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.
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.
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.
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