Scorching the World

11/29                     I spent all morning finishing up the decorations. We still have to put lights outside, but the inside looks very warm and cozy. I decorate almost exclusively with nativities and trees. I’m going to have a contest with the grandkids to see if they can count all of the nativities and all of the trees.  All of them make me really happy to look at. I love how my tree turned out. It has all white lights, red and silver balls, and white snowflakes. I really love it!   When I was tired of that, I worked on cleaning up the office. I’ve been gathering Christmas stuff in there, plus sewing that needs done. I borrowed the table I was using for the sewing table to take to the lake house and didn’t want to put it back in the office. So everything from the table was now on the floor, too. I went to Lowe’s and got a board to use for a desk and covered it with rea...

11/28 This is our first Christmas in our new home and I’ve been anxious to get Christmas decorations up to see how they will look in this house. It’s also been 3 years since we’ve been in our own home for Christmas, so I was looking forward to seeing all my favorite things again. I spent almost all day putting up decorations. Tom worked from home, so he helped me with the heavy lifting. He wanted to work on his shed all day, but needed to pick up a few things to do that. He ended up spending about 3-4 hours shopping! Couldn’t believe he was gone so long! I find that in this house I don’t have as many shelves and flat placed to put decorations as I’ve had in the past. I have way too many knick knacks for our home, and now I see I have too many of the Christmas decorations, too.  So I will have to prioritize and get rid of the ones I don’t love as much. I purged a lot before we left on our mission; now I have to cut down a little more. Still, it was fun to get it all o...

Today was the annual Messiah Singalong at the First Presbyterian Church in Fresno. We go every year, if possible, and have loved it for years. We really look forward to it all year and will move mountains to make sure nothing keeps us from going. Right after Church and Choir practice, we had a quick lunch (delicious lunch) with Tanya and family, then went to get good seats. We were about 45 minutes early, and barely got the seats we wanted. Singing with hundreds of people in a beautiful church with wonderful acoustics, is just unspeakably wonderful.  It was their 40 th anniversary of doing the singalong, and the conductor’s 20 th year. They have a wonderful orchestra and afterwards they serve a “soupalong”  but we didn’t stay for that this time. Tanya wasn’t feeling well, so she didn’t sing, but still enjoyed being there. It was wonderful. Every year I  get choked up while trying to sing the beautiful music. I think that must be what heaven will be like in t...

We had planned to leave about noon, and there were lots of other plans that just worked out differently than the original plan. Tami had gingerbread houses she had been baking for a few days, so we let Caeli do that before we left. I think we were gone about 11am. The lake house is such a wonderful place to visit – it was hard to leave, but we know we have to get back to real life sooner or later. We had no internet the whole 5 days we were there, and we needed to make preparations for Sunday. It was a fairly quick trip – 3 hours instead of the customary 4 ½, so we were glad about that. It took a couple of hours to unpack and clean up. I did a couple of loads of laundry, we worked on the program for Sunday, and stuff like that, then we relaxed. It was nice to sit back and just relax, just the two of us. Our own bed felt really good and we retired early. It was such a wonderful week with family!

for some reason, this didn't ever get published: Today was our play day. All the preparation and cooking was over so we could relax and eat leftovers. Alissa had agreed to make Ebleskivers  for breakfast, which are pretty complicated and time-consuming, but after that, we all took it easy. After breakfast I started the kid party. It is our annual, official kick-off for the countdown to Christmas. I had about 10 games for the kids to do, and most of the kids enjoyed most of it. Some of the activities turned out kinda lame or didn’t work right, and others were huge hits. I don't have the patience to put the pictures in the right places, so I'll just explain them all here: This is the wall Phil is tiling. This is about how much got done. It will be beautiful! These are the non-kitchen cleaners after dinner. This is the kitchen crew after dinner: This is the cutest baby in the world~! Boden, 6 months old. Sitting, crawling, standing up to furniture, cha...

