Weekly Review March 30 '18

This week was calmer. At least, we didn't get any snowstorms! Here is what we did:

Saturday: Seth had swimming lessons as usual. It was mostly a normal Saturday, except Frank took Seth to get his hair cut. His hair looks a lot better now, but it still sticks up a lot, no matter what we do. I always tell him that he has "Harry Potter hair".

Sunday: Wow, I am really not remembering what we did over the weekend! I know we kept busy, but there is not a lot listed in my planner. I had choir practice before church as usual, and the choir sang in Sacrament Meeting that day. I guess it was just a nice relaxing Sunday because I can't remember much about it.

Monday: The new cookbooks arrived so I spent some time looking through them. There are a lot of good recipes in there and I am looking forward to trying a lot of new things. I still haven't looked through them as thoroughly as I would like to do. My friend who had gall bladder surgery last week has had a really rough recovery so I took her kids to school in the mornings and picked them up after school every day except Wednesday (she had another friend who helped her that day). Their dad gets home from work about 4:30 so they were only here for an hour or less most days. Maybe  you'll remember from a while back that I have been reading a book about kids with ADHD and other problems that might be able to help Seth with some of his symptoms. I finally finished preparing to do the assessments on him on Monday so after family night that evening I started doing the assessments with him. I only did a few of them and I have a lot more to do so it will take us a week or two to get through them all. I was going to do some more with him on Wednesday but he was kind of having a meltdown that night so I decided to wait and do them another time!

Tuesday: This was a fairly busy day, with all the usual things plus I gathered up supplies for den meeting and worked on the hat that I've been crocheting. I worked on it on Wednesday too and it is all done except for the band and the bow. It actually looks like a hat!! I need to take a picture of it, but I haven't done that yet.

Wednesday: I enjoyed going to my religion class again after missing two weeks (one for a field trip and last week we didn't meet because of the snow storm). Between the class and going shopping for groceries, Wednesdays always go by really fast.

Thursday: I planned this day to be another indexing / temple / family history day. I did some indexing and read a lot in a book I have about temple symbols. It was really nice and I still managed to get all the other regular chores done afterwards. I also had to return books to the library that day and since a brand new building just opened a few weeks ago in Walkersville (just north of us) I went to that branch so that I could see the new building. It is really nice--about 5 times bigger than the old building (which was tiny) with nice big windows, comfortable chairs to sit in, and even a big fireplace. There are lots of cool things for the kids to play on it the kid's section, too. I noticed that the community room is named after someone I know! He's in our stake and he was assigned to be the high councilman for our ward for a while back when I was RS president. He worked somewhere high up in the library system and he just retired recently. I think it's nice they named a room after him!

Friday: Today there is no school. We're on "spring break". They only get today and Monday off this year and the weather is still not very spring like. Yesterday was actually quite nice and today hasn't been bad either although the last time I went out I noticed the temperature had dropped quite a bit. We might get some snow showers on Monday. So much for spring break! Anyway, today was going to be super crazy but ended up being a little less crazy than I thought. My ukulele class ended up getting postponed, which helped. My friend Renata needed someone to watch her kids last minute this morning so they came over here for about an hour. Then I took Seth to play at his friend Krish's house. He is still there--won't be home until 5:00. I got the budget done mostly while Renata's kids were here. When I got back from dropping off Seth, I finished the budget and then swept & mopped the kitchen floor. (I usually do that on Saturdays, but I know tomorrow will be busy because of General Conference.) Then I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. We used to go to lunch about once a month but since she got a job working for the school district at lunch time, we haven't been able to do that very often anymore. It occurred to me yesterday that she would be off work for spring break, so I texted her and we got things set up to go to lunch today. I really haven't been able to talk to her much for months, so it was nice to get caught up. Frank is picking up Sam now to bring him here for the weekend. He can't drive himself down here because yesterday someone wrecked his car. He was at lunch and when he came back out, his car was all bashed up. So whoever hit his car didn't even stick around! Hopefully they will catch whoever it was.

As you can see, there wasn't a lot going on this week but that was definitely nice for a change! Just a few notes about some of the other things that are going on, though. Frank applied for several positions at work and he has interviews for 2 of them this week. Most of the other people in his group got chosen to interview for only 1 position, and at least one of them didn't get any interviews. So that is really not looking so great. Hopefully he will get one of those 2 positions! I think everything will work out somehow, but it's a bit stressful right now. I think more stressful for Frank than for me.

We've had quite a bit of rain this week. It's raining right now, actually. Overall, it's been a bit on the chilly side and the coming week looks about the same. I will be happy when things warm up a bit! I saw on the weather channel yesterday that the first few days of March were above average for our area but the rest of the month of March every day has been below average. We actually had a higher average temperature in February this year than we did in March! Most of the trees are not budding yet. Hopefully spring will come some day!

I am happy to announce that after exercising diligently for over 2 years, that on Monday I finally got down to my "ideal weight" (at least, according to the Wii). I'm not sure if all the exercise finally paid off, or if drinking a lot more water helped, or if cutting back on my carbs is what finally did the trick (maybe all three?), but whatever the reason I am glad to be there! Hopefully I can maintain it. I definitely still have extra fat on me, but I have made some progress and that feels good. Frank seems to have hit a bit of a plateau with his weight the last week or two but he has definitely lost a lot of weight in the last few months. I'm sure as he continues to exercise and eat well that he will continue to lose weight.

We've spent quite a bit of time over the last week trying to figure out what bed we are going to buy for Jared's bedroom. Last week I thought we were going to buy a bunk bed with a futon on the bottom but when I went and looked at those options closer, I discovered that all of those bunk beds were more for kids and the wouldn't hold up the weight of a couple of average adults. Now I think we are going to go with a daybed that pulls out to full size but the one we want to get hasn't been in stock. Frank's parents are going to be here next weekend so hopefully we'll figure something out before then.

That's all the news I can think of. I didn't take any pictures this week. We're glad Dad is doing a little better. We will keep praying for him!!

Weekly Review March 23 '18

It's been an interesting week. Here's the summary.

Friday: When I wrote last week, we had a couple of kids here playing and we were getting ready to go to Pack Meeting. The little girl who was here enjoyed playing with Snickers, and she put a bunch of kerchiefs and his Halloween costume on him, all at the same time:

He looks like he's being tortured...haha! After they left, we made dinner and I also made a fruit tray for part of the refreshments for Pack Meeting:

It's supposed to look like a rainbow, with a "cloud" (marshmallows) on one end and "gold" (rolo candies) on the other end--in honor of St. Patrick's Day. My tray wasn't big enough though (or I used too much fruit) so my rainbow doesn't really look like a rainbow. I think it still looked pretty and no one seemed to mind, though--it got all eaten up. Frank was picking up a member of the Elder's Quorum to take him to a Book of Mormon class that the Elders have been doing on Friday nights at the church so he was going to meet us at the church later for the rest of Pack Meeting. Shortly before we were going to leave, though, Seth started feeling sick so I ended up going to Pack Meeting alone. For the meeting, we passed out some flyers in one neighborhood advertising a lawn aeration fundraiser that the Scouts are doing. (This fundraiser helps pay for Cub Scout Day Camp as well as for Scout Camp, so the Cub Scouts always help with the flyers.) After that, we met back at the church to hand out awards, play a game, and eat refreshments. A couple of other families brought green rice crispy treats and St. Patrick's Day sugar cookies. Frank was at the church already (for the Book of Mormon class) so he joined me for a while. The kids really enjoyed the game, which was basically knocking down towers made out of cups using Angry Birds beanbags. I was sorry that Seth missed it!:

Meanwhile, after I left home, Seth did throw up but he did his usual thing--threw up once and then seemed to be fine. By the time we got home from Pack Meeting, he was asking if he could eat crackers and he never got sick after that. I don't know why he does that; it's really weird. I need to start keeping track of what he eats right before that happens to see if I can discover any kind of pattern.

Saturday: Seth had swimming lessons as usual in the morning, followed by the shower / Cub Scouts / homework routine, and my usual cleaning of the kitchen floor. I can't remember what else I did that day besides work on our taxes, which are basically done. We just aren't going to file them until closer to the deadline, since we have to pay this year. We took Seth out to dinner that night and we went to a buffet place which was a mistake because both Frank and I ate more than we should have! Neither of us felt very well that evening. I was fine the next day, but Frank either had some kind of a bug or he really threw his system off because he really felt ill all night and a lot of Sunday. He didn't sleep much on Saturday night at all, so he ended up staying home all day on Sunday.

Sunday: Seth came with me to choir practice before church. After church, we had corned beef and cabbage for dinner which was good but I didn't feel very well again after eating. We spent the evening reading and relaxing.

Monday: That morning I met with two other moms in our ward who have boys Seth's age so we could plan to do some things together to help them complete all the requirements for the Arrow of Light. I talked to Seth's den leader a few months ago about getting his Arrow of Light done and his den leader said he didn't think he'd have time to do everything with Seth that he needed to do. The trouble is, some of the things he needs really have to be done as a den. It occurred to me that these two moms also might want their sons to earn the Arrow of Light and if so, we could get our sons together to do the things they need to do as a den. When I checked with them, they did want their sons to earn the Arrow of Light so we just needed to get together to plan what we are going to do. We figured out what we want to do and picked a few dates to get our boys together to complete the things they need to do. Other than that, it was mostly a usual day with chores and family night that evening.

Tuesday: Happy first day of spring! (Not really!) They were predicting a big snow storm to come in that day but since it didn't come early in the morning, Seth had school that morning as usual. He hadn't been at school very long before the snow started coming down, though. The snow seemed to come in bands, with snow coming down very heavily at times and then tapering off or even stopping completely at other times. When it was coming down heavily, the flakes were also HUGE! So it didn't take long for a couple of inches of snow to accumulate. By around 11:00 they had decided to close school 2 hours early. Frank had gone down to his office that morning and down there it was raining, not snowing. He left the office early though, and got home in time to pick up Seth from school. It snowed off and on all day and we probably ended up with about 6 inches of snow. Den meetings were cancelled that night because Frederick City's snow emergency plan had gone into effect and when that happens we have to cancel church activities. I got all the usual chores done that day and took a lot of pictures of the snow coming down, trying to capture some of the huge snow flakes on film. Here's a few of the pictures I took:

Just starting to come down--a truck came and dumped salt on the road.

We have some paint cans in the middle of the deck.

You can see a couple of large, blurry snowflakes in this picture.

The car and lawn are more covered now. (Taken about an hour and a half after the first picture.)

Snow is sticking to the roads.

You can see the difference in the amount of snow on the table from earlier--over an inch has fallen in less than 2 hours.

A couple more large flakes can be seen in this picture.

It was coming down hard!

My poor little daffodils.

Now the paint cans are half buried.  (Taken about 2 hours after the first picture of the cans.)

Snow coming down around 12:30. More big flakes.

More snow has accumulated on the table. (Around 3:30)

Wednesday: No school this day. There hadn't been time to plow all the parking lots / sidewalks from the day before, but besides that we were supposed to get "round 2" of the storm, which was supposed to bring another 6 to 10 inches of snow. That half of the storm kind of fizzled and we didn't end up getting that much but we did get 2 or 3 more inches so we ended up with around 8 or 9 inches in the end. Seth had a big project about Ancient Egypt due at school this week so it was actually kind of a blessing that school got cancelled because he had more time to work on his project. We spent Wednesday morning working on his project and cleaning his room also. He even agreed to give up a few toys that he isn't playing with anymore! We didn't do a completely thorough cleaning--there's still a lot I'd like to do in there--but it was a start. I did some other random cleaning / tidying things, Frank took me to Walmart to do the regular shopping (the roads really weren't too bad), and I worked on a hat that I am crocheting. I've been wanting to make the hat for a while and I was having trouble figuring out how to get it started but I finally figured it out on Tuesday evening so now I am well on my way. I took this picture of my progress a few days ago, but I've made quite a bit more progress since then:

It will hopefully look like this when I am done:

Here's the deck on Wednesday--you can see quite a bit more snow. That's as far as I could open the door.

In the late afternoon, Frank picked up the missionaries and took them to a couple of ward members' houses to shovel their snow. I took Seth outside to go sledding. It was still snowing but the flakes were tiny so you really can't tell in the pictures:

He loved how the snow stuck together so well. (It was very wet, heavy snow.)

Proof that I went outside!!

The Monocacy River in winter...um, I mean spring!

Trying to build a snowman.

Thursday: There was no school again, which means we just used up all our snow days. Hopefully we won't be having any more snow storms this year though! Since the kids were out of school, we decided to get the three boys together who are working on their Arrow of Light. We originally planned to meet this coming Tuesday night, but decided to do it yesterday instead. Everyone came to our house, which was nice for us. We were able to get through all the things that we wanted to do. Other than that, it was mostly a normal day with the usual chores except Seth was here. We worked on his project some more and basically finished it--he just has to type up his report at school, which he started doing today. I also worked on the Personal Property Tax return for the business, and mostly got it done. I went online and found a few good cookbooks specifically for people with diabetes and ordered those. I also did some online shopping for a bed for the upstairs bedroom. We want something the boys can use when they are home but we also want the option of using their room as a guest room. I think we are probably going to get a bunk bed that has a twin bed on top and a futon that folds out into a full size bed on the bottom. That way, when married people visit they have a bed to sleep in but when one of the boys is home he can sit on the futon to read / study / etc. and sleep in the top bunk. The room is pretty small, so I really didn't want to get a bunk bed that has a full size bed on the bottom all the time. It would make the room really cramped. We haven't ordered anything yet, but we will probably do that soon.

Friday: Today the kids went back to school! I spent the morning updating the budget. Frank and I went to lunch together. This afternoon when I picked up Seth from school I also picked up the same kids that I picked up last week. When their mom went to the doctor last week, she found out that she had to get her gall bladder removed right away, so she had surgery for that yesterday. I took her daughter over to another ward member's house (someone who has girls for her to play with!) and then brought her son here to play with Seth. They are having a good time. Yesterday and today have both been in the 40s so a lot of snow has melted but there is still quite a bit out there.

My daffodils were completely buried! This is how they looked this morning. Now there is a lot less snow in the front yard--most of the grass is showing and there isn't any snow around the daffodils anymore.

The snow was pretty when it first fell, but now I am ready for it to go away! Normally I would be super grumpy about getting a big snow storm the third week of March, but since we had such a mild winter this year with hardly any snow, I just figured we were overdue for some bad weather. Plus it made Frank so happy to get some snow! I am looking forward to the 50 degree weather that we are supposed to be getting next week though. Come on, spring!

Frank and I are still exercising every day and  I practice the ukulele most days too. We are doing well sticking with our healthier diet most of the time although we sometimes have bad days (like visiting the buffet place on Saturday!) These are the kinds of things I eat for breakfast these days:

These are both recipes we got from the dietitian. The top one is called "loaded breakfast sandwich" and the bottom one is called "breakfast pizza". They are both really yummy and very quick to make. I particularly like the breakfast pizza, which tastes like a really fresh & healthy pizza since it has fresh tomato and fresh spinach on it. (The crust is a whole wheat English muffin, and there is basil and oregano sprinkled into the egg which adds a lot of flavor.) The breakfast sandwich probably looks more traditional but it also has vegetables on it in addition to the egg and cheese. Yummy! I'm excited to get the cookbooks and to try some more new things.

Tonight Frank is going to see the new Pacific Rim movie and Sam is coming to spend the night also. We haven't seen him in a while so it will be nice to have him here. That's all of our news.

Weekly Review March 16 '18

Time is flying. It's hard to believe that March is half over already! We had quite a bit going on this week. Here it goes:

Friday: That evening, Frank went to see Black Panther with a couple of other guys in the ward. He really enjoyed that.

Saturday: This was a very busy day. Our neighbor showed up early to start painting the bedroom. Frank took Seth to swimming lessons because I had a RS activity to go to. It was a brunch to celebrate the birthday of RS. The theme was "Bloom Where You're Planted" and there was a nice message about that in addition to the brunch, which included lots of yummy food. After the brunch, I went straight to the hair salon to get my hair cut and colored. By the time I got home from that, it was mid afternoon. After eating some lunch, I took Seth to see an art exhibit. We were doing this to pass off a requirement for one of his adventures in Cub Scouts. It was a fun art exhibit--several artists had painted benches, and they had the benches set up in a room to look sort of like a garden, with green plastic for grass and gray paper for walkways and even a blue plastic "pond". Seth seemed to enjoy it and hopefully he gained a greater appreciation for art! The benches were painted on all sides and some of the artists did some really cool things on the sides and back of the benches. Here are a few pictures:

This bench represents Maryland. I got a picture of the front, the back, the side, and a close up of the seat:

Here is the front of back of the this peacock themed bench:

Seth recognized this bench was inspired by a Van Gogh painting because he did a homework assignment a few months ago using the "Starry Night" painting:

This was Seth's favorite bench, and one of my favorites too:

I thought this bench was pretty clever:

This one was pretty simple, but I like simplicity:

Beautiful garden themed bench:

I only got one side of each of these benches:

I liked the details on the side of this bench. (The front is nice, too.):

Most of the artists were there and were selling some of their products (paintings, jewelry, textiles, etc.) and there was some pretty cool stuff but we didn't buy anything.

While I was running around doing all that stuff, our neighbor was working on the bedroom. He sanded down all the walls really well (basically fixed all the mistakes I made with patching!) and then primed the whole room.

Besides all of the places I went on Saturday, I also cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, practiced the song for Sacrament Meeting, and worked on our taxes (basically finished our federal return). We have to pay a lot of taxes this year--boo! It's okay, though, because we set aside a lot throughout the year to cover taxes. I knew we were probably going to have to pay this year because our income was quite a higher than the year before--mostly because Frank missed a couple of months of work the year before (after his accident) and the business also didn't earn as much the year before (at least partly because he wasn't doing as much the couple of months after his accident.) So not only was our income higher, but our estimated tax payments were lower. It will all work out, though.

Sunday: I had a practice for the song that morning and then went right from there to choir practice. I think our song went really well--I was happy with the way it turned out, and I am grateful I had the chance to sing that hymn (More Holiness Give Me) over and over because the words started to sink into my heart. I wouldn't say it was one of my favorite hymns before, but now it is! When we got home from church, we discovered that Snickers had thrown up a few times and he threw up a couple more times after we got home. He hadn't been eating that morning either and in general he was acting like he just didn't feel very well. That was definitely a cause for concern! He didn't throw up anymore after that but he really didn't eat much on Monday or Tuesday but by late Tuesday he started to perk up and on Wednesday he started to eat normally again. He seems to be fine now. I'm glad he got better and that we didn't have to take him back to the vet! Anyway, back to Sunday--there was a fireside that night for adults about protecting our children from technology. It was presented by a guy in our stake who is a police officer and works on the Maryland task force for the Internet Crimes Against Children. Frank and I had been planning to go to it, but we decided it probably wasn't a good idea to leave Seth alone with a sick dog, so I went to the fireside and Frank stayed home with Seth and Snickers. The fireside had a lot of helpful information but was also sobering and disturbing. It focused mostly on protecting children from predators online (including through apps that they use). My overall feeling leaving there was that I don't want to ever give Seth a phone or let him use the internet! Actually, I'm not as worried about predators as I am about things like pornography. It's just kind of overwhelming sometimes how much junk is out there. I did get some good information about things to do to help protect him, though, which was the point of the fireside.

Monday: This was mostly a normal day with the usual chores, but I kept very busy anyway. One thing I did out of the ordinary is I went to the store to get paint for the upstairs bedroom. We decided we wanted to paint it the same color as the living room and upstairs hall, and we had a small amount of that paint leftover from when we painted the living room so I took that can in to the store so they could match the color. Our neighbor came that afternoon / evening and painted all the walls of the bedroom. He does such a neat professional job. I'm sure if I had painted it would not have looked anywhere near that good!

Tuesday: Another busy day. I did all the usual things but I also did some of Wednesday's chores--I went shopping at WalMart and Seth helped me dust. That is because I was going to be gone a lot on Wednesday so I knew I'd be a lot less stressed on Wednesday if I got a few things done early. We did not have den meetings that evening because we have Pack Meeting tonight, and that helped--gave me some extra time to get the shopping done. Our neighbor came over again for a few hours that afternoon / evening and painted all the trim in the bedroom.

Wednesday: I had volunteered to help in Seth's class that day. They were doing some special activities for "Pii Day" and they also had a field trip to the library. So I went in with Seth at 9:00 and didn't leave the school until 2:00. We did the "Pii Day" activities first, and for that part I was helping the kids make some pies. Another parent came in as well. The kids were divided into five groups and they rotated through different activities, one of which was making pies. By the time we were done with all the rotations, we had made a chocolate cream pie, a banana cream pie, a key lime pie, and 2 batches of baklava cups. Most of the pies had to set in the refrigerator for an hour or so. After we finished the Pii Day activities, we went to the library. His school is a few miles from the library, so we walked to the library and back. The walk would have been a lot more pleasant if it hadn't been about 34 degrees with a stiff wind blowing--brrrrrr!! It wasn't too bad, though. The trip back to the school seemed worse; I think the wind was blowing into our faces more when we were walking that direction. Anyway, at the library the kids looked for books for some research projects they are doing (Seth is working on Ancient Egypt, and we did find a few more books for him). They also were supposed to find one book to read that they had never read before and that they could read in a week. Next week, they will each present their book and explain why they liked it or why they didn't like it. After we got back from the library, we had lunch and then ate the pies we made earlier.

Seth eating lunch (I had to keep reminding him to eat, instead of talk!):

The pies we made:

In addition to the pies we made that day, they had made a raspberry cheesecake the day before. I opted to eat a piece of that one! (Frank doesn't like raspberries so I don't get the chance to eat things with raspberries very often.) It was really good, too. Our neighbor came over that afternoon for a few minutes to do a few touch ups on the bedroom, so now it is done. It looks so much better! (if you ignore the junk in the middle of the room):

Once we get the furniture moved back into this room and get the downstairs bedroom cleaned out, our neighbor is going to paint that room for us, too.

On Wednesday evening I got a few of Thursday's chores done because I had a plan for Thursday and wanted to have a lot of free time. I also got a few extra mending things done (like sewing on buttons and minor repairs to clothes).

Thursday: My plan for Thursday was to have a "temple day". The Washington DC temple is closed now and won't be open for a couple of years. I did a lot of thinking about what I could do to make up for the fact that I can't go to the temple as often. (We are hoping to go to the Philadelphia temple about once a month, but I usually go to the temple more often than that.) One of the things I really appreciate about going to the temple is that it takes me away from the world (and my "to do" list) for a couple of hours. I usually go to the temple first thing in the morning and don't worry about getting anything else done until I get back. I pick what day I am going to go and I don't let anything interfere with that plan (if at all possible--illness and weather sometimes interferes.) So I decided that while the temple is closed, I am going to schedule a day every couple of weeks where I set aside about 4 or 5 hours (the time it takes for a temple trip) to work on family history, do indexing, learn about the temple, etc. I did have some other things to do that day, but I had my "temple time" first. And just like when I go to the temple, all the other things got done somehow. For this first day, I read the first chapter in a book I got for Christmas about temple symbols, I did some indexing and read a little bit about some of my ancestors, and I read some scriptures about the temple. I also read through the first chapter of the manual for the temple preparation class. I put on some inspirational church music too. It wasn't as nice as going to the temple, but it was still pretty nice.

On Thursday evening we went to a place here in Frederick called the Earth Space Science Lab. It's kind of mini science museum with lots of displays and hands on exhibits (including some small animals), a small observatory, and a theater where they have shows that they project onto the ceiling. We saw a show about the National Parks and then they also did a projection of the night sky onto the ceiling to show us what constellations we can see this time of year. Seth really enjoyed looking at all the exhibits and didn't want to go when it was time to go.

An iguana

Looking at a horseshoe crab

Friday: Today has been pretty busy too. I got the budget done and went to ukulele class. After class the other student and the teacher and I all went to lunch together. They both wanted to hear about the fireside I went to on Sunday, so we discussed that. When I picked up Seth from school, I brought two other kids in the ward home with me. (Their mom had a doctor appointment). They are having a fun time playing right now, but they will be going home soon and then we will be getting dinner made and getting ready for Pack Meeting.

Other stuff: Frank has been working from home all week because he had training all week and it could all be done remotely. We are both exercising every day still and watching what we eat, and seeing good results. I tried to start crocheting a hat, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to do it. Hopefully I will figure it out, though! I have a friend who is going through chemotherapy right now, so if I can create a decent hat, I want to send it to her.

That is all I can think of to report and I need to make dinner and get some treats ready for Pack Meeting so I'd better post this and get those things done.