Weekly Review October 25 '19

Well, here we are--another week gone by and it's almost the end of October. I don't know where this year has gone! It definitely feels and looks like fall now. All the trees around here starting changing colors in the last week and now there's just beautiful reds, yellows, oranges, and golds all over! Most days have been really pleasant temperatures, too. Yesterday was sunny which was especially nice; today it's cloudy and cooler so not quite as nice. But still I can't complain! Fall is my favorite season.

We had a pretty busy week; here's the details:

Friday, October 18th:  I mentioned last week that we were going to a Fall Festival at Seth's school. They had a Harry Potter theme and there were lots of activities like pumpkin painting, cake walk, etc. Seth helped run an activity called "Harry Potter, Junior" which was for younger kids. I didn't participate in that (since I'm not a little kid!) so I'm not sure exactly what they did other than they had crafts and other activities based on the Harry Potter world. Frank and I helped for an hour with the cake walk--we collected tickets and made sure no one sneaked in (since the area they were doing the cake walk was not roped off or anything). I was actually amazed at how many people just walked right through the area when we were in the middle of a cake walk, adults included! Anyway, it went okay. Seth got done with his stuff at 8:00 and he and I had signed up to attend another event called "House of Potter" which the 8th graders had put together. They did it inside the school, which was mostly dark (we had to carry battery operated candles) and we moved from room to room where there were different activities / displays related to each of the Harry Potter books. I thought the decorating was pretty impressive, but I wasn't as impressed with the actual activities and most of the kids who were guides or who were presenting things seemed to be not very well prepared or comfortable with what they were doing. But that's okay--Seth thought it was awesome, so I guess that's the important thing. Right before we left to go to the festival, Frank gave Snickers his insulin shot and he poked himself with the needle when he was putting the protective cap back on. He got himself in the finger, right in the inside fold of one of his knuckles. His finger got numb and it's been hurting all week so he's going to the doctor to have it looked at today. I actually poked myself a few days later--on Tuesday--doing the same thing (putting the cap back on). The problem is that the needle is sometimes crooked, and it pokes right through the side of the cap, so if your finger happens to be holding that part of the cap, you get poked. I got myself right in the soft part of the thumb, near the tip of my thumb, and it hurt off and on for a few days but it's not really bothering me now.

 Saturday, October 19th: Frank had to do some work for his client that is over an hour away. I did the usual chores, helped Seth do some homework, and also helped with the practice for the Primary program. Since we couldn't practice in the chapel on Sundays at all, they had a practice in the chapel on Saturday afternoon. My kids were incredibly wiggly and inattentive; I was really hoping that they would do better on Sunday. Thankfully, they did!

Sunday, October 20th: The Primary program went great and my class was much less wiggly and they paid attention a lot better. I wouldn't say they weren't wiggly at all, but they were a lot better! For the second hour, the Sunday School president led a teacher's council for all the Primary teachers. (The Primary presidency and the bishopric met with all the kids in the Primary room during that time). The council was good and I think we had a worthwhile discussion and I picked up some helpful ideas. After church I took a nap, we had family night, and I prepared my Primary lesson for this Sunday (we're finally having class again!!) I was also trying to work out some things for my music calling and emailing our bishop about that but it ended up bringing back a lot of the stress I've been feeling for the last month and the result was that I lay awake for most of the night worrying about stuff and the few hours that I did sleep, I was having stressful dreams about it!

Monday, October 21st: So with that kind of start, I wasn't a very happy camper on Monday morning. But I tried to focus on getting stuff done and after a heartfelt tearful prayer about midday, I started to feel a little bit better. In the end, it was a remarkably productive day--not only did I get all the regular chores done, but I also made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for our family night treat, got some work done on one of the Christmas projects, called the vet, and visited my friend Wanda and got five pairs of pants cut off for her (so that they would be shorts). That evening we ate the muffins and had family night activity (we played Aggravation, which is basically the same as Sorry, and I won because I got lucky and no one ever landed on me and sent me back to my base). Afterwards, Frank went to the monthly HOA meeting. He's been doing that for probably 6 months, trying to get them to make some repairs to our parking spaces (which are sinking) and his persistence finally paid off because they told him someone was scheduled to come out and fix them in early November. As far as the music stuff goes, it's still not totally resolved but hopefully it will be soon. To put it briefly, the main problem is that our choir director had to be released recently and there really isn't anyone to take her place--everyone who has the capability to do that already has a pretty hefty calling and it wouldn't be a good time for them to be released. Or they have other circumstances in their lives that make it impossible for them to serve right now. So we've been trying to figure out some creative solutions to this problem (because we don't want to give up on having a choir at all), but all of those solutions mean that my workload as ward music chair is pretty much going to double and I'm going to have to do some things that are hard for me to do. And with all the other stressful things going on in my life right now, it's just been feeling like too much. But as I said, I'm feeling a little bit better about it now. Hopefully I will keep feeling that way; I feel like I've been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately.

