Weekly Review November 18 '22

It's Friday again so I guess it's time for an update. 

Last Friday (the 11th) I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. We mostly talked about the YW sewing class...she is going to help me with that. We got a lot planned and the first "class" will be tomorrow. We're actually going on a "field trip" to the fabric store tomorrow to learn how to pick out a pattern, read a pattern envelope, and choose fabric. The girls will pick out fabric for the project they are going to make in this class, which is a simple skirt. We are actually going to use an online tutorial instead of a pattern, but I want them to know how the whole process works so they can make items using a pattern in the future if they want to do that.

Saturday turned out to be pretty busy. The youth in our stake had a service project, helping sort food at the food bank as all the Boy Scouts in the area brought in food from the annual "Scouting for Food" donation drive. Seth helped with that...Frank dropped him off and I picked him up later. He seemed to have a good time and said that seeing all that food coming in helped "restore his faith in humanity". 😆 Meanwhile, Frank did work for clients while I made some muffins (for breakfast this week), cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and worked on a bunch of stuff for the sewing class. I don't remember what else...I just know I was busy all day!

On Sunday I had choir practice before church and we sang in Sacrament Meeting that day. I think it went pretty well. Frank had meetings after church as usual and later that evening we had family night. I also got to talk to Mom on the phone for a while, which was nice.

I started having kidney stone (or whatever the problem is) symptoms again on Sunday. Pretty mild symptoms, though, thankfully. They hung on for most of the week but became even milder as the week went on so today I feel back to normal, mostly. That's causing me a little bit of anxiety--mostly because we are traveling for Thanksgiving next week--but I'm just glad whatever it is isn't causing me too many problems.

I had a YW presidency meeting on Monday which was long (as usual!) We had a lot of issues to discuss.

We had a combined YW activity on Tuesday...we made fall centerpieces. I decided to just watch and socialize rather than make one. My reasoning is that it would just be another "thing" cluttering up my house. Plus, I'm scared of glue guns now!! It was fun to see what others came up with and to visit with them while they worked. 

The YM did an obstacle course. One of the boys was messing around with a hula hoop--twirling it really fast around his arm--and it flew off his arm and hit Seth right in the eye. He had some scratches around his eye but thankfully it wasn't too bad and it is healing quickly. It was cold and raining hard before we left for the church that evening and I definitely would have liked to stay home under a blanket with a good book, but I did enjoy spending the evening with the girls!

Frank was working from home on Wednesday and I had lots to do too. Frank took his car to Costco to get new tires put on so I had to pick him up (so he could leave the car there) and then take him back to pick it up later. The pest control guy came by to spray for insects and check the attic for rodents also. We thought we could hear some scratching up there, but he didn't see any animals or any holes or anything. However, the poisoned food they left in a box up there was gone, so something ate it, we just don't know what and he doesn't know how whatever it was got in. I'm just glad he didn't find a nest of animals or something! I spent quite a bit of time working on a letter for this year's Christmas cards and also tried to order cards but I had to get photos from Tanner and Jared and I didn't get photos from them until later. That evening I went grocery shopping because I had an appointment to go to the temple on Thursday (my usual grocery shopping day). 

I did go to the temple on Thursday and enjoyed that as I always do. It was busier than usual and I saw a couple of people from my stake. One of my friends from book club was there and sat next to me. Frank forgot to take his lunch that morning so we had arranged for him to meet me at the temple afterwards (it's only a few miles from his work) so that I could give him his lunch. He ended up stuck in a meeting though so that didn't work out. It was cold and windy so I didn't walk around the temple this time, but I took a couple of pictures. (Trying to get pictures of the temple in all the different seasons...no more leaves on the trees now.) 

Today I updated the finances and I've been working on making sure we have a rides for all the girls who are going to the fabric store tomorrow. 

I haven't had a lot of time for reading this week but I have read a bit more in Silver on the Tree. I make more progress with audio books since I listen to them while I do other things. I finished the fiction series I was listening to and I started listening to a book about the Second Coming; it's really interesting! Part of the time I was listening this week I worked on a color by number that I started a long time ago and finished it up:

Tonight Frank and Seth are planning to go see Black Panther. I'd like to see it, but prefer to see movies at home with subtitles so I can tell what everyone is saying, so I will watch it later when it's available on a streaming service. 