Today was our play day. All the preparation and cooking was over so we could relax and eat leftovers. Alissa had agreed to make Ebleskivers  for breakfast, which are pretty complicated and time-consuming, but after that, we all took it easy. After breakfast I started the kid party. It is our annual, official kick-off for the countdown to Christmas. I had about 10 games for the kids to do, and most of the kids enjoyed most of it. Some of the activities turned out kinda lame or didn’t work right, and others were huge hits. I don't have the patience to put the pictures in the right places, so I'll just explain them all here: This is the wall Phil is tiling. This is about how much got done. It will be beautiful! These are the non-kitchen cleaners after dinner. This is the kitchen crew after dinner: This is the cutest baby in the world~! Boden, 6 months old. Sitting, crawling, standing up to furniture, chasing the dogs. This is the room where the girls h...

Thursday                      We woke up at 7am to the doorbell. The McGill doorbell is Bethooven’s 5 th Symphony, which is  also a number Kaden can play on the piano, so when I heard it in my sleep I thought Kaden was playing the piano. When I woke the rest of the way up, I realized it was the doorbell, so I got up and saw Kaden and Cannon there with their dog. they had slept at Marc and Alissa's last night, and apparently nobody over there wanted to wake up, so they sent them over.  I told them to come in and be quiet because everybody was asleep. Then I went back to bed. Eventually they went back to Marc and Alissa’s house where people were more awake. We had breakfast about 8am. Tom made arroz con leche with buñuelos for breakfast. When I saw the size pot of rice he had cooked, I told him he would need to double that. When people started eating, it went ...

Tom made a wonderful breakfast, as usual, and Marc and Alissa came over to enjoy it with all of us. Then Phil and Marc started repairs on Phil’s house. They fixed the stairs outside that go down the hill, then started tiling a dining room wall. It is looking so beautiful, but it took them most of the rest of the day to do a very small part of it. It wasn’t an easy project at all. Alissa, Tami and I mostly relaxed. Tami did make 3 pies for tomorrow, and Alissa went with a bunch of the kids and Tom down to the lake to hike around. They were gone a long time and really had a lot of fun looking for reptiles and finding cool shells. I wanted to make napkin rings, so I got out craft stuff in the afternoon and all the girls helped make some. Each person designed their own, and there were some really cool ones. After that I made some place cards. Mila helped me figure out how to do them, but the kids were all busy playing, so I made them by myself. Alissa took care of...

We were barely up and dressed about the time that Trina and Chris returned from their run.  After Tom made breakfast he had to go do more work, so Trina and I spent the time getting our last-minute shopping done for Thanksgiving. When we got back home, Tom, Caeli and I left, but he still had more stops to make on the way to pick up Mila. Then we finally headed up to the lake house, arriving in the early evening. We visited with Marc and Alissa until bedtime. It sure is beautiful up here, and very relaxing. But best of all is being able to spend quality time with Marc and Alissa and the kids. Boden has changed so much since we saw him last! Now he’s crawling, sitting, and standing up to furniture. He wasn’t doing any of that when we saw him last! I had a pretty bad headache that come on while we were driving around in the afternoon. When we got to the lake house I took a pain pill, so I was ready for bead way earlier than usual. It felt really good to ...

Tom had his work all set up last week so he could take the whole week off. Or so he though. He got a call from one marketer saying he needed more work, so Tom ended up having to do some last minute scrambling to get stuff for him. It made us leave several hours later than planned, and when we got to the Bay Area, it delayed us even more. We took Caeli with us so she could have more time to play with her cousins during the week. But we made it to Trina’s in time to be there to see Christian and Spencer get ordained to the office of Elder. It was a wonderful experience! The Bishop, one counselor, and the Elder’s quorum president came. Chris did the ordination and Tom also got to stand in. For no reason, Spencer got ordained first and then he was able to stand in the circle to ordain Christian. The men there said a few words about the joy and responsibility and honor of holding the Melchizedek Priesthood and all the Pettus kids were very attentive. It was a sweet experience! We ...

