Weekly Reviews May 29 and June 5 '15

Usually when I report on two weeks at once, it means I've been on vacation for one of them.  A vacation would have been nice, but that's not what happened this time.  I was just totally swamped the last few weeks.  All the normal stuff, plus throw in a birthday party, mission preparations, trips to the temple, buying a car, a continuing Eagle project, another house showing, a husband who can't do much, and yes...I'm still the RS president.  Most days lately I feel like I am going crazy!  That's the short version of the last few weeks, and you can stop reading now if you don't want to wade through all the details.  But for those who like to torture themselves, I'll write the longer version.

 Sunday the 24th Frank made it to church long enough to take the sacrament, but then he went home because he really wasn't feeling well.  He had arranged for a substitute to teach his class again.  i don't remember anything else about that day...it was just a regular busy Sunday.

Our ward had a picnic for Memorial Day, but the kids didn't care if we went or not and Frank definitely wasn't up for it, so we didn't go.  It turned out to be  pretty busy day anyway so if we had gone I wouldn't have finished everything I needed to do.  I don't remember details now, but one thing that took a lot of time was shopping for Seth's birthday.  I realized over the weekend that I hadn't purchased any presents for him, so I needed to get going on that.  He had pretty specific things that he wanted and after going to several stores I had only found a few things.  I ended up having to order some other things online and one present (the one he wanted most!) didn't arrive until this week but he was pretty happy with everything in the end, so it didn't matter too much.

Frank had his first physical therapy appointment Tuesday morning.  He planned to go to work afterwards, but after checking him over very thoroughly, the orthopedic physical therapist said he was in no shape to work and wrote him out until at least June 12th.  So he came home and collapsed instead.  We weren't too thrilled about that but he really wasn't feeling well at all so it's what he needs, I'm sure.  After weighing our options, he decided to apply for short term disability so he wouldn't have to use up all his days off for the whole year.  It's been complicated and we're still trying to figure everything out.  There have been lots of phone calls to make and paperwork to fill out.  Thankfully, Frank has been able to handle most of that because if I had to do it on top of everything else I have to do, I would definitely lose it!!  It's been a bit stressful worrying about his job and the projects he's supposed to be working on but later that week he was finally able to talk on the phone with his boss (who has been out of town) and his boss told him not to worry...his job will be waiting for him when he gets back and he should just concentrate on getting better.  So that has helped a bit.

The bishop told Tanner he should go the temple once a week until he leaves on his mission, so on Tuesday he and I did that.

We decided to do sealings so that Tanner could experience that.  We ended up in a pretty lively group of temple workers and we were doing family names for one lady who was very grateful!  It was a pretty sweet experience.  The sealer told Tanner he wasn't sure where he had picked up this person who was impersonating his mother, who was obviously too young to really be his mother!  I must look even younger in the temple than I do anywhere else.  We came home and I tried to get all the other things done that needed to be done, including some mission preparations for Tanner.  Then we drove to Gettysburg to meet some friends for dinner...they live in Washington state, but were in Pennsylvania for an event.  We had a nice dinner and visit with them, although Frank was hurting the whole time.  I had to do all the driving.

Here's my "to do" list for Wednesday the 27th, just to give you an idea of what a typical day is like:  Exercise, Wal-Mart shopping, dust, prepare for presidency meeting, wrap presents, party preparations, Jared Eagle planning, order cake, call groomer, make eye doctor appointments.  Besides that, Jared had drama awards that evening and Seth went to his first Cub Scout den meeting.  Funny story about that...he has been saying for weeks that he didn't want to go to Cub Scouts, and on that day he was saying the same thing and kind of having a tantrum about it, and insisting that he didn't want to go.  I asked him why he didn't want to go and he said his friend Luke goes to Cub Scouts.  He wouldn't say anything more specific than that other than that Luke had to wear a uniform.  Later on, I was thinking about it and I had one of those (rare) parenting moments when I got a flash of insight.  I found Seth and asked him "Have you seen Luke's uniform, and you think it looks dumb?"  Seth said "yes!"  I asked him if Luke had to wear a hat and a neckerchief and everything, and he said he did.  I told Seth he didn't have to wear all those things, and took him to the closet to show him the blue shirt that he would wear.  I showed him what the patches look like on the shirt, and told him the blue shirt was the only thing he would need to wear...he could wear it with his regular jeans or shorts, and he didn't have to wear a hat or a neckerchief.  After that, Seth said "Ok, I'll go then."  And he did go, and he had a GREAT time!  For this particular den meeting, they visited a local museum called the Schifferstadt Museum...it's a house built in the 1700s.  Later on, one of the den leaders told me that Seth was trying to persuade one of the older scouts who didn't want to participate to come in the garden and check out the plants.  She thought it was pretty sweet that he was a brand new scout but was trying to help one of the older boys.
Thursday the 28th was Seth's 8th birthday.  I had a presidency meeting that morning.  Seth opened presents after school:

