I feel like this week went by pretty fast, I guess because we were mostly back into the regular routine.
The weekend was wonderful, of course, with General Conference and Easter.
I ate a handful of jelly beans, but that was it. (I can't say I did as well the rest of the week though! 😆) I had signed up to feed the missionaries on Easter so we took them all of that stuff plus a small Easter basket for each of them. We dropped their dinner off shortly before the final session of Conference on Sunday (which starts at 4:00 pm for us). They seemed to appreciate it! I didn't take many notes during Conference, just tried to listen carefully and enjoy it. Now that we have access to the talks, I am reading them one at a time and taking careful notes. We're so blessed that we can re-watch or re-read these talks over and over again!
On that note, I decided this week to go back and read Conference talks from the past. I started 'way back at the beginning of the talks that are available in the gospel library app, which starts in April 1971. I was only 2 years old then (turning 3 in about 3 months). I've read three talks so far and the chief concern among the brethren at that time seems to be how wicked the world was getting. I couldn't help thinking "Wow, they have no idea! They thought it was wicked then!" On a happy note, though, think how much the work of the Lord has moved forward in the 50 years since then. There weren't even 20 operating temples in the world at that point. Would they have been able to foresee that we would have 20 new temples announced at once?! (My only regret is that none of the 20 new temples announced is anywhere near us.)
Monday morning I had my stress test as planned. It went fine. First they injected me with the radioactive material and then I had to wait for an hour for that to get in my system. They had me sit in the waiting room and drink half a bottle of water while I waited. Then they took images of my heart at rest for about 15 minutes. I had to lie still in a chair with my arms over my head while the machine took photos. It was fine except that my arms started to "go to sleep"! When that was done they took me to another room and injected me with another medicine that simulated exercise and opened up all my arteries. They had me attached to an EKG and a nurse monitored my blood pressure and did about 3 EKGs while that medicine was in my system. The medicine caused my heart rate to jump pretty high and I felt slightly out of breath, as if I were running. It was kind of a weird sensation since I was just sitting there, not running. That part lasted only about 5 or 6 minutes; then they injected another medicine to reverse the effects of the previous one. After that I went back out to the waiting room for a while where they had me drink the other half of my bottle of water and I was also supposed to eat a light snack (I was fasting up to this point) so I brought some crackers with me. After waiting another hour, they took me back and took a second set of images of my heart at rest for another 15 minutes. They also removed the IV catheter in my arm at that point. Then I got to go home. The whole thing took about 3 1/2 hours. They told me I would be "radioactive" for a couple of days so I should avoid sitting next to pregnant women or holding newborn babies. (Now I understand why they used to have me sit back by the receptionist desk instead of in the waiting room when I visited the cardiologist during my pregnancy with Seth.) Besides that, they said if I went to an airport, I would set off the metal detector even if I didn't have any metal on me. They gave me a paper to take with me in case I needed to do that, explaining why I was setting off the metal detector, but fortunately I didn't need to make any emergency plane trips this week! I don't have the results of the test yet so I have no idea what they saw. I will find out later, when I meet with the doctor again.
Even though that test took most of the morning, I still managed to get all my regular Monday chores done, including a trip to the grocery store, and I also did a bunch of weeding in the front yard. Seth mowed the front lawn, which had become quite long in the last week, and then Frank and I went to the store and bought a bunch of mulch and we spread that out all over the flower bed. I'm still not sure how we managed to get all that done! We decided that the yard work counted as our family night activity and we got donuts for treat (which turned out to be more challenging than anticipated...who knew all of the Dunkin Donut locations in Frederick close at 7:00 pm? Seth did not have school on Monday, by the way...it was his last day of spring break.
Tuesday morning I got Seth to school as usual and was going about my morning trying to get all my chores done before I needed to leave for my afternoon VITA shift. Frank called me from work around 9:30 to make sure I was all right because he had just heard there was an active shooter at a place near our house. I looked it up and discovered that there had indeed been a shooting nearby, with 2 people injured but the shooter was "down". Later on I read more and found out that a Navy sailor had gone to a warehouse location which is just across the river from our neighborhood where he shot two other Navy sailors. Then he got in his car and drove a few miles to Ft. Detrick, where he was stopped and when he brandished his weapon the military police on the base shot and killed him. One of the victims fled across the street to a nearby business to get help. The two victims were flown to a shock trauma hospital in Baltimore. One of them was released that evening but the other one remains in critical condition. The shooting happened around 8:20 am, which was about 15 minutes before I left the house to take Seth to school. Considering how close the shooting happened to us (about a mile away), I am surprised that I didn't hear any sirens or helicopters. We did see two police cars with lights flashing heading in that direction when we were on the way to the school, but that's it. I'm just glad no one else was hurt.
On this map, the blue pointer just to the left of the river is showing where our house is. The black pointer on the other side of the river which is almost parallel to our house pointer (a little bit north) is marking the business (Nicolock of MD) where one of the victims fled. The shooting occurred just across the main road, Monocacy Boulevard, from the Nicolock location.
I did my VITA shift as usual on Tuesday afternoon. I also did some reviewing of returns yesterday afternoon from home and today I completed an amended return from home.
Tuesday evening Seth and I both had virtual youth activities. Seth's group played "General Conference Trivia" and my group played a game which was based on a game played by the cast of Studio C. We each had an object to describe but we could choose to describe that object or to describe a different object. Then everyone else guessed whether or not we were telling the truth. I told the girls "You can tell your parents that for our YW activity we practiced how to lie". 😂 Actually, all the girls and one leader told the truth. One of the other leaders and I didn't. What does that say about us?? Normally, I would choose to tell the truth but I was one of the last ones to take a turn and everyone else had told the truth so I decided to be different! I did actually guess what everyone else was doing correctly, though!
I have not just been doing taxes for VITA this week. Yesterday I completed our Personal Property Tax return for the business and I also finished entering the info for our personal tax return. However, there is something wrong with that return...for some reason, Turbo Tax thinks we own a farm! I need to figure out what is going on with that and fix it before I can file our return.
One of my friends gave me an instapot recipe for beef and broccoli so we tried it out on Wednesday. It turned out great...looks and tastes just like the kind we get from our favorite Chinese restaurant. I am glad to be finding ways to use the instapot.
Yesterday I got a text from my bishop asking if I had time to talk that evening. Yikes! It turns out that the current YW president is getting released. One of her counselors is going to be the new YW president (the counselor I have been working with) and she has asked for me to be her new 1st Counselor. So I guess that's what I'm going to do. I love working with her and I will still be working with the same class of girls, so it should be great. I will just have more work to do--oh well!! I do really love working in YW so I am glad that isn't changing.
After our cold days at the end of last week, the weather has warmed back up quite a bit. As a matter of fact, it got warm enough that we turned the A/C back on a few days ago. I convinced Frank to leave the temperature a little higher so that it won't get quite so cold in here...at least for now. We'll probably want it cooler in the summer but for now we just needed the house cooled down a little so it won't be so hot at night. Today it is raining again and a bit cooler so the A/C has not come on at all. I didn't sleep very well this week for some reason and neither has Frank. I had a lot of nights where I woke up in the night and stayed awake for a couple of hours. Hopefully I will get out of this phase soon. I slept better last night, but for some reason I didn't wake up until 8:24 this morning!! Seth had school starting at 9:00. Thank goodness it was virtual, since he didn't have time to shower.
I've probably forgotten something, but that's all I can think of for this week. I'll finish with two photos of the backyard...one on a sunny day and one this morning when it was raining. I love having this view outside my windows!
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