Weekly Review April 8 '22

 This past week started out great with General Conference, which took up most of Saturday and Sunday. We had signed up to have the Elders over for dinner on Sunday and since the second session is during the dinner hour for us, we invited them to come watch the second session with us. We had snacks to enjoy during the session and then we had dinner when it ended. 

I decided to try something different this time and didn't take any notes while listening to the sessions unless I felt like there was something I should do, related to what was being said. I always watch and read all the talks again afterwards, and take notes then so I just decided to relax and listen this time. It was nice to just listen, but I do feel like I listen better when I'm taking notes and also I can't remember much that was said now. Of course, that will change when I start listening to and reading the talks later. While I was listening I did some coloring to help me stay awake. I got a color-by-number book for Christmas so I worked on one of those. I finished the picture later this week:

Seth "listening" to the 2nd session on Saturday:

The rest of this week was mostly business as usual--Frank was really busy with work, Seth kept busy with school, and I kept busy with all the usual household chores. On Tuesday I had a YW presidency meeting that was pretty long so that took a lot of the day. Wednesday I did my last VITA shift for this tax season. I'm kind of glad to be done, although I did enjoy it and all the other volunteers I worked with were really nice. I took some donuts to share with everyone which they seemed to appreciate. We were fairly busy but not overwhelmingly so. We had one lady and her daughter come in and as we were finishing their tax returns we discovered that they had both filed this year already, they just didn't like the end result before so they were hoping to get a better result the second time! You wouldn't believe how many people try to do that. It was kind of frustrating since that was a total waste of our time. (But kind of funny too.)

We all had youth activities on Wednesday evening, as usual. Seth was in charge of bringing bacon for the YM activity so I was helping him cook it. Frank had to be there early to help one of the Primary activity day leaders set up some technology stuff for their activity, so he left while we were still cooking bacon. Guess what? It takes a long time to cook 3 packages of bacon when you can only cook 6 slices at a time (that's our biggest pan). Seth and I ended up being late, which stressed me out a bit since the YW had class activities so I really needed to be there on time. I texted my class advisor, though, and told her what we were doing and where to get the supplies out of the YW closet so it ended up working out fine. They were able to get most of the set up done before I arrived so when I got there with the final items we needed, we were able to get going quickly. My class did a painting activity--they brought quotes they liked from General Conference and painted them onto small canvases so they can hang them on their walls at home. I think they all did a great job!

Here is everyone working on their paintings...three of the girls (there's five in my class; two weren't there) and the advisor, plus if you look really closely you may see the advisor's 11 month old daughter peaking over the top of the table! 

The YM cleaned up outside the church (a lot of tree branches had fallen and needed to be removed) and then they had "breakfast"--bacon, eggs, and biscuits.

Yesterday was pretty routine except last evening I got my hair cut. I also got the color done, including some highlights, so it took a while. Frank and Seth got haircuts while my color was processing, so now we all look classy! 😁

I'd say Frank has been busier than usual with work this week. They are trying to get all the bugs worked out of the new database so that keeps him busy along with all the usual emergencies that seem to come up regularly. He's been up late most nights working on things that need to be done after hours. Yesterday that place he interviewed with last week contacted him to let him know they just interviewed the last candidate that day so they are hoping to make a decision by next week. (Originally, it was supposed to be this week but one interview had to be postponed.) So maybe next week we'll know more about that.

This week has been mostly chilly and we've had a lot of rain. Today is sunny and I'm really enjoying that (even though it's still in the 50s so not very warm) because most of this week has been cloudy. I like rainy days, but when it is cloudy and gray for several days in a row I start to long for some sunshine. Yesterday we got some thunder along with some of the rain. This morning the river is up a bit...not flooded, but definitely higher than it's been. A lot of trees are blooming now although many are still completely bare. I feel like spring is taking its time getting here this year! The grass has become really green though and Seth had to mow the lawn for the first time this year on Monday so things are definitely starting to grow.

I have done a little bit of reading this week but not a lot. I feel like I only get a few minutes here and there to read lately and a lot of times I just don't feel like reading. I think I am really going to like Dune once I get into it, but I haven't gotten far enough in yet to be really motivated to pick it up. Maybe next week I'll do better.

One thing I have been enjoying in snatches of free time is indexing. Some of you probably already know this but Family Search has a new app called "Get Involved" that can be used to do indexing from a smart phone. The records have already been indexed by a computer, but they need human eyes to check them too. In the app, one name is highlighted at a time with the computer's indexing displayed underneath. All I have to do is choose whether it's a match or not. If it doesn't match, I can edit it to what I think it should be. I can also choose to say "unsure" if I'm not sure if it's correct or not. The app is super easy to use and I can index 50 names in just a few minutes. It's rather addictive!! This last week the 1950s Census was added to the app and one cool feature is that you can choose which state you want to index records from and you can also tell it a surname that you want to index and it will search for records with that name from that state. So I indexed a lot of records from Arizona with the surname "Pew" this week. Most of them were people I didn't know but I finally got to index the record that had Uncle Joe, Aunt Amy & Terry and when I scrolled up on the page, Grandpa, Grandma, Dad and Uncle Karl were also there along with Aunt Laprele, Uncle Andy, and Lloyd. So that was really cool! I've tried indexing records with the surname "Johnson" also but that's a much more common name of course so I haven't come across anyone I know yet. 

We found out this week that Seth got accepted into the CTC Computer Technician Analyst program for next school year. This means that he will take two classes in the mornings at his regular high school and then go to the CTC for the two afternoon blocks each day. Basically, this course will take the place of his electives. He will be learning some valuable job skills so I think this will be a great opportunity for him. We hope he likes it, does well, and is able to successfully complete the course.

I was able to talk to Jared on Wednesday evening for a while, after I got home from the YW activity. His doctor called him that day because he got the results of Jared's MRI. The MRI showed that he definitely has a fistula. It is pretty likely that he will need surgery for that but the doctor wants to know whether he has Crohn's disease or not before operating because that will affect how he does the surgery. The doctor seems anxious to get it taken care of as soon as possible, though, so he will probably be having surgery within a few weeks of when he gets the colonoscopy results. Jared is experiencing a lot of the Crohn's disease symptoms which includes fatigue, joint pain, abdominal pain and cramping, and nausea besides the discomfort of the abcess / fistula. So he's not a very happy camper right now, but he's hanging in there. He told me on Wednesday that he is tired of not feeling well enough to be productive. A sure sign of being an adult...when you no longer enjoy lying around doing nothing!! Please continue to pray for him.

I texted with Tanner for a bit on Tuesday and he reports that the kitten is doing great. She isn't hiding in her carrier anymore, she likes their apartment and she cuddles with both he and Darlee every night. He sent me some adorable pictures and video clips. 

That is all the news from us for this week.

Weekly Review April 1 '22

It may be April Fool's Day, but I am not the joking type so rest assured that everything I say in this post will be true and accurate. 😄 

When I left off last week, I was meeting with my YW class to do some filming for our class movie. We were able to finish up all the filming, thankfully. Here's a photo of our 3 girls at the end of filming. The theme of our movie was a makeover gone bad...that's why they are all dressed in crazy clothes combinations!:

I picked up some Chinese food on the way home for our dinner because it was late by then and Frank didn't want to cook. (Remember he was sick.) 

By Saturday Seth was feeling congested and not his best either. He did help me with my class movie though...we needed a boy for one scene at the end of the movie so he filled that role. We spent a few minutes filming a few alternate scenes. I did some other stuff for YW on Saturday too, but I don't really remember what else I did that day...just that I kept busy! 

Frank still wasn't feeling well on Sunday so he attended bishopric meeting and ward council virtually but he didn't go to church. Seth wasn't feeling great either so he stayed home with Frank. (They did watch church from home though and did the sacrament at home too). A young man in our ward who just returned from his mission was one of the speakers and he gave a great talk. For YW, my class combined with the older class and we had a guest teacher--one of the sisters in our ward. That was really good too. I had a class presidency meeting via Zoom that afternoon. The counselor didn't come (even though I reminded her in church an hour before) and the president forgot to come until 30 minutes into the meeting (even though I reminded her too!) so most of the meeting was the advisor and I talking and trying to make final plans for the movie festival. That evening we had family night (the lesson part). Frank had a part in the YM movie and he missed the filming the previous Wednesday (since he didn't feel well) so we took a few minutes on Sunday evening for me to film him saying his various lines. 

Seth didn't have school on Monday which worked well since he wasn't feeling great still. Frank was doing a little better thankfully because he had a job interview that morning. This was a 2nd interview and it was extensive--4 hours long, with multiple people. He feels like it went well, but he knows that they are interviewing a number of candidates so we'll see what happens. They said they will make a decision next week sometime. I spent a couple of hours on Monday cleaning and organizing in the kitchen. I didn't get everything done but I did get a lot done and the kitchen looks quite a bit better. I still need to go through the cabinets to weed out items that we aren't using although I already have a box of things to donate from the things I went through on Monday. That evening we did the activity and treat portion of family night. We played a game called The Amazeing Labyrinth and I had the worst luck so I was feeling kind of frustrated and crabby by the end. Usually it is a pretty fun game, though! 

Seth surprised me by getting up for Seminary on Tuesday morning. He said he felt better, so I wasn't going to argue with him about that! He was still slightly congested, but both he and Frank have improved rapidly this week and both of them seem to feel fine now. I spent all morning on Tuesday cooking which I didn't enjoy but I did that so I would have a number of meals ready ahead of time for Wednesday (between VITA and youth activity night Wednesdays are always busy) and General Conference weekend. Doing that helped things go smoother on Wednesday and now I won't have to miss part of General Conference because all of our meals are mostly made for the weekend! So it was worth it even though Tuesday wasn't too fun--I also cleaned bathrooms and planned next week's meals on Tuesday and I don't enjoy either of those tasks either. It's actually remarkable that I got so much done in one day though, so I was pleased about that.

Things went pretty well at my VITA shift on Wednesday. I kept busy most of the time (but not too busy). Next week is my last week doing VITA for this year. I am glad to be almost done but I will miss it too...I've enjoyed the work and the people that I've been working with. This tax season has been pretty complicated too...mostly because of all the Covid-related tax legislation like stimulus payments and advance child tax credits. Hopefully next year will be simpler!! 

That evening was our YM / YW film festival. My class was in charge so we got there an hour early to set up. We decided to invite the youth's families to this activity and it turned out to be a really fun family activity. We had everyone meet in the YW room and then we took all the families into the gym and seated them first. Then we had all the youth (and some of the Primary kids who had helped with some of the movies) come in one at a time while the YW president announced them and said silly things about them. Everyone clapped as they came in and they each had their photo taken on a "red carpet" (actually a big piece of felt I found in the YW closet!). We had lots of popcorn and candy and drinks for everyone to enjoy while we watched the movies. Each of the three YW classes made a movie and the YM made one movie all together. All of the movies were actually really funny and clever so there was a lot of laughter and it was a lot of fun! I was so impressed with how they all turned out! The advisor for my class did all the filming and editing for our movie and she did a fantastic job--our film looked really professional! The oldest YW class had some bloopers at the end of their film and some of those were so hysterical. Frank took care of all the technology stuff for this activity so he got copies of all the movies ahead of time to make sure they would run correctly. That means we still have a copy of each of the movies and I watched them all again yesterday. It was easier to hear them and see them on my laptop instead of watching them in a big room with people making noise, so I picked up on some things that I didn't catch the first time and I still laughed hysterically at the bloopers even though I'd already seen them once. The YM movie was my favorite, I think, and it was all about Seth! I wish you could all see it (maybe sometime when we visit we will be able to show it to you) because I can't explain it very well. But basically, it started out with one YM interviewing Seth and asking him why he did a certain thing (you don't find out what that thing was until the end of the movie) and Seth says he doesn't know why he did it. The interviewer then says that some people talk about listening to a good angel or a bad angel. Seth responds that he has at least 78 different voices in his head, not just 2. The rest of the movie is all the different voices (portrayed by different YM and members of the bishopric) discussing what happened and answering the interviewer's questions. Some of the "voices" included the jokester, the random thought generator, Seth's dad (portrayed by Frank, of course), and Batman. That's the best I can do, but it was really funny and clever!! And as I said before...ALL of the movies were really funny and clever. After we watched the movies, all the leaders got huddled together and we came up with some silly awards for each movie and then we handed those out. I think everyone had a really great time. I am guessing we will be having another film festival next year!

