After last week's marathon post, I don't think I have a ton to write about this week. We kept fairly busy, though.
One thing that has been great about this week is that the weather has been really nice. Sunny, highs in the low 80s, low humidity, and breezy...perfect!! This is so unusual for August. It's usually miserably hot and humid, so we are feeling really fortunate! Today is going to be warmer, though.
I left off last Thursday evening, and I don't actually remember anything important about Friday. I was fairly busy over the weekend, though. I worked on a few small projects like going through all my clothes and moving some books to another location. I used a gift card Mom gave me for my birthday to get a few more Newbery winner books, and now I have all of them except for two. (And one of those is out of print and super expensive. It's also considered very politically incorrect now, so I doubt it will ever be back in print. I may never get a copy of that one.) Anyway, I was running out of room in the shelf where I had all of the Newberys, so I moved them to another bookshelf.
New books:
I've read most of the books now, too. I think I have about 7 left to read.
Frank and I also did some shopping at WalMart and Costco over the weekend; mostly getting food / food storage, but we needed a few other things too. On Saturday I helped with the set up for a funeral luncheon for a family in our ward.
On Sunday we took dinner to the Elders. Seth loves meatload and had asked me to make that, but we knew he wouldn't be able to eat a whole meatloaf by himself, so we thought feeding the Elders would be a good way to use the rest of it. Besides the regular chuch meetings, I also had a class presidency meeting, which we had to do on Zoom because the YW president was sick. She and her family have been sick all week but are finally starting to feel better the last day or two which is good since we have a temple trip with the YW tomorrow.
On Monday I convinced Seth to go to the library with me. The library is in the downtown historic district and he has been wanting to go to a pop shop that is nearby (one of the stops on the scavenger hunt we did for a field trip) so I agreed to take him there if he would go to the library too. We found a few books that he is really interested in, plus a few on US History because he's been complaining that he hasn't learned much about US history. So far he hasn't read those books though! I also made some cookies for the upcoming YW activity. Frank did another overnight on Monday night; he got home a little earlier than usual which was nice. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well that night at all.
That meant that Tuesday didn't go at all as planned. Seth had freshman orientation at his new high school at 8:00 am and before that we had to make a stop at a neighbor's house to let their cats in because they are out of town. I had Seth set an alarm to make sure we got up in time (I didn't want to set one myself because I didn't want to wake Frank up when he had been asleep for only a few hours). Well, Seth did get up but he decided to eat first and he turned on the television to watch something while he was eating and he got distracted! So he didn't wake me up. I woke up on my own abour 7:20 and was not happy that we had to be somewhere in less than an hour. Since we had to do the cats first, we only had time to get dressed and I ate a donut on my way out the door (we got some for family night treat the night before). The orientation went okay and I think it was helpful for Seth to get a look around the school and learn a bit about the routine and such. I thought it went way too long though...it was supposed to last until 10:00, but it went until nearly 10:30. We finally got home and I got some cleaning done and took a shower and then I had to go to the store and to our storage unit to get some things for the YW activity that night. In between I also had to plan the meals for the next week. So it was a crazy busy day.
For the YW activity we celebrated Christmas in August (originally it was going to be in July, but we had to move the activity back a few weeks). We only had a small group since the YW president was sick (she has 2 YW daughters) and a lot of families are out of town, but it was really a lot of fun! We had a gift exchange, decorated "gingerbread" men (they were actually sugar cookies), and had frozen hot chocolate. We decorated the cookies wearing summer clothes like shorts, swimsuits, and sunglasses. The girls got really creative and we ended up making a beach scene with several of the cookies which included a beach ball, a beach umbrella, two sunburned people, a drowning man, a life guard, a mermaid, a hula guy, a grumpy old man, an alien, a patriotic dude, and even a man whose leg got bit off by a shark! (Inspired by a cookie whose foot broke off.) It was pretty funny. I brought a few simple Christmas decorations and one of the girls brought a Christmas song playlist that we played all evening. It really did sort of feel like Christmas; it was really nice!!
Girls enjoying frozen hot chocolate (we shared with the YM too).
On the way home from the activity, Seth and I stopped at the neighbors to let the cats back outside.
Wednesday was a quieter day but that was good because both Frank and I were asked to give talks in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, so I had some time on Wednesday to start working on my talk. Mostly I read a bunch of conference talks and such, and I came up with an outline of what I want to cover. Our topic is "Blessings of Councils" which is kind of an unusual topic but I've been enjoying learning more about councils. We went out in the evening for a little while to put gas in my car & wash it, plus return items to the storage unit. We got a treat at Rita's so Seth was happy he came with us.
Yesterday we let the cats in and out again. I kept busy with shopping, laundry, and vacuuming, plus I worked on my talk a bit more. Frank and I went on a walk, too.
Today has not been eventful so far...I updated the finances and now I've been writing this post. I need to go make myself some lunch now. Frank isn't eating lunch at home today because they are having an associate appreciation day at work and they are feeding him lunch. I guess it won't kill him to eat unhealthy stuff sometimes!! The meal planning is still stressing me out a bit but I do feel like we are adapting to all the cooking and measuring portions and stuff. And the food this week has continued to be quite good. Here are a few examples:
Chicken with sweet potatoes, asparagus, and zucchini.
I've actually been surprised how much I have liked all the vegetables we've been eating and it hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be to come up with different ways to season the meat. (Most recipes say "cook {or grill} chicken {or salmon or shrimp} to your liking".) Next week we are trying a mexican menu. I'm looking forward to that; it sounds really good!
That brings you up to date on us!
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