This week has been pretty busy. Here's what we've been doing:
Saturday: Seth was feeling fine all day on Friday so he went to swimming lessons as usual on Saturday morning. Frank took him to his lesson because I had arranged to take my two cub scout boys to Home Depot that morning for a kids' workshop. We just started working on an adventure where they are supposed to make two things out of wood--one fun thing and one useful thing. I was thrilled when I looked at Home Depot's website and discovered that they had a kids' workshop planned where they would be making a block calendar out of wood. Attending the workshop would fulfill the requirement to make one useful thing out of wood, and it was a lot easier to take my boys to the workshop than it would have been to figure out a project for them to do and to get all the materials and tools needed for the project. Besides, the workshop was free! Each of the boys got an apron and a pin for attending the workshop also. I wasn't sure what to expect, having never gone to one of these workshops before, and I was a little surprised to discover how many people came. My guess would be that there were at least 70 kids there!! They gave each child a kit to make the block calendar and all the tools and supplies we needed to put them together were there. I helped my two boys complete their projects and I think they both had fun.
Their "fun" project will be their Pinewood Derby cars, which they should have finished (or almost finished) by now since our Pinewood Derby is tonight.
Sunday: Our meeting time for church switched to 1:00, which is not my favorite time slot, but I had a good morning reading scriptures and the other materials to prepare for the lessons we were having that day. I had choir practice right before church also. For our first "council" in Relief Society, we had a really good discussion / council about visiting teaching. I think the changes in the curriculum are going to be awesome!!
Monday: Seth had school in the morning as usual, but since they were predicting we were going to get a "wintry mix" with icy roads in the afternoon, they decided to release school 3 hours early. I got a text message from the school district as well as emails from Seth's teacher, the school, and the school district but Seth, knowing that I've been having trouble getting text messages on my phone and that I hadn't been getting emails from the school for the last few months (that problem was finally solved on Sunday), was worried that I wouldn't know I needed to pick him up early, so his teacher let him call me. I got this funny voicemail from him on my phone because he actually didn't have his facts very clear and had no idea exactly what time school was getting out. Luckily, I did get all the other messages, so I knew exactly what to do. Anyway, before picking him up I was working on all the regular chores and I also went to the store to look at crochet patterns to see if I could find one for a scarf. I ended up getting some yarn and a couple of crochet books--one is a basic guide on how to crochet, with directions on how to do all of the basic stitches plus a lot of others and includes instructions for several projects. I thought it would be a nice reference to have since I'd like to do some more projects in the future. I did find a scarf pattern that I like too. I haven't had time to get started on the scarf project yet, though. Seth was supposed to have an orthodontist appointment on Monday afternoon but the orthodontist office decided to close early so I rescheduled that which I was happy to do since I'm not a fan of driving on icy roads and the office is about 25 minutes away. We just stayed home for the rest of the day except Frank & Seth did venture out for a little while to go to a friend's house to cut out Seth's Pinewood Derby car. (The friend has power tools that make the cutting easier.) We had family night, I worked on the puzzle some more, and our bishop called and asked me to give a talk on Sunday. My topic is "Consecrating Our Time to the Lord", which is an interesting topic and I still haven't figured out exactly where I'm going with that. I've been thinking and pondering about it all week and I've had a lot of thoughts. I even started getting a lot of those thoughts down on paper yesterday, but I'm still not sure how to organize it all into a coherent whole, or exactly which direction I want to take it. Hopefully I will get that figured out before Sunday!
I haven't had much time to work on the puzzle since Monday. Here is how it looked on Monday:
Here is how it looks now:
I'm hoping that someday I actually finish this thing, especially since I need my kitchen back. (The lighting in the kitchen is much better than in the living room, so we are putting it together in the kitchen.)
Tuesday: Since it was still super cold and none of the ice from the day before had a chance to melt, Frank & I expected school to be delayed on Tuesday and we were right. I had planned to go to the temple and wasn't sure that would still work but Frank was working in Frederick that day so he said he could pick up Seth from school if I didn't get home in time to pick him up myself. As it turned out, the traffic at 11:00 is much better than at 9:00, so I actually made it to the temple in time to go to the 12:00 session and was able to pick Seth up from school on my way home from the temple. It was really nice to be there again--I hadn't been able to be there since the beginning of December. I hope to go at least 2 times this month and at least 2 times next month, before the temple closes at the beginning of March for a couple of years. I'm going to miss being able to go there so much, although I am hoping that we can work things out to go to the Philadelphia temple on a monthly basis and we also plan to go to the temple when we are on trips to Utah or anywhere else that there is a temple (Hans, we might be visiting you a few times!!) Besides going to the temple, I got all the other usual chores done and Seth started painting his Pinewood Derby car. Frank had an EQ presidency meeting that evening too. We didn't have Cub Scouts because we have the Pinewood Derby tonight instead.
At the temple, the flag was flying half-mast for President Monson:
Seth working on his Pinewood Derby car. It's supposed to look like the Batmobile in one of the video games the boys play:
Wednesday: Mostly a usual day with religion class and other normal chores, but I also printed up award certificates for the Pinewood Derby, read several conference talks about consecration, helped Seth with his car, and in the evening I had book chat. We had a lively and interesting discussion about The Case for Christ (I mostly liked it except that he slammed the Book of Mormon at one point). Now we are reading The Scarlet Letter, which I read once but it was when I was in high school so I'm looking forward to reading it again. I'm sure I'll see some things in it that I didn't see 30+ years ago!
Thursday: Again, the usual things but I also made some cookies for Pinewood Derby refreshments, stopped at the storage unit to get out the box of Pinewood Derby decorations, and spent the afternoon wrestling to get my thoughts on paper for my talk. In the evening I went over to help my friend Renata--she had contacted me on Wednesday to see if I was available to stay with her kids while she went to a class about home & finance (she's trying to figure out if she can afford to stay in her home or will need to sell it) and then to her grief support group. I took Seth with me to play with her son Sammy and they all watched a movie together and then had fun playing. I could have used that time to work on my talk but it will all work out, right? Because I was trying to help someone who needed it? As it was, I did get to talk to Jared for a while, which was nice because I wanted to get caught up with him.
Friday: Today I am trying to get my usual chores done quickly so that I can spend some more time on my talk. I'm getting distracted by a lot of things, though, like talking to Scott (he called me while he was on his way to work). I did want to get caught up with him too, though, so I'm glad he called. I am almost done with the regular chores now. I'm planning to watch President Monson's funeral, which starts in a half hour. I have to leave only a half hour into it to go pick up Seth from school which is a bummer but there's nothing I can do about that. Hopefully I will only miss a little bit of the service. Then it is dinner time and on to the Pinewood Derby after that, so it's going to be a busy evening.
Frank is still coughing a LOT but in general he is getting better. It is just a slow process! He had his blood tested last week and his blood sugar levels are high (even though he takes medicine for that) so he needs to get an appointment for a check up. They are worried that he is pre-diabetic. I am hoping that he can get some help in figuring out some ways to lose weight (most kinds of exercise are not an option because of his knee) as well as some guidance on diet. I have been trying to find ways to eat healthier for quite some time, but I haven't made a lot of progress. It is one thing to know that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables and less of everything else, but translating that into actual meals--3 meals a day, seven days a week, and meals that we will actually want to eat--well, that's another thing altogether! I hope we can figure it out, though. I worry about his health and know he would feel a lot better if he weighed less. I could benefit from losing about 15 pounds myself. But first, he needs to make that appointment, which he hasn't got around to doing yet. He works so hard every day and it is hard for him to find the time to take care of himself.
That is all our news for this week.
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