Weekly Review February 28 '20

Well, this week was fun. Not really...that was sarcastic, but of course you can't hear my tone of voice when you're reading this. I mean, nothing really terrible happened (thankfully) but we have all been sick. Frank started feeling sick on Saturday (the 22nd). He stayed home from church on Sunday and on Monday the 24th he still felt terrible, so he decided to go to the doctor. But first, he went to work for a few hours because there was something unavoidable that he needed to be there for. At the doctor he was tested for the flu, and the test came out positive. He DID have a flu shot this year, so where's the justice in that?? But one thing about getting diagnosed with the flu is that it convinced him that he needed to stay home for a few days. He still got a number of phone calls from work and did some work remotely on Monday afternoon, but he didn't do anything for work on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was starting to feel a bit better by Thursday the 27th which is good because he had more unavoidable things to do at work (as in, people had flown in from somewhere else to do something) and Thursday night he had another POS installation to do at a store so he was up a lot of the night. The original plan was that he would go in to work for a few hours Thursday morning and then come home and rest until he had to go back in to work that evening. But of course once he got to work there were a ton of things to do and everybody needed him so he didn't come home until about 4:30. I was feeling pretty anxious about him over-doing it and getting really sick again, but so far today he seems to be okay although of course he is tired. (I mean the fact that he is needed so much at work is good for job security, but seriously I think they are going to kill him with all the work he has to do!)

Meanwhile, I started to feel slightly "off" on Tuesday the 25th, but I kept hoping I was just imagining it. However, on Wednesday the 26th I definitely felt worse and Thursday the 27th I was feverish and really wiped out. Today I am starting to feel a bit better...I don't feel feverish anymore, I'm not coughing much and I'm not so achy. I do, however, have no energy whatsoever. I think it's going to take awhile before I get my energy back. For Frank and I, the flu has been mostly coughing, fever, headache, and general aches all over. Frank has had some congestion but I really haven't. It's kind of weird to be really sick without having a lot of congestion, but I'm not complaining about that! Seth said he was feeling fine on Tuesday, but I noticed that he was coughing a little bit on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. So when I got a call from the school nurse on Wednesday afternoon saying he had come in complaining of not feeling well, I wasn't incredibly surprised. His temperature was only slightly elevated and she said he could stay at school if I didn't want to come get him until dismissal (which was only about an hour away) but I told her I was sure he was coming down with something since we were already sick, so I went & picked him up. By evening he had a fever and then he threw up too. On the living room floor--he didn't make it to the bathroom--which Frank & I weren't very happy about. (He claims he didn't feel like he was going to throw up until it was too late, but we keep telling him he's old enough he should be able to tell by now!) So we had a mess to clean up (of course it was on the rug, not on the wood laminate floor, which would have been a lot easier to clean) when neither of us were feeling well either. At least he hadn't eaten dinner or lunch, so there wasn't much in his stomach. We had Seth sleep on our bedroom floor in a sleeping bag that night, and he threw up 3 or 4 more times in the early hours of the morning but we put a bucket by him so at least clean up was easy. Not a very restful night, though--he was moaning in his sleep a lot too. Frank threw up once too--last night while he was at work--but he seems okay now, and he and Seth have both been able to eat normal food. I did have to do the "1 tablespoon of soda every 10 minutes for 2 hours" routine with Seth on Thursday morning, but that did the trick--that calmed his stomach down and he was able to start eating crackers and things like that. Seth seems totally back to normal now and he doesn't even seem to be tired. (He was thinking he was going to school this morning until I told him I thought he needed to stay home since he had a fever the day before.) Frank still has a really wicked cough, but he has trouble with coughing even when he's well so I'm not sure how much of it is from the flu and how much of it is normal. But anyway...we are all on the mend and glad to be over the worst of the flu.

That covers most of what we did this week, but there were a few other things. I can't remember anything about Saturday the 22nd now, but I think I mostly did the usual things like practice ukulele and work on things for my church callings. On Sunday the 23rd we watched the face to face devotional for the youth with Seth. We decided to watch it at home rather than go to the church, which all things considered is probably a good thing. (Frank wouldn't have gone with us if we'd gone to the church either.) I had choir practice before church and the choir sang in sacrament meeting. Seth came with me to choir practice since it was right before church and I wouldn't have had time to go back and get him. (If Frank had been well, they would have come to church together in a separate car.) I got a lot of errands done on Monday the 24th which is good since the rest of my week wasn't very productive. For family night activity we watched some episodes of Studio C--we picked that since Frank wasn't really feeling up to playing a game or anything. I went to an RS activity Tuesday evening--it was a dinner to celebrate the birthday of RS. I debated a bit about whether or not to go to that since I was starting to feel like maybe I was getting sick, but I really wanted to go so I went. It was fun and the dinner was delicious and I'm glad I got to do that since I was pretty cooped up the rest of the week. Hopefully I didn't expose a bunch of people to the flu, but since I knew it was slightly possible that I was getting sick I was really careful and kept my distance from people--no hand shaking or hugging or anything!! I worked on the Christmas stockings a bit and have made some progress. I probably would have got a lot more done if I had been feeling well, though.

Seth and I were supposed to go to the dentist on Thursday afternoon but I called Wednesday morning to cancel those appointments and rescheduled them. I also emailed my supervisor at the tax place on Wednesday morning to let her know I wasn't coming in, and I arranged to have someone else help with the girls' Primary activity Thursday evening. Yep, Thursday would have been a very busy day, if I had been well. Instead I spent the day on the couch, keeping and eye on Seth. I took a few short naps too. I did manage to get the laundry done, but just doing that much was draining. I watched a lot of stuff on Netflix and Disney plus on Wednesday and Thursday since I wasn't feeling well enough to do much else. I watched the live action version of Aladdin and the classic Lady and the Tramp (cartoon version), both of which I had never seen before. They were pretty good, but I was getting tired of lying around doing nothing and I'm glad that today I have been feeling well enough to do a few things like updating the budget. 

I usually do the grocery shopping on Wednesdays but I wasn't feeling well enough to do that on Wednesday and Thursday I was even worse. So I was worrying about how we were going to get the food we needed because Frank wasn't feeling well either and I didn't want him to spend the little time he had to rest on Thursday going to the store. But then I remembered that the WalMart near us has a free pickup service--you order what you want online and pay for it online and they put it all together for you and all you have to do is pick it up. They've had this service for about a year now but I've never used it because I prefer to do my own shopping--especially I prefer to pick out my own produce. So anyway, that's what we did. I went online Thursday morning and ordered what we needed and Frank picked it up that evening. It was pretty great! I'm glad that option is available because it was really what we needed this week. As nice as it was, I will probably only use it for emergencies. I would feel like a lazy bum if I had someone else do my shopping for me every week!

Anyway, that was our exciting week. Not much fun, but we're glad to be feeling better than we were. Everyone is getting hungry so I'd better go get some dinner made.

Weekly Review February 21 '20

I was just realizing that the official first day of spring is only one month away!! :) We've definitely had a very mild winter so it hasn't been too bad, but I am looking forward to seeing leaves on the trees again! And of course, I know that even once we get to where it's officially spring, that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be warm and sunny. (I can think of several spring snowstorms in my past.) But anyway, it's nice to realize we are getting closer to that time when the weather stays nice. In the meantime, the bulbs in my front flower bed are already starting to come up (they first made an appearance a few weeks ago) which isn't too surprising since we've had a lot of days with highs in the 50s. The last few days have been in the 40s, but we will be back to the 50s for the weekend.

There wasn't a lot going on for us this week, but Jared certainly had an eventful weekend...unfortunately, not in the best way. He and Jessie were actually in Idaho visiting but he had been feeling some pain when he sat down for about a week. He thought at first that he had just been sitting down too long at work the day before, and he thought he had a bruise or something. But anyway, after they got to Idaho (on Friday the 14th) it got a lot worse and he ended up going to an urgent care there. They sent him to the ER because he had a cyst of some sort. At the ER, they decided the cyst needed to be drained, which they did. It was supposed to get better after that, but the next day it felt even worse so he went back to the ER. They said it had closed back up and wasn't draining properly, so they did a scan and discovered the cyst was much bigger than they thought originally--the size of a baseball. So they decided he needed surgery to get it all cleaned out. The surgery went well, though, and he was discharged that evening. They were able to drive back to Provo the next day, Sunday. (Jessie drove...Jared was on a narcotic so he couldn't drive.) He has been recovering this week and he seems to be healing and hasn't had a lot of pain, so that's good. But everyone please keep him in your prayers. He wasn't able to go to classes or to work this week because the pain medication makes him drowsy and woozy. We're glad he is doing better than he was, though.

Meanwhile, back in Maryland, Frank and I went out for breakfast on Saturday the 15th and that was nice. I spent the day working on stuff for my callings, reading, and exchanging text messages / phone calls with Jared & Jessie to get updates on how things were going for them. Frank ended up doing a lot of work for clients.

On Sunday the 16th, we had ward conference and it was pretty good. For part of the second hour, they had some break out sessions where we could choose which one to go to and Frank had been asked to lead one of those about self-reliance since he is the ward self-reliance specialist now. It turned out there was only a few minutes for the break out sessions, though, so he didn't end up getting to do much. I had choir practice that afternoon and enjoyed it...I've missed singing in choir! I read some more in the BFJ book and really enjoyed that. The more I read about my ancestors, the more I realize that I get a lot of my personality / character traits from them. (The good traits, that is!) In particular, I was reading something that Sarah Melissa Holman wrote. These words really touched me: "I here say that my religion is my meat and drink. Never once in my life have I felt to say aught against the authorities or the principles of this church." I recognized in those words the way I feel myself. Maybe I got that from her! There is so much talk in the church these days of doubts and how to handle them. I also hear a lot of people criticizing the leaders of the church. But I've never felt that way. As a matter of fact, I found myself wondering recently if there's something wrong with me--I don't doubt! Should I be doubting? (Because a lot of people are.) I sometimes don't understand things, but I just really don't doubt and never have, and I've always trusted the church leaders and never felt a need to criticize them. So I loved those words from Sarah Melissa Holman. Apparently, not doubting is part of my heritage. (And I know I got that from my parents too...I've never heard them criticize or express doubt either.) On Sunday we also had family night lesson and I sat down with Seth to talk about what goals he wants to work on and he picked two...to exercise 3 times a week and to read his scriptures every day. So he's been working on that this week.

Seth didn't have school on Monday the 17th because of President's Day. Frank had to work, though. I had a lot of stuff to get done so I didn't go to the religion class. I wrote the music spotlight for the ward newsletter and got the regular chores done. I also went to the store to pick up the sweaters I ordered and went to a craft store to get some supplies for Primary activities and to look for the one color of embroidery floss that I still needed for the stocking project (and I found it). I picked up Seth's prescription and visited my friend Wanda too. I like all the sweaters and they all fit well except for one, which is just too big so I'll have to send it back. It's funny because it's the same brand and size of one of the other sweaters I got, and the other one fits great. It's just a different cut, I guess. We had family night activity and treat that evening, after Frank got home from work.

Seth had an appointment with his counselor on Tuesday the 18th which I took him to. It was at noon, so I hurried that morning to get the regular chores done before I had to take him to that appointment. The appointment went well...the counselor had both of us talk with him for most of the time this time. He asked if Seth had activities and friends besides at school, which led to a discussion about church activities and he asked if our church buildings are different than the big white building that he sees near the beltway. We didn't give him an extensive explanation about the temple (other than to say yes, they are different), but I told him when they are done renovating it they are going to have an open house where members of the public can tour the inside and he said he'd like to go to that. So we promised to let him know about it when that happens...hopefully this fall. I did a lot of reading on Monday and Tuesday and finished North and South. It was pretty good. I started watching the BBC version of the book on Netflix on Wednesday...hoping to finish that today.

On Wednesday the 19th I got the regular chores done and then I spent the afternoon working on that other project that I was hoping to finish for Christmas (but had to give up). Maybe I will get it done before this Christmas!! (Hoping to get it done much sooner than that.) I also spent some time winding all the different floss colors for the Christmas stockings onto floss cards. I cut out the aida cloth to the right sizes over the weekend, so I am ready to start cross stitching now. I'm hoping to work on those over the weekend. Frank put in a full day of work on Wednesday as usual but he also worked all night Wednesday night because they were installing a new POS system at one of the stores (he did take a nap after dinner before going back to work, but only for about an hour or so.) 

Thursday the 20th was busy as Thursdays always are lately between my tax volunteer shift during the day and Primary activities / YM in the evening. My volunteer shift went well; I got more tax returns done and I'm feeling more comfortable with it each week. We were a lot busier, too...I really didn't have time for a break from 10:00 until about 1:00. After I got home from my shift, I got regular chores done (except for folding laundry, but I did that later that evening). I had kind of a break for the Primary activity...the YW had planned a talent show and invited the whole ward to participate, so that was our activity. I didn't have to plan anything, and it turns out that the families of all the girls in my group who attended came too so I didn't even have to supervise them. The talent show itself was pretty fun with a lot of different "talents" from a variety of age groups, including Primary kids. Seth and the rest of the Deacons did a funny skit. Meanwhile, Frank had come home from work at 6:00 am and went to bed but he was awake again before Seth and I left at 8:40. He ended up getting up and going to work and didn't get home until about 4:00, so he stayed home from the talent show to rest. He was planning to take today off, except for going in to supervise some printers being installed, which was supposed to take about an hour.

Today he did go in a little late--10:00 am--but of course there were problems with the printer installation so he just got home a few minutes ago (4:30 pm). So much for taking the day off!! This means that in the last 3 days, he has worked 4 days' worth of hours. I hope he gets to take a day off sometime soon. I spent today working on fun things like trying to get our flex card to work again since there's problems with that again. Seriously, I think we're cursed when it comes to flexible spending accounts. It's such a headache!! I also got the budget updated and renewed library books and sent some checks to Jared because the checks he ordered came to our house even though he told them to send them to Provo. Now everyone is wanting dinner so I'd better sign off and do something about that. 

Weekly Review February 14 '20

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

It is really cold & windy here today. Most of the week was fairly mild, though, and we got a lot more rain. Although it's a lot colder today, I feel happier because it is sunny. It's been days since we've seen the sun.

This week was not incredibly eventful, but I'll try to think of a few things to tell you about. Saturday the 8th was nice because I got everything done that I needed to do and I had some free time to read. When I woke up, I had a text message from my friend Lori letting me know that she had a baby that morning...8 minutes after she got to the hospital. Whew! This baby is her 6th and all of her children are girls. Seth had some reading to do for school (they are reading portions of Anne Frank) and he was being a total drama king about it for some reason. (I have to read 35 whole pages!! This is so boring!! etc.) I just laughed at him and when he wasn't paying attention, I took a picture:

Sundays always seem to go by fast. When it's time to go to bed, I wonder how it got that late already! I guess part of the reason for that is that our meeting time changed from 9:00 am to 10:30 am, and I'm still adjusting to that. This Sunday I spent a lot of time reading a book about BF Johnson. I had stuff to do for my music calling too.

On Monday the 10th I had a lot to do and I totally forgot to go to the religion class. I haven't adjusted to it being on Mondays instead of Wednesdays yet. Besides the usual stuff, I was getting small packages ready to send to my Utah kids for Valentine's Day, I went through the cross stitch patterns Mom sent me and picked out the ones I want to use for the stockings I'm making, and I visited my friend Wanda briefly to take her some things she needed. After we had family night activity, Frank came with me to the fabric store so I could get materials for the stockings. I couldn't find the kind of fabric I want for the outside of the stockings, but I got everything else (except for one color of floss because it was out of stock).

Tuesday the 11th was pretty busy because I met with my co-leader for Primary activities to plan the next couple of months. I also had to take Seth to the orthodontist. That evening I went to an orientation for volunteers at Seth's school. In between all those things, I got all the usual chores done. I'm excited for all the fun things we've planned for activities. We are focusing on the restoration for the whole month of March, to prepare for General Conference. The orthodontist appointment was so they could take x-rays, photographs of Seth's mouth, and do impressions--all for the purpose of determining a treatment plan. (This means Seth will be getting braces soon.) I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they have a new way of doing impressions--I mean, they really don't have to do impressions at all anymore. Instead, they had a special camera on the end of a wand that they put in Seth's mouth and ran it all around his teeth, inside and out and that created a detailed 3-D image of his teeth. He didn't like it when they were doing that much, but the technician and I were both telling him how much better it was than the alternative. (I still remember getting impressions when I got braces...since I have such a great gag reflex, I felt like I was choking to death.) The volunteer orientation at Seth's school is a new requirement we have to fulfill in order to volunteer at the school. And that's not the only thing...now we have to be fingerprinted and get a criminal background check, and we have to do that every year! I was really disappointed to hear the yearly requirement, since I already went through the fingerprinting / background check about 18 months ago when I applied to be a substitute teacher. It costs $35 to get that done (which is a discounted rate, but still...). I think it's crazy that parents have to shell out money and go through the hassle of getting that done, so that they can help at the schools. I think the school system is going to have a harder time finding parents who are willing to volunteer. I know they are trying to protect kids (and let's be honest...cover their backs, legally) but this is just another example of how bad people are messing things up for the rest of us.

I don't know why I didn't get a lot of stuff done on Wednesday the 12th, because during the day I only had the regular chores to get done. Although one of those is grocery shopping, which takes longer than most of my other household jobs. I think I woke up later than usual, too, so I didn't get showered before I took Seth to school. But anyway...I must really be one of the least efficient people on the planet when I am not pressured for time. It seems like the more things I have to do, the faster I get through them. If I don't have a lot to do, I must slow way down! I'm trying to work on that. Frank went with some co-workers to dinner right after work & Seth and I just had leftovers. In the evening I had book chat which is always a joy. Oh, and I also did a favor for my friend Renata...picked her son up from a basketball practice and took him home, since she was gone to a lecture that evening. So that made me a little late for book chat, but that's okay. This month was particularly enjoyable because it was our annual fondue night. One lady always makes chocolate and cheese fondue, and the rest of us bring things to dip. I always bring keilbasa, but we also had broccoli, cauliflower, bread, pretzels, oranges, strawberries, cake, shortbread cookies...I'm sure I'm forgetting something. We had a pretty lively discussion about Becoming Mrs. Lewis (we all liked the book, mostly, but weren't sure we liked the main character that much) and now we are reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I already started reading it and I'm about 200 pages in now, but it has 500 pages so I've got a ways to go. I like it so far.

Thursday the 13th was my usual VITA volunteer day, and that went well. I completed tax returns for two people and also did intake for two more who had to come back because they hadn't brought all of their tax forms. It still wasn't very busy (a few people didn't show up for their appointments) but I'm glad I'm having the chance to learn a few things before it gets crazy. After I got home from my shift, I went into the kitchen to get some lunch and then noticed this sitting on the table:

That was a nice surprise! Frank had picked it up an dropped it off at home while I was gone.

Seth had YM that evening and I had the Primary activity. This week we did an activity to help the girls realize the importance of kind words (and the damage that unkind words can have) and then we helped them make cards with kind words to give away. We also gave them some Valentine treats at the end.

(We related unkind words to the dirt--once they took out a handful, it was impossible to get every grain of dirt back into the container. Once you say unkind words, you can't take them back and the effect of your words lingers indefinitely.)

I got most of the household chores done in between my volunteer shift and picking Seth up from school (still ended up folding one batch of laundry this morning). I purposely planned a really easy meal for that night since I knew I'd be tired and not have a lot of time to cook.

Seth had a 2 hour early release from school today, so he is home already. I spent the morning / early afternoon getting the budget caught up and sending some emails and things like that. Frank had to be at a store at 5:00 am so he was up early and unfortunately I woke up too and didn't go back to sleep for a few hours, so then I was running late! So I also exercised and showered after I took Seth to school. I was pretty good at focusing and staying on task, though, so I was able to get everything done that I needed to do. We got Seth a card and some candy for Valentine's Day, and I sent cards and candy to the other kids too. Rather than fight the crowds at restaurants tonight, Frank and I decided that we are going to go to breakfast tomorrow morning to celebrate Valentine's Day together.

I've been noticing the last few months that most of my long sleeved shirts and sweaters are getting old and worn out or not fitting well anymore. So I went online and ordered a few new sweaters this week (I found them on sale.) Hopefully they will fit right when I get them. It's always a risk when I buy things online, but I didn't really have time to go shopping.

That sums up our week, or at least the parts that I can remember!

Weekly Review February 7 '20

I'm a day late with the weekly post...this time something funky was going on with my computer and I couldn't get to my Google login, so I had to wait until Frank could help me figure that out. He wasn't able to help me until last night, and by then it was too late to get started on this week's post. I don't think it will be very long, though...this week was pretty calm.

We have been having really mild temperatures for winter. Last weekend we had a couple of days in the 60s! It's colder now, but with highs in the 40s it's still fairly mild. We got a lot of rain the last few days...poor Frank--he can't help thinking that if it was cold enough, we'd be getting snow instead of rain. Actually, we did get a very slight dusting of snow this morning, but that's not enough to count. Yesterday it was extremely windy all day. In the morning we got some torrential rain for a bit and we were even under a tornado warning for about 30 minutes although no tornado appeared, thankfully.

Sunday the 2nd was mostly a restful day. Seth had Bishop Youth's Council after church and Frank ended up doing some work for a client (or maybe it was Roy Rogers; I can't remember now.) I read scriptures and wrote last week's post and emailed my older kids. I had stuff to do for my music calling, too, and we had family night that evening. Seth put together the road runner micro block set that I brought him from Arizona.

I went to the religion class on Monday the 3rd and it was nice to go to that again. I worked a bit more on our taxes...they are mostly done; just need to find a form online. We are getting a refund, but a small one, and I was feeling pretty grumpy about that on Saturday when I was working on the taxes. I feel like we were scraping the bottom of the barrel to pay quarterly estimated tax payments all year, so I expected to get a lot of those back. Oh well! Besides those things, I just got the usual stuff done. Frank brought home donuts for family night treat and we played a game called Stare for activity. I'm usually pretty good at it, but I totally lost that time!

On Tuesday the 4th I did the usual chores, plus I visited my friend Wanda. I also went to the fabric store in search of cross stitch patterns (I want to make Christmas stockings for Darlee and Jessie) but I didn't find anything there. I checked online too but couldn't find what I was looking for so Mom sent me a bunch of patterns that she has. I figure if I start working on them now, I MIGHT get them done in time for Christmas! While I was at the store, I did find a book of crochet patterns for hats with a lot of cute hats, so I got that. I'm hoping to make a few hats this year, too. On Tuesday evening one of my ministering sisters needed someone to watch her daughter for about an hour, so she came to our house. Seth played really nicely with her...he is actually really good with little kids!

Wednesday the 5th I mostly did the regular stuff. I got some things for my friend Wanda while I was at the store. I also went to lunch with my friend Rebekah; we haven't had a chance to talk in a long time so there was a lot to catch up on. So that was fun.

Thursday the 6th was really busy because it was my first day working as a volunteer tax preparer. My shift started at 9:30, so I just went over there after dropping Seth off at school. There was one other brand new volunteer besides me, and the site coordinator wanted us to mostly just shadow another volunteer so we could see how things are done. So I watched one guy go through most of the process but before he was done there was a bit of a backup in people coming in so I ended up doing a tax return for a client before I saw the whole process completed. I did manage to do that return correctly though! (Every return gets reviewed by another volunteer to make sure it's correct.) After that, I helped with intake for two more clients, but both up them ended up having items on their returns which make them "advanced" returns and I'm only certified to do "basic" returns, so I had to hand them off to another volunteer after I went through the intake process. (Funny thing is...both of those "advanced" returns were a lot less complicated than my own tax return!) My shift ended at 2:00 and the time went by fast. All the volunteers are really friendly and helpful and I found that it was a good atmosphere to work in. It was also a lot less stressful and more relaxed than I anticipated. I realized about half way through the day that I still have a "McDonalds mentality"--feeling like we need to help everybody who walks in right away. And of course, we don't want anyone to wait longer than necessary, but I had to remind myself...I'm a volunteer, and this is a free service we are offering people. They're a lot nicer and more patient than people who are hungry and paying for a service! I do think it will get busier and a little crazier as the tax season progresses, but that first day was pretty calm. And bonus...we got donuts! After I got home from my shift, I kept the laundry going and got a few other things done before I had to pick up Seth from school. Then he cleaned his room and I vacuumed and swept. I managed to get all the regular chores done except the last batch of laundry didn't get folded until Friday. (Always makes me wonder why I don't get things done more quickly when I don't have as much to do!) After dinner, Seth had YM and I had Primary activities. The girls' group was split into two groups and I am with the younger girls (8 & 9 year olds) which is nice because I had a lot of those girls in my Primary class last year. This was our first time meeting with just the younger girls, so first we talked about rules for our group. Then we played a matching game to introduce them to a lot of the different activities we will be doing this year. At the end we had donuts to celebrate one of the girl's birthdays, which was the next day. The girls seem mostly excited about the activities and one of the moms texted me afterwards to say her daughter came home talking non-stop about all the fun activities we are going to do.

Friday the 7th I got the budget caught up, but as I mentioned...I couldn't get this post done. I had quite a bit of free time and I always feel like I have a million things I'd like to do. I did some reading and played some games and watched a few shows on Netflix. Last week I finished reading the book chat book, Becoming Mrs. Lewis, and I liked it a lot. We already picked the book we are going to read this month, so I got a copy of that and started reading it--North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm liking it so far. I've also been reading a book called Midnight's Children--it's one of the books I chose for us to consider reading when it was my turn to choose books a few months ago, but we read one of the other books. This one sounded pretty intriguing, so I started reading it too. I'm not sure what I think of it, although I'm 138 pages into it! It's definitely interesting. I also got 3 new books yesterday because I finally got around to spending the gift card Mom sent me for Christmas. So I have plenty of reading material to last me a long time! (I also got a game and a scarf...so it felt like Christmas on Friday!)

We didn't catch any more mice this week...hopefully that's the last of the mice for a while (or forever)!!

I started exercising again this week and I did that every day although I had to do shorter times a couple of days (mostly because my back was hurting). Frank ordered a memory foam mattress topper for us this week and it arrived on Thursday. After 2 nights of sleeping on it, I'd say it's definitely more comfortable. Overall, my back hurts less although it still hurts a bit.

Seth has been a bit more moody this week. He's been doing a lot better the last few months, but this week was kind of rough. I had a couple of conversations with him where he got really upset and frustrated because I didn't understand what he was saying. And he also got really upset when I told him he has an orthodontist appointment next week during the school day...he says they are doing something "really important" during the time he'll be gone. (He always says that, no matter what day or time of day he is missing school.) He got his report card yesterday, though, and he has all As except for one B in Math. Plus all the comments the teachers added about his behavior were really good. So I can't complain too much. I just wish we could get to the bottom of why certain things (like missing school) get him so upset.

We got a really nice sympathy card in the mail yesterday from our vet's office; many of the doctors technicians, and office staff had written words of comfort and sweet things about Snickers in it. Reading it made me cry, but it was really lovely too.

In preparation for General Conference, I've been reading more about the restoration and thinking about how it all applies to me personally. I haven't done much yet, but I listened to a podcast about the First Vision that I really liked this week.

That's everything I can think of to report on this week.

Weekly Reviews January 24 & 31 '20

I'm sure this post will be long, since I have two weeks to cover, but I will try to keep it reasonable!! At least I don't remember much about what I did the last few days before I left for my trip, so there's not much to say about that. The Saturday before I left (January 18th), we were supposed to get a winter storm, but it didn't amount to much. We just saw a few snowflakes drifting down at one point, and then later we got a little bit of sleet / freezing rain. We had the Elders over for dinner on Sunday the 19th. Elder Gordon (Izak's trainee) is not training, so I got a photo of them to send to Izak--his "son" and "grandson"!

On Monday the 20th, Seth didn't have school since it was MLK Day, but Frank did have to work. I was busy the whole day doing the usual chores, plus packing for my trip. Seth vegetated in front of the television all day because I was too busy to entertain him or make him do something else. That evening we went to look at refrigerators again and decided to get one, but of course the one we wanted wasn't in stock. Frank called the next day and ordered it, though. Seth was complaining that evening that his head hurt and after we got back from the store he threw up. That didn't make me too happy since I was leaving the next day but as usual, he felt fine the next day so it all worked out. I don't know why he gets sick like that--I wish we could figure it out!! I did keep him home from school on Tuesday, just in case.

I felt like Tuesday morning, the 21st, went by fast. I was just finishing up a few things to get ready to go. I also ran to the store to get some soda and some crackers, because I discovered that we were out of both of those things, and Seth needed them. Frank came home from work long enough to take me to the airport. The trip out to Utah went fine, and Scott picked me up at the airport and took me to Mom's house. Tanner & Darlee and Jared came over too (Jessie wasn't feeling well) and Mom fed us pizza. We had a fun evening visiting together, and it was great to see all of them.

I love seeing these guys laughing together!

When I was in Utah last summer, I picked out an animal pattern that I wanted Mom to crochet for me, and she had finished it so she gave me that too:

Isn't he the cutest seagull ever? After some deliberation, I have decided to name him Skyler. (Btw, that's Darlee in the background of the first photo, looking through books to pick out an animal for Mom to crochet for her.)

We stayed up too late visiting...but that was pretty much the story of my trip! Staying up late and then waking up about 6:00 or 6:30. But I was just enjoying seeing people too much...I didn't want to sleep!!

Wednesday the 22nd we began our Arizona road trip adventure. It was just really awesome to spend all that time with my mom and sisters! We had a lot of fun, and talked and laughed (and sometimes cried a little too). On the trip down, we had to stop in Beaver to get ice cream (of course). None of us could get the automatic faucets in the bathroom to work, and we ended up all in a row, standing at the faucets, laughing hysterically that none of us were "substantial enough" to get the water to come on. (We did finally manage to get the water to come on long enough to wash our hands.) We drove to Page, Arizona that day and stayed at a Best Western hotel. I drove from Beaver to Page, but other than that Amy drove the whole trip which I really appreciated because I don't like driving.

On Thursday the 23rd, we drove the rest of the way to Gilbert, Arizona. We stopped on the way to see some Indian ruins at a place called Montezuma's Castle, which was really cool.

The weather was pleasant, the sky was so blue (see top photo) and it was just a really peaceful beautiful spot. Right outside the Visitor's Center, a man was playing a flute-like instrument which was really beautiful. There was a gift shop where I acquired a Christmas tree ornament and a micro block set for Seth that made a little roadrunner. There were a lot of other things there that interested me too--like syrup made from saguaro fruit--but I knew it was going to be hard to get stuff back home, so I resisted the desire to get more. Mom got some taffy and gummy bears made from cactus fruit (I think? Can't remember for sure now) which she shared with all of us, though. By the time we got done at Montezuma's Castle, it was practically 3:00 and we hadn't had lunch yet, so we got some food before continuing on south. We ended up getting to Phoenix right at rush hour, so it took forever to get to Uncle Bruce's house in Gilbert, but we finally made it. Aunt Gay had corn chowder and rolls ready for us which was really nice and we would have eaten more if we hadn't had lunch so late! We enjoyed visiting with them that evening.

We spent Friday the 24th at Saguaro National Park in Tucson. It was great to spend the day not only seeing beautiful cacti, but spending it with three other people who love cacti and the desert as much as I do!! We started out at the Visitor's Center in the west section of the park, where we saw a really cool movie that talked about the Saguaro cactus, and the desert and what they mean to one of the native Indian tribes. I wish I could remember everything they said, but Mom said afterwards "Now I understand why I feel the way I feel in the desert.", and I knew exactly what she meant. They talked a lot about how we came from the dust and we'll return to the dust someday, and that the land is not just the land, it's our ancestors too. It put into words the way I've always felt about Arizona, and the desert...that it's a sacred, special place to me because my roots are there. So many of my ancestors were born there, lived out their lives there, worked & toiled to build a community there, died there. Because of that, I feel a strong connection to that place. It feels like home, even though I've never lived there. (When I mentioned this to Tanner, he said he felt that way when he was there too, which is even more remarkable to me because Arizona was not a place that he visited or had memories of, as I always have, but he still felt that connection.) So anyway...we all love the desert and saguaro cacti seem to embody that feeling better than anything else. So spending the day among them was awesome!! After the movie, we did more shopping in the gift shop (where I once again restrained myself from buying a ton of things and just got a refrigerator magnet!) and then we walked through a beautiful cactus garden they had outside.

Then we drove to the eastern part of the park, stopping on the way to get lunch (at about 3:00 pm again)! In the eastern side, we drove on a scenic loop through the desert which was incredibly beautiful (the pictures can't capture it).

 

(We're leaning sideways to imitate the cactus)

Obviously, by the time we finished driving around the loop, the sun was going down. We drove back to Gilbert for another delicious late dinner provided by Aunt Gay, and more visiting.

We went to the Phoenix Temple on Saturday the 25th. We got there a little too late to get into the session we'd planned to attend, so we walked around the outside and took a lot of photos before we went inside.

We were amused by the two birds who had a nest on the spire and liked to hang out on Moroni's horn:

The temple was just as beautiful inside as outside, and wow did it feel good to walk in there! I hadn't made it to the temple since I was in Utah the end of July, and when I walked in, I definitely noticed a feeling of peace envelop me! I miss being able to go to the temple frequently. After going through a session, it was mid afternoon again and we were all hungry but decided to get some Italian ice from Rita's instead of a full lunch, since we were going to dinner at Uncle Joe's house in a few hours.

By a happy coincidence, we happened to be visiting Arizona the same weekend as Uncle Joe's 97th birthday, and they were having a family party for him which we got to attend. They had pizza and a big cake with 97 candles:

It took four people to light all those candles, so they wouldn't melt down too far before they were all lit!

With his grandson, Jacob, who shares the same birthday

Jacob blew out the 97 candles! Uncle Joe blew out a "9" and a "7" candle on a smaller cake!

They had several of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren there for the party, and we enjoyed meeting a lot of them and getting all caught up on their family.

On Sunday the 26th, we were too tired to go to Bruce & Gay's ward, which began at 8:30, but they said they would be happy to go with us to the next ward at 10:30, since they knew many people in that ward too. But it turns out that the other ward meets at 10:00, not 10:30, so we were too late! We managed to find another ward that met nearby at 11:30, so we went to that ward instead. Then we came home and enjoyed a delicious Sunday dinner, visited all afternoon (including some reading from Come Follow Me) and then that evening a number of the Johnson relatives came over to visit, which was lots of fun.

Gay, Bruce, Conny, me, Shellie, Amy, Mom, Jared, Melinda (Ben's wife)

Jillene came to visit too but had to leave before we took the picture. It was great to see everyone!

On Monday January 27th, it was time to head back to Utah. We stopped at a place to get some citrus on our way out, and I was amused by the sign on the "Arizona BBQ" place next door:

We got oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit, as well as some honey. I knew I wouldn't be able to get a bunch of citrus back home with me, so I had to content myself with a few grapefruit that others shared with me. I couldn't resist getting some honey, though--I got orange blossom honey and desert wildflower honey. (Both are good! I tried them after I got home.) I put the honey in ziplock bags and thankfully they didn't leak at all. I'm pretty sure that's why my luggage got opened and inspected, though!! I had a note in my suitcase when I got home saying they had done that, and the ziplock bag with the honey in it was opened too.

We drove to Kanab that night, stopping in Flagstaff to visit a rock shop and to get lunch at a place called the Pita Pit. We spent the night at a La Quinta hotel, which was new and very nice. We had dinner at a place called the Wild Thyme Cafe. Once again, we had eaten lunch around 3:00 pm so we weren't really hungry. So we got two entrees and split them between the four of us, and that was perfect. The food was really good, too...we got Pistachio Chicken and some Ribs.

We drove the rest of the way back to Lehi on Tuesday the 28th. Scott, Tanner, and Darlee came over again to visit and so did Tim & Rachelle. It was so great to see everyone! Jared & Jessie took me to the airport on Wednesday the 29th, so I was able to visit with them too. The trip home was nice because the flight wasn't full and the seat next to mine was empty. That hasn't happened to me in years! Frank & Seth picked me up at the airport and it was great to see them again and to be back home. I was up late unpacking and getting settled, and then I woke up at 4:00 am and didn't go back to sleep! So that was a really short night.

I spent Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st getting caught up on everything. I was actually surprised at how much I was able to do, even on Thursday when I was dead tired. I had an orientation on Thursday for the volunteer tax work that I am going to be doing. Besides that, I did the laundry, vacuumed and swept, planned meals & made a grocery list, and dusted. While Seth was at YM that evening, Frank went with me to Walmart to get stocked up on groceries. (While I was gone, Frank & Seth went to the store only to get a few "essentials", such as crackers, chips, ice cream, and cookies!! There was no fruit, vegetables, or milk in the house when I got home!) On Friday our new refrigerator was getting delivered in the morning and that ended up taking a lot of my time. First I needed to move all the freezer items to the downstairs chest freezer and everything had to come out of the refrigerator too. Then we needed to move the couch away from the door so they could bring in the refrigerator and that meant pulling back the rug in the living room and I discovered that a bunch of dirt had collected under there (and stuck to the floor because of the adhesive from the non-slip mats I put under there). So I was sweeping & mopping, and then of course there was a lot of dirt behind the old refrigerator to clean out too before they moved in the new one. The new refrigerator is nice, though, and I am happy to have it. It's a twin to Mom's refrigerator:

After getting everything settled with the refrigerator, I still needed to shower & eat lunch; then it was time to go to a concert at Seth's school that he wanted me to attend. Some of the 7th graders were in art and some were in music for the last semester, so the art students drew self portraits and the music students each composed a short piece of music to represent one of the art students. For the concert, they projected each self portrait up onto a screen while a recording of the music that represented that student was played. The names of the student who composed the music and the student who drew the portrait were next to each picture, but I couldn't read the names so I couldn't tell which one was Seth's. (I really, really need to get my eyes checked!) Seth was in music, so he had composed a short song that represented a girl named Kara. Anyway, the concert was right before dismissal time, so I took Seth home with me when it was over. I spent the rest of the afternoon / evening getting the budget updated, which took some time since I had two weeks' worth of stuff to get caught up on. I did get it done, though, and that means I was basically caught up on everything I missed while I was gone, except for this post. I ran out of time to do that, and yesterday I got my hair done and worked on our taxes and a few things like that so I didn't get it done yesterday either, which explains why I am doing it today.

A few things that happened while I was gone: Frank did a superb job taking care of Seth and getting him to school on time and such. On the Sunday that I was gone, Frank was released from his church calling as the building coordinator and was called to be the self-reliance specialist for our ward. He's not really sure what that entails yet; someone from the stake is supposed to be contacting him to let him know more about that. He was also asked if he would be willing to do something else, and he said he was, but it hasn't all been approved and worked out yet, so I won't share details about that yet. A few days before I got home, Frank discovered a dead mouse in a trap that we set over a year ago (it was empty right before I left for my trip; he thinks it was caught a day or two before he found it). So he set two more traps and on Friday morning we caught another mouse. Yuck!! So far we haven't caught any more. I hope that's our last little visitor for a while. I feel like they are getting in more frequently than they used to. (We've probably caught / found about 10 - 12 mice in the 20 years we've lived in this house, but four of those have been in the last 18 months.)

To end on a happier note (than a mice invasion!) I will tell you about the Christmas project that I kept mentioning in my posts leading up to Christmas. I didn't want to say what it was then, but now that Christmas is over and all the gifts have been given, I can talk about it without spoiling any surprises. What I made was a family cookbook for the boys. I got the idea when I was remembering that last year they all wanted me to send them the recipes for our traditional Christmas treats, like buckeye candy and paintbrush cookies. At first, I thought I would just make a small cookbook with the holiday recipes, but then I decided that it would be nice to include all the recipes from main dishes and such that they liked while they were growing up. So it morphed into a bigger project than I had originally intended, but that's okay because it turned out nice and the boys LOVED it! I was actually surprised at just how much they loved it. They all said it was one of the best gifts they got, that they were so happy to get all the recipes, etc. Jared even said "this is the Holy Grail of cookbooks!!" It took a lot of time to type up all those recipes, but I found a website called Create My Cookbook which is really good and the cookbooks were very reasonably priced. I got a copy for each of the boys, but I got one for me too and I've been surprised how much I use it. (We eat diabetic friendly food now, and most of the recipes we used when the boys were growing up are not very diabetic friendly). It's nice because now all the recipes I use the most (besides the diabetic friendly ones) are all in one book. Here's a few photos of the cookbook:

You can see that I could add pictures to the book; I wish I had taken more photos of mealtimes / food!! There wasn't a lot to choose from. (Mostly just photos from Christmas / Thanksgiving.) So if you plan to ever put together a family cookbook, start taking photos now. :)

That's it for this time; I think I managed to keep the length of this post reasonable! I'll just finish by saying that it was a wonderful trip and I am so glad I got to go; I will always treasure the memories! I am also grateful, though, that coming home was really nice too!