This week was not as busy as last week, but it felt really busy for some reason. I think mostly I am still trying to get caught up after last week.
Both Frank and I woke up fairly early on Saturday morning. Frank needed to do some work for a client, so he left after eating breakfast. I went out on our deck and saw a few deer. Can you spot them in the photos?:
I worked on Seminary lessons and took Seth to work. When Frank got back, he had some more work to do and I still needed to work on Seminary lessons so we ate lunch and then put in a couple more hours of work. I got my two lessons for this week planned and started on some of the other prep (such as making power point slides) but didn't get everything done. Frank and I wanted to go on a date that afternoon, though, so that's all the work that I did on lessons that day.
For our date, we went to the mall to do a few things and then got some dinner (soup and sandwiches) and brought it home to eat while we watched a few episodes of the show we've been watching together (it's called 24). At the mall we got some nice hand soap at Bath & Body Works, browsed the books in Barnes & Noble, and took my wedding ring set to a jeweler's to get it checked / repaired if needed, cleaned, and resized. I've been wanting to do that for quite a while and we finally got around to it. I haven't been able to wear my ring for over a decade because it got too small (or more accurately...my finger got too big!) A few of the prongs need to be replaced and the resizing takes some time too so I won't get it back for a couple of weeks. We were kind of shocked at how much it is going to cost...$400! I think the ring originally cost between $500 and $600. 😅It will be nice to be able to wear it again, though.
Seth had a long day at work (11:00 to 7:00) and when he got home he was only home long enough to change into his Halloween costume and eat something before he left for a stake youth Halloween party. A family in our stake has this party every year but he has never wanted to go. The parents of this family are the mission prep class teachers, though, and through that class he knows a lot more kids in the stake now too, so he wanted to go this year. We are pleased that he is getting out of the house more and spending more time with kids his age. Thankfully, one of his friends in the ward was able to drive him to the party and back so that we didn't have to do that. They had a pretty big group of kids from the ward going together. While he was gone I cleaned the kitchen floor but I can't remember what else I was doing all evening. The party lasted until 11:00 and Frank was too tired to stay awake much past 9:00 so I waited up for Seth to get home. I was really struggling to keep my eyes open by the time he got home!
I didn't have choir practice on Sunday so it was a pretty relaxing day. I got a lot of Seminary lesson prep work done and finished up everything for Monday's lesson but still had things to do for Wednesday's lesson. That evening there was a stake youth fireside. Parents were invited too, but I was too tired to go so Frank dropped him off (he got a ride home with another adult in our ward) and stayed up until Seth got home. I went to bed shortly after 8:00 and had no trouble falling asleep!
Monday morning I taught a Seminary lesson about Mormon 7. It went okay,,,I feel like Mondays are never my best days. I feel like the kids are tired and feeling the weight of a whole week of Seminary / school / etc. ahead of them. Last year, the week immediately after Daylight Saving Time ended, I felt like I got a whole new Seminary class. Everyone was a lot more awake and cheerful! I've been disappointed...that hasn't happened this year. The rest of Monday was busy with the usual household chores and I did some more work on my lesson for Wednesday, although not as much as I would have liked.
We all got a break on Tuesday because it was election day and there was no school. Frank had to get up early, though, so I still woke up quite early. I was happy to get an early start because I had a lot to do. My lesson for Wednesday required a lot of advance preparation. It was set up as rotations, with self guided activities at each rotation, including a doctrinal mastery review at one of them. I had a lot of work to do to prepare all the different materials for each station as well as some doctrinal mastery review activities. Everything took longer than I expected so I ended up spending most of the day on preparation and felt somewhat frazzled but by late afternoon I finished everything. Seth went with me to the church to help me set up tables and chairs (I needed them in a different format than we usually have them). Actually, he did all the setting up while I made a whole bunch of copies of things needed for the lesson. Besides Seminary lesson prep, I didn't get much done but I did manage to get meals planned for next week also. (I didn't need to vote, because I did that last week...so glad I made that choice so I had less to do on Tuesday!) Seth mowed the lawn. It was a really beautiful day with sun and warm temperatures. Our whole week has been like that, actually. It's hard to believe it's November! I'm sure the cold weather will arrive soon; I'm definitely enjoying the nicer weather while it lasts.
