Yesterday, as I sat down to frantically cut drinking straws into 1.5 inch pieces for the leis craft for the Blue & Gold Banquet, starting in a few hours, I decided to listen to a random talk on lds.org so that although I was not going to get any scriptures read, some blessings might seep into my frantic brain. The first words Elder Eyring intoned in his loving and gently rebuking manner:

"All of us have faced deadlines. Fear can grip us when we realize that there may not be enough time left to finish what we promised we would do. The thought comes, "Why didn't I start earlier?"


Night before last Mike & Seth were setting up for the banquet, and I was struggling to get the kids done without their customary donkey ride to bed from Dad. I had a huge load of stuff left to do before the banquet (see HBE quote above) and the kids could sense my stress and were playing it up! While I was donkeying someone to bed I stopped "hee-hawing" long enough to grab Jared's ankle before he could run out and shoot more hoops in the rain. His B&G cake lay naked on a rack on the kitchen island. "Hurrytothekitchen, cutoutcardboardinthesizeofthecakeandcoveritwithtinfoil! Run!"

When I finally escaped from Jacob's room, I found that Jared had followed my instructions precisely. Under a foil wrapped ball of cake was a little piece of cardboard.