Weekly Review February 21 '14

No pictures this week...how boring!  The only thing I took a picture of is the roses Frank got me last week for Valentine's Day.  But you really don't want to see the picture because they are looking half dead.  They arrived looking rather dry, but I thought they would perk up after we put them in water.  They didn't.  So after a few days I decided we should get our money back, and I took a picture of them in case I needed evidence.  Turns out the picture wasn't necessary, though.  I think the problem was the snow storm we had.  Frank said they were supposed to be delivered on Thursday, but they didn't arrive until late on Friday.  All that extra time in the box didn't do wonders for them.  But at least they refunded our money without argument.  Besides that, it's the thought that counts, right?  Frank did think to order roses for me for Valentine's Day, and I appreciate it!!

Speaking of refunds, I have to complain about something.  I was paying bills today and when I reviewed the bill for our business credit card, I was shocked to see a late fee and a finance charge on our bill.  I never pay bills late!  So I looked into it a little closer.  The bill was due on January 24th.  The payment was posted on January 25th.  I wrote the check and put it in the mail on January 18th.  How on earth did it take 6 days for a check to get from Frederick to Chicago?  So Frank called them to complain (the card is in his name).  They agreed to waive the late fee, but would not waive the finance charge.  They said that they are not responsible for the mail and we should be mailing in our payments 2 weeks before they are due.  Guess which credit card just got cancelled? 

Ok, that really bugged me and I needed to whine about it so now I feel better!  Well, emotionally anyway.  Physically, I'm kind of sick today.  Not so sick that I have to lie in bed doing nothing, but sick enough that I'm not enjoying being out of bed.  My nose is running, I'm coughing, and I have a headache and slight sore throat.  Tanner is sick with the same thing...only he's worse, so he stayed home from school yesterday and today.

That means Tanner has been to a grand total of one day of school this week.  The boys had Monday and Tuesday off.  Our "long weekend" (6 days) came to an end on Wednesday when everyone went back to school.  At least Tanner made it that day.  I tried to be productive all those days off.  I helped Seth with homework and Valentines (they celebrated on Wednesday, since there was no school Friday).  I had Tanner work on his Eagle project paperwork (he's almost done with it).  We kept shopping for things he needs for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  I filled out the FAFSA for Tanner.  We did all the normal housework too. 

Frank was incredibly busy.  On Saturday his client moved to their new location.  He was gone most of the day getting all the new computers set up.  Then that evening the server crashed and he couldn't get it back up.  So he spent a good part of the day on Sunday solving that problem, but he was able to get the server back up.  He missed church, unfortunately.  I had a couple of people at church asking about him!  He was sick two Sundays ago and last Sunday he left after taking the sacrament (he had urgent work that had to be done that day too) so this Sunday was the third Sunday in a row that he missed all or most of church.  I had to reassure a few people that he is not going inactive!  Hopefully this Sunday will be better.  He was busy on Monday doing more work for that client, but things are starting to calm down.  He will be doing some more work tomorrow but soon he will be done with this huge project.

Saturday was busy for me too.  First thing in the morning I went to the funeral for the sister in our ward who passed away.  It was very sweet.  Her daughter gave a great talk about the importance of the family in Heavenly Father's plan, and one of her grandsons gave a very tender talk about the importance of grandmas.  I loved it!  When I got home, I discovered a sticky mess on the kitchen floor...Seth had tried to climb up the pantry shelves to get cereal and he knocked over a bottle of juice.  The lid broke off and juice had spilled all over the floor.  So I had to clean all that up...I was planning to mop the kitchen floor that day anyway, so I did the whole floor while I was at it.  It was a pain to clean up because the juice had spilled all over a bunch of stuff on the floor of the pantry.  I finished all that just in time to take Jared to his basketball game.  Except when we got there I discovered that my schedule was wrong and his game was at 10:00 instead of 11:00.  So Jared got there just in time to see one of his team mates score the winning shot (in overtime) as the buzzer went off.  Apparently, it was a very exciting game.  Oh well!  That evening Jared and Tanner went to a birthday party for a friend...it was a good 20 minute drive from our house...and then after that they went to a Seminary party.  So I was driving them to all those places.  Frank did pick them up after the Seminary party because that was about the same time that he came home (11:00 pm). 

On Sunday I had Ward Council, Missionary Correlation Meeting, and choir practice before church.  Tanner wasn't feeling well that day either so he stayed home and it was just Jared, Seth and I at church that day. 

On Wednesday I was planning to go to the temple, but then on Tuesday I was eating a cookie and a piece of one of my molars broke off!  What?!  So I had to go to the dentist on Wednesday instead.  They only looked at it and scheduled an appointment for me to get a crown, but the only available appointment time was in the middle of the day so that ruined any chance of going to the temple.  So strange that we were just at the dentist last week, and my tooth looked fine then!  At least they didn't charge me anything for the appointment this week.  The good news is, I probably won't have to get a root canal, just have a 3/4 crown put on.  (Not sure what that is.)  It's still going to be expensive, but hopefully not too much of an ordeal.  Wednesday evening the guys had YM and basketball practice; I went to a scout committee meeting.  Jared had a board of review and he'll be getting his Life rank at the next Court of Honor.  Frank had maintenance to do for his clients on Wednesday and Thursday nights. 

Yesterday I did a food order, which ended up taking all morning because sometimes people need to talk!  It felt like time well spent, though, because I was helping with spiritual and emotional as well as temporal needs.  I spent the afternoon getting caught up on housework and then I took Tanner to an appointment.  Jared had a song practice...the youth are singing a song for Ward Conference in a few weeks.  Tanner was going to sing too but he hasn't been able to make it to any of the practices.  Jared is going to be singing a solo part in the song, so he has extra practices.  (He had one on Tuesday also).  I was going to do some sewing last night but by then I wasn't feeling very well so I read a book instead.

We are going to be getting a new freezer soon.  Frank mentioned at work that our freezer had died, and one of his co-workers has one he wants to get rid of and offered to sell it for him for $50.  Umm,  yes!  Frank was supposed to pick it up today but they miscommunicated and weren't able to connect.  In the meantime, we removed the ice maker from our refrigerator freezer which created room for a lot more stuff and we gave some stuff away too.  We still have one ice chest of meat outside.  It is too warm now (we actually have had temperatures in the 50's the last few days--nice!) but we put some ice in there so hopefully it will be ok for a day or two more.    

Oh, I think I forgot to mention that Tanner was accepted to BYU-Idaho!  He found out last Friday.  He doesn't know yet if BYU-Provo is going to accept him.  If they do, then he will have to decide which school to go to.  If not, then...well, that makes it easy, doesn't it?  We'll just have to wait and see.

That's all our news for this week.  Not very exciting, but boring is good in this case.