talkin that talk

i gave a talk in church today.

i HATE giving talks.

BUT i didn't claim the fact that i hate talks up at the pulpit.

i think it's lame to do that.

just suck it up when the bishopric asks you.

but i've never been able to give a GREAT talk.

one of my first talks i had to give in church was when i was younger, my dad pretty much wrote my talk for me cuz i forgot i had to give a talk till the last minute.  there was a word in there that i didn't know how to fully pronounce so i tripped over that word many times.  making it look obvious i didn't write my own talk.

then later in my youth i had to give a talk with one of my friends and an old guy and we all had the same topic, more specifically, the same general conference talk. we all shared the same quotes and stories.  3 times.  i felt embarrassed.

then back in rexburg brett and i had to speak in our married student ward and to this day i really think i forgot to say amen at the end of my talk.  i'm probably going to hell.

then brett and i were asked to speak in the ward we are in now, but last year...when i was severely pregnant, hopped up on sour skittles giving baby everton a sugar high and he was giving me roundhouse kicks within my stomach as a i nervously talked.  i ended up speaking for just 5 of the 15 mins they asked us to speak each, making the bishopric having to fill in the rest of the time.  i felt bad.

and then we come to today, the point of this blog post.

brett and i were asked to give a talk for this day.  like all talks i've written in the past i don't start on them till the night before.  refusing to give a measly 5 minute talk like last time i stuffed my talk with tons of articles, stories, personal life experiences, insights, etc.  it was 12.45 am and i thought that i'll just print it out in the morning, read through it and time myself.  and i went to bed.

the next morning we went through the usual hubbub of getting ready for church and as i put my makeup on i asked brett to print off my talk for me.  i checked to see how my talk is printing off and it WASN'T.  there was no more ink in the printer.  brett's talk printed fine but there was no more ink for me.  then followed the chaos.  there were lots of running around looking for a jump drive (now that we're not in school anymore, when would we ever use one?)  we ended up hauling our external hard drive to church, where we ended up a little late.  with the help of a member of the bishopric my talk was printed.  note i didn't have time to read through and time my talk.  and then it was showtime.  i went up to speak after the youth speaker.  i realized i wasn't TOO nervous as i usually would've been.  i tried to speak as if i was talking to one of my friends.  i felt good.

they asked us to speak for only 15 mins.  when i glanced at the clock i thought i had a lot of time left.  i either thought that i was almost done with my talk or i kept looking at the shorthand on the clock.

when i was done i made my way back to our pew and as i got there the bishop got up and said, "bro. caldwell we wanna hear from you as soon as we can so come on up here and we'll skip the rest hymn."  i shot a look to the clock and there were about 10mins left of sacrament meeting!
I HAD SPOKEN FOR 25 MINUTES!

smooth move ex-lax.

brett ended up speaking for just 6-7 mins and we sang only 1 verse for the last hymn.  i was and still am mortified.  i feel like i owe the congregation something for stealing 25 mins of their time.  seriously, NO ONE should have to listen to me for that long.  i get so annoyed when people give talks longer than they should and in that instance i became my own annoyance.  yes my awesome friends told me that my talk was great and that who cares we skipped the rest hymn.  but for real, that was too long of a time to look/listen to me. EHHHHHH.  i felt bad for taking time away from brett's talk, which frankly, honey badger didn't care.  he was just fine only having a few mins.

ughhhhhhhhhhhh sorry for the novel about my latest and dumb accomplishment.  see?  i suck at time management.

and to fully apologize i end this post with a picture to help you to perhaps forget what a loser i am.