Scorching the World

I got to go spend a couple of days and nights with my grandchildren on Wednesday and Thursday. Mostly the older kids took care of everything, but Trina had scheduled the missionaries to come for dinner on Thursday, so I helped the kids carry that off and it turned out fun. I also helped them get up some Christmas lights outside to surprise their parents. I was going to leave Trina's on Friday morning as soon as they got Geneva off to school, but Trina convinced me to stay till after commute traffic eased up. But I'm listening to Eragon's Inheritance, so I thot I might as well sit in traffic where I could listen to it. I took off at 9:15am. The traffic wasn't too bad getting out of Fremont or San Jose, but the rain was REALLY bad. Many times it rained so hard I almost couldn't see the car in front of me. We had to slow way down, but I kept thinking, "that's ok, I have a good book to listen to." I stopped in Los Banos to stretch my legs and wake...

I have mentioned many times about the 2 big projects I've been working on for the past many, many weeks. It has pretty much been my focus every day, all day, ad nauseum. 'Course I had to take some time off the focus to put together the annual Grandkids Christmas party last Saturday. Tom and I planned out skits and jokes to put together a video, and some crafts to keep them busy while I burned DVDs, and lots of snacks. We also had gift bags for each to take their stuff home in. It turned out pretty good; the kids had lots of fun, as they always do. So after that 'distraction' from my real focus (A little distraction of what is really important that took me away from what really isn't so important), I started this week totally dedicated to getting as much done on both projects as was humanly possible. I got renewed energy for the transcribing of Tom's files when he told me I could just get as much done this week as possible and then quit, not matter how much s...

Sunday is always my favorite, but my favorite of all the Sundays of the year is the Sunday that we get to go sing The Messiah at the First Presbyterian Church in Fresno. It has a huge chapel that even has a balcony. Close to 800 people gather from the Fresno area to sing it. In this presentation, they allow anyone who wants to, to sing the solos. All who desire to join in the solos go up to the front when it's their turn and try to keep up. There are always so many sopranos and altos who want to, that they just all sit towards the front. There are probably 60 or 70 of each who sing the solos. The rest of us sing along with the soloists under our breath where no one can hear. This year there were 4 tenors; last year there was only 1, but he is REALLY good. When it came to the bass solos, sometimes there were 3 and sometimes there were 6, depending on the difficulty. The orchestra is really good, too, and this year I think they sounded even better. The trumpet soloist was fantastic; ...

We had a great Thanksgiving at Tanya's house. We had wonderful and delicious food and didn't make too much of a mess before we were too tired to care. About dessert time, the adults began playing Golf (the card game) while kids watched movies. When we were almost finished with one game, Todd's daughter and husband came and we began another round with them. It was really fun and we laughed a lot. The best part was that I won - the first game. The 2nd game I was helping kids and de-boning the turkey inbetween turns. When my hands were messy, Tom took my turns. So I didn't really care that I didn't win that one. It was still lots of fun. On Friday (Black Friday when EVERYONE goes shopping for great deals) we relaxed. I got things ready for the grandkids party on Saturday. For lunch we made our annual turkey enchiladas and they turned out wonderful! Yum. After lunch we took all the kids to play tennis while Tanya and Todd went to a funeral. After they got back, we too...

I have mentioned the two projects that I'm working on and trying to finish before the end of the year. Well, one is transcribing Tom's files and getting all the names of the residents of all the parks he has worked in the past 5 years into the computer. Later we'll figure out how to get them from my computer to his company's, but that's another blog. Yesterday I woke up at 5 and began working on them. Tanya and Cai came in around 9am and we were chatting about what would be happening on that (Thanksgiving) day. I told her I had counted and figured out that I need to transcribe 10 files a day in order to finish by the end of the year. She said, "Oh that's great!" Then I told her I had been working on them since 5am and had not quite finished 5! That was an eye opener, especially for me. I did get my 10 done yesterday in spite of all the festivities and spending most of the day cooking or eating, but it took me more than 6 hours. I don't know if I ...

It is so fun to be at Trina's house.  We slept pretty good on the air mattress that we keep here. I'm just always cold on it because the mattress full of air is cold. But tonight we'll put a blanket on the mattress under me for insulation. That will work great. But we woke up at 6 (Tom had been awake for a while) and I wasn't too happy to see that Caeli and Geneva were already awake. They didn't go to sleep last night until nearly 11pm. But they were pretty happy today and had lots of fun together. I had fun just being with Trina and her kids. It is very rewarding to see the joy and happiness they have in their home.  Ziona walks whenever someone is encouraging her to go from one person to another. When she wants someone to pick her up, she lifts up her little arms to them and says, "Here."  One time she had been sad, and I was consoling her, when Spencer came up and asked her if she wanted him to hold her. She made 2 little sob sounds and then said, ...

