Weekly Review September 25 '20

This week was also pretty uneventful so I don't think this post will be very long. 

Last Friday (the 18th) Frank and I went out to eat for dinner. We went to a local Mexican restaurant, which always has really yummy food. It was nice to get out of the house, to spend some uninterrupted time together, and to eat somewhere that we like without having to please Seth (he doesn't like Mexican food, among a lot of other things). We're trying to go out every couple of weeks (we went on a shopping date which included getting gelati at Rita's a few weeks ago, but I think I forgot to mention that) but what we can do is pretty limited. Frank hasn't been feeling up to doing much walking or anything active with all his injuries lately and so many places are still closed also. We don't really want to go out to eat every time, either. We'll have to get creative.

On Saturday the 19th we did mostly the usual things...Seth mowed the lawn and I got chores done...but I also made all four Christmas pillowcases and spent a lot of time working on another project for Christmas...a photo book of pictures of Snickers to give to the boys (so don't mention it to them if you talk to them!) I finished that Saturday evening and ordered the books on Monday. It turned out nice, but making the book made me feel a little sad. I miss my dog! The pillowcases turned out great and they were easy and fun to make. One is for me, one is for Frank, and the other two are for Jessie and Darlee (again, don't mention this to them!) Both Darlee and Jessie love dogs, so I chose dog prints for them:

This one is mine; the cardinals remind me of my mission but I mainly picked it because of the sheet music pattern in the background (not very visible in the photo) because I love Christmas music:

And this one is for Frank...I had to get him one with snowflakes on it, of course!:

The only thing I wasn't happy about is that I didn't get enough fabric so that the pattern on the directional prints could run the way I wanted them to, except for the blue dog print...I did have enough of that one. So the other dog print and my fabric look sort of sideways, although I don't think that's too big of a deal. I just would have preferred that they run the other direction. I thought I was getting enough, but I didn't think it through as thoroughly as I should have. But I took notes this time so that next time I make pillowcases, I will remember and know how much fabric to buy! I made the same mistake when I made a pillowcase for Seth several years ago and I was going to try to avoid it this time, but oh well! Here is Seth's pillowcase, just for fun:

 On Sunday the 20th we had our family sacrament service and Frank had an EQ meeting and Seth had Sunday School (both online). I didn't have any other meetings, but I kept busy all day reading a family history book, doing some indexing, and adding photos to family search. We also spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Jared, who was driving Jessie's sister up to her apartment in Rexburg, Idaho but then his car broke down just outside of Pocatello. (Her sister had been to Utah for a visit because Jessie's dad was in Utah visiting last week). Of course, no car repair places were open but he was able to get his car towed to Pocatello and we were able to get him a room at a Fairfield Inn. Jessie's sister's roommates drove to Pocatello to pick her up. Jared ended up staying in Pocatello for two nights because he had to wait for some parts to come in for his car but it got fixed on Tuesday and he made it back home to Utah on Tuesday evening. 

The rest of the week has been fairly quiet. Frank worked overnight on Monday and got home about 4:00 am. He had another late night job on Wednesday...this was a different job that wasn't going to take as long but he wasn't sure how long exactly it would take. It ended up being a lot quicker than he thought so he made it home by midnight, which is pretty awesome when you are expecting to be up much later. He hasn't been sleeping very well, though, so he is feeling pretty exhausted and he always has a lot of work to do.

Seth's school schedule changed a bit this week and it's a little better than before. He has Spanish on Mondays and there are two other times during the week he can log in if he has questions or needs help, but they aren't mandatory. He has PE and Music only on Friday afternoon now. He doesn't log in for morning meetings / classes until 9:30 each morning (instead of 9:00) and on Wednesdays he doesn't have to log back in once he's done with his morning classes. I wish every day were like that, but he has Spanish on Monday afternoon, English on Tuesday & Thursday afternoons, and Music and PE on Friday afternoons. But at least he's only logging back in once instead of multiple times. This week he ended up doing a LOT of work on Wednesday because he'd put a few things off and had other things he didn't realize he needed to do. So he was actually working until after 7:00 pm (he did take some breaks throughout the day) but surprisingly he did it willingly without complaining. I hope that won't happen very often, though! He finished working about an hour early yesterday and today he finished up his work before he needed to log in for his PE and Music classes, so he had a little bit of free time then. His school observes "International Peace Day" every year. This year it was on Monday. They usually have a short ceremony of some kind but of course they couldn't get together this year so they sent home a ribbon for each child (when we picked up materials a few weeks ago) and each child was supposed to write their wish for peace on it and then choose a time to take it to the school and tie it on the front fence. Seth wrote on his on Monday, but we didn't make it to the school to tie it on the fence until yesterday.

Seth had an online Deacon's quorum activity on Tuesday and on Thursday evening he had an online Deacon's presidency meeting. For the activity, they had a "donut party". One of the leaders dropped donuts off at each Deacon's house earlier in the day (he brought enough for the family, which was nice) and they ate their donuts while they played a game. 

I feel like I didn't get as much done this week even though I felt busy. I'm almost done reading the White House book but I didn't read any of the ADHD book and I didn't start any new projects. I did work a lot on more photo gathering for the Christmas blog post I'm working on, and that took a lot of time. As part of those efforts, last night I was watching some of our family's home movies from the early 2000s. Some things about having little kids I really don't miss...like it seems like someone was always sick on Christmas! But the boys sure were cute when they were little and I laughed hysterically at some of the things they said and did! I guess the other thing I did that took up some time is I watched a documentary on Netflix about the space shuttle Challenger disaster. I also watched a few episodes of Call the Midwife, because a new season of episodes was just added. That show is always really good. 

We've decided that we're going to go to North Carolina for Thanksgiving and we have a place to stay reserved, so we are looking forward to that. It will be nice to see all the family that live there!

And that's it for this week...I told you it was pretty quiet. We hope you are all well and doing okay in these crazy times.

Weekly Review September 18 '20

 I don't think there is a lot to report this week, but maybe I will think of something as I go along here. It was mostly a normal week--Seth did school, Frank worked a ton, and I did the housework and worked on projects. That's the summary. Here's a few more details, though.

Frank continues to be very busy, as usual, although this week has seemed quieter than last week. He didn't fall down again, at least! He probably ended up working last Friday for 2 or 3 hours--all of it on the phone, though. There was some sort of problem at a restaurant in Virginia that needed someone onsite to fix it, but someone else went there and then Frank talked him through it on the phone. I was glad he didn't have to go anywhere, at least! But on Sunday there were some bigger issues with 2 restaurants in Virginia and he did end up going there to take care of those problems. As a matter of fact, including travel time he ended up working about 7 hours on Sunday. At least by then he was more rested and not quite as sore, although he is still healing and still experiencing pain & discomfort. His knee is still swollen and has a pretty decent bruise on it now, in addition to the cut. He had a follow up doctor visit Monday morning, though, and he was released to return to work (he didn't mention he'd already done that!) and everything seems to be healing. It's just going to take time. He had an overnight install on Monday night which thankfully didn't go all night...he got home around 3:00 am. He worked about a half day on Tuesday and the rest of the week has worked mostly normal hours (which for Frank is about 7:30 am to 5:00 pm). 

On Sunday we had an online Sunday School class which I enjoyed (Frank had to leave to solve those problems at work so he missed it) and Seth had an online Deacon's Quorum class. I did some indexing and added photos to family search. 

Seth's schedule for his school classes is going to change next week but I don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet. He will be starting Spanish, which he will be taking through the county's virtual school because the Spanish teacher at his school quit last minute. He will also be dropping art and taking only PE and music--he'll do art instead of music for the 2nd half of the year. I hear he will have PE and music classes only once per week (right now he has PE 3 times and music and art 2 times each) but I'm waiting to see if that is what really happens. I'm hoping that the overall schedule changes will mean that he doesn't have to get online quite so many times throughout the day, but we'll see how it goes. They are still using Google Classroom for all their work and I haven't heard any updates on when they are switching to schoology. I personally wouldn't mind if they just stuck with Google Classroom, but the rest of the school district is using schoology so that is what they are supposed to be using. Seth is doing pretty well with keeping up with his work, as far as I can tell. I am mostly letting him handle it. He is not great at getting up in the morning and he wasn't getting exercising done so he has switched his exercise time to the evening. I would say this week he seems to be more restless and not quite so disciplined. He takes breaks more frequently (but I figure that's one advantage to the virtual model, so I let him take breaks when he feels like he needs them) and I feel like he's procrastinating work a bit more. Today, though, he just finished his online morning meeting / classes and he said he is all up to date and the only thing he needs to do between now and his specials classes this afternoon is one assignment, which takes about 30 minutes (and he's doing that now). So in spite of the extra breaks he is still getting everything done.  (At least, I think he is!)

On Tuesday evening Seth had an online Deacon's activity. They wanted to learn how to make something, so Seth volunteered us to teach them all how to make chocolate chip cookie bars. I thought I was going to have to do it, but Frank was actually home that evening so he did most of the teaching (I did help a bit here and there). I was glad Frank was available since he's the one who created the recipe and he's a lot better at making them than I am. All the other Deacons and their leaders got their own ingredients (I sent them the recipe ahead of time) and followed along and made their own pan of cookie bars. The only problem with that is that now we have a big panful of cookie bars and only 3 of us to eat them (and two of us are trying not to eat stuff like that). Frank did take a plateful to his office the next day to share with his coworkers, which helped. I have been really disciplining myself and only eating 3 or 4 a day. (I know that doesn't sound like very great discipline but really--I could eat 10 or more a day if I don't pay attention to what I'm doing!! Also, we cut them into really small squares so they aren't very big.) 

I've kept busy this week with reading and projects. I'm continuing to read the book about ADHD and I'm also reading a book about anecdotes from the White House, which is pretty entertaining. As far as projects go, I finished the hat I was crocheting on Monday. It looks like this:

(Top view)

(Bottom view)

(Side view)

I'm pleased with the way it turned out except I think it's a little bit big. I am planning to start another hat soon. I had to order yarn for the next one but was able to pick it up at the store on Tuesday. In the meantime, while I was at the store I got some fabric to make some Christmas pillowcases. I cut all the pieces out for those yesterday and will probably start sewing them today or tomorrow. Pillowcases are easy so they won't take long to finish. 

I spent a lot of time going through photos and gathering information for a Christmas blog post that I'm working on. There's still a lot to do, but I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel! 

I spend so much time indoors that I am starting to feel a bit of cabin fever lately. It's hard to get away for walks since Seth is online all day and then we're into dinner hour when he finishes his school work each day. I find myself wandering out onto the deck a couple of times a day, just to get some fresh air. The weather is cooling down here and starting to feel a little like fall. Frank actually turned off the A/C a few days ago! We've had a few nights that the temperatures have dropped to the 40s. It's mostly been dry this week and it looks like it's going to stay that way for a while. (Meanwhile, there's all that flooding from Hurricane Sally to the south!) 

I did get out of the house for a few hours on Saturday. I met my friend Rebekah at a park so we could visit and get caught up. It was really nice to see her! It was cloudy that day with temperatures in the low 60s and almost I needed a jacket to be comfortable, but not quite. She has a daughter who is at her first semester at BYU, and one of her daughter's roommates was having symptoms of Covid-19 (fever, cough, loss of taste & smell). Her daughter has been quarantining but the rest of her roommates thought she was overreacting and they were going all over the place. It's not very reassuring to hear stories like that! I just checked in with my friend this morning and she says now 2 more of her daughter's roommates are having symptoms. Two of them have been tested, but she doesn't know the results yet. At least her daughter is still feeling well at this point. Hopefully that will continue!

That's all the news from around here that I can think of. Here are a few photos of Seth that I took because he was reading his scriptures and I thought he looked sweet. (Of course he noticed I was there and looked up!)

Weekly Review September 11 '20

 This morning I was watching a short recap of the events of September 11, 2001. It's hard to believe it was 19 years ago! I still remember it so vividly. I guess I always will. I still get emotional about it. 

This week was a little more eventful than last week, and definitely less stressful (for me, anyway...not for Frank). Seth and I are figuring out a routine and I did much better at stepping back and letting him handle everything. I'm also feeling a bit less anxious about him being online so much. I am still at home while he's online, but I'm moving around the house a bit more and getting more things done (just checking on him frequently). 

On Saturday (the 5th) Seth had a service project with the Deacon's Quorum...they went to a single sister's house and spread mulch in her flower beds (31 bags). They got ice cream afterwards. Since Seth was doing that, I mowed the lawn (usually that is Seth's job). The rest of the day I did mostly just the normal Saturday chores. Frank was gone for a couple of hours working, but I can't remember now if it was for a client or for Roy Rogers. I went on a walk that evening...seems like I always feel cooped up by the time Saturday evening rolls around! I took a few photos:

I always look at this house and kind of wish I lived in it, because it has such a beautiful backyard with a view of the river (I mean, I have a view of the river from my deck also but this house has an even better view). I'm not sure where the yard ends and the common area begins, but it looks like their yard slopes all the way down to the river. The pictures aren't great because it was mostly in shadow when I took them but the yard has several pretty flower beds and there are bird houses and a small bird bath and a little fire pit area. It just looks like such a beautiful, peaceful place! I actually love walking past it because it makes me feel peaceful too. 😊

Here's a wider view from the other side...you can see that beautiful green sloping lawn. The trees on the left of the photo are growing along the river bank:

And here's a little bit better view of the yard (also from the side), with some of the flower beds a little more visible:

Okay, moving on! Sunday the 6th was somewhat eventful because Seth had online Sunday School and Bishop's Youth Council and I had an online RS testimony meeting. I also had an in-person visit with the RS president--my quarterly ministering interview. We actually went for a walk while we talked. It was nice to see her and to have a long talk.

We decided that for Labor Day we wanted to get out of the house for a while. We discussed a couple of options and decided to visit Harper's Ferry National Historical Park to go on a hike. I had done some online research so we knew that a lot of things in the park were still closed (like the Visitor's Center and most of the other buildings) but the hiking trails were open. We chose a short, not too strenuous hike. When we got to Harper's Ferry, we discovered that a few buildings were actually open, including restrooms (the website said that restrooms weren't open). The Visitor's Center and all the exhibits / museums were not open, as we expected, but they had a couple of park rangers outside the Visitor's Center to hand out information / maps and to answer questions so that was helpful...I was hoping that we would be able to get a map! They also had an inkpad and stamp so that I could stamp our National Parks passport. I was happy about that. We got our map and got directions to the trailhead and headed out. The hike was nice...some of it was through the woods and some of it was across grassy fields and most of it was in the shade! It was a little warm, but not too hot and a little humid but not too bad. There were several signs along the way with historical information about Civil War battles and so forth. We had a good time.

This is a foundation where John Brown's armory sat for a while. It has since been moved to a location that is near it's original location (where it was standing when John Brown and most of his followers died). 

The Shenandoah River. We could clearly see people in boats on the river, but you can't really see them in the photos:

Civil war cannon:

We really enjoyed getting outside for a while and spending some time together! On the way home we stopped to get some lunch. Frank and Seth played video games together for a lot of the afternoon. I can't remember what I did, besides getting the laundry done. That evening we watched a lot of the BYU / Navy football game. Unfortunately, Seth had one of his headache / nausea episodes so he was feeling quite sick and threw up several times. Since the game started pretty late, we went to bed about halfway through the third quarter. It was pretty obvious that BYU was going to win anyway, and actually I think we saw all but one of the touchdowns. We were glad to see BYU playing so well, but we felt sorry for Navy! 

One advantage to virtual school is that Seth was able to participate in school on Tuesday, even though he was sick the night before. As usual, he was fine the next morning. But when he's going to school I feel obligated to keep him home the day after he throws up, just to make sure he's not going to get anyone sick. (I'm actually pretty sure that he is not contagious. I really wish we could figure out what is causing this problem. Eye strain? Migraines? No idea!) Our ward's activity night just switched from Thursday to Tuesday (not that we are actually going anywhere for activities!) so Seth had a virtual Deacon's activity that night. They played "trashketball" (throwing a wadded up balls of paper into trash cans; trying to do different fancy shots). 

Wednesday was the usual school routine. I usually get groceries on Wednesdays, but I didn't need to do that because I decided to try out the online order / pickup service at Walmart. I put in an order on Tuesday that I could pick up on Thursday morning before Seth starts school at 9:00. That evening, I attended a virtual meeting for the Benjamin Franklin Johnson Family organization. I don't know if any of you got an invite to that...I got an email about it (I must have given them my email at some point) and it sounded kind of cool so I decided to attend and see what it was like. There were about 20 people there...most were in Utah but a few in Arizona and Canada. We read a story from My Life's Review about an experience BFJ had when he tried to help some people he came across while traveling. Then we talked about it a bit and just got a little acquainted with each other...everybody introduced themselves and told how they were descended from BFJ. They all seemed surprised when I said I was in Maryland. Most of them were a lot older than me. I didn't stay to the end because it was getting late...didn't start until 9:30 my time. I did enjoy it and it was kind of fun to meet a few BFJ descendants. 

On Thursday morning I picked up our Walmart order at 8:00 am. It was nice not to have to do the shopping myself and they mostly did a good job. One can I got has a pretty decent dent in the back so I need to return that (I don't really blame them for that...it's easy to miss dents when they are in the back of the can; I know I've done that myself). Whoever bagged my groceries didn't do the best job...one bag broke even before I got it out of the back of my car. It had 9 cans in it, and it wasn't even double bagged. Then another bag had only 2 cans. I can't figure out why they didn't put more cans in that bag and less in the other one! But overall, it worked out great so I'll probably be doing that regularly while we are in this crazy virtual school situation. 

I mentioned that this week was stressful for Frank. He had an overnight install on Tuesday evening and this one also turned into a true overnight. There were lots of problems and it went really slow so he didn't leave the restaurant until shortly after 6 am (and it is an hour away from Frederick). But then a few minutes later he got a call from the restaurant and there was a major problem, so he had to go back. He didn't get home until about 9:30. He did sleep for a while then, but not as long as he should have. He ended up doing about 4 more hours of work later that day. So by Thursday morning, he had already worked about 28 hours, and Monday was a day off! It didn't end there, though. He got to work about 6:45 Thursday morning and I didn't see him again until 6:30 that night. (He did take a lunch break; while doing that he met with a member of our ward who is job hunting to see if he could help him at all...Frank is currently serving as the self-reliance specialist.) He came home long enough to eat dinner, but then he had to go do some work for one of his clients. That only took a few minutes, but on his way back he got a desperate call from another restaurant with an emergency so he just went straight there. He finally got home from there about 10:30. (We're up to about 42 hours now.) To top it off, though, while he was at that restaurant he slipped on a wet floor (someone had mopped it and neglected to put up a warning sign) and fell hard on his right side...he hurt his right elbow, shoulder, and back, and he also banged his left knee really hard on something as he fell. Thankfully, he didn't break any bones and his injuries aren't too serious...just several contusions. He went to a doctor this morning to get everything checked out and he is supposed to go for a follow up on Monday morning. He is mostly just really sore and he has a pretty decent bump / cut on his left knee. He pulled a few muscles in his back but it's not too severe. He's mostly really sore all over and it hurts to move. The doctor told him he should not work today and get some rest, so he is trying to do that. He's been lying down for a while but as I'm typing this post, I can hear him upstairs talking on the phone, trying to solve a problem of some sort. As long as he doesn't have to go anywhere and can remain lying down, I'm not going to complain, though! I just feel so bad that he got hurt and that he is constantly having to work such long hours. Seems like he is always trying to do the work of 2 or 3 people! Oh, and did I mention that he was wearing a brand new pair of pants for the first time and they got all dirty? Hopefully the stains will come out.

We've had more rain this week and it has been VERY humid (98%) most of the week (although the weekend was beautiful). Fortunately, I haven't had to be outside much. Inside, I tend to get cold with the A/C running, so I go around in long pants and socks even though it's hot & humid outside. 

While Frank is working nonstop and Seth is doing schoolwork, I just keep the household running, read, and work on projects. I finished reading The Scarlet Pimpernel on Sunday (I think) and I read another book this week called Flora & Ulysses...it's a Newbery winner. It was short and easy to read and quite interesting / clever, so I enjoyed it. I am slowly making my way through a book about ADHD too. Actually, I have about 6 or 7 books that I am in the process of reading right now. How did that happen?! I've been working some more on the hat I'm crocheting and have made quite a bit of progress. A few days ago, it looked a lot like a doily: 

It looks less like a doily now:

Actually, I've done a few more rounds since I took that photo, but I forgot to take another picture of it before I uploaded all the photos from my phone this morning. I've also been working a lot on a personal history blog post but there's still a lot of work to do before I'll be ready to post it. 

To finish up, I'll share a few photos of a rainbow we saw last night. (Second rainbow we've seen in less than 3 weeks!) The photos aren't very good--the rainbow looks oddly white. It looked much better in real life, although it was not a really bright rainbow. The clouds behind it were light pink, which looked really beautiful but I think that might be why the colors look off in the photos. 

Weekly Review September 4 '20

If I look at my calendar for this week, it looks like I didn't do anything because there aren't any appointments listed on there (except for a hair appointment on Saturday). Actually, I was super busy; I was just being super busy at home most of the time. 

As I mentioned, I did have an appointment to get my hair done on Saturday. When I left the house it had just started raining lightly but that turned into torrential rain while I was on my way to the salon. Thankfully, I had an umbrella with me in the car but my feet still got soaked since the parking lot at the salon had turned into a small river. It stopped raining by the time I had to return home, although we got more rain later. That was the leftovers of Hurricane Laura. (We've had quite a bit of rain this week, including a couple of strong thunderstorms.) The rest of Saturday was pretty routine. Seth and I went for a short walk that evening and it was beautiful with the sun starting to go down:

  

Sunday was actually quite busy and we did go somewhere! It was our ward's turn for in-person church, so we went to that at 1:00, because that was our assigned time. But besides that, our ward broadcast a Zoom meet of the 10:15 session (except for the sacrament part) because 3 members of our ward who have moved in since we had to stop meeting were speaking (briefly). Since we wanted to see / hear the new members, we tuned in to that. The first member actually just got baptized last week, but unfortunately the technology wasn't working well and it was hard to hear him. We were able to hear the other 2 speakers pretty well though. After our meeting at 1:00, we stayed after for a few minutes because another family in our ward was blessing their baby and they had invited us to come (and asked Frank to assist). It was nice to be there for that and to see / talk to a few people! Sacrament meeting was a little crazy; they had a lot of issues with the sacrament (still figuring out all the new procedures, I guess) and unfortunately Frank's piece of bread had a lot of hand sanitizer on it. That made him feel rather sick for the rest of the day. He felt fine by Monday morning, though. That evening Seth had an online stake youth fireside. So all in all, we had a lot going on that day.

The rest of the week was pretty crazy as we have been trying to adjust to school starting and the new format. His school district is using a program called Schoology, but it turns out that for some reason they haven't set up Seth's school's account yet so until that gets sorted out they are using Google Classroom, which they used last spring. (I'm not looking forward to having to learn a whole new system in a week or two!) As I said before, I don't love the way they have the schedule set up. It really is like he's in school all day...except he's here. They haven't started having Spanish class yet, so the schedule is going to change somewhat and I'm honestly wondering where that's going to fit in because I feel like he's online with teachers a lot already and I'm worried that he won't be able to finish all the work they give him during the time they have allotted for work time. We'll see how it goes, though. This week he got everything done and even had a little extra time now and again, but he also hasn't been taking an hour break for lunch / "recess", because he's not hungry (one of the side effects of his ADHD medicine).

First day of school:

Seth has done well with figuring out all the technology as well as the schedule...he was always in the right class at the right time. (I had to laugh at how many times I heard a teacher tell a child that they were in the wrong class and they needed to log off and go join a different class.) I also appreciate that our technology here at home worked well (no internet issues, etc.) because a lot of people were having problems with that, particularly the students who are using the chromebooks that were provided by the school. (Thankfully, Frank had an extra laptop he picked up somewhere that he was able to set up for Seth last spring, so Seth doesn't have to use a school chromebook.) 

Emotionally, though, it was a bit of a rough week (for both him and me). For Seth, I think a lot of that had to do with adjusting back to being on his ADHD medicine every day, being on a stricter schedule, and having all this new stuff thrown at him all at once. For me, I'm just feeling frustrated and cooped up since I feel like I need to be home when he's online, which is basically all day. (Frank's looking into setting up some filters and such so that hopefully I will feel a little better about leaving if I need to.) I have been able to get all my errands / chores done, but it hasn't been easy. Monday went pretty well but Tuesday was awful! (Tuesday included a total meltdown on Seth's part and I ended up hiding in my closet for a while until I felt like I could cope.) It's been better since Tuesday, though, and Seth just finished all his work for the week and turned it in, so we are free until Tuesday. 😀  

One aspect of having him do school at home that I hadn't really thought about is that I'm more aware of what he is doing (or supposed to be doing) and that is a challenge for me too. Since he is at home, I can't help overhearing what the teachers are saying a lot of the time and what instructions they are giving for assignments and things like that. I also can't help noticing when Seth's attention drifts when the teacher is giving some specific instructions and things like that. So I've had to learn as the week has gone on to distance myself a bit because if he were at school, obviously I wouldn't be aware of those things and wouldn't be worrying about them, and he would figure things out (or learn from his mistakes). It's too much for me to take all of that on, emotionally, and it's not really fair to Seth to have his mom sitting next to him saying "Are you listening? Did you hear what the teacher just said?" and stuff like that. So I try to ignore what's happening with school most of the time, even though I'm in the same room with him a lot. 

Today I went to the school to pick up some materials that one of his teachers wants him to have. I just had to pull up in the car line and his teacher brought the materials out to me, so that was pretty easy.

Here are some good things about virtual school, though, since I've been complaining a lot. There is a little bit of flexibility since Seth has work time in the middle of the day. So if I really have to make some appointments for him during the day, I can do that and he will just have to do the work later in the day. (I'm still going to avoid making appointments during those school hours if possible, though.) Also the teachers are recording lessons they give and posting them in the Google classroom so that if anyone misses a lesson (especially because of technology issues) they can watch it later. This also gives Seth the option of going back and watching a lesson over again if he can't remember how to do something or forgot some of the instructions. That's been helpful a couple of times this week. He would not have this option if he was doing in person school. Besides that, for me I've found a lot of things to keep me busy all day while I'm at home. A few weeks ago, I started working on a project where I was organizing a folder of photos. There are over 700 photos in this folder, and I thought it was going to take me forever to finish this project but I finished it a few days ago because it was the perfect project to be working on while I'm at home supervising Seth. I have also been able to watch a series of YouTube videos on how to wire a dollhouse (pretty interesting, and it's not as complicated as I thought it would be) and yesterday I started working on a crocheted hat and have already learned how to do a couple of new stitches / techniques. So that's been fun! 

Frank has been busy, as usual, with his job and his business. He had an overnight install on Monday and it turned into a true overnight because he didn't get home until about 6:30 Tuesday morning. Ugh!! then he was up again a few hours later but at least he didn't have to go in to work or handle any emergencies that day. 

I actually can't think of anything else to report this week--the week was kind of dominated by school, as you can tell. The COVID-19 numbers are still looking pretty good here in Maryland so tonight Maryland is moving into phase 3 of reopening. I don't know if it's going to make much difference to us since school is still virtual and church is being way more conservative than the current guidelines already (but maybe we'll be able to have more than 25 people the next time we meet). One of the places that will be opening back up is the movie theater, but I don't go to movies very often. Anyway, I'm glad to see that the numbers are still improving. I'll take it! I'll finish up with a few photos of our wet world, which I took yesterday during one of our many rainstorms. This kind of sums up my week...stuck inside, looking out at the rain. (It was raining super hard, but slowed way down when I went to get my camera.) Notice how green everything is, though!

Weekly Review August 28 '20

 This week has been our last week of summer vacation...school starts on Monday. Sort of. It's all virtual. For now, anyway. More on that later! 

Last Saturday (the 22nd) started early because a car alarm in our neighborhood started going off at about 5:30 am, and it kept going off every 5 - 15 minutes for the next couple of hours. I never went back to sleep. Finally Frank got up and went outside and got the license plate number and called the police, who said they'd figure out who the owner was and knock on their door and tell them to take care of the problem. (We don't have any idea who the car belongs to, but this was the 3rd or 4th time this has happened over the last few months, although all the other times it only went off once or twice.) It hasn't happened since then, thankfully. Meanwhile, Seth had a hike with his Deacon's Quorum that morning so after we dropped him off at the church, we came home and took a nap! Seth seemed to have fun on his hike...they went to a place called Sugarloaf Mountain, which is a place that we have hiked before and it's really nice. I can't remember what else we did on Saturday, so it was probably just the usual things like cleaning the kitchen floor. Oh, except that evening I was feeling cooped up and decided to go on a walk and Frank came with me. We saw a little bunny:

And a nice sunset:

On Sunday the 23rd Frank had an EQ meeting and Seth had a Deacon's Quorum Meeting but I didn't have anything besides our short family sacrament service. I did a lot of personal history stuff. That afternoon we had a brief strong thunderstorm and then a rainbow appeared, which was nice:

Actually, it's a double rainbow, if you look closely. The rest of the week was mostly the usual stuff with a few extra things added in, especially to prepare for school starting next week. On Tuesday evening there was an online RS activity where we discussed things we do to keep educating ourselves, even though most of us are not involved in any formal education. It was fun and some good ideas were discussed. 

I visited online with one of my ministering sisters on Wednesday afternoon (always enjoy talking to her!) and I  had book club on Wednesday evening. It was cool enough that we could meet outside. I enjoyed book club a lot, as usual, and we ended up talking until nearly 10 pm. (Not just about the book; we always diverge onto other things at the end. This time we were mostly talking about school and all our concerns about how it is going to work.) This month we are going to read The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I actually have never read although I saw a movie version a long time ago. I can't remember anything about it except that I really liked the movie! So I think I will enjoy the book a lot. I hope so, anyway.

On Monday I bought school supplies for Seth (we finally got a list from the teachers at his school). I couldn't find everything I was looking for so I looked at one other store and then decided to go online to order the elusive items. It was still challenging to find watercolors (!) and pastels, even on Amazon. Apparently everyone in the world is buying those things right now. I actually didn't have to get a lot of the things on the list because we already have them at home but I still ended up spending over $100 on school supplies because I had to get more art supplies than usual and some things for PE and for music that the school normally provides. Plus I decided that I didn't want Seth's school stuff taking over the whole house so I bought some containers to put stuff in. (Containers were also very hard to find...it was pretty slim pickings at the store and what was left cost more than I usually would spend.) All the supplies I ordered got here within a few days, so we are ready to go now, I think. This is Seth's bin for "specials" (art, music, PE):

This smaller bin is for all the little things like pencils, erasers, ruler & glue, plus some of the art supplies:

This last container is for all the bigger things like binders, notebooks, composition books, etc. The first photo shows the full container, the second one shows some of the stuff that is under the binders:

I attended two online parent orientations for Seth's school this week. One was on Wednesday afternoon and the other one was on Thursday morning. The first one was with the Middle School teachers and the second one was with the specials teachers. They both had some good information, although I still think things are going to be a mess at first. (I don't blame the teachers...they are doing their best in a crazy situation!) Overall, I don't love how they are doing things because I think we're going to have all of the disadvantages of having kids at home without any of the flexibility that we had last spring. They are expected to put in 5 solid hours of work per day. They are actually going to have a set schedule (although they don't know exactly what the schedule is yet, because I asked!) with a "homeroom" meeting and some instruction online starting at 9:00 am every morning, some time to work independently (not online), a break at noon for lunch and "recess", and then he'll have to log in sometime in the afternoon for specials. So basically it's like he's at school all day except he's at home and I have to make sure he's logging in at the correct times. Ugh!! I'm glad they will have some actual instruction from the teachers (they didn't have that in the spring) and I don't have to supervise him much but I am going to be stuck at home mostly all day because I'm not comfortable leaving my 13 year old son home alone with full access to the internet (go figure). (As a matter of fact, he has a laptop but it is password protected and he does not know the password...I have to log him in. And I'm not planning to change that procedure anytime soon.) I asked them what would be the best time to schedule outside appointments (like the orthodontist)...is he going to be "in school" from 9:00 am to 3:45 pm every day, as he would be if they were actually going to school? The response I got was "we don't know yet". Well, hopefully they will figure all that out soon. Seth was scheduled to have braces put on next Wednesday afternoon, but after those meetings I called and rescheduled him for late October. I think next week is going to be crazy enough without throwing that in...we need to get through these first couple of weeks. With my luck, there would be something really important that he needs to log in for at the exact same time as his appointment! (And yes, I know he can miss school sometimes, but Seth freaks out about missing school at all so it's better for his mental health and saves me a load of trouble if I can avoid scheduling anything during school hours.) I need to schedule an appointment with his therapist too as soon as I know what the new schedule is. He was supposed to have an appointment this week, but the therapist had to reschedule. Oh, and he's due for a medicine check up with his doctor too. All that is going to have to wait until I have a better idea what is going on with school. So fun! I was also a bit annoyed when the art, music, and PE teachers mentioned during orientation that we don't necessarily have to get everything they put on their supply lists. "It's a lot of stuff, so just do the best you can. I don't expect you to get everything." That would have been nice to know before I bought everything on the list!! But as I said, I'm sympathetic to how difficult this must be for the teachers. They've been thrown into a pretty difficult situation.

Speaking of that, this morning when I looked at the local news headlines, I was flabbergasted to discover that the governor of Maryland announced yesterday that the Covid-19 metrics for the state are looking really good and it should be safe to reopen schools. And he encouraged school districts to open the schools as soon as possible! What?? Four days before school starts, he's suggesting that they switch gears and go to in-person instruction when they have all been working their tails off for the last few weeks trying to get ready for a totally virtual environment? (They didn't find out until late July that they were going to have to go all virtual.) Don't get me wrong...I'm glad things are looking better and I am eager for Seth to return to school in person...it's the fact that the information keeps changing constantly and the school systems are being told to adapt at the last minute that I disagree with. Most of the school districts responded with an answer that was basically "Forget you. We can't change at this point.", and I can't say I blame them. What a mess! But maybe this means Seth will be going back to school in early February...or even sooner. We'll see what happens. 

Last night we took Seth to Cracker Barrel for dinner as an "end of summer" treat. My food was on such a pretty plate that I had to take a photo:

Other than that, though, it wasn't Cracker Barrel's best night. We had to wait nearly 45 minutes for our food and some of it wasn't very warm. We also ordered a "dirt cup" for Seth for dessert and asked to take it to go. While we were waiting for that to come, Frank went to pay our check. Our waiter showed up with the dessert, hurriedly dropping it off as he went by and not waiting to see if we needed anything else. The cup was only about 1/3 full, had no lid, and he didn't give us a plastic spoon either. But he was already gone...helping someone else. I actually felt kind of bad for him...I think he was new and he looked super stressed and busy all night (although there weren't a ton of customers there, so I'm not sure why). Anyway, we went out to the store in front to find Frank and showed him the cup, and he took it to the lady who had just helped him with our check and asked "Is this what the dirt cup is supposed to look like?" She said "Absolutely not" and she got Seth a new cup that was properly filled and had a lid and a spoon. I'm glad Frank is not afraid to be assertive about things like that because I am a wimp and avoid confrontation of any kind! 

In between all of that stuff, I've been working on a personal history post about Christmas (which is going to take forever...don't expect to see it anytime soon...I'm still gathering information) and also trying to get the things I need to begin a few more projects. I want to try crocheting some hats, but a trip to JoAnn's did not yield the kind of yarn I wanted so I ended up ordering some online and it just arrived last night. I have also decided to try building that dollhouse that I got several years ago. I figured now is probably the best chance I'll ever have to do that...we have an empty guest room and I don't anticipate that anyone is going to come visit anytime soon with all the Covid stuff going on and I definitely have more free time right now too. (Not sure how that's going to change next week, but hopefully I can work on it while Seth is doing schoolwork, as long as we're in the same room.) I went to the storage unit on Monday and pulled out the dollhouse kit and the dollhouse wiring kit. It's going to take quite a bit of preparation before I can actually get started on building...I have to choose a color scheme and buy the paint because most of the parts need to be painted before I start assembling. I also need to buy a few tools, and I am looking for a really good tutorial about how to wire a dollhouse because the instructions that came with the wiring kit are super brief and clearly intended for someone who already has a basic knowledge of how to do that, and of course I don't! But it will be an adventure, right? I'm hoping I learn some things and have some fun and don't end up giving up in frustration at some point! At any rate, I don't expect to get this project done quickly, and that's okay. I'd rather have a finished product that looks great and that I'm happy with than to rush through it and have it look sloppy. I fully intend to take my time and do it right. Hopefully I'll finish it before I die, haha!!

Frank has been pretty busy this week, as usual. He had an overnight install on Monday night, so we did family night on Tuesday evening. Even though it is nearly 5:00 pm on Friday right now, he is still working and won't be home for a few more hours because he had to take care of an emergency at one of the restaurants that is over an hour away. He wasn't thrilled about that and I don't really blame him.

Seth was supposed to have a Deacon's Quorum activity on Thursday evening...they were going to do a service project...but then it turned out that Seth was the only boy who was going to be able to come so they decided to postpone it. Seems like that keeps happening! I think things will be a little more settled when school starts. 

It's been really hot most days this week but we are thankful we aren't dealing with a hurricane or anything like that! We probably will get some of what's left of Hurricane Laura tomorrow, but nothing major. Poor Louisiana!! While I was writing this post we had a thunderstorm come through...the wind was really blowing and it rained really hard for a while but the storm is gone now and the sun has come back out. After tomorrow, temperatures are cooling down and we'll have highs in the 80s (or even 70s) most days next week, which sounds really nice. We've had some pretty clouds in the sky this week so I'll finish up with a few photos I took:

I know...there's an ugly power line and so forth in this photo, but I was stopped at a light so this is the best I could do. I liked how the sun was coming through that little break in the clouds. I took this photo last night on our way home from Cracker Barrel.

The other two photos I took on Monday afternoon from the parking lot at JoAnn's. The clouds don't look nearly as cool in the photos as they did in real life! We did get a thunderstorm later that night...no big surprise.