Weekly Review December 27 '24

There has been a lot going on this week and I hope I can be somewhat concise so this post won't be a book. 

Shortly after I wrote last week (Friday evening) Frank and I were watching a show together and my left eye started to hurt. It felt similar to when I scratched my cornea last year except that the pain wasn't nearly as severe. It was definitely painful, though...my eye was stinging and watering and it hurt to keep it open. I was wearing contact lenses earlier that day but had taken them out around noon and my eye didn't start hurting until around 8:00 pm, so I was pretty sure it wasn't a scratched cornea. The next day it was still bothering me a lot so I went to our doctor's walk in clinic to have it checked. (Seth drove me there because I couldn't keep my eye open very well and Frank was at the church all day helping prepare the meat for our ward's Christmas party. We had to drop Frank off at the church first since we only have one car we can drive right now. Thank goodness Seth can drive!) The doctor said the area all around my eye looked a bit swollen but didn't think the problem was pink eye (my eye was only slightly red) or any sort of bacterial infection but some other kind of infection. She prescribed a steroid to help with the inflammation. Seth drove me over to pick up my prescription later that day. 

Other than that, I didn't get much done that day since my eye was hurting so much and it was hard to keep it open. I had signed up to make sweet potato casserole for our ward Christmas party so I made that, but that is all I managed to do. I couldn't read or watch anything either so I spent as much of the day as possible lying down with my eye closed, listening to Christmas music. I had planned to make buckeye candy, but wasn't feeling up to that and it was pretty frustrating to lose nearly a whole day that I could have been preparing things for Christmas, but it couldn't be helped. 

We did go to the ward Christmas party that night (Seth driving again) and the food was good and I enjoyed visiting with the people at our table but my eye was still really bothering me (and it caused my whole head to hurt too) so it was hard to really enjoy the evening. Seth was part of the program...he was one of the 3 wise men...but after he finished his part of the program we left early so I could go home and lie down. Frank was able to sit down to eat with us and was able to come home with us which was nice...usually he is so busy with cooking and serving and cleaning up that we don't see him all evening and he has to stay late. Since most of the food was provided by ward members this year (only the meat was provided by the ward) they didn't have nearly as much to do and in my opinion that was much better! 

A few photos from the program (a lot of the kids are in my Seminary class):

As part of the program, the RS sisters sang a song. The counselor in charge of the song explained that the RS had been assigned to do a skit but she didn't have time to prepare anything so instead she went on chat GPT and asked it to create words to a Christmas song about how busy women are at Christmas time. The result was this song, sung to the tune of Jingle Bells, which I think is very clever and true!:

Going back to Saturday morning, we received word that morning that Frank's Aunt Treva had passed away. (His mom's sister.) Her health had been deteriorating for the previous few weeks so it wasn't a shock, but we'll miss her, of course. Frank's parents have been in Florida for the last week +, anticipating her sister's passing.

Saturday was not over yet. After we got home from the ward Christmas party Saturday evening, I got ready for bed and lay down with my eye closed for the next few hours. Frank put on Christmas music for me and I fell in and out of sleep for a few hours while listening to music. I woke up around 9:30 and we all stayed up because we were expecting Ben, Dee, and Brennan to arrive later that evening. They arrived around 10:30 and we all enjoyed visiting a bit before everyone went to bed. Ben & family were here to a attend a wedding...Brennan's best friend got married in the Washington DC temple. 

Sunday morning I was thrilled to discover that my eye had improved dramatically. As a matter of fact, it felt completely normal all day and didn't give me any problems. This was a great blessing, as I was singing 3 songs with the choir in Sacrament meeting that day and I had been really worried that I wasn't going to be able to keep my eye open to read the music / words. I was also able to enjoy the rest of Ben & family's visit. We had church at 9:00 am (mostly music and scripture readings) and then came home to visit, listen to Music & the Spoken Word, and have lunch together before Ben's family had to leave for the airport. We're really glad we got to see them, even if it was a really short visit! As Ben's family were leaving, Jared & Jessie arrived. They flew to Maryland on Saturday but Jared wasn't feeling well so they didn't come to our ward Christmas party or attend church with us as they had originally planned. Jared still wasn't feeling great, but they ate lunch and we played a few games.

Monday and Tuesday were both really busy days, getting ready for Christmas. On Monday we made buckeyes, fudge, cookies, and a dessert for dinner that evening. (We also went grocery shopping and did laundry and vacuuming.) Frank was gone a lot of the day doing work for a client so I ended up making and decorating the cookies by myself. Unfortunately, my eye started hurting again about mid morning and really bothered me all day so I was somewhat miserable most of the day. 

That evening we went to the Hatch's house for dinner and games. They ordered pizza (which we picked up on the the way there) and they also had a salad bar and we provided the dessert. It was delicious, and I would have enjoyed the evening a lot more if my eye hadn't been bothering me so much. I did still have a fun time. We all played a fun card game and then there was a competitive game between the two Cleveland boys (Jared & Seth) and the two Hatch girls (Jessie & her sister Kylee). There was also a beautiful sunset that evening:

I hadn't been able to finish decorating all the cookies before we left so when we got home, Frank and Seth helped me finish decorating them.

On Tuesday with the help of Frank & Seth, I got a lot of cleaning done...bathrooms and swept & mopped all the floors. I also did meal planning for next week and Frank & I delivered treats to our ministering families. My eye was still hurting (not severely, but still bothering me) so I called the doctor back but they didn't have any appointments available that day. They scheduled me to see a physician's assistant on Thursday afternoon instead. Someone from the insurance company finally called to get my statement about the car accident and we were able to call a shop to get the repair set up...they asked us to bring the car in on Thursday morning to be assessed. The rest of the day we were preparing Christmas Eve dinner. Jared & Jessie came over to spend Christmas Eve with us. We had dinner, opened one present each, read the accounts of the Savior's birth in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, and played a game. It was a really nice evening.

Ready to eat:

Gifts from Santa Claus:

The tree (how do we always end up with so many presents?):

Completed advent calendar:

Jared & Jessie were planning to come back on Christmas morning. Jessie's family has a big Christmas dinner so they always spend the morning with us and then go back to her family's house for presents and dinner. They said they would head our way around 8:00 am. We didn't wake up until 7:30 and Seth didn't get up until 8:00, which was kind of surprising. (Neither Frank nor I have been sleeping well this whole vacation, though...we keep waking up really early. We were both awake on Christmas morning between 2:00 and 4:00 am and finally went back to sleep but that's why we woke up so late.) Frank and I had time to take showers and get some cinnamon rolls ready for the oven before Jared & Jessie arrived around 8:30. We opened presents and had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls (including some yummy strawberry / cream cheese cinnamon rolls that Frank made). Then we played one of our new games together before Jared & Jessie had to leave:

One of the gifts we got Jared was a book about the history of firearms. (We got one for Scott too...they both really like the books.):

Seth with his loot:

He is also getting one more gift...a new (to him) phone. We've been talking about getting him a newer phone since his current phone is so old (it was really old when we gave it to him 3 years ago) but we hadn't found a good option yet. Then last week one of Frank's clients got a new phone and his old phone is only 2 years old and a much nicer and more updated version of the iPhone than what Seth has, so Frank asked if he could buy his old phone from him. Frank is actually going to do work in exchange for the phone. We have the phone but Frank hasn't been able to set it up yet. We told Seth about it on Christmas day, though, and he is pretty happy to be getting a much newer phone.

Playing Mexican train with our new domino set:

Seth putting together his Lego set, a bonsai tree:

My gifts (Frank went to the store on Tuesday to buy the bamboo kitchen utensils...it's become a family joke that I always get a spatula or some spoons or something like that):

Frank got a set of  4 cast iron pans with lids. I have no idea where we are going to store them, but he is very happy to get them (that's one of the smaller pans):

Completed bonsai tree. The pink branches can be exchanged with the green ones:

We spent the rest of the day relaxing. Seth mostly played games with Tanner and Scott online and I spent a lot of the day reading this book that Seth gave me:

It was a nice Christmas and we are grateful to have so much.

Yesterday morning we were shocked to get a phone call letting us know that Frank's Uncle Charles (his mom's brother) had been rushed to the hospital the night before and had suffered a massive heart attack. He passed away last night. His home is in NC, but he was in Florida for his sister's funeral. So sad and challenging for Frank's mom and her remaining sisters and brothers to lose both a sister and a brother in less than a week! Frank would have liked to have gone down to Florida to be with his family for his aunt's funeral and now to be with everyone as they mourn his Uncle Charles, but it's way too expensive to fly and with my car out of commission he couldn't really drive down there either. They are all in our thoughts and prayers though.

We did get my car in yesterday and the new mirror piece has been ordered and will arrive on Monday. Hopefully the repair will be completed on Monday or Tuesday and I will get my car back. The insurance company waived the deductible so it's not going to cost us anything...hopefully our insurance rates won't go up though. Yesterday we also got some cleaning, grocery shopping, and laundry done. I went to the doctor to get my eye checked in the afternoon. They still aren't sure what is wrong with it (both the physician's assistant and the doctor looked at it) but told me if it's not better by Monday to call and get an appointment with an opthalmologist. It was only mildly bothering me yesterday, but today it is hurting more again...the whole left side of my face hurts, actually. Not much fun! Yesterday I started working on the VITA tax certification tests and made quite a bit of progress. Jared came over for the late afternoon / evening and played games with Seth mostly.

Today I've mostly been working on this post as well as updating the finances. Frank and Seth are playing some games together. Jessie's sister Kylee is going to the temple for her endowment today so we probably won't see them today at all but they will come over tomorrow for a few hours and we will take them to the airport tomorrow evening. Now I am going to try to get some rest so that hopefully my eye will stop hurting and I will be able to do some sewing and work more on the VITA tax tests later. 

I guess this will be my last post for 2024, so Happy New Year!

Weekly Review December 20 '24

It's been a busy week and I'm exhausted but I'm also happy that it's almost Christmas and even better...I'm almost ready for it! Frank helped me print address labels which made getting the Christmas cards ready a lot easier and quicker. They went into the mail yesterday. All the shopping is done and the majority of gifts have been delivered, and everything that has come has been wrapped already. (I did a big wrapping session on Monday and since then have been wrapping things as they have arrived.) I made fudge last night. All that is left to do is wrap a few more things when they arrive, bake some cookies, and make a few more kinds of candy. Three weeks ago, I had NOTHING done, so I feel like everything coming together so quickly has been a miracle! 

A quick update on camp: The high council member who talked to me on Thursday called me back on Friday night to let me know he had contacted the stake camp director to get answers to a lot of my questions but she has a wedding the end of this month (besides Christmas) so she wants to wait until January to even think about it! Which is okay with me, honestly. I don't really want to think about it either. He also encouraged me to talk to my bishop about the situation which I ended up doing briefly on Sunday...not because I asked to talk to him, but because the member of the stake presidency who oversees Seminary visited our ward on Sunday and he told the bishop that I needed to talk to him. I was kind of surprised when my bishop came to me in the hallway and said "I hear you need to talk to me." Anyway, I told him a little bit of the situation and expressed some of my concerns and told him I don't necessarily want to get released from Seminary but I really didn't know if I could do both camp and Seminary and I also told him I don't want to be the one to make the decision! He was very understanding about it and we'll probably talk again sometime but I don't know what's going to happen with all of this yet. He did mention that they were planning to discuss Seminary in a few months and that one thing they have been wondering is why both teachers are from our ward when there are kids from 3 wards in our class. I ended up talking with my team teacher about it this week and that was a good discussion. But for now, it's all on the shelf and gratefully I am not really worrying about it, thanks to that feeling I had when I was at the temple last week. What a blessing that has been to me.

