Weekly Review February 20 '10

We started out the week with a nice Valentine's Day. We gave each of the boys a card and a bag of chocolate candy, including a chocolate lollipop. Frank spoiled me with Dove chocolates, Turtles, and a digital photo frame. I've always wanted one of those photo frames, so I was thrilled! We had fast Sunday a week late, though, since church was cancelled last week--so I had to wait until later to try the chocolate! I gave Frank a card and a promise to take him out later. It was hard to know what to get him since he told me not to get him any sweets. We had a nice quiet morning, since church was later than usual. We had family night before church since our home teachers were coming after church and we knew we'd be busy until bedtime. It was very nice to go to church and see our "ward family" again!

My totally accommodating second counselor had her baby Monday morning (she says "that will minimize the time I'm away from Primary. I'll only miss one Sunday!"). She was hoping to make it through the week end and not have her baby on Valentine's Day, so she got her wish. I got to go visit her on Tuesday afternoon and held new baby Eliza for about 15 minutes; it was great! Somebody sign me up to do that every day--there is just something special about holding a new baby!

Monday was President's Day so the boys were still out of school; Frank went back to work, though. He's been very busy all week since most people were back at work--things tend to "pile up" when he's not working!

We were expecting to be out of school on Monday, but what we didn't expect was to be out Tuesday and Wednesday also, with 2 hour delays on Thursday and Friday. Good grief, will life ever get back to normal?!! The reason school was out was "road conditions". There were still a lot of sidewalks that weren't shoveled near the schools, making it hazardous for kids who walk, and a lot of the roads were still pretty messy also. Many roads around here are still one lane instead of two (including our road) which makes it even more dangerous for kids to be walking on the roads. I have to laugh about how cautious they are around here, but I can kind of see why they are. As I said on facebook, Brigham Young was really inspired to plan Utah cities with wide, straight streets! When you have all the narrow, winding streets that we have around here, 50+ inches of snow just paralyzes everything and it takes weeks to get things cleared up. There just isn't anywhere for all that snow to go. It is very frustrating! I do wish that they were a little more organized--it seems like it shouldn't take as long as it does to get the sidewalks and roads cleared. I mean, we just had a 12 day break (counting week ends)! Winter break was 15 days (counting week ends); it was 3 days longer than it was supposed to be due to snow, you may remember. Crazy!! We are hoping there won't be any more snow until next winter.

So, now they have cancelled an early release day next Tuesday as well as cancelling parent teacher conferences in March to try to make up for some of the lost instruction time. The BOE is going to discuss applying for a waiver so that the school year doesn't have to be 180 days long this year. I hope they do it, and that the waiver is granted. Right now I am anxiously waiting to see when the last day of school is going to be, since we can't buy plane tickets to Utah until we find out. As things stand right now, the last day of school will be June 14th, which is only 7 days before we need to be there. If a waiver isn't granted, we will be going until at least the 16th. It would just be nice to know! I keep telling the boys (and I mean it!) that we will be in Utah on June 22nd and 23rd no matter what--whether school is out or not!

Another frustrating thing about all the snow: we haven't had trash or recycling pick up since before the first storm. (Recyclables were last picked up January 26th, the dumpsters haven't been emptied since February 4th.) You can imagine how the trash has been piling up. Some people are just throwing their trash in the dumpster corral anyway, so it is a huge mess in there! I've been waiting to take the trash out until the dumpster gets emptied, so we have a lot of trash on the back deck. Yuck!! I'm pretty sure the trucks could get through now, so I'm not sure what the hold up is all about. Looking on the bright side--the trash truck usually comes around 2:00 am, so at least I haven't been awakened by the noise in weeks!

A lot of snow has melted over the last couple of days because we've had temperatures in the 40's. (That means we're down to "only" a foot or two!) But then it gets cold again at night and all the wet spots become ice. The snow isn't pretty anymore--there are huge piles of brown / gray snow everywhere--yuck! I know from experience that it's going to take a long time for all those big piles to melt--I expect the remnants of them will be here until April sometime, maybe even May.


The boys have mostly enjoyed being out of school, but they really started getting on each other's nerves this week (or maybe they were just getting on my nerves....) They had a few more sleep overs with various friends, and some of their friends came here (but not over night).


On Monday I went to the doctor to get my ears cleaned out and I was very disappointed when it didn't work--even after all the drops I've been putting in my ears to soften things up! They did give me a referral to see an ENT, though. I went there on Wednesday and (with the help of a "vacuum") he was successful in getting my right ear cleared up, so I can hear perfectly out of that ear now which is nice! However, he couldn't get the left ear cleared (ironically, I had better hearing in that ear all this time, so I didn't think it was so bad) so he sent me home with instructions to put drops in it twice a day every day, and I go back on Monday to try again. This ENT was pretty old--he looked like he should be retired already to me--and he said that he has seen thousands of patients and has never had to send one home without successfully clearing their ears! So there you go--that's how bad my ears are. He said there is not anything I can do to prevent wax build up except come see him periodically to have them cleaned out. I don't like that answer. I plan to put drops in my ears about once a week from now on; I hope that will help a little.


