Weekly Review October 25 '13



This week was busier than the last few that we've had.  I enjoyed it while it lasted!  Tanner and Jared had a camp out Friday night.  Their scoutmaster brought all the boys from the camp out directly to Tanner's Eagle scout project on Saturday morning and a few others joined him there, so they had a really nice group of people to work on his project.  I missed all the work--I had to take Seth to his soccer game.  (His team was on fire and won the game something like 12 -1.)  After the game I picked up a bunch of pizzas to take out to the guys working on the project.  The project was supposed to last from 10:00-2:00, but by the time I got out there with the pizzas around 12:45, they were all done with what needed to be done that day.  I was impressed!  Everyone was glad to have the pizza.  Here are a few "before" pictures that we took in late August so you can get an idea of how much they accomplished:

 



 

Now here are pictures of the project in process, along with some pictures of what the garden looked like when they were done:

They weeded everything, pruned down the huge bush, and made a nice edge around the whole garden area.  Looks much better, right?  The little stones sticking up are the gravestones for the horses and pets that are buried in the garden (just ashes).  You couldn't even see them before.  After the mulch is laid down we will put the stones back down.  That is the plan for tomorrow...spread all the mulch as well as do some plantings.  Today we had the mulch delivered (Frank and Tanner went out to meet the guy that delivered the mulch) and Tanner and I went to a nursery to pick out the plants.  We talked to someone who knows about plants to find out what would be good to plant now--something that wouldn't die over the winter.  We ended up getting some ornamental grass and a few evergreen plants called dwarf acubas.  We also got some little pansy plants so that we could plant one next to each gravestone.  Pansies are actually really hardy (who knows how the word "pansy" came to mean "wimp"!) and will last well into the cold weather and then come back again in the spring.  Besides that, we got a few small pumpkins and gourds to add a little more color.  I think it is going to look really nice when we are done--pictures of that next week!  Since the guys got so much done last Saturday, I think we will only need to work about an hour or so tomorrow.

As far as the rest of the week went, here goes:

On Saturday there was also a dance for Jared and Tanner, and we watched the BYU game via the internet.  Most of you saw the game, so you know how crazy and tense it was.  We were really glad when BYU won out in the end. 

Sunday I had Ward Council before church.  We had signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner.  I planned to make this Café Rio pork stuff and it makes a lot, so I told Frank that morning before church that if he felt like inviting someone over for dinner, it would be a good day to do it.  I didn't think he actually would, but after dinner a family approached me and said "Umm, Frank invited us over for dinner...is that ok?  Did you know about that?"  I thought that was funny and assured them that they were indeed welcome to come, so they did.  There are 6 in their family plus 3 missionaries so we had a houseful and it was noisy but fun.  We still had leftovers, too!  This family joined the church earlier this year.  They have four girls...the youngest two are twins the same age as Seth.  They had a great time playing with each other.  I think girls are actually louder than boys, though!!

I spent a lot of time helping Tanner with various projects this week.  We did more planning / preparing for the second phase of his Eagle project.  I took him to the doctor on Thursday because he needed a physical filled out to include in his application for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  (I must have thrown out the one he had done this summer for Camp Helaman.)  He needed an interview with the bishop too, which was supposed to be on Tuesday night but there was a miscommunication so the bishop wasn't there.  We have that set up for Sunday afternoon now.  He also decided that he wanted to ask a girl to Homecoming, so I spent some time helping him prepare a treasure hunt and then drove him out to her house (a half hour away; she's in our stake) so he could leave the first clue.  Then I took him to Baker Park, where the treasure hunt took place, so he could set the rest up.  He wanted to be at the end (with a rose) to ask her to the dance in person.  While he did that, I took Seth to his soccer practice and then came back and waited some more for him (in the car) until she made it to the park.  It was a very cold and windy night and in the end he was waiting outside for about an hour and a half so he was nearly frozen but she did say yes, so I guess it was worth it.  All of that happened on Tuesday afternoon / evening.

Snickers went to the vet on Monday (Frank took him, which helped me out a lot) and to the groomer on Thursday. 

I had a presidency meeting Wednesday afternoon and have spent a lot of the week trying to find the time to work on visiting teaching changes for November.  I have not been able to get that done yet, but I did complete several other RS tasks--I had a huge list at the beginning of the week, and I've whittled it down now to mostly two things--visiting teaching changes and starting to prepare my lesson, which I teach next Sunday (not day after tomorrow, thankfully!)  I'm anxious to get the visiting teaching changes figured out because there's a baptism tomorrow and I need to assign visiting teachers to the new sister.  I meant to get that done early in the week so that I could let the new visiting teachers know and ask them to attend the baptism, but it just hasn't happened.  Not the end of the world, but I would have liked to get that done.

Tanner had a field trip on Wednesday for his theater class--they went to NYC to see the play Big Fish on Broadway.  So yeah, now he's been to two Broadway plays in less then a year.  Don't tell Scott!  They were gone all day--didn't get home until about 11:30 pm.  Guess who got to stay up and go pick him up at the school?  He said the play was amazing.  One of the main actors (the guy who plays the son) graduated from his high school several years ago so afterwards they got to meet him and hear more about the play and how everything is done.  As you might imagine, this was a rather pricey field trip.  Tanner asked us if he could go in lieu of birthday presents, so we agreed.  We might get him one small thing on his actual birthday, but don't tell him I said that. :)

Jared didn't feel well Wednesday morning so he stayed home from Seminary and from school.  By evening he felt better so I had him go to YM--they were working on the cooking merit badge which he is going to need since it will become required for Eagle starting in 2014.

The other project I've been working on is Seth's Halloween costume.  Last night I cut out pieces for the tail and the "plates".  I'm going to sew a tail to attach to the sweat pants.  I'm also going to sew plates into a piece of fabric that I will attach to the back of the jacket.  If I have time, I will also sew gloves and shoe covers with "claws".  I found a copy of the pattern I wanted when I went back to the fabric store this week so I bought it even though I don't plan to sew the whole thing using the pattern.  It will help with the tail, "plates", gloves, and shoe covers.

While I was cutting out the costume pieces last night, Seth was having a total meltdown.  We put him to bed as usual, but an hour later realized that he was still awake.  He's been going through a stage lately where he is scared of the dark.  (He is also scared to be upstairs alone.  Not downstairs...can't figure out why!)  Anyway, because of that, we have been letting him go to sleep with his light on most nights.  When we discovered he was playing around and not going to sleep, we turned out his light.  Holy Cow!  He came completely unglued and literally screamed for nearly an hour about how scared he was before he finally gave up and fell asleep.  I should mention that either Frank or I was right in the doorway of his room, if not in the room itself, the whole time.  And he had a nightlight and thing that plays music and has lights in there the whole time too.  At some point I think it turned into him just being stubborn and trying to stay awake because he was mad he wasn't getting his way and he knew we wanted him to go to sleep.  I also think he was overtired...I had to wake him up before 7:00 to pick up the boys from Seminary and by the time we realized he was still awake, it was 9:30.  Hopefully that won't happen again soon.

Today the boys didn't have school...yes, again.  I know...we have lots of random days off this time of year.  Today was a teacher work day because yesterday was the last day of the term.  Frank worked at a location here in Frederick and at home.  In between taking Tanner to get the plants and taking Seth to a birthday party (and picking him up again) and running to the store for a few things we need for the project, I've been trying to write to Scott and get this post done, and work on the budget.  I still have the budget to do when I finish here.  I want to watch the football game that is starting in 15 minutes, but I guess I'll have to do that while I watch.

