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.
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