Weekly Review March 26 '21

 I guess I should start out with my visit to the cardiologist, which happened last Friday afternoon (the 19th). My blood pressure was good, my heart rate was a little high but nothing to be alarmed about and the EKG showed only one irregular heartbeat. However, since I was having chest pain and they don't know why, the cardiologist wants to run some tests. I will be doing a 22 hour holter monitor on Tuesday (the 30th), a stress test on Monday the 5th, and an Echocardiogram on April 21st. We'll see if those tests show anything. Meanwhile, the chest pain subsided a lot on Friday afternoon / evening and on Saturday I only felt a little pain (but also felt really tired). By Sunday I felt almost normal, with only a few twinges now and again and most of this week I have felt fine. I think it's possible that the chest pain had nothing to do with my heart at all, but we'll see what the test results say and go from there. I'm just glad that I'm feeling better!

Since I was recuperating, I didn't get much done on Saturday or Sunday (I did finish The Other Bennett Sister on Saturday, though). By Monday I was feeling much better and I was ready for a busy day. After taking Seth to school I had shopping and errands to do. Besides the usual grocery shopping, I did some birthday shopping for Darlee and I also went to Lowe's to get some supplies to make more coasters (similar to the ones I made for an RS activity about a month ago) and while I was there I got some paint and a few other supplies for the dollhouse project--maybe I start working on that soon. Doing all that, plus eating some lunch, took up the whole time that Seth was at school. Frank came home from work in the early afternoon because he had to work Monday night, and he went with me to Lowe's. After we picked up Seth from school, we visited the storage unit to drop some things off and to look for something that Tanner wanted (we found it, thankfully). Frank had to leave for work before dinner time so we had to put off family night activity until Tuesday. Seth and I just had sandwiches for dinner (I am never motivated to cook when Frank isn't home). That evening I made some coasters to send to Darlee for her birthday. I think they turned out pretty nice:

 

Frank had to work all night in Cumberland again, so once again he got a hotel room so he could sleep for a few hours after finishing the job before driving home. He didn't sleep as well this time so he got home by late morning. Meanwhile, I did my usual volunteering for VITA that afternoon. That evening we had a combined virtual activity for the YM / YW. We did "Book of Mormon Baking"--each person was supposed to make something that makes them think about the Book of Mormon. (Although they expanded it to include any scripture story.) Seth made a pizza to represent "Jonah and the Whale" with a whale (made out of pepperoni, with green pepper teeth and a Jonah in its mouth made out of sausage) on top. I made chocolate pudding with oreo crumbs on top to represent dirt, and made some "gold plates" out of a vanilla sugar wafer cookie to bury in the "ground". Some of the other projects: a cake with a ship on top (Lehi's family journeying to the promised land), King Benjamin's tower made out of graham crackers, and people-shaped cookies with missing arms (Ammon defending the king's flocks). It was pretty fun! I'm really mad that I forgot to take a picture of Seth's pizza before we ate it but here is my pudding (although it doesn't look very remarkable):

On Wednesday I got a package mailed to Tanner & Darlee but other than that it was just the usual Wednesday chores. I was supposed to have a ministering interview with the RS president that evening but she had something come up so we'll have to do it another time. 

On Thursday I was able to volunteer a few more hours at VITA (after Seth finished his school work). From there I went to the church to meet other YW girls and leaders so we could do a "drive by farewell" for one of the girls in my class who is moving. She is a very shy girl but I think she was really pleased to know that she will be missed. We had all signed a card for her and some of the girls in the class jumped out of their cars to give her balloons and other small gifts. That evening I had book chat. We forgot to assign someone to bring snacks but I realized a few weeks ago that we had forgotten so I just decided to bring some snacks myself. Everyone seemed to really appreciate that! We had a good discussion about True Grit (you should really read it...don't let the fact that it was made into a John Wayne movie turn you off...it's really good) and now we are going to read The Other Bennett Sister. I was a little surprised that they picked that one...we usually go for things with a bit more depth...but one person really didn't want to read another WWII book (which is a shame, because We Were the Lucky Ones is really different from a lot of WWII books and I loved it) and someone else had heard a lot of controversy about American Dirt, so she didn't want to read that one. However, The Other Bennett Sister is really good too and it actually had a lot more depth to it than you would expect. I liked the character development of the main character and I always like stories about "unpopular" people who come to realize that they have value and who find happiness in the end. I can relate to that scenario! It will be interesting to see what everyone else thinks of the book.

Today I have been busy with mostly the usual things but I also reviewed a tax return for VITA from home...I can log into the tax software from home and the site manager attached photos of all the documents to the return so that I can see them. It was kind of fun to do that. Maybe they will have me do more of those from home over the next few weeks.

I started reading another book this week called The Librarian of Auschwitz (yep, another WWII book). It took me several chapters to really get into it, but now I'm really interested and I'm about half way through. It is not going to be happy like the last WWII book I read, unfortunately. It is also based on a true story about a survivor, though.

Besides that, I haven't been doing much...I don't feel like I had as much free time this week, but it's good to be busier! Our ward choir has started working on another virtual choir piece so I have started learning it this week. (And mostly already have it learned because it's very simple, like a hymn.) The song is called Great is Thy Faithfulness, and I really love the words. 

We had some rainy days this week and some days were somewhat chilly and other days were warm. Today has definitely been the warmest. After several days of clouds, today was mostly sunny and the temperatures got up into the high 70s. It was quite windy too but it was a warm wind. I really enjoyed going outside when I had some errands to run this afternoon! We have spring break all next week but unfortunately it looks like the temperatures are going to cool down and it's going to rain a lot. We don't have any special plans...we would have liked to have gone to NC or something but quarantining makes that really complicated. I will be able to do more volunteer work since Seth won't be in school. We may take a day trip somewhere too. 

Speaking of quarantining, Frank is scheduled to get his first dose of Covid-19 vaccination tomorrow afternoon. I haven't been able to get scheduled yet but hopefully will be able to do that soon. When I was at book club last night, most people there had had at least their first dose so we're finally making progress in the state of Maryland. (A couple of them are teachers and most of them are older than me too so they qualified before me.) It cheers me up that MAYBE we can get more back to normal soon. 

That is our news for this week. 

Weekly Review March 19 '21

 Well, let's see...what did we do this week? Like most of the USA, we had to switch onto Daylight Savings on Sunday and that has really messed me up this time around. Making the switch always causes me problems, but this time has been worse than usual. On Sunday afternoon, I got really tired and decided I needed a short nap...this was around 2:30. I was shocked when I woke up to discover that it was 5:00!! So much for a short nap! I had planned to make meatloaf for dinner but we had to do something else because meatloaf takes a long time to bake and we didn't want to wait until 7:00ish to eat dinner. Of course, when bedtime rolled around I wasn't tired at all and didn't get to sleep until close to 1:00 am. So then of course I didn't wake up until about 7:30 on Monday. And so it went, for the rest of the week. I didn't take a nap at all on Monday so I thought I'd be fine going to sleep on Monday night, but I was up until about 12:30. I've also had trouble staying asleep most nights so I have an hour (or two...) that I'm awake in the middle of the night. I also ended up taking another nap (this one really was short, at least) on Wednesday afternoon. I usually don't take naps at all anymore. The main result of all my sleep issues is that I didn't wake up in time to exercise and only managed to do that once this week, for a shorter duration. Hopefully I'm starting to adapt and next week will be better!

On Sunday I taught the lesson for my YW class and I feel like it went pretty well although we ran out of time. (We only get 45 minutes on our Zoom meets.) We attended sacrament meeting in person and it is nice to be able to do that every week now. 

I did my VITA shift as usual on Tuesday and they would have liked me to come in again yesterday or today but Frank had to work (he actually had an overnight job last night in Cumberland which is a couple of hours away) so there was no one around to supervise Seth's school work but me so I told them I couldn't come in this week. It's good that the IRS extended the tax filing deadline because we are definitely going to need an extra month to get all the tax returns completed.

I had two YW activities this week because our ward decided to gather in person for the church's youth music festival on Wednesday but we also wanted to have an online activity for the people who aren't able to attend in person. So on Tuesday I had an online YW activity where one of the girls taught us the basics of how to do calligraphy. Then on Wednesday evening Seth and I both went to the church to watch the music festival. We played a game of Pictionary beforehand (and others played volleyball). The music festival was really nice.

On Wednesday afternoon I took Seth to the dentist to get two baby teeth pulled. That went quickly and easily, thankfully.

My laptop has been having issues with running really slowly lately and on Wednesday it got really bad. Frank looked at it and realized my hard drive was failing, so he removed it from my laptop and spent the rest of the evening transferring all my data off of the hard drive. He had an extra laptop sitting around, so he got that one set up for me and that's what I'm using now. Not all of my data is on this laptop yet, but I have a lot of the basic stuff I need. 

One of my ministering sisters came over last night to visit me and we had a really long but enjoyable visit. I think that's the first time she's visited me in person since last March, but she has visited me several times over the phone or on Zoom. I appreciate that she is so diligent! 

This afternoon I am going to visit the cardiologist. I've been having some mild discomfort / tightness in my chest and back the last couple of days and last night I felt my heart fluttering a bit, and it's still been doing that today off and on. It hurts a little bit if I take a deep breath too. I really don't know if the feeling in my chest or back has anything to do with my heart, but I decided I'd better get it checked out to make sure nothing is wrong. I called my primary care doctor first, but knowing my history he said I should go visit the cardiologist. I'm actually feeling better right now than I was earlier today but anyway...I'm going to get checked out. 

Frank was gone overnight in Cumberland and because it is so far away he got a hotel room so that he could sleep for a while before driving home. The job he was doing got finished around 1:30 am and he went to the hotel and slept until about 7:00. He just got home an hour or so ago. 

Our weather this week was not as nice as last week...colder, and we had rain yesterday and Wednesday. It's going to start warming up again in a few days, though.

I spent most of my free time this week reading again. I read a book called We Were the Lucky Ones which is about a Jewish Polish family during WWII. The book is fiction, but based on the author's ancestors' experience and it was pretty incredible to realize that most of what happened in the story really did happen. Incredibly, the whole family--mom, dad, 5 grown children, 4 spouses, and a couple of grandchildren all survived. The extended family was not so lucky and most of the spouses lost their immediate family members too. I read that book really quickly...started it on Friday and finished it on Monday. Since Monday I have been reading a book called The Other Bennet Sister which is about Mary from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It's pretty good so far and I am over halfway through reading it.  

In spite of the colder weather, we did have a few flowers appear in our front yard this week. 

We're also starting to see buds forming on trees, although none of them have started blooming yet. It makes me happy to see these signs of spring! That's all the news from us this week.

Weekly Review March 12 '21

 I say this every week, I think, but we didn't have a lot going on this week. We do keep busy and happy, there's just not a lot to talk about. I'll see if I can come up with something to tell you about, though! 

