I'm a day late getting this week's post written--I just ran out of time to do it yesterday. This week was busy but definitely didn't go how I thought it would. When I finished last week's post, I said I wanted to do some sewing. I did get to do that...I sewed strips on the edges of each of the February quilt blocks and got them ready to quilt. I also sewed one of the March quilt blocks together.
The snowstorm kind of fizzled out and we didn't get much snow until later. Around dinner time, it did snow hard for a little while and it was really windy too so that visibility was really bad for a while. We only got about an inch of snow, though.
On Saturday the 4th I went to a regional training for Seminary teachers which was held at the stake center next to the temple. My team teacher went also so we went down together. She and her husband were planning to go to a temple session afterwards, so I drove so that she could ride home with her husband later. We had a nice visit on the way down, discussing plans for Seminary. The training was good although maybe not quite as helpful as I had hoped. I ran into an old friend (used to be in our ward) and enjoyed visiting with her during lunch at the end of the training.
When I texted Frank to let him know I was on my way home, he mentioned that our handyman friend (a member of our stake that we have hired to do a number of home repair / improvement projects in the past) was at our house fixing Seth's shower. Earlier that week, Seth had pulled up on the piece on the faucet that directs the water up to the shower head, and it had broken off. We actually purchased a new faucet / shower head etc. for that shower probably a decade ago but had never got around to installing it. We had purchased new hardware for our shower at the same time and hadn't installed it yet, either. Frank had tried to remove the old faucet but ran into difficulties, so he texted our friend to see if he could come look at it. When I got home, I was surprised to find not only a mess in Seth's bathroom, but in our bathroom as well and there was a hole cut in the wall in our closet and another in Seth's room. What?! I found out later that the holes in the wall were there because he was installing access panels so that we can get to the plumbing to both showers. It turned out that it was extremely difficult to remove the old faucet (it's a good thing Frank called for help) and the new hardware we had purchased didn't fit right so we had to buy some additional pieces to get the hardware to fit right and our friend also discovered some issues with the plumbing, so what was supposed to be a quick project turned into a major all day project that wasn't done until 9:30 that night! That definitely wasn't in our planned budget but we do have new hardware installed in both showers now (finally, after about a decade!), Seth's shower works again, and we have access to the plumbing that we didn't have before so it's all good.
On Sunday the 5th we didn't have to get up as early as we've become accustomed to because our church time moved from 9:00 to 10:30. I really don't mind the earlier time, but it's kind of nice to be in the middle time slot because we see people from both of the other wards that meet in our building. We can't watch Music & Spoken Word live anymore, but we are still able to watch a recording of it after we get home from church. In testimony meeting, I was really happy when a boy who is in my Seminary class (who isn't a member...he's been investigating the church for several months) got up and said that he knows the Book of Mormon is the word of God (he actually said "I would be committing blasphemy if I said it wasn't the word of God") and he asked all of us (who, he said "I love and trust with all my heart") to pray for him that he will know the next step he needs to take. In my mind, I thought "Well, I know what his next step should be, but he needs to figure that out for himself." I have prayed for him this week but I was still a little surprised when I got a text from him on Thursday afternoon. Here are screen shots of our conversation (I colored over his name and names of other people for privacy reasons):
I am so thrilled that he has made the decision to be baptized! 😊 Pure joy! 😇😇 On Friday morning when I woke up I had another text message from him:
That was definitely the highlight of my week.
Back to Sunday, though...the forecast was looking like we definitely were going to get snow and that school would be at least delayed (if not cancelled) on Monday, so we made the decision late Sunday afternoon to cancel Seminary for Monday morning. Then the school system actually made the decision to cancel school a few hours later. We did get some snow...probably about 5 inches, when all was said and done...but not the 8 or more inches they were predicting. Because of the timing of the storm (it snowed in the morning and then more in the evening) school was cancelled on Tuesday as well. (Not all the roads and parking lots were plowed and sidewalks around the schools weren't shoveled after the second round of snow.) We weren't super surprised when there was a 2 hour delay on Wednesday either but we were completely taken by surprise when there was a 2 hour delay on Thursday as well. I still have no idea why that happened. The decision to cancel or delay was made the night before in every case except Thursday...we got a notice about Thursday's delay at 5:41 am Thursday morning. We were up and ready for Seminary...about to leave...so that was super frustrating!!
Because of all the cancellations and delays, we went from a 5 day Seminary week to a 1 day Seminary week and my team teacher and I had to keep adjusting our plans. We started out with plan A, then went to plan B, C, and D before finally actually doing plan E! Since one of my lessons was an introduction to the Doctrine & Covenants, that's the lesson that we kept planning to do, so my week felt similar to a week when you're assigned jury duty...I had to be prepared every day, but was never sure if I was actually going to have to do anything! I did finally teach that lesson on Friday. The other lesson I prepared I will be teaching in a few weeks. It's a life preparation lesson, so it can be given anytime.
A few snow photos:
My team teacher and I met on Tuesday afternoon for a few hours to do some planning (that was plan C 😂). We also cleaned out our wall cabinet...I don't remember if I mentioned in previous posts that the RS room (where we have Seminary) was repainted the last week before Christmas break (we had to meet in the Primary room instead that week). In that process, our wall cabinet got really dusty, so we pulled everything out, dusted it off and then reorganized, threw out a few things, and put everything we were keeping back in it. Later that day, Frank took Seth to the church because the YM had planned to do some shoveling for members of the ward and he discovered that there was a guy there mounting a television on the wall in the RS room. That was good news for us!
This post is kind of a jumbled mess, but that's probably appropriate since my week felt that way too. 😅I made another trip to the church on Thursday to make sure I knew how to connect my laptop to the new television.
Meanwhile, Frank was supposed to go back to work on Monday but the University of Maryland campus was closed on Monday and Tuesday so he didn't have to work. On Wednesday and Friday he worked from home (as usual) so the only day he went into work was Thursday. He didn't do his temple shift this week either because the federal government was closed on Tuesday and when the federal government closes, the temple closes too. Seth, of course, had 2 shortened days and 1 full day of school so he had a lot of time off also. He was scheduled to work on Monday from 4:00 to 8:00 but a few hours before his shift, they called him and said they were getting about 1 customer every 2 hours, so they didn't need him to come in.
I had time off from Seminary, of course, but other than that my week was the same as usual...I still had all the usual housework, laundry, shopping, etc. to do so I kept pretty busy. I didn't spend as much time on actual lesson preparations because the change in schedule was impacting next week's Seminary schedule as well so I didn't want to start preparing lessons until I knew how many lessons I would be teaching and which one(s). We only have 3 school days next week so in the end it turns out that I will only be teaching one lesson next week and it will be on Tuesday. I actually still need to prepare that lesson...I have read it a couple of times and I have an outline, but I need to do a lot of solidfiying and fleshing out still. (That will be my next project after I finish this post).
On Wednesday I took a friend in my ward to an appointment...she's been on a waiting list to get an apartment for a couple of years at this one place and she finally made it to the top of the list and an apartment was available. She had to go to an interview, though. Another friend in the ward was going to take her but then that friend got sick so I ended up taking her instead. It turns out the apartment is on the 3rd floor and my friend is scared of heights and refuses to live that high up! I encouraged her a couple of times to just go look at it before deciding she wouldn't be comfortable there, but she wouldn't do it. The good news is that she will retain her spot at the top of the waiting list so as soon as a 1 bedroom apartment becomes available on the ground floor, she gets first chance for it. The bad news is, people rarely move out of this place since it is government subsidized, so they only leave if they need to move to assisted living or a nursing home (or sometimes someone will pass away). So my friend might be waiting for several more months or longer for a place to open up. She has been homeless...moving from one hotel to another or sleeping on friend's or family members couches for 5 years! I was really hoping she would finally get to move into her own place. But it is her choice, of course. Last night this same friend called me because she didn't have any food for dinner so Frank and I took her some food and then I called the RS president, who is going to get some more meals set up for her until her next social security check comes in. Some people have such hard lives!
Yesterday I went to the temple and it was really great to be able to go back...with the holidays, I hadn't been there in 3 weeks. The temple looks pretty in the snow:
The traffic yesterday was a lot worse than usual and I thought I wasn't going to make it to my scheduled session, but I managed to squeak in just in time.
After I got home from the temple, I spent a lot of time updating the finances. I also picked Seth up from school and we took scriptures and Seminary study journals from last semester to a brother and sister in our class who haven't been coming lately. We got to have a brief but nice visit with them. Between that, taking food to my friend, and talking to Scott (he called me that evening) I ran out of time to write this post.
In between everything else, I did manage to get some sewing done this week. On Saturday (after I got home from Seminary training) I sewed the other March quilt block:
I finished quilting one of the February quilt blocks on Tuesday and the second one on Thursday:
After I sew the backs onto them, they will be done. I discovered that I don't have enough fabric for the border strips for the March quilt blocks, so on Wednesday I went to the fabric store to get more and discovered that they don't have the fabric I need for that anymore. 😧 I was able to find something else that will work, even though it won't be as good.
I had an issue with my car this week...on the way home from Seminary training on Saturday, my check engine light went on. I wasn't thrilled, as I had just got my car back the day before! Frank did some diagnosing and decided the car at least needed an oil change. He took it in for an oil change on Tuesday or Wednesday (I can't remember now which day it was). The light didn't go off and he thought he was going to need to replace a part but then on Thursday the light did go off and it hasn't come back on so that's good news. My car is really dirty because of all the road treatments for the snow (salt etc.) but I can't take it through an automatic car wash until early February because the paint on the new mirror piece has to cure. And it's much too cold to wash my car by hand, so I guess it's just going to look awful for another 3+ weeks. I'm just glad to have it back, and glad it is working!
Since it is now dinner time, I might as well report on today before I sign off for this week. This morning I read scriptures, practiced ukulele, and cleaned the kitchen floor. I went to lunch with two friends from my ward and we hadn't had a chance to talk for a long time so we ended up talking for nearly 3 hours. It was super nice to get caught up with them though! Frank and Seth went to lunch together while I was gone. Seth drove there and back so he got some driving hours in.
Frank is making dinner and probably has it almost done, so I should go help him. That's it for this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment