Weekly Review September 28 '13

It is starting to feel like fall around here.  The mornings are pretty chilly but most of the days are warm.  Today is cloudy and kind of gloomy but most days have been sunny and beautiful.  It's been really dry, too.  We're enjoying it while it lasts.  My only complaint is that I need to change clothes half way through the day...by midday, I'm too hot in the sweater that I put on that morning.

This week went fairly well...I guess I am getting used to some sort of new crisis each week.  (Not a crisis for us, a crisis for someone in our ward.  I'm thankful it's not us, but it's sad to see it happen to someone else that I care about.)  This time it was marriage difficulties, involving one spouse getting a restraining order against the other one.  Sad stuff!  It looks like they are going to try to work things out, though, which is good.

Last Saturday Seth had his first soccer game.  I missed half of it because I had to go pick up Tanner and Jared from the church--they were returning from a 2 day camp out.  They had fun and worked hard...their activities included a 10 mile hike, a lot of it uphill.  They have some nice pictures of some great views.  I need to get them onto my computer and then I could share them with you.  Anyway, the soccer game went well.  Seth played better than I expected him to play so it's good to see him start to catch on to a few things.  He has some really good players on his team and even though they don't keep official score, his team won the game 5-0.  Jared went to a party that night for a girl he knows from school.  It was a pretty unique party--they went to this place that teaches circus performing skills and did things like walking on a tight rope and learning to juggle.  He came home with a clown nose and had been working on his juggling skills ever since.

Sunday I had Ward Council before church.  We sat with Wanda and took her home after church (someone else picked her up).  Jared and I had choir practice that evening.  After dinner and family night, the boys and I watched the musical Cinderella.  I was kind of tickled about that...Frank was going to send it back to Netflix (I'm the one who ordered it and I'd already watched it) but when the boys heard the word "musical" they all said "Wait!  We want to see that!"  I love it that they are into musicals now, something that I've always loved.  They go around the house singing a lot too.  Finally someone else in this house shares an interest with me!

The kids got out of school two hours early on Monday.  Nothing special...they just have these random 2 hour early release days throughout the year.  I don't have a ton of things written down for Monday but I know I was busy all day long.  We played the game of Life for family night activity, which ended with Seth having a huge tantrum and getting sent to bed.  He's at that difficult age where he is old enough to play a lot of games now but hasn't yet learned how to be a good sport about it when things don't go the way he wants them to.  Seems like a lot of games end with him upset these days.  But we're working on it! 

I've had Tanner working on his Eagle scout project plan all week.  On Monday I drove him up to measure the garden so we can figure out how much mulch is going to be needed--Frank met us there on his way home from work so that he could see it and help with the measuring.  Seth came also (Jared had gone to a movie after school) and he enjoyed seeing some of the horses.

Jared was asked to teach some things for scouts on Wednesday evening (he needed to do that to pass off a requirement for his next rank advancement) so he was working on getting that ready on Tuesday.  I had book club Tuesday afternoon and the evening was rather crazy-- Seth had soccer practice, Tanner had one of his 2 hour driving sessions, and Frank was helping teach a new member discussion.  I took Seth to soccer, Frank dropped Tanner off at his driving session and then went to his discussion, and I picked Tanner up after getting back from soccer.  Tanner had a good experience driving that time, and now he is a lot more confident about driving.  He drove to the church and back Wednesday evening, and he did a good job. 

I'm having a hard time remembering what I did during the days this week, although I know I was always busy.  It was one of those weeks that I had hardly any free time.  But apparently I didn't write down everything I did!  I know I didn't make it to Wal-Mart until Wednesday afternoon, but I can't remember what I was doing all morning.  Probably RS stuff.  We had the Elders over for dinner Wednesday evening and then the boys had YM.  I needed to talk to the bishop about the family in crisis, so I went over with the boys and he had some time free so I was able to meet with him about that.  After talking to him and delivering an invitation to the RS broadcast to a less active sister (I also visit teach her) it was late enough that it wasn't worth it to go back home before the boys would need to be picked up, so I waited for them to finish.

Thursday morning I had RS visits that lasted until early afternoon.  Then I ran home to get a few things done before a 3:00 appointment to get my hair done.  Frank got his haircut also--she cut his hair while my color was processing.  After I got done and we had dinner, Tanner & Frank went home teaching while I took Seth with me to get groceries.  On the way home I tried to find another less active sister's home so I could give her an invitation to the RS broadcast but I had to give up on finding it.  She lives in an apartment complex and although I'm familiar with it, I have never been to her house and don't know exactly which building she is in.  The buildings have numbers on them, but it was dark and they don't have lights on the building numbers so it is impossible to read them.  We got out of the car and walked around a bit, and some of the numbers were readable if you got right under them, but it was hard.  I figured out two building numbers and her building should have been in between those two buildings, but it wasn't.  So I gave up!  I was annoyed because if the numbers had just been lit up I probably could have found it easily.  After that unsuccessful attempt, I also stopped by the family in crisis home and I was able to talk with the wife for a good 30 minutes.  Or rather, she talked and I listened.  We got home much later than I had planned and Seth was late getting to bed but I am glad I got to see her.

Yesterday was kind of a difficult day...I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that needed to be done.  Frank and I had planned to go to the temple so I knew I only had a certain amount of time to get things done.  I was already feeling like I barely had enough time to get those things done and then a number of RS things came up.  So I was feeling stressed.  I finally had to decide that I was ok not getting a few things done (this post, among them!) and then I felt a little better.  I did get the budget all done before it was time to pick up the kids from school.  Then Frank and I went to the temple, and that was really nice, of course.  We got some yummy Greek food on the way home. 

