the hinckleys: March 23

Sunday March 23: Melanie gave a very sweet lesson on adversity and using the atonement, and one of the laurels spoke up about feeling alone at school because her well meaning friends don’t want to make her feel weird about their risqué behavior, and so they just don’t call her to hang out. Because of that, she ends up home alone a lot of the time, and it has been very hard on her. I thought it was brave and sweet of her to share that in class, and we (the leaders) are on call for weekend plans with this girl, if she needs a dollar movie night, or a frozen yogurt run. We had our home teachers over, and then much studying.

Monday March 24: Assessment class was all about the Musculoskeletal system. Jamie got a fun Easter Egg cookie from Miss Martin.

After we all got back home, I enlisted everyone's help to make a whole bunch of breakfasts to freeze, because we have had too many mornings lately with Tyler being sent off to school with a piece of bread for breakfast. We made Healthy Egg McMuffins, French toast sticks, and Pancake bites. I am just hoping that the kids will eat any of it :)

Tuesday March 25: Pharm lecture was on antilipedemics and obesity, which was incredibly sobering. Our Concepts was on Lab Diagnostics, which seemed interesting, but with Jamie keeping me up all night long in and out of her bed, I was fighting hard to stay awake the entire three hours.

Wednesday March 26: After assessment lab I went out to lunch with some friends from school at a fun pizza place in Deep Ellum called Kane Russo. The chef there makes these amazing pizzas, and is so insulted at the idea of ranch on his pizzas that he has banned outside ranch from the restaurant, and will sell you a bottle of ranch for $1000. It's created a stir in Dallas, and there was a filming crew there while we were eating. I think the funniest review on reddit was this: I wish mark cuban would walk in, drop a grand on the table, dump the whole bottle of ranch on a pizza, and walk out. We got Tyler’s report card, and he tested in the 90 percentile on all his state testing this last quarter. We’ve been working on his math pretty hard this last few months because he tested low before Christmas, and it has paid off! I am so darn proud of him, and he is rightfully proud of himself. As a reward from the school, he got two Free Dress wrist bands to use whenever he wants.

McKay got to go to the opera tonight, but I was lame and stayed home to study instead. Five more weeks until normal life comes back to me!

Thursday March 27: Thursday was a dentist visit for Jamie, who proved to be a tough little cookie. She did so much better than Tyler ever does at the dentist. She got another clean bill of health, and then an armful of toys and toothbrushes.

She and I had Elsa and Anna hair that day, but I forgot to take a picture of use together. She and I went to Hobby lobby right after and got this lovely birds on the wire picture,

and this amazing pig.

I can't get over this pig. Look at that smile on his face; he is so excited to have wings. Sometimes when I get overwhelmed/depressed about school, I just go over and look at this little pig on my mantel and it cheers me up :) Unfortunately, Jamie wasn't feeling great, and she ended up sick at Kroger. We went home right away and spent the rest of the day in jammies watching movies. I made McKay help me hang up my shelves, and I love how they look, but I'm not in love with it up on that wall. Maybe it will look better with things on the shelves?

Friday March 28: My clinical was canceled because my instructor was sick, and because Jamie was sick too, I had to cancel my group practice for Assessment checkoffs that was supposed to happen at my house. I had a big basket full of pumpkin muffins that I baked for the group just sitting there staring at me all the live long day. I ate many of them. Jamie and I hung out at home most of the day, watching shows and cleaning up. McKay got to come home early from work to give me a chance to go out and study for my upcoming Concepts test.

Saturday March 29:Jamie was feeling much better, and we were able to go to the baby shower for Katherine Madsen, this super sweet girl who used to live in Dallas, and is moving away to Palos Verdes in the next few weeks (LUCKY!).

We also hit up this awesome sale at Bath and Body works. I got 24 wallflowers and 4 plug in adapters for like $40, and my house smells amazingly lavender and vanilla-y. I promised Tyler and Jamie if they behaved, they could go see the water fountains at Northpark.

That night, I drove up to Plano to meet all the Hinckley ladies for dinner at Olive Garden and then to watch the General Women’s meeting broadcast.

I have mixed feelings on the age being lowered to 8. On one hand, it was so awesome to see the intergenerational mix in the choirs, in the audience, and I loved that I got to attend the meeting with my MIL, SILs, and my young niece who just turned 8 this year. It was a whole Hinckley girl night with dinner at Olive Garden first, and it was AWESOME. On the other hand, there were a lot (A LOT) of women who, in addition to bring their 8 year old daughters to the meeting, just brought all the rest of their kids as well; toddlers, babies, preschoolers, and their sons of all ages too. Where we were sitting, it was almost like a sacrament meeting, just without any dads. I know that’s an unintended consequence, but it sort of cheapened the evening a bit. I wish there was a way around it that didn’t make it feel like it was just a night off for dads. I LOVED the choir number, and did you notice some of them were wearing purple? I don’t know if that is intentional, or coincidental, but watching women in purple singing about loving one another and showing a gentle heart to those with sorrow just left me in a soggy pile of warm fuzzies. I was so touched, even if it wasn’t their intention. But I felt so…heard. I felt like even if they disagree with me, they can still reach out to me and mourn with me. It was such a great, great moment. Then I made a fool of myself running around asking ladies if they were wearing purple on purpose. Each and everyone of them looked at me sort of confused, and said “No, why?” That’s when the panic would go off in my head: abort, abort! My sweet MIL wore a purple necklace in support of me and my fem friends, which I so appreciated J

Funny:

While at the opera, in the row behind McKay a guy opened a bag of popcorn during the show and was being noisy and annoying with the bag for a while during a quiet and reflective part of the song. A lady in front of the guy finally turned around and snatched the noisy bag out of his hand, and did not return it until intermission. Don't cross opera lovers, y'all.

Jamie loves going to the library each week with McKay, but she prefers to get books that she is familiar with. Our library is multilingual, and since Jamie doesn't quite read yet, she just goes for what's familiar. This is what we've got checked out right now: