Scorching the World

2/21 to 2/25     Tom worked from home all week except Thursday and Friday. Thursday he had to go really far and was gone from 7am until 9pm.   Friday he wasn’t gone as long, fortunately.   Tuesday night we decided to go to the temple. It was really nice and we saw lots of great friends there.   Wednesday night I gave a couple of piano lessons, but several students didn’t show, which makes me want to start charging for lessons, but they only have to pay if they don’t show up and don’t let me know they won’t be there. The good thing is I got to practice the organ quite a bit, which I really need.   Tom wanted to work on his shed and the yard, but was too busy all week.   I think it was last week Tom noticed that our smaller pool pump was leaking. It took a long time to notice because it has rained so much, it was always wet. We had our pool guy look at it on Thursday and he said we need a new sweeper pump. MAJOR BUMMER! It’s a major...

2/20                  I tried to complete the routine that I am trying to make happen – exercise, scripture study, then things that need done. It just usually doesn’t happen in that order, and every time I think I have the routine working smoothly, something interrupts it for a few days (like a weekend of meetings) and I lose the momentum. But today I got the important things in. Hooray for one day. I worked on my own projects all day. Tom was in and out for work and for a homeless woman he is determined to help. She is asking for a food order, but we wonder where she will keep the food if she is homeless.   We wonder how she will open cans, or whether she can heat anything up. She called 2 or 3 times in the couple of hours between when Tom said he would help her, and when he could actually get help arranged. She doesn’t have a phone but borrows from anyone nearby where she is at the moment. H...

2/19/17            Tom and I needed to be at the church by 9am for choir practice. We were happy to be able to sing in a stake choir and were happy to have comfortable seats for Stake Conference.   The conference was really good and although our choir only sang one hymn, we sounded wonderful. After conference we went home, had lunch and got a much-needed nap!   There was a baptism at 4pm, so we left in time for me to play prelude. It was a nice baptism of a child convert whose mother is a member returning to activity.   Tom went to do some visits with the Bishop and I went home. I invited Tanya to come over and visit for a little while, which was really fun. It was a much more relaxing Sunday than we’ve had for a while.

2/18      We went to the church on time for piano lessons, but the first 3 students didn’t show up. The 4 th texted before her lesson that she was out of town, and the last did show up, but about 15 minutes late. Time to start dropping students. Tom started getting texts from a lady who is a drug addict and homeless. She had called and texted multiple times while we were in Hayward and Tom assured her he would help her when we got home today. So she was calling and texting over and over to make sure he helped her somehow. He was really worried about her, and figured she could sell the car full of stuff we had brought from Trina’s to get money for food. We knew she would probably use the money for drugs, but he figured that would be her choice. So after piano, we went to where she said she was staying to see if we could give her that stuff for her to sell. She wasn’t there, but a lady there thought she knew where she might be, so we gave her a ride to there. We ...

2/17     While Tom was getting dressed this morning, Dexter told me he knew what Grandpa was going to make for breakfast - fried potatoes! He said Grandpa always does that for breakfast. Tom needed to go out and work at little more in the morning but of course he made fried spuds first. when Spencer got up and had breakfast, he commented, "Grandpa sure makes it hard to lose weight." (As if he needs to lose weight!) After Tom got home he worked on patching the hole in Trina's family room ceiling. He got sheetrock up, but didn't have the tape to cover the cracks. That part will have to wait until next week. But it at least looks a lot better with the hole cover Trina and I worked on organizing and packing. We took out several bags of stuff to be donated, and several more bags of garbage and recycling. We actually only packed about 3 boxes to keep Tom and I left about 2pm to try to beat the heavy weekend traffic out of town but still got quite a bit, along with ...

2/16      It took a while to manage to get out of the house in the morning, and it was raining again when we left. We are to the point that we wonder whether we should keep praying for rain. there  on his way to do some more visits for work. Trina and I worked on packing Geneva’s room and got it finished. One room is packed. We also cleaned up the livingroom a little for Trina’s book club at 7. She has a long way to go to be ready to move at the end of this month! Then Trina had to go to work at 8 and Tom and I played with the kids until they finally went to bed. I was ready way before they were.

2/15      Tom worked on his shed and I worked on cleaning and organizing my craft closet to see if I could fit more in there by getting rid of some stuff I don’t use. Last time we went to the Bay Area, I took 4 bags of fabric   to Anitta to see if she wanted any of it. But then Trina gave me a bunch of fabric that she needed to get rid of before moving, so my bins filled back up again. Lol!   My first two piano students canceled, but the other three did very well.

2/14      Tom surprised me with a bouquet of flowers on our anniversary. They still looked pretty for Valentine’s Day.   He spent the day working on his shed and planting trees and blueberry bushes. It’s darn exciting to get that stuff in the ground! The shed, however, seems to be taking forever. He’s making it two story in one part, and an area to put more plants that don’t fit in the greenhouse. He needs to get it done so he can start getting plants in the green house before it’s too hot to grow anything there.   Anyway, I took a day of rest today. My body seemed to need it I napped for about 4 hours and was still ready to go to bed at the usual time!

2/13                  I was working on sorting, organizing, and cleaning when I got a call from the Stake Relief Society president asking if I could meet her at our Relief Society closet in the Stake Center to see what was there and what we might need to buy for our upcoming Stake Relief Society birthday celebration the end of March. I kissed Tom goodbye who was outside working on the shed he’s been trying to build ever since we moved here. He also had errands to run and was going to be gone the same time.   After Laura and I checked the closet, we went to someone’s house to pick up some decorations they had, to see if we could use them. It was a small mansion in a gated community. The sister wasn’t home, but she had given Laura the code to the gate and her gate to her house. The place was incredible. It had to be 4000 square feet, with 12 foot ceilings and massive pillars with stone and wroug...

2/12      As usual, Tom had to leave by 6:30 for Bishopric meeting, but I got to get ready more leisurely this morning because I didn’t have to be at the first ward conference until 9am. It was nice to not have to leave so early. Today was the 3 rd and 4 th times we’ve sat through ward conferences and I really enjoy being able to see the same presentation and hear the same talks over and over. They are really good and worth the repetition. Plus they do change a little each time. But the format is the same: in Sacrament meeting the only speakers are the Bishop and the Stake President. Each Bishop is asked to choose his own topic, so they have all varied greatly and have all been super good. Sunday School is combined for all adults and is a Powerpoint presentation that the 2 nd counselor in the Stake Presidency presents. It’s really good and he has gotten really good at moderating it. This week I translated it to Spanish in preparation for when he presents...

2/11      The focus in the morning was getting kids bathed and ready for the baptism. We had to leave by 10am. I tried to clean up the house a bit more while kids got dressed. The baptism was wonderful. It just amazes me how little and cute an 8 year old is these days. When my oldest was 8, she seemed so grown up to me. But now that I look at my grandchildren, 8 years old seems so very young to be making sacred covenants. I got to give the talk on the Holy Ghost, which I LOVED doing. It was a beautiful service and I was a little disappointed that none of our other children went to it. Marc and Alissa were out of town. Tami didn’t want to go because she is still in too much pain from losing Draven and it hurts her to be around Spencer who was Draven’s best buddy. Ryan and Anitta chose to go spend the time with Tami, which was super nice of them. Feelings all around are still very raw and tears are always near the surface. So anyway, that meant that only Tanya and ...

2/9        Since Trevor is getting baptized, and since Trina really needs us to help her get packed and ready to move, we decided to go to the Bay Area today. I had a RS Stake presidency meeting at 10 and Tom needed to go to the office first. I love serving in the Stake RS presidency. The women in the presidency are absolutely amazing and I could write very long, highly interesting and entertaining blog posts about them, so it’s super fun for me to be able to get to know them. Tom and I both got back home about the same time so we ate a quick lunch, packed the car and took off. We were on the road by noon. At Trina’s we helped clean up for guests for tomorrow and get the baptismal program printed. Trina does our taxes so we spent quite a few hours working on that. I always come back home with a list of things I still need to give her so she can finish it. She had to go to work about 8pm and we spent the evening playing and laughing ...

2/8        When Tom woke up this morning his eye surgery area was way swollen. He had tried to sleep sitting up last night to stop the swelling, but it didn’t help. I’m not sure why he didn’t want to put a cold compress on it. It never looked very good all day; it continues to be “weepy”. Probably wearing glasses to drive didn’t help. He had to leave by 7am to go to the Bay Area today. If I weren’t teaching piano, I would have gone with him and we could have spent the night. So since we couldn’t do that, he will drive out two days in a row. That’s a lot of driving. Plus we are going out on Friday to be there for Trevor’s baptism on Saturday. Sometimes I wish we could just fold the land in-between here and there to make it a shorter trip. I finished up my gift for my dil and almost finished the Valentines gifts. The sun behind the clouds was bright enough to entice me outside and it stopped raining long enough that I got to eat lunch outside by the poo...

2/7        Tom took it easy all day. It was a tiny surgery, but he was amazed how worn out he was. He spent almost all day catching up on emails, but in the afternoon when he thought the rain had stopped for a minute, he went out to plant some trees. He got one planted before it began raining too hard to be in it. I worked on a gift for my dil, and a Valentines gift for my grandkids. We're going to Trevor's baptism this Saturday and I wanted to take something to them. I also spent all morning organizing our taxes so I can take them to Trina when we go there on Saturday. A couple of weeks ago Tom rented a sump pump to take some of the water out of our pool. The first time I heard of that, I thought it was silly. What's wrong with a full pool? But then we found out that if the water level gets above the tile on the sides, it will break down the cement top edge. That would be an expensive repair! Anyway, Tom drained the pool down about 3 inches. ...

2/6        Tom has had a white “lesion” or something growing right next to his right tear duct most of his life. He says it started when he was little and got hit there by a rock. I don’t think the doctor believed that was the cause, but said it is a fatty growth, but they wanted to biopsy it to be sure it wasn’t anything bad. He’s been waiting since December for this appointment to have it removed yet really dreading it at the same time and finally the day arrived.      The appointment was at 1:30. He was SO nervous! It was a very minor surgery; the worst part was getting the shot to numb the area and the whole thing probably took 15 to 20 minutes. He received about 8 stitches and was told not to do anything strenuous for a few days. Good thing it’s raining so much that he can’t work outside anyway.   After he rested a couple of hours, we went over to Tanya’s for FHE. That was fun. We took our leftover cake from our dinner wit...

2/5        No, we’re not cannibals. Lol. I went early to the building with Tom and practiced the organ for 2 hours. In two hours, I can pretty much play every hymn that I know in the Spanish Hymnbook (which is smaller than the English hymnbook). I sure need the practice. I should practice more.   The meetings were all good. This is the first ward I’ve been in that I can remember where there are more men who bear their testimonies than women. I love it.   When I got home I started on stuff for dinner. I had made a potato soup for Tom and I, but it was so big, we decided to feed that to the missionaries. We made a tomato/cottage cheese salad for a side and after church I made some Chilean rolls (pan amasado). It sure smelled good in the house. I think the meal went over pretty good, but maybe wasn’t very exciting for the missionaries. I had made a cake with pineapple for dessert, served with peaches and ice cream.   After dinner T...

2/4        I scheduled the missionaries (all 6 of them) to come for dinner tomorrow, so I HAD to finish my photo collage on the family room wall. So I worked on that right after piano lessons. It turned out really good; I am very pleased with it! I painted 3 new pictures in different sizes to hang with the pictures because I felt that I needed a little more variety.  I thought this one would look cool painted on two small canvases.  This one is my favorite!!! I hope you can read what it says.   As I was taking pictures to post here, I realized I still have one empty frame. So I guess I’m not quite done after all. I worked on cleaning up the kitchen. The other thing I’ve been doing the past few days was scrubbing the floor. We have a stamped concrete floor that is so textured that dirt gets in the crevices and really has to be scrubbed hard to get it out. I’ve worked on it a little every day until my mu...

2/3        We did go to the temple – not as early as we had hoped because Tom had some emergencies with work, but we made it there before noon. It is such a happy, peaceful, wonderful place to go. We always see friends we know, and it just feels like a bit of heaven. When we went in, I gave the man (someone we know who is one of the most straight-laced people ever) my recommend, which he scanned, then Tom gave him $10 and said, “I forgot my recommend, will this get me in?” Our friend said, “I don’t think so; we only take credit cards.” When we went in the temple, it was sprinkling so very lightly. When we went out afterwards, it was also sprinkling lightly. When we got home, we found our whole neighborhood flooded! It was more flooded than we’ve seen since we moved in. The streets getting to our street were flooded, and across our driveway was flooded so high that Tom had to go very slowly! The neighbor's truck parked in front of their house h...

2/2                    Tom had to travel again today, and thought he’d be home by about 1 or 2pm like yesterday, so we planned to go to an afternoon session at the temple. Unfortunately, he didn’t get home until after 7, so we planned to go to the temple tomorrow morning. I worked on my picture arrangement for the family room. I’m liking how it’s turning out. There are some new houses going in near that are staged really pretty so I went over there and took pictures for ideas. Then I looked online for more ways to implement those ideas. It was super fun!

2/1        Tanya called me this morning and told me she didn’t need me to pick up Caeli from school today. I was in the middle of working on my picture arrangement in my family room (still) so I was glad to not have the interruption.   Tom got home by 4pm, which was WONDERFUL!!! Because I really don’t like going to the church by myself to open up and wait for piano students. It was great to have him go with me, but when we got there, we found that the building was very busy with missionary exchanges day. There were lots of missionaries inside and outside. We love missionaries. They made the whole building feel happy!   So I went and practiced until my first student, then practiced when the 2 nd student didn’t show. The 3 rd student is doing so well I scheduled her to play in Sacrament meeting the end of March. I’m sure she will be ready before then, but I want her to know she is ready. There are others who could have been ready by t...

1/31      Holy cow! 48 years is a long time to be married! I don’t think I’m even that old, but my kids are getting close to that, so it has to be true. I never really thought about ever getting this old or having so many years together. It’s been fun, I gotta say, and getting better all the time. The longer we’re married, the longer I want to stay married and together, so I’m really hoping that neither of us ever dies and leaves the other alone. First thing in the am, we went and worked on repairing the insulation that’s falling down in Tanya’s garage. Then Tom rented a longer ladder so he could repair the leaky roof of his shed. In the afternoon, we went to dinner at Tahoe Joe’s and then saw La La Land. The food was wonderful and I loved the movie. It clearly wasn’t Tom’s kind of movie, so next time we go, we’ll have to go to an adventure movie. I really liked it, tho; it was a musical like the old ones like Singing in the Rain. I might want to buy it for ...

1/30      Tom was able to work from home today, and actually spent almost all day working at his desk. It’s nice to have him home. I decided I didn’t like the photo arrangement I made in our family room, so I started mapping out a new one. In the evening Tom decided he wanted to go to Tanya’s for family home evening. She called us when we were on our way, but I figured she just wanted to know why we were taking so long to get there, so I didn’t call her back. When we got there we found out why she had called. Some of her insulation in her garage ceiling was falling and she needed a high ladder and a staple gun to put it back up. We should have called her back. The boys and Todd were at piano lessons, so we chatted with Tanya and Caeli and had root beer floats while waiting for the rest of the family. When they got home, they brought pizza and we had a good little visit with all of them. It wasn’t actually a FHE, but it was fun to be there.