The weather has become quite cold this week all of the sudden.  I discovered that the older boys have holes in all their jeans and Seth has grown out of most of his, so we ordered new pants for the older boys and bought some jeans for Seth at the store...along with some undershirts and long sleeve shirts because he's grown out of all of those too.  All the jeans have arrived already but one pair of Tanner's was the wrong size...they sent us 34 x 30 instead of 30 x 34.  Frank called them back and they re-ordered them for us.  Those ones came today, and guess what?  They are 34x 30!  I ordered those jeans from Sears but they actually came from KMart for some reason.  I took the first ones back to KMart today and they tried to reimburse me without including the shipping cost.  Plus the gave me cash instead of crediting my credit card. I'm totally not impressed!  Frank called them again and supposedly they are sending the correct size this time.  I will believe it when I see it!

I'll finish up with a picture of Seth...he built this masterpiece this week and wanted me to take a picture of it:

Weekly Review October 18 '13

When I wrote last week, it was raining.  It continued to rain most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  We've had some more rain this week, and lots of cloudy days but the last day or two the sun has finally come out again--at least for part of the day.  I start to feel a little depressed if I don't see the sun for days on end, so I am glad we've had a little bit of sunshine lately.

 

Last Saturday Seth's soccer game did get cancelled; not a big surprise!  Can't say I minded much, either.  The guy whose baseball pants I've been sewing came over in the morning to try them on...they were fine, so I could finish up that project.  I planned time to work on them on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but as it turned out the project went much faster than I had anticipated, so I finished everything up on Monday which was nice.  I am glad to be totally done with that project!  I'm glad I ended up doing it after all because it helped me to become so familiar with my new sewing machine.  Now I actually feel like starting another project!  Not sure what, though.

 

I spent a good deal of time on Saturday helping Tanner get a flyer made for his Eagle project and helping Seth work on a project for school.  Seth has to do a report on an animal, and he chose the gorilla.  I've actually learned a lot of interesting things about gorillas!  Today we have to put a poster together and then he'll be done with that.  Anyway, we got the flyer done for Tanner and he announced his project and passed out the flyers on Sunday.  We are planning to do the project tomorrow and next Saturday.  We may have to schedule one more day to finish up; it depends on how many people come and how much we are able to get done the first two days.  The boys have a camp out tonight and the scoutmaster is going to bring all the boys at the camp out directly to Tanner's project instead of taking them home, so that is a big help!  Some of them will have to leave early, I'm sure, but I think we will get a decent sized group. 

 

The other thing we did on Saturday was watch the BYU football game.  Some friends in our stake invited us over to watch at their house.  They've invited us to come to pretty much every game this season and last season, but we've never been able to go for one reason or another.  This time the game was finally early enough in the evening to make it feasible for us to stay up to watch it.  Of course, most of you probably watched it too, so you know it was a great game and we really enjoyed it.  They had yummy food for us to eat, too!  These friends live about 25 minutes away so we were up fairly late, but at least Tanner got a lot more driving time in. 

 

Sunday was super busy--I had Ward Council, I went on some visits in the afternoon, Jared and I had choir practice, and Tanner & Jared had a fireside.  In between church and the visits, a couple came to see us from Utah...they know Scott pretty well.  She had to come out to DC for her work and when Scott found out they were going to be out here, he begged them to visit us, so they did!  She is the RS president in one of the wards he's been serving in...actually the ward of the girl who was recently baptized.  Anyway, they see Scott a lot and they said he is a great kid--a hard worker and always happy.  We told them it is always good to hear about what Scott is doing since he doesn't tell us much himself.  We took a few pictures while they were here:      

 

They too this one of us--I closed my eyes unfortunately!  Then Frank took this one of them with us, so we can send it to Scott:

The first thing she said to me when she saw me was "You're not tall enough to be Elder Cleveland's mom!"  Then she saw Frank!  Tanner & Jared were gone when they first arrived (taking the sacrament to a home bound ward member) and when they saw Tanner, they said "Now YOU look like Elder Cleveland's brother!"  It's funny because Scott and Tanner don't really look that much alike...their coloring is totally different...but they do have a lot of the same mannerisms and way of talking.  We had a nice visit with this couple and think it was nice of them to come by...they were on their way to the airport and came out of their way to see us.

The rest of this week has been a lot like the previous two...busy, but not overwhelmingly so.  I planned to do some de-cluttering this week but didn't get much done...mostly because I was lazy.  By evening I usually had some time to work on it, but by that time I was tired and just wanted to read & relax a little.  I did do a little bit of de-cluttering in the living room yesterday, though. 

Monday I was mostly sewing...finishing up that project.  Tuesday I had book chat, Seth had soccer practice, and Frank went to help teach a new member discussion.  Seth's soccer practices are being moved to 5:30 instead of 6:00 for the rest of the season because by the end of practice at 7:00 we are in the dark--and there are no lights on the practice field.  Wednesday I worked on RS stuff and did some shopping for some things I'll need to make Seth's Halloween costume.  I actually found a pattern for a stegosaurus costume, but then they were out of that particular pattern.  So it's back to plan A, which is to use a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, similar to how I made his T-rex costume.  I think I've figured out how I'm going to do it.  I also did some shopping for some kitchen and bathroom items--replacing a few old things that were getting worn out.  The boys had to be at YM early because they were watching a movie and didn't want to be up too late.  Tanner had volunteered to make cookies, so I had to give him a little help getting those made.  The movie they saw was "Wait Until Dark"...remember that one?  Very scary...but a good movie! 

Yesterday I had a visit in the afternoon--one of the sisters in my ward asked to talk with me.  I've been worried about her for a long time and I spent most of the visit just listening to her.  It is good for me to understand how she is feeling even though she isn't in the best place right now.  I am grateful she chose to confide in me, and hopefully I'll be able to help her in some way.  I did pray before hand that I would know what I could say to her, and I did feel several times that the things I was saying were what needed to be said, so hopefully those words will stick with her and help her in some way as time goes by.  Last night Frank & I took Tanner to the store to buy snacks for his Eagle project since we are providing snacks for the workers. 

Throughout the week I've been helping Tanner with some of the planning for his project--hopefully we have thought of everything!  I've been trying to let him do most of it himself, and limiting my help to guidance on what kinds of things he needs to think about, plan, and do.  He also decided that he does want to apply for the work crew for the Hill Cumorah Pageant, so I've been helping him work on that application as well.  As soon as we get that done, he will start working on his college applications.  There is always something else that needs to be done!

All of that has kept me pretty busy.  I've been doing some reading also and read two Newberry winner books...Maniac Magee and Roller Skates.  I liked the first one better, but they were both pretty good. 

Frank has also been very busy.  He has been doing maintenance for several clients this week.  He has also started exercising again and has gotten up early nearly every day to do that.  I've been trying to squeeze in walks (and a little jogging) with the dog whenever I can.  It's not much, but it's better than no exercise at all.

Seth had a field trip this week on Wednesday.  They were supposed to go to the Natural History Museum, but thanks to the government shut down it was still closed, so they ended up going to the Baltimore Zoo instead.  I bet the Baltimore Zoo has had a lot more school children visiting this last month than usual!  The government shutdown has a big impact on field trips in our area since so many field trips are planned for locations in DC.  Government shutdowns actually affect a lot of things in our area, since so many people around here work for the government as well.  I am really thankful that Frank doesn't work for the government!  I guess everything is open again now (but at what cost?).  Another complication it caused us is that the boys were going to go on a 20 mile hike this weekend at their campout, but they had to choose another location to camp because they were originally going to camp and hike at a national park.  They are still going on a hike, but not a 20 mile one.  It's a little frightening to think how much the government impacts our lives, in ways that we don't usually think about.  Just my personal opinion, but I don't think they should be in charge of a lot of those things--the government should be left out of so many things.

