Weekly Review April 9 '11

Let's start out this week with this interesting picture. Can you tell what it is? Well, I'll tell you. During General Conference on Sunday, Seth was sitting on the arm of the couch, next to the window. Frank noticed that you could see the shadow of his lower legs and feet on the opposite wall, so he tried taking a picture of it. His feet can be seen in the lower left corner of the shadow. (One leg crossed over the other, at the ankles.) You can also see the shadow of the window panes and the tree just outside the window (and yes, the hole in our screen). Kind of cool! Most of this week has still been wet and cold, but we did have a couple of nice days, and there are other signs that spring is going to win out over winter eventually. Such as this tree in bloom, right next door:

And my tulips showing signs of budding soon:

We are certainly getting enough rain, which means lots of things are growing and on the few sunny days we've had, it is just beautiful! Monday was one of those days. The temperature acutally got up into the low 80's. I decided to take advantage of the weather and spent an hour or two in the front yard, pulling weeds out of the flower beds. I made a lot of progress except for the wild onions that are taking over--I would have been out there all day trying to pull them up. After the boys got home from school, we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to buy yard waste bags, since I discovered that we didn't have any left. (We are not allowed to throw yard waste in the regular trash anymore; we have to put it in special bags and leave them out on a certain day for the city to pick up.) It would have been a quicker trip except that I took the three older boys with me, and they all remembered that they needed socks, underwear, shorts for gym, etc.! But we finally got out of there and after we got home and bagged all the weeds, Scott mowed the lawn. I'm glad we did that while we had the chance because it's been mostly wet and colder ever since, and before we did the yard work the lawn was really starting to look like a jungle!

For family night activity on Monday we went for a walk down to a nearby park. Scott and Jared played basketball while Seth played on the playground (and Tanner chased him around). It felt really nice to be outside without a jacket and with a breeze blowing and to not be cold! I was kicking myself for not bringing a camera, though.

Monday was a pretty busy day--I also worked at the school that morning and took Scott to the doctor to get the stitches removed from his elbow. I actually hadn't seen his wound until then, since he kept it covered up with a bandage all week. I could tell that it was pretty deep, but it is healing nicely.

Tuesday was Frank's really early day--he had to be at work at 4:00 am. It was a crazy day for him. He had a meeting that evening from 6:30 to 8:00, so he planned to come home when he got off at noon to take a nap before going back to his meeting. But of course an emergency came up with another client, so he ended up working all day and taking a short nap in his car before going to his meeting. And then, of course, the meeting went late--until 9:00 instead of 8:00! He didn't see any of the kids that day because they were still asleep when he left for work and they were all in bed asleep by the time he got back home. I took Snickers to the vet that day for a follow up check on his teeth; they look great.

It was time for our city's semi-annual bulk trash pick up this week, so we put an old dresser and a computer monitor out on the curb Monday night. Then one of our neighbors told us "Didn't you hear that they cancelled bulk trash pick up because of budget cuts?" Groan! Somehow we missed that, although we seem to be the only ones in the city of Frederick who did, since I didn't see any other bulk trash items sitting out as I drove around. I refused to drag the stuff back into the house, though. I told Frank we'd just have to take it to the dump ourselves. But then Tuesday afternoon I looked outside and the stuff was gone! I was thrilled! Someone came along and saved us the trouble. I was kind of hoping that would happen, since most years people come around and pick things up before the city does, but I didn't expect it to really happen since no one else had put anything out. Anyway, I am grateful we didn't have to take the time to take care of it ourselves.

On Wednesday I got Seth's costume for his school play cut out. That evening I went to the church to help fill eggs for our Easter egg hunt. Frank was late getting home from work again (he's had a very busy week) but fortunately I didn't have to take Seth with me to help fill the eggs (would have been very counter-productive!) The teachers and priests were doing yard work for a family in our ward to help earn money for camps, and since Scott and Tanner have already earned enough for their camps, they didn't need to go. So they stayed home and babysat for me. We decided to have the activty days groups help us fill eggs this year. It worked out great! We got all 1200 eggs filled in 40 minutes; all the other years that we have done it as a presidency it has taken us 3-4 hours. I was amazed at how fast it went with all those helpers. The girls seemed to have fun doing it, too.

When I was on my way to pick up Seth from school Wednesday morning, I almost got in a car wreck. I was still on our street, too. There's a stop sign on the corner right by our house, so I pulled to a stop there as usual. When I looked to my right, there was a car coming, but it's a three way stop, so I knew that car had to stop too. I was about to pull out, but I just had a feeling I should wait a few seconds. I'm glad I did that, because the other car never stopped. The driver drove right through the intersection without even pausing or looking--I don't think she even saw me at all. I'm sure she would have hit me if I had pulled out. At first, I felt really annoyed with the driver of the other car, but then I thought "What am I thinking? I most certainly just received a prompting that saved me from a lot of inconvenience at the least and injury at the most. I should just feel grateful for that little prompting!" Although I doubt I would have been hurt if I'd been hit, it certainly would have damaged my car and just created a big hassel for me to have to deal with (not to mention that I would have been very late to pick up Seth). I'm sure things like that happen more frequently than I even notice, but this time I did notice, so I wanted to record it so I won't forget.

I was planning to start sewing Seth's costume on Thursday, but I got really interested in a book I've been reading and couldn't put it down! (The book is Enchanted by Orson Scott Card; I'm hoping to finish it today). I didn't lie around reading all day, though. I still helped take kids to the school library, sent a bunch of Primary emails, checked on signing Scott up for the SAT and the ACT, did the laundry, bought groceries, and vacuumed the house. So I don't feel too slothful! I did work on Seth's costume yesterday, and got a good start on it. I hope it turns out ok!

I feel like my presidency and I spent half the week watching the weather reports and trying to determine if we were really going to be able to have the Easter egg hunt or not--the forecast seemed to change a couple of times daily, and there were lots of emails going back and forth! We finally decided last night to postpone the hunt for a week. (Which meant lots of phone calls were made last night.) Although it has not been raining this morning, it was pouring all day yesterday so everything is very wet (and muddy) and it is not very warm today, either. So now we get to watch the weather for another week and hope that next Saturday offers us a nice spring day! Or a nicer one than today, anyway.

Scott had play performances again this week-one Thursday night, one last night, and he has two more today. I feel like I've barely seen him the last few days, since he would come home from school to drop off his books and then hurry back to the school to get ready for the play. It's a long play, too, so the performances don't end until 10:00 pm and then he still had to help put things away after that. He didn't get home until 11:00 or later those two nights. The performances today are the last two performances, though, so he'll be done after today. He has had a good time and has learned a lot. He is considering technical theater as one of his future career options now.

The boys brought report cards home for third term this week, and everyone did well. Tanner and Jared both got staight A's, and Scott did well enough to make the honor roll. Even more important, we always get great comments from their teachers about their behavior. We are grateful that they are making such good choices most of the time.

Frank has been counting calories and exercising diligently and he has now lost 23 pounds! He looks great. He is complaining lately about his pants being way too loose--a nice problem to have! He still has more to lose, so he doesn't want to go out and buy new pants yet. I am really proud of him for sticking with it and working so hard, especially when the results have been slow. He is already reaping some benefits--having more energy and sleeping better.

Tanner and Jared spent the night with their friends Ryan & Bryson last night. We took Seth and Scott out for breakfast this morning. Scott will be leaving for his play soon, and Frank and Tanner will be leaving shortly after that to attend a stake Seminary activity--they are doing a "mini trek". Frank is helping with the cooking. They won't be back until late this evening. (Unfortunately, Scott will have to miss it because of his play.) It's going to be wet, muddy, and cold, but the pioneers had to deal with all those things so I'm sure it will give the kids a greater appreciation for what the pioneers went through!

That means Seth, Jared and I will be hanging out by ourselves for the rest of the day. Among other things, I will be helping Seth prepare a talk for Primary tomorrow. I have no idea if he will actually give the talk or not! I am interested to find out. I have a feeling I may be giving the talk for him.