Weekly Review July 19 '19:

Greetings from Utah! We have now survived two weddings in 5 weeks, and wow...that feels good! Now that I have recuperated sufficiently, I have time to write about it all. I'm going to do categories again, because a daily rundown would be way too complicated! So here goes.

Snickers update: When I wrote last time, we were still in the throes of trying to get Snickers stable (although he was starting to do a little better). I had to take in a urine sample on Saturday the 13th. He still had some ketones in his urine, which isn't a good sign, so they asked me to bring him in to get some fluids injected--it just took a few minutes, and the fluids would slowly spread into his system over the next couple of days. Thankfully, it didn't cost $1000 either! (Less that $50.) Snickers was definitely feeling perkier than before but he still wasn't great. He continued to have a poor appetite and to be resistant to taking his medicines. But Frank got better at getting the medicine in him and both of us have become pretty efficient at giving him his insulin shots. Thankfully, he is really good about the shots and doesn't wiggle or anything. While Frank was in Utah with us, Snickers stayed with a technician that works at our vet's office, and that was a blessing because it really added to our peace of mind, knowing that he was with someone that knew how to take care of him (even better than us, actually!) Our dog sitter reported that Snickers stayed about the same--he would eat chicken or ham but not dog food (other than small amounts of the high nutrition dog food we got from the vet) and he still wouldn't take his medicine voluntarily. He whined a bit the first couple of nights that we were gone, but settled down and seemed fairly content after that. Frank reports that Snickers was VERY glad to see him when he picked him up Saturday afternoon (the 20th) and that he seems to be doing pretty well. He even ate about half a can of regular dog food this morning, so that is a good sign.

Seth's busy Sunday: Seth was asked to give a talk on Sunday (the 14th). He was also asked to teach the lesson for Deacons Quorum. He taught a lesson once before, but this was his first talk in Sacrament Meeting. His topic was choice & accountability. So I spent some time on Saturday the 13th helping him organize his talk. I gave him suggestions, but he did it all in his own words. The only other suggestion I gave him was to look up once in a while--don't just read through his talk and sit down! Well, he really surprised us. He was so poised and comfortable--he looked like he'd been giving talks for years! We were really proud of him. Afterwards, a whole bunch of people in our ward came to him to compliment him on what a good job he did. One person even called him on the phone later in the day. He had such a big grin and his face and felt so good about it, and we are so thankful for the love and encouragement he receives from members of our ward! They're like family. Apparently, his lesson went really well too although of course we weren't there for that.

My hair color: On Saturday the 13th I also got my hair done. (It was a busy day!) Last time I had my hair done, I got some highlights put in (something special for the first wedding!) but they really didn't show up a whole lot. So my hair stylist said "next time, we'll make your base color a little darker so there will be more of a contrast." So this time, that's what we did but it wasn't a little darker--it was a lot darker! I wasn't sure at first if I liked it, but after the first day I got used to it. (I think maybe it's lightened up a bit from at first too because now, over a week later, it doesn't look as dark to me.) Actually, I didn't just get used to it, I decided I like it better this way. It's a lot closer to my natural hair color so I think it looks better with my skin tone and eye color. (My hair stylist said the same thing.) So I guess I will stick with this color--at least for a while! The day I had the color done, she also asked if she could try putting some curls in my hair, instead of drying it straight like she usually does. I wasn't going anywhere important or anything, so I decided to let her give it a try. It looked kind of cute at first, but it was definitely a change, and the curls didn't really hold well so a few hours later I felt like my hair was sticking out all over. So no more curls! I like it much better straight! (If you had told me back in the 1980s that I was going to say that someday, I never would have believed it!)

Wedding stuff: The second pair of pants I ordered for Seth fit him, thankfully. The second dress I ordered for myself fit better than the first one although it still wasn't the best fit. I decided that if I had time, I would look for one after we got to Utah to see if I could find a better option. As it turned out, we had some time to kill on Thursday the 18th, in between going to see Tanner & Darlee's apartment and stopping at Darlee's house to pick up some watermelons (which I was cutting up to be served at the reception). We went to the mall in Orem and after trying on several dresses, I finally found one that fit right, that was modest, and that was one of the right colors. It's really pretty, actually, so I'm happy that I kept looking.

