Please let me be wrong about this.

Let me preface by saying that I moved into my home because of its proximity to the LDS temple. I am simply thrilled to have such a beautiful structure near my home. I am so excited to be able to sit out on my front porch and view the magnificence of the building. I also understood the increased traffic to the temple for those doing temple work and I am good with all that. Just so you all understand that.


The Oquirrh Mountain Temple begins its open house soon and I attended a meeting to discuss the whole process to come. I went to the meeting to learn of the plan and honestly had perfect trust of what they had in mind. . . that feeling did not last long.

There are 2 inlets for the neighborhood and 80% of the parking will have to enter through those 2 areas. The parking is going to be in 10 vacant combined lots (in the neighborhood) in 2 different spots along the ridge, which, combined are estimated to hold around 900 cars at a time. The hours of the open house will be from 8am to 855pm every day except Sunday (and Monday will close at 430pm). This goes from June through the end of August.

They expect 9,000 people to attend daily, I would guess that is about 6,000 vehicles- 80% of that is 4800, half those cars will have to drive through my 'side' of the neighborhood to park- so 2400 per day. With 13 operating hours in a day, that is 185 cars per HOUR which is 3 cars per minute (one car every 20 seconds). And that is assuming that everyone in attendance is perfectly spaced, however we know that there will be times during the day which are more popular than others. AND they will be checking tickets upon entrance to the parking lots. ("Um, I swear it's here in my purse somewhere, just a second, Johnny, grab my purse there is a ticket in there, it is yellow and says 'ticket' on it... No, its in the other pocket, ugh, hand me my purse. Oh, I thought I had it, I must have left it at home." - To which they will deny entry. "Sorry ma'am, you will have to leave now.") But that will then INCREASE the traffic cause now they have to leave and come BACK. Can you say TRAFFIC JAM?!?!?

Now, if I lived on a 4 lane road, perhaps all that would be acceptable. But I live on a road so narrow that when a car is parked at the curb, 2 cars going in opposite directions can not fit on the road without one of them pulling to the side behind the parked car. Designed on purpose that way to control speed along the roads but is a nightmare in this situation. And how in the world will I get out of my driveway with so much traffic on such small roads?

And did I mention I have a 5 year old who will be walking to and from school, and playing and riding her bike RIGHT smack in the middle of all this? (Ok, not in the middle of the road, but you get my point.)

The plan is to block of one side of the road and leave the other side for resident parking only. However who is truly going to enforce that? The meeting revealed that So. Jordan City will be issuing citations, however how will they know if that is my car or someone visiting the open house? No answer, not their problem, contact So Jordan City. OK fine, I get that the burden of upholding laws/rules is not left up to the church. So comes the question and a solution to it all, "Why don't you just bus people in from churches , then you could enter in off 40th south (which is not residential and is 3 lanes)?" Here is the kicker, COST. Are you KIDDING ME? COST? REALLY?

They have not spared a dime in cost thus far; they will have 6 tents with wooden floors, air conditioning, theaters and seating for 150. They have spent at least 1/2 million on landscaping and I don't even want to guess what the building and furnishings cost, yet they are worried about the cost of buses taking people to the temple from churches near by.

To be fair, I have no idea what the cost would be to hire out buses for 13 hours a day for 75 days but I simply can't believe that they are willing to flood up our neighborhood, put our children in danger, cause constant traffic problems and disrupt our lives to save on cost.


Cost, really. Cost.


I do not blame the church as an entity, nor do I find fault with any of the leadership in the church. I love and respect the people who attend and am pleased there was a committee taking care of all of the details to make sure it will be a pleasant experience (which I am sure it will be for each of the visitors). But I simply can't believe they are willing to tread so heavily on an entire community just to save a few bucks.

What's in a name?

Last night we attended a family party, as the adults were inside chatting the children were outside running around. Quite a while into the evening Kylie and her two cousins come in to inform us they have found a new friend. With this statement a little boy walked into the room. Kylie then began stating everything she knew about him.

He is 8 years old
He is short because he does not eat his vegetables
He only likes tomatoes and watermelon
He lives across the street
He has ghosts in his house

I then ask, "What is his name?" All three kids look at the little boy and in unison ask "What is your name?"

"My name is A.J." At this time you can see the turmoil in all three kids faces wondering how they were going to handle this dilemma. See, my nephew (who is standing there probably wondering who is going to win out in this situation) has the same name. All eyes are on him.

Softly, my nephew says "That's my name too"

At this point, the kids all ran outside only to return 5 minutes later with another story about their new found friend. "A.J. 2"

In KID world, everyone is happy.

Life in Laurie Land

Complexities for me usually come in the form of an Excel Format or Macro to drum up reporting information in a spreadsheet. I love those types of complexities. Such a form of gratification comes for me when something works the way it is supposed to. I suppose I expect that level of order in my life as well.

Lately, order has been too much to ask for, and the worst part is that the lack of order has not even come from choices that I have made.. or has it?

People who let craziness in will let it run their life. They are the only ones who can decide when enough is enough. And so it is I who gets to decide how much of their craziness is allowed into my life.

Perhaps there is some type of Excel Formula that will help me figure that out.

