Weekly Review October 30 '20

 Today is the first cold day we've had this fall. It was cold enough that I wore my coat. It's been cloudy most of this week too and yesterday we got a ton of rain (leftovers of Hurricane Zeta). It's getting dark noticeably earlier now too and the trees are getting more color and some are losing their leaves. It's starting to feel like winter. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, though...I'm looking forward to some sunshine.

Frank had a really crazy week, as I predicted, and it's not over yet. He worked every night this week, starting on Monday, and he is working tonight too. He's also working Sunday night, Monday night, and Wednesday night next week. Monday was a POS install...only 2 of those left to do, I think. The rest of the week he has been doing drive thru timer installations. He didn't get home Tuesday morning until nearly 7:30 (lots of problems with the POS install). He thought he'd be home by about 3:00 or 4:00 on Wednesday morning, but instead didn't get home until about 5:15. Thursday morning it was 4:00 am. Today he actually got home by 1:45 am, which was a very welcome surprise (for both him and me). He actually thought he was going to be gone all night. He was scheduled to do a drive thru timer installation at one restaurant last night and a different one tonight. Then because of the rain, they had to change plans because the rain was going to interfere with being able to do everything. So they decided to do the part that could be done in the rain at both of those restaurants last night and do the other part at both restaurants tonight. (Neither of these restaurants is in Frederick...both over an hour away, and not near each other either!) As it turned out, they were able to do everything at the first restaurant after all and it was actually easier than normal so they finished at the first restaurant by shortly after midnight. At that point, they decided to just wait and do the second restaurant tonight as originally planned. Frank has definitely done work during the day every day too although he hasn't had to work all day. Most days, though, he only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep before waking up again and getting sucked into doing some work so he's been exhausted, of course, and I've been a bit of a mess worrying about his health and / or that he'll get in a car wreck since he's so tired. Today, however, he slept from 2:00 am until nearly 9:00 am, so that was wonderful and I'm feeling a lot less stressed at the moment. It's a good thing he got some rest too, since today has been kind of crazy. Someone got in a wreck this morning near one of the restaurants and took out a utility box which knocked out power, internet access, etc. for not only that restaurant but also one of his clients for his business. So he's been a little busy taking care of those things. (The restaurant that lost power also had a gas leak earlier this week...the night Frank was there working, as a matter of fact {although it had nothing to do with him} which forced them to be closed the next day until the leak was fixed so it hasn't been their best week!)

Okay, so that's been Frank's week. He and I did manage to go vote today...we decided to take advantage of early voting. So did a lot of other people, apparently, because there was a huge line that took about 45 minutes to get through. The voting location was the high school near us and the voting was in the gym which has an outside door so the line was outside...and stretched all the way around 3 sides of the gym and down a very long sidewalk. I was really, really glad I thought to put on a coat for that trip! It's good to see that so many people are taking the time to vote, though. Here we are at the end of the line (the white building to the far left of the photo is the back of the building we were waiting to get into; the door was on the opposite side, in the front. You can't really see in the photo, but there are people lined up all along the back of the building.)

Getting closer:

 

Now we are next to the building and there are a lot of people behind us:

Of course, the line is a lot longer than it would be normally since people were standing 6 feet apart. Still, it was a pretty decent line! Luckily we got home just in the nick of time to log Seth back onto his computer for his two afternoon classes. (He finished all his other work earlier, which is why we decided to go vote at that point, since he didn't need to be online.)

Seth had an online Deacon's activity on Tuesday evening...they did a scavenger hunt. Each person had to bring four common items that everyone would be likely to have in their home. They took turns holding up an object and everyone else would race to find that object in their own house and bring it back to hold up...whoever got there first "won". (I guess they actually didn't keep score.) Seth seemed to have a lot of fun and I think the smaller size of our house was a definite advantage. The first item he had to find was a roll of toilet paper and the half bath was literally a few feet away from where he was sitting on the living room couch! (The three objects Seth picked were a Lego mini figure, a salt shaker, and a pair of socks.) Anyway, I thought it was a fun idea. Seth also had an online presidency meeting on Thursday so they could plan the next month of activities. He had to do that by phone, though, because Frank was already gone to work and I had book chat last night so neither of us were home. Seth met with his counselor on Wednesday, but that is the last visit for a while. Things are going pretty well right now (his counselor thinks so, too) so we decided to take a break for a while. Other than that, Seth has just kept busy with school. A couple of days, like today, he finished his work early.

I feel like I didn't get a ton accomplished this week but I did get some things done...I guess they just took longer than I anticipated. I'm still working on reading Smoky the Cowhorse. It's not super long, but it's also not super engaging so I usually only read one chapter a day. I also read a little bit more of one of the ADHD books, although not much. There's some good stuff in there, though. After uploading photos to our Costco account for days on end, I finally finished that project. I haven't made much headway with digitizing the movies but I got a small start on it. I also started working on crocheting an afghan but ran into problems and basically had to start over so I haven't made much progress on that yet either. Hopefully I will make more progress this coming week. On Saturday I pulled out a pattern and some fabric for a skirt that I purchased literally 5 years ago (yes, I have many unfinished projects!) so I can finally make it (hopefully). The fabric is plaid, so it has to be "matched" at the seams and I haven't done anything like that since I was in college so I couldn't remember how to do it. I did some reading in a few sewing technique books I have and watched a few YouTube videos and also called Mom and talked to her about it for a while. I did some preliminary work on the pattern pieces that day, but it was getting late by then and I was tired so I didn't start cutting pieces out. Unfortunately, I haven't got back to it yet! (Hopefully tomorrow I will.) I stayed up quite late that night watching the first half of the BYU football game (the first half ended around midnight). I would have liked to watch the whole thing but I didn't want to be exhausted for Sunday, especially since we actually got to go to church. 

At church the 1st Counselor asked if he could talk to me for a few minutes after the meeting but then afterwards he said he was mistaken and the bishop actually wanted to talk to me instead. The bishop didn't call me until Sunday evening which sort of left me wondering for a while, although I figured it must be a calling change. And I was right...I'm going to get released this Sunday from both of my callings (ward music chair and Primary activities leader) and I'm going to be sustained as an advisor in YW for the middle class (what used to be Mia Maids). I am kind of sad to leave my Primary activities calling...a calling I've literally wanted for years and finally got, then only got to do it for 4 months before everything shut down! But I am excited to work with the YW and the YW counselor I'll be working with is one of my best friends (she was one of my counselors back when I was Primary president) so I am really, really happy about that! The bishop told me when he talked to me that he had been planning on me being the ward music chair "forever" but he finally gave in and changed his mind! He said my name comes up often for callings (yikes!) and he always said "no, she's not available" because he wanted me to continue being the music chair. Kind of makes me wonder what I got out of! 😉 Anyway, I'm glad that I ended up with this calling and I have actually been feeling lately like it was time for a change so it all feels right, even though I will miss both callings. I got to talk to my friend (the YW counselor) for a while on Wednesday and she filled me in a bit on the girls and what my responsibilities will be, and she's super excited to work with me too. I guess the bishop told her "no" the first time she asked, too! On Sunday, besides church, we had online RS and quorum meetings and I really enjoyed the RS lesson, where we discussed Sister Eubank's most recent talk.

For book chat last night we discussed The Odyssey and now we are reading a book called Song for a Whale. I don't actually have a copy of it yet, though...waiting to get one from the library. I always really enjoy book chat. 

I watched several more Education Week presentations this week, although I'm not remembering what a lot of them were now. I watched one on eliminating negativity, another one about dreams & revelation (pretty sure I've never had a revelatory dream...except possibly once or twice...most of my dreams are complete gibberish!!), and at least one other which was about linking people together on a family tree. That one was excellent and I think I need to watch it again. I've probably forgotten a few others that I watched.

A few weeks ago we got a small indoor grill thing and I tried it out this week by making steak and asparagus one night. It was yummy:

I think I'll be using this grill a lot. We cook a lot of meat (low carbs) and this grill is nice because you can program how you want your meat done (medium well, medium rare, etc.) and you put a thermometer in one of the pieces of meat and it lets you know when it's done. We have a tendency to overcook meat (because Frank wants his meat well done and is very leery of pink meat) but this meat was perfect (and Frank even let me do "medium well" instead of "well"). I also like that it closes while cooking so all the grease is trapped in there. It has it's own splash plate that I can remove and easily wash every time we use it and it also has a pan below the grate that collects all the grease / juices so the meat isn't greasy and the kitchen stays cleaner too. 

One more thing I almost forgot about...on Monday Frank and I had a tele-meeting with a financial planner. We talked to one of the planners at the financial planning company that Frank used to work for, FSA. We were able to ask lots of questions and figure out some things we want to do to plan for retirement as well as the best way to invest some savings that we have. It was really helpful. 

That is all of our news from these parts. I will finish with a few photos of our pretty backyard view:

Weekly Review October 23 '20

 It is another beautiful fall day today! I love days like this. This week was a lot like all the others--we're not doing anything exciting, but calm is good!

Last Friday Frank actually got off work about 2:00 pm. Wow, that was nice! I still had some POS equipment in the back of my car from his work earlier that week and I also had some errands to run so I met him at his office when he got off work. On the way, I stopped at Seth's school to pick up his year book (from last school year...yes, they were late getting them done) and some other materials that he is going to need. After meeting Frank at his work so he could get the equipment out of my car, we went to Costco together. We needed to get some chicken and we also had a rewards certificate to spend. We got a few small clothing items and we also got an indoor grill. I'd been seeing advertisements for this grill and thought it looked kind of cool since we cook meat pretty often these days and I thought Frank would probably like it. He did, so that's what we got with our reward certificate. (I wanted to get a microwave, but they only had one kind and it was too small). 

On Saturday Frank and I went on a "date" to see some fall leaves. It was a perfect, beautiful fall day. We went up to a place called Pen Mar Park, which is on the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland (hence the name). The drive up to the park is really beautiful, through the countryside and into the "mountains". The Appalachian Trail goes right through the park...as a matter of fact, it is pretty close to the halfway point of the trail:

We were surprised that there actually weren't that many fall leaves yet...I feel like there were more colors in our own neighborhood...but it was beautiful anyway. It also felt about 10 degrees cooler up there. 

After we got back home, I finished the hat I'd been working on all week.

Sunday was fairly busy, although we did not have in-person church. We were able to tune in to Sacrament Meeting, though, and then we did our own sacrament at home. After that we normally would have online Sunday School, but instead our ward had their Primary program this week. It was online too...they had the kids send in photos of themselves with their families, with pictures they had drawn & colored, and also videos of the kids talking about something they've learned at home church this year, and even a few videos of some of the kids singing one of the Primary songs for the year. It was really nice and we enjoyed it a lot! After lunch Frank had an online meeting for his self-reliance calling and then we tuned in for a baptism service. The girl who was baptized is a friend of another girl in our ward and she has actually been coming to church with her for 3 years. She has wanted to be baptized for quite a while but her parents weren't too thrilled about it. She just graduated from high school in the spring and she is at college now (somewhere in Maryland) and the baptism was held in her new college ward. Anyway, it was really neat and a whole ton of people from our ward attended since we all know and love her. 

Seth had a strange school week because it was parent teacher conferences this week so school started 4 hours late on both Wednesday and Thursday and today school ended 3 1/2 hours early. I don't know think they planned the amount of work he should get very well because yesterday he was working until after 7:00 pm and he still didn't get everything done he was supposed to do on Thursday (nearly all of the time that were "school hours" he was in online classes so then when that was done he only had about 30 minutes left of "school hours" to do all his assigned work for the day). I was annoyed by that, but today he got done right on time and the rest of the week he got done on time or early so it turned out mostly okay overall. I attended online parent teacher conferences with two of his teachers (which covers 5 of his classes) and he is doing really well in all of those classes...mostly As and one B, I think. His Spanish teacher is good about communicating regularly through email, and he is doing better in that class too and has a B now. He also has an A in music. I wasn't able to meet with either his music or PE teachers because all of their time slots were filled up. His PE grade is actually really bad right now...a D...but when I looked at the details, his teacher has had only 5 little quizzes worth 4 points each, so 20 total points so far. He got 3 or 2 out of 4 on all of them, so that's why his grade is so low. He needs to do better on those, but I think also as she gives them more things to do he should be able to pull his grade up as long as he does okay with the new stuff. I will probably send an email to his teacher to touch base, since I couldn't meet with her for a conference. 

Seth had an in-person activity on Tuesday evening...they had a combined activity for all the youth. They met in one family's backyard to watch a movie. They all wore masks. They watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie called Rope, and he seemed to enjoy it. That's the first time they have had an in-person activity for more than just his quorum since March. (And he's had very few in-person quorum activities either.) 

Frank worked overnight both Monday and Tuesday nights. On Monday he was in Cumberland, Maryland, which is about 2 1/2 hours from here so he got a hotel room so he could sleep for a while there before trying to drive home. He actually had some work to do at that restaurant earlier in the day, so he left here Monday morning and I didn't see him again until Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, he only slept for a couple of hours at the hotel before he woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Then there were some issues that came up so he ended up working most of the day on Tuesday. He did get an hour or two of sleep at home on Tuesday evening before he had to leave for work again. Thankfully, that job didn't take as long and he was home by 1:30 am. The rest of the week has been pretty normal...very busy, but not too overwhelming. Next week is going to be crazy, but I'll tell you all about that next week! He only has a few more POS installs to go but he has drive through timer installations and digital menu installations still, which will be going on for the rest of the year, I think. 

Frank picked up some new glasses on Saturday and wore them Saturday and Sunday but he got a really bad headache so today he took them back. They looked at them and said the focal point was wrong on one lens, so they are going to make a new lens for him. Hopefully that will help. 

Speaking of headaches, I forgot to mention in last week's post that Seth had another headache / throwing up episode last Wednesday evening. This time he actually mentioned at dinner time that the sight in one of his eyes "looks too bright". I asked him if his head ached, and he said a little. I gave him acetaminophen right after dinner but it was too late and he started throwing up (and his head ache got a lot worse) a short time later. This leads me to suspect (as we have wondered all along) that he is probably getting migraine headaches and that is what is causing the nausea / throwing up. We're going to keep paying attention to see if we can figure out what might be triggering the headaches, but so far we've never been able to see any pattern. I do want to take him to the doctor at some point, but I figure the doctor isn't going to be able to figure much out unless we can tell him things like what Seth has been eating the day these incidents happen. So I'm going to start keeping track and take him to the doctor after we have some data to share. 

I'm keeping busy with reading and projects. I finished The Odyssey and then I read a Newbery winner called The Crossover. Now I am reading another Newbery winner called Smoky the Cowhorse. I spent some time on Saturday trying to decide what crochet  or sewing project I am going to start next, but I actually didn't start anything new with that this week. Instead, I have been working on getting all of our digital photos uploaded to my Costco photo account so that I have copies of them somewhere besides my computer (and my phone...for the ones that are still on my phone). My phone is actually almost maxed out on photos, but I didn't want to erase them off my phone until I had a backup copy somewhere. I've made pretty good progress and I'm about halfway done with that project. I used to move photos to my Costco account at the end of each month, but I fell behind on that years ago. When I looked to see when I had actually stopped, I laughed...it was March of 2013, about 3 months after I got called to be the RS president. That explains it! I fell behind on a lot of things at that point and I think I'm still trying to catch up! I have also been working on another (somewhat related) project--getting all of our home movies onto DVD. I actually did copy most of them to DVD years ago, but we have about 3 tapes that haven't been copied to DVD yet. So far, I haven't done any copying...I just got our video camera out of the storage unit and figured out how to hook it up to our television (with Frank's help). I also looked at what was on all the DVDs to make sure I knew what I'd already done, and watched a good part of the tapes that haven't been copied yet to see what's on them. Most of those are of Seth when he was a baby and watching those was interesting because things have changed so much since then. The biggest thing I noticed was how NOISY it was all the time at our house when we had all 4 boys at home! How on earth did I cope? Seth by himself definitely doesn't make that much noise, although he certainly can be very loud. 

I have also continued to watch BYU Education Week presentations and enjoyed them all very much. I can't remember all of the ones I've watched, but I watched one on the book of Revelation (part 1, but the 2nd part isn't available yet), one called "Religious Freedom for Non-Lawyers", which was really helpful, One on what causes conflict (including some conflict resolution strategies) which was really good, and one about the importance of Joseph Smith's First Vision (also a two parter). I'm pretty sure I watched at least one other, but I'm not remembering what it was about now. 

Since Seth didn't have school yesterday morning, my friend Rebekah came to visit with me for a few hours before she went to a physical therapy appointment. We sat on the deck and talked. It was kind of foggy and a little drizzly but not cold. Of course, right about the time she needed to leave the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day! That's okay, though...I'm glad to get some beautiful weather whenever I can. This week was mostly really nice (even a little too warm at times) and we went for a long walk on Wednesday evening. 

That is all there is to report this week...at least, that's all I can remember. 

Weekly Review October 16 '20

 When I left off last week, I was hoping that Frank would get home from work early. He did get home around 4:00 pm, which is a little early, but then a problem came up at one of the restaurants with a piece of equipment failing and it needed to be replaced right away, so guess who got to do that? The restaurant was in La Plata, which is over an hour and a half away, too. So he ended up eating dinner and then leaving again, and didn't get home until about 11:00 pm. Boo!! Frank has had a busy work week this week (what's new?) but it wasn't too bad. His Monday night POS install was the biggest hiccup...it actually went quite smoothly and they were done by 3:45 am, but then he discovered that someone had left the back delivery door to the restaurant unlocked and everyone who had a key was gone and sound asleep, of course. he couldn't leave the restaurant unlocked like that, so he pulled his car up close to the door so that it couldn't be opened from the outside and he had to wait there until someone finally showed up to open the store at about 5:45. (He did try to get in touch with the store manager, but of course he was asleep at that hour.) This restaurant was about an hour away, so he didn't get home and to bed until 7:00 am. So that was really frustrating that he lost so much sleep over someone else's mistake. He was awake again and on the phone shortly after 9:00 am but thankfully he didn't have to go anywhere that day. He probably worked at least 2 or 3 hours, but all from home. he took a few short naps later but he was, of course, very tired by bedtime on Tuesday night. The rest of the week has been pretty calm, by comparison. I hope nothing "explodes" today!

Anyway, going back to last Saturday, I had Seth try on all of his pants and shirts to see what still fit. He has outgrown a couple of pairs of pants and a lot of shirts, but since he had tons of shirts he still has plenty of shirts left. He mostly needed a couple of pairs of pants and some new church clothes, plus some underwear. Frank and I went to the store later that day and got the pants & underwear (we had other shopping to do too) and I went on Amazon on Monday and ordered a dress shirt, dress pants, and a couple of ties for him. He should be good for a while, except that we still need to get some Sunday shoes. When Frank and I went out to the store we also went to his office on that same trip to drop off equipment that was still in the back of my car from his Monday night POS install (he brings back the old equipment that was replaced). Then we got some lunch at Cafe Rio. It was nice to spend some time alone together! On Saturday afternoon we watched the BYU football game and we were glad BYU won again although it was disappointing that they didn't play as well as they were played for all the other games. Finally, there was a game that was at a time that we could actually watch the whole thing and it was their worst game of the season so far! But that's okay...at least they did win the game. 

We had in person church on Sunday and then Frank & Seth had online quorum meetings and I had an online RS meeting. It was also fast Sunday and our stake had a special fast for several things. I spent the day reading a family history book and doing indexing.

The rest of the week has been the normal school / work routine, without a lot of variations. Seth had an online Deacon's activity on Tuesday evening--they had "show and tell" (show something they made or something they've been doing). Seth also had a virtual checkup with our doctor on Wednesday afternoon--just following up on his medication. This week is "midterm" at school and today he has the day off.

We got one of those new video doorbell things on Wednesday and Frank spent quite a bit of time that evening installing it...there was some kind of problem with the connection but he finally got it working correctly. I don't like answering the door when I'm the only one at home so it will be nice to be able to see who is there when the doorbell rings. 

I kept quite busy this week and got a lot done. I finished the hat I was working on:

And started a new one, which I am well into:

I finished the ADHD book I was reading and started a new one. I am also only a few pages away from finishing The Odyssey. I watched a BYU Education Week talk nearly every day and have really enjoyed all of them so far. I watched one about teaching our kids to have "grit" which was excellent and another one about financial preparedness that was also excellent. It encouraged me that we are not as far off in preparing for retirement as I thought we were, and it also showed clearly to me that we have been doing everything right in terms of living within a budget and staying out of debt. So that was nice! I have also done well with scripture study and I've read through several of the talks from the most recent General Conference. 

Today is cloudy and gloomy, but mostly we've been enjoying really nice fall weather and yesterday was really beautiful! 

Backyard views:

Views of the front door from where I was sitting on the couch:

That's all our news for this week. 

