Scorching the World

Tom had to go to the Bay Area today and left about 7am. I spent some time with Clean Queen and helping Tom in the morning, then left around 11 to go finish up our Christmas gifts. I finished about 2:30 and hurried home to get ready to go do a visit with my ministering companion. We were visiting a sister (Nicolle Dodds) who has 5 kids – 4 boys and the baby is a girl. They are very rambunctious. My sister who drove has 3 cute little girls between 7 and 1. They were very excited to visit the Dodd kids! When we ..went in there was an explosion of excitement! It continued throughout the visit. I think Nicholle was happy to have someone to talk to, and she and Emily hit it off. It was a nice visit, but I was ready to leave long before Emily was. I appreciate patient parenting, and both were great examples. I had a bit of a hard time ignoring the chaos, especially when the card with a spiritual thought got picked up by the littlest kids and left, magnet removed, on the floor. Whe...

Tom got to work from home today, and promised we could spend all day working on our Christmas project. Both of us had some work to do in the morning, and he had several hours more to do than I did, but I stayed busy with practicing piano, working, computer stuff, exercise, etc. We finally left around 10 or 11 am and worked on stuff for a couple of hours. Tom needed to go to his office to make copies, then he was going to take the truck we sold Knudsens to them and have Tanya or Todd bring him back to where I was. So while he was gone I got to work on his gift. That was fun, and I got it put away before he came back. When he got back, he reminded me we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now about 3pm, so we took a break and went to 5 guys, then went back and worked another few hours. It’s funny because I hadn’t even thought of food until he mentioned it, but when we got food I realized I really was hungry. I just got distracted and forgot. We only have a couple mor...

I’m not sure why the Knudsen kids were out of school, but Todd (who works at a school) and Tanya both had to work so we got to have them with us. Tanya dropped them off about 7:30. Tom and I were up, but we were both working. I couldn’t stop what I was doing, but Tom went and started breakfast. He decided part of our job was to help them learn instead of just serving them. In the past we have cooked, served, and washed their dishes for them when they come over. So today Tom got them to help make breakfast. It wasn’t easy, and he had to keep telling them what to do next, but I think they had fun. I joined them as soon as I could. After breakfast, Tom took them to Lowe’s to get supplies to clean and paint our metal flower sculpture. He said they were a little wild in the store, but he managed. I think he has forgotten what it is like to have kids around! When they got back, I was able to join them outside to clean it. It had to be sanded and rust removed. They had a good time hel...

10/27     I wanted to be at the church as soon as the other ward ended their meeting so I could practice on the organ, so we left.   about 10:45. This organ is different from the one I played on in the Spanish ward, and I sure don’t get much time on it. Consequently, I made a couple of mistakes that were organ-related, but other than that, it was ok playing today. Our meeting was good. They had asked the sister missionaries in our ward to speak, which I felt was a little strange because the sister missionaries spoke last week, too. But there were different sister missionaries this week, so they asked them again. They both gave really good talks. I need to write some of the things down that they said. I’ve been asked to speak on Nov 11, so I keep finding things that go with my talk. As a Stake RS presidency, we were assigned to visit another ward that meets the same time as ours, so I arranged to have Eileen Robison play the closing hymn and Sandy Thompson and I ...

It feels like it has been a while since we had a Saturday at home to get things done. I don’t know why that is different from having any other day at home together, but Saturdays are different somehow. Again, Tom worked on outside things and I worked on inside things. I didn’t have a lot of Clean Queen, which was nice, but there were a couple of small emergencies that seemed big at the time but worked out in the end. We drove the Olds down to Fresno to park in a public place, and someone drove up right behind Tom and said, “This is exactly the car I want! I just need to go home and talk to my wife and arrange the financing, but I want it!” Tom was beside himself with excitement. Sadly the guy never called. In the evening we went back to bring the Olds back home. The battery had died on it and we don’t want to buy a new one, so Tom says we will just keep jump-starting it until it sells. Then he says we will buy a battery for the new buyer before they take it. I sure wish we coul...

