Weekly Review April 3 '20

Here's the photos I was trying to post last week from one of our walks:

I love that we can walk a few minutes from our house and see these wide open spaces! I suppose someone is going to build something there eventually, but we'll enjoy it while it lasts.

We had a few more things going on this week than last week, so I have a little bit more to write about. Last Friday night we decided to have a family movie night. We watched Cool Runnings. I've seen that movie a bunch of times, but not recently and it was fun to see Seth's reaction to it, since he hadn't seen it since he was really little and really didn't remember it.

On Sunday our ward had a "virtual meeting". Not sacrament meeting, more like a 5th Sunday meeting. We got updates on the missionaries--both missionaries serving in our ward had to go home because of Coronavirus concerns so we have two new ones. Also, one Elder from our ward serving in the Philippines had just arrived home and a Sister serving in New Zealand was due home soon (she's home now). The other three missionaries, who are serving in the States, are all confined to their apartments. We also had announcements...one of the little boys from my former Primary class just got baptized (they did it in a river!) and a convert baptism is coming up soon. The missionary who had just returned home from the Philippines shared his testimony, the Sunday School president shared some thoughts on the First Vision & the Restoration, and the bishop shared a message of hope and encouragement. It was really nice to feel somewhat connected to our ward again! The screen that came up when we connected to the meeting made me smile (read the small print):

Also on Sunday, we made this puzzle...the whole thing in one day:

Funny story from later in the week...we had moved the puzzle to the coffee table and Seth put "his" laptop down on top of the puzzle and somehow managed to accidentally move the puzzle so that a corner of it was off the table and pieces started to fall onto the floor. I went over to help him salvage the puzzle when all of the sudden Frank started yelling incoherently...neither Seth nor I had noticed that the laptop was starting to fall off the table too! It was too late...the laptop fell, but thankfully it was okay; no damage. Frank was kind of mad at us for not understanding him and saving the laptop, but Seth and I are still laughing about the incoherent noises Frank was making and the expectation that we would somehow be able to translate them into "the laptop is falling! Grab it!!"

Seth started "distance learning" on Monday and so far it's going pretty well.

I have to hand it to his teachers...they have everything so well organized and they really have some good content too. They also have designed some activities to help the kids stay connected and have shown real concern for the kids' emotional well being, not just for their intellectual learning. Seth does most of his work in Google classroom, and I'm really grateful there haven't been technical issues. From all the emails we've received from the school system, I gather that most of the school district is using something called "Schoology" and it has been having a lot of problems because of the sheer number of people trying to use it. We have not had to deal with any of those headaches! I'm also grateful that he's my only child at home (how are moms dealing with having to help multiple children with their school work?!) and that he is in a unique Middle School situation...only about 75 students in the whole middle school and the teachers work together as a team, so we don't have to check in with several different teachers. And I'm thankful that Frank had an extra laptop lying around that he was able to set up for Seth to use so that I'm not sharing my laptop with him. He is able to get most of his work done in 3 - 4 hours most days. I sit next to him while he's working because he's on the internet and we have a rule that he can't be on the internet without one of us supervising him, but I've been able to do things like read my scriptures and catch up on email and so forth while he's working. (As a matter of fact, he's working on today's school work right now.)

We had a spot on the ceiling in our living room that looked like this:

We've been noticing some staining on the ceiling for quite a while (even for years, but the last time we had someone look at it the area was totally dry so they said it was an old leak and painted over it) but the last month or two it's been getting worse--spreading to the wall and some of the plaster on the ceiling started to come off. So we decided we'd better do something about it. (We suspected it had something to do with the toilet in Seth's bathroom, which is right above this spot.) A guy came and looked at it on Tuesday and he cut this hole in the wall to see what was going on:

The joist just below the pipe was damp (although thankfully not rotted or anything). He had Frank go upstairs & flush the toilet, and sure enough...water started leaking. So the next day he came back and removed the toilet, and discovered a broken flange. He replaced the flange and put the toilet back in place. Then he cut a larger hole in the wall because some of the drywall was damp:

And then he put in new drywall and ceiling pieces. The next day he came back and sanded and painted so that it all looks nice again:

You almost can't tell anything happened, except that the ceiling paint is hard to match so it's slightly different. Not bad, though! It's nice to have that fixed although it wasn't nice to have the expense right now.

