Weekly Review May 3 '19

My first iris bloomed on May day:

Now there are 4 or 5 of them blooming out front. We've continued to have typical spring weather, which means some days are nice, some are kind of chilly, and some are pretty hot. Here is the summary for this week:

Friday: Frank and I got to go out for dinner as a belated anniversary celebration. We went to a Mediterranean place and it was really good. 

Saturday: I had to kind of laugh at myself on Saturday because I realized I was "nesting". Frank left to go pick up Jared and Jessie from the airport and I was running all over the house, "tidying up". I realized that I always do that when one of the kids is coming home after a longer absence...just like I did the weeks before each of them were born. (As a matter of fact, this house cleaning / organizing / decluttering project I have embarked on...isn't that really just a huge case of nesting, because I know ALL of the boys are coming home in June?) The thing that is funny about it is that my kids don't care a fig if the house is tidy or not. And certainly babies don't care, either!! But it got me wondering...does nesting cause some kind of feeling in the air of the home? A "welcome, we love you, and went to a lot of effort for you" kind of feeling that the child (baby) can sense, even if they don't consciously notice that the house has been cleaned up in their honor? I guess I'll never know the answer to that, but I do know I always feel compelled to welcome my kids with a house that is as clean and uncluttered as I can manage. Anyway...after all that philosophizing, now back to the other things we did on Saturday. I was actually really proud of Seth. He started the day kind of crabby and difficult but we got him out the door by 8:00 to go help with the annual scout lawn aeration fundraiser. I really thought he would only make it an hour or so, but he worked until we needed to pick him up at around noon (because I needed his help with other things) and he worked that whole time and came home in a good mood without any complaints! Then he spent all afternoon until dinner time working in his room to help me finish cleaning and organizing it, and once again...he was really cooperative and didn't complain or anything. Super nice!! His room looks like this now:

Yes, I would still prefer less clutter and fewer Legos than there are! But now we can see his floor. And the pull out bed is not covered with Legos anymore. And there are fewer things scattered on his bookshelves, desk, and dresser (even though there's more things scattered there than I would like). I'd really like that big basket of Bionicles to go too but I'm going to have to be patient about that. Someday, he will be ready to give them up! (And I think when he is, we're going to make a small fortune on eBay because we have so many of them and some of them are quite old and worth quite a bit.) Besides spending several hours cleaning Seth's room, on Saturday I also cleaned the kitchen floor, reviewed my Primary lesson, practiced the ukulele, worked on stuff for my music calling, worked on wedding stuff, did some work for the office furniture website, worked on our amended tax returns, and worked on the quilt. So it was a very busy day! I actually worked a few hours on the quilt and I finished sewing the quilt top:

And of course Jared came home!! So that was nice, and we are enjoying having him here.

Sunday: Jared came with me to choir practice. I assumed that he and Jessie would be going to the YSA ward until they get married, but they actually decided that since this is the last time either of them will be living at home, they wanted to spend more time with their families so they are each going to go to the ward with their families. Frank and I took naps after church and I did some indexing and we had family night.

Monday: I worked with my Arc friend for a few hours in the morning...she wanted to do some shopping at an outlet mall. I spent the rest of the day getting the regular chores done and I also contacted BYU catering and got the date for Tanner's luncheon cleared up and contacted the webmaster for the office furniture website because he was helping me solve the sideways photo problem. (Hopefully it's solved now, but we'll see.) Jared helped with the laundry, thankfully, because there was a TON of it. That was his fault, though, because he brought home so much dirty laundry. He mentioned on Saturday when he got home that he needed to do laundry, but when I told him that I usually do laundry on Monday, he decided it could wait. If I had known that he needed to wash EVERY STITCH OF CLOTHING HE OWNED BESIDES WHAT HE HAD ON, I would have told him to do laundry on Saturday! But as I said, he helped a lot. He kept the wash moving while I was gone and he also folded almost all of it. That evening we all (including Jessie) went to a Frederick Keys baseball game. (The Frederick Keys are the local minor league baseball team. They are named the Keys after Francis Scott Key, who lived most of his life in Frederick and is buried here.) The reason we went to this particular baseball game is because Roy Rogers was making a donation to the Cal Ripken Foundation and so we all got free tickets through Frank's work. Plus, they had rented a box for our group and had all this free food too, so that was nice. The only thing that wasn't nice is that it happened to be one of our chilly days. It was cloudy and only in the low 60s and windy. And of course as the sun went down it got chillier. We could watch the game from inside the box, of course, but it was pretty crowded so we all stayed outside most of the time except for Frank--he went in and out because he was talking with various people that he works with. (A few blankets that Jared retrieved from the car helped us out a lot.) We met Frank's boss and a lot of his coworkers, and we also met the owner of  Plamondon, which is the company that owns all the local Roy Rogers restaurants (and the local Marriott hotels also). Everyone was really nice. The game went pretty late, since baseball games are always kind of long, and no one made it to the end of the game but our family outlasted everybody in the group, staying until the end of the 7th inning. Seth had a blast and he was really excited because he got on the big screen three times. We also had a few close calls with foul balls, although Seth was disappointed that we never got a chance to catch a ball.

Roy Rogers advertisement, with the Plamondon Hospitality Partners advertisement right next to it.

Oh, and the Keys won the game! It was 5-0 when we went home, and the final score was 5-2. One of the owners of the company told us that they have blocks of tickets for all the games so if we ever want to go to a game, we can probably get free tickets again. We will probably do it again sometime...on a warmer day!

Tuesday: I didn't exercise on either Tuesday or Thursday because I didn't get up in time. But I did get all the regular chores done on Tuesday, plus I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah, took Seth to the orthodontist, and went to book chat in the evening. Jared mowed the lawn for me, which I really appreciated! My friend Rebekah and I had planned to go to Boston Market but discovered that it has closed! That's kind of a bummer because I really like Boston Market and now the closest one to us is 30 minutes away. The orthodontist persuaded Seth to let him try pulling 3 of his teeth and he did pull 2 of them out. He has so many loose teeth that are just barely holding on! He also decided that we can give it a few more months and see if he can keep wiggling them and get more of them out. Which is fine with me, because I'd rather not have to pay the dentist to pull a bunch of them. The orthodontist didn't even charge us for the 2 he pulled, which was nice. Book chat was fun as always, with lively discussion. Now we are going to read a book called When You Reach Me, which is actually an older child / young adult Newbery winner book, and I have already read it twice--once a few years ago, and then I read it again in the last couple of days! I decided I needed to read it again since I couldn't remember it very well, but I didn't intend to read it that fast. But it is pretty short and easy to read and I just got through it really fast. It's one of those books where you are trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together, so it's pretty motivating to keep going. The first time I read it, I had a really hard time putting it down because I just wanted to know what was really going on!! This time I remembered enough that I was okay putting it down but as I said--I still read it pretty quickly.

Wednesday: I got Seth to school, came home for a little while and then took Jared to work. He actually wasn't scheduled to work this week but he picked up a few shifts. (He's working at Chick-fil-a again this summer.) His work is right next to Walmart, so I did the Walmart shopping right after I dropped him off and then went to my religion class. We are going to study the Pearl of Great Price this summer and this week we learned all about the history of the Pearl of Great Price--where it came from and so forth. I actually learned a lot of things I didn't know and it was interesting. After class I worked on the quilt for a bit--started marking it--and then I had to pick up Jared from work and then Seth from school. Then it was time to do brain balance with Seth and to make dinner and after dinner I took Seth to YM. I had agreed to take a couple of other kids home when I picked Seth up at the end. (Meanwhile, Jared went to Jessie's and they worked on addressing wedding invitations.) I really needed to get some work done for the office furniture website, but didn't get the chance to start working on that until about 9:00 pm. I stopped long enough to say prayers with everybody and then I kept working on it while everyone else went to bed and I ended up staying up until 1:30 am finishing everything! I didn't intend to stay up that late, but once I got going I really wanted to finish it.

Thursday: I actually woke up about 6:00 and never took a nap either--not sure how I functioned on so little sleep but I wasn't even that tired. I got the regular chores done (Jared helped with vacuuming) and kept working on marking the quilt. It's probably my least favorite part of the project, but it has to be done. I'm hoping to finish that part tonight. Jared had an appointment with the eye doctor in the afternoon, and even though I called and added him as a driver on our car insurance, I still had to take him because I was worried he wouldn't be done before I needed to pick up Seth from school. And I was right--he wasn't quite done when I needed to leave but thankfully I didn't have to go back and get him because Jessie stopped by (her mom works at this eye doctor's office) and she said she could bring Jared home. They did some shopping or something before coming home too. While I was waiting for Jared at the eye doctor, there were a couple of little kids running around and they came over and started talking to me and pretty soon they were handing me toys and books and climbing up into my lap and everything! When their mom finally appeared, she just looked at me but didn't say anything, which I thought was kind of strange. I mean, I didn't really mind that they were climbing all over me, but if my kids had been doing that with a complete stranger, I would have told them to stop and I would have apologized to the stranger. For that matter, I wouldn't have left them roaming through the waiting room alone for that long, but to each his own, I guess. Frank decided that he really wanted to go see End Game after work so he got tickets for him and the boys. There wasn't time for him to come home from work and then go back, so we drove over to meet him at a restaurant and I traded cars with him. I was supposed to be going to a stake RS activity--a dinner and speaker--but after dropping the boys off I decided not to go. I had a bad headache and the thought of being able to lie down in a quiet house was just too appealing!! So I just made myself a sandwich for dinner and relaxed and that's when I read most of the book chat book. I also folded clothes and did some other chores that I hadn't had time to finish earlier (my head felt better by then). I did have the house to myself for a couple of hours but they got back home a lot earlier than expected because something went wrong with the movie about half way through and the picture went out!! They couldn't fix it, either. What rotten luck! So now poor Frank and Seth are waiting to see what happens. (Jared has already seen the movie.) They did give each of them 2 free movie tickets at least. Hopefully they will be able to go see the movie soon, and hopefully it will work this time. (I fell behind on the Avengers movies several years ago, so I need to watch a whole bunch of other movies before I can see this one. Maybe in a few years...or maybe a decade!...)

Friday: Today I got the budget done and took Seth to the library. Jared and I took a few things to the storage unit too. My cleaning / organizing / de-cluttering project for this week is supposed to be my bedroom and closet, but I have barely got anything done except I went through a couple of bags of salt & pepper shakers that Frank's mom has given me in the last few years. I'm hoping to get some more work done in my room tomorrow. I actually need to get a couple of bookcases before I can really get things moved around in there the way I want to. But I also went through my closet about a month ago and purged a lot of clothes and also about a month ago I got some new underbed storage containers and put a lot of stuff in them, so my bedroom and closet are already a lot better than they were a few months ago. We actually had 2 large underbed storage containers sitting in the corner of our bedroom on the floor for YEARS because when we got our king size mattress several years ago we got a metal bed frame rather than getting a new king size bed (headboard, etc). As it turns out, the frame is a lot lower than our previous queen size bed was, so the underbed storage containers wouldn't fit under it anymore. And there they have sat, with a lot of stuff accumulating on top of them,  until I finally found some underbed containers that do fit. I was pretty happy when I found them, believe me!! So our room isn't too bad, but there's still plenty we could do to get it more organized and less cluttered, and I hope to make some progress on that tomorrow. I was supposed to take my friend Wanda to the store today but she changed her mind and I was glad because I barely got the budget done before I had to go pick up Seth as it was. Plus that gave Jared a chance to take the car this morning so he and Jessie got more wedding invitations addressed.

Speaking of weddings, Tanner sent me a link a few days ago for he & Darlee's engagement portraits and they are beautiful!! We also ordered ties for everybody for Jared's wedding and Jared's came a few days ago and the rest of them came today. These weddings are starting to seem more and more real. I gave Jared & Jessie their quilt on Monday because I wanted to surprise them with it and I knew that Jared was going to see me working on Tanner & Darlee's quilt and he would probably figure out that I had made him one too. So I gave it to them early. And they were surprised, and they did like it a lot.

That's all I can think of to report except to say that we are praying for Erick and his family and we will fast for you all on Sunday, too. We love you and hope you can feel the strength of all of us praying for you!!

Weekly Review April 26 '19

This week was much the same as all the other weeks we've had recently...lots going on! It's pretty much going to be like this until we get through the weddings. I'm going to summarize this week with categories, though, rather than by day. I can't remember what I did most days anyway! It's all mixed up in my head. I think I felt a bit calmer this week than I have recently, though. I'm not sure why...maybe it was because I had a complete meltdown on Monday morning and got it out of my system? I don't know. I'm not proud of having a meltdown (even at the time there was a part of me wondering why I was behaving that way, and realizing that it was totally ridiculous) but at any rate, I'm thankful that I've felt better since then. Anyway, here we go with categories:

Spring Break: Seth had Thursday and Friday off last week and Monday off this week. I am a lame mom and didn't plan anything fun. For one thing, I didn't have any "days off"--I still had just as much to do. And for another thing, Seth actually prefers to stay home and complains if I plan too many things, so I don't feel very motivated to plan things under those circumstances. He spent way too much time watching television and playing games since I was swamped with other things.

Easter: We didn't even dye eggs this year! Seth said he really didn't care and Frank and I were both swamped getting other things done so we didn't bother with eggs. The Easter bunny did bring us a very generous amount of candy, though. (I even sent a bunch to the boys in Utah so we wouldn't have so much.)

We also went to church, of course, and I watched the Tabernacle Choir's Easter concert on Saturday evening. We did read the suggested scriptures from "Come Follow Me" every night for Easter week also, which I really enjoyed doing. In the evening on Easter Sunday we went to visit a member of our ward who is in a care center getting rehab after he had a bad fall and injured his head. He was really fun to visit with (even Seth was interested!) and I think he really appreciated the visit. We took him some Easter dinner too (ham, asparagus, fruit salad, deviled eggs and rolls) and he was really happy that we brought deviled eggs because he really likes them. (We did boil some eggs! We just didn't dye them.) Anyway, that was a nice way to spend our evening. The care center was about 20 minutes from here, in a little town called Emmitsburg, but the drive through the country was beautiful. I tried to get pictures and none of them do it justice, but here are a few:

When we got home, the view out our back windows was just as good:

Which brings me to Weather: We had absolutely beautiful days on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Actually Tuesday was a little on the hot side. But overall the trend is mornings that are cool and days that are warm and pleasant, although some days are warmer than others. We've also had some rain and thunderstorms and a number of tornado watches (and another tornado warning at some point--I can't remember now which day that was). We're actually under a tornado watch right now, until 9:00 pm tonight and it's been raining (sometimes lightly, sometimes harder) most of the day. I love spring!!

House cleaning / de-cluttering project: I didn't finish everything I wanted to do in the kitchen last week, but I did get quite a bit done and I can definitely see a difference. Hopefully I will manage to clean the rest of the cupboards and some of the other things that I didn't finish...sometime! I have no idea when. Once again, while cleaning some of the cupboards and drawers, I managed to take off some of the finish along with the dirt and grease. (I did the same thing to one of the cabinets the last time I tried to deep clean them, which was a few years back). Overall, they still look better clean, with some of the finish rubbed off, than they did when they were dirty. Maybe some day I will repaint them all or something. My project for this week is Seth's room and yep--I'm not finished yet. But when he was home from school on Monday we did a lot of work in his room. We mostly went through everything and he told me what he was willing to part with. I was actually pleasantly surprised that he agreed to give up a whole kitchen trash bag worth of stuff (I didn't think he'd give up anything!), he agreed to put a bunch more stuff in storage (toys he doesn't play with much but can't face giving up yet; I might save some of them for grandkids to play with), and we also had an almost full bag of trash when we were finished too. We ended up with 3 empty bins in his bookshelves that we can now move things into (that'll be Legos, I'm sure) and the top of his book shelves and dresser don't have as much stuff on them. That evening Frank went with me to the store to buy some large plastic storage bins which we then filled with all that stuff and took to the storage unit. (We also got a mesh thing to hang in his closet that he put all his stuffed animals in--his bed was so full of stuffed animals that there was barely room for him to sleep in there!) Frank also helped me fill the back of my car with all the give away stuff, which I took to Goodwill the next day. And I also gave away a few things to a family in our ward so the big pile of "give away" items that has been accumulating in Jared's room since I started this project is now gone too. Seth's room still needs some work--the goal is to have nothing on the floor and the tops of his desk, stool, pull out bed, dresser, and bookshelves not totally covered with stuff! We've made a little bit of progress on those things throughout the week but we're not done yet--mostly because Seth needs to be here to help me figure out where things go. He will have a heart attack if I just start throwing things into empty bins!! (Otherwise, I'd totally do that, but I've learned that it is better to work with Seth than the alternative.) Here are a few photos of Seth's room as we were starting the project:

 Here are a few photos I took that evening:

I know, still pretty cluttered! But definitely better than it was, and we've done more since then.

Our Anniversary: We celebrated our 27th Anniversary on Tuesday! It's hard to believe it's been that long. Frank actually had a really busy day at work and he had to go to a convention in DC for work that evening, so he didn't get home until nearly 10:00. So we really didn't have a chance to do anything special, but he did bring home these roses for me the day before our anniversary:

Hopefully we'll get to go on a date soon.

Quilting: I know, I just finished a quilt! But there is no time to rest on my laurels. I started working on the quilt for Tanner & Darlee almost immediately. I have tried to work on it every day (except Sunday), even if only for a few minutes. On Friday I got out the 10" squares and figured out which square I wanted to put where:

I thought it was harder to put these squares together in a pattern that I liked than for the other quilt, and I don't think they look all that great in this picture but as I've been working with them more this week, they've been growing on me. (And they definitely look better in real life than in the photo. The lighting wasn't so good when I took that photo.) Throughout the week, I sewed together the five rows of squares, cut all the sashing and binding strips, sewed together all the sashing strips and cut them into the proper lengths, and last night I even sewed the first sashing strip onto one of the rows of squares. I probably would have got a second row sewed onto the strip except after I sewed the first one, I realized that I had put a right side together with a wrong side instead of 2 right sides together, so I had to unpick the whole thing and sew it again. I hate it when I do that...especially when it's a long seam!! Do you know how much time it takes to pick out 4 feet worth of tiny stitches?!! Hopefully I'll get more of the rows of squares and sashing strips sewn together before the day is over.

Wedding stuff: I haven't done much this week, but I did spend some time sending Jared a bunch of addresses because he and Jessie were starting to address announcements. I also finally got an email from BYU catering about Tanner's luncheon (I scheduled it about 3 weeks ago), and for some reason they had the date down as June 25th instead of June 28th, so I had to email them back about that (there were a few other details I wanted to clarify too, although they did get the menu right!). I still haven't heard back from them, so I will have to contact them again next week. I forgot to mention this last week (and most of you know already but I want to remember this for our family history) that all the Utah family had a double bridal shower for Jessie and Darlee last week. I wish I could have been there, but Amy sent me a couple of photos:

(And thanks to Rachelle, who also put a bunch of photos on FB even though I didn't take the time to get those.)  I was shocked at the amount of gifts they got (from the group gift information that Amy sent me) and I'm sure they really appreciate it (although boys don't volunteer information and I keep forgetting to ask them about it)! I know I appreciate it a lot. Thanks for doing that for them! It was so kind and generous of you and it means a lot to me!

Work: Frank is keeping really busy at work but he says it's really interesting and he loves it. So that's good! He has also been doing a bit with the business--he did maintenance for all his clients last week and this week, and one of his clients needed a new server so he has that all ready to go although he hasn't had a chance to go over and install it yet. I don't feel like I see him a lot these days, but I am glad he is busy and happy and thankful that he has a job. I didn't work with my Arc lady this week (she never texted me to ask me to come and I was so busy I forgot to text her and ask) but I did do quite a bit of work for the office furniture website. I have been adding a lot of new products and making changes to some of the existing ones. They've probably sent me 5 or 6 emails with lists of new products to add or lists of changes that need to be made in the last week. I have completed a lot of the work already, but I'm still having some issues with some of the photos--some of them look sideways, depending on what browser you are using. (I had the same problem with the first batch of photos I added last month, but I thought the problem was solved.) The photo problem has been frustrating and adding to my stress level (one of the things that contributed to my Monday morning meltdown), but hopefully it will get worked out soon (the web master is working on it). Other than that, I actually enjoy the work. It's kind of like accounting, in that I am organizing things and putting them where they go, and it's detail-oriented work which I really enjoy for some reason.

Seth's doctor visit: Seth had a check up with the doctor on Monday--he has to do that about every 6 months because of the medication that he's on. Overall, I think the medicine works pretty well. When I had him home on Monday and we did brain balance and worked in his room, he was definitely a lot more focused than he usually is (his medicine wears off by the time he is coming home from school, so most of the stuff I do with him, I have to do while he is not medicated. I particularly noticed how much quicker and easier it was to get through brain balance stuff. Really, it was like night and day. However, as I have mentioned before--I don't like how completely devoid of emotion Seth seems to be when he is medicated. He says he doesn't mind how he feels, but it bothers me. I asked the doctor about that and he said we could try another medication if I want, but he recommends we wait until summer (I agree!). I don't know if I want to do that or not, but I'll think about it. But I also talked to him about some of the behavior I see in Seth which troubles me--I've felt for a long time that there is a lot more going on with him than just ADHD, and I've been making lists of the behaviors that I've been seeing. I've tried doing a little online research, but haven't found anything that makes me think "oh yeah, that's my kid". But he does seem to have some symptoms that relate to a lot of different things. I gave the doctor a few examples--like the time a few weeks ago when I got out his clothes for him to put on after his shower (something he usually does himself) and he complained that I didn't put them in the same order that he does,which is underwear on top, then pants, then shirt, then socks on the bottom, because that's the order he puts them on his body. Seems a bit OCD to me!! (And that is a frequent thing I encounter with him--he complains that I don't do things in a certain way.) However, when I read about OCD, he only has a few of the symptoms and the ones he has don't totally disrupt his life or anything like that--they just make him difficult to live with. At any rate, after I talked to the doctor a bit, he said it would be a good idea to have him evaluated, so he gave me a referral for a pediatric psychiatrist. We'll see how that goes. Our health insurance is changing May 1st, so I'm not going to set anything up until after that.

Book Chat book: I've been reading the book for book chat in nooks and crannies of time whenever I can fit it in (mostly when I'm eating!) and I am really enjoying it. I only have about 100 pages left. It is called My Beloved World and it is a memoir written by Sonia Sotomayor, one of the Supreme Court justices. I honestly haven't paid a lot of attention to her (I am going to do some research now to find out more), but since she was nominated by President Obama, I suspect that our political viewpoints probably differ a bit.  (I mean, I could be wrong about that so I really need to do my reseach). But it's been really great to get a look "inside her mind", and to understand some of the reasons why she probably looks at the world differently than I do. My favorite quote so far from the book is this one, after she relates a couple of stories of people doing things that are harmful to others, and not seeming to be able to realize it or to imagine how the other person must feel: "I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view." I think that is the big problem we have in our country today, especially in the rift there is between people with different political views. Too many people will label someone as "bad" just because they look at an issue from a different angle than their own. Too many people don't at least try to see an issue from the other person's point of view. (I mean, I'm sure I do that too, but I try not to.) That doesn't necessarily mean I will agree with them, but I do think it's important to try to understand why they feel the way they do. 

Echo dot(s): We got one of those Echo Dot things a few days ago. The main reason we got it is because I wanted to have a way to play Brain Balance music for Seth without having to supervise him the whole time. I have the Brain Balance music on a playlist on Amazon music (I tried to buy a CD instead but they weren't available). That means my computer has to be on and I have to be logged in for him to listen to the music, but we have a rule that he can't be on a computer (or alone in the room with a computer that's accessible to him) without one of us being with him, supervising. He's supposed to listen to Brain Balance music for 2 hours a day (he can be doing other things while he listens) so that means I've had to be in the same room with him for 2 hours a day, keeping an eye on the computer. That's been hard to do. With the Echo dot, he can just say "Alexa, play my Brain Balance music playlist" and it will play it...no computer necessary. So now he can listen to it while he plays in his room or something and I can be downstairs making dinner or whatever. He can even listen to it when we are not home. So that is going to make things a lot easier. Anyway, we've been having fun playing with this new "toy" for the last few days. ("Alexa, what is the weather forecast today?" "Alexa, tell me a joke." "Alexa, play 1980s pop music!") Actually, Frank and Seth have been driving me crazy a bit with their experiments since they will ask for one song and then before it's half over they'll switch to something else. I've enjoyed having it all to myself while Seth is at school and Frank is at work, where I can listen to classical music or the Tabernacle Choir (or whatever) for an hour or more, uniterrupted. Frank likes it so much that he ordered two more (without asking me!) so that we can have one on each level of the house! Seriously, we are going to be way too dependent on these devices.

Other stuff: Seth went to a birthday party on Saturday and on Tuesday evening he went to his YM advisor's house so they could make a "movie". For the combined YM / YW activity the next day, they had a "film festival" where they showed movies made by each quorum and each class. I did all the usual chores, went to religion class, exercised every weekday morning except Wednesday (I woke up too late), did brain balance with Seth every day, and stayed up too late most nights trying to get everything done. I just found out from Frank that he will actually be home from work soon (I thought he was going to have to work really late tonight) so we are going to go out to dinner together when he gets home, as a belated anniversary celebration. So that will be nice!!

I probably forgot something, but that's all I can pull out of my brain at this moment. This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would!! Jared will be home tomorrow, and I am looking forward to having him home again although I don't fool myself that the next 7 weeks are going to be a walk in the park. We're all going to be really busy and doubtless stress levels and tensions will be high (and honestly, we may not see him much), but I think we'll have some good times and I'm going to focus on the happy things! I told Seth today that this will almost certainly be the last time one of his brothers will live in the same house with him. (Barring any unforeseen circumstances.) That makes me kind of sad, but of course I want my kids to grow up and get married and be independent adults. So I have to take the bitter with the sweet!

Weekly Review April 19 '19

Greetings from Maryland! We had another busy week. I think they are all going to be busy from here on out, at least until after we get through the weddings. Here's what we did this week.

Saturday: I had an appointment to get my hair done in the morning. Then in the early afternoon I helped with an Easter activity for the Primary. They had different activities (including an egg hunt) and the kids were divided into groups and rotated from one activity to the other. I was helping the kids do a little Easter play. It was really cute--they acted out a poem about a person walking through their garden and how the garden reminded the person of the garden of Gethsemane and of the garden tomb. Some of the kids dressed up as butterflies, some as flowers, some as disciples of Jesus, and some as friends and family of Jesus. The groups of children ended up being kind of small, so I ended up being the "walker" and held up all the pictures during each play (we did it four times, with four different groups of kids). One of my friends took some photos and sent them to me:

Three of these cute kids are in my Primary class--the little boy dressed like a butterfly, the girl (with long dark hair) behind him to his right (left of him as you are looking at the picture), and the little girl in the orange shirt and green plaid shorts. And yes, that's me in the bright pink shirt!

After the activity, I came home and tried to get a bunch of other things done which included getting a birthday treat ready for my Primary class, reviewing my Primary lesson, working on Seth's costume for his school project (which mostly consisted of pinning fringe onto a tunic), going over the guest list for Jared's wedding so he could have a final count, working on stuff for my music calling, cleaning the kitchen floor, and working on the quilt (I got some of the binding strips sewed together). It was a super busy day and I was up late getting thing finished up.

Sunday: Seth was sick in the night and when Frank woke up in the morning he didn't feel too great either so they both stayed home from church. We had planned to go visit a member of our ward who is in rehab after a bad fall but we decided we'd better postpone that trip. I went to church alone, but I didn't feel alone with my ward family. :) It ended up being an exciting day because both the YW and Primary presidencies were released. The choir sang in Sacrament Meeting. I didn't think we sounded too great during practice but I said a silent prayer that we'd do better when we performed and that prayer was answered because we sounded a lot better! My class went pretty well (it's always kind of hectic, with only 20 minutes to get through a lesson, although I try to keep it simple). By the time I got home from church, Seth felt fine (as usual--he does that a lot--gets sick once and then he's done) and Frank was doing better although he didn't feel great. That evening we had a severe thunderstorm which included a tornado warning (as in--"take shelter now") but thankfully no tornado materialized and I didn't hear of or see any damage in the surrounding areas. We did get a ton of rain--it continued to rain heavily for most of the night--so by morning the river was fairly flooded:

Monday: I worked at the Arc for a couple of hours in the morning. Then I got the usual chores done and started working on my cleaning / de-cluttering job for the week, which was the kitchen. I worked on my desk and got a lot done but didn't finish it. After picking up Seth, brain balance, dinner, and family night, I worked on the binding strips for the quilt a little more and finished sewing them together.

Tuesday: I got all the usual chores done and also mowed the lawn (I have to plan lawn mowing for days when it's not raining!) Here's a really beautiful tree a few houses down the street:

Frank had a big project he was working on for work this week so he came home for dinner but then had to go back to work and he worked until late. My ministering companion and I took cards and flowers for Easter to two of our sisters that evening. Then I worked on the quilt for a bit and got the binding sewed on one side of the quilt (but I still needed to turn it and sew down the other side). I think I worked on the kitchen a little bit that day too, but I didn't have time to do much.

Wednesday: Seth's class were presenting their explorer projects that day. They did a "wax museum"--each of them dressed up like their explorer and they each made a "button". They were spread out around his classroom and standing still, waiting for someone to press their "button"; when their button was pressed, they would start talking and tell you who they were and what they did. It was a pretty cool idea, and the kids did a good job. I thought Seth's costume was one of the better ones--some kids didn't have much of a costume. Here is Seth (Daniel Boone):

After the "wax museum", I went to my religion class and then I got the weekly grocery shopping done before I had to pick Seth up from school. Frank was working late again that evening and I took dinner to his office for him. Then I took Seth to YM and while he was there my ministering companion and I took Easter cards and flowers to our other two sisters. All but one of our sisters don't come to church often (if ever) and my companion hadn't met either of these two. We thought we were just going to be dropping things off (and hoping that my companion would at least see their faces so she'd know who they are and they would know who she is) but one of them invited us in and we got to visit with her for an hour. So that was really cool!! And I really like her, so it was nice to visit with her because I haven't really seen her for over a year (although I keep in touch with her fairly regularly). I don't think I had any time to work on either the quilt or the kitchen that day, but honestly I can't remember now! I just know this whole week was really busy and everything is all mixed up in my head.

Thursday: It was the first day of Spring Break, so Seth was home from school. Frank's big project rolled out (something to do with a menu change) and he had a few problems to fix but mostly it went well and he didn't have to work late that day (although he went in to work really early). I got up pretty early and tried to get as much done as possible because I had a long list of things to do. I finally had time to work on the quilt, and I finished it. HOORAY!!:

I'm mostly happy with how it turned out--just don't look too close at some of the stitching! :) I felt like I got caught in some kind of time warp while I was working on it though, because somehow 2 or 3 hours went by--I didn't feel like it took that long! By the time I finished, it was after 2:00 pm and I was supposed to work at the Arc at 3:00. I was picking up the lady I work with and taking her home after some training that she had that day. I started to make myself some lunch because I hadn't eaten yet but then my Arc lady texted me that she was done (she got done early) so I ended up picking her up first and she needed to make a few stops on the way home so I didn't eat lunch until after 3:00 pm. That has been happening a lot lately. That night we went out to dinner to celebrate Frank getting his project done (plus I didn't want to cook). I squeezed in all the regular chores and after dinner I worked on the kitchen a while and got the stove cleaned and most of the refrigerator cleaned out too. I still have a LOT left to do in the kitchen and I am hoping to get more done tonight and tomorrow but it seems like other things keep getting in the way. I did a little work on the furniture website last night too.

Today: I got up early again and once again I've been trying to get through a long list of things to do. This morning I went to the store to get a birthday gift for a party that Seth is going to tomorrow, as well as to get something my friend Wanda needed (she called me yesterday to ask me to get it for her) and dropped it off to her on my way home. I spent most of the morning working on the budget and then I went to lunch with a couple of friends from my ward. I enjoyed visiting with them because they're awesome and I don't get to talk to them much anymore since I'm serving in Primary. After I got home, I finished up the budget and put the fabric for Tanner & Darlee's quilt in the washer to prewash it. Now it is dinner time already and I still have a lot to do before I go to bed tonight! (Hopefully I will get some more done in the kitchen, among other things.)

Most of you probably already saw on FB the article about Frank that was published in Franchising.com, but if you missed it, here is a link to the article:

: https://www.franchising.com/news/20190417_roy_rogersreg_names_frank_cleveland_senior_manager.html

It was really fun to see his name in print! He says he wishes he could have previewed the article before it was published because not all of the information was totally accurate (what he did at Marriott was incorrect, for example) but still--I think he's pleased about it, overall. He says he's seen a big upsurge in visitors to his Linked In account since it was published a few days ago. I am proud of him for being such a hard worker and he really is very good at what he does! We are grateful that he has this new job and that he has always been able to provide for our needs. We are truly blessed!

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.