Weekly Review December 31 '21

My weekly review for 2021! I didn't expect this week to be really busy, but it was. Frank took the whole week off, and it has been nice having him around. But even though Frank was off work and Seth has been out of school, I forget that none of my work goes away. Food still needs to be purchased and meals need to be cooked. Laundry still needs to get done. The house still needs to be cleaned. And I am also working fast and furious on my online tax course, preparing for the upcoming tax season. Besides all of that, we had some fun things happening too and we had a few errands / small projects that we wanted to get done. All that added up to a very busy week.

First of all, I should go back and tell you about Christmas day. Frank and I woke up fairly early...around 6:15, I think. We didn't hear any noise from Seth so we didn't get up. We talked and read scriptures. Frank actually decided to go back to sleep for a while, but shortly after that Seth did come in our room. He announced that he had been awake since about 6:45, but waited to come in until then (close to 8:00). We hadn't heard a peep from Jared or Jessie and we figured they were still on Utah time so we decided to get up and let Seth see what Santa Claus brought, but save all the gifts under the tree until Jared & Jessie woke up. That worked out well since one of the things in Seth's stocking was a card telling him to check the Xbox...we had purchased two digital video games for him the evening before, so he could start playing one of those and that kept him entertained.

 Meanwhile, Frank and I made breakfast:

After eating we took showers and shortly after that Jared & Jessie got up. Then we opened all the presents under the tree. I forgot to take pictures! I didn't get a single photo of Jared or Jessie the entire time they were here. These are the only photos I have:

Those last two we took to send to Tanner & Darlee...I'm holding up a bag they made for me and Frank is wearing an apron they made for him. (I'm also sitting on a nice camp chair that I got for Frank.)

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying gifts. Jared & Jessie left around 1:00 to spend the rest of the day with her family, although they came back late that night. I watched the movie Miracle on 34th Street. I also watched the newer Church video (fairly short) about Christ's birth...I think it's called The Christ Child. A few days later, I rounded up all my gifts and took some photos, because I like to record things like that.

This can opener is really nice...it's the kind that doesn't leave sharp edges on the lid or the can.

Cake decorating tools kit, ukulele with case, beach bag, hand lettering instruction book, color by number book, quilt book, crochet book, snowman salt & pepper set (the snowman's head comes off and it's one shaker while his body is the other), Santa felt bag (snowman S&P set came in that), sweater dress, Maryland t-shirt, and Lego Ideas book

We also got these gifts from Amy's family, because they had our family for the gift exchange this year:

We played Throw Throw Burrito with Jared & Jessie on Wednesday and it was totally hilarious!! We have also been playing Bananagrams a lot with them all week. That game is quite addictive!

On Sunday we had church of course, but we only had Sacrament Meeting. We had more Christmas music, including some really beautiful musical numbers. Jared & Jessie came to church with us and they stayed for dinner and until the late evening. We played games, of course. 😄

The rest of the week, as I said, was busy with the usual work plus extra errands and some fun things. On Tuesday we went with Jared, Jessie, and some of Jessie's family to see Spider Man No Way Home. I actually had not seen the movie before it (Spider Man Far From Home) and wanted to see it first so Frank and I watched that movie on Monday evening. We enjoyed both movies. Jared came back to our house and hung out with us for a lot of the day while Jessie went ice skating with some friends.

On Wednesday the Elders came over and helped Frank change the brakes on his car. They did both of the rear brakes; he still needs to do the front ones. Jessie's family were having a surprise graduation party for her that evening so we were in on the plot, along with Jared, to keep her away from her house so her family could get the party ready. They came to our house and we played games and visited that afternoon. Jessie thought that her grandma was having a party with friends and her grandma wanted her and Jared to be there so they could meet her friends. Jessie actually wasn't too enthusiastic about it! But it gave them an excuse to tell her she had to be back home at a certain time.  Her mom arranged to have Jared & Jessie pick up some ice on their way back to her house so that gave us time to leave shortly after they left our house, and still arrive well before they did. We actually saw them stopped at the gas station getting the ice while we were on our way. Jared saw us drive by and he manufactured a need to use the restroom in order to give us a few extra minutes! 😅 Jessie was definitely surprised (but glad) when she walked in her grandma's door and we were all there yelling "Surprise!!" We had a yummy dinner and visited and all the young adults and teenagers played games. Some of the fun decorations:

They did this one especially for Jared:

And here is one of the funny cartoons they put up (there were several):

It was a fun evening. 

Yesterday we took Seth to the store to get some jeans because the ones we bought him in October are already too small. He is in men's sizes now, and has those impossible proportions that all his older brothers had at this age...very skinny and very tall. We were super fortunate that we managed to find jeans size 28 waist and 30 length (very hard to find). He will still need to wear a belt with them, but they aren't enormous in the waist, at least. Jared had to fly back home yesterday (Jessie is staying longer) so they came over in the afternoon and we played some more Bananagrams. Then Frank took Jared to the airport. 

Today we have been busy with a lot of errands. I returned a dress I got for Christmas because it doesn't fit right. Or maybe I should say part of it didn't fit right. It actually fit just fine in the torso, waist, etc. but the sleeves were huge! It looked like someone had attached sleeves size XXXL to a size Medium dress. It was really strange!! I guess I should have read all the reviews before I added that dress to my Amazon wish list, because when I checked it later I found 2 or 3 reviews that said the same thing...the dress fit fine but the sleeves were way too large. A few people said the dress fit great, which leaves me wondering if a few of the dresses were defective and I got one of those. The sleeves certainly didn't look like that in the photos. It's too bad because it was a very pretty and warm sweater dress. ANYWAY...sorry for that tangent...I returned the dress and then Frank and I went to the storage unit to get all the Christmas decoration boxes. We came home and took down all the Christmas decorations, which was hard on our backs but we're glad to be done. Then I made lunch while Frank took my car to get an oil change. (He took his car to get an oil change earlier this morning.) After lunch Frank took all the Christmas decorations back to the storage unit and ran a couple of other errands while I swept and vacuumed the living room (lots of glitter and tree "needles") and got started on updating the budget. It's been a busy day and Frank has been great to run all those errands for me! Tonight we are planning to celebrate the New Year by having pizza and chicken tenders for dinner and working on a puzzle. 