I did not sleep well at all on Wednesday night so I slept in a little bit on Thursday morning (all the way until 6:00 am!). Seth hadn't slept well either so he skipped Seminary and Frank took him to school. I spent most of the day just trying to get the usual chores done. Frank had a meeting with a recruiter about a different job that morning but after talking to the recruiter he knew he didn't want to pursue that option any further. We would have to move to Pittsburgh and he would be traveling 75% of the time. No thanks!! Last evening Frank went to see a movie--Morbius. I was surprised Seth didn't want to go see it too. I'm slightly interested in seeing it but I was too tired last night to go. Frank enjoyed it. We had a big rainstorm with some thunder last night. We've had quite a bit of rain this week and Wednesday and yesterday were fairly warm but most of the week has been chilly and the early part of the week was really cold. We even got a little bit of snow on Monday. 

Here's how the sky looked last night as the storm was coming in:

And Wednesday morning we had a beautiful sunrise:

We got to facetime with Tanner for a bit on Saturday. They just adopted a kitten (birthday present for Darlee). The kitten was still hiding in its carrier when he talked to us but hopefully she is feeling more at home now.

I've been texting with Jared this morning. He had an MRI last Friday. He has a colonoscopy scheduled but the earliest they could get him in is April 15th, so he has a 2 week wait until that happens. In the meantime, he isn't feeling very well...pain from the abscess and he's also nauseated most of the time. He still hasn't been able to work much either. So everyone please keep him in your prayers. If you have fast Sunday next week (after General Conference), it would be great if you would fast for him too. He's hoping they will have a cancellation and will be able to get him in sooner. The sooner he can get the colonoscopy, the sooner he can get a diagnosis and hopefully there will be some treatment that will help him start feeling better. 

We're looking forward to General Conference this weekend. We hope all of you get to enjoy it too.

Weekly Review March 25 '22

 Is it spring? Some days it feels like it, but other days it doesn't. Today temps are in the mid 50s but it is cloudy so it doesn't feel very warm. We've had a few really nice days but mostly this week has been kind of wet and chilly. However, a few trees have started to bloom this week and we are hearing and seeing a lot of birds, so the signs of spring are there even if it doesn't feel very warm a lot of the time. 

We had another pretty busy week although my calendar doesn't have a lot on it. Frank was definitely a lot busier than I was, though. He's had a lot going on with work and has put in a lot of late nights. After we got back from Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon (around 3:00), he unpacked and then went downstairs to his office to do work and worked solid until midnight. Then of course he had to be up early for bishopric meeting and ward council. That's how a lot of this week has gone for him. Is it any wonder that he is sick now? At first he thought he might just have allergies but he's been really congested and not feeling great since Wednesday, so I think he's got a bad cold or the flu or something. He did take an at home Covid test, and that was negative. Even though he isn't feeling great, he has still been working a lot...just working from home. There's some issues with the new database that he's been working on all day today.

I guess I should go back to last Saturday and finish telling about our trip to Philadelphia. As planned, Seth and Frank went with me to the temple on Saturday morning to see if Seth could do some baptisms and they did let him join a larger group that was already there so while I was in my endowment session, he got to be proxy for 4 baptisms...3 of them were family names I brought with us...and Frank did the confirmations. They finished before I did so they walked back to the hotel and changed and packed everything up except for my suitcase and then walked back to the temple to meet me when I finished. 

It was wonderful to be back in the temple again! We are all so glad that we got to go!

We walked back to the hotel so I could change clothes and then we checked out and headed home. I took a few photos of the hotel...one in the lobby and the other in our room...because I thought the signs on the walls were kind of clever:

I took some photos from our hotel window on Friday night too, after I wrote last week's post:

The trip home went smoothly and was uneventful...we stopped in Delaware to get some lunch, but other than that we didn't need to stop. As I mentioned, Frank worked the rest of the day; I kept busy finishing the usual Saturday chores. I don't remember much about what we did on Sunday after church except that we had family night. Frank took a nap after he got home from doing tithing and I wanted to take a nap but I wrote an email to our kids instead. On Sunday morning I looked out my bedroom window and saw these two geese walking across the common area:

The rest of the week was mostly business as usual. I did get the personal property tax return filed for the business on Monday. My VITA shift on Wednesday was kind of crazy because the first two appointments I ended up not being able to complete the returns. The first lady had an incorrect W-2 (she moved during the year so her company sent her one for each state that she lived in but the total income for the two states added up to a lot more than her total federal income for the year). The second lady had an item on her return that was out of scope for our program. Then the third hour I was there all of the appointments no-showed, so overall I spent the first 3 hours I was there with not much to do. We (the volunteers) were all just sitting there talking to each other and hoping someone would show up soon. Then at noon all 5 of our appointments showed up and a few of them were people who didn't speak English so then I was really busy the last two hours completing a tax return for a couple who spoke Spanish, who also needed to get ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers) for their two children so that they could claim them as dependents on their return. I filled out the application to get ITINs for their children as well as completing their tax return. I had an interpreter there for the beginning as we were sorting through all their stuff but she had to leave shortly after that so it was tricky communicating with them after that when questions came up! Then to finish their return I had to help them prepare to mail it--they couldn't efile because of the ITIN applications--so I had to call a number to get an interpreter for that part. It wasn't ideal to not have the interpreter there in person since I was pointing to lines to have them sign and stuff like that and of course the interpreter on the phone couldn't see what I was doing. But we got it all done in the end and they seemed to be grateful!

Frank didn't go to YM on Wednesday evening since he wasn't feeling very well but Seth and I both went to the church for activities. All the YW classes and the YM were working on their movies because the "film festival" is next week so we all need to finish up. My class went to Goodwill to purchase some clothes for costumes and then we came back to the church and got one scene filmed. We are meeting again tonight at 4:00 to continue filming. Hopefully we will get most of it done! 

I had a YW presidency meeting yesterday morning so between that and the regular chores I kept pretty busy.

This is the last week of the 3rd term for Seth so he's been pretty busy getting all his assignments in. I hope someday he will learn not to procrastinate! He is done with everything now though and he has Monday off from school. I'm pretty happy that we only have one term left of this school year. I am ready for summer!!

Frank and Seth are ministering companions now and they visited two of their families this week...one on Tuesday and one last night (Frank wore a mask last night). Frank told Seth that he would give the lesson the first few times and then Seth will have a turn. I am happy that Seth is starting to see what it means to be a ministering brother. Unfortunately, we haven't had hometeachers or ministering brothers visit us for over a decade (all of Seth's lifetime that he can remember) so he doesn't even really know what a hometeacher or ministering brother is. 

This morning some guys from the company that installed our new windows came over and fixed our shutters on our house so they look better now. 

I talked to both Tanner and Jared this week. I only had a few minutes to talk to Tanner so we didn't chat extensively but he seems to be doing well. I talked to Jared for longer; he was calling to report the results of a visit to a specialist. He was hoping to get his surgery scheduled soon but the new specialist doesn't agree with the one in Utah. Based on Jared's symptoms, he thinks it's highly possible that Jared has Crohn's Disease, and if so just doing surgery to remove the fistula will not solve the problem. So instead, they are going to do some testing (bloodwork, MRI, colonoscopy) to try to get a firm diagnosis. If he has Crohn's Disease, he still may need surgery but there are some other treatments they can try also. I've been doing a bit of online research on Crohn's Disease and it doesn't sound very fun. Jared defninitely has a number of the symptoms. It's a chronic disease and not really completely curable, but there are medications that can really help and can possibly put it in remission for long periods of time. Everybody please keep him in your prayers! He has a lot of discomfort from the abscess / fistula and hasn't been able to work a lot so that makes life challenging for them. Fortunately, Jessie's new job seems to be going really well and she enjoys it.

That's all the news from around here (or at least all the news I am remembering right now). To finish up, here's a photo of the new bishopric that the bishop's wife took a few weeks ago. Frank is definitely the tallest one (but the bishop has the most hair)😂!

Weekly Review March 18 '22

 This week's post is coming to you from Philadelphia. We are here this weekend to go to the temple. Frank is at a session now and I will be going to a session tomorrow morning. We weren't able to get an appointment for Seth to do baptisms (all the appointments were taken) but we're hoping that maybe if he and Frank go over with me tomorrow with the family file cards that I printed up for him that they might squeeze him in. It's worth a try, anyway. Seth had a 2 hour early release from school today so we left shortly after he got home from school (around 1:00). We got here around 3:30 so we made good time for once. The traffic is always bad coming into Philadelphia, but we were early enough that we didn't hit the really bad rush hour traffic. We are staying at a hotel that is within walking distance of the temple. After we got here and checked into our room, we got some food at the restaurant downstairs and then Frank left to go to the temple. We are on the 23rd floor of the hotel. Here are some views from our window:

I guess I should back track now and tell you about the beginning of the week. We have been pretty busy. On Saturday (the 12th) it snowed. We only got an inch or so and it didn't stick to the roads much but it was also really cold and windy so we just stayed home. I was pretty busy doing stuff for YW and I also got our tax returns filed. 

On Sunday I was originally going to have 3 meetings after church but a couple of them got cancelled so I only ended up having one...a class presidency meeting. Frank had a lot of meetings, of course. He had bishopric meeting and ward council. He had another meeting that evening but he missed that one because he had to go to work for an overnight digital menu install. He got home earlier than he originally expected, but it was still the wee hours of the morning. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of emergencies on Monday so he was able to rest a bit. 

On Monday afternoon a sister in my ward came over so I could help her with her taxes. She had asked me about the place I volunteer, but when I told her where it was she said she wouldn't be able to get there, so I told her she could come to my house and I would look over her taxes and see if I could figure them out. It turns out that her taxes were pretty simple, so we were able to get both her federal and her state taxes completed and filed that afternoon and she was happy about that. 

That evening we had to make some final decisions about our summer schedule because the next day was the day we could register Seth for FSY and we needed to choose which week to send him to that (we had three choices). Since plane ticket prices are climbing, we went ahead and purchased tickets for Utah. We are looking forward to seeing all you Utah folks this summer!

My friend Rebekah, who is in my book club, got the movie Ben-Hur from the library and invited me to watch it with her. I went to her house on Tuesday and we ate lunch together while we watched about 2/3rds of the movie. (It's 2 hours and 40 minutes long!) Then Rebekah came to my house yesterday and we watched the rest of the movie. I enjoyed seeing it again...haven't seen it since I was in high school, and I had forgotten most of it. The movie deviates from the book quite a bit, but we still enjoyed it. There are some things I like better about the movie and other things that I like better about the book. 

Frank was really busy on Tuesday with work--he worked all day and into the evening. He wanted to go to a regional Primary training meeting that was at the stake center by the temple (the Primary is one of his repsonsibilities) but he had too much work to do. 

Wednesday was really busy for me as usual...I worked at VITA during the day and had a YM / YW activity that evening. We were pretty busy at VITA...we had a couple of people come in who needed 4 years worth of taxes filed. That was kind of crazy, but we got them done. For the YM / YW activity that evening we talked about goal setting and then watched the Face-to-Face broadcast that introduced this year's theme (Trust In the Lord). The broadcast was really good. We got there early because Frank was in charge of setting up all the technology stuff. Frank & Seth were assigned to bring lemonade and I brought cookies and unfortunately there was a lot of both of those things leftover. I put a bunch in the cookies in the freezer. Maybe I should try freezing the lemonade too since there is about 4 gallons of it!!

Frank worked all day on Wednesday but he had to go back to work after the activity was over becuase they were installing the new database at one of the stores that night. It was only supposed to take about an hour so he thought he'd be home around 11:00 pm but there were a lot of problems so he didn't get home utnil about 3:30 am. Then he had to be back at the store at 5:00 am when they opened up. He was hoping he'd only be there for a short amount of time but he didn't get back home until about 9:00 am. He got maybe an hour or two of sleep but then he had meetings and other work to do so he never did get to go back to sleep until bedtime last night. He was exhausted, of course! He did sleep solidly all night long last night, though. 

Meanwhile, I had book chat last night. We discussed Ben-Hur and now we are going to read Dune. 

I think I mentioned that Frank had a job interview last week while he was in Las Vegas (they did the interview online). They contacted him on Monday and want to do a second interview, this time in person. He'll be doing that the week after next. 

Frank's dad had surgery on Tuesday to remove his gall bladder. It went well and he is recovering, although recovery will take a while. 

That's all I can think of to tell you about this week.

Weekly Review March 11 '22

My brain was feeling like mush when I wrote last week. Thankfully, I don't feel that way today. 

Last Saturday morning (the 5th) I had a hair appointment at 8:00 am, so that's the first thing I did. We did a couple of things differently this time...instead of just touching up the roots, the stylist pulled the color all the way to the ends so it looks quite a bit darker. We did that because next time I'm getting highlights. The stylist also cut my bangs shorter than she's been doing lately (at my request; they've been too long and hard to deal with). It took me a few days to get used to both the color and the bangs, but now I'm happy with it. Frank was busy that day cleaning in his office and moving his desk away from the window, in preparation for the new windows being installed this week. He was also busy packing because he was leaving for a business trip the next day. He went to Las Vegas for a convention (something to do with restaurant technology). He left Sunday morning and was gone until Wednesday evening. 

Frank attended bishopric meeting on Sunday morning but after that he needed to go to the airport. He left around the same time that Seth and I left for church. We had a pretty quiet day after we got home from church...no extra meetings or anything. It actually got up to the low 70s that day, so it was a nice day but for some reason I was really cold all day. It was colder inside than outside.

Because Frank was gone, I decided to make dinners that Seth would like and eat with him rather than following Frank's diet. Well, Seth liked the main dishes, anyway! I made a green salad on Monday to go with the sausage rice casserole he likes and I made him eat some of that each night. (We had sour cream enchiladas and lime pork fajitas other nights.) We had pretty quiet days while Frank was gone...just mostly getting the usual things done. I did get a number of errands done on Monday. That evening, Seth came with me to Costco--I needed to stock up on chicken, salmon, and shrimp--and then we went to Dairy Queen to get ice cream cones. A pretty decent rainstorm came through while we were driving to Dairy Queen but by the time we got home it was mostly gone. 

We didn't get to talk much to Frank while he was gone because he was 3 hours behind us so the timing was always off. He was busy at the convention during the day and by the time he finished at night we were in bed asleep. But we did talk briefly a few times and texted a bit. We were happy to have him return home on Wednesday evening.

I did my usual volunteer shift at VITA on Wednesday. It was raining hard most of the day so it was a good day to be indoors. We were busier than we've been the last few weeks, but not overwhelmingly so. I kept pretty busy the whole time I was there. On Wednesday evening I had a RS activity--the YW were invited to this activity too. Seth had YM as usual; they worked on their movie for the upcoming film festival. For RS we were celebrating the RS birthday and we had a service auction. I didn't actually bid on anything but it was amusing to watch other people have bidding wars and such. The YW really seemed to enjoy themselves! I submitted sewing lessons as my service to be auctioned off and one of the girls in my YW class won that, so I will be giving her some sewing lessons. I think it will be fun! I gave a ride to the church and back to my friend Rebecca and her daughter Melanie for this activity. Rebecca is blind, so she obviously can't drive and it made it easier for her family if her husband didn't have to drop them off (she has younger children). I enjoyed visiting with her a bit on the ride to the church and back.

Yesterday was eventful because we had the new windows installed. The crew arrived around 9:00 am and they were done by about 4:00 pm. There were windows and doors open the whole time they were here and it was about 50 degrees yesterday so it got really cold in the house and I was freezing all day! I kind of expected that's how it would be, though. They did a good job with the windows but we aren't happy about what they did to our shutters. They had to remove all the shutters and when they put them back up they didn't hang them up the way they were before. The shutters were hung on screws that were behind the shutters so that they didn't show. I don't know why they didn't just replace the screws and hang them back up, but instead they drilled screws all the way through the shutters into the house. That means we have a bunch of extra holes in our house now, and holes in the shutters, and the screws are showing on the front when they used to be hidden behind the shutters. Frank has been talking to the company today to try to get that resolved, and telling them that they need to replace the shutters for us now. Hopefully he'll be able to work that out. The windows do look really nice and the house is much warmer today than it's been in a long time, without the heater having to run much, so we're happy about that. 

