A Root Beer Pie, My New Peanuts Blog, Enjoying Hard Days of Work, and Primary Program

 A few things I want to talk about this week.

Last week, the bishopric asked me to be in charge of dessert refreshments for the youth at a Bishop's Youth Discussion. They said that in the process, I could reach out to Sister Skankey for help, specifically because she has experience with gluten free items. What I didn't know is I probably could have reached out to more people for help to do desserts. Oh well. I asked Sarah if she could help me, and I reached out to Sister Skankey on Saturday to see if she could make something. Part of the task was to ask the youth what their favorite desserts were. The list I got from the Young Women was: Cinnamon Rolls, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pumpkin/Lemon Merengue/Cherry Pies. The boys said that they liked: Cheesecake, Root Beer Pie, and Key Lime Pie. From that list, Sister Skankey chose to provide us with the Chocolate Chip Cookies. Sarah and I wanted to make pies. So we chose three pies to make. The exotic Root Beer Pie, which turned out to be like a Root Beer custard made from Root Beer extract and real root beer. Sarah told me what a custard was, a pudding like substance with and egg yolk base. We also chose to make key lime pie, which required us to squeeze like 12-14 key limes. Sarah also did the zest for the pie, but on the way to put it in, I was handing her it and we fumbled in the process and the key lime pie fell on gluten, so it was no good to us. Then we made a cheesecake. That one took the longest in the oven and the longest to set. Overall, all the pies were good, and the root beer pie, out of all three, was a huge hit.

I had the crazy, illuminating Idea, to start a creative writing project blog this week. I used Chat GPT to help me with some ideas regarding it, specifically title and some structural elements. The blog centers around using a Peanuts comic each day, in order of publication, and putting my analysis and raw thoughts down of the comic strip panel. The name that I chose for the blog is called: Dear Sir, Dear Life: A Peanuts Journey Through Daily Reflections. I wanted it to be centered around Marcie, because she is a character that I have connected with in the past when I was a young teen. I added an element two days into the writing of my blog where I write a letter to Sir and to Life, still commenting on my current situation or thoughts, and end with The Marcie in Me.

I chose to pray yesterday (Monday) about my hard feelings for working on Monday in the morning before work. I did some breathing and some deep meditation about my Heavenly Father's role in helping me have a great day at work. This really helped out. I mean I was surprised about how much a little of this pondering and meditating helped me tackle my usually hard day. I really feel like Heavenly Father has been helping me with these things.

Sarah started her new job at TLC Services last Friday. So far, they have given her more than she had asked for, so we are currently trying to help her do the job that she asked for. Hopefully it all works out. I'm grateful that Sarah gets to work, but just yesterday I was thinking: I work 20 hours or so a week at Gilbert School of Music and get paid less than half that I charge for private piano lessons. If only I dedicated that time to getting 20-40 piano lessons on my own time, then I could make $1000 a week teaching piano, instead of this $450 crap. I need to organize myself, because it seems like it would be a hard thing, but Heavenly Father is giving me these ideas, so it just might be possible.

This week was the Primary Program. Sarah, being the primary pianist, and Aubri Farnsworth, being the primary chorister has been working very hard to make this a success. Sarah went to a rehearsal and she told me for the most part it went alright. I went out with the missionaries on Wednesday last and we invited Gary to church. He did come (and Buddy wasn't able to) to church and see the primary program. I think he really liked watching the program. I was busy helping the newly returned Teancum Higley with his Spanish Book of Mormon study in the AV room, which was rather distracting.