I have been on jury duty all week. Or at least on call for jury duty. Every night I had to remember to check the website. I'm glad they've updated that. We used to have to call a recorded message and pay attention for 5 + minutes while they read different dockets and trial numbers and discern if mine was one of the ones needed or released. Now all I had to do was go to the website, punch in my numbers and there was the message nice and clear. Every day it said to check back tomorrow - until Thursday night it said I had to go in. For the first time I was called to the Fresno Superior court instead of Madera since we are staying with Tanya. I have to say, Madera is a ghetto neighborhood courthouse compared to Fresno. Fresno has a nice building with all the amenities  In Madera the jury room was in a portable - and not a clean shiny one, but old and run-down looking one. In Fresno they had 2 DVDs for us to watch on a big screen that helped us understand the procedures and the pr...

Today I transcribed a few more files for Tom and copied 2 more tapes to DVD. I only checked the mail twice. The call did not come. Again. 6 1/2 weeks. Tonight Tom went out with the missionaries, Tanya went to a Twilight marathon with a friend, Todd had parent/teacher conferences, and I babysat. But it was beautiful weather today; cool and clear and clean feeling but not cold enough for a coat. Tom and I walked in the morning, and I ran an errand in the evening. It started sprinkling at night. I've been watching the hokey Christmas movies that are marathoning on TV. Some are pretty good; most are pretty dumb. Most have nothing to do with Christmas except that the story happens in December. But most of them make me happy. They are relaxing and keep my mind occupied while I'm transcribing and copying videos. I have jury duty tomorrow so I can't wait for the mailman. Not that I expect him to bring anything. We figured if it didn't come by today, it would be i...

I'm still working on my two major projects that I've mentioned before. Yesterday I managed to transcribe about 4 files of Tom's and copied to DVD 1 1/2 video tapes. It is such a slow process and I'm pretty sure I have already recorded some of the same things. How could they be on 2 different video tapes? I sure don't know! I hope the DVDs turn out worth all the effort and expense. Tom has been working from home mostly for the past many weeks, and whenever he is home, I get less done. He needed help with quite a few things he was working on, so it slowed down my progress, but I don't mind at all. I LOVE having him home all the time! I realized when we were in the middle of our night prayer on Monday night that I forgot to go visiting teaching! I had set up an appointment with my companion and completely forgot.  I feel like an idiot and now I have to call her and set up a new appointment. On Tuesday nights I'm teaching piano lessons to a cute little (15...

First thing on Sunday mornings Tom always fixes his special breakfast for Tanya and family. I get to help by making pancakes and syrup. Once we finish that and get them off to Church, we shower and finish our lessons and get ready to go. We put a roast in the crock pot and finished up our lessons. Our meetings don't start until 1pm but choir is at 12:15, so we have to leave home by 11:30. This gives us a nice long morning to get things ready. Since I had a headache Fri and Sat, I didn't get the finishing touches done on my lesson, so I worked on that after breakfast. The lesson required a bottle of water with a teaspoon of dirt in it. The directions said to let it sit for 10 minutes, then pour out the cloudy water. Then re-fill it and let it sit for 10 minutes and do the same until the water finally is clear after 10 minutes. I did it over and over and was still rinsing every 10 minutes during Sunday School until it finally looked fairly clear before being shaken ag...

Well, the day after the day where everything (almost) went wrong, I had almost everything go right. I didn't work on programming the new computer and I didn't try to print photos, but I did copy about 2 DVDs worth of movies, and did get a fairly big chunk of Tom's files transcribed. That felt great! Winter has visited and we had one day of light rain and weather in the 50s during the day. I love it! The next day, Tanya decided to build more shelves in her garage. She had already done a short wall of shelves that turned out pretty complicated and took 3 days, so she figured that now she was an expert and could knock out the long wall of shelves in one day. So at 9 am on Friday we ran to Lowe's and got almost all the wood and by 10 we were sawing and assembling the shelves. She had worked out all the details of how to do them and what needed done first. She had drawings and lists. I could tell she is an experienced project manager! We worked on them till about 5 pm. T...

Yesterday was a day where I felt like I just couldn't make anything work. First thing in the morning I decided to cut my hair. It's been bugging me for a while, so as soon as I got up, I started whacking. But in the end, it didn't look any better to me. Oh well. I'll keep trying. Tom and I always go on a walk but somehow we took a wrong turn and accidentally cut it short. That's ok, cause I was really walking fast and was worn out when we got back. I have 2 major projects that I'm working on. One is transcribing all of Tom's work files to get them all updated in the computer. It is taking several months and I'll be thrilled if I can finish them before he retires at the beginning of January. The other is transferring all my videos to DVD. It is taking several months. I try to spent at least 3 hours on each of them but I didn't have time to work on either of them yesterday. I'll hit them again today. We bought Tom a new computer - a laptop ...

Today wasn't my favorite Sunday. Nothing was really wrong with it, but I've had better. Some Sundays I have to teach Sunday School and Young Women's and play the organ in Sacrament meeting. Many weeks we also have a baptism after Church where I will also play the piano. It seems like a lot and afterwards I'm pretty tired, but it is also very rewarding. I spend the whole week preparing lessons and practicing. Spending all week preparing lessons is its own reward. It's a little hard to keep the lessons straight, and have them ready in my mind and be prepared for each, but it is really a spiritual high. Today I didn't teach at all. I attended Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, and Young Women's and listened to other people teach and serve. I missed being required to spend the week preparing lessons and seeking inspiration on how to teach them. I listened to other people teach and tried to participate without over-participating. One of the nicer things that...