Today has been another busy day, and it started a bit earlier than Saturdays usually do because we needed to be out the door around 8:00.  Today our stake did their annual "Day to Serve".  This year, they encouraged all members of the stake to participate in a 5K run/ 2K walk that was raising money for a local charity that provides food and shelter for needy people.  We didn't have to get donations or anything...we just paid a fee to sign up for the run / walk.  I signed all of us up.  Jared chose to do the 5K run, but the rest of us did the 2K walk.  There were TONS of people there we knew...it was almost like stake conference!  So that was pretty fun.  One of the other boys Seth's age from our ward walked with us because his parents wanted to run.  He was a much faster walker than Seth so I ended up walking ahead with him and Frank walked with Seth.  Tanner and one of his friends walked with Seth and Frank also.  We enjoyed our brisk morning walk through downtown Frederick.  After the race, they had lots of food (bananas, chips, granola bars, water, etc.) for us and we all got a t-shirt too (we got those before the race) and all the kids got medals.  They had door prizes also, and Jared won one of those--a water bottle and a free one month membership to a local health club.  I was talking to a guy in our ward who ran, and he said that Jared did a really good job.  He was about the 10th person to finish the run.

In addition to the Walk / Run, every ward in our stake also had their own service project to do.  Our ward helped plant trees at a farm.  So after the Walk / Run, we planted trees.  There was not a terrific turn out for that...I would say only about 15 families showed up to help, but that meant there were about 60 people or so.  There were hundreds of trees...all the holes were already dug (thank goodness); we were putting the trees in the holes, covering them up with dirt, driving in a stake next to each tree, putting a protective tube around the trunk of each tree, and then securing the tube to the stake with wire.  It wasn't hard work, and with so many people working on it we got things done quickly but it still took us about 3 hours to plant all those trees.  It was fun, and the weather was perfect, but we were very tired by the time we got home!  After getting home and eating lunch (at 2:30), we showered and then got a little house work done and ran some errands.  Now it is almost time for me to leave for the RS Broadcast, so I'd better finish this up.  I need to eat something and get ready to go.  I'm looking forward to a nice evening of being spiritually fed! :)      

Weekly Review September 20 '13

It's "Fair Day" so the kids are out of school.  If I were a great mom, I'd take Seth to the fair.  But I'm not going to do that because I've been there more than once and it is not much to get excited about.  Plus, it's expensive.  The older two boys are gone on a two day camp out.  Hooray for their new scoutmaster!  Jared might get his 20 camping nights someday after all. :)

This week was better than last week in most ways.  I wasn't nearly so stressed out.  I was pretty much an emotional wreck the last two weeks, but this week I've been feeling better.  Maybe it was just hormones!  Well, life was pretty crazy though.  This week I decided to give myself a break and I didn't plan any visits.  The first few days of this week were still quite busy but the last few days things have slowed down a bit, which has been nice for a change.  It was almost another really insane week, though.  On Monday evening one of my counselors called me because she had just found out that a family in the ward was losing their house to foreclosure and they had to be out by Sunday!  What?!!  The next day they talked to a lawyer and found out that they really have 30 days to move.  That's still not good, of course, but it's a lot better than 6 days, which would have been a complete nightmare.  So I didn't end up having to organize getting a ton of people in there to help them this week, which was a relief.  I still feel terrible about the whole thing, and we are of course working on getting help for them but it's a blessing to have a little more time.  They are relieved, too.

When I was writing last week, Tanner was gone to a Priest / Laurel activity.  A kind of funny thing happened when he got home.  We had forgotten and locked the screen door so he couldn't get in with his key.  His phone had died, so he couldn't call us and he thought we were asleep so he didn't want to ring the doorbell.  So what did crazy Tanner do?  He thought maybe his key would get him in the back door from the deck (it wouldn't have...but he didn't know that) so he decided to climb up on the deck and try the door.  (Why he didn't try the back door first, which is at ground level, I will never know.)  The deck is a good ten feet above the ground, but by using the next door neighbor's fence and shed, he managed to climb up on the deck and try the door...just as Frank was coming up the stairs from the basement and noticed the doorknob jiggling.  He thought someone was trying to break in.  (Well I guess someone was...but it was only Tanner.)  I was upstairs and heard Frank suddenly yell "HEY!!" really loudly.  Then I heard Tanner's voice saying "It's me, Dad."  It was funny in a way, but he certainly gave Frank a scare.  He was pretty successful at getting onto the deck quietly, too.  I was sitting right by a window that overlooks the deck, and I didn't hear anything.  Tanner says that's because he's a Ninja!

Last weekend was Stake Conference.  Frank attended the Priesthood Leadership session at 4:00 on Saturday, and then I met him over there at 6:00 for the adult session.  That meeting didn't start until 7:00, but the stake RS presidency always provides a meal for the stake presidency, the stake clerks, executive secretary, and their wives.  It's always really yummy and it's nice to visit while we eat.  The general session was on Sunday morning; as usual, Frank had to be there early and he saved us a seat.  Also as usual, Frank didn't get to sit down for more than about 20 minutes of the meeting.  He always has to deal with problems that come up with the technology...sound or visuals or something!  Plus, there were issues with the HVAC (which isn't really his job but he knows a lot about it)--some of the rooms were stifling hot and I am here to tell you that the chapel was freezing, since that's where we were sitting.  (It was a nice day outside--the AC was working overtime, though.)  Anyway, the meetings were really nice and uplifting.  For the general session, we had a missionary choir composed of all the missionaries that are serving in our stake right now.  Which just goes to show you...the fact that they had enough to make a choir is pretty amazing!  And they looked and sounded great.  There were two youth speakers that were incredibly impressive, too.  I have a lot of hope for the future of the church...it's in good hands for sure!

After stake conference we were going to have some friends over for dinner, but they had to cancel on us.  The boys helped unload chairs at the church...they always have to borrow a couple hundred chairs from our building in order to have enough chairs for the whole stake.  I took a long nap Sunday afternoon which was very nice.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday before all the meetings started, Frank was gone doing work for clients all morning.  I took Seth to a practice scrimmage for his soccer team...it was kind of frustrating to watch him because he really doesn't get the game at all yet.  He seems to get distracted easily too, so half the time he doesn't hear the coach's instructions.  He seems to be having fun though, and hopefully before the season is over he'll get some of the basics of the game figured out!  After coming home from the practice, I worked on the sewing project the rest of the afternoon.  I finished the first pair of pants and got another pair done as well.  I had a lot less problems this time, so I started feeling a lot less stressed about getting the rest done on time.  I had managed to work out the bugs and figured out what worked the best and how to work with the fabric, not to mention I had my sewing machine a lot more figured out as well.

Monday I had a presidency meeting in the morning.  I got some housework and shopping done and after dinner we had family night.  After that I worked on the pants again and got another pair done.

Jared stayed home from school on Tuesday.  His nasty cold wasn't getting any better so he needed a day to get some rest.  That seemed to help a lot...he is nearly better now.  I got the last pair of pants done; I sewed a couple of patches onto a baseball jersey as well.  After I got that project done (and it was a relief to finish it!) I got all my other regular Tuesday chores done (bathrooms, grocery list, etc.)  Tanner had some on the road driving that afternoon for 2 hours (to complete driver's ed, he has to go on three 2 hour driving sessions with an instructor).  He was supposed to do all three sessions this week but he ended up doing only one of them--the school had to reschedule his Monday session and we rescheduled his Wednesday session because he wasn't feeling very well. 

Seth had soccer practice Tuesday evening as well, so I was running around a lot that day.  I had an emergency food order that I ran out to do that evening as well.  The guy I fixed the baseball pants for came to pick them up late that evening and he was very pleased with everything.  They did turn out looking really nice, so I was proud of myself!  He sent me an email today to let me know the pants worked out perfect for his games, and included a picture of him playing with one of the uniforms on.  I'm not totally done doing sewing for him...that was the first part of the project.  I still have one more patch to sew on another jersey and three more pants to either hem or put elastic in.  But that part doesn't need to be done until October 20th, so I have a little more time.  I'm planning to start working on them soon, though!  Don't want to be stressed out again at the end.  In some ways I'm glad I had this project to do even though it stressed me out.  I learned a lot about my new sewing machine and I am actually really happy with it!

Tanner was coming down with Jared's cold so he stayed home on Wednesday to get some rest.  I wasn't feeling so great myself that day...most of the week I also felt like I was trying to fight off the same cold, and Wednesday I had a terrible headache and a sore throat.  I felt pretty good in the morning, actually, but after shopping all Wednesday morning (regular groceries and also wedding gift shopping for Erin & Dan) I started to feel a lot worse.  Meanwhile, Frank came home from work on Tuesday with a very pained expression on his face, saying that his right kidney really hurt.  That has continued to bother him ever since...never bad enough to make a trip to the hospital necessary, but he's been pretty uncomfortable the last 3 days.  He's having other kidney stone symptoms too so we're pretty sure that's what it is.  The last time he had a kidney stone he passed it without ever having to go to the hospital, so I'm hoping that will happen again but it's frustrating that it's taking so long.

The guys came to re-clean our air ducts on Wednesday morning.  The manager came this time and made sure the job was done right.  He got a ton of stuff out of our vents and did several things that the other guys hadn't done at all, and he confirmed that the other guys definitely hadn't done the job right.  I'm glad Frank called to complain!  Meanwhile, Tanner was working on his application for National Honor Society, which was due the next day.  I've been nagging him about it for weeks and he had done a bit of work on it, but unfortunately he procrastinated a lot of it until the end.  After resting all day he did feel better and went to YM...we let him do that mostly because he needed to get some signatures from several people there for his application.  After he came home he still had to finish up and so he was up late and I was up late too because I don't leave the boys up by themselves when they are on the computer.  Someday I hope one of my kids figures out that procrastinating is not the way to go. 

Yesterday was a lot more relaxed.  I felt my heart start fluttering Wednesday afternoon and it was still doing that Thursday morning.  I felt a little short of breath and light headed, although it wasn't too bad.  I also felt really tired.  Since I had that going on I decided to try to take it easy a little bit.  I certainly didn't sit around all day...I got grocery shopping done and some sweeping and there was still laundry to do.  But once I got those chores done and the laundry was going, I sat down and spent the afternoon watching a movie from Netflix.  Once the boys got home from school I was busy again...they had to quickly pack for their camp out and I had to take them to the store to pick up a couple of things for that.  I got them over to the church and after I got home from that I relaxed a little more before making dinner, vacuuming the whole house, and folding all the laundry.  If the boys had been home I would have made them do all that!  Frank normally would have helped too but he felt worse than me.  By evening I was pretty sure my heart had stopped fluttering too...I didn't feel nearly so tired.  Today I have felt back to normal.

Frank worked from home on Wednesday.  Yesterday he went in for a few hours and did more work from here.  Today he is working from home again.  It's really a blessing that he has that option when he is not feeling very well!  Today I took the dog on a walk and got the budget done.  Seth has enjoyed being home from school.  He plays quite nicely by himself, although he usually makes a mess.

We must be crazy, but we are thinking about starting house hunting again.  I have no idea how we'll actually have time to fix up our house and to fit a move in, but we just felt like it was time to start looking.  Houses seem to be selling pretty quickly around here and prices are going up.  There is not a lot on the market, but when we looked online we found a few places that interest us.  So we're having our friend the realtor come over tomorrow to look at our house and he will also take us to see a couple of places if he can get appointments set up.  We've thought about doing this so many times that I'm not sure if we'll ever actually take the plunge, but maybe we will.  We are in a better position to buy now than we've ever been and our house is closer to being ready to sell, too.  So we'll see what happens.  Frank is actually more anxious to move than I am, which is a fascinating reverse of our usual roles.  I have become pretty content with where we are but in talking to Frank lately I've realized that it is important to him, and I think I owe it to him to start looking again.  Don't get me wrong...I'd love to have more space!  But it's not as important to me as it used to be.  Having one less child in the house has made a difference.  In a few more years we'll probably have plenty of space and I think we'd decide to stay here forever except when we think of the guys coming back to visit someday, with wives and children...well, there'd be no place to put them!  So I guess we'll take a look around.

RS has been pretty low key this week, which has been a good change.  I wanted to write down one experience I had, though.  There is a young single mom in our ward who is less active...I've actually never met her.  But I have communicated with her via text messaging over the last couple of months.  A few weeks ago she was on my mind, so I texted her and told her that, and asked her if she needed anything.  She responded that she was still trying to get her car fixed (it's been broken down the whole time I've been communicating with her) and she also mentioned that she is trying to find a new place to live.  Evidently, she is living with other people right now and she said it wasn't the best environment so she was trying to change that.  I sent her some words of encouragement and then kept thinking about her.  A few days later I heard about a not for profit place that fixes cars for people who qualify at greatly reduced rates.  I texted her the information about that and she was very grateful!  I also asked her if she would like me to put the word out to the ward that she is looking for a place to live; she said that would help her a lot.  That was about 2 weeks ago.  Then on Wednesday she sent me a text message...her car was fixed and passed inspection...she was SO happy about it!  She told me she knew it was the work of the Lord.  First of all, I was thrilled that she wanted to share her good news with me.  Second, I was so glad that she is recognizing the hand of the Lord in her life, that I cried.  Then I laughed...why do I care so much about this person that I've never even met?  Well, the fact remains that I do, and I know that I am feeling the love of the Lord for her.  It is a wonderful feeling.

That's all I've got for this week.  Sorry still no pictures!  There hasn't been anything too notable happening that would warrant pictures.  I haven't taken a single picture yet this month.  Maybe soon.  We hope Erin & Dan have a wonderful wedding day...we are thinking about them today!  If I were there, I'd have something great to take some pictures of. :)

Weekly Review September 13 '13

Sorry...no pictures this week.  No time for picture taking.

Last week I said I didn't think things were going to settle down around here anytime soon and I was certainly right.  I don't know how much of our crazy life you really want to read about, but I feel the need to record it...if for no other reason than to prove that I survived it.  If it bores you (the one or two people who read this), then just skip it!

Saturday I spent most of the day finishing up my talk and figuring out visiting teaching changes.  In the late afternoon we went to a birthday open house for a sister in our ward...they had ice cream for everyone and there were lots of other people there we knew so it was fun to visit for a while.  After that Frank dropped Tanner, Jared, and I off at the church.  The boys were helping with a big surprise birthday party for one of the YM leaders and I was finishing up visiting teaching changes and putting them into the computer.  I saw a little bit of the birthday party...his wife planned the whole thing and she had all the YM and YW do a couple of big musical numbers and several other friends did performances too.  It was quite the production!

Sunday I gave my talk and I think it went well.  I had a lot of people tell me they enjoyed it afterwards, anyway, so at least I didn't bore everybody, right?  My topic was temporal self reliance; I spent the first half of my talk sharing thoughts / quotes on why this is actually a spiritual topic, not just a temporal one.  I had a few personal experiences to share and it was good for me in preparing this talk to see how much the Lord has helped us to be self reliant.  Oh, and I got a new secretary.  I only had my second secretary for a few months and she was doing fine but she had a lot on her plate since she works full time, has four kids, and her husband is in the bishopric.  Originally I was planning to get an assistant secretary to help her and I even submitted a name for that, but the last few weeks was feeling nudged by the spirit to release her and ask to have the sister I submitted for assistant secretary be the new secretary instead.  Then when I talked to the bishop about it, he was feeling the same way.  So that's what ended up happening.  I am glad to have her; she will be great!

Also on Sunday, choir practices started up again. I always enjoy choir even though I admit the 4:00 Sunday afternoon practice time is a challenge for me.  Especially this Sunday since I woke up at 2:30 am and never went back to sleep.  Ugh! 

The rest of the week I've just felt like I'm in the middle of a rat race and I admit to being in tears (or close to it) more than once.  It probably won't sound incredibly busy on paper, but believe me, it was.  Everything seems to take so much longer than it should.  I've been really struggling to feel like I'm keeping all my different responsibilities balanced.  And it's just been crazy...unexpected things coming up all the time.  I don't like getting things done at the last minute but that seems to be all I can manage these days.  I try to plan ahead but unexpected things seem to come up constantly lately, so projects get pushed back until I'm running into a deadline and then I'm really stressed trying to get them done.  Ok, enough whining!  I don't want to sugar coat my life, though.  Sometimes it's hard.

Monday I had lots of phone calls to make and emails to send...RS stuff, mostly, and trying to get visiting teaching set up.  I exercised, did laundry, grocery shopped, and vacuumed.  I also got a soccer ball for Seth...his coach wants every kid to have their own ball at practices.  I talked to Mom who gave me some guidance on the sewing project I needed to start and started working on that.  We had family night.  Frank went to the dentist to get a crown put on which cost a lot and left him with a very sore mouth.  It's been sore all week (although better now than at first) and he's been eating soft things and has actually lost some weight because he couldn't eat very much.  He thinks the dentist got his mouth with the drill a few times.  He's gradually getting better, though.

Tanner was sick on Tuesday...he didn't go to seminary or to school.  Luckily just a mild 24 hour stomach bug, which so far none of us have caught...keep your fingers crossed!  It was a bummer he was sick that day because he missed another temple trip...this time just our ward youth.  And this trip was just after school, of course...not all day.  Meanwhile, I had lots of house work to do, I had a long talk with the stake RS president about several things, and in the afternoon I took my friend Katie to the doctor to get the cast on her foot.  The good news was...they decided that she didn't need a cast after all; they put her in a boot.  That means she could start trying to put weight on it and she would not have to be in a cast for 3 months.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic!  Another sister in the ward watched her kids while we were gone so after the doctor we picked them up and I took her back home.  I stayed to pick up a few things for her and by then her baby was having a meltdown because she needed a nap and really needed to be picked up and jounced a bit, so I did that for her because she can't put full weight on the foot yet.  Her baby gave up and went to sleep really quickly, thank goodness.  Before I left another family in the ward called me needing emergency childcare so as soon as I got home I had to call them back to give them a few ideas of people they could call.  By then Seth was home from school, Jared left for the temple trip, Frank had to leave to go help cook for an event, and I needed to make dinner and get Seth to soccer practice...which I managed to do and even got him there on time.  Seth seemed to enjoy practice and I read a little of the book chat book while I was waiting.  Haven't been able to touch it since! 

Wednesday I realized I'd forgotten to make a grocery list the day before, so I did that and then went shopping.  Frank came home to work from here for the afternoon because we had scheduled someone to come in and clean all our air ducts.  They were coming some time between 12:00 and 6:00 and I had appointments.  It turns out they came closer to noon.  I wasn't home most of the time they were here but Frank was and he wasn't very impressed.  He heard one of the guys telling the other one that the equipment needed to be generating a certain amount of pressure and the other one said it was only doing half that.  The first one said something like "well, we'll have to go with that."  Frank checked the equipment more than once and it never got above half the needed pressure, which made us feel like our ducts weren't cleaned nearly as well as they should have been.  They also broke a switch which we had to replace and later that day we had problems with the air conditioning coming on and didn't figure out until Thursday morning that they had bumped one of the thermostat controls and knocked it loose.  So the bottom line is, Frank called and complained and now they are going to send someone else to clean the ducts all over again at no charge.    

Meanwhile, I had a visiting teaching visit and an RS visit Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening was our monthly RS meeting.  Thank goodness I didn't have to do anything for that except show up!  It was a massage and relaxation night, which I certainly needed but I found it was hard for me to relax because we were lying on a hard floor and after a few minutes my back was killing me.  Plus, I stink at visualization I guess.  So I spent most of the relaxation exercise giggling at myself for my total failure at relaxing.  When I got home, the guy I'm doing the sewing project for was here so I could take another measurement that I had forgotten to do when he was here the first time.  I couldn't do anything else until I had that measurement.  Then I watched part of a September 11th documentary before going to bed.  I always cry on September 11th.

Thursday after dropping Seth off at school I went to the store to get elastic for the sewing project, then got groceries, then dropped some things off at my 2nd counselor's house.  After lunch I started working on the baseball pants and spent all afternoon working on that...and only got one casing done.  I was feeling pretty frazzled by the time the boys got home from school.  It turns out that the fabric I'm working with (100% polyester) is a total pain to work with.  It doesn't iron well, for one thing.  The side seams I had to sew over were so bulky that my machine wouldn't go through them so I had to do that part by hand.  Then I finally got the elastic in and discovered that in spite of all my precautions, it was twisted so I had to take it out and do it again.  And after all that, it didn't even look right to me...it looked like the elastic wasn't tight enough.  I was ready to cry at that point, and feeling really frustrated because I had not wanted to take this project on in the first place for this very reason...I knew it was going to take more time than I planned and totally stress me out! 

The other reason it took so much time is I decided to use my new sewing machine.  My old machine has tension issues so the stitching never looks very good.  My new machine sews beautifully but I've only used it once before so I'm not familiar with all the controls and have to look up how to do everything from threading the machine to changing the needle to selecting the stitch size, etc.  That added on a lot of time.

Anyway, I had to put everything away and get dinner made because the Elders were coming over for dinner and even then, dinner was late.  Frank was working at a client's and the missionaries got here a good 20 minutes before he did.  I had planned a taco bar with both chicken and beef, and when I realized I had put the chicken taco seasoning in the beef, I was ready to crawl in a corner somewhere and not come out!  But thankfully both the chicken and the beef tasted fine, even if their seasonings got mixed up.  And the Elders enjoyed dinner and didn't mind that it was late.  So it all turned out ok.  I was trying to remember all that stuff I'd heard the night before about breathing deeply to relieve tension, though!  Goodness!  Oh, and I forgot that right before we sat down to eat I got a phone call from a sister in tears who needed emergency childcare and I certainly didn't have time to delegate that out at the moment so I just told her to bring her child to our house.  Besides that, I also got a text somewhere in there that someone else was in the hospital!  It was then that I told Frank I was about ready to resign as RS president.  After dinner I had a RS visiting appointment.  Frank was doing maintenance for a client but luckily our visiting child and Seth had a blast playing together so he was fine.  By the time I got back from my appointment, the visiting child was leaving and I was feeling a little less stressed (but not much). 

So I decided that I couldn't do anything else with the pants until the owner tried them on to see if the elastic was ok or not.  He couldn't come over until this evening, so I decided to go to the temple today.  It's our stake temple day because we have stake conference this weekend.  Frank and I were hoping to go together this afternoon but he has been swamped with work for his business so he decided he couldn't go.  I missed the 10:00 session by only a few minutes so I had a long wait for the 11:00 session but I'm glad I went.  By the time I got home, the high school boys were out of school and it was time to pick up Seth.  Jared seems to have developed a nasty cold but he is plugging along.  After getting everyone home from school, Frank went to a client's while I got the budget caught up.  After Frank got back we went to a friend's house to look at a bunk bed they are selling to see if we wanted to buy it.  Seth really needs a bigger bed, but we haven't made up our mind whether to get this one yet.  It's a full size bed on bottom which would be nice for visitors, but his room is so small that we're not sure it will work.  We measured, and it will fit but that leaves almost no room for his dresser and toy / book shelves.  When we got back from that, the baseball pants owner was here to try on his pants and he actually liked them the way they are...thank goodness!  Although after some discussion we did decide to take an inch or so off of the elastic.  That shouldn't be too hard and hopefully the rest of the pants won't take so much time.  Hopefully!  But knowing how things go, I'll probably have more problems crop up.  I need to get them done by Tuesday night so I am not liking how soon the deadline is looming.  After he left, it was nearly 7:00 and we hadn't had dinner yet so we all pitched in and made scrambled eggs, waffles, bacon and OJ.  Tanner ate quickly because he was leaving for a priest / laurel activity shortly after 7:00.  Hopefully he will be home soon and we can all go to bed!  Tomorrow will be busy too.   

Weekly Review August 30 & September 6 '13

Well, I didn't intend to do two weeks at once, but I never got time to do a weekly post last week and here I am at the end of another week.  The last two weeks have been insanely busy.  I thought this week would be better than last week, but it wasn't.  Maybe next week?  Please? 

 

Since I have a lot to cover, I am going to avoid going into too much detail, but here's a list of what we did each day. 

 

Saturday the 25th:  Jared went on a 10 mile hike for scouts.  Tanner decided he didn't want to get up that early so he didn't go.  Jared had a good time--some day I will have to get the pictures off his phone to post here.  It took all day, though--he was gone from 8:00 to 4:30.  I went to a bridal shower for Erin in Virginia.  It was fun...as a getting to know you game, we all had to tell the story of our first kiss!  That was funny!  Frank cleaned the kitchen floor for me while I was gone.  I helped Tanner get signed up for the ACT (we missed the deadline for the September test by one day...rats!...so he's taking it in October) and got some sign up sheets ready for our ward's Labor Day Picnic, since the RS was in charge of food.

 

Sunday the 26th:  We took Wanda to church.  After church Frank and the boys took the sacrament to one of his home teaching families.  While they were gone, a good friend of Frank's from his childhood (Tom Helms) surprised me by showing up at our front door.  He was out driving with his daughter, who is trying to get her hours for her drivers license, when they saw the signs for Frederick and remembered that we live here, so they decided to stop in.  (They live in Virginia right now.)  Frank was very surprised--but in a nice way--to see him when he got home.  We enjoyed their visit.  After they left, I made a few phone calls and then we drove down to Virginia to have dinner with Erin and Dan.  We saw their new apartment, which is nice.  (Although the outside is currently being renovated and it looks like it's been condemned or something!  It was hard to find the way upstairs to their apartment.)  We enjoyed our visit with them and dinner was delicious.  Erin made this chicken cordon bleu casserole which was super yummy!  Next time we see them, they will be married! :)

 

Monday through Friday I had heaps of things to do.  Just to summarize, three ward members ended up in the hospital (2 surgeries) and 2 families moved.  Plus I was trying to get visiting teaching changes figured out for September and prepare the RS lesson which I was teaching on Sunday.  I literally tried all week, every spare second I got, to work on those things and every time I got interrupted by some emergency or something.  It was ridiculous!  I finally got the lesson mostly figured out on Saturday morning but I had to give up on visiting teaching changes--no one goes visiting teaching the first week of the month anyway, right?!  I was also trying to get some RS visits set up and my own visiting teaching done.  (Remember, I was gone for the first half of August so I couldn't get it done then.)  And then there were all the regular things like laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping.   All that added up to a stressful week.  Here's a few more details by the day.

 

Monday the 26th:  I helped a friend can peaches for a while because I wanted to remember how to do that.  I had one RS visit in the afternoon and made sure a meal got set up for one of the moving families.  Also exercise, laundry, grocery shopping, vacuuming, and FHE.

 

Tuesday the 27th:  I had an RS visit in the morning but the sister wasn't there when we got to her house.  Picked up a library book for book chat (The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene), picked up a prescription for Tanner, and a guy from Ashley Furniture came and drilled holes for our middle shelf of the entertainment center so it is FINALLY in the entertainment center instead of leaning against the wall, which it did for 2 months.  Also cleaned bathrooms and made a grocery list.  In spite of being totally stressed out about all the other things I had to do, I decided to let it all go hang for a while and I went to the temple Tuesday afternoon.  (Frank was working from home so he was there when the boys got home from school.)  I'm glad I did.  It was my first time to see the new film, which was wonderful.  There were a lot of things that I loved about it.  It was great to get away from the real world for a while and feel some peace!  I want to go back.  That evening Frank went to help teach a new member discussion to a family in our ward.

 

Wednesday the 28th:  I spent the morning helping with cleaning / packing at one of the moving family's houses.  Exercised, dusted, Wal-Mart shopping.  After school I took Tanner out to a place that needs some work done to see if he could make their needs into an Eagle Scout project.  It's a place called the Circle of Hope--they do therapeutic horse back riding lessons for people with disabilities.  They have a memorial garden that needs a lot of restoration work.  It looks like it will make a good project, so he's probably going to do it.  (Side note:  I am THRILLED with the new scout master, who was called about 2 months ago.  In that time he has helped Tanner find an Eagle project, is setting up a time for him to pass off his swimming merit badge, has assigned Jared to do some teaching that he needs to do for his Life rank, has started the boys on 3 merit badges, taken them on a 10 mile hike, and is currently planning a 2 night camping trip.  He is going to make getting the guys to their Eagle rank about a million times easier for me!)  That evening I took the boys to YM, dropped off brownies for one of the sisters I visit teach, and went to Back to School Night at Seth's school.

 

Thursday the 29th:  Jared had an orthodontist appointment at 3:15 and Frank had a dentist appointment at 3:10.  They are near each other, so we all went together.  Frank doesn't have any cavities but he has to get a crown on one of his teeth because it has a crack in it.  Also that day I did laundry, grocery shopping, and vacuuming.  I got a little work done on my lesson.  I had a phone visit with one of my visiting teaching sisters because she was too busy for a formal visit.  Transfers were that week and we got a second set of Elders again.  They came by Thursday evening to meet our family and gave us a nice message and I referred them to our neighbors who could use some service.  Frank was gone--he was doing work for a client all evening.  (He's been just as busy as I have been.)

 

Friday the 30th:  I worked on the budget, which took way too long...a good portion of the day.  I got everything caught up though.  I hadn't done the finances for the business since before vacation.  I worked on my lesson a little but got interrupted a lot.  Seth had a doctor appointment after school...just his annual check up.  He is fine.  Frank rented a power washer that evening and started on the big project of power washing our deck and the back of the house.  We've lived in this house 13 years and only power washed one other time...and I think that was about a year after we moved in.  Needless to say, the deck was coated in a thick layer of dirt and mold.  I knew it would make a big difference, but even I was surprised by how much of a difference.  Frank worked on it for 3 or 4 hours that night, until it got too dark.

 

Saturday the 31st:  Frank continued with the power washing, starting about 8:30 and he didn't finish until about 3:30.  Needless to say, he was exhausted and sore!  But the deck looks amazing!!  Here are a few pictures to help you get a feel for the difference it made:      

 

In process Friday evening--the gray / green color on the right of the picture is the color the whole deck has been for the last several years.  The light brown wood on the left of the picture is the real color of the wood underneath.

Another in process picture--the floor of the deck this time.  The plank on the far right of the picture is clean.  The rest are not.

The deck after the cleaning was complete.  It was still wet in this picture.  When it dried, it was even lighter.  Every time I look out the kitchen window now, I think "it's so bright!"

Anyway, while Frank was power washing, I kept busy working on my lesson, taking the boys to a practice for an event they have coming up, and making several trips to the store to buy paper products, condiments, and desserts for the upcoming ward Labor Day Picnic.  After all the power washing was done, I cleaned the kitchen floor.  Poor Frank was so sore from all the work that he moaned and groaned every time he moved all evening!  Jared went to a movie with friends, which kept me up late because I had to go get him when it was over.

Sunday the 1st:  Frank was even worse Sunday morning than he was Saturday evening.  He was so stiff and sore that he finally realized that he was not going to be able to go to church.  That complicated things because we were supposed to pick up Wanda, which requires two cars.  I found someone else to pick her up, though.  After agonizing over my lesson all week and not feeling really great about the final version, my lesson went great!  What do you know!  Actually, on Sunday morning as I was talking to Frank about it I suddenly felt peace come over me and I knew it would be ok...and it was.  After church we did rest a little.  I guess I could have written this weekly post then, but I took a nap instead.  Oh, and watched an old movie...which I wouldn't normally do on Sunday but it was the Netflix movie that I'd been trying to find the time to watch for over a month.  I'm glad we had that day of rest because this week has been just like last week.

I thought this week would be a little less hectic, but I didn't plan on one more person ending up in the hospital and another breaking her foot.  Plus, I got a phone call Sunday evening from one of the counselors in the bishopric asking me to speak this Sunday.  So no lesson to prepare this week...but a talk instead!  And I've still been trying to get those visiting teaching changes figured out since I didn't get them done last week.  I really do need to get them done this time.

Monday the 2nd:  Frank was still sore, but improved quite a bit.  He was still hobbling around a little but was feeling well enough to attend the ward Labor Day Picnic.  I spent the morning getting some last minute shopping done for that.  We also had two other boys from the ward come over that morning--brothers, one Seth's age--because their Mom & Dad went with another sister to the temple who was going for the first time. At the picnic, we had a pretty good group of people show up and the food was good.  I think everyone had a good time.  It turned out to be one of those really hot & humid August days, though.  That kind of heat always drains me of all energy.  It was too bad I was so tired because after we got home we needed to run to the store to get some paint for the deck (there was a sale we didn't want to miss) and the Elders were coming over for dinner.  We succumbed to weariness and instead of cooking, we ordered Chinese food...the Elders didn't complain! In between everything else we got laundry and vacuuming done too.

Tuesday the 3rd I had a presidency meeting, cleaned bathrooms, made a grocery list, and had my monthly meeting with the bishop.  That's all I wrote down but I know there was more going on because that's not much and I know I was running around all day long.  I was probably making phone calls and sending out emails for RS things as well as trying to work on my talk.

Wednesday the 4th:  I visited a sister in the hospital that morning.  Then I did Wal-Mart shopping, dusted, and worked on my talk.  I also did a lot of other RS stuff that needed to be done.  The boys did not have YM that evening because the next day was a temple trip.  I had to run back to the store that evening to get some things they needed for a potluck lunch for the temple trip.

Thursday the 5th there was no school again--Rosh Hashanah or something like that.  Strange week, to have two days off!  There was an all day temple trip for the youth in the stake although Tanner didn't go because he wasn't feeling very well.  Jared did go, and he was gone all day.  They met at the church at 6:45 am and he got back around 7:30, I think.  In addition to doing baptisms, they had several presentations and speakers at the visitor's center.  Jared said it was awesome.  After Tanner got up he was feeling a bit better and he helped me vacuum.  I got laundry going and tried to work on my talk and visiting teaching.  But then I got the email about the sister who had broken her foot...and she just happens to be one of the sisters I visit teach, too!  I was glad I hadn't made it to the grocery store yet because I decided I needed to take her dinner, and I needed a few extra things for that.  I took her dinner and also visited with her to try to figure out what help she is going to need.  She has three young children, including a baby who doesn't walk yet and her husband is an accountant who is in a very busy season right now and expected to work long hours including Saturdays.  Her foot will not be casted until Tuesday and even then she will not be allowed to put weight on it.  Yikes!  We got a plan figured out for what she will need, though.  I talked to her and to her mother in law also, who is in our ward (but she works full time).  I had a couple of phone conversations with the compassionate service leader and she's getting everything taken care of.  It took time to get it all figured out, though.  Also on Thursday evening another guy in our ward came over to bring me a bunch of baseball pants that he would like hemmed.  I hope I can find the time to get those done...at least I have about 10 days to get them figured out.  I thought if I didn't have time for this project that I would pass it off to another sister in our ward who is more proficient than me.  I had already talked to her about it and she was willing...but guess what?  She's the same sister who broke her foot!  So now it's up to me.  At least she can give me some advice if I need it. 

Friday the 6th (today...finally!):  One of the things we decided that Katie (the sister with the broken foot) was going to need was someone to be "on call" each day in case she needed help.  Today I was her "on call" person, so after I dropped Seth off at school, I went to her house to check on her.  She is actually handling everything remarkably well.  Her husband had got her oldest daughter ready and off to school and she was eating breakfast with her other two children when I arrived.  I did some sweeping and picked up toys, brought clothes down for her kids so she could dress them, and then helped her get moved from the kitchen onto the couch.  Then I did the breakfast dishes and cleaned up the kitchen a little bit.  We visited the whole time...it is always so much more fun to work with another woman around to talk to!  After that I came home and got some work done on my talk and on visiting teaching stuff.  After I picked up Seth from school, I went back over to Katie's house to check on her.  One of her neighbors and another sister from our ward were there, so she had enough help and I didn't stay too long.  She reported that she had a few hairy moments, but overall the day had gone pretty well.  She's a trooper!  After dinner tonight Frank took Tanner to his friend Seth's house to spend the night and he dropped off Jared at the high school football game.  Then he went to do some work for a client.  I got the budget done (quickly for once!) and got Seth to bed.  Then I started working on this post.  Frank and Jared are both home now...Jared with red paint all over his face.  (His team won, though.)  I still need to write a letter to Scott and then I can go to bed.  Tomorrow will be busy again, and I need to finish up my talk and the visiting teaching changes.

After Monday was so hot, the weather has changed and the mornings and evenings are quite chilly.  The days are pretty nice, though--warm and sunny with lovely breezes. 

Maybe you've gathered that Frank has been quite busy too.  He has had a ton of work to do for his business.  His regular job has thankfully been not too busy, though.  They are still transitioning and since most of his team has not transitioned yet there is not a lot for him to do for normal operations.  He had several planning meetings this week and he is using the time to study and learn new things.  It will probably be this way for a few months.  One nice thing about it is that he has been able to work from home a lot.

Seth is enjoying 1st grade a lot.  Another thing that has been keeping me busy, though, is that he has homework now.  He gets a little packet each week that he had to complete and send back in every Friday.  It is not a lot of work and it is mostly easy for him, but he needs a little guidance and it takes time...mostly because he gets distracted a lot and also asks lots of questions.  In spite of the craziness, I've been really good about reading scriptures with him every morning.  I just signed him up for soccer and that starts next week.  I have a feeling things are not going to settle down around here anytime soon.

Just a note about the planning for the family reunion:  I just looked into having Tanner apply to be on the work crew for the Hill Cumorah Pageant next summer.  If he applies and is accepted, he will have to be in New York from June 27th to July 25th!  We were talking about the weekend before he would need to leave for the reunion, so that would still work if we stick with that plan.  I'm not sure if he will even apply for the work crew, but I just wanted to throw that out there as we consider our plans.