Weekly Review October 6 '17

I think this  week’s post is going to be pretty short. We were definitely busy all week, but mostly just doing the regular things so there isn’t a lot to write about. I’ll see what I can come up with, though.

Friday: I mowed the lawn, but I think that is the last time I will do that for a while. Not because it’s getting too cold but because it’s been really dry so the lawn isn’t growing much. The back lawn is doing better than the front lawn—probably because it is in the shade a lot more. We are supposed to get a lot of rain sometime next week though (leftovers from a hurricane that’s in the Gulf of Mexico right now) so maybe I will only get this week off. When I picked up Seth from school on Friday, I also picked up two other kids who go to the school.They are in our ward too, and I picked them up because their family was buying a house and their parents were at the closing. The house is in Walkersville, so they will still be in our ward. Seth was really happy to have these kids over to play for a while. Sam came that night and stayed for General Conference weekend. We stayed up late watching the BYU game. I actually didn’t feel too bad about that game even though we lost. Maybe because the defense did an excellent job, and I'm hopeful that our inexperienced struggling quarterbacks will get the hang of things eventually. We’ll see how the game tonight goes.

Saturday and Sunday: General Conference!! It was awesome! What else can I say? I took notes and I’m looking forward to reading the talks / watching them again. I also helped Seth finish up his religious knot for Cub Scouts, visited my friend Wanda on Sunday morning, and we had our second meeting for our self reliance group on Sunday evening.

Monday: The usual stuff, plus I prepared for this week’s den meeting and did some research to pick some books for book chat because it was my turn to bring book suggestions this month. I also did a lot of reading on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and finished the book for book chat on Wednesday morning. I enjoyed the book, although it wasn’t happy.

Tuesday: Besides the usual, I read through the material for this week’s self reliance group and downloaded the videos we will be watching. I also made a trip to the library. That evening I had den meeting and Cub Committee meeting.

Wednesday: I didn’t have religion class again because the teacher was out of town. I didn’t know that, though, so I drove over to the stake center and then discovered that no one was there. Oh well! That afternoon I started on a big project. Recently, I was thinking about the layout of our house and trying to think of ways to better use the space that we have. In particular, I want to move Frank's office because a) he needs more space and b) no matter how much space he has, his office is still going to be a mess so I want his office in a room with a door that closes! (I'm facing reality, folks. I've lived with this man for 25 years and he has a lot of wonderful qualities but neatness isn't one of them. As a matter of fact, I think he works best in a messy environment. And in his defense, computer equipment is really hard to keep neat. All those cords and stuff!! Plus I swear computer equipment multiplies when you aren't looking.) Anyway, his office is currently in a small open area at the bottom of the basement stairs, in between the laundry / storage room and the downstairs bedroom. It is spilling out of that area into the hallway to the bedroom and even up the stairs. Every time I go down the stairs (to move the laundry, for example) I have to dodge stuff on the stairs and then I'm faced with the huge mess at the bottom of the stairs. This makes me want to scream. (I am Frank's polar opposite when it comes to messes--I thrive in clean, organized, uncluttered environments.) So as I was thinking about it, I decided that the best thing to do would be to move Frank's office into the bedroom downstairs. This was Jared's room before he left and Sam stays there when he visits, but most of the time it is not getting used at all. It has a door, a closet, and it's bigger than the area where Frank's office is now. If we move Frank's office in there, then we need another place for Sam and other guests to stay when they come, and the obvious answer to that is to put them in  the upstairs bedroom that Tanner was using last. It's not really getting used right now either, except that I have a lot of my sewing / crafts stuff in there and there's also a bunch of Legos in there that I need to go through. (Seth goes in there and looks through them regularly when he is looking for a piece, and he usually leaves building project messes on the floor.) If we make that room Jared's and / or Tanner's room when they are home / guest room, then I need another place to put my sewing and craft stuff and the area where Frank's office is now is perfect for that. I don't have as much stuff as he does and I can keep it neat! As a matter of fact, I could also fit a small desk down there which means we could get rid of the large desk that is currently in the kitchen so the kitchen would be neater. Seems like a win / win / win / win to me!! But, it is going to be a lot of work and I don't think it will all be done anytime soon. It will involve buying some new furniture (and getting rid of some of the furniture we have) as well as painting most of the rooms. (I've been wanting to repaint the two bedrooms for a long time. We painted them 10 years ago, shortly before Seth was born and we let the boys pick out the colors since they were their rooms. The upstairs bedroom is a weird combination of blue and green and the downstairs bedroom is a hideous blue and orange combination. Plus, the paint is strange--it's some sort of vinyl paint, which is awesome for cleaning the walls but it is also peeling off in places, sometimes in large sheets. It's hard to explain!) Well! That was a long explanation of what we are doing. On Wednesday I began the first step in this long project which was to clean out the rest of Tanner’s room upstairs (he did most of it before he went back to BYU) and then to start cleaning out Jared's room downstairs. (He also cleaned a lot of his room before he left for his mission, but he didn't finish.) The cleaning also involved a trip to Goodwill and a trip to the storage unit. I’m planning  to finish up Jared's room next week. Then we can think about starting to repaint, although first I have to figure out how to remove the paint that is on the walls now. Enough of that! On Wednesday night I had book  chat and we had a lively discussion about The House of Mirth. Now we are going to read a book called Watership Down. We take turns bringing a snack to book chat and this time we had a “chocolate sampling”. We tried 8 different kinds of chocolate! Yummy!! Frank had his monthly PPI with the bishop that night while I was at book chat.

Thursday: I went to the temple and that ended up taking most of the day. The traffic getting there was horrible (typical) and the traffic getting back home was horrible too (not typical). Besides that, it took a long time to get my family file name card back after the session was over and I also wanted to check the lost and found because I left a pair of earrings in my locker the last time I was at the temple (sadly, they weren’t found). So anyway, all of that took a long time. It was worth it, though. The temple has been closed for the last month and I was on vacation the 3 weeks before that, so it had been nearly 2 months since I’d been to the temple and I really missed it!!! I listened to church music driving down and back which made the trips nicer even if they took a long time. After I got home, I spent the evening trying to get everything else done on my list and I did manage to get everything done by bedtime. It helped that Frank had been working from home most of the day and he kept the laundry moving.

Friday: Today has just begun, so we haven’t done much yet besides get Seth to school and I wrote to Jared. Sam has a long weekend this week because of Columbus Day, so he may be coming up here again.  I need to update the budget and if I have time I will do some more work in Jared's room.

In general, Frank and I have both been getting up pretty early nearly every morning to exercise. It feels good to do that, and I get a lot more done during the day when I get up earlier. I have also continued to crochet every day and my blanket is getting pretty large. I still have a long way to go until it is finished, but I am making a lot of progress.

I’ll end with a spiritual thought. I was listening to the song “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” yesterday and the words “Joseph’s humble prayer was answered” kind of stuck in my mind. Isn’t it wonderful that each of us can have our humble prayers answered too? I’ve had many prayers answered. Although none of my prayers have been answered with a vision like Joseph Smith had, I can still say that I have felt the presence of my Father in Heaven and of my Savior at times when they have answered my prayers. I haven’t seen them, as Joseph did, but they are just as real to me as they would be if I did see them. It’s amazing to me that our Father can be so aware of ALL of his children, and that He knows when we are praying to Him (or even thinking of Him) and that He answers each one of us in a personal way. I love that!

Sorry, no pictures this week.