Okay, that wasn't as quick as I thought it would be. 😅Going back to last Saturday...Frank had to do some work for a client in the morning. I worked on Seminary lessons and got my lessons for this week mostly prepared. I also got caught up with regular chores and had a phone meeting with my team teacher so we could plan the schedule for the first month of next year. That evening Frank and I went to a concert...it was a jazz band Christmas concert at the local community college. One of the boys in my Seminary class is in the band. They were really good and they actually played a bunch of Christmas music (jazzy versions). We really enjoyed it!

On Sunday afternoon I had choir practice. It started snowing a little while before I left:

It kept snowing while I was at the practice and when we came out, there were huge snowflakes coming down. It was really beautiful!!

It wasn't supposed to stick for very long, and it didn't...it started raining later and by morning nearly all the snow was gone. However, my team teacher and I decided to give everyone a break and cancel Seminary for Monday. I taught my two lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday and Tuesday, we moved the assessment from Wednesday to Thursday, and did a mini version of Thursday's lesson today, along with breakfast and some fun. It all worked out great. It was particularly nice for me not to have to get up early on Monday morning because on Sunday evening I went to a concert and was up until about 10:00. I went with a friend in my ward to the concert and it was beautiful.

Monday felt kind of strange...I kept forgetting what day it was since I didn't have Seminary as I usually would. It was good, though...I got a lot accomplished. All the regular chores, plus wrapping presents. Seth had to work that night so we didn't have family night activity until Wednesday evening but we did do the lesson part on Sunday. 

Both of my lessons this week went well. I taught about Moroni 10:3-5 and on Wednesday I also prepared a game to help them review the doctrinal mastery scriptures in preparation for the assessment. On my way home from Seminary on Tuesday I was waiting at a traffic light at a major intersection when a truck that was pulling into the left turn lane beside me hit my driver's side mirror and destroyed it. Nothing else on the car was damaged and I wasn't hurt at all, just startled. I was stunned for a few seconds and then I decided I'd better pull into the left turn lane behind the truck so I could get their license plate number. I didn't think the driver realized he had hit my car because he didn't slow down or get out of his truck or anything. When the light turned green, we both turned left and then I pulled into the right lane next to him hoping I could wave and catch his attention or something but he didn't look my way. Then he suddenly turned left into a parking lot and I couldn't do that from the right lane, so I kept going but wondered if I should turn around and try to find him in the parking lot. Ultimately, I decided to go home and call the police and see if they could help me track down the owner of the vehicle. A trooper called me back and filled out a report and later he brought the report to me and gave me contact information for the owner of the truck. The trooper had gone to his house but he wasn't home and he had also tried to call him. I did tell the trooper that I didn't think it was a deliberate hit and run. He told me I could try calling the owner myself. I also talked with Frank, of course, and he wanted to wait to make a decision about calling our insurance until the next day. He thought maybe he could replace the mirror himself and avoid involving the insurance company. (Tuesday is Frank's night he works at the temple so he wouldn't be home until late.) Here's some photos I took of my car as soon as I got home:

On Wednesday morning Frank called the owner of the truck and he said he knew he hit my car and that he had pulled into the parking lot so we could exchange insurance information. I wish I had known that! He admitted that he was at fault and gave us insurance information and seemed totally cooperative. But then later that day his insurance company called us and said that he is disputing that he is at fault. What??! They said they would need to get a statement from me and that someone would call to get that, but no one has called yet. They also said that the car can't be driven with the mirror gone so that has definitely complicated out lives the last few days. It will be better now that Frank is off work and I don't have Seminary, at least. We're not happy about this whole situation, though. We can't get the car fixed until all these complications get worked out and they don't seem to be in much of a hurry to do anything about it. Frank called again today to find out what's going on and they said they should be contacting us on Monday. Hopefully that will actually happen. Although I'm not happy that this has happened, I keep reminding myself that it could have been a lot worse!

Since we were trying to juggle using one car, we decided to go shopping for groceries on Wednesday evening (I usually go on Thursday mornings). Frank had to take his car in to get the registration renewed Thursday morning and he also needed to do some work for a client that day so he needed the car. (He got permission to work from home on Thursday which helped a lot. He normally works from home on Wednesdays and Fridays so that helped too.) I kept busy at home on Thursday with all the regular chores plus Christmas tasks. I also finished sewing the January pillow covers and made a list of things I want to get done over Christmas break and started working on a few of those things.

Today was a fun day in Seminary. We did a gift exchange game (tied in with the "gifts of the spirit" lesson topic) and my team teacher and I provided breakfast. She made french toast bakes and I brought stuff for a hot chocolate bar. Cleaning up took quite a bit of time, though. As soon as I got home I took Frank to one of his clients to do some work...dropped him off. They said someone there would bring him home later because I was going to the temple and wouldn't be back for hours. I ran back home to drop off all my Seminary stuff and then went to the temple. I did initiatories today and it was lovely. 

On the way home it started snowing and it snowed all the way home but even though it was coming down pretty hard, none of the snow stuck. Frank ended up having a lot of work to do for his client so he was still there and asked me to stop by to pick him up on my way home. Then he realized he needed to stay longer but I missed his text about that (I was driving) so I did stop by but then went home and picked him up later when he was done. In the meantime, I worked on the budget. When I picked him up, he had to take a phone to someone at another location so I took him there and then we stopped at a store to get a few things before going home. It was almost time for Seth to get home from school by the time we got home. 

The rest of the day has been busy as I have been finishing the budget and making pizza for dinner. Seth is on his first date tonight. He's on a double date with some friends in our ward; he asked his friend Lori (who lives in another ward in our stake). They are at the other boy's house watching a movie. Frank was awesome and drove Seth to Lori's house to pick her up (about 30 minutes away) and then drove both of them to Tommy's house (where they are watching the movie, another 30 minutes from Lori's house) and then back home (about 15 minutes). We'll have to go back to get Seth later, but Lori's mom is picking her up so we won't have to make that big round trip again.

Today has been so busy that it hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm on "vacation"! I am really looking forward to having some down time with family, though. 

To finish up, here's a few photos of Christmas decorations at our house.

Weekly Review December 13 '24

 When I wrote last week, I was feeling pretty sick. I didn't feel better on Saturday the 7th...if anything, I felt worse. This caused me some distress about Seminary since I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays. I texted my team teacher and we figured out a plan in case I wasn't well enough to go on Monday but thankfully I made a miraculous recovery on Sunday. I woke up still feeling rotten and didn't go to church but I took a nap in the afternoon and woke up from that nap feeling a whole lot better. By Monday morning I was almost completely back to normal. I am thankful for that tender mercy! 

Back to Saturday, though...Frank went to the store to get me some juice and soup which I really appreciated. Frank and Seth set up the tree and decorated it...my contribution was to unpack ornaments from the boxes that they handed to me. I did a lot of reading and made a lot of headway on the book chat book (I Capture the Castle). As a matter of fact, I finished the book on Wednesday. I liked it--especially because the ending was not predictable. I don't think I did much of anything else on Saturday. Frank got Chinese food for dinner for all of us. We had a fantastic sunset that night too.

We got three new ornaments for the Christmas tree this year. Here they are:

This one is from Discovery Cove in Florida...the place where we got to swim with dolphins.

This one is from Bok Tower Gardens which is another place we visited in Florida.

We got this one from the copper mine that we visited in Utah.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't go to church on Sunday. Frank sent me the link so I could sign in and listen to Sacrament Meeting, but he was trying out a new laptop with the camera system that day and it didn't work well at all. I could not hear any of the music...the only sound that worked was the sound from the microphone. (It did work well, though...good volume and very clear). The main problem was that the video feed was way behind the sound so nothing matched and the video and / or the sound went out completely more than once. With all the distractions and the times things cut out I missed a lot of what was said in the talks and I felt really sad to miss the music (couldn't remember the hymn numbers they announced by the time we were singing and since I couldn't hear the music I couldn't even play the hymn on my phone instead). I definitely couldn't sing either! I remember thinking by the end "well, this is a good object lesson. Sometimes our choices lead us to being cut off from the blessings we want." My choice to stay home from church cut me off from being able to participate in worshipping with my ward. Don't get me wrong...I didn't feel guilty; staying home probably was the right choice since it gave me a chance to rest and recover and I wasn't sharing my germs with others. Just a good reminder why I want to make the effort to go whenever I can!