There is no school today.  Seth is up and playing games, but now it's about time for me to go wake up the older boys.  They have to be at the church by 12:30 so they need to get up and get packed.      

Weekly Review October 11 '13

Another week has gone by fast.  It started out with General Conference.  Actually, I missed the first session on Saturday entirely except for the opening song and the closing song.  That's because Seth had a soccer game.  We would have skipped this one, but they were taking the team pictures afterwards so I took him.  Not that the pictures are going to be all that great...since they took them after the game, the kids were all hot and sweaty...with pink cheeks, hair sticking to their foreheads, and t-shirts sticking to their bodies.  Not very attractive!  Don't know why they don't figure out that it would be smarter to take the pictures BEFORE the game.  It may have been early October, but it was close to 90 degrees that day...felt more like July!  I got so hot just sitting there watching them play...can't imagine how the kids running around the field felt! 

 

After a talk with Seth that morning before the game, he did a lot better at keeping his hands and feet to himself.  He still didn't do very well at paying attention to the game.  He was more interested in kicking up dust from the dry patches of dirt that were all over the field...and talking to the players on the other team that he happened to know from school...and so forth.  I don't care if he is good at soccer, but I wish he at least cared what happened during the game!  Some of those kids on his team play their little hearts out.  It's fun to watch them.  His team played well...I lost track of the score so I'm not sure who won, but I think it was a tie.  Some people on the other team said they scored 3 times and we scored 2 times, but I'm sure Seth's team scored 3 times as well...I do remember that much.  Maybe the other team really did win, but if they did they had to have scored more than 3 times.  There are some really talented players on Seth's team.  I'm amazed at some of the moves they can make and how smart they are about what to do.

 

As soon as I got home from the game with Seth, Frank and I drove over to pick up his car.  Earlier in the week a small rock or something like that hit his windshield.  He couldn't see a chip, but the next day when I drove it, I noticed a crack.  Rats!  We called our insurance company immediately and got an appointment to have it fixed but at that point it was already too late for a repair...once there's a crack, the whole windshield has to be replaced.  That meant we had to pay a deductible, but at least we didn't have to pay for the whole replacement.  The crack continued to get bigger every day so it's a good thing we had it fixed so soon.  So anyway, we left his car at the place to have it fixed earlier that morning.  After we picked it up, I was more than happy to get home to the air conditioning! 

 

The boys listened to the first session of conference and Frank tried to listen also while he painted the deck.  During the second session, I was cooking most of the time while I listened.  The Elders were supposed to come over for dinner but they were sick, so they had to cancel on us.  I made falafel and tzaziki sauce, and we ate that with grilled chicken, pita bread, and fresh tomatoes from the garden.  It was yummy!  I realized that I don't mind cooking when I have something to listen to...I think what I really don't like about cooking is that I get bored.  Anyway, Seth spent most of the session drawing:        

 

He was so reverent, though, which is unusual for him...he's usually such a busy boy.  It was so nice that he was quiet so the rest of us could hear.  It was worth hearing, too!  So many great talks!  Elder Holland's talk was one of my favorites...actually, I always love his talks.  Frank continued to paint while he listened, and right as the session ended he finished the deck.  It looks great, don't you think?:

It's a good thing he finished it, too, because after a few very dry weeks, this week has been wet with a vengeance!  Especially the last few days...it's been pouring almost non stop since Wednesday night.  He wants to do a second coat on the deck floor and the top of the railing (but not all the railing pieces!) but it's going to have to wait a good long time until everything dries out.  We have rain forecast almost every day for the next 10 days, though.

Other things I did on Saturday, in between everything else:  went on a walk, cleaned out my RS binder (it was exploding with papers), gave Seth a bath (while Frank & the boys were at the Priesthood session), and helped Tanner work on his Eagle project plan.  He got the plan finished and all the needed signatures by Tuesday evening (we had to drive a long way to get a few of them, and Tanner did all the driving so he is at least getting in some driving hours), and the district guy approved his plan Tuesday evening so now he is ready to get the project all set up. 

Anyway, back to Sunday...we enjoyed hanging out as a family, eating snacks, and listening to General Conference again. 

You all listened too, so you know that the talks were excellent!  I need to listen to all of them again, though--which I've actually already started to do.  I started with the Saturday morning session, and I've listened to all the talks except President Uchtdorf's (which I'll be listening to next).  I'm really grateful we can watch them again so soon, especially since I missed the first session.  All the talks were good...I loved the one about being meek.  Oh, and Elder Bednar's talk about tithing?  Awesome!  Some talks really touch me because it's what I need to hear.  Other talks touch me because they are testifying about something that I know is true from my own experience.  That was Elder Bednar's talk...I know our family has received many, many "significant but subtle" blessings from paying tithing, and I know that I've received the spiritual gift of gratitude from those experiences.  I also loved hearing him talk about how the church manages their temporal affairs.  Wow, could our government take a page or two from the church's book! 

The rest of this week has been decently busy, but not overwhelming.  I've really been getting a bit of a break the last few weeks.  I had a presidency meeting Monday morning.  Tanner had his last session of Driver's Ed that afternoon.  Now all he has to do is get his driving hours done ("only" about 50 hours to go...) and he can get his license.  I'm glad he is finally working on it and seeming motivated to get it done, although I'm not looking forward to the increase of our car insurance when he does get his license.  We still have a pretty long ways to go, though.

Tanner stayed home from seminary and from school on Tuesday...he had a sore throat.  I think he was more tired than sick, though.  He's missing a lot more days of seminary and of school than I would like.  I took Seth to soccer practice on Tuesday evening.  It was dry then, but I'm not sure he'll be having a game tomorrow.  All those dirt patches he is so interested in are probably big mud puddles now.  We had a beautiful sunset that evening that I enjoyed watching during the practice and we had another gorgeous one on Wednesday night too...we noticed it as we were driving over to the church.  I have pictures of both of those, but they are on my phone, not my camera, so I'll have to get them off of there later.  I did get pictures of another sunset this week, though...I think this one was on Monday:

Wednesday I went to the temple.  The sessions are only on the hour during the day on weekdays which is difficult for me since I have to drop Seth off at school at 9:00, so I usually do initiatories when I go down to the temple during the week.  This Wednesday, however, there was no traffic whatsoever so I just sailed down there and got to the temple around 9:35, with plenty of time to get into the 10:00 session.  I noticed there were a lot more cars than usual in the parking lot and a lot of them had bike racks on the back...so I knew a lot of missionaries must be there.  I was right.  I barely got into the 10:00 session because it was FULL.  They even brought in extra chairs and I still heard them say they were going to have a 10:30 session because there were a lot of people who didn't get in.  Probably 3/4 of the people in my session were male...mostly missionaries.  It seemed strange to be in a full session in the morning on a week day but it was nice.  It was great seeing all those missionaries in the temple!  There was a really special spirit in our session, and I was really thankful to be there.  I really needed that.

Wednesday evening we had our monthly RS meeting, which never stresses me out because my counselor is so fantastic and all I do is show up and enjoy it.  Well, ok, I do usually get their early so I can help out with set up and I usually stay late helping to clean up afterwards too.  But that's not much!  This month we combined with the YM and had a "Mom's MTC".  One sister demonstrated how to give a proper missionary haircut.  Then we had a panel of current (there are 5 serving in our ward right now) and returned missionaries that we could ask questions.  We focused on things their moms did to help them prepare...and what things they wished they had learned before they left on their missions...both temporally and spiritually.  The Elders (and RMs) all did a great job answering the questions.  I think everyone got a lot of really useful things to think about, and it was really uplifting as well.  (Funny sometimes too!)  There was a really great spirit there.  I was very pleased with how it all turned out.

Yesterday Jared had an orthodontist appointment.  Their school had a breast cancer awareness day, so Tanner and Jared both wore pink ties to school.  Then at the orthodontist they had pink shoelaces you could buy and Jared bought a pair and put them on his (black and red) shoes.  Tanner's scoutmaster took him to the YMCA where he passed off the last requirement for the swimming merit badge...FINALLY!  We've been trying to get that done for years...literally.  Have I mentioned I love his new scoutmaster?  I started working on baseball pants again...I got the elastic put into one pair of pants but want their owner to try them on before I do any more. 

In between, I finished reading the book for book chat.  It was pretty good but I can't say I loved it.  I also read a Newberry award winner called A Year Down Yonder...I liked that one a lot.  It's been nice to have a little time for reading.

That's it for this week!  

Weekly Review October 4 '13

I'll start out this week's post with a couple of pictures that I took a few weeks ago.  This is Seth befriending a horse.  I took them at the location where Tanner is going to do his Eagle project.  I just forgot to include them the week that I took them.

 

This week was not nearly as crazy as the last couple of weeks have been, which was nice for a change.  We still kept pretty busy, but there was less stress and I actually had a little bit of free time...what's that?  I don't think I got much done in my free time, though, because I have so many things stored up that I want to do when I get some time that when I do get it, I can't decide what to do first!  We did have a few hectic evenings, with kids going different directions (today was one of them) but the days were much more restful.

We hear you folks out in Utah are getting snow!  Out here we had a perfectly beautiful week...dry, sunny, and temperatures in the 80's.  The last few days the humidity has gone up a lot so it hasn't been quite as pleasant but it is still pretty nice; can't complain.  It certainly doesn't feel like October, but it is starting to look that way...we had enough chilly nights in September that the leaves are starting to change.  This is my favorite time of year.  The other morning when I went out to get the boys from Seminary, the sun was coming up.  All the fall leaves were bathed in a pink glow from the sunrise...enchanting!

When I left off last week I was getting ready to go to the RS broadcast.  It is always so good, but this time I thought it was even better than usual.  Maybe it was my imagination, but...wow!  Oh, and remember the less active sister in my ward that's been exchanging text messages with me?  Well, I sent her an invitation to the broadcast and SHE CAME!!!  Wow, that made me happy.  But I still haven't met her...because I didn't get her text letting me know she was coming until right as the meeting started and she left her phone in the car during the meeting so she didn't get any of my messages until later.  Since we've never met, I didn't know who to look for and neither did she.  But she sent me a message later and said she sat by someone in one of the other wards that she knew and she said the things said in the meeting were just what she needed to hear.

On Sunday I got a new 1st Counselor since my former 1st counselor is married to the bishop.  He actually asked me to give him a name for a new counselor right after he was called at the end of June and I did...it only took 3 months to have the change actually take place!  Not that I'm complaining...I was happy to keep my original 1st counselor for as long as possible.  I learned so much from her and I am already missing the interaction I had with her.  My new counselor is going to be great, too, though.  If you've been keeping track, then you will know that I only have one member of my original presidency left...and I'm on my 3rd secretary.  I hope there will not be any more changes until it's my turn to go!   

I wasn't overwhelmed with RS stuff this week but I did spend a decent amount of time in meetings.  We had a presidency meeting Monday morning, I had my monthly meeting with the bishop Tuesday evening, I met with a family to do a food order Wednesday morning, and I had a stake auxiliary training meeting last night.  No meetings today, though!  Since I had a lot of meetings, I didn't plan any visits. 

Tanner and Jared have been keeping busy.  The seminary kids have decided that they should support each other in their various activities so Tanner & Jared went to a soccer game for a couple of their classmates on Tuesday evening and Jared went to a field copy game for a couple of other classmates yesterday.  Tanner didn't go because he was involved in an activity of his own...his theater class at school did a play last night and tonight.  (Jared is attending tonight's performance right now.)  The play is called Midsummer Jersey, some sort of spoof on A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Apparently Tanner is playing a fairy and he's wearing a tutu?  Sounds strange.  We asked him if he wanted us to come see it, and he said no, so I guess he's not very impressed with it.  He did say last night's performance went well, though.  Tanner has also been working on his Eagle project plan and he's getting close to done.  He has an appointment to meet with the guy from the district on Tuesday evening, so he has to get it all done by then and hopefully the project will get approved so he can move forward with it.  I took Tanner and Jared to get new shoes on Monday evening and thankfully we were able to find something for both of them at the first store we went to.  (They are boys, and they aren't picky!) 

The home improvements have continued this week also...on Tuesday we had a guy come out to put a supporting board up in the attic so that we can put a ceiling fan & light where the current light is.  Having a fan up there will allow us to pull up warm air in the winter and cool air in the summer.  Today one of the sets of Elders serving in our ward came over to help Frank start painting the deck.  They made a decent amount of progress and I think he'll be able to get the rest done tomorrow.  I'll include pictures next week. 

Seth had a soccer game this evening and he'll have another one in the morning.  Right now he is at a birthday party for a friend...it's supposed to be a sleep over but we'll be going to pick him up soon.  I'm not big on sleeping over and especially at his age...I think he's still too young.  Plus he has the soccer game in the morning, so staying up all night would not be a good idea.  Not that I expect him to be the star player or anything!  The game tonight was actually pretty frustrating to watch.  Seth has a really hard time paying attention to the game.  He played goalie tonight and the other team scored 3 goals...all three times Seth was not paying attention at all so they just kicked it right in!  The other thing that frustrated me was that when he wasn't playing, I could see him messing around with the other players who were out.  I saw him kicking, hitting, and jumping on other players (all just play...not meant to hurt).  We had a talk about keeping his hands, feet, etc. to himself after the game, and if he does it again I am going to go over there.  The coach doesn't want us on that side of the field, but he's too busy watching the kids on the field to pay attention to the kids on the sidelines.  (He's a really good coach, though...so enthusiastic and so patient with the kids.)  Jared came with me to the game, but Tanner had to be at the school for the play and Frank was painting the deck.

Frank had an emergency come up with work yesterday afternoon so he worked all afternoon and late into the evening.  So today he didn't go in...he just worked a few hours from home.  We were able to go to lunch together, which was nice. 

So what did I do with my free time?  I did some shopping, but mostly I read.  We are currently reading a book called The Professor and the Madman for book club.  It is actually the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, which doesn't sound very exciting but it is actually a pretty interesting book.  I've been enjoying it. 

I think I forgot last week to mention that the kidney stone pain Frank was experiencing finally went away early in the week...maybe he passed it and didn't notice, if not then it has moved to a place where it isn't bothering him anymore.

I also forgot to mention that Tanner caused us a good deal of stress by losing the form I filled out to order his graduation announcements...it had our credit card number and my signature on it!  After looking all the most likely places, we couldn't find it so we cancelled the credit card.  The other problem was that the order form was due that day.  There is one other opportunity to hand it in, but it's on a Wednesday evening which is kind of a pain.  We did find the form later...it was on the piano in the Primary room at the church (he left it there during Seminary).  I did look in the Primary room, but not on the piano.  I was pretty frustrated with him for losing it...why on earth he didn't put it in his backpack?!  I hope that kid can take care of himself when he gets old enough to leave home...which is going to happen before we know it.

We're looking forward to General Conference the next two days.  Scott gets to attend the Sunday morning session...he's very excited about it.  I hope Shellie had a happy birthday today!       

Weekly Review September 28 '13

It is starting to feel like fall around here.  The mornings are pretty chilly but most of the days are warm.  Today is cloudy and kind of gloomy but most days have been sunny and beautiful.  It's been really dry, too.  We're enjoying it while it lasts.  My only complaint is that I need to change clothes half way through the day...by midday, I'm too hot in the sweater that I put on that morning.

This week went fairly well...I guess I am getting used to some sort of new crisis each week.  (Not a crisis for us, a crisis for someone in our ward.  I'm thankful it's not us, but it's sad to see it happen to someone else that I care about.)  This time it was marriage difficulties, involving one spouse getting a restraining order against the other one.  Sad stuff!  It looks like they are going to try to work things out, though, which is good.

Last Saturday Seth had his first soccer game.  I missed half of it because I had to go pick up Tanner and Jared from the church--they were returning from a 2 day camp out.  They had fun and worked hard...their activities included a 10 mile hike, a lot of it uphill.  They have some nice pictures of some great views.  I need to get them onto my computer and then I could share them with you.  Anyway, the soccer game went well.  Seth played better than I expected him to play so it's good to see him start to catch on to a few things.  He has some really good players on his team and even though they don't keep official score, his team won the game 5-0.  Jared went to a party that night for a girl he knows from school.  It was a pretty unique party--they went to this place that teaches circus performing skills and did things like walking on a tight rope and learning to juggle.  He came home with a clown nose and had been working on his juggling skills ever since.

Sunday I had Ward Council before church.  We sat with Wanda and took her home after church (someone else picked her up).  Jared and I had choir practice that evening.  After dinner and family night, the boys and I watched the musical Cinderella.  I was kind of tickled about that...Frank was going to send it back to Netflix (I'm the one who ordered it and I'd already watched it) but when the boys heard the word "musical" they all said "Wait!  We want to see that!"  I love it that they are into musicals now, something that I've always loved.  They go around the house singing a lot too.  Finally someone else in this house shares an interest with me!

The kids got out of school two hours early on Monday.  Nothing special...they just have these random 2 hour early release days throughout the year.  I don't have a ton of things written down for Monday but I know I was busy all day long.  We played the game of Life for family night activity, which ended with Seth having a huge tantrum and getting sent to bed.  He's at that difficult age where he is old enough to play a lot of games now but hasn't yet learned how to be a good sport about it when things don't go the way he wants them to.  Seems like a lot of games end with him upset these days.  But we're working on it! 

I've had Tanner working on his Eagle scout project plan all week.  On Monday I drove him up to measure the garden so we can figure out how much mulch is going to be needed--Frank met us there on his way home from work so that he could see it and help with the measuring.  Seth came also (Jared had gone to a movie after school) and he enjoyed seeing some of the horses.

Jared was asked to teach some things for scouts on Wednesday evening (he needed to do that to pass off a requirement for his next rank advancement) so he was working on getting that ready on Tuesday.  I had book club Tuesday afternoon and the evening was rather crazy-- Seth had soccer practice, Tanner had one of his 2 hour driving sessions, and Frank was helping teach a new member discussion.  I took Seth to soccer, Frank dropped Tanner off at his driving session and then went to his discussion, and I picked Tanner up after getting back from soccer.  Tanner had a good experience driving that time, and now he is a lot more confident about driving.  He drove to the church and back Wednesday evening, and he did a good job. 

I'm having a hard time remembering what I did during the days this week, although I know I was always busy.  It was one of those weeks that I had hardly any free time.  But apparently I didn't write down everything I did!  I know I didn't make it to Wal-Mart until Wednesday afternoon, but I can't remember what I was doing all morning.  Probably RS stuff.  We had the Elders over for dinner Wednesday evening and then the boys had YM.  I needed to talk to the bishop about the family in crisis, so I went over with the boys and he had some time free so I was able to meet with him about that.  After talking to him and delivering an invitation to the RS broadcast to a less active sister (I also visit teach her) it was late enough that it wasn't worth it to go back home before the boys would need to be picked up, so I waited for them to finish.

Thursday morning I had RS visits that lasted until early afternoon.  Then I ran home to get a few things done before a 3:00 appointment to get my hair done.  Frank got his haircut also--she cut his hair while my color was processing.  After I got done and we had dinner, Tanner & Frank went home teaching while I took Seth with me to get groceries.  On the way home I tried to find another less active sister's home so I could give her an invitation to the RS broadcast but I had to give up on finding it.  She lives in an apartment complex and although I'm familiar with it, I have never been to her house and don't know exactly which building she is in.  The buildings have numbers on them, but it was dark and they don't have lights on the building numbers so it is impossible to read them.  We got out of the car and walked around a bit, and some of the numbers were readable if you got right under them, but it was hard.  I figured out two building numbers and her building should have been in between those two buildings, but it wasn't.  So I gave up!  I was annoyed because if the numbers had just been lit up I probably could have found it easily.  After that unsuccessful attempt, I also stopped by the family in crisis home and I was able to talk with the wife for a good 30 minutes.  Or rather, she talked and I listened.  We got home much later than I had planned and Seth was late getting to bed but I am glad I got to see her.

Yesterday was kind of a difficult day...I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that needed to be done.  Frank and I had planned to go to the temple so I knew I only had a certain amount of time to get things done.  I was already feeling like I barely had enough time to get those things done and then a number of RS things came up.  So I was feeling stressed.  I finally had to decide that I was ok not getting a few things done (this post, among them!) and then I felt a little better.  I did get the budget all done before it was time to pick up the kids from school.  Then Frank and I went to the temple, and that was really nice, of course.  We got some yummy Greek food on the way home. 

Today has been another busy day, and it started a bit earlier than Saturdays usually do because we needed to be out the door around 8:00.  Today our stake did their annual "Day to Serve".  This year, they encouraged all members of the stake to participate in a 5K run/ 2K walk that was raising money for a local charity that provides food and shelter for needy people.  We didn't have to get donations or anything...we just paid a fee to sign up for the run / walk.  I signed all of us up.  Jared chose to do the 5K run, but the rest of us did the 2K walk.  There were TONS of people there we knew...it was almost like stake conference!  So that was pretty fun.  One of the other boys Seth's age from our ward walked with us because his parents wanted to run.  He was a much faster walker than Seth so I ended up walking ahead with him and Frank walked with Seth.  Tanner and one of his friends walked with Seth and Frank also.  We enjoyed our brisk morning walk through downtown Frederick.  After the race, they had lots of food (bananas, chips, granola bars, water, etc.) for us and we all got a t-shirt too (we got those before the race) and all the kids got medals.  They had door prizes also, and Jared won one of those--a water bottle and a free one month membership to a local health club.  I was talking to a guy in our ward who ran, and he said that Jared did a really good job.  He was about the 10th person to finish the run.

In addition to the Walk / Run, every ward in our stake also had their own service project to do.  Our ward helped plant trees at a farm.  So after the Walk / Run, we planted trees.  There was not a terrific turn out for that...I would say only about 15 families showed up to help, but that meant there were about 60 people or so.  There were hundreds of trees...all the holes were already dug (thank goodness); we were putting the trees in the holes, covering them up with dirt, driving in a stake next to each tree, putting a protective tube around the trunk of each tree, and then securing the tube to the stake with wire.  It wasn't hard work, and with so many people working on it we got things done quickly but it still took us about 3 hours to plant all those trees.  It was fun, and the weather was perfect, but we were very tired by the time we got home!  After getting home and eating lunch (at 2:30), we showered and then got a little house work done and ran some errands.  Now it is almost time for me to leave for the RS Broadcast, so I'd better finish this up.  I need to eat something and get ready to go.  I'm looking forward to a nice evening of being spiritually fed! :)      

Weekly Review September 20 '13

It's "Fair Day" so the kids are out of school.  If I were a great mom, I'd take Seth to the fair.  But I'm not going to do that because I've been there more than once and it is not much to get excited about.  Plus, it's expensive.  The older two boys are gone on a two day camp out.  Hooray for their new scoutmaster!  Jared might get his 20 camping nights someday after all. :)

This week was better than last week in most ways.  I wasn't nearly so stressed out.  I was pretty much an emotional wreck the last two weeks, but this week I've been feeling better.  Maybe it was just hormones!  Well, life was pretty crazy though.  This week I decided to give myself a break and I didn't plan any visits.  The first few days of this week were still quite busy but the last few days things have slowed down a bit, which has been nice for a change.  It was almost another really insane week, though.  On Monday evening one of my counselors called me because she had just found out that a family in the ward was losing their house to foreclosure and they had to be out by Sunday!  What?!!  The next day they talked to a lawyer and found out that they really have 30 days to move.  That's still not good, of course, but it's a lot better than 6 days, which would have been a complete nightmare.  So I didn't end up having to organize getting a ton of people in there to help them this week, which was a relief.  I still feel terrible about the whole thing, and we are of course working on getting help for them but it's a blessing to have a little more time.  They are relieved, too.

When I was writing last week, Tanner was gone to a Priest / Laurel activity.  A kind of funny thing happened when he got home.  We had forgotten and locked the screen door so he couldn't get in with his key.  His phone had died, so he couldn't call us and he thought we were asleep so he didn't want to ring the doorbell.  So what did crazy Tanner do?  He thought maybe his key would get him in the back door from the deck (it wouldn't have...but he didn't know that) so he decided to climb up on the deck and try the door.  (Why he didn't try the back door first, which is at ground level, I will never know.)  The deck is a good ten feet above the ground, but by using the next door neighbor's fence and shed, he managed to climb up on the deck and try the door...just as Frank was coming up the stairs from the basement and noticed the doorknob jiggling.  He thought someone was trying to break in.  (Well I guess someone was...but it was only Tanner.)  I was upstairs and heard Frank suddenly yell "HEY!!" really loudly.  Then I heard Tanner's voice saying "It's me, Dad."  It was funny in a way, but he certainly gave Frank a scare.  He was pretty successful at getting onto the deck quietly, too.  I was sitting right by a window that overlooks the deck, and I didn't hear anything.  Tanner says that's because he's a Ninja!

Last weekend was Stake Conference.  Frank attended the Priesthood Leadership session at 4:00 on Saturday, and then I met him over there at 6:00 for the adult session.  That meeting didn't start until 7:00, but the stake RS presidency always provides a meal for the stake presidency, the stake clerks, executive secretary, and their wives.  It's always really yummy and it's nice to visit while we eat.  The general session was on Sunday morning; as usual, Frank had to be there early and he saved us a seat.  Also as usual, Frank didn't get to sit down for more than about 20 minutes of the meeting.  He always has to deal with problems that come up with the technology...sound or visuals or something!  Plus, there were issues with the HVAC (which isn't really his job but he knows a lot about it)--some of the rooms were stifling hot and I am here to tell you that the chapel was freezing, since that's where we were sitting.  (It was a nice day outside--the AC was working overtime, though.)  Anyway, the meetings were really nice and uplifting.  For the general session, we had a missionary choir composed of all the missionaries that are serving in our stake right now.  Which just goes to show you...the fact that they had enough to make a choir is pretty amazing!  And they looked and sounded great.  There were two youth speakers that were incredibly impressive, too.  I have a lot of hope for the future of the church...it's in good hands for sure!

After stake conference we were going to have some friends over for dinner, but they had to cancel on us.  The boys helped unload chairs at the church...they always have to borrow a couple hundred chairs from our building in order to have enough chairs for the whole stake.  I took a long nap Sunday afternoon which was very nice.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday before all the meetings started, Frank was gone doing work for clients all morning.  I took Seth to a practice scrimmage for his soccer team...it was kind of frustrating to watch him because he really doesn't get the game at all yet.  He seems to get distracted easily too, so half the time he doesn't hear the coach's instructions.  He seems to be having fun though, and hopefully before the season is over he'll get some of the basics of the game figured out!  After coming home from the practice, I worked on the sewing project the rest of the afternoon.  I finished the first pair of pants and got another pair done as well.  I had a lot less problems this time, so I started feeling a lot less stressed about getting the rest done on time.  I had managed to work out the bugs and figured out what worked the best and how to work with the fabric, not to mention I had my sewing machine a lot more figured out as well.

Monday I had a presidency meeting in the morning.  I got some housework and shopping done and after dinner we had family night.  After that I worked on the pants again and got another pair done.

Jared stayed home from school on Tuesday.  His nasty cold wasn't getting any better so he needed a day to get some rest.  That seemed to help a lot...he is nearly better now.  I got the last pair of pants done; I sewed a couple of patches onto a baseball jersey as well.  After I got that project done (and it was a relief to finish it!) I got all my other regular Tuesday chores done (bathrooms, grocery list, etc.)  Tanner had some on the road driving that afternoon for 2 hours (to complete driver's ed, he has to go on three 2 hour driving sessions with an instructor).  He was supposed to do all three sessions this week but he ended up doing only one of them--the school had to reschedule his Monday session and we rescheduled his Wednesday session because he wasn't feeling very well. 

Seth had soccer practice Tuesday evening as well, so I was running around a lot that day.  I had an emergency food order that I ran out to do that evening as well.  The guy I fixed the baseball pants for came to pick them up late that evening and he was very pleased with everything.  They did turn out looking really nice, so I was proud of myself!  He sent me an email today to let me know the pants worked out perfect for his games, and included a picture of him playing with one of the uniforms on.  I'm not totally done doing sewing for him...that was the first part of the project.  I still have one more patch to sew on another jersey and three more pants to either hem or put elastic in.  But that part doesn't need to be done until October 20th, so I have a little more time.  I'm planning to start working on them soon, though!  Don't want to be stressed out again at the end.  In some ways I'm glad I had this project to do even though it stressed me out.  I learned a lot about my new sewing machine and I am actually really happy with it!

Tanner was coming down with Jared's cold so he stayed home on Wednesday to get some rest.  I wasn't feeling so great myself that day...most of the week I also felt like I was trying to fight off the same cold, and Wednesday I had a terrible headache and a sore throat.  I felt pretty good in the morning, actually, but after shopping all Wednesday morning (regular groceries and also wedding gift shopping for Erin & Dan) I started to feel a lot worse.  Meanwhile, Frank came home from work on Tuesday with a very pained expression on his face, saying that his right kidney really hurt.  That has continued to bother him ever since...never bad enough to make a trip to the hospital necessary, but he's been pretty uncomfortable the last 3 days.  He's having other kidney stone symptoms too so we're pretty sure that's what it is.  The last time he had a kidney stone he passed it without ever having to go to the hospital, so I'm hoping that will happen again but it's frustrating that it's taking so long.

The guys came to re-clean our air ducts on Wednesday morning.  The manager came this time and made sure the job was done right.  He got a ton of stuff out of our vents and did several things that the other guys hadn't done at all, and he confirmed that the other guys definitely hadn't done the job right.  I'm glad Frank called to complain!  Meanwhile, Tanner was working on his application for National Honor Society, which was due the next day.  I've been nagging him about it for weeks and he had done a bit of work on it, but unfortunately he procrastinated a lot of it until the end.  After resting all day he did feel better and went to YM...we let him do that mostly because he needed to get some signatures from several people there for his application.  After he came home he still had to finish up and so he was up late and I was up late too because I don't leave the boys up by themselves when they are on the computer.  Someday I hope one of my kids figures out that procrastinating is not the way to go. 

Yesterday was a lot more relaxed.  I felt my heart start fluttering Wednesday afternoon and it was still doing that Thursday morning.  I felt a little short of breath and light headed, although it wasn't too bad.  I also felt really tired.  Since I had that going on I decided to try to take it easy a little bit.  I certainly didn't sit around all day...I got grocery shopping done and some sweeping and there was still laundry to do.  But once I got those chores done and the laundry was going, I sat down and spent the afternoon watching a movie from Netflix.  Once the boys got home from school I was busy again...they had to quickly pack for their camp out and I had to take them to the store to pick up a couple of things for that.  I got them over to the church and after I got home from that I relaxed a little more before making dinner, vacuuming the whole house, and folding all the laundry.  If the boys had been home I would have made them do all that!  Frank normally would have helped too but he felt worse than me.  By evening I was pretty sure my heart had stopped fluttering too...I didn't feel nearly so tired.  Today I have felt back to normal.

Frank worked from home on Wednesday.  Yesterday he went in for a few hours and did more work from here.  Today he is working from home again.  It's really a blessing that he has that option when he is not feeling very well!  Today I took the dog on a walk and got the budget done.  Seth has enjoyed being home from school.  He plays quite nicely by himself, although he usually makes a mess.

We must be crazy, but we are thinking about starting house hunting again.  I have no idea how we'll actually have time to fix up our house and to fit a move in, but we just felt like it was time to start looking.  Houses seem to be selling pretty quickly around here and prices are going up.  There is not a lot on the market, but when we looked online we found a few places that interest us.  So we're having our friend the realtor come over tomorrow to look at our house and he will also take us to see a couple of places if he can get appointments set up.  We've thought about doing this so many times that I'm not sure if we'll ever actually take the plunge, but maybe we will.  We are in a better position to buy now than we've ever been and our house is closer to being ready to sell, too.  So we'll see what happens.  Frank is actually more anxious to move than I am, which is a fascinating reverse of our usual roles.  I have become pretty content with where we are but in talking to Frank lately I've realized that it is important to him, and I think I owe it to him to start looking again.  Don't get me wrong...I'd love to have more space!  But it's not as important to me as it used to be.  Having one less child in the house has made a difference.  In a few more years we'll probably have plenty of space and I think we'd decide to stay here forever except when we think of the guys coming back to visit someday, with wives and children...well, there'd be no place to put them!  So I guess we'll take a look around.

RS has been pretty low key this week, which has been a good change.  I wanted to write down one experience I had, though.  There is a young single mom in our ward who is less active...I've actually never met her.  But I have communicated with her via text messaging over the last couple of months.  A few weeks ago she was on my mind, so I texted her and told her that, and asked her if she needed anything.  She responded that she was still trying to get her car fixed (it's been broken down the whole time I've been communicating with her) and she also mentioned that she is trying to find a new place to live.  Evidently, she is living with other people right now and she said it wasn't the best environment so she was trying to change that.  I sent her some words of encouragement and then kept thinking about her.  A few days later I heard about a not for profit place that fixes cars for people who qualify at greatly reduced rates.  I texted her the information about that and she was very grateful!  I also asked her if she would like me to put the word out to the ward that she is looking for a place to live; she said that would help her a lot.  That was about 2 weeks ago.  Then on Wednesday she sent me a text message...her car was fixed and passed inspection...she was SO happy about it!  She told me she knew it was the work of the Lord.  First of all, I was thrilled that she wanted to share her good news with me.  Second, I was so glad that she is recognizing the hand of the Lord in her life, that I cried.  Then I laughed...why do I care so much about this person that I've never even met?  Well, the fact remains that I do, and I know that I am feeling the love of the Lord for her.  It is a wonderful feeling.

That's all I've got for this week.  Sorry still no pictures!  There hasn't been anything too notable happening that would warrant pictures.  I haven't taken a single picture yet this month.  Maybe soon.  We hope Erin & Dan have a wonderful wedding day...we are thinking about them today!  If I were there, I'd have something great to take some pictures of. :)

Weekly Review September 13 '13

Sorry...no pictures this week.  No time for picture taking.

Last week I said I didn't think things were going to settle down around here anytime soon and I was certainly right.  I don't know how much of our crazy life you really want to read about, but I feel the need to record it...if for no other reason than to prove that I survived it.  If it bores you (the one or two people who read this), then just skip it!

Saturday I spent most of the day finishing up my talk and figuring out visiting teaching changes.  In the late afternoon we went to a birthday open house for a sister in our ward...they had ice cream for everyone and there were lots of other people there we knew so it was fun to visit for a while.  After that Frank dropped Tanner, Jared, and I off at the church.  The boys were helping with a big surprise birthday party for one of the YM leaders and I was finishing up visiting teaching changes and putting them into the computer.  I saw a little bit of the birthday party...his wife planned the whole thing and she had all the YM and YW do a couple of big musical numbers and several other friends did performances too.  It was quite the production!

Sunday I gave my talk and I think it went well.  I had a lot of people tell me they enjoyed it afterwards, anyway, so at least I didn't bore everybody, right?  My topic was temporal self reliance; I spent the first half of my talk sharing thoughts / quotes on why this is actually a spiritual topic, not just a temporal one.  I had a few personal experiences to share and it was good for me in preparing this talk to see how much the Lord has helped us to be self reliant.  Oh, and I got a new secretary.  I only had my second secretary for a few months and she was doing fine but she had a lot on her plate since she works full time, has four kids, and her husband is in the bishopric.  Originally I was planning to get an assistant secretary to help her and I even submitted a name for that, but the last few weeks was feeling nudged by the spirit to release her and ask to have the sister I submitted for assistant secretary be the new secretary instead.  Then when I talked to the bishop about it, he was feeling the same way.  So that's what ended up happening.  I am glad to have her; she will be great!

Also on Sunday, choir practices started up again. I always enjoy choir even though I admit the 4:00 Sunday afternoon practice time is a challenge for me.  Especially this Sunday since I woke up at 2:30 am and never went back to sleep.  Ugh! 

The rest of the week I've just felt like I'm in the middle of a rat race and I admit to being in tears (or close to it) more than once.  It probably won't sound incredibly busy on paper, but believe me, it was.  Everything seems to take so much longer than it should.  I've been really struggling to feel like I'm keeping all my different responsibilities balanced.  And it's just been crazy...unexpected things coming up all the time.  I don't like getting things done at the last minute but that seems to be all I can manage these days.  I try to plan ahead but unexpected things seem to come up constantly lately, so projects get pushed back until I'm running into a deadline and then I'm really stressed trying to get them done.  Ok, enough whining!  I don't want to sugar coat my life, though.  Sometimes it's hard.

Monday I had lots of phone calls to make and emails to send...RS stuff, mostly, and trying to get visiting teaching set up.  I exercised, did laundry, grocery shopped, and vacuumed.  I also got a soccer ball for Seth...his coach wants every kid to have their own ball at practices.  I talked to Mom who gave me some guidance on the sewing project I needed to start and started working on that.  We had family night.  Frank went to the dentist to get a crown put on which cost a lot and left him with a very sore mouth.  It's been sore all week (although better now than at first) and he's been eating soft things and has actually lost some weight because he couldn't eat very much.  He thinks the dentist got his mouth with the drill a few times.  He's gradually getting better, though.

Tanner was sick on Tuesday...he didn't go to seminary or to school.  Luckily just a mild 24 hour stomach bug, which so far none of us have caught...keep your fingers crossed!  It was a bummer he was sick that day because he missed another temple trip...this time just our ward youth.  And this trip was just after school, of course...not all day.  Meanwhile, I had lots of house work to do, I had a long talk with the stake RS president about several things, and in the afternoon I took my friend Katie to the doctor to get the cast on her foot.  The good news was...they decided that she didn't need a cast after all; they put her in a boot.  That means she could start trying to put weight on it and she would not have to be in a cast for 3 months.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic!  Another sister in the ward watched her kids while we were gone so after the doctor we picked them up and I took her back home.  I stayed to pick up a few things for her and by then her baby was having a meltdown because she needed a nap and really needed to be picked up and jounced a bit, so I did that for her because she can't put full weight on the foot yet.  Her baby gave up and went to sleep really quickly, thank goodness.  Before I left another family in the ward called me needing emergency childcare so as soon as I got home I had to call them back to give them a few ideas of people they could call.  By then Seth was home from school, Jared left for the temple trip, Frank had to leave to go help cook for an event, and I needed to make dinner and get Seth to soccer practice...which I managed to do and even got him there on time.  Seth seemed to enjoy practice and I read a little of the book chat book while I was waiting.  Haven't been able to touch it since! 

Wednesday I realized I'd forgotten to make a grocery list the day before, so I did that and then went shopping.  Frank came home to work from here for the afternoon because we had scheduled someone to come in and clean all our air ducts.  They were coming some time between 12:00 and 6:00 and I had appointments.  It turns out they came closer to noon.  I wasn't home most of the time they were here but Frank was and he wasn't very impressed.  He heard one of the guys telling the other one that the equipment needed to be generating a certain amount of pressure and the other one said it was only doing half that.  The first one said something like "well, we'll have to go with that."  Frank checked the equipment more than once and it never got above half the needed pressure, which made us feel like our ducts weren't cleaned nearly as well as they should have been.  They also broke a switch which we had to replace and later that day we had problems with the air conditioning coming on and didn't figure out until Thursday morning that they had bumped one of the thermostat controls and knocked it loose.  So the bottom line is, Frank called and complained and now they are going to send someone else to clean the ducts all over again at no charge.    

Meanwhile, I had a visiting teaching visit and an RS visit Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening was our monthly RS meeting.  Thank goodness I didn't have to do anything for that except show up!  It was a massage and relaxation night, which I certainly needed but I found it was hard for me to relax because we were lying on a hard floor and after a few minutes my back was killing me.  Plus, I stink at visualization I guess.  So I spent most of the relaxation exercise giggling at myself for my total failure at relaxing.  When I got home, the guy I'm doing the sewing project for was here so I could take another measurement that I had forgotten to do when he was here the first time.  I couldn't do anything else until I had that measurement.  Then I watched part of a September 11th documentary before going to bed.  I always cry on September 11th.

Thursday after dropping Seth off at school I went to the store to get elastic for the sewing project, then got groceries, then dropped some things off at my 2nd counselor's house.  After lunch I started working on the baseball pants and spent all afternoon working on that...and only got one casing done.  I was feeling pretty frazzled by the time the boys got home from school.  It turns out that the fabric I'm working with (100% polyester) is a total pain to work with.  It doesn't iron well, for one thing.  The side seams I had to sew over were so bulky that my machine wouldn't go through them so I had to do that part by hand.  Then I finally got the elastic in and discovered that in spite of all my precautions, it was twisted so I had to take it out and do it again.  And after all that, it didn't even look right to me...it looked like the elastic wasn't tight enough.  I was ready to cry at that point, and feeling really frustrated because I had not wanted to take this project on in the first place for this very reason...I knew it was going to take more time than I planned and totally stress me out! 

The other reason it took so much time is I decided to use my new sewing machine.  My old machine has tension issues so the stitching never looks very good.  My new machine sews beautifully but I've only used it once before so I'm not familiar with all the controls and have to look up how to do everything from threading the machine to changing the needle to selecting the stitch size, etc.  That added on a lot of time.

Anyway, I had to put everything away and get dinner made because the Elders were coming over for dinner and even then, dinner was late.  Frank was working at a client's and the missionaries got here a good 20 minutes before he did.  I had planned a taco bar with both chicken and beef, and when I realized I had put the chicken taco seasoning in the beef, I was ready to crawl in a corner somewhere and not come out!  But thankfully both the chicken and the beef tasted fine, even if their seasonings got mixed up.  And the Elders enjoyed dinner and didn't mind that it was late.  So it all turned out ok.  I was trying to remember all that stuff I'd heard the night before about breathing deeply to relieve tension, though!  Goodness!  Oh, and I forgot that right before we sat down to eat I got a phone call from a sister in tears who needed emergency childcare and I certainly didn't have time to delegate that out at the moment so I just told her to bring her child to our house.  Besides that, I also got a text somewhere in there that someone else was in the hospital!  It was then that I told Frank I was about ready to resign as RS president.  After dinner I had a RS visiting appointment.  Frank was doing maintenance for a client but luckily our visiting child and Seth had a blast playing together so he was fine.  By the time I got back from my appointment, the visiting child was leaving and I was feeling a little less stressed (but not much). 

So I decided that I couldn't do anything else with the pants until the owner tried them on to see if the elastic was ok or not.  He couldn't come over until this evening, so I decided to go to the temple today.  It's our stake temple day because we have stake conference this weekend.  Frank and I were hoping to go together this afternoon but he has been swamped with work for his business so he decided he couldn't go.  I missed the 10:00 session by only a few minutes so I had a long wait for the 11:00 session but I'm glad I went.  By the time I got home, the high school boys were out of school and it was time to pick up Seth.  Jared seems to have developed a nasty cold but he is plugging along.  After getting everyone home from school, Frank went to a client's while I got the budget caught up.  After Frank got back we went to a friend's house to look at a bunk bed they are selling to see if we wanted to buy it.  Seth really needs a bigger bed, but we haven't made up our mind whether to get this one yet.  It's a full size bed on bottom which would be nice for visitors, but his room is so small that we're not sure it will work.  We measured, and it will fit but that leaves almost no room for his dresser and toy / book shelves.  When we got back from that, the baseball pants owner was here to try on his pants and he actually liked them the way they are...thank goodness!  Although after some discussion we did decide to take an inch or so off of the elastic.  That shouldn't be too hard and hopefully the rest of the pants won't take so much time.  Hopefully!  But knowing how things go, I'll probably have more problems crop up.  I need to get them done by Tuesday night so I am not liking how soon the deadline is looming.  After he left, it was nearly 7:00 and we hadn't had dinner yet so we all pitched in and made scrambled eggs, waffles, bacon and OJ.  Tanner ate quickly because he was leaving for a priest / laurel activity shortly after 7:00.  Hopefully he will be home soon and we can all go to bed!  Tomorrow will be busy too.