I didn't write a weekly review last week because we were in North Carolina for Thanksgiving. Now I have two weeks to cover, but I've forgotten most of the details so maybe this post won't be too long. Besides that, I'm feeling quite sick tonight and I've spent most of the day updating the finances (I had two weeks' worth of finances to catch up on also) so my brain is pretty fuzzy.
Seth was sick last week with a lot of congestion and other cold symptoms. He went to Seminary on Monday the 25th but felt sick to his stomach so he came home with me and went back to bed. After an hour or so of sleep, he woke up and felt quite a bit better so he went to school for his classes that afternoon (just missed his CTC class in the morning). He was better on Tuesday but started having cold symptoms. Fortunately, he was fairly functional and able to travel and didn't seem too miserable, but he was not 100% all week. By Sunday he was improving, but I started having a mild sore throat around Friday and by Sunday I was feeling a little sniffly, too. I had a really bad headache Sunday afternoon but felt better on Monday, other than having a lot of gunk in my throat. I've been that way most of the week...my throat has been slightly sore and I haven't had much of a voice, but other than that I haven't felt too bad and I've been able to do all the things I needed to do, but yesterday I took a turn for the worse. My nose started running and today I'm more congested and I've started coughing and generally feel pretty rotten. I hardly ever get sick, so I really can't complain. I just hope I start feeling better again soon. I'm thankful that I felt better earlier this week since those are the days I teach Seminary. I was able to go to Seminary every day, including today, but this morning when my alarm went off I decided to skip exercising and went back to sleep for a while.
Now that I've explained all that, I will see what I can remember about last week. Saturday the 23rd both Frank and I got haircuts. Seth worked that evening and we had the Elders over for dinner. Sunday the 24th I had choir practice before church because we sang in Sacrament Meeting that day. We sang Amazing Grace. I took Seth to his mission prep class that night and talked to Jared on the phone while I waited for the class to finish. Seth actually came upstairs as soon as the class ended and he introduced me to his friend Lori. They've been friends for a while and we often hear him talking to her (they play games together online sometimes) but Frank and I hadn't met her. On the way home from mission prep, Seth told me that Lori had admitted to Seth that she likes him and asked if he likes her. He told her he mostly likes her as a friend but would be willing to spend more time with her. We'll see if he actually asks her out on a date sometime. At least he is thinking about it!
The next few days were busy with preparations for our trip to North Carolina. On Monday when I was doing laundry I noticed shredded candy wrappers on a shelf in the laundry room. We had some leftover candy from Halloween sitting on that shelf, but I had taken it upstairs on Saturday because we were planning to take it with us on our trip to NC. I checked the bag and found a small round hole nibbled into the bottom in the back that I hadn't noticed when I picked up the bag. Yikes! I'm just glad I noticed it before we started eating it. That bag went into the trash. I was immediately anxious about all the Christmas candy and other treats that I already purchased, which was on the shelf above the leftover Halloween candy. I checked over all of it very carefully and thankfully didn't find any holes and there were no shredded wrappers on that shelf either. I ended up going to our storage unit to get a large plastic bin so I could store all the Christmas candy in that. (Frank checked the mouse traps that evening and did find and disposed of the culprit. Hopefully we won't see any more mice for a while!) In the meantime, that little adventure took quite a bit of time that I hadn't planned but I still managed to get the packing and everything else done. I even finished quilting the other pillow cover for January, but I ran out of time to sew the backs onto them and I haven't had time or felt well enough to do that since we got back. I don't have very good photos of them (too dark) but here they are:
Seth had school on Monday and Tuesday with a 2 hour early dismissal on Tuesday. Frank got off work early too so we were able to leave for North Carolina by about 1:00 pm. That turned out to be a great time to leave...we just sailed along and didn't run into any traffic until the last 30 minutes of the trip. We had reservations at a hotel in Christiansburg, Virginia which is about halfway to Brevard so we only had a 4 hour trip and arrived right around dinner time. Originally, we had hoped that Seth would do a lot of the driving so that he could get in a lot of driving hours but since he wasn't feeling his best he decided he didn't want to drive until the next day. Then when we got about an hour from home, he realized that he had left his glasses and his learner's permit at home so he wasn't able to drive at all. That was frustrating, but he wasn't feeling well the whole trip so probably wouldn't have driven anyway.
On Wednesday we got a fairly early start and drove the rest of the way to Brevard without encountering much traffic again. We drove through some of the areas that were hit really hard by Hurricane Helene, and we could definitely see evidence of that. In eastern Tennessee there was a bridge on the interstate that had completely collapsed and there has not been time to rebuild it entirely so there is a temporary bridge that is just one lane each direction. We could see destroyed buildings and huge piles of debris on either side of the road--really sad! I didn't think to take pictures then, but on the way home I took a bunch. In Asheville we saw some more destroyed buildings and there were fallen trees all over the place. Trees had fallen onto the guardrails along the side of the interstate in many places. The town of Brevard itself was mostly undamaged but areas on the outskirts were flooded and we saw more damaged buildings and lots of destroyed trailer homes and there were piles of cut up trees all over the place. Here are some of the photos I took. They don't really show how bad the damage looked in real life. First, a few of the Blue Ridge mountains:
We had some fun with our hot chocolate cups at the hotel. It bugged us that the cups said "Must. Have. Coffee." on them so we changed them:
We're coming out of the mountains and down into the valley where the worst flooding happened:
Some debris:
We got to Brevard around noon and couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00, so we went to Dawn's house first (Frank's sister). Then we got some lunch, went to visit Frank's parents for a while, and then checked into our hotel. Frank and Seth did some grocery shopping after that while I stayed at the hotel and worked on Seminary lessons for this week. I got one planned that day and the second one mostly planned on Thursday. We went to a Mexican place for dinner that night.
