Weekly Review February 24 '23

 We had quite a bit going on this week, but I'll try not to get too detailed so this post will be a reasonable length. 

When I wrote last week, Frank had been having some possible kidney stone symptoms. He had pain in his back and he also felt really nauseated. On Saturday morning we were assigned to help clean the church and he was able to do that with us, although he couldn't do a lot. After we got home he still wasn't feeling very well so he decided to go online to see if he could get a virtual visit with our doctor. (We did confirm that their phone system was completely down last week, which is why Frank couldn't get through when he tried to call last Thursday). Frank was able to get an appointment, and after talking to him about his symptoms they said he should probably come in to their after hours clinic to be seen in person. So we headed to the doctor. The doctor said it did sound like a kidney stone but to know for sure he would need to get a CT scan. She could order a scan for him, but he wouldn't be able to get in until Monday at the earliest. She suggested that he go to the ER instead so he could get a CT scan that day. Or he could wait...but that wasn't a very attractive option. Going to the ER wasn't a very attractive option either but we decided it was the lesser of two evils so we headed over to the hospital and spent a few hours there. (We left home shortly before noon and returned home around 4:30). The CT scan came back clear...no kidney stone. There was no sign of infection or anything else either. This seems to happen to Frank a lot...he feels terrible but testing reveals no reasons for that! It's frustrating, although of course we're always glad when they don't find something really bad. There always is something wrong, though...we just don't always find out what it was. (When he had appendicitis, for example--the scan they took then showed a normal appendix! But when his symptoms kept persisting, our doctor sent him to the ER and the surgeon decided to take out his appendix anyway and when he woke up from that operation he felt so much better! Clearly, his appendix was the problem even though it didn't look bad.) The ER doctor gave us a couple of possible reasons for his back pain / nausea and encouraged him to follow up with our primary care doctor and a urologist on Monday.

Frank continued to feel bad all through Sunday and at one point when he went to the bathroom he felt a lot of burning pain. After that his symptoms started to subside and he has mostly felt okay since then and seems to be completely back to normal now. We suspect that he did actually pass a kidney stone, even though it didn't show up on the scan. Who knows? I still want him to check in with our primary care doctor to find out when they last checked his kidney function, but we are both glad that he is feeling better.

Meanwhile, last weekend was our stake conference. We both missed the leadership session on Saturday afternoon since it started before we got back from the ER. (Plus we needed to eat when we got home since we hadn't even had lunch yet.) I was able to attend the adult session that evening, though. Frank wasn't feeling well enough to go, of course. On Sunday I attended the general session at the stake center because I was singing in the choir. Frank and Seth were able to watch it from home since they had a live stream available for people who couldn't attend in person (not widely advertised, but Frank knew about it since he's in the bishopric). Both of the meetings I attended were really good. We had a visiting area authority named Elder Carter from Montreal, Canada and he was a really good speaker--sometimes humorous but also said some really great, inspiring things. After the general session on Sunday I saw Jared & Jessie and got to speak with them briefly. It's fun having them in the same stake with us! 

I talked to Scott on the phone for quite a while on Sunday. On Saturday evening he and Lexy had a big falling out and he was not even sure if they would be friends anymore. He wasn't happy about that, of course, but overall he's been handling things with a lot of maturity and faith--I'm really proud of him for that!! I've talked to him a couple of times since Sunday and he is still doing okay. He has had some great support from his bishop and from some friends there as well as from family members like my mom. We're very grateful for that! He is going to come visit us late next week (arriving very early Saturday morning) for about a week. He's definitely had a lot to cope with lately, but overall I feel like these difficult experiences are going to help him get to a place that will be really good for him and that there are blessings in store for him. 

Monday was President's Day so Seth didn't have school. Frank didn't have the day off because they get a day off in December instead of President's Day. (This enables everyone to have the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off without using any vacation days.) It was a pretty regular Monday except that Seth had an orthodontist appointment which I completely forgot about until 10 minutes before it was supposed to start. (I was remembering it on Sunday night...) We live 30 minutes away from the orthodontist's office so I called them immediately to see if we could come in late or if I needed to reschedule. After looking at some other options, they told me to just get there as soon as we could so we raced over there and arrived about 15 minutes late. I'm glad we didn't have to reschedule since it's easier to go on days that he has off from school. The orthodontist said his teeth look really good so hopefully he won't have braces too much longer. (I know I've said that before but now that he has brackets on his 12 year molars, he really should be getting close to being done.)

My friend Sherrie and I went to visit our friend Barbra on Tuesday...she is in a nursing home getting therapy for her legs. We had a good visit with Barbra and I enjoyed talking to Sherrie too. That evening we had youth activities as usual. The YM rode bikes in the parking lot. I was surprised to find out that two of the other YM (besides Seth) have not learned to ride a bike yet! (There are only 7 YM in all.) They were helping these YM learn to ride and it was good practice for Seth who hasn't been able to ride since last summer and he was barely getting the hang of it then. He became confident enough by the end of the activity to ride the bike that he was borrowing from the bishop's family back to the bishop's house (which is in the same neighborhood as the church). That's the first time he has ridden a bike on roads or sidewalks, so that is an encouraging step in the right direction for him. 

Meanwhile, the YW had an activity to show love to each other and others. First we all cut out large heart shapes from cardstock which we then hung behind our backs and we all went around writing on each person's heart what we love about them. We also signed cards for six or seven members of our ward who are either sick, recovering from surgery, recently lost a loved one, or who just need encouragement. Then we finsihed up by making things out of clay to give away. I took a few photos during that portion of the activity:

It was a pretty fun evening. 

On Wednesday I did my VITA shift as usual. We were busy again but thankfully there was a brief lull around noon so I got to eat my lunch at least! One of the volunteers wasn't able to come in at the last minute so we were short handed all morning and for most of it the program director and I were the only ones there. There were more than 2 taxpayers scheduled for each hour but thank goodness a number of them either no-showed or didn't bring all the necessary documents with them so we didn't have to prepare as many tax returns as we had anticipated. I honestly have no idea how we would have managed if everyone had arrived as scheduled with all their documents. We would have gotten way behind and we would have had a lot of unhappy tax payers waiting for a long time. The last lady that I helped said she was recovering from a concussion and she was really relieved when I told her I would read all the forms to her and help her fill them out, since I knew she wasn't supposed to be reading. 

Jared & Jessie came over for dinner Wednesday evening and as always we enjoyed visiting with them. Frank and Seth had a ministering visit so they left for a while to go to that but after they came back we played a game of Apples to Apples. I failed miserably (my card never got chosen) but Seth and Jared both did great and Seth won in the end. 

Yesterday I kept busy with all the usual work during the day. I was trying to get everything done by early afternoon because Frank and I were scheduled to go to the temple that evening. Our appointment was at 5:00 so I needed to leave by 3:15. (Frank came straight from his office after work and met me there.) I picked Seth up from school because I wanted him to have as much time as possible to work on homework before I needed to leave. He enjoyed having an evening to watch television and play games while we were gone (usually he's not allowed to do either of those things on school nights). Thankfully the traffic going to the temple wasn't bad except for the few miles that I had to be on the beltway. The beltway was really backed up but that's to be expected for that time of day so I had anticipated that and I still got to the temple in plenty of time. As a matter of fact, I got there before Frank did. As you know, we've had a very mild winter here and yesterday was the warmest day we've had yet, with temperatures getting up into the high 70s! I was able to sit on a bench in front of the temple and enjoy the beautiful weather and the beautiful view of the temple. It was awesome!

When we got inside the temple and headed up the stairs, the sun was shining through the stained glass windows and they were glowing like jewels...so beautiful!! When I went to the temple last week it was swamped with people but our session yesterday was suprisingly small, with only about 18 patorns. I guess 5:00 pm on a weekday is not an ideal time for a lot of people. (It wasn't really ideal for us, either, but we wanted to do it so we made it work.) This was the first time either of us was able to attend an endowment session since the changes were made and we really liked it. Very beautiful, and I think for people who are new to the temple it's going to be a lot easier to understand. 

When we finished, we had to get a few more photos with the stained glass from the outside, with the lights from the inside of the temple shining through:

(Not a great photo of us...it was too dark!) When the temple was getting renovated, they removed every piece of glass in the stained glass windows and cleaned each one. You can't tell unless you are looking at them really close up from the inside, but the stained glass windows are made up of thousands of small shards of glass. (Even each section that looks like one color is actually made up of many smaller pieces.) It must have taken forever to take them all apart, clean them, and put them back together, but as someone who has been going to this temple for more than two decades, I can really tell the difference. The windows were beautiful before, but they are breathtaking now!

