Weekly Review May 15 '15

Well, this was a somewhat exciting week...not the nice kind of exciting, though.  The kind you'd rather not have.  Although it could have been so much worse, so we can't complain much.  When Frank was on his way home from work Wednesday afternoon, he was in a car wreck.  He was on I-270 and the traffic was flowing pretty well, then he got to one of those spots where the traffic slows down all of the sudden, and he had to come to a complete stop.  He stopped about 10-15 feet behind the car in front of him, but the driver in the car behind him was looking at his phone and didn't notice.  He never even stepped on his brakes...he just plowed into the back of Frank's car going about 60 mph.  He hit the car so hard that the car was pushed into the car in front, as well as into the guardrail on Frank's left (he was in the left lane).   

Frank was not seriously hurt...no broken bones or anything like that.  He was able to get out of the car and walk around  An ambulance came and they looked at him but he seemed to be okay.  The car was towed to a place near our house here in Frederick, and I met Frank there so I could bring him home.  By the time we got through the paperwork and such, Frank was starting to hurt.  His head, neck, back and sides were hurting.  So we decided to take him to the emergency room to get checked out.  However, we hadn't had dinner yet and the missionaries were coming for that, so we did get some food first.  The local Greek Festival had just opened that day, so after I took Frank home, Jared and I went and got some gyros for everyone.  By the time we got back to the house, Frank was experiencing blurred vision and dizziness, so he didn't really want to eat.  The missionaries ate quickly & I had time to eat part of my gyro.  Then the Elders gave Frank a blessing.  They stayed and gave a spiritual message to Jared and Seth (Tanner was gone) before they left.  I took Frank to the ER.  As usual, we had to wait a really long time...about 2 hours in the waiting room and then it was 3 hours before they did everything they wanted to do to check him out.  It was 11:30 before we were able to come home and collapse into bed.  

They did CT scans on Frank's head, neck, and abdomen, and everything looked okay.  He just has a really decent case of whiplash.  They gave him a pain reliever and a muscle relaxant and that helped him feel quite a bit better.  However, he has been very, very sore ever since.  He groans whenever he moves.  Not much fun.  Hopefully he will be feeling a lot better in a few more days.  

So what about the car?  Well, we don't have the official word from the insurance company yet (we got all of Frank's belongings out of the car yesterday and the insurance company was supposed to be picking it up today) but I think it's pretty safe to say that it will be ruled a total loss.  What do you think?:

You can see that both wheels on the passenger side of the car were popped.  The hood is bent out of shape in front, the driver's side headlight is smashed, and the back passenger side is a total mangled mess.  The whole back piece that is attached to the bumper came off.  It was pretty tricky getting all his belongings out because the back passenger door and the trunk won't open at all and the other three doors are hard to open and won't open all the way.  (Which means the frame of the car is all bent out of shape.)  We couldn't get the CDs out o the CD player either because the car wouldn't start at all and when we pried the hood open to try to jump the battery, the battery was completely mangled too.  So yes...I think we'll be car shopping this week.

Did I mention that we only had 3 payments left until this car would have been paid off?  History repeating itself...this car replaced the Prius that Scott totaled nearly 3 years ago, and when that one wrecked we only had 3 payments left on it!  (That one was a 5 year loan, so I feel like we've been paying for this car for 8 years now.)  We'll have to wait to see how much the insurance company is going to give us for this one.  Maybe we can get enough that we won't have to start over again on another loan?  I would be really grateful if that happened, but I'm pretty doubtful.

BUT...as the lady at the towing place said (speaking of Frank) "he's walking and talking; thank God for that".  I couldn't agree more.

Is there such a thing as sympathy pain?  Is that a real thing?  If so, then I've been having it!  On Wednesday when we were waiting at the ER, my head started hurting and it hurt all night.  My head's doing better now, but ever since Wednesday night my back has been sore.  I honestly keep thinking things like "wow, my back got hurt in that car wreck" and then I remember that I wasn't even in the car!!  Well, it's more likely my back hurts because of the stress.  Or sitting in the uncomfortable chairs at the ER for 5 hours...that certainly could have done it!!  But I'm not hurting anywhere near as much as Frank is.  I'm still functioning, just slightly uncomfortable.

By the way, you hear the craziest things when you are waiting in the ER.  Like the guy across the hall from us who was being treated, and apparently he was going right to jail as soon as he got released from the ER.  He sounded drunk or on drugs or something.  Or the lady across the hall from us who was complaining that the ER doctor wouldn't prescribe more narcotics for her.  And so on.  You had to be there, but it was a wild night.

Well, so much for the excitement!  What else happened this week?  Friday night Frank and I went on a date.  We took another couple to dinner with us.  They watched Snickers for us for our spring break trip, so this was our way of "paying" them for that.  It was fun and afterwards we did some shopping--got some badly needed dress pants for Frank (he's been down to one pair for quite some time) and some sandals for him and some boots (on sale, since it's off season) for me.

On Saturday, among other chores and errands, I took Jared to the store to get some things for his Eagle project.  We did some tests that day and earlier this week and I think we have figured out the best way to apply the pictures and letters to the wood signs.  We also ordered some vinyl letters from a place online because we need 8 very large letters...bigger than we can find anywhere in stores.  So now we know how to proceed with his project; we just have to find time to do it!!

