Weekly Review April 12 '19

Greetings! This week has been super busy and packed with events of various kinds. Hopefully it won't take me a long time to tell you about it because I still have a ton of things to get done today. But first...this fascinating fact: my dog loves celery!! And here's the proof:

On with my report of this crazy week. I'm not going to mention the regular chores (grocery shopping, cleaning, etc) but just know that they were somehow all smashed in there along with everything else.

Friday: I mentioned last week that Seth had the day off school. It was also bulk trash pick up day and I had forgotten to have Frank help me carry a mini fridge (that he got from a coworker and that has been sitting out on our deck for 3 or 4 years) that I wanted to throw away out to the curb. But I really wanted to get rid of it, so I decided to see if Seth could help me carry it and between the two of us, we got it out to the curb. Hooray; one less thing cluttering up our space! I was proud of us for managing to get that done. Also on Friday I ran errands to the post office and to the library, got the luncheon for Tanner & Darlee's wedding set up, and finished our Personal Property Tax Return (for the business). However, in the process of doing that I realized that we had replaced an iPad a number of years ago and somehow I'd forgotten to account for that so now I have to file amended returns for 2 previous years. Oh joy. But at least I got the current one filed on time and it is correct, at least. (Assuming I didn't make another mistake that I'm going to discover in a few years...)

Saturday & Sunday: The weekend was all about General Conference. I worked really hard during the week to get things done so that I wouldn't have a lot of other things to do on Saturday. It was nice because all I really had to do was listen to General Conference and quilt. So I was able to really focus on General Conference for two days, and that was wonderful! I did miss portions of a couple of talks while preparing meals but otherwise I heard it all (and quilting helped keep me awake!). As always, it was amazing and uplifting and I'm looking forward to reading and listening to all the talks again. After Conference was over on Sunday, I prepared my Primary lesson for this Sunday and did some indexing. I played some games with Seth and he beat me at Battleship--I think that's the first time he's ever done that. I had to take a photo of the board because look how lucky he was at finding my ships:

(The white pegs between the ships are his "misses". As you can see, he actually had more hits than misses!! You can see that I didn't do too bad either--I was starting to sink his fourth ship when I lost the game.)

Monday: I had some errands to run, some appointments to make, and some work to do for my music calling. I also worked on the quilt a little bit. I got a lot done over the weekend but was still finishing up the quilting on the border pieces. A few weeks ago I was thinking about all the people coming to visit for Jared's wedding and realizing that I would have more space to put people and that I would be less stressed if I could get the house more organized, cleaned and de-cluttered. I mean, I'm always wanting to do that but now I really want to do that. So I decided that I needed to assign a room in the house to work on each week between now and Jared's wedding. This was my first week and my job was Jared's room (since he will be home soon, it makes sense to get his room all cleaned out and ready for him before he gets here). So I worked on Jared's room on Monday too. His room is not too bad (it will be worse when he gets back with all his stuff!) so I pretty much got it done on Monday. A good thing too, since I haven't had time to look at it since! I have a bag of stuff I need to take to the storage unit and there's a box that Frank needs to go through and I threw away another bag of stuff. There are also a couple of pictures that need to be hung on walls. Other than that, it's pretty good. I'm hoping not every week is going to be as busy as this one or else I'm never going to get everything done. (Next week's job is the kitchen, and that is going to be a LOT more work!) That evening we had family night and for activity we played Mario Kart which is not my favorite. Maybe if we keep playing it enough, some day I will be sort of good at it. But I doubt it!

Tuesday: I worked on the quilt first, and I got all the quilting done. Finally!!

I also went to the storage unit to pull out some things for Seth's costume for his school project (thank goodness I made that Legolas costume for Scott all those years ago, because the tunic is going to work well for the Daniel Boone costume). And I mailed some Easter packages to the boys too. That evening I went to a RS Activity. They were doing a "passover dinner" and I had been asked to help in the kitchen. I didn't end up staying long though because I started to not feel very well so I ended up going home before it was over. It was kind of a bummer to miss it because I've always been interested in Jewish holidays and how they are celebrated. But the good news is, I was fine the next day and think I just ate something that wasn't agreeing with me.

Wednesday: I missed my religion class but I went with Jessie's mom to a nursery to buy flowers for Jared & Jessie's wedding (not for the bouquet or anything like that...for some planters that they are going to have at the reception). Her mom has a favorite nursery up in Pennsylvania that she's been going to for years, so that's where we went. It's about an 75 minutes away, and I saw signs for Hancock and thought of Izak! The nursery is run by several Mennonite families (or maybe it was one big extended family) and it is HUGE! I took these photos standing in one place, just turning 3 different directions:

This was just one of several greenhouses there. I wish I could have got some pictures of the Mennonite workers. They dress like they are from a century (or two) ago and I loved asking them for help because when they answered, they had the coolest "Pennsylvania Dutch" accents! (They were also very helpful and nice.) We got a ton of flowers and they barely fit in the car. I enjoyed the trip and Jessie's mom is great to talk to, but that took a good portion of the day and I was pretty exhausted by the time I got back to Frederick. I didn't go straight home, though, because I needed to stop at the fabric store to see if they had suede "fringe" (for Seth's Daniel Boone costume) and I also wanted to get fabric for the back and borders of Tanner & Darlee's quilt so I can get started on that as soon as I finish Jared & Jessie's quilt. They did have the fringe, thank goodness, and I found some fabric that will work for the quilt (I hope). By the time I got home, it was almost time to pick up Seth from school. I got the Walmart shopping done later, while Seth was at YM (Frank helped me).

Thursday: Snickers had to get his teeth cleaned, so Frank dropped him off at the vet on his way to work. I worked with my lady from the Arc for the first time in weeks and ended up working from 10:30 to nearly 2:30, so that took up most of my day. When I got off work I picked Snickers up from the vet (and paid them a small fortune) and then made it home with just enough time to eat a late lunch (at 3:00!) before I had to pick up Seth from school. After doing brain balance with Seth, I mowed the lawn and did some weeding and then we had a late dinner. I ran out of time to really work on the quilt, but I did take out all the pins and the basting and I trimmed the batting and the backing fabric down to be even with the edges of the quilt top. I still need to sew the bias strips for the binding and then sew the binding on. Snickers doesn't usually eat on the day that he gets his teeth cleaned, but last night he actually did have an appetite and he ate his dinner. He has been coughing a lot, though--both last evening, during the night last night, and today. The vet says his throat is irritated from the breathing tube they put down his throat while he was under anesthesia. I hope he feels better soon--not only do I feel sorry for him, but his coughing woke me up a couple of times last night.

Friday: Today I spent the morning working on the budget and then I spent the afternoon helping one of my "ministerees". She has a 4 month old baby who still isn't sleeping well and her usual helpers (her mom and her sister) were both out of town so she asked if I could come help her for a few hours today. I mostly just played with and held her adorable baby while she ate some lunch and got some chores done. I think she enjoyed having another adult to talk to for a while too! Then I picked Seth up from school and took him to the library where we got some movies and games and we even got one book! (He actually reads a lot.) I didn't have lunch until after we got back from there, so once again--I had lunch at 3:00. This is not a trend I would like to continue. I have several things I would like to get done before the day is over, but right now it is dinner time so I will have to do that first and hope I manage to get everything else done afterwards.

Maybe that doesn't sound all that busy, but I was squeezing in all the regular chores whenever I could, along with brain balance with Seth and exercising as regularly as possible. (I did exercise every day, although 2 days I got up late enough that I only had time to exercise 10 minutes instead of 30. But hey--10 minutes is better than nothing, right?) I also squeezed in some reading and some wedding stuff here and there. There was never a dull moment!

There were two mornings this week that Seth got up on time and moved quickly through getting ready for school and that was lovely! The other 3 mornings (including today) he didn't do too well and he was even a few minutes late for school today. We'll keep working on it. He did demonstrate that he is capable of focusing and getting ready quickly, I just wish he would decide to do that every day.

Frank is keeping really busy with work and with some of his clients too. He does seem to be enjoying his job a lot, which is great.

I feel like I'm forgetting something, but that's all I can pull out of my tired brain right now. We have had a few more nice days here and there (although today is cooler and raining) so everything is blooming and it is really quite lovely when the sun is shining:

I see this tree outside my back window.

And this one in front.

 It's getting harder to see the river.

And just for fun, to finish up, Seth thought these cheese balls I put on a paper towel for him to eat looked like the United States of America (sorry it's sideways):

Weekly Review April 5 '19

It's been on the cold side most of this week, but we did have a couple of nice days (Wednesday and Thursday). However, there are signs of spring all over the place. Early last week Seth and I noticed a few trees had flowers on them. A lot of trees are still bare, but we definitely noticed a lot of trees getting buds and bursting into bloom this week. I had a very clear view of the river behind our house two weeks ago, but now it is getting harder to see. I can still see it, but there is more foliage in the way now. It hardly seems possible that we have had enough warm days for the lawn to need mowing, but we have! I mowed the lawn for the first time since last fall on Tuesday. It was actually pretty chilly that day but I wore a jacket and didn't get too cold. I only had to mow the front lawn--the back lawn doesn't need it yet. The back lawn is on the north side of the house and doesn't get much sunlight. The front lawn grows much faster and weeds really thrive in the front flower bed. On Monday evening we weeded that. It was nice to have Frank help me with that instead of doing it by myself. He is a hard and fast worker. We have a few daffodils blooming in front. After weeding and mowing, the front yard looks really nice.

Anyway, that is the weather / yard work report. On to everything else we did this week.

Friday: I went to the "mission shower" that I mentioned in last week's letter. I didn't stay very long because I was taking Seth out to dinner but a lot of people had come before I left and I heard afterwards that the missionary got a lot of nice things. Seth chose Red Robin for dinner; it was pretty good. Frank arrived home from Dallas around midnight...it's nice to have him home!

Saturday: This day was really busy. Frank was doing laundry and getting caught up on work for clients. I cleaned the kitchen floor, did some work for the office furniture website, worked on wedding stuff, worked on the quilt, and started working on our Personal Property tax return for the business. Frank and I also took some time to discuss our lesson for the following day, and worked out what we wanted to say and how to divide things up.

Sunday: Our lesson went well and we really enjoyed teaching about managing finances wisely. (I really missed my cute Primary class, though!) Managing finances is an area where we have put forth a lot of effort, but have also seen great blessings--miracles, actually--in being able to provide for our family. We actually didn't have as much time to talk about it as we would have liked, but we prepared a follow up email with a bunch of tips and resources. I didn't sleep well on Saturday night and I fully expected to take a nap Sunday afternoon but I never could go to sleep! I read scriptures and indexed instead. Sunday was an anniversary of sorts for us--we bought our house 19 years ago on March 31st. So amazing that we have been able to stay in one place for 19 years!! Sometimes (often!) I have been frustrated at the small size of this house, but it has been a great blessing to us nevertheless and we love it!

The rest of the week: I'm not going to give a play-by-play of every day because mostly we just did the usual things, plus I'm always working on the quilt. I only have 1 1/2 blocks left to finish in the 5th (and final!) row.

I still have to go around all the strips in between the rows too. I'm hoping I can get a lot (if not all) of that done while I watch General Conference. I am pleased with how good it looks in spite of my lack of skill and I am excited to finish it up--hopefully in the next few weeks.

Wedding plans are also keeping us very busy (and somewhat stressed). As parents of the grooms, we don't have a ton of responsibilities but it is amazing how much time and research and back-and-forth phone calls and texting it takes to plan a dinner and a luncheon! We are also trying to coordinate all the travel plans (between here and Philadelphia and between here and Utah). We did manage to get hotel rooms booked for Philadelphia (we are staying there the night before Jared's wedding since it takes 2 1/2 hours to get there from here, on a good traffic day). We also purchased plane tickets for everyone going both directions for the two weddings. It feels good to have those things figured out, at least. We mostly have the luncheon figured out for Tanner's wedding (although I still need to reserve it--I tried to do that yesterday but got an answering machine). The dinner for Jared's wedding is proving to be the most difficult because we'll be in Philadelphia so finding a location that isn't going to cost a fortune has been hard. Hopefully we will get that figured out soon.

Other events from this week: Frank had a dentist appointment on Monday and his teeth are in good shape. Seth had an art show for school on Wednesday evening, which we went to before I took him to YM. He really wanted to go to the art show, but he wasn't really excited about the idea of getting his picture taken in front of his artwork, but I insisted:

For YM, the Deacons did a service project for some members of the ward. They pulled down a small out building, and Seth thought that was loads of fun!!

Snickers had an ultrasound on his bladder and liver this week. He doesn't have any more bladder stones, which is good news. His liver has deteriorated more since his ultrasound last year, which isn't good news. It's not life threatening yet, but I think his liver is what's going to kill him in the end. We give him liver support medicine every day which helps a bit.

Seth had an incident at school yesterday. He got upset at recess and he punched another boy in the arm. This earned him a trip to the principal's office--where they discussed using his words instead of hitting--and a note that we have to sign. Seth does get angry easily and often, but I was surprised he hit someone because he's never come close to doing that before. When I talked to him about it, it sounded like it was just a bad moment where things got out of control (not that I'm making excuses for him, because I'm not). He has to miss recess on Monday and he also will not be allowed to play four square all next week (that's the game they were playing when the incident happened), which seems totally reasonable to me. We are also going to have him write a note to the other boy to tell him he's sorry. In general, Seth has been pretty challenging lately and it has been hard for me not to feel discouraged about his behavior. I really feel like there is a lot more going on with him than just regular kid behavior and ADHD. I really wish we could figure out what it is, so that maybe we could find some solutions. I would just like him to be a lot happier than he is!

We continued to do limited brain balance this week because Seth's chest is still tender. It's a lot better than it was, but it's still sore.

Besides all of that, I went to my religion class, worked a little bit on the Personal Property tax return, practice the ukulele a little, tried to figure out what we are going to do for a costume for Seth's school project (he has to dress up like Daniel Boone) and started reading the next book chat book, which is called My Beloved World  by Sonia Sotomayor. It's a memoir about her life and it is really good so far. I didn't work at the Arc at all (which is just as well, considering how busy I've been) but I did do some more work on the office furniture website.

Today Seth has the day off school (just a teacher work day; we don't have spring break until the week after next). I do not have the day off; I have a lot of things to do!! We are really looking forward to listening to General Conference for the next couple of days.

Weekly Review March 29 '19

I hear it is snowing in Utah. Sorry, all you folks out there!! Things have been kind of chilly here for most of the week (on Tuesday it was 38 degrees and windy...brrr!) but yesterday was pretty nice and today isn't bad either. We haven't needed to wear coats the last few days, at least--just jackets. Here's what we've been doing this week:

Friday: I took Seth to see a play at his school in the evening. It was called "The Trial of the Wicked Witch" and it was pretty good. One fun thing about the play is that the audience was the "jury"--we got to decide if the witch was innocent or guilty.

In the end, our audience voted that the witch was innocent. (I thought she was guilty.) The actors were all kids in grades 4 - 8, and I was really impressed with the quality of the production. Really, it was better than many of the plays I've seen at the high school! The wicked witch, the wolf, Prince Charming, and Hansel & Gretel in particular did a really great job. It was entertaining and fun.

Saturday: This day started out bright and early because we were one of the families scheduled to help clean the church. (Did I ever mention that Frank is the ward facilities coordinator now? He got that calling at the end of February.) On the way home, we stopped at the pharmacy to get medicine for Frank and then at Walmart to get a few things he needed for his trip to Dallas. (He had another week of training there this week.) He had a busy day working on stuff for clients and I had a busy day submitting my Arc time sheet, getting my Primary lesson done, practicing the ukulele, working on the quilt, communicating with Tanner and Jared about wedding stuff, and trying to figure out the problems with the office furniture website. The website stuff turned out to be pretty stressful because a bunch of crazy unexplainable things were happening but Frank looked at it for me in the evening and he finally figured out that the problems were caused by the browser that I was using. If I use a different browser when I am adding in the products, I don't have those problems. I'm glad that problem is solved!

Sunday: Frank had to get up really early because his flight to Dallas was at 7:00 am. Originally, his flight was in the afternoon but it got cancelled because of the aircraft that are being grounded. He booked another flight and that one got cancelled too! So this early flight was the only option left. I woke up when Frank did and had a hard time going back to sleep so I was tired on Sunday. I did get a nap after church, at least. My companion teacher in Primary wasn't there but a mom of one of the kids in my class helped me and I felt like the lesson went well. It was our ward conference and our Sacrament Meeting was really good.

Monday: I didn't work at the Arc this week, but I spent most of the day on Monday fixing all the problems with the office furniture website. I was finally successful at adding all the new products and having them look right and show up in the right places, though. I managed to get the rest of the normal chores done and even worked on the quilt a little bit. Seth and I watched the movie Home Alone for family night activity. We actually didn't watch the whole thing because the end part was making him laugh too much and laughing still hurts! So does coughing and sneezing. He is mostly a lot better, but he is still tender and we had to do abbreviated brain balance stuff all week. It is just going to take time for him to heal completely.

Tuesday: I had volunteered to work in the school library that morning but after being there for an hour no one had come in so the other lady said I could go home. I shelved a few books and straightened a few shelves out, but that was it. I didn't mind going home, though--I had plenty of other things to do! I got all the normal chores done and got a form sent to Jared that he needed. That evening I had book chat and it was funny because a lot of the women said that the character in the book was really annoying, and I had felt that way too. A few of them hadn't even bothered to finish the book. I did finish it, and I enjoyed it in the end. I just had to keep telling myself that the author exaggerated things to make it funny. Now we are reading a memoir by one of the supreme court justices; I can't remember her name off the top of my head right now!

Wednesday: Nothing too out of the ordinary on this day; I did stop by my friend Wanda's on my way to Walmart because she needed some things from there. I went to my religion class where we spent a few minutes discussing all the rumors we are hearing about what changes are going to be announced at General Conference! It's so ridiculous that people spread rumors, I think! I'm not going to believe anything until I hear it at General Conference. Seth went to YM that evening without a qualm but I went inside with him and made sure he was with an adult before I left. When I arrived to pick him up, he was in the gym playing basketball and he and the boy that hurt him last week were on a team together, playing against everybody else (only 3 or 4 boys). So I guess Seth isn't holding any grudges, which is good.

Thursday: Again, not much to note about this day, I mostly did the regular chores and I didn't have to work at the Arc again. But in the afternoon I went shopping to get a gift for a girl in our ward who is leaving on a mission soon. Her mom is a single parent and she needs some things for her mission, so they are having a "mission shower" for her tonight, which I think is a nice idea. I found a sweater for her and I got a couple of shirts for myself. When I got home, I went through my closet and weeded out some clothes that I haven't worn in a long time (I've been meaning to do that for quite a while). I have a couple of skirts and sweaters that I think this girl might be able to use, so I am taking them to the shower too. I also have a bag of clothes ready to be donated to charity, and I threw out a few things that were really worn out.

Friday: I'm not sure where today went. It is already 5:00! I woke up later than usual, which may be part of why the day seemed to go by so fast. My companion Primary teacher's family is moving to a different house this weekend so after I dropped Seth off at school, I went to her house to help for a little while. I helped her box up everything in her pantry and took a load of it to the new house, where two of her boys unloaded it all. Then I came home and showered and worked on the budget--I didn't completely finish updating everything before I had to pick up Seth from school. We stopped at the library on the way home. Then I finished the budget. I am taking Seth to dinner this evening and going to the mission shower. I would like to get some work done on the quilt and some work done on the office furniture website, but I'm not sure if that is going to happen today.

Throughout the week, I have been working on the quilt when I can and I managed to finish the 4th row. Only one more row to go! I think I need to learn how to use a thimble, though:

Our bishop asked Frank and I to help with the 5th Sunday lesson this Sunday, which is going to be about managing finances wisely. Originally, he asked us to just take about 10 minutes to share some experiences and tips, but it has kind of changed into us teaching a lot of the lesson so I've been thinking about that and working on that a lot this week too.

Meanwhile, Frank has been busy in Dallas with the training class he was taking as well as doing work for clients (remotely) as best he could. I had to go over to one of his clients on Wednesday evening to turn on a server that had shut down--he couldn't do that remotely, of course! He is feeling a little stressed about the business right now and may decide to cut back on some of his clients, but we'll see--I think it has been more stressful for him because he's been out of town so much lately. Of course, I am fully supportive of him cutting back if he needs to. He works so hard all the time! On Wednesday Frank texted me and said "Got a job offer today. Seriously. Wanna move to Dallas?" Well, we're not going to do that! (Although I wouldn't mind living in Texas. I like Texas!) Apparently one of the guys in the training class with him was really impressed with the questions he was asking. He said they could really use him on their QA team! But since he just started a new job, we didn't think that would be a good idea to change again. I mean, we never considered it seriously, but it was an intriguing idea!

And with that intriguing idea, I have run out of things to report this week. Frank will be home late tonight again. We are looking forward to having him back and we're glad this is his last trip for the foreseeable future.

Weekly Review March 22 '19

I seem to be starting with the weather report a lot lately, so today it is cloudy, windy, and kind of cold (temperatures in the 40s). Actually, the sun came out for a little while and that was nice but now it's cloudy again. It rained hard all day yesterday and--no surprise--the river is flooding:

(The first two photos I took from our back deck; the second one is zoomed in a bit. I took the photo below from our mailbox, which is at the end of the street.)

We're about 2/3 of the way through March, and I hope we get some of the warmer spring days soon. This week has been mostly on the chilly side. Here's what happened the rest of the week:

Friday: When I picked Seth up from school, I took him to the library. That evening, there was a family game night at his school so we went to that. It was just a small crowd that showed up and there wasn't anyone there that either of us knew in particular, but we took one of Seth's favorite games (Scribblish) with us and he invited a few kids to play it with us. After we played that game, he wandered around and tried some other games--mostly Twister.

I think he had fun. It was also a potluck dinner; we were supposed to bring an appetizer, finger food, or a dessert. Most people interpreted "finger food" to mean chips, so there was not a lot of "real" food to choose from. I think Seth had cheese puffs and cupcakes for dinner. Ugh!! We took some "Little Smokies" as well as the cake that I won earlier that week--at least I got rid of a few pieces of that!

Frank arrived home safely from Dallas around midnight. Seth was already asleep, and he was really happy to see Frank when he got up on Saturday.

Saturday: Frank did a lot of laundry and I kept busy with a lot of things. I cleaned the kitchen floor, reviewed my Primary lesson, put together some treat bags for my class (it was another birthday!), practiced the ukulele, worked on stuff for my music calling, worked on stuff for the weddings, worked on the quilt, and did some work for one of Frank's clients (I'm adding photos of products to their web page. They are an office furniture store.) Sound like a busy day? It was!

Sunday: This Sunday kind of raced by and it wasn't much of a day of rest. Church was great, as usual. I love the new Primary curriculum! (I know, I've said that before. I haven't changed my mind!) After church I was going to take a nap but something came up with one of my "ministeree" sisters that I needed to handle, which involved a couple of phone calls, including one to our bishop. By the time I finished with that, I couldn't sleep. I feel like the afternoon just kind of disappeared. I did work on my Primary lesson for this week and I did some indexing but that was about it. We had dinner and family night and then I took Seth to a fireside. It was at my friend Rebekah's house and I got to spend the time during the fireside down in her basement visiting with her. So that was nice.

Monday: I didn't work because my Arc lady had other family commitments. It was just as well; I had all the regular chores to do, plus I needed to send some emails related to my music calling, work on some wedding stuff, and work on more stuff for the office furniture web page. I also wanted to get some work done on the quilt, of course. We had a family night activity and treat in the evening. We played Clue and I won because I always win when we play Clue.  (Some luck involved, but I also have a system down! Frank always says "how did you figure that out already??")

Tuesday: We had the Elders over for dinner Tuesday evening. I made a chocolate pudding pie for dessert--I purchased the ingredients so I could make a pie for "Pi Day", but then I got too busy. Other than having the Elders over, it was just the usual chores and "busy-ness".

Wednesday: Seth had a field trip to the library and I kept busy with all the usual chores. Actually, I had extra things to do like work on the office furniture web page, so I skipped the religion class because I knew I was going to run out of time to do everything. (And I was right--I never would have finished everything.) I talked to both Tanner and Jared that day about wedding stuff, too. I was planning to spend the time while Seth was at YM finishing up stuff for the office furniture web page, but that didn't end up happening. I dropped him off at the church a few minutes before 7:00, but about 10 after 7:00 one of the counselors in our bishopric called to say that Seth had been "roughhousing" with one of the older kids and Seth got hurt. He wasn't badly hurt, but he was pretty upset and he said we should probably come get him. Frank was working on maintenance for some of his clients, so I turned around and went back to the church. When I got to the church, he was sitting on a foyer in the couch with two of his leaders. When he saw me, he burst into sobs and got up, but he could not even stand up straight. As far as I can tell from what he (and the leaders) told me, the older boy wrapped his arms around him and picked him up and turned him upside down, squeezing him really tightly the whole time. And according to Seth, they weren't playing...the older boy chased after him because Seth played a few notes on the piano when the older boy was trying to play. I mean, I don't know if the other boy was actually angry or just being playful. I doubt he meant to really hurt Seth, but that was the end result anyway. I was concerned because Seth seemed so distraught (and he usually is pretty tough when he gets hurt) and also because he said it hurt to take a deep breath. As I said before, he didn't really want to straighten up all the way and he was holding his hand on a spot in the middle of his chest. When I got him home, he stopped on the sidewalk and just knelt down for a while because it hurt to breathe. Frank and I decided we should probably get him checked out to make sure he didn't have a cracked rib or sternum or something and since it was after hours, we had to take him to the ER. He was still pretty upset on the way over there. The nice thing about him being a child is that they have a separate pediatric unit that they take kids to immediately, so we didn't have to wait in the ER waiting room forever. The pediatric unit was really busy, though, so once we got up there we had to wait a little while for a room to open up and then we had to wait a long time for the doctor to come see him. But they gave him some ibuprofen and at least we were in a room with a bed, chairs, and even a television:

 
By the time the doctor finally arrived, Seth was feeling a lot better and the doctor barely glanced at him. He just told us to give him ibuprofen or acetaminophen and told him to avoid strenuous activity for a few days and wrote a note so that he wouldn't have to participate in PE at school the next day. (Seth loves PE, so he wasn't exactly thrilled about that.) We were a little annoyed that he didn't examine him any closer, just because he was looking pretty calm. But if we'd had to go through xrays and all that, it would have taken a lot more time. As it was, we didn't get home until 10:00. At any rate, we are glad that Seth wasn't badly hurt.

Thursday: Seth said he felt sore, but that he was well enough to go to school. He was moving slowly and obviously had some discomfort, but he seemed to be doing better. I gave him some ibuprofen before I took him to school and he did fine. He seems to be feeling even better today. I spent a lot of time on Thursday finishing up the stuff that I had intended to do on Wednesday evening for the office furniture website. I got all the new photos and product information ready to add, but I was waiting on a response to a technical question I had before I actually added them. Besides the website work, I got all the regular chores done and worked on the quilt a little bit. Seth got to skip brain balance since that involves quite a bit of physical activity (like curl ups and push ups).

Friday: Today I worked on the budget in the morning. Then I went to lunch with Frank. When I got back I noticed I had received a response to my technical question about the website, so I tried adding some of the new products, but there is still some sort of problem. They did get added, but not all of them are showing up in the proper places when I do a search for them. So I am going to have to figure that out. I finished up the budget and started this post and then went to pick up Seth from school. We stopped at the library on our way home to renew a few items, return a few items, and check out a few new things. Tonight I am taking Seth to see a play at his school.

Seth is still moving really slowly in the mornings (although I have not yet been successful at getting him to bed earlier) but I've managed to get him to school on time every day. I had the idea a few days ago that I should say a prayer with him in the mornings (somewhere along the line we got out of the habit of doing that) and praying has at least helped both of us stay calmer. I don't think he is moving faster or staying more focused, but at least we aren't arguing or yelling at each other.

I have not had as much time to quilt this week, but I have worked on it at least a little bit every day. I finished the third row and I have started on the fourth row. here it is with the 3 rows completed:

Here's a close up:

Hopefully I will have more time to work on it this coming week!

That is all the news I can think of for this week.

Weekly Review March 15 '19

When I wrote last Friday, I mentioned it was snowing. Today it is 70 degrees! That's spring weather for you. Tomorrow we are back down to the high 40s / low 50s which isn't nearly so nice, but is still not bad. Yesterday was pretty warm also (although not as warm as today) and it was fun to see the whole neighborhood come out of hibernation, haha! We're all enjoying the warmer temperatures while they last. Here is a summary of our week:

Saturday: Seth was begging me to make muffins on Friday night, so I made muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning. I also made a pan of brownies for my Primary class--one of the kids had a birthday and that is the treat he asked for. The rest of the day I kept really busy filling out my time sheet for the Arc, cleaning the kitchen floor, practicing the ukulele, working on stuff for my music calling, completing a projected income worksheet for Jared (part of his petition to get financial aid), helping Seth prepare a lesson for YM the following day, and working on the quilt. Meanwhile, Frank was doing laundry (I helped with that) and packing because he had a business trip this week and he was flying out on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday: Frank came to church to take the sacrament, but he had to leave after that. Only 4 of the 8 kids in my Primary class showed up; the birthday boy was one of the missing children! I know at least one of the kids was sick, but I think a lot of people forgot to set their clocks ahead one hour for daylight savings time. There were a lot of kids missing from Primary, not just kids in my class. After church I took a nap and did the usual indexing, scripture study, etc. Seth and I also watched Snow White together. Frank arrived in Dallas safely. He was there all week (he's still there, actually) getting training on the system that the Roy Rogers restaurants use. He will be back late tonight. We've missed him and we're glad he'll be back soon! 

Monday: I didn't have to work so I got some extra errands done (besides the usual chores). I took some cards over to my ministering companion's house for her to sign (the cards are for the sisters we minister to) and I ended up having a pretty long chat with her. Her husband was laid off from his job about the same time as Frank was, and he still doesn't have a job (although he has a part time temporary job at least) so I asked her how she was doing. She's handling things pretty well but I think she really needed someone to just vent to for a while. So I'm glad I asked. I also took Snickers on a walk (it was chilly, but not too cold). In the evening, Seth and I got ice cream at Dairy Queen and played a game for family night. I worked on the quilt a lot that day, too.

Tuesday: After dropping Seth off at school, I went to a "new" store here in Frederick because I just wanted to see what it was like. I put new in quotation marks because it actually opened last summer but I decided then that I was not going to go there while Frank was unemployed. I would probably just see a lot of things I wanted and feel depressed that I couldn't buy anything. The store is called At Home, and it's a home furniture / decor store. It's huge and I wandered around that store for an hour and a half! But I didn't buy anything--I'm proud of myself for that! Actually, I really wasn't tempted. I saw a lot of things that I liked, but nothing that I really need right now. In the future if I am looking for a specific item like a piece of furniture or a rug or something to hang on the wall, then I will probably go there to look because they have a really wide selection so I will probably find what I want there. But for now, I am good! After "shopping", I came home and got all the regular chores done and worked on the quilt a bit. That evening I went to the monthly RS meeting, which was the RS birthday celebration. It turned out to be really fun. One sister showed us how to do several cake decorating techniques (she had 5 display cakes that showed different techniques) and then we had a little cake decorating competition. We were seated at tables according to our birth months, and each table made a cake. (There were only 7 cakes because some of the tables who didn't have a lot of people combined together and some tables had two months assigned to them in the first place.) I was at the June / July table (of course), but it turns out that all of us were born in July. We decided that we should make a summer themed cake, so this is what we came up with:

We used one of the techniques we learned to get the different colors on the side of the cake. They had several bags of different colors of frosting available for us to use, as well as a lot of sprinkles, fruit, and some flowers. They didn't actually have black sprinkles but they had some sprinkles that were black, purple, green, and blue combined, so we went through it and picked out a bunch of black ones to sprinkle on our cake for the "seeds". It turned out looking pretty good, don't you think?

Here are the other cakes (including ours) I think they all turned out really nice:

That last cake, if you can't tell, is a rendition of "The Three Little Pigs". Here is our bishopric judging the cakes:

Third place went to the cake with the flowers "growing" on the side, second place went to the 3 Little Pigs cake, and first place went to our watermelon cake! We were so proud of ourselves! :) The people on the second and third place teams each got a candy bar for a prize. But the members of the first place team each got to take home one of the display cakes. Here they are:  

 This is the one that I got:

I picked that one because it reminded me of the cake that Jared & Jessie want for their wedding. Seth wanted a piece when I brought it home, of course, but then he decided that he didn't like it! (Probably because it is different from the boxed cake mix / canned frosting cakes that he is used to. This one was made from scratch and has homemade buttercream frosting.) That has left me with the whole cake to myself...yikes! I mean, I think it's delicious, but I can't eat a whole cake! Anyway, after the judging, we had a spiritual message and then they cut all the competition cakes and we ate those for refreshments. Look how cute our cake looks when it's cut...kind of like a slice of watermelon!:

Wednesday: I was super busy with just the usual things. Having the religion class in the middle of the day always makes Wednesdays busy...I get Walmart shopping done in the morning and then go to the class. After class, I only have a little bit of time before I have to pick up Seth from school. Then there is brain balance and dinner before taking Seth to YM. So I feel like I run from one thing to another all day! I did manage to work on the quilt, but just a little bit. I also was texting Tanner a lot that day about wedding stuff and texting with Jessie's mom about wedding stuff too! And I called Mom and talked to her for a while also.

Thursday: I got chores done in the morning and then went to work for a couple of hours in the afternoon. After work I took Snickers for a walk and worked on the quilt a little bit. I took Seth out to dinner that night and let him choose where we went. He chose Golden Corral, which is not my favorite but it was pretty good. It's a buffet place and I usually end up eating too much because there are so many choices! On the way home we stopped to drop off something for one of the sisters I minister to. Her kids were outside playing and I got to visit with her for a bit while Seth played with her kids. I haven't seen her in a while so it was good to get caught up a little bit.

Friday: Today so far I just got the budget caught up, and of course now I have this blog post mostly done!

Meanwhile, Frank was in Dallas all week, as I mentioned before. I don't feel like I've been able to talk to him much because the times he was available to talk didn't line up very well with the times I was available, but we did talk a little bit every day. There were 3 other people getting the training with him...one from Seattle who works for Taco Time, and two from Jamaica, who work for KFC. The two guys from Jamaica didn't have a car so in the evenings he often took them to dinner with him and he also took them shopping a bunch of places. I laughed when he told me on Monday that he took them to Best Buy to do some shopping...this is what computer nerds do when they get together!! But actually, he said that they can get a lot of things here in the states that they can't get at home and a lot of things are less expensive here too. So another night he took them to a clothing store and a third night he took them to Walmart. He went to see a movie on one of the other nights. He says he has learned a ton in the training. I think he has had a pretty good week but he is glad to be coming home today. At home, Seth tried to convince me every night to let him sleep in my bed (he thinks our bed is a lot more comfortable than his)! I never gave in, though. Seth has continued to struggle with moving quickly in the mornings and he has almost been late to school more than once. Not sure why he is going through this phase, but I'm going to work on getting him to bed sooner to see if that helps. It's not that he's sleeping in, though. He's awake--he just doesn't get out of bed for a long time. Then once he's up, he gets distracted a lot and plays instead of getting ready for school. It's frustrating, but we'll keep working on it.

To finish up, I worked on the quilt a lot over the weekend (not Sunday) and tried to work on it every day this week, even though some days that was only a little bit. I made a lot of progress and actually finished quilting the second row of squares and I am almost half way through the third row. So that is encouraging that I could get that much done in a week. Seems like the first row took me at least 3 weeks to complete. Maybe I will get it finished sooner than I thought! I hope so, because this quilt is actually for Jared & Jessie (they don't know this, so don't tell them if you talk to them!) and I'd like to get one made for Tanner & Darlee now too. I doubt I will get theirs done before their wedding but hopefully I will at least get it started.

And that is all I've got for this week!

Weekly Review March 8 '19

It is snowing. Not very hard, and it's not really sticking, but still...it is snowing! This week has been really cold too--as in highs in the 20s or 30s most days. Not very typical March weather. I know winter can't hang on forever, though! We are supposed to get some much nicer days in the next week. Now that we've got the weather report out of the way, here's what else we did this week:

Sunday: I had choir practice and church meetings as usual. When I got to Primary, my team teacher wasn't there and then her husband (who plays the piano) asked if I got her message. No, I hadn't (because my phone was turned down). She was sick and wasn't going to make it. I went back to let one of the counselors know I was going to need a helper but on the way I encountered one of the moms of one of the kids in my class and she asked me if I needed help and volunteered to help me so that problem was solved! (Bless people who volunteer like that!) After church I stopped to see my friend Wanda because she hadn't made it to church. She was okay, just didn't come because she thought the weather was going to be bad (and it was supposed to snow...it just hadn't started snowing yet). She needed some things from the store, so I promised to come back on Wednesday morning when I was on my way to the store to get a list from her. The rest of Sunday was spent at home reading scriptures, indexing, and so forth. I discovered a bunch of new family activities on Family Search so Seth and I looked at some of those. I did one activity where they matched my features (from a photo I uploaded) to my ancestors and told me who I looked like. The strongest match was...my mom! I was a 70% match to her. It did start snowing that afternoon and we got a couple of inches of snow.

Monday: Because of the snow, there was a 2 hour delay for school. I was supposed to be taking my Arc lady to the doctor at 9:30, but the delay messes up her schedule too (because she works for before and after school care) so she had to change her appointment. Instead, I did go pick her up at 11:00 (after I took Seth to school) and took her to run a few errands. It was a short day, though...I only worked for about a half hour. She had sick family members that she needed to help take care of on Thursday, so I didn't work on Thursday at all. Anyway, the rest of Monday was pretty busy with regular chores, plus taking Snickers to the vet. I did also manage to file our state tax return. (I filed the federal return on Saturday and it was accepted.) The vet visit was his annual check up. He had to have several vaccines, blood work done, and they also drew some cells out of a growth to test them. It all added up to a pretty hefty bill before we were done, and there's more to come because he also needs an ultrasound ( to check his liver) and his teeth cleaned (they should have been cleaned last year but we put it off because of the job situation). The blood work they did showed that his liver still has some problems so we're doing the ultrasound to check it out. 

Tuesday:There's not a lot to say about Tuesday. I got the usual chores done and worked on the quilt.

Wednesday: Wednesday was also pretty standard, although pretty busy since I stopped by my friend Wanda's to get her list and I also have the religion class on Wednesdays. I got the shopping done before the class and when I picked up Seth from school he came with me to drop off Wanda's things at her place. I was glad he was there to help me because although she didn't have a lot of stuff, one thing was bottled water and that was pretty heavy, of course. That evening Frank took Seth to YM and back so I could work on the quilt. For YM they learned how to build a fire. Seth seemed to have fun even though they were outside and that was the coldest day of the week with highs in the 20s, plus it was windy! After they got a fire built, they had hot chocolate and s'more pop tarts.

Thursday: Normal busy Thursday, plus I worked on the quilt some more and I got my hair cut. I finished the first row of 5 squares on the quilt:

I also started working on the next row last night. I am pleased with how it looks so far but it is taking a long time!

Friday: Today I got the budget caught up and I met Frank for a lunch date. He is keeping busy at work and it seems to be going well. He was also pretty busy with some work for clients after hours a couple of evenings this week. When I picked Seth up from school this afternoon, we stopped at the library to pick up a few movies I put on hold for Seth and he got another book and a couple of games too. The movies were two classic Disney movies--Snow White and Cinderella--because he's never seen them. We used to have a lot of the classic Disney movies, but they were on VHS and our video tape recorder died a long time ago so I gave away all our VHS movies.

I did a lot of reading this week, too, and finished the book for book chat which is called Confessions of a Domestic Failure. There were things I didn't like about the book when I first started it, but I liked the way it ended and it was pretty funny at times and definitely entertaining.

Update of Tanner's wedding: they have chosen June 28th for the wedding date and will be married in the Payson Temple. The ceremony will be at 1:00. They are going to have a reception that evening in Orem in Darlee's backyard. They don't have very many details figured out yet, but that is the basics. I talked to Darlee's mom for a while on Wednesday evening to discuss some of the plans but most of it is still pretty up in the air at this point. I'll keep everyone updated on important details as we figure things out.

To finish up, here is a humorous piece of junk mail we got today:

Haha, I wasn't aware that I had a daughter!!

Not so funny...in the last few weeks we have received a couple of unexpected bills. One was for some imaging Frank had done on his knees 2 1/2 years ago! (Right after his second accident.) Oh, and it was a $2000 bill! We're pretty sure that they never submitted the bill to our health insurance, or if they did they did it recently and our insurance has changed since then so of course it would be denied. We called the lawyer who handled the settlement for that wreck and they are looking into it. Hopefully we won't have to pay the bill (our insurance would have covered most if not all of it if it had been submitted in a timely manner) but it is just another hassle to worry about. Then last week we got a bill related to a rental car we had during the summer of 2017 in Utah. One of Mom's neighbors backed into it when it was parked on the street in front of her house and caused some damage. Apparently his (the neighbor's) insurance paid most of the bill but not all of it and they are saying that we are responsible for the rest. It's not a large amount, at least, but in principle I don't think we should have to pay anything since we were completely not at fault. (We were asleep in bed when he hit our car, and we were legally parked.) So there's another hassle to work through. Then today I got a bill for a routine doctor visit I had last month, which should have been covered by our insurance. When I called on that one, it turned out that they had one of the numbers in my member ID wrong, so when they submitted it to my health insurance company they couldn't identify me as a member and so they denied the claim. At least that one is being resubmitted to the insurance so it should be taken care of. But seriously! I hope we don't receive any more surprise bills dealing with things that happened a year or two ago!!

That's it for this week.

Weekly Review March 1 '19

I didn't get the weekly review written yesterday because I was gone a good portion of the day and didn't get home until nearly midnight. I'll get to that later. Going back to last Saturday, here's what we did:

Saturday: I worked in the morning, helping the lady with the hip replacement. (Her last name is Bell, I will refer to them as "the Bells" from now on to make things simpler!) Frank took Seth to see the movie How to Train your Dragon 3, which Seth really loved. They were still gone when I got home.  I spent the rest of the day running some errands (including going to the library), submitted my Arc timesheet, practicing the ukulele, cleaning the kitchen floor, and working on stuff for my music calling. In the evening, I went to a "girls night" with some of my friends--we just visited and ate snacks, but it was fun. There were a few new people that I hadn't had the chance to get to know very well until then, so it was nice to get to know them better.

Sunday: Church as usual, and then I went to help the Bells for 3 hours. After that I went to visit a friend in the ward--she fell and broke her hip several weeks ago but they didn't diagnose it correctly for 5 weeks! So then she had to have surgery to get her hip put back together. She is doing better now and is able to walk with a walker but isn't getting out much yet. Anyway, we had a nice visit. Frank had some small emergencies come up with a few clients, so he was working a bit. After I got home from my visit it was dinner time so Sunday went by fast! I did get some time to do some scripture study and go over my Primary lesson too though. I knew that Tanner was planning to propose to Darlee on Sunday and by late evening I hadn't heard anything so I texted him to ask him to please keep me updated and he replied a few minutes later with "Just happened!!" and this photo:

So that was pretty exciting, of course! They called me a while later so we could talk for a little while. They haven't set a firm wedding date yet, but they are talking about the last weekend in June. If they do that, Tanner's wedding will be 2 weeks after Jared's...on the opposite side of the country! It's going to be crazy, but we are happy for both our boys, of course!

Monday: The lady I support at the Arc was sick, so I didn't work that day. My friend Rebekah texted me to see if I could go to lunch on Wednesday but that day was booked. I told her I was really busy all week but I did have time to go to lunch that day if she happened to be free and she was, so we went to lunch right then instead. Other than that, it was a pretty normal day and I just got the usual chores done.

Tuesday: This was a busy day. I worked at the Bells in the morning. Then in the afternoon I had a webinar training to learn how to do the web page stuff for Frank's client. I don't think it's going to be too hard although I need to go over it again. After all that it was time for the usual pick up Seth from school / brain balance / make dinner routine. After dinner my ministering sisters came to visit me. They stayed quite a while but I worked on the quilt while I visited with them so I got quite a bit done on it and now I am working on squares 4 and 5 out of 25. (Yes, still a long way to go.)

Wednesday: I ran from one thing to another all day long! I worked at the Bells in the morning. I went straight from there to the religion class. (I ate a lunch that I had packed on the way there.) Then I went home long enough to let Snickers out and then I went to visit one of the sisters I minister to. She had a baby at the end of November, and this is actually the first time I've seen her since she had her baby but I have kept in touch with her by texting nearly every week to see if I could help her with anything. Her mom and one of her sisters live nearby and have been helping her a lot and actually they were both there when I went to visit. I think adjusting to motherhood hasn't been easy for her but she is doing a lot better now. After that visit, it was time to pick up Seth from school. After dinner I took Seth to his YM activity (actually scouts that night) and then went to Walmart to get the weekly shopping done since I hadn't had time to do that earlier in the day. Frank was doing some work for a client but he finished so he meet me at Walmart and helped me get all the groceries. Then he went to pick Seth up from YM while I took the groceries home and got everything put away.

Thursday: I had a lot to do on Thursday also, partly because I had to catch up on chores that I didn't get done on Tuesday and Wednesday, besides the usual Thursday chores. I also worked at the Arc for a couple of hours in the afternoon. While I was out taking the lady I support to the places she needed to go, we both got text messages from the school system saying that the next day's scheduled 2 hour early release had been changed to a 2 hour delay. That's because we were predicted to get 1 to 3 inches of snow overnight. It made sense--since there is not much point in going to school 2 hours late and then getting out 2 hours early--but it caused complications for a lot of people, including me. It was complicated for me because I was planning to go to the temple with a group the next day and we had to leave at 2:30 in order to get to the temple in time for the 6:30 session. Since it was supposed to be a 2 hour early release, Seth would get out at 1:30.  (His school gets out at 3:30 every day except Fridays. On Fridays he gets out at 2:30. But when there is a 2 hour early release on a Friday, he actually gets out 2 hours earlier than the usual 3:30 dismissal time, not 2 hours earlier than the Friday 2:30 dismissal time.) When they changed back to getting out on time, that meant I would need to pick him up at 2:30--which is the same time that I needed to be at leaving the church to go to the temple. However, Frank also got the message and knew that would mess me up. He talked to his boss and got permission to leave work long enough to pick Seth up and take him home, so I could still go to the temple.

Friday:  First day of March! We probably got about an inch or more of snow but it didn't stick to sidewalks or roads which is my kind of snow! (No shoveling, no slippery roads.) I mean, the roads were probably a little icy but I didn't have to go anywhere until 11:00 (to take Seth to school) so the roads were fine by then. I tried to get going on the budget but Seth was a distraction. After I took him to school, I did work on it but I had other things to do too so I didn't get everything done before I needed to start getting ready to go to the temple. Originally, about 10 women were going to go (it was an RS temple trip) but with the schedule change and lots of other things that came up, only 4 of us were able to go in the end. It was still nice. Every time Frank and I have driven to the Philadelphia Temple, we have encountered horrible traffic and it takes us much longer to get there than it should have. This time the traffic was not very bad so we got to the temple in a little over 3 hours. (Technically it should be 2 1/2 hours, so we still had some traffic slow downs, but that is still pretty good!) That gave us plenty of time to change and so forth--it was nice not to be rushed! I haven't been able to go to the temple since November, so it was really nice to be there again. Our session was packed--they had to bring in extra chairs and there were at least 2 people there who were receiving their own endowment. Even so, thanks to the shorter endowment session, we were back in the car on our way home by shortly after 8:30. We got back to the church by 11:30. It rained / slushed on the way home and there was a layer of slushy ice / snow on my car when we got back but the roads weren't bad going home. I enjoyed visiting with the other 3 ladies on the way to Philadelphia and back and I am really, really glad I got to go to the temple again! It is so hard to get there right now. I had such a busy week that I wasn't sure how I was going to manage a trip to the temple too but I wanted to go so badly and I'm glad I did it. Somehow everything else got done anyway. And big bonus: I didn't have to drive!! :)

Saturday: This morning I worked at the Bells, but that was my last day doing that. I enjoyed getting to know them--they are really nice ladies! I've been pretty busy the rest of the day cleaning the kitchen floor, finishing the budget, reviewing my Primary lesson, and working on things for my music calling. After I finish this post, I am going to hopefully figure out the problem with our taxes and get them filed.

I have been trying a few new recipes from the diabetic cookbooks lately and here is one I made recently that Frank and I both really liked:

Blancos Huevos Ranchero! It's scrambled egg whites with cheese, avocado, cilantro, salsa verde, greek yogurt, and jalepeno pepper (I omitted the jalepeno from mine) on toasted corn tortillas. It's actually really flavorful and yummy and bonus--it's pretty healthy too.

I had a pretty difficult week with Seth. He has just not been moving very fast (getting very distracted) in the mornings and since I had places I needed to be some mornings that stressed me out. At the beginning of the school year, he was doing so well at getting up and getting ready for school quickly. Now he dawdles and plays and wastes a lot of time so that he barely has time to eat a little bit before we need to leave. He does this in spite of repeated reminders from me, but then tries to shift the blame back on me when we're running late. ("You should have woken me up earlier." "You should have told me 'no' when I climbed into your bed instead of getting in the shower" Fact: he woke up an hour earlier than usual on this particular morning and I did tell him not to get in my bed but he did it anyway! It's really frustrating and discouraging. I have been working so hard on brain balance with him but so far it doesn't seem to be doing any good. I hope we will see some results at some point and that it hasn't been a waste of time.

But to end on a positive note, I have been noticing something really cool about music during Sacrament meeting. Since I am the ward music chair and am in charge of choosing all the hymns, I notice the music more than anybody else, I'm sure. For most meetings, a member of the bishopric will let me know the topic for the talks ahead of time so that I can choose hymns that will go along with the topic. Sometimes it is easy to choose hymns that coordinate, but some topics are more challenging. I usually get the topic only a week or two in advance which means that I can usually choose hymns based on that topic, but most of the special musical numbers need to be arranged farther in advance so I never know what the topic is going to be when I set those up. In spite of that, it is amazing how almost always the music coordinates perfectly with what is said! This Sunday, for instance, the topic was "self worth". That was a more difficult topic to choose hymns for--I mean, that's not one of the topics listed in the topics index in the back of the hymnbook. So I have to go more from memory, trying to think of hymns that will sort of fit that idea. I immediately thought of "I Am a Child of God", but couldn't think of much else. So I had to leaf through the pages a bit and look at other topics that I thought were related enough that I might find something and eventually I was kind of drawn to the hymn "Our Savior's Love", so I chose that for the closing hymn. Meanwhile, I had arranged to have one of the brothers in our ward sing a solo. He had offered to sing "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul" for Christmas, but I already had a full program planned so I asked him if he could sing it in January or February. I originally asked another group to perform this Sunday, but it was a bad week for them so they asked to do theirs another week. So then I asked this brother if he was available to sing that week and he was, so that's what I had planned. This is long before I knew the topic for the talks. So as I said, I notice the words to the songs a lot more now and this Sunday the words to those songs all blended so perfectly--not just with the topic in general--but with specific things that the speakers said. It is just really humbling to realize that Heavenly Father pays attention to the details--ALL the details! (And just today I found out that the topic for 2 weeks from now is "testimony of the Savior" and the the musical number that I arranged for that week is "The King of Love My Shepherd Is". Another perfect fit! I should also note that it's not really me who is doing this--the person performing the song picked it. So everyone involved is being nudged by the spirit.) Anyway, I just love that! I love seeing His hand in even the small details of our meetings. That turned into quite a ramble, but hopefully it made sense!