Weekly Review April 17 '26

This week has felt busy and I don't feel like I have been able to accomplish much. Well, not since last Saturday, anyway. I did get a lot done last Saturday. After I wrote last Friday, I painted a bunch of the smaller dollhouse pieces while listening to the Follow Him podcast. That didn't work as well as normal because the painting took more of my brain power than I anticipated so I feel like I missed some things in the podcast, but overall I got the gist of it. The reason I had to think about the painting is because I'm not supposed to paint surfaces that are going to be glued to something else and for some of the small pieces, that can be a bit challenging to determine. I finally gave up on painting the pieces of the dormer windows because I couldn't figure all of it out and I was tired so I decided to wait until a time when I have more brain power (which may never happen, but hopefully it will!). Here's a photo of what I accomplished that night:

I let them dry overnight thinking that I could then turn some of the pieces and paint the other side (of the ones that need to be painted on both sides) but I got busy with other things on Saturday and I haven't gotten back to them still.

As I mentioned, Saturday April 11th was quite busy and productive. In the morning, I weeded the flower bed in our front yard. Then Frank helped me glue the left tower side, left front, and four fillstrips to the dollhouse. After gluing, we taped everything tight and weighed them down. I also put weights on the tower front piece because it looked slightly warped and it's one of the next pieces that needs to be glued on. The other thing I did on the dollhouse that day was to fit the top floor to the house body (not with glue) and trace around the house body so that I had a guide of where to paint that piece. (It's kind of hard to explain, but since the dollhouse has a porch & balcony, the top floor piece is a bit bigger than the lower floor pieces. The overhang helps create the ceiling of the balcony. Here's photos:

Two views of the dollhouse with added tower pieces, before adding the weights.

The top floor with pencil tracing (hard to see). I already painted the whole piece with the first coat and sanded it (don't worry--it's not supposed to look good yet; I will be adding more coats of paint later.)

The dollhouse with weights added (literally); plus, I had to get creative to find something to weigh down that narrow left front piece. Protein shakes are not super heavy, but they're better than nothing.

This is the top floor after I painted everything outside the tracing (underside of the top floor; the opposite side has the nicer finish that looks like a hardwood floor). The hole is for the staircase that will be coming up from the lower floor. 

I did all that stuff in the morning (except the painting), with Frank's help. He had to leave around noon because he was doing the AV / IT stuff for a funeral at the stake center. (I didn't know the woman who passed away. They used to live in our stake in a different ward but moved to Pennsylvania a few years ago. Sadly, she was right around my age and died only 9 weeks after being diagnosed. She had some type of cancer, I assume.) Frank got over to the stake center and found out he needed something else that we had at home (they asked him to do something that he hadn't anticipated) so he called me and I took that piece of equipment over to him. He was in the gym and they had a lot of tables set up for a luncheon and it was the most interesting decorating job I've ever seen at a funeral luncheon before--lots of colorful balloons and things like that. It was nice, though. There were a ton of people coming to the funeral from both Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Frank was at the stake center for several hours and Seth worked from 11:00 to 4:00. (I dropped him off at work so that I would have a car). Meanwhile, I finished preparing both of my Seminary lessons for this week which involved creating Power Point slides, a trip to the church, and a trip to the store. I also practiced ukulele for a bit. After Frank got home, I mowed the lawn. It needed it badly but I didn't want Seth to do it since he was recovering from surgery and not supposed to do a lot of physical activity. (I figured being on his feet for 5 hours at work was enough for one day.) By dinner time, I was quite tired so we ordered some Chinese food and Frank picked it up. I did cook some shrimp that had been thawing in the fridge and needed to be used but that was easy and the shrimp went great with the Chinese food. After dinner I cleaned the kitchen floor and then I was able to relax a little before bedtime. I was very tired and achy by then and I actually had sore muscles for a few days which seems ridiculous to me! I'm definitely getting old.

Sunday April 12th was more restful (as it should be). I read scriptures and we went to church. Both Frank and Seth taught the lesson in their Elders' Quorums. I went back over to the church when Seth's ward meetings finished so that I could set up tables and some other things for Seminary the next day. I needed the tables done differently than normal. I also had a long talk with Jared.

Seminary went well on Monday April 13th. It was a DM review and for most of the class time we were playing a game to help them learn the DM scriptures better. They seemed to have fun. The game involved earning cups, building a tower with the cups, and then earning points to use to try to knock down the other team's tower. The team with the most cups standing at the end won the game. (To earn cups, they had to correctly fill in blanks in the DM scripture references and key phrases.) 

I dropped Seth off at FCC for his classes that morning so that I could have the car to go on a ministering visit (he got a ride home with a friend). One of the sisters I minister to has a disabled daughter and her daughter had been sick most of the week. When I asked what I could do to help her, she said "Can you come visit with me? I just need to talk to another adult!" So that's what I did. Besides that visit and the regular chores, I went on a walk with Frank, read both of next week's Seminary lessons, helped Frank plan a short overnight trip for our anniversary next week, sent some Seminary texts, had family night (which included playing Mario Kart), and finished listening to the Follow Him Podcast (but also realized that somehow I was a week behind! I still haven't finished listening to this week's podcast). 

I woke up at 2:30 am on Tuesday April 14th which is an hour early but Frank had a really bad night (he was awake for hours...when he crawled back into bed was when I woke up) so he went back to sleep until about 5:00. My Seminary lesson that morning went pretty well. The topic was focusing on the Savior instead of on our problems. This is something that I would like to do better than I am currently doing! When I got home, I took a 1 hour nap. I started planning Monday's Seminary lesson, got regular chores done, and talked to Scott briefly. It was Frank's temple day, so he got home really late. A couple from our ward brought over some sheet music to me because I've agreed to sing in a small group at a RS activity next month. I was surprised when they also gave me a box of homemade cookies and a thank you card for Frank and I. (Frank has helped them with some IT stuff a few times). I was even more surprised when I opened the card later and discovered that there were two $50 gift cards for a restaurant in there. Why did they do that?? I don't feel like we've helped them that much, and I feel like they have done a lot of nice things for us. They are some of the best people I have ever known!

After a pretty chilly week last week, the temperatures started to warm up and we have had record high temperatures the last few days (all the way up to the low 90s on Wednesday and Thursday and it's in the 70s today). On Tuesday evening we had some rain off and on (at one point it was torrential, but only for about 30 seconds) and I saw two different rainbows about an hour apart from each other.

Around 6:00 pm:

Around 7:00 pm:

Right before bedtime, I talked to Tanner for a little while. He was driving up to see his girlfriend, Linsey. She had just texted him to tell him that her doctor called and told her she had to have the rest of her thyroid removed. They had been planning to meet for dinner that night, but she (understandably) didn't feel like going out. She did say she'd like to have him come over though. She lives in Tooele, so it is a bit of a drive. Tanner didn't know much info then but when I texted him on Wednesday he reported that Linsey was feeling a little better but she has to have another surgery (to remove the rest of her thyroid) and possibly a round of chemo. That doesn't sound so great to me. I think Tanner is pretty worried about her (naturally). He had finals this week too so he's been pretty stressed. Keep him (and Linsey) in your prayers!

We had a guest teacher for Seminary on Wednesday April 15th which is always fun. Our guest is one of the counselors in the stake presidency--the one who oversees Seminary. We never would have asked him to do that (knowing how busy he is) except that he told us he would love to teach our class anytime, so we took him up on that! He did a great job and brought donut holes for the kids which they loved.

Wednesday was also tax day and my last shift at VITA for this year. One of the other volunteers brought in little Pay Day candy bars to give to us. 😊It was pretty busy (not surprising) and I didn't get home until about 3:15. I will see at least some of the other volunteers in a few weeks because we are having a breakfast. They are a great bunch of people and I have really enjoyed working with them!

I had book club Wednesday evening, where we discussed the book Nation by Terry Pratchett. Now we are reading a book called Moloka'i by Alan Bennert. (I don't have a copy of it yet, though.) There was a lot to discuss about Nation, so we ended later than usual and then I had a hard time falling asleep and woke up a couple of hours early so that wasn't so fun. 

After Seminary and grocery shopping on Thursday April 16th, I took a nap but I woke up after only 30 minutes. My plan for the day was to finish preparing Monday's Seminary lesson and plan Tuesday's lesson, but instead I spent most of the day doing regular chores and a whole lot of Seminary related tasks. (One of them was to ask someone to guest teach for us in a couple of weeks and she did accept the invitation, so that was nice.) I did get a little bit more planning for Monday's lesson done Thursday night shortly before going to bed. I'm struggling with this lesson more than normal because our stake Seminary supervisor is visiting our class on Monday and she wants to have about 8 minutes at the end to talk to the kids so I'm trying to keep the lesson short. And this lesson doesn't want to be short! (Plus I'm not good at keeping lessons short anyway.) So I keep circling back around to this lesson, trying to change it so that it's shorter. Frank came home from work early so that he could do some work for one of his clients. 

This morning (Friday April 17th) I woke up shortly after 1:00 am, so it was another bad night and I'm feeling pretty tired. I worked some more on Monday's Seminary lesson this morning (but I still think it's too long). After lunch, I updated finances and after that started on this post. Seth went to work at 11:00 and he will be home at 5:00. Frank has been working from home all day but he just left to go to the temple. They needed extra workers tonight for a special event, so he volunteered to go. We are feeding the missionaries tonight which I couldn't do if Seth wasn't here but I asked them to come at 5:30 to make sure Seth will be home before they arrive. 

I am trying to grow out my bangs and I go around with my hair in a headband most of the time to keep my long bangs out of my face. I took this photo this week to record this fun phase for posterity. I was surprised when it actually turned out to be probably the best selfie I've ever taken of myself (which doesn't mean it's good, just not as terrible as all the other selfies I've taken). 

I need to start making dinner soon and that's all the news I have for this week.