Old windows in our bedroom (see the condensation between the panes?):

This is how the house looked during the install, when I went to get us some lunch. It was amazing to me what a mess the yard was!:

New windows (I took these photos this morning):

The blinds we had on the old windows are not going to fit in the new windows so we are going to have to buy new ones. In the meantime, we felt pretty exposed last night with no blinds or curtains on any of the windows. (We had to take down the curtains of course and we couldn't hang them back up until today because the caulking on the new windows had to dry for 24 hours first.) I washed the curtains today and we hung them back up so at least we have those now, which will have to do until we have time to get more blinds. I didn't hang Seth's curtains back up though because I'm going to get him some new ones. I've never replaced the Noah's ark themed curtains that have been hanging in that room since before he was born. I think he has grown out of curtains with cute little animals on them now! 😉

I've been gathering donations for Ukraine the last few weeks. My friend Renata has a connection with a Ukrainian School in Bethesda that is shipping needed items to Ukraine every few weeks. She let me know about it and I spread the word to our ward because I thought people would want to donate, and I was right. Last night I took a trunk load of donations over to Renata for her to take to the school tomorrow. I may be doing this again if more people donate. Renata was really grateful! It feels good to do something to help Ukraine, even if it's not much. 

Frank injured his leg when he was on the way home from Las Vegas. I'm not sure exactly what happened...he just tweaked it somehow when he had to stand up to let someone sit in the middle seat on the airplane, and he was standing at a weird angle. He definitely wins the random injury award...I feel like he is constantly getting these odd injuries! His leg is quite painful and he's been trying to rest it as much as possible. 

When I had any free time this week, I was reading. I finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow on Saturday night. On Sunday I started reading another book that I got from the library as a suggested reading for book chat. It is called Educated but Tara Westover. I finished reading that book last night. I finished it quickly because it was hard to put down. I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that it was astonishing. The author was writing about her own life, so it was a true story and it was just really crazy! Or actually, her parents were crazy (mentally ill would be the more correct term) so that made her life crazy. Her family was LDS, but believe me...most of the time I didn't recognize the beliefs / lifestyle she was describing. She grew up in Idaho on the side of a mountain. She was homeschooled (sort of...she really didn't get much education at all), they considered dresses above the knee or without a high neck to be immodest, her parents thought medicine and doctors were evil, and her dad was constantly expecting the world to end so he was stockpiling food and other supplies. You get the idea! The book is very well written but the overall story was pretty disturbing and I spent a lot of the time feeling really angry with her parents and some of her siblings (even though most of the time the author wasn't angry with them). It was definitely worth reading, though.

I rescheduled Seth's wisdom teeth removal with the oral surgeon but they didn't have any openings very soon so that's not going to happen until the end of April now. It's too bad since that will delay him getting his braces off but there's not much I can do about it.

That sums up our week...the most memorable things anyway!

Weekly Review March 4 '22

 My mind feels pretty muddled today, but hopefully I will be able to compose a coherent post about our last week. Why does my mind feel muddled? Well, it's been a frustrating / stressful day. Seth was supposed to get his wisdom teeth out today but...he didn't. He had one of his stubborn / anxious / freak out moments and refused to let them put in an IV. We all tried to talk him into it for a good 20 mintues but finally had to give up. The teeth have to come out, though, so now we have to reschedule the procedure and go through this whole process all over again. Needless to say, I'm not happy about it!! He insists that he just needs time to mentally prepare himself. I hope that's all it is. In the meantime, this day has been a bust since I wasted 2+ hours of my time taking him there (it's 30 minutes away and when we got there, they informed us that they were running behind and we'd have to wait 30-45 minutes...I wasn't happy about that either), he missed Seminary and school today for no reason, he fasted half the day for no reason, and I haven't accomplished much since we got back because my mind has been muddled so I can't concentrate. Can I go to bed and start this day over again??

The rest of the week went much better than today, thankfully. Last Saturday (the 26th) turned out to be really busy. I went to the church in the morning to help sort donations for Afghan refugees. We still didn't have a lot of donations coming in, but I had a nice visit with the other people who came to help. After I was done there, I just had time to have lunch before I needed to leave again...this time to go to a baptism. The baptism was for an 8 year old girl in our ward...her older sister is in my YW class, so I wanted to go to show support for the family. I'm really glad I went because not only are baptisms always really sweet but the older sister in my class was called to be the 1st counselor in the class presidency at the beginning of the year but had not yet been set apart and the bishop decided to set her apart right after the baptism. So I was able to be there for that, too. After I got home from the baptism I thought I would have a few hours before needing to go to the adult session of stake conference that evening. Frank had a leadership meeting at 4:00, but I didn't need to go to that meeting. We planned for me to make dinner and bring it over to him when his meeting ended at 6:00; then we would have time to eat together before I had a song practice at 6:30 followed by the adult session at 7:00. But shortly after I got home from the baptism, the other counselor in the YW presidency texted me saying "did you see the email that just came from the stake executive secretary saying that counselors in ward presidencies are invited to the leadership meeting too?" (Originally, only presidents were inivited.) At first I thought there was no way I could make that work last minute, but ultimately I decided to make the effort to go. It just meant that we had unhealthy McDonald's for dinner instead of the healthy meal I was planning to make! I'm glad I went because it turned out that meeting was almost entirely focused on the youth, so there was a lot of great information for me in that meeting. It was also nice that Frank and I were able to go to the meetings and come home together instead of taking two cars. Both meetings were excellent and I think our song went pretty well too. We had one of our area authorities, Elder Pace, come to this conference and he brought his wife with him. It just so happens that his wife (whose maiden name is Margaret Watson) grew up in the same ward with Frank, so he got to talk to her and that was fun for him, of course. So that was Saturday...by the time we got home it was time to go to bed.

Sunday wasn't quite as busy. We had the general session of stake conference in the morning--we went to our own ward building for that because they broadcast it to the buildings in our stake. That meeting was good too but I admit I had more trouble focusing for that meeting. Afterwards, we did have a few more meetings over Zoom. I had a class presidency meeting with my YW class, and Frank and Seth had a meeting with the bishopric and all the YM quorum presidencies (there are so few boys in YM that they meet all together). Then Frank had bishopric meeting via Zoom also. 

The rest of the week has actually been pretty routine, with all the usual things going on except that Seth had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday after school and of course he had the oral surgeon appointment today. At the orthodontist yesterday they said that all he has left to do is to move his teeth together (bite is correct now and teeth are straight; there are just some small gaps between them) so they put a different kind of wire on his teeth. Of course, that means his mouth / teeth are quite sore today. They said it's possible they can remove the bottom braces on his next visit (which is in 6 weeks) and then possibly the top braces the visit after that. Well, that was dependent on him having his wisdom teeth removed and molars exposed today, which didn't happen, so I'm sure that will push back his braces getting removed. Another reason why I wish that had happened today as planned! 

Frank had a quite busy week with work. He had to work last night because two contractors were doing jobs at one of the restaurants after hours. It wasn't too bad, though...they got done a lot sooner than he anticipated so he was only gone from 7:00 to 10:00. When I wrote last week's post, he was in the middle of a job interview. That interview went well. They are still very interested in him but have interviews to do with other candidates before they narrow it down. I'm still concerned that if he got that job he would need to travel down there a lot more often than I'd like. In the meantime, he was contacted yesterday by another place. He applied for a job there a few months ago and had given up on it since he never heard back but I guess they are just moving a lot slower than we anticipated. He has an interview set up with them on Monday. This job would also require commuting, but not nearly so far. 

I have to report that we played Mario Kart for family night activity on Monday because I actually won!! Yes, me!!! This is a really big deal because I'm no good at video games. It took me 10 years to reach this point. 😂 I was so astonished that I had to get photographic proof:

Yes, I know it says "Peach" instead of "Annette", but who else in my family would play as a girl?? You can see it was close...I beat Frank by only 1 point and Seth (Yoshi) by 3 points. But after 10 years of being way behind those two, it felt pretty good to be in the top spot! It may never happen again!

My VITA volunteer day went well again this week. Once again, we weren't very busy. But I actually kept steadily busy and completed 4 tax returns. They were all pretty simple so they didn't take long. Too bad 3 of the 4 taxpayers had to pay instead of getting refunds. That doesn't happen very often...as a matter of fact, those were the first balance due returns I've encountered this year. Never fun for the taxpayer, but they all took it in stride, thankfully.

For youth activities this week my YW class planned our movie for a film festival that we are doing with all the YM / YW at the end of the month. We had to start all over on the plot because we previously chose to do a Russian themed film. With everything going on with Russia right now, though, we thought maybe that would be in bad taste. So we started all over, planning with a totally different idea. The YM played kick ball and had donuts...Frank was in charge of bringing the donuts. Luckily, he found plenty of people at the church who were willing to eat a donut so we didn't bring any home with us!

When I finished reading Ben-Hur last week, I started reading another book called A Gentleman in Moscow. It was one of the books I checked out of the library to suggest that we read for book chat. We chose Ben-Hur instead, but I figured since I was done with that I might as well read this book since I had it. (Plus it sounded really interesting so I wanted to read it.) I'm glad I decided to read it because it's a fantastic book and I am enjoying it immensely. I will probably finish it in a couple more days. It is super interesting, clever, funny, but also poignant. I definitely recommend it if you want a good book to read. 

That is all the news from these parts so I will finish up with a photo I took while I was waiting for Seth to get out of Seminary yesterday morning. 

Weekly Review February 25 '22

 Welcome to the weekly Cleveland marathon. This was another pretty busy week. I'll try to remember all the important stuff.

Last Friday evening I attended a baby shower via Zoom. It was for my good friend Jeanine's son, Kalvin and his wife. (Kalvin is the same age as Tanner and they were very good friends growing up.) It was pretty fun. We played three games and I came in 2nd place on two of them. No prizes for me! 😂 I really enjoyed seeing Jeanine and Kalvin, even if it was just on a screen.

Saturday morning I had volunteered to help sort donations for Afghan refugees. Our stake has teamed up with another church and some other organizations to gather needed items for these refugees...there are about 100 arriving in the Frederick area in the next month. Our church building is one of the drop off sites for donations and Saturday was the first donation drop off day. It turns out they asked for more volunteers than they really needed, so I didn't end up staying long. I will be helping again tomorrow morning; maybe they will have more need for helpers tomorrow. Afterwards, Frank and I ran some errands. We dropped off a brake light bulb for another member of our ward at her house--she hasn't been feeling well lately so just needed someone to buy it for her so she wouldn't have to go out. We also picked up Frank's new contact lens prescription and then we went to a shoe store to get Frank some new Sunday shoes. The pair that he had that matched his suit were falling apart. He found some nice ones and he also got some new shoes to go with his work pants (Docker style pants) which replaced two more pair of really beat up shoes. Frank hates buying new shoes so he always wears his shoes until they are holey and the soles are falling off. I was so happy to get rid of three pair of ratty shoes!! After that we were going to check out a new cookie store that just opened up in Frederick called Crumbl. I guess it's big in Utah, but this is the first one we have out here. When we drove by, however, we could see that it was literally PACKED with people and there was a line going out the door, so we decided to try another day when the novelty has worn off. We went to the grocery store and got some donuts instead!

On Sunday we were up early because Frank had bishopric meeting at 7:30 and Seth and I had to be at the church at 8:15 for Frank's ordination / setting apart. Jared asked me to take a photo of Frank in a suit on his way to church so I took this one:

Doesn't he look great??

Frank's good friend, Greg Baird, ordained him a High Priest. Then one of the counselors in our stake presidency set him apart as the 2nd counselor. He gave Frank a very long blessing that was really amazing! I wish I could remember it better, but basically he gave him every blessing I could want for Frank. I feel really grateful for that!! We were both surprised that he gave him not just spiritual blessings but temporal blessings as well. Frank conducted Sacrament meeting and he did a good job. He didn't have to stay after church for very long and he only had one meeting (ward council, via Zoom) so the afternoon wasn't too hectic. Frank hadn't slept well so after his meeting he took a long nap. 

We had the missionaries over for dinner that evening. We had a good time...we really like the Elders serving in our ward right now. They are a lot of fun, but serious about missionary work too. It was nice we didn't have to rush as much because they are allowed to stay longer at the homes of bishopric members! After the missionaries left, we got online to reserve tickets for our visit to the Arizona War Memorial. The tickets for the day we are planning to be there opened up that night, and we weren't sure how big the demand would be so we wanted to get on to reserve them right away. We didn't have any trouble doing that and we are excited to visit this special place.

Because Monday was President's Day, Seth didn't have school but that is not one of the days Frank gets off, so he had to work. He worked from home so he was around but down in his office most of the day. It wasn't really a day off for me either--I still needed to grocery shop and do laundry and all the usual things. At least I didn't have to get Seth to Seminary or to school, and I did get to sleep in a bit!

One of my ministering sisters came to visit me on Tuesday evening. I always enjoy her visits and she is a great listener and also very thoughtful. She knows we are planning a trip to Hawaii and she brought me a pretty fabric wrap that she got in Hawaii years ago for me to borrow for the trip (makes a good swim suit cover up). 

I did my usual VITA shift on Wednesday. Once again, we weren't overwhelmingly busy and all of the tax returns I did were simple, so that was nice. We are having to reschedule a lot of people this year because they don't have information about either their stimulus payment or the their advance child tax credit payments. We can't complete their return if they don't know the amounts they recieved for either of those things. Some people get really upset / annoyed by that, but most people are understanding. 

On Wednesday evening we all went to the church for the combined YM / YW activity. We had mini soccer and basketball clinics because our stake has a youth sports program beginning soon where they will be playing those sports, as well as volleyball. We had some women in the ward who are really good at soccer and basketball come teach the kids, so I really didn't have to do much except watch / help out with little things when needed.

Yesterday was busy because I had a presidency meeting in the morning and a song practice in the evening. Frank also had to work last night...another data base test. He says it went well. He got home about 1:30 this morning from that. 

This morning Seth was up getting ready for Seminary / school as usual. They had asked everyone to bring food to share at Seminary this morning and he wanted to take a pizza, so we were warming one up in the oven. I had just put the pizza in the oven and went upstairs to change out of my exercise clothes when Frank informed me that he just got a text message saying there was a 2 hour delay! What??? It was raining a bit, but nothing more. Frank said when he came in at 1:30 am it was raining but cold and starting to get a little icy. That's all we can figure, is that there was ice on the roads. That meant there was no Seminary, however, so guess who had pizza for breakfast? Frank went back to sleep for a while but Seth and I were both wide awake by then so we stayed up.

Seth is home from school now. I spent the morning updating the finances. Frank is on Zoom doing a job interview right now (same company I mentioned last week). I'm interested to hear what he finds out from this interview. 

I did a lot of reading when I could this week and I managed to finish Ben-Hur last night. It was pretty good. We had a couple of nice weather days this week, with temperatures into the 50s or 60s. We enjoyed those while they lasted! Yesterday it got colder again (but not super cold) and it rained a lot. Today the high was 51, so that's not too bad either. Looking ahead, it looks like we will continue to have some colder days mixed in with somewhat milder days and a few nice days. I'm glad we are getting to the end of winter! I feel like I am always cold, though. My feet in particular feel cold a lot. (They are really cold right now, as a matter of fact.) A lot of times I think it's colder in the house than it is outside. Good news, though...we just got the call today that our windows are done and we were able to schedule the install for March 10th. They offered to install them on March 4th, but that's the day Seth is getting his widsom teeth out so we didn't think that would be a good day to do that. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and they will actually be installed that day. And then maybe our house won't be so drafty and I won't be so cold!!

We've been watching the news from the Ukraine with dismay / concern. I have a friend who is from the Ukraine and she has a lot of family there. I texted her yesterday morning to ask if she had heard from her family, and she said she had. Her parents are actually in Switzerland with one of her sisters, so they are out of harm's way. A couple of her sisters and their families are still in the Ukraine but she says they live near the Polish / Romanian border so it is quiet in their area for now. I'm sure she is very worried about them, though!

Our local school board met this week and voted to lift the mask mandate in the schools starting today. Masks are still encouraged, but not required. We told Seth he didn't have to wear a mask anymore and he said he was going to wear one anyway. He said "I'm used to them now. I think they're kind of comfortable." Crazy kid!! But whatever, I don't mind if he keeps wearing a mask...he will probably get sick less often. I asked him when he got home how many kids wore masks and he said most kids still wore them. Only a few didn't. I was a little surprised by that.

Jared and Jessie have been on the road all week and they arrived in Cary, North Carolina yesterday and were able to check into their new apartment. I expect that they are very busy moving in because I haven't heard anything else from them except that they arrived! Jared was good about checking in with me each night to let me know where they were and that they had arrived at that night's destination safely. Thankfully, Jared made the trip without a lot of discomfort...thank you to everyone who prayed for him! Hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of them in the future, now that they are only about 5 hours away from us.

That's all I can think of to tell you about us this week!