Scorching the World

Saturday 6/29         Tom has very popular blood and much needed, so the blood bank likes to keep us on their frequent call list. He had arranged with them for us to go donate this morning at 8:30 so we headed out first thing to do that. I do enjoy giving blood and am so glad that I finally have enough iron in my blood that I don’t get rejected when they test it. The rest of the day we kind of took it easy, or at least I did. Tom managed to mow the lawn in the front and it looks so nice!!! So much better than the weeds and dirt we used to have! I felt weak all day and just took it easy. I’ve been looking at the guest room to see what I could do without spending much money to make it a little nicer for guests. I realized, as I looked objectively at it that the curtains weren’t very nice and it might help if the pillows were good and the pillow cases matched, so in the afternoon I went to Walmart to get some fabric. I also found pretty good pillows on s...

6/28       Tom had to work faraway places today so I was alone again. I think I might be getting so I don’t mind at all being alone – I get a lot done and get to do whatever I want whenever I want. Interesting concept, but I’m not ready to live alone! I used my time today to take the Chilean pictures from the guest room where nobody sees them and bring them into the livingroom. The problem was that the pictures were all different sizes but the frames were all the same. I decided the only way to make them look good was to get the watercolor originals enlarged and printed the same size as the other pictures. It isn’t a great arrangement because 3 of them are portrait view and one is landscape view. I like things more balanced than that. The other problem is that there are 4 pictures, so it is a little too balanced. We’ll have to see if we can get one more landscape layout picture of Chile to make it look better. Anyway, I had to make a run to Kinko’s and then I hung t...

6/27       Tom left about 8:30 to go to work. He said he was going to go to the courthouse to translate for our Stake President’s daughter-in-law who was getting her green card to be legal here. He wasn’t ever actually needed; they just had him there for security, to be sure she did understand the questions correctly. He enjoyed the experience and wants to do more translating for the courts. I was surprised when he showed back up at home after that. He had said he was going to Sacramento, but didn’t need to after all so he was able to stay home again. It’s so nice. He didn’t accomplish much today -he just didn’t feel like doing yard work, so he just kind of hung out. Todd came over with the boys while Caeli was at gymnastics, but all they wanted to do was watch tv. I was busy on the computer, trying to reconcile my credit card account, and Tom was busy in the yard, but they didn’t seem to need any attention, so that was fine. After Todd picked up Caeli from gymn...

6/26       I felt like I was still recuperating from the trip and just dragging a little, but still managed to do quite a bit of work. My CQ phone stayed busy most of the day between clients requesting appointments and assignments that Lilian had for me. Tom got to work from home again, which was so nice. He’s been working on getting the rest of the automatic watering set up that we didn’t manage to do before we left. I got a few Marco Polo messages from Becky through the day as they took Maggie to drop her off at the MTC! Big day for her and quite emotional, even everybody tried not to show it. She is now a missionary and I’m sure all the rest of the family misses her a lot. In the evening Tanya came over while Caeli was a gymnastics and we got to catch up on everything that has happened in the last week. After Caeli finished, Tanya brought her back here and they hung out for a few hours. Caeli and Tom swam but I was still in big conversations with Tanya so...

6/25      When I got up this morning and dragged myself out of bed, I had 34 messages on the Clean Queen phone! It took most of the day to follow up on them and the CQ emails I had received. Besides that, Lilian is trying to get our cleaning product ready to sell, and she wanted me to create the labels for the bottles. I worked on that several hours. Tom worked from home today, trying to get all of his marketers set up with places to work. He got several naps so that he could catch up on the lack of sleep from our trip. I tried to nap but kept getting more CQ texts that I had to follow up on. Tanya had agreed to keep our plants watered while we were gone and to bring in our mail. She forgot to bring in the mail, and apparently didn’t think to pick the squash when she watered there because this is what Tom found when he went out to water: They don't look so big in the pictures, but they are HUGE! The longest one is about 2' long! It was nice being home ag...

6/24   We didn’t quite get up and leave by 5 like we had planned. We were both so tired that we slept until 7am! It’s a 13-hour trip home without any stops, so that meant we wouldn’t get home until after 8 or 9pm, so we loaded up and got out as fast as we could. We had to stop for gas somewhere, then as we were passing through Ogden, Ricke texted and said he heard we are in town and wondered if we wanted to stop by to meet Lynn, his new love. We really wanted to even though we knew it couldn’t be a very short visit. We got stuck in traffic on the way there, so by the time we got there, Lynn was in the driveway about to leave. We barely got to meet her and exchange pleasantries before she had to take off. But we were glad to finally actually get to meet here; all we knew about her was from facebook. That stop delayed us another hour; it was well worth it, but it meant we wouldn’t get home until 10 or 11pm. We had to make a few more stops for gas, food, or restrooms,...

6/23   Tom and I left for Church early so we could take Veronica to practice the musical number with the other Beehives and save two whole long benches for everyone else. The girls sounded really good, but it was tricky to save long benches for just the 2 of us, but we managed and everyone else showed up soon enough. The meetings were really good. Maggie was the first to speak and spoke on how to love others the way Christ loves. It was really good and I was impressed considering we were playing cards and laughing hard until very late last night and she still hadn’t put any of it on paper yet.  The next one who spoke is another young lady about to leave on a mission. She spoke about being lost. She said the story of the lost sheep always bothered her because she counted herself as one of the 99 and felt abandoned when the shepherd would leave her to go get the one. Then she realized she was never really left behind. She talked about when we are lost physically and ...

6/22/19             We woke up about 7am and packed everything up and put it in the car. Anne and Acell had shown us what we could eat for breakfast that we would like because they wouldn't be ready to get up when we left. So we had that and it was delicious! Tom ate Anne’s homemade granola and loved it. I had plain yogurt with some frozen fruit concentrate to flavor it. It was really good! I had never thought to do that, so I was happy to learn that little trick! When we got to Salt Lake City, we stopped for gas and found a car wash. We cleaned out the car and when Tom was going to pay to enter the car wash, the guy there very excitedly asked him if he was Philippine. He said Tom talked with an accent that sounded very Philippine. He was quite disappointed to know Tom was Mexican. We called Carmen to see if she would be available for us to visit and told her we would like to take her out to breakfast/lunch if she was interested. So when we got ...

6/20   We wanted to leave by 9:00 am in the hopes of getting to visit our friends, the Schramms, in St George by 5 or 6 pm. So we got up as soon as the sun was up to finish setting up the sprinklers where we still needed them.  Tom worked on that while I packed and prepared stuff until he needed my help. With both of us working together, we finished by 8:30, then tested them. Unfortunately, one of the lines of sprinklers didn't work and we absolutely could not figure out why, so we had to just leave it and hope we can get Tanya to water that area while we're gone. It is imperative that everything gets watered several times in the 5 days we will be gone. I had a little Clean Queen to do and finished that within about 10 minutes to get everything set up for Friday and Monday. There was one client who wanted to cancel Monday, so I was really glad I found out today so I can get that spot filled. We did manage to leave by about 9:10, then stopped a couple of times for ga...

6/20    Tom had to work far away and left first thing in the morning. I had some Clean Queen work and sewing and managed to stay busy the whole day. Before Chris went back to L.A. after caring for his mother in Madera for the weekend, we had him over for dinner on Father’s Day. On the way to our house, he saw a recliner-sofa someone had put out in front of their house as a giveaway. His mother needed one, so after dinner Tom helped him go back and get it and they put it in the back of Tom’s truck. It has been there for 3 days while the truck was in the shop to get the A/C fixed so today we needed to get it to Barbara before we go out of town for 5 days. On the way home from faraway places, Tom stopped in Madera for a few things at Lowe’s. At the same time, the truck was ready to be picked up from the repair place, which is ear our house, so he had me drive our Olds over there, park it on the street with the for sale signs visible, pick up the truck with the couch, an...

6/18      Tom got to work from home today, which was super nice and he must have been tired because he took it easy most of the day. There are things about our sprinklers that still need fixed before we dare go out of town for 5 days, so first thing in the morning we went out and tested each set of sprinklers to see what needed replaced, changed, or just adjusted. We spent nearly 1 ½ hours on that, just in the front and side yard. We made a list of the things he will need to buy so we can get them fixed, then he went to Lowe’s to pick it all up. In the late afternoon, around 5pm, he was ready to go work on the sprinklers and wanted my help. It was still 98 degrees outside, so, pretty miserable. It doesn’t bother him at all. Then I started getting mosquito bites, so I came back in whenever he didn’t immediately need my help. We didn’t finish, but he said we were done for the day about 8:30 and we jumped in the pool. It was so wonderful!!! Nothing is be...

6/17      Tom had to work far away, so he left as early as I could get out of the house. I worked from home, but there wasn’t much Clean Queen work today, so I vacuumed, re-painted some floor where paint had been scratched, did 2 loads of wash, drying them outside where it was hot enough to dry them very fast, and did some sewing. I had a headache that kept getting a little worse through the day. We had Home Evening scheduled with our friends from Woodward Park ward, and the host couple decided to barbecue, so I volunteered to make potato salad. I made the mistake of saying I make pretty good potato salad. When I went to the pantry/fridge, I found I was missing a lot of key ingredients and Tom had taken my car because the a/c broke in his, so I didn’t want to go to the store in the Olds, not to mention I didn’t feel like driving, so it didn’t turn out as good as mine usually does. Oh well. Tom got home with 10 minutes to spare before we needed to leave. W...

6/16/19   I got up early enough to shower and get ready before fixing breakfast and was about to go out and prepare what Tom wanted when he said he would rather wait until after stake conference to eat; he was still full from yesterday. So I just ate my yogurt and fruit and we left for our meeting. We already had stake conference this year, but this was another one that was scheduled because there were general authorities in the area. Tom and I got there about 45 minutes before it started so we got good seats in the chapel. It was from 9am to 10:30, which is different for a stake conference. The visiting authorities were Elder Budge and Elder Whiting. They, along with our dear stake president, President Tucker all gave really excellent talks that I need to review and not forget. It has bee n a very spiritual weekend with the meeting I went to yesterday, the baptism Friday night, and there was also a special youth fireside for multiple stakes that included 900 you...

6/15      I had a special meeting to go to this morning that I’ve been looking forward to for more than a month. Tom had thought he would go with me, but I ended up with 3 sisters who wanted a ride, so he decided to make more room for them and go take the Olds to a car show instead. I could hardly sleep last night, worried about leaving on time, getting there on time, being able to use the bathroom sometime in the 5 or more hours we would be gone, and other such things. This was a meeting with an apostle (Gary Stevenson), a general authority seventy (Elder Budge), an area seventy (Elder Whiting), Claude Clause, the Presiding Bishop, and a member of the area presidency (Elder Dorian). The people invited to attend were stake presidencies, stake RS and YW presidencies, Bishops, some high councilmen, and all ward RS and YW presidents. I guess YM presidents were there, too but I don’t know. Anyway, it was all those people from 5 stakes. I had worried all night for...

6/14       When I organized my office/sewing room, I had fabric that I realized I needed to use instead of store and decided to make myself a matching set of shopping bags. I woke up in the middle of the night for no reason and decided to cut out them all out and was still so awake, I got one almost completely put together before I went to get Tom, who was sleeping in front of the tv and went back to bed. That meant I had to have a nap later! I did my morning routine of Clean Queen, confirming tomorrow’s appointments and at 9:30 left for my hair appointment. This was a guy that Tanya found out from a customer at where she works. The lady’s hair is always so beautiful that Tanya got his name and told me. I thought I had an appointment last Saturday, but they had told me wrong and it was actually for today. It was hard to wait another week for the appointment, but it turned out worth it. He shaped my hair much better than it was, and way better than I woul...

6/13      Tom got to work from home today, which is my favorite way for hm to work. He did desk work most of the morning and gave his poor little foot a break. I went out as soon as I could and worked in the back yard. I spray painted the large bird cages I have in the back so they are pretty colors. They look much better. Then I hosed off the whole back patio and cleaned up, putting as much stuff away as I could. Tom is still working on things that require a patio table full of tools, and he asked me to please not put them away. (hahahhaha – he knows I would!) I was already ready to get in the pool, but knew we would be swimming later, so I resisted. My Clean Queen phone was mysteriously silent all day, so I really got a lot done. About 3pm Tom was ready to go out and mow the lawn; it was probably 100 degrees, but he doesn’t care. I had invited Thompsons to come over to swim in the late afternoon, and they invited us to go to dinner with them before that beca...

6/12/19             Tom needed to leave by 7am and needed a lot of help before he could leave. At the same time I was receiving a lot of texts and such for Clean Queen and texting with Trina. Clean Queen has had a pretty serious emergency every day this week, but we have been able to work through them without drama or major problems, which is so nice! After Tom left, I worked on finishing up the organizing I had started with Sandy yesterday. I got everything back in a closet and better organized. There is still a whole lot of stuff, but we cut out a little and cleaned it up, so I feel pretty good about it. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll go through it again and get rid of more. I made a couple of pretty pillows with some embroidery Anne had done and given me and they turned out so cute! I was thinking of using them as gifts, but now I don’t want to part with them. I had presidency meeting in the afternoon. I thought I would run an errand on the way to...

Organizing, Cleaning, and Poor Tom My friend, Sandy Thompson loves to organize and is really good at it. I know because I’ve seen her house. I convinced her to come here and help me organize my craft closet, which she was SO happy to do. Before she came I got Clean Queen all set up for tomorrow, cleaned a little and stuff like that. When she got here, she had brought me a sandwich from Costco that she has been raving about and we ate and chatted for a little while.  Then we started working. I had already pulled everything out of the closet in the office and spread it all over the office, We basically went through each drawer, pulled out old, worthless things, and moved things that didn’t belong there to where they belonged. At first she kept saying that I was already very organized. Soon after that she started calling me a hoarder because I had things that belonged to my Mom, like bias tape and rick rack that still had their original prices on them from probably 40 yea...

I was assigned to visit our old Spanish Ward, which I was very much looking forward to. It meets before hours, which meant I would miss part of our Sacrament meeting. As I was getting ready to leave, Tom said he was planning to go with me. That was so nice! I love having him with me, but if I had known, we could have gone sooner to attend Sacrament meeting there, also. The Relief Society in the Echo ward was wonderful. They had an excellent teacher and I was so happy to see so many wonderful sisters that I love. As soon as we could tear ourselves away from all the hugs, we left and got to our ward 5 minutes before it ended. We were very disappointed to see that we had missed hearing the mission president and his wife speak! So sad to miss that, but we can’t be everywhere, as much as we would like to! Our ward Relief Society was excellent, too. It was about family history, and actually DOING it, and missionary work and actually DOING it. The teacher (our ward mission leader) had...

6/8         Tom wanted to take his Olds to another car show in the hopes of selling it. He left around 7am, and when he got there the guy letting the cars in told him he was in the wrong place; that this was a car show, not a used car sales place. Tom said, I have a ticket to show my car. The guy said, but it looks like you are selling it. Tom said, well, it is for sale, do you want to buy it? They let him in, but his car was really out of place. There were only maybe 15 cars, and they were all beautifully restored classics – very impressive cars. Tom’s is nice, but not that impressive. Anyway, I had a hair appointment at 10 with a guy Tanya had heard about who is supposed to be really good at finding a nice style and doing a really good job. I was really looking forward to it. I washed my hair, but didn’t really style it because I didn’t want to have any hair spray in it. When I got to the place, which is way down in south Fresno, the guy said my appointme...

6/6 and 6/7             I guess I didn’t do much because I can’t remember anything. I’m not too fond of days that fly past with nothing to show for them, but I guess life is mostly like that – not of much interest, even to myself. Back on that day where our whole neighborhood held a garage sale, I bought a couple of puzzles, and I just today finished one of them. It was fun to do because the picture is pretty and although there is a lot of each of the colors, they are ever so slightly different, so it isn’t too hard. But it is hard enough that, working a few minutes every day, I completed it in a couple of weeks, working on it all by myself when I was ready for a break from something else.  Now I’m ready for another one. Clean Queen has been very quiet lately; I’ve hardly done any work but today my phone was lighting up constantly with texts between Anne, Lilian, and Matt. They were trying to get internet things s...

6/5        I picked more oranges again this morning, but this time I only picked 1 bucket. The rest of the oranges are too high or hard to get to for me to pick so Tom will have to do the rest. I juiced them and froze another couple of gallons. Yum! A couple of days ago, our neighbor brought over a container full of fresh blackberries. They are big and delicious! So sweet – the blackberries and the neighbor, Michelle. I’ve had a few bowls to eat for two days but Tom has been gone and hasn’t been able to eat his share and they were needing eaten soon. So I decided to make something out of them and found a good recipe for blackberry muffins. I started making them, but when I pre-heated the oven, it filled the house with smoke and the smoke alarm went off. I forgot that the last time I baked something, It spilled over and left a mess. So I had to run the oven through a self-cleaning of 3 hours before I could bake the muffins. Anyway, they turned out delicious and ...

6/4   Today is my baby son’s birthday! Tom and I got to talk to him this morning to tell him how proud we are of him. Tom had a late night work meeting tonight so he left much later than usual. That gave us time to get some reports ordered and other stuff he needed for work. I also picked 3 more buckets of oranges and got them juiced and in the freezer before left. After he left, I worked on the computer some and watched SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE! I’m so excited that we are in that season again! I love it so much! I had invited a friend, Sandy Thompson, to come over to swim with me at 4pm. My daddy told me too many times never to swim alone, so I just look at the pool and wish I could get in. Plus it’s way more fun to swim with someone else. Sandy is a good friend and a good talker, so we talked as much as we swam, but I still got a good workout. We swam 2 hours! It was over 90 degrees outside so the water was around 85! Nice!  I did get about 10 texts and...