It has become much colder this week. We've even seen a few random snowflakes / sleet come down a few days. I am loving these Sherpa lined socks that I found at the store a few weeks ago:

I will probably live in them all winter. 

I have been able to exercise most days this week. I finished watching The Princess and the Frog and now I am watching Black Widow because I've never seen it and I'm trying to get caught up on the Marvel movies again. I just have one other movie to watch after this one (besides Black Panther, of course) so I am almost caught up. 

We talked to Jared last night and got an update on his health. The GI doctor wanted him to see a proctologist, so he had an appointment with him yesterday. He examined Jared and discovered that he still has a fistula, so apparently the surgery he had in April was not successful. That means he has to have surgery again and he was able to schedule it for December 1st. The proctologist will do the surgery, not the surgeon who did the previous surgery. We're all pretty frustrated with that surgeon who just blew Jared off when he insisted that he still wasn't feeling well. Hopefully the surgery will be successful this time and that it will help alleviate a lot of his symptoms. The fistula probably does not account for all of his issues, though, such as the joint pain. His blood work has shown some elevated liver enzymes so the GI doctor wants him to get some ultrasounds done to look closely at his liver. That is scheduled for December too...I think around the 10th; I can't remember for sure. In the meantime, Jared says the back and joint pain have been really bad, especially at night when they seem to flare up more, so he hasn't been sleeping much. It's frustrating but I hope the surgery will bring him at least some relief.

I think that is all the news we have for this week so I will finish up with a couple of sunrise photos that I took a couple of mornings this week.

Weekly Review November 11 '22

Today it is raining so the view out my window is kind of gray and drab. It looks like November, but it is still warmer than usual for this time of year. It's definitely not as warm as it was last week and the morning temperatures have been cold with frost on the windows, but it has still made it up to the high 50s today and yesterday it was sunny and made it up to 70 degrees. I'm certainly not complaining about that. I don't mind the rain, either...I like a good rainy day now and then. 

We've had a pretty good week, overall. Last Saturday Frank and I went to the temple together. It was lovely to go together and it was a beautiful day too. 79 degrees! Pretty incredible for November. 

We stopped for lunch on the way home at a Mexican restaurant that we both like. It is near Marriott, where Frank used to work, and there is a nice little lake right there:

 (I had a mint in my mouth; can you see the bulge in my cheek? 😆)

After we got home we got the regular chores done. I finished the book for book club (Lab Girl) and I enjoyed it, other than bad language which was sprinkled liberally throughout the book. We watched the BYU football game and were happy that BYU won the game! It was nice to see them playing so much better than they have been lately. While we were watching, I worked on a project...going through files. We've accumulated a lot of files over the years and I haven't gone through them in a long time. I didn't make a lot of progress because I got really interested in the game, but at least it was a start. I kept working on that project this past week (mostly on Wednesday) and I finished going through all the files in one cabinet. I still have another (larger) cabinet to go. It was funny some of the things I found...like loan papers for cars that we don't even own anymore (and paid off long ago). I definitely threw a lot of things out. 

I was surprised when I arrived at church on Sunday to discover a choir practice in progress. We usually practice on the 2nd and 3rd Sundays of the month and perform on the 3rd Sunday. Apparently I didn't read my emails closely enough because this month we are singing on the 2nd Sunday instead of the 3rd, so our practices are on the 1st and 2nd Sunday this month. Since Seth has to be there early to help prepare the sacrament, I got there in time for about half of the practice. Fortunately, we are singing a song that I already learned a while back so it's okay that I missed half of the first practice. 

I remember being pretty busy on Monday. I had a few errands to run--like returning a book to the library and going to the post office--besides the usual grocery shopping, laundry, and vacuuming. I also went over the sample ballot and did some research on some of the candidates and ballot questions so that I could hopefully make some good decisions on how to vote. 

Because the schools were being used for polling locations, there was no school on Tuesday. I still woke up at the usual time though and it's just as well since I had a lot to do. Plus I got to see the lunar eclipse, so that was cool. I went to vote in the late morning. There were a decent amount of people there voting but it was a fairly quick process with no wating to sign in or to receive a ballot. There were short lines to wait in for the actual voting booths and I ended up waiting longer than most because I preferred to fill out an electronic ballot and there were only 2 booths for electronic voting. There weren't a lot of peopel waiting in the line, but for some reason the two peope that were in the process of filling out their ballots when I got in line took a LONG time to complete their ballots. It wasn't too bad though...I still got home only about 30 minutes after I left. I'm a (mostly) Republican living in a Democratic state, so most of the people I voted for did not win but I was happy that a few county positions and board of education positions were won by people I voted for. A few of the ballot questions also went the way I wanted but one big one didn't...it's now legal to use marijuana for recreational purposes in Maryland. Ugh!! 

We didn't have youth activities Tuesday evening because we don't have activities when school is out. It was kind of nice to have that evening off, for a change, but I did miss seeing all the youth. On Wednesday Frank worked from home as usual and I was busy getting a lot of stuff done because I was planning to go to the temple on Thursday, so I wanted to get a lot of the Thursday household chores done as well as the Wednesday ones. Besides that, I worked on going through files (as I mentioned already) and I also took some time to do some planning for a YW activity. We've decided to have a sewing class for any of the YW who are interested in attending and I'm in charge of that. I sat down and thought through all the things I would like to cover and tried to figure out what we should do in each class and about how many classes I think we'll need to have. That evening we got to talk to Jared for a while. He was helping Seth with a computer game issue, but Frank and I also talked to him about his health. Some of the test results from his bloodwork have come back and so far nothing big has cropped up, but he doesn't have the results for all the autoimmune stuff yet. He has been able to arrange his work hours so that he is working later in the evening which is better for him because he can't sleep at night anyway and the volume of calls during that time is lower so that's easier on him. Jessie has applied for a lot of jobs and is waiting to see which ones will call her in for interviews. They still think they may end up moving back to Maryland for a while but it depends on whether or not Jessie can find a better job and on what kind of answers they get about Jared's health. 

Yesterday I did go to the temple as planned, and it was wonderful as always. I did initiatories which moves pretty quickly...I always feel like I'm done so soon that I'm not ready to leave the temple yet! It was a lovely sunny day so I did take the time to walk all around the temple and took a few pictures before I headed back home. 

It was a busy day because I also had a VITA online training course (via Zoom) and a RS activity that evening. In between the temple and those events, I got the rest of the Thursday household tasks done and got dinner made. The VITA training went over changes in the tax code for this year, so that was pretty helpful information. For the RS activity we made Christmas gnomes. I didn't particularly want a Christmas gnome (we already have plenty of Christmas decorations) so I thought about just going to socialize but when I mentioned that to Seth he said that HE would like to have a gnome, so I made one for him. It was pretty easy and kind of fun, but I had bad luck with my glue gun and burned myself several times; two of my fingers even have blisters on them!! Here's a photo that one of my friends took:

Here's a photo of my gnome:

And here are my two blistered fingers:

In spite of the burned fingers, I did enjoy the evening. I got to visit with friends and they had a chocolate fountain with lots of yummy fruit to dip.

Today I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. She does a lot of sewing, so I talked over my plans for the sewing class with her. She is going to attend the class to help me with it too. I just got back from picking Seth up from school...he usually walks home but I was nice & picked him up today since it's raining. 

Frank had a fairly slow week at work I think but he did have quite a bit of work to do for his business in the evenings. He wanted to start exercising this week but his left foot has been hurting all week. He's not sure why, but he remembers slipping on the stairs one day late last week so he thinks he injured it then. I ended up not exercising much last week because of the kidney stone issues, plus my left foot started bothering me a bit again too. This week I tried to get back into exercising but since my foot was still hurting slightly I did shorter jogging sessions on the days I exercised. I've been watching the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog while I jog, which--believe it or not--I have never seen. 

I have continued to do a lot of reading, mostly by listening to audio books while I do other tasks. I finished the book Women and the Priesthood by Sheri Dew, and it was excellent. I've been listening to a fiction series too and I'm almost done with it now, so I will need to find something new to listen to soon. I haven't had much time to sit down to read from a regular book, but I did start reading Silver on the Tree, which is the last book in the Dark Is Rising series. I've read about 70 pages and like it so far. 

I've been reading all the talks from last General Conference and this week I read two talks that both helped answer a question that I've been praying about. Someone who shared their testimony on Sunday also said something that helped answer my question. (Not really a doctrinal question, just something I've been wanting to improve in my life, but not sure how to do it...now I have something to start with.) It's always really great when things like that happen. 😊

Seth brought home a letter from school yesterday that states that he will be getting an academic pin because his overall grade point average for last school year was 3.5 or over. There will be a little ceremony for that the Monday after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure yet if we'll actually go to the ceremony (he will get the pin regardless) but we are glad that he did so well last year. And in spite of the struggles he's been having with his Algebra class, he still did well enough to be on the honor roll last term so we are happy about that too. He seems to be really enjoying his computer class. Frank and he have worked together on a few small computer projects at home and he has done well with those. It is good to see him developing a new skill. 

I believe that is all the news I have to report this week.

Weekly Review November 4 '22

When I left off last week, I wasn't feeling great so I guess I will start with that. When I woke up on Saturday I felt quite a bit better. The pain I had been feeling for days was gone and I just felt slight sensitivity. I was thinking that must mean I really did have a UTI and the antibiotic was working, but then I got a message from the doctor I saw on Thursday saying that my culture had come back negative...no infection of any kind. What??? Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to her or I would have asked about the kidney stone possibility. She did say in the message that I should schedule a follow up appointment, so I planned to do that but had to wait until Monday. After talking to Frank and also to Jared who recently had a kidney stone, I was pretty sure that I had a kidney stone and that I either passed it or it had moved into a spot where it wasn't currently bothering me, but would resurface eventually. (The latter possibility was not pleasant to contemplate!) By Sunday I felt almost completely normal again. I still called the doctor Monday morning though. The doctor I saw the previous Thursday wasn't in the office that day, but I saw my regular doctor instead. He also thought I might have a kidney stone, so he sent me to get a CT scan. They couldn't get me in that day, though, so I had to wait until Tuesday. The scan came back showing nothing...everything was clear and no abnormalities at all. So who knows...my best guess is that I had a really small stone and that I passed it Saturday morning. Definitely something was going on! If that's really what happened, then I am super lucky that I had such comparatively mild symptoms. Hopefully it won't happen again. 

While I'm talking about health issues, I will give you an update on Jared. He went to a GI specialist, and that appointment went pretty well. The doctor spent a lot of time talking to him and getting his complete history, and she took a lot of notes. She looked over some bloodwork he had done recently and noticed that one of his liver enzymes was pretty high. That could have been caused by the antibiotic he was on at the time so she drew blood again so he can be tested now that he is not on any antibiotics. If the enzyme is still high, then that would point to an autoimmune disorder that affects the GI tract. She also is not willing to rule out the possibility of Crohn's disease (which is an autoimmune disorder) even though he was previously tested for that and they determined that he doesn't have it. I'm glad she's willing to consider that possibility, because the more I have read about GI issues, autoimmune disorders, and Crohn's disease, the more it sounds to me like that's what he has. He has nearly all of the typical symptoms and a couple of the symptoms for a severe case (which includes inflammation of the joints and kidney stones). They are waiting for the blood test results and then they will go from there. Please continue to pray for him, and for the doctors that are trying to figure out what's wrong. If you are able to fast this Sunday, we'd appreciate it if you would include Jared in your fasting and prayers.

Okay, on to the other things we did this week. I had an appointment to get my hair cut on Saturday morning and because of the issues I was having I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but when I started feeling better on Saturday morning I decided to go and I was fine. Frank and Seth got haircuts that morning also. My friend who cuts my hair is in our ward and a few weeks ago she taught a class on how to make a macrame plant hanger. I wasn't able to finish mine the evening of the class, so she told me to bring it with me to my hair cut and I could work on it (with her help) while my hair color was processing. I did that, and got a lot more done. Later that evening I finished the step I was working on so now I need to have her show me how to do the next step. After Frank and Seth got their haircuts (also while my hair color was processing), they took a bunch of medicine to a drug disposal drop off event. I was happy to finally dispose of several old prescription medications we've had sitting around, including two boxes of injectable blood thinners left over from when I was pregnant with Seth. I knew I couldn't just throw things like that in the trash! After my haircut, I got the regular chores done, but otherwise I decided to lay kind of low. Our ward had a Trunk or Treat that evening and Seth and Frank went to that (they helped set up, so they went early) but I stayed home. 

On Sunday the advisor for my class taught all of the youth a 5th Sunday lesson on how to teach. We had previously assigned each youth a class or quorum lesson to teach in the next couple of months, so she had them actually work on preparing their lessons during this class. She did an excellent job and I think it will really help the youth prepare more effective lessons. Frank didn't have Ward Council that day so he got to come home shortly after our regular meetings, which was nice. We found out that the sisters didn't have a dinner appointment and it was the birthday of one of them, so we invited them to come over for dinner. We had a nice time with them and they gave us a good lesson too. 

Monday and Tuesday were both pretty busy for me with the regular household tasks and my doctor visits. Seth also had an orthodontist appointment on Monday after school. Frank got permission to work from home on Monday and Tuesday (and he always works from home on Wednesdays now) just in case I had any more issues and needed his help. It was really nice to have him nearby all those days! Monday was cool and wet...it rained off and on a lot of the day. Because of that, we weren't expecting to get many trick or treaters (especially because we don't get many even when the weather is nice) but we did get more than we thought we would. We counted, and we had 40 kids come by. That is more than the last 2 years put together, but as I said...not very many still. I'm glad that I really scaled back this year and only bought one large bag of candy for the trunk or treat and one large bag for Halloween night. We still had about 30 pieces of candy left at the end of the night, but that's not too bad. Between Seth and his friend who walks home from school with him, they took care of most of them. Frank and I only ate a couple of pieces each.

After a rainy Monday, the rest of the week has been mostly sunny and most days the temperature has gotten up to about 70, which has been really nice. As I move about the house doing my normal tasks, my eyes are constantly drawn to the beautiful views out all of the windows. It's just a kaleidoscope of gorgeous colors out there!!

On Tuesday evening, all the YM went to a golf driving range for their activity. Both Frank and Seth said they had a really good time. The YW had class activities. My class did a drawing activity where we learned to draw animals (using a helpful book!) Only one girl in my class was able to come, though. We gave her the option to join with the younger class for their activity instead, but she chose to do our planned activity and we had a good time. 

I had a YW presidency meeting on Wednesday...those are always pretty long! That evening one of my ministering sisters came to visit me. Yesterday I was busy with the usual household tasks and some YW stuff. Frank ended up doing some work for a client after dinner that lasted until 1:30 am this morning (he was onsite until about 9:00 and then worked remotely until 1:30). He took a few minutes off last night so he and I could go over the open enrollment information for next year's health benefits and make our selections. 

I've continued to do a lot of reading this week. I finished The Grey King on Sunday which means I can check off "read all the Newbery Award winners" on my bucket list! There are 101 of those books to date (started being awarded in 1922), so that was quite a big task. Now I just have to keep up by reading the new winner each year. On Monday I was able to pick up the next book chat book, Lab Girl, from the library so I've been reading that this week. I'm about halfway through and I am really enjoying it. It's very fascinating...I'm learning a lot about plants (the author is a paleobiologist) and somehow she manages to take little bits of information about plants and then relate that to events in her life. Many of the events in her life are bizarre or downright hilarious. I keep laughing out loud. It's hard to believe that it is autobiographical, not fiction. I have also been listening to an audio book by Sheri Dew called Women and the Priesthood which is really good too. I convinced Seth to start reading the Chronicles of Prydain and even though he is making a slow start, he seems to be starting to enjoy the first book (The Book of Three). I'm glad that he is trying out something new! After I finish the book club book, I'm planning to read Silver on the Tree, which is the last book in the Dark Is Rising series. (The Grey King is the 4th book in that series.) I've enjoyed the series overall, but it is not my favorite children's fantasy series.

That's all I can think of to tell you about us this week, so I will finish up with a few autumn photos I took this week: