Weekly Review February 16 '18

Here's our report for this week:

Friday: As I mentioned in last week's post, we had the Blue & Gold Banquet on Friday evening. It turned out really well, with plenty of yummy food, awards for the boys, and the slide show was a hit! Making that slide show was a lot of work, but seeing the delight of the boys as they watched it made it worth it. Plus, as I was putting it together it made me feel happy to see all of the things we did throughout the year. Sometimes I feel like we don't do much, but then when I see all the pictures from the various den meetings and activities, and think "Hey, we actually did a lot of cool things!" I really enjoy working in Cub Scouts--it is a lot of fun!

The tables all set up for the banquet. In the background, you can see the Cubs clustered around the television watching the slide show I put together.

The Cubs helped us (the den leaders) make these cute "campfire" centerpieces.

One of my "Bears" during the flag ceremony.

My other "Bear" during the flag ceremony.

All the Cubs (a few of them weren't able to make it.)

Boys holding up the cakes they decorated:

This one had a "campfire" made out of fruit roll ups and pirouette cookies.

 
This one had a campsite with large Bear cakes and graham cracker tents.

Seth's cake was decorated with trees, the moon, a large rock with a bear coming out a cave & a wolf on top of the rock, howling at the moon.

This "cake" was made out of rice krispy treats and as you can see it was in the shape of the Olympic rings.

 This cake had sprinkles on top, a light shining underneath, and it tasted delicious!  (Actually, they were all good--I had a little sliver of each one.)

For the dinner part, we had a taco bar which was a hit with everybody. After we got home from the banquet, we watched part of the Olympics opening ceremony before going to bed.

Saturday: We did mostly the usual things--Seth had swimming lessons in the morning. His regular teacher was sick so he had a different teacher, but he knew her because she's in our ward and we actually give her rides to church a lot. When we got back from swimming, Seth took a shower and I worked on some Cub Scout things with him. Then I took him to his friend Krish's house to play for the afternoon. Frank was gone all morning and into the afternoon doing work for a client. I did some Cub Scout planning and cleaned the kitchen floor and did some more patching of walls in the upstairs bedroom.

Sunday: We had church as usual and I did some indexing. After church Frank took a nap because he hadn't slept well at all the night before. I read to Seth for a couple of hours--we are still reading one of the Percy Jackson books (the first book in the follow up series). We are taking a long time to get through it because we aren't reading very consistently but we made quite a bit of progress on Sunday. It was nice to have a relaxing evening.

Monday: It was mostly a normal day with the usual Monday chores, but I was kind of having a nervous break down over Jared's health insurance situation (long story--basically, I was worried we were going to get charged $500 for the student health insurance plan even though he doesn't need it because he's covered by our health insurance). We finally got that worked out, though (with Jared's help) and we are not going to have to pay for the student health insurance. That day I also sanded the bedroom walls again--the places I had patched on Saturday. Frank had a follow up doctor appointment and they were very pleased with his blood sugar level, which is back in the normal range. They told him "just keep doing what you are doing!" He did finally get an appointment with the dietitian but it's not until sometime in March. For family night activity we played Clue and we had some Valentine treats. Finding treats that Frank can eat is a bit of challenge, but I am learning that not all sugary things are equal. Some treats have a lot fewer carbohydrates than others, so I try to find things that are on the low end of the spectrum. He can have sugar sometimes, just not a lot. He is still being really disciplined and eating mostly vegetables and meat.

Tuesday: This day was super busy. A friend and I went to the temple in the morning. We just barely managed to squeak into the 10:00 session, which was nice (usually I just miss the 10:00 session and have to wait an hour for the next session). The trip to the temple took all morning and into the early afternoon. Then I had just an hour or so to get all the usual chores done before I had to pick up Seth from school. I didn't get everything done, but I got most of it done. When Seth got home he had some homework to do and we had dinner before going to den meetings. For den meeting, my boys made dream catchers (we are working on an adventure about Native Americans). There is only one Wolf right now (I like to think of him as the lone wolf!) so he met with my boys. Since I only have 2 boys and one of them was sick on Tuesday, we actually had more leaders than we had boys. (There is one den leader for the Wolves, one for the Bears, and an assistant den leader who helps both of us.) Actually, the Wolf den leader just got released on Sunday and a new one was called so it was her first week as a den leader, also.

Seth doing homework:

Making dream catchers:

Wednesday: I did the usual stuff, including going to religion class. I also went to visit my friend Wanda and took her some Valentine treats. Her parents were visiting her too, though, so I only stayed for a few minutes. We gave Seth a card and some candy and Frank and I got each other cards. Frank also got me some beautiful flowers and some huge chocolate truffles:

I sent cards to my other boys, too, but since I forgot to put them in the mail until Monday, they probably didn't get them in time for Valentine's Day. Maybe they got them by today. I did get to talk to Scott that evening because he called me when he was on his way home from work.

Thursday: We have had a lot of rain the last couple of days and yesterday the temperatures got up into the low 70s! Wow, it was nice! I took Snickers on a long walk because you just have to spend some time outside if it is 70 degrees in February. I had a really busy day because besides all the usual chores, I also took Snickers to the vet and did some shopping for my friend Wanda (she needed a few hygiene items like shampoo but she can't get to the store right now since her broken hip is still healing). Snickers had to go to the vet because they wanted to do a urinalysis and some more blood work to see how his liver is doing and if there is any sign of any more bladder stones. We won't have the results from those tests back for a while but while we were there they also weighed him and he has gained over 3 pounds since September, so that is a concern. We might be changing his diet again. I have to take him in next week for a check up so we can figure out what's going on. (He was almost due for his annual check up anyway so it's just a little earlier than normal.) I am bracing myself for another big hit to the wallet. His annual check up is always expensive, and if there are any problems it gets even more expensive. Frank didn't get home until nearly 11:00 last night because after work he had to go do some work for a client. I went to the monthly RS Meeting, where we talked about the 5 Love Languages and had a chocolate fountain.

Friday: Today has been really busy too. I updated the budget as usual, but I also went to lunch with Frank and another couple in our ward. (We went to Golden Corral so that Frank had healthy options like salads to choose from.) Seth got out of school 2 hours early today so we went right from lunch to pick him up. I got to talk to Amy for a while today which was nice because we don't get to talk very often anymore. This evening I took dinner to a single lady who is a friend of a sister in our ward. This lady has been in the hospital so it is hard for her to cook for herself right now. It was a little challenging coming up with what to make her because she can't have salt, but I am getting better at cooking for people with dietary restrictions. :) The rest of us ate leftovers for dinner because a lot of things have been accumulating in the refrigerator. My produce drawers are always full now--I am buying a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables than I used to buy. I am starting to enjoy doing things like making stir frys from fresh vegetables. It does feel good to eat healthier! Today was pretty mild also and we got some more rain but tomorrow it is supposed to snow. Crazy weather! Still, I am not complaining because I prefer crazy back-and-forth weather to it being freezing cold for weeks on end.

I have been diligently exercising and practicing the ukulele on an almost daily basis. I have been reading quite a bit this week too. I haven't read any more of Disconnected Kids; I've been focused on finishing Dead End in Norvelt. It is kind of a crazy story, but I am enjoying it.

Frank got news at work this week which isn't the greatest, but hopefully it will turn out well in the end. They are doing a lot of reorganizing in the IT departments and everyone has to re-post for their positions and a lot of positions are going to be eliminated or moved around. Although his position may be eliminated, he still has the option to apply for many other positions so hopefully in the end he will still have a job with Marriott, although he may not be doing exactly the same thing. Of course, there is the possibility that he will be out of a job, though. So naturally that is a bit stressful but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. The last time this happened, he actually ended up with a much better position than he had before so we can hope that this time things will end up okay as well.

That is all the news from our neck of the woods.

Weekly Review February 9 '18

We had another busy week. Here is what we did:

Friday: It was super cold and windy and I tried not to go anywhere unless I had to! Normally, that would mean just taking Seth to school and picking him up again but when Frank suggested that we go out for some dinner and then go buy me a new phone, I agreed. That's how badly I needed a new phone!! We are not going to be eating out very much because of Frank's diabetes, but he wanted to see if he could get something while eating out that would not be over his carb allowance for the meal. He did manage to keep under by ordering a salad and only eating a few of the chips they brought us for an appetizer. he said the salad was pretty good, too. Seth and I ate a lot more carbs than he did, but I am trying to eat fewer carbs too. After dinner we went to the Sprint store to get my phone--I had already looked online and figured out which phone I wanted to get. It IS nice, especially the fact that I now get all the text messages people send me. I just would have really preferred to keep the old one if it hadn't been for the text message problems it was having.

Saturday: Seth had swimming lessons in the morning as usual. He also had a second lesson in the afternoon, which isn't usual but it was a make up lesson for the one he missed last week when he was sick. I took him to his first lesson and Frank took him to his second lesson because I had a hair appointment scheduled. The rest of the day was busy helping Seth with Cub scouts and a project for school, cleaning the kitchen floor, and working for a long time on the slide show for Cub scouts.

Sunday: Frank had ward council as usual, but while he was there it started snowing. The forecast was for more snow, turning into freezing rain around the time our meetings started. Our bishop decided to hold only Sacrament Meeting so that people who weren't comfortable driving on icy roads wouldn't need to come. (One of the other wards in our building cancelled all of their meetings.) So we only had Sacrament Meeting and there were a smaller number of people there than usual but we still had a pretty decent group show up. It was nice to come home earlier than usual and have a long, relaxing afternoon / evening, although I missed going to Sunday School and Relief Society. Frank was really tired so he took a nap. I read a lot, and finished the book I was reading (Moon Over Manifest). I really enjoyed it. I did some indexing also.

Monday: The freezing rain changed to rain later on Sunday but then it got colder and all the water on the roads froze, so we had a 2 hour delay for school on Monday morning. It was mostly a normal day except I went to lunch with some friends to celebrate our friend Renata's birthday. That evening Seth worked on his project for school, which is about cells (plant and animal cells). He had to build a 3-D model of either a plant or animal cell, so I had him start on the model. I was pleasantly surprised that in a short amount of time (probably less than an hour) he had built the whole model. He seemed to enjoy himself, too! (He built it out of clay.) I was expecting that part of the project to take longer, so that was really nice. He had already done most of the written packet which was the other part of the project so that meant that he was almost done with the whole thing. Over the next couple of days, all he had to do was fix a couple of things he had done incorrectly, label a couple of diagrams, and become familiar enough with the functions of all the different parts that he can explain them clearly when he presents his project. The project was due today so it was nice to get done with it early!

Tuesday: This day was also a pretty normal day (and it was the only day besides today that Seth had a full day of school). Besides all the usual chores, I also worked on filling out Tanner's FAFSA and got it done. I started on Jared's FAFSA also, although it is highly unlikely he will be going to school the 2018-19 school year. I just decided it would be better to fill one out, just in case. We didn't have den meetings because we have the Blue & Gold Banquet tonight, but I spent all evening working on the slide show for the Banquet. It took a lot longer than I expected to get it done this year, mostly because I had a lot more pictures.

Wednesday: We got a little bit of snow overnight and in the morning we were getting freezing rain. The freezing rain was supposed to last until about noon, so school was cancelled for the day. I didn't have the religion class either, although that was because the teacher was out of town, not because of the weather. Seth only had a little bit to do for his cell project but he also has a lot of other work he needs to get done at home because he's not getting enough done at school. (Every five weeks, they send home all the things that he didn't get done and he has to complete them at home.) So I went over all of that with him and figured out what we need to do to get it done. He has to do a lot of "practical life" things which includes things like sewing, baking, housework, yardwork, and community service so on Wednesday Frank helped him make some muffins and on Thursday I had him do vacuuming and laundry. Anyway, Frank and I got the Walmart shopping done also and I worked a bunch more on the slide show. I got it all done except the music part, which I needed Jared's help to complete. Frank had his monthly PPI with our bishop that night.

Ice encrusted trees:

We had a pretty sunset that night:

Thursday: Mostly it was a normal day. Besides the usual chores, I finished Jared's FAFSA (I had to go to our storage unit to get out some of his financial papers in order to do that) and Jared got onto my computer that night and added music to the Cub scout slide show, so it is finished. Frank and Seth baked a cake which they will be decorating this afternoon--it's for the Blue & Gold Banquet. There was another 2 hour delay that morning because once again the roads froze over in the night and were very icy.

Friday: There was a normal school schedule today!! I don't feel like I've been very productive yet today, though. I woke up later than I usually do so I've been running behind my normal schedule. After I finish this post, I need to update the budget (there isn't a lot to do today, thankfully) and then I have my ukulele class this afternoon. After I pick up Seth from school, we will be busy getting everything ready for the Blue & Gold Banquet.

Frank has been very disciplined about his eating all week and his blood sugar levels are really good. He has also been doing light jogging every day (except Sunday) and he has lost about 7 or 8 pounds since he went to the doctor less than 2 weeks ago. We still haven't been able to get in to see the dietitian, even though we have left a couple of messages. That is frustrating, but in the meantime he has just been eating a lot of vegetables and some meat and other proteins, and avoiding things like bread, pasta, and sweets. He has had small amounts of a lower carb bread and some rice. Anyway, it seems to be working since he is losing weight and his blood sugar is back in the normal range. It has been a bit challenging for me to plan meals but hopefully that will get easier over time. I am noticing that the cost of groceries has definitely increased (mainly because we are eating more meat  and seafood than we usually do, and the leaner cuts of meat are more expensive) but Frank is not eating out for lunch nearly as much (hardly at all now; before he was eating out 3 -4 times per week for lunch) so hopefully in the end it will balance out somewhat.

