Weekly Review October 18 '24

This week felt long to me; I'm not sure why. 

Last Saturday Frank and I went out for breakfast to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the day we got engaged. 

After we got home, I worked on Seminary lessons for a while and finished up my preparations for this week. Then we watched the BYU football game. This is the first game this season that I've been able to watch the whole thing and thankfully BYU won so it was mostly fun to watch. When we were at breakfast we were talking about the day we got engaged and realizing that we hadn't taken any photos on that day so we decided it would be funny to try to re-create a scene from that day and take a photo of that. We did go to the BYU homecoming game together that day (in 1991) and sat in the student section in the north end zone. We got engaged early that morning but decided not to tell anyone but instead wait to see who noticed that I was wearing a ring on my left hand first. Turns out no one noticed until that evening so during the game Frank was watching my parents through binoculars (they were in the opposite end zone) and when he thought they were looking our way through their binoculars, I would hold up my left hand and we would both point at the ring. They never saw us (probably not possible at that distance, even with binoculars) but that is the scene we decided to re-create in our photo. We used a shot of the student section in the north end zone from that day's game (in 2024) as a backdrop for our photo. The lighting isn't good but you get the idea:

On Sunday after church I had choir practice and we also had family night (except for the activity / treat) and Seth went to mission prep. It was my turn to take him but Frank was sweet and took him instead so that I could go to bed. 

My Seminary lesson on Monday was about the gathering of Israel. I never felt super great about it, but it went okay. On Tuesday we had the guest teacher that I mentioned last week, so I didn't have to teach but helping her get things wrapped up on Monday afternoon / evening was indeed rather stressful. It all worked out okay in the end. Her lesson was definitely different from what we normally do but she said some really good things and some of the kids really seemed to connect with her so that was all good. I was helping with Power Point slides and such so I stayed up front with her and my team teacher took this photo of us:

Back to Monday, Seth actually missed both Seminary and school that day because he got sick. He got up and got ready for Seminary but then started feeling sick to his stomach. I had to leave him at home to go teach and he threw up while I was gone. He felt bettter after that, but stayed home to make sure he wasn't going to be sick again. He didn't have any more trouble and by midday he was fine, so I had him work on some of his college application stuff. 

That evening Seth and I went to a marching band showcase because two of the members of our Seminary class are in his high school's marching band. My team teacher went too...actually, she picked us up and we all went together. They were the third band to perform but we stayed until intermission, so we saw five bands perform. Their band was definitely the largest and I thought the most visually pleasing. They sounded great, too. I was actually surprised a bit at how small most of the bands were. Nothing like the photos I've seen of Amy's kids in their band performances at their high school. The temperatures on Monday were in the 50s and it was windy so we actually got pretty cold. I had worn a hoodie and a coat, and I was really glad I did. My team teacher brought a blanket and even with all those layers I still got cold. (But it wasn't too bad.) None of my photos of the marching band are very good but I do like this one of the moon and the sunset:

Before we left for the marching band showcase, Frank had started to feel sick to his stomach and he threw up while we were gone. (Seemed to be the theme for the day, and I was the lucky one he did not get sick that day at all!) He started to feel better on Tuesday so we think it was probably a side effect of one of the medications that he's taking (it sometimes causes him to feel nauseated). We had planned to do the activity / treat part of family night after we got back from the showcase, but since Frank wasn't feeling well we had to postpone that plan.

Frank was able to go into work to attend some meetings on Tuesday (later than usual, though...he left after I got back from Seminary) but he decided he probably shouldn't do his temple shift, so he let his supervisor know that morning that he wouldn't be there. I took Seth to YM that evening as usual. While he was at his activity (they played volleyball and practiced a song), I met with the Elders in our ward because they are going to help with part of our Seminary lesson on Wednesday. I explained what we want them to do and they are excited about it (and we're excited to have them come!) 

On Wednesday I got plans for next week's 3 Seminary lessons done. I still need to create Power Point slides and a bunch of things like that, but I haven't had much chance to work on them since then. I feel pretty good about Monday's and Wednesday's lessons, but Tuesday's still feels really rough to me. I'll be working on all of those either tonight or tomorrow. Our stake Seminary supervisor visited our class Wednesday morning and afterwards gave us some good feedback and we got a chance to ask questions and pass along ideas of things we need (like training on the new curriculum that's starting in January). She is new this year but taught Seminary for many years and she has been really great and very helpful. 

Wednesday evening I had book chat. We discussed Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and there was a lot to discuss about this book so I didn't get home until after 9:00. Now we are going to read As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. I actually read this book when I was in high school and I remember I definitely didn't like it, but I'm willing to give it another chance. Just maybe 56 year old me will get more out of it than 17 year old me did! I remember it being very confusing and not making a lot of sense, but that's about all I remember about it. My library only has one copy of the book, so I had to request it through inter-library loan again and probably won't get it for another week or so.

Yesterday Seth had to work after school. Frank and I made dinner together and then watched a show together while we ate dinner. A few weeks ago we started watching a show called 24 together. It's interesting because one season covers a 24 hour period and each 1 hour episode covers 1 hour of that 24 hour day. We watch 2 or 3 episodes together each week, so it is going to take us a long time to get through one season, but we are enjoying doing this together.

Today there isn't school (teacher professional learning day) and Frank works from home on Fridays so we all got to sleep in. Nice! I met with my team teacher at the church for about an hour so we could plan the schedule for the rest of the semester and we made a list of possible guest teachers. After that I took Seth to the doctor for his 6 month medication check. Seth doesn't feel like his medicine is working as well as it used to but he also doesn't feel like he needs it as much so after this term ends (end of next week) he is going to try not taking his medicine for a few weeks and see how it goes, and we have a follow up visit with his doctor after that. We are planning to let his teachers know ahead of time that we are doing this experiment so that hopefully they will be more willing to work with him to get caught up if he starts to struggle. We'll see how it goes. 

Other than all that, I've been doing all the usual household chores and trying to encourage Seth to work on his college applications. He did do a few things this week without my reminding him to do it, like turn in a form to his counselor and talk to his CTC teacher about an issue we've been having with viewing his grades online. It's always encouraging when he does something like that...maybe he will figure out how to be an adult someday! 😊

That's all I can think of for this week. I'll sign off with a few photos of pretty clouds I took on Monday.

Weekly Review October 11 '24

 I'm going to do categories this week. 

General Conference Like many of you, we spent most of the weekend watching General Conference. Seth missed the Saturday afternoon session because he was at work. Frank missed most of the Saturday evening session because he was helping a former member of our ward who had just got out of the hospital. (He's in a different ward from us now because of the boundary change.) I got to watch all the sessions, although I missed some of the beginning of the Saturday evening session because I was picking Seth up from work. We invited the Elders serving in our ward to watch the Sunday afternoon session with us and were going to feed them dinner too but then one of them got sick so they couldn't come. Frank and Seth took some food over to their apartment instead. As always, there were so many wonderful talks and the music was beautiful! The children's choir was so sweet and I was really impressed with their musical abilities, too. It was so cool to hear them sing Lane's song! One thing I really loved about this conference in addition to the talks and music was that since a couple of the sessions ended early, we got to see a lot of the church leaders interacting with each other, the choirs, and the congregations as they were leaving at the end of the sessions. So much love...it was really fun and sweet to see that! I took brief notes while I listened but I also worked on a color by number and finished the one I've been working on for a long time (probably since last General Conference!) I'm looking forward to listening to and reading all the talks again. 

Seth's college applications: He was supposed to meet with his school counselor last Friday but she wasn't there so he had to reschedule and was finally able to meet with her today. We've been looking at a lot of different options for him and this week looked closer at the majors available at some of the schools he was considering and discovered that many of them don't really have a good major for what he wants to do (computer networking / information systems) so we ruled out a few places. He is going to go ahead and apply to the Church schools (BYU, BYU-I and Ensign College). Of the three of those, it actually looks like Ensign College probably has the best options for him, but it's hard to know for sure. He is also considering the option of staying here and taking classes at the local community college for a year or two. He's already a student there (he's been taking some dual enrollment classes through his CTC courses since his sophomore year) so he doesn't have to apply...he can just sign up for classes in the fall. He has filled out a lot of the BYU application, his ecclesiastical endorsement interviews are done, he has asked one of his teachers for a letter of recommendation, and he has started working on the essays. I helped him brainstorm a few ideas for those but ultimately he will have to decide what he wants to say, of course. He still has a lot of work to do but he's making progress.

Sleep: This was a really bad week for sleeping for me. I had three days (Monday, Tuesday, and today) that I woke up at 1:00 am and didn't go back to sleep before the alarm went off. I was also up later than I wanted to be (not really late, but closer to 9:00 instead of 8:00) several nights and naps were either short or didn't happen at all. The end result is I think I got less than 6 hours of sleep (and sometimes a lot less than 6, closer to 4 hours) evey night this week. Not so fun! I remember my efforts to take a nap on Monday were hampered by the fact that one of our neighbors was getting a new fence put in so there was lots of banging and other noises going on outside my window. I did get an hour nap this morning between Seminary and going to the temple, which is how it is even possible for me to be awake right now, typing this post. Hopefully I will sleep better this coming week.

Seminary: My lesson on Monday was disappointing to me (kids didn't want to participate) but Tuesday went better. My team teacher and I spent a lot of time this week helping our guest teacher for next week prepare her lesson. Definitely a lot more time than either of us would have spent on that lesson if we were preparing it ourselves! We have no idea how it's going to go and we are both kind of stressed about it but we feel like it's important to give her the opportunity to have this experience, so we're running with it. She does have some good ideas and thoughts. She asked if she could come observe us teach which we thought was a really good idea so she came to my lesson on Tuesday and my team teacher's lesson on Thursday. Today we played some fun games to help the kids learn some of the doctrinal mastery scriptures. I have my lesson for Monday sort of planned, but need to finish it up tomorrow.

Activities: The youth had a combined activity this week. They went to a member's farm where they had a devotional and then played a game of sardines. Because of travel time, they finished later than usual so that was one of the nights I got to bed later than I wanted. Last night there was a RS activity. I went to that even though I was really tired...I just didn't stay a long time, but that still means I was up later than usual. The activity was at a ward member's house and we had a bonfire and just visited and had snacks, including s'mores. It was nice and the drive out to the house, which is in the country, was beautiful. 

Temple: Frank did his usual Tuesday evening temple shift. I went this morning and did initiatories. 

Frank needed a couple of things from a computer store that's in between the temple and home, so I stopped on my way home to get those for him. 

Weather: After lots of clouds and rain last week, we really enjoyed having lots of beautiful sunshine this week. It is cooling down, too. The days are cooler but still pleasant. The mornings are getting colder and we had a few mornings that were in the 40s. For the bonfire activity last night I wore a coat and was very glad to have it...I was still a little cold, even with my coat on. I started noticing a few trees with leaves turning colors this week. Not really weather, but the Northern Lights were visible in our area last night. We didn't get to see them but Frank and I both saw photos that local friends posted on Facebook. I think it was late at night, after we went to bed. (Or who knows? Maybe they were visible at 1:00 am when I was awake, but I didn't go outside.)

Seth's work: He worked this afternoon, but that's the only day this week he had to work. Since he has lots of college application stuff to do, it's just as well. When I picked him up today, he told me that the general manager he's been working with most days that he's worked is gone and there's a new general manager for his store now. He doesn't know if the former manager transferred to another store or quit or got let go. 

Our engagement anniversary: Tomorrow is the 33rd anniversary of the day we got engaged. We got engaged on Saturday, October 12, 1991. It was BYU homecoming weekend too (we went to the football game). This year our anniversary falls on a Saturday and it's BYU homecoming weekend. Kind of fun! 

Frank's calling: Frank thought he was going to be gone a lot of the day tomorrow doing some tech stuff for a Church meeting, but he found out tonight that he doesn't have to be there for the meeting. He did help set up a bunch of things tonight, though.

Hurricane Follow Up: There's still a lot of recovery going on in Frank's parents area. His parents ended up having to get a new water heater because their old one was damaged by flooding. Meanwhile, a lot of his mom's extended family live in between Tampa and Orlando, so they were hit by Hurricane Milton this week. They are all okay, though. Lots of trees down and their power is still out. 

That's all I've got this week!

Weekly Review October 4 '24

Happy Birthday to Shellie!

I don't feel like I have any right to complain about the weather when I see all the destruction and suffering caused by Hurricane Helene, but I will mention that it has been cloudy and / or raining almost constantly the last week. We saw the sun a little bit yesterday, and it was so nice!! Today we are back to gloomy clouds. I read about a commet that is currently visible in the sky in the early mornings and I was excited to look for it because I am actually up at that time, but it was super cloudy every morning this week so I never got the chance to see it. I'm kind of sad about that.

Overall this was a pretty good week, though, so sorry to start out with complaints. On Saturday Frank's sister Dawn was able to get into Brevard and confirm that his parents are okay. They had some flooding in their basement that has damaged their water heater but overall they are okay and have what they need. We are very grateful that they are all right! Frank was able to talk to his dad on Monday and his mom yesterday. Their power was restored on Sunday, cell service on Monday and their home phone by Thursday. They say there are trees down everywhere and lots of roads are closed but food and other supplies have been able to get in so they are okay. 

Saturday was a really busy day for me. I was trying to get Seminary lessons prepared but Seth also needed help completing a form called a "Senior Brag Sheet" which will help with his letters of recommendation for college applications. The BYU game was also on...finally a game at a decent time instead of the middle of the night...and I wanted to watch it. Anyway, I went downstairs to try to work on lessons but Seth followed me down there to ask questions and get help. I finally gave up on getting lessons done for the time being and devoted myself to helping him and also tried to watch some of the football game. Seth finally got his brag sheet done about an hour before he had to leave for work. Frank took him to work and I went back to working on lessons, while checking the score of the game periodically. I did manage to get a plan figured out for both lessons before I had to stop. 

We spent the evening taking care of a disabled member of our ward, as I mentioned we were going to do last week. We gave her medicine, fed her dinner, and then brought her to our house for a while (her parents said she really likes to going to new places...not just staying home all the time). Frank was feeling a bit sick to his stomach (medicine side effects) so he lay down for a while. I sat on the couch with Genny and watched part of a movie with her. She is very sweet and needs cuddles! When it was closer to her bedtime, we took her back home and gave her medicine. Frank went to pick up Seth from work and I helped Genny get ready for bed. Frank came back in time to help me get her up the stairs to bed and stayed until her parents got home about 30 minutes later. Going in, I was a little anxious about staying with her but everything went fine and it was actually kind of nice...Genny has a very sweet spirit about her.

Sunday was busy because I had quite a bit of lesson prep to do...I had plans but I needed to create Power Point presentations and make copies and things like that. One of Frank's clients had some serious issues that he had to take care of onsite so he was gone for a while. He did get back in time to take Seth to mission prep class so I was able to go to bed a little earlier.

Monday was also busy for me because in the afternoon I went to visit a friend and helped her work on a housing application. (She's been homeless...moving from one hotel to another or living with friends or family members...for 5 years. We're trying to help her find a place of her own to live.) That evening there was a meeting at the high school for seniors and their parents so we went to that. The meeting was all about applying for colleges...the process has changed a lot, even since Jared graduated from high school. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly business as usual (no extra events). I taught Seminary on Monday and Tuesday and both of those lessons went well. Tuesday Frank had his temple shift and Seth had a YM activity. I took Seth to YM and stayed at the church in a quiet room and worked on one of my Seminary lessons for next week. Since Tuesday was the first day of October, I switched the decoration on our front door, put out new S&P shakers, and switched the pillow covers from September to October:

On Wednesday I did some sewing...I got one of the January pillow cover quilt blocks sewn:

I also worked on next week's Seminary lessons and managed to get messy plans completed for both of them. I still need to fine tune my plans and then create Power Point slides and so forth. That's the easy part, though...creating the plan is the challenging part. I should be able to get the rest done in the next few days.

On Thursday there was no school because they get off for some Jewish holidays and it was Rosh Hashanah. A few of the youth in our ward went to the temple to do baptisms. (Not an official ward temple trip...just a few friends deciding to go together.) I could have sent Seth with someone else but I thought this would be a good opportunity for him to get in some driving practice and hours, so I went with him and he drove to the temple and back. He did a good job and can now claim that he successfully drove on the Capitol Beltway! It was nice to go to the temple even though I was just an observer. 

This morning Frank and my team teacher's husband came to Seminary and cooked breakfast for the class (pancakes, sausages, and fruit). 

The kids really enjoyed that. After going home and taking a quick nap,  I met with my team teacher and another member of our ward who is going to be a guest teacher for our class in a few weeks to help her plan. She is blind so teaching will be a bit tricky for her but she asked to teach and really wants to do it so we are working with her to make it happen. 

In between everything else, I finished reading the book for book chat this week. I liked it overall. I have been encouraging Seth to work on his college applications and he did work on that a little bit this week but not as much as I would have liked. The application for the Church schools is due November 1st, so that deadline is looming and that is where we are focusing our efforts right now. He may apply a few other places but their deadlines are later so we can work on those after the Church schools application is done.

Seth is meeting with his counselor this afternoon to ask some college application questions and then he will be going to work so I will probably need to pick him up soon. That is all the news from our neck of the woods.

Weekly Review September 27 '24

I'm getting to this week's review much later than I hoped, so I will try to keep it brief. This week was quite busy and went by fast. Last Saturday, the 21st, I had an appointment in the morning to get my hair cut. Frank and Seth went later that afternoon to get haircuts too. I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. She got a full time job so we can't go to lunch together on weekdays anymore. Since we were on the letter "I", we went to IHOP. That evening Frank and I went to another ward member's house so they could show us how to take care of their daughter because we are going to be watching her tomorrow evening. Their daughter is an adult but disabled and very much like a child (but a sweet one). She can only say a few words (one of them is "hi!"). They showed us how to feed her and went over everything we'll need to do to help her. We ended up visiting with them for quite a while too. 

Sunday was busy with choir practice (we sang in Sacrament Meeting that day), church, family night, and mission prep class. It was my turn to take Seth to mission prep. I talked to Jared on the phone while Seth was in his class. Seth did a better job at remembering to come out when the class ended, but the class went overtime so I still didn't get home until close to 9:30. 

I taught Seminary on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. My first lesson was on 3 Nephi 8-10 and the other two were covering 3 Nephi 11:1-12. There's a doctrinal mastery scripture in those verses so Wednesday's lesson was the lesson where they start memorizing the scripture reference and key phrase. The lessons went well overall although I was a bit disappointed with Tuesday's lesson...the class wasn't much in the mood to share their thoughts that day and I really wanted to have a great discussion about the wonderful events in 3 Nephi 11. I'm pretty sure I'm the one who learned the most while preparing. 

I had some kind of event or activity every day this week which made it really busy and I haven't made much progress on next week's lessons. I have an outline for Tuesday's lesson and a partial outline for Monday's lesson. I will need to work on those tomorrow morning. 

On Monday I had signed up to help with a lunch that our ward was providing for medical volunteers at a free medical / dental clinic. This clinic is run by a charity called Mission of Mercy. Our stake has partnered with this charity for several years. The clinic is held two or three times a month on Mondays at our stake center and the wards in our stake rotate the responsibility to provide lunch for the doctors and dentists who volunteer at the clinic. I think it is really a wonderful service they are providing...free medical and dental care to those who can't afford it. I have not forgotten how hard it was to pay for medical care back in the early days of our marriage before we had good (or sometimes any) health insurance coverage. Anyway, I signed up to provide fruit for the lunch so I took a bunch of apples, bananas, and clementines over there. That evening a couple in our ward took us to dinner at Cafe Rio. He is one of our ministering brothers and she is my ministering sister, so they called us and told us they wanted to take us to dinner. We enjoyed talking with them and appreciate being ministered to...it's been literally years since a ministering brother has contacted us. 

On Tuesday after school I took Seth to open a bank account, which took about an hour. Then we ended up going back in on Wednesday for two reasons...one, they forgot to give Seth his ID back after they opened his account and two, they left a letter out of his email address when they entered his contact information. We did get his ID back and got his email address corrected. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening Seth had a YM activity, as usual, which I always take him to now that Frank is working at the temple every Tuesday evening. That means it was another night that I was up later than I wanted to be, but it was not as late as Sunday night.

On Wednesday evening I went to soccer games again...this time for boys in my Seminary class. Two boys are on the JV team and two are on the varsity team. Both teams won...the JV won 8-0 and the varsity won 5-0 and one of the boys in my class who is on the varsity team (my team teacher's son, actually) kicked a goal. We have had a lot of rain this week (but not anywhere near what the southeast US has had the last few days from Hurricane Helene) and on Wednesday it rained on and off all day. It was supposed to stop raining in the evening but it was still "misting" during most of the games so I got pretty damp (my hair was wet, not damp) after sitting in the mist for 3+ hours. I'm not complaining, though...it would have been much worse if it had been actually raining. My team teacher and her kids were there and we sat together so I mostly enjoyed the evening, even though I was getting wet. I was up late again, though!

On Thursday I went to a cross country meet for two more boys in my class. That was in the afternoon and was only for about an hour. I convinced Seth to come with me and in the end he was really glad he did because not only did he get to support his friends from Seminary, but he also ended up seeing 3 or 4 kids from his previous school...friends that he hasn't seen in a long time. One of them was a boy that Seth has known since they were three years old...they were in preschool together and were in the same school class all the way from preschool through 5th grade. They hadn't seen each other since then and Seth kept talking about how different this boy looked. It made me laugh because this boy seemed just as surprised to see how tall and grown up Seth is now! 

Today I went to the temple. Frank worked from home today (and Wednesday). Seth worked this afternoon and will be working again tomorrow afternoon. 

We've had rain on and off all day today too, but nothing very heavy. Frank's hometown of Brevard is getting slammed, though, from what we hear. They are right in the path of Helene and there's been very heavy rain and high winds and lots of flooding in their area, according to the news reports. Frank has tried to call his parents several times today but both their land line and their cell service seems to be down. (Not too surprising.) It's pretty likely that their power is out. He has been able to get some text messages from his sister Dawn so we know she is okay, but she hasn't been able to get in touch with his parents either and it's too dangerous for her to go out so she can't go over to check on them. Hopefully thay are okay and we will be able to get in touch with them soon. They are not in an area that is prone to flooding so we're not overly concerned, but it would be great if we could actually talk to them and confirm that they are well. In the meantime, we are praying for them. 

During the days this week I was busy with all the usual homemaking responsibilities. I also took a nap nearly every day, even if it was just 30 minutes (a few days it was longer than that). I haven't been sleeping as well at night so between late nights and waking up in the middle of the night (or an hour before the alarm goes off) I have been pretty tired. I've been reading the book chat book here and there, in snatches of time and I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. I'm enjoying it.

Frank is asleep now and I'm ready to be asleep too so I will go convince Seth to stop playing games now and go to bed.

Weekly Review September 20 '24

Here we go with another weekly review. We are 4 weeks into Seminary and 4 1/2 weeks into the school year and yesterday was already midterm. Last year at this time I was an absolute mess and I am so grateful that this year is going so much better! I feel like I can teach Seminary AND have a somewhat normal and balanced life, which makes me very happy.

Last Saturday Frank and I went to the Frederick County Fair. The fair started on Friday and has been going all week...I think tomorrow is the last day. One of Frank's clients is a sponsor for the fair and they often give us free admission and ride tickets. This year they gave us three admission tickets and three unlimited ride passes. After looking at them, we realized that the unlimited ride passes included admission so we actually had 6 admission tickets. So Frank and I decided to use 2 of the admission tickets on Saturday (Seth was at work) and then we used the 3 admission / unlimited ride passes on Monday evening so we could all go together as a family night activity. 

On Saturday, Frank and I walked around and looked at all the exhibits and saw a bunch of animals. We also ate lunch and got a few fair treats...ice cream cones and deep fried Oreos. We were there for about 4 hours and it was mostly pleasant but it got quite hot the last hour that we were there. By the time we got home, I felt exhausted and decided to take a nap...I was surprised that I slept for an hour and a half! I felt better after that, though, and got Saturday chores done, finished up my Seminary lessons prep, and ran some errands including going to the church to make copies and going to the library to pick up the next book for book chat. It is called Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. I haven't had a ton of reading time, but I have been reading bits here and there and so far I like it a lot. 

Sunday was busy as usual. I never know exactly why Sundays go by so fast, but they always do. I helped in Primary instead of going to Sunday School. My friend Rebekah is in the Primary presidency and she asked if I could sit with a class during singing time and then be the second adult during the lesson time (she taught the class). The class was small...just two boys...but they were pretty active little boys so they kept us busy. (They were pretty good though.) After church I had choir practice again. After lunch, Jared called me...he calls every Sunday afternoon and it is nice to hear from him regularly. He and Jessie have been busy with work (for Jared...he's working as a teller at a bank) and school (for Jessie...she has a LOT of reading to do for her classes) and with furnishing their apartment with estate sale finds and with exploring their new surroundings. 

That afternoon I had an inservice meeting for Seminary...it was in person, at the stake center. (Last year we had one inservice meeting all year and it was via Zoom). It was really nice to meet with a lot of the other teachers in the stake and to get ideas from each other. At the beginning of the meeting they asked us to go around the room to introduce ourselves and they asked each person to share something unique or interesting about themselves. One of the teachers named Gerilyn, who I have talked with several times in the past, said that she has an identical twin sister named Terilyn. The bells started ringing in my head when she said that...I remembered that when Amy and I were in the twin study at BYU, there was a set of twins named Gerilyn and Terilyn. Sure enough, when I asked her...she was in the same study with us. So funny that I have known her for over a year and we never made that connection. What a small world! (She did always look kind of familiar to me...now I know why!) Even crazier...it turns out that in that group of about 20 people at that meeting, a third teacher is also a twin, two other teachers are parents of twins, and our area coordinator (who was presenting the training) and his wife are both also twins!! Had to get a photo with Gerilyn at the end of the meeting:

Seth had mission prep class that evening and Frank took him. I went to bed and fell asleep before they got back, although I did wake up briefly when they got home. 

The rest of the week has been pretty standard work / school / Seminary, with a few extra things thrown in. My Seminary lessons this week were both doctrinal mastery lessons and I was actually combining 2 lessons each of the two days I taught. We were doing "catch up" lessons to cover DM scriptures that we missed over the summer. Both of these scriptures were in Alma (Alma 39:9 and Alma 41:10) and were part of Alma's talk with his son Corianton, which is why we decided to group those two together. They were two different topics, though, so that made it a bit tricky. They weren't my best lessons, but they went okay.

As I already mentioned, we went to the fair on Monday. Frank usually gets home from work around 4:00, and we decided to go shortly after he got home. That turned out to be a good idea because there weren't as many people there as there were later in the evening so there were no lines or very short lines for all of the rides. We went on rides first...I went on the most because I like fast spinning rides but they make both Frank and Seth feel sick so they won't go on that kind. We all went on the Ferris Wheel and the Merry Go Round together, though, and Frank and I went on the swings and Seth and I both went on another ride that could be spinning, but only if you decided to turn the wheel in the middle of your car. We went in different cars so that I could spin and Seth could just gently turn. Besides those rides, I went on two other fast spinning rides by myself. 

Frank and Seth on the Ferris Wheel:

Me waiting to get on the "Sizzler":

Ready to ride!

All of us on the Merry Go Round (Seth barely visible behind my shoulder):

After the rides, we got some dinner and then walked around the exhibits a bit so that Seth could see the things he wanted to see (and I got to see some of the the things I missed on Saturday because Frank always goes through things much faster than I do and I didn't want to keep him waiting on me for too long). I liked this Lego version of Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

Then Seth went to see the animals but Frank and I were tired so we sat in front of the milking parlor and watched cows being milked while Seth did that. A lady sitting next to me was telling her granddaughter that she lived next door to a dairy farm growing up and she knew it was a lot of work to be a dairy farmer. She was really interested when I told her that my dad grew up on a dairy farm. 

Frank and I also went to the birthing center and saw two newborn calves.

This one was less than an hour old:

And this one was less than 2 hours old:

 

I was actually kind of sad that we hadn't gone to the birthing center earlier because we could have seen both births if we had...we were at the fair when they were born. Oh well! It was pretty fun to watch these little calves on their wobbly little legs, trying to figure out how to nurse.

After Seth finished looking at the animals and met us at the birthing center, we got some fair treats (a funnel cake and more fried Oreos) before heading home.

On Tuesday I was planning to take Seth to the bank to open an account but Seth had quite a bit of homework so I decided to wait. (He had a project due for his history class on Thursday and since he had to work on Wednesday he knew he needed to finish it on Tuesday.) I did pull all of his savings out of his banks and counted it so it's ready to go into the bank when we open his account. That evening Frank did his usual temple shift and I took Seth to his YM activity. They had planned to play soccer at a nearby field but it was raining so they did indoor soccer instead. I sat in the car and made a phone call to one of my ministering sisters and then read through my next Seminary lessons. There was a supermoon and partial lunar eclipse that night but since it was raining we couldn't see the moon at all, oh well! Maybe some of you saw it if there were clear skies where you live.

Frank worked from home on Wednesday and I worked on preparing Seminary lessons. I am teaching 3 next week. I got two of them planned and partially planned the third one. I finished planning the third one yesterday. I still have to create some Power Point slides and make copies and things like that so I still have some prep work to do but the hard part is done. 😊 As I mentioned earlier, Seth had to work after school.

Since yesterday was midterm, schools got out 2 hours early. I took Seth to the bank to open an account but it turns out they were really busy and didn't have anyone available to help us but the guy told me how to go online to make an appointment for another day. When we got home I tried to make an appointment for today but there weren't any available today either. Hopefully we can get an appointment for sometime next week, but we have to wait until we know Seth's work schedule. I went to soccer games for some of my Seminary girls again last night. Since the JV girls lost the game I went to last week and one of them actually wasn't there, I decided to try again last night. I'm glad I did because both JV girls were there last night and both of them got to play and their team won their game 7-0. I stayed for part of the Varsity game and decided to leave at the perfect time...as I was walking out, the girl in my class kicked a goal and I had a perfect view (better than I would have had from the stands). I hear her team won their game also. Like last week, there was a group of people from my ward who attended the games so I got to sit with people I know. It was fun and the weather was nice too so it was great to be outside! 

Today is "fair day" (kids under 18 get in free) so school got out 3 1/2 hours early. (Some years they get the whole day off but other years they get out early.) Seth has been home for a couple of hours and is enjoying some game time before he goes to work later this afternoon. I think having the shorter school days really helps our Seminary kids...they were all a lot happier and more awake than normal the last couple of days! This morning we had breakfast too which also perks them up. I love them and I'm really enjoying spending time with them each morning!

Frank is working from home again today because of the construction going on near his building. He found out yesterday that they are going to move his department to another building temporarily. He will probably be working from home on both Wednesdays and Fridays for a while, though.

That's all I have to report this week.

Weekly Review September 13 '24

 This week went pretty well and was a little less Seminary dominated. On Saturday morning Seth went to work; he worked until early afternoon. Our ward had an activity from 11:00 to 2:00. It was supposed to be a ward picnic at a park but since it was supposed to rain and be kind of chilly the activity got moved to the church and we ate inside. They also asked us to bring board games. Frank and I sat at a table with some of the newer members of our ward (people who were in another ward before the boundary changes). We enjoyed hot dogs & hamburgers and after eating we pulled out the games that we brought and played a game called Get Wild. And it did get a bit wild! It was competitive and fun and most of the people at our table decided they wanted to get the game for their family. We had other people coming by our table to see what was happening because we were a little loud, I think! We really enjoyed getting to know the other families a bit better, too.

On the way home from the activity, we stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few things I needed for Seminary on Monday. After we got home, I buried myself in lesson prep and managed to get all three lessons completed before bedtime. I even ended up preparing a different lesson than I had originally intended to prepare for one of the days. I'm grateful that lessons seem to be coming together so much more easily this year! Frank picked Seth up from work and the two of them played video games together for quite a while. (Male bong time!)

On Sunday after church I had choir practice and then I made a bunch of copies for Seminary before going home. Seth had mission prep that night and I offered to take him since Frank has to get up early most mornings too. Last time Seth went to mission prep he stayed after the class about 30 minutes talking with friends so this time I told him before class that he needed to come out right when it ended because I needed to get home to bed and so did he. The class was supposed to end at 8:30, but I didn't see anyone come out until about 8:40. I saw a few more people trickle out a few mintues later so I texted Seth to remind him to come out. I waited some more and texted him again and tried to call him but it went straight to voicemail. By that time a lot of people had come out and had either left or were standing around talking outside so I finally went to the house and rang the doorbell. Seth forgot that he was supposed to come out as soon as class ended! How do you forget that quickly? By this time it was after 9:00 and I was pretty unhappy since it was already an hour past my ideal bedtime and we still had a 20 mintue drive to get home. 

By the time I got to bed, I was so wired that it took me a long time to fall asleep and then I had bad dreams about the next day's Seminary lesson and then woke up an hour before the alarm went off and didn't go back to sleep. That meant I got maybe 4 hours of sleep so I was exhausted and I noticed that I was in pretty low spirits that day, so lack of sleep really does seem to make a difference. (I felt that way nearly all last year!) Seminary actually went pretty well overall but I came away not feeling very good about it. I did take an hour nap after getting home and felt a bit better after that. 

My Seminary class on Monday. I had 4 different activities prepared and they moved every 8 minutes to a different table to do a different activity:

(At one table they got a snack)

The rest of the week went better as far as sleep goes, thankfully, and I have not needed to take many naps (although naps are still very welcome any time!) 

For family night on Monday we watched the broadcast of President Nelson's 100th birthday celebration. I had to take a photo of President Nelson because Tanner picked out the tie he is wearing:

For those of you who might not be aware, Tanner works at a men's clothing store in Salt Lake City called Mr. Mac's, and many of the general authorities get their suits and ties from there. One of Tanner's co-workers was trying to choose a tie to go with the suit and he asked Tanner for help. He sent Tanner a photo of a couple of different ties and asked which one would be best and Tanner said "definitely the red one", so that's the one he chose. Kind of fun that he can say he picked out a tie for the prophet to wear for his 100th birthday!

I taught Seminary on Tuesday and Wednesday also and both of those days went well. On Tuesday we talked about Samuel the Lamanite's prophecies about the coming of Christ and the signs of His birth and death. We did an activity where the kids created "announcements" for Christ's birth and death. Here are photos of their announcements; some of them are pretty clever:

Frank did his temple shift as usual on Tuesday evening and I took Seth to the youth activity. They were having their annual "movie night"...when they show the movies that each class made. They've been working on these movies since March, with a lot of interruptions for various reasons. The movies were pretty cute. The YM did a western and it was pretty funny in places. My favorite parts: a scene where they used the double doors of the gym as "saloon" doors and a scene where our bishop rode a kid's hobby horse like it was a real horse. 

Frank worked from home on Wednesday as usual but he also worked from home yesterday and today because they are doing a lot of construction right next to his building and it is very loud and causing stuff to vibrate too. Not sure how much longer that is going to be going on. 

On Wednesday I got both of my Seminary lessons prepared for next week, so again...preparation is going a lot better and a lot quicker. 😁 I definitely need to look them over again tomorrow and may make some changes and I also need to make a bunch of copies, but the bulk of the work is done. We had the missionaries over for dinner on Wednesday evening. One of them was getting transferred the next day so we got to say goodbye. 

Seth didn't make it to Seminary yesterday or today. He didn't sleep well at all Wednesday evening and he worked Thursday afternoon and was really tired this morning. He's not off to a very good start with attendance...hopefully he will do better in the coming weeks. Seth worked today after school also and he is working a lot of the day tomorrow as well. 

Last night I went to a couple of soccer games at one of the local high schools (not Seth's high school...another one that is nearby). I went because 2 girls in my Seminary class are on the JV team and another girl in my Seminary class is on the Varsity team. My team teacher and I are trying to go to some of the events for the kids in our class. The JV team lost their game by quite a bit, unfortunately, but the Varsity team won 2-0. The girl in my class kicked the first goal so that was fun to see. It was a nice day yesterday so I enjoyed being outside for a few hours and I sat with a few other people from my ward so I enjoyed visiting with them too. I did get home and to bed later than usual, but it wasn't too bad.

Earlier in the week I finished quilting the second Halloween pillow cover and yesterday I sewed the backs on to them so they are done. I don't like them as much as the September covers, but they turned out pretty well:

The black borders don't show up very well in the photos. I'm glad to be done with another set and will start working on the January ones next. (The original pillows are November themed so I don't need covers for November and I already made the December covers last year). 

Today I went to the temple as usual. I did initiatories and had some sweet experiences there. 

Frank's dad had surgery yesterday...he had a spot on his head that was malignant so they removed it. He has to go in for a follow up next week. The surgery went well and he seems to be recovering okay so far. 

That is all the news around these parts this week.

Weekly Review September 6 '24

We had another busy week; still mostly dominated by Seminary for me but that's kind of to be expected. Things are starting to settle down a little bit. 

Last Friday afternoon Seth worked. Frank and I went to pick him up and we cashed in some "wooden nickels" to get free ice cream cups. (That's a Roy Rogers thing.) Seth was supposed to work on Saturday afternoon also but after being up for a few hours he started to feel really tired and then he threw up, so he had to call in sick. He felt a bit warm to me also. He laid low the rest of the day and didn't eat much until evening but when he tried some soup that evening he threw up again. Thankfully on Sunday he started feeling better again (although we did have him stay home from church) and he's been fine since then.

I did a bunch of stuff on Friday evening that I usually do on Saturdays (like mopping the kitchen floor) so that I could focus on Seminary lessons on Saturday. I did get both of my lessons for this week prepared and it didn't even take all day! I actually can't explain what happened, but when I sat down to work on the first one (I had written down a few notes earlier in the week) I just knew what I needed to do and had a really good feeling about it. The second one came together fairly quickly too. As I said, I can't explain it, but a few things have been changing for me. One is that I feel like I've been blessed with an extra measure of love for the youth in my class. I did come to love them over the last school year, but it was complicated by all my anxieties as a new teacher and my frustration / disappointment over the lack of participation. I've been praying a lot that I will be able to love them more, no matter what their choices are or how willing they are to participate. I've been really focusing on being grateful that they are making it to Seminary at all and trying to praise them for that. Near the end of last week, I was looking at the photos I took during the first week of Seminary and I was just flooded with love as I looked at the faces of these youth. The other thing that changed last week was that as I was reading parts of President Benson's talk about pride (referenced in the Come Follow Me material last week), I recognized that a lot of my anxieties as a teacher are pride-driven. I worry too much about whether the youth are going to like my lessons and me as a teacher. I worry too much about a lesson "flopping" and then I look bad. So I started praying that my pride wouldn't get in the way of my lesson preparations. My focus should be on pleasing the Lord...teaching what He wants me to teach, and not on pleasing the youth. (I want them to be happy in Seminary, of course, and I try to plan things that will be engaging and interesting for them, but I'm realizing that can't be my entire focus.) So anyway, those things changed how I felt as I was preparing lessons and it made a big difference. Sorry for rambling about that, but I'm still processing how I'm feeling and I want to remember what's been happening because for me, it is a miracle!

On Saturday evening, Frank and I went to dinner with two couples from our ward. One of them is the couple that we share birthdays / anniversaries with. We never went to dinner in April to celebrate our anniversaries together because the husband was having some really severe health problems at that point. Thankfully, he is doing better now. The other couple was our bishop and his wife...Frank works the same shift at the temple as our bishop's wife and he knows she is good friends with the wife of this other couple so when he saw our bishop's wife at the temple on Tuesday he asked if they would like to come to dinner with all of us. We had a good time!

Sunday was busy with Church, Music & the Spoken Word, scripture study, and podcasts. (I listened to the Follow Him podcast and also a podcast about the new hymns called Come Follow Hymn). There was not mission prep class because of the holiday weekend.

Frank and Seth both had the day off on Monday for Labor Day. I guess I got a day off too since I didn't have to get up for Seminary although I still had to do grocery shopping, vacuuming, and laundry as usual. Frank went shopping with me and both he and Seth helped with laundry. We had family night and went to Rita's for treat. I finished quilting the second September pillow cover and then sewed the backs on so they are done! I am happy with the way they turned out:

I taught Seminary on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and both lessons went well. We are definitely getting more participation from the youth which is lovely. There is a more light hearted atmosphere and I think we are all enjoying it more. Both of my lessons were on Helaman 5:12. For the second lesson, I gave them rocks to paint that included the reference and the key phrase. My sample rock:

Youth painting their rocks (or sleeping! 😂):

On Tuesday Frank worked his temple shift and I took Seth to the youth activity. They did a photo scavenger hunt in downtown Frederick...it's the same one I put together last year; they wanted to do it again! It went later than normal though so I was up later but I have still been sleeping fairly well and taking naps most days so I've been doing okay. 

On Wednesday evening I had book chat. We discussed Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian which I didn't finish...I'm on page 156 of 412. I just didn't have much time for reading the last month! According to everyone who read it, there really isn't a plot. It's more like vignettes. I'm going to continue reading it until I get the next book we're reading which is called Crossing to Safety. I had to request it through interlibrary loan also, so it may take a while to get to me. 

Today I went to the temple as I usually do on Fridays. I saw a lot of deer today. The last part of the drive to the temple is on a road that winds through a wooded park. There are often lots of people riding bikes or walking on trails next to the road. When I was driving to the temple, I came around a bend and saw deer on the left side of the road so I slowed down and a doe and two fawns walked across the road in front of me to the other side. Then when I was on the way home from the temple driving on that same road, I came around a bend and saw deer on the right side of the road so I slowed down and a buck and a doe crossed the road in front of me. Pretty cool! I have seen deer on this road more than once in the past, but never twice in one day--both going and coming. I didn't get photos of the deer but here are a few of the temple:

Seth had a thing at his school this morning called Senior Sunrise. It was at the same time as Seminary so he missed Seminary. All the Seniors met on the baseball field to watch the sunrise together which unfortunately wasn't so good this morning because it was really cloudy, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway. This afternoon he had work; he hasn't been home very long and he is getting in a little bit of video game time before it's bedtime. Seth drove to work and back today and he drove to Seminary a few times and to the youth activity on Tuesday evening; I try to have him drive as much as possible. He's not getting a lot of driving time in but he's up to 35 hours and 23 minutes; we've got 24 hours and 37 mintues to go before he can take the driver's test. At the rate we are going it's going to take a long time but at least we are working at it. 

I spent the rest of the day working on the budget and I did a bit of quilting. I'm working on the October pillow covers now and I finished quilting the first one today. I'm teaching three lessons next week because we have 5 days but we haven't started getting guest teachers yet so one of us has to teach three lessons. I've been working on them here and there when I get a chance and my lesson for Monday is almost completely done; I just have one more thing to prepare. I have an outline for my Tuesday lesson and all I've done for Wednesday's lesson so far is to read it, so I have quite a bit more work to do and will obviously be working on those tomorrow and probably Sunday too. I think they'll probably come together fairly easily; I hope so anyway!

Last week I mentioned that the weather had turned really hot and humid again; this week we went back to chilly mornings and beautiful days. Tomorrow we are supposed to get rain. It's nice to be out of the hot and humid cycle again. It's definitely starting to feel like fall.