Scorching the World

Sometimes a week overview is better than daily dribble. After the Memorial weekend where I fed between 17 and 21 people constantly, I took a couple of days and just relaxed/rested. We had enough leftovers so I didn't have to cook, plus I had eaten enough to not need very much food for a couple of days. It felt good to just do relaxing things like computer projects that I have. Tom worked just enough hours every day that we couldn't do any visits in the evenings, which is his #1 priority. I think I forgot to mention that during the Memorial weekend he finished the fencing around the grapes and got them planted! It took almost all this year in his spare time, so it is great to have it done! If I ever feel like hiking down behind the house, I'll post pictures. On Wednesday I also went to Napa for "lunch with the ladies" and to run errands. It's fun that the women get together once a month to eat and chat. I love it. Afterwards I had scheduled a visiting teach...

Tom and I woke up about 6am as usual, in spite of not getting to bed till close to midnight. We just can't sleep in any later. But it was fine, we were excited to have another day of fun. One funny thing was that Spencer and Draven, the buddies, wanted to sleep in our closet. Sleeping space in the house was pretty full, even most carpeted floors, and they've slept in that closet many times before, when we weren't living here. But they are pretty big guys now, and with all our stuff in the closet, they really didn't fit. After we went to bed I kept hearing the closet door get pushed, and was afraid they might knock it down in their sleep. So I got back up and slid the door open. They still had the light on and were awake but didn't look very comfortable. I suggested they sleep with the door open so they could stretch out, which I think they were happy about. Anyway everybody woke up slowly and Tom went out to start a good potato burrito breakfast. I was going to ...

We really needed to leave the house by 8am to get to church in time for me to post the hymns and get settled up front to lead the music. Can you imagine getting 11 people dressed, fed, and out of the house by 8:00 in the morning? Especially with only one bathroom!!! But we did. Tom and I got up first and showered and dressed, then Tom made breakfast and kids got ready and we left right on time! We went in Trina's van because we all don't fit in any other. Church was good, and the ward was happy to have Trina's family there. Lots of people were out of town, so they were glad to have a big family here visiting! When we got home, we set out watermelon and after that, cookies for people to munch on while we made tacos. When lunch was ready, everyone ate and all the tacos plus a few flour tortillas got eaten. We thought everyone was full. But then we had scheduled to have the missionaries come for dinner at 5, which was only 2 hours away. We rested for a while, then started ...

Course day 1 isn't very exciting because it was all prep with people arriving late at night.  Tom had to work in the morning, so he left and I baked. I made two different kinds of cookies and cooked some meat for the tacos. I couldn't think of anything else I could do in advance, but that took several hours. While baking, I worked on a project re-typing the list of music in the Stake choir closet. There is a very well organized list for a very organized closet, but I couldn't find who had it in their computer, so I had to re-type it. I spent about 4 days on it and finally finished it Saturday. When Tom got home from work we had lunch then he rested a while before going to work on the fence around where the grapes will be, He has been working on that fence ever since we moved here - about 5 months. I keep saying we should just hire someone to finish it, but he is sure he is "almost done"! We waited anxiously for people to arrive, but everyone had lots of thin...

Happy Anniversary to us!!! Saturday was our anniversary, so we left home about 10:30 and went to breakfast in Fairfield at a nice cafe. Good food and it kept us full the rest of the day!  Then we took off for Fremont. We stopped at Trina's house to drop off some things for Trevor's birthday party on Sunday, then went to Mila's gymnastics meet at 3pm. We were about an hour early, so we stopped at a couple of stores on the way. A funny thing happened on the way: we saw what appeared to be a couple of women who had their arms out the window of each side of the car and were waving. We talked about the funny people in the car in front of us, and tried to see who they might be waving at, but couldn't see that anyone around was waving back. Tom said, "let's wave back at them", so we did, and then we took our exit. We thought it was a pretty funny thing. Then I got a call from Tami and she said, "Where'd you go?" I asked her what she was talking ab...