Getting ready for our trip: Monday the 15th and Tuesday the 16th were crazy! I was trying to get all the regular things done (including exercising and brain balance) plus getting ready for our trip and making sure that things were in place so that nothing would get missed while we were gone. (Like bills getting paid on time and so forth.) I also mowed the lawn and returned the first dress and pair of pants that I had ordered for the wedding. Seth had a doctor appointment on Tuesday--his annual "well child" visit, plus a medicine check up. He also needed a couple of shots, since a few of his immunizations needed to be updated. He was really nervous about the shots, but he was brave about them and they didn't turn out to be bad at all. I also had to jump through a few hoops with the pharmacy to get his prescription refilled before we left, since we'd run out while we were in Utah if I didn't (it was a day or two earlier than we are usually able to refill). Everything worked out, though, and it looked like everything for the trip was coming together and getting done and I was starting to pack when I happened to check my email and yikes!!...

My bank account got hacked: I had one email letting me know my Zelle account had been set up successfully (I didn't set up a Zelle account), another one letting me know I had successfully added Kevin Jones to my contacts, and two more letting me know that my transfers of $480 and $490 to Kevin Jones had been successful. All of these emails arrived within 5 minutes of each other. So instead of spending the evening leisurely packing and making sure we didn't forget anything, instead we spent the evening on the phone with our bank trying to straighten all that out. I'm going to make a long story short and just say that it was a big hassle and involved a trip to the bank in person the next morning, which we really didn't have time to do since we had a plane to catch. It also meant that our bank account was frozen the entire time Frank was in Utah with us (because there was not enough time to straighten things out before we needed to leave, and we needed to protect the funds in our account) so we didn't have access to our money at all. But neither did anyone else, at least. Frank and I have both been on the phone with our bank today and I think everything is fixed and we have access to our bank account again. But really??? Did that have to happen right then??! It could have been much worse, though, so I am grateful it wasn't worse. And it all turned out okay in the end so I can't complain too much.

Trip to Utah: In spite of all the crazy things that happened the last few weeks, we did actually (thankfully!) manage to get on a plane on Wednesday the 17th as planned and made it to Utah in time for Tanner's wedding!! Jared & Jessie met us at our house Wednesday morning (after our bank trip and after we dropped Snickers off with the dog sitter) and we all went to the airport together. It was extremely hot and humid, and I felt thankful to be heading to a dryer climate!

The flight was pretty uneventful, other than we sat on the tarmac for a while because they had a ground stop while they figured out how to route all the westward bound flights around a storm, but it was just a short delay and we still got to Utah on schedule. It was kind of funny because they had the seat belt lights on for almost the entire flight and had the flight attendants sit down a couple of times because of anticipated turbulence, but it was probably the most turbulent-free flight I've ever been on! Frank and Seth watched movies most of the flight and I read, did a few puzzles, and tried to sleep a little bit. They must have rerouted our flight to the south because we came in over Provo / Orem (usually we come in north of Salt Lake City) which was kind of fun. We spent the evening at Mom's house--she fed us dinner and Scott came by to see us too. Erin's family and Liz were here too so it was nice to visit with them.

On Thursday Jared & Jessie were supposed to go look at an apartment they were thinking about renting, but then they found out their appointment was cancelled because the place was already rented, so that was a bummer. We went to see Tanner & Darlee's apartment, as I mentioned before, and it is really cute! They had the opportunity to buy some furniture for really cheap from someone who was moving way back in December, so they have had their furniture since then! It's really nice furniture, too. They have a 2 bedroom apartment and they have the second bedroom set up as an office with a desk for each of them and appropriate artwork on the wall above each desk. (Darlee's is pink garlands and such, and Tanner's is super hero themed artwork.) I already mentioned that we did some shopping and picked up watermelons to cut up. After that we went to Mom's, stopping on the way to get ice cream cones at Macey's. Frank and Jared both made the mistake of ordering Kong Kones (the biggest size): Jessie & Jared opened a bunch of presents. (They had an Amazon gift registry and they had it set up to send gifts to Utah instead of Maryland since they will be living in Utah this fall.) That was fun, and they got a lot of nice things.

Neither of them were able to finish their cone!

After we got to Mom's, Jessie & Jared opened a bunch of presents. (They had an Amazon gift registry and they had it set up to send gifts to Utah instead of Maryland since they will be living in Utah this fall.) That was fun, and they got a lot of nice things:

Seth took most of those pictures, and he couldn't resist doing this too:

He also enjoyed playing in the boxes afterwards:

After that, all the boys, including Frank, had Tanner's "bachelor party". They went shooting and then ate dinner. They were gone a lot later than I anticipated...didn't get back until almost 10:00 pm. Meanwhile, Jessie and I hung out at Mom's house. She and Mom helped me cut up the watermelon, which I really appreciated. It would have taken a really long time for me to do that on my own!!

The Wedding: Finally, the big wedding day arrived! And it was beautiful. I loved being in the temple with a lot of my family members. The sealer had such a sweet kind spirit about him; I really liked that. I don't have a lot of pictures, but here are a few:

After taking a lot of photos at the temple, we headed to BYU for the luncheon we were hosting. It was nice because everything was ready to go when we got there. I think it was nice, and the food was really yummy.  Here's the view from the window of our room:

They played the shoe game too and it was really cute:

After the luncheon we barely had time to go back to Amy's to pick a few things up and then to Mom's to get the watermelon. I was feeling really tired by then--partly, I think, because we had chicken alfredo at the luncheon and I'm not used to eating pasta anymore!! But there was no time to rest. It was on to the reception! We got there a little early and had time to help a little bit with getting some things ready:

The reception was beautiful and a lot of people came. It was a lot of fun! Here's a few pictures:

 Cutting the cake:

Lots of yummy treats:

Lots of presents:

I love that beautiful quilt in the corner!:

The strings of lights were pretty too:

Throwing the bouquets (she actually had 3):

After the reception ended, we helped with the take down / clean up and got to bed really late (again)!

Post wedding activities: Frank, Jared, and Jessie had an early flight so they had to get up at the crack of dawn, but they made it home safely. Meanwhile, Seth and I took it easy most of the day Saturday. I got some laundry done. In the evening, Seth went to dinner and to see the movie End Game with Scott while I went with Tim, Rachelle, and Gwen to the Pioneer Day Concert. It was wonderful! We ate at the Lion House and then Tim went to get ready for the concert while we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to see some nice views:

The concert itself was amazing!! I really liked the guest artist, Sissel. Not only did she have a beautiful voice, but she really sang from her heart. You could tell that she loves singing and that she was feeling the meaning of the words. And the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra on Temple Square were fantastic, too, of course!

View of the temple, coming out of the concert:

I got back to Amy's at about 11:00 pm and found Seth like this:

But he actually woke up when I removed the book and that was good because I discovered that he was still in his clothes and had not brushed his teeth. So he took care of those things and then went back to bed.

On Sunday we moved all of our stuff over to Mom's, where we will be staying the remainder of our visit, and we went to church with Mom. We had a nice relaxing Sunday, which we really needed!! Today has been pretty relaxing too but we have quite a few activities planned for the rest of the week so it's good that we've had a few quiet days.

Tanner has texted me a few times today--first to let me know that they were at the airport, then to let me know they landed in California, and then to let me know they were getting on their cruise ship. So they are on their way and will be back at the end of the week.

And that is everything! It's hard to believe that after all the stress and planning and excitement that we made it through to the other side of the 2 wedding adventure! I'm grateful to have some time to "regroup" now, and I'm very grateful that everything turned out so beautifully and that we have some wonderful family memories that we will never forget.

Weekly Review July 12 '19

This week was not quiet. It was stressful and crazy and it was mostly all about Snickers. So I guess I will start with him.

Snickers: You'll maybe remember that I mentioned last week that he hadn't been feeling well and that I was planning to call the vet on Monday if he didn't improve. Over the weekend he stopped eating his treats, which he normally loves, so we knew something was really up. I called the vet Monday morning but they couldn't get him in that day. (I could have asked to have him seen as an urgent care case, but I didn't realize how sick he really was then.) They had appointments the next morning and he could see the doctor that he normally sees, but I had a my appointment to get my crown so the timing didn't work for me. However, they said I could drop him off before my appointment and they would keep him there until I could pick him up after my appointment. So that's what I did. Shortly after I finished at the dentist, I got a text message from the doctor saying that his lab work was suggesting that he had developed diabetes. His blood sugar was sky high and he had blood and ketones in his urine, which meant he was actually in diabetic ketoacidosis, which is a medical emergency (as in, he probably would have died if we hadn't taken him in when we did). They did a secondary test which confirmed the diabetes. He had to stay at the vet all day, getting fluids and medications. We were able to bring him home Tuesday evening but they wanted us to bring him back the next morning for more testing and to get more fluids. Ditto for Thursday. It took those 3 days to get him stable, to get him eating a little better and able to take his medications orally (instead of in an IV) and to start to figure out what dosage of insulin he will need each day. (They are still adjusting that, but we have a starting point.) When we picked him up on Wednesday, they had us watch while they gave him an insulin shot and yesterday when we picked him up, they had us practice on a towel, and then I gave him his insulin shot for the evening. He has to have 2 shots each day, approximately 12 hours apart, so I gave him another shot this morning and Frank gave him his shot this evening. He is starting to act a little more like himself, although he's still tired and he still doesn't have much of an appetite. Right now he is getting spoiled rotten because we are supposed to be trying to entice him to eat, so he is getting things like chicken, steak, pork, and ham. He has to eat or he can't get his insulin, and besides that he has lost about 3 pounds, which is a lot when you only weigh about 12 pounds in the first place! He has 3 different pills he has to take right now and that is a real pain because he doesn't want to take them. He used to gobble up pills as long as they were wrapped in cheese but now he is spitting them back out. It's been a real ordeal!

Added to the stress of worrying about the dog and realizing that we now have a dog who needs special care on a daily basis, we have been really anxious about the fact that we are leaving next week and we need someone to take care of him while we're gone. We've already been struggling to find someone to watch him, and now we need to find someone who's willing to give him shots twice a day as well? And give him 2 or 3 different medications, which he doesn't want to take? What are the chances? And will he stabilize before we need to leave, or will he still be in a crisis situation? It's been awful worrying about all those things. The first day I took him to the vet and we found out all the problems, I told her that we needed to be at our son's wedding on the other side of the country next week and we didn't know who we could get to give him shots and everything. She said that a number of the people who worked with her do pet sitting and that one of them could probably watch him, so she would start putting the word out. Frank also talked to someone at his office who has a daughter studying to be a vet and she thought her daughter would be willing to watch him. We actually had that worked out, but then this morning she changed her mind. Thankfully, when I took Snickers in to the vet this morning (he just had to have his blood sugar checked this time, he didn't have to stay) the technician that saw him said that she could watch him. So we have that worked out now and that's a relief (although I'm still worrying that something is going to come up!) Tomorrow I have to take in a urine sample for them to test and we will probably have to take him in on Monday or Tuesday to get his blood sugar tested again. Everybody please pray that he will keep improving and that he'll start eating better and that we'll be able to get him to take his pills. I admit that I am still feeling pretty overwhelmed by this whole situation. As you can probably imagine, this has also been a huge financial burden and I am honestly scared about what else could be coming in the future. It's just been one problem after another with him lately and every time something goes wrong it costs us hundreds (or in this week's case, thousands) of dollars. He now has diabetes, a liver condition, a history of bladder stones, and a herniated disc. I just feel like he is a time bomb waiting to go off, with more problems, and I don't think we can do this much longer. (Yesterday we noticed he is walking kind of funny and holding one of his legs at a weird angle, which means his herniated disc may be acting up again. Or something new, who knows?) It's just been a lot to deal with, on a lot of different levels.

Snickers on Tuesday evening--totally worn out and feeling pretty rotten.

Snickers last night--feeling a little better, but still pretty tired.

Well, we did do a few other things this past week although all the trips to the vet and the phone calls and trying to get Snickers to eat every few hours, and giving him shots and medicine and all the discussions about what can we do have taken up a lot of time.

Wedding Stuff: Wedding stuff has also been stressful. The dress I ordered for Tanner's wedding came and it really didn't fit well. I mean, I could make it work in a pinch but I'd be uncomfortable all day and having to constantly tweak it here and there, which I really don't want to do. So this week whenever I got a chance in between all the craziness, I shopped--either online or at local stores. And I couldn't find anything!! If it was modest enough and they had my size, it wasn't the right color (I even have 4 or 5 colors to choose from, and I couldn't find anything any of those colors!) I finally found a couple of good options online--right color, right size, modest--but none of them would get here in time. I finally found a dress one of the right colors online that will be arriving on Sunday; I'm just praying that this one fits! If it doesn't, I don't know what I'll do. Seth's pants arrived this week and they don't fit either! So I ordered another pair that came today and hopefully they will fit (I haven't had a chance to get him to try them on yet.) Frank ordered a tie which also arrived today and which he needs to try on to make sure it will work. Besides trying to find wedding clothes, I also had to get the final count for the luncheon by today so I spent some time trying to get in touch with people about that (including contacting Darlee and her mom to get numbers from them) but I finally got that figured out this morning so that's one less thing I have to do now.

Dentist fun: I already mentioned that I got a crown on one of my teeth on Tuesday morning. It wasn't too bad, really. My mouth kind of ached on Tuesday but it feels better now. The crown is actually temporary--the real crown will not come in for a few weeks, which means I won't have the real one put on until after I get back from Utah. The tooth with the crown is still feeling kind of sensitive--I don't like chewing hard things with it and it sometimes hurts a little when I drink ice water. It has been getting a little better every day though.

Seth was supposed to go to the orthodontist yesterday, but they called that morning to reschedule because the orthodontist's mother had passed away yesterday morning. I'm sorry for the orthodontist, of course, but I was kind of relieved to have one less thing to do, with all the sick dog drama going on. Plus Seth still has teeth that need to come out, and now we have another 6+ weeks in which to wiggle them and hope they all come out of their own accord so he doesn't have to have them pulled out. Fingers crossed!

Cats: We have been watching some cats this week for the carpool family, who have been out of town. We go every other day to let them in the house in the morning and let them out of the house at night. We had a really huge rainstorm in the early hours of Monday morning (over 6 inches in a few hours!) and when we went over to let the cats in, one of them came running up as soon as she saw us opening the front door and had her paws on the door, trying to push her way in before we could even unlock it! That was kind of funny. I ended up going over again that day to check for flooding in the basement because they had heard about the rain and sometimes their basement floods when it rains hard. There was a little bit of water in one room, but not much at all thankfully. The rest of the week both cats have been a bit elusive and we've had to chase them out from under beds with a broom to get them to go out at nights. Not too fun. But tomorrow morning is the last time we have to go over.

Celebrations: Now for some fun stuff. We had a great time with the Hatches on Friday evening. We had a yummy dinner and all the kids went swimming. They had a few fireworks they set off, but their neighbors set off fireworks too and it was fantastic! An even better show than the city of Frederick does every year. And we had front row seats with no crowds! So that was awesome. They also made brownies and put a candle in them and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me, so that was nice. On Saturday evening Jared and Jessie came over to share my birthday cheesecake and we played games too.

And everything else: We went to a baptism on Saturday for an 8 year old girl in our ward (we're pretty good friends with her family). I filled out a bunch of paperwork for Scout camp for Seth. I wrote the monthly music spotlight for our ward newsletter (part of my job as ward music chair). I taught Primary on Sunday (we only had 4 of our 9 kids...it's definitely summer) and prepared this week's lesson. I found substitutes to cover the 2 Sundays that I will be gone. I went to the religion class. I exercised most days and Seth and I did chores and brain balance every day. Frank mowed the lawn for me on Tuesday. Our RS had their monthly meeting that evening too, but I missed it because we were picking up Snickers from the vet. That's it!

To finish up, here's the pictures from my birthday that I promised last week to include in this week's post:

When we got back from the Hatches, I had to get on my computer for something, and I noticed Google looked like this:

 (And when I scrolled over the Google logo, the "Happy Birthday, Annette!" greeting appeared.) Not sure how Google knew it was my birthday--it must be in my account profile or something like that. Kind of creepy, though! Big brother is watching you!!

Here's a bonus photo from Tanner & Darlee's openhouse, because the girl who took the photos for us also sent them to us on my birthday:

And here's a few from Jared & Jessie's reception that Frank took with his drone (they all look a little blurry and distorted on the blog, for some reason. They don't look that way in my computer files):

Pretty cool, right?

Now it's super late and I have a lot to do tomorrow so good night! 

Weekly Review July 5 '19

This was another fairly quiet week, which was nice. It's decided to really be summer here lately, which means it's mostly been hot and humid. We've had a few thunderstorms and the last few days have been cloudy and kind of gloomy (but hot) although the sun just came out a while ago so it's more cheerful now. Here's what we did this week:

Saturday: In the morning we edged and mowed the lawn. I say we, because Frank did the edging and Seth helped with the mowing--I was showing him how to do it. It was nice to have help; it got done faster! In the afternoon we all went to see Toy Story 4. It was a cute movie, and we all enjoyed it. The rest of the day I worked on music calling stuff, cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and filled out my time sheet for my Arc job.

Sunday: We had a "muscial testimony meeting" for our sacrament meeting and it was really wonderful. Maybe you've done this in your ward at some point, but it's the first time I've been in a meeting like that. Anyone could go up and share why a particular hymn is meaningful to them, and then we sang one verse of that hymn (whichever verse they chose). It went really well--one person after another got up without any breaks in between and each person's comments were brief but powerful. I knew a lot of our hymns were focused on the Savior, but I don't think I realized before that actually ALL of them are focused on Him. There was just a really beautiful spirit in that meeting. In Primary, my companion teacher taught. At one point, she was giving them clues to help them guess what was in a box that she had and they all looked so cute as they gathered around her, I had to sneak out my phone and take a few photos:

(Only 6 of our 9 kids were there.) They also sang to me for my birthday, and I got a notebook & pen.

Monday: I worked with my Arc friend for about an hour in the morning--she just needed to go to a doctor appointment. I spent the rest of the day getting the regular chores done, as well as making several phone calls related to doctor, dentist, and vet appointments. I also ordered some ties for the boys for Tanner's wedding. For family night activity we played a game and we got frozen yogurt at one of those places where you can add multiple toppings, and you pay for it by the ounce. The nice thing is, this place has "$5 fill your cup" day every Monday, which means you can put as much in there as you want and it's only going to cost $5. Very convenient for us--I'm sure a place in Utah would never choose to do that on a Monday!!

Tuesday: I had a ministering visit in the afternoon. I have a new companion now--a 17 year old girl--so I picked her up and we went together. I took Seth to look for some pants for Tanner's wedding but we couldn't find anything so I ordered some online (I hope they fit!). We had a fairly heavy rainstorm shortly before we left to go to the store, and on the way there we saw a rainbow (in two pieces):

Here's the other side, which had more showing, but wasn't as bright:

Wednesday: I had a dentist appointment early in the morning and as I anticipated--I have to get a full crown. I got back next week to get that done. I had religion class and shopping to do on Wednesday also, so I was not home a lot. For YM that night, the Deacons had a cook out--they grilled hamburgers and everyone brought something to contribute to go with it. Seth seemed to enjoy that a lot.

Thursday: It was the Independence Day, of course, and we enjoyed a pretty quiet day. I still exercised and did brain balance with Seth and did the regular chores, but we had a lot of free time too. It was nice to have Frank home all day. Originally, we were going to go to Jessie's grandparents' house for dinner, swimming, and fireworks, but the weather forecast wasn't looking good so they decided to postpone that until today. As it turns out, the weather wasn't too bad yesterday. Hopefully it will be okay tonight, because the forecast looks about the same. Since I had originally planned to order Chinese food for my birthday dinner, we decided to do that last night instead. Except our favorite Chinese take out place was closed, so we ended up going to a Chinese buffet place instead. It wasn't as good, but it was still pretty good. In the evening, we watched the fireworks in DC on the television and then went outside and lit a few sparklers. We'll be seeing more fireworks tonight with the Hatches, hopefully.

Friday: Today I am 51! Frank had to be at a store at 5:00 am, and I woke up when he was getting ready and didn't go back to sleep so the day started early for both of us. I didn't mind, though--I exercised and showered and had breakfast and read scriptures before Seth even woke up! It was nice to have that quiet time. I've mostly had a normal day, working on the budget. But Frank got off work early (around noon, but by then he'd already put in a 7 hour day, so it really wasn't that early) and this afternoon I got to open presents. And I was thoroughly spoiled. Frank took lots of pictures of the present opening, but he hasn't sent them to me yet so you'll have to wait until next week to see those. I did take this picture afterwards:

Books, music, a movie, candy--yep, that's pretty much all I need to be happy! I got a set of dishes, too (dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls) but I didn't get a picture of them because we put them in the dishwasher since we were ready to run it. They will be in the photos that Frank took, though. It's been a nice day and tonight should be fun too.

Seth and I did pretty well at sticking with our schedule this week. I exercised most days and we did brain balance and chores every day. He did get some extra screen time yesterday and today. I did a lot of reading this week. We are well into These Happy Golden Years. I finished the book chat book and started on the new one (Northanger Abbey), but I have also been re-reading some old favorites.

Snickers has not been feeling well this week and I am probably going to have to take him to the vet next week. He started refusing to eat his regular food a few weeks ago so we tried canned food and he gobbled it up! So we knew he wasn't sick, just didn't want his regular food for some reason. After a few days of canned food, we tried switching back to the regular food (last week) but he stopped eating again, even after we didn't offer him anything else for about 5 days! At that point, I felt like we were starving him, so we went back to the canned food and I called the vet to get advice. (He is supposed to be on a low fat diet for his liver problems, and the canned food is not low fat, so not a long term solution.) The vet recommended a canned dog food that is low in fat, so we got one can of that to try (he'd tried it before a few years ago and didn't particularly like it). I gave that to him this morning and he did eat it, so maybe we will get more of that for him. Meanwhile, although he wasn't acting sick when this all started a few weeks ago, sometime last week he started leaving "presents" for us on the carpets in various rooms of the house. And then this week he has had diarrhea and has continued to leave messes around the house. So fun!! (I was especially upset that he even pooped on the carpet in Frank's office--that carpet is only a year old.) The last couple of days have been better, because we have been more vigilant about offering to take him out frequently. We have also been shutting all the doors to the rooms in the house when we leave, which keeps him off most of the carpets in the house (although the stairs and upstairs hallway can't be shut off like that). If he is still having problems on Monday, I am going to take him back in to the vet. Meanwhile, I'm feeling kind of stressed because our normal dog / house sitter can't watch him when we go to Utah and we are having a lot of trouble finding someone else who can watch him. Most people say they can't stay overnight, but we have never left him alone all night and in his current state of health I don't feel comfortable doing that. Hopefully we will get him healthy again and someone will agree to watch him for us!

We have actually been watching a dog for someone else this week--a family in our ward who have been out of town. We only had to go each morning and evening to let him out and make sure he had food, but they live a ways away so it's been kind of crazy. They get back today, though, so we are done with that job.

We are going to get ready to go to the Hatches now and I need to cut up some watermelon and a few other things first, so that's all I've got for this week.

Weekly Review June 28 '19

Well, this was a pretty quiet week for a change! Last week I was still trying to get caught up on everything. This week I was mostly caught up and it's been kind of strange. I am really glad not to be swamped with things to do, but I also felt this unexpected let down. I felt really restless and felt the lack of having something really constructive to do. It's hard to explain. Although it's really stressful and difficult to have a lot of things to do, there is also no doubt that working hard is good for the soul. And in particular, I think having those quilts to work on every time I had a free minute was very fulfilling (as well as overwhelming). I really do love creating things. So I think I need a new project! In the meantime, this week was kind of empty and I felt like I wasted most of my free time. But I'm sure I'll adjust! There are still plenty of things I could be doing or should be doing. Here's a summary of what we did this week:

Sunday: I enjoyed teaching my Primary class again. (I miss the kids when I don't see them for a week.) My companion teacher didn't show up--no doubt she was recovering from her son's wedding--but one of the counselors in the Primary came to my class with me. We were supposed to have the Elders over for dinner but they bailed on us at the last minute. I wasn't too thrilled about that because I had cooked quantities of food with 3 hungry Elders in mind, and now I had way too much. Jared & Jessie stopped by here for a little while on their way back home, though, and Jared ate some of the excess. (Jessie wasn't hungry.) Frank and Seth had a stake priesthood meeting so I had a quiet house to myself for a few hours.

Monday: We officially started our summer routine this week and so far it is going pretty well. Seth has to eat breakfast, shower, and help me with chores (whatever I'm doing that day) and then we do brain balance. After that, Seth is free to do what he wants although he only gets a couple of hours of screen time each day. On Monday he totally shocked me by choosing to go through all his school papers and throwing out what he didn't want to keep. He was in his room for at least an hour doing that, and when he finished his trash can looked like this:

I don't think any of you can fully appreciate what a miracle this is!! My pack rat, distracted son who normally won't part with a single thing he has scribbled on, voluntarily (I didn't even suggest it!) decided to go through his school papers and he actually threw away something. And not just a few things, a LOT of things!! This is totally unprecedented. But I'm NOT complaining!! He didn't even turn on the television until late afternoon. It was awesome. Meanwhile, I kept pretty busy with stuff I had to do, which included figuring out some issues with the business finances. For family night activity we played bowling on the Wii and Seth chose to get chocolate chip cookies for treat. (Just what we need in this house--more baked goods! We still haven't made it through all the leftovers from Tanner's open house!)

Tuesday: We stuck with our routine and it went well. In addition to the usual chores, I also worked on some things for my music calling. I also sat down with Seth and went over the information for scout camp and he picked out the classes he wants to take. He has mostly decided now that he doesn't want to continue in scouts after this year so I told him to just pick things that sound fun to him. He's not totally convinced that he wants to go to scout camp, so I want him to have fun if he goes.

Wednesday: I went to the religion class and in the evening I had a ministering interview with my companion and the RS president. Seth had YM (scouts)--they took the deacons to a park to do a fitness test and then took them to get ice cream. They got back really late; all the parents were wondering where they were! But Seth had a good time.

Thursday: Seth had a pretty busy day. He went to play with the car pool boys for a few hours (meanwhile, I met Frank for lunch) and not long after he got home one of the neighbor girls invited him over to go swimming in her yard. I like seeing him get out of the house and I especially like it when he plays outside. It was a good day to be in a  pool because it was really hot! Actually it's been pretty hot all week. He had to come in from the pool because a thunderstorm was coming. Jared & Jessie were going to stop by for dinner but Jessie had an appointment that ran late so they ended up not having enough time. They did stop by and get some plates of food, though, at my suggestion--I didn't want a lot of leftover food again!

Friday: Tonight Seth had a deacon's activity at another boy's house. They played a board game and then played outside, which is what they were doing when we went to pick him up. Frank and I had run a few errands on the way--we returned some things to the storage unit and returned some white Christmas lights that we had borrowed for Jared's wedding reception. After we picked Seth up, we decided to go to Rita's to get a treat. Seth got a root beer ice / vanilla custard shake, I got a blood orange ice / vanilla custard gelati, and Frank got a chocolate custard cone.

Frank started exercising again this week. He has had some issues with his heart beating really fast in the mornings sometimes so he has had a number of doctor appointments for that over the last few weeks. He had a stress test and a non-stress test and an EKG in the last few weeks and yesterday he had a 24 hour holter monitor (he wore it overnight and had to return it this morning). So far, none of the tests have showed anything unusual, although we don't have the results from the holter monitor yet.

I've been exercising every day too. Seth and I have been doing quite a bit of reading--we finished reading Little Town on the Prairie finally (we didn't read much the last few months!) and now we have started These Happy Golden Years. Seth has done quite a bit of reading on his own and I have been doing a little reading too. I'm still working on finishing our last book for book chat before I start on the new one. Seth is re-reading the Wings of Fire series, and I am still reading the second book in that series. (It's good, I just got bogged down during the wedding craziness.) Speaking of weddings, I ordered a dress for Tanner's wedding this week and I have also been trying to figure out what ties to get for everybody else and I've been looking for gray pants for Seth too.

Seth and I have also been enjoying the fireflies!! We have gone on walks many evenings this week at dusk so we can enjoy the fireflies. We take Snickers with us too and he is always really happy when he can get out of the house. Tonight I think there were a lot more fireflies than there have been up until now. I could stay out there all night watching them, I think! Fireflies are one of my favorite things about summer. They are just so magical!

I spent quite a bit of time this week looking at quilt books as well as some dollhouse catalogs--I'm trying to decide on a new project to start on. I'm thinking about maybe starting to build that dollhouse that I got the kit for several years ago. I'm not sure I'm ready for a big project like that, though. I may decide to do some kind of quilting project instead. Or crocheting? Or sewing? There are lots of possibilities.

Jared & Jessie have come by a couple of times this week but have not stayed long--mostly they have just needed to pick things up or drop things off. We are worried about their car because Jessie's dad was changing their oil and he thinks there was water in it. Which means that there's a blown gasket or a crack in the engine or something really catastrophic like that. It's still running, but we are wondering how long it will last. I'm not sure what they will do if they need a really expensive repair.

Sorry to end on a worried note, but that's all I can think of to write about this week!