Earning my Keep

The higher-ups at my church apparently decided they'd had enough of me hanging around on Sunday picking up dinner invitations. So they've put me to work. Every Sunday it's my job to pick the hymns the congregation will sing. And then I have to stand in front of the crowd and wave my arm to the beat of the music. Nobody pays attention to the chorister anyway, so it's a pretty easy job. And it's good incentive to not dress too outrageously for church.

As a special bonus - probably because I'm single and they figure I've got plenty o' time on my hands - they've given me a second job. Every other Wednesday I'll be responsible for leading the girls ages 8-11 in "Activity Days." Suggested activities include doing a pedigree chart of your family tree; learning proper manners; planning and preparing a meal; writing down your testimony of Jesus Christ and so on.

Maybe I'm nuts, but it seems to me like girls 8-11 are pretty much the perfect age. Once they hit 13 all that awful puberty/body image/catty-toward-others stuff kicks in. At 8, 9, and 10, girls are too young to know how uncool it is to hang out with a bunch of kids from church and learn to crochet. I'm also hoping they're too young to realize how low their 33-year-old-single-working-girl-leader who writes dumb blogs and would rather read a book than go to a party rates on the "cool" scale.

I imagine we'll get along great, since I never really matured past age 11 in a lot of ways: I still think boys have cooties and I'm still waiting to grow out of my training bra.