The boys and I all had dentist appointments on Monday as well. (The boys were pretty annoyed with me for scheduling those appointments on a day off, but considering how much school they've missed, I'm glad I did!) Tanner has one small cavity; everyone else is fine. I'm so glad--dental work gets so expensive! Scott had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday; we all ended up going to that also because Frank was late getting home that evening. It was a short appointment and he doesn't have to go back now for 6 months.


Believe it or not, Frank's car started having the same problems again on Monday! He took it back to the dealer, and they said one of the new batteries had failed again. They replaced all the batteries again--free of charge this time. We'll see how it does now--Frank thinks there's really something else wrong that is causing the batteries to go bad, but they insist they can't find anything else wrong. He got the car back on Thursday and so far it's been ok. Thankfully, they gave him a "loaner" car to use while his car was being fixed, or our schedule would have been very complicated!


I got our federal tax return filed on Tuesday. I haven't filed the state return yet because I am cheap--I didn't want to file the state through Turbo Tax, which costs $20, when I know I can file through Maryland's "i-file", which is free! It's all printed up, I just need to find the time to go online to file it.


We had a bit of a flood on Wednesday--one of the hoses under the kitchen sink sprung a leak. I noticed it that morning and Frank thought he'd solved the problem, but later that day when I got back from the doctor, there was an inch or so all over in the cabinet, and spilling over onto the floor. (The boys hadn't noticed, of course!) I cleaned it up and put a bucket under there to catch the water. When Frank came home he determined that the problem was in the cold water line, so he turned the cold water off until he had a chance to fix it. Just today he had the time to get to the store for some new hoses, and he is working on it right now, so hopefully we will have cold water again soon! In the meantime, I've been sending the boys to the bathroom to get cold water when we need it. One evening Scott said "I'm going to go make orange juice in the bathroom!" He didn't really make it in there--but he had to go there to get the cold water he needed.


Tanner hasn't been feeling so great this week. He even skipped some of the sleep overs, so I know he wasn't making it up! His chief complaint has been that his head and stomach hurt; he also has continued to complain about his chest hurting (from the fall) and later this week he started complaining of lower back pain also. Besides that, he's just been a bit lethargic. I realized that he hasn't been taking his fiber pills while school's been out; once he started to take those again his stomach has improved. I don't know what is causing the other problems so we'll have to keep an eye on that.

Well, Seth did it again! He left the lid to an old plastic ice cream container (I use those to store toys) in the oven. In my defense, I didn't even see him put it in there this time--I think it happened while I was at the doctor and the other boys were supposed to be watching him. When I tried to make garlic bread for dinner that night, I got a big mess instead--and the smoke alarm went off. I guess I need to buy him one of those toy kitchen sets! Today I warmed the oven up and managed to scrape most of the lid remnants off the bottom of the oven, and then I cleaned the oven but there is still a thin layer of melted plastic on the bottom of the oven--even after all that. I'm not sure how I'm going to get the rest off, and there is still melted plastic on the oven rack that I haven't been able to get off at all. My other oven rack still has melted toy pot on it! Maybe I can buy some new oven racks--that sounds easier than figuring out how to clean them. From now on, I am going to try to remember to check the oven for stray toys before I turn it on, but I'm sure I'll forget most of the time.


I've tried to be a little more productive this week and mostly I've done well. Thursday was an especially good day; I got so much done that day but by evening I was exhausted!! I took Seth to the library, among a lot of other things--he enjoyed getting new books and movies.


Last night Scott went on a teachers / priests overnighter at a cabin owned by one of his leaders. Tanner went to a deacon overnighter at his advisor's house. Jared was invited to sleep over with his friend Bryson. Having the older boys gone messed up our plans to go to the temple, but it was nice to be home with just Seth last evening. This morning we went to IHOP for breakfast. Tanner went to the deacon's basketball game and then they had a quorum service project doing cleaning at the church. Frank picked him up and brought him home around noon. Jared got home around 2:00, bringing Bryson with him to play. Scott didn't get home until about 6:00--he went straight from the cabin to the older boys' basketball game and Frank picked him up there. They stopped to pick up Chinese food on the way home--I couldn't cook what I'd planned with the oven being such a mess! By the way, Scott's team won their basketball game--I think that's the first time they've ever won!

Now all the boys are playing golf and bowling on the Wii. It's time for me to give Seth a bath and get him to bed!

Everyone have a great snow-free week!