To your ownself be true

Unlike the cheesy blogposts that riddle the Internet, I have had to look deeper into myself these past two days to see if there is any depth to me. Am I just a booblehead agreeing to pacify others, or am I a woman of substance--with a conscience to seek the right? A discussion on Sunday has led me to deeper wells. A "helpful" ward member popped into our nursery to offer advise on how to better serve the children and ourselves. Kulani and I both disagreed with what he/she was saying, but to get him/her out of the room, I went overboard with my agreement. "Oh yeah, that sounds just awesome. We should do that," is how I responded to his/her advice.

After the person left, Kulani looked at me with shock in his eyes. I told him I just agreed with the person so he/she would leave. That's when Kulani said something to me that has really caused me to think: "So are you just blowing smoke at me to pacify my feelings?"

When am I blowing smoke and when am I real? Unlike Nephi in the Book of Mormon, I am not a good speaker. I would rather write my response to people than to speak it. Everyone hates confrontation, but truly, everyone needs to get over that. Confrontation leads to learning and understanding. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it, but it needs to be done.

So with that, I headed into Monday: the day to pull on your overalls and get 'er done. At McDonald's, the drive-thru left out my Melissa's chicken McNuggets. The old Cindy would have not bothered turning around and going back to get the nuggets. Not the new Cindy. I turned right around and asked for our McNuggets, dammit (only I didn't swear). They gave them to me in no short order, as my eyes gave them the what-for.

Then I took the girls on a bit of a service project. My bachelor boss's 90-year-old mom is dying. He's out in Georgia with her. I was instructed to feed his cat. His house looked how I imagine most 50+-year-old men who don't end up getting married looks like: a hell hole. Luckily I have the skill of turning off my nose as I cleaned out a pot from his fridge that looked to hold some type of soup from the 1980s. My little girl Lilia, bless her heart, hasn't adapted the skill of turning off the nose yet, and nearly got sick on the floor. A few dirty diapers, sweetheart, and you'll get there. As I was cleaning my boss's house, I noticed his penchant for all things, shall we say, not good on the Internet (he had a list of sites he likes to frequent). After dusting off his computer and straightening his stack of papers, I found a Bible and laid it on his keyboard. Then I wrote a note and stuck it to the monitor that said, "Out, Demons, Out! Sincerely, Your Priest." Exorcism complete, I went home.

So now I might be taking it overboard. Perhaps the new Cindy will be bold enough to go into someone else's Sunday school class and tell him/her how to run things. Really, I see improvements that can be made everywhere. I even told Kulani to hang up his belt last night. The lion is unleashed. Get her back in the cage!