Weekly Review October 9 '20

There is not a lot on the calendar this week, but we did have a few things going on.

Last Friday (October 2nd) I got to go visit my friend Wanda. It was really great to see her, although our visit was short. (They're only allowing 20 minute visits). It was windy and a shower curtain next to us (to separate visiting areas) was flapping in the wind a lot which made it hard to communicate because we were also sitting 6 feet apart, had to wear masks, and Wanda is difficult to understand under the best of circumstances. (She had a traumatic brain injury, so her speech is quite garbled.) But it was better than nothing!! Wanda was in pretty good spirits and she seems to be doing okay although she did admit she gets bored and lonely (no wonder!). She is happy to be getting some visits now, though, and her parents and her son and grandson had already been to visit her as well. 

We got Chinese food from our favorite local Chinese take-out restaurant that evening. Frank opened his fortune cookie and laughed ruefully:

Okay, that's not a fortune (they rarely are) but it is certainly accurate. Actually, it's an understatement...there should be several "very"s before the "hard". 

Saturday and Sunday were dominated by General Conference, and it was awesome!! I felt like I was living on a spiritual island for a couple of days. I didn't want to go back to normal life! I particularly loved the Women's Session, but all of the talks were excellent. I tried something different this time and didn't really take any notes except to write down the name of each speaker and the general topic of their talk, to help jog my memory. I always watch and read all the talks again afterwards and I take notes then, so I decided to just relax and listen and worry about notes later. I liked doing it that way. I did work on embroidering some pillowcases while I listened to the Saturday sessions, though, to help me stay awake! 

Frank was busy as usual this week although thankfully he didn't have 3 late night or overnight jobs. He did have an overnight POS install on Monday night and this one went all the way until 6:00 am, so that was not so fun for him. Then he was awake again by 9:00 am, solving a problem and ended up going all day long, into the evening, working. So he was pretty exhausted by Tuesday evening. He did get a solid 7 hours of sleep that night, thankfully, since he put in long days on both Wednesday and Thursday. He is at work now, but we're both hoping he will be able to leave a bit early today. We'll see how that goes!

Last week when Frank met with the doctor for a follow up visit (from his fall a few weeks ago) the doctor decided that since he still has some fairly significant back and knee pain that he needed to go to physical therapy. So he started that this week and went in early in the morning on Monday, Wednesday and today. On Monday he will visit with the doctor again and decide if he needs to continue physical therapy. He thinks it's helping but he still has pain. 

Seth had an online Deacon's activity on Tuesday evening...they played a General Conference trivia game. Other than that, he has just kept busy with school all week. He is struggling a bit with his Spanish class but the teacher is really good about following up with him and helping him so hopefully he will get a passing grade in the end. Either he had less to do this week or he did better with time management because he finished all his work for the week by 11:30 today. He still has music and PE classes this afternoon, but in the meantime he is happy to be enjoying some screen time. 

I had a fairly productive week. I got more reading done--I'm finishing up the ADHD book and I am well into The Odyssey, which I am enjoying. I have made an effort to spend more time on scripture study and that's going pretty well. I also made a lot of progress on the hat that I'm crocheting. The yarn is still not easy to work with, but I'm getting the hang of it and I made a lot of progress:

That photo was actually taken a few days ago so I have since done 3 or 4 more rounds and only have 2 rounds to go before I am finished. I was happy to see an actual pattern emerging, and that it looks like I did it right! I have still had some problems with it...I had to re-do one of the rounds probably 4 times before the stitches came out right, and then I had the same problem with one of the other rounds I was doing yesterday. I anticipate that the next round I do is going to be challenging too but hopefully I will figure it out and finish the hat soon. I think it is going to be wearable when I finish it...I hope so, anyway!! I am glad I persevered and kept trying to figure it out, because mostly it just took some practice. I don't think I am going to use this kind of yarn again anytime soon though. When I go back to regular yarn now it is going to seem so much easier!

On Wednesday evening Seth's school had a virtual "Back to School" night so I attended the session for the middle school parents. Also on Wednesday I purchased access to BYU Education Week (if you haven't heard, it's virtual this year and only $49 for access to all the classes from now until the end of March). That seemed like too good of a deal to pass up! I've watched a couple of classes already and they were both excellent. I've actually never been to Education Week (always wanted to go) so I'm excited to have the chance to participate, even though it's not the same as being there in person. This actually works a lot better for me since taking a week off from regular life is not easy to do but watching one class a day (or every few days) fits into my schedule just fine. 

I haven't been feeling great this week...I've had a slight headache and sore throat for most of the week. I've also had a lot of achiness...especially in my neck. I'm not sure if that is related to the sore throat / headache or if it's just from sitting on the couch most of the day hunched over my laptop or over crocheting. Yesterday both the sore throat and the achy neck improved a lot, though, and I feel mostly normal today. I do not think I have Covid-19 (you always have to wonder these days, whenever you feel even slightly ill) but I didn't go anywhere this week except Walmart on Monday. I've also been having some issues with my back this week. I have one spot on the lower left side of my back that really hurts, especially if I try to lie down flat on the floor (which I do pretty often, since I do sit ups most days). It hurts enough that I had to forego sit ups most days this week and between that and not feeling well I exercised for shorter time periods than normal each day and yesterday I didn't exercise at all. I was able to get back on track this morning though. (With the exercising, but not with sit ups. I tried...but it hurt too much.) It mostly feels like I pulled a muscle somehow so hopefully it will heal and the pain will go away soon. Thankfully it doesn't hurt to lie down in bed, just on hard surfaces.

Our ward is going to start having Sacrament Meeting weekly, with 75 people allowed to attend at a time. (This is a big improvement over once a month, with only 25 people in a group.) They divided our ward into 2 groups of 75 people (there are still a lot of people who aren't comfortable attending in person) with each group taking turns meeting on alternate weeks. These meetings will also be live streamed (except for the sacrament) each week so we will be able to attend either in person or through the live stream each week. We will also have virtual RS, quorum, and Sunday school meetings each week following the normal schedule...which means RS, EQ and Deacon's quorum lessons this Sunday and Sunday School lessons next Sunday. Our family is in the group that will meet in person for Sacrament Meeting this Sunday (although if I'm not feeling totally well, I won't go). We still aren't allowed to sing in our meetings (just listen to music) but since we are meeting every week now, the bishop sent me an email this week asking me to start planning the music for Sacrament Meeting each week again (as I was doing before the pandemic hit). Since we stopped having meetings in March, one of our organists has moved and the other two are not attending in person because of age / health risks but we have 4 people who have agreed to play the piano. Two are in one of the groups and two are in the other group so they'll be able to rotate and each one will only play about once a month. It sounds like we will be able to start having some in-person activities, at least with small groups outdoors, but no Primary activities yet so I still don't have anything to do for my Primary activities calling.

That is everything I can think of that is going on around here except that as many of you know, we purchased plane tickets to visit Utah for Christmas. I am really excited about that! Of course, we always have in the back of our heads that Covid-19 concerns or weather issues could mess up our plans, but we're hopeful that won't happen. It will be great to see so many of you, if everything works out.   

Weekly Review October 2 '20

Unlike last week (and pretty much every week since March) I had something on the calendar almost every day this week. I don't think there's a lot to say about all those things, but I'll have a little more to talk about this week.

Last Friday evening we went to Dairy Queen to get blizzards. It wasn't a date because Seth came with us but it was nice for all of us to get out of the house for a little while. On Saturday our ward did our annual "Day to Serve" project...we have been collecting food to donate to some local food banks, and Saturday was the day we dropped off our donations. I took over our family's contributions and while I was there got to talk to a few ward members...one of whom I haven't seen (either in person or online) since March...so that was nice. Then I drove to my friend Rebekah's house and we sat on her porch and talked for a few hours.

On Sunday we had in-person Sacrament meeting and we were assigned to the 9:00 am session. Originally, our ward had planned that week to be a testimony meeting, but a few days before Sunday our stake leaders asked all the wards to have fast Sunday the week following General Conference and to have a stake fast for several specific things. That left our bishopric needing to get speakers for Sunday at the last minute, so instead they each asked 3 or 4 people to share a 4 minute testimony, including a gospel principle that is meaningful to them. I was one of the people who was asked to do that for the session we were in. I appreciated the chance to ponder my testimony and what is important to me. (And this was much less intimidating than giving a talk!) I chose to focus my testimony on the importance of Heavenly Father's and the Savior's love for me (and for all of us). I was the last "speaker" and the song they had chosen to play at the end (we aren't allowed to sing, just listen to music) was "I Know My Father Lives" so that turned out to really go together well. On Sunday evening we enjoyed visiting via Zoom with Mom, all of my siblings, and several of my nieces and nephews. It was great to see all of you!

On Monday Seth didn't have school (Yom Kippur) which was nice for a change. He had a counseling appointment at noon and before that he went with me to Walmart to choose a gift for a friend who was having a birthday party. Frank had an overnight install on Monday night, so before he left we played a game and had a treat (we did the lesson portion of family night on Sunday). We played Yahtzee and Seth won. After Frank left for his overnight job, Seth mowed the lawn. (It was too wet to mow it on Saturday). 

On Tuesday Seth had an online Deacon's activity (they played Old Testament trivia), I had book chat, and we took dinner to the missionaries. Frank was supposed to have a late night cabling job at one of the restaurants but since it was supposed to rain pretty hard that night and they needed to do work outside, that got moved to Wednesday night instead. I enjoyed book chat, where we discussed The Scarlet Pimpernel. Now we are reading Homer's Odyssey. As usual, we talked about more than just the book...we ended up talking about our concerns over the state of the world more than anything else! Actually, discussing the book kind of led to that...the book is set during the French Revolution and the parallels between what was happening then and some of the things that are happening in the world now are actually pretty scary. 

Seth went to a birthday party on Wednesday evening for a friend from school (and church...he used to be in our ward). They played laser tag and other games at his house. Seth got to see a few other kids from school and he had a good time. (They wore masks.) Frank left for his late night cabling job while I went to pick Seth up from the party. Thankfully, the cabling job didn't take too long and he got home around 1:30. He did have a full day of work on Thursday, though, and then last night he had another overnight job...this time installing a digital menu board at one of the restaurants. 

Meanwhile, I had an appointment to get my hair done yesterday afternoon. Seth wasn't done with his schoolwork when I had to leave so he had to finish that up later after I got back. (He should have been done before I left...he took too many "breaks". We had a discussion about that last night and when I pointed out to him that his medicine is wearing off or has already worn off when he goes into the late afternoon or evening with his school work, he realized that isn't a good idea so hopefully next week he will do better at getting his work done quicker. Today they have a two hour early release, so Seth had less work to do and he doesn't have his music and PE classes this afternoon. He just finished his work a little while ago, so he is done with school for this week.

Frank thought his overnight job last night was going to be a true overnighter...until 6:00 am this morning or later, but he actually got home about 3:45. No complaints about that! Since he worked days Monday through Thursday in addition to working Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, he took today off completely. He has been on the phone a bit handling some kind of an issue, but at least he hasn't had to go anywhere and he is getting the chance to relax some. 

I don't feel like I got much done this week...I'm not sure why. I did a lot of reading and finished a few books (and I'm almost done with the ADHD book). I started working on a new crocheted hat but I haven't made it very far yet because the pattern I'm using called for a different kind of yarn than I have ever used before and it is very hard to work with. I'm really not sure if I'm going to be able to successfully make this hat and have it be something someone would want to wear, but I'm going to keep working at it and see what happens. The yarn is very bulky and fluffy so it's super hard to see the stitches (actually impossible, really) so I'm pretty sure I'm making mistakes but it's also nearly impossible to tell if I'm making mistakes! Besides that, it has a tendency to knot up when I try to unravel mistakes. The yarn looks like this:

 Anyway, I haven't totally given up yet, but I may have to change plans if I get further along and it looks terrible. 

This afternoon I get to go see my friend Wanda for the first time since March! She lives in a nursing home even though she's not much older than me (she was in an accident that left her with limited mobility in her legs and arms) so I haven't been able to see her. Just recently they started allowing 20 minute scheduled visits. We'll have to sit outdoors and I have to stay 6 feet away from her (and wear a mask, of course) but I am excited that I will get to talk to her at least! (She doesn't have a phone, so I haven't been able to call her either.) Another friend of mine in my ward and I are going together to visit her...my friend is the one who set up our visit. 

Anyway, that is everything I can think of for this week. We're looking forward to General Conference! I'll finish up with a photo I took while I was at Walmart picking up groceries on Thursday morning. This is the view that I'm facing while the Walmart associate is loading my groceries for me. I know they are just weeds, but I think they are pretty weeds!

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!)