Weekly Review April 5 '19

It's been on the cold side most of this week, but we did have a couple of nice days (Wednesday and Thursday). However, there are signs of spring all over the place. Early last week Seth and I noticed a few trees had flowers on them. A lot of trees are still bare, but we definitely noticed a lot of trees getting buds and bursting into bloom this week. I had a very clear view of the river behind our house two weeks ago, but now it is getting harder to see. I can still see it, but there is more foliage in the way now. It hardly seems possible that we have had enough warm days for the lawn to need mowing, but we have! I mowed the lawn for the first time since last fall on Tuesday. It was actually pretty chilly that day but I wore a jacket and didn't get too cold. I only had to mow the front lawn--the back lawn doesn't need it yet. The back lawn is on the north side of the house and doesn't get much sunlight. The front lawn grows much faster and weeds really thrive in the front flower bed. On Monday evening we weeded that. It was nice to have Frank help me with that instead of doing it by myself. He is a hard and fast worker. We have a few daffodils blooming in front. After weeding and mowing, the front yard looks really nice.

Anyway, that is the weather / yard work report. On to everything else we did this week.

Friday: I went to the "mission shower" that I mentioned in last week's letter. I didn't stay very long because I was taking Seth out to dinner but a lot of people had come before I left and I heard afterwards that the missionary got a lot of nice things. Seth chose Red Robin for dinner; it was pretty good. Frank arrived home from Dallas around midnight...it's nice to have him home!

Saturday: This day was really busy. Frank was doing laundry and getting caught up on work for clients. I cleaned the kitchen floor, did some work for the office furniture website, worked on wedding stuff, worked on the quilt, and started working on our Personal Property tax return for the business. Frank and I also took some time to discuss our lesson for the following day, and worked out what we wanted to say and how to divide things up.

Sunday: Our lesson went well and we really enjoyed teaching about managing finances wisely. (I really missed my cute Primary class, though!) Managing finances is an area where we have put forth a lot of effort, but have also seen great blessings--miracles, actually--in being able to provide for our family. We actually didn't have as much time to talk about it as we would have liked, but we prepared a follow up email with a bunch of tips and resources. I didn't sleep well on Saturday night and I fully expected to take a nap Sunday afternoon but I never could go to sleep! I read scriptures and indexed instead. Sunday was an anniversary of sorts for us--we bought our house 19 years ago on March 31st. So amazing that we have been able to stay in one place for 19 years!! Sometimes (often!) I have been frustrated at the small size of this house, but it has been a great blessing to us nevertheless and we love it!

The rest of the week: I'm not going to give a play-by-play of every day because mostly we just did the usual things, plus I'm always working on the quilt. I only have 1 1/2 blocks left to finish in the 5th (and final!) row.

I still have to go around all the strips in between the rows too. I'm hoping I can get a lot (if not all) of that done while I watch General Conference. I am pleased with how good it looks in spite of my lack of skill and I am excited to finish it up--hopefully in the next few weeks.

Wedding plans are also keeping us very busy (and somewhat stressed). As parents of the grooms, we don't have a ton of responsibilities but it is amazing how much time and research and back-and-forth phone calls and texting it takes to plan a dinner and a luncheon! We are also trying to coordinate all the travel plans (between here and Philadelphia and between here and Utah). We did manage to get hotel rooms booked for Philadelphia (we are staying there the night before Jared's wedding since it takes 2 1/2 hours to get there from here, on a good traffic day). We also purchased plane tickets for everyone going both directions for the two weddings. It feels good to have those things figured out, at least. We mostly have the luncheon figured out for Tanner's wedding (although I still need to reserve it--I tried to do that yesterday but got an answering machine). The dinner for Jared's wedding is proving to be the most difficult because we'll be in Philadelphia so finding a location that isn't going to cost a fortune has been hard. Hopefully we will get that figured out soon.

Other events from this week: Frank had a dentist appointment on Monday and his teeth are in good shape. Seth had an art show for school on Wednesday evening, which we went to before I took him to YM. He really wanted to go to the art show, but he wasn't really excited about the idea of getting his picture taken in front of his artwork, but I insisted:

For YM, the Deacons did a service project for some members of the ward. They pulled down a small out building, and Seth thought that was loads of fun!!

Snickers had an ultrasound on his bladder and liver this week. He doesn't have any more bladder stones, which is good news. His liver has deteriorated more since his ultrasound last year, which isn't good news. It's not life threatening yet, but I think his liver is what's going to kill him in the end. We give him liver support medicine every day which helps a bit.

Seth had an incident at school yesterday. He got upset at recess and he punched another boy in the arm. This earned him a trip to the principal's office--where they discussed using his words instead of hitting--and a note that we have to sign. Seth does get angry easily and often, but I was surprised he hit someone because he's never come close to doing that before. When I talked to him about it, it sounded like it was just a bad moment where things got out of control (not that I'm making excuses for him, because I'm not). He has to miss recess on Monday and he also will not be allowed to play four square all next week (that's the game they were playing when the incident happened), which seems totally reasonable to me. We are also going to have him write a note to the other boy to tell him he's sorry. In general, Seth has been pretty challenging lately and it has been hard for me not to feel discouraged about his behavior. I really feel like there is a lot more going on with him than just regular kid behavior and ADHD. I really wish we could figure out what it is, so that maybe we could find some solutions. I would just like him to be a lot happier than he is!

We continued to do limited brain balance this week because Seth's chest is still tender. It's a lot better than it was, but it's still sore.

Besides all of that, I went to my religion class, worked a little bit on the Personal Property tax return, practice the ukulele a little, tried to figure out what we are going to do for a costume for Seth's school project (he has to dress up like Daniel Boone) and started reading the next book chat book, which is called My Beloved World  by Sonia Sotomayor. It's a memoir about her life and it is really good so far. I didn't work at the Arc at all (which is just as well, considering how busy I've been) but I did do some more work on the office furniture website.

Today Seth has the day off school (just a teacher work day; we don't have spring break until the week after next). I do not have the day off; I have a lot of things to do!! We are really looking forward to listening to General Conference for the next couple of days.