Weekly Review September 11 '26

We had a pretty busy week. I feel like my days are very full lately! Here's the details for each day:

Saturday September 5th: Frank and I ran a lot of errands and did a lot of things to prepare for our ward's Labor Day picnic. First, we went to the church to check the closet for paper products and pulled out the things we knew we would need for the picnic. We also grabbed 4 large water dispensers to use for the picnic. Next, we went to Walmart to buy the remainder of the food (except for ice). While we were at Walmart, we got groceries for ourselves so that I wouldn't have to go back to get groceries on Monday morning. (Which was a good move...Monday morning was very busy with a lot of other picnic preparations.) 

After bringing all the groceries home, we went to At Home to get some new towels, a shower curtain, and a floor lamp. Our towels & washcloths needed to be replaced because I unknowingly used some face cleanser that had hydrogen peroxide in it, which bleached all the color out of the towels and washcloths. They were getting older and worn out anyway. Our shower curtain also needed to be replaced because things in this humid area get moldy, even though I clean the shower curtain regularly. And the lamp needed to be replaced because the base piece broke and was leaking a sand-like substance onto the floor. It's actually been like that for years, and I was pretty tired of sweeping up the sand twice a week (every time I sweep the floor). It just took a long time to find a lamp that would work with what we already have. 

After we finished at that store, we drove to the park where the picnic was to be held to find out if there was potable water available (there wasn't, so we knew we would have to fill the water dispensers and make the lemonade ahead of time, instead of at the park). On our way home from the park, we stopped at our storage unit to pick up our two ice chests and to put a few things away. We did all of those errands before eating lunch.

After lunch, I wanted to clean the kitchen floor, but realized that I was out of floor cleaner. I did not want to go back to Walmart to get that, but fortunately Seth was getting off work in about an hour, so I texted him and asked him to stop at Walmart after work to get that for me. (Chick-fil-A and Walmart are right next to each other; he actually parks in the Walmart parking lot when he goes to work.) While I waited for Seth to get home, I practiced ukulele and read scriptures. Then I cleaned the kitchen floor after he got home. We had dinner and I spent a couple of hours watching mission videos (I finished the annual compliance training videos). I read a little bit of Sense & Sensibility before going to bed, but not much because I was really sleepy!

Sunday September 6th: In the morning before church, I read scriptures and sent an email to the RS president for her to send out to the ward. It was explaining the next RS activity--Group Dinners--because I knew with the new schedule (Sunday School / RS & EQ every week for shorter times) that there would not be any time to announce it. I was planning to send around sign up sheets for this activity that day, and I did put an explanation on the sign up sheets, but I just wanted everyone to have a "heads up" about it so they wouldn't be spending a lot of time reading the explanation instead of paying attention to the meetings. 

After church, I waited for Frank to get out of the YSA Sacrament meeting so that we could come home together. I spent some time talking to the new Seminary teacher who replaced me. She is doing pretty well, but she also just started letting people know that she is expecting a baby. The baby is due in February, so she will only be teaching this semester. She found out she was pregnant right after she was called and she has been feeling pretty sick and yucky all summer. I am pretty impressed that she is trying to teach Seminary at all, in that condition! I don't think I could have done it. I feel bad for Tammy (the other teacher) that she is going to have to start over with a new teacher twice in one year. I mean, I'm sure both teachers are / will be great. It's just a bit of a transition, with a great deal of uncertainty until things get settled, and that adds to the stress level. However, I knew before this teacher was called that she and her husband were thinking about starting their family. And when I found out that she was the one who was going to be called, I remember I was a little distressed about it because I didn't want them to feel like they needed to put off having a baby until she was released as a Seminary teacher. So I'm very happy that they are having a baby! 

