Random Thoughts

• You will be pleased to hear that I have fixed a typo my brother found in our book… it said "rise about" rather than "rise above." Since the books are printed on demand (I think), that part should be fixed from henceforth. Unless you've already ordered your book, of course. In that case you will have to order a new one. :) On the down side, I can no longer claim that our book is the most correct book of any book on earth. On the upside, I didn't ever claim it.

• Speaking of our book. As we were doing our final round of edits, Rachael and I found, to our horror, that  we had written about Bella during some moment of despair that "she hid her hands in her face." Just think about that for a minute. Luckily we changed it in time, but it gives me the giggles every time I think of it. It made me laugh even more once I saw Clementine actually performing this difficult operation:

• Abe and I did some suit shopping for his mission. We thought it was kind of fun how the salesmen around here all seem to know more about missions than the missionaries themselves. Our salesman corrected Abe on how many shirts he should bring, for example—and when we consulted Abe's list, the salesman was right. We were also a little envious of the other missionary buying suits in the store that day, as his salesman was telling him all KINDS of useful information, like how to fold one's pants correctly over the hanger, and how to pull the inserts out of one's shoes so they could rest and recover for a day in between wears. The man kept saying, "Now, make sure you fold your sweaters like this, because you'll see most missionaries just lump their sweaters into the drawer like this…" and Abe kept looking guiltily over to see what his slovenly fate would be. We both left the store feeling appropriately chastened, I think.

• Sometimes I let the children take "before and after" pictures of their clean room to show me, so they can get the job approved as finished. Some of them have learned to utilize the power of a tight crop:

Yes, excellent, this tiny square of your room is reasonably free of items

I also think it's funny that this particular square of carpet she chose to capture isn't even clean.

• Here's a quote I found recently that I've been thinking about. It's by Victor Frankl:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Powerful, eh? A space granted. Reminds me of Alma 12:24.

• Clementine is making cute noises from her bassinet, so that's the end of these thoughts! I'm surprised there were this many, to be honest.