Weekly Review September 19 '14

A strange thing happened when I sat down to plan my week on Sunday.  I didn't have anything "extra" going on.  No meetings, no visits, no school events, no activities.  All I had was the usual things like laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping.  I was shocked.  That NEVER happens!  But don't worry, I didn't sit around doing nothing all week.  I texted the sister missionaries and told them I had time to go on some visits with them.  I signed up to feed the Elders one night and the Sisters another.  I called a couple of the sisters in my ward and set up a meeting to discuss getting Wanda to church and back (we need more people to help).  So my week filled up a bit, but it was still nice to not feel overwhelmed with things to do.  

With the free time that I still had, I spent most of it reading.  The book we are reading for book chat this month is 657 pages long!  So there was lots of reading to be done.  The book was very interesting and easy to read, but 657 pages takes a bit of time.  I did finish it last night, though.  I think it is a book worth reading, although there are a few parts that need to be skipped.  The book is called Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  I really enjoyed it!

I ended up taking Jared to the orthodontist on Monday afternoon because one of his wires broke and popped off.  I sewed a patch on a baseball dress (for the daughter of the guy I do baseball sewing for) also.  On Tuesday since I had open time I weeded the front flower bed (Jared helped me) and I cleaned out my closet (it's Frank's closet too).  Frank went through his clothes as well and we filled 4 large bags with things to give away and I threw away another bagful.  Pretty good!  

I didn't end up going on as many visits as I would have liked, but this evening the Sisters and I went to see a less active sister who is moving and needs help.  We went through some boxes with her while we talked.  We also visited with another sister briefly on Thursday morning.  We had an appointment but she wasn't feeling well so we just had a short visit on her porch.  

Last evening Frank needed to help someone in the stake with their printer so I went with him and then afterwards we went on a date.  We went to a place called Rita's to get gelati and then we took it to a nearby park with a big pond to eat it.  Then afterwards we walked around the pond.  It was nice to get away for a while!

Today there wasn't any school (Fair Day--the Frederick County Fair is this week).  Jared had to be at the church at 9:30 this morning for a camp out.  They are doing a "survival" camp out.  All he could bring was a sleeping bag and one other item...he was assigned to bring a first aid kit.  Each of the boys was assigned to bring a different thing.  I'm interested to hear how it went when he gets home tomorrow afternoon.

We did have a few activities over the weekend.  On Friday Frank and I went on a date.  We decided to go on a drive and take some pictures.  Frederick County has three covered bridges and I've always wanted to see them so that's where we went.  Here's the first one:

    

Here's the second one:

And here is the third one:

Yes, they all look a lot alike!  We had an enjoyable drive, though.

On Saturday our ward had an activity...a chili cook off.  I was one of the judges (again...I was a judge last year too) and Frank's chili won second place.  (I did not sway the other judges at all!)  Every organization was also supposed to have a pioneer game planned.  That didn't work out too well since Saturday turned out to be rainy so we had to have it at the church instead of outside as planned and most of the games were outside games.  But for RS we had planned to help the kids make a pioneer toy...the button on a string that you twist up and then pull the ends of the string to make it twirl.  Hard to explain; hopefully you know what I mean!  Anyway, they were a hit!

On Sunday we went to Erin & Dan's for dinner and Anna and her girls were visiting too so it was really nice to see all of them!

This weekend we have stake conference so I feel like I kind of have the week end off!  No extra meetings!  It's always really good too so I'm looking forward to it.

Frank was busy this week because he did monthly maintenance for all his clients.  He has had a nasty cough for about 3 weeks so I convinced him to go to the doctor on Wednesday.  They did a bunch of blood work and took a chest xray but didn't find anything unusual (which is reassuring) but they did go ahead and give him an antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory medication and some cough syrup.  The cough seems to have improved somewhat although it has not gone away completely.  Hopefully it will disappear soon!