Weekly Review September 23 '16

This week has been a bit trying, but I’ve had worse ones for sure. Mainly it was trying because Snickers has had some kind of intestinal illness. He threw up a couple of times and he had diarrhea too so he had to be taken out a lot—including 3 or 4 times during the night most nights. And even then there were a few messes to clean up on the floor a few times. So yeah, lots of fun. It started late Sunday and by Tuesday I decided I should probably take him to the vet the next day but then he slept through the night Tuesday night and seemed to be feeling better on Wednesday. Until evening, that is, and then he had another bad night so I did take him in yesterday. We are still waiting on a test to see if he’s picked up a parasite or something. In the meantime, the vet said we could treat his symptoms so he’s on an antibiotic and a special food and I am seeing improvement already. He didn’t have to go out at all last night and so far only once today which is normal. So that is the good news for today! He never seemed to be incredibly distressed…he still ate mostly normally (although Monday morning he didn’t eat his food for a couple of hours after I put it in his bowl) and he was fairly perky and still chased after squirrels and such, so we weren’t too worried. It’s just been draining and a bit time consuming too.

The other big event of the week is that Frank got an MRI on his knee and the results came back today showing that he has a torn ACL and a torn meniscus (yeah, I have no idea what those two things are). The good news is, it’s treatable. The bad news is, he has to have surgery. He will probably have surgery the week after next and the doctor says that he will need to be on crutches for at least a month afterwards. He will need physical therapy afterwards too. So the next 6 weeks are going to be fun, but at least this is progress in the right direction. I’m also thankful that the auto insurance company has to pay all the medical bills and not us. (Although I'm sure there will be some hassle involved for us. I've already had to make several phone calls about bills we've received that we shouldn't have to pay.) Not sure what he will do about work—he can work from home sometimes I think, but he will probably have to go out on short term disability for a while. We still have to figure all of that out. By the way, his spine x-rays came back normal so at least there’s no damage there. It will just take time for his back and neck to stop hurting.

Let’s see, now that I have told you all the “exciting” things, on to the more mundane. Last Saturday I got up pretty early and got the lawn mowed (that’s my job now, but the new lawn mower is pretty nice so it’s not bad) and took Snickers on a walk and cleaned the kitchen floor. Seth went to a friend’s house to play that afternoon. Meanwhile, Frank had a 4 hour meeting at the Stake Center with…Elder Oaks!!! I guess that isn’t very mundane. It was a meeting for stake presidencies, bishoprics, EQ presidents, and ward mission leaders only for the 7 stakes in this area. (There was a fireside with Elder Oaks the night before for all the youth and their parents in the same stakes, but since Jared was our ticket into that meeting and he’s in Idaho now, we couldn’t go to that.) Anyway, Frank actually made it through the whole meeting, which is a miracle considering how he’s been feeling, and he seems to have enjoyed it a lot. They got to ask a lot of questions. So that was pretty cool.

On Sunday Frank went to Ward Council but he was pretty worn out from the day before and hurting a lot so after taking the sacrament, he went home and took a nap. We were supposed to have the sister missionaries over for dinner but one of them had pink eye and didn’t want to infect us so I took some dinner over to them instead.

The rest of the week was pretty routine except for the things I just mentioned. I did all the regular chores and took Snickers outside a lot!! I went to lunch with a friend on Monday and on Wednesday I worked at the school library for a couple of hours. As usual, it wasn’t very busy so other than shelving a lot of books, I spent most of the time reading. I did some cub scout planning and did a few things to help prepare for Pack Meeting, which is tonight. I got asked to substitute teach the RS lesson on Sunday, so I’ve been working on that too. It's on President Uchtdorf's talk "In Praise of Those Who Save." Yesterday Seth got out of school two hours early and today he doesn’t have school. It’s “Fair Day”. (The Frederick County Fair is going on this week.) I asked Seth if he wanted me to take him to the fair, but he said no. There’s no way Frank’s up to walking all over the fair, so I guess we’re skipping the fair this year. Which we usually do anyway, come to think of it. No funnel cake again. Sigh!!

Other than that, I’ve been doing some reading. I just started reading a book to Seth called The Whipping Boy, which is a Newbery Award winner. It’s very short, so we will probably finish it in a day or two. I got several other Newbery Award winning books for my birthday, so I have started reading those and read two this week (The Summer of the Swans and Sounder) and started on another one (The Hero and the Crown). I also started the next book for book chat which is Plato’s Republic. I reserved it at the library a few weeks ago but it still hasn’t come in. Yesterday I thought to check to see if I could get an electronic version on my tablet, and it only cost 99 cents, so I went ahead and bought it. Big time spender, I know.

Jared’s mission papers went in yesterday, so maybe in 3 or 4 weeks we will know where he is going, and when!! He did finally get into the theater class he wanted to get into, and he has enough credit hours for his scholarship, so that is a relief. He seems to be enjoying college so far, from what I’ve heard. His companion from the HCP work crew is giving his mission farewell talk somewhere in Utah this Sunday, so he found a ride down there so he could go to that. This means that some of you may be seeing him soon. He's planning to stay with Scott, though, so I'm not sure if he will make it down to Utah Valley or not. There is a possibility that he will be there for General Conference weekend too. I would like for him to be able to attend a conference session at the Conference Center--he's never done that before. For that matter, neither have I, but I have been to a few sessions in the Tabernacle, back in the day. I think the last time I went was when I was about 14. 

That’s all the news I have for this week. I know I whined a lot about the weather this summer so I should mention that the weather has become mild and quite pleasant most days lately. I was profoundly grateful this week, when I was taking Snickers out over and over again, including in the middle of the night, that he chose to get sick in nice pleasant autumn instead of in the heat of the summer or the dead of winter! I love autumn!!