Tuesday, October 22nd: It rained almost all day, which is great since we still need rain. I mostly got the usual chores done, but I also emailed Seth's Spanish teacher because he's not doing very well in that class so I wanted to find out what I could do to help him with that. (And she responded with some good feedback.) That evening there was an RS meeting--we talked about "polishing our testimonies" and then we polished our fingernails. I was one of two people who were asked to speak about how I polish my testimony, so I've been thinking about that for the last 3 - 4 weeks and jotting down all my ideas on an index card. Last week, I sat down and organized it all so on Tuesday I was just going to review it to make sure I remembered everything. But when I went to get the index card, it had disappeared!! Perfect! It still hasn't turned up. So instead of reviewing, I had to start all over, although mostly I was just trying to remember everything I had already thought of. It turned out okay.  There weren't a lot of people at the meeting (I guess the rain scared a lot of people off) but it was fun anyway. I gave another sister in the ward a ride to the meeting because her car had got a flat tire that day. She lives near me and is fairly new in the ward; I hadn't met her before now since I'm serving in Primary, so it was nice to meet her. I got to talk to Tanner for a while that evening--he called mainly because of a problem he had with our flex card when he tried to buy some medicine, but we talked about some other things too. (And don't get me started on all the issues we are having with our health spending account--such a pain!!) Anyway, Tanner sounds good, and it was nice to talk to him. He is doing much better at UVU and he's a lot less stressed.

Wednesday, October 23rd: Seth had a crazy school schedule for the rest of the week because there were parent teacher conferences. (His Spanish teacher wasn't holding conferences, though, so that's why I had to email her). On Wednesday and Thursday he went to school 4 hours late, which means he was in school from 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm those days. In the morning I worked on some homework with him since he had a big project due today and of course he hadn't been working on it as much as he should have. I also got the chores done (except for shopping) and worked a little bit on one of the Christmas projects. After I got Seth home from school, Frank and I drove down to a hospital in Washington, DC to visit a lady in our ward who had triple bypass surgery last week. She doesn't have a lot of family nearby so a lot of ward members have been trying to visit her. Frank went with me as a big favor because I really wanted to see her but I am too scared to drive down there by myself. The roads and traffic in DC are just crazy!! I suppose I should buck up and learn to drive down there, since I live so close, but I have never become comfortable with driving there, and as I get older I get worse. I sometimes get really disoriented, especially in unfamiliar places and even more especially in the dark. Anyway, I think Frank enjoyed the visit too, of course, but he mostly did it for me. And it was a big sacrifice because he had stuff going on with clients and stuff from work that he needed to deal with that evening too. But he got it all done and we had a nice visit with this sister, and we enjoyed talking to each other on the drive down and back.

Thursday, October 24th: Thursday morning was a lot the same as Wednesday morning--I got chores done and helped Seth work on homework. After I took him to school, I baked a bunch of potatoes for a potato bar they were having for all the teachers and I took Snickers on a short walk. And I kept the laundry moving and folded some of it, too. I had signed up to help set up the potato bar too, so I left early to go do that. I had signed up for parent teacher conferences right after school, so I had asked Frank to pick Seth up at dismissal and take him home so that I could set up the potato bar and then just hang around for a few minutes until it was time for conferences. (If I had needed to take Seth home and come back, it would have been a really tight time table.) That worked out well. I had conferences with three of his teachers--math, science and English language arts. (He also has PE, music, and Spanish, but I wasn't worried about PE or music since he has 100% in those classes.) He is actually doing really well in the other classes too; but I wanted to get an idea of how he is adjusting to middle school and what his behavior has been like from the teachers he spends the most time with. All three of his teachers had good things to report--they think he is adjusting really well; he's turning things in on time and doing well on everything, he participates well in classes and asks questions when he needs help. One teacher also mentioned how kind and thoughtful he is, with one classmate in particular (who has special needs). They also mentioned seeing him make progress--like at first, he had a hard time with moving on to the next thing when the time was up instead of finishing it, but he has learned to adapt and doesn't have a problem with that anymore. So I think the greater structure has been good for him and he has actually not had much problems with the change in teaching methods, which was one of the things I was really worried about. And apparently his behavior has been really good too. So lots of good news!! It made me wonder if I am just imagining things and he's really completely normal and I overreact to him. But then I came home and he was really just awful most of the evening! (Mainly because he didn't like what I made for dinner, and I wouldn't let him eat anything else until he ate a few bites of everything I made for dinner, but there were other things too.) We've been working a lot harder lately on expecting more from him and being consistent and so forth, and he doesn't like it but hopefully when we get over the hump, things will improve. I still don't believe all of the issues he has are related to how we discipline him, but I think things will be a lot more manageable if we are better with discipline. And seeing how he has adapted to Middle School gives me hope that he can be successful, in spite of the issues he is dealing with. When I was meeting with his teachers, they also were very specific about the things they are working on and where they expect he will be, academically, by the end of the year and I really liked what they had to say about that. I am really impressed with his teachers--I think they are excellent and that they are going to teach him skills that will be helpful all through high school and into college. I'm really grateful that he has the chance to go to this school, where he gets a lot more individual attention than he would at a regular middle school. His teachers only have about 50 kids to keep track of, instead of hundreds! Seth had YM that evening and on the way home he told me that he had just been called to be the Deacon's Quorum president. He just needs to decide about counselors.

Friday, October 25th: That's today, of course. Today school started at the regular time (9:00), but gets out 3 1/2 hours early, so actually I have to go pick him up in a few minutes. I exercised before I took him to school and then I showered and have been writing this post. The morning has flown by.

I mentioned about 3 or 4 weeks ago that I noticed I wasn't hearing much out of my right ear. Now that Frank has a new CPAP so there isn't a lot of noise at night, I decided to try to get my ear cleaned out. Starting on Monday, I put hydrogen peroxide in it each evening and after several minutes flushed it out with water. At first it didn't seem to be helping at all--as a matter of fact, I felt like I had a lot of water in my ear as well as ear wax--but last night I finally got results and got a lot of wax out of it and now I can hear in that ear again! And it's amazing how many little things you can hear that you don't notice until you haven't been hearing them in a while and suddenly you can hear them again. Anyway, I'm glad I can hear again and now I'm going to clean the left ear too because even though I can hear out of it, I think I will hear better if I clean it.

Just one more thing before I go...I think it is worth mentioning that I DID NOT have to take Snickers to the vet this week!!! He will need his blood sugar tested again in another week or two, but other than that we seem to have finally hit some smooth sailing. He acts more like himself and seems happier, although I know being blind is still stressful for him. His tail is between his legs less, though, and he is barking to ask to go out again (I mean, I didn't really miss that, but it's a sign that he's feeling more energy...) and often meeting me at the door with a wagging tail when I come home, instead of staying in his bed and whining at me. So it's nice to see that he is feeling better. And it's also nice that I didn't spend any money on him this week!

And on that happy note, I'd better end this post and go pick up Seth from school.

Weekly Review October 18 '19

This week was a little less stressful, thankfully. A few situations improved, and I guess I'm just getting used to the rest of them! Here's what we did each day:

Friday the 11th: I helped chaperone Seth's class--a field trip to the park--in the afternoon, and it was a perfect day to be outside Sunny and warm! There were several adults chaperoning and I mostly just had to help keep an eye on the kids, but since they're all 12 and 13 year olds, that wasn't very hard. So I ended up talking with a couple of the assistants in Seth's class most of the time, while we watched the kids play. They both had good things to say about him. One even said "Oh, I love Seth! He is so kind and considerate to all his peers!!" Well, that was nice to hear! I don't always see that kind of behavior from him. It's encouraging. The trip to the park was at the end of the day, so I brought Seth home with me and we got him packed for his camp out. I found out shortly before I left for the field trip that he didn't have to bring any food after all, so we just had to worry about a sleeping bag, warm clothing, a flashlight--stuff like that. Frank came home from work shortly before Seth needed to leave, so we took him over to the church together and then we went out to dinner. We have several gift cards that we haven't used, so we used one of those.

Saturday the 12th: The city was having a free drop of for hazardous household waste (things like motor oil, antifreeze, aeresol paints, lithium batteries) and we had a few of those things so Frank and I gathered them up and took them to the landfill. I did the usual Saturday chores (cleaned the kitchen floor, worked on stuff for my music calling, and practiced the ukulele). I also wrote the monthly music spotlight for our ward newsletter and prepared my Primary lesson for this Sunday (but then found out the next day that I won't be teaching this week after all). All of that stuff kept me pretty busy all day. Seth got home from his camp out around 1:00; he said he had fun although he got a little cold. They were camping at a camp ground that is owned by several of the stakes in this area (the same place I went for Girls' Camp and the older boys went there for trek and for various camp outs) and in the morning they took down all the canvas portions of the platform tents because they need to be stored until next summer. Seth was only home long enough to unpack and shower because he was going to a birthday party that started at 2:00. It was for one of the former carpool boys (we watch the cats for this same family sometimes) and they went to a place where they did indoor rock climbing. Seth actually did the rock climbing--I wasn't sure he would. He said it was "okay"!

Sunday the 13th: We had a hard time getting Seth going that morning and he actually caused us to be a few minutes late to church. I guess we are going to have to adjust our Sunday morning schedule, because we have been almost late a few other times. Seth takes too long to eat breakfast, so from now on he will have to shower first and then eat--he can always eat in the car if he doesn't move fast enough. Anyway, for Primary we practiced for the Primary program, which is this Sunday. So I didn't have to do much--just sat with my class and helped them stay focused. They are only have one teacher for each class sit on the stand on Sunday, and I got elected to be the one for my class because the other teacher has kids who are still in Primary, so she can sit in the audience and see her kids do their parts. It's fine with me--I'm sure the kids will keep me entertained! :) All the Primary teachers have a teacher's council the second hour, so we won't get to see the kids then, so it's nice I will see them during Sacrament Meeting. Next Sunday (the 27th) we will finally have class with them again (the first time all month)! We had a few events later in the day on Sunday. Frank and I went to visit the guy in our ward who is in hospice care. His daughter and I played a few hymns on the ukulele for him and I didn't do too well but his daughter is really good so it wasn't noticeable! He enjoyed it and sang along. Then Frank and I read to him for a while--he recently received a detailed life history for one of his brothers, and members of the ward have been going over once a week to read it with him. (It's hard for him to read now, and he likes to talk about it with someone, too.) It was actually really interesting, and we enjoyed reading and talking with him. I also had a chat with his daughter about some of the music calling things that have been stressing me out, and that helped me feel quite a bit better about most of them. After that visit, we went to a farewell openhouse for a couple in our ward who are moving--actually, he was the one who was teaching the religion class. They moved here shortly before we did, so we've known them nearly 20 years. They will be missed!

Monday the 14th: It was a pretty busy day for me; besides the usual Monday chores (laundry, vacuuming, some grocery shopping) I worked on music calling stuff, contacted all the sisters I minister to, and picked up a prescription for Frank. Actually, I'm not sure why that took all day, but it did. We had family night in the evening. It was Seth's turn to do the lesson and he chose to watch the newest Book of Mormon video (Lehi's Dream). Those videos are all really good, but I especially liked this one. I've heard the story my whole life, of course, read it numerous times and discussed it at length in classes over the years, but for some reason watching a portrayal of the vision was just so powerful!!

