Friday: That evening, Frank went to see Black Panther with a couple of other guys in the ward. He really enjoyed that.
Saturday: This was a very busy day. Our neighbor showed up early to start painting the bedroom. Frank took Seth to swimming lessons because I had a RS activity to go to. It was a brunch to celebrate the birthday of RS. The theme was "Bloom Where You're Planted" and there was a nice message about that in addition to the brunch, which included lots of yummy food. After the brunch, I went straight to the hair salon to get my hair cut and colored. By the time I got home from that, it was mid afternoon. After eating some lunch, I took Seth to see an art exhibit. We were doing this to pass off a requirement for one of his adventures in Cub Scouts. It was a fun art exhibit--several artists had painted benches, and they had the benches set up in a room to look sort of like a garden, with green plastic for grass and gray paper for walkways and even a blue plastic "pond". Seth seemed to enjoy it and hopefully he gained a greater appreciation for art! The benches were painted on all sides and some of the artists did some really cool things on the sides and back of the benches. Here are a few pictures:
This bench represents Maryland. I got a picture of the front, the back, the side, and a close up of the seat:
Here is the front of back of the this peacock themed bench:
Seth recognized this bench was inspired by a Van Gogh painting because he did a homework assignment a few months ago using the "Starry Night" painting:
This was Seth's favorite bench, and one of my favorites too:
I thought this bench was pretty clever:
This one was pretty simple, but I like simplicity:
Beautiful garden themed bench:
I only got one side of each of these benches:
I liked the details on the side of this bench. (The front is nice, too.):
Most of the artists were there and were selling some of their products (paintings, jewelry, textiles, etc.) and there was some pretty cool stuff but we didn't buy anything.
While I was running around doing all that stuff, our neighbor was working on the bedroom. He sanded down all the walls really well (basically fixed all the mistakes I made with patching!) and then primed the whole room.
Besides all of the places I went on Saturday, I also cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, practiced the song for Sacrament Meeting, and worked on our taxes (basically finished our federal return). We have to pay a lot of taxes this year--boo! It's okay, though, because we set aside a lot throughout the year to cover taxes. I knew we were probably going to have to pay this year because our income was quite a higher than the year before--mostly because Frank missed a couple of months of work the year before (after his accident) and the business also didn't earn as much the year before (at least partly because he wasn't doing as much the couple of months after his accident.) So not only was our income higher, but our estimated tax payments were lower. It will all work out, though.
Sunday: I had a practice for the song that morning and then went right from there to choir practice. I think our song went really well--I was happy with the way it turned out, and I am grateful I had the chance to sing that hymn (More Holiness Give Me) over and over because the words started to sink into my heart. I wouldn't say it was one of my favorite hymns before, but now it is! When we got home from church, we discovered that Snickers had thrown up a few times and he threw up a couple more times after we got home. He hadn't been eating that morning either and in general he was acting like he just didn't feel very well. That was definitely a cause for concern! He didn't throw up anymore after that but he really didn't eat much on Monday or Tuesday but by late Tuesday he started to perk up and on Wednesday he started to eat normally again. He seems to be fine now. I'm glad he got better and that we didn't have to take him back to the vet! Anyway, back to Sunday--there was a fireside that night for adults about protecting our children from technology. It was presented by a guy in our stake who is a police officer and works on the Maryland task force for the Internet Crimes Against Children. Frank and I had been planning to go to it, but we decided it probably wasn't a good idea to leave Seth alone with a sick dog, so I went to the fireside and Frank stayed home with Seth and Snickers. The fireside had a lot of helpful information but was also sobering and disturbing. It focused mostly on protecting children from predators online (including through apps that they use). My overall feeling leaving there was that I don't want to ever give Seth a phone or let him use the internet! Actually, I'm not as worried about predators as I am about things like pornography. It's just kind of overwhelming sometimes how much junk is out there. I did get some good information about things to do to help protect him, though, which was the point of the fireside.
Monday: This was mostly a normal day with the usual chores, but I kept very busy anyway. One thing I did out of the ordinary is I went to the store to get paint for the upstairs bedroom. We decided we wanted to paint it the same color as the living room and upstairs hall, and we had a small amount of that paint leftover from when we painted the living room so I took that can in to the store so they could match the color. Our neighbor came that afternoon / evening and painted all the walls of the bedroom. He does such a neat professional job. I'm sure if I had painted it would not have looked anywhere near that good!
Tuesday: Another busy day. I did all the usual things but I also did some of Wednesday's chores--I went shopping at WalMart and Seth helped me dust. That is because I was going to be gone a lot on Wednesday so I knew I'd be a lot less stressed on Wednesday if I got a few things done early. We did not have den meetings that evening because we have Pack Meeting tonight, and that helped--gave me some extra time to get the shopping done. Our neighbor came over again for a few hours that afternoon / evening and painted all the trim in the bedroom.
