Weekly Review January 27 '17

Wow, January is almost over already! It hasn’t felt much like January a lot of this month. We are having a fairly mild winter this year. A couple of days this week, it felt more like March than January but today it is cold again and I hear we are supposed to have “below average” temperatures all the way into next week. Oh! We did have some winter weather on Monday. Out of the blue we got freezing rain / sleet late on Monday afternoon. It really came down for a while and we had this slushy snow-like stuff accumulating on the cars and lawns. It just so happened that I was driving right then, too—how fun! We got home without any mishaps, though. It has mostly been cloudy and gloomy for weeks, in spite of the warmish temperatures but we did get a few sunny days this week. I was pretty happy about that! I don’t do well without sunshine. I start to get pretty depressed.

I have been healthier this week than last week. I felt a lot better on Saturday and by Sunday I was practically back to normal. I started taking Melatonin this week so I’ve been sleeping better too. I had kind of an ADD day on Saturday. I kept getting distracted and doing things I hadn’t planned to do instead of the things I had planned to do. I did get a lot done, just not the things on my list! We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner. On Sunday I substituted a Primary class—the 5 and 6 year olds. They were pretty good and I enjoyed being in Primary. It’s fun to do that once in a while. Jared has helped substitute in Primary every week since he’s been back, except last Sunday. I guess we are taking turns. I’m trying to adjust to having church at 11:00 instead of 9:00. I do enjoy not having to get up quite so early, but the time I have to do things after church seems so much shorter! The day just goes by really fast. I was watching more home movies on Sunday afternoon and Jared and Seth were watching with me. I had a choir practice that night (a stake choir practice—we are going to have an Easter program) and I was really surprised when I got back from my hour and a half practice to discover that Seth was still watching home movies!! I didn’t think they would interest him that much but he loved them.

Seth didn’t have school again on Monday. This time it was a teacher work day, since the term just ended on Friday. We are officially half way through the school year! It has gone by fast. Jared had to work that afternoon and since there was an open jump while he was there, I was able to get Seth in for free. He enjoyed playing on the inflatables and a couple of families from our ward were there too so he had other kids to play with. He had a good time. The freezing rain / sleet started coming down right before we left there to come back home.

Tuesday was busy because I had visiting teaching in the morning and Jared had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. While Jared got his fillings done, I went to visit my friend Wanda for a while. She is still happy in the new place and they are even helping her walk with a walker a little bit. They did have a bad stomach virus go through everyone there and Wanda said she had been sick twice since Christmas. As a matter of fact, the day I went to visit her was the first day they were letting visitors back in, so that was fortunate timing! Seth had a busy day at school that day too—his class had a field trip to the Natural History Museum (Smithsonian). He enjoyed seeing the dinosaur bones, Hope diamond, etc. Frank had his follow up on his MRI on Tuesday also. He has two herniated discs in his neck which are bulging and inflamed…they are affecting two of his vertebrae, and that is what is causing all the pain in his back, neck and shoulder. The treatment for this is cortisone shots. If that doesn’t help, then he will have to have surgery. He went to the specialist who does the cortisone shots yesterday and that doctor agreed that he needs to get cortisone shots and see what happens. We scheduled his first shot, but it isn’t for another couple of weeks. The specialist was also concerned that his shoulder hurts and he said if the cortisone shots don’t help his shoulder feel better then he will want to get an MRI done of his shoulder as well. Goodness!! We call this the “accident that keeps on giving”. But we are hopeful that the cortisone shots will help and that he won’t need surgery or further treatment. Please keep him in your prayers!

Seth and I didn’t have den meeting on Tuesday because we have the Pinewood Derby tonight. It was nice to stay home that evening for a change! Jared has been helping Seth get his car made; once again he didn’t want to cut it at all—it’s still a block shape. They painted it to look like Master Chief’s cryo tube. (Yeah, I don't know what that is either. Video game related!) It looks pretty cool; I will include pictures in next week's post. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on Wednesday or Thursday other than my visiting teachers came to see me last night. I have had very few visits from visiting teachers in the last 4 or 5 years, so I really appreciate that these ones are coming! Jared and I have just been working really hard this week to get everything ready for his mission. We did get a lot done…a lot of things are checked off the list now. Jared’s suit coat came in and it fits this time, thankfully, We ordered a few more things which should be here in a few days. We bought him an iPod shuffle for his music; he also needs to download the Book of Mormon in Spanish and the last General Conference talks in Spanish to put on there.  We finally got the packet sent off to his mission and we made a lot of copies of things he needs to take with him and I got his white pants hemmed. He will be speaking in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday because next Sunday is fast Sunday. Jared also finished all the stuff he needed to do on the missionary portal. The main thing we have left to do is purchase his bike. Then all he has left is marking all his belongings and PACKING!! It’s hard to believe he’ll be gone in less than 2 weeks. I’m glad we are almost done with all the preparation things, but I will miss him after he’s gone.

I’m sorry that this week’s post is pretty short, but I can’t think of anything else to tell you about. I have to go get a few things ready for the Pinewood Derby now.