Who does the dishes?

The results are in on the dishwashing poll. 19 people—12 guys and 7 girls—voted (Thanks!).

Statistics say that:
75% of guys prefer to unload, while only three of the 12 male voters(25%) prefer loading.
Of the seven girls who voted, 86% would rather load the dishwasher, while only 14% (one lady) likes to unload.
68% of all voters, male and female, prefer to unload the dishwasher.
And one person said that she'd rather load or unload the dishwasher than mop the floor. Which was not a question here, but I'm on her side of that issue.

Something that sparked my curiosity is that 19 people voted, and most of the voters (63%) were male. Even if Bruce and all my sons voted, that still leaves seven unknown male voters. I thought that only about five people ever even looked at my blog, and most of those readers are female. I did send out some emails to get more people to vote and I guess they did, but who were the voters? I am dying of curiosity! So I guess I should never run for any kind of office with a secret ballot.

But to return to the main point:

Here's something interesting, which could spur another poll entirely (but I'll spare you): While at a Mother-Daughter activity last week I asked around about the whole dishwasher thing. Without fail every adult woman that I talked to—every mom—said she'd much rather load the dishwasher, while all the daughters would rather unload it. I won't even guess at the psychology behind all that. But I'll tell you, kids could save the whole family a lot of grief by just unloading the dishwasher in a timely fashion.


So there you go, moms. The statistics prove that your kids or your husband, and not you, should be the one to unload the dishwasher. Print this and stick it up on your fridge. ;-)

Pedals for Hope, 2010

A room fills with people of all ages who are going to hear about an illness that affects society; an illness that needs to be fought. At 1:15 p.m. there's going to be a sacrifice made to aid in this battle. Twenty-six children march in front of the eagerly waiting crowd and take their seats at the front of the room while a young man and a young lady—armed with scissors—wait for them. Working quickly, the two adults cut ten inches of hair from each girl's head, then hold the ponytails up high to show the entire room. With each tail that's held up the room explodes with shrieking, chanting, cheering and clapping. It's almost like a pagan ritual.

This is all taking place at Entheos Academy for their annual Pedals for Hope cancer fundraiser. Twenty-three girls have just donated their hair to Locks of Love, and three boys had their heads shaved to show their support for cancer patients and cancer research. Among the twenty-three were my three littlest: Kaylie, Rachel and Jessica.

It was a terrific assembly, as usual. They began by asking all the students who had a family member or close friend who'd been affected by cancer to stand up. I was amazed as fully 85 to 90 percent of the student body stood up. "This," said Miss Amy Kovacs, "is why we do this fundraiser every year. Cancer affects so many people around us." This demonstration was followed by a little girl telling of her experience with her baby brother fighting cancer. "My brother is a survivor." she said.

The student body raised $1,058.35 in their penny wars, a competition between the students to see which grade can bring in the most change. This year the fourth grade won the penny wars. All in all the Entheos student body raised $5,380.21 to donate to the Huntsman Center for cancer research. One of the teachers, Mr. Horscroft, knows Lance Armstrong; and he asked him if he could do something support our school's cancer fundraiser. Mr. Armstrong donated one of his own yellow, "LIVESTRONG" vests to the school; the student who personally raises the most money each year will get to wear Lance Armstrong's vest during the Pedals for Hope bike ride ("riding the miles for a cure"). This honor will go to Jack Richins who raised $500 by going door-to-door, getting donations from neighbors, family and friends.

Tomorrow morning many of the students, teachers, and even some parents, will ride the Jordan River trail; some going ten miles, some twenty, thirty, forty, and some riding their bikes up to fifty miles, all in bright yellow T-shirts proclaiming their cause.

The climax of today's assembly was the cutting of the hair for Locks of Love; the students just go nuts for this. Jessica said, "I was kind of nervous while I was waiting. And then I plugged my ears [when the kids were cheering] because it was so noisy."

A camera-man from KSL TV was there this afternoon, as well as a reporter from the Deseret News, to capture the Entheos kids' excitement in their cause. (See it on KSL News at 5 and 10 p.m., and tomorrow's Deseret News—and Deseret News online, too.)

Pedals for Hope is a terrific climax to the Entheos school year.

Entheos (noun Greek) means:

1. to be inspired

2. to have enthusiasm within

3. intense or eager interest; zeal

4. something arousing such interest or zeal

These great kids have certainly shown all of these qualities!

before school

after school

Strange phenomenon?

Last night my parents came over for dinner, and for Kaylie's birthday (she just turned nine!). And while we were talking my mom revealed that she hates unloading the dishwasher—she would much rather load the dishwasher than unload it.

Hm. I feel exactly the same way. I hate unloading the dishwasher! But what's really funny is that a little while back Melanie told me the exact same thing—she'd rather load the dishwasher herself and make her kids unload it.

So this sounds kind of like it's just a weird family thing. But Mom also said that she was talking to one of her friends, and the friend said that she hates unloading too!

So I'm curious. Is this a girl thing? Or just a strange coincidence? So, answer my poll on the right—and get your friends to answer it too so I can have a wide sampling.
Are you a girl who'd rather load or unload the dishwasher; a guy who'd rather load or unload?
Could we solve all kinds of social ills by getting the right people to do the right part of the dishwashing?