Wednesday: I had volunteered to help in Seth's class that day. They were doing some special activities for "Pii Day" and they also had a field trip to the library. So I went in with Seth at 9:00 and didn't leave the school until 2:00. We did the "Pii Day" activities first, and for that part I was helping the kids make some pies. Another parent came in as well. The kids were divided into five groups and they rotated through different activities, one of which was making pies. By the time we were done with all the rotations, we had made a chocolate cream pie, a banana cream pie, a key lime pie, and 2 batches of baklava cups. Most of the pies had to set in the refrigerator for an hour or so. After we finished the Pii Day activities, we went to the library. His school is a few miles from the library, so we walked to the library and back. The walk would have been a lot more pleasant if it hadn't been about 34 degrees with a stiff wind blowing--brrrrrr!! It wasn't too bad, though. The trip back to the school seemed worse; I think the wind was blowing into our faces more when we were walking that direction. Anyway, at the library the kids looked for books for some research projects they are doing (Seth is working on Ancient Egypt, and we did find a few more books for him). They also were supposed to find one book to read that they had never read before and that they could read in a week. Next week, they will each present their book and explain why they liked it or why they didn't like it. After we got back from the library, we had lunch and then ate the pies we made earlier.
Seth eating lunch (I had to keep reminding him to eat, instead of talk!):
The pies we made:
In addition to the pies we made that day, they had made a raspberry cheesecake the day before. I opted to eat a piece of that one! (Frank doesn't like raspberries so I don't get the chance to eat things with raspberries very often.) It was really good, too. Our neighbor came over that afternoon for a few minutes to do a few touch ups on the bedroom, so now it is done. It looks so much better! (if you ignore the junk in the middle of the room):
Once we get the furniture moved back into this room and get the downstairs bedroom cleaned out, our neighbor is going to paint that room for us, too.
On Wednesday evening I got a few of Thursday's chores done because I had a plan for Thursday and wanted to have a lot of free time. I also got a few extra mending things done (like sewing on buttons and minor repairs to clothes).
Thursday: My plan for Thursday was to have a "temple day". The Washington DC temple is closed now and won't be open for a couple of years. I did a lot of thinking about what I could do to make up for the fact that I can't go to the temple as often. (We are hoping to go to the Philadelphia temple about once a month, but I usually go to the temple more often than that.) One of the things I really appreciate about going to the temple is that it takes me away from the world (and my "to do" list) for a couple of hours. I usually go to the temple first thing in the morning and don't worry about getting anything else done until I get back. I pick what day I am going to go and I don't let anything interfere with that plan (if at all possible--illness and weather sometimes interferes.) So I decided that while the temple is closed, I am going to schedule a day every couple of weeks where I set aside about 4 or 5 hours (the time it takes for a temple trip) to work on family history, do indexing, learn about the temple, etc. I did have some other things to do that day, but I had my "temple time" first. And just like when I go to the temple, all the other things got done somehow. For this first day, I read the first chapter in a book I got for Christmas about temple symbols, I did some indexing and read a little bit about some of my ancestors, and I read some scriptures about the temple. I also read through the first chapter of the manual for the temple preparation class. I put on some inspirational church music too. It wasn't as nice as going to the temple, but it was still pretty nice.
On Thursday evening we went to a place here in Frederick called the Earth Space Science Lab. It's kind of mini science museum with lots of displays and hands on exhibits (including some small animals), a small observatory, and a theater where they have shows that they project onto the ceiling. We saw a show about the National Parks and then they also did a projection of the night sky onto the ceiling to show us what constellations we can see this time of year. Seth really enjoyed looking at all the exhibits and didn't want to go when it was time to go.
An iguana
Looking at a horseshoe crab
Friday: Today has been pretty busy too. I got the budget done and went to ukulele class. After class the other student and the teacher and I all went to lunch together. They both wanted to hear about the fireside I went to on Sunday, so we discussed that. When I picked up Seth from school, I brought two other kids in the ward home with me. (Their mom had a doctor appointment). They are having a fun time playing right now, but they will be going home soon and then we will be getting dinner made and getting ready for Pack Meeting.
Other stuff: Frank has been working from home all week because he had training all week and it could all be done remotely. We are both exercising every day still and watching what we eat, and seeing good results. I tried to start crocheting a hat, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to do it. Hopefully I will figure it out, though! I have a friend who is going through chemotherapy right now, so if I can create a decent hat, I want to send it to her.
That is all I can think of to report and I need to make dinner and get some treats ready for Pack Meeting so I'd better post this and get those things done.
3 comments:
Those benches are cool and a cool idea for art. I liked the simple ones too but that norther lights one was neat too. I mean they all were, but yeah. :) We had pies too on Wednesday. It was actually my first time do that for pi day!
Same here. I loved all of those benches and I just wanted to sit down each one of them. Some people would maybe be afraid to sit on them, but I would love to sit on them and immerse myself in the art. Now I want one for my yard. We were all at Anna‘s for pi day and even though it was late in the day erin was determined to make a pie and so we did. I don’t remember my kids ever having such fun activities at school for pi day.
And just for the record, that last comment was from Liz not Erick. For some reason it won’t let me sign into my Google account or whatever. I don’t have to sign into Google on most of these so I don’t know why makes me try to sign in when I try to respond to you.
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