The weather here has been mostly cloudy, which I admit has been hard on me. Makes things feel more gloomy, as if I weren't feeling that way already! However, yesterday it was sunny and today it is too, which makes me happy. It's been quite windy both days and temperatures in the 50s / 60s, so not incredibly warm but still...I'll take it! Yesterday Frank and I went on a pretty long walk and I appreciated these flowers that we passed:

We've had a couple of other "virtual" gatherings this week. My book chat group met via Skype on Tuesday evening. We had a few technical difficulties, but mostly it worked and it was really fun to see / talk to all of them again, and to discuss our book (North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell). We picked a new book to read, The Enchanted April. The funny part came when we decided to pick our next meeting date. "How about April 21st?" someone said, and everybody else immediately said "Looks good. I don't have anything." We usually have to go back and forth for quite a bit before we find a day that works for everyone, working around travel plans and meetings and ward activity nights! Seth also had a virtual Deacon's Quorum presidency meeting on Tuesday night so they could plan some virtual activities. Then last night they had their first activity. They played chess, as teams, and it seemed like it was a pretty successful activity. They all had chess boards in front of their computers and one team (after conferring privately in a chat) would say "Okay, we're going to move this bishop this many spaces..." and everyone would move that piece on their own board so that they could see how it looked and then decide their next move. I know Seth had fun, anyway. (And in the end, his team won.) 

I'm grateful we have technology that allows us to connect with other people in these creative ways! What would we have done if this pandemic had happened before we had the internet?!!

Frank decided to work each weekday, from about 8:00 to 1:00. He's definitely worked more than that, but he has had some time off...more time off than I expected, anyway. I still don't feel like I've seen him much. He is always really tired by 9:00 pm because he never sleeps well at night. (I'm still having a lot of insomnia, but the last two nights I slept quite well, which was really nice.)

I made some good progress on one of my projects this week. Other than that, I'm just doing the usual chores and I'm still exercising faithfully. Oh, and I mowed the lawn again. I tried doing both the front and the back lawns, but the lawnmower battery died before I could finish the back lawn. So yesterday (after the battery charged for a few days) I finished the back lawn. We've had some rain the past couple of weeks and the lawn is growing really fast.

I'm really looking forward to General Conference this weekend! I haven't been in the best emotional state these last few weeks. I've tried to feel at peace about things, but peace has been rather elusive. It's strange because I feel more anxiety now than I did when Frank was unemployed for 8 months. Why does partial pay for at least 30 days feel so much worse than no pay for an indefinite period of time? I think what is really bothering me is feeling even more helpless than usual--the whole world feels out of control, instead of just our little world. Also, just feeling like the economic impact is going to be very severe and very long term. It's pretty likely this 2 day a week furlough situation is going to extend beyond the next 30 days, and even if it doesn't, I know for his employer things aren't going to immediately be better and go back to normal. It's going to take a long time for them to bounce back. (If they bounce back at all, and don't go under completely). And if Frank did need to find a new job, who would be hiring? So all of those things add to the anxiety level. However, it could always be worse! Frank talked to a former coworker from Marriott this week and she said that 80% of the people at headquarters are on full time furlough for the next 60-90 days, and the other 20% are on reduced hours and pay. So if he hadn't been laid off 2 years ago, we'd definitely be in a more difficult position now. I'm thankful that we're not. And I'm feeling a little better than I was. Just looking forward to being spiritually uplifted this weekend!

To finish up, here's a few photos I took from the deck this morning. We are so spoiled to have such a beautiful view!

Weekly Review March 27 '20

Here we are at the end of week 2 of social distancing / sort of quarantining. Once again, there's not a lot to report as far as our day-to-day activities go. I'm keeping up with daily chores and exercising, Seth is working on his goals, and we're doing pretty well with limiting screen time. (He gets extra time on weekends.) We've gone on a few walks and Seth and I have both done a lot of reading. I managed to consolidate my grocery shopping into one Walmart trip, but I also had to go to Costco once. (I was worried that Costco was going to be a mob scene, but it was actually kind of a ghost town and it was encouraging to see that a lot of people are taking this social distancing thing seriously. Also kind of surreal to see all the barriers and signs everywhere, designed to keep people away from each other.) We helped Frank take some equipment to his work on Tuesday evening, but other than that, those are the only places I've been. Frank suggested I fill my gas tank when we went to Costco and I laughed-- my tank is still full even though I haven't filled it since March 14th. I guess that's one financial benefit from not going anywhere--we're spending less on gas. Which is good, since we're going to need it.

At the end of last week I was feeling kind of overwhelmed about all the different things I felt like I should be or could be doing, so I made a list. That always helps me! Because of that, I think I had a more productive day on Saturday. I spent quite a bit of time submitting claims for reimbursement to our flex spending account (because it wasn't working...again...for about a month, so we had to pay for several things out of pocket), I sent a few emails and cards to people I've been thinking about, and I finally got around to filing a stack of financial papers that have been accumulating on my desk.

We had another nice family worship service on Sunday but afterwards Frank had to go take care of an emergency for one of his clients. Seth and I played a game called Time Line, which basically involves trying to place all your cards (that have different historical events, inventions, etc) in the correct sequence in the time line. I have a distinct advantage in that game since I'm older and can remember a lot more things than Seth does, but he does remarkably well at making logical / educated guesses. I did some indexing on Sunday too.

The rest of the week pretty much blends together in my mind and I can't remember what happened on which day, for the most part. I wasn't nearly as productive as I should have been, but I feel like the days went by really fast. I finished reading the next book in the Wings of Fire series (a children's series about dragons that Seth loves and begged me to read), and then spent some time going back to review the previous book before starting the next one because I felt like I needed to remember it better before I kept going (I finished reading the previous book a few months ago, so I had forgotten a lot of details). I watched the next season of a series called Victoria (which--predictably--is about Queen Victoria) and I had to laugh a bit when one episode dealt with a cholera outbreak in London--can't seem to get away from epidemics, even in entertainment!! I still didn't get much accomplished on projects, but one project had stalled because I was trying to learn a new way to do it. This week I made the decision to do it the way I already know, even though it will take longer...because actually it probably won't take longer since doing it that way means I'll start working on it instead of putting it off because I'm worried I'm going to destroy the whole thing. So now I'm working on that project again and starting to make some progress. I did cross one thing off my list--I went through all my clothes and filled a bagful to donate.

Things changed a lot with Frank's job this week. First, on Monday they made the decision to switch to telework, starting on Tuesday. So on Monday Frank was really busy getting ready for that. Then on Tuesday he kept pretty busy answering calls and emails from co-workers who were trying to get set up to work at home and needed help with the technology aspect. On Wednesday evening he found out that starting next week, he will be furloughed (time off without pay) for 2 days each week for the next 30 days. That, of course, is not good news. We knew, of course, that his company was being impacted pretty negatively by the shutdown of business / social distancing and that something like this may happen, but we didn't expect it quite so soon. He's still trying to figure out when he's going to take his time off, because he doesn't think it's likely that he'll be able to take 2 full days off without someone needing him to do something. So he may work 5 hours each weekday--or something like that--instead. Honestly, I'm not expecting that he's going to really get 2 full days worth off each week. His help is critical to keeping restaurants operating, so if they need him to do something, he's going to do it even if that means he works more hours than he technically has to. I hope that we'll get to spend more time with him (silver lining of the financial loss cloud), but I'm not counting on it. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised, though. He still has a job and we're grateful for that. Many of his co-workers were put on furlough full time, so it could be worse. They are trying to avoid lay offs and other more dire financial issues, so I can't blame his employer for making this decision. But I can't say that it's added to my sense of peace and well being. It's not going to be fun figuring out how to make ends meet on 40% less, but somehow things always seem to work out. I feel less anxious about the next 30 days (we have some savings, so we'll be okay) than I do about the future after that...because certainly there's a real possibility that the 30 days will be extended, and in general it's pretty likely that the financial impact on his company (and the economy as a whole) could last for years. We've definitely taken a beating in the financial department for the last 2 years, and I wonder how long we can keep managing. But as I said...things always seem to work out, and I cannot deny the presence of multiple miracles in our financial life over the nearly 28 years that we've been married. So I'm trying to focus on that faith instead of my fears, but sometimes it's challenging.

The state of Maryland announced this week that schools will now be closed until April 24th, and that distance learning will begin on Monday (March 30th). I'm still waiting to hear specifics from Seth's school / teachers. Hopefully Seth will be able to handle that without major supervision from me. (He does pretty well managing his homework with only minor supervision / help from me, most of the time.) I hope that doesn't sound lazy--I'm more worried about how our personalities tend to clash when I'm trying to work with him than how much time it might take!

Remember last week I said I felt like I was coming down with something? I still feel a lot the same. I seem to have an almost permanent headache and my throat feels constantly irritated / raw. I'm starting to think it's probably caused by seasonal allergies (although I am taking allergy medication). I'm also having a lot of trouble with insomnia and I'm feeling my heart doing it's fluttery "A-fib" thing fairly often, mostly in the mornings--those are both likely related to stress and anxiety, which are kind of in abundance in our life right now, so it's no wonder.

I must report that I am officially a tax geek. Last night one of Frank's sisters had some questions about her taxes so I told her I might be able to help her. I spent about an hour reviewing her information and looking up the pertinent tax laws so that I could answer her questions. It's the most fun I've had in weeks! Seriously, I don't know why I enjoy working through tax scenarios so much, but I do.

That's all I can think of for this week, so I'll finish with a couple of photos from our walk yesterday. It was sunny and warmish yesterday, which was really nice--especially the sunny part, because we've had more cloudy days than not the last 2 weeks (it's cloudy again today) and the grayness has added to the general feeling of gloom. (But at least it hasn't snowed here...sorry, Utahns!)

Or maybe not...I guess I'm not going to finish with a couple of photos because something weird is happening with blogger, and I can't add pictures. Sorry! I'll have to post them next time.

Glad Jeremy got home safely and excited for Micah's mission call! Everyone stay safe, well, and sane!

Weekly Review March 20 '20

Well, here we are at the end of this strange week. It feels like it's been much longer than a week! I bet most people are feeling that way. I'm not going to do a daily summary because there's not a ton to say about each day (I also didn't keep very good records of what I did). I don't feel like I got much accomplished...didn't work on projects at all...but I dedicated most of my free time to keeping Seth busy with things that didn't involve a screen, and I feel like that is a worthwhile thing to do so I don't feel bad about the things I didn't do. I'm trying to keep him on as normal a schedule as possible. He doesn't have school work (yet) because in Frederick County they decided to treat these 10 days off as "snow days" that will need to be made up. I think when they decided to close the schools for two weeks, they made that decision because they were thinking it would only be 2 weeks. And maybe it will be...but it certainly isn't looking that way right now. Seth did bring home some things so that they can transition to "distance learning" if needed and yesterday the school district sent out an email saying that they are working on a plan for distance learning that they hope will be approved and if the kids don't go back to school on March 30th, they will begin distance learning then. Seth already does some work through Google Classroom, and some of his teachers have put some optional stuff on there this week. So he will probably do most of his work that way although maybe they will have some other things set up too. Meanwhile, I hope they really aren't going to have to make up those 10 days. They have already said, though, that if they are back in school before the scheduled spring break that they will not have spring break and they will use those three days as three of the make up days. Then they also have 8 snow days built into the school year and they have only used 1 so far, so that would account for the other 7 days they need to make up. That would take them to the originally planned last day of school, but that is June 23rd, which is pretty late. (That's what I get for looking at the school calendar a few weeks ago and being happy that they hadn't used most of the snow days and were going to get out of school by June 12th!!) Anyway, what I'm really wondering is if they don't go back to school at all this school year, as some people are predicting, how do they expect to make up those 10 days? I guess we'll worry about that if it happens.

So, as I mentioned, I've been putting a lot of effort into keeping Seth busy. It's gone pretty well. He's definitely had moments of boredom and complained a bit about not being able to have more screen time (I've stuck to his 2 hour a day limit pretty well) but he has done pretty well overall. He's spent more time in his room playing (he also cleaned his room!!), he's done some reading, and he's played outside a few times. I've been having him help me with chores each day and he is still working on his goals to exercise and to read scriptures 3 times per week. I played board games with him one day and we spent quite a bit of time the last 3 days making a jigsaw puzzle. We have also gone on a walk every day. On Wednesday we went to the park for a couple of hours. We met a few families from our ward there (this is before the hard and fast rule about no gatherings over 10 people was decided, and there were only 11 of us anyway) and the 4 boys played basketball and 4 square together (2 of them were Seth's deacon friends), along with the Dad of one family while the 3 girls played together and the 3 moms talked. (We were sitting in a pavilion and we sat far apart.) It was about 50 degrees that day and I got pretty cold sitting outside that long, but it was really nice to get out of the house for a few hours and to talk to some other human beings!

Having church at home was really lovely, although I miss seeing the other members of our ward. Seth shared something he learned in his scripture reading during the week and we read Jacob 5 and talked about it. (I had found some information about it to help Seth understand it better.) And of course, we had the sacrament. We dressed up in Sunday clothes for church, and plan to do that for as long as we are doing church at home. On Sunday we also did a Facetime call with all the Utah boys, which was nice. This Sunday I think Frank is going to give a talk about "following the prophet" because he was actually supposed to do that for sacrament meeting this week. I don't think he minds that he got out of doing that!!

Last Friday, we went out to eat at Cracker Barrel because I hadn't planned anything for dinner (I thought we were going to be in Philadelphia that night). I'm glad we got to do that before everything shut down!

I have been exercising most days but my left ankle started hurting on Monday evening for some reason (I don't remember doing anything to injure it in any way) so I had to take a few days off from jogging. It bothered me quite a bit on Tuesday but was starting to feel better on Wednesday. By yesterday I was able to start jogging again and it feels fine now. So that was weird, but I'm glad it didn't last long. I finished reading the book Midnight's Children on Saturday and returned it to the library. That was the last day the libraries around here were open. It was a strange book...pretty interesting and I learned quite a bit about the history of India. I can appreciate that the author is a talented writer, too. But other than that, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Now I have returned to reading the Wings of Fire series that Seth loves. I'm in the 7th book in that series. I got a few small things done, like cleaning out the in basket on my desk, and I started sorting through our 2 -3 boxes of memorabilia that I've been saving our whole married life (birthday cards and programs from events and things like that) although that project is going to take a while! Yesterday I mowed our front lawn, which had gotten quite long and bushy. We've had lots of days in the 50s and yesterday and today the temperatures are in the 70s so things have been growing. The back lawn isn't as long because it doesn't get as much sunlight. I decided not to mow it too because the battery for our lawn mower needs to be replaced. The charge doesn't last long and often doesn't last long enough to mow both the front and back lawns. We've been trying to find a battery to replace it but have not been successful yet. Other than the trip to the park, I haven't been anywhere this week except to the grocery store twice. (I get a few items, like fresh produce, on Mondays and the bulk of the weekly groceries on Wednesdays.) This week I got a lot of stuff on Monday because we wanted to stock up a little on some meat and canned / frozen fruits and vegetables (in case fresh ones aren't available). Those are the things that Frank needs for a healthy diet--meat and vegetables. Like everywhere else, we have a lot of shortages here although I think we're a lot better off than Utah. On Monday there were pretty slim pickings when it came to meat, milk, and a lot of canned items (plus TP, paper towels, and cleaning products have been gone for weeks) but I did manage to get a lot of the things we need. When I went to the store on Wednesday, some of the things that were missing on Monday had been restocked (which is encouraging) while other things had become scarce. I still managed to get most of the things on my list. We have a fairly decent amount of food stocked up in the house now so I'm not too worried about that. 

Frank is still working at his office, which I think is strange because they have about 40 people in his office. He could certainly do a lot of his work from home, but they haven't started allowing people to work from home yet. It's been a difficult and stressful week at his work, with lots of "crisis meetings". The company he works for is getting hit pretty hard economically because they're a restaurant chain and they also own some hotels. A lot of Frank's large projects are on hold now because they don't know if they'll have the budget for them (most of them involve equipment installations). He still has plenty to do, though. They put a hold on all raises which is a bummer because he hit his year mark recently and was supposed to be getting a raise soon. But at least he still has a job--I can't complain when so many people are out of work right now. We're much better off than that. We're not worried about Frank getting laid off--he's the only IT guy--but we are worried about the overall financial health of the company he works for and the long term economic impact. I mean, overall I think things will be okay but it's definitely unsettling.

Honestly, I'm not feeling that great physically. I keep feeling like I'm coming down with something. I've had a lot of headaches and the last few days my throat has been somewhat sore. I really don't think I have the Coronavirus, but I've got some sort of mild cold or something. Frank says his throat has also hurt a little and Seth was complaining yesterday that his ear hurt. I don't really think we are hypochondriacs! I think my headaches might be stress related but the sore throat is probably something else. It's not really getting any worse, though, so I'm grateful for that. And I've been keeping away from people, of course, so whatever it is, I'm not passing it on to anyone else.

That's all I can think of to report this week. We're glad the earthquake in Utah wasn't too bad. We are thinking about all of you, and will keep all of you in our prayers!! I'll finish up with some photos from this week:

Playing Battleship with Seth on Monday

I won the game! (But you can see that Seth was doing really well.)

When Seth found out I was planning the meals for next week, he made me a list of "demands".

He actually does know how to spell, he just thinks it's funny to creatively spell things. (It says Sunday--Mashed Potatoes, Tuesday--Tuna Casserole, Thursday--pizza, Saturday--Mac & Cheese)

Starting a puzzle on Tuesday

Making progress--Thursday morning

Puzzle finished--Thursday afternoon

And last, photos from our walk last night (we walked along the river behind our house, which is pretty low right now):

 

Weekly Review March 13 '20

Well, what to say about this week? I'd say it was a fairly normal, pretty uneventful week until yesterday. So let's talk about the normal stuff first. Besides the ordinary stuff, we had a few other things going on.

Friday the 6th we had the Deacons Quorum over in the evening to play games. There's only 4 active Deacons (including Seth), and one didn't come so it wasn't a big gathering or anything. They watched some Studio C and played some Mario Kart and some bowling. They seemed to have a fun time.

On Saturday the 7th, I got my hair done in the morning. The lady who has been cutting my hair for the last several years told me that she is retiring next month because she's having a lot of trouble with her hands. I was really sorry to hear that--she does a good job and she's a nice person to talk to, also. So the next time I get my hair done will be the last time she does my hair. She is going to connect me with one of the other stylists who she says is good. I hope so! It's always great to find someone who understands how your hair works and knows how to make it look good. That evening, one of my friends was having an Open House for her daughter, who got married last month and she asked me if I could help keep the refreshment table stocked. I was happy to do that--especially because she was one of the friends who helped so much with Tanner's open house last summer. It was an easy job and I got to visit with a lot of people too, so it was fun. Frank didn't go to the open house because he still wasn't feeling great--his cough was still bothering him quite a bit at that point. (He seems to be doing quite a bit better now. He's still coughing some, but not a lot.)

Sunday the 8th was fast Sunday for us, since we had stake conference the week before. I ended up going to the 14 & 15 year old YW class because the advisor wasn't there that day and so the counselor needed another adult in there with her. It was kind of fun for a change to go to YW. Frank made it to church for the first time in a couple of weeks but that evening he had a meeting for his new calling that he ended up not attending because he was coughing so much and feeling worn out. I've been reading a book about BFJ's family and I read about his mom and she was such an amazing woman! I mean, I already knew that, but the more I learn about her the more impressed I am. I feel really grateful to have the ancestors I have. I'm sure their lives have influenced my life far more than I can even comprehend, but just the part that I can comprehend is pretty overwhelming.

I had a dentist appointment on Monday the 9th and this time neither I nor they had to cancel it. It was just my bi-annual cleaning, and my teeth look great, thankfully. My tooth that I had to get a crown for last summer still bothers me a bit--mostly when I eat cold things, although sometimes I can eat cold things without any pain. So I mentioned that, but the hygienist said it could be sensitive for a long time after getting a crown. She said I should definitely keep them informed if it gets worse or if it's still bothering me in a few more months.

On Tuesday the 10th I went and got fingerprinted so that I will be able to volunteer at Seth's school. It takes a few weeks for them to process that and do a background check, but after that I should be good to go. (Assuming there will be school...I hope!)  That evening one of my ministering sisters came to visit me and I enjoyed that.

Seth had a counseling appointment right after school on Wednesday the 11th. He was glad that he didn't have to miss any school for that, and it was interesting because his counselor got to see him for the first time when he is not medicated. (Seth's medication is wearing off right about that time of day.)  He definitely noticed a difference! I also got to talk to Tanner for a long time on Wednesday; it was nice to get caught up with him!

So that brings us to Thursday the 12th, the day that everything went a little crazy! Actually, the day started out pretty normal. I had my shift at the tax preparation place, although we started an hour later than normal because the room we use was needed for something else that morning. That gave me time to get the laundry further along and to vacuum the house before I had to go in. I also went to the store and got some donuts, because one of the girls in my Primary activity group is having a birthday today and we usually get a treat to share at the activity right before someone's birthday. While I was getting donuts for that, I decided to get another dozen to take to share with everybody at the tax place. It turns out it wasn't the best day to bring donuts--one of the volunteers was out of town and another one was sick--so we didn't have a lot of people there. But those who were there did enjoy the donuts, and about half of them were gone before I left. Thankfully, the site coordinator knew we were going to have fewer people ahead of time, so she had scheduled fewer appointments so we weren't overwhelmed with stuff to do. I did keep fairly busy the whole time I was there--I prepared 2 tax returns and reviewed another one. After I got home and ate lunch, I started pulling out clothes to pack for Seth and I because we were planning to go to the temple today, and needed to leave right after school today. (We were planning to spend the night in Philadelphia--Frank would attend an endowment session Friday evening and then I would attend a session Saturday morning while Seth did baptisms and Frank helped with baptisms.) But right in the middle of that, I got a phone call from Frank, who had just checked his email and there was an email letting us know that the Philadelphia Temple had just been closed and so our ward temple trip had been cancelled. I was super bummed about that, because I was really looking forward to this temple trip! Opportunities to go to the temple have been really scarce for us the last 2 years and I miss being able to go regularly so much. This is the first time we were going to all be able to go together as a family, so it was a big disappointment. I did know it was a slight possibility that they would close the temple since others have been closed already because of the Coronavirus, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon. BUT if I am disappointed, I can't imagine how much worse it must be for anyone who was planning to get married or receive their own endowment! So I can't complain too much. Frank called the hotel we were supposed to stay at and thankfully they are not going to charge us for our room--I'm grateful for that! Anyway, that first email was just the beginning of a whole bunch of similar emails. Within a few more hours, we got an email letting us know that the governor of Maryland had decided that all the public schools in the state needed to be closed for two weeks (starting Monday--there is school today). Then I got an email from the tax place saying they are closing until March 31st. And then right as Seth and I were about to walk out the door to go to Primary and YM activities, we got the email letting us know that the church has cancelled all meetings and activities worldwide until further notice. So we didn't go after all. Well!! It all seems kind of crazy although I knew there was a possibility that something like this would happen. I am not overly concerned about the Coronavirus itself--I doubt I will get it and even if I do I doubt it will kill me--but I am concerned about people who are more vulnerable and I am also concerned about the economic impact this is going to have on the nation as a whole. I'm not thrilled that I won't be able to go to church for who knows how long, although of course it's awesome that we are all prepared for home-based church! I think right now I am feeling unsettled because I'm wondering exactly how things are going to go for the next few weeks. I still have things to do--the house still needs to be cleaned, we still need to eat, the laundry still needs to be done--but all of my other responsibilities like church callings and volunteer work and taking Seth to school and back are temporarily suspended. So I imagine I will have more free time than usual and I'm trying to think what would be the best way to spend that time. I really don't want to waste it!! I have projects to work on, of course, and I can certainly work on those. Seth will also have at least some school work to do at home (I don't know much of the details about that yet) so I'm sure I'll have to be helping him with that. But I really want to try to keep him busy with things besides video games and television. And as I said--I want to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile myself. There's a part of me that's really tempted to buy plane tickets for me and Seth and fly out to Utah for a visit!! But I can think of a lot of practical reasons why that's not a good idea.

So that brings us to today, which is a pretty normal day but will be the last normal day we'll have for a while. Seth is at school and will be bringing home a lot of stuff, I imagine, when I go to pick him up. So far today I have exercised and showered and gone through the mail and written this post and talked to Scott a couple of times. He is busy today moving his computer and other stuff from work to his home because they are allowing them to work from home for a while. Tanner and Jared both report that they will be doing their classes online for the rest of the semester (as most of you have probably already heard). I still need to pay bills and update the budget this afternoon.

I didn't get anything done on projects this week. I have been doing a lot of reading--I'm trying to finish a book that I've been reading called Midnight's Children. It's interesting, but it's also a really strange book and I hope I'm not going to get to the end of it and wonder "what was the point of that?!" It's actually due today and when I went online to try to renew it I couldn't renew it because it has holds on it. So I will have to finish it today if I want to avoid paying a fine. I have about 100 pages to go, so I'm not sure I'll manage it. But I should be able to finish it tomorrow if I don't finish it today.

In my random Facebook scrolling this week I have been really quite disturbed by a lot of posts and comments about the whole BYU honor code thing. The two things that have disturbed me the most are first, the amount of arguing going on and how rude people are to each other and second, how many church members out there seem to be totally confused about really basic fundamental truths like the plan of salvation. I could go on and on about this, but I will be merciful and spare you!! I'll just say that my worrying and anxiety and pondering and prayers over this led me to reading again the proclamation on the family as well as President Hinckley's entire talk when he presented the proclamation. It was beautiful and I cried tears of gratitude that he and the other leaders of the church at that time were led by the spirit to write that sacred proclamation which is so clearly needed in our world today. They couldn't have guessed 25 years ago how much we would need it now! It was clearly inspired.

And on that note, I will end this post. I have a lot of reading to do! :)

Weekly Review March 6 '20

Well, this week was better than last week. We're all feeling better although poor Frank still has a nasty cough. We had stake conference last weekend but since we were still recuperating, Frank and I didn't go to the adult session on Saturday the 29th. I spent the day trying to get caught up with things, but also trying not to do too much.

Seth and I did go to the general session of stake conference on Sunday morning. Frank still wasn't feeling great, and mostly he felt like he should avoid people when he was coughing so much, so he stayed home. Conference was good and Seth was especially interested in the first talk because it was given by his friend Henry, from his Deacon's Quorum.

On Monday the 2nd I continued to work on getting caught up on everything. I also went to see my friend Wanda--she had asked me to trim her bangs the week before but since I got sick and she lives in a nursing home, I couldn't go see her until I got better. So I got her bangs trimmed and she was happy about that. Then I tried to go to the religion class but no one was there. I texted one of the other class members and she let me know that the teacher is getting ready to move so the class is cancelled for now. That evening for family night activity we played Uno Flip and I had a crazy streak of luck and won the first 4 rounds. We decided to play one more round and Frank won that one. It's a pretty fun game...more interesting than regular Uno.

By Tuesday the 3rd I was mostly caught up on everything. I spent most of my free time this week working on Christmas stockings and I finished the cross stitched picture for one of them:

I also worked on that other Christmas project a little bit, but I didn't get much accomplished. I'm trying to learn how to do something new and it's taking time and I'm not at all sure if it's going to turn out okay or if I'm going to ruin the whole thing. Hopefully I'll figure it out, though.

I was supposed to go to the dentist on Tuesday (rescheduled from last Thursday, because I was sick) but then someone called from the dentist office Tuesday morning to say that the hygienist that was supposed to clean my teeth was out sick. Apparently, half their office was sick so they were having a "fun" time scrambling around trying to reschedule a bunch of appointments. They rescheduled me for this Monday, so we'll see if it works out this time. Hopefully 3rd time's a charm!

On Wednesday the 4th, besides the usual stuff, I went to the store to get some supplies for that Christmas project I'm trying to work on. We also got our tax returns filed. They've basically been done and ready to go for a few weeks, but I was worried about a problem with our estimated taxes for this year--I'm almost positive there is some kind of glitch in Turbo Tax, because the amount of tax they estimated we would owe next year is about 50% of our estimated taxable income. That just can't be right!! So I had to look over things and satisfy myself that there weren't any other mistakes somewhere. The estimated tax mistake is not a really big problem because it's just a suggestion--we don't actually have to pay that much. I expect that our income and taxes for 2020 will not be significantly different from 2019, so if we make estimated tax payments equal to what our tax liability is for 2019, we'll be fine. As it turns out, we're getting a smallish refund from the federal government but we owe taxes to the state. But at least we're getting a little bit back--the federal government owes us more than we owe to the state. Seth got out of school 2 hours early on Wednesday because it was midterm--not sure how it is midterm already! This school year is going by so fast!

Thursday the 5th was pretty busy, as most Thursdays are since I have my tax volunteer work during the day and the Primary activity in the evening. We actually weren't very busy at the tax place this week, though. Sometimes people don't show up for their appointments, so then we have less to do. I completed two tax returns and reviewed a third one. When we don't have a lot to do, we usually end up discussing tax situations we've run into since we're all numbers / accounting / tax geeks! It's fun! We had a fun Primary activity. This month, we are focusing on learning about the First Vision / Restoration in preparation for General Conference. We combined with the older girls' group last night and had a movie night, where we watched one of the church's movies that depicts the first vision. We told the girls they could wear pajamas and bring pillows / blankets, and we had popcorn, twizzlers, and root beer floats. After the movie, we gave them cards and asked them to write down their feelings about Joseph Smith, the first vision, and / or the restoration. Then we let them build a big fort out of chairs and blankets for the rest of the time. Oh, and an impromptu pillow fight broke out too:

Today Seth's class at school had a Medieval Renaissance Fair, because they've been studying that time period in their history class. The kids each chose a part and researched it. Seth was a Medieval Lord. They could wear costumes, but that was optional and he chose not to wear one. (Which I didn't mind, since his teacher didn't even send home information about this until Monday. Why don't they give us more time?) I did look up how Medieval Lords dress, and found a hat online and offered to make a simple tunic for Seth, but he didn't want to wear that so I was saved the trouble. Anyway, I went in to his class for about a half hour this morning to see the fair. It was fun to see what they did--some of the kids came up with some pretty creative costumes. I watched a knighting ceremony and some acrobats. After I left, they did jousting, archery, and dancing. (I didn't stay long because I didn't have time to eat breakfast before I left.)

The jester doing some tricks

Seth playing chess with another Medieval Lord

A tanner and a candle maker (can't remember who the girl in the middle was portraying)

The boy on the end was an apothecary and he gave me some homemade eucalyptus lotion to put on my hand.

A knight

A fortune teller

After I got home from the school, I got the finances all caught up, had lunch, and picked up Seth from school.

Seth had safety patrol all week (last week too, but he was absent 3 of the 5 days). He seems to enjoy doing that. We are still having warmer than usual weather, overall. We have definitely had milder winters than usual the last several years, and this winter has been the mildest of all (I'm not complaining about that). Last week, some daffodils came up (in February!):

And these pansies that I bought last fall are still hanging in there...never got cold enough to kill them:

Poor Frank--he loves snow, and we barely got any this year! I suppose we still could get some snow--it's only early March--but it feels like spring.

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