By Laurel Lawrence I went with my daughter to a special Relief Society meeting in her ward where Laurel Lawrence, wife of Elder Lawrence of the Seventies spoke. These are my notes from her presentation. We all know how our bodies grow, but how do our spirits grow? What feeds our spirits? When we are born, our spirits aren't babies. they are full grown, and we are born with the Light of Christ. It is a little gift. As we get older, our light goes diminishing unless we feed it and build it. We feed and build our spirits by learning truth and then obeying what we learn. D&C 93:28 He that a keepeth his commandments receiveth b truth and c light , until he is glorified in truth D&C 1: 33 And he that a repents not, from him shall be b taken even the light which he has received “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” ( D&C...

After getting up and dressed we headed over to a pretty awesome breakfast buffet the hotel provides. It was one of the more impressive we've seen. After eating Tom left to work a little while I stayed it the room and stapled flyers he needed to take to another park. We left on time to get to the park he needed to go to before they closed for lunch, but halfway there, I saw the hotel room key on the center console of the car. We forgot to actually check out! So we hurried back and took care of that and barely made it to the park where Tom needed to go. Unfortunately, the manager was on vacation. That was the problem everywhere he went because it is Memorial Day weekend, all the managers were out of town! It made his trip down here a little less productive, but we sure had fun. From there we just went all the way home. It was a long trip, but we have fun just being in the car together. At lunchtime we stopped at an In N Out and he made long phone calls while I got the food. We go...

On Thursday Tom needed to go to Paso Robles for work. The office told him to take me along and spend the night so I sacrificed (lol) and went with him. He needed to make a few (quite a few) stops on the way and the few stops took a really long time so we didn't get to Paso Robles till 4:30 pm. It was too late to get in the park he was aiming for, so we went and got some food, then went to made copies for his work, then checked in to the hotel. It was a nice room and we relaxed, or rather I relaxed while Tom answered emails and prepared for tomorrow. Paso Robles has turned into a really cool tourist place. It's very pretty and upscale. We loved driving around and seeing how pretty it is. We found this one store that had these outside. We love them! I love the flowers and Tom loved the bow and arrow, with the guy being the arrow! The chime was HUGE! The pipes were probably at least four inches in diameter! In the evening we bought a cold stone ice cream and Tom got a...

Tom had to go to work on Wednesday but promised to be back in time to go to Relief Society. He was going to do visits while I was at Relief Society. He did make it back in time, but BARELY.  That's ok, I still got there before it started. The Relief Society is casual and everyone just hung out and talked till more sisters were there. It was fun.  Then we sat down for salad - a salad that was AMAZING! and one sister taught us how to make a special recipe of vinaigrette and we sat and chatted while we ate. After the salad, they served some flan and after we ate it a sister showed how to make it. It was a really fun evening. When it was done I met Tom and we went grocery shopping before going home.  When you live so far from town, you shop LAST before going home. It was a fun day!

Marc came up to work on his house, so I went over to say hi after Tom left for work. I was having a good visit with him when Tom called and needed me to do something for him on the computer, so I walked back home. Good thing it is so close! I quickly did what was needed, then settled down to get some cleaning and laundry done. In the evening Alissa texted me to see if we wanted to go to Napa with them, but Tom was still gone, and I was in the middle of stuff so we declined and invited them to breakfast tomorrow instead. Tuesday we had planned to go see a high school choir competition that Draven was in, but Tom's work schedule made it not possible. We were sad about that, but it couldn't be helped. Marc and Alissa came over or breakfast and stayed and visited a little while. It's so fun to have them close enough that we can visit now and then! We haven't hardly ever been able to do that since they got married, so we're really grateful for the opportunity now! Ev...

Church was just really good. The speakers gave talks worthy of quoting and remembering, the teachers taught lessons that were timely and memorable. After church we came home to find that the potatoes I had set to cook from 12 to 1pm actually turned on at 10am and were 3 hours over-baked. But we had then for lunch anyway and nobody complained very loud. We hung out a while, then the McGills left and a couple of hours later we left for San Francisco. We it heavy traffic most of the way (we hadn't expected that on a Sunday) so we barely made it in time. Actually, it felt like we were very late, but we waited a long time outside while Tami and Phil went to find something to eat. Then we went in and went out on the deck to take some pictures, and finally went in about 5 minutes before it started.  What is IT? Well, Draven was supposed to be singing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and Orchestra in a performance of Carmina Burana. Through a complication of his schedules bet...

This week was a little less eventful than average. Monday and Tuesday, 5/11 and 5/12 I stayed home and Tom worked. Nothing new there. I didn't do anything exciting, just relaxing (compared to being a missionary) and sewing some. Actually I can't remember specifically what I did, so I'm assuming that's what I did. Wednesday Tom was home and he worked on the fence. I pretended to help him some, but mostly I did my own thing. Thursday I got a nasty pain in the head, and spent the whole day on the couch. Fortunately, Tom was home, so he spent almost the whole day on the couch with me, holding my head and rubbing it. It was a great luxury and a complete wonderfulness, that I will not take for granted again, to have a couch where I can lie down and be with Tom. Two of us on the same piece of furniture instead of on separate chairs - so nice! I wasn't awfully sick, just pain in the head, so I slept through that whole day. Friday my head still hurt but it was Christian...

Well the Jones' left on Tuesday, May 5 and there was a big empty hole afterwards. Tom went back to work, and I began to catch up on some normal stuff like the laundry and shopping. The good thing was that while Ray and Renee were here, Tom's schedule was such that he could spend most of his time with us. The one day he had to leave and go do a short meeting, Ray went with him. As soon as they left, his work needed him to work some very long days. So it worked out great for their visit! On the Tuesday they left, we prepared for the taco feed that Tom had promised the high priests for home teaching. He had to go to work first and barely made it back home in time to run down to Napa to set up and cook. We were barely ready in time, but there were other people there who helped us, so it all turned out good. Only a few High Priests came, but there were two young men (who had been invited, too) and they ate enough to make up for it. Those who went said it was a very successful, f...

Sunday we went to church, ten returned home. On the way we stopped at the Iris Gardens to see what it was like. It's small, but the flowers are beautiful. Today was the last day it was open, so we didn't want to put it off. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the back porch, looking at the view and the birds soaring overhead. It was wonderful. Ryan came over to visit and give us massages, and arrived just as we were starting to show the Jones' our powerpoint about our mission, so we got to show it to Ryan, too. Then he took Tom in the bedroom for a massage. They were in there almost 2 hours, then it was my time. It was obvious that he was really tired, so I told him he could make it a shorter massage, but he gave me the full hour. It is rather painful because he does deep-muscle massage, but hopefully it will help me get rid of headaches. However the best part is that he talks the whole time he is working on me. It's the most one-on-one time ...

Friday everyone woke up early for some reason. Maybe we were all too excited to sleep. Tom needed to go to work, so I made an early breakfast and he took Ray and they were gone by 9:30am. Renee and I sat on the back patio talking until it got a little too warm, then moved inside. We haven't seen each other for so long and we love to discuss everything, so there was a lot to catch up on. So we talked and talked. We had lunch around 1:30 and the men got home about 2:30 so I fed them. We spent the rest of the day just talking. It's amazing how much there is to talk about but we've been friends since 1969 and have just about everything in common. It was wonderful! Saturday I woke up not feeling great, so I really took it easy. I was glad I had prepared so much food in advance and didn't have to worry about what to fix or take much time cooking. Tom and Ray spend several hours working on Tom's fence for the grapes and got some major work done. Renee and I relaxed on ...

While Tom spent the week working long hours, I cleaned and prepared. Mostly cleaned. and shopped. I prepared menus and shopping lists for while Ray and Renee would be here. I spot cleaned the carpet on Tuesday using vinegar and baking soda and it worked really well. It took out all the spots, however it worked so well it left white spots, so Wednesday I shampooed the carpet with the carpet shampooer, but there still are white spots. Tom said white spots are better than black spots, so that's how it is. It looks way better, even with the white spots. Wednesday I also got to go to "lunch with the ladies" with sisters from my ward and that was fun. While in Napa I had also set up an appointment to go visiting teaching and I picked up a new book on cd at the library. Thursday I left early to return to Napa buy the groceries for the week and as soon as I got home I started preparing meals. I got about 4 meals prepared so all I have to do is pop them in the oven. It took al...