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:
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.
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