Weekly Review October 11 '19

I don't think this post will be as long as last week's, but we'll see. I didn't work on projects at all this week--just got the normal chores done--but that's mostly because there were other things I had to do most days. This week was still fairly stressful. I think Seth had a better week and I'm feeling better (my cough is almost gone) but we were still stressing about Snickers and the problem with Frank's CPAP still hasn't been resolved. Besides that, there's some things going on with one of my callings that has me stressed and I talked with Scott a couple of times and he's not in the best place emotionally or spiritually so I'm worried about him too. (I do enjoy talking with him, though). So I've had some days where I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything, but this too shall pass, right? I hope.

First, an update on Snickers. I took him to the vet to have his blood sugar tested twice this week. The first time was on Monday, and his sugar was over 750! When the technician who had tested his blood brought him back out to me, she brought the veterinarian with her, so I knew it wasn't good news. They questioned me about how he had been behaving--was I seeing signs of distress? Well, yes--he definitely hasn't been feeling well. We talked for quite a while and I told them we had decided if this insulin doesn't work that we were done trying to treat him and they said that would probably be best. However, they did think we should try increasing his dose again and get him rechecked, so that's why I took him back on Thursday. He started acting a bit more perky on Wednesday so I wasn't surprised that his blood sugar had improved. It was in the 500s, which is still quite high, but definitely better. So they've increased his dose a little bit again and he will be checked again on Thursday. We feel torn between feeling glad that he is doing better and anxious that we're going to struggle along with him for a month or two more and then have something else go wrong. A part of us just wants off this very expensive and emotionally draining roller coaster ride and we don't want him to suffer anymore! I hope that doesn't make us horrible people.

Frank has been handling all the phone calls and such about his CPAP, so I don't know all the details of what's been going on, but after a week of trying to get an answer from this company of when he get his loaner CPAP, they finally called him last Friday and told him that they actually don't accept our insurance so if we get a CPAP from them it would be "out of network" and we'd have to pay for it ourselves. Why it took a week for them to figure that out, I will never know!! So we've been trying to find out if there is a company that does accept our insurance, but that's been slow going too. Mostly I think because Frank's been pretty busy at work and with clients and hasn't had a lot of time to make phone calls. So that means another week of unsatisfactory sleep for both of us. The last couple of nights Frank was so tired that he decided to try using the old CPAP again, even though it makes noise that wakes us both up, and both of us have actually slept better in spite of the noise from the machine, so he'll probably keep using it until we can work through the hassle of getting a new one. But what a pain!! Why do things like this have to be so complicated??

We actually got some rain this week on Sunday and Monday, so things aren't quite so dry here. The temperatures have cooled off and we are having cold nights and beautiful, mostly sunny days with temperatures in the low 70s. We're starting to get some fall colors, but the best is yet to come with that still!

Here's the daily summary of the other things we did:

Saturday the 5th and Sunday the 6th: General Conference pretty much dominated both days. I think the talks get better every time! We had the Elders serving in our ward over to watch the first session on Saturday with us, and we fed them lunch while we watched. Plus we had a ton of yummy snacks. I went to the women's session at my stake center. I kind of had to talk myself into that; I really wanted to stay home and watch in my pajamas! But I wasn't sure Seth would leave me alone the whole time, so in the end I took myself to the stake center and I did enjoy some visiting time with other sisters before the session started and it felt nice to watch with other women (I never get to do that at home, of course). I ended up sitting by myself on a short row, but partway through the session the girl in front of me (who is in our ward and Seth's age), invited me to come sit with her and her mom and sister. (They had been talking to me before the session started, so it's not like they ignored me or anything!!) Anyway, I thought that was sweet. I didn't mind sitting alone, but I think she was worried that I felt lonely. Then I also coughed a few times (because I'm getting over a cough, remember) and the first time she looked at me with great concern and whispered "are you all right?" and the second time she said "you should probably get a drink of water when you get home." It was really the cutest thing, but I also tried not to cough again because I didn't want her to be distressed! On Sunday I was supposed to go play the ukulele for a member of our ward but he had a bad night so his daughter asked if we could postpone it. Which was fine with me, since I wasn't feeling my best yet. Overall, I loved General Conference. What a spiritual feast!!

Monday the 7th: Besides the usual chores and taking Snickers to the vet, I also made some soup for the family in our ward whose daughter died--it was for the meal they were having after the memorial service the next day. I made it a day early because is was ham lentil soup, and it tastes even better the day after you make it because the flavors have had a chance to blend better. I also got a card and gift card ready to send to a friend who was getting married on Thursday, went to the library to get a book for Seth, and that evening I had a song practice for the songs I was singing with a small group for the memorial service the next day. The practice went well; we were able to learn / polish all three songs in about an hour and I remembered the parts I had gone over at home much better than I thought I would.

Tuesday the 8th: I spent the morning doing the usual chores. Seth got out of school 2 hours early that day which worked out perfect since I needed to be at the church for a final song practice right after I picked him up. (If school had been out at the regular time that day, I would have had to find someone to pick him up and take care of him while I was at the practice and the service which followed.) Well, actually, it was still cutting things pretty close and I was a few minutes late to the practice--especially since I had a crock pot full of soup in the car so I had to drive really slow so it wouldn't spill! But it all worked out and the memorial service was really beautiful and we only made one (kind of big) mistake while we were singing one of our songs. I saw a lot of old friends, too! Frank didn't come to the service because he had a dentist appointment. He went straight from that appointment to do some work on location for one of his clients, over an hour away, and he was gone all evening. I had skipped lunch so on my way home from the memorial service I stopped and got some dinner for Seth and I. Frank didn't get home until bedtime. He got pulled over on his way home because one of his headlights was out (he knew about that) and both of the lights around his tag in the back were also out. (He didn't know about that). But he just has to get them fixed within 10 days; he didn't get a ticket or anything like that.

Wednesday the 9th: Seth didn't have school (it was Yom Kippur). I got the usual shopping done and went to the last religion class. We had decided to surprise the teacher with a potluck lunch and there was a ton of food--and he was surprised. It was nice and I enjoyed the class and I will miss it, but I had been starting to feel like I needed to spend my time doing something else, so the timing is actually good.

Thursday the 10th: Just the usual chores, taking Snickers to the vet, and I did a bunch of stuff for my music calling. Seth didn't have YM because they have a campout tonight. I'm a little stressed about the campout because I know Seth is supposed to bring some food but I don't know exactly what yet. They are leaving in 5 hours, so I hope I hear something about that pretty soon!

Friday the 11th: Well that's today, and I haven't done much besides write this post yet. I exercised, showered, got Seth to school and read my scriptures and ate breakfast. I'm going to as a chaperone with Seth's class to the park for an hour this afternoon and of course I need to update the budget and get Seth ready for his campout. So I'm sure today will be pretty busy and I'd better go get started on all of that!

It was fun to spot both Shellie and Tim in the choirs at General Conference (although I was disappointed that they didn't show either of them much at all). It's also cool that they are building temples in both Orem, Utah and McAllen, Texas! I remember when Jared was on his mission in McAllen that they were really working hard to prepare to have a temple there, so it's great that the temple is going to be a reality. No temple in Frederick, though! :( I know--they actually will never put a temple here because we are only an hour from the DC temple. But I keep hoping they'll put one in Gettysburg, since that's only 30 minutes north of us and would be much easier to get to with traffic. But it's a small city and there's probably not a lot of members there so if they put one up in that direction, it would probably be Pittsburgh or someplace like that, which is a lot farther away from us. But I can dream, right? I just feel so temple starved right now, and with all the problems with Snickers lately we can't even get to the Philadelphia temple. They can't finish the renovations on the DC temple soon enough for me!!

And on that complaining note, I will end for this week. (Sorry!)

Weekly Review October 4 '19

This week has been a bit stressful. Nothing really terrible is happening, but there's been several things going on that have made life more difficult, anxious, chaotic, and / or exhausting. I got sick again, we're having more issues with Snickers, Seth had a difficult week, and Frank's CPAP broke. So lets' talk about all those fun things before I move on to some (hopefully) more pleasant things.

Remember last Friday I said my nose was running a bit? Well, by the end of the day it was running a LOT and I had come down with a full-blown cold with headache, sore throat, and congestion. Then in the early morning hours on Saturday I woke up and realized I had symptoms of a urinary tract infection too. Just great! Luckily, the practice our doctor is a part of has walk in sick appointments most of the day on Saturdays, so while Frank was cleaning the church on Saturday morning, I took myself to the doctor and got an antibiotic for the UTI. Thankfully, that helped pretty quickly and I was feeling a lot better by Sunday (although I still had the cold). Because of the cold, I still wasn't feeling fantastic on Monday (although the cold was improving) and I also felt like maybe I was getting a yeast infection. Thankfully, those symptoms never got worse so maybe it was just residual effects of the UTI. By Tuesday a lot of the congestion had cleared up and my head felt better but my throat has felt a bit raw all week and the last few days I have been coughing quite a bit. I think it's just the leftovers from the cold. Between the problems with my neck / back and these latest illnesses, I  definitely haven't been very healthy lately! But looking on the bright side, that doctor visit was the first one I've had this year. And I'm not sure I had a sick visit to the doctor last year at all. I don't think I've been sick at all since I had that nasty flu / eye infection illness in the summer of 2018 (I didn't go to the doctor for that because I could tell it was viral). So I've been remarkably healthy for over a year, and I'm grateful.

Snickers went to the vet on Tuesday for a blood glucose arc test, to try to determine why his blood sugar is still so high. We also asked them to check his eyes because over the weekend he started showing signs that he couldn't see very well. He was suddenly really reluctant to go up and down steps, and if we threw a treat on the floor for him, he would look all over but couldn't seem to find it. Things like that. The vet called me after a few hours to say that they had only had to check his blood sugar a few times--they could already tell that the insulin we've been giving him isn't really working. So we had to switch him to a different insulin. Of course this new insulin costs 3 times as much as the kind he was on. But the silver lining in the cloud is that the blood glucose arc test didn't cost nearly as much as the estimate they gave us because they only had to test him a few times before they figured out what was going on. The vet also confirmed that he has cataracts in both eyes and he can't see through those, so he is basically blind. He can see light and dark, probably, but not much else. He gets around our house quite well because he's lived here his whole life and knows where everything is. But getting up and down the front steps has been an ordeal and he often falls off curbs and or bumps into things when we are outside. Stairs inside the house are difficult for him too. It's been pretty heartbreaking to see him running into things, as well as to see him creeping around carefully at times--I can tell he's afraid he's going to bump into something. I just can't even explain how sad it is! Besides that, on Wednesday he started having accidents in the house. He's been drinking a ton and needing to go out a ton (both signs that his blood sugar is too high). I found a few wet spots after I had been gone for a few hours which is understandable if he needed to go while I wasn't home, but the perplexing thing is that he also has had a few accidents while we are home. A few times in the night (he would wake us up, but then pee on the floor immediately after before we had a chance to take him out) and at least once during the evening when we were all home and we were even in the same room with him (that time he hadn't even acted like he needed to go out). So that is perplexing. Since he just switched to a new insulin, we had to start out with a low dose (they don't want his blood sugar to go too low) and then today I had to take him back to get his blood sugar checked again. Not surprising to us, it was still very high--in the 500s. So now we are increasing his dose and I take him back to get checked again on Monday. It feels like a never ending process. With all of this stuff going on, Frank and I have been talking a lot and I have been thinking about it a lot, and we have decided that if this new insulin doesn't get his blood sugar under control, then we are going to have to put him down. It is a hard decision to make, but we think he's suffered enough. We have treated so many problems in the hopes that we could get him to a better place where he is feeling better and enjoying life more, but in reality that hasn't been happening and it seems pretty unlikely that it ever will. It feels instead like we've been treating him and getting him through one problem so that he can live long enough to have another problem! At this point we don't feel like we can go on any overnight trips without taking him with us and we even feel anxious leaving him alone at home for more than a few hours. It's just too much for him and for us. So all of that has been weighing pretty heavily on my heart this week and there's been some tears.

Remember I said last week that we were going to take a break from brain balance for a while? Thank goodness I made that decision because it adds to the after school stress and we had plenty of that this week without adding in brain balance. Seth mostly likes school, but he has homework most days now and he hasn't been adjusting very well to having assignments that have to be completed and turned in at a certain time and tests that he has to study for. (In traditional Montessori, they work more at their own pace and they don't have a lot of tests.) His language arts teacher emailed me this week to let me know that he has been turning in assignments mostly undone. He's been telling me that his homework is done, and I wasn't checking his assignments most of the time. So we had to work together on homework more this week and he didn't like that much. (And neither did I!) But besides that, he has just had some really moody days and almost every evening at dinner he has had a meltdown because he didn't like what we were eating. It's just really unpleasant to start out your dinner three or four nights in a row with your child yelling about it! We've been trying harder lately to be more consistent with him and to have consequences for his behavior and we've also been insisting that he eat at least a little bit of everything that we are eating. We've been a lot more lenient with him about food than we were with our other kids because his medication suppresses his appetite. That means he usually eats only a small amount (if any) of his lunch at school. Also for some reason he isn't usually hungry in the morning either! So by dinner time we are feeling the need to make sure he gets some nourishment of some kind so we've often let him eat things he really likes because we want him to eat. But he is an excessively picky eater so the things he really likes are limited. Our main goal has been to make sure he gets something inside him every day, but in meeting that goal we have unintentionally spoiled him a lot and now he thinks he shouldn't have to eat anything unless he likes it. But he's 12 years old now and he needs to learn to eat things whether he likes them or not! So we're working on that but it's been ugly, and not much fun for any of us. In spite of the fact that I don't think he eats much, he is somehow still growing like a weed and I think he is a little bit taller than me now.

Sometime late last week, Frank's CPAP started making noise. (It's normally so quiet that you have to listen really hard to tell that it's even on.) So he and I had several nights that we didn't sleep very well because of the noise, and at least part of a couple of those nights Frank gave up and turned it off which meant he wasn't waking up because of noise but he also wasn't getting quality sleep because when he's not wearing his CPAP he stops breathing several times an hour. Plus he snores, which wakes both he and I up. (I got so accustomed to his snoring in the years before he got the CPAP that I slept right through it. Then when he got the CPAP and stopped snoring, I woke up the first couple of nights because it was so quiet!! But he's had the CPAP for about 3 years now so I'm used to no snoring and now snoring is waking me up.) So anyway, by Monday we were feeling pretty sleep deprived so he started calling around about getting his CPAP fixed. It turns out that it would cost more to fix it than it would to get a new one, and since we have new insurance, our insurance company will cover the cost. (Good news!) The bad news is, it's going to take a few weeks to get the new one. In the meantime, they are supposed to provide a loaner so that he can sleep but for some reason getting through all the necessary approvals and such with the insurance has taken all week and he still doesn't have the loaner. Which means neither of us has had a decent night's sleep in a week (Snickers has been waking us up as well, remember.) I mean, when our kids were newborns this was pretty much par for the course, but we are a lot older now and it's a lot harder for our bodies to handle lack of sleep! Have I also mentioned that I have a lot harder time getting comfortable at nights now and my body kind of aches all over a lot of the time? (That problem I was having with my hips / back that I went to PT for a few years ago has come back too.) I think we really need a new mattress and maybe if we were could stop spending so much on our dog's medical bills, we could get one! And one other thing I've been noticing because of all this--I need to get my right ear cleaned out. If I lie on my left side with my left ear on the pillow, I can barely hear Frank snoring at all. But if my right ear is down then I can hear him loud and clear. I'd sleep on my left side all night if I could, but I can't because my left hip starts to hurt, among other things. Okay, this is actually making me laugh. How ridiculous is all this??!!

So now that I've got all that off my chest (is anyone still reading?) I will go on to tell you about some of the things we did this week.

Saturday the 28th: That was the day I wasn't feeling well at all, so other than going to the doctor, I didn't do much. Seth had some homework that I made sure he finished, but other than that I mostly stayed in bed and tried to rest up so I would get better. Frank's back was hurting him a lot again (he always ends up doing too much when he cleans the church because people don't show up to help like they're supposed to do; thank goodness that was the last Saturday in September and it's not our ward's turn again until December) so I did take Seth with me to go get us some dinner (since neither Frank nor I was feeling up to cooking). Seth had a birthday party to attend that evening and Frank did take him to that and picked him back up afterwards. Things we didn't do: we didn't pick the pumpkin or weed or mow the lawn and I had hoped to do, and we also didn't attend a farewell picnic for some friends in our ward who moved this week, as we had planned to do. But as I said, I was feeling better on Sunday so it was worth it.

Sunday the 29th: We made it to church! :) I tried not to get too near people or to shake hands, since I still had the cold. Like everyone else, our ward had the broadcast from SLC about the new program for children and youth for our second hour of church. I didn't teach Primary because my class are the kids who are turning 8 next year and they were supposed to go to the meeting too. (But if not, they still would have found someone else to teach my class since I have a child who's a youth.) The broadcast was pretty cool, I thought, and I'm excited to hear more particulars about the program. During the part where they give the children and youth some time to write down a few goals, I was helping Seth with his goals (although he did pretty good at coming up with them on his own) but I also looked around and watched all the other parents leaning over to help their kids with their goals and it was a sweet moment where I felt the spirit very strongly. It's hard to put into words, but for one thing, I could just feel the love all those parents have for their children. But besides that, I just had a sense of how important this new program will be and the spirit impressed on me again how important the family is in God's plan. I feel this new program will really tap into the power of the family! That's the best I can do at putting into words what I was feeling. After church we mostly rested. I hadn't been able to fast since I was taking medication that was supposed to be taken with food, plus I needed to drink a lot to help with the infection, but I was still feeling pretty tired. (Remember neither Frank and I were sleeping very well at this point). I did spend some time working on some things for my music calling, and I did a little bit of indexing.

Monday the 30th: It rained!! Not a ton, but more rain than we've seen in over a month. I got caught up on regular chores, worked a little on sewing projects, and rested a bit.

Tuesday the 1st: It didn't feel much like October because it was unseasonably warm. Snickers spent most of the day at the vet (blood glucose arc test). I was feeling quite a bit better so I was able to work pretty hard that day and besides all the regular chores I also mowed the lawn, picked the pumpkin, pulled up the pumpkin vine, and weeded in both front and back yards. The pumpkin is beautiful and really quite large, and I am happy to have my neat & tidy yard back!

Last "on the vine" photo

My attempt to show how big it is compared to me, but I'm no good at selfies!

No more vine covering half the lawn!

 
Seth likes it!

In the evening I helped Seth with homework and Frank went to a meeting for the IT committee for Seth's school because he joined that committee this year and is going to be helping with some IT stuff.

Wednesday the 2nd: It wasn't just unseasonably warm, it was HOT! As in high 90's. Baltimore broke their all time record for the hottest October 2nd, and I think we probably did too. I brought the pumpkin inside for a few days because I didn't want it to rot in the heat. I went to the religion class and next week is our last one because the guy who has been teaching it just retired and they're moving to Idaho to be near one of their daughters. Other than that, I just got regular chores done and helped Seth with homework.

Thursday the 3rd: It cooled down a bit and was only in the low 80's.  I spent the morning working on music stuff. I practiced the ukulele because I am going to go visit a member of our ward who is in hospice care on Sunday and play a few songs for him. I was also asked to be part of a group of 8 people who are singing some songs for a memorial service for a friend of mine who passed away a few weeks ago. (She was living in Utah at the time of her death, but she grew up here in our ward and her parents still live here. They had a memorial service in Utah shortly after her death and are having one here now.) She was only in her 30's but had pancreatic cancer. So anyway, I practiced the songs for that and did a few things for my music calling. I also made a batch of cookies--part of those were for the family of my friend who just passed away (we're providing a few meals for them and I volunteered to provide dessert for one of the meals) and part of them were for the family I mentioned before who moved this week. One of their daughters was in my Primary class and I was VT companions with the mom, plus we worked in Cub Scouts together. Her husband lost his job about the same time that Frank did last summer and he has been employed only part time since then but he finally found a full time job--in California. They left this morning, but I knew we were going to see them Thursday evening (boy scouts) so I put together a plate of cookies for them and also got a card for the little girl in my class. In spite of having all those extra things to do, I still managed to get all the regular chores done--including folding almost all the laundry--before I had to pick up Seth from school. How did I do that? I have no idea! After I picked up Seth, I finished folding laundry and helped him work on homework until dinner time. After dinner we went to the church for a Court of Honor. Seth received 4 merit badges (leatherwork, chess, reptiles & amphibians, and art) and also got his Scout and Tenderfoot ranks. I am proud of him that he completed 4 of the 5 merit badges that he worked on at scout camp! (The other one was archeology, and he has to go to a dig for several hours, so he wasn't able to do that at camp.) When the scoutmaster asked him to tell something he did for each merit badge, he was very animated and enthusiastic when he talked about it. I was thinking that a lot of the time Seth's personality can be difficult and exhausting, but when he's in a good mood he can really be fun! (Although often pretty hyper too.) It's nice that there are compensations! One of the boys got his Life rank, and it was also his birthday so his family brought an ice cream cake to share with all of us.

Seth talking about his merit badges:

After the Court of Honor, Frank had to go do some work for a client until bedtime.

Friday the 4th: Today felt more like October; it was really beautiful with highs in the mid 70's. Tonight it is cool--I actually got kind of cold when I took Snickers outside a while ago. I had a busy day. A friend and I took my friend Wanda shopping. (She is wheelchair bound and lives in a nursing home, and can't get out much.) We went to a thrift store first where she got a lot of clothes. I'd never been to this particular store and I was surprised that they had a lot of quite nice furniture for really low prices. Might go back there sometime! Then we went to Walmart so she could get a bunch of hygiene items. I enjoyed the time with her (and my other friend) but it got stressful because I had to get Snickers to the vet at 2:00, and we ended up running late. I'd like to do that again sometime without the time limit! I did manage to get to the vet only a few minutes late and thankfully they got done quickly so I was able to leave on time to go pick up Seth from school at 2:30. I still barely made it in time because the traffic was horrible. At the school, we picked up some pansies we had ordered as part of a fundraiser and we also brought one of Seth's friends, Krish, home with us for a playdate. Frank was working on an issue at work and got home late. Meanwhile, I got the budget mostly done except I had an issue with the spreadsheet so Frank had to look at that for me after he got home. He helped me get everything finished then and other than that I have just been working on this blog post, which has turned out to be super long! Now it is almost bedtime so I'd better finish up and take Snickers out and give him all his medicines and get ready for bed myself.

We're looking forward to General Conference tomorrow and we will be watching for both Shellie and Tim in the choirs! :)

Weekly Review September 27 '19

This week was relatively calm, I think. maybe it won't take me long to write about it.

Friday the 20th: Frank got off work early (remember he had worked 3 days' worth in 2 days) so when he got home we went to the fair. It was nice that we had free tickets for everything (parking, admission, rides) so we only spent money on food. Remember Seth didn't want to go on rides? We did convince him to try out the ferris wheel, but that's all we did. Once he got on the ferris wheel and it started to move, he remembered he was scared of heights and got kind of freaked out and had to close his eyes and hold onto me for a while. But then we convinced him to open his eyes and look around and he liked the view from high up so he ended up having fun. But we couldn't convince him to go on anything else except for a few kid rides like a bouncy thing and a slide. Frank and I would have enjoyed going on the flying swings but we couldn't convince Seth to try that and we didn't want to leave him alone. I also would have enjoyed some of the spinning rides, but both Frank and Seth get sick on those and I didn't want to go on a ride alone, so we just ended up doing the ferris wheel and nothing else. So glad we didn't pay for the ride pass!! Seth wanted to see the animals, so we went through all the animal sheds and saw cows, goats, pigs, llamas, and sheep. (And probably a few other things that I am forgetting.) Then I tortured Seth by making him go through the arts & crafts exhibit (he just wanted to go home by then). But I really wanted to see the quilts, afghans, crocheted items, and sewn items so he just had to suffer. We got him some dippin' dots ice cream so he was happy about that, and we also decided to try some deep fried oreos--they were pretty good, although Seth decided he didn't like them after only one bite. Overall, we had fun but we agreed that we would not want to pay money to go to the fair. It's really expensive if you have to pay for everything.

Views from the ferris wheel:

And other fair fun:

There were 12 baby pigs!:

After we got home from the fair, I updated the budget and Frank and I submitted a bunch of medical receipts to be reimbursed from our health spending account. Seth did some homework too.

Saturday the 21st: I got my hair done in the morning. I did the usual ukulele practicing and worked on stuff for my music calling. (I'm starting to work on the Christmas program). I tried to submit my Arc time sheet, but the online system wouldn't let me log in, even after I changed my password. So I had to wait until Monday to get that problem fixed. Seth did some homework in the morning. Frank was at the church cleaning, as usual. In the afternoon, Seth had a friend come over to play. This is a boy from another ward that he met at scout camp and they hit it off. His name is Jarom and he is a very pleasant and nice boy. He and Seth played well together and they were having so much fun that we extended the play date to evening. (Originally, he was going to stay for about 3 hours). Frank was doing work in his office and I watched quite a bit of the BYU football game although I had to make dinner before it ended so I missed a lot of the 2nd half. It was pretty pitiful anyway. I hope BYU plays better this week! Jarom stayed for dinner and he liked the meatballs that I made (he took seconds) and he thanked me twice for dinner, which I thought was nice. After dinner we took Jarom home. We took Snickers with us and Seth got this photo of me with Snickers:

And here is Seth and Jarom being silly for the camera:

At Jarom's house, we were talking to his dad and grandma for a few minutes while the kids ran all over the lawn and Seth fell and scraped up his knee. It wasn't too bad, but he wasn't very happy about that of course. When we got home, I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom floors.

Sunday the 22nd: My new team teacher and I taught together for the first time, and that went well. She's really good with the kids. Frank woke up feeling sick--headache, dizzy and nauseated--so he didn't go to church. He laid low all day.

Monday the 23rd: Frank still wasn't feeling great, so he took half the day off. He did quite a bit of work from home and he ended up having to go to one of the stores for a while, so he didn't take the whole day off. I was supposed to work with my Arc friend for a few hours, but that fell through last minute. I didn't mind--I had plenty to do. I got the regular chores done, called the vet to set up an appointment for Snickers to get his blood glucose arc, made cupcakes for family night treat, worked on the Christmas project, and went to the store to get supplies for another Christmas project (which I am also going to be vague about since I don't want to give anything away). Seth's knee was hurting a bit still and after school I noticed he sounded a bit stuffed up and he complained that his head hurt. I was afraid he might be coming down with a sinus infection or something.

Tuesday the 24th: Seth didn't feel very well in the morning--his head still hurt and he was still stuffed up, but when I asked him if he needed to stay home from school, he was adamant that he didn't want to do that. I was glad since I didn't want him to miss another day of school already. He continued to be stuffed up for the next couple of days and I gave him both tylenol and a decongestant more than once, but he seems to be feeling better now, so I'm glad that didn't turn into anything full-blown. Tuesday I did mostly the usual stuff but I also went to the library to return books and to get one for Seth that he wanted. (I finished Beneath a Scarlet Sky over the weekend, by the way. It was really good!) On Tuesday evening there was a RS activity, so I went to that. I haven't been to one in 4 or 5 months because something has always come up that I couldn't go, so it was nice to go to one again. We made little care packages for all the YM in the ward, including encouraging notes. That was pretty fun.

Wednesday the 25th: I wasn't feeling incredibly well (headache, slight sore throat, slightly congested) so I didn't do much besides the Walmart shopping. I skipped the religion class and did some reading and watched some episodes of Call the Midwife on Netflix (they just added new episodes that I haven't seen yet). It was nice to relax a bit but I never feel very happy by the end of the day if I haven't been very productive.

Thursday the 26th: I got the regular chores done and I also worked on both Christmas projects. It felt good to be a bit more productive! Seth had YM in the evening; they played a Book of Mormon trivia game and he enjoyed that.

Friday the 27th: I have the budget mostly done but there's a technical issue with the spreadsheet so I wont' be able to enter all the information in there until after Frank gets home and takes a look at it. My nose is running a bit today and my throat is slightly sore again. I'm not sure if it's allergies or something else, but I'm glad I don't feel worse.

I exercised every day this week and we went on a couple of walks too. Seth and I did brain balance every day but I think we are going to take a break from that for a while. It doesn't seem to be helping him much and he is starting to resist the idea of doing it, so it doesn't seem worth the time and effort we are putting into it. He also has a lot more activities going on and he has homework nearly every day so the after school hours are getting really stressful and hectic.

It has continued to be very dry here. Yesterday I was delighted when I heard rain start to come down, but it only lasted a few minutes. We haven't had any measurable rain since August 27th, which is really unusual for these parts. We've had some hot days but mostly the days have been quite pleasant and the nights can get pretty cool. Mostly the weather is beautiful, but it makes us anxious to have so little rain. The pumpkin does not seem to mind, however. (We have been watering it most days). It has continued to grow a bit bigger and to ripen--it's now orange all over. I took this photo on Saturday:

Here it is this morning:

Is that not a perfect looking pumpkin? We are probably going to pick it tomorrow, unless we decide it's not quite ready for picking yet. Kind of cool that we don't have to buy a pumpkin for Halloween this year!

I've probably forgotten something, but that's all I can think of for this week.

Weekly Review September 20 '19

It feels like fall around here. Well, most of the time. We have had several days with highs in the 70s and nights that get down into the low 50s. But then in between we get a day now and again that is in the high 80s or even low 90s. But overall, it's getting cooler. We've turned off the air conditioning several nights lately and I usually don't need to turn it back on until late afternoon. This morning I actually feel a little cold...like a little bit of heat wouldn't hurt! It's still really dry, though. I can't remember the last time we had a really good rain storm, and there's no rain in the forecast for the next week. The last couple of days, my nose has been dry and bleeding a little--my nose thinks it's in Utah!! It's so strange to have that happen out here. Hopefully we will get some rain one of these days. In the meantime, though, most days are sunny and pleasant, and I'm not complaining about that. Our pumpkin has started to turn yellow / orange:

(The first photo was taken on Tuesday; the second one on Wednesday and the third today).

Now that you've heard the weather report, I will move on to what we did this week.

Friday the 13th: After I wrote the blog post, I got the budget caught up and I did some work on the Christmas project. In the evening, I watched a movie on Netflix called The Lake House, which is an old favorite. (Although the time line makes my brain explode).

Saturday the 14th: We cleaned the church in the morning. Most of the helpers didn't show up again. I vacuumed the entire chapel and I was feeling the effects in my neck, shoulder, and back, but thankfully I didn't have a relapse. After we got home, Frank had a lot of work to do for a client. While he was gone, I did the usual Saturday chores and helped Seth get some Spanish homework done. In the afternoon, we went to a birthday openhouse for a lady in our ward--I believe she is the oldest lady in our ward, although I don't know her actual age. She and her sister live together in a little house with a bunch of cats. They also sit behind us in Sacrament meeting nearly every week, so we've gotten to be good friends. Anyway, they have this birthday openhouse every year and we usually go. Seth likes it because they always have ice cream sundaes. We also enjoy visiting with other members of our ward, including some who don't come to church very often. On the way home, I remembered that there might be a BYU game, so I looked it up and sure enough--they were actually at half time. So when we got home, we watched the rest of the game and we were happy that BYU won! Seth even watched it with us and got interested in what was happening. In the evening, we went to s Latin market to get a special kind of cornmeal that Seth needs for a school project for his Spanish class. He thought he needed it for this week, but it turns out he didn't. But he will probably need it eventually.

Sunday the 15th: I was glad to go back to church, after missing a week. My team teacher was out of town, so Frank helped with my class. It was great having him there...the kids were very well behaved for him! (I think he's a bit intimidating, but he made them laugh too!) Frank and I both needed naps after church. In the evening, there was a dinner and workshops for the YM / YW, so Seth went to that.

Monday the 16th: In the morning I got a lot of the regular chores done and I made a few phone calls. First to the child psychologist, where I had to leave a message and I still haven't  been called back. Second, to BYU catering because the charge for Tanner & Darlee's wedding luncheon has never showed up on our credit card bill. I mean, I really didn't mind that, but I figured they'd want to be paid. Turns out they have no record of the charge being made in the first place so we took care of that over the phone. I wonder how long it would have gone without them noticing that they hadn't been paid! In the afternoon, I worked--took my Arc friend to a couple of doctor appointments and then to work. That evening, after family night, Seth started to feel sick and he threw up shortly before bedtime. So of course he had to stay home from school on Tuesday.

Tuesday the 17th: As usual, Seth felt fine and after drinking ginger ale and eating crackers in the morning, he was ready for regular food by the afternoon. And he's been fine since. It would be lovely if we could figure out why he does this periodically, although I'm glad that he doesn't stay sick for days (or even for 24 hours). I got all the regular chores done in the morning and then I had to take Snickers to the vet. They decided his paw needs some antibiotic ointment, so I'm putting that on his paw twice a day now, in addition to wiping it with the medicated wipes. His blood sugar is still very high, unfortunately. So we need to do some kind of further testing to try to figure out what's going on. It's possible that he needs a different kind of insulin (we just started a new bottle on Monday, of course) or the dose may be too high so his sugar is going too low and then his body is trying to compensate, but overcompensates instead. The only way to know for sure is to do a test called a blood arc test (or something like that) which involves leaving him at the vet's for a day so they can check his sugar several times throughout the day. Of course, that's pretty expensive. We can do a less expensive test that might give them some good information but if it doesn't tell them enough, he'd have to have the other test done anyway. So we are trying to decide what to do about that. Sigh!! That evening was Back-to-School night at Seth's school and Frank came with me to that, which made it a lot more fun for me. :) We were able to pick up some homework that Seth had forgotten to bring home on Monday. He was feeling pretty stressed about missing school and all the make up work, so I emailed his teachers about that. They were nice and helped him get caught up on things, thankfully.

(Back at the vet again!)

Wednesday the 18th: Seth went back to school and I had a pretty regular Wednesday, with Walmart shopping and going to the religion class. After the class I went to another store in search of smoked salmon, which I needed for a recipe I was making that afternoon. While I was out on Wednesday, I kept seeing the Goodyear blimp again. I got a better photo this time:

I had book chat that evening and it was my turn to bring the snack. In honor of the book we read, which was set in Alaska, I made smoked salmon dip. I also brought crab dip and a variety of crackers as well as some blueberries. We had a great discussion...at some points I remember laughing hysterically although I don't remember why now. We had definitely moved away from the book at that point and were on to another topic, because the book was not funny at all. It was mostly tragic, although I did like it.

Frank had a big issue at work that he was working on. He was able to work on it at home, so while I was at book chat he was home with Seth but he was down in his office working the whole time. When I got home, we had family prayer and scripture reading and Seth and I went to bed, but Frank said he had a lot more to do. He didn't end up coming to bed until after 5:00 am!! (He did get everything done, though.)  Then he was up again at 8:30 and back at work by 10:30. He said he was going to come home early, but he actually didn't leave work until about 5:00 pm. So he basically worked 3 days' worth in less than 48 hours. Poor guy!

Thursday the 19th: I did regular chores and went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. I always enjoy talking with her and now that I am in Primary I don't usually get a chance to do that at church anymore. We see each other at choir practice, but we haven't been having choir practice lately either so we really needed to get caught up. A friend had asked me to pick up some of her kids from school that afternoon. (They go to the same school as Seth, and they used to live in our ward until they moved to a new house several years ago.) She has four kids at the school, so I didn't have room for all of them but I took two of the kids home first and then circled back towards the school and picked up the other two, who had started walking home. (They could have walked the whole way, but it would have been a LONG walk.)

Friday the 20th: That's today! Seth doesn't have school today because it is "Fair Day". The Frederick County Fair has been going on for the last week and the kids always get a day off to go to the fair. They get in free that day, too. (Just during the day, not in the evening.) We don't go to the fair often, but one of Frank's clients gave us free tickets (for admission, rides, and parking) so we are planning to go later today. Seth actually doesn't want to go on any rides, he just wants to see the animals! But maybe we will convince him to go on something tame, like the ferris wheel. Anyway, it was nice to sleep in a bit this morning. It is a little after noon and Seth is still in his pajamas, playing in his room but I really don't care because he is NOT watching television or playing video games. At some point he needs to take a shower and get some homework done, but there's no rush.

In the pockets of free time that I had this week, I mostly read. (I forgot to mention last week that I had finished the book for book chat, The Great Alone.) This week I started reading the next book for book chat. It's called Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan. It's about a young man in Italy during WWII who first helped Jews escape into Switzerland by helping them hike over the Alps. Then he was going to get drafted so his parents made him join the German army and after getting wounded he ended up being a driver for a really important Nazi general. But his uncle was part of the resistance, so he became a spy and would go tell his uncle everything he saw and heard while he was driving for this Nazi general. It's actually based on a true story--the author actually met and extensively interviewed this man when he was much older. It's very interesting and even though it's over 500 pages, I only have about 100 pages left. I worked a bit on sewing doll clothes too and I finished the little skirt I was making and yesterday I started working on a little hat.

That's it for this week! 

Weekly Review September 13 '19

Well, it was quite a week. I'll just jump right in.

Friday the 6th: I did get the budget done, with help from Frank. But remember that my neck, shoulder, and back were hurting? That pain kept getting worse. So even though I was able to lie down after I finished the budget, it was pretty hard to get comfortable. Taking some ibuprofen helped a little bit.

Saturday the 7th: I was pretty much miserable and in excruciating pain all day. I don't even know how to describe it. My neck and shoulder hurt all the time, and moving my head was excruciating. I couldn't turn my head to the side or lift up my chin. I was in a lot of pain if I was sitting up, but lying down hurt too. I couldn't even read or watch a show on my laptop because I had to lie on my side and not move my head at all. So besides being miserable, I was also bored. Frank tried all kinds of things to help me--heating pad, hot / cold patches, ibuprofen, etc. All that stuff he got when he was having a lot of neck & shoulder pain after his second wreck. Nothing seem to help much. Adding to my physical misery was the emotional distress I was feeling because I was supposed to be giving a talk and teaching a class at church the next day and as the day progressed and I got worse instead of better, I was not sure at all that I was going to be able to make it. Frank gave me a blessing in the evening, and that comforted me although I still didn't feel well. I contacted the bishopric member to let him know that I probably wasn't going to make it, unless I had a good night's sleep and felt a lot better in the morning. He was super understanding and nice about it; he said he had it covered and actually encouraged me to stay home and get some rest, so I was grateful for that. Meanwhile, I should mention that Frank had gone to supervise the cleaning of the church that morning (that's his church calling) but no one showed up so he ended up cleaning the entire church and setting up all the chairs by himself. As a result, his back was hurting all day too. Poor Frank! He should have been pampered but instead he spent the day taking care of me and doing all the cooking and everything.

Sunday the  8th: I slept fairly well although I was awake a few times in the night and I definitely felt better than I had the day before, but I was still very sore and the thought of getting up and showering was pretty overwhelming. So I decided to stay home from church, and even though I felt terrible about not giving my talk and lesson, I think it was definitely the right thing to do. I just rested in bed all day, and by evening I was feeling quite a bit better. The pain had subsided a lot. I was able to read a little bit too, so I started reading the book for book chat. (The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah)  Apparently, everything at church worked out fine too.

Monday the 9th: By Monday morning, I was almost back to normal. Just feeling twinges of pain now and again, so I tried to be careful and take things slowly. Actually, I have been trying to do that all week. I skipped exercising until yesterday and although I did jog yesterday and today, I jogged for only 10 minutes each day instead of 30. I was able to get the regular chores done (I did things like taking laundry downstairs in several small loads that I dragged behind me in a bag instead of lifting a full hamper--being careful!!) When I was at the store, I got the things my friend Wanda needed although when I dropped them off she wasn't in her room so I haven't seen her since last week. I contacted a bunch of people too. One of the sisters that I minister to had a health crisis on Saturday, but of course I was having one of my own so I couldn't help at all. So I needed to follow up with her. I also contacted my team teacher for Primary (it was her first week with the class since my former team teacher got released on Sunday--so yeah, I really started out on the right foot with the new teacher by not showing up!) and I contacted the lady I work with at the Arc to see if she wants to start meeting again now that school is back in session. I spread things out all day--do one thing, then rest for a while, then do another thing--and that seemed to work well.

Tuesday the 10th: A lot like Monday; I got the regular chores done and tried to go slowly and be smart about how I did things. I prepared the Primary lesson for this Sunday and did a few things for my music calling. Frank and I also went on a walk, since I was feeling up to doing that. (And so was he. His back was still really sore on Sunday and I'm sure it's still bothering him, but it's a lot better than it was.)

Wednesday the 11th: Again, regular chores. I decided to skip the religion class for two reasons--partly because I didn't want to sit in the hard chairs at the church for too long but mostly because I was watching shows about 9 / 11 on the History Channel and I didn't want to leave. (I always feel compelled to do something on September 11th to remember 9 /11/ 01. Although it's painful to remember it, it's something that I feel like I shouldn't ever forget.) I think it was good to rest on the couch for a while anyway! I worked a bit on the Christmas project too. After I picked Seth up from school, we took Snickers to the vet. He needed one of his routine vaccines. He was also supposed to get his blood sugar checked, but I misunderstood when I made the appointment that they wanted to check it 4-6 hours after he received his insulin shot, not at least 4-6 hours later. So it was actually about 8 hours since he had his insulin shot, which was too late. The day before I had also noticed he was licking a spot on one of his front paws and it looked a little red, so I asked them to look at it too. Turns out that it needs to be examined because he has a lump there and it looks infected. So now I have to take him back next week to have his blood sugar checked and to have his paw examined; in the meantime they gave me some medicated pads and I have to clean his paw twice a day. Aargh!! If I can make it even one week without having to take the dog to the vet and shell out another hundred or more dollars and cope with another problem that requires daily maintenance and / or medication, I am going to be the happiest person alive!! That evening Frank did maintenance for some of his clients, but we had time for a short walk.

Thursday the 12th: I had a pretty busy day yesterday. Right after I got back from dropping Seth off at work, the lady I work with at the Arc contacted me and wanted to know if I was busy. I hadn't showered yet and I needed to both vacuum the whole house and mow the lawn (two things that cause me to sweat a lot and get dirty, so I definitely wanted to do those before showering) so I told her I was busy in the morning but I had some time in the afternoon. So she asked me to come by that afternoon; she needed help with some online training she was trying to complete for her job. So I got the lawn mowed (the back yard needed it desperately; the south-facing front yard not so much because it has a lot of dead patches because it's been so dry and it's also been pretty hot lately) and the house vacuumed and then I showered and ate some lunch before heading to work. I worked for a couple of hours and then picked up Seth from school on my way home. After that, we did brain balance and I finished laundry and made dinner. Seth had YM earlier than normal that evening; they were playing soccer and wanted to start earlier so that they'd have more time to play before it got dark. Frank worked on maintenance for the rest of his clients but got done in time to go with me to pick up Seth from the church. Then we got ice cream cones on the way home.

Friday the 13th: Haha, it's Friday the 13th! I haven't done a lot yet today besides jog, shower, eat breakfast, and take Seth to school. But it's only about 10:20, so that's okay. I will update the budget next and then I will probably have some time to relax. I'd like to work more on the Christmas project plus work on doll clothes--I haven't touched that project for nearly 2 weeks.

Our baby pumpkin is growing up! The photo I posted last week was taken on Thursday the 5th. (I'm adding it again here for comparison purposes):

 Here it is on Monday the 9th:

And here it is yesterday:

(Okay, I zoomed in more on the first photo so it actually looks bigger then than it does now, but trust me--it's bigger now!) It's turned such a dark green that it looks like a watermelon! But I'm pretty sure it's a pumpkin. Seth keeps asking when it is going to turn orange. I have no idea!

When I walked outside on Monday, I heard the sound of a motor overhead. I looked up and saw this:

It's the Goodyear blimp! (I know it's too dark in the photos to tell. It was flying toward the sun, so it was hard to get the lighting correct.) In real life, I could see it much better and it looked a lot closer than it does in the photos too. We saw it flying around for the next couple of days. Not sure why it was here. We do see blimps occasionally because of the airport nearby.

I'll finish with these photos that I took on our evening walk on Tuesday. The moon was up and the sun was setting. It was beautiful! As usual, the photos don't do it justice:

(That's a cornfield...hard to tell with the lighting.)

Just want to finish up by saying how grateful I am that I am healthy 99.9% of the time! There's nothing like spending a few days feeling pain every time I moved to help me appreciate that most of the time I can do so many things--turn my head to look at the clock to see what time it is, lift up my chin so I can give Frank a kiss, lie down in bed, walk around, sit, bed over, the list goes on--without being in pain! I know some people are not so lucky. I usually take my good health for granted. So if nothing else, last weekend was a reminder of how much I am blessed. 

Weekly Review September 6 '19

I'll start this week out with an update on Snickers. We haven't had any more really bad nights with him, thankfully, although he still needed to go out at least once during the night for several nights. He seemed to be holding his own over the weekend (not getting a lot better, but not getting much worse) until Monday afternoon. Frank and I went to the store to get a few things, and while we were gone he had an accident in the house (don't know why he didn't whine at Seth, since Seth was home). When I was cleaning it up, I could see that there was a lot of blood in his stool. So I had to call the vet on Tuesday morning and take him back in. Meanwhile, his urine sample came back showing that he didn't have an infection and he didn't have ketones in his urine either, which means his diabetes wasn't out of control. But he did have diarrhea, and there was a lot of blood mixed in. They decided that the blood didn't mean anything too sinister but they felt like he needed more help getting over whatever intestinal bug he had, so we got an antibiotic and some dog food that's high in fiber and they also gave him some fluids because he was dehydrated. That seemed to do the trick. By Wednesday morning he was much better and his stool was firming up. He's still on the antibiotic as well as an antacid, but he is eating well, seems to be pretty happy, and has not had to go out at all the last 2 or 3 nights. I hope I am not jinxing it but saying that!

At the vet again...Snickers is hiding under my chair.

Okay, so back to the end of last week...

Friday the 30th: I did manage to get the budget done, but that was about it. (Remember that was the day I was exhausted from being up most of the night with Snickers). After getting the budget done, I opted to take it easy, so I watched a movie on Netflix called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's based on a book that we read in book chat several years ago. I remember we all really liked the book but I can't remember much about it, so I'm not sure if the movie follows the story line of the book or if it's embellished a lot. But I did like the movie a lot. It was a nice way to relax! When I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that I had a missed call on my cell phone and a voicemail, so I listened to it and it was a member of the bishopric asking me to speak this Sunday. He finished his message with "have a nice weekend!" Sure, thanks a lot! ;) I talked to him the next day and found out the topic, which is "Self-Reliance: Independence vs. Responsibility". I must have a target on me somewhere that says "Self-Reliance" since this is the second time I've given a talk on that subject, I was asked to be a facilitator for the self reliance program, and Frank & I were asked to teach the 5th Sunday lesson earlier this year on financial self reliance. But it is a topic that I have a lot of strong feelings about, so that's okay.

Saturday the 31st: Frank and I ran some errands in the morning. Then I worked on my music calling, practiced the ukulele, and cleaned the kitchen floor. I worked on the Christmas project and I worked on doll clothes for a while too. I'm working on a pleated skirt now, which goes with the fleece jacket. I managed to get all the pleats sewn (which took a long time) but it doesn't match up as well with the waistband as I think it should, so I'm going to have to figure out what I did wrong. (It might just need one more pleat). I was working on that until bedtime on Saturday and I haven't had a chance to work on it this week...all my spare time has been spent preparing my talk.

Sunday the 1st: Church was really good; I was really feeling the spirit that day. After church I kept busy starting to prepare my talk, preparing my Primary lesson, and choosing the hymns for this Sunday, plus some other music calling stuff. Since Snickers still wasn't doing really great at that point, Frank went home after Sacrament Meeting so we wouldn't have to leave him for 2 hours. Frank hadn't slept well and he was really tired. I was tired too, but when I tried to take a nap I only slept for a few minutes. Oh well! Here are my Primary class holding up their "gifts" (we talked about spiritual gifts). They're so cute!!:

Monday the 2nd: Since it was Labor Day, Frank was home all day which was nice. It was Seth's last day of summer vacation. I mostly did the normal stuff (laundry still has to get done, even if it is a holiday) and I worked on the Christmas project for a bit. I also stopped by to see my friend Wanda--she needed me to get a card for her to give to her son for his birthday, so I got that while I was at the store that morning getting a few groceries for us. She asked me to come back on Wednesday because she needed a few more things from the store.

Tuesday the 3rd: Seth's first day of 7th Grade! I almost forgot to take his picture, but I remembered when we were in the car on the way, so I pulled over to take a photo and this is the best you will get:

He seemed to like school pretty well although he was super tired when he got home and doing brain balance wasn't too fun. Plus, there were a million forms to fill out and letters / syllabuses to read and sign. I never enjoy the beginning of the school year paper avalanche! While Seth was at school, I got the normal chores done, took Snickers to the vet, and worked on my talk a bit.

Wednesday the 4th: I wasn't sure I was going to go to religion class because of Snickers, but he was doing so much better by Wednesday morning that I decided to go. I also got shopping and dusting done in the morning before the class. After class, I ended up staying to talk with one of my friends for nearly an hour. We hadn't had a chance to talk in a long time, and she is also the choir director so we had music stuff to discuss. And specifically, my bishop had asked me to see how she was doing and if she would be okay to continue as the choir director for the rest of the year. She does have some really difficult stuff going on right now, but she said she'd be okay until at least January or February and she is hoping by then a few things will change so that she can continue even longer. She is one of those people that I really enjoy talking to, so I was glad for the chance to catch up! After that I went straight to Wanda's to get the list of things she needed. Originally, I had planned to go to the store to get her shopping done before going to pick up Seth from school but since I talked so long with my friend I didn't have time to do that. I barely had time to get Wanda's list and to trim her bangs (she had asked me to do that too) before I had to leave to pick up Seth. So after getting through brain balance / homework / dinner with Seth (Frank was working late and got home right after we finished dinner), I went to the store to get Wanda's things. But first I went to the library because I had two books for book chat to pick up. My plan was to quickly pick up the books and quickly go to the store and get back in time to give Snickers his insulin shot / medicine, but I ran into two friends from my ward at the library and we ended up talking for quite a while. That's okay though--I really enjoyed talking to them! (I don't really get much time to talk to anybody at church anymore since I'm rushing off to Primary.) Frank was able to take care of Snickers, too, so it all worked out.

Thursday the 5th: After taking Seth to school, I stopped at Wanda's to give her the things I purchased for her the night before. But she had forgotten a few things so now I need to go back and get those. Ugh! I really don't mind helping her most of the time, but sometimes it can be a challenge. I went to lunch with Frank and spent the rest of the day getting the chores done and wrestling to get my talk down on paper. That's always the hardest part of preparing a talk for me. I did a lot of thinking about it and a lot of reading from the time I got the assignment, and I have all kinds of thoughts and ideas and found a lot of good quotes, but taking all those things I've been thinking about and putting it into some sort of logical, coherent form is always difficult for me. I didn't finish it yesterday, but I got a lot of it done. Our ward activity night just moved from Wednesdays to Thursdays, so Seth had YM last night. That will take some adjusting for us. He learned about computer programming, and seemed to enjoy it.

Friday the 6th: Today I decided that I would get my talk finished first because I was feeling stressed about getting it done. So after getting Seth to school I worked on my talk and I did get it done finally. Now I can let it gel for a few days and go over it on Saturday evening to make any final changes. I feel a lot less stressed about it. After I finished my talk, I exercised and showered and Scott called to talk to me for a while. By then it was time to pick up Seth from school (he gets out an hour earlier on Fridays). Now all I have left is making dinner (and pizza dough is already in process) and getting the budget done. I hope the budget won't take too long. I woke up this morning with my neck / shoulder / back hurting and it is really painful! Going to pick up Seth from school was torture because it hurts a lot to turn my head. I have no idea why it's so stiff and sore, but it feels like it's all connected. It actually hurts all the way up into the back of my head, down my neck, into my left shoulder, and then all the way down to my left hip. It's making me want to lie down and do nothing, but I have too much to do. Frank said his back hurt this morning too; I hope he's had a better day than I have had.

We have been having mostly nice weather the last week. Wednesday was really hot--up into the 90s--but the rest of the week was in the 80s and now we have actually dropped into the 70s for highs. It's very pleasant! It's been pretty dry, though. I worry that we are getting into a drought. I'm grateful that we aren't going to get slammed by Hurricane Dorian (poor Bahamas!!) but I wouldn't have minded if getting a little rain from that. Doesn't look like we will, though.

Our new neighbor next door still hasn't moved in and we still haven't met her but she has been having a lot of work done on the house. There have been contractor vehicles parked out front most days and we've been hearing lots of hammering and other noises from over there. Meanwhile, our neighbor on the end on the other side is also getting ready to move and has also been having a lot of work done on his house this week. So we've been hearing a lot of construction noises from both sides!

The mystery vine in our front yard gave birth to a bouncing baby pumpkin!! When I wrote last week, we still weren't sure what it was, but within a few days it grew a lot and it looked like this:

And it has been growing like crazy ever since. The photo above was taken on Tuesday. By yesterday, it looked like this:

I'm pretty tickled about it. I was kind of hoping all along that it was a pumpkin vine (it looked like a pumpkin vine to me) but I kept telling myself that it would be some kind of squash instead. My only hope now is that it ripens before the vine completely takes over our front yard!

And that's all I can think of to report this week.