't be president. My boss never called this early. His 'Good morning!' sounded too happy, too intimate, too personal. What did it mean? I wouldn't have to wait long for the anser."

(SML picks up folder labeled TIME CARDS and opens it. She suddenly stands up with paper in one hand and check in the other, a look of shock on her face)

"I had never been hit with something like this. My heart was racing faster than the news that Brittney Spears' boobs aren't real. Here was a check, made out to me, in the amount of one thousand dollars."

(Cue Dramatic Organ Music, one note, lasting five seconds. SML looks away from so many zeroes to read note)

"SML -

This check is our thanks for five years of hard work for our company. Your dedication is a key factor to the continued success of (our company.) Keep up the great work! Thank you!

(The Boss)"

(SML sits down slowly, shock still on her face)

"Either I was halucinating or my ship had just come in. I needed to make a few calls to see if hell had in fact frozen over. My mind raced with immediate thoughts of how and where I was going to spend the money. This was the answer to my prayers! I could buy all the art supplies I needed to fund my secret habit. I could finally take that trip to Austria I'd been dreaming of for ten years. Or I could be nice and plan a real vacation with my family for the first time. The possibilities roared through my brain like the wrath of God."

(SML looks up, right at the camera, lips open in surprise)

"Oh...God! That's right! How could I forget Him at a time like this?"

(SML folds her arms, bows her head, and says a silent prayer of thanks at her desk. She looks up and grabs her purse, and begins to rummage through it)

"I knew I had better take out tithing first, before I spent what wasn't mine of this bonus. Tithing checks to me were like taxes...hold the money aside weekly, but pay it as seldom as possible. I didn't realize I had this many checks in my purse. The stack before me rose like the Tower of Babel."

(SML adds stack of checks on calculator, then look of confusion and disbelief on her face....then frantic re-adding on the calculator)

"What the.....Something started to smell, and it wasn't just Mrs. Pollock's Brussels sprouts from downstairs. No matter how hard I added what I'd already paid and what I had to mail, my tithing was coming up shorter than a micro skirt on Paris Hilton. EIGHT HUNDRED NINETY-SIX DOLLARS short, to be exact. I needed some answers, and I needed them FAST."

(SML dials phone, is shown speaking into phone with eyebrows raised...silence during this part)

"My husband was on my list, and I don't mean my list of people I'm sending a Christmas card to. He was the one who wrote my tithing check out each week, and put it in the envelope in my purse. But apparently in May and June, when we traveled so much for soccer games, he felt like we couldn't afford it so he thought he might have skipped a few payments. This story was getting uglier than Martha Stewart's underwear drawer. If I added the tithing I owed from before with the $100 I owed on my bonus, the total came to $996. I was left with exactly four dollars."

(SML sits with look of total abject despair, because now she realises what she must and will do with the money)

"Filling out that tithing slip hurt worse than childbirth. There was no way in hell I was going to tell my non-Mormon husband about this bonus. My only consolation came when I realized that if I ever needed it, I'd have the best faith-promoting story to tell the next time the Stake President picked me out of the congregation with no forewarning to share my testimony, as he'd done 3 times before. Obviously God had prompted my boss to gift me my tithing money when I didn't even know I was short."

(Cue victory music...SML smiles peaceful smile with tears of joy in her eyes as she licks the tithing envelope closed)

***********THE END**************** Pans across screen.

I can't tell you how this true story (minus the dramatic film noir!) irks me. I can only shake my head in disgust at myself. It's a real testament to my husband...I told him about it a couple months later. It's a miracle he didn't commit me to a mental institution. He actually didn't say anything. Not even, "Why didn't you talk to me about it first?" Truly amazing.

I've been cursed!

Oh oh. We park our car in the back yard in our detached garage, but today my son went out the front door to put a movie return in the mailbox. When he opened the door he found a paper bag, decorated with water soluble markers, soaking in the rain that fell all night. Someone in the ward has started the little Halloween phantom thing again....they attached the following note, along with 5 copies of it, now stained pink and soaking wet:

Good Evening,

If you do not wish a curse on this house, you must make two treats and deliver them to two homes in the (Named) Ward. You have only three days, so hurry. Post the Phantom on your door until Halloween. This will ward off the Phantom curse from returning to haunt you and yours. Copy this letter and Phantom for each, then deliver them to a home that does not have a Phantom posted.

SAVE THE SPIRIT OF HALLOWEEN!!

Nobody will convince me that we weren't targeted for first delivery because of the special status we now hold in the ward. Inside the soaking wet paper bag was a ziploc sandwich baggie with 6 M&M cookies inside. There are 4 people living in my home...I guess that meant one each for the girls, and 2 each for the boys? The pathetic part of it all: the cookies are so hard, that not even the Bottomless Pit I call my son wanted to eat one. You can bet I'll be cutting out all 6 phantoms and posting them on my door. Thanks but no thanks.

My reply to the PP

I e-mailed a reply to the PP's e-mail to me that I posted here last week...

Dear T.,

I appreciate your concern. While this is not easy, knowing how people at church will perceive me and my family, I've never felt more authentic or true to myself. I know that God lives and loves me, as He does everyone, LDS or not, and this gives me great comfort and happiness.

I hope you aren't feeling sorrow over me. I have personally never felt such happiness and such a sense of well-being in my entire life. For the first time, I'm happy as I am, and this is no small thing. It doesn't mean I've suddenly chosen a life of sin. My life is exactly the same, except I don't dedicate so much of my free time to attending church and working there. I have found a greater love for people, especially those close to me, and that's priceless.

My choice to leave the LDS church is based on a lot more than just the discovery that Brigham Young taught that Adam was God the Father. I discovered many things that caused me to come to my realization. However, because I respect you and your faith, I don't want to outline for you why I think the church isn't true. I would hope my true friends respect that and don't try the opposite with me.

Thanks for your sweetness.

Love,

SML

Conference

Once again, General Conference has come and gone, something that means absolutely nothing to me. I didn't drink in honor of the esteemed event. I just completely forgot it was happening. I think my giving it no thought whatsoever is the best acknowledgement it deserves.

I may be giving away something here, but I watched it twice as a married adult. (Maybe Sister Mary Lisa isn't as good as she lets on!!) I figured I could read up on it on LDS.org or I could read it in the Ensign. I think I got motivated and taped it a few times over the years, but I never actually watched the tape. I usually embraced conference Sunday as a well-deserved day off from my duties at church. I've ALWAYS had duties.

Last General Conference, in the spirit of trying to prepare to get myself to the temple, I made my kids sit with me downstairs and watch it while my husband watched a Nascar race upstairs. He said he didn't care if I wanted to watch conference upstairs, but I didn't want to subject him to it.

As we watched it, I found myself getting mad, I mean really mad, if my kids started playing and not listening. I could see myself transforming into the glaring, angry, teeth-clenching, self-righteous, losing-the-lips form of my dad.....

That really helps kids feel great toward the church, I should know.