Pictures

They will come... Sometime... I currently don't have a camera, but as soon as my mom reads this I sure that situation will have been resolved. Be patient.

The Upset Mr. Stanley

For those of you who don't know, my car's name is Stanley. He's really creative in torturing me lately. Early this morning, at about 4:38 am, the alarm went off. I didn't realize it was Stanley at first, just annoyed at that 1 person in my complex who wasn't very fast at turning off the alarm. I looked out the window and what did I see? Stanley yelling and flashing lights at the world. I scrambled in the dark for my keys, luckily I have a remote, and unlocked the doors, turning off the alarm. I went back to bed a little paranoid, but since my car is FAR from being the nicest car in the parking lot, I was mostly just confused. At about 5:15, I heard a similar noise. Again, my car, but luckily I knew the drill. It happened two more times before I pulled my self out of bed and called Deaner. Neither the local car shops nor the expert father have any explanations. Hmm... Now I'm just sleep deprived and ornery.

Early Birthday Surprise

My cute sister and fabulous Brother-in-Law (I've just recently invested in one) sent me a birthday package that made my day. I confess I opened it 10 days early, but I was just so excited... Inside were homemade 'booties,' a homemade bracelet, and loads of candy. I kept asking why in the world my sister thought I needed purple booties, but my roommates insist that it was just what I needed. They brighten up everyone's day, they have helpful pull tabs to ensure no 'heel slippage' (if ya know what I mean), and they allow me to re-enact the slide from Risky Business. I haven't taken them off, and don't plan on it any time soon.

Ellis family story from eons ago

October 19, 2007:
So, about 4 weeks ago, a smoke alarm ran out of batteries in the Ellis home. Little did they know (Stranger than Fiction... anyone?) what trauma this would cause. The smoke alarm beeped once a minute, every minute, in the high pitched tone that smoke alarms have. Upon searching for the alarm, The Dean and The Anna(rexic) found no visible smoke alarm, but there was definitely still a loud beep. They timed when the beeps were so they would best be able to guess where it was coming from. 60 seconds, a beep. 60 seconds, another beep. Then the situation then exposed itself. When the house was contructed 6 years ago, the electrician was required to install smoke alarms in the unfinished basement. For some reason, he installed them in the rafters of the ceiling. Later, the insulators came and paid no attention to the smoke alarms, insulating over them. One year ago, The Dean sheetrocked over the insulation. The basement, as we know, is finished, painted, carpeted, and until 4 weeks ago, quiet. Now, for three weeks the beeping continued. Faint when upstairs, but steady. The thought occurred to The Anna, "Smoke alarms are connected electricity, which means that the alarm will never stop, until a new battery gets installed." The beeping finally got the best of Anna, and she convince The Dean to drill a 3" hole in the ceiling where the beep was coming from. (right by the window in the theater). He stuck his arm in, fished around, had tea and crumpets, and came out without a smoke alarm. They closed their eyes, listened again, and decided the noise was actually coming from a different area, about three feet away. Again, a hole, an arm in the whole, searching, and all to no avail. 17 holes later, the Ellis family has no smoke alarm, a very frustrated set of parents, and a continued beeping, mocking their feeble attempts. Plus, there are at least 2 more undetected smoke detectors in the basement, but their batteries are still good, and neither one is visible. It seems like a problem that Dumbledore alone would know the answer to.

October 26, 2007:
Ok. The Ellis family shamefully and gittily reveals the secret to the mystery of the beep. After 25 holes in the ceiling (yes, they continued) Anna speculated that the smoke alarm was neglected, and not installed, but instead left in the floor joists. If this theory proved correct, that meant that as soon as the battery lost all it's spunk, the beeping would indeed stop. So she called the alarm company. They told her that if, in fact, the smoke alarm had no power it would stop beeping after 44,000 beeps. They figured this out to be about 30 days from when it started. After pondering, they discovered that the said 30 days would expire on or around October 27th, the day of the Homecoming celebration of their 2nd favorite daughter, Amanda. So they decided to patch up the holes, rather seamlessly. They sat, anxiously awaiting the beeping's end, but nothing. Then one night, while watching a movie, the good for nothing brother validated his existence. Everytime he heard a beep, there seemed to be a little red light flashing near the baseboard of the room, directly below (I mean DIRECTLY, not even one inch off) the original hole and speculated target, there was a box. A small, white box that had been plugged into the outlet in the wall. This box was not an ordinary box. It was, in fact, a carbon monoxide detector. Now, in the Ellis family's defense, many people had been in the basement, heard the beep and concluded that it came from the ceiling. Now when you hear a bird chirp, do you look towards the ground? No. Much like how Jim trains Dwight to react in a certain way to a a certain sound, the sound of a smoke alarm cause the Ellis Clan to look upwards. After tears of laughter and frustration, sleepless nights by one, Allie Thompson (who slept with her head less than two feet away from the culprit), and hours of ceiling repair work, the puzzle of the unsolved beeper has officially been solved. The Ellis home has enjoyed silence for nearly 3 hours. Amen.

Prophetic Counsel form 1979

Here are some excerpts from a talk Elder Neal A. Maxwell gave in 1979, and I can't imagine how it could apply better time than right now, concerning the Prop 8 fiasco:

"A More Dedicated Discipleship"

Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had "never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life".

This is a hard doctrine, but it is a particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ! ....Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted.....This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened....

Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself.

Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, "summer is nigh". Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat!....The combined doctrine of God's foreordination is one of the doctrinal roads "least traveled by."....there is occurring a discounting of religiously based opinions. There may even be a covert and subtle disqualification of some for certain offices in some situations, in an ironic irreligious test for office. If people, however, are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold which grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would we be?

If we let come into being a secular church which is shorn of traditional and divine values, where shall we go for inspiration in the crises of tomorrow? Can we appeal to the rightness of a specific regulation to sustain us in our hour of need? Will we be able to seek shelter under a First Amendment which by then may have been twisted to favor irreligion? Will we be able to rely for counterforce on value education aided in school systems which are increasingly secularized? And if our governments and schools were to fail us, would we be able to fall back upon and rely upon the institution of the family, when so many secular movements seek to shred it?
It may well be that as our time comes to "suffer shame for his name", some of that special stress will grow out of that portion of discipleship which involves citizenship.