I think I'm being watched . . .

Do you feel like people are watching you?

I mean, all the time watching you—to see how you look, how you behave, noticing the way you walk, what you say, how you do things? Do you go around like you're an actor on some big stage, knowing that the entire world sees what you're doing and so you want to do everything just right—because you only get this one take, and there's been no rehearsal? And since everyone is watching and judging your performance you have to be the most graceful, the most witty, the most talented, the most . . . everything? Not only that, though, but that you can almost feel people watching your every move?

Do you ever feel that way, or is it just me?

I had made up my mind that it was just me, and that I feel this way because of things I heard over and over when I was growing up:
"People notice what you do if you're a member of the church."
"Was that your daughter playing the piano? I thought it was a recording!"
"You can always tell a dancer walking down the street."
"Look what Loralee did (made/wrote/said)."
"You might hide it from the world, but you can't hide it from God."
"If you don't want people to see you, go dance in the bathroom."
"People are watching to see if you live up to the standards you claim."
"Loralee, play [choose any of my piano lesson-songs] for them."

So I figured it was just me, and that I just became a weirdo because I let all those kinds of comments go to my head. Of course everyone watches me! So I need to walk like a princess, and do everything I do wonderfully.

I'm not as bad now as when I was as a teenager; I mean I don't think about what other people might think of me quite so much as I used to. After all, it's "none of my business what other people think of me," right? And I get so pleased with the things I do that I almost don't need anyone else to praise me; or, perhaps more accurately, I shouldn't need it. But I do like it—I want everyone to think I am just marvelous! And I am kind of a perfectionist, to boot; I seem to be naturally driven to excel.

I bring this up because last night I saw a book at the library in the teenager-section, and it was about a girl who thought everyone just automatically noticed everything about her all. the. time. And so she went through life trying to be like some movie-star who was always on camera.

Wow! I guess other people do feel that way. But do nice people outgrow it when they quit being teenagers? Am I just weird?

Pioneer Pics

Here are the pictures of the bonnets:

Nine little pioneer girls (and one cowboy)

Anna in her pioneer outfit

Cute, huh?

In Stitches

Last night for Family Home Evening our family talked about keeping journals. Bruce and I got out some of our old journals and read some things to our kids. They were semi-interested in the very little bit of my teenager-hood that I shared with them. (I was kind of a negative little brat back then. Who'dve thunk?) But they really enjoyed it when I read stories from the journal I kept when we lived in Tennessee. In that journal I had copies of a few of the letters I sent home, and all the cute, funny things my kids did.

So your story for today is: Jason Gets Stitches

"Around 12:15 or so on Tuesday, November 18 [1997], we were finishing up a long trip to the fabric store. (Any trip to the fabric store with Jason and Lindsey in tow is a long one. And this was the first of several errands I had to run that day.) I was at the cutting table and just placing my order, and trying to keep Lindsey from doing a nose-dive out of the shopping cart, when Jason spied a neighbor-boy who was there with his grandpa. (In fact, it was Perry.)" [Apparently I'd written home about Perry before.] "So Jason and Perry took off chasing around the cutting table. When suddenly I hear Jason start screaming. I couldn't see him, but I figured he fell down or something. So I started to get him and tell him that he'd better stay with me. Then I saw that he was gushing blood from his forehead. I took a look and figured he'd need stitches. Well, by now practically everyone in the store had come to our aid. There's ladies saying, 'You'll be all right darlin!' " [You just have to imagine it in the Southern accent—it's even better that way.] "and Bandaids and paper towels being shoved at me from all directions. By the time we'd slapped a Bandaid onto the cut Jason had calmed down, and the general consensus among the onlookers was that he would not need stitches. But since his dr. was only a five-minute drive away I figured I'd drop in and have her take a look.
By the time we got to the dr. Jason was acting perfectly fine. But after a half-hour wait, Dr. Saraswat looked under his Bandaid and said, "This will need stitches. I'm sorry." (She seemed to feel really bad about it, but I wasn't really all that worried.) So she called the emergency room and we went right on over. (The hospital is across the street from Dr. Saraswat.)
By the time we got to the E.R. Lindsey was really crabby. It was past lunch time and getting to be nap time. So I think they weren't sure which kid needed help. Jason did OK until he realized they were going to do something to him. They tied his arms down to his sides by wrapping a sheet around him and then you should have heard him scream—or did you? He screamed the whole time [they were stitching him up], and then when they unwrapped him he was fine. He even said 'thank-you' to the doctor.
Then we went to lunch, and home—having lost all of our errand-running time. And then I was slightly nauseated and in desperate need of a nap.

Jason shows me his pretty hospital bracelet.
I am pregnant with Brandon, and much more worn-out than I look.

Well, we all survived. Jason gets his stitches out tomorrow. He will have a little scar above his left eyebrow."

My kids really enjoyed that story last night. They particularly liked that Jason thanked the doctor after having screamed his head off for the entire procedure.

Sadly, I don't have those kinds of details for most of my other kids. In Tennessee I was desperate to maintain contact with the family and I wanted to let them know everything about the kids. I wish now, looking back, that I'd continued to write the stories of things all my little kids did. So I guess this is my plug for journaling today:

Keep a good journal now—it'll keep you in stitches later! ;-)