Weekly Review January 26 '18

Well, here we are--almost at the end of January. I am glad because January is not my favorite month. No offense to January, it's just one of the coldest winter months and it does not have a great holiday to make it feel special. That being said, we've actually had some really nice days this January, so I can't complain about it as much as I usually do.

First of all, and update on Frank's health before I forget. The antibiotic he started taking at the end of last week finally seems to be working. He has continued to have problems sleeping (although maybe not as severe as at first) and the antibiotic also has a tendency to cause some stomach problems, but his coughing is definitely diminishing now. (Except today his coughing has been a little worse again.) He is still tired and he has lost several pounds but tomorrow is his last dose of the antibiotic so hopefully he will start sleeping better soon and get some appetite back (although losing weight is not necessarily a bad thing. He wants to lose a lot more.)

Here's a daily summary of what we did the rest of the week. It was quite busy!:

Saturday: I took Seth to swimming lessons, cleaned the kitchen floor, worked on Cub scout stuff (including the slide show), and worked on my scarf. I also went to the store to get some kitty litter and a few other things. Sam was here and he helped us bring all the paint cans upstairs and out to the deck. Then we all worked together to put kitty litter in them and to stir them up. That evening, we went out to dinner and then Sam headed back home. He has church at 9:00 am now, so he has to get back home earlier than he used to (unless he decides to stay & go to church with us).

Sunday: We had Ward Conference and Frank didn't have Ward Council until 12:00 so we all slept in a bit. I didn't get much done before church other than getting ready for church and advance preparations for dinner (plus choir practice). I was planning to go to the self-reliance fireside that night (they were starting a new round of self reliance groups) but several things happened that made me decide not to go. First of all, Frank wasn't feeling all that great. Second, he needed to make an urgent visit to a member of the ward who needed help so Seth would have been home alone (we avoid leaving him home alone in the evening). Third, my right eye started to hurt and when I looked in the mirror I realized it was getting infected and was swelling up. Fourth, dinner took a lot longer to bake than it should have so I would have had to go to the fireside without any dinner. It turns out that they had plenty of facilitators to cover the new groups starting so I didn't need to be there after all and I'm glad I didn't go.

Monday: Frank took the day off work so he could assist the ward member he visited on Sunday evening. He ended up spending most of the day helping him with the things he needed (but he is being taken care of now). Meanwhile, I had volunteered to work at the school library. As usual, it wasn't very busy but I got some reading and some crocheting done. In the afternoon I went to a viewing for a man in our ward who passed away last week. I didn't know him very well, but I did get to know his wife pretty well while I was RS president so I really wanted to be there to show support to her. I'm really glad I went because I could tell it meant a lot to her. She is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I know. In between those two things, I got all the other normal Monday chores done and after Seth got home from school I helped him work on a school project for a while and also set up a sign up genius for our Blue & Gold Banquet dinner.

Tuesday: Originally, I planned to go to the temple on Tuesday but that turned out to be the day of the funeral for the man in our ward so I adjusted my plans. (I will be going to the temple tomorrow instead.) I signed up to help set up for the funeral luncheon and I also went to the funeral itself, which was short but sweet. I learned some pretty amazing things about this man that I didn't know--for example, his parents were sharecroppers who were eventually put off the land by the owner and left with nothing. He and his younger brother were taken away from their parents when they were found living by the side of the road and they were put in a boys' home where they were raised. At the funeral, I actually ended up sitting next to an old gentleman who was one of the other boys who was living in the home at the same time. He was not shy and kept telling me interesting tidbits about what it was like growing up in the boys' home! Anyway, the luncheon turned out really nice--it was great to see how many women in the ward made food and showed up to help; a lot of them didn't even know the family that well. Besides the funeral stuff, I got the rest of the regular Tuesday chores done and that evening we had den meeting as usual. We mostly prepared for the Blue & Gold Banquet--we practiced the flag ceremony with the boys and we worked on making some centerpieces for the tables.

(The girls belong to the other two den leaders. One of them is a single mom and the other one's husband is the YM president so they have to bring their kids to den meetings with them.)

Wednesday: I went to Walmart in the morning and then a friend and I tried to go visit Wanda for a while. She was in physical therapy, though, and in pain (although she still had a big smile on her face!) so she asked us to come back another time. I went to the religion class as usual and then after that I went to a concert at Seth's school. Each of the upper elementary classes performed a piece on the drums. They were all pretty good.

Can you see Seth in the pictures? I was pretty far back so it was hard to get a good picture of him. As soon as the concert ended, I took Seth and left because he had a doctor appointment to follow up on his medicine. Overall, his medicine seems to be helping him. I had forgotten until the doctor reminded me that we had switched Seth to a fast releasing type of medicine because he was having trouble getting to sleep at night. He does usually fall asleep pretty quickly now (although he does not go to bed until 10:00) but I have been noticing that his medicine seems to be almost completely worn off by the time he gets home from school. That means that if he has homework, it's hard to get anything done. So the doctor said he could prescribe a 1/4 dose pill for him that he can take right when he gets home from school for days that he has homework or needs to be focused in the evening. He won't need to take that very often (he hardly ever has homework) but I am definitely going to give that a try on Tuesdays when he has Cub Scouts! We'll have to see if it causes sleep problems, though.  That evening, my visiting teachers came to see me and they stayed a long time but it was really fun to talk to them. In between all of that stuff, I did somehow manage to get all the usual Wednesday chores done.

Thursday: I didn't have anything extra going on in the morning, so I got the regular Thursday chores done. In the afternoon, I went to Seth's class for a "literary tea". They have this event once a month and each month a couple of parents are invited to attend. They have tea (mostly herbal) and snacks and his teacher reads them a book while they enjoy the tea & snacks. The idea is to work on manners and to enjoy literature. It was actually quite pleasant and I enjoyed it. I had been asked to bring some tea and snacks so I brought two boxes of herbal tea and a tray of cheese & crackers and some madeleines. Other parents had also provided tea and snacks so we actually had a large variety of snacks to choose from, including veggies, hummus, strawberries, lemon scones, bread, and trail mix. The kids were all very friendly and polite. Here are the kids at my table:

Seth seemed to be kind of embarrassed that I was there at first, but after a while he adjusted to having me there and seemed to enjoy it.

After school Seth had an orthodontist appointment. The point of the visit is to assess the condition of his teeth now and to decide if he needs treatment yet. The orthodontist decided that it's still not time to treat him but he wants him to come back in 3 months for another assessment and to get a new x-ray of all his teeth. He's going to need braces eventually, I'm just not sure how soon. That evening I tried to work on the slide show but ran into some technical difficulties that Frank had to solve for me. We got all the paint cans put out on the curb also because the bulk trash pick up was this morning. When I checked the cans on Wednesday, quite a few of them were still not hard so I added more kitty litter and stirred them up some more. We ended up putting out all but four of the cans on Thursday night, though.

Friday: Today has been one of those days where I tried to get things done quickly but got interrupted a lot so I wasn't very successful. I did get most of the budget done, but need Frank to help me get it finished. (He was at work all day and now he is doing work for a client.) I also went to a ukulele class. A sister in our ward asked if anyone was interested in learning to play the ukulele and a couple of us were, so she is going to teach us. It was fun but I can tell I am going to have to practice a lot if I am ever going to be somewhat proficient. Seth got out of school 2 hours early today and on Monday he doesn't have school. (It's the end of the term.) When I picked Seth up today, his teacher told me that he had a difficult day and had been very unfocused. Well, come to think of it, I forgot to give him his medicine this morning!! Whoops! Well, it's good to know that the medicine does really make a difference!

That's about it for this week except that Frank received his settlement from the insurance company for his second accident. Right now that money is sitting in our bank account but we want to move it to some kind of account where it will earn some interest. He got a pretty decent amount, but it will need to go a long ways toward future medical payments and other things he may need as he gets older.  (A decent chunk of it already went to making up for the huge negative amount that has been accumulating in our "medical" budget category over the last couple of years.) We want to talk to a financial planner to help us decide the best way to invest it.

Oh, and one more thing. In between all that other stuff, I still managed to work on my scarf most days and it is now about 4 1/2 feet long. I should finish it soon! :) Here are some pictures I took of the scarf earlier this week (when it was much shorter than it is now):

I am happy with the way it is turning out and proud of myself that it actually looks like the scarf in the picture on the directions!

Now on to February!

Weekly Review January 19 '18

Wow, time is marching on...we are already 3/4 of the way through January! Here's how our week went:

Friday: I watched some of President Monson's funeral (I had to leave in the middle to pick up Seth) and it was really sweet. It was really cool to see Tim during the first song!

I watched the parts of the funeral that I missed on Saturday morning. So much of what was said at the funeral fit with the talk I was preparing because my talk was about "Consecrating our time to the Lord" and President Monson definitely did that. He is a great example of how to live a consecrated life. Anyway, Friday evening we had the Pinewood Derby and it went well. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but I am mostly only including ones that Seth is in:

Seth's car did pretty well this time--it was the 4th fastest car. We have never figured out how to make a really fast car! This was our last chance, too--this is Seth's last year in Cub Scouts so after making at least 12 Pinewood Derby cars (I think we made at least one sibling car somewhere in there) an era is coming to an end. I can't say I'm too upset about that, either!! :)

Saturday: It was a busy day. Frank took Seth to his swimming lesson in the morning, which I really appreciated because it gave me time to work on my talk in peace and quiet. I finally got a talk down on paper, although I ended up including only a small fraction of what I wanted to say, because I knew there wouldn't be enough time. Besides finishing my talk, I also made a cheesecake and did advance preparations for a casserole I was planning to make the next day--both of those things were for Frank's birthday dinner. I spent quite a bit of time doing some planning for Cub Scouts and I cleaned the kitchen floor. We went out to eat that night to start celebrating Frank's birthday--I let him choose where we were going to eat and he chose Longhorn Steakhouse. It was pretty good.

Sunday: In the morning we gave Frank some cards and some chocolate. I didn't really get him anything else because he couldn't think of anything he wanted. He did say he would like to go see a movie, so we will do that soon. After Frank left for his meeting, I read through the scriptures for the Sunday School lesson we were having and read the conference talk that we were discussing for the RS lesson, and both of them fit so well with my talk--it was kind of amazing. (Both the Sunday School teacher and the RS president mentioned how well the lesson went with what we talked about in Sacrament meeting, so it wasn't just me that thought so!) It's really cool when things like that happen. I also went to choir practice right before church--I am really enjoying singing in a choir again!! I think my talk went pretty well. I was the last speaker and I had about 15 minutes and even then I ended up skipping some of the things that I planned to say. I wasn't sure if what I did say came out in a coherent fashion, but afterwards I had many people tell me how great my talk was or how much they got out of it, so I guess I said what everyone needed to hear which is what I was hoping for. I am glad to be done with it though! I am also really grateful that I had to give that talk because I learned a lot in the process of preparing it. After church I stopped really briefly at the house of one of the sisters I visit teach to drop off a late Christmas gift and then I came home and finished making dinner (Frank had started working on it). We had invited the Elders over for dinner because I realized when I was preparing some of the casserole on Saturday that we were going to have way too much food for just 3 people. It was nice to have them here to help celebrate Frank's birthday. We had the cheesecake for dessert--Frank wanted that instead of regular cake. On Sunday we also finally finished the puzzle we've been working on. It took us two weeks:

When I was putting together the female cardinal part of the puzzle about a week ago, I couldn't find one of the pieces and I decided then that that piece was probably missing. I wasn't sure, because sometimes you just can't find a piece for a while even though it's there, but I was pretty sure. Turns out I was right:

That's pretty annoying, but the puzzle looks pretty nice anyway. Oh, and I guess to try to make up for the missing piece, they included two extra pieces!:

Anyway, we are glad to be done and I guess we'll probably take it apart soon but we worked so hard on it that I wanted to keep it together for a while. I have never had more trouble putting together the outside edge of a puzzle--we actually gave up on the edge and started making the middle, and we had a lot of the middle completed before we finally found the last two pieces of the edge.

Monday: Frank didn't have work and Seth didn't have school because of MLK Day. For me, it was business as usual. Besides the normal stuff, I worked on some more things for Cub Scouts and I went to visit my friend Wanda. She is in the hospital because on Saturday night she fell out of her wheelchair and broke her hip! She had surgery on her hip on Sunday--apparently, it was a pretty bad break. When we visited her (a friend came with me) she was awake and alert but she did look pretty tired. Frank did work for clients and he and I also went through all of the cans of paint we've accumulated over the years to see which ones we can discard. There's a bulk trash pick up coming soon, which is what motivated us to do this. We can put out the paint cans but the paint has to be dried out so we wanted to open up all the cans that we were going to discard. It turned out to be a bigger job than we anticipated. I don't feel like we've done an incredible amount of painting, but we have actually done quite a bit! When all was said and done, we ended up with 26 cans of paint that we want to discard!!:

That doesn't count the 10 or so cans that we are keeping. How did we get so much paint??!! Well, when I started thinking about it, I realized that we have painted all four bedrooms (three of them with 2 colors each), all 3 bathrooms, the kitchen twice, and the living room twice. Add in all the different paints for baseboards and other trim, plus paint for doors and shutters, plus a few cans that I'm pretty sure the previous owners left for us, and that adds up to a lot of paint! It just didn't seem like we had done that much because it's been spread out over nearly 18 years. It was quite the adventure (one can started leaking from the bottom when we moved it) but we finally got everything sorted out. We went to Lowe's to get some stuff to add to the paint to dry it out, but the lady there found out how many cans of paint we had, she said it would be a lot less expensive and just as effective to get a bag of kitty litter to add to the paint cans, so that is what we are planning to do. I forgot to buy some this week, but I am going to do that tomorrow.

Tuesday: I'm not going to write huge paragraphs about every day this week, I hope. I worked in the school library Tuesday morning. It wasn't very busy, so I left early because I wanted to be home in time to watch the special broadcast when they announced the new First Presidency. I watched that and then I cleaned bathrooms until the press conference started and I watched that too. We're in good hands, I think! That evening we had den meeting (I started a new adventure called Beat of the Drum with my boys--we learned about the American Indians that lived in Maryland before Europeans arrived) and afterwards we had Cub Committee meeting. We had it early because we had to move the Blue & Gold Banquet from the end of February to the beginning of February, so we needed to plan the banquet. There was a storm predicted to come in Tuesday evening and the school system cancelled all their evening activities, but we were able to get through den meetings and our committee meeting and the snow started coming down right as we were leaving to go home.

Wednesday: The storm didn't amount to much; we maybe got about a half inch of snow but there was still a 2 hour delay on Wednesday morning. Luckily, Frank was able to get Seth to school because I had a doctor appointment at 10:15 and Seth needed to leave for school about 10:35. The doctor appointment was just my yearly GYN exam. I told her I needed to get a referral for my annual mammogram and she said they can actually do them at their office now, and asked if I wanted to do it right then. Sure, why not? So I got that done too and it was nice to not have to go through all the hassle of making an appointment and such. After I got done with all the doctor stuff I went to the religion class and got the Walmart shopping done before I had to go get Seth from school. Meanwhile, Frank also went to the doctor that morning (after dropping Seth off). He still isn't feeling much better and he's still coughing like crazy, so he went back in. The doctor sent him for a chest xray to make rule out pneumonia (he doesn't have that) and prescribed a much stronger antibiotic. He's been taking that for two days and so far it doesn't seem to be helping him much. One of the side effects is sleeping problems and he has not slept well at all the last 2 nights. I really hope it starts working soon! I am starting to wonder if he is ever going to get better. He's a trooper and keeps working and doing what needs to be done. Poor guy!! Wednesday evening I did the Youth Protection Training (for Cub Scout leaders) because I have to renew that every 2 years and it was time for me to do that. Then Jared skyped with us for about an hour. It was nice to see him again and to get updated on how he is doing. He seems to be doing really well so far.

Thursday: Besides the usual, I started working on my scarf. I had to re-learn how to read a pattern and how to do double crochet (the blankets I made were single crochet) and I also learned a new stitch called the V-stitch, but I got all of that figured out and I got a good start on the scarf--I have 5 or 6 rows done. It's pretty easy and it's fun and so far it is looking pretty good. (I haven't taken a picture of it yet, though--hopefully next week!) I also had to go to the vet to get more food for Snickers and to get some more medicine for him too. I started working on a slide show for the Blue & Gold Banquet--I do a slide show with pictures from the previous years' Cub Scout activities to show at the banquet every year. This is the third year I've done this. In the evening I went to a RS activity where we played a game to get to know each other better. Renata came and another sister that I visit teach (who doesn't usually come) came too so I was happy about that. It was a fun evening.

Friday: Today I updated the budget and worked on the slide show some more. We were able to talk to Tanner for about an hour today and it was nice to get caught up with him, too, and he is also doing pretty well. Frank talked to Scott today also but I missed that call because I was in the shower. It's nice to get updated on all our boys this week--I miss them!! Now Frank and Seth are playing video games together and I will probably do some crocheting. Sam will be coming later tonight too. It will be nice to see him again--we haven't seen him since before Christmas.

That is all the news from our neck of the woods. 

Weekly Review January 12 '18

I started out last week's post talking about how cold it was. Right now, it is 59 degrees outside. We've been enjoying milder temperatures the last couple of days, but tomorrow it's going to get cold again. In the meantime, I keep getting startled when I open the door (to let the dog out, for example) and it feels so pleasant! Startled in a nice way, that is.

This week has been pretty busy. Here's what we've been doing:

Saturday: Seth was feeling fine all day on Friday so he went to swimming lessons as usual on Saturday morning. Frank took him to his lesson because I had arranged to take my two cub scout boys to Home Depot that morning for a kids' workshop. We just started working on an adventure where they are supposed to make two things out of wood--one fun thing and one useful thing. I was thrilled when I looked at Home Depot's website and discovered that they had a kids' workshop planned where they would be making a block calendar out of wood. Attending the workshop would fulfill the requirement to make one useful thing out of wood, and it was a lot easier to take my boys to the workshop than it would have been to figure out a project for them to do and to get all the materials and tools needed for the project. Besides, the workshop was free! Each of the boys got an apron and a pin for attending the workshop also. I wasn't sure what to expect, having never gone to one of these workshops before, and I was a little surprised to discover how many people came. My guess would be that there were at least 70 kids there!! They gave each child a kit to make the block calendar and all the tools and supplies we needed to put them together were there. I helped my two boys complete their projects and I think they both had fun.

Their "fun" project will be their Pinewood Derby cars, which they should have finished (or almost finished) by now since our Pinewood Derby is tonight.

Sunday: Our meeting time for church switched to 1:00, which is not my favorite time slot, but I had a good morning reading scriptures and the other materials to prepare for the lessons we were having that day. I had choir practice right before church also. For our first "council" in Relief Society, we had a really good discussion / council about visiting teaching. I think the changes in the curriculum are going to be awesome!!

Monday: Seth had school in the morning as usual, but since they were predicting we were going to get a "wintry mix" with icy roads in the afternoon, they decided to release school 3 hours early. I got a text message from the school district as well as emails from Seth's teacher, the school, and the school district but Seth, knowing that I've been having trouble getting text messages on my phone and that I hadn't been getting emails from the school for the last few months (that problem was finally solved on Sunday), was worried that I wouldn't know I needed to pick him up early, so his teacher let him call me. I got this funny voicemail from him on my phone because he actually didn't have his facts very clear and had no idea exactly what time school was getting out. Luckily, I did get all the other messages, so I knew exactly what to do. Anyway, before picking him up I was working on all the regular chores and I also went to the store to look at crochet patterns to see if I could find one for a scarf. I ended up getting some yarn and a couple of crochet books--one is a basic guide on how to crochet, with directions on how to do all of the basic stitches plus a lot of others and includes instructions for several projects. I thought it would be a nice reference to have since I'd like to do some more projects in the future. I did find a scarf pattern that I like too. I haven't had time to get started on the scarf project yet, though. Seth was supposed to have an orthodontist appointment on Monday afternoon but the orthodontist office decided to close early so I rescheduled that which I was happy to do since I'm not a fan of driving on icy roads and the office is about 25 minutes away. We just stayed home for the rest of the day except Frank & Seth did venture out for a little while to go to a friend's house to cut out Seth's Pinewood Derby car. (The friend has power tools that make the cutting easier.) We had family night, I worked on the puzzle some more, and our bishop called and asked me to give a talk on Sunday. My topic is "Consecrating Our Time to the Lord", which is an interesting topic and I still haven't figured out exactly where I'm going with that. I've been thinking and pondering about it all week and I've had a lot of thoughts. I even started getting a lot of those thoughts down on paper yesterday, but I'm still not sure how to organize it all into a coherent whole, or exactly which direction I want to take it. Hopefully I will get that figured out before Sunday!

I haven't had much time to work on the puzzle since Monday. Here is how it looked on Monday:

Here is how it looks now:

I'm hoping that someday I actually finish this thing, especially since I need my kitchen back. (The lighting in the kitchen is much better than in the living room, so we are putting it together in the kitchen.)

Tuesday: Since it was still super cold and none of the ice from the day before had a chance to melt, Frank & I expected school to be delayed on Tuesday and we were right. I had planned to go to the temple and wasn't sure that would still work but Frank was working in Frederick that day so he said he could pick up Seth from school if I didn't get home in time to pick him up myself. As it turned out, the traffic at 11:00 is much better than at 9:00, so I actually made it to the temple in time to go to the 12:00 session and was able to pick Seth up from school on my way home from the temple. It was really nice to be there again--I hadn't been able to be there since the beginning of December. I hope to go at least 2 times this month and at least 2 times next month, before the temple closes at the beginning of March for a couple of years. I'm going to miss being able to go there so much, although I am hoping that we can work things out to go to the Philadelphia temple on a monthly basis and we also plan to go to the temple when we are on trips to Utah or anywhere else that there is a temple (Hans, we might be visiting you a few times!!) Besides going to the temple, I got all the other usual chores done and Seth started painting his Pinewood Derby car. Frank had an EQ presidency meeting that evening too. We didn't have Cub Scouts because we have the Pinewood Derby tonight instead.

At the temple, the flag was flying half-mast for President Monson:

Seth working on his Pinewood Derby car. It's supposed to look like the Batmobile in one of the video games the boys play:

 
Wednesday: Mostly a usual day with religion class and other normal chores, but I also printed up award certificates for the Pinewood Derby, read several conference talks about consecration, helped Seth with his car, and in the evening I had book chat. We had a lively and interesting discussion about The Case for Christ (I mostly liked it except that he slammed the Book of Mormon at one point). Now we are reading The Scarlet Letter, which I read once but it was when I was in high school so I'm looking forward to reading it again. I'm sure I'll see some things in it that I didn't see 30+ years ago!

Thursday: Again, the usual things but I also made some cookies for Pinewood Derby refreshments, stopped at the storage unit to get out the box of Pinewood Derby decorations, and spent the afternoon wrestling to get my thoughts on paper for my talk. In the evening I went over to help my friend Renata--she had contacted me on Wednesday to see if I was available to stay with her kids while she went to a class about home & finance (she's trying to figure out if she can afford to stay in her home or will need to sell it) and then to her grief support group. I took Seth with me to play with her son Sammy and they all watched a movie together and then had fun playing. I could have used that time to work on my talk but it will all work out, right? Because I was trying to help someone who needed it? As it was, I did get to talk to Jared for a while, which was nice because I wanted to get caught up with him.

Friday: Today I am trying to get my usual chores done quickly so that I can spend some more time on my talk. I'm getting distracted by a lot of things, though, like talking to Scott (he called me while he was on his way to work). I did want to get caught up with him too, though, so I'm glad he called. I am almost done with the regular chores now. I'm planning to watch President Monson's funeral, which starts in a half hour. I have to leave only a half hour into it to go pick up Seth from school which is a bummer but there's nothing I can do about that. Hopefully I will only miss a little bit of the service. Then it is dinner time and on to the Pinewood Derby after that, so it's going to be a busy evening.

Frank is still coughing a LOT but in general he is getting better. It is just a slow process! He had his blood tested last week and his blood sugar levels are high (even though he takes medicine for that) so he needs to get an appointment for a check up. They are worried that he is pre-diabetic. I am hoping that he can get some help in figuring out some ways to lose weight (most kinds of exercise are not an option because of his knee) as well as some guidance on diet. I have been trying to find ways to eat healthier for quite some time, but I haven't made a lot of progress. It is one thing to know that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables and less of everything else, but translating that into actual meals--3 meals a day, seven days a week, and meals that we will actually want to eat--well, that's another thing altogether! I hope we can figure it out, though. I worry about his health and know he would feel a lot better if he weighed less. I could benefit from losing about 15 pounds myself. But first, he needs to make that appointment, which he hasn't got around to doing yet. He works so hard every day and it is hard for him to find the time to take care of himself.

That is all our news for this week.

Weekly Review January 5 '18

Well, here we go with 2018. IT. IS. COLD!!!! It is 14 degrees outside, and the wind is blowing. I am really thankful that I have a house, and a house with central heating!! Here's what we've been doing for the last week.

Saturday: Jared called in sick for work (he called Friday night, so they had some time to find someone else to work for him). That was his last day but they are keeping him as an employee so that he can go back to work there when he gets done with winter semester.
(He is just currently inactive, so they won't schedule him while he's gone.) We did get a little bit of snow that morning but not a lot and the roads weren't bad. Seth had swimming lessons that morning and I didn't have any trouble getting him there. He just started a new session and his teacher is a guy this time, which he likes. I got my hair done that day and did some Cub Scout planning, as well as helping Seth with some Cub Scout stuff and with some homework.

Sunday: I told Frank he should stay home from church. He still wasn't feeling well at all, and coughing like crazy. He listened to me & stayed home. The rest of us went to church. Tanner's throat started hurting a bit that day. Jared and Tanner both ended up going down to the temple that afternoon / evening. Jared was invited to go with Jessie and her family to see the lights and the nightly concert, which was some Chinese dancers. Tanner volunteered to help with directing traffic, because our ward was assigned to send two men to help with that and only one person had volunteered to do it. The other brother who volunteered gave Tanner a ride down there and back. It was really heroic of Tanner to volunteer because it was COLD!! Meanwhile, Frank rested, I started working on a jigsaw puzzle, and Seth built his Lego robot and started playing with it / programming it. The puzzle has turned out to be a bear. We still haven't managed to get the outer edge done, but we gave up on that for a while and started doing some of the inside. After five days, it looks like this:

Admittedly, I haven't had a lot of time to work on it but still...it's a hard puzzle. Here is a video of Seth with his robot:

Tanner and Jared both got back home by 10:00. We invited Jessie's family to come over when they got back so they came in and shared all the appetizers I had made for dinner and we talked and visited for a while. They are a really nice family! They left before midnight because they had a sick dog at home that they needed to check on. The boys and I stayed up until midnight to welcome the new year. Frank had gone to bed, but he was still sort of awake.

Monday: This was a really busy day for me. I did laundry and took down all the Christmas decorations. Taking down the decorations involved two trips to the storage unit--one to get the boxes and then another one to take the full boxes back. Jared came with me to help me and he also got out all of the boxes with his stuff so he could go through them and find the things he needed for college. So he had a really busy day too--he went through all of those boxes and took out what he needed, then helped me take all those boxes and the Christmas boxes back. It was super cold and windy, so not a lot of fun moving all those boxes from the house to the car to the storage unit! Jared also unpacked his suitcases (he hadn't done that completely since getting home) and put all the stuff he will need for his mission in one place so that he can find it easily when he is getting ready to go back, and re-packed his suitcases with some of his college stuff. So Jared had a busy day too! By the end of the day I was aching all over but all the Christmas stuff was put away and the house was much cleaner. (We vacuumed too.)

Tuesday: Tanner wasn't feeling well at all on Monday, so I called Tuesday morning to get him a doctor appointment. Jared was starting to feel better and he and Jessie had planned to go to lunch that day. She had an appointment in the morning and then her dad dropped her off at our house. She and Jared worked on the puzzle for a while and played some Mario Kart, and then they went to lunch. Jared took her partway home when they were done (they met her Dad halfway between here and her house...she lives about 30 minutes from here.) Meanwhile, Seth went back to school, Frank went back to work (even though he still wasn't feeling great) and I got all my regular Tuesday chores done. After I picked Seth up from school I took Tanner to the doctor. They took a strep test because his throat was a little red. He doesn't have strep, though, so the doctor gave him a prescription for an antibiotic that he could fill if he still didn't feel better in a few days. He didn't fill it before he left for Utah yesterday, but he may fill it when he gets out there. He still wasn't feeling very well when he left yesterday. He may just have a virus, though. That evening we had den meeting and afterwards I had Cub Committee meeting. For den meeting, I started working on an adventure with the Bears where they learn to use tools and they will make two things out of wood. For this den meeting, I had Jared come help me and we taught them safety rules and showed them how to use a saw, a screwdriver, a hammer, a measuring tape, and sandpaper. We had them wear safety goggles too. Here are a few pictures:

I have two Bears now. One of them turned 9 in November, and the other one turned 9 at the end of December. The other little boy that I have had for the last several months (mostly by himself) just turned 10 this week.

While the Bears were working with tools, the Webelos were working on this little engineering project:

They put a ball in the top and got it to land in a basket on the floor.

Wednesday: I got grocery shopping done and went to the religion class. I also worked on some Cub Scout stuff. Frank had called the doctor back on Tuesday because she told him to call back in a few days if he wasn't feeling a lot better and he wasn't feeling a lot better. They called in a new prescription for him so he picked that up Wednesday morning, as well as Seth's medicine which I had been trying to get refilled. After school, I had Seth work on his Pinewood Derby car--just design it. He is going to make one that looks like the Batmobile. This day was a little less busy and I worked on the puzzle a little bit. I also had to convince Tanner and Jared that they really needed to pack!

Thursday: We got going pretty early because Tanner & Jared needed to be at the airport by about 9:30 for their 11:20 flight. There was a possibility for snow in the morning so we had to get up early enough to allow us some extra travel time, in case the roads were bad. We did get about an inch of snow overnight and it was brutally cold. School was delayed 2 hours and then they decided to cancel it completely (probably because it was so cold, so they knew the snow and ice wasn't going to melt). Because school and a lot of governments were shut down or delayed, the traffic wasn't bad at all. The roads were pretty good too--a few slick spots, but once we got on the interstate they were completely clear. The only problem I had with the drive to the airport and back was keeping my windshield clean. The roads had been treated and a lot of salt, dirt and water was hitting the windshield. I had plenty of windshield wiper fluid (Frank and I had just filled it up on Monday) but the fluid had frozen in the lines so I couldn't get it to work. We stopped at one point at a gas station to get some hot water to pour on the place where the fluid comes out and we managed to get one side working but the other one only worked sporadically (mostly not at all) and of course it was the driver's side that wasn't working! But anyway, I got the boys to the airport in plenty of time and got home safely. I miss having Tanner & Jared here, but on the bright side--I had a lot less laundry to do on Thursday! The house seemed kind of quiet, even though Seth was home all day. Frank was at work all day, too. I got the regular chores done and worked on the puzzle some more. Last night at bedtime Seth started complaining that his head and stomach hurt, and then he threw up so we had him sleep in our room last night.

Today: Seth seems to be feeling a lot better today but I am keeping him home from school, just in case. So far he has had soda and crackers and hasn't had any trouble with that yet. School was delayed 2 hours today, probably because of the extreme wind chills and the roads are probably a bit icy. Seth's school gets out an hour early on Fridays so even if he went to school, he'd only be there for 3 1/2 hours. I doubt he is missing much! We are supposed to continue to have really frigid temperatures over the next couple of days. I think Tuesday is supposed to get up into the 40s, and that is going to feel really warm!!

2018 hasn't started out being very healthy for most of us, but I'm hoping that will change and that it will be a good year! :)

Weekly Review December 29 '17

Well, here goes my last weekly review post for 2017!

Here's what we did this week:

Saturday: It was a very busy day--making all the final preparations for Christmas! I did the final present wrapping and got out the nice dishes, candles, napkin rings, etc. for our Christmas Eve dinner. When Jared got off work, we all met him there to have a late lunch. Then the boys went shopping to get presents for each other while I got started on cookies. I made two batches of cookies and I also made a gingerbread house. (We had leftover supplies from our Cub Scout gingerbread house projects, so I decided to make one myself.) I have actually never made a gingerbread house before--just helped my kids or other kids make them. It was fun and I was happy with the way it turned out except for the roof. I had to make a flat roof because I couldn't get the roof pieces to stand up.

The boys enjoyed painting our traditional paintbrush cookies, but none of them wanted to decorate with frosting, so I ended up doing most of the frosted cookies myself. I used leftover gingerbread house icing on some of them, and they turned out nice. The paintbrush cookies turned out really yummy this year--just the right mixture of soft and chewy. I'm afraid that I have eaten far too many of them!!

By the time all the cookies were done, it was quite late and I was tired so I settled for just sweeping the kitchen floor instead of mopping it too.

Sunday: Christmas Eve! :) We went to church in the morning, of course. Jared and I had to be there early for a short choir practice so we could go over our songs that we were singing that day. We only had Sacrament Meeting and it was very nice with mostly a lot of beautiful music (and just a couple of short talks). The choir sang two songs, one of which Jared directed. Jared also directed the Seminary students for the song they sang and he sang in a men's trio for another song, so he was really busy!! The choir sang a version of Angles We Have Heard On High and another song called "That Silent Night". I really liked that song. The tune is an original composition, but parts of the tune of "Silent Night" are woven into the accompaniment (which includes piano and violin). The words to the song are beautiful!!! The whole time we were practicing, I kept thinking how much I loved the words but I tried not to think about them too much because if I did that, I would cry and it is hard to sing and cry at the same time. I managed to be pretty successful at not thinking too hard about the words, but when we did the actual performance, the words of the 3rd verse (especially starting with the 3rd line) just got to me and I ended up crying (and trying to sing) for the remainder of the song. I'm sure I didn't contribute too much to the musical beauty of the song, but I was definitely sincere! Here are the words to the song--I want to remember them!:

That Silent Night

Verse 1:
How I would love to kneel at the manger,
Touch His small hand and look on  His face.
Angels above would sing a chorus
Wise men would follow a star to that place.
Mary would sing Him a sweet lullaby,
Peaceful, gentle, soft as a sigh
Joseph would give her his cloak for a shawl,
filled with care for his family so small.

Verse 2:
What would I bring to give to the baby?
Wood for a fire to warm the night's chill
Oil for a lamp to light the darkness,
Wool for a coat from the sheep on the hill.
Mary would sing Him a sweet lullaby,
Peaceful, gentle, soft as a sigh
Joseph would giver her his cloak for a shawl,
filled with care for his family so small.

Would I have looked to the heavens?
Would I have seen the star?
Would I have followed the wise men
bringing their gifts from afar?
Oh, holy, silent, holy night, Ah, silent night

Verse 3:
I was not there that night in the stable
I did not see His bed on the hay,
Yet I believe my King, my Savior
came to the world on that holy day
Bethlehem baby now grown as a man,
Patient, lowly, meek as a lamb
Son of the Father who walked among men,
Healer, Redeemer, who loves without end,
The Babe in the manger,
my Savior, my Friend.

After church ended, we visited for a little while with others, wishing them a Merry Christmas before we came home. Frank was not feeling well at all on Sunday. After he went to the doctor earlier in the week, he improved slightly but by late Saturday he was feeling even worse than before. So after church he tried to go to the doctor. However, even though the recording at the office said the walk in sick clinic was open until 4:00 pm, it was closed when he got there (around 1:00 pm). Jared went to his friend Jessie's house after church and spent the afternoon with her and her family. I spent the afternoon making our Christmas Even dinner. We had invited the Elders to join us. Everything turned out really nice. Here is everyone ready to eat:

(Here's one without Seth trying to put food in his mouth):

Yummy food!!:

After dinner we watched the Joy to the World DVD (which includes music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and recitations of the scriptures from Luke, Matthew, and 3 Nephi). Then the boys each got to open a present, including the Elders. We got each of them a mug with hot chocolate, a cookie pop, and a tie. One of them opened his mug and the other one opened his cookie pop. They saved the ties for Christmas day, but we did get a text message from them on Christmas saying how much they liked the ties.

After the Elders went home, we quickly got ready for bed and Frank and I got the stockings and other Santa things ready, which didn't take very long because I had already done a lot of the stocking stuff, and Santa doesn't bring many gifts anymore. We were happy to get to bed after a long day!

Christmas: To my surprise, Tanner was the first one up (he is not a morning person)! He actually woke me up. We later found out that he had set an alarm--we told him we wanted them to get up around 7:30, and he took us seriously!! At any rate, it took a while to get Jared up but we finally made it downstairs to open presents. Everyone seemed to be happy with what they got. We spent the day playing with new toys, reading new books, taking naps (Tanner took two!), playing games, and generally relaxing and enjoying the day. Oh, and we all ate a lot of yummy but not very healthy stuff! A few pictures:

Remember those blankets I've been working on all year? One of them was for Tanner. Each row represents one of the days in the last year of his mission, and the color of the row reflects the high temperature for that day. Here is Tanner in his blanket. Jared is wearing the shirt that Seth gave him.
The other blanket I made was for Scott. We got to Skype with him on Christmas night and he had his blanket on and he said it was the best present he got this year! (I sent the blanket out to Utah with some friends who were driving out there, and they got it to him sometime on Christmas Day.)

Seth got a lot of Legos, as usual, and he spent a good part of the day putting together three different sets. This one is a Joker car (from the Lego Batman Movie).

Snickers isn't sure what to make of everything, but he did enjoy the treats we gave him.

The Christmas salt & pepper set that I got. I'm trying not to get a lot of new sets, but I actually don't have a lot of good Christmas sets and this one is so cute!!

Here's my stash. A lot of books, as you can see. I also got a shawl /wrap thing and an Ancestry DNA kit, which I forgot to put in the picture. Jared got me the watch. The two small round tins are from Seth. One is scented lip balm and the other is a scented candle. He made them at school. When I opened them, I asked him if he made them and his response was "Yes, we made them on craft day and I didn't want them so I decided to give them to you." Well gee, thanks Seth! :)

Most of Seth's gifts. He had a couple more Lego sets that he was already building at this point. His wish list is always exclusively Legos! This year we got him some of the Legos on his list, but Frank and I also discussed getting him a few things he didn't ask for that we thought he would like--hoping to encourage him to expand his interests a little bit! So we talked about other things we thought he would like and ended up getting him a blank comic book (he gets to create his own comic strip in it). He also likes music and Jared has an iPod shuffle he is no longer using so we had Jared put a bunch of music on that--CDs we already have like Lion King, Lilo & Stitch, Veggie Tales, Star Wars, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.--and we got him some headphones to go with it. The nice thing about the Ipod Shuffle is that it only plays music. No internet access or apps or anything like that. The other thing we talked about doing was getting him some sort of robotics / coding kit. That one kind of backfired on us, though, because when we looked at robotics kits, the one we thought would be the best ended up being a Lego robotics kit. Whoops!! :) On a whim, I also got Seth a white dress shirt, new dark blue dress pants, and two ties and to my surprise he was really happy when he opened those. He had mentioned once recently that he would like to have a white shirt and a tie (the dress shirt he's been wearing to church the last year or so is blue plaid, and no tie) but I really didn't think he'd care that much about them. He actually cheered when he saw what was in that package, though!

Now Seth is putting together a Batmobile set.

Hans & Griffin sent us this yummy chocolate dipped fruit! They also got us a game and a 3-D puzzle.

Tanner taking one of his naps under his new blanket.

Seth reading one of the books that Grandma & Grandpa sent him.

I read some of my new books too, but I also finished reading the book we are reading for book chat (The Case for Christ).

Frank was feeling somewhat better on Monday, which we were grateful for. I didn't get any pictures of his gifts. He only got a few small things because he already got a 3-D printer last month. He got a few ties and the crock pot in my gift picture was also partly for him. He gets to get a few Kindle books too.

I also didn't get any pictures of the older boys' gifts. Besides the blanket, Tanner got some fun socks, some winter gloves, and a hoodie. He also got some money so that he can buy some more clothes. Jared got warm clothes (including a coat) so that he won't freeze when he gets to Idaho and a smart watch. Both he and Tanner got gift cards and all four of my boys got a copy of a photo book I made for them which includes all the portraits we had taken of them over the years. All in all, it was a nice Christmas!

The rest of the week: It has been a relaxing week overall, with no school or activities. Frank took the week off work also. Jared was supposed to work every day but Monday but on Wednesday they took him off the schedule because of some sort of training that was going on and Thursday and Friday he ended up calling in sick. So he only ended up working on Tuesday. I'm not sure yet if he will make it to work tomorrow. He still isn't feeling well. He never did get totally better after he went to the doctor last time, although he improved somewhat for a while. He went back to the doctor yesterday and the nasal infection he had still hasn't cleared up. It turns out that he wasn't taking the medicine they gave him last time correctly--he was supposed to take two capsules twice a day, but he thought it was only one capsule twice a day. That meant some of the bacteria were getting killed, but the rest of them were developing a resistance to the antibiotic, which is why he started getting worse again. Now he is on a different antibiotic and he made sure he read the label carefully this time! He just started taking that yesterday, though, so it hasn't started to have much of an effect yet.

Meanwhile, Frank seemed to feel a little better for a few days (which is why he didn't go to the doctor on Tuesday) but by yesterday he was coughing even worse than before and feeling worse again, so I convinced him to go back to the doctor today. It turns out that his sinus infection has not cleared up completely but now he also has full blown bronchitis. The doctor said his lungs sound terrible. She called in 3 different prescriptions for him and she also told him to get 3 different over the counter medications and to start drinking a lot of juice. So this evening I went with him to the store to get all of that stuff, plus a few more things that we needed. Hopefully all this medicine will start working soon and he will start feeling better.

It hasn't all been sickness this week. On Tuesday we all went to see Star Wars : The Last Jedi. Frank and Jared had already seen it, but Tanner, Seth and I had not. I was surprised at how much I liked it! We had a fun time. Jared went ice skating with Jessie on Wednesday evening and last night he and Tanner went to a wedding reception for a girl in our stake that they are friends with. She went to the same school as they did and she and Tanner really liked each other when they were little. (He's not heartbroken though!) On Wednesday Jared and Seth also got haircuts. Seth has homework to work on over the break and he did a little bit of that every day. This afternoon he went to play with the carpool boys at their house. I have been doing all the usual chores (laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping never go away!) but I enjoyed not having long lists of Christmas preparations to do as well. I did a lot of reading and playing games and puzzles and relaxing. It's been nice.

It has definitely turned winter here. It rained a bunch on Saturday but now it is really cold. We might get a little bit of snow tomorrow. We saw a few snow flurries one other day too. (Can't remember which day that was, now.) Yesterday it was absolutely frigid and today, with a high in the 30s, felt warm by comparison. They say we are going to have more really frigid temperatures going into January. Well, it's that time of year, I guess! On a happy note, we get a few extra minutes of daylight each day now so we are working our way toward warmer days.

That's everything we have to report. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!