Card from Grandma & Grandpa!

He got a Lego Star Wars game, a Lego set, some books, a couple of Batman toys, as well as cards and money from both sets of grandparents.  He spent the rest of the evening playing with new toys.  Because we were having cake at his party, we didn't have cake on his birthday but we ordered pizza for dinner and we got some donuts too.

Friday I had to finish up everything for Seth's birthday party...I'd been working on things here and there whenever I could squeeze it in throughout the week but there was still a ton to do.  Besides that, Frank wanted me to go look at a car.  He did some "shopping" online throughout the week, getting an idea of prices and what cars he wanted to look at.  On Thursday after his PT appointment, he stopped and looked at a few he was interested in and test drove one of them.  I was working on the budget, trying to get that done before jumping into the final party preparations and going to look at the car, when I got a desperate call from a sister in the ward who needed someone to watch her daughter.  And of course, I couldn't find anyone to do it so I ended up doing it myself.  She was only here for a few hours and she was not any trouble but it did complicate my plans.  We did go drive the car, taking her with us, and by the end of the day I got everything ready for the party, with a lot of help from Jared.  Tanner helped too but that evening he was gone to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game with a friend.

So when I planned to have the party at a nearby park, I didn't stop to think that meant everything for the party would have to be transported from the house to the park!  That made everything extra complicated.  And it's amazing how much "stuff" you need for a party!  Here is the kitchen table and floor on Friday evening, with all the party stuff finally ready to go:

Plus this box full of stuff had to go too:

The white paper on top is my detailed plan of everything that needed to be done...I had copies for Jared, Tanner, and Frank so that I would not have to constantly tell them what to do.  Since we were going to be transporting stuff and we also needed to cook all the food Saturday morning, I knew I wouldn't be able to be at the park for all the set up.

We got up early Saturday morning and got going on all the preparations.  Everything took longer than it should have and so we were still finishing up when all the kids started arriving.  So much for taking pictures of everything ahead of time!  There were a ton of kids, and I was actually too busy to take pictures at all, but between Tanner, Jared, and Frank we got quite a few.

The party itself was crazy and nothing went the way I'd planned but the kids had fun so that's the important thing, right?  Just a couple of things I learned:

• Don't make centerpieces with balloons for an outdoor party.  The wind will destroy all of them within 15 seconds!  (It doesn't even have to be a strong wind...a little breeze will do.)
• Don't expect 8 year olds to be able to keep track of a bag with their name on it.  And don't use paper bags...use something plastic, because 8 year olds can destroy paper bags within seconds, without even trying.  I thought I understood kids better than this.  I wouldn't expect anyone under say, 6 years old to keep track of and not destroy a paper bag, but I thought 8 year olds could handle it.  I was wrong!
• If you give any 8 year old a water gun, he is going to immediately start squirting everyone around him or her, even if the object of the game is to shoot ping pong balls down with the squirt gun, not to get other people wet.
• Don't expect girls to be calmer than boys.  The girls at this party were wilder than the boys, I think!

So we had a carnival theme for this party.  As the kids arrived, we had a little photo booth set up for them to get their picture taken.  We had various hats and props that they could choose to wear for their photo.  Some of my favorites:

Seth is ready to party!

One of our carpool boys really getting into the fun of it!

Little beauty queen!

Where is he?

There he is!!

Another beauty queen...and twin sister of the first one.

The girl from Seth's class that he says he is going to marry someday!

Besides the photo booth, we also had a big jar full of jelly beans...they all had to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it. (Remember, no time for that!)  The kids also enjoyed playing at the playground until everyone arrived:

Then we divided into groups and there were different carnival games to play.  We had a beanbag toss, the formerly mentioned squirt gun game, a duck matching game, and a game where they tried to knock over cans with bean bags.  These aren't very good pictures, but you get the idea:

Bean bag toss

Squirt gun game (from a distance)

Knocking over cans (Jared ran this game).

Tanner ran the bean bag toss game

I was in charge of the squirt gun shoot game

Frank supervised the duck matching game.

After games, we served lots of carnival food:  corn dogs, hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, big pretzels, fruit (ok, not really carnival food, but my attempt to have 1 healthy item!), cake, and ice cream cones.  Oh, and lemonade to drink, of course!

While everyone finished eating, I took the kids over to the prize table to cash in the tickets they earned while playing the games.  After we cut the cake, Frank admitted that he needed to lie down.  He had helped a lot more than he should have with set up and then keeping the party going, so he had overdone it.  So he went home and Jared and Tanner helped me with the rest of the party and then with all the clean up.

Meanwhile, Seth opened presents:

And everyone kept squirting their squirt guns, and playing, and eating!

We also announced the winner of the jelly bean jar game.  Their were 1,238 jelly beans in the jar and the winning little girl guessed 1,089.  After all the kids went home, a few of the parents from the ward who had come to pick up their kids stayed and helped us clean everything up, which I appreciated SO much!!  There was a lot to do and of course everything had to be transported back to the house when we were done.  After making the 2 or 3 trips home, Tanner, Jared, and I were exhausted!!!  It was a nice day but got pretty hot by afternoon so moving everything in all that heat really wiped us out.

Even Seth was tired...he was supposed to go to another birthday party for a friend that afternoon and he refused to go!  He stayed home and rested, and put together new Lego sets instead.  Meanwhile, Frank was insisting that we needed to go buy the car we looked at...we had decided to buy it and the rental car we had needed to be returned on Monday so after cleaning everything up and resting a while, I agreed to go.  Of course, that ended up taking a couple of hours.  We didn't actually bring it home, just got all the paperwork done so we could pick it up on Monday.  (We didn't have the check from the insurance company yet.)  Have I mentioned that I hate car buying?  It's a nice car and I'm sure we'll be glad we have it over the years, but I am still trying to reconcile myself to going back into debt when we were so close to being out of it.  And yes, we did get another Prius!  They are really good cars and after Frank's experience with his wreck, we feel pretty good about the safety rating of this car.  Everyone says we should get a bigger car, but he really does need a good commuter car (not a tank!) and the Prius is surprisingly roomy inside.  I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, but further down you'll be able to see it in the background of another picture.

On Sunday the 31st Frank was able to teach his lesson, although he had to go home after that.  It was the usual busy Sunday; we also had the Elders over for dinner.  We had a pretty decent thunderstorm that night.  We've actually had a lot of rain this week.  The last 3 or 4 days have been constant "Maryland mist".  I will be happy to see the sun again when it decides to come back out!  But rain is a good thing, too.  It just hasn't felt much like June yet, though.

Frank has had 2 PT appointments this week, too.  They do seem to help.  They do exercises, and electric shock, and have him lie in beds of a warm, rice-like substance.  He is slowly improving.  The first couple of weeks after the accident I really didn't see much change in him...he seemed to be in just as much pain as he was the first day.  But this last week he started to improve a bit, the last few days in particular.  He still gets tired easily and he always has some sort of pain or stiffness in his back or neck, but it's not as intense as it was.  So we're hopeful that he will recover completely someday and more immediately that he will be able to go back to work after the 12th, as planned.

Tanner taught Seminary two mornings this week...Monday and Thursday.  On Monday I took he and Jared to the eye doctor.  Their prescriptions have changed a bit so we ordered new glasses and contact lenses.  We returned the rental car and picked up our new car on Monday, too.

Snickers went to the groomer on Tuesday.  Frank had a follow up appointment with our primary care doctor.  I had my monthly meeting with the bishop.  We ordered a bike for Tanner...in his mission, they need to have a bike delivered to the mission home before they get there so it's ready for them when they arrive.

I spent a lot of Wednesday and yesterday working on RS stuff.  I have a long list of things that I haven't been able to get to lately, plus visiting teaching changes for June needed to be figured out.  The bishop told me when I met with him Tuesday night not to feel bad that my mind hasn't been on RS much lately (with all the things that have been going on in the family) but I still have been feeling the need to get caught up on some things.  Plus some callings need to be figured out right away, too.

Besides that, the realtor called on Monday and said the people who looked at our house about a month ago wanted to come look at it again...could they come on Wednesday?  Well, sure...why not?  Our lives are already chaos so why not throw a house showing into the mix?  We have kept the house relatively tidy since the last time they came, but some clutter has crept in and it needed some touching up.  Tanner helped me a lot with that on Wednesday.  Apparently, they are trying to decide between our house and one other nearby.  I can't decide if I'd rather have the house sell or not.  There are pros and cons to both alternatives.  I've definitely been more anxious about the idea of moving since Frank's accident, so if they decide they don't want to buy our house it would be a bit of a relief in many ways.  I guess it's good that we don't get to decide!  Whatever they decide to do, I will be happy about it and roll with it!

On Wednesday evening while the house was showing, Seth was at Cub Scouts and I went with Jared to YM because they were working on his Eagle project that evening.  They spray painted one side of all the plywood and PVC signs white.  The PVC was already white, but had some stains so we wanted to cover those up.  It went well, although we ran out of paint and I had to run to the store to get more.  Of course, the store closest to us (Lowe's) didn't have any so I had to drive to the other side of Frederick to Home Depot to get what we needed.  But the boys played a game of basketball while they were waiting for me to get back, so they didn't mind.  Here's some pictures:

Ok, maybe not!  For some reason, blogger won't let me upload any more pictures.  So I will have to put them in a separate post, which I will do as soon as I finish this one.

On Thursday besides RS stuff, we ordered a suit for Tanner.  We have not had time to go out shopping yet; hopefully next week!  But we are getting little things done here and there.  Today I took Tanner to the temple.  We did initiatories this time.  Temple trips always seem to take most of the day.  But we enjoyed it.

Maybe that doesn't sound incredibly crazy, but I left out all the usual grocery shopping, house cleaning, laundry, etc. plus several errands like trips to the library and filling prescriptions and so forth.  Not to mention the spiritual exhaustion of trying to make a lot of decisions.  That's it for this week!    
 

Weekly Review May 23 '15

This week is kind of a jumbled mess in my head.  I have so many things to do and then there are so many extra things that have come up (mostly related to Frank's accident) that I just kind of drift around and do what has to be done at the moment instead of making my way through a list of things to do, which is my usual way of doing things.  In other words, I don't check to see if I have time to do something anymore, I just do it.  And again...a lot of the basic things like house cleaning aren't getting done, but all the things that really need to be done are...at least I hope they are!

So, you all know by now that Tanner's mission call arrived on Saturday the 16th and that he is going to the Arizona Tempe Mission.  He reports to the Provo MTC on July 1st.  Here are a few pictures from when the call arrived:

One of the sets of Elders serving in our ward came over later that day.  They offered to do service for us and since we had originally planned to do some cleaning in the basement that day I told them they could help us with that.  I had actually given up on the idea completely because Frank wasn't going to be able to help at all.  So it was nice to get a little bit done.  They helped us go through all the canned items in our food storage and we decided to donate a bunch of stuff.  Other things got thrown out.  Here they are with a bunch of bags to donate to the food bank:

When we were sorting the cans, I was putting cans into a bag that one of the Elders was holding.  I mentioned that my feet felt vulnerable in this situation because I was afraid that at any moment the bag would break and a bunch of cans would fall on my feet.  Well, thankfully that didn't happen.  But Jared was also holding a bag and at one point he got tired and sat down, and set his bag down on the floor.  All the cans in the bag shifted, and one of them (a very large one, actually) rolled onto my foot!  So my foot got hurt, although it was nowhere near as bad as having a can fall on my foot from a few feet above.  Still, it was quite sore (actually it still is sore) and I got a pretty decent bruise to show for it:

It doesn't show up too well in the picture, but it's quite black / purple at the base of my three littlest toes.  It has continued to change colors throughout the week!  

Also that day Jared had an audition for ACA (Arts & Communications Academy) at the high school.  It wasn't supposed to last long, so I took Snickers with me when I took him to the school and we went on a long walk while Jared had his audition.  And Jared did find out that he was accepted, which means he will be in the Advanced Theater Studies class next year...it will be two of his four blocks each day, all year long.

The Elders also had dinner with us that evening, so we saw a lot of them that day.  That's ok, though, because the next day we found out that both of them were being transferred!  As a matter of fact, they decided to take one set of Elders out of our ward so we are down to one set of Elders now.  These two came by to say good bye to us on Tuesday evening:

We will really miss them!!  (The other set...the ones who are staying...came for dinner earlier that evening.)  The Elder on the left of the picture, Elder Gorman, has been here since December.  This was his first area.  He's from South Africa and has a great British sounding accent.  We really enjoyed having him here.  They get to where they feel like family when they are here for several months.

Update on Frank's health:

He is still in a lot of pain.  His back, shoulders, neck, and sides have continued to hurt in various degrees of intensity throughout the week.  Today his head has been hurting a lot too.  He really hasn't been able to do much all week.  He has to rest a lot and moving around is always painful.  Besides that, on Saturday he noticed tingling and numbness in two of the fingers on his right hand.  Then on Monday, the same two fingers on his left hand started to do the same thing.  The tingling and numbness ran from the fingers up his arm to his elbow on both arms.  Because of those symptoms, we called our primary care doctor and got him an appointment that day.  Our doctor said those symptoms indicated there might be an injury to one of his discs, so he sent him to get an MRI.  He also prescribed some anti inflammatory medication.  The MRI did not show any problems with his discs, which is good news.  The tingling and numbness have subsided somewhat although they still bother him occasionally. 

Taking Frank to the doctor and to get the MRI took up most of the day, but that evening I went out and got some shopping done for Seth's party and also bought a new garden hose because our old one got a hole in it.  (It wasn't very old, though.)  Frank was anxious to water the new sod, but it turns out we didn't really need the hose for that because before I got home a pretty decent thunderstorm came in.  Another storm came in later that night.  So there hasn't been a need to use the new hose yet!

Since the doctor told Frank he probably shouldn't try to go to work until at least the end of the week, what did Frank do?  He got up Tuesday morning and went to work!  He didn't last too long, though.  He did manage to put in a half day but he was pretty miserable so he came home after 4 hours.  He has not been back to work since but hopes to be able to go in on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah, the Elders came to dinner (as I mentioned before), I did some Eagle project planning with Jared, and I managed to squeeze in some phone calls and planning for RS.

I did some visiting teaching on Wednesday.  Instead of sitting and visiting, we went on a long walk with her dog.  So I got exercising and visiting teaching done at the same time, which was nice.  It was a beautiful breezy day, too.  The temperatures have dropped this week and it's been quite nippy in the mornings but very pleasant during the days.  Also that day Jared had his Senior portraits taken (yes, already!)  Jared and Tanner both went to YM and helped with an Eagle project for one of the boys.  Tanner also met with the stake president that evening to get his temple recommend (he met with the bishop on Sunday).

We haven't been able to get much done in the way of mission preparations yet (mostly just read through all the information so far) but we did take Tanner to the temple to receive his endowment on Thursday.  As you can imagine, that was pretty difficult for Frank to do but he managed to do it.  His neck has been hurting him a lot more ever since, but of course he didn't want to miss it.  Once again, I had several people at the temple tell me that I don't look old enough to have a son going through the temple!  Kind of funny considering that he isn't even my oldest!  But I certainly don't mind that I don't look as old as I am.  I think by the time Seth goes to the temple, I will finally look old enough to be his mom!  We didn't get any pictures of us in front of the temple for a couple of good reasons.  First, we forgot to take the camera (although phones would have worked).  Second, Frank was hurting a lot by the end and just wanted to go home.  But most importantly, it was raining pretty hard when we came out of the temple.  But it wasn't his wedding day, so technically pictures aren't mandatory, right?

I can't say Friday was a very good day.  I had a terrible night Thursday night...every time I fell asleep, I jerked back awake a few minutes later.  I pretty much did that all night long.  And worried about lots of things while I was awake!  Oh, and my heart was doing it's pounding / fluttering thing all night, too.  So Friday I felt totally dead.  Life goes on, though.  Tanner was leaving for a YSA regional conference in Palmyra, and needed help packing.  (He got up there safely Friday evening and this morning reported that it was very cold last night but he stayed warm enough.  They are camping at Zion's Camp...which is the campground right next to the Hill Cumorah where the cast for Pageant stays.  So he was excited to go back up to his old stomping grounds, although the work crew didn't stay at the campground.  As a matter of fact, they weren't allowed to go into the campground, but every night they would go to the hill above the campground and call "Good night campground!" and the cast would all call back "Good night, work crew!")  Frank and I had made an appointment to speak with an accident lawyer that morning.  It turns out that the daughter of one of his clients for his business is married to a Maryland accident injury lawyer, so we met with him.  We got a lot of our questions answered about how the law works in Maryland, which was really helpful.  He also looked at some of the correspondence we've received from the various insurance companies and told us which ones we need to answer and which ones we shouldn't answer, and so forth.  Because it looks like Frank's health problems from this accident are going to last a while, we decided to hire this lawyer to represent us.  We aren't suing the guy who hit him or anything like that, just making sure we get what we need from the insurance companies to cover all of Frank's medical bills (and depending on how his healing process goes, possibly some extra to cover future medical bills that may come up).  We're still hopeful that there won't be any long term effects and that he'll be feeling better soon.  But it's discouraging that he is still feeling so terrible 10 days after the accident.  

Friday afternoon, Seth had his piano recital for his keyboarding class.  Here's a few pictures:

 

He did a good job, and we were proud of him.  Each child had to stand up and introduce himself and tell the audience what piece (or pieces) he was playing.  It was hard to hear what most of the kids said, but Seth stood right up there and spoke clearly and loudly so that everyone could hear him.  He played both pieces well, and he was one of the few kids in his level who played more than one piece.  Too bad he hated practicing so much that he is refusing to take any more piano lessons!  I'm hoping we can talk him into trying again sometime.

Last night I slept like a log, thank goodness.  And when I woke up this morning I felt quite a bit better.  My heart was still fluttering and it continued to bother me this morning but seems to have stopped now.  We had an RS activity this morning...a temple trip.  We met at the church for breakfast and then had groups scheduled to go down to the temple...one group to do ordinances and another to go to the Visitor's Center.  We had very few people sign up to go, though, and then as it turned out, every one of the sisters who signed up for the ordinance group had something come up so that she couldn't go at the last minute.  I was supposed to be driving the ordinance group but since none of them were able to come and I had just been to the temple on Thursday, I just came back home.  That was for the best anyway...since I still wasn't feeling great, and honestly I was feeling like I really should be staying home with Frank anyway.  A few sisters did go down to the Visitor's Center, but that group was small too.  It was just a really busy Saturday for too many people!

When I got home, I remembered that one boy in the ward was finishing up his Eagle project today so I made Jared get up and we went to help with that.  He was fixing up a butterfly garden at a local nature center and it turned out well because there's a park there.  I took Seth with me too and Seth was able to play for a few hours at the playground while Jared and I helped with the project.  Also, not many people came to help so they were glad to have us.  Jared worked really hard...he moved at least 30 wheelbarrow loads of mulch... and I helped spread mulch and plant some flowers.  It was another nice breezy day so it was pleasant to be outside.

After the Eagle project, I came home and got caught up on a lot of things I hadn't done earlier in the week.  I also went to a farewell openhouse for a sister in the ward who is moving this week.  I'm sorry she is moving but the openhouse was nice and I got to have a pleasant visit with several people.

I think that is mostly what we did this week.

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!