Little cutie

One of the single moms had her little daughter (around sixish years old) with her at work today. While I was waiting for her mom to do some paperwork I started a tossing game with the little girl with her teddy bear. I was just doing the normal kinds of things that I do with Carly. Basically just being silly. She was cracking up! I was only playing with her for a few minutes before the paperwork was ready, and then I said goodbye to mom and daughter and headed out the door and started down the hall. I didn't get very far before I heard the door behind me, and then I heard the little girl ask "Do you have to leave?" I explained that I had to go because the babysitter was waiting for me. But it about tore my heart out seeing that sad little girl looking at me so forlornly. I wish every child could have could have a good father and a good mother that love them and spend time with them!

The grocery checkout aisle: A lesson for the blind

In the checkout aisle you'll almost certainly see magazine covers doing one of two, if not both, things:

First, expounding to women the virtues of, and ways to achieve, being sexually appealing to men (e.g. how to lose weight, how to seduce men, how to have sex, etc.)

Second, relating the sad tale of famous, sexually appealing women who are going through divorce.

So, these women followed the steps, they became the "perfect" woman, they got the "perfect" man, and then their lives fell apart. This is about as clear as the evidence can get that women who do their best to become sexually appealing to men will, in the end, not have a happy home life. And the evidence is right in the checkout aisle!

Women, if you want to be happy with a man, don't try to satisfy his animal desires! Because you won't get a man, you'll get an animal!

Birthday Report

Well, it's official, I'm another year older... Blast! I was just getting good at remembering how old I was. It was... it was... anyway, it was easier!

Today was spent mostly doing chores. I prepared a round of fruit smoothies for breakfast, baked three batches of rolls, and prepared a large batch of granola for breakfast tomorrow. I also ran by campus to do some more paperwork, and had someone come out to look at the garbage disposal.

But the kids had fun! Here are a couple of pictures of Michael and Carolyn enjoying Minecraft on the XBox.

William was busy voluntarily cleaning his room to bump up his allowance this week a bit. :-) And later he had a blast going to cub scouts for the first time in forever. :-)

And we finished off the day with a large batch of baked chocolate pudding cake... with a lot of candles... I'm pretty sure there were too many candles. The chocolate pudding cake is really good though! :-D

Daddy Daughter Dance

Yesterday my little princess and I went to our first daddy-daughter dance. We had a blast! Carly was especially excited! The evening started off with some light refreshments for everyone, some tiaras for the girls (a wonderful sister there put up Carly's hair and put on her tiara), and some ice-breaking activities for the couples. :-) Carly was especially fond of the watermelon and cupcakes. Though she was eager to get to the dancing. After the treats we marched around the building in pairs playing follow the leader, which was a lot of fun! The next activity was a great little game where everyone except one person sat in a circle. The person walked up to one person in the circle and asked "Who do you love?" The person asked would then respond by saying something like "red-heads", and then everyone identified would have to stand up and change seats. It was a lot of fun! Carly was really excited whenever she had the chance to jump up and run around screaming trying to find a seat! :-) A lot of the little girls there were really eager to be asked "Who do you love?", though they would often freeze up when asked. :-) So I took it upon myself to make valuable suggestions like: "How about anyone with male-pattern baldness?" (I was thinking of my dad, several uncles and friends, and our old pet dog, Rufus.)

After that very enjoyable activity the dance itself got kicked off. I had more fun at this dance than I've ever had at any other dance...ever! A large part of that had to do with the fact that, although there were quite a few cute girls there, none of them were my age, and my date really enjoyed my company! :-) Also, it was probably the first dance where I had heard every single song before the dance! (Of course, most of the songs were from disney princess movies. You should have heard all the little girls when they played the song from Frozen!) Carly and I danced to every song, in a variety of combinations of a basic two-step, a box step, and some swing. And she loved being spun around! Towards the end I was sweating so much from so much energetic dancing that I had to take my glasses off! And Carly simply loved it! She was screaming and squealing with delight the whole time! And what really made me feel good was that she was having so much fun dancing with me! In fact, when most of the girls started dancing in circles and bunny hopping around and whatnot while their dads cheered them on, Carly kept wanting to just dance with me. :-) Towards the end I was starting to get pretty winded and even offered to take her to get some ice cream if she wanted (hint, hint, leave early), and her reply each time was something to the effect of: "Yeah, that would be great! Let's do that when the dance is over!" :-)

Nevertheless, I was still sad when the dance ended. Because we had had such a great time. And, the cherry on top was when they game me a little gift basket for being the newest dad in the Ward. :-) Then we went and got some ice cream. And the entire time Carly was talking about how much fun she had had, and how much she loved dancing (this was her first dance), and how much fun the church is, and how she wanted to go to every daddy-daughter dance!