I can't remember last Saturday very well now (I really should take notes or something!) but I remember I was busy and felt pretty productive. One thing I do remember is that I pulled out the plaid skirt I've been working on (but haven't touched in over a month) and finished cutting out the pieces and then started sewing it together. I sewed two seams together (the center back seam and one of the side seams) and the plaid matched close to perfectly, so I was inwardly congratulating myself for figuring out how to cut it out correctly. Then I started pinning together the other side seam and I realized that that side doesn't match at all!! Pride goes before a fall, right? I have no idea how I managed to cut two out just right and then totally mess up the other one. Oh well!! At least it is one of the side seams and not the center back seam, because the side seam will be less noticeable. I have no idea if it will fit right or look good enough to wear once I'm finished, but I'm going to finish making it and find out. 

On Sunday we were able to go to church in person again (after having some great Sunday school lessons online) and it was really nice to be there with a larger group. It almost felt normal again. I spent the rest of the day doing indexing and reading scriptures, family history stories, etc. I finished a book called After 100 Years, which is about Frederick G. Williams and his wife Rebecca Swain. There was a lot of good information in there. (Although I realized the book was written in the 1920s, so it could be renamed After 200 Years now.) 

Seth had school on Monday and Tuesday, as usual. I enjoy having quiet time to get chores and other work done...it goes by fast! Seth chose to play Clue for family night activity, which Frank hates because I always win, haha! (Jared has beat me before, but he's not here of course.) 

I worked at VITA on Tuesday afternoon, as usual, and reviewed several more returns. On Tuesday evening Seth had a virtual YM activity and I had an in-person YW activity. For the YW activity we played a Get to Know You game using an app called Kahoot. There were different statements about one of the girls or leaders and we had to guess who it was about. We played two rounds and I did pretty well because I got 4th place in the first round and 1st place in the second round. This was actually a "hybrid" activity...some of the girls and leaders joined in online. At the church, we had 10 of us there. It's the first in-person YW activity we've had since I got this calling and it was fun to see some of the girls in person, even though we all had to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart. Meanwhile, at home Frank helped Seth make potstickers, which is what they did for the YM activity. They actually turned out looking very similar to the ones we buy at Chinese restaurants and they tasted pretty good too, although we would like to experiment with the recipe to make the filling more flavorful. ("We" means Frank...you know how much I "love" cooking!) I got home shortly before the first batch got done, so just in time to taste test them. I was really happy too, that our Insta Pot got used for once...Frank used that to steam the potstickers. We've had that thing for a couple of years and barely used it...mainly because I've had trouble finding good low carb recipes that use it. 

(In the background you can see a laptop; the other YM are on Zoom.)

Three of the girls in my YW class have birthdays this week. I dropped off a card & gift for one of them on my way to the activity. One of the other birthday girls came to the activity so I was able to give her a card & gift, and I gave a card & gift to one of the other girls at the activity, who will drop it off to the 3rd birthday girl. No more birthdays in my class until May!

I had a RS activity (virtual) on Wednesday evening. We were celebrating the RS birthday. A "party box" was dropped off at my house the day before which included a small bottle of sparking cider and a small plastic goblet, a cupcake, some frosting, sprinkles, a candle, birthday cake flavored kisses, oreos, popcorn, and a RS trivia quiz. For the activity we shared our thoughts on what we love about RS and then we decorated our cupcakes, sang Happy Birthday to RS, and did the RS trivia quiz. I actually got all the answers right...although they were all pretty easy and I just happened to guess right on the last question. 

Thursday was quite busy because besides all the usual chores I went in to VITA again for a few hours after Seth finished his schoolwork for the day. They are really behind on completing returns so they asked if I could come in any extra hours this week. (I believe there are a lot fewer volunteers this year, they aren't open as many hours, and it takes longer to complete returns when the taxpayer isn't present so you can ask them questions.) I could work more hours but the times they are open don't coincide with the times that I am available at all...it's kind of frustrating. But anyway, I was glad I could help out a little extra. I also had to get grocery shopping done because for some reason Wal-Mart cancelled my pickup order. That's happened a couple of times because of snow storms but we certainly weren't having a snowstorm on Thursday. It was actually the warmest day we've had so far and got up into the 70s! (Tuesday and Wednesday both got into the 60s, so we had three days in a row of beautiful weather. Today is pretty nice too but temperatures are going to drop quite a bit starting tomorrow.) I went straight to the store after I finished working at VITA and Frank met me there and helped me get the shopping done quickly. Then we came home and made dinner. 

Almost all of my free time this week I spent reading. I mentioned last week that I have books to choose for book chat. I finished reading True Grit on Monday. I liked it...definitely worth reading. Then I started reading a book called American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which is about a mother and her son in Mexico who have to flee to the United States after a local drug cartel kills the rest of their family. (Fiction, but doubtless there are people who have had similar experiences.) I finished reading that book this morning. It was hard to put down but I did put it down a few times because I just needed to get away from the tension for a while! Definitely it is a good candidate for book club and I'm glad I read it. I feel very, very grateful to be born in the United States and it's good to be reminded of how blessed we are here and how willing we should be to help other people who are in distress. I still have 4 more books to read...probably won't get through all of them before book chat in two weeks, but I'm going to try to read as many as I can.

I felt like my days went better this week because I woke up earlier every day (except today, because I didn't sleep well last night for some reason). I definitely prefer to get an early start...I seem to get so much more done when I do. 

I guess there was more going on this week than I thought, but that covers it. "Happy" one year anniversary of the pandemic! Here's hoping we all get vaccinated soon and that life can get (mostly) back to normal someday!

Weekly Review March 5 '21

 I am glad it is March! It's windy and quite cold today but we are getting an occasional day with temperatures in the 50's which makes me happy. This week we got our 50's day on Wednesday, although it never felt all that warm to me. Frank and I went on a walk but it was after dinner so the sun was starting to go down and it was getting colder. Looks like we will have a couple of nice days next week, though.

We really haven't had a lot going on. I had a goal this week to be more productive (and less lazy) and I did do better than last week. I got all the regular stuff done, plus I did some small cleaning & organizing projects. I started a personal history post but I haven't finished it yet. I did some indexing. I've also been working on getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier--I've turned into a bit of a night owl this last year! Looking ahead to this fall, though--Seth will be going to Seminary at 6:15 in the morning, followed by school starting at 7:20, so that is going to be a big change for all of us. I decided we'd better start working our way into a better schedule now. 

On Sunday it rained really hard all day. We had in-person sacrament meeting and virtual YW / quorum classes. Seth was the teacher for his class. We had a great discussion in my YW class (I wasn't the teacher). We're meeting with the older class for all our lessons and activities now and it is nice to have a few more girls there. 

This is the first week since last March that Seth went to school in person on a Monday! He also had in person school on Tuesday. On Monday my friend Rebekah came over for a couple of hours in the morning to visit. I enjoyed having a few hours in the afternoon to get shopping and other errands / work done before picking Seth up from school.

On Tuesday I got chores done in the morning and did my volunteer shift at VITA in the afternoon. I did finally get to do something useful! One of the other volunteers had completed some returns but they still needed to be reviewed (all returns are prepared by one volunteer and reviewed by another, to make sure they are accurate) so I spent my couple of hours reviewing and I got 3 returns done & ready to file. (Reviewing means you basically go through everything as if you are preparing the return, but you don't have to enter the info into the tax software, you just have to check what the other volunteer put in to make sure it's correct). 

Speaking of taxes, we finally purchased Turbo Tax on Saturday so I could start working on our own tax return. I got quite a bit of it done, but need to track down some more information before I can finish it. 

Seth had an in-person YM activity on Tuesday; they made individual pizzas. He seemed to enjoy that. Meanwhile, I attended a virtual activity with the YW...we made "vision boards" (a board with words and pictures that represent things you want to accomplish / goals you have for the year). We were making the boards on Google slides, and I had all kinds of technical problems (mostly user error since I haven't used Google slides much) so I didn't finish mine but everybody else finished and shared what they made with the rest of us and they were pretty cool.

Seth had an orthodontist appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Besides getting his wire adjusted, the orthodontist also pulled one of his baby teeth that has been hanging on by a thread for months. He has two more baby tooth that need to come out (they are also loose, but not as loose as the one he pulled) so I have to take him to the dentist to get those 2 teeth pulled. 

Yesterday I got to talk to Tanner for over an hour, so I got all caught up with him and that was nice. I don't think I mentioned he got laid off from his job a couple of weeks ago. He has applied for a couple of new jobs, so hopefully something will work out there soon. School is going okay and he and Darlee are going to Arizona next weekend so he's looking forward to that. He needs to get a sleep study done because he is very tired all the time. I talked to Jared on Sunday and they had a crazy week with a flood in their apartment (a plumbing issue that wasn't their fault) plus he has had some health issues crop up again (same problem he had at this time last year that he had to have surgery for). He started a new job a couple of weeks ago and it's going well so far. He's still in the training process. Jessie's grandfather (her mom's dad) passed away a few days ago, so she will be out here sometime soon for the funeral but Jared won't be able to come out with her. 

I pulled out one of my old scrapbooks this week because I was looking for something for the personal history blog post I'm working on. I found what I was looking for, but also realized I haven't looked through this scrapbook in a long time so I ended up spending a morning going through it. I had to laugh about some of the things I saved (ticket stubs, tithing receipts etc.) I also saved a lot of programs from church activities and some of those were really funny to look at and it was fun to see names of people that I had forgotten all about. 

Today I went to the library to pick up the book we're reading for book chat this month. I've read a couple of chapters already and it is quite good so far. (True Grit by Charles Portis) I also got 3 more books because it is my turn to recommend a book the next time we meet. I got a few books that I want to look over / read to see if they would be good for us to read for book chat. That's going to keep me busy for the next few weeks. 

Frank didn't have a bunch of overnights this week but he did end up having to work Monday night ( a job that came up last minute) from 10:00 pm until about 2:00 am. He didn't sleep well at all on Tuesday night (woke up about 1:30 am and never went back to sleep) so he decided to take Wednesday off to get some rest and to get caught up on some work he needed to do for some clients. I'm glad he did that because he really needed it! Today he had to go to Cumberland (about 2 1/2 hours away) but he is home now. Seth is done with school for the day so I guess we've basically made it to the weekend.

This Sunday we get to go to sacrament meeting in person again because our area authorities just increased the number of people who can attend sacrament meeting at one time from 75 to 150. Since there are many people who still aren't comfortable attending church in person, that means that everyone who wants to attend in person can attend every week now. We're looking forward to that. 

That's all the news from around here this week.

Weekly Review February 26 '21

 After I wrote last week's review last Friday, I got a text from another family in our ward inviting us to meet them at the park for some sledding (they have a son Seth's age) so we did that. Seth always enjoys sledding and I enjoyed the opportunity to talk to a couple of the other moms in our ward (about 4 or 5 families met at the park). The park we were at has a very big hill and Seth got pretty hot & sweaty climbing that hill over and over, even though it was pretty cold. We stayed for a few hours. It was good for both of us to get outside, get some fresh air, and socialize a bit with other people!

This is a smaller hill, below the really big hill.

All the boys (there were a bunch of girls too)

Nice view of the sky from where I was standing.

It's hard to believe that we were sledding just a week ago. The temperatures have warmed up a lot so a lot of the snow has melted. Our front yard is completely bare of snow (our house faces south) but there's still a decent amount on our deck and in the back yard. 

Saturday was busy because I had an appointment to get my hair cut and we also had meetings because it was our stake conference that weekend. All the sessions of stake conference were broadcast as Zoom webinars or on youtube, so we could watch them from home, although some people were invited to attend some of the meetings in person. We had some extra sessions this time too...there was one for the YW, their moms, and YW presidencies and another one for all YW and RS sisters. I'm not sure why they did that, but the one I attended (for all the women and YW) was nice. Frank and I also attended the adult session on Saturday evening and we all attended the general session on Sunday morning. When I say "attended" I really mean we watched them from home, with the exception that Frank attended the general session in person. He did that because he realized that the visiting area seventy is the husband of a girl he grew up with in his home ward, so he wanted to go say hello to him. I would have gone with him but I had a slight sore throat / bad headache on Saturday evening and most of the day Sunday so I decided I'd better stay home. (My head hurt a bit on Monday too but I woke up feeling fine on Tuesday and I have been fine ever since.) Frank says the heat in the chapel wasn't working and it was really cold so I'm glad I didn't go with him! It was much nicer watching from the comforts of my own home. Anyway, all the sessions were really good and uplifting.

We got another small snow storm on Monday morning so school was all virtual again. We got maybe 3 inches of snow with some sleet mixed in. It came down pretty hard for an hour or two but the storm was completely gone by afternoon. I went out to shovel our front walk and sidewalk when it was still coming down but when I was through shoveling, I sprinkled ice melt all over the walk and sidewalk so it stayed clear. I did not shovel behind or around our cars because my back was starting to complain at me after just doing our walk and sidewalk. Since we didn't get a lot of snow, that thankfully didn't turn out to be too big of a deal. We had another meeting (virtual) with the YW leaders in our ward that afternoon...to discuss some of the direction received at stake conference, plus we had made a decision in our meeting last week that some of us were having second thoughts about. So we discussed that some more and made a different decision and we all feel better about it now. It's been difficult figuring out the best format for activities because we have many people who want to meet in person but we still have several families who are not comfortable doing that. Trying to meet the needs of both groups without making anyone feel excluded is a real challenge! We have a plan we're going to try and we'll have to see how it works and make adjustments as needed. 

On Monday evening we had family night activity (as usual...we usually have our lesson portion on Sunday evening) and we played Mario Kart, which we do fairly often. (Frank and Seth both like to choose that for the activity when it's their turn to choose.) I just have to record for posterity that I actually won one of the four races, because that never happens! (I am really bad at Mario Kart.)

Seth had his second day of in-person school on Tuesday and seemed to enjoy it. He mentioned getting to talk to another boy in his class for a while at dismissal time, and seemed really happy to have some social interaction! I did not do my volunteer shift that afternoon because the tax software account still wasn't up. At least this time I didn't have to go in at all. They did get it back up and running that evening so hopefully I will actually be able to accomplish something next week. 

Tuesday evening there was a combined YM / YW virtual activity which was a "kick off" for the "new" youth program, so Seth and I attended that together. It was really nice. The presidents of each of the classes talked about the different goal categories and described the emblems they receive. Our bishop talked a bit about setting goals at the end. It was nice to see a lot of the youth there...we haven't had that many show up for an activity since I started working in YW about 4 months ago.

Frank had to work overnight on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights this week. On Tuesday he was supposed to be done working at 4:00 so he could take a nap before having to leave at 7:00, but he ended up being in a meeting until about 5:30. I had a bit of a meltdown about that. I do understand that emergencies come up that he has to handle, but I feel like he shouldn't be expected to attend meetings and things like that during the day when he has to work all night. I just start to get really anxious about Frank's health and safety when he is working constantly, not getting enough sleep, and having to drive long distances (an hour or more) in the wee hours of the morning on almost no sleep. I told Frank he needs to stick up for himself or they are always going to take advantage of him. I told him once he has overnight jobs scheduled, he should let everyone know he will be unavailable during the day for the days before and after he works, except for emergencies. I think he realized that's a good idea because he did make himself unavailable yesterday all day. On Tuesday morning he already had a walk through of a new restaurant scheduled at 10:00 am and this morning he had a 10:00 am meeting scheduled (although he was able to do that from home). Because the restaurant walk through Wednesday morning was at a restaurant that is 90 minutes from home and the restaurant he worked at Tuesday night was an hour from home, he decided not to come home in between. The overnight job wasn't done until nearly 5:45 am, so after that he drove to the other restaurant and then slept in his car for a few hours until he had to do the walk through. He finally made it home and was able to go to bed around 12:30. So to summarize, he woke up about 5:30 am Tuesday, worked from about 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, slept for maybe an hour and then worked from 7:00 pm Tuesday to shortly after noon on Wednesday, with maybe 2 1/2 hours of sleep in his car. Then he had to be back at work at 6:30 pm on Wednesday and worked again until 5:30 am Thursday, then had an hour's drive to get home. Can you understand why I get anxious about him?? The good news is, last night was his last drive-thru timer installation so now the only overnight project he has left is installing digital menu boards, which is going to be spread out over a couple of years so they won't be too frequent. I'm sure other things will come up too (like new stores opening) but I think he has made it through the worst of the overnight stuff.

Meanwhile, the rest of the week was pretty quiet for Seth and I. He did virtual school as usual and I did housework and stuff like that as usual. I signed up for Root Tech yesterday and I have watched a few brief sessions and plan to watch some more things today and tomorrow. I probably won't watch a lot of stuff but since it was free this year I decided it was worth checking it out. Last night I had book chat which is always fun. We had a larger group than normal. We discussed Vinegar Girl and now we are going to read True Grit (the famous John Wayne movie is based on the story but there are differences). I have started reading another Newbery medal winner called Dobry which is not incredibly compelling so far but it's pretty good. I watched the last BYU Education Week presentation, which was about receiving personal revelation. The presenter talked about four things that tend to impede getting revelation and it was really good. I have really fizzled out on my cleaning / organizing project; mainly because I've completed the areas that were bothering me the most! There are still plenty of things to do, though, so I am going to try to motivate myself to keep working on it, even if I only do a little bit here and there. 

We got Seth's report card for the second term and he got all As except for a B in Spanish. What pleases us even more is that his teachers added comments like "great contributor to class conversations", "always turns in work on time" and "excels and manages virtual learning with commendable achievement". We're grateful he is doing so well. 

Last night before I left for book chat I considered telling Seth he could watch television while I was gone (since he'd be home all alone) but since he had already used up his 2 hours of screen time for the day, I decided not to do that and see if he could manage to entertain himself. I thought it was fairly likely that he would watch television while I was gone anyway, since he could get away with it. As far as I can tell, though, he didn't. He called me shortly before I came home (I was gone for 2 hours) to say "I'm totally bored!!!" Besides that, Scott called while I was gone and when I called him back later he said that he had asked Seth what he was doing when he called and Seth told him he was drawing. He asked Seth why he wasn't watching television and Seth said "because I already used up my 2 hours of screen time today." So maybe he watched some television, but I'm pretty sure he didn't. We're really pleased that he kept busy for a few hours before he got bored and even more pleased that he obeyed the rules (probably!) even though we weren't here to enforce them. We've talked to him quite a bit lately (ever since the dentist chair incident) about the importance of doing what's right even if no one is there to make you do that right thing. Seems like some of that may be sinking in! Oh and also last night when he called me he hung up a little abruptly and then called me right back and apologized for hanging up on me. He hung up on me once recently and I told him afterwards that was really rude and that he shouldn't do it again. So it seems like he remembered that conversation too. Progress!

One of Seth's goals right now is to learn to play the ukulele. He's actually had this goal for a few months but I keep forgetting to do anything about it. This week I finally remembered to do something about it so he had his first "lesson" on Wednesday evening. We'll see how that goes. I'm just glad we finally made a start. 

Honestly, I feel like I was busier than this post indicates but I can't think of anything else to tell you about so that's it for this week.

Weekly Review February 19 '21

 There was quite a bit going on this week, although there's not a lot to say about most of it so I don't think this post will be very long. Certainly we had a less eventful week than all you folks in Texas! I hope the temperatures are rising, the snow is melting, the power is back on, and the water doesn't need to be boiled anymore! I've been very grateful this week to live in a place that has power, warmth, clean water, and an infrastructure that can handle cold and snow.

Frank and I decided not to get each other gifts for Valentine's Day, but to go out for breakfast together on Saturday morning (the 13th) instead. It was really nice and the restaurant wasn't crowded. Then Frank ignored our previous agreement and surprised me later that day with roses, a small box of chocolates, and some wireless headphones. What am I going to do with him?? I did appreciate the gifts, though. I shared the chocolates with him too. Sunday morning we gave each other cards and Seth also got a card and some candy from us. We had church in person for the first time in 4 weeks since in-person church got cancelled the last time it was our turn to go. We got there early so Seth could help set up the sacrament but the ward before us went overtime (by a lot) so we had to wait for quite a while. Our meeting went well, though.

 Monday was President's Day so Seth had the day off school but Frank did not have the day off work. I took a friend to the doctor to get a test done to prepare for the surgery she's having next week. I had shopping to do and other errands to run (like taking some clothes to a friend who needed some for her kids). I was really busy that day because I did all my Tuesday chores as well as my Monday ones, knowing that Tuesday was going to be a little crazy. On Monday evening we gathered up all the things Seth would need for school and packed his backpack. 

Tuesday was Seth's first day of in-person school since last March. 

When I dropped him off, I had a moment of sadness / loneliness come over me. I was not expecting that! I don't usually have much trouble with separation from my kids...even the mission drop offs weren't too bad. It only lasted a short time, though. I think it was just so different...Seth has rarely been out of my sight for almost a year now! Seth is in "Cohort A" which means he attends school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays (but this week Monday was a holiday, so he only went on Tuesday) and he's virtual the rest of the week. (The kids in Cohort B attend school in person on Thursdays and Fridays). Seth's teachers renamed the cohorts from A and B to "Orioles" and "Ravens", which I think is fun. Seth is an Oriole.

That afternoon I had my first shift at VITA (free income tax preparation). It mostly turned out to be a bust because the site director discovered when she came in that day (shortly before I did) that our account with the tax software had been disabled. She was hoping to get on the phone and get the problem solved quickly but that didn't happen. So I spent my whole shift waiting for that problem to get fixed, but it was not fixed before I had to leave to pick Seth up from school. (They moved dismissal to even earlier than they told us last week...I have to pick him up between 2:15 and 2:30 on the days he goes in.) The only (sort of) productive thing I did was to go through a stack of tax documents that people had dropped off to see if we needed more information from them before we can prepare their returns. So that was a disappointing first day but hopefully next time will be better.

Seth said he enjoyed being back in school although of course it's very different from what it was. He did say it's going to be a pain to transport his stuff back and forth from the school every day that he attends. (He is not allowed to leave anything at school, so everything he needs has to go to school with him and then come back home.) Because families were allowed to choose either the hybrid model or to remain completely virtual, the teachers are teaching kids online at the same time they are teaching the kids in the classroom. That makes things complicated and one thing Seth complained about is that his teacher mostly looked at the screen instead of at the kids in the classroom. He said he had his hand up once and the teacher never saw him. I'm sure there are a lot of bugs to work out and it's just not ideal but what can we do? We're all just trying to make the best of things. He does have the option of changing his mind and returning to all virtual so if we decide it's not very beneficial for him to be going into school we can go back to all virtual. We'll see how it goes. One thing I like about the new schedule is that he is done with school or online classes by 2:30 every day, and much earlier than that on Wednesdays. 

Tuesday evening Seth had an in-person YM activity...they played board games. The YW activity was virtual...we shared stories of things that have happened to us during quarantine and everyone tried to guess who it happened to. It was a class activity, but my class (the middle age group) and the oldest class have started to hold our activities together...mainly because we don't have a lot of girls attending activities (usually only one from the oldest class).

Since Seth finished school by noon on Wednesday, I decided to go buy groceries. I had an order pick up scheduled for Thursday afternoon (once again, there were no time slots available Thursday morning) but we had a snow / ice storm predicted for Wednesday night / Thursday morning and I was afraid the order was going to be cancelled. (That has happened before when the weather is bad.) So I bought what I needed and cancelled the order myself. I'm glad I did because even if the store hadn't cancelled the order, I was happy I didn't have to go out in the cold, snow, and ice yesterday at all.

So yes, we did get the predicted storm yesterday. We had an inch or two when we woke up and it snowed / sleeted for most of the morning. (We got a LOT of sleet mixed in with the snow.) It seemed to me like we only got about 4 inches but Frank insists we got 6 (and since he's the one who actually went outside he's probably more accurate than me.) School got cancelled which still seems weird to me when we can do virtual instead. As a matter of fact, today was switched to an all virtual day (although it would have been virtual for Seth anyway). There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Why couldn't yesterday have been an all virtual day too? Anyway, Seth enjoyed having the day off and the carpool boys came over again to go sledding for a few hours in the afternoon. I'm glad he is getting outside so much lately and having a lot of sledding opportunities! (I feel kind of sorry for the kids / families in Cohort B--their first week of "hybrid" instruction and it ended up being all virtual again for them, because of the storm.) I had an online meeting with the rest of the YW leaders in our ward on Thursday afternoon. It ended up being a lot longer than we anticipated, but we got a lot accomplished. 

I'm not sure what I did to keep busy this week in all the "in between" times. I read a book called The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which is a Newbery winner. It was pretty good...I mostly enjoyed it. I also watched the classic movie Fiddler on the Roof, which I've seen before but probably not in the last couple of decades. I really love the music and the glimpse into Jewish culture; it's also very funny a lot of times but also very poignant at others. So overall, I really enjoyed it. It's a long movie so I didn't watch it all at once. I was working on a difficult logic puzzle the last few days too...I finally finished solving it last night. Really, considering how much time I have I don't feel like I got much accomplished this week. The days seemed to fly by. 

That brings you up to date on everything here. 

Weekly Review February 12 '21

 First things first--I forgot to mention last week that I got a call from the high councilor from our ward asking me to serve as the assistant leader for the 3rd year girls at girls' camp this summer. I said I would do it. Within a few hours (literally) of getting that call, the YW president in our ward sent all of us a message letting us know that she had just found out that our stake president has been directed by our area authorities to refrain from all large, in person gatherings through summer 2021. So maybe I won't be going to girls' camp after all. It's on pause for now, anyway. Our stake was planning modified girls' camp, a camp for the boys, modified youth conference, a temple "marathon", and a beach day for the youth this summer. All of those plans are on hold for now. They may still make more modifications so that these activities can be held in smaller groups. I guess we'll see what happens. 

Last week when I left off, I was still waiting to hear what days Seth would be going to school and what his new schedule will be. I did find out late on Friday that he will be going to school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays. We have a tentative schedule for Wednesdays through Fridays (he'll be attending virtual on those days) although it's subject to change. On the days he goes to school in person, the dismissal time is 2:30 (instead of 3:30 as it has always been in the past). It looks like he will be done no later than 2:30 on his virtual days too, and much earlier on Wednesdays. We'll see how it all works out when we start this new schedule next week. I'm sure there's going to be some bumps in the road and some adjustments to schedules. 

I also received all the information I needed to help Seth register for high school. We finally got his course recommendations from his teachers. I attended an online registration orientation on Wednesday evening and today Seth and I had a brief meeting with the 9th grade counselor at his high school to ask a few more questions to make sure we had everything figured out correctly. Then he finished filling out his registration form and submitted it, so we are done with that. Hopefully all will go well when he starts high school. I'm still anxious about it!

Going back to last weekend...Frank and I went to the store as soon as we woke up on Saturday morning. We needed to get a few things and we wanted to beat the crowds, since there was another storm predicted for Saturday evening / Sunday morning. We did manage to get there and get what we needed before it turned into a mad house, thankfully. Frank had a busy day doing work for clients and I did the usual things plus some extra scripture / conference talk reading to prepare for our ward conference, which was the next day. I went with Frank Saturday evening on a quick visit to a client's house...just to get out of the house and to spend a little time with him since I hadn't seen him all day.

We did get the predicted snowstorm...there was an inch or two on the ground and the snow was coming down hard when we woke up Sunday morning. I think we got 4 or 5 inches total (can't remember now). We had virtual meetings with our stake leaders at 10:00 am...Seth went to a meeting for the youth, Frank went to one for EQ and I went to one for RS (it was lovely). Sacrament meeting was at noon and in spite of the snow they did have that meeting at the church. It wasn't our week to attend in person, though, so we just stayed in our cozy warm house and watched it from home. Our bishop and our stake president both spoke and it was a really good meeting. 

Sunday's snow; coming down hard:

The rest of the week has been pretty standard with the usual school schedule, but I did have a few extra events. Seth had YM in person (they played volleyball) Tuesday evening, and I attended the virtual combined YW activity, but only for the beginning because they had plenty of leaders there. Frank had a dentist appointment on Tuesday and his teeth look great. 

On Wednesday I was busier than usual because there was a virtual orientation meeting for parents at Seth's school to go over the transition to the hybrid model. That meeting was in the morning. That afternoon there was a materials pick up at his school and I also had errands to run. Seth had a book at the library waiting to be picked up and I took my copy of the book chat book to a friend so she can read it. Besides that, I needed to go grocery shopping because for some reason when I tried to put in a grocery pick up order, they didn't have any available slots until Saturday. (I usually put in an order on Tuesday to be picked up on Thursday morning). Thankfully, Seth had another asynchronous learning day on Wednesday so he was done with school by about 11:30 so I was able to get my errands run in the afternoon. It was kind of weird having a busy day like that...I don't usually have shopping and lots of errands to run anymore. On Wednesday evening I had the high school registration meeting that I already mentioned, plus after that I had a virtual RS activity. We made coasters. We each supplied our own 4 photos for this project (or some people used patterned paper instead). I was having a hard time choosing just four photos (how do I choose 4 out of the hundreds we've taken over the years?) but then I got the idea to do a set of "Restoration" coasters. I found photos of some of the church history sites and used those. Here is my finished project:

The Sacred Grove one is my favorite. They were easy to make so maybe I will make some more.

We had another snowstorm predicted for Wednesday night / Thursday morning and that one definitely showed up too. It started snowing before I went to sleep on Wednesday night, and the sky had that cool orange glow it sometimes gets when it snows at night (doesn't show up well in the photo):

In the morning we had about 5 inches and it was still coming down for a few hours. We got about 6 inches total, maybe a little more:

After I finished exercising that morning, I decided to go out and shovel the snow. My main motivation in doing that was to keep Frank from doing it--he shoveled Sunday's snow and then his back hurt for days. The front walk and sidewalk were easy and only took a few minutes but I also cleaned off both of our cars and shoveled all the snow around them (both sides and behind each car). That part takes a long time because all that snow has to be moved across the street (our parking spaces are in front of our neighbor's house, not ours, so we can't just shovel the snow into our yard). It took me a solid hour to finish that job. Thankfully, my back did not hurt at all and I haven't had any problems with it since then either. I could tell, however, that my left arm was going to be sore (from flipping the shovel over a myriad times) and I was definitely right about that--it really hurts today! My other arm, both of my shoulders, and both of my legs are a bit sore too. But as long as my back is fine, I'm not going to complain too much. It was still snowing lightly when I was out shoveling so my hair ended up full of frozen snow. I really didn't mind doing that, though. It was kind of nice to get so much fresh air and the snow was really beautiful. Yesterday afternoon, Seth invited the car pool boys to come over to go sledding with him--there are a number of nice hills behind our house and in our development. They had a fun time sledding for quite a while and then came back to our house for some hot chocolate and muffins. (Frank had made some for breakfast that morning). I am always glad when Seth can get outside and when he can spend time with other boys his age. He rarely gets to do either of those things anymore. 

I think I already covered what we did today. (Mostly school and finishing high school registration). Frank has had a busy work week (he's still at work) with quite a bit of traveling to restaurants but no overnights, at least. 

I watched an Education Week presentation about raising emotionally intelligent children which was really good and I think Seth will definitely benefit from some of the things I learned. I didn't get much cleaning or organizing done this week (again)...I guess I am getting lazy! It surprises me how busy I can be with just the regular things to do. I guess I did have a number of extra things this week, though. I did do a little bit of cleaning and reorganizing in some of my kitchen cabinets. I keep putting off working on the kitchen because it's such a big job, but it felt good to get a little bit of it done. All my spices are together on two shelves now (they used to be on one shelf, and overflowing into nooks and crannies on several other shelves) and I also made a space on one shelf for my kitchen storage containers so they are much more accessible (they used to be in the bottom of my microwave cart; now they are at eye level which is much nicer). I worked a little bit on some pillowcases I'm embroidering, but not much. I've been working on this project off and on for months but I'm not feeling incredibly motivated to finish it. I guess I don't enjoy embroidering as much as crocheting or quilting. 

I've probably forgotten something, but those are the main things we did this week.