Here's what we did this week:
Saturday January 17th: Finally, I got a good night's sleep! I slept 8 solid hours Friday night. It was heavenly, and so needed after a long week of bad nights. I had a haircut appointment that morning at 8:00. It started snowing as I was leaving home, and the the snow came down pretty steadily while I was getting my haircut so by the time I was done there was about a 1/2 inch on the ground and the roads were a little slick driving home.
The snow didn't last long, though. By the time I left later to go to lunch with my friend Rebekah, the snow on the roads had already melted. Rebekah and I went to a place called Qdobe which is pretty similar to Chipotle. As always, I enjoyed visiting with Rebekah.
I spent the afternoon finishing lesson prep for Wednesday's Seminary lesson. We had the Elders over for dinner that night. Seth worked most of the day, but he got home in time for dinner. One of the Elders serving in our ward is new--he's only been out about a month--and he's from Mesa, Arizona. We were talking about the morning's snow, and he said that he was pretty excited to see some snow coming down! Frank told him that sometimes we get really big snow storms here--like a couple of feet of snow--and his eyes got as big as saucers! I told him not to get his hopes up because it doesn't happen here very often but within a few days we started hearing predictions of a big snow storm this weekend and currently they are predicting anywhere from 12 to 20 inches of snow for our area, so maybe he's going to see one of our big snow storms after all!
On Saturday evening I finished reading Flowers for Algernon. It was an interesting book.
Sunday January 18th: I had another good night's sleep. When we got up, we discovered that it had snowed a little more in the night--but just a dusting. It was very cold that day. We have a young adult in our ward who was baptized last fall and his mom came to church on Sunday and sat right behind us. At the end of Sacrament Meeting she said "This may sound weird, but I feel like this is where I need to be." It was really cool to hear her say that!
Seth has been called to be a Sunday School teacher in his ward and he taught his first lesson on Sunday. He forgot he was supposed to be teaching until he got to church that day, though! In spite of that, he didn't panic and he said he felt like the lesson went pretty well. A member of the stake Sunday School presidency visited that day too and Seth said he complemented him afterwarda and also gave him some pointers. Hopefully next time he teaches, he will remember to prepare!
Frank had a ministering visit right after church. I talked with Jared, read scriptures, and listened to a podcast. After everyone got back home, we had family night lesson. That evening I started reading the book Mona's Eyes. It's about a little girl who has a brief unexplainable episode of going blind. Her family is worried that her blindness will come back, and her grandfather decides to take her to see a famous work of art each week so that she will have beautiful things to remember if she loses her sight permanently. (They live in Paris, so they go to the Louvre.) It's pretty interesting.
Monday January 19th: It was MLK Day, so Frank had the day off work and I didn't have Seminary. I slept well again, which was awsome! Frank wasn't feeling too well that day and for the next couple of days--he was having some stomach issues. It was probably caused by one of the medications he's taking--that happens sometimes. He is feeling better now, thankfully. Frank and Seth went to Costco because Frank needed to replenish his supply of protein shakes. I got the regular chores done, read more of Mona's Eyes, and also planned one of next week's Seminary lessons. We had family night activity--played a game of bowling on the Wii and had donuts--before Seth went to his YSA FHE activity. That evening I started reading a book I got for Christmas called Sleep Smarter; I'm hoping I will get some good strategies for more consistent better sleep. I'm just reading a little bit here and there when I have the chance, since I'm reading Mona's Eyes too.
Tuesday January 20th: Frank went back to work and he also did his temple shift that evening. It was another day off school (end of the semester) so I didn't have Seminary again. I got all the regular chores done, talked to Scott, listened to a podcast, did a little bit of coloring, read a little bit, and planned another Seminary lesson for next week. That evening I had an orientation meeting for VITA, which was online. The site coordinator we've had for the last 3 years is gone now (I'm not sure if he quit or what) but the new site coordinator worked with us last year and he is great. He and his assistant have worked out a lot of new procedures which I think are going to be wonderful and help everything run more smoothly with less chaos and make life a lot easier for all the volunteers, so I'm excited about that. We also have a lot of new volunteers this year (close to 50 volunteers total now, which is fantastic...most of the years I've been volunteering there have been maybe 15 of us). We have several volunteers who are students at a local college who are studying accounting or finance. This year there are also at least 2 volunteers who are in high school, but who are hoping to go into accounting. I think that's pretty cool!
Wednesday, January 21st: I taught a lesson about the Fall for Seminary that morning; it went okay. (We are so fortunate to have the Pearl of Great Price and the Book of Mormon to help us understand so much more about the Fall!) After Seminary, Tammy and I did some planning--by then we had heard about the big snowstorm predicted for this weekend, so we decided we'd better have a plan B for next week since there may be some snow days. We're supposed to have a regular 5 day school week, and the original plan was that I would teach Monday through Wednesday and Tammy would teach Thursday and Friday. Since I had already planned two of my lessons, we juggled some things around for plan B so that I will still teach those 2 lessons even if we don't have 5 days (I will teach one of them the following week). We'll see how it all turns out. I suppose I shouldn't have started preparing lessons so early, but since I was teaching 3 in one week, I felt like I needed to start preparing. (And I haven't had time to do any more preparation since Tuesday, so it's a good thing I did some preparation while I had the chance.)
