Weekly Review November 29 '19

Hello from Brevard, NC...we came here for Thanksgiving. I'm going to have to write this post in bits and pieces because we've got a lot going on today. So if it doesn't make a lot of sense, that is why. Here goes:

Saturday, November 23rd: I attended the funeral for a member of our ward (and sang a song in the choir). It was a really nice funeral, with lots of beautiful music. The man who passed away was a great man, and it's always inspiring to hear about the life of a great person. I stayed after the funeral to help set up everything for a luncheon for the family. Those things took up most of my day. Frank was busy doing a lot of work for clients most of the day.

Sunday, November 24th: I got released as a Primary teacher, so I'm back down to two callings. There was a special RS meeting, so a bunch of the men taught Primary so that all the Primary teachers could go to that. After church I worked on music calling stuff and had another song practice for the women's group Christmas song. Seth wanted to make rice crispy treats, so we made those too.

Monday, November 25th and Tuesday, November 26th: these two days were pretty busy because I was trying to get all the usual chores done, plus get ready for our trip to NC. I had lots of extra errands to run. I also sent Thanksgiving cards to all the sisters I minister to, and took treats to one of them. Tuesday was Tanner's birthday and we got to talk to him for a little while. Darlee sent me a photo in the morning of Tanner sitting on their couch with a bunch of presents and a birthday banner on the wall behind him. Tanner later sent me a photo of him with the beautiful cake that Darlee made for him. So even though we are sorry we didn't get to spend the day with him, we felt good knowing that he was well taken care of on his birthday! (Way to go, Darlee!) The part Frank ordered for the heater came on Monday, which was surprising because we weren't expecting it until the end of the week. He installed it...and we still had the same problem. This led us to believe that the problem wasn't the control panel at all, but must be something else. Frank decided to try cleaning the flame sensor and after he did that the heater worked perfectly! So who knows why the repairman told us the control panel wasn't working. I'm just glad we didn't buy a whole new system! It's a blessing that Frank is so handy with things like that.

Wednesday, November 27th: We got up and got on the road before 8:00, which was great. We were fortunate that the weather was cloudy but not raining--we only got a little bit of rain at one point--and the temperatures were in the 50's, so it was actually a pretty pleasant day for traveling. We decided to take Snickers with us on this trip and since he is usually very anxious when we travel in the car, we got some calming medicine from the vet to give to him. It definitely didn't make him sleepy (if anything, he seemed more alert than usual) but he was relatively relaxed--for him--so I guess the medicine did its job. There was, of course, a lot of traffic. We made fairly good time most of the day but a few accidents slowed us down and then we hit rush hour traffic in Asheville. Those slow downs, along with a few extra stops for the dog, meant we didn't arrive at our air b&b until about 6:00. (We have sometimes made the trip in as little as 8 hours.) After getting our belongings settled, we went to Frank's parents' house to visit for a little while and then Frank & I went shopping for a few groceries before we turned in for the night.

Thursday, November 28th: Happy Thanksgiving! We made banana pudding, chocolate pudding, and a relish tray in the morning. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the church with Frank's extended family, several of their friends, and the missionaries who are serving in Brevard. There was SO MUCH FOOD!! We spent the day eating and playing games. It was nice. We spent the evening relaxing at our place. I did a lot of reading--it's my turn to pick the book for book chat next time, so I decided to read one of the books that I'm considering. I don't remember where I heard about it now, but it sounded interesting so I got a copy of it from the library right before we left for our trip. I read a little in the car, a little more during the day on Thursday, and then a lot that evening. Snickers was being kind of a pill and he didn't want to go to sleep so I stayed up late with him until he settled down. Since the book was getting pretty interesting by then, that wasn't such a hardship for me! The book is called Searching for Sylvie Lee.

Playing games and making puzzles:

Friday, November 29th: This morning I finished up the book I was reading, and it was pretty good. We went for a drive up into Pisgah National Forest and also onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was in the 50s again, so fairly pleasant. The scenic views are not as spectacular right now as they would be in spring, summer, or fall, but they are still pretty nice.

Pisgah Forest:

Blue Ridge Parkway:

Looking Glass Falls:

We really enjoyed getting out and getting some fresh air, and bonus--we saw license plates from both Utah and Alaska on our drive today. (We still have 13 state license plates left to find, though.) Afterwards, we spent some time visiting with Frank's parents at their house and then we came back to our place to lie down for a little while before going to see Frozen II. The movie theater here in this small town is pretty small and you can't buy tickets until 30 minutes before the show starts but we had no trouble getting tickets and we also got great seats. The theater was only about 3 blocks from where we are staying, so we walked to the theater and back:

We all enjoyed the movie. I think my favorite part was when Kristoff sang his 80's spoof song "Lost in the Woods". All of the adults in the theater where laughing hysterically while Seth kept saying "What's so funny??" If you didn't live through the 80's, the humor was totally lost on you! Anyway, it was a pretty good movie overall. Snickers was pretty happy to see us when we got back from the movie because that's the only time we left him here the whole trip (we even took him to the church with us.) After the movie, we went back to the church to eat more Thanksgiving leftovers and to play more games and visit some more. Then we said our goodbyes and came back to our place. It's been a nice visit. We are driving back home tomorrow.

Overall, we have enjoyed our little "apartment" where we've been staying. We have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, kitchen, and laundry and it cost less than a hotel room would have. We are on the bottom floor of a little two story house. It's a cute little place. We haven't loved the shower (water pressure or water temperature) but our main complaint is the upstairs neighbor, who is extremely quiet during the day but seems to stay up all night, walking around and moving things around and dropping things. Like literally--it sounds like she's moving furniture around up there or something! I woke up several times the first night we were here and thought I heard a lot of movement going on up there but in the morning I figured it all probably happened within the first hour or so after I fell asleep. But then last night I was up until midnight and the entire time I could hear tons of noise going on up there. Then I woke up again around 3:00 am and I could still hear noise (Frank said he heard it around that time too.) Now it is nearly 11:00 pm and I'm hearing lots of walking around again (although it doesn't sound like there is any furniture moving, at least). So strange! It's mostly been a good place to stay, though, and I think we will stay here again on future visits, if possible.

(This note was on the refrigerator when we arrived.)

I've probably forgotten a lot of stuff, but that's all I can think of for now. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Weekly Review November 22 '19

This week was pretty busy although I'm not sure how much of it is worth telling you about. We'll see how long this gets!

Saturday the 16th: I did the usual music calling stuff, practiced ukulele, and cleaned the kitchen floor. But besides that, I submitted my timesheet for my Arc job (I haven't worked since September but I did some online training that I get paid for), got a birthday treat ready for my Primary class (last birthday this year!), and Frank and I went to Walmart and to Lowe's to get some things we needed. Then we came home and spent the afternoon spreading mulch, raking / mulching leaves, and mowing the lawn. I sincerely hope that's the last time I will have to mow until next spring! Then our backs hurt for the rest of the evening, especially Frank's. But the yard does look a lot better. (At least, it did--we need to rake & mulch leaves again.)

Sunday the 17th: It wasn't a very relaxing Sunday because after church I had a song practice at 3:00 and then we all went to the Face to Face program to learn about the new children and youth activity program. The Face to Face was good, but Frank had to sit out in the foyer (remember his back is hurting) and Seth was totally unmedicated by then so he couldn't sit still. He kept getting up and going out to the foyer and then coming back. Hopefully he got something out of it! Back to the song practice, it went well but we actually ended up changing songs because the accompaniment was super strange--the pianist (who is really talented; she can pick up practically any piece and play it beautifully without practice) said that it was actually impossible to play on a piano in some places. We're singing the same song (The First Noel), but she found a different arrangement. I like the new arrangement better anyway. At church I was sustained as an activity days leader but they forgot to release me from my Primary teacher calling so I currently have 3 callings. Hopefully they will rectify that mistake on Sunday. I also had the first half of my temple recommend interview on Sunday before church. So anyway...I feel like I ran from one thing to another most of the day. Kind of reminded me of the days when I was Primary president and Relief Society president! I'm glad it's not like that every week, at least.

Monday the 18th: Mostly an ordinary Monday, but I spent the morning picking up those donations from my friend and delivering them to where they needed to go (see last week's review, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I also did some work for my music calling and made a follow up call to the child psychologist. I got a call back from the therapist the next day but I haven't scheduled an appointment for Seth yet because they are so busy that they usually can't fit kids in during the after school hours. Since Seth will have to miss school to go to appointments, I wanted to get some feedback from his teachers about what times of day / days of the week might be the best for him to miss school. After getting that information from his teachers,  I called again today and had to leave a message, but hopefully I'll hear back early next week and we'll be able to schedule his first appointment. For family night, Seth wanted to get donuts for treat so we did that (only a half dozen this time, though!) and we played Mario Kart because it was Frank's turn to choose the activity. (We do the lesson portion on Sunday, and this week we decided the Face to Face broadcast would count for that.) Frank won the Mario Kart races, but he always wins. I'm always terrible at Mario Kart but I did even worse than usual this time.

Tuesday the 19th: I worked hard and got all the usual chores done by lunch time. Then I spent some time doing some training for the volunteer tax preparer position. I got an email on Saturday with the information about training. I'm not positive I will be able to do it this year because the training is extensive--takes about 40 hours, and they want me to be done by January! It's all online, so I can do it when I have time here and there but I'm still not sure I'll manage to squeeze in 40 hours during the busy holiday season. We'll see how it goes. I worked on it for an hour or so that day and didn't feel like I made much headway. But part of the problem was that I didn't sleep well the night before and so after only about 15 minutes of working on it, I had to stop and take a nap! Then I worked on it some more before I had to run an errand to the store and then pick up Seth from school.

Wednesday the 20th: Originally I was planning to work on that Christmas project that I'm still trying to get done, but then the compassionate service leader asked me if I could help a sister in the ward get to an appointment (she doesn't have a car). Originally, I was just dropping her off, but it morphed into me watching her two babies while she was at the appointment and then that hour-at-the-most appointment turned into an hour and a half. So there went any chance of working on that project that morning! Besides that, I was almost late for the religion class. I wasn't too thrilled about it but oh well. It was kind of funny, though, because when I dropped her off she suggested that I could just go for a drive if I wanted, rather than take her kids back to my house. (This is when we thought her appointment would be an hour, tops.) She said the kids would fall asleep if I did that. And since my house is not very baby proof and I don't have any baby toys at my house either (the ones I saved are in the storage unit), I decided a drive would be a good idea. So where to go? I remembered that every time I drive to Walkersville for any reason, I always see a sign for a place called Taneytown, which is only about 15 miles north, but in the almost 20 years I've lived here, I've never been there. I doubted there was anything exciting to see there, but it just always kind of bugged me that it was so nearby and yet I've never been there. Every time I pass that sign, I think "I should just drive up there someday." But of course I'm always busy. So here was my perfect opportunity--I needed to drive somewhere, so why not Taneytown? So that's what I did. (Besides that, I knew it would be a pretty drive through the countryside.) I was right--there wasn't anything particularly exciting about Taneytown. It's just a cute little Maryland farming town, like many others I've been to. But at least now I can drive by that sign and not wonder! Besides that, the babies did fall asleep, so they were no trouble at all. After that adventure, I went to the religion class and did the weekly grocery shopping before I needed to pick Seth up from school. Meanwhile, my friend that I had helped on Monday emailed me and asked if I could help her get some prints made of some photos of her dad (for a display for the funeral, which is tomorrow) so I spent the evening doing that, along with getting some prints ordered that I've been meaning to order for myself and it also morphed into ordering our Christmas cards. I'm glad to have all that done, though. Frank and I also went to the stake center that evening to get the second half of our temple recommend interviews, so we both have shiny new recommends now.

Thursday the 21st: Snickers went to the groomer and he looks so nice now! I got all the regular chores done, picked up the prints and Christmas cards that I ordered on Wednesday, and spent a little bit of time practicing machine quilting. I want to learn how to machine quilt, so I can make quilts faster. (I enjoyed hand quilting and I will probably still do that sometimes, but it took forever!!) I had to buy a few supplies (like a walking foot for my sewing machine) and I've been getting tips from friends who know how to do it, reading directions, and watching YouTube videos to try to learn how to do it. By this week I felt like I'd finally gathered enough information to give it a try. So I used some of the leftover fabric squares from my two quilting projects to do some practicing and my first attempt turned out quite well. So there's hope I might actually be able to make a real quilt someday and have it turn out looking nice! The evening was busy because I had activity days and a song practice (this practice was for the funeral song). The two events overlapped, so I just went to the beginning of activity days and then went to the practice. They had 2 leaders there besides me, so it was okay for me to leave. (There are 3 leaders right now but there are 11 girls and 6 more coming in next year and none leaving! So they are actually probably going to call a fourth leader and then split the group into two groups.) Seth was supposed to be at YM at the same time I had those two things, but around dinner time he started complaining of a headache and said he didn't feel very well. So he stayed home, and it's a good thing because shortly after I got home he threw up. And unfortunately, he was sitting in the kitchen at the time and didn't run to the bathroom (or even the kitchen trash can or sink) but instead threw up all over the floor. Ugh!! At least the kitchen floor is tile--that made clean up a lot easier, although it still wasn't fun.

Friday the 22nd: Our heater has been acting up lately and on Thursday it wasn't coming on properly so Frank called a repairman, who came this morning. Frank stayed home and did some work from home so that he could talk to the repairman. I was trying to mentally prepare for the fact that we might have to replace the whole system, because our heater is 26 years old. The repairman determined that the control panel wasn't working so he said they would check into getting a new one and call us to let us know how much. It turns out that our heater is so old that they can't get that part anymore. They could get a different control panel, which costs $600, but can't guarantee that it will work. So it was looking like we really would have to get a new heater but then resourceful Frank decided to look on eBay and he found the exact part we need (used, not new) for only $100. So he ordered it, and we'll see if it works. In the meantime, we are leaving the heater off unless it gets really cold. Fortunately, it hasn't been terribly cold here (highs in the 50s) so we haven't needed it to be on much. By the time the repairman left, Frank wasn't feeling very well so he decided to take a sick day. Seth slept well last night but he did throw up a few times this morning. By early afternoon he was starting to feel a lot better, though, and he's been able to start eating normal food again (and he's bouncing off the walls). I spent most of the day working on the budget and I also got my hair cut. I tried to pay a medical bill using the flex card and it was denied again, so I'm super annoyed / frustrated by that! It was supposed to be working now! So I tried to call the lady at Frank's work, but I had to leave a message. Hopefully I will hear from her soon. Frank spent quite a bit of time on the phone trying to clear up the problem with his CPAP payment too, but I do think he finally made some headway there and I think when I am able to talk to the lady at his work, we'll be able to get that cleared up at least. But I'm kind of losing faith that the flex card is ever going to work.

Other than that, I've been reading my book for book chat and I have less than 100 pages left. I'm hoping to finish in the next day or two because one of my friends is waiting to get the book from me when I'm done. I exercised every day this week and while I've been running, I've been watching a documentary about WWII which has been really interesting. The episode about the Battle of Midway was particularly fascinating. Frank is usually eating his breakfast and getting ready to leave for work when I'm running; I've noticed he's been getting interested in this documentary too, and often sits down to watch some of it with me before he leaves for work. And I've been telling Seth different stories / interesting facts from it too and he has really liked that.

So that was our pretty busy week. I forgot to take pictures this week, so I guess this one will just have to be boring words.

Weekly Review November 15 '19

I'm going to do categories this week, since most days nothing unusual happened.

Church callings: My ward music chair calling is keeping me very busy lately. There's a lot to do with Christmas coming up. Things are starting to come together, though. I spent quite a bit of time (hours) on Saturday looking at possible song arrangements for a women's group to sing, because I'm organizing that. After I found several possibilities, I asked one of my friends (who sings and plays the piano) if I could get her opinion on which one we should do. Not only did she help me pick out a song for the women's group, but she also suggested that one of the songs I found would work really well for a group of Primary girls to sing and she offered to help them learn it. So now I have 5 songs lined up for the Christmas program on the 15th. I might need one more, or that might be enough. Anyway, I have also been sending out a lot of emails to get practices set up and so forth (plus I wrote the music spotlight for the December ward newsletter). But as I said--the Christmas music is coming together. I'm glad I only have to arrange this many musical numbers once a year! I got this calling a year ago and overall I've really enjoyed it and our ward is really great. I have a lot of people offer to do musical numbers. We have actually sung a congregational hymn only 8 times this year so far! (We've had musical numbers 21 weeks; the rest of the weeks were fast Sundays, Stake or General Conferences, and church was cancelled one week because of snow.) A lot of those I didn't have to arrange--people came to me and asked to do them. So that's pretty great. I have musical numbers arranged for every Sunday for the rest of the year, too, except for the last Sunday in December. I have also enjoyed being a Primary teacher for the last year, but that is going to change soon. On Sunday one of the counselors in the bishopric asked me to be an activity days leader, so I'm going to get released as a Primary teacher and do that instead. I will miss my class, but I think activity days will be fun. It will be particularly interesting with all the changes to the programs for the children and the youth. I'm not even sure what I'll be doing yet, but I guess I will learn as I go. And since the kids in my Primary class are turning 8 next year, I'll be seeing them soon at activity days! (The girls, anyway. But maybe the boys too--not sure if my ward will be combining.)

Meanwhile, Seth is keeping busy as the Deacon's Quorum president. This Sunday he was asked to attend the priesthood and temple preparation meeting that they were having for all the 11 year olds who will be turning 12 next year. Seems like we just went to that for Seth--this year has gone by fast!

More music: On Sunday I went to a practice for the song for the funeral that's coming up next week. My practicing at home paid off--I actually knew my part better than I thought I did! We had a good practice and it's coming together. I really enjoyed that practice--I've missed going to choir practices. (We haven't had a choir director for a couple of months and the choir hasn't sung since July.) Singing really feeds my soul in a way that nothing else does!

Scouting for Food: Seth helped pick up food on Saturday morning and then he went with all the youth in our ward to the food bank to help sort all the contributions. (They do that every year.) I guess he won't be picking up food as a scout next year, but I'm pretty sure the youth will still be helping to sort food.

Health Spending Account: Dealing with our health spending account is driving me crazy and has caused me a lot of stress and frustration!! I ended up talking on the phone with the lady at Frank's work who manages the health spending accounts again today to try to clear some things up. Our card that we use to access the account has not been working for the last month (long story why) so we've paid for a lot of medical expenses out of pocket. But every time I submit them to be reimbursed, they get denied. So, so frustrating!!! The lady at Frank's work talked to someone at the health spending account company again today and she says our card should work now and they are also going to do an audit on our account and figure out how much we need to be reimbursed, so we should get that money back soon. Here's hoping. Meanwhile, we're also trying to clear up a problem with the place that Frank purchased his CPAP from. He used the health spending account to pay for that (the card actually worked that time...I think it's the last transaction that did work) but for some reason the company has not submitted the information to our insurance yet (it's been a month now) which means we don't have the required documentation to prove that it was a legitimate medical purchase. So now we're getting hate emails from the health spending account saying that we have to reimburse the account for that amount, because we didn't provide the documentation before the deadline. The lady at his work also talked to them about that and explained the situation so I don't think they're going to do anything drastic (like suspend our card) for a while yet. In the meantime, Frank called the company he purchased the CPAP from again today (he called them for the same reason 2 weeks ago) and they said they're submitting the transaction to our insurance company today. Well, they told him the same thing 2 weeks ago! So we'll see if they really do it this time. Believe it or not, that's the short version of all the problems we've been having. Can you see why I'm frustrated? Hopefully it will all be cleared up soon.

Child Psychologist: I talked to a friend at church who works for LDS Family Services to see if taking Seth there for counseling would be a better option. After talking to me about him, she felt like he would be better off going to a child psychologist, and recommended the place that has not been returning my calls. She said they're really good. So I decided to try one more time to get in touch with them. I called on Monday and left a message, and someone called me back 5 minutes later!! I was so surprised! I have no idea why it finally worked. They are scheduling out 6 - 8 weeks, though, so he won't be seeing anyone too soon. Plus, the therapists do their own scheduling so the therapist they assigned him to is supposed to be calling me to set up an appointment and he hasn't done that yet. I will have to follow up on that on Monday. Meanwhile, things went better this week with Seth, thankfully.

Christmas Projects: I worked on both this week and I finished one of them! I've made some progress with the other one too but to be honest I'm not sure I'll finish it in time for Christmas. It might have to wait until later.

Volunteering: I volunteered to help my friend who's dad recently passed away. She had some things she wanted to donate and needed help finding a place that would take them. So did a little bit of research and found a place. I'll be picking those things up from her next week and taking them to the donation place. I also have been looking into being a volunteer for a place that provides free help with income tax filing. If I do that, I will be volunteering 4 hours a week for 11 weeks (February - April). I sent an email to someone yesterday to get more information about it, but I haven't heard back yet. (Which is the story of my life this week--I'm literally waiting to hear back from about 10 different people about different things! Sometimes I feel like I am sending emails and text messages out into the void.)

RS / EQ Activity: Last Saturday our ward had an activity for the adults. We divided up into teams and played some "Minute to Win It" games. It was pretty fun. Frank and I both ended up doing challenges that involved plastic cups. I had to build a structure with 36 plastic cups and then take it down again in a minute. (I didn't quite make it, but I was awfully close and no one else got as close to finishing as I did.) They had dessert too although I didn't eat any (I was still full from dinner). Not a lot of people cam to the activity, but those of us who did had fun.

Snickers: Snickers is doing well overall although the last couple of days I think his blood sugar has been a little higher, judging from his behavior. Hopefully that will resolve on its own. Monday was his birthday, so he turned 11 on 11/11. We weren't sure he was going to make it to his 11th birthday, but he did! I got him some treats, because I know that's all he really cares about!

Weather: It's gotten a lot colder; we had temperatures way below average a few days this week. (A high of 36 one day, I think it was.) We saw a few snowflakes drifting down for a while on Tuesday. Today was a bit warmer. Most days have been sunny, at least. The sky looked really cool yesterday when I went to pick Seth up from school so I took a few pictures:

Everything Else: I exercised most days, went to the religion class, did all the usual chores, and in between I've been reading the book chat book. I'm about halfway through (it's nearly 500 pages). Seth did safety patrol again and he seems to be keeping up with his school work pretty well. Frank has been very busy with work and he has been doing quite a bit of work for clients too. Like just about everyone else in America (or so it appears) we got Disney + this week and it's been fun to browse through all the choices of things to watch on there. We came across the movie The Apple Dumpling Gang, and Frank insisted that we had to watch it. I guess he really loved that movie; I remember liking it a lot when I was a kid as well. So we watched it tonight. Seth complained--he didn't think he'd like it--but we convinced him to watch it with us and he was laughing like crazy.

It's bedtime now and I didn't sleep very well last night so I am ready to turn in!  

Weekly Review November 8 '19

Well, here we are--it's Friday again. I don't think this week was incredibly eventful. I'll just dive right in.

Friday the 1st: Frank and I wanted to go out that night because we haven't done that in a while. I wanted to do more than just go out to eat, but Frank was thinking he needed to go do some work for a client that evening (the one that is over an hour away) and I had some work on the budget to get done, so while we were eating we decided we'd better go home after we were done eating. (We enjoyed having an uninterrupted conversation while we ate dinner, at least.)  Mainly we needed to do those things because I was planning to go to the temple the next day so I'd be gone most of the day. Frank needed to do some work for this client, but he didn't want to leave Snickers alone for several hours so he decided he needed to do it Friday night, instead of Saturday. Then after we got home, I had a call from the friend I was going to ride to the temple with and she couldn't go after all. So that meant I had time to get the budget done on Saturday and Frank could go do the work for his client on Saturday too, since I would be home to stay with Snickers. Oh well!! I was disappointed not to be able to go to the temple, but hopefully I will get to go another time soon and in the meantime, I had plenty of things to get done on Saturday.

Saturday the 2nd: Frank got up early to go do the work for his client. I spent the morning getting Seth to the places he needed to go. First, he helped pass out fliers for Scouting for Food. Then he came home and changed and I took him back to the church where they were meeting for the temple baptism trip. They left around noon and got home about 9:00. He seemed to have enjoyed it. He got to do 4 baptisms and he was a witness for some of the other baptisms too. They stopped and got pizza on the way home, so he was happy about that. Meanwhile, I got all the usual Saturday stuff done and I also got quite a bit of work done on one of the Christmas projects. I completed some online training for my Arc job, too--one of the trainings has to be updated once a year.

Sunday the 3rd: It was mostly a typical Sunday, although it felt busy to me. I guess that's because I was preparing my Primary lesson for this Sunday, working on stuff for my music calling, and writing an email to all my Utah kids. (I'm trying to do that once a week now.) Seth had a youth council meeting to go to as well.

Monday the 4th: All the usual stuff, plus I had to make several phone calls. I needed to take care of a doctor bill (part of the complications with our health spending account that we're working out), I had to call the vet to get more insulin for Snickers, I paid for our storage unit for another year, and I called the new child psychologist to make an appointment for Seth. Except I didn't make an appointment, because they don't accept our insurance. (Even though my doctor said they did.) I keep wondering if I'm doing the wrong thing, trying to get him in to talk to a psychologist, because every time I try to do something about it, I encounter roadblocks. It's super frustrating! Meanwhile, we had a few really difficult days with Seth this week (and last week wasn't great either), so it would be nice if we could get some help for him / us. Maybe we just aren't parenting him correctly, but I would like to rule out other things. I mean, we're really trying to work on our parenting, in the meantime. But if he has some anxiety or OCD or bipolar tendencies or something else, then I'd like to know about it because it might help us figure out some things that will help him. Coping strategies, and things that will maybe help life go a little smoother. He's not terrible all the time, he really isn't. But then he has these moments where he completely blows up over something and it seems totally out of proportion to whatever the trigger was. Anyway, that was a tangent. I'm not sure where we're going to go from here. I guess try to get another referral for someone who accepts our insurance.

On Monday I also talked to Mom (or was that Tuesday?) and I got some more work done on one of the Christmas projects. We played Sequence for family night and it took a long time because none of us were having much luck getting a sequence. We had almost the entire board covered with our different colored chips before I finally won the game! We got donuts for family night treat and we went to Dunkin' Donuts to get them. We were going to get a half dozen, but they gave us a dozen instead--for the same price. Only one problem with that--there's only 3 of us, which meant 4 donuts EACH! I normally wouldn't eat 4 donuts over the course of 3 days, but if they are sitting around in my house, I will. Ugh! The whole world wants me to be fat, apparently.

Tuesday the 5th: I don't have much on the calendar for Tuesday, but I know I was busy all day. I think most of my extra time was taken up by working on stuff for my music calling. I'm trying to get a bunch of musical numbers set up for Christmas. Our Christmas program is going to be on the 15th, but I also want to have a musical number on the 8th and at least one (preferably two) on the 22nd. Besides that, we've been asked to sing at the town of Walkersville tree lighting ceremony so I've got to figure something out for that too. And it's all complicated by the fact that we don't have a choir director right now. So there's a lot to do right now. So much fun for me! Frank picked up insulin for Snickers so I didn't have to do that (the vet is in between here and his office) but I need to call them back. When I ordered the insulin, they said he'd due for another blood glucose curve test. But Frank and I talked about it and decided that we don't want to do that unless there's a really good reason why it's needed. Snickers seems to be doing so much better right now that we're pretty sure his blood glucose levels are fine. And the curve is a pretty expensive test--costs hundreds of dollars--so we don't want to do that if there's not a really good reason to do it.

Wednesday the 6th: I decided to try out the religion class this week, and I really liked it. The new teacher is very different from the one we had before. He has a completely different teaching style and the atmosphere is different because of that, but it was nice. I'll probably start going again most weeks, but I just feel like I should be more willing to let it go if something more urgent comes up. I did some more work on one of the Christmas projects and got the regular chores done. It was a pretty busy day.

Thursday the 7th: Besides the usual stuff, I also worked on the other Christmas project (not the one I was working on the rest of the week). I also practiced a song that I'm learning that I'll be singing with a large group at a funeral. I can't remember if I mentioned last week that the member of our ward who was in hospice care passed away last week--on Monday. The funeral is not for another couple of weeks--that's what works best for his family--but his daughter asked a group of us to sing an arrangement of Come, Come Ye Saints at his funeral. She wrote the arrangement herself, and it's really nice, but somewhat challenging. So I've been working on that a little bit all week but spent more time with it on Thursday. Frank ended up having a problem at work that he needed to solve, so he didn't get home until about 9:00 pm. Meanwhile, I took Seth to YM and I stayed to help with the activity days girls because they were short a leader. Or actually, they thought the were going to be short a leader, so I had volunteered to help (earlier in the week). They ended up having enough leaders, but they still appreciated having another set of hands. The girls wrote thank you cards and helped put together treat bags for all the construction workers who are working on the Washington DC temple renovation--there's about 100 workers. (There were a bunch of other thank you cards that single adults in the region had written; the girls didn't have to do 100 thank you cards!) Anyway, it was fun and those girls are just as noisy as the Cub Scouts!

Friday the 8th: Seth doesn't have school today so I enjoyed not having to get him out the door at a certain time. Other than that, my morning schedule didn't change much, though. I didn't sleep in--I still got up early and exercised, then ate breakfast and showered. Seth also ate and showered, and then he got some homework done. He's been watching some television, but right now he is in his room drawing or playing or something. He's actually a really good artist. I keep thinking I should find a way to encourage his artistic pursuits more.

In between everything else I have been trying not to eat too much Halloween candy (unsuccessfully) and reading the book for book chat a bit--Giants in the Earth--and it is quite good. I'm really enjoying my study of the General Conference talks, too. Seth signed up to help with the Safety Patrol at school and this week was his group's turn (they do 2 week shifts, so he'll be doing it next week too). The safety patrol helps with the car line at dismissal every day. This week he was on the outside crew, which means he was walking kids to their cars and opening and closing car doors. Next week, he will be inside, which means he will be assigned an area near a couple of classrooms and if a child gets called for the second time, he will go to their classroom to make sure they are coming. Both jobs help the car line move more quickly and smoothly, and he gets community service hours for doing it. He seems to be enjoying it. For me, it means that I pick him up about 10 minutes later than usual, since he's not done until after dismissal completely ends.

We have still had some pretty nice days here, but it is definitely getting colder and we have had more rain. I love the view out my back windows--it's one of the things I liked most about this house, the location. I'll finish with a few photos that I took a few mornings ago. I loved the lighting, although it always looks better in real life than it does in the photos.

Weekly Review November 1 '19

Happy November! Today is actually a nice sunny day. It's windy and a little on the cold side, but still--it's nice. We've had a lot more rain lately so the grass is mostly green again and the green grass along with all the colorful leaves makes looking outside a visual treat. I just got back from picking up Seth from school and I don't feel like I've accomplished much today so far, so now I need to really focus and get a lot done in the next few hours. Here's what we did this week:

Friday October 25th: Seth had a doctor appointment that afternoon; just his check up that he has to have every 6 months. When the nurse measured him, she said he's 5' 2", which means he is now officially taller than I am. Seems like he's been growing pretty rapidly lately and the pants he got last year are looking much too short. Even the pants I bought him shortly before school started look a little on the short side! I also got a new referral for a different child psychologist, since the other place would never return my calls.

Saturday October 26th: I had an appointment to get my hair done in the afternoon. Frank and Seth both got haircuts too. Our ward had their Trunk or Treat that evening, which we attended only so we could hand out candy since Seth is getting too old to be one of the trick or treaters now. (Although some kids his age were dressed up, so I guess he could have, but he really didn't want to.) In between everything else, I reviewed my Primary lesson, cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, worked on music calling stuff, and looked up ideas for fun Halloween activities (I'll explain why later). I also tried to figure out some stuff with medical receipts / health insurance / our health spending account, but without success and I was honestly really frustrated about it! But we got that resolved later this week. Overall, it was a busy day. We took Snickers with us to the Trunk or Treat (just so we wouldn't have to leave him alone) and he was the only one of us wearing a costume, because he has a little black and orange jester collar, with bells, that I put on him.

Sunday, October 27th: It was a pretty busy Sunday. After church, we had tithing settlement. Then a few hours later we went back to the church so that Seth could get set apart as the Deacon's Quorum president. Then shortly after that I went with Seth to a family history workshop they were having for the youth to help them find family names. They have a temple baptism trip tomorrow, so they wanted all the youth to have at least one family name to do, if possible. With a little help, we did find 4 family names (on Frank's line) and Jared sent us several more so Seth has quite a few names to take with him. After we got done with that, we had dinner and family night, so it was a full day.

Monday, October 28th: It was Jared's 21st birthday, but of course he's on the other side of the country so we didn't get to celebrate with him. We did send him an animated card and a gift card, which he seemed happy to get. I actually had a pretty busy day. Besides all the usual chores, I also gave Snickers a bath. Then in the early afternoon, one of the sisters I minister to contacted me needing some help with a crisis so I went to help her and Frank picked Seth up from school so that I could stay with her until things were a little more resolved. After dinner, I mowed the lawn and then we had family night activity and treat. I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to get all of that done!!

Tuesday, October 29th: The daytime was mostly normal, with the usual chores, but when I was planning the meals for the next week (which I usually do on Tuesdays), I somehow ended up cleaning out both freezers too. (We have a chest freezer in the basement, along with the regular freezer section of the refrigerator.) I also worked on one of the Christmas projects a little bit, and did some reading too. That evening, one of my ministering sisters came to visit me. I always enjoy her visits and she always brings me something thoughtful. Like this time she brought me information about a couple of volunteering opportunities she thought might interest me (I've mentioned that I want to find some kind of service to do) and she also brought me a General Conference notebook, which has space to record details about each talk and what impressions I receive when I study them. I've been reading all the talks over again and taking notes--particularly trying to focus on what things I feel like I need to do--so this notebook is perfect! She is currently the Primary president, so while we were talking she asked me how I felt about my calling--do I need a change, do I have a preference what class I teach next year, etc. But she also asked me how I would feel about a different Primary calling, because I guess they've been considering me for another calling they need to fill. I told her I'd be okay with whatever they decide. So maybe I will be doing something new soon, or maybe I will still be a teacher. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

Wednesday, October 30th: I got the usual chores done and I also went to lunch with Frank and then we met with the person at his office who manages the health insurance / health spending accounts and she helped us straighten out what is going on with all that. So that was a relief! I worked a little bit on one of the Christmas projects, and I went to visit briefly with my friend Wanda. She wasn't at church on Sunday so I went to check on her. She was getting over being sick and since it was pouring rain on Sunday morning, she didn't want to go out. But she is feeling better now. She wants to go shopping again soon so we discussed what day would work best to do that. That evening I had book chat which was fun and lively and therapeutic, as usual. We ended up talking longer than usual and afterwards I was talking to one of my friends after we walked out to our cars to leave and ended up talking to her for quite a while, in spite of the fact that it was raining again and I got pretty wet! So I didn't get home until bedtime. We discussed a book called Under the Scarlet Sky, and now we are going to read Giants in the Earth.

Thursday, October 31st: I mostly go the usual chores done and I read a lot too because I was almost finished with a book I was reading--one of the books in the Wings of Fire series that I'm reading because Seth loves them. It got really interesting and I wanted to know what was going to happen! So I finished that book, but I'm waiting a bit to start the next one because I'm afraid it will be just as interesting and I have other things I need to get done first. On Thursday I also baked a cake and made a few more preparations for a little Halloween party (?) we were having that evening. I put a question mark because it wasn't really a party. Thursday is usually YM for Seth, but since it was Halloween, they cancelled activities and instead encouraged the youth to get together on their own if they wanted to. So we invited the rest of the Deacon's Quorum over to our house for some Halloween activities. Don't be too impressed--there are only 2 other active Deacons besides Seth! We had decided that they were going to meet in one of the other boys' neighborhoods to do some trick or treating (I would follow them around, since I don't have other kids at home but the other two moms do) and then I'd bring them back to our house for some activities and then take them home. It rained quite a bit during the day and the forecast for the evening looked tricky (no pun intended!) There was a possibility for strong storms and it was supposed to be windy. By late afternoon, we were under a tornado watch, which was supposed to last until midnight. One of the moms decided she wasn't comfortable sending her son out in those weather conditions, but Seth and the other boy still met in his neighborhood to trick or treat. The weather wasn't supposed to get really bad until about 7:00, so we met at 6:00 and it turned out just perfect. It WAS really windy (so windy that the other boy's pirate eye patch blew off and we couldn't find it!!) but the rain held off, there were no tornadoes (bonus!!) and it was actually pleasantly warm. In the 70s on the last day of October!  I mean, even with all that wind I was actually kind of hot in my sweater. (It was really humid too).

The other boy met us after we were done trick or treating and I brought them back to our house. (Frank had stayed home to hand out candy. We still have a ton left over because there were fewer trick or treaters than usual, no doubt because of the weather forecast). It started raining a little when we were on the way to our house, and while we were doing our activities the storm hit big time. First, they painted acorn squashes that looked a lot like little pumpkins (note to self: don't wait until the day before Halloween to buy mini pumpkins--they will be all gone):

Then they had this little competition where they had to move gummy worms from one plate to another using nothing but their mouths, and the gummy worms were covered in whipped cream. The person who moved all of their worms over first, won the competition. Seth said "I have an idea and I'm going to win." And what did he do? Instead of grabbing the worms with his teeth one by one, he grabbed the edge of his paper plate with his teeth instead and dumped the whole thing on the other plate! What a stinker!! He did finish first, and he didn't get any whipped cream on his face either. But we told him that was cheating!! We had to put some whipped cream on his face anyway.

After the gummy worm competition, they ate cake while we did some spooky mad libs.

Then we took them home, which was an adventure because it was raining torrentially, the wind was howling, and there was lightning too. But everyone made it home okay and I think all the boys had fun.

Friday November 1st: Like I said, I don't feel like I got much done today. Every other day this week I woke up pretty early. I was able to exercise and shower before taking Seth to school. But today I didn't wake up until 6:45, so I didn't exercise or shower until after I took Seth to school. That always seems to take so long, so my days go a lot better if I get those things done early. Today it is 20 degrees cooler than yesterday, but as I said--it's still pretty nice.

The only other thing I should mention about this week is that things were pretty exciting in these parts with the Nationals winning the World Series. I mean, I don't get into baseball much but there were a lot of excited people around here! Frank watched part of the last two games but since they didn't end until really late in our time zone, he didn't stay up to watch the end of either one. Both times, he ended up going to bed right before the really exciting parts of the game began. Oh well!! It was always kind of fun to wake up in the morning and find out that the Nats had won, after all. (Although I felt a little conflicted, since the Astros is one of our family's favorite teams. But I've lived here almost 20 years! I only lived in Houston for 3 1/3 years. I should root for "my" teams, right?!)

Now I need to get the budget done, so that's it for this week!

Weekly Review October 25 '19

Well, here we are--another week gone by and it's almost the end of October. I don't know where this year has gone! It definitely feels and looks like fall now. All the trees around here starting changing colors in the last week and now there's just beautiful reds, yellows, oranges, and golds all over! Most days have been really pleasant temperatures, too. Yesterday was sunny which was especially nice; today it's cloudy and cooler so not quite as nice. But still I can't complain! Fall is my favorite season.

We had a pretty busy week; here's the details:

Friday, October 18th:  I mentioned last week that we were going to a Fall Festival at Seth's school. They had a Harry Potter theme and there were lots of activities like pumpkin painting, cake walk, etc. Seth helped run an activity called "Harry Potter, Junior" which was for younger kids. I didn't participate in that (since I'm not a little kid!) so I'm not sure exactly what they did other than they had crafts and other activities based on the Harry Potter world. Frank and I helped for an hour with the cake walk--we collected tickets and made sure no one sneaked in (since the area they were doing the cake walk was not roped off or anything). I was actually amazed at how many people just walked right through the area when we were in the middle of a cake walk, adults included! Anyway, it went okay. Seth got done with his stuff at 8:00 and he and I had signed up to attend another event called "House of Potter" which the 8th graders had put together. They did it inside the school, which was mostly dark (we had to carry battery operated candles) and we moved from room to room where there were different activities / displays related to each of the Harry Potter books. I thought the decorating was pretty impressive, but I wasn't as impressed with the actual activities and most of the kids who were guides or who were presenting things seemed to be not very well prepared or comfortable with what they were doing. But that's okay--Seth thought it was awesome, so I guess that's the important thing. Right before we left to go to the festival, Frank gave Snickers his insulin shot and he poked himself with the needle when he was putting the protective cap back on. He got himself in the finger, right in the inside fold of one of his knuckles. His finger got numb and it's been hurting all week so he's going to the doctor to have it looked at today. I actually poked myself a few days later--on Tuesday--doing the same thing (putting the cap back on). The problem is that the needle is sometimes crooked, and it pokes right through the side of the cap, so if your finger happens to be holding that part of the cap, you get poked. I got myself right in the soft part of the thumb, near the tip of my thumb, and it hurt off and on for a few days but it's not really bothering me now.

 Saturday, October 19th: Frank had to do some work for his client that is over an hour away. I did the usual chores, helped Seth do some homework, and also helped with the practice for the Primary program. Since we couldn't practice in the chapel on Sundays at all, they had a practice in the chapel on Saturday afternoon. My kids were incredibly wiggly and inattentive; I was really hoping that they would do better on Sunday. Thankfully, they did!

Sunday, October 20th: The Primary program went great and my class was much less wiggly and they paid attention a lot better. I wouldn't say they weren't wiggly at all, but they were a lot better! For the second hour, the Sunday School president led a teacher's council for all the Primary teachers. (The Primary presidency and the bishopric met with all the kids in the Primary room during that time). The council was good and I think we had a worthwhile discussion and I picked up some helpful ideas. After church I took a nap, we had family night, and I prepared my Primary lesson for this Sunday (we're finally having class again!!) I was also trying to work out some things for my music calling and emailing our bishop about that but it ended up bringing back a lot of the stress I've been feeling for the last month and the result was that I lay awake for most of the night worrying about stuff and the few hours that I did sleep, I was having stressful dreams about it!

Monday, October 21st: So with that kind of start, I wasn't a very happy camper on Monday morning. But I tried to focus on getting stuff done and after a heartfelt tearful prayer about midday, I started to feel a little bit better. In the end, it was a remarkably productive day--not only did I get all the regular chores done, but I also made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for our family night treat, got some work done on one of the Christmas projects, called the vet, and visited my friend Wanda and got five pairs of pants cut off for her (so that they would be shorts). That evening we ate the muffins and had family night activity (we played Aggravation, which is basically the same as Sorry, and I won because I got lucky and no one ever landed on me and sent me back to my base). Afterwards, Frank went to the monthly HOA meeting. He's been doing that for probably 6 months, trying to get them to make some repairs to our parking spaces (which are sinking) and his persistence finally paid off because they told him someone was scheduled to come out and fix them in early November. As far as the music stuff goes, it's still not totally resolved but hopefully it will be soon. To put it briefly, the main problem is that our choir director had to be released recently and there really isn't anyone to take her place--everyone who has the capability to do that already has a pretty hefty calling and it wouldn't be a good time for them to be released. Or they have other circumstances in their lives that make it impossible for them to serve right now. So we've been trying to figure out some creative solutions to this problem (because we don't want to give up on having a choir at all), but all of those solutions mean that my workload as ward music chair is pretty much going to double and I'm going to have to do some things that are hard for me to do. And with all the other stressful things going on in my life right now, it's just been feeling like too much. But as I said, I'm feeling a little bit better about it now. Hopefully I will keep feeling that way; I feel like I've been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately.

Tuesday, October 22nd: It rained almost all day, which is great since we still need rain. I mostly got the usual chores done, but I also emailed Seth's Spanish teacher because he's not doing very well in that class so I wanted to find out what I could do to help him with that. (And she responded with some good feedback.) That evening there was an RS meeting--we talked about "polishing our testimonies" and then we polished our fingernails. I was one of two people who were asked to speak about how I polish my testimony, so I've been thinking about that for the last 3 - 4 weeks and jotting down all my ideas on an index card. Last week, I sat down and organized it all so on Tuesday I was just going to review it to make sure I remembered everything. But when I went to get the index card, it had disappeared!! Perfect! It still hasn't turned up. So instead of reviewing, I had to start all over, although mostly I was just trying to remember everything I had already thought of. It turned out okay.  There weren't a lot of people at the meeting (I guess the rain scared a lot of people off) but it was fun anyway. I gave another sister in the ward a ride to the meeting because her car had got a flat tire that day. She lives near me and is fairly new in the ward; I hadn't met her before now since I'm serving in Primary, so it was nice to meet her. I got to talk to Tanner for a while that evening--he called mainly because of a problem he had with our flex card when he tried to buy some medicine, but we talked about some other things too. (And don't get me started on all the issues we are having with our health spending account--such a pain!!) Anyway, Tanner sounds good, and it was nice to talk to him. He is doing much better at UVU and he's a lot less stressed.

Wednesday, October 23rd: Seth had a crazy school schedule for the rest of the week because there were parent teacher conferences. (His Spanish teacher wasn't holding conferences, though, so that's why I had to email her). On Wednesday and Thursday he went to school 4 hours late, which means he was in school from 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm those days. In the morning I worked on some homework with him since he had a big project due today and of course he hadn't been working on it as much as he should have. I also got the chores done (except for shopping) and worked a little bit on one of the Christmas projects. After I got Seth home from school, Frank and I drove down to a hospital in Washington, DC to visit a lady in our ward who had triple bypass surgery last week. She doesn't have a lot of family nearby so a lot of ward members have been trying to visit her. Frank went with me as a big favor because I really wanted to see her but I am too scared to drive down there by myself. The roads and traffic in DC are just crazy!! I suppose I should buck up and learn to drive down there, since I live so close, but I have never become comfortable with driving there, and as I get older I get worse. I sometimes get really disoriented, especially in unfamiliar places and even more especially in the dark. Anyway, I think Frank enjoyed the visit too, of course, but he mostly did it for me. And it was a big sacrifice because he had stuff going on with clients and stuff from work that he needed to deal with that evening too. But he got it all done and we had a nice visit with this sister, and we enjoyed talking to each other on the drive down and back.

Thursday, October 24th: Thursday morning was a lot the same as Wednesday morning--I got chores done and helped Seth work on homework. After I took him to school, I baked a bunch of potatoes for a potato bar they were having for all the teachers and I took Snickers on a short walk. And I kept the laundry moving and folded some of it, too. I had signed up to help set up the potato bar too, so I left early to go do that. I had signed up for parent teacher conferences right after school, so I had asked Frank to pick Seth up at dismissal and take him home so that I could set up the potato bar and then just hang around for a few minutes until it was time for conferences. (If I had needed to take Seth home and come back, it would have been a really tight time table.) That worked out well. I had conferences with three of his teachers--math, science and English language arts. (He also has PE, music, and Spanish, but I wasn't worried about PE or music since he has 100% in those classes.) He is actually doing really well in the other classes too; but I wanted to get an idea of how he is adjusting to middle school and what his behavior has been like from the teachers he spends the most time with. All three of his teachers had good things to report--they think he is adjusting really well; he's turning things in on time and doing well on everything, he participates well in classes and asks questions when he needs help. One teacher also mentioned how kind and thoughtful he is, with one classmate in particular (who has special needs). They also mentioned seeing him make progress--like at first, he had a hard time with moving on to the next thing when the time was up instead of finishing it, but he has learned to adapt and doesn't have a problem with that anymore. So I think the greater structure has been good for him and he has actually not had much problems with the change in teaching methods, which was one of the things I was really worried about. And apparently his behavior has been really good too. So lots of good news!! It made me wonder if I am just imagining things and he's really completely normal and I overreact to him. But then I came home and he was really just awful most of the evening! (Mainly because he didn't like what I made for dinner, and I wouldn't let him eat anything else until he ate a few bites of everything I made for dinner, but there were other things too.) We've been working a lot harder lately on expecting more from him and being consistent and so forth, and he doesn't like it but hopefully when we get over the hump, things will improve. I still don't believe all of the issues he has are related to how we discipline him, but I think things will be a lot more manageable if we are better with discipline. And seeing how he has adapted to Middle School gives me hope that he can be successful, in spite of the issues he is dealing with. When I was meeting with his teachers, they also were very specific about the things they are working on and where they expect he will be, academically, by the end of the year and I really liked what they had to say about that. I am really impressed with his teachers--I think they are excellent and that they are going to teach him skills that will be helpful all through high school and into college. I'm really grateful that he has the chance to go to this school, where he gets a lot more individual attention than he would at a regular middle school. His teachers only have about 50 kids to keep track of, instead of hundreds! Seth had YM that evening and on the way home he told me that he had just been called to be the Deacon's Quorum president. He just needs to decide about counselors.

Friday, October 25th: That's today, of course. Today school started at the regular time (9:00), but gets out 3 1/2 hours early, so actually I have to go pick him up in a few minutes. I exercised before I took him to school and then I showered and have been writing this post. The morning has flown by.

I mentioned about 3 or 4 weeks ago that I noticed I wasn't hearing much out of my right ear. Now that Frank has a new CPAP so there isn't a lot of noise at night, I decided to try to get my ear cleaned out. Starting on Monday, I put hydrogen peroxide in it each evening and after several minutes flushed it out with water. At first it didn't seem to be helping at all--as a matter of fact, I felt like I had a lot of water in my ear as well as ear wax--but last night I finally got results and got a lot of wax out of it and now I can hear in that ear again! And it's amazing how many little things you can hear that you don't notice until you haven't been hearing them in a while and suddenly you can hear them again. Anyway, I'm glad I can hear again and now I'm going to clean the left ear too because even though I can hear out of it, I think I will hear better if I clean it.

Just one more thing before I go...I think it is worth mentioning that I DID NOT have to take Snickers to the vet this week!!! He will need his blood sugar tested again in another week or two, but other than that we seem to have finally hit some smooth sailing. He acts more like himself and seems happier, although I know being blind is still stressful for him. His tail is between his legs less, though, and he is barking to ask to go out again (I mean, I didn't really miss that, but it's a sign that he's feeling more energy...) and often meeting me at the door with a wagging tail when I come home, instead of staying in his bed and whining at me. So it's nice to see that he is feeling better. And it's also nice that I didn't spend any money on him this week!

And on that happy note, I'd better end this post and go pick up Seth from school.

Weekly Review October 18 '19

This week was a little less stressful, thankfully. A few situations improved, and I guess I'm just getting used to the rest of them! Here's what we did each day:

Friday the 11th: I helped chaperone Seth's class--a field trip to the park--in the afternoon, and it was a perfect day to be outside Sunny and warm! There were several adults chaperoning and I mostly just had to help keep an eye on the kids, but since they're all 12 and 13 year olds, that wasn't very hard. So I ended up talking with a couple of the assistants in Seth's class most of the time, while we watched the kids play. They both had good things to say about him. One even said "Oh, I love Seth! He is so kind and considerate to all his peers!!" Well, that was nice to hear! I don't always see that kind of behavior from him. It's encouraging. The trip to the park was at the end of the day, so I brought Seth home with me and we got him packed for his camp out. I found out shortly before I left for the field trip that he didn't have to bring any food after all, so we just had to worry about a sleeping bag, warm clothing, a flashlight--stuff like that. Frank came home from work shortly before Seth needed to leave, so we took him over to the church together and then we went out to dinner. We have several gift cards that we haven't used, so we used one of those.

Saturday the 12th: The city was having a free drop of for hazardous household waste (things like motor oil, antifreeze, aeresol paints, lithium batteries) and we had a few of those things so Frank and I gathered them up and took them to the landfill. I did the usual Saturday chores (cleaned the kitchen floor, worked on stuff for my music calling, and practiced the ukulele). I also wrote the monthly music spotlight for our ward newsletter and prepared my Primary lesson for this Sunday (but then found out the next day that I won't be teaching this week after all). All of that stuff kept me pretty busy all day. Seth got home from his camp out around 1:00; he said he had fun although he got a little cold. They were camping at a camp ground that is owned by several of the stakes in this area (the same place I went for Girls' Camp and the older boys went there for trek and for various camp outs) and in the morning they took down all the canvas portions of the platform tents because they need to be stored until next summer. Seth was only home long enough to unpack and shower because he was going to a birthday party that started at 2:00. It was for one of the former carpool boys (we watch the cats for this same family sometimes) and they went to a place where they did indoor rock climbing. Seth actually did the rock climbing--I wasn't sure he would. He said it was "okay"!

Sunday the 13th: We had a hard time getting Seth going that morning and he actually caused us to be a few minutes late to church. I guess we are going to have to adjust our Sunday morning schedule, because we have been almost late a few other times. Seth takes too long to eat breakfast, so from now on he will have to shower first and then eat--he can always eat in the car if he doesn't move fast enough. Anyway, for Primary we practiced for the Primary program, which is this Sunday. So I didn't have to do much--just sat with my class and helped them stay focused. They are only have one teacher for each class sit on the stand on Sunday, and I got elected to be the one for my class because the other teacher has kids who are still in Primary, so she can sit in the audience and see her kids do their parts. It's fine with me--I'm sure the kids will keep me entertained! :) All the Primary teachers have a teacher's council the second hour, so we won't get to see the kids then, so it's nice I will see them during Sacrament Meeting. Next Sunday (the 27th) we will finally have class with them again (the first time all month)! We had a few events later in the day on Sunday. Frank and I went to visit the guy in our ward who is in hospice care. His daughter and I played a few hymns on the ukulele for him and I didn't do too well but his daughter is really good so it wasn't noticeable! He enjoyed it and sang along. Then Frank and I read to him for a while--he recently received a detailed life history for one of his brothers, and members of the ward have been going over once a week to read it with him. (It's hard for him to read now, and he likes to talk about it with someone, too.) It was actually really interesting, and we enjoyed reading and talking with him. I also had a chat with his daughter about some of the music calling things that have been stressing me out, and that helped me feel quite a bit better about most of them. After that visit, we went to a farewell openhouse for a couple in our ward who are moving--actually, he was the one who was teaching the religion class. They moved here shortly before we did, so we've known them nearly 20 years. They will be missed!

Monday the 14th: It was a pretty busy day for me; besides the usual Monday chores (laundry, vacuuming, some grocery shopping) I worked on music calling stuff, contacted all the sisters I minister to, and picked up a prescription for Frank. Actually, I'm not sure why that took all day, but it did. We had family night in the evening. It was Seth's turn to do the lesson and he chose to watch the newest Book of Mormon video (Lehi's Dream). Those videos are all really good, but I especially liked this one. I've heard the story my whole life, of course, read it numerous times and discussed it at length in classes over the years, but for some reason watching a portrayal of the vision was just so powerful!!

Tuesday the 15th: I mostly did the usual chores, but I also worked a bit on one of the Christmas projects. Frank managed to track down a company that takes our insurance late last week, so he had an appointment that morning to go get his new CPAP. Hooray!! We've both been sleeping a lot better, for the most part. Frank also had a meeting in the evening for work which was down in Virginia, so he was gone until bedtime that night. Out of the blue, I got an email from a guy that I did some sewing for in the past--mostly hemming and adding elastic to baseball pants that he has purchased. (I also sewed numbers and patches onto baseball jerseys for him.) He had a pair of baseball pants that needed elastic added to the legs. He needs them by Monday evening, so he wondered if I would have time to do that. And since I'm not totally swamped right now, I said I could so he brought them over that evening. Until this week, I hadn't heard from him in a couple of years so I thought he had found someone else to do his sewing for him, but I guess he just hasn't had as much that needed to be done lately.

Wednesday the 16th: It rained! Pretty much all day!! That hasn't happened around here in so long. Our front lawn is looking slightly green again. I might actually need to mow it soon. I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. I found out that they actually asked someone else to teach the religion class already, but as I said--I was starting to feel like I should be doing something else with that time. However, the new teacher is one of our former stake presidents and I think he will be really good, so I might go sometimes, just not every week. I got the usual chores done, worked on preparing some remarks I have been asked to give at a RS activity next week, and worked on the other Christmas project (haha, I love being so vague!) I also called the vet to order a bag of food for Snickers and Frank picked it up on his way home from work. I was hoping the bag we had would last until the next day because I was taking Snickers to get his blood sugar checked, but I could tell it wasn't going to be enough. Frank spent the evening doing maintenance for all his clients, but he got it all done.

Thursday the 17th: I got the usual chores done, made an extra trip to the store for some things I forgot (plus elastic for the baseball pants), worked on one of the Christmas projects, worked on the baseball pants, and took Snickers to the vet to get his blood sugar checked. His blood sugar has improved dramatically--down to about 130--which is about where it should be. So it looks like this insulin is going to work after all! That's mostly good news except for the monthly expense of the insulin. At his current dose (6 units, twice a day), a bottle will only last about a month, and it costs $170 a bottle. Ugh!! Really not sure how we're paying for that, but it'll have to work out somehow. Snickers does seems to feel somewhat better--at least he hasn't been needing to go out in the night at all, which makes life easier for him and for us. I'd still say he doesn't feel great, and being blind is stressful for him. I feel so bad every time he bumps into something! He also occasionally stumbles off the edge of the front steps. He did that on Monday, and afterwards he was licking his left front paw and it was bleeding a lot. He left bloody paw tracks all over the floor. I got the bleeding to stop and looked at his paw and couldn't see really what was wrong. It didn't seem to be bothering him too much but on Wednesday he started limping. So when I took him in to get his blood sugar checked, I asked them to look at his paw too. It turns out he pulled a nail (claw) off but fortunately it was healing up well and didn't look infected or anything. (More good news!) Not sure why he started limping on it when it was healing. He's mostly stopped limping now. Frank put in a regular day at work yesterday and then he had to go back to work around 7:30 in the evening because they were installing a new digital menu board at one of the Roy Rogers stores. (He did the same thing at another store about a month ago.) As anticipated, he was gone all night--didn't get home until about 6:00 this morning.

Friday the 18th: Frank didn't go into work today since he was working all night. He actually woke up around 8:30 am and was awake a lot of the day (he still was on the phone and answering emails and such from work) but he took a nap around 1:45 for a few hours. He's awake again now, though, and I'd say he still hasn't had nearly enough sleep! He's playing video games with Seth right now. Meanwhile, I exercised and got Seth to school and read scriptures and updated the budget. Then I picked Seth up from school and have been working on this post since then. They are having a "Fall Festival" at Seth's school tonight and Seth is required to be there for that as part of a big assignment for one of his classes. Frank and I are going to go help for about an hour too. So I'd better go make dinner in a few minutes so we can all have something to eat before we have to go to that.

The temperatures have really cooled down this week and it feels like fall. Sweater weather!! My friend Wanda got a sweater for me when I took her shopping a few weeks ago. We were at a thrift store and it only cost $2.99, but look how cute it is:

And it actually fits, even though I didn't try it on. That's a bit of a miracle since most shirts and sweaters are too long on me (unless I get petite sizes). So it was nice to get to wear it this week.

In between everything else, I've been reading a series of books that Seth really likes, called Wings of Fire (all the main characters are dragons). I read two of the books a few months ago and in the last few weeks I read the 3rd and 4th book. I just started the 5th book today. I started reading them because Seth really wanted me to, but they are pretty good and I am enjoying them.