Tuesday the 15th: I mostly did the usual chores, but I also worked a bit on one of the Christmas projects. Frank managed to track down a company that takes our insurance late last week, so he had an appointment that morning to go get his new CPAP. Hooray!! We've both been sleeping a lot better, for the most part. Frank also had a meeting in the evening for work which was down in Virginia, so he was gone until bedtime that night. Out of the blue, I got an email from a guy that I did some sewing for in the past--mostly hemming and adding elastic to baseball pants that he has purchased. (I also sewed numbers and patches onto baseball jerseys for him.) He had a pair of baseball pants that needed elastic added to the legs. He needs them by Monday evening, so he wondered if I would have time to do that. And since I'm not totally swamped right now, I said I could so he brought them over that evening. Until this week, I hadn't heard from him in a couple of years so I thought he had found someone else to do his sewing for him, but I guess he just hasn't had as much that needed to be done lately.

Wednesday the 16th: It rained! Pretty much all day!! That hasn't happened around here in so long. Our front lawn is looking slightly green again. I might actually need to mow it soon. I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. I found out that they actually asked someone else to teach the religion class already, but as I said--I was starting to feel like I should be doing something else with that time. However, the new teacher is one of our former stake presidents and I think he will be really good, so I might go sometimes, just not every week. I got the usual chores done, worked on preparing some remarks I have been asked to give at a RS activity next week, and worked on the other Christmas project (haha, I love being so vague!) I also called the vet to order a bag of food for Snickers and Frank picked it up on his way home from work. I was hoping the bag we had would last until the next day because I was taking Snickers to get his blood sugar checked, but I could tell it wasn't going to be enough. Frank spent the evening doing maintenance for all his clients, but he got it all done.

Thursday the 17th: I got the usual chores done, made an extra trip to the store for some things I forgot (plus elastic for the baseball pants), worked on one of the Christmas projects, worked on the baseball pants, and took Snickers to the vet to get his blood sugar checked. His blood sugar has improved dramatically--down to about 130--which is about where it should be. So it looks like this insulin is going to work after all! That's mostly good news except for the monthly expense of the insulin. At his current dose (6 units, twice a day), a bottle will only last about a month, and it costs $170 a bottle. Ugh!! Really not sure how we're paying for that, but it'll have to work out somehow. Snickers does seems to feel somewhat better--at least he hasn't been needing to go out in the night at all, which makes life easier for him and for us. I'd still say he doesn't feel great, and being blind is stressful for him. I feel so bad every time he bumps into something! He also occasionally stumbles off the edge of the front steps. He did that on Monday, and afterwards he was licking his left front paw and it was bleeding a lot. He left bloody paw tracks all over the floor. I got the bleeding to stop and looked at his paw and couldn't see really what was wrong. It didn't seem to be bothering him too much but on Wednesday he started limping. So when I took him in to get his blood sugar checked, I asked them to look at his paw too. It turns out he pulled a nail (claw) off but fortunately it was healing up well and didn't look infected or anything. (More good news!) Not sure why he started limping on it when it was healing. He's mostly stopped limping now. Frank put in a regular day at work yesterday and then he had to go back to work around 7:30 in the evening because they were installing a new digital menu board at one of the Roy Rogers stores. (He did the same thing at another store about a month ago.) As anticipated, he was gone all night--didn't get home until about 6:00 this morning.

Friday the 18th: Frank didn't go into work today since he was working all night. He actually woke up around 8:30 am and was awake a lot of the day (he still was on the phone and answering emails and such from work) but he took a nap around 1:45 for a few hours. He's awake again now, though, and I'd say he still hasn't had nearly enough sleep! He's playing video games with Seth right now. Meanwhile, I exercised and got Seth to school and read scriptures and updated the budget. Then I picked Seth up from school and have been working on this post since then. They are having a "Fall Festival" at Seth's school tonight and Seth is required to be there for that as part of a big assignment for one of his classes. Frank and I are going to go help for about an hour too. So I'd better go make dinner in a few minutes so we can all have something to eat before we have to go to that.

The temperatures have really cooled down this week and it feels like fall. Sweater weather!! My friend Wanda got a sweater for me when I took her shopping a few weeks ago. We were at a thrift store and it only cost $2.99, but look how cute it is:

And it actually fits, even though I didn't try it on. That's a bit of a miracle since most shirts and sweaters are too long on me (unless I get petite sizes). So it was nice to get to wear it this week.

In between everything else, I've been reading a series of books that Seth really likes, called Wings of Fire (all the main characters are dragons). I read two of the books a few months ago and in the last few weeks I read the 3rd and 4th book. I just started the 5th book today. I started reading them because Seth really wanted me to, but they are pretty good and I am enjoying them.

Weekly Review October 11 '19

I don't think this post will be as long as last week's, but we'll see. I didn't work on projects at all this week--just got the normal chores done--but that's mostly because there were other things I had to do most days. This week was still fairly stressful. I think Seth had a better week and I'm feeling better (my cough is almost gone) but we were still stressing about Snickers and the problem with Frank's CPAP still hasn't been resolved. Besides that, there's some things going on with one of my callings that has me stressed and I talked with Scott a couple of times and he's not in the best place emotionally or spiritually so I'm worried about him too. (I do enjoy talking with him, though). So I've had some days where I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything, but this too shall pass, right? I hope.

First, an update on Snickers. I took him to the vet to have his blood sugar tested twice this week. The first time was on Monday, and his sugar was over 750! When the technician who had tested his blood brought him back out to me, she brought the veterinarian with her, so I knew it wasn't good news. They questioned me about how he had been behaving--was I seeing signs of distress? Well, yes--he definitely hasn't been feeling well. We talked for quite a while and I told them we had decided if this insulin doesn't work that we were done trying to treat him and they said that would probably be best. However, they did think we should try increasing his dose again and get him rechecked, so that's why I took him back on Thursday. He started acting a bit more perky on Wednesday so I wasn't surprised that his blood sugar had improved. It was in the 500s, which is still quite high, but definitely better. So they've increased his dose a little bit again and he will be checked again on Thursday. We feel torn between feeling glad that he is doing better and anxious that we're going to struggle along with him for a month or two more and then have something else go wrong. A part of us just wants off this very expensive and emotionally draining roller coaster ride and we don't want him to suffer anymore! I hope that doesn't make us horrible people.

Frank has been handling all the phone calls and such about his CPAP, so I don't know all the details of what's been going on, but after a week of trying to get an answer from this company of when he get his loaner CPAP, they finally called him last Friday and told him that they actually don't accept our insurance so if we get a CPAP from them it would be "out of network" and we'd have to pay for it ourselves. Why it took a week for them to figure that out, I will never know!! So we've been trying to find out if there is a company that does accept our insurance, but that's been slow going too. Mostly I think because Frank's been pretty busy at work and with clients and hasn't had a lot of time to make phone calls. So that means another week of unsatisfactory sleep for both of us. The last couple of nights Frank was so tired that he decided to try using the old CPAP again, even though it makes noise that wakes us both up, and both of us have actually slept better in spite of the noise from the machine, so he'll probably keep using it until we can work through the hassle of getting a new one. But what a pain!! Why do things like this have to be so complicated??

We actually got some rain this week on Sunday and Monday, so things aren't quite so dry here. The temperatures have cooled off and we are having cold nights and beautiful, mostly sunny days with temperatures in the low 70s. We're starting to get some fall colors, but the best is yet to come with that still!

Here's the daily summary of the other things we did:

Saturday the 5th and Sunday the 6th: General Conference pretty much dominated both days. I think the talks get better every time! We had the Elders serving in our ward over to watch the first session on Saturday with us, and we fed them lunch while we watched. Plus we had a ton of yummy snacks. I went to the women's session at my stake center. I kind of had to talk myself into that; I really wanted to stay home and watch in my pajamas! But I wasn't sure Seth would leave me alone the whole time, so in the end I took myself to the stake center and I did enjoy some visiting time with other sisters before the session started and it felt nice to watch with other women (I never get to do that at home, of course). I ended up sitting by myself on a short row, but partway through the session the girl in front of me (who is in our ward and Seth's age), invited me to come sit with her and her mom and sister. (They had been talking to me before the session started, so it's not like they ignored me or anything!!) Anyway, I thought that was sweet. I didn't mind sitting alone, but I think she was worried that I felt lonely. Then I also coughed a few times (because I'm getting over a cough, remember) and the first time she looked at me with great concern and whispered "are you all right?" and the second time she said "you should probably get a drink of water when you get home." It was really the cutest thing, but I also tried not to cough again because I didn't want her to be distressed! On Sunday I was supposed to go play the ukulele for a member of our ward but he had a bad night so his daughter asked if we could postpone it. Which was fine with me, since I wasn't feeling my best yet. Overall, I loved General Conference. What a spiritual feast!!

Monday the 7th: Besides the usual chores and taking Snickers to the vet, I also made some soup for the family in our ward whose daughter died--it was for the meal they were having after the memorial service the next day. I made it a day early because is was ham lentil soup, and it tastes even better the day after you make it because the flavors have had a chance to blend better. I also got a card and gift card ready to send to a friend who was getting married on Thursday, went to the library to get a book for Seth, and that evening I had a song practice for the songs I was singing with a small group for the memorial service the next day. The practice went well; we were able to learn / polish all three songs in about an hour and I remembered the parts I had gone over at home much better than I thought I would.

Tuesday the 8th: I spent the morning doing the usual chores. Seth got out of school 2 hours early that day which worked out perfect since I needed to be at the church for a final song practice right after I picked him up. (If school had been out at the regular time that day, I would have had to find someone to pick him up and take care of him while I was at the practice and the service which followed.) Well, actually, it was still cutting things pretty close and I was a few minutes late to the practice--especially since I had a crock pot full of soup in the car so I had to drive really slow so it wouldn't spill! But it all worked out and the memorial service was really beautiful and we only made one (kind of big) mistake while we were singing one of our songs. I saw a lot of old friends, too! Frank didn't come to the service because he had a dentist appointment. He went straight from that appointment to do some work on location for one of his clients, over an hour away, and he was gone all evening. I had skipped lunch so on my way home from the memorial service I stopped and got some dinner for Seth and I. Frank didn't get home until bedtime. He got pulled over on his way home because one of his headlights was out (he knew about that) and both of the lights around his tag in the back were also out. (He didn't know about that). But he just has to get them fixed within 10 days; he didn't get a ticket or anything like that.

Wednesday the 9th: Seth didn't have school (it was Yom Kippur). I got the usual shopping done and went to the last religion class. We had decided to surprise the teacher with a potluck lunch and there was a ton of food--and he was surprised. It was nice and I enjoyed the class and I will miss it, but I had been starting to feel like I needed to spend my time doing something else, so the timing is actually good.

Thursday the 10th: Just the usual chores, taking Snickers to the vet, and I did a bunch of stuff for my music calling. Seth didn't have YM because they have a campout tonight. I'm a little stressed about the campout because I know Seth is supposed to bring some food but I don't know exactly what yet. They are leaving in 5 hours, so I hope I hear something about that pretty soon!

Friday the 11th: Well that's today, and I haven't done much besides write this post yet. I exercised, showered, got Seth to school and read my scriptures and ate breakfast. I'm going to as a chaperone with Seth's class to the park for an hour this afternoon and of course I need to update the budget and get Seth ready for his campout. So I'm sure today will be pretty busy and I'd better go get started on all of that!

It was fun to spot both Shellie and Tim in the choirs at General Conference (although I was disappointed that they didn't show either of them much at all). It's also cool that they are building temples in both Orem, Utah and McAllen, Texas! I remember when Jared was on his mission in McAllen that they were really working hard to prepare to have a temple there, so it's great that the temple is going to be a reality. No temple in Frederick, though! :( I know--they actually will never put a temple here because we are only an hour from the DC temple. But I keep hoping they'll put one in Gettysburg, since that's only 30 minutes north of us and would be much easier to get to with traffic. But it's a small city and there's probably not a lot of members there so if they put one up in that direction, it would probably be Pittsburgh or someplace like that, which is a lot farther away from us. But I can dream, right? I just feel so temple starved right now, and with all the problems with Snickers lately we can't even get to the Philadelphia temple. They can't finish the renovations on the DC temple soon enough for me!!

And on that complaining note, I will end for this week. (Sorry!)

Weekly Review October 4 '19

This week has been a bit stressful. Nothing really terrible is happening, but there's been several things going on that have made life more difficult, anxious, chaotic, and / or exhausting. I got sick again, we're having more issues with Snickers, Seth had a difficult week, and Frank's CPAP broke. So lets' talk about all those fun things before I move on to some (hopefully) more pleasant things.

Remember last Friday I said my nose was running a bit? Well, by the end of the day it was running a LOT and I had come down with a full-blown cold with headache, sore throat, and congestion. Then in the early morning hours on Saturday I woke up and realized I had symptoms of a urinary tract infection too. Just great! Luckily, the practice our doctor is a part of has walk in sick appointments most of the day on Saturdays, so while Frank was cleaning the church on Saturday morning, I took myself to the doctor and got an antibiotic for the UTI. Thankfully, that helped pretty quickly and I was feeling a lot better by Sunday (although I still had the cold). Because of the cold, I still wasn't feeling fantastic on Monday (although the cold was improving) and I also felt like maybe I was getting a yeast infection. Thankfully, those symptoms never got worse so maybe it was just residual effects of the UTI. By Tuesday a lot of the congestion had cleared up and my head felt better but my throat has felt a bit raw all week and the last few days I have been coughing quite a bit. I think it's just the leftovers from the cold. Between the problems with my neck / back and these latest illnesses, I  definitely haven't been very healthy lately! But looking on the bright side, that doctor visit was the first one I've had this year. And I'm not sure I had a sick visit to the doctor last year at all. I don't think I've been sick at all since I had that nasty flu / eye infection illness in the summer of 2018 (I didn't go to the doctor for that because I could tell it was viral). So I've been remarkably healthy for over a year, and I'm grateful.

Snickers went to the vet on Tuesday for a blood glucose arc test, to try to determine why his blood sugar is still so high. We also asked them to check his eyes because over the weekend he started showing signs that he couldn't see very well. He was suddenly really reluctant to go up and down steps, and if we threw a treat on the floor for him, he would look all over but couldn't seem to find it. Things like that. The vet called me after a few hours to say that they had only had to check his blood sugar a few times--they could already tell that the insulin we've been giving him isn't really working. So we had to switch him to a different insulin. Of course this new insulin costs 3 times as much as the kind he was on. But the silver lining in the cloud is that the blood glucose arc test didn't cost nearly as much as the estimate they gave us because they only had to test him a few times before they figured out what was going on. The vet also confirmed that he has cataracts in both eyes and he can't see through those, so he is basically blind. He can see light and dark, probably, but not much else. He gets around our house quite well because he's lived here his whole life and knows where everything is. But getting up and down the front steps has been an ordeal and he often falls off curbs and or bumps into things when we are outside. Stairs inside the house are difficult for him too. It's been pretty heartbreaking to see him running into things, as well as to see him creeping around carefully at times--I can tell he's afraid he's going to bump into something. I just can't even explain how sad it is! Besides that, on Wednesday he started having accidents in the house. He's been drinking a ton and needing to go out a ton (both signs that his blood sugar is too high). I found a few wet spots after I had been gone for a few hours which is understandable if he needed to go while I wasn't home, but the perplexing thing is that he also has had a few accidents while we are home. A few times in the night (he would wake us up, but then pee on the floor immediately after before we had a chance to take him out) and at least once during the evening when we were all home and we were even in the same room with him (that time he hadn't even acted like he needed to go out). So that is perplexing. Since he just switched to a new insulin, we had to start out with a low dose (they don't want his blood sugar to go too low) and then today I had to take him back to get his blood sugar checked again. Not surprising to us, it was still very high--in the 500s. So now we are increasing his dose and I take him back to get checked again on Monday. It feels like a never ending process. With all of this stuff going on, Frank and I have been talking a lot and I have been thinking about it a lot, and we have decided that if this new insulin doesn't get his blood sugar under control, then we are going to have to put him down. It is a hard decision to make, but we think he's suffered enough. We have treated so many problems in the hopes that we could get him to a better place where he is feeling better and enjoying life more, but in reality that hasn't been happening and it seems pretty unlikely that it ever will. It feels instead like we've been treating him and getting him through one problem so that he can live long enough to have another problem! At this point we don't feel like we can go on any overnight trips without taking him with us and we even feel anxious leaving him alone at home for more than a few hours. It's just too much for him and for us. So all of that has been weighing pretty heavily on my heart this week and there's been some tears.

Remember I said last week that we were going to take a break from brain balance for a while? Thank goodness I made that decision because it adds to the after school stress and we had plenty of that this week without adding in brain balance. Seth mostly likes school, but he has homework most days now and he hasn't been adjusting very well to having assignments that have to be completed and turned in at a certain time and tests that he has to study for. (In traditional Montessori, they work more at their own pace and they don't have a lot of tests.) His language arts teacher emailed me this week to let me know that he has been turning in assignments mostly undone. He's been telling me that his homework is done, and I wasn't checking his assignments most of the time. So we had to work together on homework more this week and he didn't like that much. (And neither did I!) But besides that, he has just had some really moody days and almost every evening at dinner he has had a meltdown because he didn't like what we were eating. It's just really unpleasant to start out your dinner three or four nights in a row with your child yelling about it! We've been trying harder lately to be more consistent with him and to have consequences for his behavior and we've also been insisting that he eat at least a little bit of everything that we are eating. We've been a lot more lenient with him about food than we were with our other kids because his medication suppresses his appetite. That means he usually eats only a small amount (if any) of his lunch at school. Also for some reason he isn't usually hungry in the morning either! So by dinner time we are feeling the need to make sure he gets some nourishment of some kind so we've often let him eat things he really likes because we want him to eat. But he is an excessively picky eater so the things he really likes are limited. Our main goal has been to make sure he gets something inside him every day, but in meeting that goal we have unintentionally spoiled him a lot and now he thinks he shouldn't have to eat anything unless he likes it. But he's 12 years old now and he needs to learn to eat things whether he likes them or not! So we're working on that but it's been ugly, and not much fun for any of us. In spite of the fact that I don't think he eats much, he is somehow still growing like a weed and I think he is a little bit taller than me now.

Sometime late last week, Frank's CPAP started making noise. (It's normally so quiet that you have to listen really hard to tell that it's even on.) So he and I had several nights that we didn't sleep very well because of the noise, and at least part of a couple of those nights Frank gave up and turned it off which meant he wasn't waking up because of noise but he also wasn't getting quality sleep because when he's not wearing his CPAP he stops breathing several times an hour. Plus he snores, which wakes both he and I up. (I got so accustomed to his snoring in the years before he got the CPAP that I slept right through it. Then when he got the CPAP and stopped snoring, I woke up the first couple of nights because it was so quiet!! But he's had the CPAP for about 3 years now so I'm used to no snoring and now snoring is waking me up.) So anyway, by Monday we were feeling pretty sleep deprived so he started calling around about getting his CPAP fixed. It turns out that it would cost more to fix it than it would to get a new one, and since we have new insurance, our insurance company will cover the cost. (Good news!) The bad news is, it's going to take a few weeks to get the new one. In the meantime, they are supposed to provide a loaner so that he can sleep but for some reason getting through all the necessary approvals and such with the insurance has taken all week and he still doesn't have the loaner. Which means neither of us has had a decent night's sleep in a week (Snickers has been waking us up as well, remember.) I mean, when our kids were newborns this was pretty much par for the course, but we are a lot older now and it's a lot harder for our bodies to handle lack of sleep! Have I also mentioned that I have a lot harder time getting comfortable at nights now and my body kind of aches all over a lot of the time? (That problem I was having with my hips / back that I went to PT for a few years ago has come back too.) I think we really need a new mattress and maybe if we were could stop spending so much on our dog's medical bills, we could get one! And one other thing I've been noticing because of all this--I need to get my right ear cleaned out. If I lie on my left side with my left ear on the pillow, I can barely hear Frank snoring at all. But if my right ear is down then I can hear him loud and clear. I'd sleep on my left side all night if I could, but I can't because my left hip starts to hurt, among other things. Okay, this is actually making me laugh. How ridiculous is all this??!!

So now that I've got all that off my chest (is anyone still reading?) I will go on to tell you about some of the things we did this week.

Saturday the 28th: That was the day I wasn't feeling well at all, so other than going to the doctor, I didn't do much. Seth had some homework that I made sure he finished, but other than that I mostly stayed in bed and tried to rest up so I would get better. Frank's back was hurting him a lot again (he always ends up doing too much when he cleans the church because people don't show up to help like they're supposed to do; thank goodness that was the last Saturday in September and it's not our ward's turn again until December) so I did take Seth with me to go get us some dinner (since neither Frank nor I was feeling up to cooking). Seth had a birthday party to attend that evening and Frank did take him to that and picked him back up afterwards. Things we didn't do: we didn't pick the pumpkin or weed or mow the lawn and I had hoped to do, and we also didn't attend a farewell picnic for some friends in our ward who moved this week, as we had planned to do. But as I said, I was feeling better on Sunday so it was worth it.

Sunday the 29th: We made it to church! :) I tried not to get too near people or to shake hands, since I still had the cold. Like everyone else, our ward had the broadcast from SLC about the new program for children and youth for our second hour of church. I didn't teach Primary because my class are the kids who are turning 8 next year and they were supposed to go to the meeting too. (But if not, they still would have found someone else to teach my class since I have a child who's a youth.) The broadcast was pretty cool, I thought, and I'm excited to hear more particulars about the program. During the part where they give the children and youth some time to write down a few goals, I was helping Seth with his goals (although he did pretty good at coming up with them on his own) but I also looked around and watched all the other parents leaning over to help their kids with their goals and it was a sweet moment where I felt the spirit very strongly. It's hard to put into words, but for one thing, I could just feel the love all those parents have for their children. But besides that, I just had a sense of how important this new program will be and the spirit impressed on me again how important the family is in God's plan. I feel this new program will really tap into the power of the family! That's the best I can do at putting into words what I was feeling. After church we mostly rested. I hadn't been able to fast since I was taking medication that was supposed to be taken with food, plus I needed to drink a lot to help with the infection, but I was still feeling pretty tired. (Remember neither Frank and I were sleeping very well at this point). I did spend some time working on some things for my music calling, and I did a little bit of indexing.

