Weekly Review June 26 '26

I only have a few minutes before we need to leave for an event, but I thought I'd get started on this week's post, and I will have to finish it later. This week has been fairly busy--I feel like all of our weeks are busy lately. 

Saturday June 20th: I woke up at 6:00 am, and I decided it would be a good time to pull weeds, before it got too hot. I pulled all the weeds in the front flower bed before showering and getting ready for a meeting. The meeting was online; it was a planning meeting for the food for YW camp. Right after that meeting, I had a ministering interview with one of the RS counselors. She is also on the cooking crew for camp, so we just stayed on the Zoom call a little longer after everyone else left the meeting. 

After meetings, I made a chocolate cream pie (our ward had "pies for guys" at the end of church for Father's Day) and I also made some spinach dip to take to a game night later. Frank helped me make both of those things. Then Frank also helped me glue the dollhouse to its foundation. 

I practiced ukulele a little while and after lunch I cleaned the kitchen floor because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it later that evening. Around 3:00, my bishop stopped by to do the interview for my service mission. He also extended a new calling--I am now the RS activities committee chair. I wasn't really expecting that calling (I thought I'd be going to Primary), but mostly I'm happy about it. 

That evening after dinner, we went to a game night--a couple in our ward invited us and three other couples over to play games and eat snacks. It was a lot of fun! We played a couple of new games that I have never played before (Bang and Quibbler). There was lots of laughing and joking. 

One of my hands for "Quibbler":

One of the couples at game night has the last name "Rizzo", so that was pretty funny. Fortunately for me, "rizz" is a word (slang for "charisma"), and this word was worth a lot of points since it had two Zs in it. I actually won this game--I was really lucky and got a lot of good hands.

When we got home, Scott called me because the boys were trying to finalize Father's Day gifts for Frank and needed my help with one thing. Gotta love procrastinators! 😂 

Sunday June 21st: We had a quiet morning. The only meeting Frank had to attend was the YSA Branch Council, so he came to church with me. He had to leave our sacrament meeting about half way through to go to branch council, but he was done partway through our second hour and was able to attend part of Sunday school and he was also able to get a piece of pie. 

I got sustained in my new calling but haven't been set apart yet. I also haven't been released as a Seminary teacher yet, but I know they've called the new teacher because she contacted me. Maybe they will release me and sustain her this Sunday...we'll see.

Frank received cards and the boys gave him a gift card to get some audio books. All three of the older boys also called to talk to him.

Monday June 22nd: The morning was busy. Frank was working from home because there was a power outage at UMD. Then one of his clients had an emergency problem, so he had to go take care of that, so he was gone for several hours and we only had one car. Seth had to be at work at 11:30 and I needed to be somewhere at noon, so I had to take him to work. I woke up at 7:00 am (which was lovely!) and was able to exercise, shower, buy groceries, and vacuum / sweep as well as make a pasta dish before I took Seth to work. Seth also got the laundry started for me that morning. 

This was Seth's first day back at work after his surgery and he needed a note from the surgeon but he hadn't been able to get it yet (they sent it to his patient portal, but he wasn't able to get into that). He called the surgeon's office again that morning and they said they would print up a note and we could pick it up. We didn't have time to get it before he had to be at work, so I dropped him off and then went to the surgeon's office to pick up the note. His manager said they needed it by 4:00 pm, so I took it over later because I needed to be somewhere else at noon. 

Our ward was providing a luncheon for the workers at Mission of Mercy. It's a charity run by the Catholic Church that provides free medical & dental care for people who are unisured or underinsured. Our stake partners with this charity--they hold their free clinic at our stake center every Monday. The wards also take turns providing lunch for all the medical professionals, and it was our ward's turn. That's what I made the pasta dish for. We're always invited to stay to eat lunch too. It was fun because several of my friends from my ward were there and we get to know some of the medical people too. 

After the luncheon, I took the note to Seth's work and then I had a few quiet hours to read scriptures, read Emma M. Lion, play some games, and finish the laundry before it was time to pick up Seth from work. Frank got home around dinner time. After dinner we had family night activity and treat before Seth went to YSA FHE. I also got to talk to Scott for a little while.

Tuesday, June 23rd: I woke up at 3:00 and was awake for a few hours, but finally went back to sleep around 5:00 and woke up again at 7:00. I exercised, showered, and ate breakfast. Then I ran some errands. First I picked up a library book I had on hold (John Adams by David McCullough; it's for book chat), then I picked up a prescription for Frank, and then I voted (it was Primary election day). It was raining, but fortunately I have a rain jacket so I stayed dry! After getting back home, I was able to get chores done (mainly cleaning all the bathrooms) and finished reading Emma Lion (volume 2) before it was time for us to leave for the temple. I used some of the drive time to the temple to work a little bit on food planning for the upcoming Pew family reunion.

Frank was working from home again because the power was still out at UMD which meant that we were able to go to the temple together. It also meant that I left earlier than I usually do because Frank has to be at the temple at 4:30. The temple doesn't open until 6:00, but he is the one who mans the recommend desk to let all the temple workers in. (Since he usually goes straight from work to the temple, he offered to do this job every week.) I emailed my shift coordinator to let her know I would be there early, and she said that if Frank was willing, I could sit with him at the recommend desk and read the procedure manual and get trained on recommend desk. So that's what I did. There were actually extra workers at the desk and a lot more people coming in than usual because for a few weeks every summer they open the temple early to have stake youth temple days, and Tuesday was one of those days. After the recommend desk, I went to name issue, then had a short time to study, then I was hostess in the celestial room, and then I did veil. Frank wasn't going to be done until nearly an hour after me, so I used that time to do some more studying.

The temple looks so beautiful at night:

We got home around 10:30 but I always have a hard time settling my brain down after a busy day, so I didn't go to sleep until sometime around 11:40. 

Wednesday, June 24th: In spite of being up so late the night before, I woke up about 3:30 am. I tried to go back to sleep, but gave up around 5:00. I got up, exercised, ate breakfast, and showered. After that I felt sleepy, so I took a 1 1/2 hour nap. After my nap, I read scriptures and dusted before going to a doctor appointment (my yearly well woman exam). I was able to get some reading done while waiting at the doctor's office (I started Emma M. Lion volume 3). 

After I got home from the doctor and had a late lunch, I did some more reading, read through a bunch of RS activities info sent to me by the RS secretary, made & ate dinner, and then Frank and I went on a walk. I also checked the fit of the tower front for the dollhouse and realized that it wasn't going to fit quite right, but thought I would probably be able to do some sanding or scraping and get it to fit. I didn't have time to work on it that night, though.

Thursday, June 25th: I woke up around 2:00 am and since I was still awake around 3:30 when Frank woke up, I decided to just get up and take a nap later. (Except I never did take a nap!) I finished watching The Chosen while exercising on Wednesday morning, so on Thursday I resumed watching Downton Abbey. 

Frank went into work that morning--the only day this week that he worked at his office! His whole team is moving to a different office while we are in Florida, so he spent a lot of the day packing up the stuff in his office. 

After exercising and showering, I started the laundry. This included washing the sheets, and after I pulled the sheets off our bed, I realized that this would be a good time to rotate the mattress since we're supposed to rotate it at the beginning of July, so I did that too. Then I went to buy groceries--it was only about 6:00 am, which is a great time to go shopping because there's hardly any other customers at that time of day. 

After I got home and ate breakfast and did some reading, I felt kind of sleepy but decided before taking a nap to call the doctor to see if I could get an appointment. My left eye has been hurting quite a bit for the last couple of weeks and I thought I ought to get it checked since we are going to be traveling a lot the next month. When I called, there was an appointment available in about an hour so I didn't end up taking a nap. The doctor couldn't find anything major wrong with my eye; she recommended that I get some lubricating eye drops and follow up with an opthalmologist in a few weeks. I stopped on the way home from the doctor to buy some eyedrops.

After I got home, I vacuumed (Seth helped me), finished laundry, and called the opthalmologist to get an appointment. To my surprise, there was an appointment available the next day and since I'll be at YW camp in a few weeks and in Utah after that, I decided to go ahead and see the opthalmologist now instead of waiting a few weeks.

I encouraged Seth to do some cleaning in his room, and when he was going through a pile of cards he got for graduation last year (yes, they were still sitting on his bedroom floor a year later!), he found $30 in one of the cards! I told him he should keep cleaning his entire room...maybe he will find more money in there somewhere! 

Frank and I went on another walk after dinner. I also did some sanding on the tower front piece because when I painted the inside walls, I forgot to leave some of it bare so that the crown molding and baseboards will stick when I glue them in later (glue doesn't stick to paint). I sanded away some of the paint at the top and bottom of each wall section. Then Frank helped me figure out how to get the tower front piece to fit--we had to scrape away some of the wood on one of the grooves. Frank marked a line where we needed to scrape and he started scraping away some of the wood for me, but I couldn't see it very well in the evening lighting, so I decided to wait to finish scraping / whittling away the wood until today when the lighting would be better. 

Friday, June 26th: Today I woke up at 5:30. After the usual morning routine (exercise, breakfast, shower), I started working on the budget but didn't finish before I needed to leave for my appointment with the opthalmologist. I told the doctor my whole long story about all the problems with my left eye (scratched cornea 3 years ago, two bad eye infections since then, the dark floater / flashing lights episode in May, and my current eye pain / irritation--my eye feels like there's something stuck in it all the time) and got a thorough eye exam. The doctor said my left eye has a few superficial scratches on the retina, but didn't see anything that I should be worried about. I also have two "rogue" eyelashes on my left eye's bottom lid that want to grow the wrong way so that they rub against my eye; she pulled those out. (I already knew about that problem; my optomotrist pulls them out every time I get my eyes checked too, but they keep growing back). She recommended that I keep using the lubricating eye drops. She also gave me a referral for another doctor who can do a procedure on my eye so that those two eyelashes won't grow back in. (Basically, the openings are cauterized so that the lashes can't grow anymore). This same doctor can also fix my droopy right eyelid, which she recommends I do because it's droopy enough that it affects my peripheral vision. Ironically, after I got back from the eye doctor, my eye stopped hurting (but I'm not complaining about that!). 

After I got home and had some lunch, I finished the budgeting, played a few games, read scriptures, and then Frank helped me work on the dollhouse. We finished scraping / whittling the groove so that the tower front fit and then we glued it on. We also glued on the top tower sides. 

After that, I started this blog post and wrote until it was time for us to leave. The event we went to tonight was connected to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square's Songs of Hope broadcast. Our stake combined efforts with two other stakes to have a big community charity event / watch party at a big baseball stadium here in Frederick. There was free food (hot dogs, chips, cookies, ice cream bars, and bottled water), activities for kids, many booths set up by local charities, and some live entertainment before the Songs of Hope broadcast. They weren't able to put up the really large screen they intended to use because it was supposed to rain, so we couldn't see the broadcast all that well, but we could still hear the music. We really enjoyed it. (And it didn't rain...that storm is coming in later tonight or tomorrow morning). 

Now it is late, so I will wrap this up. I haven't said a lot about Seth, so I will mention that he worked on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and today and he will work tomorrow too. He didn't really get any more hours than usual, though, because his shifts were shorter. He was supposed to have a long shift tomorrow, but someone else wanted to trade with him and so he traded--and then realized that the shift he traded to was a lot shorter; oh well. Today he mowed the lawn, and a couple of times this week he has helped me with things even when I didn't ask, which I appreciate! He went to Institute on Wednesday, as usual. The missionary couple who have been teaching that class are going home next week; he's kind of sad about that. 

Today while I was waiting at the eye doctor, I finished reading Emma M. Lion (volume 3). I have really been enjoying these books! Now I need to focus on reading John Adams, though!

That's all the news that I can think of for this week.

Weekly Review June 19 '26

I just came in from my evening rendevous with the fireflies--they are finally starting to appear! There are not a lot of them this year, but enough to bring me some joy. 😊There was a deer grazing out in the common area too. 

Before I tell about this week, I forgot to mention one thing last week. On Tuesday (June 9th) during his temple shift, Frank was getting trained on being the attendant for an own endowment. It turns out the young man receiving his own endowment was one of the boys from my Seminary class, Caleb! He is leaving on a mission at the beginning of July. Even though I was at the temple that evening, I didn't see him at all (not too surprising; the men and women don't mingle much) and didn't know Caleb was there to receive his own endowment until we got home and Frank told me about it. I wish I had been able to see Caleb, but I am really happy that Frank got to be one of the workers who helped him. Sweet tender mercy! 

This week I have been sleeping MUCH better, and that has been really nice--I am grateful! Last Friday (June 12th) after I wrote, we went to dinner with another couple in our ward. We really enjoyed visiting with them and the food was good--we went to a Chinese restaurant. On the way home, we saw this random rainbow (it hadn't been raining):

We also had a nice sunset with a bonus deer (and maybe 2 fireflies!)

Saturday June 13th: I slept until 7:00, which was awesome. I spent the day reading scriptures, playing a few games, and I also sanded & painted some dollhouse pieces. Frank worked on a lot of stuff for his stake calling. We had the Elders over for dinner. Seth missed that, because he worked from 5:00 to 9:00. After dinner, Frank and I ran some errands. He needed to get a microphone set up at the church for someone who needed it the next day and I needed to return something to the Seminary closet, so we did that first. Then we went to Lowe's to get more paint for the dollhouse because I was running low on both the white and the light gray paint. (I bought sample sizes because I knew I wouldn't need a lot, but it turns out I need more than I thought I would.) After we got home, I cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and finished reading volume 1 of Emma M. Lion. (I returned it to my friend on Sunday and she gave me the next two volumes, but I haven't started reading them yet.)

Sunday June 14th: Frank had a busy day because he had two stake meetings in the morning (High Council and Stake Council) starting at 8:00 am down in Washington, DC. I had a nice quiet morning reading scriptures. I had to be at church a little early for a brief choir practice because we were singing in Sacrament meeting that  day. Seth came with us to church because his friend Henry was speaking before leaving on his mission. (He's going to San Bernardino, CA). He started home MTC last week and entered the Provo MTC this Tuesday. Frank and Seth also went to the YSA meetings, but I came home after our meetings and talked to Jared. After Frank and Seth got home, we had dinner and FHE. Seth went to mission prep class.

Monday June 15th: Frank had a migraine Sunday evening / overnight, so he took the day off work to recover. Seth had surgery that morning; I took him to that. We had to be there at 8:00 am and his surgery was scheduled for 9:00 am. They got him back to start preparing him shortly after we arrived at 8:00 and took him into surgery by 8:30. He was done right before 9:00 am, and everything went well. It took him a while to wake up, but we were home by shortly after 10:00 am. I was laughing at Seth in recovery because he was a little bit loopy! Amazingly, he has had very little pain--hasn't needed to take any of the pain medication they prescribed for him. (He didn't use any after his previous surgery either, but it was less invasive than this one. Because we still have the pain medication from his previous surgery and the surgeon prescribed the same two medications, I didn't pick those up. She did prescribe a third pain medication which I did pick up, but then we didn't need any of them again. I'm not complaining about that, though!) Seth had this whole week off work to recover, so he's had a pretty chill week. He did mow the lawn this afternoon--since he's been doing so well all week, we thought he could handle that!

After I got home from Seth's surgery, I got all the chores done and ran some errands. Besides picking up Seth's prescription, I also filled my car with gas and bought groceries. I took a nap in the afternoon, did some reading, and went on a short walk with Frank. The temperature was in the 70s and the humidity was low, so it was perfect weather to be outside!

Tuesday June 16th: I had a phone call with the local service mission coordinator to help me with my service mission application, and we were able to solve the problem and I was able to get my application submitted again. 

Besides that, I painted some dollhouse pieces (2nd coat of the porch posts), got regular chores done, did some reading, and researched some possible road trip destinations. I think we've decided to go to Mesa Verde, the four corners, and Monument Valley while we are in Utah this summer. 

I thought I would be spending a lot of time taking care of Seth this week, but he's been fine so I haven't had to do much for him. 

Frank was gone all day, since he had work and then his temple shift after that. I wish I could have worked at the temple that night too--since I worked the previous two Tuesdays, I kept thinking I was going to the temple that night and then I would remember that I wasn't working that day and I would feel kind of sad!

Wednesday June 17th: I woke up at 5:00 am, but that was kind of a good thing because I was taking a friend to get her blood drawn that morning and I had to leave the house by 8:30. Since I woke up so early, I had time to exercise, shower, eat breakfast, and read some scriptures before I left. (I did exercise every day this week--I don't always mention doing that, but I do that every week day, typically. I also read scriptures every day although I don't always mention doing that either!) After I took my friend to get her blood drawn, I also stopped to get her some breakfast because she had to be fasting for the blood draw. She lives in a hotel and I knew she would miss the hotel breakfast, so I didn't want her to go hungry. 

After I got home, I felt sleepy, so I took a short nap before lunch. That afternoon, I glued the top floor of the dollhouse to the dollhouse body. Frank helped me with that. The major construction steps always make me so nervous! Here it is (upside down), with weights on top while the glues dries:

I also painted the second coat of the foundation. For the second coat, I mixed the paint with some stuff called "stucco grit", which gave it some texture and made it look a little bit like stone (hard to see in the photo because the lighting isn't great):

I did more reading that day and Frank and I went on another walk. 

Thursday June 18th: I got 8 solid hours of sleep the night before: I can't remember the last time that happened! It felt amazing!! Frank asked to work from home and since he always works from home on Wednesdays and Fridays and he took a sick day on Monday, the only day he went into work this week was Tuesday. Since Seth didn't work this week either, we were all home together most of the week. 

We had an appointment at 8:30 that morning to have our water meter replaced. At about 7:50, Frank noticed when he looked at his phone that the Ring camera had recorded someone knocking on the door at about 7:47. I was in the shower and Frank was in the closet getting dressed, so neither of us heard him knock. We were wondering why he showed up 45 minutes early!  By the time Frank saw the notification, the guy had left, but thankfully he came back around 8:15. He said they had a lot of appointments that morning so they were trying to get an early start. It only took them a couple of minutes to change the water meter. (They are upgrading all the water meters, so everyone on our street is getting a new one.) It doesn't look all that impressive:

But the old one didn't look too impressive either. 😂

It rained a lot of the morning on Thursday and we had a couple of decent thunderstorms come through. Frank went with me to the grocery store (after the rain stopped; it was super humid and uncomfortably warm at that point). Seth called his surgeon to get a note to take to work when he returns. Besides all the usual chores, I also did some reading and painted the 2nd floor ceiling of the dollhouse. Frank and I went for a walk that evening, after it cooled down a bit. We saw a deer out in one of the fields we walked by:

After we got home, there was another deer in the common area behind the house. The deer usually stay up on the hill, but that night the deer was right behind one of my neighbor's houses:

After a while, it moved back up to the hill:

We had another pretty sunset:

And more fireflies, too, but they don't show up in photos very well.

Friday June 19th: Happy Juneteenth! Frank got the day off for this holiday.

This morning I went to the temple to do an endowment session. Back in April, a friend asked me to help her with some family names. I was able to do the last one today. 

I got home later than usual because I stopped at the distribution center to see if they had garments my size (mostly they didn't, but they did have the new sleeveless tops available in my size so I got a couple of those to see if I like them). Then the traffic coming home was really bad--slow / stop and go for a large portion of the trip--so I didn't get home until nearly 1:30. Frank and Seth both got haircuts and arrived home shortly after I did. They brought ice cream sundaes from McDonald's--nice! After eating my sundae and lunch (in that order!) I started working on the finances, but I got so sleepy that I decided I neded to take a nap first. After an hour nap, I felt a lot better and was able to finish the budgeting. Then Frank and I made dinner and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. 

After dinner, we went on a walk. There was a nice breeze blowing and it wasn't too hot, so that was nice! After we got back from our walk, I did a little bit of touch up painting on a few interior walls of the dollhouse. Then I spent a few minutes reading scriptures before I started this blog post. I paused for a while so that we could have family prayer and scriptures; Frank was tired and he is fast asleep now. And now that I am finished writing about our week, I will be joining him in dreamland soon.

Weekly Review June 12 '26

This was another fairly busy week. I don't feel like things have slowed down much since Seminary ended, just busy in different ways.  And you know what they say--"a change is as good as a rest". Speaking of rest, I slept a little better this week. I had a few good nights. I'm still waking up earlier than I need to most days, but took a few naps to help make up for that and I haven't been lying awake for hours in the middle of the night as much. I'm grateful for any improvement in this area!

Friday June 5th: After I wrote last week's blog post, I got an email from the Tuesday temple shift coordinator welcoming me to the shift (she was out of town the night I worked my first shift). I sent a reply to her since there were a couple of things I needed to communicate to her. In the email, she mentioned that they want all temple workers to complete the youth protection training, so that they can work in the baptistry. I think I completed it less than 3 years ago (it would have to be current for me to be a Seminary teacher), but I just decided to do it again so that I know I'm covered for the next 3 years. After that, I made dinner and Frank and I watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. Then we went on a short walk. Before bedtime, I also spent some time reading scriptures and some of the book chat book. Seth came home from work a little early because his back was hurting. He just tweaked it a bit--it was fine by the next day. 

Saturday June 6th: I had a haircut appointment first thing that morning. Then I spent some time working on the dollhouse. I did some more painting of small pieces (2nd coat) and also the second coat of the porch floor:

I also marked the interior walls where the baseboards and crown molding are going to go and then painted the second coat of all the interior walls on the first and second floors. I did this in stages, one side at a time. I would paint one side, then let it dry for an hour or two before doing the next side.

I did the first side around 3:00, the second side around 6:00, and the last side (front) around 8:00. I also sanded the foundation so that it's ready for a second coat of paint.

In between waiting for paint to dry, I practiced ukulele, cleaned the kitchen floor, had dinner, and went for a walk with Frank. It's nice that there's some farmland within a short walking distance from our house. 

Some of the farmland is going to disappear pretty soon, though. They are currently building something on one big piece of farmland (we think maybe it will be houses). I took a photo of that piece before it's gone forever. I like this "mesa" that they have built up from all the dirt they are moving around:

This farmland is not getting built on, thankfully:

Not long before our walk there was a thunderstorm. I tried to get a photo of the sky as it was coming in; it looked a lot darker and more ominous than it looks in the photo:

On Saturday I also finished reading Notes from Underground for book chat and I reviewed my Amazon wishlist and added a few things to it because Frank has been asking me what I want for my birthday. 

Sunday June 7th: This was by far my busiest day of the week. I woke up around 2:00 am because of a thunderstorm and didn't go back to sleep until around 5:00, but then I slept until nearly 8:00. Thankfully, the morning was quiet so I was able to read scriptures and get ready for church. I attended my ward's sacrament meeting and then went to part of Sunday school but left early so I could attend part of the YSA sacrament meeting. I left that meeting early too because I had an appointment to meet with my bishop to interview for my service mission. When I talked to him, however, he discovered that he had accidentally deleted my application! So I will have to resumbit my application and then talk with him again. I went right from that appointment to choir practice (actually arrived a little late). After choir practice, I went to part of the YSA Sunday school class, but spent most of that hour helping to set up for the YSA "break the fast" meal, which they have every fast Sunday right after their meetings end. Frank and I both stayed for the break the fast and were able to meet a few of the YSAs. After that, I went home briefly before heading to the stake center for Seminary graduation. I got there early to help with a song practice. Five of the youth in our class were doing a musical number for the graduation (four of them sang and one of them played the cello, while Tammy played the piano accompaniment). 

Graduation was really nice. Four of the youth in our class graduated. One of them wasn't there because his grandfather passed away and he was in Seattle for the funeral. One of the graduates from our class was one of the two youth speakers at the graduation. One member of the stake presidency also gave a talk, a member of the YSA branch presidency spoke (inviting the graduates to attend YSA meetings, activities, and Institute), and the stake president gave closing remarks. Another class besides ours also did a musical number. Both musical numbers were so beautiful!! When my class members were singing, I felt so much love for them and so much gratitude that I've been able to teach them. I will really miss them all! 

The stake Seminary supervisor gave each of the teachers a little gift. 

Some chocolate, a small picture of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, a card, and a "morse code bracelet". On the bracelet, the gold beads represent dots and the white beads represent dashes. All the beads together spell out the phrase from Moses 6:34: "Abide in me and I in you...walk with me". Pretty cool idea!

After the graduation ceremony ended, there were refreshments. Tammy and I got a picture with two of our graduating seniors. (One of them left before we thought to take a picture and the other one, as I mentioned, was out of town.) 

On the way home from graduation, I talked to Jared. It was after bedtime before I got home. As I said, it was a busy day!!

Monday June 8th: I woke up at 2:00 amd and fully intended to take a nap later, but I never got to it. I exercised, ate breakfast, showered, and got most of the chores done by 10:00 am. I met with the service mission lead to fill out my application again, but we ran into technical difficulties and weren't able to fill out my application again. There's something wrong on the IT side of things. That problem still hasn't been resolved. I have an appointment to meet with the local service mission coordinators on Tuesday to see if they can help me figure it out. (They contacted me on Tuesday shortly before I was leaving for the temple but I couldn't meet with them at any of the times they were available and now they are out of town until Monday, so Tuesday is the earliest day that we can meet.) I have a feeling that they aren't going to be able to fix the problem either, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to give it a try, and I appreciate that they are trying to help me. 

Seth mowed the lawn and worked from 11:30 to 6:00. 

Other things I did on Monday: talked to Amy, researched possible road trips during our trip to Utah, started discussing meal plans for the reunion, and watched some Downton Abbey. That evening after dinner, some friends from our ward brought over some things to store in our freezer (they have a family reunion coming up and needed more freezer space to store food and since we have a chest freezer, we have extra space). They stayed to visit for a while, too. Then we had a quick FHE lesson and activity before Seth left to go to the YSA FHE.

Tuesday June 9th: I woke up at 3:00 am, but I had slept for 6 solid hours, and for me that is really good. I thought I'd take another nap later, but once again I didn't get to it. I exercised, ate breakfast, showered, read scriptures, painted a few dollhouse pieces, started reading a book called The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, watched some Downton Abbey, and got all the chores done (meal planning & cleaned bathrooms). I remembered that morning that I was supposed to bring the snacks for book chat the next day, so I planned what I was going to do for that and after taking Seth to work, I bought the things I needed for the snacks. 

I had my second temple shift that evening, and it went well. Since Seth worked from 2:00 to 10:30, I was able to drive myself to the temple. The traffic is not great at that time of the evening (rush hour), but I made it there okay and with just enough time to change and make it to the prayer meeting on time. After the prayer meeting, I had a little bit of time to study some of the procedures and then I was trained on name issue, initiatories, and veil (and got to do all three of those things). It was all really lovely, actually, and I don't feel as anxious about being a worker any more. 

A not very successful attempt to get a photo of me in front of the temple:

I drove straight from the temple to Seth's work to pick him up. He got off work a little early, so he was sitting outside on the curb waiting for me. I got to bed very late (and it always takes my brain a while to wind down when I've been busy right before bedtime). 

Wednesday June 10th: I woke up briefly at 3:30, but then slept until after 7:00. I exercised and got chores done and also prepared the book chat snacks and got some pizza dough for dinner going before leaving to go to the back tax clinic. I left the house right as a thunderstorm blew in; it really came down while I was driving over to the clinic and all the roads were really flooded within a few minutes. When I parked, I waited for a lull in the rain and then tried to hurry as fast as I could to the clinic location, a few blocks away. I had a rain coat and an umbrella, so I mostly stayed dry except for my feet and the bottom few inches of my pant legs. I had to cross two streets, and there was probably at least 6 inches of water running through all the gutters, so there was no way to cross the streets without getting my feet and pants wet. Fortunately, I had sandals on, so my feet dried quickly and I didn't have to deal with wet socks. Plus the sandals were the kind that aren't harmed by getting wet.

At the back tax clinic, I helped two taxpayers who each needed to file for a couple of years. I completed two tax returns for one of them. The other one realized after she got there that she brought the wrong file with her, so she didn't have all the documents we needed. We spent some time trying to see if we could get all the documents we needed online, but ultimately decided that she would need to come back the next day with the right file. She also mentioned that she had filed her 2025 taxes using Turbo Tax, but they were rejected. I told her I could look at that with her to see if I could help her figure out why they were rejected, so we did that and were able to find the problem and fix it so that she could re-file. Both of these ladies were extremely polite, patient, and grateful which made it extra nice for me to work with them. Some of the taxpayers can be rude, but not these ladies!

I went directly from the back tax clinic to book chat. Since Seth had Institute at the church at 7:00 and the book chat hostess lives near the church, I had arranged with him (and the hostess) to have him drop off the snacks I had prepared at her house before he went to Institute. I was able to get to book chat only about 10 minutes late. We talked about Notes from Underground; we all agreed that it was difficult to read and depressing at times, but also sometimes humorous and it gave us a lot to think about. Now we are going to read John Adams by David McCullough. The person who brought the books for us to choose from decided to bring books in honor of Amerca's 250th birthday, which I thought was a cool idea. It was hard to choose which one to read. Book chat went until 9:00 pm, so once again I got to bed late and had to give my brain time to settle down before I fell asleep. (I know 9:00 pm is not considered late by most people, but when you tend to wake up at 3:00 am, 9:00 pm feels very late!)

Thursday June 11th: I slept solid until the alarm went off, but that was at 3:30 am. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I exercised, ate breakfast, and showered. Then I was feeling sleepy, so I took a 1 1/2 hour nap. After my nap, I got all the chores done. Frank came home from work a little early. He was really tired, so he took a nap. Seth worked from 2:00 to 9:00. Frank did monthly maintenance for his clients while I made dinner. After dinner, we went to Chick-fil-a to get peach milkshakes. Seth ended up being the one to serve us. There was a short thunderstorm after we got back--mostly wind with a little rain, not much thunder. We would have gone on a walk that evening but it was extremely hot (high 90s with a heat index of 105). We talked a bit about plans for a road trip while we're in Utah. We haven't decided for sure yet what we are going to do. I enjoyed reading some more of Emma M. Lion and watched some Downton Abbey (stayed up later than I should have). 

Friday June 12th: Today I woke up around 6:00 am. I did the usual: exercised, ate breakfast, and showered. Then I updated the finances. Around lunch time, we all went to Costco because we needed to get some things from there. (Seth came along to help with lifting heavier items). We ate some lunch while we were there too. Since we got home, I've been writing this post. 

Seth doesn't work today but he does work tomorrow. He doesn't work at all next week because he's having surgery. Yesterday we finally got the time for his surgery on Monday. It will be at 9:00 am and we have to get there at 8:00 am. 

Tonight Frank and I are going to dinner with some friends from our ward; should be fun! It is still extremely hot today; we're under a heat advisory until 8:00 pm. Currently, it is 95 degrees but feels like 104. We might get some more thunderstorms this evening. After today, the weather is going to start cooling down a bit, though, and will be more like it should be for this time of year (which is still hot, just not extremely hot). 

That's all the news from our world.

Weekly Review June 5 '26

I feel like May went by really fast. Well, sort of. The parts where I was lying awake wishing I could sleep felt very slow. (On that note--my sleep patterns haven't changed much. I had at least 3 nights that I was awake for 2+ hours in the night, and I woke up between 3:00 and 4:30 all the other mornings. I did take a couple of naps here and there which helps.) This week has been pretty busy, with a lot of new or extra things going on. Here's the details for each day:

Saturday May 30th: Frank had to leave early to set up all the IT / AV stuff for the regional Women's Conference. I went over later when the meeting started. It was very good. Tracy Browning (from the Primary General Presidency) was the keynote speaker and after that there was a panel discussion. A lot of great thoughts were shared! After the broadcast ended, there was a light lunch served and I got to visit a bit with friends. 

I spent the rest of the day figuring out my talk for Sunday, listening to the Follow Him podcast, and reading the book chat book. I also went on a walk with Frank and took a short nap. I was feeling pretty tired and somewhat grumpy most of the day (probably from lack of sleep). 

Sunday May 31st: The morning was quiet with scriptures and a few games (I do the NYT games every day). I was speaking in Sacrament meeting and felt somewhat anxious about that all morning...I felt like I reverted into my old anxious self, which was frustrating. Once the meeting started, I felt better, though. The first youth speaker spoke for about 1 minute, the second one for about 3 minutes, and the third one for about 8 minutes. That means I got more time to speak than I anticipated, but I had planned a five minute talk with extra stuff to add in if I had more time, so it worked out fine. I actually could have said more if there had been more time! When Tammy got up to give her talk (with about 25 minutes left in the meeting) she said "Sister Cleveland and I have no trouble speaking for a long time, so we are not going to get out early today". She was right! 😅 We each spoke about 10 minutes, and I made sure I left 4 or 5 minutes for the closing hymn and prayer. I feel like my talk went well, overall, and several people said nice things about it to me afterwards.

Frank came to our Sacrament meeting to hear me speak, and then he went to YSA meetings. We had our 5th Sunday discussion about the Constitution (as everyone across the USA did). After church, I went to choir practice. Another couple in our ward invited us over for dinner that evening. We had a quick family night lesson after Seth and Frank got home from their meetings. I also did a quick assessment over the phone with the mission lead for the family search service mission. He just asked me questions about my computer skills. He said the next step is for me to get interviews with my bishop and stake president. I have an interview with my bishop on Sunday. After those things were done, we went to dinner with our friends. (Seth fed himself and went to mission prep class). This couple is quite a bit younger than us, but we seem to have a lot in common. We really enjoyed dinner with them, and ended up visiting until past our 8:00 pm bedtime. They live out in the country in a beautiful location. We had to drive over an old covered bridge to get to their house.

Monday June 1st: I took Seth to work and then met Tammy at the church to clean out our Seminary closets. We usually clean them out after each semester, but we never got around to it last semester, so they were pretty messy and we had a lot of stuff we don't need anymore. It took us a couple of hours to finish that task; we enjoyed visiting with each other as we worked, of course! I went to Walmart to get groceries on my way home. 

I got to talk to Amy for a while that afternoon before picking Seth up from work. Since it was the first day of June, I changed the door decoration, pillow covers, and S&P shakers. When Frank got home from work, he went through his clothes and added his donations to the two bags of my clothes. He also went through the trunk of his car and threw away a bunch of stuff.

We had family night activity (played Dead Ringer) and treat before Seth had to leave for YSA FHE. I talked to Jared that evening because there wasn't a chance to talk to him on Sunday.

Tuesday June 2nd: This day was quite busy. I got a later start because I took a nap after exercising and eating breakfast. I got meals planned and I was also able to talk to Scott for a few minutes. I had lunch with my friend Rebekah. She very recently returned from a trip to Utah to help her daughter (who had her first baby); she had been gone most of the month of May, so we had a lot to catch up on. On my way there, I stopped at the storage unit to put a few things in it. When I was pulling into the parking lot, I suddenly realized that I couldn't remember the code to get in! I tried a couple of codes which didn't work. Then I tried to call Frank to see if he could remember, but my call went to voicemail. Then I decided to try again because I was pretty sure I finally remembered what it was, but that code didn't work either. I was giving up and leaving when Frank called me back. He gave me the same code as the last one I entered, so I decided to try that one more time, and it worked that time. (I must have typed a number wrong or something.) I wasn't too thrilled with that senior moment, though. It's not pleasant to suddenly not be able to remember something that I have known for years! 

After my lunch with Rebekah, I took the two bags of clothes to Goodwill to donate. Then I watched the live stream of the TJ High School graduation, because four of the youth in my Seminary class were graduating. They don't read the graduates' names in alphabetical order at TJ (they have a unique recessional where each student chooses a "walking partner", so they seat them so that they meet their walking partner) so I had to watch and pay attention if I wanted to hear each of their names and see them walk across the stage. There were over 400 graduates, and it turns out that one of my Seminary students was the next to last student to walk, so I had to listen to the entire thing! 😐But two of my students also played drums in the recessional, so that was cool to see, and I was able to get good screen shots of all four of them receiving their diplomas. I was also able to clean all the bathrooms while I watched / listened to the graduation ceremony. 

That evening was my first shift at the temple. I had planned to drive myself, but then my friend who is going to be giving me a ride on the 2nd Tuesdays--and who is one of the assistant shift coordinators and was assigned to show me around all evening--texted me and said that three sisters on the shift had called in sick, so she wasn't going to be able to spend the whole shift training me. Instead, she wondered if she could pick me up and give me a ride down so that she could spend that time giving me some instructions. So that's what we did. When we got to the temple, she showed me where the workers' dressing room is located, and after I changed I went to the office where a member of the temple presidency met me. He met with me briefly to give me a few instructions and to ask me a few questions, and then he set me apart as a temple worker. I went to another office to get some processing done and then fixed my nametag (it said "Karen Cleveland", so they changed it to "Annette Cleveland".) Then my friend (Sherrie) met me and she took me downstairs to the prayer meeting. Frank came to that, too. (I also saw him when I first came in because he always mans the recommend desk during the time when all the temple workers are arriving.) That's the last time I saw Frank until it was time to go home, though! 

After the prayer meeting, Sherrie showed me around part of the temple; we didn't have time to see everything. She took me to the laundry and the clothing rental and up to the endowment rooms to show me a few things there and showed me where the offices for the endowment coordinators and veil workers are located. Along the way, she introduced me to a lot of the other workers and asked a few of them to share their best advice with me. 😇 After that, Sherrie was needed to do some work and I was assigned to be the hostess on the main level for 30 minutes. They figured I could handle that job on my own, because all I had to do was smile and say "welcome to the temple" to everyone who walked by. I also gave directions to a few people who had not been to the DC temple before, but that was easy since I know my way around the main parts of the temple really well. After my 30 minutes as hostess, Sherrie returned and took me up to initiatories to show me a few things there. Then they needed her to work in initiatories for a while, so she gave me the instructions for initiatories to study while she did that. We were hoping that I would get a chance to observe her do a few intiatories and maybe even do a few myself, but there wasn't time for that before the shift ended. I went home with Frank, but I had to wait quite a while for him because he was working the veil for the last session. I waited for him "on the bridge"--at the DC temple, the main entrance where the recommend desk is located is in a separate small building that is connected to the main temple building with a long, wide hallway / walkway that is connected to the 2nd floor of the temple, so it's basically a bridge. There are windows all along the wall on both sides with nice views of the temple grounds, and lots of chairs to sit in while you wait. While I was waiting, a couple of brothers came by and introduced themselves and told me how much they enjoy working with Frank. 😊 It was nice for Frank and I to talk together on the way home. We got home very late, though. Seth hadn't arrived home from work yet, but he did get there within about 30 minutes.

I promise I won't give that detailed of a description of every temple shift! Just wanted to remember my first one. It was a little bit crazy, but mostly good.

Wednesday June 3rd: This day also started later since it was one of the nights that I was awake for hours in the night. (And when I say "later", I mean 7:00, not exactly sleeping half the day away!) While awake in the night, I had been feeling quite a bit of anxiety about the temple--I'm very comfortable there as a patron, but being a worker is really new to me. When I went back to sleep, I had stressful temple dreams where I was messing up a bunch of stuff.  I don't know why I was feeling so anxious about it, though, and that was frustrating. When I was exercising that morning, I was watching The Chosen, and the story of Mary and Martha from the Bible was depicted in that episode. Remembering that story helped me quite a bit. When Jesus tells Martha that she is careful and troubled about many things, it reminded me of myself! I realized that I shouldn't be so worried about doing everything right. I need to focus on the most needful things: the importance of what we are doing in the temple and helping the patrons feel loved. That's it! 

I was able to work on the dollhouse a little bit on Wednesday. I painted a second coat on some smaller decorative pieces. I didn't have time to do more because I was volunteering at a back tax clinic that afternoon / evening. The back tax clinic is also run by VITA, and it's basically the same thing we do during the tax season except it's for people who have taxes from previous years that still need to be filed. It was a bit different, though, because we weren't each assigned one taxpayer per hour. Instead, most of the taxpayers were scheduled for multiple hours and all of the volunteers worked together to get their taxes filed. Some of them had multiple years that needed to be filed and there were also some complicated situations to figure out. I spent most of the time working with one tax payer who needed to file taxes for 2023 but also needed to file ammendments for 2021 and 2022. There were a lot of issues to work through. By the time we got done, it was after 7:00. I got home in time to eat a little bit and then went to bed!

Thursday June 4th: I woke up at 3:00 because I had a charley horse in my left calf. Not the nicest way to wake up. Besides getting all the regular chores done, I also talked to Tanner for a while and watched part of the Walkersville high school graduation to see one of my Seminary students graduate. Walkersville high school is a lot smaller than TJ and they also put the graduates in alphabetical order, so I didn't have to pay as close attention. Plus, my Seminary student's last name starts with G, so that was closer to the beginning and I didn't need to watch the rest, which was nice!

That afternoon, Frank & I took a much needed nap and then we made dinner and ate together while watching an episode of Once Upon a Time. After dinner, we went on a walk. (Seth was at work). 

Friday June 5th: This morning I woke up at 4:30, which is pretty good for me! I exercised and watched a few episodes of The Chosen. (I exercised every week day, although I didn't always mention doing that.) Then I updated the finances and had lunch before writing this post. It's only mid afternoon now. I'm not sure what I will be doing the rest of the day, but I will probably go on a walk and work on the dollhouse a bit. (I still haven't accomplished much on that project this week.) I didn't go to the temple today since I went on Tuesday. I will go on Fridays on the weeks that I don't work at the temple. 

Frank got his second dose of the Shingles shot this morning. His arm is already feeling pretty sore! Better than getting Shingles, though. 

Seth has been pretty busy with work. He worked Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and will work today too. (Leaving in a few hours). Most of his shifts have been later in the day--like 3:00 to 10:00 or 10:30. He will work about 25 hours this week, total. That's a lot more hours than he was getting at Roy Rogers. Seth also went to a movie and to Institute on Wednesday. I told him he has to work on cleaning his room at least 30 minutes every day, so he's been doing that this week. He has thrown out a few things and I see a slight improvement in his room. Hopefully by the end of the summer, his room will look a lot better!

Besides the things I already mentioned plus work, Frank has been planning some things for our trips this summer. He prepaid for parking at the airport and he also reserved a rental car (both for our trip to Utah). I forgot to mention around the end of April that they announced at UMD that there would have to be some lay offs and that they would happen by the end of June. Frank found out yesterday that all the layoffs happened this week, and he was not one of them, so that is good news! We weren't incredibly worried about it, but it's still nice to know for sure that that's not going to happen to him. 

In between everything else, I have done some reading--I'm trying to finish Notes from Underground for book chat. I'm over halfway through with it now. It isn't long, but it requires thinking, so the reading is going kind of slow. 

That's all I can think of to write about this week. I'll finish up with a few photos of the local wildlife. I've been seeing a deer behind our house quite a bit this week, and yesterday there were two rabbits on our lawn / the neighbor's lawn.