Weekly Review September 25 '26

It is a perfectly beautiful fall day today. We've had a lot of rain and gray days lately, but today the sun is out. The last couple of days, the temperatures have dropped so that we have highs in the 60s or 70s and lows down into the 40s overnight. Today there is a definite "crispness" in the air, but it feels very pleasant (not too cool). 

I'm going to give updates on Seth and Frank first. Seth has been working close to 40 hours / week consistently for the last several weeks, which has been great. He goes to YSA FHE most Mondays, to Institute every Wednesday evening, and to church meetings every Sunday. He's doing a pretty good job of setting alarms and getting himself up and to work on time, instead of relying on me to wake him up. I think he had one day this week that he fell back asleep after his alarm went off so I woke him back up. But most days he gets up on his own. He has also taken on the responsibility of washing his work uniform. He only has one uniform and needs to wash it after every couple of shifts, which is more often than I do the laundry and it doesn't always coincide with the days I do the laundry either. So he has started doing that himself, and he is doing a great job at remembering to take care of that. (This may not sound like a big deal, but he has ADHD and his executive functioning skills aren't fantastic, so it is definitely a small victory that he has been managing to do this on his own. 😀) He is saving half of his paychecks and has a pretty healthy sum saved up. He has no plans to serve a mission and has started to get really annoyed / frustrated if we bring it up. He is happy to attend church and activities and I'm sure he has a testimony and he's super happy that his friends are serving missions--he just doesn't want to go himself and he has even said more than once that he feels like he is supposed to stay here. We're not sure why he feels that way. Hopefully over time we will understand better. He also seems resistent to the idea of going back to school. He doesn't really know what he wants to do, career-wise, and seems perfectly happy to work at Chick-fil-A indefinitely. Hopefully he will figure something out along the way. I keep telling myself that I need to be patient with him and give him some time to figure things out. Overall, he is pleasant and helpful at home (although we don't love that he is a night owl so his schedule doesn't mesh well with ours), and he seems to be happy and enjoys friends at work and at church.

Frank's foot is still bothering him, but thankfully it hasn't gotten worse since last week. He can wear shoes again most of the time although sometimes he needs to use sandals. He got his blood drawn on Wednesday to check his uric acid level and it is 6.2. They'd like it to be below 6, but it was above 8 at one point, so it definitely has come down since then. He is still taking medicine to help with the uric acid level, and will probably get his disability parking pass extended for another month (it expires the end of this month). He had PT for his shoulders on Monday and on Thursday this week. His last appointment was Thursday, so on Monday a different person than he's been working with the last several weeks did an evaluation. His right shoulder and neck are much better, but he still has limited range of motion in his left shoulder. The person evaluating him said he needs surgery on his left shoulder. They will send the results to his surgeon and I'm sure he'll be meeting again with her to see where to go from here. She was pretty resistant to the idea of doing surgery when he first met with her, so it will be interesting to see what she thinks now. She did want him to go to PT first, to see what that would do for him. We're grateful that his right shoulder and neck have improved, at least. 

When I wrote last week, I said that I was leaning towards not accepting the stake communications calling. Well, the surprise is on me--I actually did accept it on Monday. I just wasn't feeling completely at peace about turning it down, and I kept putting off sending an email to say I couldn't do it. On Sunday morning, I was thinking about it again and I realized two things: I didn't feel right about turning it down, but I also didn't feel like I could do both this calling and my ward calling. And suddenly, I just knew that I should accept the stake calling and ask to be released from my ward calling. It felt right, and I felt relief and peace. So I let the counselor in the stake presidency know I was accepting the calling, and I let the RS president and my bishop know that I need to be released. I feel sorry that they need to find someone else to do this calling (and that I have only served for 3 months), but as I said--it feels right. And I feel like without my ward calling, I will be able to do this calling and it won't be too much on my shoulders. 

Now, on to the daily reports!

Saturday, September 19th: This was a pretty busy day. I had a haircut first thing in the morning. Frank needed to do work for two of his clients and Seth needed to be at work at 7:30, so Frank dropped him off at work and then headed south to do the work for his clients. After I got home from my haircut, I started some bread in the bread maker and then cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced the ukulele, read scriptures, and worked on preparing a bit for the next day's RS lesson (the teacher had asked me to share something as part of the lesson). After the floor dried, I ate lunch and then finished making the bread. I started working on planning group dinners (next RS activity)--I needed to put everyone who had signed up into a group and assign them to a host. It took a bit of juggling, believe me! While I was working on that, Frank got chicken & rice ready to go into the oven for dinner and he picked Seth up from work too. When he got back home with Seth, we both worked together to finish making dinner. We had the Elders over for dinner. One of them had just transferred into our ward, so we enjoyed getting to know him. After dinner, I glued the brackets (some of the decorative trim) onto the dollhouse. 

Sunday, September 20th: I read scriptures and got ready for church, then I worked some more on organizing the group dinners. Frank spoke in the Baltimore YSA ward that morning; he didn't get back before I needed to leave for church, but he and Seth came over to the church together later and Frank joined me for the 2nd hour of our meetings. We also had a "linger later"--a chance to visit with other members of the ward--after our meetings, so we stayed a while for that. After we got home, we talked to Jared, had dinner, and did the FHE lesson. I worked on group dinners a bit more.

Monday, September 21st: I woke up at 1:00 am for some reason and couldn't go back to sleep. I read scriptures, played some games, did my usual exercise / breakfast / showering routine, started laundry, bought groceries, and vacuumed. I got all of that done by about 7:45 am. We had a nice sunrise Monday morning:

I started mission work around 8:30 am. I thought I would probably get sleepy and need to take a nap at some point, but surprisingly, I didn't get sleepy. I worked on mission work until about 2:00, taking a one hour break for lunch. Frank came home around the time I finished my mission work. I spent most of the time working on the 5 record hints I was assigned to do as a follow up to Friday's training. It was fun and interesting! I finished two of them but I ran into questions on the other three, so I didn't finish them that day. I also finished up the orientation activities, which included listening to an awesome talk that Elder Bednar gave at the MTC several years ago. After I finished the mission work, I tried taking a nap. I did fall asleep and I was totally out--but only for about 15 minutes. Then I woke back up and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and finished folding the laundry and worked on the dollhouse. I glued the tower roof on and started looking at the directions for the window frames to prepare to assemble them. 

Frank went to PT and when he got home, we had dinner. Seth came home from work at 6:00 and quickly ate and then left for YSA FHE, so we didn't have time to do our own FHE activity that day. I finished figuring out the group dinners and sent text messages to all the hosts. 

Tuesday, September 22nd: I woke up when Frank left (around 3:00 am). I read scriptures and then started to feel sleepy so I tried going back to sleep. I went in and out a few times and finally fell back asleep completely and didn't wake up until about 7:30. It was great to get that extra sleep, but then I felt like I was behind all day. 😂 And actually, I didn't finish everything I wanted to do that day, but I did get a lot done and finished the rest on Wednesday. I did my usual Tuesday morning routine which means that I exercised and ate breakfast as usual but then cleaned the bathrooms before showering. (I listened to the Follow Him podcast while cleaning, as usual.) I started planning meals for next week but didn't finish before it was time for lunch and my weekly district devotional. After the devotional, I did mission work until 3:45. I spent a lot of that time sending a long email with screen shots and questions to my record hints project trainer about the three record hints that I hadn't completed. I also worked on a sixth record hint, which was not as complicated so I was able to finish it. I stopped at 3:45 so I could get ready for my temple shift and eat some dinner before I needed to leave for the temple. Seth didn't work that day, so I had a car, but my friend MaryKay offered to take me anyway. She said she enjoys the company! I accepted because I also enjoy her company, and that also meant I could ride home with Frank. I had a good shift; I feel like I get a little more comfortable every time I go. After prayer meeting, I got trained on the clothing rental counter for the first hour. It was fun, and not very difficult to learn. Then I worked in initiatories for an hour which literally flew by, and then worked at the veil to end my shift.

Wednesday, September 23rd: I got the regular chores done, finished planning next week's menus, and worked on mission work. For mission work, I met with the records hint trainer to go over my questions and we got all the record hints that I had started completed. I also had my weekly one-on-one meeting with one of my team leads and worked on the AI Research Assistant project for a while. By the time I was done, I had over 12 hours of work for this week, so I don't need to do anymore, but I may do some more tomorrow (because it's fun!). That evening, I started assembling the dollhouse window frames. They are kind of tricky--requiring some taping and gluing, and then a rubber band has to be stretched and secured around the frame to hold it together while the glue dries. It's challenging to get the rubber band onto the frame without the pieces shifting around or even flying apart (because the glue isn't dry yet). I tried a number of different ways to do it before I found a method that seems to work the best. So it took a while to do the first four, and I was ready to take a break after that! The first four, taken on Thursday morning after the glue dried and the tape and rubber bands were removed:

Thursday, September 24th: I woke up at 3:00 am and didn't go back to sleep (seems to be happening a lot), so I got up and did my usual morning routine and purchased groceries before Seth had to leave for work (around 9:30). I've been watching Downton Abbey while running the last several weeks; I watched all six seasons and then watched the three movies as well. I finished the last movie on Thursday morning, so this morning I started watching the newest season of Call the Midwife, which recently became available on Netflix. 

Anyway, back to Thursday--I got all the regular chores done, talked to Tanner while I ate lunch, and worked some more on the dollhouse. I started painting more of the trim and also assembled five more of the window frames. (The dollhouse has eight windows, but there are fourteen window frames because there are frames for both the inside and the outside of six of the windows. The other two windows are dormer windows, and they have window frames on the outside, but a different kind of trim on the inside.) These five frames went together a lot faster than the first four did, thankfully.

First coat of one side of trim. Most of these will go on the rooftop; a few hang under the eaves:

Five more windows, assembled and drying:

After Seth got home from work at 5:30, we did our belated FHE activity for the week before I needed to leave for book chat. We played bank--Frank won, as usual. At book chat, we discussed Sense & Sensibility. Now we are going to read Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. 

Friday, September 25th: I woke up around 7:00, which was lovely for a change! After my usual morning routine and sending some follow up text messages about group dinners and the RS activity we are planning for December, I updated the finances. I got most of that done before lunch time; I finished after lunch and then started working on this post. I've had a few interruptions while working on this (a call from the counselor in the stake presidency to follow up about my new stake calling; talking to Frank about some calls from his family about his Uncle Jimmy, who is in the hospital and not doing well), so now it is almost dinner time. 

I'm planning to work on the dollhouse some more after dinner. It is nice to feel like I am in the last stages of this project (even though there's still plenty to do). I took some photos on Tuesday morning so I could compare them with the photos I took when I first started this project. Back then, I had boxes full of pieces that needed to be put together:

These photos I took on Tuesday morning show all the pieces that I have left: 

Only one box left under the table, and it only has the shingles and some extra supplies. The pieces I have left are mostly small pieces, like trim, shutters, stairs, crown molding, and window frames. (The only pieces that aren't small are the room dividers).

There's an end in sight! 😁

Weekly Review September 18 '26

 Another pretty busy week! Here's what we did:

Friday, September 11th: After writing last week's post, we had dinner and went to a game night with friends. We actually got there pretty late. There were three small groups playing different games, but all of the games were longer, more involved games, so Frank and I ended up with each of us sitting with a group and talking with them while they finished playing instead of playing a game. It was nice to get out and be social, though! There were more men than women there and all the women were playing a game together, so I sat with them. All three of them are Seminary teachers--the two in our ward and another one who is in our stake and teaches a class in another ward. So we had a lot in common and had a lot to talk about. 

Saturday, September 12th: This was a really busy day. Frank got a haircut in the morning and Seth worked from 10:00 to 6:00. I did 6 hours of mission work. Some of that was training videos, but I also did some work on a project called AI Research Assistant. You don't have to be formally trained to work on this project because it is working on record hints for your own family tree. Working on this project taught me how much I still don't know! I had to keep going back and forth between the record hint I was working on and training videos because I couldn't remember how to do anything! Well, it's always good to be humbled. In the end, I was able to connect someone new to my family tree, so that was cool. And in all my digging, I discovered that he was a twin. What are the chances of that? The very first record hint I ever do is for someone who is a twin like me. (Although clearly he was a fraternal twin, since he had a twin sister, not brother.) I also discovered that this family has at least 10 more children, so now I want to go find all of them. This could become addictive very quickly! 

Besides the mission work, I did a lot of other things. I figured out a schedule for what days and times I will do mission work each week, and that has definitely been helpful for me as I have gone through this past week. I worked on the dollhouse a little bit with some help from Frank--some of the trim strips needed to be cut to a shorter length, so we did that.

All the trim strips, cut and ready to be painted:

I also cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and sent notes from the RS activity committee meeting to the rest of the committee. Frank and I went out to dinner because neither of us felt like cooking! We went to Outback Steakhouse, since I know they have food I can eat. I tried the salmon and it was really good. I watched part of a documentary about September 11th. I do that most years around this time--watch a few documentaries. I was up pretty late, but I kind of wanted to stay up until Seth got home. He was asked to provide a ride home from work for one of the boys from that family in our ward who need rides. This boy didn't get off work until 11:45. I know Seth is perfectly capable, but I just wanted to make sure he got home safely. He's not usually out that late at night.

Sunday September 13th: I did the usual Sunday morning routine, which includes putting food for dinner in the crock pot, scriptures, and getting ready for church. One new thing I did was that I used liners in the crock pot that I hadn't used before. We got a set of liners when we purchased the crock pot years ago, and we've used the full liner many times, but it also came with a set of two liners that basically divide the crock pot in half so that you can cook two different things at the same time. I made one kind of chicken in one of the liners for Frank & Seth that included things I'm not eating right now, and another kind of chicken in the other liner for me. I almost got rid of that set of liners once because I'd never used them. I'm glad now that I didn't give them away! They are going to come in very handy.

Frank was gone that morning because he had his early morning meetings for the YSA stake. He got back in time to go to the church with me, but he went to YSA branch meetings (branch presidency meeting, branch council meeting, and YSA sacrament meeting) instead of to our meetings. We had a unique sacrament meeting that day. Instead of speakers, anyone who wanted to was invited to come up and share about a favorite hymn and then we'd sing one verse of that hymn. It was a really enjoyable meeting. After church, I had a ministering interview and by the time I finished that, the YSA sacrament meeting was over, so Frank and I came home together. 

Before church, I talked briefly with the head of the stake communications committee about the calling that I learned about last week. The counselor in the stake presidency had sent me a little more information about it, but I kept feeling like I needed to talk to the committee chair to find out exactly what she was expecting before I could make a decision, so I asked him if it was okay to talk to her. He said it was okay. When I talked to her before church, she said she would send me a document that listed the responsibilities for the calling, and after I read it we could talk about it. 

Later that day, I got the document--one and half pages long. It is definitely more than attending one meeting a month and then reporting on that! As a matter of fact, when I talked to her, the committee chair said that the counselor who talked to me was mixed up. They want someone else to attend the community meeting. They want me to serve on the committee as a communications specialist, which entails a whole lot of things. She talked to me for a long time about it and she seems to think that this calling would overlap my RS activities committee calling a lot, so it wouldn't be a big deal. It does overlap a little bit, but not a whole lot, and there are a lot of things on that list she sent me that would add to my current "to do list". I didn't give her an answer when I talked to her. I told her I would have to think about it, but I did tell her that I am wearing a lot of hats already and that I'm not sure the timing is good for me to take on another calling. She encouraged me to talk to the RS president in my ward about it, because she had this same calling before she became the RS president. So I did do that--the RS president had already said she wanted to go on a walk with me sometime soon, so I contacted her and asked if we could do it this week. 

We went on a walk yesterday morning, and she said some things that helped me a bit. She did say that this calling is the type that you can do a lot, or you can choose not to do a lot. She said they'd be happy with anything I could do because right now they don't have anyone doing any of it. But she also agreed that it doesn't really overlap with my current ward calling, and she seemed to think that if I accepted this calling, I would need to be released from my ward calling. I also wanted to talk to her because I had the idea that if someone else in the ward was called to do this calling, they could also serve on the RS activities committee, with the specific responsibility for community service related activities. She said she thought that was a good idea. So anyway, that's where it all stands right now. I haven't made a final decision, but I'm definitely leaning towards not accepting this calling because I think it would just be too much, and I don't want to accept it if I can't give it the time and attention it deserves. 

Anyway...back to Sunday. We talked to Jared and had family night before Seth had to leave for mission prep class. I watched a few September 11th documentaries before I went to sleep. Frank's foot had improved enough that he started wearing shoes again on Sunday. Unfortunately, his foot started hurting a lot more on Wednesday. He said he bumped it on something under his desk. Maybe that's why it's hurting more, but now it has swollen a bit and has turned bright red again too. So it's hard to tell if that is all caused by bumping his foot, or if the gout is flaring back up again. At any rate, he's back to wearing sandals again. It's discouraging to have a big set back when he was starting to do a lot better. 

Monday, September 14th: I woke up when Frank got up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and did my usual exercise / breakfast / shower routine and I also got all the daily chores (buying groceries, vacuuming, and starting laundry) done by 10:00 am. I did mission work from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. (For my mission work, I've decided to schedule four hours on Mondays, three hours on Tuesdays, four hours on Wednesdays, and two hours on Saturdays. That's thirteen hours--I built in an extra hour in case I have a day I can't do all the hours I planned to do.) For mission work this week I kept working on orientation stuff (which is lovely) and I reviewed Record Hints videos so I'd be better prepared for the Records Hint project training that I had scheduled for today.

After I finished mission work for the day, I watched a few September 11 documentaries (yes, there are a lot of them...I only scratched the surface with the ones I watched this week), talked to Scott, and started painting trim strips and brackets for the dollhouse (first coat, one side). 

Frank went to PT after he got home from work. He says that PT has really been helping his right shoulder and his neck, but his left shoulder is not improving much. 

Tuesday, September 15th: Again, I woke up when Frank got up, which was even earlier--about 2:40. He got up extra early because he needed to go do some work for a client before going to work. I started out by doing more painting on the dollhouse trim strips and brackets (painted edges of the trim strips and the second side of the brackets).

After that, I exercised and ate breakfast, cleaned the bathrooms (listened to Follow Him while working), showered, and planned meals for next week. I got all that done by 10:15. 😂 After lunch, I had my weekly devotional for the Cumberland district (I gave the closing prayer because it was my team's turn to do the devotional) and a bi-weekly record hints meeting, which is for all the missionaries who are working on the record hints project. The devotional and the meeting were an hour apart, so I worked on my own orientation / training in between those two meetings. After the record hints meeting, I decided to work an extra hour on mission work because it wasn't my week to do my temple shift, so I had extra time. That also meant that I wouldn't have to do as many hours on Wednesday. 

Seth worked from 2:00 to 10:00 that day and Frank had his temple shift after work, so I was alone for a lot of the day. After I ate dinner, I sanded all the trim strips and brackets and then painted the second coat on one side of each of them. I listened to scriptures while I was doing that.

Then I watched a few more September 11 documentaries while waiting for Seth and Frank to get home. (I haven't watched any more of those since then...I think I'm done for the year!)

Wednesday, September 16th: I slept in; I didn't wake up until about 6:30. 😂I did the usual exercise / breakfast / shower / chores routine. Then I did mission work from 10:00 to 12:40, which included my weekly one on one meeting with one of the team leads. Everyone in the mission is super nice; I just love them! 😊After that, I had lunch and Tanner called so I talked to him while I was eating. Seth worked from 11:30 to 6:00, and he forgot to take his water bottle, so Frank and I took that to him and then took Frank's car to put gas in it. This is when Frank mentioned that his foot was starting to hurt again. (He had bumped it earlier that day.) 

After we got back home, I finished paiting the trim strips and brackets. (I listened to Follow Him while working and then did a little bit of coloring while the episode finished). Since I knew that Thursday and today were going to be busy days, I decided to get a few things done ahead of time. I started working on the budget update and I also purchased groceries in the evening. Before that, though, we had dinner and then Frank and I watched a talk that President Oaks gave at the National Cathedral (Faith, Freedom, and the Common Good). We actually had tickets to see it in person at the cathedral, but because Frank's foot was hurting so much, he didn't feel up to going. It was a little disappointing to miss the chance to attend in person, but we certainly didn't miss fighting traffic! We did enjoy his talk a lot. After I got home from the grocery store, I glued all the trim strips onto the dollhouse.

We got to bed around 9:00, but I felt wide awake and wasn't falling asleep, so I decided to look at some stuff on FamilySearch, and ended up staying up until 11:00 pm because I got so interested in what I was doing.

Thursday, September 17th: Frank and I both woke up around 5:30. Frank didn't get up at 3:30 as he usually does on Thursdays because his foot was hurting in the night so he decided to work from home. I did my usual morning routine and then went on the walk with the RS president that I mentioned earlier. It was a warm and humid morning, so I got pretty warm. After that, I went with my friend Rebekah to Hobby Lobby. (It's in Hagerstown, about 30 minutes away from Frederick). She wanted to get some fabric to make some clothes for her granddaughter and asked me if I wanted to go along. Of course I did! I enjoyed looking at some patterns (didn't buy any, though) and we also checked out the dollhouse section to see what they have. I didn't buy anything for the dollhouse either, but it was good to see what furniture and accessories they have there. They had a decent variety of things, but overall the dollhouse section is pretty small (only half of an aisle, on one side). They have the same model of dollhouse that I am building on display--fully assembled, although it isn't painted at all. 

After I got home from that trip and ate lunch, I got the rest of the chores done while Frank went to a PT appointment. I also did some work for RS activities--got the building scheduled for our November activity, contacted ward leadership in another ward to see if we could use the building for our December activity on a Thursday evening (it's that ward's activity night), and did some planning for the group dinner activity, which will be in October. I also started working on this blog post, since today was pretty full and I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to write it today. We had a rainstorm in the evening. 

Seth worked every week day this week except for today. On Thursday, he texted me to say that he would be coming home a little late. It turns out that his friend Emma from work got off at the same time that he did, so they stayed to talk for a while. And today, they got together to go to the mall again--he was gone for about 6 hours. I forgot to mention when I wrote last week that I met Emma. We dropped a car off one day for Seth to bring home, so I had to take the key to the car in to him. I just missed him--I saw the back of his head as he went back to the break room--but the girl working the register asked if she could help me, so I explained that I needed to give a key to Seth Cleveland. She broke into a big smile and said "Oh, you're Seth's mom? Seth is my best friend! He is so great!! I just love working with him!" I said "Oh, are you Emma? (then I noticed that her nametag did say Emma!) He's talked a lot about you!" She offered to give Seth the key, so I gave it to her. When Seth came home, I told him about what Emma said and I asked him if they were just friends or if it was more than that. He said that she is dating someone else, so they are just friends. I think he would like to be more than friends, but for now he is content to just be friends. 

Friday September 18th: Today I went to the temple in the morning. I did an endowment session which was great because I haven't had the chance to do that since May or June. Someone in the session needed ASL, so I got to see the ASL version of the endowment, and it was really sweet! There was a different signer for each person, and their facial expressions really added a lot to the overall experience. I'm really grateful I got to go, and that I got to have that unique experience. 

After I got home and had lunch, I had a 2 hour training session for the Record Hints project. For the training, we basically went through a couple of record hints together. I shared my screen and I did everything, the Elder training me just walked me through it and we talked about things together. I enjoyed it, and I think doing this work is definitely going to be addictive! Now I have an assignment to do five more record hints and when I'm done I will share the lines I did with my trainer so that he can check them. 

After I finished my training, Frank and I made dinner and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. After dinner, I finished updating the budget and worked some more on this post. I took a break so that we could do family night activity. We didn't have time to do it on Monday because Seth worked until 6:00 and then had YSA FHE at 7:00. We played the game Stare; Frank won, but Seth and I were right behind him and both of us got to the finish just one round after Frank did. 

Now it is nearly bedtime and I can't think of anything else to report, so I will finish with a photo I took this morning of the sunrise.

Weekly Review September 11 '26

We had a pretty busy week. I feel like my days are very full lately! Here's the details for each day:

Saturday September 5th: Frank and I ran a lot of errands and did a lot of things to prepare for our ward's Labor Day picnic. First, we went to the church to check the closet for paper products and pulled out the things we knew we would need for the picnic. We also grabbed 4 large water dispensers to use for the picnic. Next, we went to Walmart to buy the remainder of the food (except for ice). While we were at Walmart, we got groceries for ourselves so that I wouldn't have to go back to get groceries on Monday morning. (Which was a good move...Monday morning was very busy with a lot of other picnic preparations.) 

After bringing all the groceries home, we went to At Home to get some new towels, a shower curtain, and a floor lamp. Our towels & washcloths needed to be replaced because I unknowingly used some face cleanser that had hydrogen peroxide in it, which bleached all the color out of the towels and washcloths. They were getting older and worn out anyway. Our shower curtain also needed to be replaced because things in this humid area get moldy, even though I clean the shower curtain regularly. And the lamp needed to be replaced because the base piece broke and was leaking a sand-like substance onto the floor. It's actually been like that for years, and I was pretty tired of sweeping up the sand twice a week (every time I sweep the floor). It just took a long time to find a lamp that would work with what we already have. 

After we finished at that store, we drove to the park where the picnic was to be held to find out if there was potable water available (there wasn't, so we knew we would have to fill the water dispensers and make the lemonade ahead of time, instead of at the park). On our way home from the park, we stopped at our storage unit to pick up our two ice chests and to put a few things away. We did all of those errands before eating lunch.

After lunch, I wanted to clean the kitchen floor, but realized that I was out of floor cleaner. I did not want to go back to Walmart to get that, but fortunately Seth was getting off work in about an hour, so I texted him and asked him to stop at Walmart after work to get that for me. (Chick-fil-A and Walmart are right next to each other; he actually parks in the Walmart parking lot when he goes to work.) While I waited for Seth to get home, I practiced ukulele and read scriptures. Then I cleaned the kitchen floor after he got home. We had dinner and I spent a couple of hours watching mission videos (I finished the annual compliance training videos). I read a little bit of Sense & Sensibility before going to bed, but not much because I was really sleepy!

Sunday September 6th: In the morning before church, I read scriptures and sent an email to the RS president for her to send out to the ward. It was explaining the next RS activity--Group Dinners--because I knew with the new schedule (Sunday School / RS & EQ every week for shorter times) that there would not be any time to announce it. I was planning to send around sign up sheets for this activity that day, and I did put an explanation on the sign up sheets, but I just wanted everyone to have a "heads up" about it so they wouldn't be spending a lot of time reading the explanation instead of paying attention to the meetings. 

After church, I waited for Frank to get out of the YSA Sacrament meeting so that we could come home together. I spent some time talking to the new Seminary teacher who replaced me. She is doing pretty well, but she also just started letting people know that she is expecting a baby. The baby is due in February, so she will only be teaching this semester. She found out she was pregnant right after she was called and she has been feeling pretty sick and yucky all summer. I am pretty impressed that she is trying to teach Seminary at all, in that condition! I don't think I could have done it. I feel bad for Tammy (the other teacher) that she is going to have to start over with a new teacher twice in one year. I mean, I'm sure both teachers are / will be great. It's just a bit of a transition, with a great deal of uncertainty until things get settled, and that adds to the stress level. However, I knew before this teacher was called that she and her husband were thinking about starting their family. And when I found out that she was the one who was going to be called, I remember I was a little distressed about it because I didn't want them to feel like they needed to put off having a baby until she was released as a Seminary teacher. So I'm very happy that they are having a baby! 

When Frank got out of his meeting, we were all talking for a bit, and then one of the counselors in the stake presidency walked by. Then he came back and asked if he could talk to me for a few minutes, which really surprised me. He told me that my name had been submitted for a calling, but he recognized that I have a lot going on already, so he just wanted to let me know about it and see how I felt about it--no pressure to accept! I don't actually know the official title of the calling, but it was the stake communications committee chair who asked for me, so I guess it's just being a member of that committee. He said he thought that all I would need to do is attend a community meeting once a month and report back to the committee chair what happened at the meeting. It's too complicated to explain exactly what this meeting is about (and I don't fully understand it myself), but it's related to a group that is trying to build affordable housing for low income people in this area, and our church might be able to help in some ways so the stake wants someone from our church to represent them at this meeting. So anyway, attending one meeting a month doesn't sound like a lot, but he couldn't tell me exactly when the meeting was (which is important since it would need to not coincide with other commitments I have), so he said he would find out and let me know. I would actually love to help with anything that is going to help low income people get into affordable housing, but I'm not at all sure that I am up for taking on any more responsibility right now. I feel like I have a lot on my mental plate with my mission, temple work, ward calling, and (of course!) my home and family responsibilities. I've actually been a bit stressed the last couple of weeks trying to find the time to put in 12 hours (each week) for my mission. When I talked to Frank about it, he said "I know you, and whatever you agree to do, you give it 100%, and I don't think you have time for anything else right now." I have to admit it--he does know me, and he is probably right. I'm waiting for more infomation before I make a final decision, though.

After we got home from church and ate dinner, I baked a cake to take to Monday's picnic. After Seth got home, we had FHE. We also got to talk to both Tanner and Jared (first week of work went well for both Jared and Jessie, although his commute isn't great) and I did an hour or so of mission work.

Monday, September 7th: The morning was very busy preparing things for the picnic. We made lemonade, sliced onions and tomatoes, frosted the cake, cut up a watermelon, and cooked some chicken (for me to eat--since I'm not eating beef or pork right now, hot dogs and hamburgers are out). We probably did some other things too, I've just forgotten now. We discovered after making the lemonade that one of the dispensers leaks a lot, so Frank sent Seth to the storage unit to get our dispenser and we transferred the lemonade from the leaky dispenser to ours. Then we loaded everything up and headed to the picnic, stopping to get ice on our way. 

The picnic went well. The weather was great (not too hot and low humidity), a lot of people came, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. We actually had a much larger turn out than we expected. We planned for 60 people, and closer 80 people came but thankfully we had enough food for everyone. (We bought an extra box of hamburger patties, thinking we could return them to the store if we didn't use them, but we used all of them!) The sign up for the sides was full in every category except for fruit, but somehow we ended up with more fruit than almost anything else. 😂 Not sure how that happened! (But great for me, since fruit was the only side I could eat and dessert was out for me too, of course.)

The picnic was from noon to 3:00. Afterwards, I had quite a bit of clean up--needed to clean all the drink dispensers and our two ice chests, among other things. Then we also needed to return things to the church and to our storage unit. I was too tired to do anything after that except reading (I finished reading Sense & Sensibility). Fortunately, there were a lot of leftovers available for dinner, so I didn't have to cook. When Seth got home from work (he worked 11:00 - 6:00), we played some Wii basketball for family night activity.

Tuesday September 8th: Frank got up really early and went to work, but I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until about 7:30. I got chores done in the morning (listened to part of the Follow Him podcast while cleaning bathrooms). In the afternoon, I had my weekly Cumberland District Devotional and spent some time looking online for RS activity ideas. Before the devotional started, one of the missionaries was telling about a story on 60 Minutes about a family in southern Virginia who purchased a house and later learned that it had been a plantation and that some of their direct ancestors had been enslaved on that very plantation. The missionary mentioned it because the document that confirmed for them that their ancestors had really lived on that plantation was found on FamilySearch. They shared a link to the episode in the meeting's chat, so I watched the episode while I ate my dinner. (Which was early, because I had my temple shift that evening and needed to leave about 4:45). Seth worked from 11:30 to 8:00, so I got a ride with my friend MaryKay to the temple and rode home with Frank. The temple was great as always. Training in Preparation Meeting was really beautiful, and I got to work in Initiatories and Veil. I was done before Frank, so I had some time to chat with a few of the other temple workers and get to know them better.

Wednesday September 9th: Even though I was up late the night before, I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Frank was up then too (that's probably why I woke up). He usually doesn't get up early on Wednesdays because he works from home, but he had two clients that needed work done so he took a personal day to do work for them. But he had PT in the early afternoon, so he needed to get the work done early and get back to Frederick in time for that. Meanwhile, I exercised and got chores done and by then I was feeling very sleepy, so I took a nap. It was a very short nap, though--only about 20 minutes--because the TruGreen guy showed up to do our lawn service and for some reason he felt the need to ring the doorbell and bang on the front door to let me know he was there. (He didn't even need to talk to me, and he didn't leave any message on the door either.) 

After that I did lots of hours of mission work. I had several meetings--one with the Record Hints Project Point Person, a one-on-one with one of my Team's leads, and a Team Meeting. The Record Hints PPP just started working in that position and needed to know what I've done so far to be trained for that project. He set up a time to train me on the project, but it's not until next Friday. Besides all the meetings, I also did some new missionary training--I found some other videos that I am supposed to watch that also include stopping, reflecting, and writing things down. It was a sweet experience because it gave me a chance to reflect and realize many ways that I have been prepared to serve in this mission. 

On Wednesday I also made bread and spent a lot of time preparing for a RS activities committee meeting, which was scheduled for the next day. In between everything else, I read a book called All the Blues in the Sky. It is the 2026 Newbery Medal winner and I received a copy for my birthday. It wasn't very long and an easy read, so it didn't take a lot of time to read. It was a sad book in many ways--the main character was a young teenager who was coping with the loss of her best friend, who had been hit by a car--but it was good, too. I really liked it.

Wednesday's sunrise (one of the bonuses of waking up really early):

Thursday September 10th: I woke up late (about 7:45), so it was one of those days that felt like it was half over by the time I got up. After exercising, I worked on chores (laundry, some vacuuming) before going to lunch with my friend Rebekah. Afterwards, I went grocery shopping and finished the rest of the chores. I started dinner, and while the soup was simmering, Frank helped me glue the rooftop and the rooftop extension onto the dollhouse. I haven't had much time to work on that this week, you may have noticed! 

Rooftop with weights to keep it in the right place while the glue dries. The smaller roof piece on top is not glued on (that's not where it goes); I just put it up there to keep it out of the way:

Seth helped me move the dollhouse back up to the spare room today. Here it is with the weights and tape removed:

And here's what it will look like with the tower roof added, although it still hasn't been glued on. I have to add some trim under the eaves, and I'm supposed to turn the dollhouse upside down to do that, so I have to do that before gluing on the tower rooftop:

I looked around the spare room and realized that I only have small pieces left to go on. Lots of different kinds of trim, and the windows, door, shingles, and staircase. It's exciting that I have made it this far!

After dinner, I had the RS activities committee meeting. Two members came in person and another one joined us on Zoom. Two of them were new; this was their first meeting. The meeting went better than I anticipated, which I am happy about. We have basic plans for both the November and December activities, and everyone has assignments to work on until our next meeting in October. 

Friday September 11th: I woke up around 7:00; Frank had PT early. I exercised & ate breakfast; then updated finances. Tanner called me while I was doing that (he often calls to talk while he is driving to work). After I finished the finances, I ate lunch (kind of late) and since then I have been working on this post. It's nearly time for me to make dinner now, and we have a game night with some friends after that. 

It's hard to believe that it's been 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I still remember so many details about that day and how I felt. I was talking to Tanner about it; he barely remembers it, but he does remember a little bit.

For my mission, I am supposed to do 12 hours of work each week. This week, I have done about 7 1/2 so far, so I have a lot to do tomorrow. I've decided that I need to choose what days and times I am going to work on it, and block out those times--don't set appointments or anything else for those times. I feel like I will feel less anxious about it if I'm not trying to fit those hours in between everything else going on in my life. We'll see how that goes! 

I think that brings you up to date on everything happening with us, and I am hungry so I am going to make dinner now. 

Weekly Review September 4 '26

When I posted last week, my eye was still quite red, sore, and goopy. Thankfully, it did start improving over the weekend. By the time I had my follow up appointment on Thursday, it was almost normal, although it is still a little bit red. I was even able to wear contact lenses this morning for the first time since the biopsy. (I didn't wear them all day; don't want to over do it. The eye doctor did say it was okay to wear them, and I didn't notice any discomfort.) I guess since I am talking about my eyes, I will go ahead and report that at my follow up appointment I found out that the biopsy results were negative--there were no antibodies present in my eye tissue to indicate that I have an autoimmune disorder. The eye doctor says I do have very dry eyes, though, so I will be using artificial tears and prescription eye drops to help with that. It's good that I don't have an autoimmune, I just hope that using the eye drops regularly will help with all the eye issues I've been having. 

Now I'll give a rundown of the things we did this week. 

Friday August 28th: After I finished the blog post, we made dinner and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while we ate. After dinner I read scriptures and worked on the dollhouse a bit. I marked shingle placement guides on the the tower roof pieces and painted the inside walls of the tower roof pieces.

Saturday August 29th: Frank made soup and went to the store to get a few things and to pick up a prescription. Seth got his haircut and mowed the lawn. I did a lot of work on the dollhouse. I sanded the tower roof inside walls that I had painted on Friday night and then painted the 2nd coat. (Nearly every piece of this dollhouse has to be painted, sanded, and then painted again.) I also painted the second side of the rooftop and rooftop extension. After the paint dried, I sanded both sides of the rooftop and rooftop extension and then painted the 2nd coat on one side of the rooftop extension. I listened to scriptures while I was working, and in between steps (while waiting for paint to dry), I practiced ukulele and cleaned the kitchen floor. 

Our Stake Conference was that weekend, so that evening all three of us went to the adult session. (The YSA Branch didn't hold meetings that weekend). Frank and Seth both helped with the IT stuff for the meeting. They did not broadcast any of the conference meetings to the other buildings this time; they wanted everyone to meet together. But there were still screens set up in several rooms in the building since there isn't enough room for everyone to meet in the chapel / gym behind the chapel. Because I was wearing my missionary nametag, a lot of missionaries stopped to introduce themselves, and I also met the service mission coordinators for the area in person. I had talked to one of them on the phone previously because he helped me resubmit my application after it got deleted. It was nice to meet him in person and to meet his wife too. One of Seth's friends in our stake who was serving a proselyting mission for a little over a year, just returned to finish the rest of his mission as a service missionary. He saw me wearing my badge and talked to me to find out what I am doing for my service mission. After that, he gave me a fist bump every time he saw me the rest of the weekend. 😂 A lot of people in my ward and people in the stake who know me asked about my mission too. 

Sunday August 30th: For some reason, I woke up at 4:00 am; I wasn't too thrilled about that. At least I had plenty of time for scripture reading! We got to the stake center by 9:00 am so that Frank and Seth could help with IT. The upside to getting there an hour early is that I got a good seat. (I got a good seat on Saturday evening for the same reason.) The meeting was GREAT! (Actually, that's true of both meetings.) My Seminary youth really shone: 3 of them are currently serving full time missions, so they appeared in a slide show of all the missionaries currently serving that they do every conference, 2 more of them were presented to be ordainded as Elders, 2 more gave talks, and another one played cello in a special musical number. I felt like a proud parent! 😄(Oh, and of course one more...my own son...was helping with the IT. I almost forgot about him! He was working behind the scenes.) The Maryland Baltimore Mission got new mission leaders in July, and they spoke at the meeting on Sunday. The mission president's wife mentioned that they had been serving in the mission office of the Texas San Antonio Mission when they were called to be mission leaders for the Baltimore mission. After the meeting, I got to meet them (yes, they asked me about my service mission) and they were very interested to hear that my parents had served as the office couple in the Texas San Antonio Mission many years ago. 😊

After church, I watched some required annual compliance training videos for my mission and did some other training too. We had family night lesson. Tammy texted me and we got caught up on what's going on in each other's lives. (We miss each other!) She said they have 16 youth in their class this year, and only four of them are boys! That's a complete switch from our first year teaching--we had a couple of girls and the rest were boys. The boy / girl balance started to shift a bit last year, but now it is almost all girls. Frank and I got to talk to Jared for a while too. He and Jessie were on a walk near their new apartment. They are mostly unpacked and they both started their new jobs the following day.

Monday August 31st: Frank was up early for work and I woke up too (at 3:30 am), so I got up and did my usual exercise, eat breakfast, shower routine. I went out on the deck to see the sunrise, and there was a sqirrel that was trying to figure me out:

I took Seth to work at 8:30 and then got some groceries. After getting back from the store, I made muffins, watched some mission training videos, and took a very short nap. I was trying to submit a volunteer disclosure agreement for my mission, but kept having technical issues. (They were finally resolved a few days later, so I got the agreement submitted then.) I got the other regular Monday chores done (laundry, vacuuming) and worked on the dollhouse some more. I finished painting the 2nd coat on both sides of the rooftop and the rooftop extension. I also painted the first coat of one side of the tower rooftop. 

One of the training videos I watched on this day was an overview of what we are doing in my mission, and I realized that I am in the perfect mission for me. There are several projects we are working on, but the main purpose of all of them is to provide names for the temples and to create the most accurate records possible in Family Search. I love going to the temple and I am a total geek about accurate record keeping! I can't think of a better place for me to be serving. 😀I was telling Seth about it, and I said "Somehow, I accidentally stumbled into the most perfect mission for me". Seth's response was "Accidentally??" Oh yeah, that probably wasn't an accident at all!

In the late afternoon, I went to the eye doctor (the optometrist, not the one who did the biopsy) to pick up the sample contact lenses for the new prescription he wants me to try, and then picked up Seth from work. (I haven't tried the sample contact lenses yet since I couldn't wear contact lenses until today. I'm supposed to compare how I'm seeing with the new ones to how I see with the old ones, but since I hadn't worn the old ones for two weeks I was sure I would not be able to notice if there are any differences. So I'll wear the old ones for a few days and then try the new ones.) 

We had dinner and then FHE activity (we played Bank again; Frank won again) before Seth left for YSA FHE. I did some reading in Sense & Sensibility before going to bed.

Tuesday September 1st: Again, Frank was up early for work so I woke up at 3:30 too. After the usual morning exercise routine, I got all the regular chores done before lunch (meal planning and bathroom cleaning; I listened to the Follow Him podcast while cleaning). I also went out on the deck to see the sunrise again and met another squirrel (or maybe it was the same squirrel; who knows? Doesn't look the same to me, though.)

In the afternoon, there was an online devotional for my district (this happens every Tuesday). I don't know exactly how many missionaries are in my district, but there were 64 people at the meeting, and I know not everyone was there. I am in the Cumberland district, and it is part of the Rivers zone. In the Family Search Virtual Records Operations Center mission, there are five zones (Rivers, Trees, Mountains, National Parks, and Wildlife zones) and there are 5 districts in each zone. (The other districts in the Rivers zone are Hudson, Potomac, Rio Grande, and Yukon). So that is a lot of missionaries serving in this mission! Anyway, the devotional was nice and they took a few minutes to introduce me as a new missionary and gave me a few minutes to tell a little bit about myself. After the devotional, I met with one of the team leads for my team (I'm in team C). I was able to ask a few questions that I had, so that was nice. I will be meeting with one of the team leads once a week at first, so that I can ask questions and get guidance. I spent a lot of time on Tuesday afternoon / evening watching training videos and getting other mission tasks done. 

Besides that, I also made bread, did some reading in Sense & Sensibility, did all the things I do on the first day of the month (uploaded last month's photos to Shutterfly, changed the door decoration, pillow covers, and S&P shakers), and got a little more work done on the dollhouse. I painted the 2nd half of the tower rooftop and later--after it dried--I sanded the whole thing and painted the 2nd coat on one side. I also started painting some of the small trim pieces (mainly to use up the small amout of white paint that was left in the roller tray after I finished painting the tower rooftop). I'm not sure how I got all of that done, except that I got up at 3:30 and didn't go to bed until about 10:30 (after Frank got home from his temple shift). 

Seth worked that day, but came home early because his hip was hurting a lot. He thinks he pulled a muscle. He put heat on it and it seems to be better now.

Wednesday September 2nd: Frank didn't have to get up really early for work, but I still woke up really early because Frank was snoring (not sure why he took off his CPAP mask at some point in the night, but he did). Then his blood sugar alarm started going off too, so I was awake for quite a while but finally went back to sleep and didn't wake back up until nearly 8:00, so I got a late start (it felt like the day was half over already!) I did exercise and got dusting (my only Wednesday chore) done in the morning before going to a ministering visit. The sister I was visiting needed some help with several things around her house, so I ended up staying a lot longer than I anticipated (about 3 hours!) but we got a lot done and enjoyed visiting while we worked. (There was also a pretty decent thunderstorm right after I got to her house). 

Meanwhile, Frank and Seth left the house not long after I left for my visit. Frank had some work to do for a client (they just moved locations) and since Seth wasn't working that day, he asked Seth to go with him to help. I got back home around 3:30 and they weren't back yet. I hadn't eaten lunch before I went on my visit (which was at 12:30) because I ate breakfast pretty late, so I planned to eat lunch after I got back. As I said, I wasn't anticipating a 3 hour visit. 😂 So when I got home I made "lunch" and ate it. Then I did a couple of hours of mission work and read some Sense & Sensibility.Seth and Frank didn't get back until about 9:00 pm; they ran into some issues that took a while to work out. I didn't get much work done on the dollhouse that day, but I did paint the 2nd coat on the other side of the tower roof. 

Thursday September 3rd: This was another early morning for both Frank and me. After exercising, eating, and showering, I took my car to put gas in it and then got grocery shopping done before taking Seth to work. On the way back from dropping him off, I stopped at Lowe's to get more white paint for the dollhouse. I was almost out, and there is still a lot of trim that needs white paint. 

We had a lot of rain / thunderstorms that morning. After I got back from dropping Seth off at work, I was texting with a friend to set up a lunch appointment, and it got darker and darker until it felt like it was almost night time. I heard a lot of thunder, too. The sun came out in the afternoon, but we had another thunderstorm at bedtime (lots of lightning!) and more rain in the middle of the night. It was also very hot and humid this day (and most of the week, actually).

I watched a couple of mission training videos (most of them are for the first project I will be working on, which is Record Hints, but I've also been watching a lot of annual training videos), got the regular Thursday chores done (vacuuming & laundry), and went to my eye doctor appointment. Besides the other things I already mentioned, the eye doctor recommends that I don't get my droopy eyelids repaired because doing that will expose more of my eyes to the air, which will increase the problems I'm having with dry eyes. We also set up an appointment next week to do a procedure to fix the problem with the  eyelashes on my left eye that grow the wrong way, but I'm thinking I'm going to change that appointment (I have a good reason to postpone it, but it's complicated to explain, so I'm not going to try!) 

After work, Frank went back to the client he was doing work for on Wednesday to finish up a few things. When he got home, we took a car over to Seth so he could drive himself home. After that, I picked up my friend Michelle and her son Jacob from an appointment and took them home. (They have one car in the shop getting fixed right now.) Jacob is one of my Seminary boys and he and Seth are friends too. On our way to their house, we stopped at Chick-fil-a so Jacob could see Seth (and get a milkshake). 

After dinner, we went to Costco to buy some of the things we need for our ward's Labor Day Picnic (you may remember that Frank & I are in charge of this activity). Seth came with us to help with carrying things, which we appreciated. We also got some things that we need too, as long as we were there. 

After we got home, I did some more picnic planning and also glued the dollhouse tower roof pieces together.

Friday September 4th: We didn't wake up until 6:00 am, which is sleeping in, for us! Frank had PT at 7:00 am. I went to the temple to do initiatories. The traffic on the beltway was really bad; it took me about 30 minutes to get from home to the beltway and another 20+ minutes to get from the beltway to the temple (it usually takes less than 10 minutes). That's the first time I've been to the DC temple as a patron since June; it was lovely to do that again.

After I got home and ate lunch, I spent the afternoon updating finances. Then Frank & I watched an episode of Once Upon a Time while eating dinner. I glued the dollhouse tower rooftop onto the tower roof and spent the rest of the evening writing this blog post. Now it is quite late and I am ready to go to sleep. 

We're glad that Ben was finally discharged from the hospital today and hope he continues to get the follow up care he needs to have a healthy heart.