When Frank got out of his meeting, we were all talking for a bit, and then one of the counselors in the stake presidency walked by. Then he came back and asked if he could talk to me for a few minutes, which really surprised me. He told me that my name had been submitted for a calling, but he recognized that I have a lot going on already, so he just wanted to let me know about it and see how I felt about it--no pressure to accept! I don't actually know the official title of the calling, but it was the stake communications committee chair who asked for me, so I guess it's just being a member of that committee. He said he thought that all I would need to do is attend a community meeting once a month and report back to the committee chair what happened at the meeting. It's too complicated to explain exactly what this meeting is about (and I don't fully understand it myself), but it's related to a group that is trying to build affordable housing for low income people in this area, and our church might be able to help in some ways so the stake wants someone from our church to represent them at this meeting. So anyway, attending one meeting a month doesn't sound like a lot, but he couldn't tell me exactly when the meeting was (which is important since it would need to not coincide with other commitments I have), so he said he would find out and let me know. I would actually love to help with anything that is going to help low income people get into affordable housing, but I'm not at all sure that I am up for taking on any more responsibility right now. I feel like I have a lot on my mental plate with my mission, temple work, ward calling, and (of course!) my home and family responsibilities. I've actually been a bit stressed the last couple of weeks trying to find the time to put in 12 hours (each week) for my mission. When I talked to Frank about it, he said "I know you, and whatever you agree to do, you give it 100%, and I don't think you have time for anything else right now." I have to admit it--he does know me, and he is probably right. I'm waiting for more infomation before I make a final decision, though.

After we got home from church and ate dinner, I baked a cake to take to Monday's picnic. After Seth got home, we had FHE. We also got to talk to both Tanner and Jared (first week of work went well for both Jared and Jessie, although his commute isn't great) and I did an hour or so of mission work.

Monday, September 7th: The morning was very busy preparing things for the picnic. We made lemonade, sliced onions and tomatoes, frosted the cake, cut up a watermelon, and cooked some chicken (for me to eat--since I'm not eating beef or pork right now, hot dogs and hamburgers are out). We probably did some other things too, I've just forgotten now. We discovered after making the lemonade that one of the dispensers leaks a lot, so Frank sent Seth to the storage unit to get our dispenser and we transferred the lemonade from the leaky dispenser to ours. Then we loaded everything up and headed to the picnic, stopping to get ice on our way. 

The picnic went well. The weather was great (not too hot and low humidity), a lot of people came, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. We actually had a much larger turn out than we expected. We planned for 60 people, and closer 80 people came but thankfully we had enough food for everyone. (We bought an extra box of hamburger patties, thinking we could return them to the store if we didn't use them, but we used all of them!) The sign up for the sides was full in every category except for fruit, but somehow we ended up with more fruit than almost anything else. 😂 Not sure how that happened! (But great for me, since fruit was the only side I could eat and dessert was out for me too, of course.)

The picnic was from noon to 3:00. Afterwards, I had quite a bit of clean up--needed to clean all the drink dispensers and our two ice chests, among other things. Then we also needed to return things to the church and to our storage unit. I was too tired to do anything after that except reading (I finished reading Sense & Sensibility). Fortunately, there were a lot of leftovers available for dinner, so I didn't have to cook. When Seth got home from work (he worked 11:00 - 6:00), we played some Wii basketball for family night activity.

Tuesday September 8th: Frank got up really early and went to work, but I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until about 7:30. I got chores done in the morning (listened to part of the Follow Him podcast while cleaning bathrooms). In the afternoon, I had my weekly Cumberland District Devotional and spent some time looking online for RS activity ideas. Before the devotional started, one of the missionaries was telling about a story on 60 Minutes about a family in southern Virginia who purchased a house and later learned that it had been a plantation and that some of their direct ancestors had been enslaved on that very plantation. The missionary mentioned it because the document that confirmed for them that their ancestors had really lived on that plantation was found on FamilySearch. They shared a link to the episode in the meeting's chat, so I watched the episode while I ate my dinner. (Which was early, because I had my temple shift that evening and needed to leave about 4:45). Seth worked from 11:30 to 8:00, so I got a ride with my friend MaryKay to the temple and rode home with Frank. The temple was great as always. Training in Preparation Meeting was really beautiful, and I got to work in Initiatories and Veil. I was done before Frank, so I had some time to chat with a few of the other temple workers and get to know them better.

Wednesday September 9th: Even though I was up late the night before, I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Frank was up then too (that's probably why I woke up). He usually doesn't get up early on Wednesdays because he works from home, but he had two clients that needed work done so he took a personal day to do work for them. But he had PT in the early afternoon, so he needed to get the work done early and get back to Frederick in time for that. Meanwhile, I exercised and got chores done and by then I was feeling very sleepy, so I took a nap. It was a very short nap, though--only about 20 minutes--because the TruGreen guy showed up to do our lawn service and for some reason he felt the need to ring the doorbell and bang on the front door to let me know he was there. (He didn't even need to talk to me, and he didn't leave any message on the door either.) 

After that I did lots of hours of mission work. I had several meetings--one with the Record Hints Project Point Person, a one-on-one with one of my Team's leads, and a Team Meeting. The Record Hints PPP just started working in that position and needed to know what I've done so far to be trained for that project. He set up a time to train me on the project, but it's not until next Friday. Besides all the meetings, I also did some new missionary training--I found some other videos that I am supposed to watch that also include stopping, reflecting, and writing things down. It was a sweet experience because it gave me a chance to reflect and realize many ways that I have been prepared to serve in this mission. 

On Wednesday I also made bread and spent a lot of time preparing for a RS activities committee meeting, which was scheduled for the next day. In between everything else, I read a book called All the Blues in the Sky. It is the 2026 Newbery Medal winner and I received a copy for my birthday. It wasn't very long and an easy read, so it didn't take a lot of time to read. It was a sad book in many ways--the main character was a young teenager who was coping with the loss of her best friend, who had been hit by a car--but it was good, too. I really liked it.

Wednesday's sunrise (one of the bonuses of waking up really early):

Thursday September 10th: I woke up late (about 7:45), so it was one of those days that felt like it was half over by the time I got up. After exercising, I worked on chores (laundry, some vacuuming) before going to lunch with my friend Rebekah. Afterwards, I went grocery shopping and finished the rest of the chores. I started dinner, and while the soup was simmering, Frank helped me glue the rooftop and the rooftop extension onto the dollhouse. I haven't had much time to work on that this week, you may have noticed! 

Rooftop with weights to keep it in the right place while the glue dries. The smaller roof piece on top is not glued on (that's not where it goes); I just put it up there to keep it out of the way:

Seth helped me move the dollhouse back up to the spare room today. Here it is with the weights and tape removed:

And here's what it will look like with the tower roof added, although it still hasn't been glued on. I have to add some trim under the eaves, and I'm supposed to turn the dollhouse upside down to do that, so I have to do that before gluing on the tower rooftop:

I looked around the spare room and realized that I only have small pieces left to go on. Lots of different kinds of trim, and the windows, door, shingles, and staircase. It's exciting that I have made it this far!

After dinner, I had the RS activities committee meeting. Two members came in person and another one joined us on Zoom. Two of them were new; this was their first meeting. The meeting went better than I anticipated, which I am happy about. We have basic plans for both the November and December activities, and everyone has assignments to work on until our next meeting in October. 

Friday September 11th: I woke up around 7:00; Frank had PT early. I exercised & ate breakfast; then updated finances. Tanner called me while I was doing that (he often calls to talk while he is driving to work). After I finished the finances, I ate lunch (kind of late) and since then I have been working on this post. It's nearly time for me to make dinner now, and we have a game night with some friends after that. 

It's hard to believe that it's been 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I still remember so many details about that day and how I felt. I was talking to Tanner about it; he barely remembers it, but he does remember a little bit.

For my mission, I am supposed to do 12 hours of work each week. This week, I have done about 7 1/2 so far, so I have a lot to do tomorrow. I've decided that I need to choose what days and times I am going to work on it, and block out those times--don't set appointments or anything else for those times. I feel like I will feel less anxious about it if I'm not trying to fit those hours in between everything else going on in my life. We'll see how that goes! 

I think that brings you up to date on everything happening with us, and I am hungry so I am going to make dinner now. 