Tom and I left early as usual to get to his Bishopric meeting and so I could practice the organ. I got right to the practicing, but Tom waited and waited for the rest of the Bishopric to show up. He finally found out the Bishop had sent a text last night saying Bishopric was canceled.  He just didn't see it last night. The funny thing was that when I got up at 5:30 to be ready to go by 6am, he asked why I was getting ready so early. In his sleep clouded mind, he was thinking Bishopric started at 7:30 instead of 6:30. He thanked me for being on the ball. Turned out we could have slept another hour after all. I got lots of practicing in, and felt pretty secure in the hard hymn I had chosen for today. The girls came early and both practiced their hymns before the meeting started. All was going well until halfway through the meeting when we heard a pop and the power went out. The speaker continued without a microphone and a few people shown flashlights from their phones on ...

November 19 Wow, I got really behind. It’s been a ……. WEEK. Monday and Tuesday Tom went to work and I did my stuff at home. Not much new there, but days are wonderful and life is wonderful. Tuesday night I did my piano lessons. Two people forgot to show up, but I had good lessons with the others. Memorizing notes just takes time. I have to be patient. It’s all good! Wednesday I woke up with a killer headache that lasted through Thursday. I got to watch lots of Hallmark movies, and I got lots of naps and relaxing in. I did have to cancel picking up Caeli, and cancel my piano lessons, but life continued on and all turned out fine. Friday Tom decided to take the day off and work next Monday instead, so he was with me most of the day. That was fun. We had a repair guy come first thing to fix our internet and tv cables. Apparently the original install was never done correctly, and they finally figured that out after I’ve called 3 or 4 times to complain about error...

Tom had to go to a Stake Priesthood meeting this morning at 6:30am, so he left and I was able to get up and get ready in a more relaxed manner than when I have to be at the church with him at 6:30. I got to do a little on the computer before I left and still had about 1 ½ hours to practice on the organ before the meetings started. All the meetings were good, and afterwards I had choir practice. We’ve missed a couple of weeks, so the turn-out was poor. I also forgot to make them a treat, so the missionaries were sad about that. We had a good practice anyway, but I’m a little worried about our upcoming performances. We went to Tanya’s for dinner, and although she wasn’t there, we had a nice dinner with the rest of the Knudsens, then we decided to come home for a nap. We got such a good nap, it was hard to wake up. We actually slept until time to go to the stake choir practice! It felt so good! I think when you get old, nothing feels better than naps! Especially Sunday nap...

Piano lessons were first. I’m down to two students on Saturdays, and the second one didn’t show up. It was kinda nice, though, because I could spend more time with the first one and then we got to leave early. Tom cleaned while I played. Tom needed to get the trailer returned to the rental place, but wanted to get a few loads of our backyard trimmings to the dump before returning it, so he planned to work on that after we got home. Shortly after we had breakfast, I got a call from a high councilman asking to meet with Tom and me and said he could come to our house. I scheduled him for 11am. He called me to be the 2 nd counselor in the Stake Relief Society. What a shock! I thought we were already called to pretty busy stuff in the Echo ward, but I don’t turn down callings, so we’ll see how it works out. I got texts from the RS president later, scheduling a meeting for Monday. I don’t even know her. Tom still managed to get the trailer full, bu...

We had told Tracey that we would leave as soon as we woke up again, but she did not want us to leave without her being able to see us off, so we texted her when we got up. That way we didn’t wake anybody else up. She met us at the car and we said our sad farewells and promised to return when they get their own place It’s so beautiful up there, but Oregon has its very own weirdness. They are incredibly liberal up there – even more so than California. Marihuana is legal so you see signs everywhere about having it for sale. Even Larry’s relatives had paraphernalia sitting around. I really felt that we had taken a trip into the “WORLD”. I’m not usually around people who swear, drink, or do drugs, so I felt a little out of place, especially every time I opened my mouth and said something about our mission or what happened at church or the like. It always fit in the conversation, but was always something they would never have said.  We really did enjoy visiting, though. ...

11/10     We had decided to leave as soon as we woke up, whatever time that might be. Tom woke up at 4am, so I hurried and showered and we were on the road by 5am to take the van with a trailer, both full of Tracey’s stuff to her. It’s a beautiful drive and the farther north you get, the prettier it is. The mountains and the pine tree forests are so pretty. Even though it should have been a 9 hour trip from here, it took us 11 ½ hours to get there, mostly because the speed limit when  you’re hauling a trailer is 55 instead of 65 or 70. It was pretty painful to go so slowly, but oh well. I think I only drove once so Tom could sleep for about an hour. The rest of the time I read to him from Reader’s Digest or we talked or listened to the radio. We had taken lots of snacks so we only stopped for gas. It was sure nice to finally arrive, and apparently Tracey had been watching out the window because as soon as we drove  up, she came running o...

Tom got to stay home all day and boy did we get a lot done. I started first thing, working on the back yard, so he decided to join me. He took out one very large, ugly bush and was super happy to have it gone. It was really hard work, tho, and when he finally got it out, he had to rest and drink water. Then he worked on his shed. He had me help him get a couple more walls up, and then he painted the outside. We mixed 3 partially used paint cans, and ended up with a really nice teal -it’s a color I’d like to use all over the yard. I plan to have fun with it if there are any leftovers. I was working on my Thanksgiving surprise when Tanya called and asked me to pick up Caeli from school and take her to her other gymnastics, which is on the other side of Fresno. I dropped what I was doing, changed clothes, put on make-up, and took off. It took nearly half hour to get her there, and she was half-hour late, and then I had 1 ½ hours to kill before needing to take her to the...

11/7       Tom worked far away and I did my stuff at home. I’m making progress on the back yard; I’m conquering the ivy and the ugly trees, making room for cleanliness and pretty trees. Eventually we will put planter boxes around the empty spaces, when there are empty spaces. 11/8       Tom worked far away again, but made it home in time to meet me at the church for my piano lessons. I really hate to be in the building alone after dark. It was funny because some people rang the church outside bell, and when I went to open it, they said, “Is this where we Trump, or is it at the other church?” I said, “What?”, and they said “Oh, sorry, I meant is this where we vote?”   Only one of my lessons didn’t show up. All the others are progressing and enjoying the lessons. It sure makes it feel more worthwhile when people actually seem motivated to practice and progress. I’m glad I am able to serve in this way; it’s prett...

  11/6      We left as usual at 6am for Tom's Bishopric meeting. I enjoy having 3 uninterrupted hours to practice the organ, so I always go with him. Our meetings were good, as usual. Afterwards we had choir practice and my pianist didn't show up. After I got home at night, I saw that she had sent me an email at 7am saying she wouldn't be there. I had to try to play and lead, which doesn't work wonderfully because I can't really hear the choir from the piano. Oh well; we managed.   Tom helped with tithing entry, and I waited in the car. It took them almost 1 ½ hours to do the tithing, for some reason, so we didn’t get to Tanya’s until about 2:30. It was our turn to cook dinner, but we knew we’d be in meetings most of the day, so I had given everything to Todd yesterday and he cooked it for us. Turned out Tanya and Caeli were both home sick, so they were happy we were eating at their house.   They had already eaten, but Tanya and Todd sat down...

11/3       I love Thursdays and yet I hate to see them come. I love that I have finished the two back-to-back days of piano lessons, but hate that it means that another week has almost flown past me! I just couldn’t get myself outside to work on the yard. I took it easy and did some advent calendars I’m preparing for Thanksgiving gifts for our kids. It was fun, but it’s times like these that I wonder why I had 7 children. Tom was in and out during the day and went out with the missionaries again at night. Tom needed to return the trailer he borrowed, so he decided to use it one last time to take some of the yard waste that I’ve cut down in the back yard. He spent hours loading branches and bags of leaves and when the trailer was full, he had only taken about a third of what there is. He left it to take and dump in the morning.

11/4       Tom took the trailer first thing to dump it. I worked on the yard a little more and then on my advent calendars. 11/5/16                we went to piano lessons first thing and I taught 2 classes and then practiced while he helped with cleaning the building. The plan was that we would take care of that first thing and then get back home to work on his shed. He hoped to get a lot done on it today.   But after we left the church, we needed to go return the trailer. Then someone called who needed her church assistance check before noon or she would get kicked out, so we ran back to the church (we were still in the area), got the check, ran to the Bishop’s house, had him sign it, then ran to her house and barely made it in time for her.   Then we had to go to some stores that were urgent and by then we were starving, so we went to an IHOP, and bla bla...

Is it worth posting on the blog if I did the same things as last week? 11/2                       I did the same as usual in the morning, including working on the weeds in the back yard. Pulling this ivy is kind of like trying to comb out dreadlocks that have gum stuck in them, and covered with stuff so you can’t actually see the hair. The ivy is covered with about a foot of leaves which I need to rake so I can see the tendrils of the ivy, but the ivy is so tangled I can’t rake off the leaves. It’s a very slow process, but good exercise. I left at 2:30 to pick up Caeli and the boys. While they did their homework, I made some peanut butter cookies. I decided it’s time to start baking for Christmas and Thanksgiving, so I baked one cookie sheet  of cookies, then froze the rest of the dough for later. I got to the church just before my first lesson. All those ta...

Is it worth posting on the blog if I did the same things as last week? 11/3                       I did the same as usual in the morning, including working on the weeds in the back yard. Pulling this ivy is kind of like trying to comb out dreadlocks that have gum stuck in them, and covered with stuff so you can’t actually see the hair. The ivy is covered with about a foot of leaves which I need to rake so I can see the tendrils of the ivy, but the ivy is so tangled I can’t rake off the leaves. It’s a very slow process, but good exercise. I left at 2:30 to pick up Caeli and the boys. While they did their homework, I made some peanut butter cookies. I decided it’s time to start baking for Christmas and Thanksgiving, so I baked one cookie sheet  of cookies, then froze the rest of the dough for later. I got to the church just before my first lesson. All those ...

11/1       I can’t believe it’s November.  When we were in Napa, waiting for the sale of our properties and the purchase of this house to go through, time dragged. Each day seemed like an eternity. Now, days and weeks fly by. At this stage of my life, I don’t really want time to pass fast. I’m speeding to the end of my life, and I’d like to put on the brakes! I’m trying to enjoy every day because I know I have fewer left than I have already lived. So today I took it easy. I did work on the yard for a couple of hours in the morning, but after that I did fluff stuff like creating my new budget program for next year, setting up file labels for next year, and beginning to set up the new files. It’s a process I really enjoy, so I always jump the gun and start before the year ends. I left about 4:30 to pick up some things at the store on the way to piano lessons, but forgot the keys, so after shopping I had to go back home for them. Fortun...

I guess if there aren’t kids around, I don’t really get into this holiday. I put up some decorations from storage, but they are so small and scattered around, that they aren’t really noticeable. I spent all day working on getting the piano lesson binders up-to-date and all in the right languages. It was pretty complicated, so it took a lot of focus – more than I was giving it, apparently, because I kept copying the wrong thing or upside down or something. But I did succeed at last. Tom was gone all day. He went to San Jose and traffic was so bad leaving the Bay Area that he missed all the trick-or-treaters. I think we only had about 10 sets of kids who came. They were all pretty cute, tho. Now I have to figure out what to do with all the leftover candy.