Seth and I did go to the general session of stake conference on Sunday morning. Frank still wasn't feeling great, and mostly he felt like he should avoid people when he was coughing so much, so he stayed home. Conference was good and Seth was especially interested in the first talk because it was given by his friend Henry, from his Deacon's Quorum.
On Monday the 2nd I continued to work on getting caught up on everything. I also went to see my friend Wanda--she had asked me to trim her bangs the week before but since I got sick and she lives in a nursing home, I couldn't go see her until I got better. So I got her bangs trimmed and she was happy about that. Then I tried to go to the religion class but no one was there. I texted one of the other class members and she let me know that the teacher is getting ready to move so the class is cancelled for now. That evening for family night activity we played Uno Flip and I had a crazy streak of luck and won the first 4 rounds. We decided to play one more round and Frank won that one. It's a pretty fun game...more interesting than regular Uno.
By Tuesday the 3rd I was mostly caught up on everything. I spent most of my free time this week working on Christmas stockings and I finished the cross stitched picture for one of them:
I also worked on that other Christmas project a little bit, but I didn't get much accomplished. I'm trying to learn how to do something new and it's taking time and I'm not at all sure if it's going to turn out okay or if I'm going to ruin the whole thing. Hopefully I'll figure it out, though.
I was supposed to go to the dentist on Tuesday (rescheduled from last Thursday, because I was sick) but then someone called from the dentist office Tuesday morning to say that the hygienist that was supposed to clean my teeth was out sick. Apparently, half their office was sick so they were having a "fun" time scrambling around trying to reschedule a bunch of appointments. They rescheduled me for this Monday, so we'll see if it works out this time. Hopefully 3rd time's a charm!
On Wednesday the 4th, besides the usual stuff, I went to the store to get some supplies for that Christmas project I'm trying to work on. We also got our tax returns filed. They've basically been done and ready to go for a few weeks, but I was worried about a problem with our estimated taxes for this year--I'm almost positive there is some kind of glitch in Turbo Tax, because the amount of tax they estimated we would owe next year is about 50% of our estimated taxable income. That just can't be right!! So I had to look over things and satisfy myself that there weren't any other mistakes somewhere. The estimated tax mistake is not a really big problem because it's just a suggestion--we don't actually have to pay that much. I expect that our income and taxes for 2020 will not be significantly different from 2019, so if we make estimated tax payments equal to what our tax liability is for 2019, we'll be fine. As it turns out, we're getting a smallish refund from the federal government but we owe taxes to the state. But at least we're getting a little bit back--the federal government owes us more than we owe to the state. Seth got out of school 2 hours early on Wednesday because it was midterm--not sure how it is midterm already! This school year is going by so fast!
Thursday the 5th was pretty busy, as most Thursdays are since I have my tax volunteer work during the day and the Primary activity in the evening. We actually weren't very busy at the tax place this week, though. Sometimes people don't show up for their appointments, so then we have less to do. I completed two tax returns and reviewed a third one. When we don't have a lot to do, we usually end up discussing tax situations we've run into since we're all numbers / accounting / tax geeks! It's fun! We had a fun Primary activity. This month, we are focusing on learning about the First Vision / Restoration in preparation for General Conference. We combined with the older girls' group last night and had a movie night, where we watched one of the church's movies that depicts the first vision. We told the girls they could wear pajamas and bring pillows / blankets, and we had popcorn, twizzlers, and root beer floats. After the movie, we gave them cards and asked them to write down their feelings about Joseph Smith, the first vision, and / or the restoration. Then we let them build a big fort out of chairs and blankets for the rest of the time. Oh, and an impromptu pillow fight broke out too:
Today Seth's class at school had a Medieval Renaissance Fair, because they've been studying that time period in their history class. The kids each chose a part and researched it. Seth was a Medieval Lord. They could wear costumes, but that was optional and he chose not to wear one. (Which I didn't mind, since his teacher didn't even send home information about this until Monday. Why don't they give us more time?) I did look up how Medieval Lords dress, and found a hat online and offered to make a simple tunic for Seth, but he didn't want to wear that so I was saved the trouble. Anyway, I went in to his class for about a half hour this morning to see the fair. It was fun to see what they did--some of the kids came up with some pretty creative costumes. I watched a knighting ceremony and some acrobats. After I left, they did jousting, archery, and dancing. (I didn't stay long because I didn't have time to eat breakfast before I left.)
The jester doing some tricks
Seth playing chess with another Medieval Lord
A tanner and a candle maker (can't remember who the girl in the middle was portraying)
The boy on the end was an apothecary and he gave me some homemade eucalyptus lotion to put on my hand.
A knight
A fortune teller
After I got home from the school, I got the finances all caught up, had lunch, and picked up Seth from school.
Seth had safety patrol all week (last week too, but he was absent 3 of the 5 days). He seems to enjoy doing that. We are still having warmer than usual weather, overall. We have definitely had milder winters than usual the last several years, and this winter has been the mildest of all (I'm not complaining about that). Last week, some daffodils came up (in February!):
And these pansies that I bought last fall are still hanging in there...never got cold enough to kill them:
Poor Frank--he loves snow, and we barely got any this year! I suppose we still could get some snow--it's only early March--but it feels like spring.
That's all I can think of to report this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment