Scorching the World

10/30/16              We only went to Sacrament meeting and then skipped out to go help Tracey. My two young women played organ, and did well. They play better every week; I’m so proud of them. We ran home, changed clothes, and cars, and drove the van with the trailer out to Berkeley. Tracey was basically packed, so we just loaded the van and the trailer. They were both packed as tight as possible. Tami and Ryan and Anitta also showed up to help and took home a few things that Tracey didn’t want to move. We had lots of fun being there with them, and with so many helping, it didn’t take very long to get loaded up. It had rained hard while we were on our way to Berkeley, but the sun came out long enough for us to pack it all up, then it rained hard again after we left. We were glad we didn’t get soaked while packing the car and trailer! We will take their stuff to our house to store until they are ready fo...

10/29                     Today was the day Sierra, Kim’s daughter, was going to the temple for the first time. They came to Fresno to our temple because the Oakland temple is closed for renovations. We were really glad Oakland was closed so they would come here. It was a special time in the temple with them. After the temple, we all went out to lunch: Kim, Sierra, Kim’s dad and her step-mom, David, Kim’s ex, a couple of Sierra’s advisers from when she was in Young Women’s, Tanya and Todd, and Tom and I. Tom had a little complication – a girl from our ward who is a drug addict texted him right before we went in the temple basically asking for his help. He really wanted to go help her, but knew he couldn’t NOT go to the temple with Sierra. So as soon as we got out, he texted her and she said where she was and he took Todd with him to go find her and bring her to our lunch. The...

10/28                     I didn’t get to work in the yard because we had things we had to do in the morning. Tom had dropped off the van to get a hitch put on it, so Friday morning we had to go pick it up. Then we ran a couple of errands and I spent most of the rest of the day getting stuff ready for Kim and Sierra to come visit. Kim and Sierra got here about 8pm, and we spent a couple of hours talking and catching up on news before we got settled down enough to sleep.  Fun times!

10/27     I worked on the yard in the morning again. I’m getting close to finished – maybe a week or two more of a couple of hours in the mornings. Tom will have to spend time on the clean-up – hauling off all the tree branches and big bags of leaves. It’s going to be lots of work for him. I bet he can’t wait. The rest of the day I cleaned and got our guest room set up a little better. I also spent a long time putting together the books for my piano classes. The Church has a wonderful program to teach piano, and you can buy it in either English or Spanish (among other languages). The problem is that I need a combination of the two. Some of the people I teach do not read Spanish, so they need the manual in English. However, I want them to PLAY the hymns in Spanish - and YES there is a difference, so in my new book, the instruction pages are in English, but all hymns are in Spanish. Then there are some students who only Speak Spanish. The problem is that the manual...

10/26                     I did another couple of hours of work in the back yard. I’m just working on one short section along the west fence, but the ivy is so tangled into the very tangled tree branches, that it is a real mess and hard to clean up. It’s like trying to comb very long hair that didn’t get any conditioner in it; the comb is a pitch fork, and the hair is the ivy. My right arm is all scratched up, but it’s still fun. I even bought myself a pair of gloves that fit. I went to Costco on the way to pick up Tanya’s kids, then brought them here. We had pizza, they did homework, and we had fun. They are silly. I was trying to ask Caeli what she has learned in gymnastics and every time she opened her mouth, Cannon would answer as if he were Caeli. He did it a bunch of times, then when he quit, Kaden, who was in a different room and out of sight, started doing it. It was pre...

10/25                     I spent a couple of hours first thing in the morning doing yard work again. I’m making slow progress, but it is good exercise and the weather is so beautiful, I really enjoy it. Tom had to work away from home again, but managed to get home in time to go with me to piano lessons. I used to have about 5 lessons on Tuesdays, but all but one have switched to other days. When we got to the church, there was a car in the driveway and we could hear someone on the piano when we went in. Weird. Turned out the young man I teach had arrived an hour early and the missionaries let him stay there alone, so he was practicing. Unfortunately, he hadn’t progressed at all and I had to review everything with him from the previous two lessons.  Almost all of my students are stuck on the part where they have to learn the names of the notes on the piano. That’s a hard th...