Yes, last night my prayers were filled with gratitude for the wonderful church-members who had organized, planned, prepared, and carried out my daughter's first dance! :-)

Life Overflowing with Blessings

It isn't possible for me to write out in detail all of the ways that the Lord has blessed me recently. There are just too many! I doubt that I can even remember them all. But I will do my best to make a list here to show my gratitude for all that He has given me.

An ideal job, close to my kids.
The friends that I needed to help me pull through the divorce.
The company of the Spirit.
Three beautiful, healthy kids.
Many worldly possessions, including my wonderful car and comfortable bed.
The Gospel.
Safety and security. This is particular gift has been poured out upon me so frequently recently that it could stand alone. For example, while driving the truck with all my possessions and towing my car, I was completely safe during the nine-hour drive this past Thursday. Many times during that drive I felt the prompting to merge into a different lane, and when I did so I afterwards realized that doing so had made my trip safer and/or easier by helping me avoid some difficulty. I was also prompted twice to pull over for gas when I would not normally have done so, and both times it turned out to be providential, because not doing so would have almost certainly caused me to run out of gas.
A wonderful home to rent, and a very friendly and helpful realtor to work with.
The help that I have needed during this move. Both from other people, and in the form of the energy and desire needed to get everything done, and done well, and done on time.
My family.
Inspiration. This has come in many different ways, several of which I have already listed. But perhaps the most notable was when I was planning out the dates for my trip up here. I picked Thursday for the drive and Friday for the house hunt, and I made the reservations with U-haul and with Marriott through Tuesday. Not for any particular reason other than that I felt that those were the right dates. As it turns out, Thursday was a very good day for driving, Friday I was able to schedule three house viewings, one of which is ideal, and I wasn't able to do the paperwork until Monday, which means that I would have been in a bit of a pickle if I had only slotted the hotel and truck through Saturday, as I was inclined to do.

The Lord is Great! Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Starting over

Its Spring. A time of new beginnings. A time to enjoy beautiful weather. A time to make the producers of allergy medications filthy rich. Ahhhhh....  :-)

In the spirit of new beginnings I've been having a good time making a fresh start with my personal life. I've been on a couple dates in the past few weeks. I've gone to a gathering of friends to watch a session of General Conference. And this past Monday I went to my first Single Adults' activity. We had a lesson and played volleyball. I'm pretty sure I fell down more than anyone else there.  :-P  One odd thing is that I think that I was probably one of the youngest people there. Yes, that I wasn't used to. But I did have a great time! And I even just sent a message on facebook to one of the girls that I met there asking her out on a date. I'm feeling more confident all the time with this socializing stuff.  :-)

Another new beginning is the new job that I have just agreed to take! Starting this Fall (or possibly this Summer), I'll be working as an instructor of Spanish and Pedagogy at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith!  :-D  I'm really excited!  And once I finish my dissertation I will be automatically bumped up to the rank of Assistant Professor!  :-)  Yep, the Lord keeps His promises, and life is good!

Though I am still sore from the volleyball.

A long day at the airport

I was scheduled to fly out to Ft. Smith yesterday, Thursday, for a campus visit today, Friday. Unfortunately I had a scheduled layover in Dallas yesterday, and Dallas had some thunderstorms and the threat of tornados. So, at first they kept putting off the start of the flight, they even boarded us at one point and had us wait on the runway for quite a while. Then they deplaned us, and eventually they announced that all flights in and out of Dallas for the remainder of the day, Thursday, had been canceled. At this point I had already been at the airport for about seven hours. I now had an option, I could call and leave a message for someone with the airline to call me back to help me reschedule, and head back to my apartment to wait, or I could stand in a very, very long line for the same kind of assistance at the ticket booth. Well, I really wanted to see if I could get a flight that would arrive by noon the following day, Friday, so I decided to stick it out in the line. About three hours later I finally got through the line and had the opportunity to talk to the gentleman behind the counter, Gary. Well, unfortunately the soonest Gary could get me on my way was early Saturday. I had fortunately already discussed this possibility with the Chair at the university where I'm going to be doing the visit, so I knew that I should get something for Sunday instead so that I can do the interview on Monday. Unfortunately the only thing they had left for Sunday was for very early in the morning. I took it, of course. I'm just not looking forward to getting up at 3:30am on Sunday. But considering the situation, things went really well! I wasn't stuck in a different city, everyone (passengers and crew) stayed very friendly throughout the ordeal. I was able to reschedule with both the airline and the university with no trouble at all! Plus now I have more time to prepare for my campus visit.  :-)  Oh, and my laptop is still working!  :-D  (I had dropped it a few feet at one point and it chipped about an inch off of a corner, but everything still works great!) Yes, things didn't work out quite as I had hoped, but thanks to the blessings and guidance of the Lord (I was prompted to make the right calls every step of the way, even though I know that I personally, if left to my own devices, would have made other choices) they worked out, and really they worked out quite well considering the circumstances!