Weekly Review December 16, 11

Here is our house, looking "Christmas-y"!

This week was busy also, but it didn't seem quite as crazy as last week. I was home a bit more, at
least.

Last Saturday was kind of a relaxing day in a way--Frank was working most of the day and the
other car was in the shop so I didn't have transportaion and therefore had a good excuse to stay home! I did get a lot of things done around here, but it seemed restful for a change. Frank was doing work for a couple of companies that he did work for while he was unemployed. They wanted him to continue to do some jobs for him after he got his full time job, and since it is all things he can do after hours and on week ends, he agreed. More work has come his way during the last couple of weeks and it looks like he will have maintenance work to do for five different companies from now on. Is it a coincidence that this extra work has come to us right as we are entering the college / mission years for our boys? We don't think so--and we are very grateful!!

The Expedition was in the shop to have the heater looked at. Last winter the heater didn't seem to be working very effectively, and now it has quit working entirely. (We wish we'd had it looked at before now, but once we quit needing the heater, we forgot it wasn't working very well--until we needed it again!) Air blows through the vents, but it never warms up. The news about the heater is bad--the heat coil needs to be replaced. The heat coil costs less that $25, but apparently it is located in a very difficult spot so that the whole dashboard has to be taken apart to replace it, which takes hours and hours. So the labor to get it fixed would be between $1200 and $1500. The guy at the shop recommended we sell the car to someone in Florida, where they don't need the heater. We really don't want to do that, though. The rest of the car is fine and we only have about 3 more payments to make on it. So we're looking into other options. Frank read online that there is another way to get to the coil without taking the dashboard apart so we're going to try to find someone who is willing to try that out. In the meantime, we have had some cold mornings but overall the weather has been quite mild for this time of year, and we are grateful for that!
Ironically, the heat in Frank's car isn't working well either. The heater is fine, but the fan only
works occasionally so the air is warm but there is no way to blow all that warm air into the car. It's not as cold as my car, but it isn't nearly as warm as it could be. We need to get the fan replaced. I'm hopeful that it won't be as expensive as the Expedition repair.

Scott had a basketball game on Saturday but he didn't make it--he was too tired because of the show he's been working on at school. We heard later that his team won their game. He says they only win when he isn't there so maybe he should stop going to games! :) Saturday was also the annual "Museums by Candlelight" event here in Frederick but we didn't make it to that. Frank got home a lot later than he'd planned (early evening rather than early afternoon) so he was
tired. Besides that, it was the last night for the show Scott was helping with and he really wanted us to come see it, so I went to that instead. Frank wanted to go, but decided he'd better not because he still had a pretty wicked cough (still does). The show was done by the high school show choir and was called "Holidaypalooza". It was basically a bunch of Christmas songs--a few
done by the whole group, interspersed (sp?) with lots of solos, duets, and small groups. There were about four or five of the girls (Scott's friend, Collette, who is in the Frederick Ward was one of them) who are really quite talented with beautiful voices, but overall I was disappointed in the local talent! I still really enjoyed the evening, though. The enthusiasm of the kids made up for a lot! And that kid who did the sound did a fantastic job...oh yeah, that was Scott! :) He helped with the set, also, which looked very nice.

Our Sacrament Meeting on Sunday was done completely by the youth. It was very nice. Scott gave a talk; he did a good job. I'm still adjusting to not having a lot to do during meetings on Sundays. It seems strange to sit and listen to lessons, instead of giving them! (Nice for a change, though.) After church Scott had BYC and I had a song practice. The rest of the day was relaxing; we had family night also.

I had a presidency meeting on Monday, book club and choir practice on Tuesday, and YW on Wednesday. For YW we went caroling--it was combined activity with the YM. For book club we did a used book gift exchange; that's become a tradition for us every Christmas. I went to our local used book store to find something to give for that and not only found a couple of good books to give away, but also found 4 books in a series of 7 that I've been wanting to get for a long time--and they were only $3 each! (The Williamsburg series, Mom; remember that series?) I really love that store; I always find great books there for really cheap.

In between all of that and the usual chores, I also wrapped presents, made several phone calls related to doctor appointments (oh the joys of switching health insurance plans), cleaned out my closet, and spent a good portion of yesterday cleaning out Seth's room. His room was long overdue for a purge--I was surprised at how much baby stuff was still stashed in there! One other observation on that project: I suspect that toy cars have found a way to breed, because there were certainly a ton of them in his car bin that I have never seen before. Besides all those activities, we also began our 12 Days of Christmas service project on Tuesday, so we have been doing that each evening. Yesterday afternoon we took all the boys shopping so they could get Christmas presents for each other. Then we came home and did more wrapping!

Today I had a lot of errands to run--bank, pharmacy, Costco, a trip to Goodwill with 3 bags of stuff from Seth's room, and put air in the Expedition tires. The two front tires need to be replaced, I'm afraid. We are planning to go to the temple grounds tonight to see the lights and to attend a concert.

Scott had another busy week. The holiday show is over now, but he was asked to help with the sound for a couple of other events at the high school this week. He will probably be doing more of that throughout the school year. He will get paid for some of them, which is nice. Scott went to Institute with a friend on Thursday evening. His good friend Allie is home for Christmas (she's been out in Utah at LDS Business College) so I expect we will not be seeing a lot of him the next few weeks.

Frank received good news at work this week--they said they have decided to start the paperwork process to get him hired as a Marriott employee because everyone on his team agrees that they want him to stay. After our last experience with Marriott paperwork, I expect that it will take at least 6 weeks before he is actually a Marriott employee, but it is nice to know that they definitely want him to stay and that they're starting the process.

Recently Frank acquired another computer for us. One of his clients had a computer with a crashed hard drive. The hard drive was beyond fixing, but Frank happened to have a hard drive here at home he'd picked up somewhere along the way so he replaced the bad hard drive with the one we had. (The client decided they didn't want to bother to get the computer fixed and told Frank he could have it.) Now the computer works fine, and it is a very nice touch screen computer. The boys love it! Here is Seth, showing it off:

We are really lucky that Frank is so talented at fixing computers! We have picked up a lot of nice computers this way. (The price we pay in return is that we have a house full of computer cords and various computer parts. They have completely taken over Frank's office and are now working their way up the stairs! Really, I should post pictures--you would not believe it! No one is bothered much by this except me.)

Well, only one more week until Christmas! It is hard for me to believe. This was my wrapping / organizing week. Next week is my baking week. I think that's all I have left to do to be ready. My goal for next week is to have less bickering and tension in our home--it's been unusually difficult the last few weeks, for some reason. Just wanted you to know we are not perfect! :)