Tanya had asked if Kaden could come over to spend the day while everyone else in their family had to be in school or at work, but we found out this morning he also needed a ride here. We’re expecting the guy to come and repair our garage door motor, and thought the cars needed to be out of the way. We got my car out, but the Olds won’t start, so Tom put a charger on the battery, then went to pick up Kaden, hoping to be back before the garage guy got here. The guy arrived to fix the garage door while Tom was gone, but fortunately he did not need the Olds moved out of the way. It didn’t take very long to replace the motor, the control button thing, the sensors, and everything else he did – probably less than an hour – and now our garage door works so nicely and is SO MUCH quieter! I hated how loud the door was, so this is really nice. Garage doors have progressed a lot in the last decade. They used to have giant springs that would need replace about every 10 years, then they ...

I woke up feeling fine today. It was so nice! I want to never take feeling good for granted! I didn’t have to go anywhere, and didn’t want to have to go through the back yard to get to the car, so I just stayed home. It was nice! I love not going anywhere. I got lots done – cleaning, sewing, computer, etc. I watched some Hallmark Christmas movies while I sewed. For my scripture study time, this week I started going through all the most recent conference talks to pick out all instructions/admonishments that are given, along with the blessings promised. I hope to make a clean list of what we’ve been asked to do, so I can work on doing it between now and the next conference. I don’t know why I have never thought to do that before. I mean, that is the purpose of conference! Anyway, it is super interesting, but it is hard to just go through the talks looking for those things. I am thoroughly enjoying reading through them and hope to keep doing it more and more. Tom was gon...

I had a headache all night again and it never went away. But I did a lot in the morning. I had a presidency meeting and wanted to get groceries while I was out, but Tom and Clean Queen needed me at the computer. After lunch I went back out again to get the groceries. This morning when Tom was packing his car for the day, the garage door opener broke. He opened the door all the way so I could get my car out, then closed it. When I came home from grocery shopping, I had to carry all the groceries through the gate to the back yard, to the back door. It is amazing how such small inconveniences seem like such a pain. Then I was sewing for a while but finally decided it wasn’t very fun to ignore I had a headache, so I just laid down the rubbed my head the rest of the day. Tom was gone over 12 hours. I was really glad when he got home, that he had time to sit and rub my head. That’s my favorite thing! We went to bed fairly early.

I had a headache all night from staying up so late. Tom told me not to wait up for him last night, but I knew if I went to bed, I would wake up at every sound, so I listened to conference talks after I got to sleepy to watch or read. So it was hard to force myself awake at 7am (8am Utah time) when my clean queen phone started ringing. I had made a mistake on the app that sent the team to the wrong first house and wasted 25 minutes of their morning. I felt so bad!!! I keep making mistakes and just wonder if I’m just too senile for this job. I didn’t feel great most of the day, but I managed to sew and do other necessary things. Tom was gone about 10 hours.

Tom had to leave early to go to faraway places. He was somewhere in the Bay Area, but I’m not sure where. I had an appointment to get my nails done and this time I tried a place Tanya recommended. There were a couple of things I wasn’t comfortable about with my previous manicurist and was anxious to try someone new. The lady who they assigned to me was a little older than most manicurists, Vietnamese, and has been in the United States most of her life, which you would not know from her accent. It was really hard to understand her, but she was so sweet, that I will probably keep going to her. She was also very fast and mostly gentle. After that I went and worked on Christmas presents for quite a while. Clean Queen was quiet enough, and all the things that Tom called about could wait a little while, so I had a fun few hours. I thought I could pick up some groceries on the way home, but by then Clean Queen and Tom things were all urgent, so I hurried home. As soon as I got o...

Because our meetings don’t start until 11:30, we had time to go through Tom’s talk again before we needed to leave for Church. But Tom confused how much time we needed at the Church to set up so we got there 1 ½ hours early, but that gave us time to go through the lesson again before we needed to go to Sacrament meeting. Tom’s lesson turned out rally good. I think he is getting better every time, but he still gets super nervous. While there, Tom talked to Hal Smeltzer, from the high council, who told him that the “storefront” church meetings had begun in our building and we were being asked to attend. That meeting would be at 5pm. So we went home, had lunch, and started a good nap when a friend of Tom’s from our first mission to Chile, called and talked to him for about 1 ½ hours while I napped off and on. Tom missed his naptime and was super sleepy the rest of the day. We went back to the Church at 5pm where Hal and 2 missionaries were setting up for the meeting. The sto...

