deprecate /vt./ to express earnest disapproval of; to urge reasons against. to depreciate or belittle. denigrate. underrate. pooh pooh.
deprecate /vt./ 1. I've always loved this word, especially the "self deprecating" combination, the way it defers and shrugs before it even really gets going, but I'm happy to see its week end. With "deprecate" on my mind, my inside voices have been too negative and whiny to stand for much longer.
deprecate /vt./ 2. I spent much of the week deprecating Squarespace's new V5 version and the difficulties it created in my life. But by Friday, I had worked out most of the bugs, created a new banner, and figured out the best way to upload pictures. Whew. Now if I could only figure out the other issues my computer is having...is it the memory, the modem, or the 10 million megabytes being taken up by Caleb's computer games? I know just enough about blogging and computers to be dangerous.
deprecate /vt./ 3. One of things that David finds most aggravating about being married to me, is the way I deprecate big birthday celebrations. (I ascribe this to nature and nurture, by the way.) I find regular life taxing enough, and so I always quail a little bit at the monumental effort required for birthdays. Especially the parties. Despite all this, I encouraged Savannah to invite her friends over for a swim party (at my parents' house) on Friday afternoon. I picked up a pizza and grapes and ice cream bars at Costco and we had an impromptu party with three of her best friends...no invitations, no presents, very little expense, just fun. I'm expecting my Olympic medal any day now.
deprecate /vt./ 4. Yesterday I taught my first gospel doctrine class. And I'm not being the least bit self-deprecating to say that it could have gone better. For the most part, people just stared at me, like, "Okay lady, go ahead and teach me the gospel. I'm just going to sit here and watch you make a fool of yourself." And we had really good material yesterday too...tons to talk about, but apparently I don't inspire that kind of really good classroom discussion. The highlight of the lesson was when I used colored chalk to diagram the wars and epistles that went back and forth between the four main characters (Moroni, Helaman, Ammoron and Pahoran [my personal favorite]), but that was over in the first ten minutes. David ran to Walmart for me at 9 o'clock on Saturday night for colored chalk. Bless his heart. He wanted to help, but there was just no help for it.
deprecate /vt./ 5. My sister, Rachel, and I taught another body image class on Tuesday night and had another round of serious technical difficulties. You'd think by now we'd have it down, but no. This time we showed up without a cord to connect the proxima to the computer (an fairly important part it turns out) and so I had to call David to come to our rescue. Even after he brought the cord we still couldn't get it to work and so he came in and tried to help us while I started the presentation. I told Rachel later that it's either the devil or the Lord trying to stop this presentation and I'm not sure which one it is. I was immensely grateful for David's expertise and IT support, and felt I ought to take back all the deprecating remarks I've made over the years about not having a "handy husband."
deprecate /vt./ 6. One of the highlights of my week, again, was watching the Olympics. I intended to go to bed early last night (I mean really intended), but I thought the closing ceremony was just so incredible that I stayed up and watched. And then I couldn't leave without hearing Mr. Costas sign off one last time. We have quite a relationship now and I just couldn't help myself. (Did you hear the comment about laying the egg in the bird's nest? Classic. Be still my beating heart.) And no matter your feelings about the Olympics in general, you just can't deprecate the efforts of Beijing and the Chinese people in their hosting of these most spectacular games. I am quite at a loss as to what to do now.