10/24                     Tom needed to go to the office in Fresno to help with interviews for people he recommended for jobs and was gone most of the day. I worked on the front yard for a couple of hours. There is ivy and overgrown Cyprus trees that cover about a foot deep on the ground and three feet out from the fence. It’s dense and messy. This is some of what I cut out. The good thing is that there aren’t hardly any bugs, so it’s just dirty and good hard work. I like that my muscles are aching and sore when I finish.  Here’s some good before and after pictures. I guess there won't be any other pictures due to technical difficulties. maybe later.

My new ward choir sang for the first time today and did pretty darn good. I was right proud of them, especially considering we’ve only had a couple of practices! We had to cancel choir practice after church because my accompanist couldn’t stay for it, so Tom and I left after Sacrament meeting for the Bay Area. Today was our monthly family get-together. We took cookies, soup, and a veggie platter, all of which got eaten.   We were the first to get to get to Ryan’s house, and Tanya got there shortly after we did. It was nice because we had a great visit with Ry and Anitta before anyone else got there – that’s something that is pretty rare. Everybody else got there about an hour later. Tanya took chocolate pudding and another dessert, Trina brought cheesecake and a carrot cake; Tami 2 banana cream pies and a coconut cream pie! We had great desserts! Ryan had made a spaghetti squash dish, a WONDERFUL salad, and various other dishes and snacks. Anitta had set up a table of li...

Friday Tom had to work from home most of the day, then he worked on his shed in the back yard. I did yard work, then worked inside. In the evening Tom went out to do visits with the missionaries. He loves doing that! Saturday We went to the church so I could give piano lessons and on the way I got a text that 2 of my students couldn’t make it, so we were able to leave a little easier than average. On the way home I got folders to make packets for my piano students. At home Tom worked all day on his shed and made some good progress, but it takes a long time to build a good shed. I spent the day on my own projects. In the evening Tom went out with the missionaries again and really enjoyed it.

10/20     I’ve missed Tom too much every day this week, so I decided to go with him to work today. He had to go to San Jose – about 2 ½ hours each way. He was just supposed to do one job, which might have taken half hour, so it was supposed to be a fairly easy day. However, when we got to San Jose, things fell through and he had to make more contacts and lots of phone calls, most of which would have been lots easier if he had been at home, or at least if I had been at home to give him the information that he has in the office. So it turned into a long day and we didn’t get home until close to 7pm. He immediately changed clothes and took off to do visits with the missionaries. I relaxed the rest of the evening to recuperate from all that sitting in the car. It was nice to be together all day. I look forward to when he retires and we get to spend all day every day together. It’s kinda funny because when we were dating, I couldn’t wait to get marri...

10/19      I’ve been working in the yard in the mornings. It’s cool enough now that I could work out there all day if I didn’t get tired and if I had nothing else to do. NICE WEATHER! There is one whole side of the back yard where there is ivy and dead leaves that are about 2 feet deep. The ivy twists around and intertwines to the point that the only way to remove it is to cut the stems all over the place. Under the two + feet of stuff, there are treasures. I found a pool toy, various cement borders that are totally buried, drip watering lines, and today I found a window frame! The vines go through the fence, so I’m not sure who actually has the ivy and who just has the overgrowth from it, but either way, it’s pretty hard to get out. I’ve worked for several days in one small spot, and I finally got back to the fence. I’ve filled 4 very large yard waste bags and will need hundreds more before I’m done. Tom worked from home in the morning and had quite a...

10/17/16              It looked and felt like it was going to rain all day yesterday, but the clouds just wouldn’t let go.  Tom and I had conversations about things “they” could/should do to make the rain come out, like shooting holes in the clouds, or throwing bowling balls up there to create big holes for the water to come out. Those clouds sure seemed to have a waterproof seal on them! However, this morning everything was wet, so apparently, moisture fell from the sky. This is the first time it has rained since we moved here, and I missed it. Because of the high winds yesterday that took out our electricity, there was a lot of debris in the pool, so I spent some time scooping leaves and branches out. One of the times I scooped,  I scooped up a frog! I saved his life and he didn’t even thank me. Later I was cleaning out the skimmer, and there was a frog in there, too! We haven’t seen or hear...

10/16/16              This month is half over! And since they are putting up Christmas decorations already in the stores, that means this year is almost over! Time is going by too fast. But it sure is fun! The meetings were all good and my two young women who are learning to play organ did pretty good. I’m really proud of them and they are happy to be learning how to do it. We had choir after church, and it is almost as much of a struggle as the choir in our other Madera ward was, but I do have more attending and they are pretty fun people. We will attempt to sing next week even though we aren’t ready. I want to get them singing in Sacrament meeting right away. After choir we headed home to make dinner before the Knudsens came over, but when we got home we found that the power was out! With an all-electric kitchen we can’t do much cooking without electricity. So we packed up our food and took it to th...

Getting things done Tom really wants to get his shed done. He’s using our RV parking pad for the roof, and the supports for the frame of the walls, so all he has to do is put in a floor and some walls. Easy,right? The problem is that the roof is 14’ high, so the walls are not easy to do alone. Also, the framing is far from square or plumb or level, so he has to make each part specifically for each space, taking quite a bit longer than just framing out a wall and attaching it. The other reason it’s harder than average is that he’s doing it pretty much alone. I keep having things I needto work onthat keep me from being out there to help. The weather report expected rain this weekend, so Tom’s first priority was to get on the roof and patch some holes he has seen. That ended up taking most of his evening on Friday night. I had piano lessons first thing, so Tom went with me. I kinda hate to be in the building by myself between the lessons. Some people didn’t show up; ...

I learned something today. I was looking back through this year’s worth of posts, trying to compile a list, and while sort of speed-reading it, I could see clearly a few things. First of all, during the times I thought life was being so hard, like when we were trying to decide whether to build, whether to stay in Napa, whether to buy in Fresno, etc. All those decisions seemed so monumental and it felt that we prayed and pondered and struggled over those decisions for a very long time. Now, looking back, it was a very short time – an extremely short part of this year, and an even smaller part of my lifetime. Second is that certain things that seemed to take so long and be so difficult, really weren’t. Life seems so big when we’re in the middle of it. Things that are going on seem all-encompassing at the time, but when they’re over, if we look back, we might see that they were really no big deal.  While we were buying our house and trying to sell our old house, I agonized day ...

10/13                  I like the day after piano. I love having a day where I don't have to put on makeup or be gone a long time. I like being able to just relax. mentally. I called Caeli first thing in the morning, before she left for school, to wish her a happy birthday. Tom had to go to Salinas, for work and I wanted to go with him, but …………. It didn’t work out. He was gone from 8am till about 6pm. When he got home, his priority was to patch the roof. Rain was expected and he has seen big holes up there. So he got on the roof and worked hard to get them filled in. I don’t know what I would do without Tom; I never would have known there were holes in the roof until it rained and started leaking in the house, causing extensive damage! And if I did know of the holes, I couldn’t have done what he did. I would have had to hire someone, and that would have been expensive. So grateful ...

10/12     Wednesday is my busiest day. I used to love to be busy, but for now I have so many things I’m trying to do at home, I kinda hate to leave. I got a lot done in the morning. Tom had to work, but it was local, so after he got it done, had time to take a truckload to the dump before picking up the Knudsen kids from school. I had made sugar cookies so they got here they had a good time frosting and decorating them. After we drop off Caeli at gymnastics and take the boys back home, we head to the church and get there just before my first lesson. On Wednesdays I usually teach 7 lessons, but tonight there was a stake youth activity, so 3 of the girls were there. The others I taught are doing really well. Some absolutely amaze me at how fast they are learning, even though they think they are having a really slow, hard time. While I teach lessons 2-3 hours, 3 times a week, Tom spends the time cleaning the building. It is amazing how much there alwa...

10/11    Tuesdays and Wednesdays are piano lesson days. I used to have 5 on Tuesdays, but one family of 3 changed to Saturday. So for now I ended up with one lesson at 6pm, and another lesson at 7:30. It gives me a huge gap in the middle to sit and practice. I enjoy practicing on the pianos or the organ at the church, but Tom was out of town for work, so I was alone in the building. While I believe in my head that I am totally safe because the building is all locked up, I still get spooked every time I hear a sound. We’re at the point now where some people have almost decided it is too hard, or they really don’t have time for this, or they just need a better day for the lessons. But the lessons went well. Some students are pulling way ahead and others are really struggling. I try to think how I would be doing at this point, and I can identify best with the ones who are struggling. It’s hard to remember where the notes are on the piano and what the names of all the...

Tom wanted to go to Fremont today to work, and to do a repair in our daughter's house, so I texted her that yesterday, and she was super happy. But then this morning he decided he didn't need to go there for work, and decided to stay home. So I texted her that and she was less happy. We'll go later in the week. He worked on a few projects on the house like patching the roof before it might rain this weekend. I worked on my pavers project, and the day just flew past without much to write about.

10/9/16                On Sundays we leave at 6am for Tom’s Bishopric meetings and other meetings afterwards. I practice the organ for 3 hours while he sits in meetings. That extra practice has really been helping me improve but it is exhausting to sit there for so long – the 3 hours of practice, then the 3 hours of meetings. After the meetings, we had choir practice. Quite a few showed up, so I was happy. They are typical for a Spanish ward in that they are all used to singing melody. The ones whose voices are too low sing melody an octave lower. I’m hoping to teach them to sing parts, but we’ll see. They really enjoyed the brownies I made them. I promised double brownies next week for anyone who brings a friend. We went to Knudsen’s for dinner, but Tanya wasn’t there. She has meetings or something. We love the whole family, but I miss Tanya when she isn’t there. We ran home and got a short na...

10/8 Well, sort of a day at home. My piano lessons started at 8am. I now have 6 lessons on Saturday, but two of them let me know they wouldn’t be able to go. It worked out well, though, because I could give more time to the ones who went. After piano we stopped at Lowes to return something, then went home. Tom got to finish caulking all the new windows. The workers should have done it, but we hoped to save money by doing it ourselves. Now it’s done, but it did take him a whole day to do all of them. I made brownies for choir and they sure smelled good.

10/7       Friday    Tom left at 6:30am to go to the vineyard to help pick up the dried raisins. It’s really hard work, so I skipped it. Again.  Tanya wanted to come over this morning so she could watch some fun shows on tv because they don’t have tv at their house. While I was waiting for her, I worked for about 1 ½ hours on my pavers project in the back yard. It’s really hard work for me and by the time she came, my legs were shaking and my arms ached. Sometimes it feels good to do hard physical work, but it wasn’t nearly as hard of work as the vineyard would have been. She said she and a friend had arranged to go see a movie, so we left shortly after she got here. We went to go see Queen of Katwe. It was really good, and we were really into it, when Tanya received a call from the school nurse. Cannon had fallen and possibly broken his arm/wrist. Again. Same arm, same place. Fortunately, after x-rays, they could see that it m...

10/6       We saw our new sister missionaries at the church yesterday, and since they are so new they haven’t actually been to church in our ward yet, so we knew they weren’t having any dinner appointments. So we invited them to dinner today. Tom left very early for the Bay Area. I would have gone with him except that we were feeding the sister missionaries, and we were afraid he might not get back in time. I left shortly after he did and went grocery shopping. While I was putting the food away, the missionaries called to say they couldn’t make it to dinner. Oh well. We have lots of good food, now. Tom was home long enough to take a nice nap; he gets really sleepy when he’s driving, and he never gets enough sleep at night. Then he informed me he had an appointment to go out with the missionaries at 7pm. So I had a nice, quiet evening to myself. It’s been such wonderful weather. I’ve really enjoyed working in the yard in the mornin...

I got a headache in the night and didn't feel great the whole day. Fortunately, Tom was able to finish his work early enough to go pick up the Knudsen kids and bring them over. I put a pizza in the oven, which made them happy. At 4:30 we dropped off Caeli and headed to the church, but I got a text from my first lesson saying she couldn't make it. So I got in a little practice until the others showed up. I have a couple of girls I teach who are really progressing fast! One has only had 2 lessons and she has almost caught up with her sister who has had 5 lessons. They are all great and fun to teach. I convinced Tom to see if we could leave early and have someone else lock up after Mutual so I could lie down again. I keep forgetting to mention that we have had such beautiful weather lately! I wish there was a way to post a picture of how nice it feels. We have had several weeks of not having to turn on the air conditioner at all and able to have the doors and windows open to...

10/4       The only thing I had scheduled for today was the piano tuner. Oh, and piano lessons in the evening but I was mostly excited about the piano tuner. Still, I was thinking I didn’t have much scheduled for today. Around 9:30, my visiting teacher called to see if she could come over, which she did. We had a great visit! I can safely say that I haven’t had a real visiting teacher for about 11 -12 years. I did have a nice one for a few months in Napa, but during the 8 ½ years we were in the Madera 3 rd ward, I only got one visit. Of course I didn’t get visits while we were in Chile, and it has taken till now (we’ve been home 1 ½ years) to get a visiting teacher assigned. I’m not complaining at all – I really didn’t mind not having visits, but I am super excited to have a visiting teacher again. I feel for the sisters whose visiting teachers don’t make the effort to visit every month. Shortly after she left, the piano tuner came, a...

I’ve set up a new workout routine, but I didn’t start it today because I figure working on the yard counts, too. So today I worked on my project outside which is to move pavers from random places all over the yard, to create pathways and to break up some of the way-too-much rock area between the patio and the pool. It’s already looking much better, but it is really hard work! I spent a couple of hours last week, and one hour today. That little corner doesn't look like much, but it took an hour of putting in the pavers, and a couple of hours gathering the pavers and hauling them over. Now that we finally got the piano in the house, I called a piano tuner who will come tomorrow. Exciting! We tried to Skype Family Home Evening with a couple of our kids and finally were able to connect with Mike and Becky. It was super fun to see all the kids and be able to talk to the adults a little, but it sure made us miss them more! Sometimes I just ache to be with my kids and grandkid...

We enjoyed conference weekend very, very, very much, and I was sad when the last session came to an end. The talks are soooo good! I can't wait to get the magazine so I can start reading them. Yesterday it was hard to listen to them because we were having our windows and doors installed and we kept having to help. I kept the volume way up so that when the workers were near they had to listen to it too. hahahahahaha. Today Tanya and family came early over for Tom's great breakfast and stayed for both sessions. We (Tom) barbequed hamburgers for lunch but we were too full for the pizza for dinner two hours later, so we just had dessert. Todd and Caeli left after the last session so they could spend time with Todd's daughter and her kids, but Tanya and the boys stayed and watched 17 Miracles and Ephriam's Rescue. Fun times!

10/1 Today is a day I’ve waited not-to-patiently for, since we moved in. Today we got new windows and doors. The guys arrived here with the windows and doors at 7:15 and finished at about 6pm. Tom spent the whole day helping them, and I spent the whole day cleaning up after them. Now we have beautiful windows and doors, which, we hope, will help keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. After the guys left, Tom and I spent the rest of the evening re-hanging curtains and blinds and finishing the cleaning. Super exciting day!

9/30       Friday I was hoping we could go on a date. It didn’t happen last week because Tom was tired, and there was service that needed him. So I was hoping tonight it might happen. Actually, the truth is, I didn’t have much hope that we would go out because first priority was getting the piano out of the truck. Tom needed the missionaries to help him, so he called them and arranged to pick them up in Fresno at 3:30. We tried to get a quick nap, but got several phone calls that woke us up. One of the calls was the Bishop inviting Tom to go to a funeral at 5pm. The Bishop also asked me to play the organ, and the hymns that were on the program were ones I really don’t know how to play. My worst nightmare! It was then 3pm. When he went to pick up the missionaries, they were delayed, making it a close call to get the piano out of the truck and getting ourselves to the funeral on time. But in spite of all that, they got the piano out an...