Scorching the World

6/29      It only took me a few minutes to get Clean Queen set up for tomorrow, which was nice, but I’m trying to figure out a few other things Lilian asked me to do, and those took quite a bit more time throughout the day. Tom got to work from home and he had a lot of work to do. He was busy almost all day. Tanya had asked us to pick up Caeli from an appointment and give her a ride home to drop off her dog, then give her a ride to gymnastics. We are always happy to do that, so we needed to leave for that about 5:30pm. Tom talked to his boss to tell him we were leaving to go to L.A. tomorrow, and his boss said, “You have worked really hard this week. Why don’t you take your wife out to dinner on me. And just remember, I’m doing this so you won’t retire.” He works with such nice people! So we left to go to dinner and knew we couldn’t delay too much so we could pick up Caeli on time. We had a nice dinner at Westwinds. Then Tom needed to do a bank transaction, so...

8/28/19           Tom said during the night last night he rolled over and noticed I wasn’t in the bed and thought to himself that I must have gone to the bathroom. Lol I didn’t need to leave until 9am, so I had time to get ready and take care of Clean Queen stuff, and a few requests from Tom before left. We also managed to get in our scripture reading first thing.  I was in charge of fruit and had bought 3 watermelon, 4 cantaloupes, and 8 lbs of grapes. It was funny that when I bought all that at Costco and put it on the conveyer belt, the guy commented that I was sure strong to get all the watermelons out of the cart. He had no idea I still had to put all that in the car, carry it all into the house, then the next day carry it all back into the car, then carry it all into the church. So when they said that I just laughed. We fed them rotisserie chicken, potato salad, tossed salad, rolls, chips, fruit, and ice cream bars. They were all so grat...

8/27/19   It was supposed to be 105 degrees today, so I wanted to do my shopping early. Tom needed my help to get stuff ready to get out of the house as early as he needed to. I also had a little Clean Queen to do. I have found that if I can confirm all the appointments on Monday for the week, then all I have to do each day the rest of the week is send an automatic text to the ones for the next day. It takes longer on Monday, but helps to get the whole week set, and then each of the rest of the days it takes about 8 minutes to send the texts. I had a bunch of other things that came up for Clean Queen during the day, but I was available to get Tom off. As soon as I could I went to the grocery store. I bought things for us but had to go back home to put cold stuff in the fridge before going to Costco because it was already 95 degrees outside. Then I went to Costco and got all the fruit I needed for the zone conference tomorrow. I had also stopped at a thrift store befor...

8/26      Tom was home off and on, working from home but had to go to the office to get ready for the week. He has a trip to Lake Tahoe planned for work, and at first we thought I could go with him and we could have fun in Tahoe. But with Clean Queen, I have a hard time being away from a computer during the day, and with him I would be away from a computer two full days. Besides that, our RS Stake presidency are in charge of feeding all the missionaries (about 100) at zone conference on Wednesday. Since there are only 4 of us, it makes us very hard on the others if one of us isn’t there. Even though Tom would have loved to have me with him, and we sure don’t like to sleep apart, I think he might have been a little consoled in the fact that now I will be at-home support for him. So he had a lot to do to get ready. I did a little Clean Queen and some other stuff but nothing impressive. Like I sewed a swimming suit cover-up from a pattern I found online, and I cleaned ...

8/25   I went early to the church because I was to visit the Van Ness Ward today. They have a great group of women who I really like the more I get to know them. I love visiting other wards. I can’t believe it’s my calling to be a social butterfly. They got off topic of the lesson most of the time and once, while they were discussing ministering, one woman told how she used to live in Long Beach. There she used to take food, quilts, and hygiene kits to the homeless every day all winter. She bought old blankets at the thrift stores and remade them into quilts to give away. She had her kids help to put together the kits with combs, socks, and I don’t know what into a bag to give away. And every day she made chicken noodle soup that she would put in cups and give with crackers to anyone who wanted. She always took her kids with her and they would put everything in a shopping cart and wheel it around the homeless encampment. She did it so regularly from October to January that w...

8/24     Today was Tom’s company’s day at the water slide park, Wild Water. They do this every year and it is fun, but way too hot for me every year. Having just come off a headache, I wasn’t excited to go out in the heat all day, but I didn’t want to disappoint Tom. Plus, his boss, David Price, who is a dear friend from 15-20 years had extra tickets so they told Tom to invite Tanya and family. So nice! First we were scheduled to clean the Church, so we went there at 8am. A couple of other sisters showed up, along with the guy in charge of it and we cleaned for about an hour. Then everyone else left and Tom and I stayed so I could practice the organ for a little while. But it was too warm in the chapel and I just couldn’t handle it, so I didn’t stay to practice nearly as long has I had wanted. We were done too early to go to the water slide park, so we went to Walmart to see if we could find any of the things we will need for our trip to Europe. Tom got a jacket...

8/23    Tom and I both got to stay home all day today. We both had lot of catching up to do and worked parallel for a while, each of us on our own thing, then I helped Tom with reports and flyers he needed. As it got warmer through the late morning and afternoon, I felt worse and worse. I have the air set at 82 in the day, and it is just too warm for me. Tom tells me to turn it down so I don’t get sick, so it is my own fault that I get sick from the heat, but I just don’t want to pay $500 - $1000 for electricity in the summer months! So I kept it at 82 and got pretty sick. All late afternoon and evening Tom rubbed my head and I moaned a lot. I can’t wait to get solar panels. It won’t happen in time for this year, but next year will be better. I was glad to go to bed when the time came.

8/22   Today is the 3 rd anniversary of Draven’s death. It is so sad to be living without him. Tami and Phil always get away for a couple of days to get through them together. I sure hope they come back home a little refreshed, renewed and consoled. Or at least consoled. I didn’t need to be at court until 10am this time, so I didn’t bother to go early. I got Clean Queen set up for tomorrow and then did a bunch of catching up on the computer. I washed the car and since I am playing the organ Sunday, I try to take a few minutes every day as I have time to practice, but I haven’t had nearly enough time to do it. It was nice to have the morning to get a few things done. But I missed my honey. Today at court the lawyers gave their closing statements where they kind of said the same things over and over to be sure we heard what they thought was important and then after a few more instructions we were sent to the jury room. At first nobody was saying anything so I said, “W...

8/21      Yesterday at court was all about jury selection. I’m pretty sure I could come up with a more efficient way of doing it, but since the United States court system hasn’t asked me, I will go along with how they do it. Tom left a little before me. He had to go to faraway places. Today was the day we were supposed to spend with Mila and I was really looking forward to it. It is sad that both of us had things come up that couldn’t be moved, postponed, or canceled in order to be with our granddaughter all day! Tom had a full day scheduled, but will go to their house as soon as he can. The good thing is that he is working up north, so he is closer. I didn’t need to be at the courthouse until 9:30, but they had said that parking would be very full today, so I left early enough to be there by 8:30. I found a great parking place and then went in and played on phones/computer until our time. It passed quickly. There is a gathering room for all jurors and prospective...

Tom had a bunch of things to do around town today - we both had dentist appointments for this morning, but I had to cancel because I actually got called in for jury duty. Usually when I call the night before I get excused and that ends it, but this time they said to report at 8:30 am.  Anyway, Tom went to his dentist appointment, got the oil changed on his truck, and a bunch of other things. I could hardly sleep last night thinking about what time I needed to get up, take a shower, fix and eat breakfast, pack a lunch, and do my Clean Queen before taking off for the courthouse in Madera. It is a new court house that I haven't been to, so I was a little worried about getting there on time, too. It all worked out smoothly and I had a little more than 5 minutes to spare when I arrived. Of course, we hurry to do everything and then wait. We sat in the first room for 2 hours before they finally called us to go to the courtroom. In the court room, we were an hour with the...

8/19/19            Last night before we went to bed, we were sitting on the couch talking when we heard a loud noise outside. Tom got the flashlight and went investigating. I was very scared and especially scared he would find something or someone! But he saw nothing and we gave up looking for anything. It was quite windy, so Tom thought that the wind slammed our gate to the back yard. This morning when I opened the front curtains, we saw a large branch from the tree that is right in front of the house had fallen. It missed the roof, so it didn’t make any damage except to the plants it landed on. We are glad we are getting rid of that tree soon for the solar panels. Tom had to clean that up before leaving for his faraway places. He was gone until almost 9:30 pm – 13 hours! At home alone, I got lazy. I enjoyed not HAVING to do anything. I balanced the checkbook, worked Clean Queen, did 3 loads of laundry, and stuff li...

8/19      Our stake has begun to hold the leadership session of stake conference on Sunday mornings at 7am instead of Saturday afternoons at 4pm. More people like getting up early on Sunday as opposed to breaking up their Saturday. Tom was willing to get up early and go to the meeting with me, which I appreciated and nobody else seems to mind. It was SUCH a good meeting! The Mission president spoke on the importance of making all of our council meetings revelatory meetings. A meeting not inspired and led by the Holy Ghost is a meeting wasted. The Stake President carried that theme further. It was so good. I was the only one from our RS stake presidency, so I took notes which I sent to Laura, the president; she appreciated them very much! We had 1 ½ hours between that meeting and the regular session of Stake Conference so we went to the car to take a nap. It wasn’t hot outside yet, so Tom slept and I played games on the phone. I checked my clock periodically, and it ...

8/17      Saturday Anne and Carma needed to be at the airport by 11:30, so we planned to leave by 8:30, allowing plenty of time. They had mostly packed last night, so it was just getting up, dressed, and packing the last things. Tom made some fried potatoes and I made a mushroom/spinach/cheese breakfast that turned out delicious and we left almost on time. We got to the airport pretty much on time, so we really hoped that everything would turn out good from there on. So sad to see them go! We texted Marc to see if we could go by while we were in the area and he told us where they were. We were happy to be able to meet up with them. They were at the elementary school helping with some landscaping. They had finished so we went to a place Marc recommended to get some lunch. It was a beautiful day there so we ate outside. It was nice to sit and chat with them for a little while. Alissa had a friend who was trying to get haircuts for her little girls before sch...

Since we didn’t have time to go to the thrift store yesterday, we made it a priority to go this morning. It takes us a while to get dressed, fed, and out of the house, but we made it eventually. We went to my favorite store, the Rescue Mission thrift store and each of us managed to find some treasures. Carma didn’t find all she was looking for, but did find some fun stuff that Anne and I were jealous about. Anne wanted a seam ripper because she was trying to alter some clothes she brought and my seam rippers are super old and dull, so we headed to JoAnn’s. Just as we got there, Carma realized she didn’t have her phone and must have left it in the thrift store. So we dropped off Anne and ran back. Carma called them on the way and they said they found it so all she had to do was run in and get it from them. So nice when people are honest! We picked up Anne and headed for home. It was getting mighty warm by then so we were glad to get in the house where it is cooler. Carma jus...

8/14       We got up leisurely, which was nice. Actually I’m not sure you can call 6am leisurely, but Tom and I woke up early, so we went for a walk. It felt so good, was pleasant because it is nice and cool in the mornings. Tom had to leave early to go to faraway places, but had arranged to take Caeli with him. She likes getting out of the house and riding with him. When he has to pass out flyers, she is a huge help and when they are riding in the car for long distances, she likes to sing at the top of her lungs with the radio. She is lots of fun. I had scheduled a friend, Amber Sisson, to come over today at 11 am to teach us paint pouring. After smoothies for breakfast, I got everything set out and ready and then we waited. I was so excited I could hardly sit still until she came. She had a last minute emergency, so she didn’t actually get here and begin setting up until closer to noon. She spent quite a long time explaining things and showing things, but ...

8/13       I was so anxious to pick up my sisters that I could hardly sleep this morning, but we managed to sleep too late to be able to go walking and I was getting texts from Clean Queen. We didn’t need to leave until at least 9am, so I was able to straighten up a little and start the cheesecake crust. Tom worked outside and got the front lawn mowed and planted some more flowers. He has become quite the landscaper and has made the yard pretty all over in the front and back. He loves it. So we left and had hoped we could stop to see Mila, who would be the only one home at their house at the time, but it would have ended up being a 5-10 minute visit, which just wasn’t worth it. So we went straight to the airport and pulled in to the “park and call” area so Tom could take a nap while we waited. It was beautiful weather in Oakland and very pleasant to sit there with the windows open. We were there about 5 minutes when I got a text from Anne that they were landed a...

8/12/19             I had quite a list of things to do today and just worked through the list. I worked outside first thing to finish before it got too hot. I cleaned the back patio area, sweeping and picking up. Tom and I put a 2 nd coat of epoxy on the coffee table and got it as smooth as we could. It sure isn’t perfect, but it’s so pretty! While I did 3 loads of laundry, I also did a little Clean Queen and then finished meal plans for the week, made my shopping list and went to the store before it got hotter. Then I got to start the fun stuff. I sewed new covers for all the livingroom pillows and created a couple more. I love how they look! That was fun but tiring. I cleaned a little and just finished stuff and did stuff. Chris is trying to evict his mother’s roommates, so he asked Tom to deliver an eviction notice, but it had to be hand delivered and the lady who he has to give it to isn’t home, probably because she knows it is coming. To...

8/11/19     We didn’t need to go to Church early to set up or to play prelude or anything and for my stake calling I was actually assigned to visit my own ward, so we really relaxed and did our things all morning. It is a very long morning when Church doesn’t start until 11:30. I was leading the music in Sacrament meeting, so I wanted to be a little early, but not what we usually try to do. We studied the Come Follow Me lesson and read scriptures and other calm, quiet things, then suddenly it was TIME TO LEAVE! We were almost ready, but just enough not ready that we barely made it to church early at all! I told Tom from now on we need to get ready to go first and then do our other things so leave time doesn’t sneak up on us. Church was good and Relief Society was good. We have such a small ward and there were no extra visitors today, so there were fewer than 60 people total in Sacrament meeting and only about 11 in Relief Society. So tiny. The choir practice...

8/10      Tom wanted to go first thing to take the Olds down to Fresno to park it on a street somewhere to hope someone who sees it will want to buy it. But we got busy with other things first. I had a few Clean Queen texts to take care of first thing in the morning and as soon as I got those done, we went for a little walk. It’s fun to walk around the neighborhood together. It’s a good time away from all distractions to just talk and we like looking at everyone else’s yards. It’s a nice bonding time and I sure hope we can keep the momentum going with it. Then he got busy with yard work and I worked on things inside – a few more preparations for next week and getting ready for Sunday. We finally took the Olds to Fresno and left it on a street in the “Mexican” part of town, then went to a few stores and finally stopped for pizza for lunch on the way home. After lunch we got a nap, then went back to our different activities. I needed to cover the chair that Kaden ...

8/9     Tom and I walked again first thing in the morning. Hooray for consistency! Once, a number of years ago, Tom made breakfast burritos to take to all the office workers in the Fresno office and they’ve been asking ever since when he would do it again. He decided to do it today. He had bought all the ingredients a couple of days ago, so as soon as we got back from our walk, he started pealing potatoes. Within about half hour he needed my help, and we got 20 burritos made and ready to be transported. He said they were a big hit. Everyone complimented him about them over and over, so it was worth all the work and expense. He picked up Kaden on his way home so we could watch him again while Tanya, Caeli, and Cannon are still gone and Todd has gone back to work. While they were gone I cleaned up the kitchen mess and started working on other projects. The coffee table paint still wasn’t dry so Tom and I put it in the back yard. It is so pretty! It kind of makes the re...