Scorching the World

12/29/16              I felt quite a bit better today and had Tom bring in all the Christmas boxes. It took most of the day but I think I got it all packed up and put on the back patio. Tom can return it to the shed when he is ready. His shed isn’t quite ready for all the storage boxes yet. Tom worked from home all day. At 6pm he went to the church to help with the cleaning, to go out with the missionaries, and to do one last home teaching visit. I love that my husband is so faithful! I was glad to stay home again. I think I’m becoming a home body; I love it when I can stay home and do my own thing! When  he got home, he said he just needed 15 minutes on the computer, then we could watch Jeopardy, but 2 ½ hours later, I was ready for bed and he was still working. I keep meaning to say something that I really love and appreciate about our house. Our master bedroom has a walk-in closet, and there is a he...

12/28                     My head hurt quite a bit in the night, so I wasn’t sleeping very well, and sometime after midnight, the birds started flying all over their cages and making lots of noise. I tried to go back to sleep, but about then I felt a short but strong quake. I grabbed Tom and said, “HONEY!” He sleepily said, “What?” I said, “Did you feel that? We just had an earthquake.” He said he didn’t feel anything and that I was still having nightmares from being in Chile. I tried to go back to sleep. I found out later we did have an earthquake – actually several small ones. The news said “Devastating earthquake hits central valley.” I had to laugh because it was a 5.7 on the border of Nevada and California, which means many, many miles from here, so it was probably a 4 or a high 3 by the time it got to the central valley. It was strong, but in Chile it would have been called a...

12/27     I took it easy all day today. A headache started yesterday and stayed with me today, so I got to watch a whole bunch of cheesy Christmas movies. Tom worked almost all day but was able to sit with me in the evening. It was a nice, quiet day of relaxing.

We woke up slowly with the Pettus’ here. Tanya’s boys slept here, too, and were having way too much fun last night to go to sleep. I woke up with a headache, no doubt from everything I ate that I shouldn’t have. Tom made his famous potatoes for breakfast. He thought he had made plenty for us, the Pettus family, the McGills, and the Knudsens, but after the Pettus’ ate, it was almost all gone, so he made another batch. When it was ready, some of the kids came back and said, “Can I have more?” and it all got eaten again. So he made another batch. The McGills and Knudsens finally got here about 11am, and by then Tom had made another batch so there was enough for them. After all that peeling, cutting and frying over and over, there was only a tiny bit of potatoes leftover, and everyone’s tummies were really happy. He does make good breakfasts! Tom’s main focus for today was to try to get our greenhouse assembled. We figured we needed to do it when we had help so we could get...

Tom didn’t have his early morning Bishopric meetings today, so we got to sleep in a little. That was really nice. Since Christmas was on Sunday, we only had Sacrament meeting, which I had prepared from ideas I found online and then translated to Spanish. Tom had set up all the readers and details.  Besides writing it, translating it, I played most of the hymns on the organ and led the choir, so I was pretty nervous about it all but it went pretty good and we were happy with it. After the meeting, we were anxious to get home before family started arriving, but nobody else seemed anxious to leave. We slowly turned off lights to get them to go towards the back doors, and eventually out the doors and off the parking lot. It took a good half hour to get people to go. Such is life when they are kind, loving people who are so happy to see each other. At home Tom helped me get dinner started and things in the oven so when people started arriving, everything was ready. The last to...

12/24                     Tom found out that out of all the people who were supposed to clean the church building, none of them were going, so he went to do that. I went with him so I could get a little more practice on the organ. I got a good hour in and then helped him until he was ready to go. Then he wanted to take a plate of cookies to the families he home teachers, so we started looking for them. Our ward boundaries are quite large because it includes all the Spanish speaking people from several ward boundaries. So we traveled quite a bit looking for addresses. He only had 4 people to see, and two of them had addresses that didn’t exist. We managed to see one lady and invite her to church, but the other was not to be found. We spent almost 2 full hours looking for her address. It was crazy how many times we thought we had found it, but then found that it was a wrong house/s...

11/23                     I wanted to go to Costco as soon as it opened this morning, to avoid the masses that will surely be there 2 days before Christmas. Tom wanted to take the awnings we had taken off the house to the ReStore place (a place where we can donate them) to finally get them out of our back yard. So we decided to run errands together. Unfortunately, that made it so that by the time we got to Costco, it was almost 11am, and it was beyond packed! We decided to go to Walmart instead, and got the things we needed, then headed home. Tom had to do a little work from home, and I worked on pre-Christmas stuff. I cleaned and baked cookies and prepared games for the kids. I watched Christmas movies while I did that, and many times during the day, I felt overwhelming feelings of gratitude for the many blessings we have. I continue to be so grateful to be home from our mission, ...

11/22                     I love it when my Google Calendar tells me I have no appointments for the day! I love it if I don’t have to put on makeup and can stay in lounging pants all day. I caught up on computer work and did Christmas prep. Not much to report, but it was a really nice day!

12/21                     Tom had to go to one faraway place, but managed to get back by 4pm. That was a super nice surprise! I cleaned and did computer stuff. At the end of the year I try to get my budget all wrapped up and make sure every transaction posted correctly so that my reports are clean and clear for taxes next year. I also prepare my budget sheets for the New Year. Both of those things are super fun to me and I could spend all day on it if I didn’t have other things yelling at me. I made three kinds of cookies but two of them had to be refrigerated for a few hours, so I will bake them tomorrow. Since Todd is off this week, I didn’t need to pick up Caeli from school to take her to gymnastics. Tanya went on a week-long field trip with Cannon, so Todd dropped off Caeli and then came over to visit while he waited for her. I had not canceled piano lessons for today bu...

12/19                     Tom worked from home all day, meaning he was home all day and worked all day. I did various things around the house and tried to get a little more ready for Christmas which will be held in our house this year. First Christmas in our new home! 12/20/16              Tom had to go to far-away places today, so I was home alone. I made a massive shopping trip in the morning. We used to have a pretty good supply of food storage before we went on our mission. When we left, we knew most of it would be expired by the time we got home, especially after sitting in our garage for 2 years where it can be well over 100 degrees in the summer, so we used up or gave away our canned foods and basic kitchen supplies before we left. We also didn’t want to buy extra food storage during the last two years, until ...

12/18     We really wanted to go visit McGills for Tami’s birthday. We knew it would be a hard birthday without her first-born son, but when Tom asked about going there, she said they were going to the beach in San Francisco and then to Napa. So we figured they wouldn’t be home for us to visit. We were pretty disappointed, but after church we headed home to have a quiet evening. Then we found  out Tanya had spent the night there, gone to the beach with them, and was going to be with them in the evening when Marc & fam and Trina and fam would all be there. So we hurried and packed up stuff and headed to Dublin. We got there just before Marc and family, and found that the McGills weren’t even back from the beach yet. We got to visit with Ryan and Tracey for a good while before everyone else got there. After everyone got there, there still wasn’t much celebrating going on, but it was fun to see everybody. We were really glad we had gone. It mean...

12/17                     Saturday We left early for piano lessons and for Tom to clean the building. Unfortunately, nobody else showed up to clean, and none of my students showed up. I got in some much needed practice, then helped Tom clean. When we were ready to leave, Tom talked to the person who was supposed to meet us there to start decorating for the party at night. He said he was almost there, so we waited. When he got there, we helped him get all the decorations set up. We were at the church 4 hours total. We needed to find a Santa suit, or at least parts of one, so we went to Party City, then we ran a few other errands. We were home long enough to eat some breakfast (finally) and a quick nap. We headed back to the church for the party, which was supposed to start at 5pm. Tom wanted to be early to help people with any last-minute set up, but nobody came until almost 5:30p...

12/16  I needed to go to the post office today and wanted to go first thing to avoid long lines, but when I got ready, I found that I wasn’t actually ready. It took me a couple of hours to get everything together and when I was ready, Tom was also ready to go with me so I could go with him to a doctor appointment. So we ran the errands I needed, then we ran the errands that Tom needed. We were home a short time before Tom needed to leave for his company’s Christmas luncheon.  I got random things done while he was gone. After he got back, he was home a short time before he needed to leave again to go out with the missionaries. Our ward party is tomorrow, so one of our errands was to buy candy for “Santa” to give the children. Tom was told he would need gift bags for 100 children! I think we average fewer than 30 children for Primary, so I guess they all stay home all year and wait for the Christmas party. Can’t see what it’s like in this ward. While Tom was at his lunche...

It rained lightly all night and then rained a little harder all day. We are so grateful when little tiny droplets of water fall from the sky. It's almost like Manna to us! I'd like to say "thank you" for each one that falls and lands in our yard! Now our pool is full to overflowing. How nice! I forgot to say that yesterday I hung lights outside, but since the roof in front has a nice pitch to it, I couldn't do half of it! But it's nice to finally have some lights up. I usually hang them right after Thanksgiving. I also cleaned some and got other miscellaneous things done. It was a good, productive day. But that was yesterday. Tom worked from home today and worked on his stuff mostly. I wanted to build some shelves to go above the freezer in the laundry room, but quickly got to a point where I had to have his help, so he was nice to help me build them and get them put up. I'm really happy to finally have them! They filled up really fast. I also made cute ...

12/14                     Tonight the Young Women were going caroling with the Relief Society, so none of them showed up for piano lessons. There is one student who is a young adult, and she came and is doing really well. Right now she is my most promising, but she would probably disagree. I didn’t mind not having all the students; it gave me time to practice, which I sorely needed! Just as I was about finished with my student, the missionaries asked Tom  to sit in on a lesson, so he did. As soon as we were both done, they asked if we could accompany them to visit a part member family. Turned out to be two children. Their parents and other adult relatives that were there all left the room. The Dad was washing dishes the whole half-hour we were there. It was a nice visit, but we were anxious to get home because Tom had a bunch of phone calls to pull together the Ward Christmas ...

12/13                I found it hard to feel any desire to do anything. Nothing seemed very important, but I knew I really HAD to get back to the piano! Tom left at 7am for work; he had a long way to go today. I spent many hours catching up on computer work and finished wrapping Christmas presents. All too soon it was time to go teach piano lessons. The first student didn’t show up – probably still assuming there would be no lessons. The 2 nd and 3 rd students called to cancel because of conflicts, but the next one came and we caught up on what she has forgotten in the time I was away. I did a little shopping on the way home and still got home a couple of hours before Tom, who got home at almost 10pm. He had stopped to pick up our birds from Tanya’s house on the way. We spent until midnight talking and catching up on our days and sharing our continuing pain. It’s still hard to think about the trivial, dai...

We had hoped (wished) to stay with Tami and Phil a few more days, but Tom needed to get back to work and we had some things at home that really shouldn’t be ignored any longer. Tami and Phil decided to go to the beach and Marc and family met them there. It was a beautiful, sunny day, so a good one to be at the beach. Ray and Renee took Tom and I out to lunch, leaving Tracey at Tami’s house alone for a short time. It was good to visit with our best friends and really hard to ever let it end, but we knew we needed to beat commute traffic out of town. After lunch, we went back to Tami’s house where Ray and Renee’s car was, and Tracey was there, as was Carma. So we got to say goodbye again. It was hard to leave; we really wished we could have stayed with family a little longer, but had to go. More tears were shed as we headed for home. We had good roads and traffic and when we got home, about 6pm, we spent the evening making up for nine days away from home, then went to bed...

12/11                Tanya and family, Mike and family, Ray and Renee, and Tom and I all went to church in Dublin to Tami’s ward. The Bishop and Relief Society president have been so nice to us. Tom and I only stayed the first two hours because we felt we needed to get back and help with breakfast and anything else Tami and Phil needed. We followed our list and schedules and left for the church with Ray, Renee, Anne and Carma. Trina met us there and we spent an hour preparing as much as we could with the other ward there. At 4pm we finished up and were mostly ready when the motorcade arrived with everyone else. We had them all go into the Relief Society room (there was a last-minute room switch that made things a little confusing) to spent time together before people began to arrive. I greeted the Pacific Boychoir and the School of the Arts choir and gave them last minute instructions. People got enough chai...

It was really a busy day 12/10                I thought as we made it through each day, it would correspondingly get easier. I was wrong. Each day seemed to be harder as Draven’s absence was felt more and more. We all continued to hug and strengthen each other as we mourned together. Tami and Phil had “errands to do” in the morning and ended up being gone until about 3pm. The house was full of family, and we were able to sit and visit for long periods, interrupted only by more people arriving, or taking time to eat more of the wonderful food people continued to bring. At first Nina and Mila seemed to keep to themselves, but eventually having happy cousins there helped cheer them up some. Tami and Phil had asked Tom and me to be in charge of organizing and planning the program for the service, and I was helping get the written program put together. Angela, a deputy with the Sheriff’s department, had offere...

12/9      We were very worried about Mike and Becky making it to California through the bad weather that had been predicted, so we prayed hard all week that the weather would be good all the way. Turned out it was good; they had no problems on the whole trip even though there were severe snow storms predicted. What a great blessing! It was definitely another great blessing! Tanya and family came up from Fresno today, and made it just in time for the concert at night. Ray and Renee were expected about 6 but we didn’t hear from them until they drove up to Tami’s house in time to eat before we had to leave for Draven’s concert. But I’m getting ahead of myself. When Anne and Carma were finally ready to be picked up from the hotel, we had breakfast and then decided to go shopping. We went to a couple of stores, and the best one was a thrift store. We had lots of fun there and I found a few blouses and some earrings. When we got back we had lunch and right after...

12/8/16             Tami and Phil woke up before we got up to go to the lake house to get Christmas decorations. They left us a note to remind Nina to go pick up the dog she sits every day. Tom made some potatoes, but before they were done, we needed to go pick up Lynn from the airport. Or so   I thought. We got to the airport on time and waited and waited. I tried texting him, but he didn’t answer. He had sent me a text much earlier saying he forgot his hearing aids. Then Tom said he was sure Lynn was coming in at 12:00 pm. I didn’t have my list with me and I got the arrival time totally mixed up. Tracey texted me that if we were in Oakland, she would love to get picked up, so we went and got her, then went back to the airport to get Lynn at the right time. Oddly, he wasn’t there when he wasn’t supposed to be, and he was there when he was supposed to be. Go figure. We finally got back to Tami’s and had some breakfas...

12/7                  Even with family and friends and the whole sheriff’s department helping, there is so much to do that we were busy all day. I spent almost all day on my computer at Tami’s kitchen table. I’ve mostly been working on the funeral program, making sure we thought of every detail, and making arrangements with the people who would execute those details. I’ve kept track of all the flight arrangements and hotel arrangements. I haven’t been making any of those arrangements, but it has taken all my brain capacity to be sure we haven’t forgotten anything and making a list that clarifies who needs picked up and dropped off at what times on what days. There have been some who decided they wanted to come after we had already made all the arrangements and finalized all the details, so we started over a couple of times. My brain isn’t fully functional at this point, so I’ve made lists on the comput...

I have found that the heart can hold many seemingly opposing-opinions at the same time. While we still have profound sadness for Draven's death and still cry hard frequently, I feel more and more gratitude for the blessings Heavenly Father is showering down on us through His earthly angels. There are so many people who have taken a week from their busy Christmas and personal schedules to serve our families. The Sheriff's department has been incredible. I have learned from them how to better serve people who are grieving. For example, when Tami was about to go do some laundry (on the 3rd day after the NEWS), someone called right then to say they were coming over to pick up and do her laundry. Whenever we feel we might need to start preparing something to eat, someone shows up with food - whole meals. There are plenty of us here who know how to cook, but it has been so nice to not have to worry about that while we're trying make all the other arrangements. When I mentione...

12/5                       Monday was full of visitors. Tami and Phil managed to take a break and go for a long walk alone, which was wonderful for them. The Sheriffs continued to bring food and moral support. They are helping with some of the details of the funeral like the written program, a slideshow, a poster of pictures of Draven, and other things. They are so wonderful and helpful and supportive.  Since this tragedy of ours turned out to be an international tragedy, there has been an overwhelming amount of support from the community. The Red Cross gave Phil a check for $1400 to cover hotel costs for out of town friends and family.  The Oakland A’s baseball team donated $50,000 to the families of the victims, as did the Oakland Raider’s. Other organizations have begun to collect funds to help families. Support has come from around the world as word of the d...

It was hard to sleep Saturday night. Tami and Phil were exhausted, as we were, but without news, and left to yourself, it's hard to calm you mind enough to relax. So Sunday morning we all woke up still very tired and worried. About 10am, a Sargent and a chaplain came over. It was not unusual because the sheriffs had been coming by all day Saturday. We gathered together to hear what they had to say. He said that he was sorry to have to tell them that they had found Draven's body. Dray's two friends that were at the concert/party, had managed to crawl out of the building, thinking Draven was right behind them, but Draven apparently tried to help save others, so his body was found wrapped in a carpet with 4 girls. He was totally identifiable, with his school ID still on him, so there was no need for anyone to go try to identify the body We cried and cried. We held each other and tried to comfort each other. There is no more horrible sadness than losing a child unless it...

12/3                       It is never a good feeling when the phone rings in the middle of the night. We heard my phone ring at 4:45 am, and it announced there was a call from Phil.  The short walk to the phone was full of dread and questions, wondering what could have happened that he would call so early. He was a little disconnected sounding has he told us that there had been a fire in Oakland and Draven was still missing. He said he felt that Tami needed us there. I asked something, I don't remember what, to clarify and he said, "As of now we don't have a son." He and Tami were at the scene of the fire and the girls were home alone. Tom and I hurried to pack a few things and got out of the house, thinking we might be there overnight. On the way, I called my piano students to cancel the lessons and Tom made arrangements for the cleaning of the building that ...

Friday Tanya came over to watch movies. Actually, I had a stake RS meeting in the morning and picked her up on the way home. Tanya doesn’t have cable TV anymore, so there are some shows she misses. I like that she has to come to my house to catch up. When I took her home, I ran a couple of errands. Tom was working on the shed most of the day.

12/1       Hooray! It’s December! I love December and want to try to fully appreciate every day of it. It smells good, it feels good with the cool weather, it looks good with all the decorations, and everybody seems a little smilier. I love Thursday s because I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to put on make-up or a bra. I don’t have to be on time to anything, and I can make my own schedule and do what I want. Usually that includes things I put off on Tuesday and Wednesday when I did have places to go and things to do.  All the week I have had a slight headache when I woke up. It always went away after I got up, but today it didn’t. It wasn’t a migraine, just enough pain that I didn’t feel like doing much. So I took a day off and didn’t do a lot of the things I would have. I did, however, manage to create, address, label, and put stamps on our Christmas cards. I would have taken them to the post office if I had felt better, but still, ...

11/30     I spent part of the morning finishing setting up decorations except for a couple of minor places like the wreath I can’t hang on the front door because I can’t find a wreath hanger skinny enough for the door. And we still need to hang the outside lights. Then I spent almost all of the rest of the day wrapping presents. I have my shopping all done, except for a couple of the presents I ordered online that haven’t arrived yet. So, I actually have 3 families’ worth of gifts under the tree. There was a little mix-up over picking up Caeli for gymnastics. Tanya texted me that the boys were home, sick and she was off to work. I thought she said the boys were home, sick and she was off work . So I texted back and asked if that meant she was taking Caeli to gymnastics and she never answered. I was thinking it was all taken care of and was just cleaning up from all the wrapping when she called and said Caeli was still waiting for us to pick her up. ...