Monday the 30th: It rained!! Not a ton, but more rain than we've seen in over a month. I got caught up on regular chores, worked a little on sewing projects, and rested a bit.

Tuesday the 1st: It didn't feel much like October because it was unseasonably warm. Snickers spent most of the day at the vet (blood glucose arc test). I was feeling quite a bit better so I was able to work pretty hard that day and besides all the regular chores I also mowed the lawn, picked the pumpkin, pulled up the pumpkin vine, and weeded in both front and back yards. The pumpkin is beautiful and really quite large, and I am happy to have my neat & tidy yard back!

Last "on the vine" photo

My attempt to show how big it is compared to me, but I'm no good at selfies!

No more vine covering half the lawn!

 
Seth likes it!

In the evening I helped Seth with homework and Frank went to a meeting for the IT committee for Seth's school because he joined that committee this year and is going to be helping with some IT stuff.

Wednesday the 2nd: It wasn't just unseasonably warm, it was HOT! As in high 90's. Baltimore broke their all time record for the hottest October 2nd, and I think we probably did too. I brought the pumpkin inside for a few days because I didn't want it to rot in the heat. I went to the religion class and next week is our last one because the guy who has been teaching it just retired and they're moving to Idaho to be near one of their daughters. Other than that, I just got regular chores done and helped Seth with homework.

Thursday the 3rd: It cooled down a bit and was only in the low 80's.  I spent the morning working on music stuff. I practiced the ukulele because I am going to go visit a member of our ward who is in hospice care on Sunday and play a few songs for him. I was also asked to be part of a group of 8 people who are singing some songs for a memorial service for a friend of mine who passed away a few weeks ago. (She was living in Utah at the time of her death, but she grew up here in our ward and her parents still live here. They had a memorial service in Utah shortly after her death and are having one here now.) She was only in her 30's but had pancreatic cancer. So anyway, I practiced the songs for that and did a few things for my music calling. I also made a batch of cookies--part of those were for the family of my friend who just passed away (we're providing a few meals for them and I volunteered to provide dessert for one of the meals) and part of them were for the family I mentioned before who moved this week. One of their daughters was in my Primary class and I was VT companions with the mom, plus we worked in Cub Scouts together. Her husband lost his job about the same time that Frank did last summer and he has been employed only part time since then but he finally found a full time job--in California. They left this morning, but I knew we were going to see them Thursday evening (boy scouts) so I put together a plate of cookies for them and also got a card for the little girl in my class. In spite of having all those extra things to do, I still managed to get all the regular chores done--including folding almost all the laundry--before I had to pick up Seth from school. How did I do that? I have no idea! After I picked up Seth, I finished folding laundry and helped him work on homework until dinner time. After dinner we went to the church for a Court of Honor. Seth received 4 merit badges (leatherwork, chess, reptiles & amphibians, and art) and also got his Scout and Tenderfoot ranks. I am proud of him that he completed 4 of the 5 merit badges that he worked on at scout camp! (The other one was archeology, and he has to go to a dig for several hours, so he wasn't able to do that at camp.) When the scoutmaster asked him to tell something he did for each merit badge, he was very animated and enthusiastic when he talked about it. I was thinking that a lot of the time Seth's personality can be difficult and exhausting, but when he's in a good mood he can really be fun! (Although often pretty hyper too.) It's nice that there are compensations! One of the boys got his Life rank, and it was also his birthday so his family brought an ice cream cake to share with all of us.

Seth talking about his merit badges:

After the Court of Honor, Frank had to go do some work for a client until bedtime.

Friday the 4th: Today felt more like October; it was really beautiful with highs in the mid 70's. Tonight it is cool--I actually got kind of cold when I took Snickers outside a while ago. I had a busy day. A friend and I took my friend Wanda shopping. (She is wheelchair bound and lives in a nursing home, and can't get out much.) We went to a thrift store first where she got a lot of clothes. I'd never been to this particular store and I was surprised that they had a lot of quite nice furniture for really low prices. Might go back there sometime! Then we went to Walmart so she could get a bunch of hygiene items. I enjoyed the time with her (and my other friend) but it got stressful because I had to get Snickers to the vet at 2:00, and we ended up running late. I'd like to do that again sometime without the time limit! I did manage to get to the vet only a few minutes late and thankfully they got done quickly so I was able to leave on time to go pick up Seth from school at 2:30. I still barely made it in time because the traffic was horrible. At the school, we picked up some pansies we had ordered as part of a fundraiser and we also brought one of Seth's friends, Krish, home with us for a playdate. Frank was working on an issue at work and got home late. Meanwhile, I got the budget mostly done except I had an issue with the spreadsheet so Frank had to look at that for me after he got home. He helped me get everything finished then and other than that I have just been working on this blog post, which has turned out to be super long! Now it is almost bedtime so I'd better finish up and take Snickers out and give him all his medicines and get ready for bed myself.

We're looking forward to General Conference tomorrow and we will be watching for both Shellie and Tim in the choirs! :)