One project we wanted to get done this week but haven't is getting a new storage system for our closet. We just keep running out of time. Hopefully we will get that done soon.

We have been hearing all about the Utah (and Texas visitors) family Covid-19 epidemic and we are sorry that so many of you are sick but grateful that so far no one is seriously ill. We hope all the sick people get better soon and that everyone who is well stays well! Everyone have a Happy New Year!

Weekly Review December 24 '21

 This week has been quite busy; I'm not sure why. Last week I reported that I only had a few odds & ends left to do to prepare for Christmas and that was true but it's amazing how much time those last few things can take! 

Frank got his Covid-19 booster shot on Friday and by Friday evening he wasn't feeling very well. He felt pretty rotten all day on both Saturday and Sunday. By Monday he still wasn't feeling his best, but he was doing quite a bit better and he improved a lot after that so he feels fine now. I need to get my booster soon too but I decided to wait until sometime after Christmas. 

Meanwhile, I had a busy weekend. On Saturday I went to a ukulele gathering / lesson with my friends Laura and Mary Kay. I ran a few errands on the way home. We spent the afternoon / early evening watching the BYU bowl game which was not too fun since they didn't play well and lost the game. I feel like BYU always loses their bowl game, no matter how good the team is that year. Oh well!

On Sunday I had a Zoom meeting in the morning with the bishopric (along with the rest of the YW presidency) to do some planning / talk about the youth. We will probably do this about once a month, or every other month. Then I had to be at church early because the YW were singing a song in Sacrament meeting and we needed to practice. Frank opted to watch Sacrament meeting from home since he wasn't feeling well. It turns out that only four of the YW chose to sing with us, so there were only seven of us singing including the three leaders (and one leader played the piano for us). In spite of that, everyone said it sounded really good and was surprisingly loud for how small the group was. We sang the Primary song "He Sent His Son". 

After church we rushed home because I had signed up to feed dinner to the missionaries. Neither of them has been in our area very long so we really hadn't met either one yet, and we enjoyed getting to know them. They are both really fun. We got permission from our bishop for them to give the sacrament to Frank since he hadn't felt well enough to go to church. We only had an hour for dinner, sacrament & a message from the Elders because I had to be back at the church to meet for Christmas caroling. The ward leadership and their families were delivering gift bags to several members of the ward, and we caroled to them at the same time. Frank didn't come since he wasn't feeling great and I let Seth stay home with him, so I was the only representative from our family. The RS president had prepared the bags and had the deliveries grouped together geographically into different routes so we divided up into groups and decided which routes we would take. She had given each route a name, such as "North Frederick" or "South Walkersville". There was one route for some families that live farther away, and I got a kick out of the fact that she named that route "To Infinity and Beyond"! Waiting for our assignments:

I ended up going with the bishop's family to do the North Frederick route. There were 5 families on the list, but somehow we ended up going to 12 families. 😂 It took us two hours but it was mostly fun and they had brought jingle bells, kazoos, and a tambourine to play with our caroling which jazzed it up a lot. Everyone really seemed to appreciate that we came! The only part that wasn't fun was that being the super graceful person that I am, I fell. We were at the 6th house and I had put my purse on the floorboard of my car to keep it out of sight (I didn't want to take it with me to every house). When I was getting out of the car, somehow the heel of my boot got caught in my purse straps and I basically fell out of the car, landing on my left knee and hand. My knee took the brunt of the fall and I was sure I had skinned it up but I had tights on so I couldn't tell. When I got home I discovered that I had a pretty decent abrasion on that knee. It looked like this after a few days (burised as well):

My left wrist felt a little tweaked and my whole left arm felt bruised / achey, especially the next day. My thigh on my left leg also felt painful, especially when I walked down stairs. After a couple of days my arm and leg started feeling better and they are not bothering me anymore. It still hurts to kneel on my left knee...I can't kneel on it straight on, I have to kneel with my weight on the side. It could have been a lot worse, though! I'm glad I didn't break anything or seriously sprain my wrist or knee. 

The rest of the week I kept busy with all the usual household chores, plus last minute Christmas things and I had some meetings / appointments too. I guess that's why I felt so busy! On Monday I had a YW presidency meeting. On Tuesday I took Seth to an orthodontist appointment. It was in the morning because he needed to have a new panoramic xray taken, plus they were putting a bracket on one of his teeth so it was a longer appointment and they don't do those during the after school hours. Seth hates missing school but we were able to schedule this appointment during a block that he is not worried about missing. The xray showed that he needs his 2 bottom wisdom teeth pulled so I need to schedule that now. The orthodontist wants his back molars exposed too...they are coming in but still partially covered with gum tissue and they are coming in very slowly so that area tends to trap food. They will do that procedure at the same time that they remove his wisdom teeth. 

Jared & Jessie arrived on Tuesday, very late. They came over for dinner on Wednesday. I also baked cookies on Wednesday and they decorated a few of them for me. I delivered gifts to some of the YW...we got a gift for each of the girls but not all of them were at church on Sunday so we divided up the rest of the gifts and delivered them to the girls' homes. Seth and I had a combined YM / YW activity that evening...we helped a family in the ward who just moved into a new house. We moved boxes and furniture out of their garage into the appropriate rooms in their house, broke down empty boxes, and helped put a few pieces of furniture together. There were a lot of people there and actually more people  than there were things to do. This family are having a new baby in the next week or two so they were very appreciative of the help! Bishopric counselor plus some of the youth assembling a piece of furniture:

Seth's last day of school was on Wednesday too. I noticed on Sunday when they passed around the missionary meal calendar that no one had signed up to feed the Elders dinner on Christmas Eve. I thought about signing up, but wanted to check with Frank first. We decided it would work to invite them over, so I signed up to feed them. On Thursday morning we woke up early (our alarm still went off at 5:00 am) and went to the store first thing, before it got too crowded. We had a few groceries we needed to get, plus we picked up some small gifts for the Elders and got a few other last minute Christmas items (Frank got a new house key cut for us to give to Seth, for example). I was really busy all day with laundry and cleaning, plus we finished decorating the cookies and also made a batch of buckeye candy. 

Buckeyes:

We had extra chocolate left over, so we got creative and dipped some oreos in chocolate, plus added some mini M&Ms to the top. They were yummy!:

Cookies:

All three of us also got haircuts that day. Jared came over for a few hours but I barely saw him because part of the time I was getting my hair cut and the rest of the time I was getting work done. Besides all the usual chores, I also was trying to get a headstart on Friday's chores because I knew Friday would be busy. (And I was right...it was.) I did get a lot done and by late evening I had enough things under control that I took the time to watch most of the movie The Santa Clause with Seth. He saw it when he was little, but really couldn't remember it so he really enjoyed seeing it again.

We thought we had cancelled our 5:00 am alarm for Friday morning but it still went off at 5:00 and I never went back to sleep. I did take some time to read my scriptures in peace and quiet, though, and that was really nice. I happened to be reading Mosiah chapter 3 in the Book of Mormon that morning and it turned out to be a perfect chapter to be reading the day before Christmas. I felt such a powerful spirit reading the prophecies of Jesus Christ! The rest of the day was busy finishing up the budget (I started updating it on Thursday) and with preparing our Christmas Eve dinner. I also did some present wrapping throughout the week...I've been wrapping items as they arrived, but it was surprising how many items arrived those last few days! We had Jared and Jessie here for Christmas Eve dinner as well as the Elders, so we had a full house. Dinner was yummy and afterwards we read the Christmas story out of Luke 2, Matthew 2, and 3 Nephi 1. Then everyone got to open a present from under the tree. The Elders were really surprised that there were presents for them too! One of them said that the box from his family hadn't arrived yet so he wasn't expecting to have any presents to open on Christmas. He was really tickled to get something. 

After the Elders left, it was only 7:00, so we all watched the movie Home Alone together. Seth had seen most of it before a few years ago but he had never seen the ending because the first time he watched it he had injured his chest a few days before and it hurt a lot to laugh. He couldn't make it through the part near the end when the burglars were getting hurt but all the booby traps the little boy Kevin set up. He was laughing too hard! So he enjoyed seeing all of that and finding out how it ended. 

I only got part of this post written last night (Christmas Eve) so now it is Christmas Day and it's been a nice one but I will save my report of today for next week's post! 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Weekly Review December 17 '21

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only one week away. Thankfully, we are almost ready so I'm feeling okay about that! 

Last Saturday Frank ended up working all day to solve a problem / take care of an emergency. That was kind of a bummer that he was gone all day. Seth and I kept very busy, though. I took him to the store to purchase a gift for Scott, because our boys are doing a "brothers gift exchange". While Seth browsed for a gift for Scott, I purchased all the items we needed for our annual 12 Days of Christmas secret service project as well as a few groceries and other things we needed. After we got home, I spent most of the rest of the day assembling and wrapping the 12 Days of Christmas items and getting everything packed up in a box for delivery. I also wrapped all the presents that had arrived up to that point, got copies of our Christmas letter made, and got some packages ready to mail. By the end of the day my back was really hurting but I was glad to get so much done.

12 Days of Christmas items ready to go:

This is the 18th year we have done this little service project! (We skipped it last year because of Covid-19...we weren't sure anyone would want to have things dropped off at their house from an unknown source.) It was Frank's idea to start doing this back in 2003, and I admit I wasn't too enthusiastic about it because it seemed like one more thing to add to my long list of things to do during a busy time of year. But our boys just loved doing it and I quickly repented when I realized how much it was helping all of us feel the spirit when we do this. We have tried to be really thoughtful about who we choose and usually find someone who is going through something difficult, like unemployment or illness or other family trauma. This year we chose a mother with two children who is going through a divorce. Her husband has some pretty severe mental illness which causes him to be really paranoid and not himself, and actually they aren't even quite sure where he is right now. It is really sad!! It did feel good to pick out some things for them that will hopefully help cheer them up and help them feel loved. This project has actually become one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I have Frank to thank for that!

Sunday was pretty quiet, thankfully, so I could rest my back a bit. All the YW classes met together for our lesson and I really enjoyed that. We got all the Christmas cards ready to mail--Frank figured out a way to print all the addresses on the envelopes (rather than write them all by hand) so it was a lot easier and quicker.

We went to bed around 9:30 Sunday evening, but for some crazy reason I woke up at midnight and never went back to sleep. I finally gave up and got up at 4:00 am (an hour early) and it was nice to exercise and shower before I had to take Seth to Seminary. (Usually I have to shower later.) After taking Seth to school, I went to the post office to mail packages and Christmas cards. I got there before they opened so I had to wait a while but I was one of the first people in line and got in and out of there in less than 15 minutes. By the time I left, there were already 20+ people in line waiting so I'm glad I didn't have to wait in that line! Neither of the boxes I sent was heavy, but one of them was a bit large and it cost SO MUCH to send it! The shipping cost was greater than the cost of the contents...crazy!! After the post office, I went to the store to get the week's groceries, so it was a busy morning. By the time I got back home and got all the groceries put away, I was really dragging going up and down stairs with the laundry! I wasn't actually very sleepy, just physically tired; it was strange. I never did get a nap that day because I had so much to do. I had other household chores to do and I also read a chapter of the tax training course. I was actually surprised I was able to stay awake to do that! For family night activity we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is always a favorite of mine. 

We had a combined YW activity on Wednesday evening--we made ornaments and dipped pretzels in chocolate. Both of these items are going to be added to gift baskets that will be delivered to ward members on Sunday. I got so busy that I forgot to take any pictures. 

Seth had a project for his photography class this week where he had to find every letter of the alphabet in either nature or architectural elements or something like that. Something unintentional--no letters on signs or anything like that. That meant that most afternoons this week I had to take him places so he could find all the letters. He did manage to finish up finding all of them yesterday. I helped him find a few because once I knew about his assignment I started looking around everywhere I went. 

Yesterday Seth had his "shadow" experience at the Career & Technology Center. They took him there by bus during his third block class  and then returned him to his school partway through his 4th block. He said he enjoyed it and he wants to apply for the computer technician program, so we will be working on his application soon. (The deadline to submit it is in March.) 

I realized a week or two ago that Seth has never seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life, so I decided we needed to remedy that situation! We watched it last night and he really enjoyed it. 

Today I got to go visit my friend Wanda. She moved to another nursing home about a month ago--it's farther away and in another ward so I haven't been able to see her since then. My friend Sherrie and I went together; as a matter of fact my friend set up the appointment and I got to go with her. Wanda was happy and looked good...she likes the new place. She said someone was stealing things from her at the last place. They are also doing more physical therapy with her at the new place; trying to help her build up more strength in her legs (she can't walk). We were glad to find out she is doing so well. The downside is that her parents are farther away and haven't been able to visit her yet.

In between all the regular chores, I have been finishing up Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts. (Since Frank and I both did most of our shopping on Amazon--including for each other--it has been a bit of a comedy of errors trying to figure out who can open a box when it arrives!)  I have also gone over a chapter in the tax training course every day (except Sunday). I only have a few odds and ends left to do for Christmas so I'm feeling a lot more relaxed and it's nice to focus more on the spiritual side of things. One thing I have been enjoying since Thanksgiving is Christmas music. I got all my Christmas music out right after Thanksgiving and I've been playing Christmas music as much as possible during the days every since. It brings such a beautiful spirit into the home!

The last day of Seminary for Seth (until the new year) was on Wednesday, so he has enjoyed getting an extra hour of sleep the last 2 mornings. I slept an extra hour yesterday morning as well but this morning I woke up at 4:00 am and when I hadn't gone back to sleep by 5:00 am, I decided to get up. I don't mind too much because I get more done when I get up early. As long as it doesn't happen every day!!

I have also been reading the book for book chat when I get a chance, which isn't very often. It's called Good Night, Mr. Tom and so far it is really good. I'm sure I would have read more of it by now if I had had time.

I decided to try something new with meals this week because I've been worried about the fact that Seth is mostly eating mac & cheese, pizza, and the like. I couldn't remember the last time I saw him eat a vegetable! So I decided to stick with our diet for breakfast and lunch but try to make something that Seth will like for dinner each night, although keeping it as close as possible to the guidlines that we are supposed to follow. Actually, one night I made some soup that is from our diet and told Seth he had to try in and he liked it okay. He didn't love it, but he didn't hate it either. Most nights I try to make some kind of meat and a carb that he will like, along with a lot of vegetables. Frank and I just have to measure out the carb portion so we don't eat too much of that. It did my heart good to see Seth eating broccoli earlier this week! It's taking more time and planning to do meals this way and honestly it feels overwhelming again but hopefully I'll get into a groove with the new plan soon and then it won't be so bad. 

Frank has been really busy with work this week...seems like there have been quite a few emergencies. There was also a price change this week which is a lot of work for him. On Tuesday I took lunch over to his work and ate with him there. Then later, I took him some dinner too (but just dropped it off--I came back home to eat with Seth). In spite of that, I feel like he has missed quite a few home-cooked meals this week because he's been out and about so much. He is going to take some time off in between Christmas and New Year's though which will be nice. I hope he gets a rest.

That is all of our news from around here.

Weekly Review December 10 '21

 We've had another fairly busy week--I guess that's pretty normal for this time of year. 

Frank is doing a lot better than he was last time I posted, thankfully. His back still hurts but after the first couple of days he improved quite a bit and now he is mostly able to go about his business as usual without too much pain. We're grateful for that!

Last Saturday we went to our ward's Christmas party. It was really nice. We had a much smaller group than usual, but that was kind of expected with Covid concerns and the fact that a lot of people still aren't coming to church. There was plenty of food and it wasn't crowded so even though we missed a lot of people, those things were nice! Besides dinner, there was a short program in which the youth & primary children sang Away In a Manger again and our bishop did a funny slide show / musical presentation (as usual...he does this often). This year he sang a rendition called "I'll Be Cloned for Christmas" sung to the tune of "I'll Be Home for Christmas". It was particularly appropriate since (unfortunately) one of his counselors had a stroke right before Halloween and he's been out of commission since then so our bishop and his other counselor have been shouldering the burden of doing the bishopric's job with one man down. (The counselor will be okay, I think...but he needs a lot of physical and speech therapy and it's going to take a while.) Anyway, it was a nice evening...I enjoyed watching how all the Seminary kids, including Seth, seem to congregate together and have a pretty great rapport with each other. Frank was still hurting a lot then, so I suggested that we take two cars so that he could just eat dinner and then go home to rest, so that's what he did.

On Sunday after church I had a stake YW leadership meeting, which I found out about very last minute (that morning!) but I was able to go and it was a really good meeting. They fed us, too, so that was really nice! While I was gone, Frank (with Seth's help) got the Christmas tree put up so when I got home we decorated it. Then we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, which I thought was awesome! All of the talks were wonderful, but I particularly enjoyed Elder Renlund's talk.

The schools got out 2 hours early on Monday (for mid-term). Seth was happy about that, of course. On Tuesday, a sister in my ward came over so I could talk to her about / help her with budgeting. The RS president asked me to meet with her since she knows I'm into that sort of thing! This sister was very open to my suggestions and seems to be very committed to putting in the necessary effort to set up a budget and make it work. I enjoyed talking to her because I feel pretty strongly that budgeting is important and will lead to much greater peace of mind and happiness, so I want everyone to do it! Interestingly, that morning I read an article in the Liahona called "How I Learned to Serve with Love" and this quote really jumped out at me: "...The Lord had blessed us with the ability to truly be His hands...Since that day, whenever someone has needed assistance that I was capable of providing, I have tried to keep that perspective in mind." I read that and thought that I am sure having a head for finances is a gift that I was given...it has always come so easily for me. I thought that the assistance I was providing that day was something I am uniquely capable of doing and I felt so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that.

On Tuesday evening I made a batch of mini cupcakes, because the YW leaders were asked to provide dessert for the RS activity the following evening. We decided to each make some "mini" desserts so that each sister could choose 2 or 3 different desserts. I had to borrow a mini cupcake pan because I don't have one. Of course, I couldn't keep it simple! I looked online and found some cute ideas for decorating them. It was fun but rather exhausting. 

These ones looked much better in the online version, but they were still kind of cute. If you're not sure, they are supposed to be little strings of Christmas lights! 

Originally, my plans for these ones was to make little Christmas trees on top of each cupcake (use more frosting and then add different colored ball sprinkles for the ornaments) but I made them last and by then I was tired so I decided to simplify. And guess what...they all got eaten anyway!:

The dinner itself was really nice and a lot of sisters came. It was really great to get together with taht many of us...probably the biggest group I've seen together since all the Covid mess began. (Maybe 50?) The YW were invited too and this activity replaced our YW activity for the week. We had soup, salad, and sandwiches for dinner (plus the desserts) and it was all really good. As part of the evening, we had been asked to bring donations for a local organization that provides assistance for women and children who are homeless / victims of domestic abuse, so earlier that day I went to the store to get a few items to donate.

On Thursday my friend Rebkah and I went to lunch. Her daughter is getting married in less than two weeks so her life is pretty busy right now but it sounds like everything is mostly ready for the wedding. Her daughter is getting married in Utah, so they will be going out there for the wedding and staying for Christmas. 

In between all of these activities, I have been getting some more shopping done and have a lot of the Christmas shopping done now which is a relief. The Christmas cards arrived but I haven't had a chance to prepare them for mailing yet. I also started working on the tax training a few days ago so at least I've got started on that too. I got to talk to Tanner for quite a while yesterday and I feel like I've talked to both Scott and Jared recently too (although maybe not this week...) It's always nice to hear from them!

Seth has been busy with school. This morning he didn't have Seminary because he had to complete the end of year assessment this week and if he did it before today, he didn't have to go to Seminary this morning. So he did get that done yesterday, and he definitely enjoyed getting an extra hour of sleep this morning. I am going to have to take him to get some new clothes over the winter break. Remember I just bought him a bunch of shirts and jeans? Well, I made the mistake of assuming that he had only grown one size up. But the new clothes already look too small on him! I should have had him try things on and then I would have realized that he needed to go up two sizes instead of one. Part of the problem, though, is that he's so tall and skinny. The shirts actually fit perfectly in the torso (width wise) and shoulders, but the sleeves are inches too short, and the shirts barely reach down to his waist! I tease him that he must be a gorilla or something since he has such long arms. 

One fun tidbit before I go. If you read the article in this month's Liahona titled "How We Gather Israel Today", they quote a number of patriarchs from different parts of the world. One of them is noted as being from Maryland, USA. He is actually our stake's patriarch! It was fun to come across that in my reading. 

We hope all of you are well and enjoying this wonderful Christmas season so far!

Weekly Review December 3 '21

 Well here we are in the last month of 2021. I'm not sure how that happened! We had a pretty busy week. 

A new Roy Rogers Restaurant opened at the University of Maryland yesterday, so Frank has been really busy this week getting ready for that. He spent all day there on Tuesday (had to go back and do more work shortly after he got home around 4:00 and didn't get home until nearly 10:00...he wasn't very happy about that) and he was there all day Wednesday too. They had a "soft" opening Wednesday evening which means they served dinner to a bunch of the employees and their families to make sure all their equipment was working and everything, so he was there until pretty late on Wednesday evening too, and then he had to be there really early yesterday morning. Unfortunately, he was injured yesterday morning. He was out in front of the counter taking photos of the menu board to make sure all the prices were correct when they opened the doors to let the first customers in. And since they had advertised free $100 gift cards to the first 100 customers, a lot of people were there anxiously waiting to get in and everyone rushed in at once. Some guy carrying a skateboard slammed into him from behind, hitting him in the back with the skateboard. (And he didn't even say sorry! Just picked up his skateboard and kept running towards the line.) He's been really hurting since then. He wasn't able to come home until yesterday afternoon. He needed to get checked by a doctor but couldn't get an appointment until this morning. So I spent the morning taking him to the doctor and then to get x-rays. (It hurts his back to drive, so that's why I went...so he wouldn't have to drive.) The doctor thought there was a possibility that he had some broken or cracked ribs...that's why he sent him to get xrays. It turns out no ribs are cracked or broken, just really bruised. The doctor prescribed a pain reliever and a muscle relaxant to help him sleep and he will just have to take it easy for a few days. 

Meanwhile, Seth and I had a pretty busy week too. On Monday I had to go grocery shopping to replenish the refrigerator and I did mounds of laundry since we didn't do any laundry while we were on our trip. When we arrived home from NC, we discovered our lawn was covered in leaves (from our neighbor's tree...we don't even have a tree on our lot!) so we knew we were going to need to rake soon. Then we got a call from Tru Green that they were coming to fertilize / spray our lawn the next morning, so we had to take care of the leaves on Monday afternoon, after Seth got home from school. Thankfully with the leaf blower / mulcher, it wasn't too big of a job and we got it done pretty quickly. We actually had Seth mow the lawn too when we were done because it was pretty long. 

Doesn't it look better?:

Of course, there are more leaves on the lawn now...the tree hadn't lost all its leaves yet and yesterday evening was quite windy...but it's not as many leaves as we had before. Hopefully, we'll only have to rake one more time. 

On Tuesday I had a YW presidency meeting during the day and that evening I had book chat. We discussed a book called The Midnight Library and now we are reading a book called Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian. I'm not actually reading the book yet. Our library doesn't have this book, unfortunately, so I ordered a copy from Amazon and it won't be here until around the 14th. 

Wednesday was a very busy day for me...I did some shopping and when Seth got home from school he went with me to the storage unit to help me get all the Christmas decorations. After we got them back to the house, I put up all the decorations except for the tree. That evening the youth and Primary children in our ward were singing a song at the town of Walkersville Christmas tree lighting ceremony. That was our YM/YW activity for the night. We sang Away In a Manger. It was actually fairly warm that day, which was nice since we had to be outside. I can remember being really cold some of the previous years that we have sung at the tree lighting! There were only a few groups performing this year...a bell choir from another church and a really small group from yet another church, plus us and then the Walkersville high school band & chorus. That was it! We had a fairly large group show up and I think our song went well and sounded nice. After the program, Santa Claus arrived, riding on a fire truck. The whole thing lasted less than an hour, so we got home earlier than we usually do from YM/YW activities. They usually serve cookies and hot chocolate at the annual tree lighting but they didn't do that this year because of Covid-19 concerns, so when we got home we made hot chocolate and we each ate a sugar cookie poptart. 

Other than all of those things and the regular chores, I've been trying to get things done for Christmas. I haven't made a lot of progress yet, but other than getting most of the decorations up I have also ordered our Christmas cards and written our annual Christmas letter and I have done a little bit of shopping, but not much yet. 

I haven't done much to start preparing for tax season yet either, but the new volunteer reference book became available this week so I was able to pick one up from our site coordinator's house earlier this week. I haven't really had time to start doing the training but hopefully I will get started on that next week. The training took a lot of time the last couple of years but I feel like I'm a lot more familiar with the tax law now (other than the things that have changed) so I'm not as worried about it. I could probably take the test and pass it without doing the training, but I still want to go over it to refresh my memory. 

Seth didn't have Seminary this morning, so he enjoyed sleeping in for an hour. Now that we aren't carpooling anymore, I've been able to get him to Seminary early most mornings. Yesterday he got a $5 gift certificate to Chickfila as a reward for being on time / early. He was happy about that!

I forgot to mention in my last weekly review that Jared had surgery the Monday before Thanksgiving to remove a kidney stone that has been causing him grief for about a month. It turns out it was a pretty big stone. He has been recovering well and feeling better, fortunately.

We would have put the tree up last night or today I think if Frank were feeling well, but since he hasn't been feeling well, we haven't done it yet. Hopefully we will get that done this weekend sometime. 

That's all the news that I can think of so I'll sign off until next week.

Weekly Review November 28 '21

 This week's review is coming to you a few days late because we were out of town for Thanksgiving and just got home last night. 

Going back to last weekend, I don't remember a lot about what we did now, but on Saturday I got my hair cut and we watched the BYU football game. On Sunday the YW presidency had a Zoom meeting with the bishopric in the morning (to discuss plans for and needs of the youth) and Frank and I also had temple recommend interviews. I was able to have my interview with both a bishopric member and a stake presidency member, but the stake presidency member had to go to another commitment after he talked to me so Frank had to wait until today to get his second interview. He did get that done today, though. Frank made chocolate chip cookie bars for his Sunday school class last week also and they were a big hit.

Monday and Tuesday of this week we were busy getting ready for our trip to NC. Frank had a couple of very busy days at work and he had work to do for clients also. I got laundry and shopping done on Monday and on Monday evening we all packed our bags because we were planning to leave on Tuesday afternoon, right after Seth got out of school. Seth had to take a photo at night for his photography class so I took him to downtown Frederick to do that on Monday evening. We also went to the library and browsed around a bit since we had to park at the parking garage next to the library and that way we could validate our parking ticket at the library. I ended up finding a book to check out too. We discovered that behind the library on Carroll Creek, all the little boats are out (they're put out during the Christmas season) so Seth was able to get some photos of those, and I took a few too:

Tuesday wad busy also with packing a few last minute things, making sure the trash was taken out and the refrigerator was cleaned out and things like that. We did manage to get everything ready to go and were able to leave about 30 minutes after Seth got out of school. We drove to a place in southern Virginia that day and spent the night at a Fairfield Inn. We got dinner at a Cracker Barrel restaurant which was right across the street. We weren't too impressed with this particular Cracker Barrel...or maybe I should say with our server. We had to wait about 30 minutes to be seated, which was understandable since they were somewhat busy...we didn't mind that so much because we could wander around the store in front and see all the fun things they had there. But once we were seated, we only saw our server 4 times...once to take our order, once to bring our drinks, once to bring our food and once to bring our check. She didn't bring out our biscuits with our drinks and it took about 45 minutes to get our food after we ordered it so we were sitting there for all that time, sipping water and getting really hungry! Then we finished eating and waited & waited for her to reappear so we could ask for our check. Frank finally went up to the front to see if they could track down our check...of course, as soon as he left our server finally showed up so I asked her for it. We have no idea what she was doing all that time...hiding in the kitchen?? But anyway, we finally got to eat and returned to our hotel and went to bed.

On Wednesday morning we woke up early so we got on the road pretty early and arrived in Asheville by noon. We stopped in Asheville to get some lunch because there aren't many good options of places to eat in Brevard (at least, not very many healthy options) and then we also went to Walmart and a grocery store to get groceries that we needed to prepare food for Thanksgiving. Then we drove to Frank's sister Dawn's house and went with them to the place where we were having Thanksgiving dinner. His sister had reserved this place, which was a local Lion's Club, and she was able to pick up the key that day so that we could go there to do some cooking. It was a nice, fairly new building with a large kitchen. We made layered banana pudding (with vanilla wafers, banana, and whipped cream) as well as two chocolate cream pies, and we were able to store a lot of stuff in the refrigerator for the next day too. After that we went to our hotel in Brevard to check in and then back to Dawn's house for dinner. They fed us homemade pizza and salad. After dinner we all helped make turkey rolls for the next day and we also had some cookies and ice cream. By the time we got back to our hotel at bedtime, we were all exhausted from traveling, shopping, and cooking all day but it was fun to spend all that time with Dawn and her husband Mike. They also had a friend visiting them from Utah named Luda. She is originally from Czechoslovakia. We really enjoyed getting to know her and she was very cheerful and helpful all the time. Just a very pleasant person! 

That first night in that hotel, we had an issue with our heater being really loud every time it came on so it kept waking us up. Fortunately, we didn't have that problem the other two nights. But since we didn't sleep very well Wednesday night and we were already really tired, we didn't wake up until after 8:00 Thursday morning. We had breakfast at the hotel and showered and then after a brief visit with Frank's parents at their house, we headed back to the Lion's Club building to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner, which was scheduled to be at noon. We still needed to warm up biscuits (we brought some from Roy Rogers), whip more cream for the desserts, cook some broccoli, make macaroni & cheese, and a few other things to get ready for the dinner. We had dinner with Frank's parents, his brother James & family, Dawn, Mike & Luda, and the local sister missionaries. (We missed his sister Becky & her family...they were having dinner with her mother in law, who isn't in the best of health so she needed to stay at her own home.) Each family contributed 4 or 5 things so we had a lot of food and a big variety of things to choose from and it was all delicious! After dinner, we played games...Frank, Mike, Seth and I played Scrabble and I was lucky and pulled ahead at the end by being able to add an "A" to the word "Jar" and then getting the letters to play the word "Risky" on a triple word score. Plus I also managed to go out first, so I didn't have to subtract any tiles from my score and got to add 14 points to my final score from everyone else's unused tiles. I didn't actually play that well the rest of the game so I was surprised to end up winning in the end. 

After finishing our game, it was late afternoon so we packed up all the food and cleaned everything up. We had to wipe down everything in the bathrooms and the kitchen and sweep and mop the entire floor (very large) so that took quite a while. We took all the food back to Dawn's house and then ate some leftovers for dinner. We visited some more and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving which I haven't seen since I was a kid so that was pretty fun. Once again, we got back to our hotel exhausted!! 

We all slept really well that night and woke up feeling more rested. We visited with Frank's mom and dad a bit that morning and then went to get some lunch. After that we drove up into Pisgah Forest to see Looking Glass Falls. 

We returned to our hotel for a while and Frank took a nap. Then we went to Dawn's house again for dinner...more leftovers from the day before, all very yummy! Frank's parents came also so we were able to visit with everyone. We also watched the movie Tangled. Then we said our goodbyes to everyone because we were leaving early the next morning to come home. 

The drive home was mostly uneventful. There was an accident on the freeway that slowed things down for a while in southern Virginia, but overall we made pretty good time and got home by about 5:00 pm. We unpacked and ordered some dinner and Frank picked it up. Seth enjoyed having some video game playing time since he didn't get any over the weekend until then. After Seth went to bed, Frank and I started watching the BYU football game. I watched until early in the 2nd quarter, but after BYU scored their first touchdown of that quarter I decided I was too tired to stay up anymore. To my surprise, Frank ended up watching the whole game, which means he was up until after 2:30 am. I watched the highlights and read the recap this morning and I'm really glad I didn't stay up since it sounds like it was a pretty stressful game to watch! I'm glad BYU won in the end. 

That brings us to today, which was a fairly normal Sunday...I had a class presidency meeting before church as usual and Frank got his temple recommend interview. For part of YW, we went in with the Primary to practice singing a song because we are all singing at the town of Walkersville's Christmas tree lighting on Wednesday. 

Now we need to move into full "get ready for Christmas" mode!!

Weekly Review November 19 '21

We had quite a bit going on this week. Let's see if I can remember it all. Last Friday Frank decided that he wanted to go see a movie so we all went to see The Eternals (new Marvel movie). It was fairly good...I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. (I'm not a huge fan of going to movies in the theater and would have preferred to stay home, but wanted to spend some time with Frank). I did not enjoy how cold the theater was nor did I enjoy the movie theater food. (It was a last minute decision to go to the movie and we didn't have time to eat dinner before we left so we got food at the theater.) In spite of that, it was a fun family outing.

Saturday was the annual "Scouting for Food" drive in our area and the youth in our stake helped sort food as it was delivered to the food bank. Each ward had a two hour shift and our shift was from 11:00 - 1:00. We had to provide an adult for every 10 youth who attended from our ward. We only ended up with 10 youth. One of the moms had volunteered to go but then realized she had another commitment for part of the time so I volunteered to go instead. Wow, that place was just innudated with food!! It was gratifying to see how many people donated food, but it sure was chaotic and messy! There were piles and piles of bags to open and sort through...so many that it was sometimes hard to walk around. We stayed a half hour extra and there was still a ton left to sort when we left. Another adult took some photos of Seth and of me, and shared them with me:

Frank woke up with a pinched nerve or something like that so he was really hurting all day. It's still bothering him, actually--it's just not as bad as it was at first. He stayed home from church on Sunday because it was so painful to walk or sit or move. He has worked really hard this work, though. He worked from home the first couple of days but by Wednesday he was working in the office / at restaurants all day. I'm just glad he's gotten a bit better as the week has progressed. 

On Sunday our ward's Primary did their Sacrament Meeting program and they did a great job, as always. The first little girl who got up said enthusiastically "My name is Gigi and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Jesus is the BEST!!! Oh, and I love my mom!" It was so cute!

Seth had an orthodontist appointment right after school on Monday. The othodontist says his teeth are looking really good. He'll still have braces for a while, though. He has molars that haven't come in yet so next time they're going to do an x-ray to see what's going on with the molars.

Frank and I decided a while back that we are going to go to Hawaii next spring to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We finally had a chance to start planning and on Tuesday got our plane tickets purchased and a few other things. So now we are really going!! Our original plan was to send Seth to Utah while we were gone, but on Tuesday we decided that it would be really nice for Seth to spend a few days in Hawaii too. (We sill stay longer.) However, we didn't like the idea of Seth flying from Utah to Hawaii all alone (although he is flying from Maryland to Utah alone--something about going across the ocean and it being a longer flight just wasn't comfortable for us) so we got the idea to see if Scott would be able to come with him. Not surprisingly, Scott was more than happy to come with him, so now we will get to spend a few days on Oahu with Scott and Seth and then we will spend the rest of the time on Maui, just Frank and I. We are super excited!!! I mean, honestly when we were trying to make all the plans I got kind of stressed about all the things that could go wrong (bad weather, delayed flights, lost luggage...) plus I always feel anxious about spending money even though we have enough saved up. But yesterday I was looking up some of the places we want to go and it all looks so awesome, so now I am really excited!! We still have a lot of details to settle but we will get most of those things figured out in the next couple of weeks. Frank wanted me to come visit him when he lived on Maui back in 1991, but practical and responsible me wouldn't go because I was working and in school. I told him we'd have to go back to visit together sometime and it's always been a goal of ours so finally a little over 30 years later we are actually going to do it! We wish our other boys and their wives could come too but...they're working and in school! 😅

After spending all evening planning our Hawaii trip, I was so wired by the time it was bedtime that I couldn't sleep. I didn't get to sleep until after midnight and then I woke up at 3:00 am and never went back to sleep. So that was not much fun. Sleeping badly seems to have been the theme of the week too because I haven't slept all that great since then. Frank has had some bad nights too...especially last night when he slept from 9:30 to 12:30 and didn't go back to sleep at all until he was able to take a brief nap sometime between 5:00 and 6:00. Then he was up again and has been working all day. Hopefully we will both sleep better tonight.

We had a combined YM / YW activity on Wednesday night...we played Jeopardy. There were four teams and it got quite loud and competitive! Seth got pretty upset by the end and there were a few frustrating things that happened but overall it was quite fun, and Seth shook it off and was happy again before we got home.

Today they had "pajama day" at Seminary which means Seth wore pajamas to school too. Apparently, they don't care if he wears pajama pants to school. The dress code is very strict about things like he can't wear a hat or hood, but pajama pants are fine. 😜 

Our Seminary carpool boy still didn't make it to Seminary this week and at this point, after talking with his mom, we've agreed that we are just going to plan to take Seth to Seminary and pick him up every day unless they contact us and say they'll pick Seth up. It's just easier for us to plan to take him than to find out at the last minute that we need to take him. I took Seth to Seminary and to school every day this week and most days I came home in between but yesterday I stayed to talk with my friend Rebekah and this morning I ran errands while he was at Seminary. My car needed gas and I had a couple of things I needed to get at the store and 6:00 am is an awesome time to do errands because not many people are out. 

We have had pretty nice weather most of this week--it did rain last night--but today it is a lot colder and it's windy too. The house feels colder to me than it did last winter and maybe I'm not imagining it since Frank says he thinks it feels colder too. We really do need to replace our windows soon...I think that would help a lot. 

Speaking of replacing things...on Sunday after I got home from church and was changing my clothes, I was startled by a loud popping noise. Looking around, I discovered that the wire shelf that runs around our closet (which is also a clothes rod) had popped out of the wall on one side. We had to remove some things from the shelf and move some of the clothes into the spare room closet and Frank used his camera tripod to prop it up until we can get a replacement. Since we have to get a new shelf anyway, we are planning to look around and might get some sort of new closet organizer with shelves or something. I'm not sure yet. 

I finished the audio book I was listening to last week (Whole in Christ) and I have started listening to the first book in a fiction series by Gerald Lund called Fire and Steel. (The first book is called Generation Rising). It's a historical fiction series set in Germany around the time of WWI. I haven't gotten very far into it yet.I am also reading another Newbery book--Daniel Boone. I didn't expect to be reading it anytime soon because it's out of print and very hard to locate (and expensive). However, Amy found a copy of it on a website for less than $7 and she knew I was looking for a copy so she bought it and had it sent to me. Isn't she awesome?? The book arrived on Saturday and it's less than 100 pages long with a lot of pictures so you'd think I'd be done with it by now but I didn't even get a chance to start reading it until Wednesday. I will probably finish it today or tomorrow. It's definitely not politically correct in this day and age as it is mostly about fighting the "red savages" (Native Americans) but it is mildly interesting and some of the writing is quite poetic. I enjoyed reading about the Boone family crossing the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry...been there, done that many times!

That's all I can think of to tell you about us this week (I feel like I'm forgetting things...) so I will finish up with some photos of some of the pretty fall trees around our neighborhood.