Chartreuse, Olive, Purple, Tan, and Silver Thread<\/strong>: These are the colors needed to sew on Scout patches. Recently, I transferred Mark’s patches to Daniel’s old shirt and moved Daniel’s old patches to a larger shirt. Timothy needed me to sew on about 15 merit badges. I do this sewing so they are prepared for big evenings like we had this week.\u00a0Daniel completed his board of review for Eagle Scout rank, and I was asked to give a few words about his scouting experience. I shared a little of what it is like to send my 11 or 12-year-old to Scout camp for the first time, and to hear later from a leader that he did well. I shared what it feels like to let go, and see a son grow in leadership and ability because I allowed him some danger and adventure.\u00a0 I didn’t earn Daniel’s Eagle for him. What I did was watch, wait, and encourage. This was the longer and more difficult path, but better.\u00a0Later, I noticed this was the shirt I was wearing beneath my sweater for the Eagle board of review. Perfect.<\/p>\n One, Three-ring Binder for Each Child<\/strong>: When a child comes home with a certificate, report card, recital program, or blue card for a Scout merit badge, it goes in a sheet protector in this binder. When college and scholarship applications are due, this is a great reference for what they have done during high school. To keep merit badge blue cards organized, I use plastic sheets made for baseball trading cards. I can’t emphasize enough how important it was for me to keep track of these, through a move and changes in leaders.<\/p>\n Small notebooks<\/strong>: I carry these around with me so I can keep track of ideas, which swirl around me and are fickle about staying in my head very long.<\/p>\n Sugar free Ice Breakers Wintergreen Mints<\/strong>: because I talk to many people.<\/p>\n Small fabric bags with zippers in my purse<\/strong>: I have one for keys, and one for pens. They keep me organized.<\/p>\n A great phone plan for texting<\/strong>: for teens and church work<\/p>\n Laser printer<\/strong>: I am learning that writing a book means endless drafts.<\/p>\n Paper scriptures<\/strong>: Lately, I gravitate toward paper over electronic, because I have 20 years worth of notes in the margins of these scriptures. They have been steady friends during times of change.<\/p>\n Yearly tasks written on a calendar<\/strong>: In January, when I put up a new calendar, I took some time to write in the margins some hints about what needed to happen each month. For November, I wrote that during the first week I needed to go to a certain store for the best selection of Christmas cards. Another week we needed to do the Christmas picture. This has been so helpful! (And I realize probably everyone does this already.)<\/p>\n Less<\/strong>: Our family doesn’t need as much as it used to. Toys, art supplies, curriculum, and smaller clothing need to make steady exits from our house… as I have the courage to part with them.<\/p>\n If I think of you, I will make some effort to contact you<\/strong>: This isn’t a tangible thing in my tool kit, just an idea that I have recommitted to this month. Basically, I trust there are reasons I think of random people in a day, and make efforts to find out why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My current tool kit for life includes: Tissues: I sense over time that there is a correlation between trust and the number of tears I witness as a Relief Society president. When I hand a sister a tissue, I know her tears are precious, and I am honored to share the moment with her. Chartreuse, … Continue reading My current tool kit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,20,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventurous-kids","category-church","category-life-according-to-angela","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14301"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14319,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14301\/revisions\/14319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/IMG_20171103_120820.jpg\")
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