Mother's Day was really nice.  I didn't have any meetings so I got to sleep in for once!  Frank and the boys made breakfast for me (I preferred to get out of bed to eat it) and gave me some cards, some chocolate covered strawberries, and some chocolates.  The talks in Sacrament Meeting were really excellent and focused more on the contributions all women make to righteousness (not just mothers).  For RS, they had arranged to have YW and men take over Primary so all the women in the ward, including the Primary and YW workers, could attend RS.  We had a really great lesson and it felt really nice to me to have everyone there together...just a sweet spirit!  After church I didn't have to help with dinner at all, just relaxed, and I got to talk to Mom and Scott called me too.  So it was a great day for a lot of reasons!

Monday morning I helped with a service project we had...we've decided to have a 'Mom's free time" every once in a while so that the moms with young children in the ward can drop them off at the church to be cared for for a few hours while the moms get errands done, or take a nap, or work on a project, or read scriptures, or whatever they want to do.  This was our first time doing this, and the moms who came really seemed to appreciate it.  One of my counselors and my secretary and I did the babysitting this time, but we will have other women help in the future.

Tanner worked on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, so he had a pretty decent work week.  On Thursday I had to ask the family that carpools with us for Seminary if they could drive both ways because Tanner had to be at work at 7:00 am and that is the same time I need to pick up the Seminary kids.  Since we only have one car (and Frank is in no shape to drive anyway) I couldn't be two places at once!  Thursday was crazy anyway.  Remember I'd been up late with Frank at the ER, and then I had to be up early to get Tanner to work.  I got back home in time to shower, drop off Frank's prescriptions at the pharmacy, and get Seth to school.  I went straight from there to pick up Jared and take him to the orthodontist, where he got his bottom braces off so now he is braces free!  I'll have to get a picture of him soon.  I forgot to do it then and he is gone to a dance right now.   After I dropped Jared off back at school, I picked up Frank's prescriptions, dropped them off at home, and then went to pick up Tanner from work.  I still needed to get some groceries and put gas in the car so we did that on the way back home.  At that point I finally went home and took a short nap!  Then I ate lunch (at 2:30 in the afternoon) made some phone calls and answered emails, and then we all went to the towing place to get all the stuff out of Frank's car.  Then I picked Seth up from school (he had piano after school), made dinner, and barely had time to make it to a seminar I signed up for a few months ago.

The seminar was on strategies for helping a child with ADHD, and it was very interesting and there was a lot of good information.  I thought it was interesting that the guy doing the seminar said that in his opinion, a child with ADHD should be put on medication most of the time.  The analogy he used was if your child is nearsighted, you can do things to help him like having him sit in the front of the classroom to help him see the board.  But the things that is really going to help him the most is to get him glasses because that corrects the problem instead of just helping him cope with the problem.  ADHD meds boost the chemicals in the brain that are too low in kids with ADHD, so that is like correcting the problem instead of just trying to find ways to cope with it.  I can see what he's saying...and certainly putting Tanner on medication helped him a lot.  So we'll probably go that route with Seth eventually, and probably earlier than we did with Tanner.  But in the meantime, I'd like to try some of the other strategies that he suggested and see if they help.  The other interesting part of the seminar is that I discovered that there are a lot of behaviors that go along with ADHD besides just being unfocused, and I recognized Seth in a lot of the descriptions of those behaviors.  (Tanner in a number of them as well.)  Turns out most of his behaviors that drive me a little crazy are ADHD related!  Somehow, that helps me to be a little more patient with him.  He's not being difficult on purpose!

On Wednesday Tanner got word from our bishop that his mission assignment was made last Friday so his call should be arriving any day now.  Tanner has been checking the mail every day!  It didn't come today, but maybe it will be here tomorrow.  I hope so!  Tanner has been keeping fairly busy between work and going to appointments with the missionaries, as well as single adult activities like FHE and Institute.  (He's with the missionaries right now.)  He also did some service at the local United Way for several hours on Wednesday.

Speaking of missionaries, we had the other set who are serving in our ward over on Monday for dinner.  It was kind of last minute...I realized we had plenty of food and I was pretty sure no one had signed up to feed them, so I texted them and sure enough, they didn't have a dinner appointment.  We ended up inviting them to stay for family night, and we played a pretty exciting game of speed Uno.  It was fun!

Something kind of momentous happened on Tuesday.  One of my visiting teachers came to my house and visited me!  She gave a lesson and everything!  Why is this momentous?  Because I haven't had a visiting teacher come to see me in about 2 years.  (We haven't seen home teachers in the last two years plus either.)  I've had several sets of visiting teachers in the last couple of years and most of them haven't even contacted me, let alone visited me.  I changed my visiting teachers again a couple of months ago and these ones have been good about calling me and now one of them visited.  So I think I will enjoy them while it lasts!

