I have a weird problem, and I've had it for years. When I sleep less, I feel wide awake in the morning. When I sleep more, I'm groggy for the first little while, if I can even get myself out of bed. Alarms on, alarms off- it doesn't matter; I feel more awake when I have less sleep, and trying to get through on more sleep is just very miserable.
I've gone to bed early (around 9:30 when I normally stay up a bit later) most days this week, and have woken up later than I typically like to in the mornings. So that hasn't been fun. Anyway, I was so tired last night that I forgot to set an alarm, which I like to do on Sundays to be absolutely sure that I don't miss church (especially on days when I want to shower in the morning, and of course eat too). Luckily, I woke without the alarm, and I did have plenty of time to get ready. I was still a little tired, though.
Anyway. I'd wanted to go to church early, so I got ready early. While I was killing time waiting for Demetria, I actually pulled my hair back into a ponytail. What? I know! Crazy. It took a long time to get it both comfortable and centered, and I remembered why I hate doing anything with my hair. I grabbed my stack of undelivered and unclaimed visiting teaching slips, because the reason I wanted to go early was to ask Brother Wade if he could announce in sacrament that women who still hadn't received assignments should come and talk to the supervisors and such.
On our way outside, we ran into Katerina and some roommates or friends of hers who had parked in the stadium lot. They offered to drive us over. Of course, the windshield had frozen over (the driver is from out of state, and commented that she "didn't even know it was a thing in Utah" that windshields can freeze like this). Luckily she had a scraper, and was able to get the driver's side cleared off. Her side windows were good and so was her back one, although most of the area in front of the passenger's seat was still coated in ice. She was nervous, but we encouraged her and made the one-minute drive to the church safely.
Of course, due to the fact that she'd needed to scrape off her windshield, we didn't get to church early. In fact, we were about a minute late. That was fine- I'd realized pretty quickly that it wouldn't be a good idea to ask Brother Wade to announce the visiting teaching thin in sacrament meeting because I was probably the only district supervisor who had brought my slips. I was able to announce it in relief society instead, clarifying that I had only names for District 1.
I haven't liked having this calling. I texted a lot of people and visited a lot of rooms, and after a certain point it just gets pretty embarrassing to be told, "Oh, I moved out of the ward a year ago" and so on. So, since no one took any of my slips (only one girl even looked at them), I sought out Brother Wade after church was over. I explained to him that I struggled with this calling, and wanted to know if he had any information at all as to who had moved out before I ended up calling them. He took my slips and said he'd look into that.
I feel like he won't find much - I'm probably the one whose job it is to figure out who isn't in the ward anymore - but if I would have known this supposedly-easy calling would involve contacting this many people and constantly getting shot down, I never would have accepted it. I'd rather teach every week than have to put up with this frustration. I like to be productive and have something to show for my efforts in anything. Having a calling where I feel like no matter how hard I try nothing is happening is very difficult for me mentally. I'll probably regret saying so when I end up teaching a class someday, but it was a thought sticking out in my mind today.
I put my laundry in to run and then took a break from things when I got home. Linzie was streaming a commission and Jen was there, so I checked in with them and did some drawing myself. My little penguin's second birthday is on March 1st, and I've been wanting to draw her looking nice for awhile. I already had the sketch, so today was a good day to color it:
It's a penguin suit
After that, I worked on my homework. I didn't finish my "Monk" report tonight, but I did finish my career assignment that's due tomorrow, so that's great! It took longer than I expected it to. I don't like procrastinating and it would have been nice to do it yesterday (since I'd told myself all week, "Okay, on Saturday you're going to do that assignment and the 'Monk' report", so I was all ready for it), but it's done now and I don't have to worry!
Also, sometimes I don't know why Jen says things she does. It was really late where she lives (like two in the morning) and for some reason she started speculating about a "Danny Phantom" alternate universe where almost everything is the same, but Danny is a hot dog and Dani is a banana. I have no idea why. It was obvious that she wasn't expecting a response, but Linz and I kind of "sideways glanced" at each other, and it was a race to reply to her comment first. I have this to show for my efforts:
I'm unfortunately proud of how good it looks for
something I whipped up in like ten seconds
Dani Banani came out less well
And I don't normally share Linzie's stuff since it is her stuff, but I feel like the world should know about this beautiful contribution:
Jen laughed and laughed, it seemed like, and finally agreed to go to bed. I stayed with Linzie a bit longer, because I knew she was going to stay up anyway and I didn't want her to feel too abandoned. Plus, I wasn't feeling very tired. I had things I wanted to sketch and some blog posts to write, as well as laundry to be folded and dishes to be washed. Plenty I needed to do.
Also, the Oscars were on tonight. Demetria watched them, though I only came out when I heard Moana's voice actor singing "How Far I'll Go". I know that she didn't even audition to play Moana's singing voice because she didn't think she was good enough, but some sort of Disney talent scout overheard her singing and asked her anyway. And there she was on stage at the Oscars, I assume, dressed up nice with some dancers behind her! She probably never expected to be there in her lifetime! That must be pretty cool.
Demetria told me too that they called the wrong name out for the winners of "Best Picture" (I think that was it). She said something like, the boys were in the middle of their acceptance speech when they were told they hadn't actually won. Yikes! That must have been so embarrassing, both for them and for the announcer who messed up there on national (if not international) TV. I'm glad that wasn't me~
