Scorching the World

Tonight is the final night for the Stake Youth Musical. It has been a lot of work because I was in charge of stage management (controlling the kids who change scenes), set design, building, & painting (and repair), and the Powerpoint presentation (that's the one that took the most time!) I think everything turned out really good. I only wish people in my ward spoke English so they would want to bring their kids to it. I'm both glad/relieved and sad that it is finally over. I have gotten in the habit of watching in Sacrament meeting to see whether the Gospel Doctrine teacher is there. If not, I read the lesson more closely in case I get asked to teach it. The first couple of times that the teacher didn't show up, I volunteered because I study lit(well actually I read it once, if lucky). I really do try to print out each lesson in English so I can see if I can follow the real teacher's class. It doesn't help much, but I get a better idea what he is supposed to be ...

I'm helping with the Stake Musical as stage manager. For some reason stage manager includes set design and building, so I spent a few weeks painting and building some of the scenery and putting together all the props. Here are some pictures of some of the scenery. The wavy trunks of the trees is because we had to piece 2 pieces of cardboard to paint on, and we taped them with duct tape. It obviously doesn't hold very well. I volunteered to do the powerpoint presentation to go with the musical, and that was a lot of fun. It is about 300 pictures, and I've spent many weeks on it, but I think it will add a lot to the presentation, and it was fun for me and that's what really matters. Way too many kids want to be back stage. Most of the boys would rather be back there than to sing, so I'm managing about 10 kids and trying to keep them under control. They tend to get wild and talk and play, but when it is time to change scenes, they all work hard and do what they are sup...

On Monday, Tom had to work in Fremont, so I went with him to the Bay Area. He had a bunch of errands to run on the way, so we got there in early afternoon, then went to Trina's and spent a couple more hours on his work getting him ready to go to the parks. He took a couple kids to help him pass out fliers, and while he was gone, Trina and I got to work on a couple of her projects and go to a couple fabric stores. His company sprang for a motel, so we went there as soon as possible to get our money's worth, but I had agreed to baby sit for Tami the next morning, so we didn't get much sleep. The room was too hot, and I was too tired to get up and do anything about it, but the bed was SO comfortable and wonderful. I left at 6 the next morning to get to Tami's and got there in time for her to give instructions and take off for work. I laid down and went back to sleep for a little while until the kids started getting up. We had breakfast and then I took Draven and Nina to ar...

While Tom and I were at our anniversary dinner on Fri night, we spent the time thinking back over the past 39 years. It was pretty fun, so I decided to post some. When we got married, we lived in Provo. We were both starving students so it was the typical life in a tiny basement apartment that leaked when it rained. I was desperately anxious to have a family but it took 6 agonizing weeks to get pregnant. I was afraid I was infertile and really suffered from month to month. (Which in reality was only from 1 month to the next.) I can laugh at it now, but at the time it seemed forever. Little did I know how fertile I really was! Tom worked, and eventually, I got a job doing electronic assembly, which was the 2nd to worse job of my life. I didn't last long, because when I got pregnant, working through those magnifying glasses made me very nauseated. Anyway, we had lots of fun in our little basement apartment. We were so broke that I remember my weekly food budget was $5. Milk took 1/5...

Friday 3/7 I finished a painting on the wall of the master bath. I'm pretty happy with it. At first it was a little chueco, but Tom told me what was wrong, and I fixed it. He says that's what makes us a team. Anyway, I mowed part of the back yard, and practiced piano and finally started on updating my photo albums. Not a very exciting day. At 6, we went to Black Angus to finally celebrate our anniversary dinner with the coupons Kim gave us. Great food, but I always get sick when I eat late at night. We got home at 8:30. Too late and too full, even tho I ate less that half what they served. I woke up that night at about midnight with a headache level 4, so I got up and took 1 Tylenol pm, thinking that would be enough for a "not killer" headache. But at 1am when I was still in pain I got up and took another. After that I slept great. But when I had to drag myself out of bed at 7, I felt awful. My stomach hurt and I was so groggy. I couldn't face breakfast, so i jus...

While Tom and I have been working on the rental in Tranquillity, our kids have helped us now and then. Marc and Alissa came and helped lay tile and did some other things and it made a huge difference. Phil has come 2 times and is also a huge help. Trina and Tanya also went out there and helped lay tile. But the most amazing thing is that everyone but Tanya had to drive 2 1/2 hours each way for the privilege of working on our rental for several hours. Amazing. Great kids! Another amazing thing is that there are many members of our ward who cheerfully volunteer to do things for us. There have been times when I have come home from work and found a strange car in the driveway, and a member of the ward in the backyard working really hard. There are members who have "adopted" our grape plants, and come over several times a year to prune or do other things so we get a better crop. One family came over and spent the whole day mowing, trimming, weeding, and edging our yard. They wor...

I can't call this daily scorching if I don't scorch daily, so here is installment #2. Today I woke up at 3 with a headache, and never managed to get back to sleep. I finally got up at 5 and took a shower. Then I helped Tom in the office a little, had breakfast (leftovers from IHOP from yesterday) and then went to run errands. I decided there should be a law that every store in the world should open at the same time. I needed to go to several stores, and planned them out in order of farthest to closest, and saving the grocery store for last. But because they haven't created said law, when I got to the 1st one, I found that it did open for 1 1/2 hours, so I went to the 2nd, then 3rd, then back to the 1st, then finished with the groceries. It probably added 1/2 hour to the errands, and a bit more gas, but what the heck. I'm retired. I have lots of time. Can't do anything about the gas, tho. They ought to make a law. When I got home, 1. I dug out the lawnmower out of th...

I've decided I really need to make this more into a journal and write much more often. So here is todays post. Yesterday, we went to the temple first thing in the morning. We decided to fast for our financial situation, and for our kids. It was a wonderful experience. I love going to the happiest place on earth. Then we went out to breakfast at IHOP and had enough food for breakfast today, too. I've been working on the sets for the stake musical this week, painting and building flats. I'm really sore today because I had to do them on the driveway, and all that getting up and down is hard for this old lady. But for better or worse, they are done - mostly cause I'm too tired to work on them any more. I had the rehearsal at night, and it went pretty good, but there are things I have to fix before the next rehearsal. Mostly I'm grateful I didn't have to get up and go to work after going to bed late again, and having a 3am headache again. Tom has worked till 11pm 3 ...