Catching up on Tags!

Okay, I am way behind on the tags, so here goes the first one!

10 YEARS AGO:

• I was working as an RN at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma.
• James was a senior in high school.
• All the other kids had left the nest.
• We had no grandkids, yet.
• I was Relief Society President.
  
  
  5 THINGS ON MY TO-D0 LIST:
• 
  1, Buy Audrey and Emily birthday presents.
  2. Get a haircut
  3. Return items to Walmart
  4. Save to DVD my recorded "French In Action" recordings.
  5. Cook dinner
  
  
  5 SNACKS I ENJOY:
• 
  1. Popcorn
  2. Snickers
  3. Cheez-Its
  4. Fishy Crackers
  5. Fudge Bars
  
  
  IF I WERE SUDDENLY A BILLIONAIRE I WOULD:
• 
  1. Move
  2. Take children and grandchildren on a cruise.
  3. Buy an RV (If the gas prices ever come down!)
  4. Travel to Europe with Mark
  5.Donate to Cancer, Diabetes, Ahzheimers and Parkinson's foundations.
  6. Give my children a million dollars each.
  7. Put enough in savings to pay for Mark and I to live in a nice Assisted Living place if the need arises.
  
  
  5 PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
• 
  1. Phoenix, Arizona (also where I was born)
  2. Chilco, Idaho (near Coeur d'Alene)
  3. Moses Lake, Washington
  4. Orem, Utah (while at BYU)
  5. Kent, Washington
  
  
  3 BAD HABITS: (SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM)
• 
  1, Losing things (keys, PDA, purse, glasses, etc.).
  2. Falling asleep watching the news.
  3. Not finishing projects.
  
  
  5 JOBS I HAVE HAD:
• 
  1. Carhop/Fountain Girl at Burgermaster Drive-In in the University District in Seattle.
  2. File clerk for the UW Biology Department.
  3. Bank Teller at Lincoln Savings and Loan in Seattle.
  4. Keypuncher at the BYU Alumni House and later Assistant to President over gifts and donations. (Keypuncher is an old fashioned data entry where years ago you hole-punched, by machine, info onto cards which were later fed into a computer).
  5. RN at Harborview, Mary Bridge, Pediatric Home Care.
  
  
  
  5 THINGS PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME: (I think my kids know these)
• 
  1. I was robbed when working as a bank teller.
  2. I loved gymnastics, acrobatics when I was younger and got got pretty good at it. (My dad used to complain that when he sent me out to thin beets he would look out the window and see my feet up in the air) .
  3. When I was 8 years old I disked and harrowed our fields with a team of horses.
  4. I majored at BYU in Sociology and then later in life changed to Nursing when I realized how little sociologists and social workers make.
  5. While serving a mission in France, I was pick-pocketed while visiting the Eiffel Tower.

King County Presidential Convention

1. There were 4,274 delegates nominated to be at the convention. Only about a 1,000 showed up.

2. Most of them (I'd guestimate 75%) were empty-nester age. A few younger couples, one of which I saw brought their children for the experience and the rest young college students.

3. I like the band who played before the convention because their music was geared towards us older folks.

4. After I signed in outside the gymnasium of Green River College, I went through the door and they pointed me to a room for credentialing!! What was that? (Iworried that I needed to have credentials of some sort) It is a fancy word for taking roll. We sign in again and get our official delegate tag. We don't want any one from the other parties crashing our convention and messing things up! So here is my tag after it sat in my pocket for a couple of days.

5. The Pledge of Allegiance was said and I might say it was done loud and proud. No need to vote on whether to say it or not.

6. We got to hear from all the candidates who want to win Senate, governor's, Lt. Governor's, House seats, and etc. in the next election. I actually enjoyed what they said and there was a lot of whistling, applause and standing up in support of each candidate.

7. It must have taken over an hour to tally up the delegates and alternate delegates so we could not do any official business until that was done and presented and accepted.

8. First of order of business -- will we accept the late arrivals even though the rules says no. I was surprise that we would consider it -- since it is a rule and there is a time later on that you can officially change the rules. But they were accepted.

9. The platform was presented. New officers were nominated and chosen.

10. Changes to the rules and regulations were beginning to be presented and challenged. That was an intersting procedure. Only two microphones were going so if I wanted to say anything I would have needed to run down the bleachers to a microphone quickly. Remember we are all older folks. I was sitting next to an older gentlemen who needed help getting up and down for the standing votes. Also, often they did not speak into the microphone closely and we could not hear. So those districts sitting on the floor next to the microphones had the advantage.

11. We started to do a delegate vote. First, you do a verbal yea and nay. If it is not clear who won, then you do a stand up count and if that is not clear the chairman of each legislative district must make a count in his district.

12. Since this is a long procedure they started to dismiss by districts those who wanted to get lunch. What? How do you hear the presentations and challenges of rules and policy changes? And how do you vote if you're out of the room getting lunch? Oh well!

13 Somewhere around 1:00pm someone challenged whether we had a quorum to legitimize any votes or changes? What? (A quorum is 20% of the nominated delegates (4,274). So 854 delegates are needed.) So a rather lengthy count was done and there was not enough -- only 700+ was left. Many people leaving for lunch never came back.

14. So we dismissed not being able to change any of the

rules and policies. I've decided I have a lot to learn about these caucuses and conventions. I got some terminology to learn. Mostly, I'd like to nominate James to be on the organizing committee of these conventions. It was a little unorganized and often I couldn't hear what was being said because of all the buzzing and talking going on. Some of the officers were unclear of the rules and were talking among themselves to get it right. It's hard to vote when you didn't quite get it. So here I was saying, "What are we voting on? And what did they say?

I guess I'll have to wait 4 more years to try again.

Sowing the Seeds of Compassion

As I was driving to the temple Friday, the radio was announcing the arrival of the Dalai Lama, exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet. He was here in Seattle for a "Seeds of Compassion" conference. The goal was to discover and share ways to teach children how to be more compassionate as a way of changing the increasing violence throughout the world. They had many people from the medical, scientific and religious fields giving us the results of their many studies. Now, I'm so grateful to all spiritual, political , social, scientific and religious leaders that are honestly trying to encourage less violence in today's world. But.........

I am always saddened when there is no mention of the one source of all truth, pure love, total compassion and worldwide peace or of His teachings!

They did conclude at this conference that children learn compassion from seeing others and imitating their behaviors.

I was blessed to see so many compassionate actions and works just the last two weeks:

Tommy consoling Blake after Blake tried to take his game away and we told Blake he needed to wait until Tommy was finished, then he would have his turn. Blake broke into tears. Tommy gave him big hug and then let him play with him. Blake, or course, not knowing how to play messed everything up and Tommy resigned to just let Blake play the game himself.

Mary bringing not just one meal over to Maria (who is experiencing a lot of nausea from her pregnancy - which increases when she cooks or even moves), but also bringing over many frozen meals that Maria could store and use whenever. How compassionate!! And I know she is fighting back pain each day!

Little Jenna going to church with Grandma and Grandpa and impressing her teachers when a little girl from her Sunbeam class broke into tears because she wanted her mom. I was told that Jenna immediately got off her chair and walked over to little Ellie and gave her a big hug and sat down beside her. To everyone's surprise, Ellie stopped crying and she and Jenna became friends.

There is no greater place of peace and compassion than the temple. Here is Kristina with her husband, LeGrand Fry. I was most impressed with LeGrand watching how he treated his father, who suffers brain damage related to a bad car accident when the other driver suffering seizures, lost control and crashed his car into the car of LeGrand's father. LeGrand, both on his wedding day and the week before at the temple with his family, was very attentive to his dad. He frequently found his dad, talked to him, patted his shoulder, worried about whether he was getting tired, and generally looked out for him. I was really touched! Great guy, Kristina!!

My mom, never leaving my father's side, and lovingly worrying about if he was too tired, needing to use the restrooms, was hungry, needed a tissue and always noticed when he was trying to say or ask for something.

The Dalai Lama was right, children do learn and are influenced in a positive or negative way by what they see and experience -- from parents, leaders, teachers and from other children.

"...By small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise." Alma 37:6