Weekly Review September 4 '26

When I posted last week, my eye was still quite red, sore, and goopy. Thankfully, it did start improving over the weekend. By the time I had my follow up appointment on Thursday, it was almost normal, although it is still a little bit red. I was even able to wear contact lenses this morning for the first time since the biopsy. (I didn't wear them all day; don't want to over do it. The eye doctor did say it was okay to wear them, and I didn't notice any discomfort.) I guess since I am talking about my eyes, I will go ahead and report that at my follow up appointment I found out that the biopsy results were negative--there were no antibodies present in my eye tissue to indicate that I have an autoimmune disorder. The eye doctor says I do have very dry eyes, though, so I will be using artificial tears and prescription eye drops to help with that. It's good that I don't have an autoimmune, I just hope that using the eye drops regularly will help with all the eye issues I've been having. 

Now I'll give a rundown of the things we did this week. 

Friday August 28th: After I finished the blog post, we made dinner and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. After dinner I read scriptures and worked on the dollhouse a bit. I marked shingle placement guides on the the tower roof pieces and painted the inside walls of the tower roof pieces.

Saturday August 29th: Frank made soup and went to the store to get a few things and to pick up a prescription. Seth got his haircut and mowed the lawn. I did a lot of work on the dollhouse. I sanded the tower roof inside walls that I had painted on Friday night and then painted the 2nd coat. (Nearly every piece of this dollhouse has to be painted, sanded, and then painted again.) I also painted the second side of the rooftop and rooftop extension. After the paint dried, I sanded both sides of the rooftop and rooftop extension and then painted the 2nd coat on one side of the rooftop extension. I listened to scriptures while I was working, and in between steps (while waiting for paint to dry), I practiced ukulele and cleaned the kitchen floor. 

Our Stake Conference was that weekend, so that evening all three of us went to the adult session. (The YSA Branch didn't hold meetings that weekend). Frank and Seth both helped with the IT stuff for the meeting. They did not broadcast any of the conference meetings to the other buildings this time; they wanted everyone to meet together. But there were still screens set up in several rooms in the building since there isn't enough room for everyone to meet in the chapel / gym behind the chapel. Because I was wearing my missionary nametag, a lot of missionaries stopped to introduce themselves, and I also met the service mission coordinators for the area in person. I had talked to one of them on the phone previously because he helped me resubmit my application after it got deleted. It was nice to meet him in person and to meet his wife too. One of Seth's friends in our stake who was serving a proselyting mission for a little over a year, just returned to finish the rest of his mission as a service missionary. He saw me wearing my badge and talked to me to find out what I am doing for my service mission. After that, he gave me a fist bump every time he saw me the rest of the weekend. 😂 A lot of people in my ward and people in the stake who know me asked about my mission too. 

Sunday August 30th: For some reason, I woke up at 4:00 am; I wasn't too thrilled about that. At least I had plenty of time for scripture reading! We got to the stake center by 9:00 am so that Frank and Seth could help with IT. The upside to getting there an hour early is that I got a good seat. (I got a good seat on Saturday evening for the same reason.) The meeting was GREAT! (Actually, that's true of both meetings.) My Seminary youth really shone: 3 of them are currently serving full time missions, so they appeared in a slide show of all the missionaries currently serving that they do every conference, 2 more of them were presented to be ordainded as Elders, 2 more gave talks, and another one played cello in a special musical number. I felt like a proud parent! 😄(Oh, and of course one more...my own son...was helping with the IT. I almost forgot about him! He was working behind the scenes.) The Maryland Baltimore Mission got new mission leaders in July, and they spoke at the meeting on Sunday. The mission president's wife mentioned that they had been serving in the mission office of the Texas San Antonio Mission when they were called to be mission leaders for the Baltimore mission. After the meeting, I got to meet them (yes, they asked me about my service mission) and they were very interested to hear that my parents had served as the office couple in the Texas San Antonio Mission many years ago. 😊

After church, I watched some required annual compliance training videos for my mission and did some other training too. We had family night lesson. Tammy texted me and we got caught up on what's going on in each other's lives. (We miss each other!) She said they have 16 youth in their class this year, and only four of them are boys! That's a complete switch from our first year teaching--we had a couple of girls and the rest were boys. The boy / girl balance started to shift a bit last year, but now it is almost all girls. Frank and I got to talk to Jared for a while too. He and Jessie were on a walk near their new apartment. They are mostly unpacked and they both started their new jobs the following day.

Monday August 31st: Frank was up early for work and I woke up too (at 3:30 am), so I got up and did my usual exercise, eat breakfast, shower routine. I went out on the deck to see the sunrise, and there was a sqirrel that was trying to figure me out:

I took Seth to work at 8:30 and then got some groceries. After getting back from the store, I made muffins, watched some mission training videos, and took a very short nap. I was trying to submit a volunteer disclosure agreement for my mission, but kept having technical issues. (They were finally resolved a few days later, so I got the agreement submitted then.) I got the other regular Monday chores done (laundry, vacuuming) and worked on the dollhouse some more. I finished painting the 2nd coat on both sides of the rooftop and the rooftop extension. I also painted the first coat of one side of the tower rooftop. 

One of the training videos I watched on this day was an overview of what we are doing in my mission, and I realized that I am in the perfect mission for me. There are several projects we are working on, but the main purpose of all of them is to provide names for the temples and to create the most accurate records possible in Family Search. I love going to the temple and I am a total geek about accurate record keeping! I can't think of a better place for me to be serving. 😀I was telling Seth about it, and I said "Somehow, I accidentally stumbled into the most perfect mission for me". Seth's response was "Accidentally??" Oh yeah, that probably wasn't an accident at all!

In the late afternoon, I went to the eye doctor (the optometrist, not the one who did the biopsy) to pick up the sample contact lenses for the new prescription he wants me to try, and then picked up Seth from work. (I haven't tried the sample contact lenses yet since I couldn't wear contact lenses until today. I'm supposed to compare how I'm seeing with the new ones to how I see with the old ones, but since I hadn't worn the old ones for two weeks I was sure I would not be able to notice if there are any differences. So I'll wear the old ones for a few days and then try the new ones.) 

We had dinner and then FHE activity (we played Bank again; Frank won again) before Seth left for YSA FHE. I did some reading in Sense & Sensibility before going to bed.

Tuesday September 1st: Again, Frank was up early for work so I woke up at 3:30 too. After the usual morning exercise routine, I got all the regular chores done before lunch (meal planning and bathroom cleaning; I listened to the Follow Him podcast while cleaning). I also went out on the deck to see the sunrise again and met another squirrel (or maybe it was the same squirrel; who knows? Doesn't look the same to me, though.)

In the afternoon, there was an online devotional for my district (this happens every Tuesday). I don't know exactly how many missionaries are in my district, but there were 64 people at the meeting, and I know not everyone was there. I am in the Cumberland district, and it is part of the Rivers zone. In the Family Search Virtual Records Operations Center mission, there are five zones (Rivers, Trees, Mountains, National Parks, and Wildlife zones) and there are 5 districts in each zone. (The other districts in the Rivers zone are Hudson, Potomac, Rio Grande, and Yukon). So that is a lot of missionaries serving in this mission! Anyway, the devotional was nice and they took a few minutes to introduce me as a new missionary and gave me a few minutes to tell a little bit about myself. After the devotional, I met with one of the team leads for my team (I'm in team C). I was able to ask a few questions that I had, so that was nice. I will be meeting with one of the team leads once a week at first, so that I can ask questions and get guidance. I spent a lot of time on Tuesday afternoon / evening watching training videos and getting other mission tasks done. 

Besides that, I also made bread, did some reading in Sense & Sensibility, did all the things I do on the first day of the month (uploaded last month's photos to Shutterfly, changed the door decoration, pillow covers, and S&P shakers), and got a little more work done on the dollhouse. I painted the 2nd half of the tower rooftop and later--after it dried--I sanded the whole thing and painted the 2nd coat on one side. I also started painting some of the small trim pieces (mainly to use up the small amout of white paint that was left in the roller tray after I finished painting the tower rooftop). I'm not sure how I got all of that done, except that I got up at 3:30 and didn't go to bed until about 10:30 (after Frank got home from his temple shift). 

Seth worked that day, but came home early because his hip was hurting a lot. He thinks he pulled a muscle. He put heat on it and it seems to be better now.

Wednesday September 2nd: Frank didn't have to get up really early for work, but I still woke up really early because Frank was snoring (not sure why he took off his CPAP mask at some point in the night, but he did). Then his blood sugar alarm started going off too, so I was awake for quite a while but finally went back to sleep and didn't wake back up until nearly 8:00, so I got a late start (it felt like the day was half over already!) I did exercise and got dusting (my only Wednesday chore) done in the morning before going to a ministering visit. The sister I was visiting needed some help with several things around her house, so I ended up staying a lot longer than I anticipated (about 3 hours!) but we got a lot done and enjoyed visiting while we worked. (There was also a pretty decent thunderstorm right after I got to her house). 

Meanwhile, Frank and Seth left the house not long after I left for my visit. Frank had some work to do for a client (they just moved locations) and since Seth wasn't working that day, he asked Seth to go with him to help. I got back home around 3:30 and they weren't back yet. I hadn't eaten lunch before I went on my visit (which was at 12:30) because I ate breakfast pretty late, so I planned to eat lunch after I got back. As I said, I wasn't anticipating a 3 hour visit. 😂 So when I got home I made "lunch" and ate it. Then I did a couple of hours of mission work and read some Sense & Sensibility.Seth and Frank didn't get back until about 9:00 pm; they ran into some issues that took a while to work out. I didn't get much work done on the dollhouse that day, but I did paint the 2nd coat on the other side of the tower roof. 

Thursday September 3rd: This was another early morning for both Frank and me. After exercising, eating, and showering, I took my car to put gas in it and then got grocery shopping done before taking Seth to work. On the way back from dropping him off, I stopped at Lowe's to get more white paint for the dollhouse. I was almost out, and there is still a lot of trim that needs white paint. 

We had a lot of rain / thunderstorms that morning. After I got back from dropping Seth off at work, I was texting with a friend to set up a lunch appointment, and it got darker and darker until it felt like it was almost night time. I heard a lot of thunder, too. The sun came out in the afternoon, but we had another thunderstorm at bedtime (lots of lightning!) and more rain in the middle of the night. It was also very hot and humid this day (and most of the week, actually).

I watched a couple of mission training videos (most of them are for the first project I will be working on, which is Record Hints, but I've also been watching a lot of annual training videos), got the regular Thursday chores done (vacuuming & laundry), and went to my eye doctor appointment. Besides the other things I already mentioned, the eye doctor recommends that I don't get my droopy eyelids repaired because doing that will expose more of my eyes to the air, which will increase the problems I'm having with dry eyes. We also set up an appointment next week to do a procedure to fix the problem with the  eyelashes on my left eye that grow the wrong way, but I'm thinking I'm going to change that appointment (I have a good reason to postpone it, but it's complicated to explain, so I'm not going to try!) 

After work, Frank went back to the client he was doing work for on Wednesday to finish up a few things. When he got home, we took a car over to Seth so he could drive himself home. After that, I picked up my friend Michelle and her son Jacob from an appointment and took them home. (They have one car in the shop getting fixed right now.) Jacob is one of my Seminary boys and he and Seth are friends too. On our way to their house, we stopped at Chick-fil-a so Jacob could see Seth (and get a milkshake). 

After dinner, we went to Costco to buy some of the things we need for our ward's Labor Day Picnic (you may remember that Frank & I are in charge of this activity). Seth came with us to help with carrying things, which we appreciated. We also got some things that we need too, as long as we were there. 

After we got home, I did some more picnic planning and also glued the dollhouse tower roof pieces together.

Friday September 4th: We didn't wake up until 6:00 am, which is sleeping in, for us! Frank had PT at 7:00 am. I went to the temple to do initiatories. The traffic on the beltway was really bad; it took me about 30 minutes to get from home to the beltway and another 20+ minutes to get from the beltway to the temple (it usually takes less than 10 minutes). That's the first time I've been to the DC temple as a patron since June; it was lovely to do that again.

After I got home and ate lunch, I spent the afternoon updating finances. Then Frank & I watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while eating dinner. I glued the dollhouse tower rooftop onto the tower roof and spent the rest of the evening writing this blog post. Now it is quite late and I am ready to go to sleep. 

We're glad that Ben was finally discharged from the hospital today and hope he continues to get the follow up care he needs to have a healthy heart.