Weekly Review February 18 '22

Well, there was quite a bit going on this week, it seems. I'll probably forget something, but here goes...

Frank and I went to see a Michelangelo Sistine Chapel Exhibit on Saturday. We bought the tickets a few months ago. It was down in Virginia, so a little bit of a drive but we enjoyed spending the time together. The exhibit consisted of several close up high resolution digital photographs of different parts of the Sistine Chapel ceiling which were projected onto large screens so they looked like you were looking at the paintings close up. Certainly, it is amazing to think that he painted all of those intricate paintings on a ceiling! We enjoyed the exhibit, but we were a little disappointed in it...afterwards we agreed that if we had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 5, we'd give it a 3. There weren't as many paintings as we anticipated and the photos in the advertisements made it look a lot more impressive. For example, in the photos, it showed lots of paintings projected onto a ceiling, so it looked like you would be walking into a sort of replica of what you would see if you went to the actual Sistine Chapel. The exhibit space we went to didn't have any of that. They were just projected onto walls with space in between each image. Just didn't have the same impact, but of course we did enjoy looking at the paintings and definitely appreciated the skill that went into painting the originals. We will just have to go visit the real Sistine Chapel someday! 😄

The exhibit was located in a space in a huge mall, so afterwards we got some lunch at the food court. When we first got to the mall, I realized it's the same mall that I visited a number of years ago so that I could go to the American Girl store, so after we ate, Frank humored me by going to that store with me for a few minutes. It was really nice of him since the store was on the opposite end of this huge mall! Quite a bit of walking. I didn't buy anything at the store, just wanted to see it. After that we came home. It was a fun, half day date. 

That evening we got an email from one of the counselors in our stake presidency asking if it would be possible for us to meet with him the next morning before church. We were somewhat intrigued by that and spent some time debating what it could be about. We assumed it was a calling or assignment for Frank, since the email was addressed to him (although it was sent to both his email address and mine). But really, I thought it was likely some sort of stake committee calling or maybe an assignment related to the temple open house. I wasn't expecting a major calling, so I didn't think about it too much. 

We woke up on Sunday morning to discover about an inch or two of snow on the ground. It was the perfect kind of snow, though. It covered up the grass, trees, etc and made everything look really pretty, but it didn't stick to the roads at all. As most of you know by now, when we met with the counselor in the stake presidency, he issued a calling to Frank to be the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric of our ward. We were definitely surprised!!! I thought it was pretty cool, though, that the first thing Frank said was "Wow" (registering his surprise) but then he immediately said "Yes". I could tell he was shocked and pretty overwhelmed by the idea but he was still immediately willing to do it. We met with the counselor at 8:30 and church started at 9:00 and they sustained him in sacrament meeting so we didn't have much time to wrap our minds around the idea. I kind of felt like we'd been hit over the head! 😅 I think we're still adjusting to the idea, actually. I do think Frank has a lot to offer and that he will do a great job. And I also know this calling will be a great blessing to both him and to our family, so I'm grateful. 

Sunday after church was crazy because of course Frank had to meet with the bishopric for a bit and we hadn't been expecting that so we only drove one car to church. We will be driving two cars every week from now on! Then we came home and grabbed something to eat before I had a class presidency meeting and Frank had ward council (both on Zoom, and at the same time). Then immediately after that Frank and I both had another meeting because the YW presidency and the Bishopric were meeting together to discuss the youth and to do some planning for youth activities. I had the meeting on my calendar fo the last few months, but Frank of course found out about it last minute. We also had family night and dinner in there somewhere...all in all, Sunday went by fast!

Frank has not been ordained a high priest or set apart for his new calling yet. That will happen this Sunday morning. We were hoping Frank's dad could come up here to ordain him, but his dad is having some health problems right now so a trip up here would be too much for him. We did briefly discuss the possibility of us driving down there instead (in that case, he would have been ordained today so we could be back here by Sunday morning) but we realized that would be too difficult for us with all the other things we need to do and Seth having to miss school and Frank having to miss work. So a good friend of Frank's is going to ordain him instead. We know his parents (and other family members) will be with us in spirit! The other counselor in the bishopric is going to be out of town this Sunday so Frank will be conducting and he also is in charge of conducting, choosing topics, and choosing speakers for the month of March. Baptism by fire! I'm sure our bishop is really relieved to have someone to help him, though. The former 2nd counselor had a stroke at the end of October and he has been recovering since then and hasn't been able to come to church or do anything like that since then, so they've basically been a 2 man bishopric for nearly 4 months. (The former counselor sent Frank a really nice text message on Sunday, by the way.)

Okay! Now for the rest of the week, which hopefully won't take as long to talk about. Monday was Valentine's Day; we didn't really do anything to celebrate besides exchange cards because we considered our excursion on Saturday as our Valentine's date. We got Seth a card and some candy too but I told Frank a few weeks ago that if he truly loved me, he WOULD NOT give me candy for Valentine's Day. He didn't get me any candy, so he must truly love me! For family night we played a game called Forbidden Island, which is fun because it's one of those games where you all have to cooperate to win the game...so either we all win or we all lose together. It involves capturing 4 treasures and getting off an island before the island sinks. It was close, but we did manage to win the game! I like games where we're working together rather than competing against each other.

On Tuesday the other counselor in YW and I went to the YW secretary's house to help her get the nursery set up for her new baby girl (due in about 3 weeks). She asked us if we would come help her because she was feeling overwhelmed with what needed to be done. We spent a few hours with her and got a lot of stuff done, including getting most of the clothes put away in drawers or hanging in the closet. It looked a lot better by the time we were done, and we enjoyed visiting while we were working. 

Wednesday was my VITA volunteer day, as usual. There were not as many tax preparers there this week but the site coordinator scaled back the appointments a lot and a few people no showed, so things were pretty calm and I enjoyed that. I completed a couple of tax returns and reviewed several others. Nothing crazy came up, either...just straightfoward returns, which was nice for a change!

That evening we all had youth activities, which will be the norm from now on. I actually really like that we all get to go to the activities together as a family. This week was class activities, so I didn't really see Frank or Seth much after we got to the church. The YM went to the gym to play gaga ball. The younger YW class was working on their film script. The older two classes met together (we do that once a month) and we talked about the importance of each unique person in our class and then we made bead animals (there was an analogy between each bead in the animal being important to the whole). Making the animals turned out to be fairly challenging so it took a lot longer than we expected. I did manage to finish mine, which was a ladybug. It turns out I chose one of the simpler patterns; so glad I did! It was a lot of fun, though. We were talking and laughing while we worked. 

Everybody working:

Showing off finished products:

A bee

Working on a monkey

An otter

A panda

An elephant

My ladybug

Yesterday my friend Rebekah came over and we had lunch together. We have had very little chance to talk to each other since December, so it was nice to get caught up! Last night I had a practice for the song we're singing in Stake Conference. We did end up with 2 people singing each part and I ended up singing alto, so I'm happy about that. It turns out that 4 of the 6 singers are in our ward...so is the pianist. So I'm singing with a lot of friends (the other alto is the YW president) and that makes it really fun. The guy who asked us to sing sent us a recording of the song earlier this week so I was able to listen to it and by following along with the sheet music, I was able to learn a lot of my part before the practice. It is a medley of Lord, I Would Follow Thee and Love One Another. It was sung at the Women's Meeting (General Conference) in 2014, if you want to go listen to it! It's quite pretty and I have enjoyed learning it. I came home last night just feeling fantastic, and I realized that is the first time I've been able to sing with a choir / small group in person since all the Covid-19 mess began. Singing with other people really does bring me a lot of joy!!

Today has really zipped by and I'm not sure how that has happened. There was no Seminary this morning so we got up an hour later than usual. It was nice to have an extra hour of sleep, especially since I have had a lot of nights this week that I didn't sleep well. Today is midterm for Seth and all the schools got out 2 hours early which means he was done at 12:15. Frank and I picked him up from school and we went to Roy Rogers for lunch. There is a mushroom / monterry jack burger that they are test marketing right now and I wanted to try it. It is actually really good! I spent some more time practicing the song this morning but other than that and exercising, showering, and scripture reading that is all I got done this morning. And now it is almost 3:30! I haven't even started on the budget yet, but I will do that next. I guess I've had a few text message conversations going on today and Scott called as well so that has taken some time too.

In between everything else, we've been busy with all the usual school work, work, and household chores. I'm still plowing my way through Ben-Hur...going much slower than I would like, though. I'm on page 374 of 610. We continue to make preparations for our trip to Hawaii, which mostly consists of buying things. It seems like a new package arrives every day...shorts, a snorkel mask, locks for our luggage, clear waterproof containers for our phones (so we can take photos underwater),  water shoes, reef safe sunscreen.... The list goes on! I hope we are almost done buying things! We got the financing figured out for the new windows and I have our tax return for this year almost done but in the process realized that I made a mistake last year so I'm going to have to file an ammended return for last year. I got to talk to Amy a few times this week which is the first time we've talked (not counting text messages) since I was in Utah last summer, so that was nice. Oh, and Southwest airlines caused us a great deal of consternation by changing all of our flights! The flight to Honolulu is okay...we are actually getting in an hour sooner than before...but our flight from Oahu to Maui was changed to a few hours later which meant Frank and I would not be there in time for an excursion we booked. Besides that, Seth's flight home from Utah was changed from a non stop flight leaving at 2:00 pm to a flight with 2 stops, a plane change, and leaving at 7:00 am. After spending over an hour on the phone, Frank was able to get our Maui flight switched to an earlier flight so we won't miss our excursion but there weren't any options for changing Seth's flight home. We aren't thrilled about that because we purposely put him on a nonstop flight since it will be his first time flying alone. Now he will have to make a plane change in Chicago. There is a stop in Cincinnati too but at least he can just stay on the plane for that one. Since we can't change his flight, we are going to make our trip from home to Honolulu his "trial run". We have to change planes in Los Angeles, so we'll be able to walk him through the process of what to do. He's flown a lot, so he's familiar with the process, we just want to make sure he will be able to figure it out on his own when we aren't there to help him. I'm sure he'll be fine, but it would have been a lot nicer if he could be on a nonstop flight!!

Frank had an interview this week with the head hunter about that job in La Plata Maryland which I mentioned last week. It went well and he found out more details about the job. It sounds a lot like what he's doing now except he would be the manager with 4 people to help him. Nice! It also pays significantly better. He did tell her that he is just not interested in moving right now. She said if he is willing to spend some time going down there at first (maybe 3 days per week), until he is trained and things are going smoothly, that after that they could probably work something out so that he works remotely most of the time. I don't know...we'll see if that's really an option. I definitely don't want him driving down there every day (or even 3 days per week on a consistent basis)...it's about an hour and a half away. But he'll have another interview with the owner of the company and we'll go from there.

Finally, to finish up (very long post this week!!) I can't believe I forgot to mention last week that Jessie got a job offer in Cary, North Carolina so she and Jared will be moving there. They are actually leaving Utah on Monday and arriving in Cary on Thursday. We are very excited for them, and we're really happy that they are going to be so much closer to us...only about a 5 hour drive away!! This has all happened quite quickly...she just got the job offer last week. They have managed to sell the lease for their place in Utah and have signed a lease for an apartment in Cary. When I talked to Jared a few days ago, he said they had a lot of packing done. They have been going through their things and selling or donating a lot of stuff. They are only planning to take what they can fit in their car, so they have sold most of their furniture. He said they had done a trial of trying to pack all of their things in their car and it looks like it's going to work. A note about Jared's health: he did see a specialist and that doctor is almost certain he has a fistula, but since the surgery he needs for that would take quite a bit of recovery time, they decided it would be better to wait until after the move for him to have surgery. So he will have to find a doctor after they get to NC. Please continue to pray for him (and for both of them, that the move will go well.)

This was quite the marathon post so if you're still reading, I commend you for successfully making it to the end!

Weekly Review February 11 '22

 This week was quite busy--let's see how much I can remember now! 

On Saturday I went to a baby shower for the lady who is currently serving as the secretary in YW. The shower was at a relative's home in Virginia; I rode there and back with my friend Rebekah and her daughter Emily. There were a number of people there I didn't know (family of the mom-to-be) but there was a small crowd of women and YW from our ward too, so it was pretty fun. We had brunch and everything was delicious. That evening Frank got my phone and Seth's phone set up with our new mobile phone carrier. I am not getting great service coverage so far...I've noticed several times in the last week when I try to send a text message that I have no service so it doesn't send for quite a while. The strange thing is that Seth can be sitting right next to me, and his phone has service, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Hopefully the problems will clear up soon. It works most of the time, but it has picked some very inconvenient times to not work. I do like the new phone...it's nice to have a phone without lots of cracks and chips in the screen! Sometimes my fingers would get sore when I was using my old phone.

We had our usual church meetings on Sunday and then Seth and I had another meeting that afternoon...it was a training meeting for all the new quorum and class presidencies for the YM and YW. I was doing part of the training and Seth was just called to be the 1st Counselor in the Teacher's Quorum, so we both needed to be there. That evening I had another meeting via Zoom...this one was with the stake YW president, who was giving us information about the upcoming FSY conferences this summer. The YW president in my ward asked me to go in her place because she had some plans with her family. I was really glad that it was a Zoom meeting so I could attend at home, in my pajamas! (It ended right around bedtime.) Meanwhile, Frank had to work that night...another data base test, but this time it worked!! He actually got home before midnight which neither he or I had expected. There were only a few little glitches that showed up, so he still has to work those out but he is mostly done with that project now (and it was a huge project that he has been working on since he was hired 3 years ago.)

On Sunday I also received an email from one of the members of the high council asking me if I would sing in a trio for a musical number for stake conference. I was surprised to get that invitation...who knows how he came up with my name (although he did used to be in our ward so he knows me)...and singing in that small of a group sounds pretty intimidating to me, but I did say I'd do it. Apparently he is having trouble finding people to sing though because the last I heard from him (a few days ago), he still didn't have enough people lined up. Although he also said maybe we'd double up on the parts which sounds like a great idea to me, but that means he's trying to find 6 people instead of 3. Anyway...stake conference is only 2 weeks away and we haven't had a practice yet so that makes me a bit anxious too. I do have the sheet music, but I'm not sure which part I'll be singing yet (2nd soprano or alto) and since I don't have a piano, I can't really practice on my own anyway. I wish there was a way to listen to the song, but an audio version doesn't seem to be available. Hopefully it will all work out, though.

I had a mishap with my new contact lenses on Sunday. I have daily contacts now, which means you wear them once and then throw them away. I wore some on Saturday without issues but on Sunday when I put a new pair on, the right one was kind of bugging me so I took it out and put it back in. It was okay for a while but started irritating me later so after church I took it out again, rinsed it with solution and put it back in but it still didn't feel right so I took it out again only this time I only got a small piece of it! Yikes!!! I pulled two more pieces out of my eye and that appeared to be all of it. At that point, I decided I was going to wear glasses for the rest of the day. 😟 Frank went to the eye doctor (follow up visit) on Monday and he told him about my contact coming apart and the eye doctor said that shouldn't have happened. He recommended that I get some re-wetting drops and put those in before removing my contact lenses. I wore another pair on Tuesday without incindent but on Wednesday evening my right eye started feeling irritated and it still does. That's not incredibly unusual for me--my eyes get irritated and / or infected often, which is why I thought daily disposable contacts would be a good idea. Plus, I don't wear them that often anymore so a 90 day supply will last me a long time. Anyway, I started doing a little bit of online research and I'm pretty sure, based on what I've read, that I have "dry eyes". I know...don't believe everything you read on the internet, right??? All I'm saying is that the symptoms fit and I also have most of the higher risk factors. It would explain why I've had so much trouble with my eyes the last few years. I decided to get some OTC eye drops for that so I've been trying those out for the last few days. They do seem to help a bit. I'm thinking a visit to an eye doctor (ophthalmologist, not optometrist) would be a good idea too though. 

All right, I promise I won't write that much about every day this week! I actually don't remember much about Monday other than doing all the usual chores, which usually takes up a lot of the day. Frank and I ordered some walking sandals for our trip (and all trips hereafter) and they need to be broken in a bit so I walked around the house wearing sandals (with socks, because it's way too cold for just sandals) most of the day. (I've worn them a few other times this week too.)

For family night we played a game called The Amazing Labyrinth...we've had it for a long time and it is fun but also really tricky. 

On Tuesday Seth had a dentist appointment but he also told me one of his wires on his braces was getting loose again so I called the orthodontist's office and managed to get an appointment for him to see the orthodontist right after his dentist visit. I was happy about that because they are near each other, but about 30 to 40 minutes away from our house so it was great to only make one trip out there. I had decided a few days before this dentist visit that I needed to give an invitation to the Washington DC temple openhouse to our dentist. He knows what church we go to, and told me in the past that he had a good friend growing up who is a member of our church, and he seems to have a fairly positive opinion of the church. Because of that, I was pretty sure he'd be interested in the open house, but I had no idea what a positive response I would get. When I explained to him what the open house is, he got so excited!!! He said he's been wanting to go inside the temple since he was a little boy, and he thanked me profusely for inviting him. The hygenist that cleaned Seth's teeth wanted an invitation too. (I brought several cards with me.) Then when I was up front making Seth's next appointment, he came back up and told me that a lot of the people in the office wanted to go and that they were all going to go together for an office "party"! And he thanked me again for letting him know about it. So that was pretty cool!! 

Tuesday evening I went to a RS activity. It was kind of like a white elephant gift exchange, but with a twist. I was supposed to bring something that is a favorite of mine, wrapped up. Then when someone chose that gift and unwrapped it, I was supposed to explain why that item is a favorite of mine. It was kind of a fun and unique way to get to know each other better. I brought a word puzzle book, and explained that I like doing word puzzles but I also do them because some research shows that doing word puzzles helps stave off Alzheimer's disease, and I really don't want to get that! The person who opened my "gift" loves to do word puzzles too, so she was happy to get the puzzle book. My gift that I opened was baby wipes, which was kind of hilarious. My friend Tammy brought them and she explained that even though her "baby" is 7 years old, she still has a couple of containers of baby wipes in her house at all times and she uses them a lot to clean things. So I guess I will try that too!

I spent Wednesday at VITA doing taxes again and it wasn't as crazy this week, thankfully. As a matter of fact, at one point most of us were sitting there with nothing to do. I got more returns done in less time and I also had time to eat lunch! So that was nice. It's amazing to me, though, how many little issues come up. At one point I said "they always look simple, but they never turn out to be simple" and all the other tax preparers laughed so I guess they were experiencing the same thing. A note about lunch...I made a GOLO (GOLO is the name of the diet we're doing) Mongolian Beef recipe the day before and took that for my lunch...just had to warm it up. Several people at different times commented on how good it smelled. ("Who's lunch is that? It smells so good in here!!") I ended up promising to bring the recipe to share next week. 😂

The YW had a combined activity Wednesday evening. We decorated Valentine cookies and then took plates to some of the people in our ward. I was not in charge of this activity, so all I had to do was show up and help where needed. I think the girls had a really good time. (We got to eat a few cookies too!)

Yesterday morning I woke up around 2:45 and never went back to sleep. In spite of that, I put in a full day and never took a nap. I'm not sure how I managed to do that! I got all the usual work done and I also did some work on our tax return. (So busy doing taxes for other people that I haven't had time to do my own yet!) 

Frank has been pretty busy this week but maybe not quite as busy as the last few weeks. His toes are still hurting but they aren't as bad as they were at first. He's been breaking in his new sandals quite a bit too and that has been nice for him since his regular shoes hurt his toes but his sandals don't. Seth has continued to have quite a bit of homework each evening. He hasn't had as much homework for English but he's had some homework for history and qutie a bit for his computer science class. Thank goodness Frank can help him with the computer science stuff! When they are talking about it, it sounds like they're speaking a different language! 

I have not had a lot of free time this week (as you may have surmised) but I have done quite a bit of reading here and there and I am almost halfway through Ben-Hur. I'm enjoying it, although it moves rather slowly. I'm pretty sure I have never read a book with so many obscure words in it before! I'm reading a digital copy on my tablet and when I highlight a word I don't know the meaning for so I can get a definition, 98% of the time it tells me it's not in the dictionary! Thankfully, I usually don't need to know the meaning of the word to get an idea of what's happening, I'm just curious. (And trying to expand my vocabulary.) 

Frank was contacted by a head hunter yesterday about a position in another town in Maryland...he says his client is really interested in Frank. We think it would probably be too far away for him to commute, so we're not extremely interested (because we'd rather not move) but he may look into it just to see what the job is like and what they are offering. It probably won't go anywhere, but it's nice to know someone is interested. 

We've had some really cold days this week but today it has warmed up quite a bit (up to 60 degrees!) so that is nice for a change. It's supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow but then it gets cold again on Sunday. I looked at the forecast for the next 15 days, though, and 10 of those days are predicted to have a high temperature of 50 degrees or higher, so maybe we are starting to inch our way out of winter. 

Our application for new windows was approved by our HOA a few days ago and our windows were ordered yesterday so hopefully we'll be getting those installed pretty soon. It still may take a number of weeks for them to arrive, though. 

That's probably more than you really wanted to know about our lives, so that's it for this week.

Weekly Review February 4 '22

 Last week when I posted, I was in bed recovering from my Covid-19 booster. By Saturday I felt just fine, thankfully. 

On Friday we ordered new phones for Frank and I. We are switching to a different cell phone carrier, and both of our phones are old enough that they can't be transferred over to the new carrier. We have been planning to replace both phones anyway because they have lots of cracks. My screen is particularly beat up, with lots of chips as well as cracks. The new phones arrived yesterday and Frank got his phone set up with the new carrier last night but this morning he didn't have any service so he had to call them to get that worked out. His new phone is working now. We didn't move my new phone over yesterday because the three older boys all have their phones on the same account with me with the old carrier. Before we closed down the account, they needed to get their new accounts set up (none of them are going to be on our account now). Tanner hadn't had a chance to get his set up yet but he did that this morning so now we will move my phone and Seth's phone over to the new carrier. Our cell phone bill is going to go down a LOT, and not just because the 3 older boys won't be on our account anymore. We're happy about that, of course. 

On Friday evening I also watched the movie Hidden Figures again...reading How We Got to the Moon sparked my interest in watching that movie again. I remember liking it the first time, but I had forgotten how good it is! I really enjoyed it. 

I remember being pretty busy on Saturday but I don't remember exactly why now. I got my hair cut and that always takes a while. Frank and I also made two big batches of soup. Looking ahead to this week, I knew I was going to be really busy or gone for a lot of the lunch hours, so I decided making some soup ahead of time that we could both warm up for lunches would be a good idea. Mostly, that worked out pretty well and helped make my week less stressful. 

We had our ward conference on Sunday and it was really good. That evening our stake had a special temple fireside. A brother who has done a lot of research / written a book about it talked about the history of the Washington DC temple and the land that it is on. It was really quite fascinating and inspiring, so we enjoyed it a lot (even Seth paid attention for the whole thing). Even better...they made it available to watch from home so we got to snuggle up in our pajamas to watch it instead of going out in the cold (and it was really cold!!).

We found out on Sunday that the First Presidency decided to extend the open house for the Washington DC temple, which moved the dedication back nearly two months from June 19th to August 14th. I almost cried when I heard that! It just feels like the temple is never really going to open again! But the reason for extending the open house is good...they have had a much larger demand for tickets than they anticipated. Extending the open house will allow a lot more people to go. That's not a bad thing! So I have reconciled myself to waiting longer. In the meantime, we will be going to the Philadelphia temple on a weekend in March so Frank and I can do endowment sessions. We wanted Seth to do baptisms too but all the appointments were full. (They were full for every Friday / Saturday for as far as we could schedule out.) There were not very many openings for endowment sessions, either. That has been one of the really frustrating things about the DC temple being closed...it's really hard to get to the temple at all, and then when we find a time we can go all the appointments are full. But I remind myself that a lot of church members still don't have a temple anywhere near them at all. It could be worse.

Frank has continued to be really busy with work and his business this week. He had some work he had to do on Monday evening (remote) but he took some time to have family night with us. On Tuesday I had a YW presidency meeting (late morning...so went into lunch hour). Frank had an appointment with the eye doctor because he decided he wants to try out contact lenses again. I finally remembered to get my prescription for my contact lenses and Jared helped me order them. They actually arrived today...I wasn't expecting them to get here so fast.

Wednesday was my first day volunteering for VITA for this tax season. It was crazy busy!! I totally forgot to eat lunch and didn't even notice feeling hungry! Overall, it went well though and I really enjoyed being able to talk to taxpayers in person again (last year we couldn't do that). That evening we had a combined YW activity and my class was in charge. We played some brain games and then divided into our classes to plan our class movies and eat popcorn. (The YM and YW are having a "film festival" in March and each class is making a movie for the festival.) I was pleased that my class came up with a plan because I really had no idea what to do! I think it is going to be pretty silly, but fun. 

Yesterday I got caught up on things after having a very busy day on Wednesday. I also took a nap because I didn't sleep well Wednesday night. Frank was working from home and unfortunately he hit his foot on a box in his office and probably broke a couple of toes. This morning his foot was hurting a lot...not just his toes...so he decided to get it looked at to make sure he didn't break something besides a toe or two. The doctor sent him for x-rays. It turns out his foot is okay so he just needs to take it easy and keep off of his foot as much as possible so his toes can heal. He's been working from home today too. Meanwhile, I took Seth to the oral surgeon for a consultation today. (Another lunch hour that I was gone.) There was a 2 hour early release today but I had to pick him up a bit early because they didn't have any appointments available in the afternoon. I thought he was only going to get his bottom wisdom teeth removed, but the oral surgeon said that one of the top ones is also impeding the molar from coming in so it needs to come out too. (The molars need to come in before they can take off his braces.) And since it doesn't make a lot of sense to take out 3 wisdom teeth and leave the 4th one in, they are just going to take all of them out at once. He's also going to expose 3 of the molars that have come partway in. Sounds like a lot of stuff to have done at once and I'm afraid Seth will be pretty miserable afterwards, but hopefully he'll recover quickly and then we don't have to worry about wisdom teeth anymore! We scheduled his appointment for March 4th.

Seth has had quite a bit of homework this week...mostly for his English class. He seems to be doing pretty well overall. He didn't get up for Seminary on Tuesday but he went every other day this week.

I don't feel like I've had much free time this week, but I have been reading Ben-Hur whenver I get the chance. I've read over 100 pages and last night I finally got to a part that I remember from the movie, hahaha! I saw the movie as a teenager, so I actually don't remember much about it, I just remember I loved it. But I suspect everything I read up until last night was background stuff that wasn't even included in the movie. Once I finish the book, I'm going to try to track down the movie and watch it again.

Jared is the one who can use your prayers this week. He is having trouble with his abscess again (he had surgery on it in the fall). He had an appointment with the surgeon who operated on him in the fall and he determined that it is not infected, at least, but he wants to send Jared to a specialist to see if there is any underlying cause why it keeps coming back. He's doing okay, but it's uncomfortable. 

While I've been typing this post I have been watching some of the winter Olympics...curling. It's such a strange but interesting sport! Figure skating is coming on next, so I'm looking forward to that. 

I can't think of anything else to tell you about, so that's it for this week.

Weekly Review January 28 '22

 Happy Friday morning to you all! I am still in bed in my pajamas, but I have a good excuse. I got my Covid-19 booster yesterday morning, so I'm not feeling my best today. My arm started feeling sore within an hour of getting the shot (even though I kept moving it a lot) but I am pleased that this morning it doesn't feel any worse than it did yesterday. It's pretty sore, but not terrible. Other than my arm, I felt fine yesterday up until about 7:30 pm. Then I noticed I was starting to feel shivers up my spine and by 8:30 I was shaking all over. I got ready for bed, took some tylenol, and then crawled into bed with extra covers on top. I went to sleep pretty quickly and then woke up around midnight because I was hot and sweating. I was awake for an hour or so and then slept until the alarm went off at 5:00 am. Frank took care of getting Seth to Seminary and school so I was able to go back to sleep for a while, which I really appreciated. Thankfully, I am done with the chills! I do feel a bit tired and achy all over and I have a headache. But not too bad, overall. I'm just going to take it easy today. It's cold (actually snowed a little bit this morning) so it's a good day to stay in bed!

This week was fairly busy, with all the normal things plus a few extras. I really should take notes or something, because I always have a hard time remembering what we were doing a week ago! Last Saturday I went to a ukulele lesson with my two friends Laura and Mary Kay. I asked Laura to look at my new ukulele (because she's the teacher and knows a lot about ukuleles). This new ukulele doesn't seem to stay in tune for long. I tune it before I play and it slips out of tune again before I'm done. She couldn't find anything wrong with it and said that it might just need some better strings, but when I mentioned that I might be able to return it still, she said that would be worth looking into. I checked later this week and I can still return it, so I decided to do that (still in process of boxing it up; glad I saved the inner box). Laura recommended another brand of ukulele that she thinks is likely to be better. Anyway, I enjoyed the lesson and visit with my friends. 

Frank was really busy over the weekend because he was working on getting a new database for work ready for a test. This is a huge project that he has been working on since he started working at Roy's three years ago. He worked a lot on Saturday and then he worked Sunday night overnight because that was when they did the first test. He says the test failed, but that brings them one step closer to getting it right. He has continued to be quite busy this week with both his regular job and his business. He's been able to work from home a lot, so he's been around but very busy.

On Sunday the new YW class presidencies were finally called and set apart. I had a Zoom meeting with my advisor and the new class president after church; it went really well. There is only a president and one counselor in my class presidency, since there are only 5 girls in the class. The new counselor was not at the meeting (or at church) because her mom had a miscarriage the night before. (Her mom was also supposed to give a talk in Sacrament meeting that day...our bishop said "there are better ways to get out of giving a talk." Frank can relate, since he once got out of giving a talk by getting appendicitis...I think he would much rather have given the talk!) 

I sent an email to the mom (Rebecca is her name) who suffered a miscarriage on Sunday evening to let her know how sorry I am and told her I had a miscarriage once so I am willing to be a sympathetic listening ear if she needs it. She answered me and we had a short email exchange on Monday. I found a book that brought me a lot of comfort when I had my miscarriage (which I was shocked to realize when I was thinking about it this week was 21 years ago in a few more days!!!) and I have loaned it to several friends since then. I'd like to share it with Rebecca, but the last friend I loaned the book to never returned it PLUS Rebecca is blind so she couldn't read it anyway. I tried to see if an auido book version is available, but I couldn't find one. There is a digital version, and that might work for her somehow...I'll have to ask her. I mean, I can send her emails and she can read them somehow so she may have a way to access digital books. I will have to ask her.

On Monday evening we had family night and played a mean game of Bananagrams...that is my new favorite game. Probably because I win a lot! 😂 Seth is at a disadvantage since he is younger and has a smaller vocabulary than Frank and I, but I'm actually pretty impressed with all the words he comes up with. 

I had book chat on Tuesday evening. We had a good discussion of Good Night, Mr. Tom and I always come home from book chat happy. It's always so enjoyable! It was my turn to bring the books to choose from this time so I had prepared by checking two books out from the library. One of them I didn't get in time though and the library didn't have the other one but it is widely available for a very small price. I am pleased that the group chose to read Ben-Hur because I already have a digital copy and have been meaning to read it. I actually suggested it a year or two ago and it wasn't met with a lot of enthusiasm so I was surprised when almost everybody's reaction was "Oh! Ben-Hur! We really ought to read that one. It's a classic. Good idea!!" It's a long book, so we aren't going to meet again until mid-March. I started reading it yesterday afternoon and the chapters are short so I have already read about 7 chapters. It has over 500 pages, though, so I have a long way to go. I loved the movie, so I expect I will like the book. 

We had a combined YM / YW activity on Wednesday evening. Originally, it was my class's turn to plan this activity but since the YM had planned a combined activity in December that we didn't get to do (switched to service at the last minute, since a family in the ward needed help moving) so the YM really wanted to do this activity in January. I can't say I was unhappy about that. I was actually really relieved that I didn't have to plan an activity, especially since I didn't have a class presidency until a few days before. The original activity was supposed to be "Reindeer Games" but since it wasn't almost Christmas anymore, they switched it to "Reindeers Go to the Olympics" and modified all the activities so that they were like winter Olympic competitions. Most of the games were in the gym and we were instructed to wear socks so that we could slide around like we were on ice. We did speed skating, figure skating, curling, and ice hockey. Plus some bobsledding at the end, which involved pushing a car (in neutral gear and with an adult driver to avoid mishaps) around the parking lot. I think everyone had a great time! Here's a few photos of "curling" and "ice hockey":

The teams were aiming at a circular target on the floor (which you can't really see.) The two people holding brooms were purely to make it look more realistic! I don't think they helped at all, since we weren't really on ice. 

Seth gets a turn to ride on the "stone". I got a turn also, but I don't have a photo of it.

I am actually surprised that no one got hurt while playing "hockey" because they were all really getting into the game! All those brooms!!

Yesterday was fairly uneventful besides getting my Covid-19 booster. I had an appointment at 10:00 to get that, but I had to wait a long time so I didn't get it until nearly 10:30. There was not a long line of people waiting in front of me...in fact, only one other person was waiting ahead of me but for some reason no one came out to give us our shots until we had both been waiting for a half hour. (We did check in when we arrived, so they knew we were waiting, they just must have been really busy or short of staff or something...I went to a pharmacy to get it.) Another guy arrived to get his booster while the guy in front of me was getting his. I was chatting with him for a few minutes afterwards (since you have to wait a bit to make sure you don't have a bad allergic reaction to the vaccine) and he said he had Covid a few months ago (even though he'd been vaccinated) and it was pretty bad. He said he felt like he had a pile of bricks on his chest! Doesn't sound fun at all. He got the antibody treatment and within 24 hours he felt a lot better. He had to wait 90 days after getting the antibody treatment to get his booster.

In between those events and all the usual chores, I've been trying to get a lot of little extra things done since the tax season starts next week so I'll be busier....things like getting the application submitted to our HOA to get our new windows approved and ordering some new swimsuits because I'm going to need to have more than one for Hawaii. (We'll be swimming several times and the places we are staying don't have easy access to washers and dryers. And I HATE putting on a damp swimsuit!!) I ordered a swimsuit for Seth too since both of the ones he has are way too small now. The swimsuits actually arrived last night (much to my surprise since I ordered them a few days ago) and Seth's fits fine but I haven't tried mine on yet. First, the idea of taking off my warm clothes and putting on a swimsuit when it is 20 degrees outside (and very drafty inside) didn't appeal to me. But I still might have forced myself to do it if my arm wasn't so sore!! I just couldn't face the idea of getting in and out of a swimsuit top with a really sore arm! I will have to try them on soon, though. 

I've also been reading a book that I started last week called How We Got to the Moon. It's actually a children's book...probably written for about 5th grade on up...but I have found it really fascinating! (Shout out to Amy for sending me this book!) It has lots of drawings and diagrams and detailed explanations about how things work, like rocket engines and so forth. I'm sure they are simplified explanations, but still...I feel like I've learned a lot. One of the things the author does a lot is present a problem they encountered and then he explains the solution they came up with for that problem. It's been really interesting to read about the things they came up with...often, the best solution turned out to be the simplest one. I have really been inspired to read about what we, as human beings (not me personally!), have been able to accomplish. All the problems that had to be solved, all the things that had to be figured out, all the myriad things that could have gone wrong...but with all those people putting their heads together and cooperating, they managed to get people to the moon and back safely...more than once! I've just found that to be really inspiring. 

That's all I can remember to tell you about for this week except that it would be great if you could include Tanner in your prayers. He has been struggling a lot lately with some depression / anxiety. I talked to him a few days ago and he reported that he has dropped all of his classes for this semester. He felt like he needed some time off. I was actually relieved to hear that he had made that decision. I have been somewhat aware that he's been struggling with school and with his physical and emotional health for a couple of years, and I really think he needs to take some time off to focus on getting his physical and emotional health in a better place. He's dealing with a lot of issues with sleep so he never gets enough sleep. He did a sleep study and he does not have sleep apnea, but he took a survey about narcilepsy and he said he checked yes for almost all of those questions, so that is something he is trying to follow up on. He is also trying some different medications for depression / anxiety and he is trying to figure out if he needs to change his ADHD medication because it doesn't seem to be working very well. So, he could use some prayers I think...that he can get the medical help he needs and get in a better place, both mentally / emotionally and physically. He doesn't want to drop out of school completely, but he is trying to figure out if getting his education through a different route (online classes? certifications?) would be a better way for him to go. He has a lot of decisions to make, so please keep him in your prayers. Thanks! 

I'm so glad that this is my last post for January...I've almost made it through another January! It's never an easy month for me since it's so cold. February isn't much warmer, of course, but at least it's short! So glad we're getting closer to spring! This year it has been nice to have something to look forward to. When it's really cold and miserable, I think "in this many more days I will be lying on a beach in Hawaii!!" (Frank keeps me updated regularly on how many more days until our trip.) That thought always cheers me up! 😄

Weekly Review January 21 '22

 Last week when I was finishing my post, I mentioned that we were going to take Frank to dinner for his birthday. He has a good friend in the ward who has his birthday the day after Frank, so Frank had invited this friend and his wife to have dinner with us too. We went to Outback Steakhouse and had a yummy meal and we really enjoyed talking with this couple from our ward too. It was fun to celebrate with them!

On the way home from dinner we stopped at the fabric store because I needed to get some fabric and thread for the sewing projects I was doing for the sister going on a mission. After we got home and enough time passed that we weren't full from dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Frank and had some chocolate muffins. (Frank asked for that instead of cake so there would not be a lot of leftovers...there were only 4 muffins.) 

 On Saturday, Frank was busy most of the day doing work for clients. He ended up having to do some work on location for a client that is over an hour away so that took some time. I spent most of the afternoon / evening working on the sewing projects, but I did get all of them done. None of the projects ended up being difficult and everything went smoothly, it just took some time. Cutting the sleeves on the dress was the most nerve wracking for me...I was afraid I was going to accidentally cut them too short or something! Everything turned out well, though. I was able to meet the Spanish sister at church the next day to give her the clothes and she was really happy with how they all turned out. 

We had about 70 people in Sacrament meeting on Sunday, so that was an improvement although obviously still small in numbers. After church I had a ministering interview with the RS president via phone. She wasn't feeling well so she stayed home from church, so we opted to do the visit on the phone. There was a snow / freezing rain storm predicted for that afternoon / evening, and it did start snowing as predicted. We got about 3 or 4 inches of snow and a lot of freezing rain on top of it, so the snow had a shiny layer of ice all over it. We were glad we didn't have anywhere we needed to go and that the next day was a day off work for Frank and school for Seth. 

An attempt to capture the layer of ice shining on top of the snow. The photo doesn't really capture it. Sometimes when it was really sunny, looking at the snow was blinding! Just as brilliant as the sun shining off a windshield or something like that:

Well, theoretically Frank had the day off work on Monday. That didn't actually happen because some emergencies came up. So we were actually outside in the late morning cleaning all the snow and ice off our cars since Frank had to go solve some problems and I needed to get some groceries. The roads were not icy by then, thankfully, even if the snow was. Frank was back home by early afternoon. In the late afternoon he went to the chuch to help clean up the sidewalks there. Actually, he told them all he could do is help spread salt because shoveling is something he can't do anymore...it hurts his back too much. I lectured him before he went over that he was NOT to do shoveling. It turned out to be a real mess because it was more ice than snow and had sat there for hours getting hard, but they did the best they could. Several people who were supposed to help didn't show up and of course Frank did do some shoveling, but not too much. He did have a sore back the rest of the evening but it doesn't seem to have done too much damage. Meanwhile, Seth helped me with laundry and vacuuming. We also got his application to the Career and Technology Center completed and we figured out his registration for next school year, so I feel like we got some good things accomplished.

We were up getting ready for the day Tuesday morning and Seth had just taken a shower when we got text messages from the school system saying there was a 2 hour delay. We weren't expecting that at all since the roads had been cleared off the day before. Seth and Frank both went back to bed but I was awake enough that I decided to stay up. 

On Tuesday evening we had an appointment to get an estimate for replacing our windows. I was actually impressed with the lady who came...she was friendly, professional, and not pushy. We decided to go ahead with getting our windows replaced. It's going to cost a lot (we expected that), but our windows have been in pretty bad shape for years. They are the original windows which means they are nearly 28 years old. They are drafty and one of the windows in our bedroom had a piece break off a few years ago and we can't open that window anymore. All the windows in the house also show condensation and the windows in our bedroom are so bad that the morning after the snow / ice storm, I found a puddle of water on the window sill inside. The dry wall around that window has been peeling and is starting to rust / rot. So it really is past time to replace them! I am not looking forward to paying for them, but I AM looking forward to my house being a lot warmer!! The last few weeks especially I have been so cold all the time!! Unfortuately, it will probably be March before the replacement actually happens but I think the house will be more comfortable year round once they are replaced. The windows we have now are builder's grade but the new ones will be higher quality and they are the kind that tilt inwards so that we can clean them. That will be so nice!! They also have a 50 year warranty and in 50 years neither of us is going to have to worry about windows...or anything else! 😉

Wednesday was pretty much business as usual, as far as I can remember. For youth activities that evening, Seth had a virtual activity (they talked about goals). For the YW, we offered both a virtual and an in-person activity. I was one of the leaders for the in-person activity. The online group talked about goals and played a game. For the in-person group, we talked about the youth theme for 2022, which is "Trust in the Lord..." (Proverbs 3:5-6) and then we gave each girl a canvas so she could paint a picture that represents what the theme means to her. The girls did a good job and I was actually surprised how quiet they were while they painted. 

I didn't create a painting based on the theme...instead, I brought a painting that I started at a previous activity (last June) and never finished! I am happy to report that I did finish it this time:

It's not a professional painting for sure...I especially don't like how the writing came out...but it looks okay, I think. I'm planning to give it away to a friend. 

The Primary had activities that night so there were a fair amount of people in the building and while we were waiting for parents to pick up kids, a number of us women ended up talking for a while about the school system and how crazy it has been lately with weather delays / closures as well as bus routes. There has been a big shortage of bus drivers and with that plus drivers getting sick, the school system has had to cancel a lot of bus routes. We get an email every night with a list of the bus routes that are cancelled for the next day...parents with kids on those routes have to provide their own transportation. Seth doesn't ride a bus...he's close enough to walk, thankfully! (Plus I always take him to school anyway since he has Seminary first and can't walk from there.) I can just imagine how inconvenient all these last minute bus route cancellations have been for parents, especially for parents who work. One of the moms said that the principal at her daughter's elementary school was telling the parents in the pick up carline that they should be carpooling. Her response was "If I get an email at 10:00 pm announcing that there is no bus for my daughter the next day, I really don't have time to arrange a carpool!!" I said "You know that bus? It's basically a carpool!!" Everyone laughed about that. I do think it's crazy sometimes when I realize how many things have changed because of Covid. We have become accustomed to putting up with a lot of inconveniences because of things like supply chain issues and not enough workers. I'm not saying this in a spirit of complaining, it's just really amazing to contemplate how a virus can change the world so much! 

Ironically, while we were still at the church having that conversation about school delays and such, we all got text messages saying school would be delayed 2 hours on Thursday morning. That wasn't too surprising since another winter storm was predicted to come through in the morning. We weren't supposed to get a lot of snow, but it was supposed to be mixed with freezing rain and was timed to arrive right around the time the middle and elementary schools were starting. I didn't get up early this time...I slept in, and it was nice! When I woke up it was raining, which didn't surprise me because it was supposed to rain first. I was surprised when we got an update shortly after 7:00, saying that schools were closed. Then guess what? It never snowed! So annoying!! 

In the meantime, Seth had informed me that one of his wires on his braces had come loose so I called the orthodontist and they were able to fit him in that afternoon. So it was nice that he didn't have to miss school to get that taken care of, at least. He helped me get some chores done in the morning and after his appointment we stopped at the store to get a few things before heading home. 

Last night I had an orientation meeting for VITA...it was via Zoom, so I didn't have to go anywhere, which was nice. Our site opens on February 1st. I am volunteering on Wednesdays, so my first day will be February 2nd. We have kind of a modified set up this year which will be much better than last year although still not back to what we were doing 2 years ago. We will have a lot more interaction with the taxpayers, though, so that is the main thing--that will make things a lot easier!! We do anticipate that the advanced child tax credit is going to cause a lot of confusion / issues though! We'll see how it goes. 

Frank had to work late last night getting some things done for Roy Rogers (he was able to work from home, though) so he slept through the Seminary / school routine this morning. He's been working from home today and we took some time to go to lunch together. Well, actually we went and picked up lunch and brought it home to eat. I got the budget caught up this morning. Frank just left to pick up Seth from school...on really cold days (below freezing) I try to pick him up. He did walk home most days this week though. This was his first week of the semester and it defiitely turned out to be a bit crazy with one holiday, one snow day, and one 2 hour delay! This semester he is taking American Studies, Geometry, English, and Foundations of Computer Science. I think this is going to be more challenging for him than last semester, but hopefully he'll do okay.

That's all I can think of to report from this week so to finish up here is a sunrise photo from one day this week:

January is 2/3 over! 😀

Weekly Review January 14 '22

 I don't have a lot on my calendar for this past week, but it certainly felt busy. When I wrote last week, Frank was sick although starting to recover. He still didn't feel very well on Saturday or Sunday. By Monday he was not 100% yet, but starting to feel better. That meant we didn't do much over the weekend (well, didn't go many places I should say. I did do quite a bit). On Saturday morning the first thing I did was go outside & clean all the snow off of both of our cars. That was a decent amount of work since there were about 6 inches of snow all over them. After that I practiced ukulele, prepared the YW lesson for the next day, made some muffins (for our breakfasts this week...they are "healthy" muffins made from wheat flour, oatmeal, etc.), and I also completed 2 of the 3 certification tests for the tax course. There are 3 tests I have to take every year. One covers the volunteer standards of conduct and another one covers the intake / interview process. The third test is the actual tax law certification test. The first two tests have 10 questions each and they are very easy, common sense kind of things. Those are the two tests that I completed on Saturday. I agreed to do a few simple sewing projects for a young woman in the Spanish branch who is going on a mission soon. She came over on Saturday evening so I could do some measuring and pinning. They are fairly simple projects...hem a pair of pants, add some fabric to a dress lining so it is longer, and cut off some long sleeves on a dress & hem them so they are short sleeves instead. I hope they don't turn out to be too difficult or time consuming! I haven't had a chance to work on them yet although I will probably work on them tomorrow. My priority this week was completing the tax certification tests. 

I mentioned in last week's post that a lot of people in our ward were sick and that there was some discussion about cancelling our 2nd hour. Our stake leaders said no to cancelling...they said we could either go virtual or in person for the 2nd hour classes. Our ward council decided to go ahead and meet in person. Then there was freezing rain predicted for Sunday morning so we were wondering if we were going to have church at all! I went ahead and prepared a lesson for YW (as I mentioned earlier) but I kept having the feeling that I wasn't going to be teaching it. The freezing rain mostly didn't materialize, so we did go to church as usual. Or to clarify--Seth and I went to church as usual. Frank got up, showered, and dressed for church--much to my surprise since he wasn't feeling well--but at the last minute decided not to go. I thought that was a wise choice since he was coughing like crazy besides not feeling well. It turns out that there really were a lot of sick people in our ward because only 57 people were there for Sacrament Meeting! During the meeting, I was looking around and realized that there were only 4 Primary children! I also realized that most of the women present had callings in either Primary or YW. The meeting itself was great--a departing missionary spoke and he gave a great talk, along with one of his nieces who also did a great job (she is in my YW class). Oh, and 5 of those 57 people were friends of the departing missionary who had come to hear him speak, so we really only had 52 members of our ward there. After the meeting ended, our bishop came back up to the pulpit and said "There aren't many of us here, and as I look over the congregation I realize that most of the families who are here have at least one person in the family who is at home sick. So I think we need to cancel our second hour classes. This seems like a good day for everyone to go home and take care of their families." (He then went on to apologize to those who had taken the time to prepare lessons!) Overall, I think it was a good call. Frank was really surprised when Seth and I showed up an hour earlier than he had anticipated! Since I am kind of a numbers geek, I had to go over all the details in my head and here is the tally of who was there. If we had gone ahead with our 2nd hour classes, this is what it would have looked like:

• 11 men in Elder's Quorum (including the missionaries), but no members of the EQ presidency
• 5 women in RS, including the RS president and the teacher (no other members of the presidency were there)
• 5 (out of 7) YW leaders (the president and one advisor were missing)
• 6 YW
• 1 YM leader / Bishopric member (the Bishop) 
• 6 YM
• 13 adults in Primary (including the complete presidency, the music leader, the pianist, 6 teachers and 1 nursery leader)
• 4 Primary kids
• 1 nursery age child
• Not sure if the 5 visitors would have stayed but if so I guess they would have gone to EQ, making a total of 16 men there

So there you have it! I'm hoping we have a better turn out this Sunday, but a lot of people are still sick. I guess we'll see. That evening Seth and I went to the Stake Youth Standards Night. There was a pretty good turn out there (not from our ward, of course!) so I guess most of the other wards are healthier than ours. 

There is not as much to say about the rest of the week, thankfully! We were mostly busy with the usual things. I have continued to have a head ache off and on and an occasional sore throat--usually first thing in the morning, it's better during the day. The head ache has come back less frequently the last few days, though. I have felt pretty well the last two days. When I cleaned all the snow off the cars on Saturday, I felt like I had slightly tweaked my back. I kept having twinges of pain in my lower right back for several days afterwards. It was quite painful Monday through Wednesday, but is much better today. I spent a good deal of time on both Tuesday and Wednesday working on the last tax certification test, which is the one that takes the most time. There are only 35 questions, but you have to complete some fairly complicated tax scenarios in order to get the correct answers. I did successfully complete the test on Wednesday (as a matter of fact, I scored 100% on all three tests). I am very glad to have that done! Yesterday I kept feeling kind of at loose ends what to do because I don't have to work on that anymore! 

We had originally planned to have both an in person and a virtual YW activity on Wednesday evening, but the YW president still wasn't feeling well (she had her Covid booster on Friday evening and she always has really lengthy reactions), I wasn't feeling great, and one of the advisors is still quarantined so ultimately we decided to just do a virtual activity. We had a lot of girls participate, including a few that we rarely see so that was nice. For the activity, we did a game using Play Dough. The leader in charge asked us a question ("What is your favorite subject in school?", "What is your dream vacation spot?" etc.) and each of us had to use the Play Dough to make something that represented our answer to the question. Then we each shared what we had made and explained it. It was actually quite fun. The YM also had a virtual activity and they played a game that sounded fun but it's too complicated to explain. 

Yesterday I ran a bunch of errands besides the usual housework I need to do but I still got everything done earlier than I usually do which was nice except I was feeling really anxious about some things so I actually wanted something to do to distract my mind. (I'm feeling less anxious today.) I also wrapped presents for Frank's birthday while he was gone to work. It was Seth's last day of school this week because it was the last day of the semester so today is a day off. That means he is half way through his freshman year...already!!

Today is Frank's birthday so he opened presents this morning and then went to work for a while. He came home shortly before lunch and he worked from home this afternoon but now he is done and we will be taking him out to dinner soon to celebrate his birthday. 

To finish up, here are some photos of the birthday boy:

He's turning 52, not 7!! 😅

One of his gifts was a thing to weigh luggage, so he had to test it out by weighing some of his other presents! 

Weekly Review January 7 '22

 I'm experiencing some deja vu right now because I am on one couch working on my computer while Seth is on the other couch doing school work on his computer. How many days we have spent like this in the last 2 years! But no...we haven't reverted back to virtual school (at least not yet!). We got about 5 or 6 inches of snow last night so school was cancelled today. He doesn't have school virtually today though (even though I think that would make a lot of sense, now that they have the capacity to do that). He just has a lot of homework to do. He's been putting off a lot of stuff and next week is the end of the semester so time's almost up. He's really rather fortunate that he has all this time today to work on it! He will probably get everything done in a few hours and still have the rest of the day to play.

When I left off last week, we were getting ready to celebrate New Year's Eve. Seth spent the evening playing video games mostly and I spent a lot of the evening working on a jigsaw puzzle. Frank helped with that a little, but it really hurt his back to work on it so he only worked on it a few minutes at a time. I also took frequent breaks because it hurt my back too, but I was able to do a lot more than Frank was. I've decided that this puzzle was easier than a lot of the ones we've made because even though I did about 98% of it by myself and I didn't work on it as consistently as I sometimes do, I easily finished it by afternoon on New Year's Day. It often takes us 3 or 4 days to get a 1000 piece puzzle done. 

I got all the pieces sorted and the edges done by about 8:15 pm:

By 10:30 it looked like this (I had worked on it only sporadically at this point):

I took this photo right before midnight:

And this one about 12:20, right before I went to bed:

I took this one after working on it for about an hour the next morning:

And this one after we finished it at about 3:45 in the afternoon: 

We didn't work on it all day by any means...We took a break of several hours in the middle of the day to shower and do other work that we needed to do.

Back to New Year's Eve...Frank actually did not stay up until midnight. He woke up really early that morning so by 10:30 he was beat. He went to bed but Seth and I stayed up to welcome in the New Year. Seth even stopped playing video games and flipped to the television so he could watch the ball drop, and he insisted that I leave the puzzle and do the same!

The next day obviously started rather late for us. Frank ended up having to do some work onsite for a client who is over an hour away from here so that took a while. Meanwhile, I spoke on the phone for about an hour with the new advisor who was just called to help with my YW class. I had to bring her up to speed on everything. (Fun facts: the new advisor grew up in our ward but recently moved back in. She is married with a baby now. I was actually her YW advisor when she was a Beehive! Yep, I feel so old! She is also a member of the family that we purchased our house from when we moved here, so I am now living in her childhood home.)  I also practiced my ukulele for a bit. After we finished the puzzle, we moved it onto the coffee table in the living room so we could take down the table we had set up in the kitchen (the lighting is much better in our kitchen than in the living room, so much easier to assemble a puzzle in there) and I also consolidated all the leftover Christmas treats into one big bowl and put away other food so that the table we had set up for all that food could be taken down and returned to the church. After that, I was able to sweep & mop the kitchen floor. 

Sunday started early for us because our ward's time for church moved from 1:30 pm to 9:00 am. I actually prefer the earlier time overall, but it takes a little bit of adjusting. Our bishop and his family were not there because he was sick and had just tested positive for Covid-19. It's been a little bit of a crazy week as more and more people in our ward have gotten sick (some with Covid-19, others with other illnesses)! Frank woke up Wednesday morning with flu-like symptoms and he was really miserable all day Wednesday and Thursday. He seems to be slightly better today, although he's still not feeling great. He got tested yesterday morning for Covid-19 (had to wait in line for about 2 1/2 hours to do that) but he tested negative, thankfully. Not that it matters much to me what he is sick with (he still feels rotten), but since he's negative, Seth and I don't have to get tested and quarantine until we have our results. It makes our lives a lot less complicated!! Meanwhile, Seth feels fine and I mostly feel fine but I've had a mild headache and slight sore throat for 3 days now and on Wednesday evening my neck was hurting a lot. I wouldn't say I'm sick exactly, but I don't feel quite right either. We ended up having all of the youth activities virtually this week since some youth were sick, some were quarantined because a family member was sick, and some of the leaders were sick or (like me) in the same household with someone who was sick. There is actually some discussion going on right now about whether or not we should cancel our 2nd hour meetings this week because so many ward members, including a lot of the leaders, are sick right now. Yesterday before I found out Frank didn't have Covid-19, I was worrying about my YW class on Sunday because I am supposed to teach but I knew if Frank tested positive I wouldn't be able to be there. I also wouldn't be able to go if we hadn't got his results back yet (they said it could take up to 3 days) or if I was feeling sick myself (which I sort of am). So I texted my new advisor to see if she would be willing to teach if I couldn't be there and her response was that she was willing but her husband and her brother (who lives with them) just tested positive for Covid-19! So that's how it's been with a lot of the classes and organizations, apparently. Hopefully everyone will get healthy again soon. 

On Sunday evening we had the Elders over for dinner. Later, when we were finishing up family night, we got an unexpected visit from one of the bishopric counselors and one of his daughters--they brought us some homemade fudge, which was really nice! We ended up visiting with them for quite a while. 

Seth went back to school on Monday but not to Seminary because the schools had a 2 hour delay that morning. It was supposed to snow overnight, so they made the decision on Sunday evening to do the 2 hour delayed opening. When we got the text message, I said "They're going to feel really dumb if it doesn't snow." Well, guess what? It didn't snow! Okay, to be fair, I saw 2 or 3 flakes drifting down at one point. They weren't wrong about the storm--there was a huge storm that dumped a lot of snow and stranded motorists on I-95 for up to 27 hours--it just ended up being further south so it missed Frederick County entirely. The county just south of us got 7 or 8 inches of snow. Anyway, even though I knew we didn't have to get up as early as usual, my body woke me  up around 2:30 and I never went back to sleep. That was annoying!! I remember looking at the time and temperature display a few times and thinking "it's not going to snow, because it's too warm". It was in the low 40s the whole night. 

Seth went to Seminary and to school as usual on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He reported that very few kids were at Seminary...maybe 7 or 8 kids each day. (They usually have 15-20 kids.) Again, a lot of people sick or quarantined with a sick family member! 

I've been trying to get back into a normal routine. I had a YW presidency meeting on Tuesday, and on Wednesday evening I had my first activity with my new class. There are 5 girls in my class, 1 of which doesn't come to anything. The other 4 are pretty dependable but only 2 of those 4 came to the activity on Wednesday night. I think we would have had at least one of the others come if we had met in person. For our activity we each brought 3 - 5 things that we feel represent us, and we shared our items and told why we had picked those items. It was fun to get to know the advisor and the 2 girls a little better, and we discovered that we have some common interests (like we all like to do crafts and we all love music). We spent the rest of the time discussing ideas for activities. We don't have a class presidency yet, which has complicated my life a bit. They were supposed to sustain a new presidency on Sunday but that didn't happen because the bishop was sick. Hopefully that will happen this Sunday, unless the 2nd hour classes get cancelled....

Last night I attended a virtual information meeting about dual enrollment. The local school system has a couple of programs that allow high school students to take classes that will give them college credit along with counting towards their high school graduation requirements. I was just interested in finding out more about it...Seth won't be able to take any classes like that until his junior year, but it was really good to find out more details about it. Definitely, it sounds like something we should consider for the future. 

I have been working really hard on my tax course this week and because of that I am ahead of schedule now. In my original timeline, I was going to finish the online course early next week and take the test by the end of the week. Because I did extra work this week, I finished the online course yesterday. I may be able to get the test done this weekend. If not, I will get it done early next week. 

Although Frank has been sick, he has still been working from home since Wednesday. He is always such a hard worker! Now that the holidays are over, he totally has Hawaii on the brain! We got a few excursions booked for the days that we will be on Maui. He has a countdown in his head and tells me every morning how many days are left until we leave! I am trying not to think too much about it. Truthfully, I'm worried that with all the Covid-19 craziness, something is going to happen to prevent us from going. Hopefully not, but I know it's a possibility. It is still quite a ways off though, so hopefully things will have calmed down more by then. 

To finish up, here are some sunrise photos from this week (Wednesday and Thursday) plus a few of the snow from this morning: