Scorching the World

1/30 We both woke up super early. I woke up at 3:33 am and Tom was already up. I started packing and gathering important things and Tom worked on his stuff. By about 5:30 we were both ready to go back to bed and slept a good while. I got up again at 7 and finished getting ready. The goal was to leave by 9am, stop at the bank on the way, and get to the dealership by 11am when our new car was supposed to be ready. (Not really new, just new to us.) When Tom got up, he went out and picked fruit off trees to take to Trina, and then started planting the new fruit trees he bought – another mandarin orange tree, a persimmon, ad a white peach. Yumm! We got out of the house almost on time and made it to the dealership on time. Unfortunately, they said the car radio was unfixable so they will put in a new one, but it won’t be ready until tomorrow. Course we will be in Mexico tomorrow, so we’ll pick up the car when we get back home. We were looking forward to traveling in our new...

1/29/19    Tom got to work from home today which was a huge blessing because he was in a lot of pain and very tired from walking 5 hours yesterday to flyer a huge park! Clean Queen was very quiet in the morning. That’s always a good sign that everything is working smoothly. I like quiet phones! But Tom needed a lot of help with his work. We created a couple of reports so that Matt, his boss, and will be filling in for him, will know what is happening with all of the marketers. When it’s all written out like that, it’s amazing how many balls Tom has in the air all at the same time. It’s amazing he can keep up with it all! No wonder he talks about retiring all the time He had wanted to plant some fruit trees before we leave tomorrow, but he also wanted to go look at a car about 40 minutes away. He found out he had time right then, so we hurried and got out of the house and on our way to look at it. He was convinced we should replace the car we just bought, and do it ...

1/28/19                    Tom had to go to Santa Maria today and was gone until almost 8pm! We had scheduled to have Family Home Evening group at our house this week, and I didn’t want to cancel even though Tom wouldn’t be here for it. I had a ton of Clean Queen work in the morning. I thought the whole week was already set up, but as I confirmed appointments, people started canceling or rescheduling their appointments until I didn’t have one single day all the way full, including tomorrow. It took a lot of time to get it mostly put back together. Then I cleaned, cooked refreshments, did computer work, and got some groceries for the next couple of days and was ready when people came at 7. I showed them a PowerPoint I had created on scripture marking and they enjoyed it.   So we had a nice little FHE and Tom arrived home 10 minutes after they all left. He had a very long day whi...

1/27         Sunday After Church we invited Tanya and family came over to help us eat some lasagna we had in the freezer. We’ve decided to start eating the quantity of food we have in both our freezers. It was fun to have them here and after dinner I showed them a PowerPoint I created on the Plan of Salvation. It wasn’t finished, but it got the point across and Tanya said it was good. The rest of the day Tom and I just hung out at home. We were both very busy with what we were working on and enjoyed having a long afternoon/evening at home together. Since we are between callings, we find we have lots of free time! We know it won't last, so we're enjoying it while we can.

1/26         Saturday Tanya texted us at bedtime to see if we wanted to ride together to the Bay Area. Alissa’s mother, Lynne, passed away last week and today was the service for her. Tanya said Caeli wanted to be at McGills by 10 so she could go horseback riding with them. Then she texted and said she had to be there by 9:30, and the next text said 8:30, so we needed to leave by 5:30. We thought that was just too early, and suggested we go in separate cars. But it finally worked out that we could leave by 6am, which we did. We got to McGills in time for the girls to eat breakfast and then take off. Phil was home so we got to visit with him a little before Tanya kidnapped Tami and we went with them to see a movie, “The Upside”. It was a good, uplifting movie, but had too many inappropriate things for our taste. But we were still glad we went and spent a little time with Tanya and Tami. We got back to McGills about the same time the girls got ...

1/25         Friday I’m pretty sure Tom worked far away and I stayed home, but I can’t remember any details. Oh I know one thing. When Tom got home earlier than usual, he wanted to take the Oldsmobile to a parking lot in Fresno in the hopes someone will see the for sale signs and want to buy it. After we dropped it off, I took him to Car Max to see if it would be wise to sell them our 2 cars we have for sale. He was fascinated by the business and how they have changed the face of a car lot, but after waiting nearly an hour to talk to a salesman, we found out they offer about 1/8 th the value of the car, so it wasn’t hard to decide that wouldn’t be a good idea. After spending so much time there, we just went back and picked up the Olds and went back home.

1/24         Thursday It took so much work yesterday to get today and tomorrow set up for Clean Queen, that this morning was very quiet. I helped Tom just a little and was still able to leave for Laurel Lawrence’s class on time. Her classes are always so good and an added bonus is seeing people I love there every week. I had a couple of errands to run on the way home, one of which was the get the Mexican pesos that I had ordered at the bank. That’s pretty exciting to have that ready for our trip next week! On the way home Kathleen called to have me tell our last two clients that she would be running 1 ½ hours late. Fortunately, they were both fine with it. Weather in Utah is a major factor in the winter! I’m so glad we live here! Tom was home from his faraway places by 6pm so we had a nice evening together. At about 9pm, he said he had a report he needed to create that he needed some help with. It was a report of the status of all the m...

1/21         Monday Tom worked in the Bay Area and I enjoyed being home and not having to go anywhere. He got home about 9pm and then had to do over an hour of computer and desk work. 1/22         Tuesday Tom worked in Santa Maria and I enjoyed being home and not having to go anywhere. I was relaxing comfortably well after dark when someone knocked on the front door. It scared me a little and I looked out the peephole and couldn’t see anyone. I asked who it was, and it was Tanya. Hahahah. I forgot that on Tuesdays she comes by while Caeli is at gymnastics. We had a fun visit, then she went to pick up Caeli and brought her back and we watched This Is Us. That was fun! Tom got home about 9 again and again had to do over an hour of computer and desk work. 1/23/19   Wednesday   Tom worked in Vallejo and I enjoyed being home and not having to go anywhere. I realized that last night I actually should...

1/20/19    We knew this day would come someday.  When Tom and I were called to serve in the Spanish ward, they said it would be for 2 – 3 years, until the current Bishop was released. Finally last Sunday we were told that today would be the day. The day started out normal because Tom still needed to be there for Bishopric meeting and I practiced the organ until the meeting started, but the whole meeting was under the direction of the Stake Presidency and right after the Sacrament they released the bishopric and told them to sit with their families. The Bishop went and sat by his wife and I thought Tom was on his way to sit by me, but he went to sit behind the stake presidency to translate for them. The other counselor stayed in his seat because he is staying in the Bishopric. They had told me that I might be asked to speak, but they didn’t ever call on me. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to say goodbye to everyone officially and tell them how m...

1/19/19  We went to the church early to clean, as usual but this time when we got there (15 minutes late) there were 2 couples who said they were almost done already. Hooray! People are taking charge and getting it done without us! So we were there under half hour longer, then left. We had gone in separate cars so we could each run our own errands before meeting back at the house later. Tom really wanted to get yard work done, but there wasn’t enough time to accomplish hardly anything before he had to shower so we could get to the temple on time. On the way I had to take dinner to my ministering companion who just had a baby, and as we arrived, so did her niece and husband. Again I wondered why they weren’t bringing meals instead of us, but I guess we’ll get blessed for serving, even if it wasn’t actually service that was needed. Hmmm The temple was crazy busy, This was the Spanish session that we were attending and the brother in our ward who was supposed to call in al...

1/18 I was aware that my head hurt through the night, but I was able to sleep through it, so that was nice. It felt good to get up and shower! I feel like a new woman! I felt so much better today that I didn’t do much all day! I crocheted, watched tv, worked on the computer, etc., but nothing noteworthy. Tom had to work in Sacramento so he was gone from about 7am till about 7:30pm. I’m always so glad when he comes home safe and sound! And I felt very blessed that I was all better!

1/17  I had a headache when I went to bed, and took a pill for that. I slept ok, but woke up with a super severe headache that made my stomach so upset that I threw up several times through the day. I was supposed to be taking 4 antibiotic pills a day with food, but I couldn’t keep any food down, so I couldn’t take the pills. I spent the rest of the day listening to conference because I couldn’t bear to open my eyes to watch anything. I did REALLY enjoy listening to conference, though! I slept much of the day, too, which was super pleasant! I was also very grateful that Clean Queen hardly bothered me at all, all day. I think it was the fewest texts I've had in a day for my job - until the evening when the cleaning crew had problems between the car and the snow. Apparently they hit a snowbank and couldn't get out until a nice policeman helped them. They were stuck a long time so there were many, many texts between Kathleen, Lilian who is still in Brazil, and Anne. Every ...

1/16   Wednesday I had an appointment at 8am to start the process of an implant. I was pretty nervous, but it wasn’t too bad. Not nearly as bad as other things the dentist does! I was in and out in under an hour and was still numb for several hours afterwards. I had to go to Kaiser to get another prescription for antibiotics, which took about an hour! The dentist office and Kaiser just couldn’t seem to communicate to get the prescription through. After I talked to both of them over and over and over, they finally “fast-tracked” it and I was able to leave. They had told me to take a pain pill before the numbness wore off, which I did, but the pain was still pretty severe. I spent the rest of the day managing the pain. It wasn’t very fun, but I was glad I didn’t have to go anywhere else and that I had a wonderful, comfortable couch to lie on while watching fun movies on TV. Tom’s company had their once-a-year dinner that spouses are invited to, but I just didn’t fe...

1/15      Tuesday morning my Clean Queen schedule fell apart from the start! I spent a good hour trying to get appointments set up and fixed for this morning so everyone was happy. That was awfully stressful. I didn’t even get dressed until about 10am! I had signed up to take a meal to my ministering companion who just had a baby. When I got there, she had her mother, aunt, and grandma all visiting who all live locally and who were all taking care of her. I adore her, but I had to wonder why she needed meals brought in for a week with all those wonderful people there. I also wondered if I had made enough food! The other thing I had to do was take a salad to the church for a dinner for someone I don’t know whose brother who isn’t a member had died. When I got there, it seemed the whole ward was there and they were having a wonderful time. I dropped off the salad and many people asked if I wasn’t staying. I told them I didn’t know I was invited, especially since I...

1/14     It’s a pain when I don’t write anything for a whole week and then have to remember. But Monday morning I ran some errands and then worked on stuff at home. I’ve been organizing drawers and bins according to Marie Kondo’s method. It’s super fun Tanya had invited us over for dinner of leftovers from the turkey dinner they had yesterday. Tom wasn’t back from his faraway places in time so I went by myself. Delicious food! Then I went straight from there to FHE at the Davis’ house. I love going there; their house is so pretty and decorated in my style, the way I would do mine if I had more $$ and knew how to do it. Hahaha   Tom met me there, arriving about 5 minutes after I did. We had a good family home evening where we went through one of the lessons from Come, Follow Me because some of the people weren’t sure how to do a daily study with just two people. It was interesting and fun. Now I'm thinking it's better if I wait several days to write and ...

  1/13         With the new meetings schedule, I only have 2 weeks a month to visit other wards, and more wards have their meetings at the same time. So I will be in my own ward less often now and today was one of those. The other ward’s Relief Society was during my Sacrament Meeting so I didn’t even get to go to Sacrament Meeting this time. I went to the other ward’s RS, then made it back to our ward in time for our Relief Society. Clearly, the new guidelines will take a little while for all the wards to get used to it and get it all working smoothly. Tom pulled me out of Relief Society and took me to meet with him and the Stake President. We are officially released from serving in the Spanish ward! Hooray! Tom and I had discussed many times whether we would stay in the ward when we got released or not. I always wanted to go back to the English speaking ward since we’ve been in Spanish wards for about 15 years. Tom and I both love the war...

1/12/19   Since we didn’t get to go to the temple yesterday due to Tom’s schedule and the full sessions, we were determined to go today. When we called for an appointment, all the sessions were full (In our temple you have to have a reservation.) except the 8:30 and the Spanish session. Tom wanted to go clean the building at 8, so we couldn’t make the 8:30, and I really wanted to go in English for our first time with the new format, not Spanish, so we put our names on a waiting list in case there was room for the 12:30 session. The sister missionaries called me Thursday to see if I would play piano for the baptism this evening, so I went to the Church to practice the songs the child had chosen. They are from the Children’s songbook, which I haven’t learned at all. They aren’t very hard, but I always need more than a few days to learn a new song, so we’ll see. We weren’t home very long after that before we needed to change and get to the temple. We got right in, so that wa...

1/11  Tom was gone to far distances again. I spent some time sewing a little cozy place for our bird, Rosie. She doesn’t seem to like it and avoids it completely. So much for gratitude. I also spent some time organizing more drawers. It was fun and I emptied one whole basket. Now I'll have to find new things to put in it. I had a dentist appointment this afternoon to get the stitches out from last Friday. I was really happy to finally get them out, but I was so nervous all day I thought I was going to have a stroke. It turned out to be no big deal and I was so glad to be done! But I felt like after all that trauma (the nervousness, not the work done) that I deserved a day off, so I took it easy the rest of the day. I’m really tired of dental work! Tom had planned to get home in time for us to go to the temple, but we found out that Alissa’s mom died today, so he wanted to stop by there and visit a little while, then he decided to pop in on Tami and was glad he did. Sa...

1/10         I managed to get to Laurel Lawrence’s class today, which was another chapter of the early years of the Church. She has so much information! I always just write as fast as I can. I didn’t get any texts from Clean Queen, or any other interruptions, so that was like a miracle! I’ll type up my notes on my other blog. As soon as I left I started getting texts. Since I was in the neighborhood, I dropped Caeli’s skirt that I had hemmed off at their house. Nobody was home so I just hung it on the front door. Then I found a post office near there and mailed Tracey’s package. I sure hope she gets it. Then I went to Joanne’s to buy some yarn for a new project I want to start, but it was expensive and I couldn’t find exactly what Trina said, so I gave up and left with nothing. I went to a grocery store near there and got a few things, then went home. I was getting Clean Queen texts the whole time and fortunately, I was able to handle everything ...

1/9           Tanya had suggested that I put a bead or something at the bottom of the ropes of Tracey’s macramé, so I looked in my craft supplies and found small wooden spools that worked perfectly. I stuffed the rope through the middle and added a little hot glue to hold it there and it looked pretty cool!  I sure wish I had taken a picture. Then, with Tom’s help, I got a box just the right size and added some other things I wanted to send her and got it all boxed up to send. So exciting! I didn’t have as much Clean Queen work today, but what I had was pretty urgent at the moment, so I was glad I was home. Tom got to work from home today and got quite a bit done. He would have liked to work on the yard, but it rained pretty good most of the day. We love having rain – it is still so needed to keep the reservoirs full, but it also keeps our pool way too full. The pump can’t work as well when the pool is full, and it th...

1/8            I still spent quite a few hours trying to get the Clean Queen schedule fixed for the week, and continued to get new requests for service that I managed to fit in the schedule. Tom and I had gone to a pet store for bird seed, and I saw a cozy little thing for the birds to cuddle in. I thought Rosie the cockatiel, would really like it, and decided to make it instead of buying it for $18. So I worked on that today and I thought it turned out pretty good except she hasn’t even tried to get in it. I think I made it too small so I’ll need to try again another day. With the added rope that Tom bought, I was able to finish Tracey’s project except for doing something with the ends. I think she’ll like it! Tanya came over while Caeli was at gymnastics and we watched Tidying up with Marie Kondo on Netflix. She is so darling. I don’t have a lot to tidy up, but I love her attitude and her whole demeanor. I love watching...

1/7            I was not very excited to go back to working with Clean Queen after having 3 weeks off. Lily will still be gone for 2 more weeks and I wish I were with her!  But life goes on, and people really want their houses cleaned! Last week I looked at the schedules for this week and we had impossible schedules! There were way too many regularly scheduled clients to possibly do in a day and every day this week looked like that, so I couldn’t move people from one full day to one empty day. But when I started contacting people to confirm their appointments, several canceled or rescheduled their appointments, and suddenly I didn’t have enough appointments on Monday. So I started trying to drum up more clients and managed to barely fill the day. It's funny how there are always either too many or not enough  appointments. That was all over the weekend. Today I worked on tomorrow’s schedule, and it turned out barely fill...

1/6            Now that we are on a later schedule, and only 2 hours, our Sundays are going to be quite different. Today Tom’s bishopric meeting was at 8:30 instead of 7am; big difference! I managed to start some roast and potatoes in the crock pot for later and set some rolls to thaw before we left. The meetings were good, but it will take some adjusting to get the meetings to end on time since they are shorter now. Our ward hates to end things. They would much rather just keep on talking/teaching/speaking. But the two meetings were good, so we’re excited to start trying all the new study materials. As soon as we could get out of there, we headed to Tanya’s ward where Cannon was being ordained a Teacher and Kaden was being ordained a Deacon! Instant advancement! It is amazing to see the “little boys” just rise to the occasion and start doing all the things they are expected to do. Knudsens went home afterward to change a...

1/5            I still didn’t feel very good when I woke up. Actually, I hardly slept last night. I’m not sure why – my jaw wasn’t realty hurting, and I had taken one of the pain medications the dentist prescribed, but I just slept very lightly and woke up over and over. Tom didn’t sleep well either because of his cough. But Tom went to clean the church anyway. I stayed home. I had a slight headache, but very little jaw pain. I took one more dose of the pain meds, then stopped taking it. I think it was helping me not feel good. I felt better and better through the day, but I did sleep off and on all day. In the afternoon Tom built a fire in our fireplace. It made it that much cozier and I continued to sleep off and on. Such a nice, relaxing day. The only thing I did accomplish was to get last year’s files out for taxes, and set up the new year’s files. They are so pretty! I love clean and ready files!

1/4      Back – several months ago, when I got my root canal, I noticed that the tooth was sensitive. I felt a zing whenever anything touched it, including my tongue. It was uncomfortable to brush or do anything in that area. I finally went back to my regular dentist and the dentist who performed the root canal. He said he needed to go back in to sever a nerve that he wasn’t able to “canal” at the time. So the appointment was set for today. I’ve been looking forward to it so my tooth wouldn’t be so sensitive, but I’ve also been dreading it because who wants oral surgery? I tried to stay calm. I focused on staying calm. The appointment was 2:15, so I had a lot of time to try to stay calm. Tanya had called to see if the kids could come over yesterday or today. Since we were gone all day yesterday, we didn’t think that would work, so they came over today. We’ve been trying to get all of our cars fixed and running, all at the same time. Tom’s truck needed bra...

1/3            Since Clean Queen in on vacation, I was able to go with Tom to Santa Maria today. Santa Maria is 3 hours south of here on the coast, so to get there we had to pass through rolling green hills, and drive along the coastline to see the ocean water sparkling in the sun. It was a beautiful day there; it got up to around 60 or higher, and was sunny and clear.  Tom called on a bunch of mobile home parks, and we had to walk to pass out flyers in 3 of them. I don’t enjoy that part much because we have to walk up to people’s doorways and find a place to anchor a flyer so it doesn’t fly away before they find it. But walking was good exercise and felt great after being in the car 3 hours. He also spoils me when I’m with him and buys me anything I want. I help him by tracking everything he does, making notes and organizing his papers, and setting up the gps for the next location while he is talking to a park manager. ...

1/1           We live to see another year! I think we had the right idea of the perfect way to start out a whole new year. We did get some things done – we took down the exterior Christmas lights and got all the Christmas bins put away! Tom did a bit of other outside work that needed done. I cleaned and reorganized our family room, and stuff like that. But mostly we rested. We watched a couple of great movies on Turner Movie Classics channel, and just took it easy. I didn’t make a big, celebratory meal or invite people over; we just took it easy. It was so nice! I hope the whole year is this pleasant!

1 2/31       Poor Tom caught a cold and was miserable all day. Last night he took a little cold medicine and slept 10 hours! That’s twice as long as he normally sleeps! I kept going in to look at him to be sure he was still breathing! Then he slept off and on all day. Poor guy! I got all of Christmas put away except for the exterior lights. I can do that tomorrow and then Tom just has to take the bins back out to the shed. ((When he feels better.)) Our ward planned a New Year’s Even get together – nothing formal, just hanging out together to ring in the new year and I had planned to take all our Christmas sweets to get rid of them there, but he felt so bad he didn’t even bring it up. I’m sure he was disappointed to miss it, but Tanya came over with the boys. Todd is still in Utah taking care of his parents and Caeli had a quad-stake dance she wouldn’t miss for the world, so the 3 remaining Knudsens hung out with us until midnight. The boys were deter...