Weekly Review February 14 '14



 

It's still all about winter weather and interrupted schedules around here.  As most of you know, we got socked by winter storm Pax on Wednesday / Thursday.  Frederick got about 20 inches of snow.  The snow was supposed to start around midnight on Wednesday, but surprised us by showing up around 8:00 instead.  By the time we got up Thursday morning, we had over a foot of snow.  It snowed until around 11:00 (with a little sleet mixed in).  Then we got some rain / freezing rain and snow (just a little bit of each) later that evening.  We're supposed to get another 2 to 4 inches of snow tonight, believe it or not!    Here's some pictures from the storm:

 



The view out our front door, with cars buried in snow.  The snow was still coming down hard at this point.

Our front door would only open this far, before being stopped by a large snow drift.

Another picture out front.  Sorry for the "screen" in front of the photo--as I showed in the photo above, I couldn't open the door enough to get a camera out.

A look out the kitchen window, at the table on our deck.  Believe it or not, there are several bags of food under the table (more on that later).  You can't really see them because they are buried in snow.  Looks pretty close to 2 feet of snow on that table, wouldn't you say?

The corner of the deck, with snow mounded up.  Hard to appreciate how much snow there is, just looking at the picture.

 That's how far we could open the back door.  Obviously, a lot further than the front door...that's because there's eaves hanging over the back door (none in the front).  The red thing is an ice chest.  The blue thing is one of our two recycle bins, which is sitting on top of the other one.

Another view of the table (without "screen" in the way)...you can see the bags of food a little clearer here.

The snow was still coming down and visibility wasn't great.

Later (much later) I took Snickers out.  One of our neighbors with a snow blower had cleared the sidewalks.

The snow is definitely higher than Snickers!

This is our street.  Notice the buried fire hydrant across the street.

"White on white"...Snickers doesn't show up very well!  He cracked me up when he kept trying to jump through the drifts...he'd only get a little ways and he'd have to give up and turn around!  Notice the stop sign...you couldn't tell that was an intersection, could you?

The neighbor with the snow blower cleared off the street for a foot or two behind our parked cars.  But from this picture you get the idea how much snow was on the road.  The snow plows didn't come through until midnight last night.  Thanks to snow blowers and our four wheel drive, Frank was able to get out yesterday.

There was no school yesterday (shocker!) and no school today either.  I think we probably could have managed with a 2 hour delay today...the roads are actually all cleared off now (although not as wide as they usually are, due to large banks of snow on both sides).  Monday (President's Day) and Tuesday were already scheduled days off, so we are having a six day weekend!  Crazy!  Ok, I realize that's not really a weekend...it's just short of a week.  There was some talk that there would be school on Monday and Tuesday (to make up for the 2 snow days we were already over) but apparently they couldn't scare up enough bus drivers to have school on those days so instead we are losing a day off in March and one of our spring break days.  Now we've had two more snow days and we will most likely lose another day of spring break and add one day on at the end of the school year.  Ugh!!  It's hard to imagine that we are ever going to get back on a normal schedule, and in some ways I'm not sure I want to be since my normal schedule is ridiculously busy. 

The good news is, it's supposed to warm up to 60 degrees by next weekend.  Oh, except that's bad news because on Tuesday we discovered that our large chest freezer wasn't working.  I sent Tanner downstairs to put something in the laundry room and he was greeted by a strong "burning rubber" smell.  We traced the smell to the freezer.  Unfortunately, it is extremely old (like older than me, I think...I'm not making that up) so replacement parts are not available.  Also unfortunately, it was extremely full.  We kept it shut on Tuesday evening (but unplugged, because it kept trying to come on, creating more of the burned rubber smell) and on Wednesday morning I cleaned out our refrigerator / freezer to make as much room as I possibly could.  Then we cleaned out the old freezer (which was long overdue...I had no idea we had 6 cartons of ice cream down there, or two pot roasts...).  Most of the meat went into two ice chests and everything else that wouldn't fit in the refrigerator / freezer went in bags and were put under the table on the deck.  It was really cold on Wednesday, so we weren't worried about anything thawing.  But in a few more days, it's going to be a problem.  Even today it felt "warm"--it got up to the 40's and a lot of snow melted--but the deck is in the shade and the food is still buried in snow so I'm not worried about it yet.  In the meantime, I've kind of abandoned all normal meal plans and we are just pulling stuff out of the ice chests, bags, and the freezer and making meals out of that.  It's not all bad...tonight I had filet mignon and potato wedges!  Maybe we will get a new freezer at some point, but since we just purchased a new dryer, I am trying to put it off.  We have been so spoiled having that freezer, though!  It is hard to go without one once you've had one.

Well, other than that, the rest of the week has been fairly calm.  The sister I was talking about last week surprised us all by passing away on Saturday.  Her funeral is tomorrow morning.  Her family did not want to put us to the trouble of making a meal for them (even though we told them we wanted to) so they ordered food and are going to have a meal at their house.  Some of us may help them with food pick up and set up, though. 

I took food to one set of Elders on Monday.  Frank was working and Tanner stayed after school to help with a rehearsal so I knew inviting them over wasn't going to work.  It turned out perfect for them too since they were in a big hurry and I actually made them ham & cheese sandwiches and French fries, and had packed it in lunch bags for them (along with applesauce cups and cookies).  We did manage to have family night later, after everyone got home.  The boys and I had dentist appointments on Tuesday and everybody's teeth are in great shape.  Tanner is going to need to get his wisdom teeth out this summer, though.  Tanner had a doctor appointment that day too (just a check for his meds).  I had my rescheduled doctor appointment today...I was actually worried the office was going to be closed again because of the weather, but it opened late, which didn't affect my appointment time.  Something kind of funny about that...I was having a procedure done (I'll spare you the details of what, but it's routine, nothing to be concerned about) and the doctor was telling me how great I did.  I said "what do you mean, do a lot of people squirm a lot or something?" and she said "Yes!  They do!"  I was surprised by that...it was only slightly uncomfortable.  I guess I'm pretty tough! :)

I had a presidency meeting on Monday, did a food order Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday evening we had our monthly RS meeting.  We did a community service project...we made bibs, burp cloths, and baby hats for an organization that helps pregnant women in crisis.  It was really a great activity...I loved seeing all those women together working, and talking and laughing together as they worked.  It felt good to know we were helping other women and at the same time we were being strengthened ourselves, by being together.  It wasn't supposed to start snowing until at least 10:00, but at 8:00 someone coming in let me know that it was already snowing and there was already about an inch on the roads, which were getting slippery.  So we let everyone know, in case they wanted to get home, and a number of people cleared out but a lot stayed and finished up their work and helped clean up.  By the time I left there was an inch or two on the roads, but it wasn't bad and we got home without any trouble. 

On Wednesday evening we brought the boys' friend Taylor home from the church with us and he spent the night and most of the day Thursday with us.  The other set of Elders came over for dinner...Frank had to go pick them up because they aren't allowed to drive in bad weather...and then after that he took the Elders back home and took Taylor and the older boys to another ward member's house to watch a movie.  Afterwards he took them all out to Taylor's house where they spent the night last night. 

Today we all got haircuts (except Frank, he had his done last Saturday).  Frank was out and about quite a bit on Thursday, in spite of all the snow.  He had asked for Thursday and Friday off already (and his office was closed Thursday anyway) but he is still helping his client with their move and has a lot of set up to do yet.  So he worked on that for several hours yesterday and a few more hours today as well. 

The boys and I got chores done yesterday morning and then they played games.  I finished reading the book for book chat (Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell).  I enjoyed it, and it did come to a somewhat decent ending in spite of the fact that the author died suddenly while writing it.  As the reader, you definitely know approximately how it's going to end, but I did feel a bit frustrated because after wading through over 600 pages, I felt deprived of the really great ending that it was obviously leading up to!  I'm sure the author would have written a really sweet ending (she was a very good writer).  Anyway, I'd heard it had been made into a movie so I decided to look it up on Netflix and was gratified to find out that not only does Netflix have it, but it is available for instant viewing.  So I watched that yesterday.  It was actually a four episode mini series done by the BBC, so it took a while to watch the whole thing (I was up pretty late last night!) but I really enjoyed it.  Also, just as I'd hoped...they used "artistic license" to fill in the blanks and create their own ending, which was a lot more satisfying than the abrupt ending of the book.

I hope everyone has had a nice Valentine's Day!  We had some treats and cards for the kids, and Frank and I got each other some chocolate to share, plus...surprise...I got red roses too.  And we got mushy cards for each other too, of course.  Hope you all feel loved because we love you!  

Weekly Review February 7 '13

A good way to describe this week (or really the last month, actually) would be "we interrupt your regularly scheduled life to bring you...winter weather".  There was no school on Monday, no school on Wednesday, and a 2 hour delay yesterday.  We are now up to 7 snow days this winter (we only have 5 built into the schedule) and it feels like we haven't had a "normal" school week since before Christmas break.  Actually, I'm pretty sure we haven't.  I know Hans was worried about making it to the family reunion in time, and the rate we are going it's going to be an issue for us too.  I think I will rebel and take the kids out of school early, if it comes to that.

 

School was cancelled on Monday because of snow.  We didn't get nearly as much snow as they had been predicting, but we did get 3 or 4 inches.  On Wednesday it was freezing rain.  The roads actually weren't too bad, but everything else had a thick coating of ice all over it.  What made the roads dangerous was falling tree limbs and power lines.  Frank and I went out in the afternoon to do some shopping and run some errands, and we saw lots of trees with pretty extensive damage.  There were a lot of power outages in the area (thankfully we never lost power) and it got even worse Wednesday evening because a stiff wind blew in.  A few of the schools were without power and closed on Thursday as well, but our kids' schools were not affected by that.  Here's a few pictures from the ice storm:

 

I took this picture yesterday...all the snow has a layer of ice on top now so it is slick & shiny.  Doesn't show up very well in the picture:

Tree branches down are a common sight.  This is just one branch.  Many trees have piles of branches underneath them:

These weeping willow trees near our house took a beating:

Under all the trees there are piles of icicles that have fallen off of the trees (doesn't show up well in the photo):

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am ready for spring!

I don't feel like I get a lot done on snow days.  I don't have the will power to get up early when I don't have to, so I always sleep in, and then I move slowly too so before I know it the day is half over.  Plus the kids are around distracting me.  I did better on Wednesday than on Monday, but neither day was all that productive. 

The real inconvenience on Monday was that our new dryer (we purchased one on Saturday morning) was supposed to be delivered that day.  But of course the delivery driver decided it was too "dangerous" to be on the road.  And Monday was our laundry day.  There wasn't much we could do about it, though.  They called Monday evening to say they would deliver the dryer on Tuesday between 8:30 and 10:30--the only two hours of the day that I was not going to be home!  (I have to take Seth to school at that time, and I had a visiting teaching appointment afterwards.)  It was frustrating...they wouldn't push it back an hour or two; if I couldn't be home on Tuesday during that time then my only other option was to wait until Wednesday.  Well, I knew that Wednesday was supposed to be bad weather as well.  Seems like they could be a little more accommodating considering they didn't deliver it when they were supposed to.  But it all turned out ok...they actually came early--at about 7:45--which was before I needed to take Seth to school but after I got back from picking up the Seminary carpool.  So I was thrilled about that!  The new dryer works great, too.  Here it is:

Yep, really exciting, isn't it?! 

