Weekly Reviews November 17 & 24 '17

Hello everyone! I have not fallen off the planet or forgotten all about my blog. Last week just got kind of crazy and since then I have been very, very busy so there hasn't been a lot of time to update my blog. Now I have two weeks to cover, so I will try to keep it brief. I think I will do categories this time, rather than give a daily play-by-play. Here we go!

Jared: You all know that Jared is home for now, and I'm sure you are all wondering how he is doing. So far, he is doing really well. It's hard to believe that he has only been home for a week--it seems longer than that! He has been keeping pretty busy and he is still in good spirits. The first couple of days he was home, we mostly hung out at home and talked and regrouped. We met with the stake president Saturday morning so he could get released and the stake president gave him some good advice. He encouraged Jared to work with the missionaries in our ward as well as the Spanish branch, to serve and to share his testimony, and to live and to look as much like a missionary as he can while he is home. He also said he could attend the Spanish branch meetings about once a month, which Jared is excited to do. Jared called a few friends to talk to them that day. We were all a little anxious about Sunday, just because we knew a lot of people would be surprised to see him and there would probably be innocent but awkward questions from people. I really wasn't anxious about how our ward would react to him--I knew they would all be totally awesome and supportive, and they have been. As it turned out, we really didn't get many awkward questions either. Our bishop recognized him from the pulpit and just said that he is home for a while and will be returning to his mission in a few months, so please give him a hug and welcome him home. That really helped to take a lot of the awkwardness out of the situation, which we all appreciated. Jared had a very busy day on Sunday. Seth's Primary teacher asked him to help with his class so he did that. After church, he met with our bishop. They are going to give him a calling in the ward but they haven't decided what yet. They are also going to recommend him to be called as a temple worker. If he is still here in March when the temple closes, they will give him a family history calling also. After meeting with the bishop, he came home long enough to eat something, then he and I went to choir practice. After that, he helped me set up my room for my self reliance meeting, then helped with the missionary preparation class, and then watched the face to face broadcast with the YSA ward members. He also got asked to give a talk in the YSA ward this Sunday! This week he has been helping with lots of things around the house. He got a job working at Chick fil a--he will start on Monday. He had the interview on Tuesday and they hired him on the spot. He had to fill out some paperwork and turn it in yesterday morning, and he got a short orientation then. We don't really know how long he will be home, but we are assuming he will be home for a year until we hear otherwise. Jared also called BYU-I to find out if there is any possibility of him returning to school for a semester and there is a chance that may work out, although we are not sure yet. Still working out the details. Hopefully we will know more about that by next week. So overall, Jared is doing as well as can be expected. He has a really good attitude about the whole situation which has been extremely helpful. He could have some hard days ahead--especially if he is home for a long time. I think it will be easy to get discouraged and I think the months ahead could become very long for him. But right now he is doing really well. Please continue to pray for him, though!

A few pictures Frank got at the airport:

That's a "Welcome Home Jared" sign that I am holding. I am the worst and didn't get any pictures of Jared hugging Frank or Seth. I did get this blurry picture of Snickers being really excited to see Jared:

Frank and I: How about us? How do we feel about Jared being home? Well, obviously it hasn't been easy for us but we are doing pretty well also. The hardest part was the time between when we found out he was coming home (Thursday evening, around 9:00) and when Jared got off the plane (Friday afternoon, around 4:00). We were really anxious and upset, of course, and didn't sleep well (I didn't really sleep at all) that first night. It was really disorienting to find out he was coming home and to find out he would be home in less than 24 hours. Everything was happening so fast. I think we were both kind of in shock! It was really hard to wrap our minds around what was happening. Once we were able to see Jared and see that he was okay, it was easier. We did talk to him Thursday evening, but very briefly. So it was a relief to get him home. The next couple of days were still somewhat anxious and I didn't have much of an appetite for a few days but things have been a lot better since then. We are getting used to the "new normal" and are focusing on helping Jared make the most of the time he has to be home. Of course, it IS nice to see him again! We missed him while he was gone! It has been great to hear more about his mission experiences. We don't really understand all the reasons why it was necessary for Jared to come home or why he may have to be home for so long, but I have mostly come to terms with that. I know there is a good reason, even if I don't completely understand what that reason is. It has been harder for Frank to accept and he is still a little angry about it but I'm confident that he will work through those feelings in time. I still have moments when I feel a little sad that Jared is not still serving as a missionary but it actually hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. I'm grateful for that. We would still appreciate your prayers on our behalf, though.

Frank's work / business: Frank continues to be really busy. Most of the time, he is able to work from home or from the Frederick office, so that has been really nice. On Monday he got a new boss, so he did go down to the main office that day to meet his new boss. His business has been fairly busy too. One of his clients had a big issue a few weeks ago and he ended up spending all day on Saturday the 11th as well as some of Sunday the 12th fixing that issue. He had to go down to the same client's workplace yesterday to fix another problem.

Choir practice: Our ward hasn't had a choir for a couple of years but a new choir director was called recently and we started rehearsals again on Sunday the 12th. Choir practice is from 4:30 - 5:30 and my self reliance group meets from 6:00 - 8:00, so this has made my Sundays even more crazy but I love singing and have really missed choir so I am going anyway! At our first rehearsal, we found out that we were singing the very next Sunday! So we learned a Thanksgiving hymn and we sang that on Sunday. We also started learning a couple of Christmas songs and for our second practice on Sunday we worked on those. Jared is the only tenor in the choir right now so our director is really glad he is here!

Bedroom painting project: I moved all of the stuff in the upstairs bedroom to the closet in the downstairs bedroom and then moved all the furniture away from the walls in the upstairs bedroom so I could start working on them. I cut away the loose / peeling paint from around the large bare spot on the wall and I applied spackel to all of the dents and nicks on the wall to smooth them out. The next step is to sand all of those down, plus apply primer to the large bare spot. I intended to do that the day after I applied the spackel, but that was the day before Jared came home and everything went crazy, and I haven't been able to get back to it yet. This week isn't looking too good either, but maybe the week after that I will get back to it! So Jared came home to both of his possible bedrooms being kind of torn apart but he is making the downstairs bedroom work. It is mostly livable, he just can't use the closet. A few "before" pictures. You can see the large white bare spot on the wall in the second one. Now there are white spots all over, on the places that I patched:

Self Reliance Group: My co-facilitator ended up being out of town for 3 Sundays in a row. She came home on Monday and she will be facilitating our last three meetings since at this point I have facilitated 6 meetings and she has facilitated 3. I am glad to have her back! Everything went pretty well while she was gone, though.

Christmas preparations: Last week I was going a little crazy trying to get Christmas preparations started. That was mostly because I had to get Jared's package mailed to arrive by December 8th, which ironically I don't have to do now. If I had only known, I wouldn't have been stressing out about it so much! Christmas has been stressing me out this year mostly because I can't get any of the four adult men in my life (Jared, Tanner, Scott, or Frank) to tell me what they want. They all say they don't want anything. I did finally manage to extract a few ideas from Scott and from Jared and I got a few things for them. I actually think I'm done shopping for Scott, but most of the things I got for Jared were mission related, so now I need to start over for him. He has been able to give me a few ideas, though. I have also managed to come up with a few things for Tanner and Frank decided that what he really wants is a 3-D printer. I told him to go ahead and order it, and it came last Thursday (the 16th) so he got Christmas early. I may get him a couple of small things, but the printer is a fairly big ticket item, so that is mostly all he is getting. He is enjoying figuring out how it works and has already made a couple of cool things with it. I haven't even started shopping for Seth yet, but he is the one member of my family who has produced a decent list, so he will be easy to shop for. Although I am not feeling the time crunch I was before, I would still like to get most of the shopping done this week so that I can relax and enjoy the real reason for the Christmas season! I was really on the ball this year and last week I ordered our Christmas cards and I was able to pick them up on Monday. Since Jared wasn't in the family picture we took this summer, I put a picture of him in front of the San Antonio Temple on our card, along with the family picture of the rest of us. When I found out he was coming home, I wondered if it would still be okay to send those cards out! But I have decided it's fine. We still want to include a picture of him on our card, wherever he is, and his mission was a big part of what he did this year. Tonight I made buckeye candy. I don't usually make it this early, but I want to send some to my boys and it freezes well so it will still be good for Christmas. It is nice to have that done already--one less thing to do later.

Renata: You may remember that Renata is one of the sisters I visit teach--the one from the Ukraine and whose husband suddenly and tragically passed away a few months ago. I was supposed to help her last Friday night, but since Jared had just come home I didn't really feel like I could be away from home, so I had to cancel on her. I texted her on Saturday to see how she was doing and found out that she needed help picking up her sisters from the bus station on Monday. Or actually, she needed someone to stay with her kids while she picked them up. She had someone lined up to pick them up but then that person couldn't do it. So I ended up going over on Monday evening to stay with her kids, and I got to visit with her for a few minutes before she had to leave. One of her sisters will be here for about a month and after that her parents are coming to stay with her for a while so she will be well taken care of for a while. She said I can still come to visit while her family is in town, though, so I am sure I will still see her sometimes.

Swimming lessons: Seth finished his first session of swimming lessons this week. Last week during his lesson he was being pretty uncooperative. He doesn't like putting his face in the water and that's what the teacher was trying to get him to do. They finally convinced him to do it but he didn't complete everything they wanted him to do. Frank took him to his last lesson this week and he did much better at putting his face in the water and they were even able to get him to float on his front for the first time. (He's been floating on his back like a champ. He loves doing that now!) So how did we get him to be so much more cooperative? Bribery will do the trick every time. After swimming lessons he is always hungry and asks me to stop to get him some chicken nuggets or something on the way home. I always refuse, opting instead to let him have a snack when we get home. So this week we told him that if he put his face in the water and did everything the teacher asked him to do that Frank would stop anywhere he wanted on the way home to get something to eat. Yep, we have really stooped that low. But it worked! Floating on his front was the last thing he needed to complete for level 1, so he is now officially in level 2. I have signed him up for the next session, but I moved him to Saturday morning because I'd like to see how he does when he is on his medication. (His medicine has worn off by evening.)

Parent Teacher Conference / school schedule: Seth's school schedule has been crazy the last week because of parent teacher conferences and Thanksgiving. Parent / teacher conferences started last Friday and continued on Monday and Tuesday, so Seth only had half days on those three days. He got out 3 1/2 hours early on Friday, went in 4 hours late on Monday, and got out 3 1/2 hours early on Tuesday. Then he had Wednesday through Friday off for Thanksgiving. So it's been a pretty ridiculous week with school work. His medicine ran out on Sunday and although I had already called in his prescription, I wasn't able to find a pharmacy that had his medicine in stock so we finally had to have it ordered. It won't be here until Wednesday. In the meantime, he's been fairly hyper and unfocused but it was a pretty good week to have that happen since there wasn't a lot of serious work getting done at school. I had a conference with Seth's teacher on Tuesday and he is doing pretty well overall. He is a strong math student and he is way above grade level on reading.

Frank's parents: Frank's parents were planning to come here for Thanksgiving this year. The plan was for them to leave Sunday after church and drive part way here that day, spending the night in a hotel that we got them, and then drive the rest of the way here on Monday. On Sunday morning, Frank's dad called to say that he had fallen down their front steps on Saturday. Thankfully, he didn't break anything but he hurt his back and was sore all over and in no shape to travel. So they couldn't come after all, which was a bummer. We were looking forward to seeing them, of course. They may be able to come see us after Christmas instead. One piece of good news, though--Frank's dad was ordained a High Priest on Sunday.

Thanksgiving: We stayed home and had our own Thanksgiving dinner this year. It's been a number of years since we've done that since lately we've either gone to Brevard or been invited to someone else's house for dinner. Although Frank's parents weren't here, we did have Jared here, of course, and Sam also came up to join us. I invited one of the sisters I visit teach to come, but she had other plans. I made pies on Tuesday and casseroles (green bean and sweet potato) on Wednesday. We still had to do the turkey, stuffing, rolls, gravy, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese (mostly for Seth) on Thursday. It's amazing how much time it can take to make one meal!! I also put together some trays of cheese & crackers, olives, and pickles to snack on. Everything turned out great and we enjoyed our meal. That evening we went to some friends to share dessert and play games. We brought banana pudding, chocolate pudding pie, pumpkin spice pie, and chocolate pecan pie (purchased at Cracker Barrel earlier in the week) to share and they had apple pie, pumpkin pecan pie, and vanilla ice cream. Everything was really yummy and we had a fun time playing games. (I totally forgot to take pictures on Thanksgiving. What can I say? My brain is dead.)

Wedding: A couple who have been attending our ward for several months and investigating the church decided to get married this week. They asked our bishop to marry them and he thought it would be nice to have a very simple reception for them afterwards, so he asked the RS sisters if they could pull something together. Of course, a lot of people were out of town (including the RS president) but a small group of us put together a little reception for them. It wasn't a ton of work, but it did end up taking quite a bit of my time yesterday. They have three little girls (the youngest was born last Saturday morning!) and yesterday when I was at the store buying some fruit for the reception I got a text asking if anyone had a dress that would fit the oldest daughter (age 7). (The girls didn't have any dressy clothes, so they were trying to find nice clothes for them to wear to the wedding.) So I offered to see what Walmart had, since I was there already, and I ended up buying a couple of dresses for her to try on. It was kind of fun shopping for a girl for once!! They loved both of the dresses, but chose one of them and I will return the other one next time I am there. In the afternoon I helped set up for the reception--Jared and Sam both came to help too--and the wedding was last night. Everything turned out really nice. This couple is on date to get baptized sometime in December, so we are all happy about that.

Cub Scouts: We didn't have den meeting this week, but last week we met. I had my one Bear finish up one thing he had left on an adventure so he will be getting a lot of awards at our Pack Meeting next week. We had Cub Committee meeting after den meeting where we planned our pack meeting for this month and also made some plans for the Pinewood Derby in January. All the boys got their car kits that night, too, which I had wrapped in Christmas paper earlier that day.

Crocheting: I am still working hard on my second afghan, doing four rows every day (except Sundays). It is getting very big and I should be done with it shortly before Christmas. Here is the afghan as of today (it's actually twice as wide; it's folded in half in the picture):

School Play: Last Saturday there was a school play at Seth's school. He wasn't in it, but one of his best friends, as well as several members of his class, were in it so he wanted to go. So I took him to see it. All of the actors for this particular play were in 4th, 5th, or 6th grade. Knowing that, I didn't have really high expectations going into it, but it was actually really well done. I was totally impressed! The kids were really into their parts and did a superb job! It was more like a high school play. Besides that, the teacher in charge got up before it started and told us that students had actually done almost everything for the play, including planning the costumes, directing the choreography, managing the stage, etc. They even had a student director! There were adult helpers, of course, but the students did most of the planning and decision making. That made the production even more impressive.

Physical Therapy: I'm still going once a week. On the days that I got to therapy, I am really achy all over afterwards, so they are definitely doing something. Just not sure if it is good thing--ha! We had to sign up for next year's benefits recently and found out that Marriott won't offer health insurance with our current company next year so we had to switch to another carrier. Turns out my physical therapist doesn't accept my new carrier so I'm not sure if I will keep going there or try to find someone else or what. I feel like I will probably have to go to PT for a long time before it really makes a difference.

Tanner's birthday: It's tomorrow so I got a package mailed to him earlier this week. I had the same stress over that as I am having with Christmas--no idea what to get him, and he doesn't know what he wants either. So I just ended up sending a couple of fun things I thought he might like, and I put some money in his account so he can get some other things he wants / needs.

Religion class: I missed it last week because I was shopping that morning and it took way longer than usual--I was getting all the Thanksgiving food plus trying to get a bunch of Christmas stuff and my list was HUGE. I saw more than one person start to get in line behind me at the check out and then decide that they didn't want to be behind me! By the time I got through my list, got home, carried in all those bags, and put everything away, the class was half over. This week I went but the teacher totally forgot that we were meeting so he didn't show up. He felt really sorry when he remembered, but you know--it happens. I had a lot to do that day anyway so it turned out to be a good thing.

Book Chat: We met last Thursday (the 16th) and discussed Watership Down. We had a smaller group than normal, but it was fun. Now we are reading  The Case for Christ. I haven't gotten very far into it yet, but it is pretty interesting. I was at book chat when Frank called me to say that something was up with Jared and the stake president was coming over to talk to us, so I left there in a tearing hurry. I was partway home when I remembered that Frank had said that the stake president asked if we had heard from Jared (we hadn't) so at that point I knew that at least Jared was not dead! Up until then, I wasn't sure. We are, of course, very thankful that he is okay.

So much for being brief!! Believe it or not, I left a lot of things out, so you can see that our last couple of weeks have been jam packed. I have been running from one thing to the next every day. The next couple of weeks look pretty busy too but hopefully things will calm down a bit.

If you made it through all that, you deserve a medal! I will try to keep it shorter next week.

Weekly Review November 10 '17

Here is what we did this week:

Friday: Frank and I went to dinner that evening with another couple in our ward. We enjoyed dinner and visiting with them. Frank’s steak he ordered wasn’t done enough though and it took 3 tries for them to get it right. Why does that always happen to him??! I swear it happens to him 90% of the time. It never happens to me.

Saturday: This was a really busy day for me. It started out by meeting at 8:30 at the church to help distribute bags for Scouting for Food. That went well. I took Seth and two other kids with me and we got through our assigned route quickly. Then we met up with another group and helped finish their route, which also got done quickly. We were completely done by 10:00, which I hadn’t expected. (Last year I think we were going until noon!) Then I did end up taking two boys out to their aunt’s house because their grandma wasn’t home (I had picked them up at their Grandma’s house earlier) but we still got home earlier than I had expected, which I wasn’t complaining about. I had time to eat something and change clothes and do a little bit of crocheting before I needed to leave again. This time, I met a friend at the church and we drove down to the temple together. A couple in our ward  were going through the temple to receive their own endowments so we went to their session with them. It was really nice! I got back home around 6:00 and we made dinner and then I cleaned the kitchen floor. By 9:00 I was yawning like crazy and ready to go to bed, which was ironic because it was also the night we set our clocks back an hour.

Sunday: I did some indexing in the morning before church. I had the self reliance group as usual that evening. The other facilitator ended up having to take an emergency trip to Utah so I was on my own but it went fine. (She will also be gone this Sunday, and possibly the one after that.) We still had low attendance—only about half of the group showed up although we got some of the people that didn’t come last week so that was good. One of them even brought some homemade cookies to share and they were delicious! One of the group members came by to let us know that he is not going to be able to finish the course right now. Another member has not been there since the 2^nd week so I’m guessing he is not going to finish either. That means we have 8 members in our group instead of 10 now.

Monday: This day was pretty busy but mostly with the usual things. I had signed up to volunteer at the school library but when I got there she asked if I could come in on Wednesday instead, so I did that. This was a fairly warm and sunny day and we had rain predicted for a lot of the week so I decided to mow the lawn that afternoon. Maybe that is the last time I will have to do it for a while? We’ll see. For family night activity we played Clue and Frank would have totally beat us except he thought you couldn’t make the final accusation unless you were in the room where the murder occurred. So I sort of won instead. We got frozen yogurt at Menchie’s for treat and the pumpkin yogurt is really good! I want to go back and get more!

Tuesday: This day was also pretty busy with mostly the usual stuff. It rained pretty much all day and was colder. I gave a friend a ride from the doctor to pick up her daughter at school. I also went to physical therapy and I finished one of the Christmas projects that I have been working on (hooray!) That evening we had den meeting for the Wolves and Bears at our house because the church was being used for voting so we couldn’t meet there. It was kind of crazy with 4 cub scouts plus 3 siblings plus Seth (because the Webelos leader cancelled their meeting so Seth was home) but we got through everything I wanted to get done. My one Bear just finished earning his Bear Badge, so I am happy about that. He moves into Webelos in January.

Wednesday: I was gone most of the day because I worked at the school library in the morning and went from there to the religion class and from there to Walmart. I got home from Walmart in time to put away all the groceries and then go pick up Seth at school. On the way to the religion class I picked up a friend in my ward, whose car is getting fixed right now. She had decided to walk from her house to the stake center (about 7 miles!) but realized when she got to TJ High School (near my house) that she wasn’t making good enough time and she was going to be late. So she called me, and since I was just getting ready to leave the school I went back a mile or so to pick her up. I’m pretty impressed that she walked that far! (I took her home, too.) That evening I took Seth to swimming lessons. So all in all, I wasn’t home much!

Thursday: I just had the usual things to do (laundry, vacuuming…) so that was nice for a change. I don’t feel like I got as much done as I should have, all things considered, but I did get everything on my list done. That evening I went to a RS Meeting where we were making different crafts out of mason jars. They had about 5 different jars to choose from, but I chose to make some nativity jars—which are Christmas decorations. They look like this:

All I had to do was attach the silhouette stickers and tie the raffia around the top. I made two last night and brought three more home to finish, but I am actually going to give all of them away because I think they will make great gifts for the sisters I visit teach. (Most of whom are less active.) I really like the jars and wouldn’t mind having one, but we already have plenty of Christmas decorations!! I really enjoyed the evening; I haven’t been to a RS meeting for a while because I wasn’t able to go to the last couple of meetings they had. It’s always nice to get out of the house and chat with other women.

Friday: Today Seth does not have school because of Veteran’s Day. It is much colder today than it had been and really feels like winter. (We had a freeze warning overnight and another one tonight.) I guess most of our beautiful fall weather is over now, although we may get another nice day or two sprinkled in. I’m thinking seriously about splurging on a new winter coat. The coat I have isn’t all that warm. I’ve been working on the usual Friday things (mostly budgeting) so there isn’t a lot to say about today yet. Seth cleaned his room this morning because I told him he had to do that before he could play games and for once he did it quickly without complaining, so that was nice.

Update on Snickers: We took a urine sample into the vet a few days ago and the results of the testing they did came back great. He is going to continue on the special diet that he’s been on, except that we get to switch to dry food now instead of the canned food. I’m happy about that because the canned food is messier and more of a hassle. He will have his urine and his blood tested again in February but until then he is good to go. Tomorrow is his birthday, and he will be 9 years old. There were a few times this last year that I wasn't sure he was going to be with us much longer, so I am glad he is making it to this milestone and doing better!

Here are a couple of fall pictures to finish up this week's post. Our last sunny day:

And the gray skies of November!:

Weekly Review November 3 '17

This week was quite busy with a few unexpected things happening.

Friday: We went to the Financial Planning Workshop that evening and it was really interesting. I went to two of the classes and Frank went to one of them. Frank went home after the one class since he wasn’t feeling great. There was some good information and now we need to find some time to actually write our will (don’t worry—neither of us is going to die soon, it’s just good to be prepared) and to meet with a financial planner to talk about our plans for retirement. It’s hard to believe Frank is only about 20 years away from that. Before we went to the workshop, Frank went out and bought a new television. Why? Because Seth started watching it after school and suddenly the picture went out. There was still sound, but no picture. So after calling the company that made it and checking several “fixes” online, he decided it was shot. And since Seth and Frank can’t live 24 hours without television, he bought a new one. He did find a nice one (same size as the old one) for a good price.

Saturday: Frank seemed to “turn the corner” and started feeling a lot better than he had the rest of that week. In the morning he was looking up some more things about the old television online and found one more thing that might be wrong with it. So after taking the back off and taking off some parts and getting some things soldered back together, guess what? The picture was back! Part of me was glad because we only had that television for 3 years and I thought that was awfully early for it to die, but part of me was frustrated that we had already bought another television! (It was already out of the box and all set up.) So now Frank has a really large television in his office area, which he is pretty happy about. I have no idea what we are going to do with the even older one that he already had down there. I took Seth to his “make up” swimming lesson that afternoon. While we were on the way home, he said his head hurt and shortly after we got home he said his stomach hurt too and then he started throwing up. He threw up several times and then laid on the couch for a few hours but by early evening he was feeling a lot better and started wanting to eat food. He had crackers and soda and kept everything down and said he felt just fine. He’s been fine since, so that was kind of weird. (I’m not complaining about the short duration of his illness, though!) In the meantime, I tried to get everything else done that I needed to do that day, which was just the usual Saturday chores. That evening, Sam and Daniel arrived to spend the night. Daniel was here because he had a job interview in this area on Monday.

Sunday: The morning was a bit eventful for me because my blow dryer was having issues. It hasn’t been sounding great for a while, and I even remember earlier in the week thinking that I should probably get a new one before it died completely. I forgot, though. When I turned it on Sunday morning it sounded absolutely terrible, so I was kind of afraid to use it. I decided to let my hair air dry but my hair takes so long to dry that it soon became evident that it was not going to dry in time for church. So I did use the dryer to help dry it, worrying the whole time that the thing was going to blow up or burst into flames or something! I did manage to get my hair mostly dry, though, so I didn’t have to go to church with dripping wet hair. (Frank tried it out later that day and it started smoking!! So we threw it away.) This Sunday was our Primary Sacrament Meeting presentation. When Seth started throwing up on Saturday, I thought for sure he would miss it but then he got better so fast that he was able to go. I felt kind of guilty about it, since he had been throwing up less than 24 hours before, but I really didn’t want him to miss it when he seemed to feel just fine. (Plus he kept insisting that he was fine and that he could go.) Hopefully he didn’t expose anyone to anything. The program was really great, as always, and Seth did a good job on his part. It’s hard to believe that he is one of the oldest kids in Primary now. Next year will be his last year for the program. After church, we enjoyed visiting with Daniel and Sam. They had dinner with us and then they both headed south—Daniel was staying with a friend in Virginia that night because it was a lot closer to where his interview was. I went to my self reliance group meeting as usual and Frank went to visit a family and to take them the sacrament.

Monday: I volunteered in the school library that morning, then spent the rest of the day doing the usual chores. I also set up a new sign up genius for help for Renata for the next couple of weeks and read over the self reliance materials for our next meeting. We had family night that evening, of course.

Tuesday: It was a beautiful day, weather wise. I was working hard to get everything done that morning and while I was cleaning the bathrooms my back started hurting. It hurt quite a bit the rest of the day. Not enough to keep me from getting things done, but enough that I had to move slowly and more carefully. I did manage to get everything done, though, and even worked on Christmas projects for a while, which was something I hadn’t planned to do that day. We had the Elders over for dinner that night; I made homemade pizza which they really liked. Trick or treaters started arriving shortly after we finished dinner, even before the Elders left. They didn’t have a car and were waiting for their ride so they ended up staying a lot longer than they planned. They sat out on the front step with Rank while he passed out candy; I took Seth around our court. As usual, that is all he wanted to do. I would say nearly 75% of the people in our court don’t pass out candy anymore but he still filled his pumpkin most of the way up. We had a lot fewer trick or treaters come by this year than the last few years so we still have a lot of candy leftover which is bad news for Frank and I since we are trying not to eat that kind of stuff! It is hard not to eat it when a big bowl of it is sitting in front of you.

Wednesday: My back felt a lot better, thankfully. It was cloudy and a lot colder, and when I went to the store there was Christmas stuff EVERYWHERE. It felt like we went from beautiful fall to dead of winter overnight, which was strange! (Yesterday it was sunny and warm again, though.) I worked on Christmas projects a little and ordered some donuts for a Cub Scout activity on Saturday. I went to the religion class as usual and took Seth to his third swimming lesson that evening. I am getting to know some of the other parents whose kids have lessons right before Seth as well as at the same time, and it is cool that I have had chances to talk to them about the church a little bit. Frank had his monthly meeting with the bishop while we were at swimming lessons. When we were getting ready to say prayers that evening, Seth jumped on the bed and banged into Frank’s left knee really hard which of course hurt a lot!  (That’s the knee that he had surgery on, you may remember.) He actually used crutches to get around on Thursday and today it is still hurting although it’s getting better.

Thursday: I had physical therapy first thing and I got an hour of physical therapy instead of the usual half hour since the appointment after me cancelled. She worked me all over, especially after I told her about my back hurting. Last night I went over to help Renata with her kids. She goes to a bereavement support group on Thursdays so I stayed with her kids while she went to that, then helped her with bedtime and talked for a while with her after she got back. Her son had been coughing and didn’t act like he felt very well. I had been there less than an hour when he lay down on the couch and went to sleep. He slept the rest of the time and when she got home and took his temperature he had a fever. So meanwhile, I spent most of the evening listening to her little girl’s chatter and brushing Barbie dolls’ hair! Not something I have ever done as a mother!

Friday: There’s not a lot to write about today yet. It was very foggy this morning and now it is cloudy and getting colder. So we are back to winter today, I guess! I’m just doing the usual Friday chores today so there’s not much to write about. Tomorrow is going to be quite busy so I’m glad that today is pretty low key.

Frank was able to help me get the pictures off my phone this morning, so I will include a small photo dump! (I haven’t been taking very many pictures lately,though.)

The Sister Missionaries, who recently left us:

The afghan I am working on now:

(These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so I have quite a bit more done now.)

The last time I went to the temple, they had added these sort of tree things to the flower beds. They make me think of the middle East, for some reason:

The temple, on that same day. Very sunny and beautiful!:

Seth's school project on Italy:

More of the afghan (lots of new colors!):

Blurry photo of Seth at the Trunk or Treat games (he is wearing a Master Chief costume, minus the mask, and no--I don't let him play Halo! But he knows all about it, thanks to his older brothers) In the picture, he is playing "human Hungry Hippos". (People lie down on a board with wheels, hold onto a laundry basket and try to "capture" balls with the basket. A team mate pushes them out to the balls and then pulls them back to bring in the balls.):

Seth floating all by himself!:

I took this picture because I was watching Fox news one morning and I was like "Hey! I know where that guy is!":

I completely forgot to take a picture of Seth in his Halloween costume, but here is Snickers in his:

I will end on that adorable note!!

Weekly Review October 27 '17

Here's a recap of our week:

Friday: It was a busy day, but I didn’t do much worth mentioning other than that evening I went over to help the recently widowed sister that I visit teach. She has a 7 year old son who loves Legos, so Seth came with me so they could play together for a while. After a few hours of playtime, Frank came over to pick up Seth and I stayed to help her get her kids to bed. It was really interesting to talk to her. She is very open and she has lots of questions. I found out she joined the church about 20 years ago in the Ukraine. I don’t think she was active for very long after her baptism because she doesn’t seem to know a lot about the church. But she is very curious and asks lots of questions and seems very accepting of the answers. She asked me what Relief Society is, and I realized that 20 years ago in the Ukraine the church was still very new and so it is possible that they didn’t have the full church program available to them there. Anyway, I enjoyed getting to know her better. We’ve had different women in the ward helping her most weeknight evenings and she told me that it has been very helpful. She mentioned that there is an entirely different dynamic in her home when one of us is there and that there is a better feeling there too. So I was glad to hear that the service I helped set up is making a difference!

Saturday: It was super busy again. I got my hair done, dropped muffins off for one of the sisters I visit teach, cleaned the kitchen floor, scanned photos, did some indexing, reviewed the materials for the self reliance meeting, and crocheted. I also took Seth to the store as part of a requirement he was finishing up for Cub Scouts. He had to plan a nutritious meal and shop for the ingredients. He didn’t actually have to make the meal for the Cub Scout requirement, but if he helped make and serve the meal that would pass off a Faith in God requirement, so I had him do that on Sunday for lunch, after we got home from church. Sam was here visiting us this weekend too.

Sunday: Pretty much the same as every Sunday lately—church and the self reliance group meeting, without a lot of time in between. Frank wasn’t feeling well so he went home after Sacrament Meeting. He had a sore throat, head ache and stomach ache. Unfortunately, he STILL had a headache and stomach ache. He hasn’t felt well all week. He took Wednesday off and a half day off yesterday, but I didn’t notice him resting much. He was still fairly busy doing stuff for the business. The other days he worked for Marriott although he worked from home. He has kept plugging along even though he doesn’t feel well. I hope he feels better soon! I was distracted during the self reliance group meeting because I got a text from Tanner right before it started telling me that the girl he's been dating / spending a lot of time with just broke up with him. He was not a happy camper that day or Monday, but by Tuesday he was feeling a lot better. I mean, I'm sure he's still not happy about it but he's working through his feelings. I seriously don't understand why my boys have such rotten luck with girls! I mean, I've lived with them and although of course they aren't perfect, they are really very pleasant people! They have solid testimonies and they are kind and considerate. I think they will make great husbands and fathers someday. But girls run away from them like crazy. I just don't get it. I hope someday some girl is smart enough to see how sweet, funny and awesome Tanner is! (Scott's not so bad either. :) )

Monday: I actually didn’t feel really great on Monday and I didn't sleep well Sunday night, so I didn’t exercise. I haven’t been sick all week like Frank has, but my throat hurt on Saturday and Sunday and then my stomach has felt kind of yucky off and on throughout the week. I’ve felt pretty normal most of the time though. I volunteered at the school library that morning. I was supposed to visit teach that evening (a less active sister) but then she had to cancel. I was actually glad because my stomach really wasn’t feeling very great that evening. We rescheduled for Thursday, but then she had to cancel again. She hasn’t had an easy week! Hopefully we will get to visit her sometime soon, but in the meantime I am just trying to do little things to help her.

Tuesday: It was International Childrens Day at Seth’s school and the upper elementary kids had a short program that I went to. Afterwards, Seth’s class had dioramas and displays in the classroom so I went up to see those. Seth was in a group with two other students (both girls!) who did a project / diorama on Italy. So I listened to their demonstration first, and then I went around the room and listened to all the other demonstrations. There were projects on Sweden, Latvia, Liberia, The Bahamas, Japan, Jamaica, and Ghana also. The girls who did their project on The Bahamas had a smoothie made of bananas, coconut, and pineapple that I got to sample—it was really good! I went straight from the school to physical therapy. Then I came home and hurried to get all the usual chores done before picking up Seth from school. That evening we didn’t have Cub Scouts; instead there was a Trunk or Treat at the church, followed by a bunch of games that were done by the YM/ YW. They had a fish pond, haunted maze, haunted house, cake walk, etc. Seth had a lot of fun. Frank stayed home since he wasn’t feeling well. Quite a few people brought friends with them and the recently widowed sister I visit teach (I should really give you her name so I don’t have to keep saying that—her name is Renata) came with her two children also. It was good to see her there! Afterwards, I wanted to get some soda for Frank and then I realized I already had the shopping list made for the next day (I usually go to Walmart on Wednesdays) so I just did the weekly shopping that evening instead. It made the next day less hectic, and I still managed to keep pretty busy the next day.

Wednesday: I went to the religion class as usual and afterwards a group of us went to lunch. One of the girls we wanted to come still didn’t make it, but the rest of us did. That evening I took Seth to swimming lessons and he actually had a lesson this time! Within five minutes of the lesson starting, he was floating on his back all by himself. (I have been helping him float for a while, but he hasn’t been able to do it completely independently before.) I’m not sure how productive the rest of the lesson was—it seemed to me that he was pretty distracted (I was watching from the next room) and he wasn’t putting his face in the water very much. But I’m sure it will come. The teacher says he is really more of a level 2 than a level 1, so she is going to work with him on level 2 skills. Other than that, I was busy in between with all the regular chores and I also spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Tanner that day, helping him get some things figured out. It was good to talk to him because he did sound a lot better than he did when I talked to him on Monday.

Thursday: Besides the usual stuff, I mowed the lawn and weeded the flower beds. I also removed most of Seth’s extensive stick collection from the front yard (Shhh!! He hasn’t noticed yet! I did leave a couple of his “favorites”.) I started working on some projects that I want to get done for Christmas. I also started going through all the Legos that the older boys left behind. I want to sort everything out and get as many sets as possible assembled and then taken apart and put into ziplock bags with their instructions. It took me a couple of hours just to go through all the piles of instructions and sort them out (I haven’t even started on the actual Legos yet!) A good share of the instructions are for Bionicles. Good grief, it is still amazing to me how many of those things we managed to accumulate over the years!! I forgot to count how many different instruction booklets we have, but I would say there are about 60 or 70. After spending a couple of hours sitting on the floor sorting Legos, combined with the lawn mowing and weed pulling before that, my back was screaming at me for relief so I spent the last hour before bedtime lying down, reading Percy Jackson to Seth. We are in the first book of the follow up series and it is pretty interesting so far. I was worried that I had really overdone it and was going to pay for it with extreme back pain today, but fortunately that didn't happen. My back feels a lot better today.

Friday: I’ve spent most of the day so far getting the budget updated. Really, that’s it so far! Tonight we are planning to go to a Financial Planning Workshop at the church. They have classes on investing, wills & estate planning, and planning for retirement, which are all things that we want to learn more about. I hope Frank feels well enough to go.

In general, we are having perfectly beautiful weather still—crisp sunny days and cool nights. I just love beautiful days like that! I suppose winter will have to come soon but in the meantime, I am making the most of the nice days. I was too busy to get much done on the painting project this week and next week doesn't look much better but I am trying to do little bits and pieces to further that project along whenever I get the chance. I want to move most of the stuff that is left out of the upstairs bedroom down into the downstairs bedroom so that it can be out of the way while I repair and paint the walls. Sam and Daniel are both going to be here this weekend, though, so I need to leave the downstairs bedroom open for them for now. After this weekend I will hopefully get things moved down there and then I can start working on the walls in the upstairs bedroom. I think if I can get one room done, this whole project won't seem so overwhelming. I would love to get it all done before Christmas, but it's not very likely that will happen, at least at the rate we are going. It will all get done someday, though!

That is all I have to report this week. Frank hasn't had a chance to help me with getting my photos off my phone so sorry there still aren't any pictures this week. Maybe next week.

Weekly Review October 20 '17

This week was actually really busy. I’m not sure how much of it will be interesting to read about, but I have definitely not been at a loss for things to do. I’ve actually been feeling a bit frantic sometimes about getting everything done, but it has also been a good week where I have learned some really cool things.

Friday: This was actually the last day that I had some free time! I got through my list of things to do and even had time to watch a movie that night. I haven’t done that in a long time. Frank had to make a trip down to a client to fix a problem they were having so he was gone all evening.

Saturday: I had a pretty long list of things to do, and then I ended up spending more time than I had planned helping Frank get some shopping and other things done that he needed to do to prepare for our annual Ward Chili Cook off, which was that evening. So I didn’t get through my list, but the things I didn’t do were things I wanted to do, more than things that had to be done right away. One of the things we did was to go buy some primer and painting supplies. However, we had trouble finding the kind of primer that my friend told us to buy. The guy working at the store said that this other primer they had was the same thing as what we needed. I was pretty sure he didn’t know what he was talking about, but we bought some anyway, thinking we could always return it if it wasn’t the right kind. Sure enough, after talking to my friend she said it wasn’t the right kind so we need to return it and keep looking for the right kind. However, we haven’t had time to do that this week so the painting project has basically been at a standstill. The Ward Chili Cook Off was nice although we didn’t get as large of a crowd as we usually get. We didn’t make chili this year, we made a big pot of macaroni & cheese for the kids instead and it was a big hit.

Sunday: It was really busy. I spent all day either at church, at the self reliance group meeting, or setting up help for the sister I visit teach who is recently widowed. I set up a sign up genius thing for that, and within 24 hours all the time slots except one were filled—we have an awesome ward!!! Using the online sign up will save time in the end, but it did take some time to get it set up and to work out details with a lot of people—I had a lot of text messages and emails going back and forth that afternoon, and it took up all the time I had in between church and the self reliance group meeting. Our group meeting went pretty well but for some reason everybody had a difficult week in one way or another and only half of our group was able to make it to the meeting. Crazy!! Hopefully they will all make it this week, though.

Monday: Besides all the usual chores, I also went online to find a Halloween costume for Seth (he always wants to be something that is hard to make or find!), prepared for the next day’s den meeting, began preparing for this week’s self reliance meeting, and took Snickers’ food back to the vet to exchange it. We decided that some of the food we had was not good because the consistency of the food in some of the cans was much softer and moister than others. So we got him new cans and the food in these ones seems to be moister although he still doesn’t love it. He is eating it, though. Frank found out that the Sisters didn’t have a dinner appointment so he invited them to dinner that night (he didn’t know I had signed up to feed them later in the week!) and they stayed for FHE too. It was nice to have them over, though, because they had just found out that both of them were being transferred and we were getting Elders instead. So I’m glad we could have the Sisters over one more time before we lost them.

Tuesday: All the usual chores, plus I gave a ride to an investigator to a place she needed to go, went to physical therapy, went to den meeting, booked a flight for Tanner so he can be home for Christmas (& then go back to school in January), and went to lunch with a friend. A new Chikcfila just opened up on Thursday near us, and her son is working there. On Tuesday, they wanted to test out their systems and work out all the bugs before they actually opened, so the employees were given coupons to give family and friends—each was good for two free meals. They were open for one hour at lunch time, drive thru only on Tuesday. So anyway, my friend had a coupon and no one else in her family was available to go to lunch with her, so she invited me to go instead. I’m not a huge Chickfila fan, but it was pretty good and I had a good visit with my friend too.

Wednesday: The usual chores again, plus I went to religion class again. We talked about Eve and her importance in the plan for the human family and it was really enlightening. A group of us were going to go to lunch afterwards but at the last minute everyone else had things come up and had to cancel except for my friend and I--the same friend who took me to Chickfila. Since we had just had lunch together the day before, we decided not to go. Hopefully we can get the group together another week. That did give me time to do all the other things I needed to do that day, so that was a good thing. That evening Seth had his first swimming lesson…except he didn’t. His lesson was scheduled from 7:30 to 8:00 and he is allowed to get in the pool 30 minutes before his lesson to “practice”. In this case, he didn’t have anything to practice yet but we still arrived early so he could get in the water and maybe do a little bit of floating. I was allowed to get in with him, so I wore my swimsuit and got in to help him float a bit. Seth had a lot of fun playing in the pool for 25 minutes. It was nearly time for his lesson to start when a little boy in one of the lessons right before him had an accident and pooped in the pool. So they had to clean the pool instead and there wasn’t time for his lesson so we had to reschedule. It was kind of frustrating, but the trip over there wasn’t a total waste because Seth got to see what it is like there and he even observed other kids taking lessons and on the way home he said “I have no idea why I didn’t want to do that.” (He’s been very resistant to the idea of taking swimming lessons.) Hearing him say that made it worth the trip for me!

Thursday: Besides the usual chores, I also went to the temple. I had 3 family names that needed initiatories done so I did that. It was kind of a quick trip (not counting the terrible traffic on the way down) but that was perfect because I didn’t have a lot of time. It was great to be in the temple, even if it was only for about an hour. I also enjoyed listening to uplifting music all the way there and back. That evening we had the new Elders over for dinner. One of them is brand new, straight from the MTC and the other one has been out for two transfers. They seem to be really sharp missionaries, though. I’m sure they will do well here! In addition to dinner, I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for dessert and I am hoping to find the time to take some of those over to some of the sisters I visit teach. After the Elders left I quickly mowed the lawn before it got dark.

Friday: I went to physical therapy this morning and it was interesting because she spent most of the time working on my upper body—places like my neck, face, and chest. She said all of those spots were connected to my spinal cord, though. She definitely found some tender spots and they were feeling better by the time I left. Everything in our body is connected to everything else! I mean, I already knew that but going to physical therapy is reminding me of that. I haven’t done much else yet today besides mail a package to Jared for his birthday. I meant to get that in the mail a lot sooner, but I was waiting on one thing that I ordered for him. It still hasn't gotten here so I gave up and sent the package. I guess he will get the other thing for Christmas instead. Seth doesn’t have school today but we have a pretty busy day planned.

I have continued to exercise and to crochet every day. I added a couple of new colors to the blanket this week so I have used all 10 colors now. Frank is still exercising too, and we are both trying to be more careful about what we eat. I’ve noticed this week that my weight is a little lower than it has been in a long time. I mean, mostly I just go up and down in this 5 pound range but lately that range has dropped a bit. So I’m still going up and down, but overall I am a pound or two lighter. So maybe exercising regularly for the last two years has not been a total waste! Maybe it is actually going to make a difference eventually, even if that difference is coming very slowly. I would be happy if that were the case.

Seth is doing an exercise program right now too—to pass off a requirement for a Webelos badge. I’ve been reminding him to do that on the appropriate days (he exercises 3 times a week) and he has improved quite a bit since he started. Seth and I have continued to read whenever we can and we finished the fifth Percy Jackson book last night. Now we are going to start on the follow up series to that series, so I guess there is a lot more Percy Jackson in our future.

The weather has been really nice here lately. After raining most of last week, this week has been mostly sunny. The daytime temperatures have also been very pleasant. We have had some very cool nights—we’ve had our first couple of frost advisories this week and the mornings have been quite chilly. We even turned the heat on a few nights ago. The days have been just perfect, though. Warm, sunny, light breeze—perfect!! We’ve mostly had a warm fall so the leaves aren’t turning much yet but we are starting to see some more color now, especially with the cold nights.

Seth hasn’t had much screen time this week. His room had gotten to be very messy so on Monday I told him he could have screen time that day, but after Monday he would have to clean his room before he got anymore screen time. To my surprise, he kept putting off cleaning it. He finally did clean his room this morning but that means he had three whole days without any screen time! Instead, he played with his toys a lot (which made his room even messier), read a lot, and played outside a lot. Although I would have liked his room to be cleaned, I really didn’t mind that it took him that long to get to it. It was great having the television off so much!

I started reading the material for our next self reliance meeting early this week because I am the facilitator this Sunday and I like to be really familiar with the material before we meet. Every week we have a short section where we learn about a principle of self reliance. This week’s principle is going to be time management. I really liked the way they suggested we manage our time. Here are the steps:

1.      List tasks: Each morning, make a list of tasks to do. Add names of people to serve.

2.      Pray: Pray for guidance. Review your list of tasks. Listen. Commit to do your best.

3.      Set priorities: On your list of tasks, put a 1 by the most important, a 2 by the next most important, and so on.

4.      Set goals, Act: Listen to the Spirit. Set goals. Work hard. Start with the most important task and work down the list.

5.      Report: Each night, report to Heavenly Father in prayer. Ask questions. Listen. Repent. Feel His love.

Now, I actually do most of those things already. I’m definitely good at listing tasks, setting priorities, and working hard, and I do try to schedule in things like serving others. But I realized when I read the steps that I don’t include prayer and reporting and listening to the spirit as much as I should. So I decided to start working on those things this week. I still didn’t do great, but I did do better. In particular, I started out on Monday in my prayers by sharing how stressed I’ve felt lately about all the things I need to do. I acknowledged that I need help getting everything done, particularly in making enough time to help others when they need it. I asked for help in finding ways to serve people even when I’m busy. And something really cool happened! One day I kept seeing the face of one of my friends in my mind. I’ve been meaning to contact her for a while. I took a few minutes to send her an email to let her know that I’ve been thinking about her. It wasn’t a long email, but I tried to convey in a few short sentences how much she means to me and to many others. Later that day I got a short email back. She said that she didn’t have a lot of time but she just wanted me to know that my email was an answer to her prayers. I was so grateful that I was prompted to contact her! I was also grateful that Heavenly Father showed me that I don’t have to have a lot of time to serve others. So many things we do to serve others are just little, simple things but they can make a big difference.  Heavenly Father also helped me to notice the things that I am doing to serve others. I realized that actually almost everything I do is service in one way or other—even if I am just serving my family by buying groceries or folding clothes or cleaning the bathrooms. Being in a family and being a member of the church actually gives us many, many chances to serve and I am grateful for that. Without those two things (family and church) I would be a very self centered person.

I’ve been making an effort this week also to read a conference talk every day. They have been so inspiring and uplifting! A lot of the things I’ve read this week have gone hand in hand with my attempts to manage my time and make time to serve others. I love it when that happens. Not a coincidence, I am sure!

Now I had better finish up and get on with all the other things I need to do today. I'm having trouble getting photos off my phone since Frank reset it, so I don't have any pictures today but I will try to get him to help me with that soon so that I can add pictures to my posts again. I haven't taken very many pictures lately anyway, so you are not missing much. :)

Weekly Review October 13 '17

Here is what we did this week:

Friday:  Seth got out of school 2 hours early, so the day went by fast. I was very busy all day, but I did finish cleaning out Jared's bedroom.

Saturday: I worked on Cub Scouts with Seth—he set up an exercise program that he will be doing for the next 4 weeks. I continued to work on my photo scanning project and I completed scanning all the photos in one of the albums—it felt good to hit a milestone like that although I have a lot more to go. I bought some plastic storage bins and put the rest of Jared's stuff in them and we all took them to the storage unit. I also did the usual things—cleaning the kitchen floor and crocheting, plus reviewing the material for the self reliance group—so it was a busy day. Frank was also busy and one of the things he did was to do a hard reset of my phone because it has been having trouble receiving text messages lately. He took all my info off and put it on his old phone (he got a new phone a couple of weeks ago) so that it wouldn’t get lost. That mostly worked, so I didn’t lose any photos or contact information but for some reason it DID erase all my appointments from my calendar. I actually don’t even use my calendar on my phone but it was synced with the calendar on my tablet, which is the one I do use. So that was a bummer!! I was feeling pretty grumpy about it. Not necessarily at Frank, because it really wasn’t his fault, but just grumpy that it happened.

Sunday: I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary for Sunday, other than it went by fast. I felt like all I did was go to church, fix dinner, clean up dinner, and go to the self reliance group. It did start to rain a little bit that day which was nice because we haven’t had rain in a while.

Monday: It rained a lot on Monday! We were getting the remnants of Hurricane Nate, and it was also very, very humid and warm. It felt like a sauna outside! I spent some time that day calling the dentist, orthodontist, etc to find out when our next appointments are so I could put them back on my calendar. I’m still worried that I probably forgot something, but I think most of my appointments are back on my calendar now. Other than that, it was a pretty normal day with the normal chores to do as well as crocheting and preparing for den meeting the next day.

Tuesday: It was really warm (80s) and everyone was having a hard time believing that it’s October! That morning I went with the RS president to visit a new sister that has just been added to my visiting teaching route. She has actually lived here for several years but she’s less active and we didn’t have her records so we didn’t know she was here. Sadly, her husband died suddenly of a heart attack about 6 weeks ago, leaving her with two young children. Apparently, one of the sister missionaries who taught her has kept in touch with her and lives in Virginia now so she was the one who contacted our bishop to let us know this sister was here and could use some help. She is from the Ukraine originally, which is where she joined the church. Anyway, I got to meet her and we are trying to set up some help for her to help her get through this difficult time. She seems really nice. After I picked Seth up from school, I took him to the library to get a library card. His class is going on a field trip to the library next week to do some research and I realized that I have never gotten him a library card! I’ve definitely checked out many things for him over the years, but just never got him his own card. So now he has one. After the library, I took him to get his haircut—long overdue for that! He had school pictures being taken the next day and I didn’t want him to look like a shaggy dog in his picture. That night we had den meetings but my one boy didn’t show up so I just helped with the Wolves.

Wednesday: It rained some more and it was also a lot cooler. Remember that lawn that wasn’t long enough to mow last week? It’s long enough now! Trouble is, it has to dry out before I can mow it. I went to the religion class and it was really good. We were talking about the family being the center of God’s plan. Wow, the family is so important! I mean, I knew that already but this class was a big reminder just how important the family is. We talked about things we have learned from living in a family, and what things are best taught in the family and so on. It’s incredible to think about—how important my family has been to me in my life as I have grown up and how important the family I have now is to me. I feel very, very lucky to have the family that I do. After the class, I went to buy some more yarn for the blanket I am working on and then I went to the vet to pick up some food for Snickers. They have put him on a special diet to help prevent more bladder stones. It’s super expensive!! I’m not sure if it’s going to work out because Snickers doesn’t like it. He gobbled it up the first night and yesterday morning, but last night he only ate some of it and this morning he has just picked at it, so I’m not sure what we are going to do about that. Maybe if he gets hungry enough he will eat it! After doing all that, I only had about 45 minutes before I needed to pick up Seth so rather than drive home I went shopping for shoes. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while because I realized I didn’t have a pair of black dress shoes and I have also been wanting to get some boots. I did find some boots and some black dress shoes so I’m glad I took the time to do that.

Thursday: I spent the afternoon hemming three pairs of baseball pants for a guy who used to live in our ward. I've been doing stuff like this for him for a number of years. He brought the pants to me a couple of weeks ago and I finally got around to getting them done. A friend in my ward came over to look at the walls in the bedrooms that I want to paint (I asked her to do that because I know she has done a lot of painting and knows a lot about it). She said that even though we have some big patches where the paint has come off, it would still be okay to patch those spots, sand them, and then put an acrylic primer all over the walls before repainting them. We shouldn’t have any trouble with the paint underneath continuing to peel if we do that. I am glad that we don’t have to remove all the paint from the walls after all because that would have been a whole lot of work!! It will still be a lot of work, but not as much. I got to talk to Tanner for a while and he is doing well—he just needs to remember to get his ADD prescription refilled! It rained a little again, and it was still pretty cool. So strange that a few days ago it felt like summer and now it definitely feels like fall!

Friday: Today it is cloudy and cool with a few sprinkles coming down. I got the budget updated very quickly this morning, which was nice. Sometimes it takes all day! I had my first physical therapy appointment this morning also which was interesting. After talking to me and then feeling all over my hip, leg, and back (and hitting several sore spots), the therapist said that the problem is really in my back, not my hip, and that is what is causing the hip pain. I’m not surprised—my back has had problems for a long time. I just didn’t stop to think that the pain in my hip could be related to problems with my back, but it makes sense. Anyway, she did a lot of massaging and pushing on various spots all over and by the time I was done my left leg / hip felt a lot “looser” (less tense). It was actually really relaxing to have someone working on my leg / hip / back like that! The hardest part, actually, was remembering to be relaxed instead of trying to “help” her. She had to remind me a couple of times to just lie there and let her move things around. I’m not used to relaxing that much—ha!! She said I should come back once or twice a week so I will be going back next week.

While I am crocheting, I like to watch something—it keeps me entertained. I was watching a British television series (Call the Midwife) for the last few months but I made it through all of the episodes so I needed something new to watch. I came across a series called “Secrets of Great British Castles” that I have been watching this week. It’s been really interesting and Frank and Seth have even watched some of it with me. There are only 2 seasons with 6 episodes each, though, so I am almost through watching all of them already. I’ve learned a lot about British history and now I really want to go visit all those castles! There were quite a few gruesome things that happened at those castles, too, though. I’ve learned a lot more about medieval methods of execution than I really wanted to know! In the evenings, Seth and I have continued to read Percy Jackson and we are getting close to finishing the fifth book. 

That is all I can think of to report this week. Life isn't particularly exciting lately, but it is busy and good!

Weekly Review October 6 '17

I think this  week’s post is going to be pretty short. We were definitely busy all week, but mostly just doing the regular things so there isn’t a lot to write about. I’ll see what I can come up with, though.

Friday: I mowed the lawn, but I think that is the last time I will do that for a while. Not because it’s getting too cold but because it’s been really dry so the lawn isn’t growing much. The back lawn is doing better than the front lawn—probably because it is in the shade a lot more. We are supposed to get a lot of rain sometime next week though (leftovers from a hurricane that’s in the Gulf of Mexico right now) so maybe I will only get this week off. When I picked up Seth from school on Friday, I also picked up two other kids who go to the school.They are in our ward too, and I picked them up because their family was buying a house and their parents were at the closing. The house is in Walkersville, so they will still be in our ward. Seth was really happy to have these kids over to play for a while. Sam came that night and stayed for General Conference weekend. We stayed up late watching the BYU game. I actually didn’t feel too bad about that game even though we lost. Maybe because the defense did an excellent job, and I'm hopeful that our inexperienced struggling quarterbacks will get the hang of things eventually. We’ll see how the game tonight goes.

Saturday and Sunday: General Conference!! It was awesome! What else can I say? I took notes and I’m looking forward to reading the talks / watching them again. I also helped Seth finish up his religious knot for Cub Scouts, visited my friend Wanda on Sunday morning, and we had our second meeting for our self reliance group on Sunday evening.

Monday: The usual stuff, plus I prepared for this week’s den meeting and did some research to pick some books for book chat because it was my turn to bring book suggestions this month. I also did a lot of reading on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and finished the book for book chat on Wednesday morning. I enjoyed the book, although it wasn’t happy.

Tuesday: Besides the usual, I read through the material for this week’s self reliance group and downloaded the videos we will be watching. I also made a trip to the library. That evening I had den meeting and Cub Committee meeting.

Wednesday: I didn’t have religion class again because the teacher was out of town. I didn’t know that, though, so I drove over to the stake center and then discovered that no one was there. Oh well! That afternoon I started on a big project. Recently, I was thinking about the layout of our house and trying to think of ways to better use the space that we have. In particular, I want to move Frank's office because a) he needs more space and b) no matter how much space he has, his office is still going to be a mess so I want his office in a room with a door that closes! (I'm facing reality, folks. I've lived with this man for 25 years and he has a lot of wonderful qualities but neatness isn't one of them. As a matter of fact, I think he works best in a messy environment. And in his defense, computer equipment is really hard to keep neat. All those cords and stuff!! Plus I swear computer equipment multiplies when you aren't looking.) Anyway, his office is currently in a small open area at the bottom of the basement stairs, in between the laundry / storage room and the downstairs bedroom. It is spilling out of that area into the hallway to the bedroom and even up the stairs. Every time I go down the stairs (to move the laundry, for example) I have to dodge stuff on the stairs and then I'm faced with the huge mess at the bottom of the stairs. This makes me want to scream. (I am Frank's polar opposite when it comes to messes--I thrive in clean, organized, uncluttered environments.) So as I was thinking about it, I decided that the best thing to do would be to move Frank's office into the bedroom downstairs. This was Jared's room before he left and Sam stays there when he visits, but most of the time it is not getting used at all. It has a door, a closet, and it's bigger than the area where Frank's office is now. If we move Frank's office in there, then we need another place for Sam and other guests to stay when they come, and the obvious answer to that is to put them in  the upstairs bedroom that Tanner was using last. It's not really getting used right now either, except that I have a lot of my sewing / crafts stuff in there and there's also a bunch of Legos in there that I need to go through. (Seth goes in there and looks through them regularly when he is looking for a piece, and he usually leaves building project messes on the floor.) If we make that room Jared's and / or Tanner's room when they are home / guest room, then I need another place to put my sewing and craft stuff and the area where Frank's office is now is perfect for that. I don't have as much stuff as he does and I can keep it neat! As a matter of fact, I could also fit a small desk down there which means we could get rid of the large desk that is currently in the kitchen so the kitchen would be neater. Seems like a win / win / win / win to me!! But, it is going to be a lot of work and I don't think it will all be done anytime soon. It will involve buying some new furniture (and getting rid of some of the furniture we have) as well as painting most of the rooms. (I've been wanting to repaint the two bedrooms for a long time. We painted them 10 years ago, shortly before Seth was born and we let the boys pick out the colors since they were their rooms. The upstairs bedroom is a weird combination of blue and green and the downstairs bedroom is a hideous blue and orange combination. Plus, the paint is strange--it's some sort of vinyl paint, which is awesome for cleaning the walls but it is also peeling off in places, sometimes in large sheets. It's hard to explain!) Well! That was a long explanation of what we are doing. On Wednesday I began the first step in this long project which was to clean out the rest of Tanner’s room upstairs (he did most of it before he went back to BYU) and then to start cleaning out Jared's room downstairs. (He also cleaned a lot of his room before he left for his mission, but he didn't finish.) The cleaning also involved a trip to Goodwill and a trip to the storage unit. I’m planning  to finish up Jared's room next week. Then we can think about starting to repaint, although first I have to figure out how to remove the paint that is on the walls now. Enough of that! On Wednesday night I had book  chat and we had a lively discussion about The House of Mirth. Now we are going to read a book called Watership Down. We take turns bringing a snack to book chat and this time we had a “chocolate sampling”. We tried 8 different kinds of chocolate! Yummy!! Frank had his monthly PPI with the bishop that night while I was at book chat.

Thursday: I went to the temple and that ended up taking most of the day. The traffic getting there was horrible (typical) and the traffic getting back home was horrible too (not typical). Besides that, it took a long time to get my family file name card back after the session was over and I also wanted to check the lost and found because I left a pair of earrings in my locker the last time I was at the temple (sadly, they weren’t found). So anyway, all of that took a long time. It was worth it, though. The temple has been closed for the last month and I was on vacation the 3 weeks before that, so it had been nearly 2 months since I’d been to the temple and I really missed it!!! I listened to church music driving down and back which made the trips nicer even if they took a long time. After I got home, I spent the evening trying to get everything else done on my list and I did manage to get everything done by bedtime. It helped that Frank had been working from home most of the day and he kept the laundry moving.

Friday: Today has just begun, so we haven’t done much yet besides get Seth to school and I wrote to Jared. Sam has a long weekend this week because of Columbus Day, so he may be coming up here again.  I need to update the budget and if I have time I will do some more work in Jared's room.

In general, Frank and I have both been getting up pretty early nearly every morning to exercise. It feels good to do that, and I get a lot more done during the day when I get up earlier. I have also continued to crochet every day and my blanket is getting pretty large. I still have a long way to go until it is finished, but I am making a lot of progress.

I’ll end with a spiritual thought. I was listening to the song “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” yesterday and the words “Joseph’s humble prayer was answered” kind of stuck in my mind. Isn’t it wonderful that each of us can have our humble prayers answered too? I’ve had many prayers answered. Although none of my prayers have been answered with a vision like Joseph Smith had, I can still say that I have felt the presence of my Father in Heaven and of my Savior at times when they have answered my prayers. I haven’t seen them, as Joseph did, but they are just as real to me as they would be if I did see them. It’s amazing to me that our Father can be so aware of ALL of his children, and that He knows when we are praying to Him (or even thinking of Him) and that He answers each one of us in a personal way. I love that!

Sorry, no pictures this week.