Another pretty busy week! Here's what we did:
Friday, September 11th: After writing last week's post, we had dinner and went to a game night with friends. We actually got there pretty late. There were three small groups playing different games, but all of the games were longer, more involved games, so Frank and I ended up with each of us sitting with a group and talking with them while they finished playing instead of playing a game. It was nice to get out and be social, though! There were more men than women there and all the women were playing a game together, so I sat with them. All three of them are Seminary teachers--the two in our ward and another one who is in our stake and teaches a class in another ward. So we had a lot in common and had a lot to talk about.
Saturday, September 12th: This was a really busy day. Frank got a haircut in the morning and Seth worked from 10:00 to 6:00. I did 6 hours of mission work. Some of that was training videos, but I also did some work on a project called AI Research Assistant. You don't have to be formally trained to work on this project because it is working on record hints for your own family tree. Working on this project taught me how much I still don't know! I had to keep going back and forth between the record hint I was working on and training videos because I couldn't remember how to do anything! Well, it's always good to be humbled. In the end, I was able to connect someone new to my family tree, so that was cool. And in all my digging, I discovered that he was a twin. What are the chances of that? The very first record hint I ever do is for someone who is a twin like me. (Although clearly he was a fraternal twin, since he had a twin sister, not brother.) I also discovered that this family has at least 10 more children, so now I want to go find all of them. This could become addictive very quickly!
Besides the mission work, I did a lot of other things. I figured out a schedule for what days and times I will do mission work each week, and that has definitely been helpful for me as I have gone through this past week. I worked on the dollhouse a little bit with some help from Frank--some of the trim strips needed to be cut to a shorter length, so we did that.
All the trim strips, cut and ready to be painted:
I also cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and sent notes from the RS activity committee meeting to the rest of the committee. Frank and I went out to dinner because neither of us felt like cooking! We went to Outback Steakhouse, since I know they have food I can eat. I tried the salmon and it was really good. I watched part of a documentary about September 11th. I do that most years around this time--watch a few documentaries. I was up pretty late, but I kind of wanted to stay up until Seth got home. He was asked to provide a ride home from work for one of the boys from that family in our ward who need rides. This boy didn't get off work until 11:45. I know Seth is perfectly capable, but I just wanted to make sure he got home safely. He's not usually out that late at night.
Sunday September 13th: I did the usual Sunday morning routine, which includes putting food for dinner in the crock pot, scriptures, and getting ready for church. One new thing I did was that I used liners in the crock pot that I hadn't used before. We got a set of liners when we purchased the crock pot years ago, and we've used the full liner many times, but it also came with a set of two liners that basically divide the crock pot in half so that you can cook two different things at the same time. I made one kind of chicken in one of the liners for Frank & Seth that included things I'm not eating right now, and another kind of chicken in the other liner for me. I almost got rid of that set of liners once because I'd never used them. I'm glad now that I didn't give them away! They are going to come in very handy.
Frank was gone that morning because he had his early morning meetings for the YSA stake. He got back in time to go to the church with me, but he went to YSA branch meetings (branch presidency meeting, branch council meeting, and YSA sacrament meeting) instead of to our meetings. We had a unique sacrament meeting that day. Instead of speakers, anyone who wanted to was invited to come up and share about a favorite hymn and then we'd sing one verse of that hymn. It was a really enjoyable meeting. After church, I had a ministering interview and by the time I finished that, the YSA sacrament meeting was over, so Frank and I came home together.
Before church, I talked briefly with the head of the stake communications committee about the calling that I learned about last week. The counselor in the stake presidency had sent me a little more information about it, but I kept feeling like I needed to talk to the committee chair to find out exactly what she was expecting before I could make a decision, so I asked him if it was okay to talk to her. He said it was okay. When I talked to her before church, she said she would send me a document that listed the responsibilities for the calling, and after I read it we could talk about it.
Later that day, I got the document--one and half pages long. It is definitely more than attending one meeting a month and then reporting on that! As a matter of fact, when I talked to her, the committee chair said that the counselor who talked to me was mixed up. They want someone else to attend the community meeting. They want me to serve on the committee as a communications specialist, which entails a whole lot of things. She talked to me for a long time about it and she seems to think that this calling would overlap my RS activities committee calling a lot, so it wouldn't be a big deal. It does overlap a little bit, but not a whole lot, and there are a lot of things on that list she sent me that would add to my current "to do list". I didn't give her an answer when I talked to her. I told her I would have to think about it, but I did tell her that I am wearing a lot of hats already and that I'm not sure the timing is good for me to take on another calling. She encouraged me to talk to the RS president in my ward about it, because she had this same calling before she became the RS president. So I did do that--the RS president had already said she wanted to go on a walk with me sometime soon, so I contacted her and asked if we could do it this week.
We went on a walk yesterday morning, and she said some things that helped me a bit. She did say that this calling is the type that you can do a lot, or you can choose not to do a lot. She said they'd be happy with anything I could do because right now they don't have anyone doing any of it. But she also agreed that it doesn't really overlap with my current ward calling, and she seemed to think that if I accepted this calling, I would need to be released from my ward calling. I also wanted to talk to her because I had the idea that if someone else in the ward was called to do this calling, they could also serve on the RS activities committee, with the specific responsibility for community service related activities. She said she thought that was a good idea. So anyway, that's where it all stands right now. I haven't made a final decision, but I'm definitely leaning towards not accepting this calling because I think it would just be too much, and I don't want to accept it if I can't give it the time and attention it deserves.
Anyway...back to Sunday. We talked to Jared and had family night before Seth had to leave for mission prep class. I watched a few September 11th documentaries before I went to sleep. Frank's foot had improved enough that he started wearing shoes again on Sunday. Unfortunately, his foot started hurting a lot more on Wednesday. He said he bumped it on something under his desk. Maybe that's why it's hurting more, but now it has swollen a bit and has turned bright red again too. So it's hard to tell if that is all caused by bumping his foot, or if the gout is flaring back up again. At any rate, he's back to wearing sandals again. It's discouraging to have a big set back when he was starting to do a lot better.
Monday, September 14th: I woke up when Frank got up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and did my usual exercise / breakfast / shower routine and I also got all the daily chores (buying groceries, vacuuming, and starting laundry) done by 10:00 am. I did mission work from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. (For my mission work, I've decided to schedule four hours on Mondays, three hours on Tuesdays, four hours on Wednesdays, and two hours on Saturdays. That's thirteen hours--I built in an extra hour in case I have a day I can't do all the hours I planned to do.) For mission work this week I kept working on orientation stuff (which is lovely) and I reviewed Record Hints videos so I'd be better prepared for the Records Hint project training that I had scheduled for today.
After I finished mission work for the day, I watched a few September 11 documentaries (yes, there are a lot of them...I only scratched the surface with the ones I watched this week), talked to Scott, and started painting trim strips and brackets for the dollhouse (first coat, one side).
Frank went to PT after he got home from work. He says that PT has really been helping his right shoulder and his neck, but his left shoulder is not improving much.
Tuesday, September 15th: Again, I woke up when Frank got up, which was even earlier--about 2:40. He got up extra early because he needed to go do some work for a client before going to work. I started out by doing more painting on the dollhouse trim strips and brackets (painted edges of the trim strips and the second side of the brackets).
After that, I exercised and ate breakfast, cleaned the bathrooms (listened to Follow Him while working), showered, and planned meals for next week. I got all that done by 10:15. 😂 After lunch, I had my weekly devotional for the Cumberland district (I gave the closing prayer because it was my team's turn to do the devotional) and a bi-weekly record hints meeting, which is for all the missionaries who are working on the record hints project. The devotional and the meeting were an hour apart, so I worked on my own orientation / training in between those two meetings. After the record hints meeting, I decided to work an extra hour on mission work because it wasn't my week to do my temple shift, so I had extra time. That also meant that I wouldn't have to do as many hours on Wednesday.
Seth worked from 2:00 to 10:00 that day and Frank had his temple shift after work, so I was alone for a lot of the day. After I ate dinner, I sanded all the trim strips and brackets and then painted the second coat on one side of each of them. I listened to scriptures while I was doing that.
Then I watched a few more September 11 documentaries while waiting for Seth and Frank to get home. (I haven't watched any more of those since then...I think I'm done for the year!)
Wednesday, September 16th: I slept in; I didn't wake up until about 6:30. 😂I did the usual exercise / breakfast / shower / chores routine. Then I did mission work from 10:00 to 12:40, which included my weekly one on one meeting with one of the team leads. Everyone in the mission is super nice; I just love them! 😊After that, I had lunch and Tanner called so I talked to him while I was eating. Seth worked from 11:30 to 6:00, and he forgot to take his water bottle, so Frank and I took that to him and then took Frank's car to put gas in it. This is when Frank mentioned that his foot was starting to hurt again. (He had bumped it earlier that day.)
After we got back home, I finished paiting the trim strips and brackets. (I listened to Follow Him while working and then did a little bit of coloring while the episode finished). Since I knew that Thursday and today were going to be busy days, I decided to get a few things done ahead of time. I started working on the budget update and I also purchased groceries in the evening. Before that, though, we had dinner and then Frank and I watched a talk that President Oaks gave at the National Cathedral (Faith, Freedom, and the Common Good). We actually had tickets to see it in person at the cathedral, but because Frank's foot was hurting so much, he didn't feel up to going. It was a little disappointing to miss the chance to attend in person, but we certainly didn't miss fighting traffic! We did enjoy his talk a lot. After I got home from the grocery store, I glued all the trim strips onto the dollhouse.
We got to bed around 9:00, but I felt wide awake and wasn't falling asleep, so I decided to look at some stuff on FamilySearch, and ended up staying up until 11:00 pm because I got so interested in what I was doing.
Thursday, September 17th: Frank and I both woke up around 5:30. Frank didn't get up at 3:30 as he usually does on Thursdays because his foot was hurting in the night so he decided to work from home. I did my usual morning routine and then went on the walk with the RS president that I mentioned earlier. It was a warm and humid morning, so I got pretty warm. After that, I went with my friend Rebekah to Hobby Lobby. (It's in Hagerstown, about 30 minutes away from Frederick). She wanted to get some fabric to make some clothes for her granddaughter and asked me if I wanted to go along. Of course I did! I enjoyed looking at some patterns (didn't buy any, though) and we also checked out the dollhouse section to see what they have. I didn't buy anything for the dollhouse either, but it was good to see what furniture and accessories they have there. They had a decent variety of things, but overall the dollhouse section is pretty small (only half of an aisle, on one side). They have the same model of dollhouse that I am building on display--fully assembled, although it isn't painted at all.
After I got home from that trip and ate lunch, I got the rest of the chores done while Frank went to a PT appointment. I also did some work for RS activities--got the building scheduled for our November activity, contacted ward leadership in another ward to see if we could use the building for our December activity on a Thursday evening (it's that ward's activity night), and did some planning for the group dinner activity, which will be in October. I also started working on this blog post, since today was pretty full and I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to write it today. We had a rainstorm in the evening.
Seth worked every week day this week except for today. On Thursday, he texted me to say that he would be coming home a little late. It turns out that his friend Emma from work got off at the same time that he did, so they stayed to talk for a while. And today, they got together to go to the mall again--he was gone for about 6 hours. I forgot to mention when I wrote last week that I met Emma. We dropped a car off one day for Seth to bring home, so I had to take the key to the car in to him. I just missed him--I saw the back of his head as he went back to the break room--but the girl working the register asked if she could help me, so I explained that I needed to give a key to Seth Cleveland. She broke into a big smile and said "Oh, you're Seth's mom? Seth is my best friend! He is so great!! I just love working with him!" I said "Oh, are you Emma? (then I noticed that her nametag did say Emma!) He's talked a lot about you!" She offered to give Seth the key, so I gave it to her. When Seth came home, I told him about what Emma said and I asked him if they were just friends or if it was more than that. He said that she is dating someone else, so they are just friends. I think he would like to be more than friends, but for now he is content to just be friends.
Friday September 18th: Today I went to the temple in the morning. I did an endowment session which was great because I haven't had the chance to do that since May or June. Someone in the session needed ASL, so I got to see the ASL version of the endowment, and it was really sweet! There was a different signer for each person, and their facial expressions really added a lot to the overall experience. I'm really grateful I got to go, and that I got to have that unique experience.
After I got home and had lunch, I had a 2 hour training session for the Record Hints project. For the training, we basically went through a couple of record hints together. I shared my screen and I did everything, the Elder training me just walked me through it and we talked about things together. I enjoyed it, and I think doing this work is definitely going to be addictive! Now I have an assignment to do five more record hints and when I'm done I will share the lines I did with my trainer so that he can check them.
After I finished my training, Frank and I made dinner and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. After dinner, I finished updating the budget and worked some more on this post. I took a break so that we could do family night activity. We didn't have time to do it on Monday because Seth worked until 6:00 and then had YSA FHE at 7:00. We played the game Stare; Frank won, but Seth and I were right behind him and both of us got to the finish just one round after Frank did.
Now it is nearly bedtime and I can't think of anything else to report, so I will finish with a photo I took this morning of the sunrise.
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