I was still able to keep my visiting teaching appointment that morning, also.  I really didn't want to change it because it was with a sister that I've been trying to hook up with for about 4 months.  We had a nice visit and actually have a lot in common.  Among other things, she is an identical twin.

So what else did I do this week?  Saturday was really busy because of the dinner after the memorial service.  It went well, though.  There was plenty of food, plenty of help, and the family really appreciated it.  I had Ward Council Sunday morning, then choir practice.  Frank was not feeling well Sunday so I ran back home to pick up the kids after Ward Council.  I think my lesson went ok.  We always run out of time to discuss everything I want to discuss.  Tanner went to a mission prep class that evening and we had family night. 

I had a PPI with the bishop on Tuesday evening.  I also went to visit the 91 year old sister who's been in the hospital.  (And to bring her family some snacks, so they would have something to eat while spending so much time at the hospital.)  They weren't expecting her to live through the week end, but not only did she make it through the week end, she actually started to improve.  When I went by on Friday evening, she was unconscious.  When I was there on Tuesday, she was awake, talking a little (although it was an effort) and even eating a little bit!  She was released from the hospital today and taken back to the nursing home.  She is declining, however, and they don't expect that she has made a full recovery.  She still probably won't live a lot longer, but it's going to take longer than they expected.  So in the meantime, I'm sure her family is happy to have her with them for a little longer.

I mailed a Valentine package to Scott, took Tanner to an appointment, and visited a sister in the ward who has a new baby.  Frank and I went to lunch together today, thanks to the gift card Mom & Dad sent him for his birthday.  (He was working from home.)  In between everything else, Frank and I have been working on our taxes, I took Tanner to do some shopping for things he needs for the Hill Cumorah Pageant (the first of many trips!) and I've been trying to track down some information Tanner needs so that he can finish up his Eagle scout project paperwork.  I was supposed to have a doctor appointment on Wednesday, but the doctor's office was closed too so that had to be rescheduled to next week.  Frank had to get new tires for his car.  When I was at Wal-Mart this week, they had coats on sale and I got this one for $15:  

Frank does not like my old coat and kept telling me to get a new one.  I figured I probably wasn't going to beat $15!

Frank is still busy working on that big project for one of his clients.  He's gone working on it right now, as a matter of fact.  The meeting he had on Tuesday went great!  He worked from home on Monday but made it to work without any problems on Wednesday.  He saw one car on I-270  that was smashed because a tree fell on it right as it was driving by.  (Thankfully, the driver wasn't hurt.)

Now I need to take Tanner to a party at a friend's house (they are going to watch the movie Catch Me if You Can...which is the next play they will be doing after Bonnie & Clyde).  I have run out of things to say anyway.  That's all the important (and probably some of the unimportant) things for this week.

Weekly Review January 31 '14

I just realized I didn't take any pictures this week.  I guess I didn't have time.  It was a busy RS week, as I anticipated.  The memorial service I mentioned last week is scheduled for tomorrow.  The only stressful thing about it was that when the family called to tell me they were planning to have the service on Saturday, I forgot to ask them about how many people they would like us to feed.  Then neither my compassionate service leader nor I was able to get back in touch with them until Tuesday evening!  So we were both getting stressed about getting the whole thing set up.  We did everything we could to plan without knowing how many people we were planning for.  We finally did get in touch with them on Tuesday evening, and immediately set up an online sign up for the meal.  Those things are great!  Within 48 hours, we had everything we needed, including people to help set up and clean up, and without any emails going back and forth.  So nice! 

Guess who ended up teaching RS on Sunday?  Me!  It turns out my 1st Counselor, who is responsible for the Sunday lessons, had a terrible case of the stomach flu all week (same as the teacher) so I couldn't turn it over to her and it was really late to call a substitute (Saturday morning) so I just did it myself.  I had hardly any time to prepare...Saturday was super busy...but the teacher sent me her outline that she had prepared, which helped a lot.  Plus, I just said a prayer about it and I actually felt remarkably calm about the whole thing and knew it would go well--in spite of very little preparation time--and it did.  I enjoyed reading the conference talk a couple of times, too...it was a good one!  (The Moral Force of Women by D. Todd Christofferson)  Overall, I'd much rather be the one teaching the lesson than the one with the stomach flu anyway.

After all the other things going on during the week, I didn't get much time to think about visiting teaching changes or my lesson for this Sunday (yes, it's actually my turn this Sunday) but I wrestled with visiting teaching for a few hours Wednesday evening and then yesterday afternoon I finally got a few hours of quiet time, so I worked on it some more and got it all figured out.  I also got an outline written for my lesson--I've been pondering over it for the last month--so it's ready to go now too.  That is a big relief to have those two things done, and I feel a lot more relaxed today.

It's a good thing, too, since yesterday I found out that another sister is in the hospital and they aren't expecting her to live much longer.  She is 91 and has been in a nursing home for years.  It's kind of a flip-flop of the situation with the sister who passed away last week...this sister is in our ward, but her daughter and granddaughter and their families are in another ward.  However, they were all in our ward up until the boundary changes a year ago, so it is likely we will be involved with helping again.  Frank and I were out tonight looking at dryers (our dryer died yesterday, just to add to the general chaos) so we stopped by the hospital and were able to talk to her daughter for a while.

Let's see, I also did three food orders this week, attended PEC, ordered flowers for the family whose having the memorial service tomorrow, had a presidency meeting, visited one of my visiting teaching sisters, and had a nice conversation with a second one on the phone.  I set up (or tried to set up) some visits for next week.  Are you wondering what I would have done all week if I were not the RS president?  At this point, I kind of am.

Outside the realm of RS, I did do a few other things.  On Saturday I picked Jared up from his camp out, took him to his basketball game, and took him to his follow up appointment for his eyes so we could order his new contact lenses.  His team won their game easily...by more than 20 points.  Jared was a little upset because he didn't play very well but I reminded him that he had just returned from a camp out so he was probably tired.  Saturday evening we had a guest for dinner.  Frank has been doing some work for a client this last week and while there he's been working with a guy who they had flown out to work on a printer they purchased recently (a very expensive, specialized printer).  Anyway, in their conversations with each other Frank discovered that he is from Ogden, Utah and he's LDS.  Frank knew he'd be here alone for the weekend so he invited him to dinner.  We had a pleasant dinner (Frank cooked the whole thing because I was at the eye doctor with Jared) and enjoyed getting to know him.

Sunday I had choir practice and I was going to try to visit the other sister who had been in the hospital (she came home on Saturday...glad someone is doing better!) but another crisis got in the way of those plans.  We got a call around 6:00 from the YM president, asking if Frank, Tanner & Jared could come help search for one of the other YM, who had walked out of his house at 2:00 and hadn't come back.  (He got angry at his sister.)  They left to go help search, and then there I was...wondering how his mom and sister were doing.  An hour or so later, Frank called and wanted me to bring some flashlights and a few other things to them so since I had to take Seth out anyway, I decided to take them their flashlights and then go to this young man's house.  His mom and sister were holding up pretty well, but they did appreciate having someone else there to talk with and distract their minds.  They did have the police involved in looking for him too.  This particular boy has had a really rough year, struggling with depression, and he stopped coming to church and attending Seminary.  He recently started a new medication that could have some serious side effects, so under those circumstances, they were pretty worried about him.  Plus, it was really cold.  Thankfully, an hour or so after I got there, the police found him and he was ok.  What a relief!  I guess that was RS stuff again...sort of.

We had the Elders over for dinner on Tuesday, I took Tanner to an appointment on Thursday, and today I had a doctor appointment.  (Just a check up.)  The boys had to be at the church early on Wednesday for YM because they had an etiquette dinner and the boys were cooking the meal for the girls.  Jared stayed home with a sore throat on Monday and Tanner stayed home with a stomach ache on Tuesday.  Neither one of them ever got really sick and they both seem fine now. 

In the meantime, Frank has been pretty swamped with work for various clients, especially the big cable pulling project.  He and Tanner pulled cable for a lot of the day on Saturday, and then Frank went back Monday afternoon / evening for 3 or 4 more hours and got the cabling part done.  Now he has to set up the whole phone system and a bunch of other things, so he's far from done but he's glad to have that part done.  He found out at work a few days ago that he and another guy have to do a presentation to a bunch of the executive VPs and other important people on Tuesday, so he's a bit stressed about that. 

Then, as I said, our dryer quit working yesterday.  At least it waited until the last batch of laundry to do that!  We looked around a bit tonight but haven't made a decision on what to get yet.  Our washer and dryer are both 17 years old and we have had very little trouble with them, so we can't really complain much.  I admit to feeling a bit of sticker shock, though.  When we bought the washer and dryer 17 years ago, we paid less than $500 for the set.  Now I am discovering that we'll be lucky to pay less than $500 for just a dryer.  Frank is anxious to get a replacement very soon...I think he would have been happy to purchase the $650 dryer the salesman was trying to pressure us into buying tonight...but I would like to do a little bit of research first.  Plus, I really don't need a fancy dryer.  The one I've had for the last 17 years is pretty basic and I haven't once wished that it would do more than it does.  We do need to make a decision pretty quickly, though.  I'm not really excited about the idea of going to a Laundromat.

In between all of the above (and the shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc.) I have been reading our book chat book in little snatches here and there.  It's interesting and I could easily read it for a lot longer if I had the opportunity. 

Jared is gone playing laser tag now and I was going to wait up for him, but I'm getting pretty sleepy so I'm not sure I'll make it until he gets home.  He has a basketball game at 8:00 in the morning, so it will be an early day tomorrow.

Maybe this week will be calmer, but I doubt it!

Weekly Review January 24 '14



I am pretty tired and my back is hurting, so I'm going to try to get this week's post written kind of quickly so I can go to bed! 

 

This week was busier than last week but not too bad.  Remember last week I said I had a feeling the "calm" wouldn't last long?  Well, I was right about that.  One sister in my ward ended up in the hospital a few days ago.  Then another sister who isn't in our ward but used to be passed away yesterday.  Most of her family is in our ward, and she was a single sister with no other family in her ward, so our ward is going to end up providing the family meal on the day of her memorial service.  I don't know yet when exactly that will be, though.  I got the feeling when I talked to her family last night that it could be a week or two out...or maybe even longer.  (They are having her cremated, so no viewing and no need to have the service right away.)  Today I found out another sister was in a car accident...not hurt, thankfully...but her car is totaled.  So she's probably going to need some help as well.  I also had a food order to do this week and will probably have a couple more to do soon.  Next week I am teaching RS and I have to get visiting teaching changes figured out.  So it looks like things are going to be pretty crazy next week.  Oh, and the teacher who is supposed to be teaching this Sunday is sick and not sure she's going to be there.  I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. 