We didn't have Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday because the church (where we usually meet) wasn't available that day. We had Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead. On Thursday, we visited with Frank's parents and his brother James and we prepared some of the food for Friday. We helped Dawn make some turkey rolls and nearly set her house on fire making stuffing for those (the water with butter in it boiled over and briefly caught the stove on fire). Thankfully, no permanent damage was done! That evening, we met at Dawn's house to have sandwiches for dinner and we played a domino game called Mexican Train, which was really fun. Frank's parents came to have dinner and to play with us too. We stopped at the church on our way back to the hotel to drop off a bunch of the food items that we had made and to set up some tables and chairs.
On Friday morning we were back at Dawn's house to make mashed potatoes. We all met at the church at lunch time for our Thanksgiving feast. All the food was delicious, and afterwards we played another fun game of Mexican Train. (It was paticularly fun for me because I won!) By the time we finished, it was dinner time so we ate leftovers for dinner and then cleaned everything up. We said our goodbyes to everyone because we were leaving for home Saturday morning. I utterly failed to take photos of our feast and of the family!
The drive home went smoothly and we got home in time to unpack and attend a wedding reception for our bishop's daughter. (She's a year older than Scott and she and Scott were pretty good friends.) I guess it technically wasn't a wedding reception...they called it a "happily ever after party" because she actually got married in July. They were sealed in the Washington DC temple earlier that week...we were invited to the sealing too, but we weren't able to go since we were in NC. The party was lovely and we saw lots of good friends. The weather turned quite cold that day and it's been that way ever since. I guess our mild autumn days are gone for good and winter is here to stay for a while.
I've already talked quite a bit about this week, but there are a few things I haven't mentioned yet. On Sunday evening there was a choir practice and social that I planned to attend, but since I was losing my voice and had a bad headache, I decided to stay home and go to bed early instead. I was sorry to miss it, but I think that was a good choice. (Seth also decided to stay home from mission prep since he was still recovering.) The practice was to learn some songs that our ward was singing at the town of Walkersville tree lighting ceremony, which was on Wednesday. We sing for this event every year and I always enjoy it but since I had no singing voice at all by Wednesday and still wasn't feeling well and hadn't learned the songs, we decided not to go to that this year. It was really cold and windy too so I wasn't too excited about the idea of going out. Again, I was sorry to miss this event too but it was probably a wise choice to stay home.
Seth worked on Monday but that is the only day he was scheduled to work this week. On Tuesday Seth had a follow up doctor appointment about his medication. While we were there I also got a flu shot. My arm has been a little sore since then, but not too bad. We had family night on Wednesday evening since Seth was working on Monday (We couldn't have family night on Tuesday either because Frank was at the temple and Seth had a YM activity.) Seth gave a lesson and we played a game of Uno No Mercy, which I lost. (If you end up with more than 25 cards in your hand, you're out.)
In between everything else this week I have been getting caught up on all the regular chores (so much laundry!), working on Seminary lessons for next week (one is planned; I need to finish the other one), doing a lot of other Seminary tasks (such as submitting reciepts for reimbursement), trying to get started on preparations for Christmas without much progress (I got a lot of the decorations put up, but the tree isn't up yet), and trying to get rest so that I will start feeling better. I've taken a couple of naps which has been really helpful. I've been squeezing in some reading here and there and I'm a decent way into the next book chat book. I gave it the wrong title in my post last time...it's actually called I Capture the Castle. It's a unique book, but I mostly like it so far.
I didn't take my usual Friday trip to the temple today since I wasn't feeling well. I miss the temple and hope I can go next week! That reminds me that Frank and I were actually planning to go to the temple on Monday for a special meeting for all the temple workers and their spouses. We decided not to go since I wasn't feeling well and also Frank heard that it was going to be super crowded and he's never a fan of going places where there are crowds. I was sorry to miss that meeting as well, but it was probably the best choice...kind of the theme of this week!!
I mentioned about a month ago that my left arm / elbow were hurting. It still hurts when I move it certian ways or lift heavy things with that arm. Shortly before our trip to NC, I was texting Amy and mentioned my arm. She responded that the symptoms I was describing were very similar to something she experienced years ago and that she had been diagnosed with "tennis elbow". She said she got a brace for it (which can be purchased at places like Walmart) and that wearing the brace for a few weeks cleared it up. I purchased a brace a few days before our trip but I haven't been able to get it to fit right. While we were on our trip, my arm started feeling a lot better but it has bothered me more since we got home. I'm trying to pay attention to what motions seem to cause my arm to hurt. So far it's things like moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, taking dishes down from high shelves, carrying the vacuum upstairs, and so on. I guess I just can't do those things anymore! 😂 Fortunately, the pain is not severe so I can cope with it but I guess at some point I should have a doctor look at it.
That's all I can remember of the last two weeks and I'm more than ready to go to bed so I will sign off until next week.
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