Svenborg Pellsdotter

Brian and I went to the temple last night, because our friend was going through for the first time.  It was our first trip to the temple since I last went when I was pregnant with Becca.  It was so nice to go through again and to be there with a few of our friends from the ward.  The woman I went through for was named Svenborg Pellsdotter, and she was born in Sweden in 1754.  I memorized this all because I was so fascinated.  I'll tell you why.  If you look at her last name (Pellsdotter) - guess what her dad's name was.  Pell!  Plus her mom's name was Truen (which I think is so pretty, and might end up being used for a character in my book) and Truen's dad's name was Trued, so her full name was Truen Truedsdotter.  Seriously.  I know that the names Johnson and Thompson and others like that originate from being named after your dad, but it all happened so long ago that you never meet anyone with the last name of Johnson whose dad's name is really John.  (This is also probably because most parents wouldn't do this to their son: John Johnson.)  I just though it was so cool to see this practice in action. 

When I was in college I took a linguistics class that talked about the origins of language and words and dialects and such.  We also learned about gutteral stops, and that was fun.  I don't know exactly why, but I just loved that class.  I loved it so much that I "geeked out" at the temple and stared at the name card long enough to memorize all the names, places, and dates.

In other news:

1. Sadie tried to kill herself last week by eating some snail and slug bait.  We didn't even know it until she started acting strange by standing in her cage, shaking and panting.  She also didn't want to lay down, walked hunkered down, almost like an army crawl, and didn't use the bathroom even though she basically ran out to it. It was then that I called Brian and he said to look around the yard for something she might have eaten, and I found the bag of snail bait that she must have bit open.  (There was an awful lot of "should have's" that we felt that day: should have put the bag away, should have put Sadie's bathroom fence back up after carting dirt through, etc.)  I never thought I would be one to take an animal to the vet for something that I thought would be expensive, especially when I thought that she would die anyway, but I just couldn't watch her suffer like that.  She was obviously in a lot of pain.

So I dropped off the kids at my sister's house and took her to the vet.  Brian joined us there when he got off work, which ended up being about fifteen minutes after I got there.  The vet was pretty busy, so we were still waiting when Brian arrived, and he was a little upset, and he was also more affected emotionally by Sadie's state than I was.  There was a nice woman sitting near us that I had visited with a little bit, and she offered to say a prayer for Sadie.  She put a hand on Sadie's head and said a very powerful prayer.  Her faith, and especially her willingness to share her faith, amazed me.  I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true and complete organized church on the earth, but I don't think that that makes the faith of other religions wrong.  This woman had a strong testimony of God, and I felt His spirit while she prayed.

Anyway, Sadie spent a couple of nights at the vet.  It didn't cost nearly as much as I thought it would.  And Sadie is now home with us and acting like her normal puppy self.

2. Brian and I took a break from the never ending backyard project (Thanks to Brian and our friend John we now have water and electricity back by the pergola.) and we painted the ceiling of the school room blue.  Yes, blue.  I've got some big plans for the school room, and I can't wait to see it all come together.  I really hope it looks as good as it does in my head!  I'm planning on doing a modified home school for summer school this year, so I'm trying to get it all finished by the time the kids get out for the summer.  Next week:  I'm painting the walls yellow!

3. Ethan is being honored with an award on Monday for showing Caring at school.  Each month his school has a different theme, and a couple of kids from each class are chosen to receive an award for that theme.  I'm so proud of him, and I'm excited to go to the assembly on Monday!