Weekly Review May 31 '24

I don't feel like I was very productive this week; I'm not sure why. I guess part of the reason is that I had a few bad nights that I didn't sleep well, so I haven't been getting up as early. Then a lot of little things seemed to come up every day that would interrupt what I was trying to accomplish. Anyway, I did my best. Hopefully next week will be better. 

Last Saturday (the 25th) Frank and Seth helped a sister in our ward who is moving. They also got haircuts. I can't remember what I did all day while they were doing those things, but I probably did some cleaning in the kitchen, among other things. Oh, and I wrapped Seth's birthday presents. I finished cleaning the kitchen this week with the exception of a few little things that I forgot...such as the window. I also need to clean the oven...it has a self-cleaning feature but I keep forgetting to do it. I have to choose a day that I can have the windows open because the fumes are really strong, if I remember correctly. 

On Sunday we had our regular church meetings...the talks in Sacrament meeting were great and so was the RS lesson I attended. Frank had to leave after Sacrament meeting to go to another ward in our stake to help them with some computer problem they were having. He got home shortly after Seth and I got home from church. We watched Music & the Spoken Word and had lunch. Then Tanner called us to get some help with setting up a budget (we sent him a copy of our budget spreadsheet earlier in the week; he needed some help figuring it out). We made some cookies. Then Frank went to his self reliance class. I noticed when the missionary meal calendar was passed that the Elders didn't have a dinner appointment so we invited them to come over for dinner. They couldn't come at dinner time but asked if they could stop by later to share a message with us. When they did come by (around 6:30) they shared a message with us and then when questioned they admitted that they had not had a chance to eat dinner yet (they had meetings all afternoon) so we pulled out our leftovers from dinner and made them eat something! They appreciated it, though. After they left we had family night. We missed seeing Jared & Jessie...Jared had to work so they couldn't come over as they usually do.

Frank had Monday off for Memorial Day and Seth didn't have school either. Frank did some work for clients and I did the regular chores...Frank went with me to do grocery shopping. One of Seth's friends invited us to a cook out with his family so we went to that in the afternoon. (They are members of our stake so we knew his family slightly already.) There were a lot of people there...most of whom we didn't know...but another family from the stake that we do know was there so we enjoyed talking with them. There were several kids there from Seth's old school (before he started high school) so that was fun for him...he got to see some friends that he hadn't seen in a long time, including his good friend Krish. One of the first things Krish said to him was "Isn't your birthday tomorrow?" I was really impressed that he remembered that! There was a lot of good food and we had a good time but decided to leave when a storm blew in. We were actually under a tornado watch, but thankfully we just got a pretty decent thunderstorm. 

Monday night was one of the nights that I didn't sleep well. I was awake for a couple of hours with a bad stomachache. Seth wanted us to wake him up before Frank left for work so he could open presents, so we got him up at 4:00 am! The early hour did not seem to dampen his spirits at all. Fortunately, he really liked all the things we decided to get for him even though he hadn't asked for them!

This is one thing we got that he didn't ask for. It's a pillow that says "Gamer's spot. Don't get comfortable." on one side and "Gamer at work. Don't talk to me. I'll die." on the other side. There is also a pocket to hold a remote and a gamer control:

It also came with some gamer socks, which Frank is holding up in the photo:

This is a Lego set that he did ask for:

This is another thing he didn't ask for...a waterproof speaker:

This is a small Halo set, which he did ask for:

And here's another thing he didn't ask for...a large set of colored pencils. He was actually really happy to get these because he does a lot of drawing:

This last item is a large Halo set that he really wanted, so of course he was happy about it:

After Frank left for work, I went back to bed and eventually fell back asleep for a while. Seth stayed up for a while building his Lego set and part of his Halo set, and then he eventually went back to sleep too. Neither one of us woke up until after 8:00, so I got a really late start that day. I was starting to feel better but didn't eat anything until early afternoon, That seemed to help my stomach settle down and I was fine after that. 

That evening we went out to dinner for Seth's birthday...he chose to go to Outback Steakhouse. Jared & Jessie met us there.

After dinner we all came back to our house and played a game and then had Seth's birthday cake. 

I did manage to get all my regular work done that day and made Seth's cake and I also talked with my Seminary team teacher for a bit because our bishop had asked us for recommendations of which youth in our class would be good to speak in Sacrament meeting in a few weeks (he wants to have a Sacrament meeting focused on Seminary). 

Seth has his first driving on the road session tomorrow morning so on Wednesday morning and then again Thursday night I took him out driving for a while and I will take him out again tonight. He's getting better but it's still pretty nerve racking for me! On Wednesday evening he also drove to the church and back for his YM activity. We had a brief but heavy thunderstorm on Wednesday shortly before we left for YM. The rain had stopped before we left and a beautiful rainbow came out. After I left Seth at the church, I drove to the library to pick up a book I had on hold and on the way I pulled over and took these photos:

After picking up my book, I went back to the church and read scriptures while I waited for Seth to be ready to go home. 

Yesterday I mostly got regular chores done and did a little bit of work on making templates for quilting projects I'm working on (pillow covers). I also enjoyed listening to the 13 new hymns the Church released...8 of which I already know or are at least somewhat familiar with. I'm happy they added some of my favorites like Come Thou Fount, It Is Well With My Soul, and Star Bright. Plus it was really cool to discover that one of them was written by Lane! (My cousin, for those on Frank's side of the family.) All of them are beautiful songs.

This morning I went to the temple. A couple of temple workers looked at me and said "Sister Cleveland, right?" It was kind of sweet...I think it's so nice that they make an effort to remember names. 😊 The last couple of days have been beautiful weather with lots of sunshine and warm (but not too hot) temperatures) and the temple looked beautiful with a bright blue sky for a backdrop:

Going in:

Coming out:

In between everything else, I did get a little bit of cleaning done and I started scanning photos and scrapbook pages too. I was really hindered on the cleaning this week because I got a deep paper cut in one of the fingers on my right hand. It's starting to get better now so hopefully I will be able to do more this coming week. 

That's all the news from around here (or at least the things that I can remember)!

Weekly Review May 24 '24

 This week was fairly busy too. On Friday evening, Frank and I went to Lowe's to look at some options for the deck repairs that we're going to have done and while we were there we also looked at some ideas for a small retaining wall because we want to build one in front of our flower bed in the front yard. Not sure if we will have the time or funds to do that this summer, though. 

On Saturday I did a lot more cleaning in the kitchen. I continued to work on the kitchen in bits all week. I'm still not done with it, but I'm getting close. Most of the other rooms in the house won't take that long, thankfully. (Although the basement is going to be the most difficult!) On Saturday I also started working on another project...making digital copies of all our home movies. We discovered we were missing a cable we needed, so Frank made the drive down to a computer store to get me the cable. I worked on those throughout the week and got all the copies made by Wednesday. I mostly let them run while I did other things, but I often got distracted when checking on them and would watch for a while! So many fun memories...I'm really glad we preserved some of our family history this way. 

I had choir practice Sunday morning and we sang in Sacrament Meeting...it went really well. Frank was really tired that afternoon so he didn't go to his self reliance class. Jared came over for dinner and to play games but Jessie wasn't feeling well so she didn't come. (She is better now.) While we were talking with Jared, he told us they were having a yard sale this weekend so I offered to let him take the box of "give away" items I had accumulated while cleaning in the kitchen the previous few days. We also had a large bag of clothes I've been meaning to donate. He was happy to take anything we had to add to their yard sale, and it saved me the time of taking them somewhere to donate, so it was a "win-win". We played Clue that night and I got really lucky and figured out two of the three answers on my first two turns, so it was a short game! 😆

Seth didn't have to go to school on Monday...it was a "virtual learning day" for his high school. That's because the Seniors were graduating that day and most of the staff were involved with the graduation ceremony. He just had to log in to Schoology to see what assignments his teachers posted for him to do, but neither of them posted anything so it was basically a day off for him. (The same thing happened last year, I remember.) 

On Wednesday after dinner Frank and Seth went with me to do the grocery shopping and then we took Seth to his YM activity and stopped to pick up some prescriptions on our way home. Frank went to bed and I went to pick up Seth from the activity. 

I had book club on Thursday evening...that's always a lot of fun. (I did finish the book...Things Fall Apart...early this week.) We talked later than usual, so I got to bed kind of late. (For me, "late" is anytime after 8:00.) It's nice to have the option of staying up a bit later without giving up a decent night's sleep, although as I mentioned last week--I really want to stay on a schedule closer to Frank's which means early to bed, early to rise. Anyway, back to book club...we are going to read a book called Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir next. 

The rest of the week I was busy with the projects I already mentioned, plus all the regular chores. I also listened to podcasts quite a bit. I'm listening to some Church history podcasts and the Follow Him podcast from the year they did Doctrine & Covenants...trying to prepare a bit for when we study the Doctrine & Covenants in Seminary, starting in January. I also helped Seth apply for a couple of jobs, helped him get  a couple of his on the road driving lessons scheduled, and Frank & I ordered presents for Seth's birthday next week. His entire wish list is Lego sets and Halo megablocks sets, and we wanted to get him something besides that, so we spent quite a bit of time talking about / thinking about that and looking around to get some ideas. We did finally come up with a few things that we think he will like. (And he is getting a nice Halo set from his wish list too.) 

This morning I went to the temple. It was sunny and beautiful, which has been so nice after all the cloudy skies, rain, and cooler weather we've been having. I've been listening to an audio book about the fathers of the prophets which is really interesting and I enjoyed listening to that on the drive to the temple and back. I'm always grateful for a chance to go to the temple!

Before:

After:

This week was the last week for Seminary students to hand in makeup work and this morning I had to "lock" our class records for the semester. Of course, a few of the youth waited until the last minute to do their makeup work, so last night and this morning I had a lot of text messages about that. One of our boys who has really bad asthma and therefore missed a whole lot of days sent us 35 days worth of makeup work last night! We're glad he got it done, though. 😇

Seth has been doing better with schoolwork. He had another test in math today and he got 90% which helped bring his grade up a bit. We gave him back his screen time today, so he's happy about that. He only has two weeks of school left, so he just needs to keep it up for a few more weeks. 

I haven't said much about Frank so I'll mention that he is busy as usual with work and doing work for his business. He is so great to help me with projects and things that I need when he is home, too! 

That's all the news I can think of for this week.

Weekly Review May 17 '24

We had a fairly busy week. Here's what I can remember:

On Saturday morning (May 11th) Frank and Seth took me to breakfast to celebrate Mother's Day. We went to a place called the Silver Diner and I tried something new...a crab cake eggs benedict. It was pretty good.

After breakfast, we ran some errands before coming home (much to Seth's dismay...he wanted to get home to play games). 

That evening we had the missionaries over for dinner. We have had sister missionaries serving in our ward for the past several years but they were transferred earlier last week and replaced with Elders, so we got to meet the new Elders. We enjoyed getting to know them a little bit.

Sunday for Mother's Day, Frank did all the cooking so that I didn't have to, which was awesome. (All extra meetings were cancelled, including Frank's self reliance group, so he was home all day which was nice.) Jared came over for dinner, visiting and game playing (Jessie stayed home to spend the day with her mom and grandma.) I got some fun cards from Frank, Seth, and Jared & Jessie, and all the boys went in together to get me a sweatshirt and some candy:

This sweatshirt is very appropriate for me!

And Jared was absolutely on target when he chose to get me dark chocolate. Yum!

This appropriate card is from Frank:

This one is from Jared & Jessie...made me laugh!:

And this one is from Seth, also appropriate:

At church, all the women and YW met together and the Elder's Quorum provided treats for all of us and we each received a rose. Both Frank and I talked to our moms and Scott and Tanner both called me. It was a really nice day.

Our schedule changed quite a bit this week since I don't have Seminary and Seth doesn't have school until 10:30. Frank is still going into work early, though, and I want to stay on a schedule that is closer to his, so I still got up pretty early most days...usually around 4:00 am. I haven't done as well at getting to bed by 8:00 pm, so I've been kind of tired but I have been able to take naps a few days. Frank has been going in to work early as usual but he has come home early a few days this week and worked the rest of the day from home because he is having some sort of allergic reaction to something at work and he gets really itchy when he's there. We remember he had a similar problem last spring...there must be something growing over there that really bothers him.

On Monday after I took Seth to school, my Seminary team teacher and I met to go through our closets and to do a bit of planning for next fall. We will meet one more time before school gets out to do a little more planning and then we probably won't be doing much until a few weeks before school starts. After we met, I went to the store to buy a few items that we had decided we wanted to get with our remaining budget for the year. (Both of us spent quite a bit throughout the year on things that we did not submit for reimbursement so we still had some budget funds left.) We've each had a few things to do this week, such as contacting youth (or their parents) who have make-up work or reading to do in order to receive credit for the semester. Doing all the Seminary stuff plus my regular Monday jobs took up most of the day.

I enjoyed a few tranquil moments on our deck on Tuesday morning during sunrise. 

The birds were singing like crazy:

Seth was up early too...for some reason he hadn't slept much. (That happens to him sometimes.) He was bored, so he got up in the night and did some reading and he also made this:

Crazy kid!

I was busy all day with the usual chores, plus I listened to a couple of episodes from a podcast Amy told me about. It's focused on Church history and I want to listen to it this summer to help prepare for teaching Doctrine & Covenants next year (beginning in January). 

Seth didn't have school on Tuesday because it was Primary election day in Maryland. Frank got home really late because he had to do some work for a client after he left his regular job and he also stopped to vote on his way home. 

On Wednesday Frank worked from home. I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. She returned recently from a trip to Utah & Arizona; her son, daughter, and son-in-law graduated from BYU and then her son got married so we had a lot to catch up on. We tried a new Mexican restaurant (because its name starts with an "E"...we're making our way through the alphabet) and it was pretty good. 

That afternoon I started on a project that I want to complete this summer: de-cluttering, deep cleaning, and organizing the house. I started with the kitchen since it's one of the rooms that needs it the most. I went through one of the cupboards and got rid of some things, cleaned the cupboard inside and out, and reorganized everything so that I can more easily reach the things that I use the most. I also thoroughly cleaned the counter underneath that cupboard and cleaned the dishwasher too. 

Since I don't have to get up for Seminary anymore, I took Seth to YM and picked him up that evening. Before YM, I took him to practice driving for about 35 minutes. He did some driving in a large parking lot and some driving on the road. Hopefully we will get a lot more practice in now that I have more available time. 

Seth had a math test on Wednesday that he didn't do well on so his math grade isn't too great right now. Because he's been prioritizing screen time over school work / studying for tests, he lost his screen time on Wednesday and Thursday and gets very limited screen time this weekend. He's taken the consequences pretty well...I think he realizes that he needs to change some habits. Yesterday he did a lot of math homework and got it turned in. 

Yesterday morning I discovered that we didn't have enough laundry detergent to complete all the loads of laundry I was planning to do that day, so I had to make a trip to Costco as soon as it opened to buy more laundry detergent. Frank met me there--he was on his way home from work early because of itching--and we had some lunch together. (Although we didn't talk much because he was actually listening in on a meeting for work.) While at Costco I also got some new running shoes because I've had my current running shoes for about 15 years. 😅 (I used the new shoes this morning and they feel great!) I had a lot of other chores to do yesterday and I also worked some more on cleaning in the kitchen and started working on a sewing project, so it was a busy day. That evening one of my ministering sisters came to visit me. This may be her last visit because with all the changes in our ward, the new RS president gave us a heads up that a lot of the ministering assignments will be changing shortly. 

Today I woke up at 4:00 am again but since I was planning to go to the temple today I wanted to be more rested so I tried to go back to sleep and thankfully I was successful. Then my alarm went off at 5:00 am (I forgot to turn it off...I have that one set because I don't want to sleep past 5:00 normally) but I went back to sleep again and didn't wake up until about 6:15. I was still able to exercise, shower, and get the budget caught up before I needed to leave for the temple. (I wasn't able to get an appointment until 12:00, so I was going later than usual.) I did initiatories today and it worked out well because I didn't have to leave until shortly after Seth left for school and I got home about an hour before he did. 

You can see in the pictures that it's cloudy. It has been cloudy and / or raining nearly all week, and it is still fairly chilly for May. We did get some sunshine yesterday which was really nice because it was the first time I'd seen the sun in about a week and I was starting to feel kind of depressed. I don't think we're going to get much sunshine again for a while, though. Everything is certainly very green from all the rain we've been getting. 

I got some reading done this week too. I'm almost done reading Things Fall Apart for book chat and I'm still working my way through It Can't Happen Here which is the book we read last month. While running last week I started watching an 8 episode show based on a book I read a few years ago. The show and the book have the same name--We Were the Lucky Ones. It's about a Jewish family in Poland during WWII. I remember the book was slow moving and a bit hard to wade through but the ending was so good that it was worth it. The show was very true to the book and very well done and I couldn't wait to get to the last episode because I knew the ending would be good. I got to the last episode this week and it didn't disappoint! Although the book is fiction, it is based very closely on the true story of the author's grandfather and his family. When I read the book, I was stunned to get to the end and discover that all the major events in the book had actually happened! So many adventures and close calls with death and miraculous escapes. The really miraculous thing is that the entire family survives and they are all reunited after the war ends. I sobbed when I read the book and I sobbed again when I watched the show...the reunions were so beautiful and moving. I highly recommend both the book and the show (if you have access to it...it's on Hulu).

All in all, my first week of not teaching Seminary went pretty well. I have a lot of projects that I want to complete over the summer and I didn't get as much done as I would have liked but I did make a start. Besides the house cleaning / de-cluttering / organizing project, I also want to get some projects done for Christmas, make more pillow covers for the couch throw pillows (I want to have covers for each month, eventually), get some yard work done, and do some prepartions for Seminary including creating a file with a bunch of ideas for lessons. We'll see how much I actually get done! It's good to have some time to work on things, at least. 

I'll finish up with some pictures I took yesterday morning. Although it was the one day that we got some sunshine, the day started out foggy.