After church we watched Music and the Spoken Word. That evening I had a Seminary training meeting for the new curriculum--thankfully, that was a Zoom meeting so I could still attend. After that, we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. 

Monday's Seminary lesson went remarkably well...or maybe I just had a better attitude about it. I remember there were plenty of kids who didn't open their scriptures or do anything I asked them to do (as usual!) but for some reason it didn't bother me as that sometimes does. I just kept calling of them anyway, and managed to get a few really great comments. Tuesday's lesson was still a mess in my mind--I hadn't felt up to working on it over the weekend--so Monday afternoon I had to finish preparing that lesson. It went okay too. 

Seth worked on Monday afternoon. He doesn't work again until this coming Monday. That seems to be the trend lately. Seth got up for Seminary as usual on Tuesday but then he started feeling sick and threw up before it was time to leave, so he ended up staying home that day. (From both Seminary and school...he also didn't go to the YM activity that night.) He didn't seem to feel too bad after taking a long morning nap, though, and he never threw up again. Meanwhile, I had agreed to take a friend to get an x-ray done (she needed a ride) that morning. I knew it would take a while, but it ended up taking quite a bit longer than I anticipated. When she got there, she had to check in and then wait for them to call her up to process her paperwork. Then we had another wait until they called her back to get the x-ray. Then I waited a really long time for her to come back out. She thought they were doing one x-ray of her right elbow, but they actually did multiple x-rays of her whole right side. She was pretty wiped out by the time she was done and I took her straight home so she could take a nap. The whole adventure (including travel time) took over 3 hours. I felt like I needed a nap by then too, but didn't have time. 

On Tuesday evening Frank didn't go to the temple because he had some work to do for a client. I went to a band / orchestra / choir concert at Seth's high school because two of my Seminary kids were performing (one in the choir and one in the orchestra). My team teacher came too and we sat behind the kids' parents and enjoyed talking with them a bit before the concert started. The choir program is definitely different from my high school choir experiences...the choir only had 27 kids! It was actually an elective class--not an auditioned choir. Many of the kids had Hispanic or Arabic names and at the beginning when they introduced the choir they mentioned that many of the kids were learning how to sing, many were learning English, and some were learning both! They did do a pretty nice job and there was a sweet feeling about them...I could tell the kids are good friends and all were doing there best. They sang some fun songs, too, although I was disappointed that this was a Winter Concert, not a Christmas Concert. The choir sang one Hannukah song and one Christmas song (Feliz Navidad). Everything else was more contemporary tunes but they were kind of nice. I particularly enjoyed Flander's Field. I really liked the band and orchestra numbers as well...they each did three songs. Then at the end the band, orchestra, and choir combined to perform "Sleigh Ride" which apparently is a tradition they do every year. It was fun.

On Wednesday morning we had a guest teacher for Seminary--one of the brothers in our ward. I think the kids really enjoyed listening to him. When I emailed him the night before to make sure he didn't need anything, he said all he needed was a strong cup of hot chocolate (then he said "just kidding!") I realized that getting him a cup of hot chocolate would actually be pretty easy so I surprised him with one and he was pretty tickled about that. The rest of Wednesday I got caught up on the household chores that I didn't have time to do on Tuesday. I tried to work on Seminary lessons for next week too but didn't make much progress. That evening I went to a piano recital for one of the other Seminary kids in my class. (He's actually not a member of our church but has been meeting with the missionaries for months and he has attended Seminary very faithfully all school year. He really knows his Bible and makes great comments!) This recital was at Walkersville High School (not Seth's high school). Seth came with me too. This young man doesn't have a lot of family support--he lives with an uncle and a cousin; his parents are living in another country, I think. My team teacher had an event for one of her kids so she couldn't attend the recital and the family in our ward who bring him to church and support him in other ways couldn't attend that night either, so it was good that Seth and I were available to go. The recital was for a piano and a guitar class. There were only about 6 piano students and I'd say this young man was the most advanced although he plays by ear, not by reading notes. He dressed up in a suit and looked very sharp, and he did a nice job! We gave him a ride home afterwards. I enjoyed the guitar performances too...they were quite good!

Yesterday I did all the usual Thursday chores (vacuuming, laundry, grocery shopping) and also tried to work on Seminary lessons but still didn't make a lot of progress because there were a lot of distractions. I do have a basic outline for Monday's lesson but need to fill in a lot of details and all I've done for Tuesday's lesson is read it a couple of times. So I will have a lot of work to do on Seminary lessons this weekend. Oh well! Those are the last two lessons I will have to prepare this year. I'm looking forward to a 2 week break from lesson preparations. One of the main distractions that happened yesterday is that I got a call from a member of the high council asking to stop by to talk to me about YW camp. That got me anxious as I suspected I was going to be asked to be in charge of cooking...and I was right. I didn't say yes to him, but I didn't say no either. I expressed a lot of concerns and asked a lot of questions and he said he would try to get answers to my questions and asked me to think about it for a few days. I want to help out, but helping with the cooking last year nearly killed me...it was so exhausting and my feet gave me a ton of trouble. Of course, last year I was the assistant and all I had to do was show up and help--I didn't have to do any of the planning, gathering equipment, shopping, etc. Now they want me to do all of that too and I honestly don't know if I can do all of that, either mentally or physically. I did tell him that I just don't know if I can teach Seminary and be planning this at the same time--just too much on my mental plate! I mean, just thinking about the possibility yesterday made it impossible for me to focus on the two Seminary lessons that I need to be preparing right now. 

Today I went to the temple and was so glad to back! When I was sitting in the session today and my thoughts strayed to the YW camp dilemma, I suddenly just felt very peaceful about it. I don't know what that means, exactly...whether it means I should accept the assignment and it will work out or if it means it's okay for me to say no. 😊 But at the moment, I'm just grateful to be feeling less stressed about it. 

After I got home from the temple, I updated the finances (which thankfully didn't take all day like last week). 

We've had some rain and some fog this week. The last couple of days have been really cold. In between everything else, Frank and I have been trying to get Christmas shopping done and we did get most of it done. The hardest person to shop for is Seth because all he wants is Legos and Mega Blocks, and we'd like to get him something besides that, so we have been racking our brains for ideas and then trying to decide what things he might like without asking him because it would be nice to surprise him with some things that he is not expecting but that he would like. I'll let you know after Christmas if we were successful! I also have no idea what to get for Frank--probably because Frank doesn't know what he wants either. He has a wish list, but most things on his list are just things he is thinking about and not really sure if he even wants them! I have this challenge every year. 😟 I am still working on getting Christmas cards sent out--hopefully those will be going out by Monday. I completely forgot about our secret Christmas service that we usually do every year until yesterday and it was already too late, so I guess we won't be doing that this year. 😞😢I do feel somewhat relieved about what we've been able to accomplish this week, though. Hopefully by this time next week all I will have left to do is some wrapping and some baking. I will definitely be feeling giddy at that point because I will be done with Seminary for the year! I really do love my Seminary class, but I ready for a couple of week off!

Between last week and this week, Seth and I managed to complete his FAFSA and get it submitted also. It's actually a LOT easier than it used to be since they use last year's tax return data instead of this year's (I used to have to estimate what our income, taxes, etc were going to be for the year and then go in later and add corrected data after we filed...it was the worst!!) AND they import your tax data directly from the IRS now instead of having to enter all the data manually. Thank you to whoever decided to make those changes!

We are looking forward to seeing Ben, Dee and Brennan next week end...they are coming out here for a wedding for one of Brennan's friends...as well as Jared & Jessie, who are arriving on Saturday and will be here for a week. Merry Christmas, indeed! 😊