Today we picked up Jared and Seth from their schools and we all went to turn in our passport applications.  (Tanner already has his.)  So hopefully in about 4 weeks, we'll all have passports.  We don't know if Alaska is going to happen this summer, but if it does, we are going to need to go through Canada to get there.  So now we're prepared for that.  Plus, if we get a sudden urge to go on a Caribbean cruise, we're all set! ;)

With all the stuff related to Frank's accident, a number of the household chores have not happened this week but that's okay...the house will still be dirty when I find the time to clean it! We've managed to eat every day and I did get the laundry done so we have clean clothes to wear.  I've also managed to exercise a bit, made some trips to the library, convinced Seth to practice the piano, and finished planning Seth's party.  I got the invitations sent out (thankfully before the wreck happened) and today I finally managed to order the supplies that I can't purchase in the stores, so that they'll get here in time for the party.  Turns out one of his best friends from school is having his party the same day and they were going to overlap a bit but when I talked to his friend's mom she said her son really wants Seth at his party so she moved the party time back a bit and I moved Seth's party time to a little earlier so that they don't overlap anymore and both boys can attend the other boy's party.  They are going to be partied out before the day is over though!  I have not received a whole lot of RSVPs yet, but all the ones we've received so far have been "yes".

Well, our realtor friend just called me.  He just saw the couple who looked at our house a few weeks ago and he asked them how they feel about our house and they are still very interested and gave him a dollar figure that they would be willing to pay for it  So that deal still may go through.  Part of me is excited about the idea and part of me is terrified!  It would certainly save us a lot of trouble to sell it this way (without having to put it on the market, even...who does that?!) although I know it will still be a whole lot of work.  And how are we really going to find time to find a new house and pack up and move?  Who knows!  But another big plus is that this couple doesn't really want to move until October or November.  So that gives us some time.

That is certainly enough excitement for one week!    

Weekly Review May 8 '15

Another busy week is history.  I feel like I'm panting to keep up sometimes.  (Ok, most of the time.)  This week was a bit less stressful, though, since I wasn't trying to prepare a lesson or figure out visiting teaching changes.  Glad to have those things behind me...at least for another month (VT changes) or three (lesson preparation).  I didn't get the VT changes figured out on Friday as I had hoped, but on Saturday Frank took all the boys to see the new Avengers movie so I finally got some quiet time to figure all of those out.

Meanwhile, on Friday Jared had prom.  He had a fun time.  Remember how I said last week that the camera SD card got full when Tanner and I were at the temple on Thursday?  Well, Frank gave me a new card to put in before taking Jared to prom but after taking only a couple of pictures, THAT card was full too!  So I didn't get very many pictures of prom, unfortunately--a few of some of the other kids in his group, and only one of Jared and his date.  Jared has a lot on his facebook page from some of the others in his group, but I can't seem to download those...I guess he'll have to do that.  So maybe next week I'll have more.  But here is the one that I did get:

I thought his date's dress was very pretty, although you can't see it very well in this particular photo.

After dropping Jared off, I went to Girls' Night.  We met at a restaurant for dinner and then went to someone's house to watch a movie.  It was a lot of fun!  One of my good friends who moved away several years ago was in town visiting so she came too and it was great to see her again and get caught up.  She was called to be RS president in her ward (in California) a few months ago so when I gave her a ride to the movie, she and I talked about that...she wanted advice!  Which was funny to me because when she lived here, she was RS president for a year and I was one of her counselors.  It was good to share our thoughts with each other, though.

At home, Frank had intended to take Tanner and Seth on the Fathers / Sons camp out, but that ended up not working out because Frank had a project at work that was rolling out that evening / night / early morning so he had to be on call.  He wasn't too happy about it, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I got up Saturday morning and went to get my hair done.  The rest of the day was super busy with lots of different things that needed to be done.  After I got the VT changes figured out, I went to the church to print up the new assignment slips.  Then I went to a few stores looking for some ideas for Jared's Eagle project, and then I went to Kohls because I had $30 of Kohls cash to spend, which expired that day.  This was all while the boys were at the movie.

Sunday was the usual meeting business.  My lesson went pretty well, I think.  This week for RS I had a food order Monday morning, a visit Monday evening, a meeting with the bishop Tuesday evening, a presidency meeting Wednesday morning, a visit Thursday morning, and today I dropped off the food order with a sister who is going to pick it up tomorrow (the family who needs it doesn't have transportation).  I probably did some other things, but I can't remember now.  Oh yes!  I followed up on a sister who had some surgery this week (fairly minor, although they have to do a biopsy now so I hope that comes out negative) and did a little bit to help a family who was moving.  (They are staying in our ward boundaries, as a matter of fact they moved really close to where we live.)

I had book chat on Tuesday.  I also took Seth to get his hair cut that afternoon.  Tanner was not scheduled to work at all this week, but they did call him in yesterday so he got a few hours.  They called him on Wednesday too but that was while I was at my meeting, so he didn't have a car.  He goes to YSA FHE and Institute every week so I feel like we are waiting up for him a lot.  Jared is finally home sometimes (now that the plays are done) but he still keeps pretty busy...he did lights and sound for a show last night.  The rest of the week I've been keeping up with the housework and such, trying to get Seth to practice the piano, trying to find time to exercise (somewhat successful), nagging at Jared to work on his Eagle project, and planning Seth's birthday party.  

I decided to rent the pavilion at the park near our house or the party.  When I went & looked at it, I realized it was big enough that we could set up some games in there (on tables and on the floor) and still have plenty of room for food.  So we could have the whole party in the pavilion and hopefully minimize other kids at the park wandering in!  Plus, we'll be under a roof if it happens to rain that day.  So I reserved the pavilion on Monday and so far I've been doing a lot of research on what supplies are available and what they cost so I can decide for sure what we'll do.  I try to keep parties simple, but they always get a lot more involved than I intend at the outset.  I will freely admit that is my own fault...although I am not much of an entertainer and we rarely have parties, I totally LOVE planning parties!  So I just can't help myself!!  But I'm trying to really reign myself in on this one because a carnival theme has way too many possibilities and I could easily spend a small fortune!

The weather on Monday was absolutely perfect.  Temperatures in the 80's, sunny, low humidity, and nice breeze.  I was walking down the street in downtown Frederick next to a park and the breeze was blowing all these pink blossoms off the trees so pink blossoms were raining down everywhere...heavenly!  Frank had the great idea that we should have our dinner at the park, and since I'd planned to have sub sandwiches, chips, and fruit for dinner one night this week, we switched things around and had the sub sandwiches that night.  It was fun and so pretty outside.

Since then, the humidity has gone up so it isn't quite as pleasant but it's still warm, which I'm enjoying.  But the last few days I think allergies are starting to hit me.  I had a bad headache on Wednesday evening and today my head is hurting again.  I've been taking allergy meds, too.  Frank wasn't feeling well yesterday and he took a day off but he's back at work today.

The boys get out of school 2 hours early today so they will be home soon!  That wraps it up for this week.

Weekly Review May 1 '15

Here it is, the first day of May.  How did that happen?

As always, we had a busy week.  Frank has had a lot going on at work and he's been working long hours...haven't seen him much!  I keep things going at home which seems to be more and more challenging...the boys seem to have so much going on all the time.

Sunday was a nice change, though...we had a regional stake conference broadcast from Salt Lake City, so we had one meeting at 10:00 and that was it!  No other meetings for me.  I really enjoyed that!  They tried something new this time, though...broadcast from the stake center to two other buildings in the stake.  That really helped cut down on the crowded conditions!  We went to our regular building instead of to the stake center and our chapel was full and most of the cultural hall was full too.  It was nice, but it also meant that Frank was busy again...he was asked to be in charge of the audio visual stuff at our building, since the stake clerk in charge of technology can't be in 3 places at once.  So it was like old times, with Frank running around like crazy and then he sat up on the stand for the whole meeting to keep an eye on the broadcast & make sure everything was running ok.

Some friends invited us over for dinner that evening.  So after the meeting we came home and relaxed for a while (I took a short nap) and then we went to dinner, which was delicious and it was fun to visit with friends too.

On Monday I regrouped a little...made a lot of appointments that needed to be made and so forth.  Tanner worked that day, but that was the only day he was scheduled to work.  When Jared got home from school, I took him to order the corsage for Prom.  He also got some flowers and made a sign because even though he and this girl agreed to go to Prom together months ago, she still said he had to officially ask her!  So he decided to surprise her by showing up at her tennis match with flowers and a sign:

  

Apparently, she was totally surprised and squealed and gave him a hug.  So everyone's happy.

Tuesday morning I took Snickers to the vet for a follow up after his surgery.  He got all the stitches out and everything looks pretty good.  In spite of our careful watching, he did manage to remove 4 of the 5 stitches on his tail himself!!  But it is still healing fine.  They said we still need to keep an eye on his tail for a few days because there's a scab on it that they don't want him to chew off.  But pretty soon we'll be able to put the "cone of shame" away.  I think I'll be as glad as Snickers about that!  I had errands to run that day also, and all week I've been working on visiting teaching changes and the RS lesson for Sunday, since it's my turn to teach.  I've got the lesson mostly figured out, the visiting teaching changes are still a mystery!  (But hopefully I'll get those figured out today.)  On Tuesday I also sat down with Jared and we did some planning for his Eagle project.  We made some progress, but it's always stressful!

Wednesday I got a couple of packages ready to mail, went shopping, cleaned out the coat closet (trying to keep up my momentum with cleaning and organizing!), and worked on RS stuff.  Jared had to do sound for a showcase at school that evening.  Tanner had agreed to help with the YM / YW activity that evening.  But then he got a message from the stake executive secretary trying to set up an appointment with him to meet with the stake president so he could get his mission papers submitted.  And the bottom line was that the stake president could only meet with him during the activity.  So we made some phone calls and did some juggling around, and he was able to find someone else to help with the activity in his place so that he was able to meet with the stake president.  (He would have had to wait until Sunday otherwise, which he didn't want to do.)  The stake president said he would submit his papers either that evening or the next day, so that means that his papers are finally in!  Hooray!!

Yesterday I had a lot to do but also as I have been preparing my lesson all week on blessings of attending the temple, I just kept feeling like I really needed to go to the temple!  I felt like Tanner needed to go too.  So I looked up the times for the baptism sessions and somehow managed to work it out for us to be there at noon.  It took some juggling, and a lot of things needed to fall into place, but they did.  So Tanner got to do baptisms and I got to do initiatories.  I'm really glad we went, even though I still have lot to do and I'm feeling a little stressed about it.  But I'm sure it was the right thing to do.

The flowers at the temple are gorgeous right now!  So we took some pictures.  I took several close ups before I discovered that the camera was set on black and white!  And then the SD card got full so I couldn't take as many as I wanted.  But here are a few:
 

We drove through a pretty decent thunderstorm on the way home, and it rained last night too.  Our new grass is growing splendidly...but it's a lot darker than the old grass so you can definitely tell where the new grass ends and the old grass begins.  It's pretty funny!

Besides going to the temple yesterday, I also visit taught one sister, picked up Seth from piano class after school, bought groceries, did laundry, mailed 2 packages, and vacuumed the whole house (well Tanner did the vacuuming for me actually).  I also started updating the budget, which I finished this morning.

The rest of the day will be busy...Jared has Prom tonight and the other two boys are going camping with Frank for the Fathers / Sons camp out.  I planned a girls' night with friends so that should be fun.  In between I need to finish up my lesson and figure out visiting teaching and make some phone calls for RS.  So I'm sure there won't be a dull moment!

I also had the realization this week that Seth's birthday is coming pretty soon and that he is supposed to get a party this year.  (Not to mention his baptism will be shortly after...at the beginning of June!)  So I've been trying to get some ideas of what to do for his party so that I can get that ball rolling.  It's tricky since our house is small and we don't have much of a yard.  I've been exploring the idea of having his party at a park.  The biggest issue there is privacy though...I am really wishing we had a large fenced back yard instead!  I'd really like to do a carnival theme (nothing elaborate, mind you!), but that would require a decent sized open space.  Well, we'll figure something out.  We've had all of the kids' parties at home over the years (except for Seth's last party) and it's always worked out.

Now I'd better get busy on my list for the rest of the day!

Weekly Review April 24 '15

This week I will back track a bit to start out.  Frank took his GoPro camera with him on our trip to NC, but I didn't realize that he took a bunch of pictures with it while we were on the boat.  He got some pretty good pictures, so here they are:

(Lindsey obviously didn't want her picture taken!  But I love how the world looks curved in the background!

Ok, so on to this week.  If I can type with my stiff fingers, that is.  It is cold in here!  That's because it got down to the 30's last night and hasn't got above the 50's today.  Plus it's windy.  And since the weather has been bipolar, we switched the heat off and turned the A/C on last week.  I could switch it back, of course, but it involves a few steps and I'm not confident I remember them all.  So the house is pretty chilly!  At least I can be happy about all the money I'm not spending on natural gas or electricity!

We still didn't get an illness-free week.  Seth started throwing up Saturday morning!  He was quite sick all day Saturday.  The Elders came for dinner that evening and Seth slept on the couch through the whole thing.  Jared was at his play and Tanner and Scott were both at a YSA Luau, so it was just Frank and I with the Elders!  Shortly after the Elders left, Seth woke up and finally perked up.  He started keeping down liquids and in a few hours tried crackers and kept those down too.  However, since he'd been throwing up most of the day, we knew we should keep him away from people on Sunday.  This complicated our life quite a bit since Tanner was scheduled to be ordained an Elder on Sunday, so of course we both wanted to be there for that.  Plus Frank teaches Sunday school and I should really be in RS if at all possible.  Oh, and I was singing in the choir and Jared was directing the choir.  What is it with Sundays lately?!  This was the fourth Sunday in a row that someone was either sick, injured, or had an infection.  We finally ended up taking Seth to Sacrament Meeting (but keeping him away from people) and after I sang with the choir, I took him home.  Then we arranged to have Tanner's ordination done at the beginning of the 3rd hour, so I took Seth back for that, then Frank took him home.  I was able to stay for the rest of RS and for my meeting after church.  In the end, it all worked out and the ordination went well and we're very happy Tanner has taken this step.  It was just complicated getting it all figured out!  But that seems to be the norm rather than the exception in our lives these days.

Sunday evening Frank and the oldest 3 boys had a stake priesthood meeting so I stayed home with Seth.  Back to Saturday...Frank and I got a walk in that morning, before Seth got sick.  Jared took the ACT and then was at the play.  I ended up helping the family of the sister who passed away...I found someone who needed the two twin beds they wanted to donate, and helped them get them over to their house.  I also picked up some things they didn't know what to do with...temple clothes & garments, and a bunch of church books.  I helped make a huge pot of rice and got Scott over to the Luau...Tanner had to be there early because he was dancing in a dance for the Luau.  It's a dance called the Haka...apparently a dance the  Maori men would dance right before a battle so it is loud and intimidating!  He was the leader of the dance and he's been practicing for months.  I hear it went really well and was very impressive!  Here are some pictures:

Skipping ahead to Monday now (since I already talked about Sunday)--Scott flew to Utah on Monday afternoon.  I found that having him leave this time was harder for me than when he went on his mission.  I think that is for several reasons. First, even though I know I can communicate with him more often and we'll be able to visit him, this time he was leaving home for good.  He will be back for visits, but he'll never live with us again (or it's very unlikely that he will).  It just felt so final!  Second, we just got him back--didn't feel like we had enough time with him.  Third, I'm realizing that all of my boys are going to do the same thing, probably.  They want to be out west to get their educations and to have the chance to meet their future wives, not here.  There's a part of me that just feels rebellious sometimes at the fact that I seem to be destined to spend most of my life living far away from the people I really want to spend my life with!  Now my children are starting to join the ranks of all the family members that I miss all the time.  Finally, Seth had a much harder time with Scott leaving this time as well.  He cried & cried Monday morning when it was time to go to school!  So that ripped out my mother heart, too.

Now that I spent a whole paragraph talking about how hard it was to have Scott leave, I should mention that I tried not to dwell too much on what I was feeling and we all (except Seth) kept it pretty upbeat.  Frank couldn't get off work but he worked from home so he could see Scott a little more, and Tanner and I took him to the airport.  I think he's been enjoying his trip so far and he'll be back in Utah Sunday night so those of you who live in Utah should be seeing him soon.

On Monday I also did a food order and went to the library, besides the usual cleaning and grocery shopping.  Seth has been going to a little gardening club at the library after school on Mondays.  He goes with our carpool boys and their mom.  He seems to be enjoying it.  I went visiting teaching, took Tanner to work and back, and took Jared to the orthodontist on Tuesday, besides the usual chores.  Good news for Jared...now that his bottom wisdom teeth are out, his bottom teeth have straightened out and he can get his bottom braces off at his next appointment, which is in about 2 weeks.  Of course he is very happy about that!

On Tuesday evening I also found out that my schedule for the rest of the week was going to need some adjusting.  I can't remember if I mentioned this is another post, but I don't think I did.  As I think you do know, we have been looking for a bigger house off and on for years.  I think it's been about 6 years or so!  We haven't really looked at all the last couple of years, though.  Anyway, our very patient realtor (he's a friend of ours, too) called us about a week ago and asked if we had any interest in selling our house right now.  He's helping a young couple who are getting married later this year find a house.  They really like our neighborhood and have looked at a few houses in this area.  He remembered our house and knows we have some of the features they really like, such as a walk out basement and updated kitchen counters and floors.  So he wondered if there was any chance that we would be interested in selling if this couple looked at our house and liked it.  We talked it over and decided we are willing to sell now if a buyer is interested.  As a matter of fact, trying to get our house sold is one of the major reasons we haven't made the plunge and actually moved yet.  Anyway, on Tuesday he contacted us and asked if he could show our house to this couple on Thursday evening.  Yikes!  Even though they know it isn't on the market so it's not really ready to be shown, I still knew that our house needed to look a lot cleaner and less cluttered than it did at that time.  (No chance to paint or make repairs, but at least it could be clean and neat!)

So, Tuesday evening and every chance I got on Wednesday and Thursday I was cleaning things or organizing things or throwing things out!  The older boys were responsible for cleaning their rooms and Frank spent a lot of time cleaning his office.  He also helped with a lot of other things like vacuuming and taking out trash and so did Tanner.  After those couple of days I was utterly exhausted but it really did make a significant difference.  Our house is cleaner and less cluttered than it has been in YEARS!  I am so happy to have a neat house again and I am committed to maintaining it this way.  I've been wanting to get it much less cluttered for a long, long time but couldn't seem to motivate myself to do it.  It felt impossible.  So I'm really glad this happened because it finally provided the motivation I (and everyone else) needed to actually dig in and do it.  We certainly didn't get everything done.  As a matter of fact, the storage room / laundry area was pretty much untouched and we didn't have time to do a thorough cleaning out of drawers and cabinets.  But I was very encouraged by how much we were able to accomplish in just two days and what a big difference it made, and now I'm feeling motivated to keep going.  As a matter of fact, Frank spent most of today doing more work in his office.

So what did the potential buyers think of the house?  They liked it.  Our realtor feels that there is definitely a possibility that we could get an offer.  He gave us a list of things they mentioned they would like to see changed, and I was surprised at how short the list was...like four things!  (I can think of a lot more than four things that I'd like to change.)  I think the biggest negative for them is the layout of the basement, and I can't blame them...I've always thought it was somewhat awkward.  That's mainly because there's a fourth bedroom down there, which most people don't want (but we did, since we had three kids when we moved here and were planning to have more.)  So we'll just wait and see what happens.  If they don't want to buy it, then we are that much closer to getting the house ready to sell later.  If they do want to buy it, they don't need to move in until October, so we have some time to find another house.

By the way, if I hadn't been so busy cleaning and organizing, I would have taken some "before" photos.  I wish I could have done that because then you could appreciate how much better it looks now.  I breath a huge sigh of contentment whenever I look around.  That's mostly opposition in all things...I've spent the last several years living in a state of perpetual anxiety / discontent whenever I looked around my house.  I've been a neat freak most of my life and I've been really good at keeping my houses clean, organized, and uncluttered but the last several years I have just had to let it go.  I couldn't keep up with it.  But I've never been happy about it.  Jared hasn't been home much this week since he still had the play going on this weekend (tonight is the last performance) but he did take the time to clean up his side of the bedroom he and Tanner share.  However, I can't say that he did as thorough of a job as I would have.  While Jared was gone on Thursday,  Tanner cleaned up his stuff and went down and helped him with the closet and we found a lot of other things that belonged to Jared (and Scott) down there and cleaned all of that up.  When Jared came home from the play late Thursday night he said he didn't even recognize his room as being the same room!  (In the process of all the cleaning, Tanner also moved his stuff upstairs to Scott's room so that is his room now.)

Well, enough of all that.  I said that I was cleaning and organizing and such every chance I got those two days.  I did have other things I had to do, like shopping, taking Tanner to work and back, and a presidency meeting.  That was actually tricky since he worked the same day as my meeting.  I picked the meeting day and time before I knew Tanner's work schedule and the meeting was only an hour before I was supposed to pick him up, which I knew wouldn't be enough time (it takes about 20 minutes to get to his work).  So I asked him if there was any chance they'd have more work for him to do and he said he'd ask.  As it turned out, someone else had called in sick for their shift, so he was able to stay 3 hours longer than scheduled.  Which was, of course, even more time than I needed to get through my meeting!

Jared had YM Wednesday evening and they had a court of honor.  They asked Tanner to come too so that they could take a few minutes to recognize that he had received his Eagle scout award (he was adamant that he didn't want an Eagle court of honor, so we never had one.)  I'm glad that they did that for him.

Thursday was our 23rd anniversary, but in the hustle and bustle of all the cleaning and organizing, we didn't really get to celebrate.  We thought we were going to have to wait until next week sometime because the older boys had lots of activities going on this weekend but then we realized that Seth had a birthday party last night so he'd be gone too.  Jared had his play and Tanner went to see it too.  (Scott saw it last weekend.  I wish we could have seen it.)  We decided having all of them gone at once was a chance too good to pass up, so even though I had lots of other things I should have been doing, we took the time to go to dinner and then we went to see the new Disney Cinderella movie, because I've been wanting to see it.  That was fun.

Today has been busy too.  This morning I had an auxiliary training meeting at the church down by the temple.  One of my counselors and the secretary and I all went together.  Sister Reeves, 2nd counselor in the Gerneral RS presidency, came from Salt Lake City for the training.  It was really good and I have some things to think about.  Sometime this week Jared reminded me that he had promised a friend that he would take her to Prom which is next weekend.  So after I got home from the meeting, I took him to buy a lavender tie (to match her dress) and we tried to order a corsage too but no one at the place we went to knew what they were doing, so that will have to wait until Monday.  Jared had a picnic for the cast of the play this afternoon (not the best weather for a picnic...pretty chilly!)  I went to the memorial service for the sister in my ward who passed away two weeks ago.  Her family decided they didn't want to do a service at all, but as a ward we wanted to do one and we did invite them and a few of them came.  That was the right thing to do...the service turned out to be very sweet and I know her family really appreciated it.  I sang in a small group that sang "Each Life that Touches Ours for Good".  There were many wonderful memories shared of her, and I think the service was a perfect representation of who she was.  I'm sure she was pleased about it!

That wraps it up for this week.  I will add some of the pictures that Frank took last Friday when he was down in Washington DC.  Some of them turned out really nice, I think!

This last picture was not taken in Washington DC.  It was taken of the view out our back windows, and maybe you can understand why our backyard views is one of the things I love most about our house!:

       
Oh, and here's one last picture to tickle your funny bone.  When I was going through the schoolwork Seth brought home this week, I found this:

If you can't read it, the instructions say "How are a kangaroo and a butterfly alike?  How are they different?  Write your answers in the chart."  I got a big kick out of his large question mark in the "alike" column!  Tanner and I were both trying to think of ways that a butterfly and a kangaroo are alike, and all we could think of was that they both eat vegetation.  So it really was a challenging question, (I thought so, anyway).  Seth is never afraid to say what he is thinking!

Weekly Review April 17 '15

I'm sorry there are not going to be any pictures with this post.  Frank had meetings in DC today and he has been wanting to get pictures of the cherry blossoms so he took the camera with him.  I don't think I took any pictures this week anyway, but since he has the camera I can't check.

After last week's marathon, this week's post will at least be fairly short.  We have still been really busy, though.  Doesn't ever seem to be a slow down in our schedules.  Jared's play started last night...it will be this weekend and next weekend too.  He had rehearsals until late every day until yesterday.  He did get to come home after school for a while yesterday but had to be back to the school by 5:00 to get ready for the performance.  It went well, in spite of the fire alarm that went off shortly before the show was supposed to start.  That set them back a bit, so the show started late and therefore he was home later last night than planned.  He does not have to go tonight, though, because he is taking the ACT tomorrow morning.  So we told him they were going to have to get someone else to do that show since we didn't want him up really late.

Anyway, on Monday through Wednesday they had meals provided for the cast and crew.  I contributed water bottles and brownies for the dinner on Monday evening.  Also on Monday I took Scott to the doctor for a check up.  His health checked out fine, other than the cyst I already mentioned.  I also took Scott & Tanner to get haircuts that day, and Scott signed up for an online class through BYU-I.

On Tuesday Scott, Tanner and I went to the temple.  I had a one female and one male family name that both needed the initiatory done, so we both did initiatories (did a few temple names too) while Tanner did baptisms.  There was a big group in the baptistry so we got done first.  I was able to watch Tanner's baptisms but Scott just missed that part.  However, they asked Scott if he would like to help with the confirmations, so he got to do all the confirmations for Tanner...plus a bunch of others.  It was really nice to be in the temple together!  That is also the first time I've done a temple ordinance for a blood relative (I've done a few ordinances for Frank's family, but never one for mine) and I have to say that it really did add a dimension of meaning that I've never felt before, even though I don't personally know this relative.  The temple was really pretty with lots of flowers finally blooming, but we didn't take any pictures because it was raining.  So we just ran to the car!

When I got home from the temple, one of my counselors called me with sad news...she had just found out that a sister in our ward passed away on Saturday evening.  My counselor was this sister's visiting teacher and she had been trying to get in touch with her for days.  This sister had open heart surgery last week and was still in the hospital, but she was recovering well, so it was still a big shock.  She was a lovely lady and we will really miss her!  She joined the church about 10 years ago and is the only member in her family.  It turns out that she had told her family that she didn't want them to have the trouble and expense of planning a large funeral, but she thought her church "family" would want to have a memorial service of some kind and that would be ok.  So we are in the process now of working with her family to plan a memorial service.

Wednesday was ridiculously busy and I spent most of the day in the car.  First I went to Walmart to get some groceries etc.  Then Tanner had to be at work at 11:00 and then Scott had an appointment at 11:30 with the specialist to look at the cyst.  The specialist said it wasn't the kind of cyst the doctor thought it was, it is just an ingrown hair.  He said 50% of the time it will clear up with an antibiotic so he prescribed one.  He doesn't want to do anything else unless they have to because if they open it up it takes a really long time to heal.  It's very low on his back, so whenever he sits down there is a good chance it will split open.  So we're hoping Scott is in the 50% where the antibiotic clears it all up.  We went right from the doctor to drop off the prescription at the pharmacy.  Then I needed to put gas in the car and it's right next to the grocery store, so I got the rest of the groceries I needed.  Then Scott reminded me that Jared had an oral surgeon appointment, which I had completely forgotten...it was only a half hour from then!  So I rushed home & dropped off Scott with the groceries and then went to the school to pick up Jared.  We were only a few minutes late to his appointment!  The good news is that Jared's infection is all cleared up and his mouth looks great so hopefully he won't be going back to the oral surgeon.  Anyway, Jared had to be back at the school for rehearsal so after stopping by the specialist Scott had seen that morning (so they could get a copy of his photo ID, which he forgot to take to the appointment), I had just enough time to take Jared back to the school before I had to leave to pick up Tanner from work.  By this time it was 3:00 and I hadn't had lunch!  Thank heavens after that I didn't have to go anywhere else.  Frank went to the church to help with board of reviews for scouts, but I was happy to stay home.

Yesterday Tanner worked again, Scott helped a family in our ward who are moving, and I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah.  We sat outside in the sun because it was finally pleasant enough to do that (although a bit nippy in the shade) and last night I realized that my arms had gotten a bit sunburned.  Tanner and Scott went to Institute and they picked up Jared from his play on their way home.  They were up pretty late.

Today I totally forgot I was supposed to do a food order...can't believe I did that, but they were nice about it and I've rescheduled.  I got the budget updated in a short amount of time, for once, and so now it isn't even quite noon yet.  My plans for the rest of the day are to exercise and do RS stuff.

Now that Scott knows he doesn't have to have a cyst removed (at least not yet) he can go ahead with his plans.  He leaves on Monday for a trip to Utah / Las Vegas / Disneyland--he's doing that with a couple of former missionaries from his mission, along with one of the members he got to know really well while he was out there.  He'll be on the trip for a week.  Then he plans to return to Utah; he's not coming back to Maryland.  He has a job lined up and a place to live too (with the same member).  His plan is to work full time and save money so that he can go back to school in a year (after getting his Utah residency).  So he won't be back in school until fall 2016.  He's not sure yet which school he'll be going to or what major he'll be doing, but he has some time to figure that out.  In the meantime, he will take a few online classes from BYU-I.  His ultimate goal is to be a Seminary teacher, but he has to get a degree to do that.  Apparently, it is really competitive so he needs to have a degree to fall back on in case he's not accepted to be a Seminary teacher.  We're sorry to see him go away so soon but know he needs to get on with his life.  At least a lot of you will get to see him soon and hopefully we'll be out there frequently and get to see him (and all of you) also.  Plus I keep reminding myself that I can call him, text him, or Skype him whenever I want!

For those of you who are wondering about his social life, he did break up with the girl he was dating before his mission--they stopped writing over a year ago.  She is actually at BYU-I now, ironic!  I really like her and I'm sorry things didn't work out but I'm sure she'll find a great husband.  In the meantime, Scott has been communicating a lot with a sister from his mission who went home the same day that he did.  Home is California for her.  She will be at BYU this summer so he is hoping to pursue that possibility and he has a few other possibilities in mind as well.  So we'll see how that goes.  No rush, of course!

My cell phone quit working this week.  The texting part still works fine, but when anyone calls me I can't hear anything...not even static.  So I guess I will have to break down and get a new phone.  I've had this one forever.  The trouble is, they don't even have "dumb" phones available.  I have to get a smart phone, along with a data plan that costs more than what I'm paying, of course.  That totally bugs me!  It's going to take a while to figure out what I'm doing so for now if you need to get in touch with me, call my home phone...or text me!

I have this uncomfortable feeling that I'm forgetting something important, but that's all I can think of for now.  We are enjoying warmer weather (still kind of chilly some days, but most days are nice) and the trees are finally in bloom.  That makes me happy!  When we figure out our summer plans, we'll let you know.  For now, that has to wait until we know when Tanner is leaving on his mission (and where he's going).  But the Alaska trip is looking less and less likely since we were on a tight schedule already and they have added two days onto the end of the school year.  We are hoping we'll make it out to Utah sometime this summer, though.