Frank got home late Tuesday night, as usual, because he did his temple shift after work. My Wednesday lesson didn't go as well as I would have liked, especially after all that preparation, but I hope at least a few of the kids got something out of it. I wasn't actually teaching, just giving them the opportunity to go through information on their own. Some of them put in a lot of effort and some didn't. After I got home from Seminary, I focused on preparing next week's lessons. I did get both lessons outlined by the end of the day and yesterday I created all the Power Point slides, so I'm mostly prepared for next week. I would like to put some more thought into exactly how I want to do some of the activities so that they are more engaging, but I'm grateful to have the bulk of the preparation done.
On Wednesday evening we took a meal to a guy in our ward who was in a car accident last week. He wasn't badly hurt, thankfully, but he has a couple of broken ribs so it's good for him to get some rest. Seth drove to his house and back--it's about 20 minutes from our house so he got in some driving hours. He has almost 50 hours now, so we are slowly working our way up to the required 60 hours he needs before he can take the driver's test. The sky that evening during that drive was beautiful, so I took several photos:
Yesterday was a productive day; I got all the household chores done as well as making Power Point slides for my lessons. Seth had to work from 5:00 to 8:00 last night. It was kind of a bummer he had to work because our ward had a youth baptism temple trip last night so he had to miss that. That evening I took a break from Seminary prep and all my other work and watched a couple of episods of 24 with Frank.
Today I went to the temple as usual but I went an hour later than I usually do because our ward RS was having a temple trip and they chose the 11:00 session instead of the 10:00 session (which is what I usually do). There were only 6 of us there, but it was nice to be in the temple with some familiar friendly faces!
This morning when I left the church after Seminary, I went a different way because I wanted to go to a gas station to fill my tank before going to the temple. I looked to my left as I was turning onto the main road, and I saw several emergency vehicles with flashing lights at the intersection I normally would have gone through (if I had been going toward home instead of toward the gas station). That concerned me a bit since that was the direction the car Seth was riding in would have gone, so I texted Seth to make sure he had arrived at school okay. He was fine, but it turns out the accident at the intersection involved one of the other youth in our Seminary class. (He got his driver's license over the summer, so he drives himself to Seminary and to school.) Thankfully, he is okay and everyone in the other car was okay too. I'm not sure how much damage was done to his car, though.
After I got home from the temple this afternoon, we had an appointment to talk with a life insurance agent because the term life insurance we purchased 20 years ago is expiring soon, so we need to figure out what to do next. Scott referred us to this agent, and Scott was on the call too because Scott is learning how to sell insurance. He just finished taking a class and will take a test to get certified soon.
Seth just finished two weeks without taking his medicine, and he's decided that it does help him enough that he wants to start taking it again. He has managed somewhat well without it, but he has noticed that it is harder to focus and to remember things. I think it was good for him to do this experiment and to realize that the medicine does help him.
Just a few thoughts for history's sake about the presidential election this week. I've been really troubled by some of the things I've been seeing on social media. I think it is totally fine to be upset / dismayed about the election results and concerned about the future. I don't think it's okay to say hateful and / or judgmental things about people that may have voted differently than you did. Are we really at the point that we determine someone's worth completely on how they choose to vote? I know and love people who voted for Harris and I know and love people who voted for Trump. They are all good people! It honestly scares me that so many people (I hope it's not really that many...it just seems like it is a lot) are condemning others instead of realizing that we all have different life experiences, perspectives, problem solving stategies, circumstances, and so many other factors that influence our decisions when it comes to voting. If we don't agree, we should be listening to each other and trying to understand each other better. (We may never agree, but we can at least try to understand better and to respect a different point of view.) Otherwise, the disagreements and rifts will continue to grow.
Okay, I will get off my soapbox now. 😁That's everything I've got for this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment