Weekly Review December 28 '18

Wow, it's almost 2019! We had a pretty busy week. Here's what we've been doing:

Saturday: Frank was still working on the computer emergency for one of his clients and he had to work onsite for several hours, so he was gone until afternoon. We had a beautiful sunrise that morning and I enjoyed some quiet time reading the Book of Mormon next to the Christmas tree:

I kept busy that day sweeping & mopping the kitchen floor, making cookies, taking Seth to the library, and doing some last-minute present wrapping. That evening, I met with my self reliance group and we went through 2 chapters, so we only have one chapter left. We didn't meet this week so we have a couple more weeks to meet in January.

Sunday: I'm not sure where the morning went except I slept late because I was awake in the night for a few hours. The Christmas program turned out BEAUTIFUL--I was very happy about that! We had two congregational hymns, the Primary children sang a song, the choir sang a song, there was a piano solo and a violin / piano duet, and a men's quartet sang a song. Our bishop had the idea to ask someone who was participating in each musical number take a few minutes before the number to introduce it and to talk about the meaning of the words. I think that really added to the spiritual power of the music. It was just perfect. Sunday was a little difficult, however, because I missed my boys. So many people had family visiting and all the college kids were home except ours. It just kind of hit me all of the sudden and I had a bad moment at the beginning of the meeting but after that I was okay and enjoyed the rest of the meeting. After church Seth and I watched a DVD of one of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concerts (the one with the candy bomber) which was awesome. (Although once again...they sang "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas"...that hurt a little!) One of our ministering brothers brought us treats and so did another family in the ward. We have WAY too many sweet things in the house still. Poor Frank! But it was nice of them to think of us!

Monday: This was the first Christmas Eve in ages that I wasn't run, run, running all day to get everything done. I'm not sure how I managed it this year, but all the presents were wrapped and all the treats were made already. (I guess partly because I didn't have to do most of the wrapping for my older 3 boys. I had most of their gifts sent directly to Amy's house and Maddie wrapped all their gifts. THANK YOU, Maddie!!) All I had to do was decorate some cookies (Frank and Seth helped) and prepare Christmas Eve dinner (including pulling out all the nice dishes, napkins, etc.) I had chosen things for dinner that didn't take a lot of preparation time so that helped too. We did the regular laundry and vacuuming chores also. We had a few groceries to buy but Frank and I were smart about that. We decided to go to the store as soon as we woke up that morning...which ended up being at 6:00 am. So guess what? It may have been the day before Christmas, but the store was not crowded at all! We invited the missionaries over for Christmas Eve dinner and we enjoyed having them here. All the food turned out to be delicious and the oven worked too, thank goodness!! After dinner, we let Seth open one present and we had some small presents for the Elders too. (Seth chose to open the present Grandma sent him, which was a Halo Mega Blocks set, and he LOVES it!):

One of the Elders had popped a bicycle tire on the way to our house so Frank had to go rescue them and after dinner we stored their bicycles in our shed and Frank drove them to the next couple of places they needed to go. After Frank got back, we watched the Joy to the World DVD (which includes music and the scriptural accounts of the birth of Christ). Then we got the stockings and Santa stuff ready and then we went to bed.

The star's on the tree, so it's Christmas Eve!

Oh, and Seth said the prayer that night and really tickled us when he said "Tomorrow help us to have a nice day celebrating the birth of the Savior and help us to remember the true meaning of Christmas and to not be blinded by gifts and toys." (He usually rattles off the same 3 or 4 lines when we ask him to pray, so it was great that he was really thinking about what he wanted to say this time!)

Tuesday: I woke up in the night for a while again but finally went back to sleep. Seth woke up about 6:30, so that is when we got up. We opened presents first and we all received nice things and everyone was happy. I took about a million photos of Seth opening presents:

It cracks me up that Snickers happened to show up in the photo with the "Dog Pile" game:

And now Snickers is photo bombing:

These are books he really wanted (Wings of Fire series):

"Why did you get me a book about church history, Mom?" (He'll thank me someday!):

He even looks happy about pajamas!:

Here are a few photos of Frank:

He was complaining a few weeks ago that a lot of our larger spoons had disappeared, so I got him a bunch of new ones. The funny thing is, Frank often gets me serving spoons or spatulas or other kitchen utensils for Christmas and birthday gifts and it's kind of become a joke over the years. But this year he didn't think to get me anything like that, so HE was the one who got the spoons!:

Even Snickers got some special dog treats and he is waiting in great anticipation for Frank to give him one:

No one ever takes pictures of me, but here is a photo of all my gifts:

Then we had some breakfast and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Seth had new books to read and new games to play and one new movie to watch and a Lego set and a Mega Blocks set to put together:

 I also got to talk to Mom for a little while and we all had a Skype call with Scott, Tanner & Jared. Just seeing these faces made my day!:

  
We feel really blessed that we had such a nice Christmas!

Wednesday: Frank had work to do for clients again. I spent the day getting caught up on two days' worth of chores since I took Tuesday off. I also did some online training for my Arc job and started preparing my Primary lesson. I did brain balance with Seth too, but that's the only day this week we managed to do that.

Thursday: I ended up walking the dog for the family in our ward again at lunch time because the teenager in our ward who's watching the dog couldn't do it. I was actually kind of happy to be asked because I really like that dog and I kind of miss her! She is so sweet! I had some shopping to do and I took Seth with me because he needs some new church pants (he is getting so tall!) We didn't find anything, though, so we'll have to keep looking. Frank was going to come to the store with us too but the Elders texted him and needed to come pick up their bikes so he stayed home to help them. That evening I was invited to Jessie's house for dinner and to participate in a planning session for the wedding. (It was a girl thing; that's why it was just me who was invited.) It was fun, and I have a better idea of what Jessie wants for the reception now. Jessie's mom had invited a couple of other women besides me over--friends of hers--who are going to be helping with all the plans. From Jessie's house, I went straight to the church to go to a practice for a song. I have been organizing a small group of women to sing a song in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday. None of us had ever sung it before (it's new--just published in the Ensign this month) so we had to "start from scratch" to learn it. The song is very pretty but a little tricky with the tune and the rhythm. After putting in an hour of practice, we feel pretty good about it but it is definitely a song that you can't relax--you really have to pay attention or you'll make a mistake! We are going to meet again Sunday before church to go over it again. While I was out all evening doing those two things, Seth and Frank went to see a movie (a Spiderman movie--I'm not even sure what the name of it is) and then they got some pizza for dinner. They used some of the movie tickets that some nice person left on our doorstep for us. Originally, we had planned to all go to a movie together tonight but Seth really wanted to see the Spiderman movie and I wanted to see Crimes of Grindelwald, so we decided to have Seth see that with Frank on Thursday and then Frank and I were going to go see Crimes of Grindelwald and go out to eat tonight. However, when we checked the movie listings today we discovered that Crimes of Grindelwald isn't in the theaters anymore. There wasn't really anything else I wanted to see (besides Mary Poppins Returns) and Frank isn't feeling well today (and actually I'm not feeling great either) so we decided to save the movie tickets for later, when something else we really want to see comes out. Frank thinks he isn't feeling well at least partly because he's been eating more carbs this week (hard to avoid at Christmas!) and eating out is another situation where it is hard to avoid carbs so I decided eating at home would be a better idea. We had a really yummy broccoli casserole, too!

Friday: Okay, I guess half of the last paragraph was really about today. It has been raining all day today. Frank did some more work for clients. I updated the budget and did some wedding related tasks. I didn't sleep well again last night so I got up late and don't feel like I got as much done as I could have. I got all the special dishes and other Christmas kitchen items put away (but I won't do all the decorations until New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.) I made some phone calls that needed to be made too, and I exercised--the only day I missed this week was Christmas day.

I did have more free time this week than I usually do and I enjoyed watching episodes of Downton Abbey and of Call the Midwife. (I hardly ever watch television.) One of the main characters in Call the Midwife died unexpectedly and I was just sobbing watching that episode! (I know, that's so silly!!! It's not real!!) I really enjoy that show, though. It's a good one.

Now it is getting late and I am going to go put on my new pajamas and enjoy some relaxing time. My new pajamas are very soft and comfortable and I have to force myself to get dressed every morning! :)

Everyone have a Happy New Year!

Weekly Review December 21 '18

Mother Nature has really been confused this year. Today is the first day of winter and it is 63 degrees!! (I am NOT complaining about that!) Here is a photo from the first day of spring, back in March:

Now here is a photo from today, the first day of winter:

It was sunny a lot of today, but now it is raining and the temperature is supposed to be back down into the 40s tomorrow (which still isn't bad, considering it's December). We actually had a lot of rain this week. It was another busy week but I think I am ALMOST all ready for Christmas. Tomorrow I need to make some cookies and wrap a few more presents, but I think that's it! :) Here's what we did this week:

Sunday: Seth had an appointment with the bishop for his priesthood / temple recommend interview. We are still adjusting to the idea that he is going into YM in a few weeks, instead of in 5 months as we had anticipated. I'm still not positive he will be ordained right away because he is still trying to get used to the idea! Seth's first comment when we told him about the changes was "but I can't get the priesthood yet! I haven't finished my Faith in God!" (We've been working on that a lot lately and he is close to being done.) We've talked about it more since then and we thought he understood and was okay with it (and our bishop told him he has until his birthday to finish Faith in God), but just tonight when we were talking about it he said he wanted to wait until February or March. So we'll see. I don't see the need to rush him, but if he is going to wait, I would like it to be for a good reason. I think he will just need some time to think it all over. We had church and I had choir as usual. My Primary class really liked the treats I gave them! After church I met with my self reliance group. We are meeting again tomorrow and hoping to get through the last 3 chapters, since we are not meeting next week.

Monday: I thought I was going to work on Monday, but the lady I assist texted me on Sunday evening and said she couldn't meet this week because she was helping some family members. Then she texted me on Wednesday to let me know she'll be out of town next week, so I won't work again until January. I did do some online training on Monday and again on Thursday (which I get paid for). I also had another job this week--dog sitting. To my surprise, on Sunday a member of our ward (that I don't even know very well) texted me to ask if I could dog sit for them. They hired a teenager in the ward to dog sit and then realized that she would be at school during the day times. So they just needed someone to go over every day in the morning and again at noon to take their dog out, plus be a back up in case the teenager had things come up. I have no idea why they thought to ask me, but I was happy to do it and their dog is really sweet. They left on Tuesday, so I went over on Monday to pick up a house key, meet the dog, and get some basic instructions. Frank came with me, since I knew he may need to take out the dog sometimes. (I wanted to be free to pick up a substitute job if a good one came up.) Anyway, on Monday I also did some work for my music calling and contacted sisters I minister to and all the regular Monday chores, so it ended up being pretty busy. That evening Seth talked us into taking him to the library to pick up some books he had put on hold, and then we had family night. They had a lot of Christmas lights up in downtown Frederick (where the library is) and they looked pretty cool (picture doesn't do it justice):

Tuesday: This was mostly a normal Tuesday, besides my three trips to walk the dog. (The teenager had a doctor appointment after school, so I went an extra time). We also had a guy come look at the oven to see if we could get it fixed. He couldn't find anything wrong with it--it worked fine for him, of course!! Which didn't surprise me too much, since it often works for us too. He did say, though, that he's seen a lot of ovens like ours have trouble when the storage drawer underneath is full--the pans bang around in there and that seems to cause the oven to short out. So we are going to be more careful about opening and closing the drawer (and we also removed one pan) and see what happens. For that sage advice, we paid $99, but it will be worth it if we don't have any more trouble with the oven.

Wednesday: They needed more parent chaperones for Seth's class trip to the library so I signed up to help with that, last minute. Frank did the lunch time dog walking for me, since I was gone on the trip. I enjoyed it, but I was really tired afterwards! (They walk to the library because it is only a mile or two from their school.) I started noticing on Wednesday that my legs were really sore--like I'd been exercising muscles that I don't usually use. I'm not sure why, but I think it is from the dog walking! Now, I jog 5 times a week normally so it's not like I never use my leg muscles! But I think because this dog is a lot bigger and heavier than our dog that I have to brace my legs when she starts walking really fast. I am mostly feeling it in my calves, shins, and feet (on top). Kind of funny! At any rate, between that and walking to the library and back (and just being on my feet for most of the day--I went grocery shopping too) I was really wiped out by Wednesday evening! Frank took Seth to scouts and back, which I appreciated. One of the members of our bishopric showed up that evening and he brought us some gift cards from the ward, to help us out with Christmas. We didn't ask for help, but we appreciate that they thought of us and it will help us out later on. We are grateful!

Thursday: I did all the usual chores, plus a lot of present wrapping (and dog walking too, of course). I got one more package sent to Utah for the older boys--one thing that I ordered for them didn't get here in time to send with the first package. I was rushing to get the box ready to mail shortly before I had to leave to pick up Seth from school (I wanted to mail it on the way home). I was putting the last piece of tape on the box and the tape ran out right as I finished:

I was so grateful that I had just enough! After dinner I started making buckeye candy--I made the filling and rolled them into balls. Then I let them sit overnight to firm up. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I was busy all day. Frank ended up spending most of the day helping a client with a computer emergency, which involved traveling to work onsite, and this client is about 90 minutes away. Plus the traffic was terrible. So it was his turn to be wiped out in the evening.

Friday: Today was one of those days where I feel like it took me twice as long to get anything done because I kept getting interrupted, but I am finally finishing up my "to do" list for the day. I walked the dog three times today, too, because the teenager had an after school activity. (Today was my last day walking the dog. I really enjoyed walking her!) Look how cute she is! (Her name is Sadie):

The weather was so nice today that I took our dog on a walk too!

 Besides that, I ran to the store to get a few last minute Christmas things, took Seth's old coat (which I washed yesterday) to my friend Renata because her son Sammy will fit in it, wrapped a few more presents, and updated the budget. I also finished the buckeyes (dipped them in chocolate), with a lot of help from Frank. This was Seth's last day of school for 2018 and they had pajama day and did a lot of fun crafts. Frank was busy all morning and into the afternoon doing work for clients and he is still working on the aftermath of the computer emergency for one of his clients.

Besides all of that, I exercised every day and we did brain balance. I didn't make a lot of headway with A Christmas Carol because I've been more interested in another book I'm reading, but I'm almost done with it now so then I will focus on A Christmas Carol. I have really enjoyed what I've read so far and it is quite short so I'm sure I'll finish it soon. Seth is really into a series of books he is reading right now called Wings of Fire (something to do with dragons). He has been reading them voraciously and he's in the 7th book in the series. I told him we were going to be stuck in The Long Winter forever (that winter is even longer than it should have been!) so I wouldn't let him read anything in Wings of Fire each day until we read one chapter in The Long Winter. So we've read a chapter each day and we only have 4 or 5 chapters left now. And speaking of reading--I am going to finish the Book of Mormon today! (I only have 2 chapters left). Even if President Nelson hadn't asked us to read the Book of Mormon between General Conference and the end of the year, I would have done it anyway because a few weeks before General Conference, at our Stake Conference, our stake president asked us to read at least 20 minutes in the Book of Mormon each day so I started doing that. I've found that for me, 20 minutes usually means 3 chapters (give or take--depending on the chapter length) and guess what? You can get through the Book of Mormon pretty quickly if you read 3 chapters a day. (Previous to Stake Conference, I was reading 1 chapter each day.) So anyway, I've been reading 20 minutes each day and I'm actually finishing early. (But I'll keep reading 20 minutes a day because our stake president didn't put a time limit on it.)

One other exciting thing that happened this week is I randomly decided to try on my wedding ring and it fits again! (It hasn't fit for years--I couldn't get it over my knuckle.) I guess my knuckle shrunk. It's nice to be able to wear the real thing again, instead of the fake ones I've been wearing.

I've communicated with the older boys a bit this week and both Tanner and Jared are done with finals now. Hopefully they passed all their classes. Thank you to all you Utah folks for taking them in for Christmas--they are looking forward to spending time with all of you!!

That's all I can think of to report. Everyone have a wonderful Christmas--we love you!!

Weekly Review December 15 '18

I'm late getting this week's review done because the last couple of days have been insanely busy. Actually, the entire week has been pretty busy. I guess that is par for the course this time of year. Here's the details:

Friday: Last Friday I left off saying that I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done, and that is what I did--a lot of online shopping. The internet sure does make Christmas shopping a lot easier! For my older boys, I had all of their gifts sent to Amy, who graciously agreed to wrap them for me.

Saturday: I had a headache and wasn't feeling too well but I still got a lot done. I cleaned the kitchen floor, finished preparing my Primary lesson, did more Christmas shopping, finished getting all the Christmas cards ready to mail (and mailed them), worked on some things for the Christmas Sacrament Meeting program, and worked on my time sheet for my job at the Arc. (In addition to putting in the hours I worked, I have to include progress notes describing what we did each day, so that can take some time.) Saturday was also the annual Museums by Candlelight event, which I always like to attend but Seth didn't really want to go. I probably would have gone by myself, but since I was so busy and I wasn't feeling really well I decided to let it go. However, Seth did want to go to the library and it just so happens that the library is one of the participating locations for Museums by Candlelight, so by going to the library I did kind of sneak in a trip to one of the locations! They just had a few displays at the library, including a large display of dolls, which I enjoyed seeing. My self reliance group was supposed to meet that evening also but the one member of the group got mixed up and thought we were meeting on Sunday instead so he didn't show up. I really didn't mind have 2 extra hours to work on something else, though! I mentioned I wasn't feeling really well but Frank REALLY wasn't feeling well on Saturday. He had a headache too, and an upset stomach and chills.

Sunday: Mostly the usual things--choir practice, church, choosing hymns for the following week, etc. Frank was still feeling really sick, but he dragged himself to his missionary correlation meeting and to church. He did decide to go home after taking the sacrament, though, and he took a nap. The missionaries came over for dinner after church.

Monday: Normally I work on Mondays, but the lady I work with couldn't do it that day. When I found out I wasn't working (she texted me Sunday night), I added a bunch of things to my "to do" list. I did get everything done, but didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I did some more Christmas shopping, worked on a project for Christmas, and did some online training for my Arc job. I also contacted some of the sisters I minister to, worked on some things for my music calling, and made some doctor appointments (routine). Along with that, I did all the other Monday chores (laundry, grocery shopping, vacuuming) so I was going all day long. Frank was starting to feel a bit better on Monday, thankfully. For family night activity we watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". One of my favorite Christmas shows! ("Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe, just maybe it means something more.")

Tuesday: This was mostly a normal day but I also went to lunch with my friend Rebekah, did some indexing / family history, and prepared all the gifts for our traditional 12 Days of Christmas secret service project. We debated a little bit about doing that this year, since we're on a limited budget, but we decided that we didn't want to give up this tradition so we just scaled it down a bit from what we've been doing the last few years. I'm grateful we were still able to do this! That evening Frank had a ministering visit and I went to our monthly RS meeting. We just got together at the house of one of the RS counselors and visited and ate treats (everyone brought their favorite snack to share). It was relaxing and fun and I'm glad I went.

Wednesday: I try to check to see if there are any substitute jobs available on a fairly regular basis. When I checked Wednesday morning, I discovered that there was a job available at Seth's school that afternoon, so I signed up to do it. In the morning I did some grocery shopping which included getting a couple of things for my friend Wanda and dropping them off to her. (She's in a nursing home and it's hard for her to get out.) I had to miss my religion class to do the substitute teaching job but I felt like I needed to take that opportunity to work, especially since I didn't work on Monday. This time I was working in the middle school, which was slightly terrifying but everything went okay. After school was dismissed, I took Seth to the library to get a book that he had put on hold. Seth had 11 year old scouts that evening but Frank took him over and picked him up, which gave me time to do some more Christmas shopping and to finish that project I've been working on for Christmas.

Thursday: I did work on Thursday. I also had an appointment to get my hair done that evening. In between, I got the regular chores done. (Frank helped me a lot by keeping the laundry going while I was gone to work). While I was getting my hair done, Frank took Seth to get pizza for dinner and then they delivered the 12 Days of Christmas box (and they didn't get caught!).

Friday: Seth had a 2 hour early dismissal from school. I wanted to get some packages mailed to the older 3 boys on Friday but first I had to make candy and cookies to go into the packages. I didn't have any trouble with the first batch of candy, but then I discovered that I didn't have one of the ingredients for the second batch, so I had to go to the store. Frank came with me, and we ended up doing more Christmas shopping and we took a lot more time than we should have. Then when I started making cookies the oven chose that moment to quit working again so we had to use the roaster oven to make the cookies and it took about 10 times longer than it would have if the regular oven had only been working! In between all of that, we also raked & mulched leaves again and got a package ready to send to Amy with all the stuff for the boys' Christmas stockings, plus one gift for each of them (the project I've been working on). Frank got the package mailed to Amy, but I wasn't able to get the other packages mailed because the cookies took too long. After dinner we took Seth out to buy a new coat because earlier this week he mentioned that his coat was feeling tight. I took a close look at him and realized that the sleeves were way too short. Then I checked the coat size--it's a size 8! Well, no wonder it was too tight! I didn't realize how long it had been since we bought Seth a new coat. We definitely got our money's worth for that one. We had to go to a couple of places, but we did find him a nice coat for a good price. After we got back from the store, I worked on the budget until nearly 11:00 and decided I would not be able to finish it that night. I admit I was feeling kind of upset and overwhelmed at that point--just so much to do! I'm also feeling sad that we won't have the older boys with us for Christmas this year. People keep asking me when they are coming home and that hurts!

Saturday: I might as well cover today, as long as I am at it. It is after 11:00 and I am finally finishing my long list of things I needed to do today. Frank was gone all morning / afternoon doing work for a client. After he got home, he did more work for them remotely so he had a busy day. Meanwhile, I got my time sheet updated and submitted for the Arc because the pay period ended today. Then I got the packages for the boys ready to mail and made treat plates to give to my Primary class tomorrow. Seth came with me to help me mail them and we also went to the library again because we had some things to return. Then I took Seth home and stayed home long enough to get some beans soaking (for dinner) and to eat some lunch before I left to do some more Christmas shopping. (I think I am finally done now!!) The stores were incredibly crowded with really long lines, of course. After I got back from shopping, I made dinner and prepared my Primary lesson. After dinner I cleaned the kitchen floor and finished updating the budget. While I was making dinner, Seth threw up! But after that he felt better and he ate some crackers and drank some ginger ale and he seemed to be feeling fine by bedtime. Hopefully he will be fine in the morning too. After we got Seth to bed, I was finally able to get this post written. So that was our crazy week!

We did manage to fit in brain balance and exercising this week and I have read a little bit of A Christmas Carol. Seth and I read a little bit of The Long Winter, but he had a book from the library that he was really interested in reading so we didn't read together as much.

Good news from Frank's interview from last week--they contacted him a few days ago and said they've narrowed down the candidates to the top five, and he is in the top five. They are deciding if they are going to do another round of interviews. He should get an update from them sometime this week.

It started raining yesterday afternoon and it hasn't stopped. It's supposed to rain all night and into tomorrow, too. I keep thinking how much snow we'd be getting if it were colder! I'm glad it's not cold, though. It would be nice to have some snow for Christmas, but I'm okay without it.

I've probably forgotten something, but that's all I can think of and I need to go to bed! I'll just finish with a few photos of some of our outside decorations, as well as one photo of the chaos in the wrapping room as I was trying to get packages ready to mail:

Weekly Review December 7 '18

I'll start out with two things that I forgot to mention from last week. (I use my calendar to help me remember what we did each week when I'm writing these posts, but not all of Frank's & Seth's events end up on my calendar so I often forget to mention them! I also often forget things that happen if they aren't major and aren't connected to a task or event on my calendar.) The first thing I forgot is that last Friday when we got back from getting all the decorations from the storage unit, we found an envelope inside our screen door with our name on it and inside were some movie tickets and gift cards to a local restaurant. Obviously, whoever left it there wanted to do it anonymously, so we'll never know who it was but we are grateful! Such a nice thing to do for us. :) The second thing I forgot to mention is that Frank had a couple of phone interviews last week with a couple of different places. He already knows he didn't get one of the jobs, but the other place set him up to have an interview in person this week.

Now on to this week! I did spend all of Friday evening setting up Christmas decorations. Frank wasn't feeling very well and Seth was more interested in video games, so I did almost all of the decorations myself. It took a long time and I was up pretty late, but I got everything done (with a few exceptions) and our house looks all festive now. I added some writing onto the ornament I purchased for this year to personalize it, so now it looks like this:

Saturday: This day was really busy. Seth had an 11 year old scout activity in the morning (they made breakfast) and that evening our ward had their Christmas party. Frank helped cook all the meat for the Christmas party, so he was basically gone all day. I picked Seth up from his activity and took him to Walmart to spend his allowance (he got a Lego set, of course--a small one). I also finished a few Christmas decorating items that I hadn't finished the night before (a few outside decorations and getting out the Christmas salt & pepper shakers), finished preparing my Primary lesson, read through a bunch of orientation information I got from the Arc at my intake meeting, figured out what books I was going to recommend for book chat (it was my turn to do that this month), made our contribution for the ward Christmas party dinner (sour cream potatoes) and made dinner for one of my ministering sister's families because she just had a baby the previous Monday (the 26th). I actually misjudged the time it was going to take to make the food and ended up taking Seth and our meal contribution over to the church and then coming back home to finish and deliver the meal for my ministering sister's family. Then I went back to the church for the party and thankfully there was some food left when I got there! The theme this year was "Christmas Around the World" and it was really nice. All the tables and the trees had traditional Christmas decorations on them, but they also had little flags from lots of different countries. They had decor from lots of countries on the walls, too. It's hard to describe (I wish I'd taken photos!) but it looked fantastic!

Sunday: This day was also busy because I had choir before church and my self reliance group met after church; then we listened to the 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional after I got home. (It was wonderful!)

I was fasting for a number of things that day, and one thing I want to remember. I was starting my work for the Arc on Monday morning and for some reason I was feeling really anxious about it. Mostly just because I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do and I wanted to do a good job. So in my fast, I included a plea that I would be able to be calm and at peace about my new job and that request was definitely answered. By the time church ended, I noticed that my anxious feelings had been completely replaced with a calm feeling, and that feeling continued into Monday when I actually went to work. It's kind of a little thing, I know, but it made a big difference to me!

Monday: So I as I mentioned, I worked on Monday. I work directly with an adult with a developmental disability, but other than that I can't say much because I need to protect her privacy. But I can say that she is lovely to work with and I really enjoyed my time with her. Really, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this! So I feel really fortunate to have this job. We worked it out that I will be working with her for 4 hours each Monday and Thursday. It is nice to have a predictable schedule too. Other than working, Monday was a pretty average day and somehow all the regular things I do on Mondays got done even though I had 4 less hours to do them. How does that happen? I'm just grateful that it does. One of the things I did was to pick up some books I had put on hold at the library (suggestions for book chat) and I was shocked when they told me they were due December 26th. Wait a minute...is Christmas really that close??! It kind of put me in panic mode. For some reason I thought I had plenty of time until Christmas!! I haven't even started shopping yet!! That was a wake up call that I needed!

Tuesday: Mostly Tuesday was a normal day but I did take some time to prepare for my next self reliance meeting and that evening I had book chat. We had a great discussion about Okay for Now (everyone else loved it too--you should really read it!) and, happily, everyone liked my suggestions for next month too. I decided to go with Christmas books and we chose to read A Christmas Carol and 4 other Christmas stories by Charles Dickens.

Wednesday: Frank was gone most of the day because he volunteered to work a shift at the church storehouse. He had to be there at 8:30 but it's over an hour away and he was going to have to contend with rush hour traffic to get there, so he actually left at 6:00 am. The shift was supposed to go until 12:30 but they got done a little early so he was home by about 1:45. Meanwhile, I got Seth to school (where he had a field trip to the library) and did all the usual things I need to do on Wednesdays including going to the religion class. That evening our ward was singing a song at the town of Walkersville's Christmas tree lighting. As the music chair, I had been in charge of finding someone to lead us (I just asked our choir director) and helping choose what song we would sing. Seth decided he didn't want to go and Frank was exhausted from his day at the storehouse, so I represented our family. We had a large group of ward members show up to sing and actually it sounded really good! I really felt the spirit while we were singing. Several other churches performed musical numbers also. It was really sweet. Then at the end, Santa Claus arrived riding on a big fire truck with sirens blaring. It was pretty cool and I wished that Seth had come because he would have loved it! I tried getting a few photos of the fire trucks, but they didn't come out very well:

Thursday: Frank had his interview that morning and he feels like it went pretty well. We'll see what happens. I worked again that morning and then when I got home, Jessie's mom came over so we could discuss plans for the wedding and figure out who is going to do what. That was a good meeting and they will be great to work with, and now I have a few assignments to start working on. And again, all of the usual Thursday work somehow got done too!

Friday: So far today I have been working on the budget which is mostly done. My main goal for the rest of the day is to get some Christmas shopping done!

In between everything else, I've been working on getting Christmas cards ready to mail and I'm almost done with those. We've done well with exercising and brain balance this week. Seth and I haven't had much time to read together, though. I did pretty well with my goal to go to bed and get up at regular times. I did better with the getting up part than with the going to bed part (went to bed later than I wanted a couple of nights). I didn't sleep well on Sunday and Monday nights but since then I've been doing much better.

We caught another mouse this week. Ugh!! After we caught the mouse on Thanksgiving, we decided we'd better set another trap to see if there were any more. The trap sat there empty for nearly 2 weeks and I was thinking there must not be any more (I was happy about that!) and I was going to tell Frank he might as well remove the trap. But then on Wednesday when I was home by myself, I heard a noise and I thought it kind of sounded like the mouse trap snapping but I didn't really think that's what it was and I forgot about it until later, when I went down to the laundry room to get food out of the freezer. Then I remembered, so I checked the trap. The lighting wasn't very good but I could see that the trap was actually flipped over, and it looked like maybe something dark was attached to it, so I called Frank to come look at it and sure enough--it was a mouse. So he disposed of the mouse and set two more traps. We'll see what happens. We wish we could figure out how they are getting in so we could block it! It's got to be in the basement somewhere.

And on that "exciting" note, I will end our review for this week.

Weekly Review November 30 '18

I don't think there is a lot to write about this week although I kept really busy. Here's some of what we did each day:

Saturday: Frank's parents left in the morning and Sam left shortly after they did, too. Frank was gone pretty much all day, doing work for a client, so we went from having six people in the house to just Seth and I! I kept busy all day doing things like writing our annual Christmas letter, ordering Christmas cards, finishing up my Primary lesson, cleaning the kitchen floor, writing a letter that Jared needed for his financial aid, and practicing the ukulele.

Sunday: I worked on Faith in God with Seth and started preparing my Primary lesson for this week. I had choir practice before church and after church I met with my self reliance group. We also sat with Wanda in Sacrament Meeting and afterwards things got a little crazy because the person who was supposed to help her right after Sacrament Meeting forgot and I couldn't find any of her other helpers so I ended up taking her to the restroom myself. I was feeling frazzled because I was supposed to be teaching my Primary class and I couldn't be two places at once! A member of the Primary presidency had to come looking for me but I finally made it to my class and the lesson went well. For my self reliance group, one of the guys decided he can't continue so we just have one class member, plus the other facilitator and I. This week, the guy in charge of the self reliance initiative for our stake came to visit and he stayed for about half of the class. It was nice to have another person there.

Monday: I had an appointment to meet the lady I will be working with in my job at the Arc. Just as I was getting ready to leave, the school nurse called and said that Seth had thrown up! (Frank had just dropped him off at school about 15 minutes earlier!) Thankfully, Frank was able to go pick him up so that I could go to my appointment. The lady I'll be working with is very sweet and friendly; I think I will really enjoy working with her. Seth spent the day on the couch but didn't seem to feel very bad. He never threw up again and he was drinking ginger ale and eating crackers by afternoon. So that was really weird, but we're glad he didn't get really sick. Meanwhile, I had a busy day with lots of errands to run like picking up medicine for Snickers, picking up the Christmas cards I ordered, returning library books, and some grocery shopping (plus the usual household chores). That evening we had a Skype call with Tanner, since it was his birthday, and then we had family night.

Tuesday: I woke up later than I usually do so I felt like I was running behind all day. Seth had to wait 24 hours from when he threw up to go back to school, so he went in about 30 minutes late. I decided that morning that Snickers really needed a bath, so I gave him a bath. I also visited Wanda to drop off some things she had asked me to get for her at the store, did a couple of things for my music calling, and all the usual chores, which filled up my day. I also helped Seth work on his Cyber Chip for Scouts and started working on some online training for both my Arc job and the my substitute teacher job. Frank had some work to do for a client that evening which ended up taking a lot more time than he anticipated so he didn't get home until nearly 2:00 am.

Wednesday:  I finished my online training for the Arc that morning. Then I stopped by Wanda's place to trim her bangs for her and then went to the religion class. Afterwards I got shopping done at Walmart and picked up Seth's prescription. Frank picked Seth up from school, which was a big help since I was running late. That evening I finished the online training for my substitute teaching job and also filled out a bunch of paperwork for the Arc. Scott called me too. Seth had 11 year old scouts; Frank took him to that because he was asked to set up some background music for our ward Christmas party (which is tomorrow) so he wanted to test some things out at the church.

Thursday: That morning I had my intake meeting with the Arc, so I am officially hired now and I will start working on Monday. Seth's class had their monthly "Literary Tea" that day, and I had signed up to send in some snacks for that so I got those ready that morning too. Between the intake meeting and all they usual chores, I was busy all day. Frank was gone doing work for clients almost all day too. In the afternoon I did a little bit of indexing and I finished reading my book about temple symbols--that was my "temple time". In the evening I looked over the new curriculum for Primary next year and it is fantastic! I am really excited about it. Thursday was really cold and really windy!!

Friday: Today has gone by fast. Frank and I raked and mulched all the leaves in the back and front yards. The leaf blower makes that job a lot easier! I'm glad we got that done in the morning because it rained this afternoon (even though there was only a 15% chance of rain today). I got the budget caught up and then we picked Seth up at school and went straight from there to the storage unit to take back the camp oven and roaster oven and to pick up all the Christmas decorations. (The oven is working fine again.) After we got home, Seth went to play with the carpool boys for a while. I went shopping in search of a Christmas tree ornament to represent this year. We didn't end up buying one while we were on vacation but I wanted to find one that was kind of Mexican themed to represent our "Remember Me" family reunion. I had to go to a couple of places, but I did find something that will work:

After I got home we made dinner and Frank picked up Seth; my friend Renata's son, Sammy, came over right when they got home and he is still here now. Frank just set up the Christmas tree and I'm planning to spend the rest of the evening putting up Christmas decorations.

We did better with exercising and brain balance this week. I have set a goal to go to bed and get up at consistent times every day because I feel like I will sleep better if I do that, plus I need to be on a more regular schedule so that I can do substitute teaching when the opportunity arises. I will be working at the Arc on Monday and on either Thursday or Friday each week, so I might be able to substitute on some of the other days. Seth and I are over half way through reading The Long Winter, the next book in the Little House on the Prairie series.

That's all we have to report this week; I will just end with a few sunrise photos from this week:

Weekly Review November 23 '18

 It's been another busy week. I'm going to write about this week in categories too.

Frank's parents visiting: We've enjoyed having Frank's parents with us all this week. On Monday and Tuesday they did a lot of genealogy research. They also took Frank & I to a Chinese buffet for lunch on Tuesday. Snickers has been spoiled too because they have taken him on a couple of walks! Right now, Frank's dad is helping him pull some cables for one of his clients. (Sam is helping too.) They will be heading back home tomorrow morning. We're so glad they could be here with us this week!

Self Reliance: We had our 4th meeting on Saturday evening, so we are a third of the way through! One of our group members hasn't been able to make it to the last two meetings, but hopefully he will be able to start coming again. We've had some good discussions and I am reminded that this really is an inspired program. Really good stuff!

Church callings: I still don't have a team teacher for my Primary class, but the Primary president has been asking someone to come in to help me each week. One of my boys had a birthday this week, so we had brownies to celebrate on Sunday. One of the girls came this week and she can be a handful so it was a little crazy but overall it was okay. I'm still working on the Christmas program, but it is coming together. I just need a few people to respond to my emails!

Faith in God: I've been working on Faith in God with Seth, and he has completed all the activities except for one. His 11 year old scout leader is going to do that one with the boys, though. All he has left to do is to learn all the Articles of Faith. We're currently working on number 6.

Watching kids: My friend Renata needed some help with her kids this week so we had her son Sammy over to play for a few hours on Monday evening and then we had both Sammy and his sister, Maddie, over on Tuesday evening from 7:30 to about 11:30. Renata was picking up her mother and sisters from the bus station in Baltimore. There was an accident on the freeway so the bus was very late!! Both of the kids were sleeping by the time she got back to pick them up. (As a matter of fact, everyone was sleeping by then except me.

Seth's school project: All the kids in Seth's class have been working on projects about Native American tribes. He and another boy in his class, Levi, did a project about the Navajo tribe. On Wednesday, they had a Native American "museum" where all the kids displayed and presented their projects. Then they had a "potlatch" lunch. Seth and Levi had signed up to bring Navajo fry bread for their contribution, so we had Levi over here after school on Tuesday so they could make the fry bread together. I was wondering how it would turn out since we've never made that before, but they actually turned out great and it wasn't very hard to make. It did take some time, though, and they also had to put together a display board so by the time Levi left, we only had a few minutes until Sammy and Maddie arrived. So it was kind of a crazy evening! Here is a picture of Levi and Seth mixing up the dough for the fry bread (it was Levi's turn to stir):

I wanted to get more pictures of the process of making the fry bread, but I got too busy and then I forgot to get a photo of the finished product! But I think we are going to make them again sometime, and try turning them into Navajo tacos. (The fry bread are a lot like tortillas.) The next day, I went in to see their project so I did get a photo of their finished display board:

Each child was allowed to invite two adults to this event and Seth wanted Frank's parents to come so I only stayed a little while to see his project and a couple of others. Frank's parents stayed for the meal and they said everything was really good. They had turkey, berries, nuts, and other things besides fry bread.

Thanksgiving: I didn't mind missing the lunch at Seth's school because I had a lot of preparations to complete for Thanksgiving. Frank and I were busy all afternoon making jello, 2 pudding pies, sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole. (Not to mention Wednesday evening's dinner!) Then on Thursday we did everything else--turkey, stuffing, gravy, rolls, mashed potatoes, banana pudding, cheesecake, peas & carrots, vegetable tray, cheese & crackers, olives & pickles, and cranberry sauce. We had leftover ham from Sunday as well. (And thank goodness I had decided to cook the ham early!) The preparations hit a snag when we discovered that the oven had quit working!! We have had trouble with the oven several times the last several months and keep meaning to get it checked, but we never think of it at the right time. It just turns off in the middle of baking sometimes. Usually when we discover the problem, we just turn it off and turn it back on and it comes right back on and we don't have any more trouble. But yesterday it wouldn't come back on. We would hear it try to come on (we have a gas oven, so you can hear it light) but then it would shut right back off, and it was definitely getting cooler, not hotter. We were really feeling kind of panicked until Frank remembered we had a camp oven that we could put on a burner on the stove. (The stove works fine, thankfully!) We thought it was in the storage unit but before they made a trip over there I decided to check my list of things that were in the storage unit and while going down the list I saw "roaster oven" and remembered that we had a large roaster oven there too! So Frank and his dad went to the storage unit to get the roaster oven and the camp oven. The turkey finished cooking in the roaster oven and we baked the sweet potato casserole in there too.

Meanwhile, we baked the rolls in the camp oven and then baked the green bean casserole in there also.

 The rolls had been in oven when it died, so they were half baked when we put them in the camp oven. All the moving back and forth, plus adjusting the camp oven temperature didn't do wonders for them so they look kind of flat and aren't evenly browned, but they taste just fine, thankfully! So in the end, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner (although an hour later than we'd planned) and everything turned out fine although I admit it was stressful when we were in the middle of it.

That evening, we had some friends over for dessert and to play games. (I forgot to get photos of the game playing, but here is the dessert table, with Snickers waiting hopefully underneath!):

But even when our friends left, the fun wasn't over because Frank's mom mentioned to me right as they were leaving that she thought she had seen something run under one of the end tables a few minutes before. I said "You mean, like an insect?" and she said "No, much bigger...I think it was a mouse." And just then the mouse decided to make a run for it and emerged from under the end table and ran into the kitchen! Okay, I admit it--I am squeamish about mice. I don't mind if I see them outside or in a cage, but I do NOT like them running around in my house! The mouse took refuge under the dishwasher but thankfully we had a mousetrap on hand so Frank set the trap by the oven and we all went to bed. We were still awake and reading in bed when we heard the trap snap! So Frank went back downstairs to deal with the mouse and I'm glad it's gone. We are going to set a few more traps downstairs to make sure there aren't any more. I don't think we will forget this Thanksgiving in a hurry!

Job stuff: Frank has applied for a few jobs and one day this week he had lunch with some of his former co-workers. He ran into someone from another department and when that guy found out Frank was still looking for a job, he asked him to send him a resume. So hopefully something is going to come up for him soon. That would be especially helpful since we found out a few days ago that even though his paperwork was signed and ready to be submitted at the beginning of October, it actually hasn't been submitted yet! (Something about no paperwork being accepted in October or November, although it's supposed to be going in now. I'll believe it when I see it.) So that was really discouraging news. On the bright side, my fingerprinting came back fine (no surprises again) and I have an appointment on Monday to meet the girl that I will be helping through the Arc of Frederick. So hopefully that means I will start that job next week sometime. Frank has also been pretty busy with his business; he is currently working on setting up five new computers for three of his clients.

Everything else: Brain balance and exercising kind of went down the drain this week, between all the visitors and watching kids and school projects and Thanksgiving drama. We will get back on track next week! I practiced the ukulele a little bit and Seth and I finished reading By the Shores of Silver Lake on Wednesday evening. We've had somewhat mild weather most of the week until yesterday, when it got really cold. (The high for the day was in the 30s!) At least it was a good day to be inside all day, with the oven on (well, it was on for a while!). Today is cold too but not as cold and tomorrow it is going to warm up enough that it's supposed to rain. Mostly we can't complain too much about the weather. It hasn't been very cold yet.

That's all I have to report this week.