Last Friday after I wrote the weekly post, I got to talk to Mom for a while which was nice since I hadn't talked to her in a long time. After that, we went out to dinner. We ended up doing that because of a combination of two things...they didn't have a key ingredient at the store that I needed to make what I had planned for dinner, and I was too tired to think of something different to make. We went to Cracker Barrel, which is always a favorite for all of us. We tried some of their appetizers and now I think I'm addicted to their biscuit beignets. Yum!!
On Saturday I had a hair appointment and Seth did community service...it was the annual "Scouting for Food" pickup day, and the youth from our stake help sort all the donations coming into the local food bank every year. I spent the whole day after my hair appointment (and some time before) working on my Seminary lessons for this week. They didn't come together quickly as I had hoped and by dinner time I was pretty stressed out about all the other things I didn't get done. I was also upset because I had sent out a message to all the youth in the class asking them to read Hebrews 11 before Monday and Seth informed me that my message (about 4 sentences) was too long so no one would read it. I told him that I'm seriously concerned about the future of the world if this generation of youth does not have the patience (or can't focus long enough?) to read a message that is longer than a few words. It was just one of those days where everything felt like too much to me. (I have a lot of those days lately.) A couple of nice things, though...that evening Seth randomly gave me a hug. Surprised (he doesn't do that often), I asked him what the hug was for. He said "You just looked like you could use a hug." He was definitely right about that, and it did cheer me up. (Maybe there's some hope for the future of the world, after all!) The other nice thing is that I realized that I was repeatedly having a nudging to ask Seth to look at a quote for one of my lessons, so I did and we had a really great conversation about it. One frustration I've had lately is that the kids in my class seem to struggle to pull out information from / answer simple questions about quotes that we read during lessons. The nudging I kept having was to have Seth look at it with me so that we could model for the rest of the class how to analyze a quote. Doing that together at home was great because he wasn't under pressure to come up with an answer and I also felt less pressured and it was easy to come up with good follow up questions to respond to what he said (something I've been struggling with). After we finished, I asked him if he would be willing to model it for the class and he was totally on board. It went well in class so I'm thinking that occasionally I will ask one of the youth to go over a quote ahead of time, like Seth did. Hopefully that will help.
Anyway, I did finish up my lesson preparations for Monday and had most of Tuesday's lesson ready too but I stayed up until midnight getting them done. I appreciated that this fell on the weekend that we were going off of daylight saving time so I got an extra hour of sleep that I wouldn't have had otherwise!
Sunday was pretty busy because besides our regular church meetings, we had Jared & Jessie over for dinner and I had an inservice meeting for Seminary. I worked on Tuesday lesson preparations, too. The inservice meeting was at 7:00 pm and it was via Zoom thankfully, so I was able to go to bed as soon as it ended. We did enjoy our time with Jared & Jessie; played a game as usual.
My team teacher was out of town this entire week. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, my friend Michelle came to help with Seminary. (She is the YW president I was just serving with before I got called to be a Seminary teacher.) On Tuesday and Thursday my friend Cindy came to help. (She & her husband were the heads of the food committe for Trek.) Michelle has a daughter in the class and Cindy has a son in the class. Michelle taught Wednesday's class and Cindy taught Thursday's class, so I taught on Monday and Tuesday as I usually do but also taught today. Michelle helped me with part of the lesson today. This week went really well, overall. The kids seemed to be a lot more alert and awake than they usually are...really, they felt like a different class! I'm assuming that this is because of the time change...their bodies haven't adjusted yet so it feels like 7:10 to them when class starts instead of 6:10. Unfortunately, it probably won't last, but I'm definitely enjoying it as long as it does! I think the kids also enjoyed the change of pace, having two different teachers than they usually do. I feel like we had a lot more fun together and that the atmosphere was a big more relaxed and comfortable. I'm hoping we can maintain that atmosphere even if everyone gets sleepy again.
Both of my lessons on Monday and Tuesday were based on Hebrews chapter 11 and were about aspects of faith. I still had some preparation work to do for Tuesday's lesson on Monday afternoon. I got it done and wanted to do some set up that evening, but when we drove to the church to do it, we discovered that someone uses the RS room on Monday evenings (I think it may have been YSA FHE.) I decided I'd have to go in earlier than usual Tuesday morning to set up instead. We did leave our house earlier than usual, but not as early as I had hoped. Seth and I were surprised when we pulled into the church parking lot to discover that there were about 20 cars and a crowd of people in the parking lot. On closer inspection, those cars looked like police cars. (It was dark and they didn't have their lights on, except for a few headlights.) I told Seth to stay in the car and headed over to the crowd of police to find out what was going on. It turns out it was a large group from the sheriff's office. I spoke to one of them who told me not to worry...they were just using our parking lot to stage an operation that they were doing elsewhere, and everything at the church was perfectly safe. So crazy though!! I lost my extra time figuring out what was going on and then I had some strange issues with technology too and also had to take a few minutes to send a message to the Seminary parents to tell them not to be alarmed by the police presence in the parking lot when they arrived to drop off their kids. So we started about 5 minutes late that day, but it all worked out. Seth and a couple of the other kids who got there early helped me with set up. (I had created a "Faith Hall of Fame" for that day's lesson, which needed some set up.)
I didn't have any time to prepare today's lesson until Wednesday. I did get most of it ready on Wednesday, with a few things to wrap up on Thursday. In the end, it went well and we had fun today. I was fairly stressed all week, though, because until yesterday I hadn't had a chance to do anything to prepare next week's lessons besides read through each of them once. Yesterday I got most of Monday's lesson prepared and today I got most of Tuesday's lesson ready. There are still a few things I need to wrap up for both of those lessons. Tomorrow I will start working on my lesson for the following week. I only have to teach one lesson that week because of the Thanksgiving holiday...the kids only have school on Monday and Tuesday. I don't feel like I have less to do though, because Scott and Tanner are arriving on Friday and spending the whole Thanksgiving week with us, and immediately after Thanksgiving I will be teaching two more lessons. I want to spend the time that they are here enjoying their company, not preparing lessons, so I am trying to get ahead. I'm hoping to have all of those lessons (the one for Thanksgiving week and the two for the week after Thanksgiving) prepared before they arrive on Friday night. I am trying not to think about the fact that I have done nothing to prepare for either Thanksgiving or Christmas yet!
Okay, I promise this whole post will not be about Seminary. I feel like all of my posts are like this now...several paragraphs about Seminary and then one or two paragraphs about everything else that's happening in our lives. Well, it really does kind of dominate my life right now. I did do a few other things this week, though. On Tuesday I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. This time we went to Bob Evans because it starts with a "B". (Last time we went to a place that starts with "A". It helps us make a decision about where to go.) I haven't been to Bob Evans in years and they had some new menu items so I tried one of those and it was pretty good. Rebekah and I hadn't had a chance to get caught up since right after Seminary started so it was nice to visit.
On Wednesday both Frank and I had eye doctor appointments. We had appointments in January but got in early because of cancellations. I saw a different doctor than normal but I liked the one I saw. Frank is getting new lenses for his glasses (his eyesight is actually getting better!). My prescription for glasses has changed only slightly so I don't need to get new ones. I'm getting new contact lenses but they had to order a trial pair for me so it will be a bit before those come in. Those two rouge eyelashes on my bottom left eye have grown back in and were rubbing against my eye again, so she plucked those out. I guess I really do need to get those cauterized so they will stop growing back in. The funny thing is, they don't seem to bother me at all--my right eye was actually feeling really irritated that day, not my left eye! The blepharitis in my right eye has been really acting up this week so it's been red, goopy, and irritated. The eye doctor also said that my droopy eyelid on my right eye seems to be interferring a little bit with my peripheral vision, so if I decide I want to get it fixed, it is likely that my insurance will cover the cost. The doctor who can fix my eyelid is the same one who can cauterize those eyelashes that rub against my eye, so if I go in to get that done I can find out more about my droopy eyelid at the same time.
Seth had YM on Wednesday as usual...they had a combined activity and played board games. I dropped him off and Frank picked him up. Frank has continued to be really busy this week doing work for his client who had the virus issue. He hasn't had to do as much as last week, but he has still put in quite a few hours. A few problems cropped up and he also is having to replace another computer for them (not related to the virus problem). He had to make another trip down there on Tuesday (didn't get home until late) and will be going back tomorrow as well. I think there is an end in sight, hopefully.
Last night I went to a RS activity. I was super tired and waffled a bit about whether or not to go, because it sounded fun but I really wanted to go to bed. The main motivation that pushed me over into the "I'm going" category was that they were doing an escape room (which I have never done before) and I wanted to see what that was like because I think it would be a fun thing to do for a Seminary doctrinal mastery review. I considered it research for Seminary! It was a lot of fun and as always, spendng time with other women lifted my spirits a lot. The activity was very poorly attended, unfortunately. I don't think it was very well advertised--I didn't even hear about it until Saturday. We had fun with our little group, though. We had to work our way through 3 different rooms...and yes, we did successfully escape! We got these little handouts at the end, when we found the key and opened a box:
Yesterday when I was cooking dinner I noticed a strange rash on my right wrist. Or maybe it was a rash...I'm not even sure about that. There was a large red blotch on the top side of my wrist and what looked like scratches on the bottom side (kind of wrapped around from the top side to the bottom side.) I didn't remember scratiching it or hurting it in any way and it didn't hurt either. It's still there today but has faded a lot and now the red blotch is gone and it just looks like a couple of scratches. So strange!
Today I did not go to the temple as usual because I decided I really needed to take a week off and get some rest. I had a couple of bad nights this week (last night was one of them) so I've been exhausted. I was able to take a two hour nap after getting back from Seminary this morning and that really seemed to help.
We have had some cooler days this week but we've also had a couple of unseasonably warm days. I never complain about those! When I am sitting inside and glance out the window, the whole world looks golden to me, with a few splashes of red. It's so beautiful, and my camera can't capture it but I still keep trying:
It's way past my bedtime and that's all the news I can think of so I'll sign off until next week.
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