Weekly Review October 27 '17

Here's a recap of our week:

Friday: It was a busy day, but I didn’t do much worth mentioning other than that evening I went over to help the recently widowed sister that I visit teach. She has a 7 year old son who loves Legos, so Seth came with me so they could play together for a while. After a few hours of playtime, Frank came over to pick up Seth and I stayed to help her get her kids to bed. It was really interesting to talk to her. She is very open and she has lots of questions. I found out she joined the church about 20 years ago in the Ukraine. I don’t think she was active for very long after her baptism because she doesn’t seem to know a lot about the church. But she is very curious and asks lots of questions and seems very accepting of the answers. She asked me what Relief Society is, and I realized that 20 years ago in the Ukraine the church was still very new and so it is possible that they didn’t have the full church program available to them there. Anyway, I enjoyed getting to know her better. We’ve had different women in the ward helping her most weeknight evenings and she told me that it has been very helpful. She mentioned that there is an entirely different dynamic in her home when one of us is there and that there is a better feeling there too. So I was glad to hear that the service I helped set up is making a difference!

Saturday: It was super busy again. I got my hair done, dropped muffins off for one of the sisters I visit teach, cleaned the kitchen floor, scanned photos, did some indexing, reviewed the materials for the self reliance meeting, and crocheted. I also took Seth to the store as part of a requirement he was finishing up for Cub Scouts. He had to plan a nutritious meal and shop for the ingredients. He didn’t actually have to make the meal for the Cub Scout requirement, but if he helped make and serve the meal that would pass off a Faith in God requirement, so I had him do that on Sunday for lunch, after we got home from church. Sam was here visiting us this weekend too.

Sunday: Pretty much the same as every Sunday lately—church and the self reliance group meeting, without a lot of time in between. Frank wasn’t feeling well so he went home after Sacrament Meeting. He had a sore throat, head ache and stomach ache. Unfortunately, he STILL had a headache and stomach ache. He hasn’t felt well all week. He took Wednesday off and a half day off yesterday, but I didn’t notice him resting much. He was still fairly busy doing stuff for the business. The other days he worked for Marriott although he worked from home. He has kept plugging along even though he doesn’t feel well. I hope he feels better soon! I was distracted during the self reliance group meeting because I got a text from Tanner right before it started telling me that the girl he's been dating / spending a lot of time with just broke up with him. He was not a happy camper that day or Monday, but by Tuesday he was feeling a lot better. I mean, I'm sure he's still not happy about it but he's working through his feelings. I seriously don't understand why my boys have such rotten luck with girls! I mean, I've lived with them and although of course they aren't perfect, they are really very pleasant people! They have solid testimonies and they are kind and considerate. I think they will make great husbands and fathers someday. But girls run away from them like crazy. I just don't get it. I hope someday some girl is smart enough to see how sweet, funny and awesome Tanner is! (Scott's not so bad either. :) )

Monday: I actually didn’t feel really great on Monday and I didn't sleep well Sunday night, so I didn’t exercise. I haven’t been sick all week like Frank has, but my throat hurt on Saturday and Sunday and then my stomach has felt kind of yucky off and on throughout the week. I’ve felt pretty normal most of the time though. I volunteered at the school library that morning. I was supposed to visit teach that evening (a less active sister) but then she had to cancel. I was actually glad because my stomach really wasn’t feeling very great that evening. We rescheduled for Thursday, but then she had to cancel again. She hasn’t had an easy week! Hopefully we will get to visit her sometime soon, but in the meantime I am just trying to do little things to help her.

Tuesday: It was International Childrens Day at Seth’s school and the upper elementary kids had a short program that I went to. Afterwards, Seth’s class had dioramas and displays in the classroom so I went up to see those. Seth was in a group with two other students (both girls!) who did a project / diorama on Italy. So I listened to their demonstration first, and then I went around the room and listened to all the other demonstrations. There were projects on Sweden, Latvia, Liberia, The Bahamas, Japan, Jamaica, and Ghana also. The girls who did their project on The Bahamas had a smoothie made of bananas, coconut, and pineapple that I got to sample—it was really good! I went straight from the school to physical therapy. Then I came home and hurried to get all the usual chores done before picking up Seth from school. That evening we didn’t have Cub Scouts; instead there was a Trunk or Treat at the church, followed by a bunch of games that were done by the YM/ YW. They had a fish pond, haunted maze, haunted house, cake walk, etc. Seth had a lot of fun. Frank stayed home since he wasn’t feeling well. Quite a few people brought friends with them and the recently widowed sister I visit teach (I should really give you her name so I don’t have to keep saying that—her name is Renata) came with her two children also. It was good to see her there! Afterwards, I wanted to get some soda for Frank and then I realized I already had the shopping list made for the next day (I usually go to Walmart on Wednesdays) so I just did the weekly shopping that evening instead. It made the next day less hectic, and I still managed to keep pretty busy the next day.

Wednesday: I went to the religion class as usual and afterwards a group of us went to lunch. One of the girls we wanted to come still didn’t make it, but the rest of us did. That evening I took Seth to swimming lessons and he actually had a lesson this time! Within five minutes of the lesson starting, he was floating on his back all by himself. (I have been helping him float for a while, but he hasn’t been able to do it completely independently before.) I’m not sure how productive the rest of the lesson was—it seemed to me that he was pretty distracted (I was watching from the next room) and he wasn’t putting his face in the water very much. But I’m sure it will come. The teacher says he is really more of a level 2 than a level 1, so she is going to work with him on level 2 skills. Other than that, I was busy in between with all the regular chores and I also spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Tanner that day, helping him get some things figured out. It was good to talk to him because he did sound a lot better than he did when I talked to him on Monday.

Thursday: Besides the usual stuff, I mowed the lawn and weeded the flower beds. I also removed most of Seth’s extensive stick collection from the front yard (Shhh!! He hasn’t noticed yet! I did leave a couple of his “favorites”.) I started working on some projects that I want to get done for Christmas. I also started going through all the Legos that the older boys left behind. I want to sort everything out and get as many sets as possible assembled and then taken apart and put into ziplock bags with their instructions. It took me a couple of hours just to go through all the piles of instructions and sort them out (I haven’t even started on the actual Legos yet!) A good share of the instructions are for Bionicles. Good grief, it is still amazing to me how many of those things we managed to accumulate over the years!! I forgot to count how many different instruction booklets we have, but I would say there are about 60 or 70. After spending a couple of hours sitting on the floor sorting Legos, combined with the lawn mowing and weed pulling before that, my back was screaming at me for relief so I spent the last hour before bedtime lying down, reading Percy Jackson to Seth. We are in the first book of the follow up series and it is pretty interesting so far. I was worried that I had really overdone it and was going to pay for it with extreme back pain today, but fortunately that didn't happen. My back feels a lot better today.

Friday: I’ve spent most of the day so far getting the budget updated. Really, that’s it so far! Tonight we are planning to go to a Financial Planning Workshop at the church. They have classes on investing, wills & estate planning, and planning for retirement, which are all things that we want to learn more about. I hope Frank feels well enough to go.

In general, we are having perfectly beautiful weather still—crisp sunny days and cool nights. I just love beautiful days like that! I suppose winter will have to come soon but in the meantime, I am making the most of the nice days. I was too busy to get much done on the painting project this week and next week doesn't look much better but I am trying to do little bits and pieces to further that project along whenever I get the chance. I want to move most of the stuff that is left out of the upstairs bedroom down into the downstairs bedroom so that it can be out of the way while I repair and paint the walls. Sam and Daniel are both going to be here this weekend, though, so I need to leave the downstairs bedroom open for them for now. After this weekend I will hopefully get things moved down there and then I can start working on the walls in the upstairs bedroom. I think if I can get one room done, this whole project won't seem so overwhelming. I would love to get it all done before Christmas, but it's not very likely that will happen, at least at the rate we are going. It will all get done someday, though!

That is all I have to report this week. Frank hasn't had a chance to help me with getting my photos off my phone so sorry there still aren't any pictures this week. Maybe next week.