I started reading another Newbery winning book this week called Dead End in Norvelt. So far, I am not very far into it but it is pretty entertaining. I have also been reading the book called Disconnected Kids (the one about treating ADHD) and I've made it to the part that teaches me how to assess my child. I haven't started doing the assessments on Seth yet, but the more I read this book, the more I realize how much I want Seth to have a more normal life than what he does now. The medicine he takes helps him focus and be calmer, but he is almost too calm when he is on it. He really isn't "Seth". Also, there are many social situations where the medicine has worn off and it's at those times that I can see how "not normal" he really is, when it comes to his behavior and being able to interact with other people. In the last few years I have somewhat come to accept that this is how he is and we are just going to have to cope with it / keep trying to find things that help him. But it really does hurt me when I see his behavior around his peers because I know his behavior is keeping him from developing good friendships. I worry a lot about his future and how he is going to get along in the world because he struggles with relationships, lacks empathy, and really can't seem to grasp that he is responsible for his actions. And yes--he can just be very difficult to live with sometimes! In the book, there are many testimonials from parents about the change they have seen in their children--dramatic change, in many instances. I am hopeful that we will be able to help Seth change, too. We did start doing the written assessments this week (just not the actual physical assessments of Seth yet). Frank and I, independent from one another, filled out a form with our observations of Seth's behavior, academics, physical health, etc. We did have some differences, but we mostly marked all of the same things. What we have done so far indicates that it IS very likely that he has a right brain deficiency, which means his right brain is lagging behind his left brain and therefore a lot of the connections between the two sides that should be there aren't there. It's going to take a lot of time to get through all of this stuff, but if we can help him change it will be totally worth it!

Just one note about Jared as I finish up--he called on Wednesday because he was having a hard day. It was February 7th, which is the day he went into the MTC last year. He was feeling pretty bad about being home instead of on his mission still, and worrying a bit about when he can go back, and also realizing that as much as he wants to go back, going back is going to be hard too. So please keep him in your prayers.

That is all I have to report this week!

Weekly Review February 2 '18

We had a pretty eventful week. Here is the daily summary:

Saturday: Remember that last week I said I was going to the temple on Saturday? Well, I didn't. Friday evening (late, almost bedtime) Seth started complaining that he had a bad headache and then he threw up! I knew if he followed his usual pattern, he would be fine in the morning but I had no way of knowing for sure. I was supposed to be going to the temple quite early, with a group of women from my ward so I decided I'd better not go. Although I was right about Seth--he seemed fine in the morning and he has been fine since--it turned out to be a good thing I didn't go because Frank was up until 2:00 am taking care of a computer problem for a client and then he was also gone almost all day doing more work for clients. That would have left Seth alone all morning if I had gone. I planned to go to the temple on Tuesday instead. On Saturday I kept busy cleaning the kitchen floor, the stove, and the microwave, plus a few errands and I also finished crocheting my scarf. I am happy to have finished that project and pleased that it turned out looking really nice. I cancelled Seth's swimming lesson because I wasn't sure if he was totally well yet and I didn't want him throwing up in the pool or something like that. Frank came home Saturday after talking with a friend and said he thought he needed to go to the doctor first thing on Monday. Over the last several days he had been having a bunch of things happen like his vision was getting blurry (he actually called and set up an appointment with the eye doctor a few days earlier), losing weight, and getting up in the night several times to go to the bathroom. His friend said "that sounds like all the symptoms of diabetes to me." Up until then, neither of us had made the connection that those things might all be related to one problem.

Sunday: It was a typical restful Sunday. I did some indexing and went to choir practice. We thought to ask the missionaries if anyone was feeding them and they said no, so we had them over for dinner.

Monday: Seth didn't have school. Frank didn't sleep well again on Sunday night. I called the doctor that morning and got him an appointment. Since his vision was really blurry and he hadn't slept much, I took him to the doctor (didn't want him to drive). Sure enough, he has type 2 diabetes. His blood sugar level was 9.5ish and normal is 6.0. The doctor prescribed a medication to help get his blood sugar down and gave him the information for a dietician--we have to call and schedule an appointment with her so we can figure out what he needs to eat. Basically, though, he needs to cut back on his carbs. He said we should be more worried about carbs than about sugar, although of course eating a lot of sugar isn't a good idea either. The good news is that this type of diabetes is not insulin dependent and can be managed very well through diet, exercise, and weight loss. As a matter of fact, the doctor said this type of diabetes is "reversible". If Frank loses enough weight and learns to eat the right foods he can basically be "cured". (I'm sure he will always need to be careful about what he eats and he will need to exercise and maintain a healthy weight, though.) The rest of Monday was somewhat stressful because Frank was feeling pretty rotten and we had a lot of trouble getting the things the doctor had prescribed. After we got home from the doctor, Frank tried to eat something (he hadn't eaten yet that day) and after one bite he got very sick to his stomach. It took several calls to the pharmacy and calls back to the doctor's office before 2 of the things he needed were called in and I was able to pick them up. The other 2 things we were not able to get until Wednesday afternoon--those were the things he needed to test his blood sugar level, because he has to do that twice a day for a while. By Monday evening Frank was still feeling nauseated (although he was able to eat a little bit during the day) and he also had a really bad headache. It just wasn't a fun day. I did manage to get the normal chores done and I also helped Seth do some things for Cub Scouts and do some work on a school project. We decided to bump family night to Tuesday, though, since Frank was feeling so rotten.

Tuesday: Frank was doing better than Monday, thankfully. I had planned to go to the temple but we got a little tiny bit of snow in the night and I guess the roads were slippery because school got delayed 2 hours. That meant that I probably wouldn't have time to get to the temple and back while Seth was at school. I was nervous about leaving Frank alone anyway, although he was doing better than the day before. He worked from home and I got all the usual chores done. One of my Tuesday chores is to plan the meals for the following week. So there I was, Tuesday afternoon, confronted with planning meals for a diabetic and having no idea how to do that! The doctor did send home a few pamphlets with us so by consulting those I hope I managed to plan some meals that are not too high on carbs or sugar. We'll see. We haven't been able to get in touch with the dietician yet, but I am planning to go with him to that appointment. In the meantime, Frank has an app on his phone that is helping him track his carbs and he is doing really well at staying under his limit (and eating less, in general.). He also started exercising a few days ago although he has to start out with pretty low intensity. After school, I gave Seth his medicine because he has a school project we are working on right now. It did seem to help him focus a bit and he didn't have trouble sleeping, so that's good news. We didn't have Cub Scouts that evening because it was a 5th Tuesday (we only have 3 den meetings per month, plus 1 pack meeting.)

Wednesday: Pretty much a normal day. I went to the religion class. Frank had work to do for clients in the evening. I worked on the slide show for the Blue & Gold Banquet for a couple of hours. I also went online to look at cell phones because I am going to give up and buy a new one. (My current phone is very unreliable about receiving text messages. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't.) Don't get me started on what a rip off I think phones are these days! I think I know what phone I am going to get, but I haven't made it to the store to buy it yet.

Thursday: I FINALLY made it to the temple!! Fourth time's a charm. It was lovely to be there again. The temple was a lot busier than it usually is during the day--I guess it's really starting to sink in on everyone that the temple is going to be closed really soon so everyone is trying to get there before it closes. There weren't a lot of men in my session (typical; most men work during the day) but there were so many women that there wasn't room for all of them to sit on the women's side. Even though the temple trip took most of the school day, I still managed to get all the regular chores done, helped Seth with his project some more, and worked on the slide show for a couple more hours. It's funny how that works. The principle that works for tithing / money also works for time!

Friday: So far I have just updated the budget today.

Throughout the week I have been doing some reading. I finished the book for book chat (The Scarlet Letter) and I started reading a Newbury award winner called Moon Over Manifest. I also started reading a book called Disconnected Kids, which Rachelle told me about. It's about a new way of looking at problems like ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, etc. The author has come up with treatments for these issues that don't involve medication and that really work. (I mean, that's his claim anyway but he does have a lot of research and studies that back him up.) Basically, he says that these problems are all related to problems with connections in the brain, particularly between the two hemispheres of the brain. In most cases, one hemisphere has matured far more than the other which causes the connections to get off. His treatment involves things that will strengthen the weak side of the brain so that it can catch up with the stronger side and the connections will be reestablished. I'm excited to see if the methods he describes will help Seth. I haven't actually got to the methods yet, though. I'm only in chapter 1.

I have also been practicing the ukulele nearly every day, for at least a few minutes and I am happy to report that I am making progress. I can sort of play 3 different songs. :)

I've had quite a bit of communication with all three of the older boys this week, either on the phone or through texting (or both). Tanner got a job with BYU catering, which is good news. All the boys seem to be doing well and I am enjoying having more contact with them. I miss them when they are gone!

Sorry I don't have any pictures this week. We've had a lot going on, just not photo worthy stuff.

Weekly Review January 26 '18

Well, here we are--almost at the end of January. I am glad because January is not my favorite month. No offense to January, it's just one of the coldest winter months and it does not have a great holiday to make it feel special. That being said, we've actually had some really nice days this January, so I can't complain about it as much as I usually do.

First of all, and update on Frank's health before I forget. The antibiotic he started taking at the end of last week finally seems to be working. He has continued to have problems sleeping (although maybe not as severe as at first) and the antibiotic also has a tendency to cause some stomach problems, but his coughing is definitely diminishing now. (Except today his coughing has been a little worse again.) He is still tired and he has lost several pounds but tomorrow is his last dose of the antibiotic so hopefully he will start sleeping better soon and get some appetite back (although losing weight is not necessarily a bad thing. He wants to lose a lot more.)

Here's a daily summary of what we did the rest of the week. It was quite busy!:

Saturday: I took Seth to swimming lessons, cleaned the kitchen floor, worked on Cub scout stuff (including the slide show), and worked on my scarf. I also went to the store to get some kitty litter and a few other things. Sam was here and he helped us bring all the paint cans upstairs and out to the deck. Then we all worked together to put kitty litter in them and to stir them up. That evening, we went out to dinner and then Sam headed back home. He has church at 9:00 am now, so he has to get back home earlier than he used to (unless he decides to stay & go to church with us).

Sunday: We had Ward Conference and Frank didn't have Ward Council until 12:00 so we all slept in a bit. I didn't get much done before church other than getting ready for church and advance preparations for dinner (plus choir practice). I was planning to go to the self-reliance fireside that night (they were starting a new round of self reliance groups) but several things happened that made me decide not to go. First of all, Frank wasn't feeling all that great. Second, he needed to make an urgent visit to a member of the ward who needed help so Seth would have been home alone (we avoid leaving him home alone in the evening). Third, my right eye started to hurt and when I looked in the mirror I realized it was getting infected and was swelling up. Fourth, dinner took a lot longer to bake than it should have so I would have had to go to the fireside without any dinner. It turns out that they had plenty of facilitators to cover the new groups starting so I didn't need to be there after all and I'm glad I didn't go.

Monday: Frank took the day off work so he could assist the ward member he visited on Sunday evening. He ended up spending most of the day helping him with the things he needed (but he is being taken care of now). Meanwhile, I had volunteered to work at the school library. As usual, it wasn't very busy but I got some reading and some crocheting done. In the afternoon I went to a viewing for a man in our ward who passed away last week. I didn't know him very well, but I did get to know his wife pretty well while I was RS president so I really wanted to be there to show support to her. I'm really glad I went because I could tell it meant a lot to her. She is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I know. In between those two things, I got all the other normal Monday chores done and after Seth got home from school I helped him work on a school project for a while and also set up a sign up genius for our Blue & Gold Banquet dinner.

Tuesday: Originally, I planned to go to the temple on Tuesday but that turned out to be the day of the funeral for the man in our ward so I adjusted my plans. (I will be going to the temple tomorrow instead.) I signed up to help set up for the funeral luncheon and I also went to the funeral itself, which was short but sweet. I learned some pretty amazing things about this man that I didn't know--for example, his parents were sharecroppers who were eventually put off the land by the owner and left with nothing. He and his younger brother were taken away from their parents when they were found living by the side of the road and they were put in a boys' home where they were raised. At the funeral, I actually ended up sitting next to an old gentleman who was one of the other boys who was living in the home at the same time. He was not shy and kept telling me interesting tidbits about what it was like growing up in the boys' home! Anyway, the luncheon turned out really nice--it was great to see how many women in the ward made food and showed up to help; a lot of them didn't even know the family that well. Besides the funeral stuff, I got the rest of the regular Tuesday chores done and that evening we had den meeting as usual. We mostly prepared for the Blue & Gold Banquet--we practiced the flag ceremony with the boys and we worked on making some centerpieces for the tables.

(The girls belong to the other two den leaders. One of them is a single mom and the other one's husband is the YM president so they have to bring their kids to den meetings with them.)

Wednesday: I went to Walmart in the morning and then a friend and I tried to go visit Wanda for a while. She was in physical therapy, though, and in pain (although she still had a big smile on her face!) so she asked us to come back another time. I went to the religion class as usual and then after that I went to a concert at Seth's school. Each of the upper elementary classes performed a piece on the drums. They were all pretty good.

Can you see Seth in the pictures? I was pretty far back so it was hard to get a good picture of him. As soon as the concert ended, I took Seth and left because he had a doctor appointment to follow up on his medicine. Overall, his medicine seems to be helping him. I had forgotten until the doctor reminded me that we had switched Seth to a fast releasing type of medicine because he was having trouble getting to sleep at night. He does usually fall asleep pretty quickly now (although he does not go to bed until 10:00) but I have been noticing that his medicine seems to be almost completely worn off by the time he gets home from school. That means that if he has homework, it's hard to get anything done. So the doctor said he could prescribe a 1/4 dose pill for him that he can take right when he gets home from school for days that he has homework or needs to be focused in the evening. He won't need to take that very often (he hardly ever has homework) but I am definitely going to give that a try on Tuesdays when he has Cub Scouts! We'll have to see if it causes sleep problems, though.  That evening, my visiting teachers came to see me and they stayed a long time but it was really fun to talk to them. In between all of that stuff, I did somehow manage to get all the usual Wednesday chores done.

Thursday: I didn't have anything extra going on in the morning, so I got the regular Thursday chores done. In the afternoon, I went to Seth's class for a "literary tea". They have this event once a month and each month a couple of parents are invited to attend. They have tea (mostly herbal) and snacks and his teacher reads them a book while they enjoy the tea & snacks. The idea is to work on manners and to enjoy literature. It was actually quite pleasant and I enjoyed it. I had been asked to bring some tea and snacks so I brought two boxes of herbal tea and a tray of cheese & crackers and some madeleines. Other parents had also provided tea and snacks so we actually had a large variety of snacks to choose from, including veggies, hummus, strawberries, lemon scones, bread, and trail mix. The kids were all very friendly and polite. Here are the kids at my table:

Seth seemed to be kind of embarrassed that I was there at first, but after a while he adjusted to having me there and seemed to enjoy it.

After school Seth had an orthodontist appointment. The point of the visit is to assess the condition of his teeth now and to decide if he needs treatment yet. The orthodontist decided that it's still not time to treat him but he wants him to come back in 3 months for another assessment and to get a new x-ray of all his teeth. He's going to need braces eventually, I'm just not sure how soon. That evening I tried to work on the slide show but ran into some technical difficulties that Frank had to solve for me. We got all the paint cans put out on the curb also because the bulk trash pick up was this morning. When I checked the cans on Wednesday, quite a few of them were still not hard so I added more kitty litter and stirred them up some more. We ended up putting out all but four of the cans on Thursday night, though.

Friday: Today has been one of those days where I tried to get things done quickly but got interrupted a lot so I wasn't very successful. I did get most of the budget done, but need Frank to help me get it finished. (He was at work all day and now he is doing work for a client.) I also went to a ukulele class. A sister in our ward asked if anyone was interested in learning to play the ukulele and a couple of us were, so she is going to teach us. It was fun but I can tell I am going to have to practice a lot if I am ever going to be somewhat proficient. Seth got out of school 2 hours early today and on Monday he doesn't have school. (It's the end of the term.) When I picked Seth up today, his teacher told me that he had a difficult day and had been very unfocused. Well, come to think of it, I forgot to give him his medicine this morning!! Whoops! Well, it's good to know that the medicine does really make a difference!

That's about it for this week except that Frank received his settlement from the insurance company for his second accident. Right now that money is sitting in our bank account but we want to move it to some kind of account where it will earn some interest. He got a pretty decent amount, but it will need to go a long ways toward future medical payments and other things he may need as he gets older.  (A decent chunk of it already went to making up for the huge negative amount that has been accumulating in our "medical" budget category over the last couple of years.) We want to talk to a financial planner to help us decide the best way to invest it.

Oh, and one more thing. In between all that other stuff, I still managed to work on my scarf most days and it is now about 4 1/2 feet long. I should finish it soon! :) Here are some pictures I took of the scarf earlier this week (when it was much shorter than it is now):

I am happy with the way it is turning out and proud of myself that it actually looks like the scarf in the picture on the directions!

Now on to February!

Weekly Review January 19 '18

Wow, time is marching on...we are already 3/4 of the way through January! Here's how our week went:

Friday: I watched some of President Monson's funeral (I had to leave in the middle to pick up Seth) and it was really sweet. It was really cool to see Tim during the first song!

I watched the parts of the funeral that I missed on Saturday morning. So much of what was said at the funeral fit with the talk I was preparing because my talk was about "Consecrating our time to the Lord" and President Monson definitely did that. He is a great example of how to live a consecrated life. Anyway, Friday evening we had the Pinewood Derby and it went well. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but I am mostly only including ones that Seth is in:

Seth's car did pretty well this time--it was the 4th fastest car. We have never figured out how to make a really fast car! This was our last chance, too--this is Seth's last year in Cub Scouts so after making at least 12 Pinewood Derby cars (I think we made at least one sibling car somewhere in there) an era is coming to an end. I can't say I'm too upset about that, either!! :)

Saturday: It was a busy day. Frank took Seth to his swimming lesson in the morning, which I really appreciated because it gave me time to work on my talk in peace and quiet. I finally got a talk down on paper, although I ended up including only a small fraction of what I wanted to say, because I knew there wouldn't be enough time. Besides finishing my talk, I also made a cheesecake and did advance preparations for a casserole I was planning to make the next day--both of those things were for Frank's birthday dinner. I spent quite a bit of time doing some planning for Cub Scouts and I cleaned the kitchen floor. We went out to eat that night to start celebrating Frank's birthday--I let him choose where we were going to eat and he chose Longhorn Steakhouse. It was pretty good.

Sunday: In the morning we gave Frank some cards and some chocolate. I didn't really get him anything else because he couldn't think of anything he wanted. He did say he would like to go see a movie, so we will do that soon. After Frank left for his meeting, I read through the scriptures for the Sunday School lesson we were having and read the conference talk that we were discussing for the RS lesson, and both of them fit so well with my talk--it was kind of amazing. (Both the Sunday School teacher and the RS president mentioned how well the lesson went with what we talked about in Sacrament meeting, so it wasn't just me that thought so!) It's really cool when things like that happen. I also went to choir practice right before church--I am really enjoying singing in a choir again!! I think my talk went pretty well. I was the last speaker and I had about 15 minutes and even then I ended up skipping some of the things that I planned to say. I wasn't sure if what I did say came out in a coherent fashion, but afterwards I had many people tell me how great my talk was or how much they got out of it, so I guess I said what everyone needed to hear which is what I was hoping for. I am glad to be done with it though! I am also really grateful that I had to give that talk because I learned a lot in the process of preparing it. After church I stopped really briefly at the house of one of the sisters I visit teach to drop off a late Christmas gift and then I came home and finished making dinner (Frank had started working on it). We had invited the Elders over for dinner because I realized when I was preparing some of the casserole on Saturday that we were going to have way too much food for just 3 people. It was nice to have them here to help celebrate Frank's birthday. We had the cheesecake for dessert--Frank wanted that instead of regular cake. On Sunday we also finally finished the puzzle we've been working on. It took us two weeks:

When I was putting together the female cardinal part of the puzzle about a week ago, I couldn't find one of the pieces and I decided then that that piece was probably missing. I wasn't sure, because sometimes you just can't find a piece for a while even though it's there, but I was pretty sure. Turns out I was right:

That's pretty annoying, but the puzzle looks pretty nice anyway. Oh, and I guess to try to make up for the missing piece, they included two extra pieces!:

Anyway, we are glad to be done and I guess we'll probably take it apart soon but we worked so hard on it that I wanted to keep it together for a while. I have never had more trouble putting together the outside edge of a puzzle--we actually gave up on the edge and started making the middle, and we had a lot of the middle completed before we finally found the last two pieces of the edge.

Monday: Frank didn't have work and Seth didn't have school because of MLK Day. For me, it was business as usual. Besides the normal stuff, I worked on some more things for Cub Scouts and I went to visit my friend Wanda. She is in the hospital because on Saturday night she fell out of her wheelchair and broke her hip! She had surgery on her hip on Sunday--apparently, it was a pretty bad break. When we visited her (a friend came with me) she was awake and alert but she did look pretty tired. Frank did work for clients and he and I also went through all of the cans of paint we've accumulated over the years to see which ones we can discard. There's a bulk trash pick up coming soon, which is what motivated us to do this. We can put out the paint cans but the paint has to be dried out so we wanted to open up all the cans that we were going to discard. It turned out to be a bigger job than we anticipated. I don't feel like we've done an incredible amount of painting, but we have actually done quite a bit! When all was said and done, we ended up with 26 cans of paint that we want to discard!!:

That doesn't count the 10 or so cans that we are keeping. How did we get so much paint??!! Well, when I started thinking about it, I realized that we have painted all four bedrooms (three of them with 2 colors each), all 3 bathrooms, the kitchen twice, and the living room twice. Add in all the different paints for baseboards and other trim, plus paint for doors and shutters, plus a few cans that I'm pretty sure the previous owners left for us, and that adds up to a lot of paint! It just didn't seem like we had done that much because it's been spread out over nearly 18 years. It was quite the adventure (one can started leaking from the bottom when we moved it) but we finally got everything sorted out. We went to Lowe's to get some stuff to add to the paint to dry it out, but the lady there found out how many cans of paint we had, she said it would be a lot less expensive and just as effective to get a bag of kitty litter to add to the paint cans, so that is what we are planning to do. I forgot to buy some this week, but I am going to do that tomorrow.

Tuesday: I'm not going to write huge paragraphs about every day this week, I hope. I worked in the school library Tuesday morning. It wasn't very busy, so I left early because I wanted to be home in time to watch the special broadcast when they announced the new First Presidency. I watched that and then I cleaned bathrooms until the press conference started and I watched that too. We're in good hands, I think! That evening we had den meeting (I started a new adventure called Beat of the Drum with my boys--we learned about the American Indians that lived in Maryland before Europeans arrived) and afterwards we had Cub Committee meeting. We had it early because we had to move the Blue & Gold Banquet from the end of February to the beginning of February, so we needed to plan the banquet. There was a storm predicted to come in Tuesday evening and the school system cancelled all their evening activities, but we were able to get through den meetings and our committee meeting and the snow started coming down right as we were leaving to go home.

Wednesday: The storm didn't amount to much; we maybe got about a half inch of snow but there was still a 2 hour delay on Wednesday morning. Luckily, Frank was able to get Seth to school because I had a doctor appointment at 10:15 and Seth needed to leave for school about 10:35. The doctor appointment was just my yearly GYN exam. I told her I needed to get a referral for my annual mammogram and she said they can actually do them at their office now, and asked if I wanted to do it right then. Sure, why not? So I got that done too and it was nice to not have to go through all the hassle of making an appointment and such. After I got done with all the doctor stuff I went to the religion class and got the Walmart shopping done before I had to go get Seth from school. Meanwhile, Frank also went to the doctor that morning (after dropping Seth off). He still isn't feeling much better and he's still coughing like crazy, so he went back in. The doctor sent him for a chest xray to make rule out pneumonia (he doesn't have that) and prescribed a much stronger antibiotic. He's been taking that for two days and so far it doesn't seem to be helping him much. One of the side effects is sleeping problems and he has not slept well at all the last 2 nights. I really hope it starts working soon! I am starting to wonder if he is ever going to get better. He's a trooper and keeps working and doing what needs to be done. Poor guy!! Wednesday evening I did the Youth Protection Training (for Cub Scout leaders) because I have to renew that every 2 years and it was time for me to do that. Then Jared skyped with us for about an hour. It was nice to see him again and to get updated on how he is doing. He seems to be doing really well so far.

Thursday: Besides the usual, I started working on my scarf. I had to re-learn how to read a pattern and how to do double crochet (the blankets I made were single crochet) and I also learned a new stitch called the V-stitch, but I got all of that figured out and I got a good start on the scarf--I have 5 or 6 rows done. It's pretty easy and it's fun and so far it is looking pretty good. (I haven't taken a picture of it yet, though--hopefully next week!) I also had to go to the vet to get more food for Snickers and to get some more medicine for him too. I started working on a slide show for the Blue & Gold Banquet--I do a slide show with pictures from the previous years' Cub Scout activities to show at the banquet every year. This is the third year I've done this. In the evening I went to a RS activity where we played a game to get to know each other better. Renata came and another sister that I visit teach (who doesn't usually come) came too so I was happy about that. It was a fun evening.

Friday: Today I updated the budget and worked on the slide show some more. We were able to talk to Tanner for about an hour today and it was nice to get caught up with him, too, and he is also doing pretty well. Frank talked to Scott today also but I missed that call because I was in the shower. It's nice to get updated on all our boys this week--I miss them!! Now Frank and Seth are playing video games together and I will probably do some crocheting. Sam will be coming later tonight too. It will be nice to see him again--we haven't seen him since before Christmas.

That is all the news from our neck of the woods. 

Weekly Review January 12 '18

I started out last week's post talking about how cold it was. Right now, it is 59 degrees outside. We've been enjoying milder temperatures the last couple of days, but tomorrow it's going to get cold again. In the meantime, I keep getting startled when I open the door (to let the dog out, for example) and it feels so pleasant! Startled in a nice way, that is.

This week has been pretty busy. Here's what we've been doing:

Saturday: Seth was feeling fine all day on Friday so he went to swimming lessons as usual on Saturday morning. Frank took him to his lesson because I had arranged to take my two cub scout boys to Home Depot that morning for a kids' workshop. We just started working on an adventure where they are supposed to make two things out of wood--one fun thing and one useful thing. I was thrilled when I looked at Home Depot's website and discovered that they had a kids' workshop planned where they would be making a block calendar out of wood. Attending the workshop would fulfill the requirement to make one useful thing out of wood, and it was a lot easier to take my boys to the workshop than it would have been to figure out a project for them to do and to get all the materials and tools needed for the project. Besides, the workshop was free! Each of the boys got an apron and a pin for attending the workshop also. I wasn't sure what to expect, having never gone to one of these workshops before, and I was a little surprised to discover how many people came. My guess would be that there were at least 70 kids there!! They gave each child a kit to make the block calendar and all the tools and supplies we needed to put them together were there. I helped my two boys complete their projects and I think they both had fun.

Their "fun" project will be their Pinewood Derby cars, which they should have finished (or almost finished) by now since our Pinewood Derby is tonight.

Sunday: Our meeting time for church switched to 1:00, which is not my favorite time slot, but I had a good morning reading scriptures and the other materials to prepare for the lessons we were having that day. I had choir practice right before church also. For our first "council" in Relief Society, we had a really good discussion / council about visiting teaching. I think the changes in the curriculum are going to be awesome!!

Monday: Seth had school in the morning as usual, but since they were predicting we were going to get a "wintry mix" with icy roads in the afternoon, they decided to release school 3 hours early. I got a text message from the school district as well as emails from Seth's teacher, the school, and the school district but Seth, knowing that I've been having trouble getting text messages on my phone and that I hadn't been getting emails from the school for the last few months (that problem was finally solved on Sunday), was worried that I wouldn't know I needed to pick him up early, so his teacher let him call me. I got this funny voicemail from him on my phone because he actually didn't have his facts very clear and had no idea exactly what time school was getting out. Luckily, I did get all the other messages, so I knew exactly what to do. Anyway, before picking him up I was working on all the regular chores and I also went to the store to look at crochet patterns to see if I could find one for a scarf. I ended up getting some yarn and a couple of crochet books--one is a basic guide on how to crochet, with directions on how to do all of the basic stitches plus a lot of others and includes instructions for several projects. I thought it would be a nice reference to have since I'd like to do some more projects in the future. I did find a scarf pattern that I like too. I haven't had time to get started on the scarf project yet, though. Seth was supposed to have an orthodontist appointment on Monday afternoon but the orthodontist office decided to close early so I rescheduled that which I was happy to do since I'm not a fan of driving on icy roads and the office is about 25 minutes away. We just stayed home for the rest of the day except Frank & Seth did venture out for a little while to go to a friend's house to cut out Seth's Pinewood Derby car. (The friend has power tools that make the cutting easier.) We had family night, I worked on the puzzle some more, and our bishop called and asked me to give a talk on Sunday. My topic is "Consecrating Our Time to the Lord", which is an interesting topic and I still haven't figured out exactly where I'm going with that. I've been thinking and pondering about it all week and I've had a lot of thoughts. I even started getting a lot of those thoughts down on paper yesterday, but I'm still not sure how to organize it all into a coherent whole, or exactly which direction I want to take it. Hopefully I will get that figured out before Sunday!

I haven't had much time to work on the puzzle since Monday. Here is how it looked on Monday:

Here is how it looks now:

I'm hoping that someday I actually finish this thing, especially since I need my kitchen back. (The lighting in the kitchen is much better than in the living room, so we are putting it together in the kitchen.)

Tuesday: Since it was still super cold and none of the ice from the day before had a chance to melt, Frank & I expected school to be delayed on Tuesday and we were right. I had planned to go to the temple and wasn't sure that would still work but Frank was working in Frederick that day so he said he could pick up Seth from school if I didn't get home in time to pick him up myself. As it turned out, the traffic at 11:00 is much better than at 9:00, so I actually made it to the temple in time to go to the 12:00 session and was able to pick Seth up from school on my way home from the temple. It was really nice to be there again--I hadn't been able to be there since the beginning of December. I hope to go at least 2 times this month and at least 2 times next month, before the temple closes at the beginning of March for a couple of years. I'm going to miss being able to go there so much, although I am hoping that we can work things out to go to the Philadelphia temple on a monthly basis and we also plan to go to the temple when we are on trips to Utah or anywhere else that there is a temple (Hans, we might be visiting you a few times!!) Besides going to the temple, I got all the other usual chores done and Seth started painting his Pinewood Derby car. Frank had an EQ presidency meeting that evening too. We didn't have Cub Scouts because we have the Pinewood Derby tonight instead.

At the temple, the flag was flying half-mast for President Monson:

Seth working on his Pinewood Derby car. It's supposed to look like the Batmobile in one of the video games the boys play:

 
Wednesday: Mostly a usual day with religion class and other normal chores, but I also printed up award certificates for the Pinewood Derby, read several conference talks about consecration, helped Seth with his car, and in the evening I had book chat. We had a lively and interesting discussion about The Case for Christ (I mostly liked it except that he slammed the Book of Mormon at one point). Now we are reading The Scarlet Letter, which I read once but it was when I was in high school so I'm looking forward to reading it again. I'm sure I'll see some things in it that I didn't see 30+ years ago!

Thursday: Again, the usual things but I also made some cookies for Pinewood Derby refreshments, stopped at the storage unit to get out the box of Pinewood Derby decorations, and spent the afternoon wrestling to get my thoughts on paper for my talk. In the evening I went over to help my friend Renata--she had contacted me on Wednesday to see if I was available to stay with her kids while she went to a class about home & finance (she's trying to figure out if she can afford to stay in her home or will need to sell it) and then to her grief support group. I took Seth with me to play with her son Sammy and they all watched a movie together and then had fun playing. I could have used that time to work on my talk but it will all work out, right? Because I was trying to help someone who needed it? As it was, I did get to talk to Jared for a while, which was nice because I wanted to get caught up with him.

Friday: Today I am trying to get my usual chores done quickly so that I can spend some more time on my talk. I'm getting distracted by a lot of things, though, like talking to Scott (he called me while he was on his way to work). I did want to get caught up with him too, though, so I'm glad he called. I am almost done with the regular chores now. I'm planning to watch President Monson's funeral, which starts in a half hour. I have to leave only a half hour into it to go pick up Seth from school which is a bummer but there's nothing I can do about that. Hopefully I will only miss a little bit of the service. Then it is dinner time and on to the Pinewood Derby after that, so it's going to be a busy evening.

Frank is still coughing a LOT but in general he is getting better. It is just a slow process! He had his blood tested last week and his blood sugar levels are high (even though he takes medicine for that) so he needs to get an appointment for a check up. They are worried that he is pre-diabetic. I am hoping that he can get some help in figuring out some ways to lose weight (most kinds of exercise are not an option because of his knee) as well as some guidance on diet. I have been trying to find ways to eat healthier for quite some time, but I haven't made a lot of progress. It is one thing to know that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables and less of everything else, but translating that into actual meals--3 meals a day, seven days a week, and meals that we will actually want to eat--well, that's another thing altogether! I hope we can figure it out, though. I worry about his health and know he would feel a lot better if he weighed less. I could benefit from losing about 15 pounds myself. But first, he needs to make that appointment, which he hasn't got around to doing yet. He works so hard every day and it is hard for him to find the time to take care of himself.

That is all our news for this week.

Weekly Review January 5 '18

Well, here we go with 2018. IT. IS. COLD!!!! It is 14 degrees outside, and the wind is blowing. I am really thankful that I have a house, and a house with central heating!! Here's what we've been doing for the last week.

Saturday: Jared called in sick for work (he called Friday night, so they had some time to find someone else to work for him). That was his last day but they are keeping him as an employee so that he can go back to work there when he gets done with winter semester.
(He is just currently inactive, so they won't schedule him while he's gone.) We did get a little bit of snow that morning but not a lot and the roads weren't bad. Seth had swimming lessons that morning and I didn't have any trouble getting him there. He just started a new session and his teacher is a guy this time, which he likes. I got my hair done that day and did some Cub Scout planning, as well as helping Seth with some Cub Scout stuff and with some homework.

Sunday: I told Frank he should stay home from church. He still wasn't feeling well at all, and coughing like crazy. He listened to me & stayed home. The rest of us went to church. Tanner's throat started hurting a bit that day. Jared and Tanner both ended up going down to the temple that afternoon / evening. Jared was invited to go with Jessie and her family to see the lights and the nightly concert, which was some Chinese dancers. Tanner volunteered to help with directing traffic, because our ward was assigned to send two men to help with that and only one person had volunteered to do it. The other brother who volunteered gave Tanner a ride down there and back. It was really heroic of Tanner to volunteer because it was COLD!! Meanwhile, Frank rested, I started working on a jigsaw puzzle, and Seth built his Lego robot and started playing with it / programming it. The puzzle has turned out to be a bear. We still haven't managed to get the outer edge done, but we gave up on that for a while and started doing some of the inside. After five days, it looks like this:

Admittedly, I haven't had a lot of time to work on it but still...it's a hard puzzle. Here is a video of Seth with his robot:

Tanner and Jared both got back home by 10:00. We invited Jessie's family to come over when they got back so they came in and shared all the appetizers I had made for dinner and we talked and visited for a while. They are a really nice family! They left before midnight because they had a sick dog at home that they needed to check on. The boys and I stayed up until midnight to welcome the new year. Frank had gone to bed, but he was still sort of awake.

Monday: This was a really busy day for me. I did laundry and took down all the Christmas decorations. Taking down the decorations involved two trips to the storage unit--one to get the boxes and then another one to take the full boxes back. Jared came with me to help me and he also got out all of the boxes with his stuff so he could go through them and find the things he needed for college. So he had a really busy day too--he went through all of those boxes and took out what he needed, then helped me take all those boxes and the Christmas boxes back. It was super cold and windy, so not a lot of fun moving all those boxes from the house to the car to the storage unit! Jared also unpacked his suitcases (he hadn't done that completely since getting home) and put all the stuff he will need for his mission in one place so that he can find it easily when he is getting ready to go back, and re-packed his suitcases with some of his college stuff. So Jared had a busy day too! By the end of the day I was aching all over but all the Christmas stuff was put away and the house was much cleaner. (We vacuumed too.)

Tuesday: Tanner wasn't feeling well at all on Monday, so I called Tuesday morning to get him a doctor appointment. Jared was starting to feel better and he and Jessie had planned to go to lunch that day. She had an appointment in the morning and then her dad dropped her off at our house. She and Jared worked on the puzzle for a while and played some Mario Kart, and then they went to lunch. Jared took her partway home when they were done (they met her Dad halfway between here and her house...she lives about 30 minutes from here.) Meanwhile, Seth went back to school, Frank went back to work (even though he still wasn't feeling great) and I got all my regular Tuesday chores done. After I picked Seth up from school I took Tanner to the doctor. They took a strep test because his throat was a little red. He doesn't have strep, though, so the doctor gave him a prescription for an antibiotic that he could fill if he still didn't feel better in a few days. He didn't fill it before he left for Utah yesterday, but he may fill it when he gets out there. He still wasn't feeling very well when he left yesterday. He may just have a virus, though. That evening we had den meeting and afterwards I had Cub Committee meeting. For den meeting, I started working on an adventure with the Bears where they learn to use tools and they will make two things out of wood. For this den meeting, I had Jared come help me and we taught them safety rules and showed them how to use a saw, a screwdriver, a hammer, a measuring tape, and sandpaper. We had them wear safety goggles too. Here are a few pictures:

I have two Bears now. One of them turned 9 in November, and the other one turned 9 at the end of December. The other little boy that I have had for the last several months (mostly by himself) just turned 10 this week.

While the Bears were working with tools, the Webelos were working on this little engineering project:

They put a ball in the top and got it to land in a basket on the floor.

Wednesday: I got grocery shopping done and went to the religion class. I also worked on some Cub Scout stuff. Frank had called the doctor back on Tuesday because she told him to call back in a few days if he wasn't feeling a lot better and he wasn't feeling a lot better. They called in a new prescription for him so he picked that up Wednesday morning, as well as Seth's medicine which I had been trying to get refilled. After school, I had Seth work on his Pinewood Derby car--just design it. He is going to make one that looks like the Batmobile. This day was a little less busy and I worked on the puzzle a little bit. I also had to convince Tanner and Jared that they really needed to pack!

Thursday: We got going pretty early because Tanner & Jared needed to be at the airport by about 9:30 for their 11:20 flight. There was a possibility for snow in the morning so we had to get up early enough to allow us some extra travel time, in case the roads were bad. We did get about an inch of snow overnight and it was brutally cold. School was delayed 2 hours and then they decided to cancel it completely (probably because it was so cold, so they knew the snow and ice wasn't going to melt). Because school and a lot of governments were shut down or delayed, the traffic wasn't bad at all. The roads were pretty good too--a few slick spots, but once we got on the interstate they were completely clear. The only problem I had with the drive to the airport and back was keeping my windshield clean. The roads had been treated and a lot of salt, dirt and water was hitting the windshield. I had plenty of windshield wiper fluid (Frank and I had just filled it up on Monday) but the fluid had frozen in the lines so I couldn't get it to work. We stopped at one point at a gas station to get some hot water to pour on the place where the fluid comes out and we managed to get one side working but the other one only worked sporadically (mostly not at all) and of course it was the driver's side that wasn't working! But anyway, I got the boys to the airport in plenty of time and got home safely. I miss having Tanner & Jared here, but on the bright side--I had a lot less laundry to do on Thursday! The house seemed kind of quiet, even though Seth was home all day. Frank was at work all day, too. I got the regular chores done and worked on the puzzle some more. Last night at bedtime Seth started complaining that his head and stomach hurt, and then he threw up so we had him sleep in our room last night.

Today: Seth seems to be feeling a lot better today but I am keeping him home from school, just in case. So far he has had soda and crackers and hasn't had any trouble with that yet. School was delayed 2 hours today, probably because of the extreme wind chills and the roads are probably a bit icy. Seth's school gets out an hour early on Fridays so even if he went to school, he'd only be there for 3 1/2 hours. I doubt he is missing much! We are supposed to continue to have really frigid temperatures over the next couple of days. I think Tuesday is supposed to get up into the 40s, and that is going to feel really warm!!

2018 hasn't started out being very healthy for most of us, but I'm hoping that will change and that it will be a good year! :)