 

Besides all the RS stuff, we had eventful weather this week (as you've probably heard).  We got a pretty decent snow storm on Tuesday. It started snowing early and snowed most of the day.  They predicted we'd get 6-10 inches of snow and I'm not sure how much we actually got...probably 6 inches or a little more.  It was hard to tell because it was also pretty windy so the snow blew into interesting drifts and was much deeper in some places than in others.  I took a few pictures when I had to take Snickers out Tuesday evening:

 



 Some of the neighbors still have Christmas lights up.  They looked pretty in the snow!  (Much prettier in real life than in the picture.)

 Here's some of the "ridges" made by the wind.

School was cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday (because it snowed most of the day Tuesday, a lot of the roads didn't get plowed) and then on Thursday they had a 2 hour delay because it got super cold and everything froze into a sheet of ice.  Since Monday was a holiday, that means the kids were out of school nearly all week.  The sun came out on Wednesday and the sky was a very pretty blue:

It is still super cold.  Single digits overnight and mostly in the teens or 20's during the days.  Plus it's windy!  Frank just told me that next week they are saying it's going to be even colder.  Gee, I can't wait.

During the snow days, I don't feel like I got a lot of productive things done.  I tried to work on visiting teaching changes and my lesson, but I just couldn't settle down to do them.  I did do all the normal household chores (and a few extra, like cleaning the stove) and I did some reading.  For book chat we are reading a book called Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.  It's pretty good so far.  All in all, it was a relief to get out of the house yesterday (although a late start because of the delay) and to feel like I was getting some things done.  It was a very busy day, too.  Most of the RS emergencies came up yesterday and you wouldn't believe how much time that takes, just with all the phone calls that need to be made and emails that need to be sent.  I also had a visit in the morning and tried to visit the sister in the hospital that evening but she was asleep when I got there so I just had to leave her a note.

Frank has been busy too.  He has started pulling the cable for the client who is moving locations.  He has had Tanner & Jared helping him too.  (He's paying them for it.)  The snow days helped with that...they were home more to help and Frank worked from home too which saved him on travel time and gave him more time in the evenings to work on it.  They worked at least a few hours each evening on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and they have been able to get quite a bit done. 

Tonight Tanner worked a show at the high school which he got paid for, and he seemed to enjoy it too.  Jared is on a camp out.  They are staying in a cabin that has heat, at least.  He had to plan the meals and is doing the cooking...it will help him earn part of the cooking merit badge.  Guess who got to help him with all the planning?

On Monday when they were out of school, Tanner & Jared saw the movie Frozen with friends.  They both loved it!  We really need to take Seth to see it.   

Last Saturday Jared had an eye doctor appointment, a basketball game, and a dance.  Tanner went to the dance too...I was happy about that because it was a good sign that he is trying to pull out of feeling in the dumps about this girl at school.  He's doing better overall although he still has his bad moments.  Anyway, back to Jared...his basketball game turned out to be pretty exciting, with his team winning by 6 points in overtime.  It was the first game I've been able to see this season and I'm impressed with how much the team has improved.  They are doing much better at getting rebounds and I saw a lot of great teamwork. 

Today Frank and I both went to the temple...although we couldn't work it out to go together because of needing to get the boys places.  I went in the morning and Frank went right after work.  We were both on tight schedules, so we both did initiatories.  We did get to meet for lunch in the middle, though...I stopped on my way home at Marriott headquarters, where Frank had a meeting, and we had lunch in the café there.  Going to the temple and meeting for lunch made this day kind of crazy, but it was worth it.  I am always glad to be in the temple, and we had a nice time talking over lunch.  The temple has been closed the last few weeks for maintenance and just opened back up this week.  They have a lot of beautiful new artwork up.

I wasn't even able to start on my normal work for the day until after dinner, but I did manage to get everything done.  Now it's pretty late though and I have run out of things to talk about, so I will post this week's installment and go to bed!     

Weekly Review January 17 '14

Where is January going?  The month of January used to drag by for me but the last few years it has gone by very quickly.  It is already over half over!  I don't mind, because we are that much closer to spring.  You all know how much I *love* cold weather!

 

This week was a lot like last week...full, but not overwhelmingly busy.  I have a feeling that is going to change soon, but in the meantime I'm enjoying it.  Last Friday evening I even watched a movie!  (I never have time to watch movies.)  Ok, well actually I didn't finish it that night because it was getting late but I watched the rest on Saturday morning.  The movie was Amazing Grace...we've actually owned it for years (thanks, Tim & Rachelle!) but I had never managed to find the time to watch it until now even though I knew I'd like it.  And I did...it was really great!  Whenever I watch a movie like that, which is based on true events, I have to do some research afterwards to find out how much of it is really true.  So that took some time on Saturday morning too.  Luckily, I didn't have a lot to do that day so it all worked out.  It's unusual to have a Saturday that I'm not trying to get a million things done, so it was nice for a change.  I probably should have done something constructive like paint the bathroom we've been trying to find the time to paint for 3 years, but whenever I get free time these days all I want to do is relax.

 

One of the reasons we had less to do is that it was "family weekend"--once a month, our stake has a weekend where no one is allowed to schedule any meetings (besides the regular Sunday meeting block) so there were no basketball games or anything like that.  Sunday was nice too because after our regular meetings we could just come home.  I did a lot of reading and got almost all the way through the book for book chat.  (I finished it up on Monday.)  The book was Monuments Men...about a group of men during WWII who were assigned to help preserve monuments, archives, and artwork.  One of the big things they did was to track down all the artwork that the Nazis stole from other countries and individuals so that it could be returned.  I knew there had been artwork looted by the Nazis during the war, but I had no idea how much...as in hundreds of thousands of paintings, statues, documents, and artifacts.  They hid them all kinds of places...a big castle and a couple of salt mines, for example.  Crazy!  The story was pretty amazing although I didn't enjoy the author's writing style very much.  The first 200 pages of the book went very, very slowly!  But then the last 200 pages went by fast, because they were finally starting to find things.  Overall, it was worth reading because of the story.  I also realized that I am very uneducated when it comes to art.  I could work on that!

 

We took Wanda to church on Sunday, which made the day a little crazy and hectic, but I always enjoy her.  I'm working on trying to find more people to help with her, though...with all my RS responsibilities, it can get a little hairy trying to meet her needs also.

 

The kids didn't have school on Monday but I was pretty busy.  Jared had an orthodontist appointment and I had several other errands to run.  I can't remember everything I did now, but I know I was on the go all day and that lots of extra RS things kept coming up.

 

Book chat was on Tuesday and I made a bunch of phone calls for RS.  It was Frank's birthday too!  When he got home from work he opened his presents:

 

He mostly got cards because he wants to get a camera but I didn't want to purchase one without his input.  He also got a scale, as you can see in the picture above.  We went to dinner at Red Robin.  His meal was free, which was nice and they also gave him a free ice cream sundae and sang to him.  Instead of a cake, he wanted to get donuts, but once we were done with dinner we were all too full for that so we haven't done that yet.  Hopefully he had a nice day.

I was up really late that night, though.  Tanner is having more girl drama and we ended up talking for a really long time.  I am glad he is willing to talk to me about things like that.  But he is really unhappy right now so that makes me sad too.  I really wish he would just forget about girls until after his mission--it would make his life a lot easier--but I know that is not easy to do.  He's just had rotten luck with girls and I don't get it.  They always tell him they don't want to date him because he's like a brother to them.  I suppose I'm biased, but I think he's really handsome!  Plus, he is funny and righteous and very kind and sweet besides.  Dumb girls!

Wednesday evening was crazy...Frank had basketball practice before YM, Jared had it afterwards, I was invited to attend Activity Days because they had some ladies from the library coming in to talk about good books, there was a Scout Committee meeting after that, and Tanner was working a show at the school.  Not sure how we managed to get everyone where they needed to be at the right time, but we did. 

Yesterday I was going to try to get some of today's chores done in the evening but I ended up reading to Seth instead.  I don't regret it because I don't get to do that as much as I'd like anymore.  I didn't have an overwhelming amount of things to do during the day but there are always tons of little RS things that I need to do, so I got some of those done.  I also took a short nap because when I was driving Seth to school I could barely keep my eyes open.  Too many late nights and early mornings!  Actually, Jared was tired that day too--he didn't go to Seminary, which is a rare thing.  Today Tanner didn't go.  He actually skipped his first block class also so that he could get some sleep.  He seems to be more rested now.

My days have been filled with household chores and RS tasks.  Today I had a presidency meeting and that ended up taking all morning...both of my counselors got messed up on the time so we started late.  We had a good meeting, though.  Frank was working from home so we had a "date" and got some Chinese food for lunch.  Now the kids are home and it's already dinner time and I haven't even started on updating the budget.  But that's just how it goes sometimes. 

Frank is busy doing maintenance for his clients this week and getting ready for a big project for a client (they are moving their location so they are going to need all new network cables set up).  Scott didn't write until Tuesday (I have no idea why...I assume his P-day was different this week) but he is feeling better now which is good news.  He says he can really feel all the prayers, so thank you for praying for him!  I guess most of you get his letters, but in case you don't, I thought I'd mention it.  He's been gone for almost 10 months which is somewhat unbelievable.  Sometimes it seems like he's been gone forever, but in most ways his mission seems to be going by pretty fast.  He'll be at his half way point before we know it! 

Well, as you can tell we didn't do a lot this week that is worth reading about, even though we kept pretty busy.  So that's all I've got for this week. 

Weekly Review January 10 '14

 This was a week for new beds.  We did decide to go ahead Saturday morning and bought a bed for Seth.  We got him one that we saw at Costco on Thursday evening (during our snowstorm shopping trip).  Buying the bed and getting it set up turned out to be practically an all day project.  For one thing, it came in five large boxes, so it took two trips to the store and back to get it all home.  (Plus we had to get a mattress also.)  Besides that, we couldn't get a simple bed frame...no, we picked out a complicated (but really cool) bed like this:

As you can see, there is a built in desk and seat under the bed. 

See the wood piece under the seat cushion?  Well, you can pull on those handles and another wood piece pulls out.  The cushion also unfolds, so the seat actually turns into another twin size bed.  Getting the bed in required moving around all the furniture in Seth's room and some cleaning and de-cluttering as well, so that added to the time it took to finish the project. 

Seth is thrilled with his new bed, but all the cool features meant that it took some time to put it all together.  Frank and Tanner did that part, though.  Meanwhile, I took Seth shopping for a new comforter and sheets, since his old blankets and sheets were crib sized.  Frank hurt his back bringing in one of the boxes although thankfully not too badly.  He was sore for a few days, but he is ok now.  After they finally got the bed put together, we had a living room full of large cardboard boxes, and nowhere to put them all.  Too late to take them to the recycling place at the dump, and there was freezing rain predicted for the next morning so we didn't want to put them outside.  What to do?  Frank suddenly remembered that one of his clients has a large box recycling area--they are an office furniture company, after all.  So he called them up and they were happy to let us dump all our boxes with the rest of their boxes waiting to be recycled.  We were very grateful!

In between the bed project, I had several things to get done for RS, Tanner went to the stake baptism because he was asked to be a witness, and Jared and Frank both had basketball games.  Oh, and Frank had to go do some work for a client, leaving Tanner to finish putting the bed together (which he did, and felt very manly about it).

The second new bed arrived on Monday.  It wasn't quite as big of a project, but we did have to take the old bed apart and move it out of the room, dispose of the old mattress set, and yes...there was quite a bit of vacuuming and dusting involved as well.  Since the new bed takes up more space, I was also motivated to do some de-cluttering in our room as well.  Now Scott's old room is a disaster because it currently has both of the old beds, plus most of the things we decided to give away in it.  We haven't found anyone who wants the toddler bed, but someone is coming to pick up the queen bed today, which will help a bit.  Anyway, here is the new bed:

 

It still feels huge to us, but I guess we will adjust to that in time.  It is very comfortable, which we are grateful for.  Someday we will get a new headboard, but for now, the metal frame is just fine.

 

It has definitely been WINTER this week.  We had freezing rain on Sunday and again this morning, causing a 2 hour delay for school on both Monday and today.  In between, it got super cold...as in highs in the teens, lows in the single digits, and wind chills of below zero.  Yuck!  Tuesday was the worst day and Wednesday was not a lot better.  I took this photo of our clock / thermometer on Wednesday morning:

 



Twenty degrees was an improvement over what it was the day before, though.  I think it got down to 3 degrees at one point.  I'm here to tell you that 82% humidity with 20 degrees is plenty miserable too, though!  So grateful to have a heated house...you can see that the inside temperature and humidity is much better.

Speaking of heated houses, I spent a bit of time on Tuesday worrying about a lady who has been investigating the church for close to a year.  She has come to church quite regularly for several months, although the last few months she stopped coming--feeling a little too much pressure, I think.  Anyway, back around Thanksgiving someone mentioned to me that she doesn't have the heat on in her apartment.  On Tuesday, I suddenly remembered that remark and so I started worrying about her.  I felt like I really should check on her.  I wasn't sure if she'd like that, but I also didn't want her to think that just because she's currently choosing not to come to church that we had all forgotten about her and didn't care about her.  We were having soup and biscuits for dinner and I kept feeling like I should take some over to her.  It took a bit of detective work to find out her address, but I finally tracked it down and took some soup over to her.  I had no idea how it would be received, or even if she would remember who I was but when she came to the door, she immediately called me by name and she seemed genuinely grateful that someone had thought of her.  And thankfully, she wasn't freezing either.  She recently acquired a pet gerbil and when she woke up that morning and could see her breath, even inside, she decided she'd better turn her heat on for the sake of the gerbil.  I have no idea if I'll see her again, but I did feel good because I felt like I had followed a prompting.

Other than all that, this week was not quite as busy as the last several have been--although it may not sound like it.  I didn't have huge lists of things I had to do or places I had to go each day but I did spend a lot of time getting caught up on some RS things.  It is amazing how much there always is to do...one more person I need to call, one more thing to plan, etc.  I still have plenty to do, but I have a few less things preying on my mind.  I also had my monthly meeting with the bishop on Tuesday night and on Wednesday evening we had our monthly RS evening meeting.  Our theme was "break the ice" (turned out to be very appropriate for that particular day)--we played games to help us get to know each other and had a hot chocolate bar.  We had a decent group show up, and I think everyone who came had a really good time.  There were basketball practices for both Frank and Jared that evening also so we did quite a bit of running around that night.

I managed to find some time to exercise a few times this week and I also did something fun...went to the fabric store to look at patterns for doll clothes.  There are actually tons of patterns to choose from, but I didn't buy any because I am not willing to pay $15-$17 per pattern.  I will wait until they go on sale! 

Frank has not been quite as busy with his business this week (although he has a large project coming up for one of his clients) but he has had lots of meetings at work.  There is a possibility (not sure how likely yet) that he will be sent on some business trips to Africa in the next several months.  Oh, and maybe go to a conference in Madrid.  We'll see if any of that actually pans out.  If he does go, that is going to be rather hectic for me but I guess I'll survive.  Especially if I can wangle a way to go to Madrid with him! :)  Not much chance of that happening, though. 

Today is the last day of the term for the kids and they have Monday off.  I've been busy this week helping Seth finish up some homework assignments.  The older boys have had a few tests as well.  Last night Tanner did the lights and sound for a concert at the school.  I'm not sure if he is getting paid for it or not, but it's good experience.  Seth needed new shoes this week and I couldn't find any his size with Velcro fasteners so I am trying to teach him how to tie shoes now.  It's going to take a while but I'm sure he'll get it eventually. 

That's everything I can think of to write about this week.  We hope you are all well.  Please keep Scott in your prayers, since he's been sick.

Weekly Review January 3 '14

When I left off last week, I was hoping that I would feel well enough to spend some time with Erick's family over the week end.  Thankfully, I did.  I woke up feeling a lot better on Saturday.  I have still had days over the last week that I haven't felt great, but those days I felt pretty good and I never have come down with something that put me totally down.  I'm grateful for that! 

 

On Saturday we met Erick, Liz, Erin & Dan at the temple.  Our original plan was to go to the 3:00 session together, but traffic interfered for them and they didn't make it to the temple in time for that.  So we all did sealings together instead, which was really nice.  When we came out of the temple, the Christmas lights were on.  Frank and I stopped to get some food on our way home and after we got home we went to a wedding reception for a boy in our ward.  They couldn't have asked for a nicer December day to get married...it was in the high 40's and sunny, without wind.  We saw several newly married couples outside getting pictures when we were at the temple.

 

Sunday morning I had PEC before church.  Our bishop said one thing that I really liked.  He was talking about how he knew the month of December was extremely busy for a lot of us (it was for him too of course) but he said that as a result of all of our efforts, a lot of people were served and a lot of people felt the love of the Savior, and what better gift could we actually give the Savior than that?  So he said that he wanted us to know that all the work we had done was our gift to the Savior.  That helped me feel a little bit better about December!

 

I got a new counselor and a new secretary on Sunday.  My former secretary became my new counselor--that's why I got a new secretary also.  It will be nice to have a fully functioning presidency again.  I don't feel like I've really had that for the last 3 months or so.  Hopefully there won't be any more changes until I'm the one released.  I have a completely different set of women than I started out with, and if you've been counting, I'm on my fourth secretary!  Interesting fact--my new secretary had never even attended our church at this time a year ago.  (As a matter of fact, the first time she attended church was the Sunday I was sustained as RS president...which will be a year this Sunday.)  She was baptized in February.  But you would never know that she is so new to the church.   She is really amazing!  It's kind of cool to think how much things have changed in just one year.

 

On Sunday afternoon we drove down to Erin & Dan's house to spend the evening where we enjoyed yummy dinner, playing games, and visiting with everyone there.  Dan's sister and her husband came also and we enjoyed meeting them.  

 

Frank was off work and the boys were out of school until Thursday.  We didn't lie around relaxing, though.  I had lots of RS stuff to do and I was also helping Seth do a school project on African deserts.  We kept up with the household shopping and chores.  Frank and Jared had basketball practices (did I mention Frank is the assistant coach for the Deacon's team?)  I cleaned the kitchen at the church because we are supposed to take turns doing that every three months with the other two wards in our building.  It was our ward's turn in December but I had forgotten to get it set up so I just went and did it myself.  It didn't take too long.  On New Years Day I took down all the Christmas decorations. 

 

For New Year's Eve, Tanner spent the night with a friend and Jared had a party with friends from school.  Frank had some work to do for some clients so it was just Seth and I at home.  He watched a movie and then I got him to bed.  By the time Frank got home, it was too late to start on the jigsaw puzzle that we had planned to put together--we'll have to find some time to do that later.  Neither of us were feeling really great and we were both really tired, so we just went to bed--didn't even stay up until midnight!  Jared had a ride home from his party, so we didn't have to wait up for him.  We did ask him to wake us up when he got home so I know he came in around 1:15.

 

On Thursday (yesterday) it was back to a normal schedule.  It felt good, actually, even though I had to get up earlier.  I had a presidency meeting which went well and I think our new presidency is going to work really well together.  The normal schedule didn't last long, though, because around 2:00 it started to snow.  The snow gradually got heavier and for a few hours in the evening it came down really hard.  We got around 5 inches of snow.  Then it got really cold (down in the teens) so everything froze and the roads were very slick.  So of course school was cancelled today.  I didn't mind too much because it was also still very cold (high of 22 today, I think) and really windy--as in 40-50 mph gusts at times.       



 

Last night in the middle of the storm, Frank and I went out shopping.  Why?  Because back in December we decided to buy a new mattress set.  Marriott was selling the same mattresses they use in their hotels (brand new ones) for a great price, and since we've been thinking we need a new mattress anyway, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we ordered a king size set (our current mattress is a queen).  It was supposed to take 5-6 weeks to be delivered, but to our surprise they called yesterday morning to say that it would be delivered today.  (We didn't order it until December 24th.)  Yikes!  We hadn't gone shopping for a new bed yet.  At that point we decided we'd better just get a metal frame and buy a headboard sometime in the future.  But we did need a frame, and king size sheets and a comforter too.  So we went out to buy those.  It actually wasn't bad...the roads weren't super slick yet and since everyone in Maryland is afraid to go out in a snowstorm, the stores were deserted.  We got great parking spaces, attentive store employees anxious to assist us (they had nothing else to do), and no waiting in lines!  We found what we needed and also got a vacuum cleaner (our old one was on its last legs) and 3 inch thick foam mattress toppers for Jared & Tanner's beds because they've been complaining about how uncomfortable their mattresses are.  (They both said they slept MUCH better last night.)  We also looked at beds for Seth because he has totally outgrown the toddler bed...probably should have got him a new bed months ago.  We didn't buy a bed, but will probably go get one tomorrow.

After all of that, the delivery company called this morning to say that they weren't doing any deliveries today because of the weather (not a big surprise, honestly).  The bed is supposed to be delivered on Monday now.  At least we are better prepared for it now, whenever it actually shows up.  And we didn't take our old bed apart yet, thankfully.

Frank worked from home today so we've all been cooped up together all day.  The boys vacuumed the whole house and the new vacuum works great.  (Mom and Dad, we did end up getting a Shark like you have).  I spent a lot of time updating the budget.  Tonight we went to the wedding reception for Scott's friend Colette.  She certainly didn't get a great weather day for her wedding, but they didn't seem to mind too much.  Her mom said Colette froze when they were taking the pictures outside the temple (19 degrees and windy, remember) but it was sunny and with the freshly fallen snow it was actually very beautiful.  The reception was unique and clever.  It was kind of a rustic country fair type theme (but not with loud colors...everything was different shades of brown and white, mostly).  They served hot dogs, corn dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, applesauce, several kinds of cookies, lemonade, and hot chocolate.  They also had popcorn and cotton candy.  It still looked like a wedding reception, too...they had the lights muted and lots of white lights strung all over, and white flowers in glass mason jars and things like that.  It's hard to describe, but it really looked nice. 

After we got back from the reception, Tanner went to spend the night with a friend and Jared went ice skating with friends from school.  I still have lots of RS and other stuff to do so I'd better finish up here and try to get something else done before I go to bed.