Because we drove to the temple separately, we couldn't ride home together but Frank called me on my phone, which was connected to my car's audio system, so that we could talk to each other all the way home.😀 When we got back to Frederick, we stopped to grab some food because neither of us had eaten dinner yet and it was after 8:00 pm. I was so tired by the time we got to bed, but I'm really grateful we got to go to the temple together. 

Today is not nearly as warm as yesterday but considering it's still February, temperatures in the 50s are pretty great. I've been keeping busy today updating the finances, as I usually do on Fridays. I can't think of anything else to share and it is well past lunch time so I will finish up with a few sunrise photos (from Wednesday) and go eat some lunch.

Weekly Review February 17 '23

 We had another fairly busy week. Last Friday evening, Frank and I went to a store looking for cushions to put on our kitchen chairs. We had a coupon for that store which expired that day and Frank has been wanting to get cushions for the kitchen chairs, so we decided to see if that store had some. They did, so we got some. 

Saturday the 11th was really busy. I had another stake choir practice that morning although this time it was at the stake center which is a lot closer to our house. After the practice, I went to the grocery store to pick up some sandwiches I had ordered for a youth meeting being held on Sunday. Then I came home long enough to eat some lunch before going to get a haircut. Meanwhile, Frank was busy doing some work for a client. After I got home, he went to the store to get a part for one of our toilets and then he replaced the part. That toilet has had something wrong with it for a while and when we got our most recent water bill it was $100 more than usual, so we decided we'd better try to fix it. Hopefully that will solve the water problem too. I was busy for the rest of the day with usual Saturday chores, plus I filled out a survey for a study that Frank and I are participating in for a research team at the University of Maryland. The survey was supposed to take 60 to 90 minutes, but it took closer to 3 hours! (When Frank filled out his survey it took over 2 hours for him to do it too.) 

Seth spent the entire afternoon and evening working on school work. He had fallen behind in a couple of his classes and had a lot of catch up work to do. He did stay focused, got a lot a done, and didn't even complain about it, so that was nice. I just hope next time he doesn't get behind in his classes. We took Seth out to dinner that night and let him pick where we went...he chose Outback Steakhouse. 

On Sunday we had our usual 2 hour meeting block (plus Frank had bishopric meeting and ward council before that) and then afterwards we had a meeting for all the youth. Our stake usually does a stake Youth Standards Fireside, but this year they asked the wards to have a standards night instead. This was our standards "night" (it was actually at lunch time). Since it was lunch time, we served a meal and everyone ate while we had the meeting. We had previously asked the youth to write down standards-related questions they have. For the meeting, 5 questions had been chosen and a youth had been assigned to answer each of the questions. They did a good job. Then we had some time that was open for youth to ask any questions they would like to ask for the adults to answer. After that, we played a game using the rest of the questions the youth had submitted...they were questions geared more toward what boys want to ask girls and vice versa. For this game, a question was posed and then the girls had to write down what they thought the boys would answer and the boys had to write down what they thought the girls would answer (kind of Newlywed Game style). I think the youth had a lot of fun with that. 

Jared came over to do laundry and have dinner with us on Monday. (Jessie was skiing with a friend so she didn't come.) They had plans for Wednesday evening so that's why they didn't come that day, as they usually do. They are both feeling better now. Jared was able to return to work on Thursday (he doesn't work Mondays or Wednesdays and they asked him to give it a little more time before coming in so he didn't work on Tuesday this week). Jared stayed after dinner and joined us for family night activity and treat, which was fun. 

Tuesday was Valentine's Day; we don't usually make a big deal of that and this year was no different. We gave Seth a card and some candy and Frank and I gave each other cards. Frank also got me some roses. They are beautiful and I've been enjoying them all week.

We didn't have youth activities on Tuesday evening this week...the meeting we had on Sunday was our youth activity for this week. It was nice to have that evening free but I missed seeing the girls. Jared stopped by for a few hours on Tuesday afternoon...he had dropped Jessie off at class and did a little bit of shopping but it wasn't time to pick her up yet so he came over to hang out with me. The sink in our bathroom has been clogging up so he took the pipe apart and unclogged it for me. Unfortunately, he did something wrong so now the pipe is leaking. Frank tried to fix it that evening but it's still leaking a little and he hasn't had time to work on it since then. In the meantime, we have a bucket under the sink to catch the water. It's not a lot of water...just a small leak. Hopefully Frank will have a chance to look at it again soon.

I worked at VITA on Wednesday. It was really busy and I didn't even have time to eat lunch. I met a few new people...volunteers that I didn't work with last year. (Or last week either.) I completed quite a few tax returns but one taxpayer didn't like the end result...she didn't think she was getting a big enough refund, and thought I must have made a mistake somewhere. I tried to explain to her that the tax laws changed and many people are getting a smaller refund this year, mainly because of changes to the child tax credit, but she didn't understand. I felt frustrated that I wasn't able to explain to her better. I finally told her she was welcome to take a copy of her return and get it checked by someone else before getting it filed, and she decided to do that. It's too bad because she'll probably have to pay someone else to check it, only to find out that it was right all along. Oh well, I tried! Seth got out of school 2 hours early that day because it was midterm. On Wednesday evening Frank and I had a Zoom session for the study that we are in. We had to fill out some more (shorter) surveys and we also had a couple of recorded conversations. I have no idea what they are really trying to figure out from this study! We have to fill out surveys every evening for the next 2 weeks...much shorter than the first one, thankfully! 

Yesterday Frank came home from work early because he wasn't feeling well...he's having possible kidney stone symptoms. He seemed to be in quite a bit of pain yesterday but thankfully it hasn't turned into anything really bad (and he seems to be a bit better today than yesterday). He tried calling our doctor yesterday but there must be something wrong with their phone system because he was on hold for over 2 hours and never got through. That was frustrating!! Today he worked from home. Hopefully he will feel a lot better soon.

This morning we took cereal and juice in to Seminary...they have breakfast every Friday and ask families to provide cereal and juice. Most of the cereal got eaten but there was a lot of juice left over. I went to the temple this morning. The DC temple was closed for the last 2 weeks for maintenance but opened again on Tuesday. I'm glad I made appointments weeks ago (before it closed) to go today to do initiatories and next week to do an endowment session, since it is super busy right now. It was raining a lot today but miraculously the traffic wasn't bad. I really enjoyed being in the temple again! 

I talked to Scott a couple of times this week. After a lot of thought and prayer he decided to quit his job, which he did on Monday. He could use continued prayers because he is struggling with some depression and he's also just trying to figure out what direction his life needs to take. He has been applying for some new jobs.

I can't think of anything else to say about this week so I'll finish up with a sunrise photo from yesterday. 

Weekly Review February 10 '23

This week has been mostly sunny and mild. Yesterday and today have been particularly nice, with temperatures reaching up into the high 50s and low 60s. So strange for February, but I love it! As usual lately, temperatures are supposed to drop back down a bit this weekend and then go up again next week. 

There was quite a bit going on this week but I didn't take any pictures except a few of the sunrise on Tuesday, which was quite beautiful. Seth went outside to start the car and he stopped partway up the front walk and ran back inside to tell me that I needed to come out to see the sunrise. (It was all captured on the Ring camera...really cute!) I love it that he appreciates sunrises! 

 Anyway, going back to Saturday the 4th...I went to a stake choir practice first thing that morning. It was at one of the other church buildings in the stake, about 30 minutes away. I rode over to that with a couple of friends. We're preparing two songs to sing at stake conference, which is next weekend. A lot of people showed up to sing so that was really nice. I spent a good portion of the rest of the day working on our federal income tax return. It is mostly done but we need to track down a few more pieces of information. 

We had the usual meetings on Sunday except that I didn't need to have a YW class presidency meeting before church. After church Frank went with another brother in our ward to give a blessing to another ward member, who was in the hospital and scheduled for triple bypass surgery the next day. He was at a hospital in Baltimore so Frank was gone for about 3 hours. (1 hour drive each way, plus they visited with him for a while). 

I don't have anything out of the ordinary on the calendar for Monday, but I remember that I had a couple of errands to run, besides my usual grocery shopping trip. After I got back from errands, I called one of the sisters I minister to because I hadn't seen her at church and she is normally always there. She's in her 80s so I just thought it would be good to check on her. She was okay although she wasn't at church because her legs have been hurting a lot. She had a doctor appointment that afternoon to try to figure out what's wrong. (Turns out it's related to her arthritis but it's something new and she will need to go to a specialist to get treatment.) About 30 minutes after we talked, she called me back because another sister in the ward had just called her needing some help but of course she couldn't help her since she was on her way to the doctor (and she can't walk very well because of her legs). So I ended up calling my friend Sherrie and we went together to help this other sister, who was sick with diarrhea but also couldn't get out of bed. (She's older too and she is still recovering from some surgery and also fell last week.) I won't go into all the details but she was really weak so after trying to help her get to the bathroom and having to stop a couple of times for her to rest, we decided it would be better to give her a sponge bath. We got her all cleaned up and into fresh clothes. In the process of doing that, she said she thought she should go to the ER to get checked out which I thought was a good idea...I was thinking that there was no way we could leave her there alone when she was too weak to even go to the bathroom. (She has been living at a motel with one of her sons, but there was some family conflict and he hadn't been willing to help her at all, and when we showed up, he left.) We talked about one of us taking her to the hopsital but ultimately she decided it would be better to ride in an ambulance, so we helped her call an ambulance and then stayed with her until they came to pick her up. After she left, we went to the office of the motel and got some clean sheets and changed the sheets on her bed and tried to clean up a little bit more. As it turns out, the hospital admitted her and kept her there until last night, when she was transferred to a nursing facility to get some rehab for her legs (her recent surgery was for a broken hip) so it's obvious that going in to be checked was the right thing to do. As you can imagine, it was not the most pleasant service I've ever done but I felt so peaceful the rest of that day. And honestly, it really wasn't that bad in spite of the circumstances. I really felt like my friend Sherrie and I were meant to help her, and I'm glad we could do it.

I was communicating with Jessie's mom on Tuesday and found out that Jessie was sick and had just tested positive for Covid. She had started feeling sick on Saturday. Jared felt fine on Tuesday but by Wednesday he was sick too. They seem to be doing okay, but have fevers and coughs. So needless to say, they didn't come over for dinner on Wednesday as they usually do and we missed getting to visit with them. Jared's new job is going well, he says, but of course he hasn't been able to work most of this week and Jessie is missing school too. Hopefully they will both be back on their feet soon.

There was no Seminary on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings because the carpets at the church were getting cleaned so no one was allowed in the building. On Tuesday evening we had youth activities but they all had to be at different locations. Frank and Seth went with all the YM to our bishop's house where they made muffins. My class came to my house. We decorated cupcakes and then delivered some to two of the girls in the class who don't come to church or activities very often. One of the girls wasn't home but we did get to see the other one. I tried delivering the cupcakes again last night but still no one was home so I left them by her front door. Hopefully she got them when they came home! Anyway, the activitiy was fun but I was so busy that I didn't get a chance to take any pictures. The girls in my class are definitely loud and energetic!! 

Wednesday was my first VITA shift for this tax season. It went pretty well. The first tax return I did took a long time because there was a LOT of information to enter and a few complications, but the taxpayer was patient and appreciative. The second return was very simple and went much quicker! I'm working with a few people I've worked with in the past and I also met a few new people. 

I had book chat Wednesday evening. Once a year we have fondue and this was our fondue night for this year. One of the ladies always makes really delicious cheese fondue and chocolate fondue, and the rest of us bring things to dip. We had a LOT of food this time...so yummy!! We enjoyed discussing Grandma Gatewood's Walk and now we are reading When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller. It's a Newbery winner and I've already read it but I'm reading it again because I've forgotten a lot of details. 

Yesterday I got caught up on things after a couple of busy days. Last evening I went to a RS activity...we talked about different ways to do journaling and we were each given a gratitude journal and some gel pens. It was pretty fun. 

Tonight I don't have to go anywhere...whew!! I mean, maybe I'll decide to go somewhere but I don't have any events for a change. I had a doctor appointment today...just an annual checkup. When Seth got home from school we completed his registration for next school year because it is due today. I've been having to get on him a bit this week about schoolwork because he has been getting behind in a couple of his classes. Next week is midterm (already!) so he needs to get caught up. 

Frank has been busy with the usual things...work and his business. An employee of one of his clients passed away suddenly of a heart attack this week which was sobering. It sounds like this summer is going to be a bit crazy for him at work because (among other things) they are tearing down the building where his department is located and they will all be moving to different locations. He also is getting some new responsibilities soon and there will be some projects that he'll need to complete this summer. He did get approval to get days off for the family reunion, though, and we purchased plane tickets this week so we are definitely coming! We're looking forward to that! 

And on that happy note, I will finish up because I can't think of anything else to report. 😊

Weekly Review February 3 '23

 It is really cold and windy today! Overall, we've had a very mild winter, though. It's supposed to be really cold this weekend but it will warm up again on Monday and be in the 50s most of next week. 

Last Saturday Frank and I got some shopping done in the morning. I did some reading in the afternoon and I also did some research about Pearl Harbor...the documentary I watched brought up some questions that I was curious about so I decided to see if I could find some answers. I did find answers, plus a lot of other interesting information as well. I ended up spending a lot more time on that than I'd planned! 

On Sunday since it was a 5th Sunday, all the adults and youth met together for a class about self reliance / goal setting. It was really good. That evening we had a gathering for the youth in our ward. First, we had a short program where a couple of youth talked about goals they've been working on. Then we had an ice cream social and then we watched the Worldwide Youth broadcast from Salt Lake City.

For family night on Monday we played bowling on the Wii. I didn't do very well...I used to be much better, but I'm really out of practice! On Tuesday I decided to play a few games to practice and I ended up getting a really great score on one of them:

One of the Seminary teachers asked me to attend Seminary on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to be the 2nd adult. They have a new teacher now and I think she did a great job. The kids are still pretty quiet though! 

We had a combined YM / YW activity on Tuesday evening. Frank had to do "year end" for one of his clients so he didn't go to the activity. We played volleyball. I actually played this time, and thankfully didn't get hit in the face with a ball (since I was wearing glasses). We had enough people to have 3 teams, so we rotated playing each other and the 3rd team played card games while waiting their turn to play volleyball. There were lots of snacks to eat too. My team (which also included Seth) lost our first game but we won our second game. At the end, they had a final game with the people who really wanted to play again. I took some pictures of that game:

Jared & Jessie came over for dinner and to do laundry on Wednesday, as usual. Jared got job offers from both of the places he interviewed last week and he decided to accept a position working at a local gun store / shooting range. Kind of a dream job, since he is really interested in that kind of stuff. His first day was yesterday, but I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet to see how it went. Earlier on Wednesday, Jared & Jessie were on a walk and they found a kitten. It appeared to be abandoned, since it was really thin and they couldn't find a mama or any siblings nearby. They knocked on the door of a nearby house to ask if they were missing a kitten and the lady who lived there said that people dump animals on that corner fairly often...sad! So anyway, they took the kitten home with them. They are not sure if they will keep it (the logistics of owning a cat right now aren't great for them) but they will find it another home if they decide not to keep it. I guess I should say "her' not "it", since the kitten is female. They didn't want to leave the kitten at home alone, so they brought it with them to our house (with our permission) that evening. The kitten is really cute! She is quite adventurous and can climb and jump really well already. They think she is probably about 4 weeks old. 

She really likes Jared, and climbs on him a lot. She climbed on Seth and I a lot too. 

Yesterday I got a lot of errands run besides doing all the usual chores. Last night Frank and I took both of our cars to get the emissions inspected...there is a self serve kiosk where we could do that. Afterwards, we stopped at Roy Rogers and got some ice cream and Frank talked to a couple of the people there he used to work with. He is really glad to not be working there anymore! 

Today I met with the rest of the YW presidency to inventory / clean out our closets at the church. Then I got the finances / budgeting caught up before going to pick up Seth from school (I decided to have pity on him and pick him up since it's so cold & windy). 

In my spare time I've been reading both the book about conversations (We Need to Talk) and a new book that I got this week. The new book is called The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes--and Why. It's another book that my ministering sister recommended. It is very fascinating!! I have been listening to the audio book about revelation also...getting close to finishing that one. 

I feel like I'm forgetting things that happened but I don't have anything else recorded on my calendar and my old brain can't remember anything else, so I guess that is it for this week's post.