Friday, March 10, 2017

Weekly Review March 10 '17

Another week has gone by fast. I feel like it was just Monday, and already it is Friday!

Last Friday we had the Caraballo (former carpool) boys over to play after school. They were loud and made a mess, but Seth had fun with them, and it was only for a couple of hours. Then Frank and I went out to dinner—we went with another couple in our ward. It was fun to go out with someone else; we don’t do that often. I also started the afghan on Friday as I was hoping to do.. I have been crocheting whenever I get some free time since then and I have done 17 rows and have used four different colors already. I am pleased with the way it is looking so far:


This is row one. The lighting wasn't great when I took the picture, so it may look like more than one color but it really is only one color!


This is three rows (two colors)


This is four rows (three colors)

And here is where I am at now (17 rows and 4 colors)

I am still super slow at crocheting and hope I will get faster with more practice.The color pattern of the afghan looks random because it is--each row's color is based on the high temperature for the day. When I am done, there will be 365 rows--one row for each day of the year. I have no idea who thought up this idea, but I think it is pretty clever. (I am not doing this year, by the way, I'm doing a previous year so it won't take me a whole year to make it. At least I hope not!)

It was really cold on Friday—I was actually shivering when we were walking to the car and back from the restaurant, which is not something I’ve done very often this winter. It was cold / cool most of the week but Wednesday was nice and yesterday was beautiful, although windy. However, this morning it is cold again and we have rain mixed with snow. It's actually snowing right now. It isn't sticking, but the flakes are large and pretty. It’s going to stay pretty cold for the next week and they are saying we are getting more snow on Tuesday as well. I figured when we had such a mild winter that spring would be cold. Seems like that’s how it usually goes.

On Saturday I worked on Cub Scout stuff, practiced choir songs, cleaned the kitchen floor, and crocheted. Oh, and I watched the face to face with President Eyring and Elder Holland even though I’m not a youth because it just sounded cool! (They were in Palmyra.) I was right, too—it was really cool!! I was watching it and thinking how amazing it is that we have the chance to listen to actual apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ speak, to have them answer questions we have! That is so amazing and we are so blessed!

On Saturday while I was researching stuff for Cub Scouts, I found this cool book online that has a bunch of ideas for making chain reactions (Rube Goldberg style) using Lego bricks, and it looked so much fun and I knew Seth would love it so I ordered it. The book came the next day (wasn’t supposed to arrive until Monday) so on Monday Seth and I built the first thing they suggested and it actually worked and it was really fun! We are going to try some of the other things in the book and will probably end up using at least one of them when we build our Rube Goldberg machine for den meeting.

I guess I skipped Sunday, but I can’t think of much that happened—just the usual! Church in the morning and I had choir practice that evening. We got to talk to Scott too. On Monday I took Snickers to the vet for his annual check up. His teeth look better than they usually do, but he still needs them cleaned. There is one tooth in the very back that looks sort of bad and that one may have to be pulled. If so, they will do it when they clean his teeth. Besides that, she also felt a small lump under one of his front legs so they are going to draw some cells out of there while he is “asleep” to see if that’s anything we need to worry about.    

On Tuesday I had to go buy a couple of things I needed for den meeting that evening. Frank was supposed to have a PPI with one of the counselors in the Bishopric that evening but he ended up postponing it because he wasn’t feeling well. He actually hasn’t been feeling very great all week—he’s got some kind of a cold. His head hurts and he’s stuffed up and his ears hurt a bit too. He took one day off (I can’t remember now if it was Monday or Tuesday) and he worked from home the other days, but yesterday and today he went into work as usual. He’s feeling better than he was, although not fantastic.   Anyway, Seth and I went to den meeting. We made two kinds of simple pulleys and we also made levers and played with them a bit. We talked about ways we could use these simple machines as part of a Rube Goldberg machine. It was mostly fun but as I said—I always feel a bit frazzled by the end. The Primary president came in to help me and afterwards she asked me “was that a typical den meeting?” and when I said “yes”, she said “Wow!!” It’s amazing how much havoc one boy can create, because actually most of them are very calm! I had Cub Committee Meeting after den meeting so Frank came over to pick Seth up.

Frank had a follow up doctor appointment on Wednesday and they decided to give him one more cortisone shot next week. That may be the last one he has to get. (At least for now.) He still has pain in his shoulder / neck / back, but it’s a LOT better than it was. We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner that night. In the evening, I got our tax returns printed up and ready to mail and yesterday I mailed them. It’s nice to have that done! Hopefully next year we can go back to electronic filing. Now I have to do the property tax return for the business and fill out the FAFSA for Tanner.

On Wednesday evening we got a call from the vet because when they got back the bloodwork they did on Snickers on Monday, they saw some things that concerned them. For one thing, they did a urinalysis as well and he has blood in his urine for some reason. The thing that they were more concerned about is that one of the readings for one of the enzymes is way off. She said last year when they did his bloodwork this enzyme reading was 54. This year it is over 300. The “normal” range is up to 120ish, so 300 is definitely a lot higher than it should be. She says that this particular enzyme points to a problem with his liver. So now he has to go in next week to get an ultrasound of his liver and of his kidneys so they can try to figure out what is going on. He hasn’t been acting sick at all and he seems to be his usual perky self so we were really surprised that something might be wrong with him. We’re hoping it’s nothing serious. 

Yesterday I went to the temple, which takes a good part of the day. As usual the traffic was bad and I just missed the 10:00 endowment session so I did initiatories instead. It felt really good to be in the temple again. As I was turning into the temple grounds, I just had this overwhelming feeling of joy and gratitude come over me…so grateful that I can “leave the world” for a while and go to the House of the Lord! I was looking at the cards for the five women I did work for yesterday, and noticed that two of them were sisters and then two more were the daughters of one of those sisters. It was really sweet to be able to do the work for so many women who are in the same family! On the way home from the temple I stopped and had lunch with Frank and some of his co-workers. Then I tried to get all the usual chores done (laundry, vacuuming...) before I had to go pick up Seth. Our ward RS had a dinner to celebrate Relief Society's birthday last night. The food was really yummy. For the activity, they asked each of us to bring 5 items (that fit in a paper lunch bag) that represent something about us to share with everyone. We took turns going around the room talking about our items and what they stand for. It was fun, and I learned some interesting things about some of the women in my ward that I didn't know. In case you are wondering, the five things I put in my bag were a doll dress I made (I still like dolls, and I sew a bit), my library card (I love to read), my calculator (I have an accounting degree and I'm really into finances), a CD (I love music--to listen to, and to sing), and a set of salt & pepper shakers (I have a huge collection). It was an enjoyable evening. While I was out, Frank and Seth hung out at home eating pizza and Chinese food. 

That’s about all the news from these parts.

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