Why is racism okay now that we have an African American President?

Since Obama won the presidential nomination, I have seen an influx of emails and text messages with racial undertones, overtones, and flat out pure racism. Either I have turned a blind eye for the last 30 years, or this type of thing just didn't happen before the elections. Why is it that it is okay to be racist if you don't agree with someones political agenda?

There is a particular email that I have received from several people now. To some people's defense, I know it was not recognized as a particularly racist email and they simply agreed with the main message and simply forwarded it on. It reads as follows:



I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes, and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to earn that pay check, I work on a rig site for Fort McMurray construction project.. At any time I am required to pass a random urine test, with which I have no problem. HOWEVER, what I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Understand - I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse, drinking and smoking dope. Could you imagine how much money this country would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? If you agree, please pass this along, or simply delete if you don't. Hope you will pass it along though, because something has to change in this country!



(President Obama should implement this, huh? Let's see how many blacks would support him, then.)



Did you catch that?



To all those I love, we often have different political thoughts and probably always will. I am okay with that and find security knowing that people are allowed to have differences in their political beliefs. Forward me all your political thoughts and those of others, as I love to have my thoughts sparked (or get a good laugh). Do me a favor though and keep your racist propaganda to yourselves. Racism is not a political stance.

Throughout my life I have actually chosen to delete people from my life who have displayed hatred for someone based simply on race. After what I have witnessed over the last few months, I find it odd that I missed so many.

Thank goodness for the little girl in the tennis shoes.

Today was pajama day at Ky's school. She gets so excited about pajama day.. I guess I would too, after all, you get to wear your PJ's all day. Well, Ky got some new slippers about a week ago. They are pink with the words "Girls Rock" on them, very cute and she loves them. Well, she was so excited to wear her new slippers to school today and had them on all morning. I made her change out of them into tennis shoes so that she didn't get the slippers dirty outside. I told her she could put them back on at school.

Well, we got all the way to school (about 5 miles from home) when Kylie realized she had left her slippers sitting on the chair at home. She immediately burst into tears. I was already late for work and could not return home to get the slippers. I tried to explain this to her but she still cried all the way into school. As we walked down the hall everyone noticed her little red, teary eyed face. I felt like the worst mom in history.

Walking into the class room all the little girls had their fluffy princess slippers, their Hanna Montana slippers and even their cheetah looking slippers.. except for one other little girl. Holly happened to be wearing the EXACT same tennis shoes that Kylie was wearing. As I hugged Kylie and told her I loved her and goodbye, I asked her if she was going to be okay today. She said that she would be fine if she could just stand by Holly today, to which her teacher approved.

As I drove to work I thanked whatever powers were watching over me today for the little girl wearing the tennis shoes.

Mint-Day 2008

For the last 5 or 6 years, my Grandma, Mom, Aunt, Sister, girl Cousins and myself get together a couple of weeks before Christmas and spend about 8 hours make chocolate mints. Every year we regret not taking better notes the year before and screw up a batch or two. Every year we end up with more wasted chocolate than we did the year before. Every year we gobble up more of that wasted chocolate than we did the year before. And every year, without fail, it snows like crazy on mint day.

With so many women and so much craziness in one spot, you would think the men would keep their distance. And they do, with the exception of one; my Dad.

Two years ago, he ran around in the treacherous snowy conditions trying to find the perfect stamp so that we could display "Hand Made with Love" on every box of chocolate.

Last year, he took specific lunch orders for each woman and again weathered the storm to assure we were all properly nourished.

This year, he perfected the ruler used to make the cuts in the chocolate and found some type of gripper thingy to help hold it in place- oh, and he got us lunch again.

All the while, he sits there quietly with the ever-so-often witty comment, just being with us.

I am not sure if he actually eats any of the chocolates, so his purpose in being there is not to indulge in the sugary snacks. So, why, you ask, would any man put himself in the position to hang around with so many women; taking orders, fixing things and being subjected to women gossip?

I think he really just likes us.

I am wondering if we would ever successfully get through mint-day without the help of my Dad.

Thanks for everything Dad! I love you!

She's related to her Father.

Ky has a favorite day of the week and it happens to be Friday because that is show-and-tell day at school; apparently a very exciting day.

She always asks me "Mom, is it Friday today?"

I respond with "No, it's Wednesday."

She then says, "Will it be Friday tomorrow?"

I say, "No, then it will be Thursday."

So she gets mad at me and says, "Mom, you never let it be Friday!!"

Yes, all things are my fault.

Anyway, so we pick out this cute outfit for her to wear on her favorite day: Black dress, red turtle neck and red tights (Yes, the UTES are playing BYU this weekend, it's festive). As I am finishing my morning routine of getting ready I tell her to get her show-and-tell, put her coat on and put her shoes on- and we are off. We get to her school and she hops out of the car and all I see are BROWN shoes! UGH!

"You really put on brown shoes today?"

"Yes, mom."

"You are wearing a black dress, why didn't you put on your black shoes?"

"Cause I'm wearing a brown coat, that matches my brown shoes Mom."

Well, I guess I can't argue with that, sounds like something her father would say. ;D I should pay better attention.