We didn’t have to be anywhere today, which was a really nice feeling! I wanted to clean house and get caught up on a ton of things at home, and Tom wanted to do a bunch of yard work and try to get some of the cars running and possibly out of here. We started out good, and were making progress when Tanya called to see if we wanted to meet them at a car show in Clovis. Of course Tom can’t miss a car show, and wanted to get the Oldsmobile somewhere visible, so we agreed to meet them there. The problem was that the Oldsmobile hasn’t been turned on the whole time we’ve been traveling so the battery was dead. He managed to charge it long enough that we were able to drive it to meet Knudsens. I just don’t get excited about car shows, but we bought some lunch (burger and hot dog) and some Grandpa’s popcorn and enjoyed the nice October weather as we walked around. Tom loved talking to the guys who had renovated their own cars, getting ideas for his Comet. Cannon told Tanya that it is a...

We are at the age where our friends are dying. That’s the way it is. This was a dear friend that we’ve known for about 25 years. He died very quickly of melanoma, so everyone was in shock. Their daughter is Tami’s best friend, and the wife is my good friend; we used to teach seminary together. We had to leave by 8am to get there by 10am. Fortunately, we didn’t hit any bad traffic and made it on time. I was texting Tami on the way about various things, and as we arrived, we found Tami, Phil, and Marc had already arrived! We didn’t even know they were going. So that was a very nice surprise! I was afraid of how Tami would be in another funeral, but she did really good, being an emotional support for her friend, Chrys. After the funeral we were invited to stay for the luncheon, so it was nice to be able to talk with some of our friends from times past. I was lucky (blessed) that there were  no Clean Queen emergencies this whole time, but on the way home, I got a call f...

I slept so good last night! No headache, and I woke up earlier feeling great. What a blessing! Tom did have to go to Sacramento today, and was very glad we got so much desk work done yesterday. My calls started early, but I did manage to go to Laurel’s class today called, “What happened to the descendants of Noah?” On the way home I got the ingredients to make the corn chowder that I was taking to our RS presidents dinner/roundtable. I had plenty of work to do before leaving for the round table, including making the corn chowder. Tom got home just as I was loading my car and ready to drive away, so we kissed each other hello and said good-bye. His plan was to take Caeli to see a movie while I was gone. He loves spoiling the grandkids! Our round-table turned out good except that only 4 of the 7 ward relief society presidents were able to come. But we had really good discussions and I am always impressed with the inspiration and hard work that the ward Relief Society pres...

I had a milder version of the headache from last night, but this time didn’t get up or take anything. I was pretty lazy all morning and felt better as the day wore on and after I got a nap. Tom thought he would have to go to Sacramento again today, but after lots of calls and texts, found he could stay home again. We had a nice, relaxing day. I worked Clean Queen and he worked Synergy and we took a good little nap. The rest of the day I helped Tom with his work. He had some major reports he needed to get done and sent to important people and they took a long time and two people, apparently. I still managed to get a whole lot of Clean Queen hours, so the whole day was spent sitting! I have a goal to exercise more muscles and aerobic ever since I swam with Tami, but it just isn’t happening. I also have a goal to focus better on studying scriptures, and that hasn’t been happening either. The days just fly by too fast!

I got a killer headache in the night for no reason. I just turned over, and suddenly it felt like my head exploded and felt super sick. With a little medication, I made it through the night and was able to sleep in a little. Tom took my phones so he could let me know if there was anything urgent, but silence anything else. So nice. I had a doctor appointment at 10:00 am for an eye exam. I don’t think I’ve had an eye exam since I was in high school, so I thought it might be time. I got there right on time, but as I walked in, I realized I should have double checked my calendar first because the appointment wasn’t really until 12:15.    I had such a good parking place that I hated to leave, but couldn’t sit there for 2 hours, so I went to get some groceries and went back home for an hour. Then Tom was able to go with me. I was lying down while he made lunch. His food is as nice as any restaurant! The eye appointment showed nothing alarming and they said to c...

Trina’s ward starts at 9am, so we had to leave by 8:30. Chris took Ravenna to the airport for an 8am flight, which she missed by 5 minutes. Fortunately, she was able to catch the next flight. The boys were already up and active way before Tom and I went out to the living room. We had planned cold cereal for this day to keep it simple. All the kids were super happy to have some sugar cereals to eat instead of the usual healthy stuff their mothers usually feed them. We got to church barely on time and found a row that was too short for all of us, but it was ok 4 of them would only be sitting there until after the sacrament. Today was their Primary Sacrament program, so Trina, Chris, Trevor, and Ziona all went up. It was a very well-done program – very well organized and sweet and the songs were so pretty. Their ward is a big ward and the primary is huge! They meet in the stake center and it is a big building, but the children more than fill the seats on the stand. They had to add mor...

This morning I was awakened out of a deep sleep at 6:30 am. Lilian called me to say I had not ever sent the schedule to the 2 nd team leader. We had two teams to day and the 2 nd leader has to have the appointments all sent through a text with all the information and details she needs to know. So I dragged myself out of bed and tried to focus my eyeballs to send all the information. It was quite painful because my eyes just wouldn’t focus that early. After that I was wide awake, so I took a shower and as soon as I dressed, I got 3 texts all at the same time. This was when it hit that I had not changed the schedules of the first and last clients, so the team went first to the lady who did not want them to come so early. She let them in anyway, but was not happy about it and sent me a text. I apologized profusely and offered her a discount for being so understanding. The other client sat and waited and she was the next person to text me saying, “where are they?” So I apologized...

We slept pretty good and are usually the first to wake up, but this time the boys (Cannon, Kaden, Dexter, and Trevor – the 4 musketeers) were very anxious to play video games all weekend and were getting an early start. Tom went straight to cooking potatoes. I took care of some Clean Queen questions and setting up tomorrow’s schedule. I try to confirm the earliest appointments first because if those clients don’t want that timeslot, it messes up the whole rest of the day. So I confirm the first ones, and when they have confirmed, then I talk to the rest of the clients to confirm. Well, the first clients didn’t answer. I waited until late in the day and finally went ahead and confirmed the rest of the appointments. Unfortunately, this turned out to be my worst nightmare because late in the afternoon, the first client said she could not have us come that early. So I contacted the last client and asked her to switch to the early slot Unfortunately, by the time I was taking care of t...

It was nice being in our own home again and sleeping in our own bed with our own pillows. But today we were heading out to go see Trina because Ziona is getting baptized this weekend. I can’t believe she is 8 already! So Tom fed the birds and we repacked everything I had washed yesterday – 3 loads – and were on the road by noon. We knew that would mean hitting L.A. area during commute traffic, but we’re convinced the traffic isn’t ever any better. It is a long trip. Trina can do it in under 5 hours, but it took us 7 hours. We only stopped briefly and only when necessary, but when we got where our gps was saying we were close, we knew it didn’t look right. So I looked at the gps more closesly and saw that it was sending us to the same address in a different city. So I turned on the gps on my phone, and also the gps on the car, and reprogrammed the other gps to the right address, and suddenly all 3 gps’ were giving different instructions! We didn’t know which one to follow ...

Tom left early for breakfast with the convention groups. I waited until 9am so I could eat at the Grand Buffet. I didn’t manage to eat there yesterday and wanted to know with it was like. I remember when it used to be super cheap to eat in casinos – they had low food prices to lure you in so you would gamble. Those days are over. The restaurants were all fairly expensive. The buffet was $16 plus the tip, which I had to pay before going in. There was so much food and so much variety. Not a lot of it was breakfast stuff, but there was plenty of wonderful things to eat. I took too much and ate too much. I didn’t care for a couple of the things, but most of it was delicious. I got a call from Lilian when I was just finishing up, so I got out of there to be able to talk. She has great plans for the future. I don’t know how her mind is always working, planning, and scheming. I don’t know how she has time to think of anything else. I managed to stay busy doing clean queen thin...

Tom had to get down to the meetings in time for breakfast. He said he should have a break about 10am, so we agreed to meet then. I started getting clean queen messages right away but managed to find a break from them long enough to shower and dress. I decided to go to one of the 10 restaurants for breakfast and had Nutella/banana & strawberry french toast.  It was delicious but I could only eat about half of it. I hated to leave the rest; I sure wished Tom had been with me to help m with it. I got several texts during breakfast, and just as I finished, there was an issue that I needed to get back to my computer for. I stayed busy all morning and finally managed to get away for lunch around 1:30 PM. I went to Johnny Rockets and ordered a chicken salad and cheese/bacon fries. Sadly, the salad came as a chicken burger so I ate it without the bun. The cheese fries weren’t all that good either. It was a little disappointing. But while I was eating, they put on a so...