Weekly Review October 2 '10

October already! Where has 2010 gone, anyway? I am not feeling very ready for the onslaught of the holiday season, but I guess it is going to come whether I am ready for it or not. Don't get me wrong--I love the holiday season! It's just such a busy time of year, though.

I was up bright and early on Sunday because Ward Council was at 7:00. The beautiful sunrise that morning made it worth being up early, though. Frank spoke in Sacrament Meeting and he did a great job. I had a little bit of trouble hearing him, though, because the young children in the audience seemed to be particularly restless--especially a particular young child named Seth. They forgot to bring his quiet book to church, and believe me--I noticed a difference! Anyway, Frank spoke on the power of the priesthood (based on President Packer's talk at last General Conference) and from what I heard, it was a very good talk. I had choir practice after church, so it was kind of a long day, but nice.

The "out of the ordinary" things that happened this week--Monday I got my hair cut and colored. I'm back to being brown with a little bit of red mixed in; quite a change after the blonde highlights I've had all summer! Tuesday I took Seth to the library. I've had four books on hold at the library for a while, and they all came in at once, so I have a lot of reading material right now! Tanner and Frank went home teaching that evening. Wednesday morning Frank went with me to Lowe's to price gravel for Scott's eagle scout project (they forgot that part when they went last week). We got a couple of pumpkins and some pansies; if I ever get a chance to plant the pansies and it stops raining long enough to mow the lawn, the yard will look quite nice! Tanner had an eye doctor appointment Wednesday after school. His eyes haven't changed at all, but his prescription is only good for a year and he was almost out of contact lenses, so I had to get him a new prescription.

We've had a lot of rain this week; especially on Wednesday and Thursday. It started to rain Wednesday evening and it came down hard all night and well into Thursday. We were under a flash flood watch, and the streets were certainly quite wet! We had rain on Monday and Tuesday also, and rain earlier in the day on Wednesday as well, so it was a very wet week.

Frank planned to work from home Wednesday because he had to help set up a computer system and put in a server at a client Wednesday evening / night. It didn't work out that way, though, because an emergency came up with another client. He ended up leaving here around 10:00 Wednesday morning and he didn't get home until 7:00 Thursday morning. Yikes! By the time he finished with the emergency with the first client, it wasn't worth coming home--he was supposed to meet to help set up the computer system at 9:00, and with traffic that day (it was particularly bad because there was a serious bus crash on I-270) he would only have been home about an hour before having to turn around and go back. Setting up the system was supposed to take until between 1:00 and 3:00 in the morning, but it ended up taking until 6:00 am. Frank was supposed to be at another client's at 6:00 Thursday morning, but (wisely) he postponed that appointment and came home to sleep instead! I feel so bad that he has to work so hard, but I do appreciate all he does to be a good employee and to provide for our family.


Frank only slept about 4 hours Thursday morning, much to my surprise. Then he was up and working again, although he worked from home. Later in the afternoon, after it quit raining (finally!) he went outside and cleaned out his car, so I could take it on my trip. (Item: there would not have been room for more than one person if he hadn't cleaned it out!)

I was also busy this week getting ready for my trip to Kentucky as well as trying to get Scott's eagle scout project write-up turned in for approval. We had to get the park ranger's signature before we could turn it in, and that turned out to be trickier than we'd planned because she's been out of the office for over a week. When we finally got in touch with her, she said she'd sign it and leave it at the park office for me, but when I drove up there on Wednesday afternoon, the office was locked and no one answered the phone, either. We got in touch with her later that afternoon and arranged to meet her at the library (she was going to be there with her son) so we finally got it signed. By the way, I wasn't too upset about the fruitless drive up to the state park, even though it was about an hour round trip, because it was a beautiful drive. The leaves are starting to turn colors on the trees. Seth enjoyed the drive, also. We have not been able to get the write up turned in yet, but hopefully that will happen this week.


Wii update: I managed to find and pop all 20 balloons in the free ride bicycle course. I know, that doesn't mean anything to you if you don't have a Wii, but trust me: it's quite an accomplishment! Ok, to be perfectly honest, I only found 19 of them myself. I was having a hard time finding that last one, and I mentioned it to Frank, and he went online and looked up where the last one was. I have the type of personality that I never would have looked it up myself--I would have kept looking until I found it! But since he was so nice to do that for me, and he even printed up a map for me...well, it was just too tempting not to look!

My left shoulder was really hurting me this week. On Monday I was holding Seth when I stepped backwards and ran into a laundry basket. I nearly fell over backwards, but managed to stop myself--but in the process I must have pulled some muscles back there. My shoulder really started hurting on Wednesday, and at first I couldn't figure out why, but then I remembered my stunt on Monday. It was very sore on Wednesday and Thursday, but thankfully started to improve on Friday and is quite a bit better now.


So Friday morning, after getting the kids to school, my friend Rebecca and I took off to visit our other friend, Marci, who lives in Kentucky. When we were going over schedules on Sunday and I reminded the kids that I was going to be gone this weekend, Jared said "Wow, it's going to be weird to have Mom gone. Mom NEVER leaves." So I started thinking about it, and realized that the last time I was away from home for a night (not counting 2 nights in the hospital when Seth was born and 6 nights in the hospital with heart problems--which doesn't count, right?) was when I went to girls' camp in 2001--over 9 years ago! So maybe not never, but close enough! Anyway, I am really glad that Rebecca was able to come with me. That would have been a very long 9 hour drive without her!! As it was, the time seemed to pass pretty quickly as we chatted the whole way. We went through some very beautiful country on the way, also.

It's been fun to be here--like one big sleep over!! We've mostly just been talking, but today we also went to a store called Hobby Lobby, which was a lot of fun. Last night we took Marci out to eat to celebrate her birthday (which is Tuesday, but we won't be here then). It's been a lot of fun, but I miss all my "boys" also. (That includes Frank!) I've talked to Seth on the phone a few times; it's a lot harder to understand him over the phone than in person!!! (I "talked" to Seth's friend, Monster, also!) I will be glad to be home again, but I am enjoying this time with my friends.

At home, Frank reports that Jared's team won their soccer game today, 7-1. Tanner spent the night with his friend Ryan last night. All three of the older boys went to the priesthood session this evening with Ryan's family. (Frank couldn't go, since he was taking care of Seth.) Apparently, Snickers is missing me--Frank says he is spending a lot of time waiting by the door. Hopefully the rest of them miss me, too!