Seth and I got his FAFSA for the 2026-27 school year completed that day. I got chores done and after Frank got off work we went to Costco because he wanted me to look at some couches they had there (he and Seth saw them when they went to Costco on Monday). He took a picture of one of them and my gut reaction was that it was too big for our living room, but I thought it would be good to actually see it. There were also a few others that Frank didn't take photos of. We measured the living room before we went over so we could compare those measurements with the measurements of the couches. It turns out I was right--the couch I had seen was too big and all the other ones were too.
Besides those things, I also talked to Scott for a while and my friend Rebekah came over to get some white bias tape from me that she needed for a project. She works during the day, but on Wednesday she had lost her voice (didn't feel sick so it must have been laryngitis) so she had to come home from work because she couldn't communicate with anyone (she's a receptionist at a doctor's office). She decided to take advantage of the unexpected day off to get some sewing done.
On Wednesday evening Seth and I went to a swim meet at one of the high schools to see a couple of the kids in my Seminary class compete. Seth is good friends with one of them, so he wanted to go too. I've never been to a swim meet before and it was interesting. Tammy and her kids were there as well and the mom of 2 of the kids who were swimming was there too. We had fun cheering them on!
Seth left early to go to Institute and we both got home around the same time. I was up a little late, but thankfully slept well in the time that I had available for sleep.
Thursday January 22nd: After Seminary I had a long shopping trip because I decided to get all the groceries that I had planned to get on Monday as well as Thursday's list. Now I don't have to worry about getting to the store Monday morning if it snows a bunch. And even if the roads are clear, it's supposed to be super cold, so I will be happy to avoid going out in that. Besides all the other regular chores, I also talked to both Tanner and Jared and made a batch of cookies because I promised to bring a treat for any of the youth who read Moses 4 and 5 by Friday. (We're trying to encourage them to read the required reading chapters during the week that we are actually learning about them in Seminary, instead of waiting until the end of the semester to binge read them.)
Seth drove over to FCC to find out where all his classes for this semester are going to be. The semester starts on Monday. When I told him he might not have school on Monday because of the predicted snow storm, he said he was disappointed about that because he's ready to be on a regular schedule again. I'm glad that he feels that way! He got a notice today that the FCC campus will be closed on Sunday and Monday, though, so he will not have school until at least Tuesday. Frank also got a notice today that UMD and his office will be closed on Monday.
Friday January 23rd: This morning after Seminary I went to the temple to do an endowment session. I always use the "Ordinances Ready" feature to get a name to take and this time I was surprised to get someone who is more closely related than "9th cousin 5 times removed" or something like that! She still isn't super closely related, but she is only my 3rd cousin 3 times removed (or something like that). I could see that she is related to me through Dad's Mom's family. Anyway, I had a cool experience on my way to the temple which is kind of hard to explain, but I will try. When I got into the car to leave, I thought about this relative (her name is Anna)--I thought that in a way I was taking her with me to the temple. And then suddenly I remembered what it felt like for me to go to the temple for the first time--the excitement and the joy--and I just felt like Anna was excited to have her work done and I also felt like she was aware of me and of the sacrifice I was making to go to the temple (I mean, I love to go--but it is a sacrifice because I'm always so tired). It was a really beautiful feeling and I felt really emotional most of the way to the temple. I'm so glad I was able to go.


Shortly after I got home, a guy from our pest control service came by to dispose of a mouse I found in one of our traps yesterday. He also showed Frank the place where he thinks the mice are probably getting in (the occasional mouse that gets in...thankfully, it doesn't happen often) and told him what we can do to block it. I spent the afternoon getting the finances updated. Frank got dinner in the oven while I finished that up, and then we watched a couple of episodes of Once Upon a Time while dinner baked and while we ate it.
It will be interesting to see how this storm shapes up this weekend. Kind of crazy how much of the nation it is impacting...from Texas all the way across parts of the south and up into some of the midwest, all over the mid-Atlantic, and up into the north east. For us, the snow is supposed to arrive around midnight tomorrow night. The forecast says 3-5 inches of snow overnight on Saturday, 8-12 more inches of snow / ice on Sunday, and about 1 inch of snow / ice on Sunday night. Besides, that, it is going to be very cold. Actually, it's already very cold. It's currently 21 degrees, but with the wind chill (I can hear the wind blowing right now as I type) it feels like 7 degrees. The temperature is dropping to 7 degrees overnight with wind chills below zero. For the entire coming week our highs will be in the 20s with lows in the single digits. How fun!
To finish up, here is a photo of this morning's sunrise. As always, it was a lot better in real life. There were these beautiful bands of delicate pink and blue. Hopefully you will get the idea!