When I left off last week, I was mentioning that my shoulder, neck and arm were hurting, and that I hoped the pain would go away soon. It did, so I'm grateful for that. I don't know what was wrong, but I'm glad I feel better.
This week has been pretty busy too. It seems like there is some sort of event every day. Last Saturday we had the "last" sewing class as planned. Four more girls finished their skirts, which means there are still five girls who need to finish. For most of the class, I worked with one girl who had missed the previous two classes so all she had done up to that point is cut out her pieces. With me helping her for most of the time, she got close to finishing. All she has left is to sew down the casing and insert the elastic. Since my friend Rebekah--who has been helping a lot with the class--and I both have time tomorrow, we decided to have another class tomorrow for the girls who haven't finished. We checked with their moms and they were available too. I think we'll be able to help at least three of the girls finish tomorrow. That will leave two girls to finish, but one of them is Rebekah's daughter so she can help her finish at home. (She has missed a few classes and hasn't been very focused at the ones she has been to.) The last girl has not come to any of the classes...not even the one where they picked out fabric. But since she was planning to come, we picked out some fabric for her. So I would like to help her make a skirt with the fabric but I'm not sure yet how I'll do that. I will have to talk to her and her mom to see what we can figure out. At this point, I don't really want her to come to the class tomorrow because she is so far behind everyone else it would be difficult to help her and the other girls simultaneously. Anyway, I am pleased that so many of the girls have completed their skirts or are close to completing them. I could tell that they have each been happy and felt a sense of accomplishment as they have finished. It has been a lot of fun for me too! I'm kind of surprised, but I have truly enjoyed the process. The girls are planning to wait until everyone is done and then all wear their skirts to church together. I am looking forward to getting some photos of them in their new skirts.
After the sewing class, Frank and I went out to dinner with our friends the Whipples. They are another couple in our ward. Brother Whipple's birthday is the day after Frank's and they are good friends so we like to celebrate their birthdays together. We have taken them out to dinner the last couple of years so this year they insisted on taking us to dinner. We had a yummy dinner and enjoyed visiting. We're planning to go out together again in April because we discovered that our anniversaries are only one day apart too! We gave Frank some cards that morning and Jared stopped by while I was gone to the sewing class to give him a card and two new ties. I didn't get him any presents because he was thinking about signing up for a scuba certification course as his gift, and that's pretty expensive so it would have been his only gift. He finally decided the day before his birthday that he wasn't going to do that, so I felt kind of bad that I didn't have presents for him, but he is going to pick out a few things of his own. (And I did keep reminding him that he needed to make up his mind so not really my fault! 😉) I guess I did get him one small thing...I surprised him by getting him a carton of Ben & Jerry's phish food ice cream because I know he really likes that. It was funny because I had to hide it under some other things in the freezer so he wouldn't find it. Frank also received a card from all the Primary leaders & workers, which I thought was really nice. Here's a photo of the cake that Frank made last week:
I think that's pretty good considering he only had one short class. (I wouldn't have been able to do so well!) It tasted pretty good too!
Sunday was pretty busy. We had Ward Conference and Frank had several meetings before church. The meetings with the stake were really good. Our bishop gave a great talk based on the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". After church I had a meeting with my new class presidency, but first they all had to go get set apart so I had to wait a while. We had a pretty good meeting...managed to plan the activity we were in charge of on Tuesday and also decided who will be teaching on Sunday and when we will have our next meeting. We decided we're going to try meeting before church instead of after church, on the Sundays when there isn't choir practice. (We only have 2 choir practices per month, normally.) Frank had another meeting later that afternoon...it was for the Primary children who are turning 8 and getting baptized this year. He had to speak at that.
Monday was MLK Day so Frank was off work and Seth didn't have school. I had the usual things like grocery shopping and laundry to do. That evening, I went with Frank so he could give a blessing to a sister in our ward who was about to have surgery. She is one of the sisters I minister to, so that's why I went with him. Her dad did the anointing and Frank gave the blessing. It was nice to meet her parents (who live in another ward) and her husband and children. (None of them actively attend church.) We enjoyed visiting with all of them for a while; they are a super nice family. There was a really sweet spirit there.
We had youth activities as usual on Tuesday evening. The YM played four square and had donuts...this was to celebrate Frank's birthday so he got to choose the activity and treat. Frank was hurting afterwards--I guess the game got kind of intense!--but he had fun too and he felt better after a good night's sleep. The YW played a couple of versions of the game Charades, and ate snacks. That's the best we could come up with since we had so little time to plan; hopefully we'll come up with some more meaningful activities in the future. 😄 All the girls had assignments to bring either part of the snack or something for the games, and they all remembered to do their assignments without any reminders, so I was impressed with and happy about that. I think everyone had a fun time, too, and a couple of the girls brought friends.
On Wednesday I was supposed to have a YW presidency meeting but we had to postpone it because the YW president wasn't feeling well. She had a bad migraine for a coupld of days but is feeling better now. Frank worked from home and he took some time off at lunch time to run a few errands with me. I picked up a book for Seth at the library and then he filled his car with gas and took it through the car wash because he parked under a tree a few days before and a bunch of birds pooped all over it! Jared came over for dinner that evening. Jessie didn't come because she wasn't feeling really well. (I think she is better now too.) My ministering sister came to visit me that evening and I enjoyed her visit, as usual.
Yesterday I went to the temple to do an endowment session. The temple was busy...the session I was in was nearly full. It's nice to see the temple so busy! I think I was the last person to arrive at the session and I snagged the last empty seat on the women's side, which was in the back row so I had a pretty long wait at the end of the session. That's okay though...I enjoy having quiet time in the temple.
It was cloudy yesterday and rained quite a bit. Overall, temperatures have been quite mild for January...highs in the low 50s...but I hear it's going to get colder soon.
Last night I had an online volunteer orientation meeting for VITA. The new program manager does not seem to be very organized, but hopefully he'll get the hang of it. The tax season starts in just a couple of weeks. I don't know yet exactly when I will be volunteering but it will likely be on Wednesdays. That's the day I said I was available, but they haven't made a schedule yet. The meeting was pretty good though and I did get some helpful information. I spent some time this week going over some training for Maryland state taxes. I should still do some more reviewing for Federal taxes too, but mostly I feel fairly prepared.
Today I have been busy updating the finances, my usual Friday activity. Seth will be getting home from school soon. He hasn't had to walk home yet this week...I picked him up yesterday because it was raining and the other two days he got rides with the family we used to carpool with to the charter school. Those boys have been homeschooled the last several years, but the two younger ones just started attending TJ at the beginning of the semester (last week). Seth was talking with them after school when their parents came to pick them up so they offered Seth a ride too. Yesterday, since I was planning to pick Seth up I texted their mom and asked if she would like me to pick up her boys (trying to return the favor!) and she accepted for one her boys--the other one was staying after school for batting practice. Meanwhile, I haven't seen Seth's friend Courage this week (the boy who usually walks home with him and stays here until his brother or dad picks him up). His older brother's schedule changed for the semester and now he is at TJ for the last half of the day (he was at the local community college taking a course last semester) so they have been leaving the school together and going other places before they pick up their younger sisters from their school. I'm not sure if he will be coming here anymore, but if he does he and his brother both will probably come here to hang out until it's time to pick up their sisters.
Seth has been reading the Chronicles of Prydain and he is in the 4th book (out of five). He has also been reading another series that Frank has called Monster Hunters International. He finished the last book that Frank owns, but there are more, so that's why I was picking up a book from the library for Seth. Meanwhile, I have been reading Grandma Gatewood's Walk for book club and it's pretty good. I really enjoy it when I'm reading it but it's not super compelling so I don't pick it up all that often which means I'm working my way through it pretty slowly. I should finish it in plenty of time, though. I have the assignment to bring the books to choose from next time, so I've been trying to figure out what books I'm going to bring. I might bring some of the recent Newbery winners or I might go with classic adventure tales like Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I haven't decided yet.
I can't think of anything else that happened this week so I guess that's all I have to say!
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