Weekly Review December 20 '19

It's hard to believe how close we are getting to Christmas! And thankfully, I'm ready. Mostly. I just picked Seth up from school a little while ago; they had a 2 hour early release today, so it is officially Winter Break for him. But first...let's go back to last Friday.

Friday the 13th: When I left off last week, a friend of Seth's was coming over soon. Turned out his younger sister came too. Their mom was picking up a friend at the airport and the plane was delayed (no big surprise--it was super foggy that night!) so they were here until pretty late. I had them lie down and the little girl was sound asleep before her mom got home but the boy managed to stay awake (he was lying down quietly though). Before they had to lie down, though, they watched some television and Frank played Uno with all of them for a while. Plus, he made hot chocolate for them.

Meanwhile, I was addressing and stuffing Christmas cards the whole time and I managed to get the last one done right before their mom came to pick them up. So they went in the mail the next day...hooray!

Saturday the 14th: Frank went to supervise the cleaning of the church in the morning--thankfully, he got lots of help so he didn't have to do much and his back wasn't hurting the rest of the day. He ran errands and did some work for clients too. He put up the Christmas tree on Friday evening (right before the kids came over) and we discovered that two of the strands of lights don't work anymore. (It's a pre-lit tree). Oh well, we decided to make do with it for this year...it doesn't look too bad. What do you think?

Just a few dark spots! Maybe if we see one on sale after Christmas, we'll get a new one. Anyway, we didn't get it decorated on Friday night but we did that later on Saturday. Frank put the outside trees up too. Meanwhile, I invited my ministering companion over to make treats that we could take to the sisters on our ministering list. We had fun making and decorating cookies:

I had purchased some black and some gold gel frosting that week to try out, and she used the black to outline a lot of the cookies she was decorating. I never would have thought to do that, but they looked really good! Here's a bunch of photos of our masterpieces:

And here's one that Seth decorated:

After we finished with the cookies and decorated the tree, Frank and I took all the decoration boxes back to the storage unit and then went to look for a new tablet for me, since my tablet had bit the dust. I mean, actually it works fine unless I push the power button, but unfortunately I have to do that pretty frequently. It's five years old and almost out of storage space so we decided it was time for a new one. I ended up getting one that is a bit bigger than my old one; I would have preferred the same size but the larger one has 4 times the storage space so that won me over. It was also on sale and then when we went to buy it, Frank had them check to see how much store credit he has and since he's constantly buying stuff at this store for his clients, he had a lot of store credits. So it ended up costing less than $40 to get me a new tablet; I was happy about that!! (Can I just take a minute to take note of all the things that have been breaking around here lately? The ice maker {it's not working again and I've been buying bagged ice instead}, my tablet, Snickers's water bowl {it's a fountain type circulating water bowl--encourages him to drink and since it makes noise he can find it easier}, the lights on the Christmas tree, plus we just had to replace the tires on my car and one of the headlights on Frank's car...I'm so grateful that at least the furnace wasn't truly broken and only needed servicing!)

I finished making the ornament that I had started in RS, and hung it on the tree. We have quite a few ornaments this year. Here they are:

It's a little blurry, but I got this one in Utah at Antelope Island. We didn't see any antelope on the island, but we did see some bison like this one!

This is one of the ones I made at the RS activity. And here's the other one:

Here it is on the tree, but it looks a totally different color because of the lights:

And last, because our year was dominated by weddings, I had to get something to represent that:

It's a little hard to see, but it's a wedding cake, and it says "2019" on that gold ribbon near the bottom. I added some details to the bottom:

Here it is in regular light; it's a little easier to see it:

Saturday wasn't over yet. I cleaned the kitchen floor and then spent a couple of hours going through medical receipts and submitting claims to get reimbursed from our flexible health spending account. These are all things that we should not have had to pay out of pocket, but we had to because there were so many problems with the account. By the time I was done with that, I was feeling super crabby! But we did get reimbursed close to $300 for medical stuff today so that makes it seem worth it. We're still having some dumb issues, but not as many.

Sunday the 15th: I had to be at church early for a last short song practice. Our ward had their big Christmas program a week early because most of our piano players are going to be gone this Sunday. Everything went well...all the music was beautiful!! I am happy it went so well and I'm even happier that I don't have to do that again for a year! I went to Sunday School for the first time in over a year; it was nice to go with Frank. One of my Primary class girls gave me a little plate of treats and a sweet card:

I love how she underlined "Christ" in Christmas both times, and it was so cute that she spelled the word "Primary" like "Primerry" instead! So sweet!! After church we were going to Skype with all the boys but Tanner fell asleep and Jared had to take Jessie to the doctor (pink eye) so we ended up Skyping with just Scott, which is funny because he's the one that calls us every week and we hardly ever hear from the other two. Scott was making us laugh, playing with filters:

That evening, I went to the "Washington DC Temple Choir" Christmas concert, which was at our stake center. I just loved it! All the music was so beautiful and it brought back so many good memories for me of both Christmas and of singing in choirs. They even had a small children's choir sing some of the songs with them which reminded me of singing in BYU Children's Chorus. When I was looking at the program, I noticed one of the tenors was a guy Frank used to work with at FSA, so afterwards I went looking for him. When he saw me, I was surprised that he almost immediately recognized me as "Frank's wife", and within a few seconds he came up with my name, too! He seemed kind of disappointed that Frank hadn't come with me.

Monday the 16th: It snowed in the night and since we were supposed to get freezing rain / sleet later in the day, school was cancelled.

 I stayed home until late afternoon doing the usual stuff like laundry. I texted a couple of the sisters I minister to about bringing them the treats we made on Saturday. It turned out one of them needed someone to watch her daughter for about an hour, so she was really grateful I texted her just then. She brought her over and her daughter, who is 5, hung out with Seth and I for about an hour and a half. She was good, and Seth played really nicely with her too. By then, it was late afternoon and I had errands to run (put gas in my car, return books to the library, get a few groceries) so I got those things done. I also picked up my companion and we delivered some treats to one of the other sisters but she wasn't home. (She said we could bring them by, but then she ended up having to go somewhere.) I wanted my companion to meet her, since she hadn't met her yet, so that was disappointing but it turned out that later this week this sister needed a babysitter, so I connected her with my companion (who likes to babysit) so now they have met. For family night we got some donuts and watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while enjoying the beauty of the Christmas tree. I love that show!

Tuesday the 17th: I worked on the tax course and did some more work with medical receipts in the morning, spent about an hour and a half wrapping presents in the afternoon, and did all the usual Tuesday chores in the evening. That hour and a half sitting / kneeling on the floor wrapping presents was not a good idea--my back was really hurting after that! I pretty much crashed and burned on exercising this week--only managed to do it twice--between waking up too late and my back hurting. Honestly, my back hurts almost all the time these days, especially in the morning. Frank and I keep talking about getting a new mattress--or at least a new mattress topper. We're hoping that will help (both him and me). I love getting old! I probably need to go back to physical therapy, or to a chiropractor.

Wednesday the 18th: My friend Wanda, who lives in a nursing home and is wheelchair bound, wanted to go shopping so another friend in the ward and I took her shopping on Wednesday. I can't take her by myself because I'm not strong enough to get her in and out of the car. I mean actually, she weighs more than I do so of course I can't do that. And having a bad back makes it even worse. I did wrestle her wheelchair in and out of my trunk, and that was almost too much for me. But anyway, we took her to Walmart and she got a few things she needed and also got all her Christmas shopping done, so she was happy about that and I'm glad we could help her. Then after taking her home and eating some lunch, I went back to Walmart to do my own shopping! Just groceries, but I had a long list. So I was pretty beat after all of that, but I still needed to make cookies that day, which I did after dinner.

Thursday the 19th: I spent the morning working on the tax course. Then I took Seth to his second counseling appointment, which went well. The counselor spent most of the time talking to Seth this time (which makes sense) so I was able to read scriptures while I was waiting. Seth got really upset on the way back to school because he thought he'd missed something important in his music class, but then it turns out he didn't miss anything. After the appointment I got regular chores done and wrapped a couple more presents that were delivered since my first wrapping session. That evening Frank and Seth went to see the new Star Wars movie. We are all going to see it tomorrow morning, actually...bought the tickets over a month ago...but then some friends in the ward had some tickets for last night and invited Frank to go. Then last minute they realized they had an extra ticket so they invited Seth to go too. They went to a 3D version but for some reason it wasn't working well so at the end they gave everybody free tickets! They still enjoyed the movie, though--it was just hard to watch. But they are under strict orders not to say anything about it until after I see it tomorrow! Meanwhile, I had Activity Days last night. We had a fun Christmas activity where we each shared favorite Christmas traditions from our families and then had treats. Many of the girls talked about traditions their families do from different countries. I told them about making paintbrush cookies, and I brought some to share (that's why I was making cookies on Wednesday evening). I also read them the story of Grandma and the Christmas Doll, which they all liked. After I got home, I worked on the tax course some more before Seth & Frank got home and we all went to bed.

Friday the 20th: Today Seth had to be to school early for a field trip. They went to see the movie Cats, and the show time was 9:00 which is the usual school start time. But of course they had to have time to get over to the theater and everything, so he had to be there at 8:15. Frank dropped him off on his way to work which was nice for me (especially since it was only about 19 degrees outside). After the movie, they all went to a pizza place. And since they got out of school 2 hours early today, that pretty much took up the whole day. Rough day, right??! (Btw, seeing the movie Cats was supposed to tie in with a poetry unit they've been working on.) Meanwhile, at home I got the budget done but that's about it. That's okay, though, because I don't have a huge list of things to get done anymore. All the cards and packages are mailed, all the presents are bought and wrapped, all the decorations are up, all the meals are planned, all the stocking stuff is ready, and most of the treats are made. I'm going to make some fudge either tomorrow or Monday, along with a few more cookies...but that's it! (And I did most of that in one week!) It's been nice to be a little less swamped this week, and to have some time to help other people instead of being self centered all the time. I have also really been enjoying the beauty of the Christmas decorations around the house, especially at night.

(It looks way better in real life than it does int he pictures.) I had to buy a bunch of those little white battery operated tea lights for Seth for a school project in October, so now I have a bunch of them and I put some out with the other decorations and I've been surprised how much they add to the overall atmosphere. (If you look closely, you can see a few little pricks of light in the photo above!)

We got this nice package of fruit and treats from one of Frank's clients on Tuesday:

They send us something similar every year and I was pleased that it wasn't all fruit because with only 3 of us here, we'd never eat it all. Then yesterday we got another box from them, and this time it was pears, apples, and oranges!! Well, at least Santa doesn't need to buy fruit for the stockings now. And I just ate one of the oranges today and it was good. But we need to give some of it away because there's no way we're going to eat it all before it spoils. I hate to see food go to waste!

One more random photo...Snickers really likes the rug in our bathroom for some reason. He likes to scratch at it (he scratched a hole in the last one; I replaced it a month or two ago). Anyway, I found him in there the other day and he looked so satisfied that I laughed and had to take a picture!

Jared and Jessie will be landing here in Maryland in about an hour; we are excited to see them and glad they get to spend Christmas with us this year! They will be staying with Jessie's family this weekend but we will have them with us for Christmas Eve / Christmas morning (her family has a big dinner / get together in the evening on Christmas) and they will be staying here for a few nights after that too. Last year we only had Seth home, and that was okay, but we're glad to have a few more kids with us this year!

Everyone have a Merry Christmas!!

Weekly Review December 13 '19

My tablet is having issues so I can't look at it to remind me what we did this week. But that's probably good news for all of you, since I will probably be a lot more concise. Here's what I can remember:

Friday the 6th: I did manage to get the leaves raked / blown into a big pile, but then I couldn't figure out how to remove the blowing attachment so I could attach the mulching piece to the leaf blower. So I had to wait for Frank to come home to help me, which meant we were mulching leaves in the dark! But we did get it done, which is good since I don't see how we could have got it done any other time. Then we went to the wedding open house that evening, which was nice.

Saturday the 7th: Frank was gone most of the day, either cleaning the church or cooking food for the ward Christmas party. I can't remember what I did except the usual chores and last minute preparations for the program. A member of the EQ presidency offered to be the "MC" for the program, and I was more than happy to let him do that! The party turned out really nice. The food was great and the program was funny at the beginning and heartwarming at the end. The funny part was our bishopric's unique rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock":

Sunday the 8th: I went to RS instead of Primary, and that felt kind of weird! I had a song practice as usual that afternoon and that evening we watched the 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional. Snickers snuggled in my lap through the whole thing.

The rest of the week: I had all the usual chores to do each day and when I wasn't doing that I was tackling the long list of things to do to get ready for Christmas. The days went by fast and I never got as much done as I wanted to, but I have made some progress. Almost all of the shopping is done, I made buckeyes (a couple hundred of them) and paintbrush cookies to send to the boys, I wrapped a few presents and got their packages ready to send and sent them. I bought stamps for all the Christmas cards and made copies of the letter and I'm halfway through addressing all the cards. I got our "12 Days of Christmas" secret service project prepared:

And Frank and I just went out in a very dark and foggy night to secretly deliver it.

 I got all of the Christmas decorations up except for the tree and the outside decorations. The outside decorations won't be much this year, though...just our two little light up trees. I made the executive decision NOT to put up the little lanterns and other decorations that we usually put up all along the sides of the front walk. Even when Snickers could see them, he'd still constantly get his leash tangled on them. Now that he can't see them, I don't even want to think about it! So they will have to stay in storage until Snickers is no longer with us. It'll be easier for all of us. So all in all, it's starting to look a lot more like Christmas around here. We even got our first snow on Wednesday:

Not much, and it didn't last long. But at least school wasn't cancelled...they didn't even have a delay!

We ordered new tires for my car and they came in on Monday so on Tuesday we took my car in to get those installed. On Thursday we had a planning meeting for activity days; I spent some time looking over the information about the new children's program in preparation for that. There's a lot of good activity ideas! Seth had his first counseling appointment on Thursday, and I spent most of Wednesday filling out forms to get ready for that. I think the appointment went pretty well; I liked the counselor. I had book chat on Wednesday evening. It was my turn to bring the books to suggest for next time. They decided to read the book that I read over Thanksgiving break--Searching for Sylvie Lee. Seth had a gift exchange for his YM activity last night and he got these funny "Lazy Bed" glasses which allow you to lie down and read a book set on your chest at the same time. If you put them on while standing up, you can see your feet instead of straight in front of you...it's a really strange sensation and got us laughing hysterically.

When I got home from grocery shopping on Wednesday, I was startled at first when I saw our front porch:

I thought "I know I ordered some things for Christmas, but I didn't order that many things, and I don't remember ordering anything that big." Then I got closer and realized it was a bunch of toilet paper and paper towels for the church! Made me laugh.

Frank had a potluck lunch at work on Thursday and he made some creamy chicken soup which everybody loved. Then he took buckeyes to work today and everyone really loved those too!

Today Seth had his friend Lyndon come over to play after school and in a few minutes another friend is coming over while his mom goes to pick up a friend from the airport. (Her husband passed away a few years ago, so she's a single parent now.)

I got absolutely nothing done on the tax course this week but hopefully next week will be better. Once I get the rest of the decorations up and the cards sent, I think I won't have a lot left to do...mostly just wrapping presents. I'm sure a lot of things will come up and I'll still manage to keep busy, though!

I am doubtless forgetting a bunch of things, but that's the main gist of what we did this week. One other thing that happened this week that is exciting for us, but that none of you will care about is that Monocacy Boulevard finally opened!!!! This is a road near our house and it has been closed for over two years while they widened it from a two lane road to a four lane road, which included building a new bridge over the river and repairing the old bridge. In the process, they also eliminated a really scary curve that made me always feel like I was taking my life in my hands when I went around it. (I could control my own speed, but I always prayed there wasn't a speeding car coming around from the other direction that was going to lose control and hit me head on). Anyway, the road was supposed to be open no later than June, so it was really behind schedule. Apparently they had a lot of issues with the contractor. I actually won't need to use this road much (I used to use it a lot, before they moved the Walmart location) but having it open still makes my life a lot easier because while it was closed, all the traffic was diverted onto Schifferstadt Boulevard (the main road that goes past our neighborhood) and Market Street (another road I need to use every day) and the traffic has been a nightmare. So Merry Christmas to us!!

Weekly Review December 6 '19

Well, here we are in December...and the first week is almost over already! I've had a few moments of anxiety this week as I've been realizing that Christmas is only 3 weeks away. How did that happen?? Besides that, it's been a very busy week with an activity / event nearly every day. I'm sure everything will come together somehow, though...it always does!Here's what we've been doing:

Saturday the 30th: We spent most of the day in the car, driving home. It rained a lot of the way and it was much colder, so not as pleasant for travelling. There were a couple of accidents again but we ended up making better time on this trip than on the trip down, so we got home around 5:00. We spent the evening unpacking and doing laundry.

It was really foggy in western NC / eastern TN. Sometimes it was so thick we couldn't see more than a few hundred feet in front of us.

All the rest stops in Virginia have these cute little brick buildings!

 
We had to take this photo for Tim & Rachelle!

Sunday the 1st: I got a text message that morning from a Primary teacher looking for a substitute because her kids had woken up with fevers. I told her I'd do it, but then after I got to church I got another message from her saying she had found someone else by the time she got my message. I had already told the Primary president that I was subbing; when I told her I didn't need to do it after all, she mentioned that she had a sub to help with my former class (since I got released) but she wasn't sure if the sub would show up, so it would be great if I would be a back up. It turns out the sub didn't show up, so I helped teach "my" class as usual...kind of funny! I was actually glad, because I really hadn't had a chance to let them know that I had been released and won't be coming to class every week. After church Seth had Bishop's Youth Council and I had a ministering interview with a member of the RS presidency. Then I went back to the church in the afternoon for a song practice. Our song is really starting to come together now; I feel like I know the part pretty well. In between all of that, I was working on stuff for my music calling and writing an email to all my kids (except Seth)--I'm trying to do that every week because they don't read this blog. Plus I can tell them things that they specifically need to know, and I am also trying to share a spiritual thought with them every week. Frank went to the doctor after church because his left foot was hurting and it was red and a little swollen. It started hurting on Friday, I guess, but he didn't mention it to me until halfway through the drive home on Saturday. It turns out he has an infected vein in his foot, so he's on an antibiotic for that and he's also supposed to take an aspirin every day. So on the way home from my practice, I stopped at the pharmacy to get his prescription and the good news is--the flex card for our health spending account actually worked!! (And it worked again when Frank used it to pay the doctor bill this week, so maybe MAYBE we have worked through all the problems with that.)

Monday the 2nd: Besides all the regular stuff, I had to buy groceries and pay bills since I couldn't do those things last week while we were in NC. I also went to the library to pick up a book I'd put on hold, did some shopping for a wedding gift and for activity days, and went to a ward member's house to pick up a pitch pipe (which I needed for later this week). While I was picking up the pitch pipe, I also had a discussion about choir stuff with this ward member. Because we actually don't have a choir director right now, and there's no one who can do it permanently, we're going to try something new and have 4 people take turns directing (and this person is one of the 4). But we're still trying to think through all the details of how it's going to work best for our ward right now. So I'm going to have to figure that out but honestly I haven't had time to think about it since then! It's going to have to wait until I get through the next week or so. For family night that evening we played Monopoly and had egg nog & Christmas cookies. We finished the game early (Seth won) because Frank needed to go to the HOA meeting to find out why our parking spaces haven't been fixed yet (that was supposed to happen mid November, but no one showed up.) He found out that the contractor had cancelled the day before, so the HOA people were trying to find someone else to do it.

Tuesday the 3rd: All the regular stuff, plus I had to call the vet to get more insulin and syringes for Snickers and I also worked on the volunteer tax training quite a bit. I figured out that it's better for me to work on that first thing in the morning instead of afternoon...I'm less likely to fall asleep!! That evening I went to the RS activity, where we made ornaments. I'll include photos next week; neither of my ornaments is completely finished yet. For one, we squirted different colors of paint and some glitter into one of those clear plastic balls. Then you shake the ball up to swirl the paint around. It was easy, but it's not done yet because the excess paint has to drain out of the ball for a few days. So we put our balls upside down in plastic cups to let the paint drain out. Actually, I checked mine last night and I think it's pretty much done draining so all I have to do now is put the cap / hanger back on the top of the ball and it'll be done. The second ornament was more complicated...it involves folding squares of fabric and pinning them to a styrofoam ball in a certain pattern. I actually finished folding & pinning the squares yesterday but I still have to add the trim and a hanger to it. Anyway, we visited while we were working on the ornaments and it was a lot of fun! I always come home from RS meetings feeling uplifted and happier.

Wednesday the 4th: I spent the morning doing the regular Walmart shopping. I went to the religion class that afternoon and then worked on the tax training (and managed to stay awake!) I also finished writing our annual Christmas letter that we send in the Christmas cards, so hopefully I'll be able to get those sent out soon. That evening, we went to the town of Walkersville's Christmas tree lighting ceremony because our ward had been invited to sing for that. And since I'm the ward music chair and there isn't a choir director, I was pretty much in charge. We did this last year and instead of having the choir prepare a song we just invited the entire ward to come sing a familiar Christmas hymn. That worked out well last year so we decided to do the same thing this year. I was a little concerned because our ward has something going on nearly every night this week so I was worried that a lot of people would decide to skip the Christmas tree lighting and we wouldn't have a lot of people to sing. I prayed about it, though, and felt like it was going to be fine and it was. Plenty of people showed up and our song turned out great! We sang "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing". I used the pitch pipe I'd borrowed to make sure that we all started out on the same note and got us all started together but then I turned around and just sang with the group. It was actually really cool. I could see the faces of some of the crowd and they were all smiling and I could tell they were enjoying it and feeling the spirit. So that was nice! Seth got some hot chocolate afterwards, so he was happy. We've been having some trouble with the ice maker in our refrigerator lately (it wasn't making ice at all for a while) and shortly before we left we noticed water leaking from the refrigerator onto the kitchen floor so we had to take care of that and put something there to catch the dripping water. Then Frank worked on it some more after we got back and he knows something is wrong with the ice maker, but he's not sure what. He got the dripping to stop, but we are back to no ice. Not sure if we're going to be able to get it fixed or not...we may just have to live without it until we can get a new refrigerator someday.

Thursday the 5th: Again, during the day I worked on the tax course and got the usual chores done. I'd like to say I've made a lot of progress with the tax training--and I have done quite a bit--but it's going a lot slower than I'd like and I still have a LOT to get through. I feel like I've barely made a dent in it. We were surprised on Wednesday to get an email from the HOA letting us know that someone would be coming on Thursday to repair the asphalt in the parking lot. So we had to move our cars from our parking spots by 7:30 am on Thursday. And someone actually did show up at 7:30 and started working on it. (Not very good photos because I was taking them through the window):

That truck that's digging things up is sitting in my parking spot.

By late afternoon they were done and now I don't have to bump into and out of my parking spot every day. (There was a bad patch job done previously and the front part of my spot had sunk down several inches from the patch, so the back of my spot was several inches higher than the front.) They need to re-paint the lines now though.

On Thursday evening, I went to a song practice for a song that some of the older Primary girls are singing for the Christmas Sacrament meeting program (to give feedback). They sound pretty good!! From there I went to Activity days, where we helped the girls make Christmas ornaments--cinnamon stick & fabric trees. They are a really lively group and I am amazed at how much noise they can make and what a big mess they can make too! But it is fun. After I got home I started working on updating my address list for Christmas cards, but I didn't finish it before it was time for bed.

Friday the 6th: I haven't done much today besides exercise, eat breakfast, and get Seth to school because I decided to write this post first. I need to update the budget and submit a bunch of medical receipts to be reimbursed. I also need to get some things done to prepare for the program for the Ward Christmas Party, which is tomorrow. It's mostly music so I ended up in charge of that somehow! There's a wedding open house for a girl in the ward this evening, and if by some miracle I get all of that done and still have leftover time, I have a long list of Christmas things to do. Oh, and our lawn is in desperate need of raking since all the remaining leaves of our neighbor's tree came down while we were in NC. We haven't had a chance to put up any Christmas decorations yet either! I really need Frank's help with both the leaves and the decorations, but he's been super busy doing work for clients (besides his regular job) and unfortunately tomorrow is going to be a wash because he has to help clean the church in the morning and then he's helping cook all the food for the Christmas party. So he'll pretty much be gone all day. Not sure when any of that is going to get done, but if I have time I may see if I can make some headway with the leaves today since it's actually going to be up into the low 50s and it's not supposed to rain.

So on that note, I'd better wrap up here and dive into all those other things that need to be done! I'll just finish up with the positive thought that although I don't like winter, it is the time of year that I usually get up before the sun comes up so I get to see some pretty sunrises like this one that we had this week: