Happy Valentine's Day!
Last Saturday I worked on Seminary lessons, did some sewing, and we had the Elders over for dinner. Neither of the Elders had been to our house before and it was nice to get to know them. Sewing: I sewed the border strips onto the first April quilt block and got it ready to quilt.
I also started sewing part of the second April quilt block together, but I couldn't finish it because part of it has an applique piece and I realized I needed a special kind of pin for the applique part. I ordered some of those pins, which arrived on Monday. Here's the part of the quilt block that I finished:
I started quilting the first quilt block this week but haven't gotten very far yet. Yesterday I sewed the applique part of the second quilt block and then finished sewing it together, sewed on the border strips, and got it ready to quilt:
Back to Saturday...after the Elders left, I noticed that I had missed a phone call from a sister in my ward that I minister to. When I called her back, I found out that her husband had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance with severe chest pain. She did say that the EMTs had done an EKG on him before they took him to the hospital and that his heart appeared to be okay but of course they still wanted to know what was causing the pain and to get him some relief. She didn't go to the hospital with her husband because they have an adult daughter named Genny with special needs...she's more like a 2 year old (but very sweet!) We offered to go stay with her daughter so that she could go to the hospital with her husband. Frank and I went over and helped her get her daughter to bed and then she went to the hospital. Frank and I watched a couple of episodes of Madame Secretary together and then he went home to go to bed because he needed his CPAP. I stayed and slept on the couch for a while. I thought I was going to be there a lot of the night because when this sister left for the hospital, she knew that her husband was still waiting in the ER waiting room (3+ hours after he was taken to the hospital). She came home around 12:30 though because he husband convinced her she should go home to get some rest. His pain had abated, but he was still waiting to be seen so he knew it was going to be a long night. I called Frank and he picked me up and took me home. It took me a while to fall asleep but I'm sure I slept better at home than I would have on the couch.
In the morning we got ready for church and then went back to this family's house to pick up Genny and take her to church with us. (Her mom was going to get some sleep and her dad was still at the hospital getting some tests done.) When I got to the church and walked into the foyer with Genny, one of my friends was there and she said "Oh, that's why you weren't at choir practice." I had completely forgotten that the choir was singing that day and that we had choir practice before church! It was our ward conference and teh choir sang a song for prelude. I wasn't sure I should sing since I missed the practice, but the choir director told me she wanted me to sing, so I did. Genny was no trouble during church and afterwards we took her home where a neighbor met us and took her to her house for the afternoon. Genny's dad came home from the hospital that afternoon...they determined that he had a gallbladder attack.
The rest of Sunday was calm and restful and Seth didn't have mission prep class so we were able to have family night and get to bed on time. I was also able to watch a training for Seminary & Institute teachers which actually happened in January but I didn't know it was happening then. The training was excellent.
My Monday Seminary lesson went pretty well except that I planned too much and ran out of time to do everything I wanted to do. By this time, we were pretty sure--based on the forecast--that we were going to have to cancel at least one day of Seminary this week so my team teacher said she would teach the remaining three days since I taught three days last week and she ended up only teaching one day because of last week's snow day. I decided not to finish preparing the 2nd lesson I had been working on because I am tired of preparing lessons that I don't end up teaching for weeks! Seth worked as usual on Monday evening.
We did have Seminary on Tuesday, but since a storm was coming in that afternoon the school system sent out a notice Monday evening that school would be released 3 1/2 hours early on Tuesday. That meant that I only had a few hours to get a lot of household chores done before it was time for Seth to come home, but I did get a lot accomplished. My team teacher and I also met together after Seminary for a bit to do some planning for next week. Frank left the office early to avoid the incoming storm and worked from home that afternoon. The boy in my Seminary class who was recently baptized asked if he could come hang out with Seth that afternoon so we picked him up shortly after school got out. He and Seth seemed to enjoy playing some games together and he stayed and had dinner with us. By then it had started to snow so he decided he'd better go home before the roads got too bad. We enjoyed having him here. He lives with a friend of his father's and has no family in the United States so I think he gets lonely and we are happy to be "family" for him. (By the way, youth activities were cancelled that night and the temple is still closed so Frank didn't have his temple shift either.)
I got to talk to Jared for a while on Tuesday evening. He and Jessie are doing well. Jessie is doing great in school and Jared is also doing well with the class he is taking. Jared is teaching a Primary class at church (the 10 and 11 year olds) and he has also joined the choir and has been asked to sing a solo or duet sometime soon.
Around the time that Frank and Seth left to take the boy from my Seminary class home, the school district sent out a notice stating that a decision about whether to delay or cancel school the next day would be made at 5:30 am. I wasn't too happy about that because I didn't want to get up just to find out that I didn't need to get up! But then my team teacher texted me and asked "How would you feel about making the decision tonight to cancel Seminary so no one will have to get up early to see if we're having Seminary or not?" Since it seemed highly likely that school would be at least delayed in the morning I said "I think that is a great idea!" Turns out that we made the right choice because at 5:30 the decision was to delay two hours and re-evaluate at 7:00 am. At 7:00 they decided to cancel school for the day. I was a little surprised by that because although we got about 3 inches of snow, the roads didn't look too bad to me. There was a possibility that we were going to get sleet that afternoon, though, so I think that's probably why they cancelled.
Early Wednesday morning snow shots:
The University of Maryland closed that day too, so Frank didn't have to work (unless an emergency came up, but it didn't) and VITA also closed so I didn't have to go anywhere. I feel like I should have got a lot done, but for some reason I didn't. I did get one Seminary lesson for next week prepared, though.
Frank went out in the afternoon to do some work for a client and I asked him to go to Costco to get a few things. He did get what I wanted, but he also totally surprised me by coming home with a huge vaseful of roses and some dark chocolate. He decided to get ahead of the Valentine's Day rush, which was probably a good idea! I had Seth take some photos of me with the flowers to show how big they are:
By Wednesday evening it was raining and it rained quite a bit overnight. I was surprised the snow hadn't melted by the next morning but the roads were clear so school was on time and we had Seminary as usual on Thursday morning and this morning. It was really cloudy, drizzly, and gray Thursday morning but by afternoon the sun came out and the temperatures warmed up to the low 50s so all the snow melted. Today has been a lot colder, though, and last night it was really windy for a couple of hours. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary yesterday--just got all the regular household chores done and got a basic outline done for my 2nd Seminary lesson for next week. Oh, except I took Seth to the store after school so that he could get a card and some chocolate for Lorie. Frank was busy last night doing maintenance for all his clients.
Today for Valentine's Day we gave Seth a card and some candy and Frank and I exchanged cards. We also went out to breakfast together after I got home from Seminary. (Our bishopric provided breakfast for the youth today but I didn't eat any of it.) After we got back from breakfast, I took a nap because I woke up at 1:00 am and didn't go back to sleep. I woke up in time for lunch and then got the budgeting done before Seth got home from school. Seth and Lorie had planned a date for this afternoon so shortly after he got home from school I went with him to pick up Lorie at her house (she lives in Brunswick, about 30 minutes from Frederick). They originally planned this date for tomorrow, but since it is supposed to rain tomorrow I told him that should consider rescheduling to today and that's what they decided to do. They wanted to spend some time walking around seeing the sights in downtown Frederick, so I dropped them off at the library. After that, I dropped some food off to a friend who needed it and then Frank and I had dinner together while watching an episode of Madame Secretary. Then Frank had to leave to go pick up Lorie and Seth. They took Lorie home and they just got back.
I've been doing a little bit of reading but haven't had a lot of time for it. I did finally finish the introduction to Meditations and I am finally reading the actual book. It's interesting. Some of it I don't understand, but a lot of it I can really relate to and sometimes it even makes me laugh out loud.
One other piece of news is that I heard this week that the JoAnn's in Frederick is going to close...and so are all the other stores within an hour or more of Frederick. That's sad news...there isn't another fabric store in Frederick, so I don't know where I will be able to get fabric and other sewing supplies in the future. My friend Rebekah (who does a lot of sewing) and I are going to go on a field trip to a Hobby Lobby store in Hagerstown (about 30 minutes from Frederick) sometime soon to see if they carry fabric. I can probably find a lot of basic sewing supplies online or even at places like Wal-Mart, but I don't want to buy fabric online...I want to be able to see it. I do know that there is a small quilting store in downtown Frederick that carries some fabric so maybe I will be able to find some things I need there. I hope so! Hopefully I will be able to find yarn somewhere also, the next time I want to do a crochet project.
That's it for this week.
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