Scorching the World

I got up before anyone was awake to go put the turkey in the oven. It was almost 8am but everyone in the living room or family room was still asleep. I hated to make noise and wake them up, but I needed to get it in the oven before it got any later. Tom helped me get it ready and then he started working on his garage again. I started warming the arrow con Leche and as soon as Tanya and family got here, we added the rest of the milk and cooked the bunuelos. Cai was very happy to have our arroz con Leche and bunuelos. I made a lot but eventually every bit got eaten. So we had some time to play before we needed to cook more food, so we went back to card playing. We played some more crazy games of solitaire and finally quit about noon so we could get dinner going. We planned to eat at 1 or 1:30 and Ryan was on his way. Cai, Ravenna, Trina, Tanya, and I all worked in the kitchen on different foods. At times it seemed like too many cooks, but it was the only way to get everyt...

Tom and I always wake up way before everyone else, so we got on computers. I managed to get my clean queen work done for the morning but there were texts throughout the day that I had to keep going back to the computer to take care of. Sometimes it is really inconvenient to have a job/work from home, but everything worked out. I worked on too many things all morning and afternoon and had a lot of messes to clean up before dinner. I was about to start cooking things for tomorrow when Tom said he needed help in the garage. He decided to remove shelving from one wall and put it on another wall, so we had kids pulling boards, removing nails and all kinds of things. The kids didn’t last very long and then it was Trina and I helping Tom for several hours. We got a lot done, but it still needs hours to finish. Then I was too tired to do all the cooking I had planned. Trina helped me start the cake and then I just needed to rest the rest of the night. Tanya and Cai came about 7:30 an...

Tanya had told me she didn’t want to celebrate her birthday on her birthday. She already had her friends- birthday, so she could wait until Thanksgiving when everyone was here to do the family party. What she didn’t know what that Todd had arranged to have Cai fly in today and would be waiting for her when she got home from work, and had a special dinner planned, which he invited us to. So Tanya made her own plans. Their kids are out of school all week and Tom had mentioned that we should spend the week playing tennis. So yesterday, Cannon and Kaden were ready, willing, and able to go play, but it was extremely windy so they couldn’t. I had a ton of things I needed to get done today, so I wasn’t in those conversations at all. Anyway, Kaden woke up early and wanted to play tennis or something and Tanya didn’t want them sitting at home on the computers all day, so before work, she decided to bring him over here. Cannon heard the plan and jumped in the car, too. It was a good thin...

I always have a lot of Clean Queen to do on Monday mornings to get the week set up and confirmed, but today I wanted to go to stores before big crowds. So I answered a few urgent texts and took off at 7:30. Tom got to stay home and had a bunch of things he hoped to get done, too. I spent over an hour at Walmart, and got most of what I needed. Shopping sure takes a long time. I got about 5 texts while I shopped, so instead of going to the other 2 stores as I had planned, I hurried home to take care of the urgent things. Tom was just leaving when I got home. I worked about an hour before I was able to put the groceries away. Then I spent until 4pm working on preparations for the rest of the week. I decided I wanted to get the Christmas lights up now instead of waiting until Saturday like we usually do because there is a big storm expected and I don't want to try to hang them in the rain or mud. So Tom pulled them out and we managed to figure out where to put which ones and...

We had plenty of time in the morning to do stuff because we didn’t need to go early for anything. What a nice feeling! I spent the time working on ideas to celebrate Tanya’s birthday while everyone is here for Thanksgiving. I made lists, planned menus, and made shopping lists for tomorrow. Suddenly Thanksgiving is close and I need to get a lot done before Tuesday when Pettus’ arrive! We were all settled in listening to the prelude music before Sacrament meeting started when Jim Thompson, our friend and who frequently is asked to lead the music but doesn’t like doing it, leaned up to me and pointed out that the chorister wasn’t there. So I gathered up my stuff and went up there and led the music for the meeting. It worked out fine, but it was sure a blessing that one person in the chapel noticed that nobody was there to lead! I didn’t have to visit any other ward this week and it was nice to be in our own ward. Toni Johnson gave a really good lesson on Elder Vinson’s talk fr...

We were feeding our darling little sister missionaries breakfast today, so as soon as we got up and got going, I cleaned a little and Tom started breakfast. We managed to take the Olds down somewhere in hopes someone will buy it, and still have breakfast ready when the sisters came. We have a set of 3 missionaries right now – they’ve been in 3 for 2 transfers. I imagine it is a little bit harder for 3 to get along than for 2, but they are so cute and we are glad we can have them in our home. They bring a special spirit. Tom and I had a lot to do today, as we always do on Saturday. For one thing, I wanted to get the Christmas lights up because it is supposed to rain next weekend when we usually do it. But Tanya had asked for me to help her set up for her birthday party she had planned with her 30 closest friends. I tried not to be hurt that I wasn’t part of that 30, and we went over around noon to help. Tanya had left to get some lunch for herself and her friend, Kelly, who had ...

Sorry this is out of order! Tom got to stay home today. Fun times. He really wanted to take the Olds somewhere people could see it first thing in the morning, but got hung up on work stuff until late morning. Then he got a call from his boss asking if he could go down to the office right away, so he took off. I told him when he was done I could meet him in Fresno to leave the Olds and I would give him a ride home. So we did that and went back home. Tom mowed the lawn and did some other things outside. I did some Clean Queen and other things from my little list of things to do until almost dark, then we went back to pick up the Olds. Tom had ordered some things online for his Comet and when they arrived, he found that they were the wrong parts. So he needed to send them back. He put the box in my trunk so we could drop them off at a postal annex place on the way back. We went to where the car was, but we were in the middle of a long conversation with Ryan when we got there...

I have a friend in another ward, Kim Balogh, who plays flute really well and saved for a couple of years to buy a really nice flute. She has had wanted to play Dance of the Reed Flutes from Nutcracker her whole life, but has never known 2 other flute players who could do it with her. Now there is someone else in her ward, and she invited me to play with her. It has been way fun, but a lot of work to get my lips back in shape to play it. I need a lot more practice, but this morning we practiced together. It was so fun! We thought we would play it at the annual Stake Christmas program, but they decided not to do it this year. So Kim decided to just have a little concert in her living room and is inviting a few people to participate. It’s way fun to have others to play flute with. I would have been happy if we had worked on it a lot more than we did – we only went through about 3 times – but the others seemed fine with it. Anyway, it was sure fun. I had to run errands while in Fre...

I managed to get Clean Queen all set up and Tom’s needs taken care of in time to get to Laurel Lawrence’s class at 9am. It was really good. She has such a love of the scriptures and all things in religious history. She loves to read and study it and share what she learns. It is a huge blessing for those of us who are too lazy to work so hard at it. From there I ran some more errands before heading home. There are always things to do while I’m in Fresno. One of the errands was to mail the box Tom and I didn’t mail yesterday. It was really big, but the people there helped me. I did a couple of fun things during the day – I wanted to make a larger Manger scene, so I had purchased some supplies and worked on them. It was fun, but need more work. At 2pm, I had a little meeting with Laura and Sandy from the Stake RS presidency. We need to put together the gifts we will give the sisters at our Silver Belle’s luncheon in December. But when we got there, we realized we needed to...

Tom had to go to the Bay Area today for work, and to also deliver the old water heater to the guy that bought it. They met in Los Gatos and Tom was glad to get paid for it and the guy was super happy to get it. I had a list of things to do while he was gone and I got a long way through it. It was fun. I cleaned the bird cages, long overdue, cleaned up the pool table accessories, and worked on some new nativities I had wanted to do. I wanted some bigger ones. I made one with Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus and 2 shepherds, and one with Joseph, Mary, and an angel. On that one, Mary is holding the baby, but I’m not sure I like how it turned out. I might have to re-tweek it some. Tom got home before dark! He is working on some financial finaglings so he worked on that the rest of the evening. I didn’t have a lot of Clean Queen work today, but it was constant throughout the day and evening.

Tom got to stay home today, and had very little work to do, so he got a lot of other things done. The first priority for him was fixing my sink in our bathroom; it has never drained well. I’ve tried to snake it and plunge it, but it drains very, very slowly. So this morning first thing, he took off the trap below and emptied out all the gunk, but the sink still drained slowly. Then I showed him how to unscrew the plug in the sink to get to the drain, and I took off the one from his sink, too, and saw that his had huge holes for water to go down and mine had tiny holes. Mine was full of gunk, but it was clear that the reason it didn’t drain was because the drain holes were just too small. These are sinks we installed a couple of years ago, and we installed them at the same time so I don’t know why they aren’t made exactly the same! So he got his drill and made the holes larger and put everything back together and now it works. Hooray! I’ve complained about it ever since we i...

I have unofficially been called to lead the music in Sacrament meeting, so I went up and got ready to lead, but then the old music director came in, so Tom and I quickly went back down and sat on our bench. Now that Sunday School is right after Sacrament meeting, Tom and I have to hurry from the chapel to get everything set up before all the class arrives, but I had a couple of people I needed to talk to first, so Tom was getting pretty anxious looking for me until I finally got there so he could start the class. (I run the PowerPoint and he didn’t feel like he could start until I had everything ready to go.) His class went well; he’s getting better every time and more comfortable, but the microphone isn’t working so most people can’t hear him. We can tell when nobody can hear him because when he tells jokes, most people don’t laugh, but the ones who hear him laugh good. It’s funny but sad that people can’t hear what he is saying. After Sunday School I had arranged to p...

Now that we’re getting solar panels, Tom decided we needed an electric water heater. Ours is on propane, and that is expensive. We’ll be happy with it if we can last a whole year on one tank of propane. The only thing left on propane now is our furnace, so that’s good. We bought the water heater yesterday, in a sort of miracle. We were at Lowe’s and Tom and I got separated. While I was looking for him, I found an electric water heater in an isle, on a cart, all boxed up and looking like it needed a good home. I found Tom and took him to it. A salesman told us that someone had just returned it. It had not even been opened, so was as good as new, but they gave us a huge discount! Tom was very, very happy. Anyway, he spent all morning getting it installed and hooked up and it works! Hooray! He already has a buyer for the old water heater (which is actually like new, too, so he’s happy he has a buyer. We’re so happy that the water heater works and we have hot water and Tom ...

Tom got to work from home today, and wanted to take the truck to get the oil changed, take the Olds to park it somewhere visible, and go to his office to see what is happening with his job next year. He was really nervous about the last one, but hadn’t mentioned it to me. So I gave him a ride to take the truck, then we returned home to get the Olds and on the way back picked up the truck. I went and bought some paint for the kitchen and a couple other things, then met Tom at home after a while. I started to paint the kitchen but couldn’t find the roller handles. I asked Tom to get me one, but he couldn’t find one either. He worked outside until it got dark, then we went to pick up the Olds. On the way home, he stopped at Lowe’s to buy an electric water heater. He found a buyer in the Bay Area for our water heater, so he plans to replace it with the new one tomorrow. So while we were there I got a paint roller handle. We spent the rest of the night, after Jeopardy, w...

We’ve done it before, and I’m sure we will again, but today the electricity was turned off to the whole house by PG&E about 7:30am. We were having the electrical panel replaced so we knew we would have no electricity. We made sure the cell phones and computers were fully charged, and we also have a battery pack so the computers should work anyway. Unfortunately the internet didn’t work. I thought it would fine with the battery pack, but we had no internet. That was a pain all day. So without electricity, what I could do was severely limited, and without internet, I was horribly limited. I was worried that there would be an emergency that I wouldn’t be able to address. But as it turned out, we made it through the day without anything disastrous happening. I could list all the things that I couldn’t do, but the one thing that sounded the most fun was working on a nativity I had wanted to do, and a little painting project for Christmas gifts to people we minister to. T...

11/12 Tom had to go to the Bay Area again. I slept in as much as I could to make up for not sleeping well with the knee pain. It was still hurting when I got up, and I moved very slowly as I got up and got moving. Slowly, I saw that I could bend it slightly, and within a few hours, everything was back to normal. It was so weird, like my kneecap was out of place, and then it was just fine again. Aging is very strange. Clean Queen hardly took any time, so I called to see if I could get a nail appointment. They gave me one at 10, so I got ready to leave. The lady who does my nails now is just a little sweaty sweety!!! Bad typo!! She is older than most of the girls who do nails, Vietnamese, and calls me “my friend”. It’s hard to talk to her, but she is sure a sweet lady. After nails I had a ton of errands to do, so I took advantage of being out and about and got most of them done. I was supposed to have a meeting in the evening but it got canceled, so I was home for the n...

I had quite a list of things that I needed to do today. The top priority was to clean the house and make refreshments for FHE here tonight. Between cleaning and Clean Queen, I got nothing else done. I couldn’t believe how dirty the house was. Everywhere I cleaned, I saw lots more to clean. So that was my day. Tom went to the Bay Area and arranged to take Caeli to visit Mila while he worked. Tanya came to drop her off and waited until it was time for them to leave. While they waited, we managed to watch an episode of This is Us. Tanya is behind 7 episodes, and I sure enjoy it more when I’m watching it with her! Tom and Caeli got back right before FHE started. Tanya came here just before they got here so she could watch one more episode of This is Us while waiting. Then they left just as our FHE group arrived. I did something I loved for FHE. I made a list of all the speakers from General Conference and their talk titles, and each of us took 3 to 4 speakers and wrote ...

Tom and I decided that’s a more appropriate idiom. I will be glad when the time changes for Church next year so we can go at 9am instead of 11:30. The morning is so long, and when I’m speaking in Sacrament meeting, it is just more time to get nervous. We had to go in separate cars because I had meetings pretty much all day. First was our Sacrament meeting. My talk, which I cut, cut cut down to 20 minutes, was after a youth speaker, another adult speaker, and the rest hymn. I ended up with 8 minutes. Just a little frustrating, but that’s ok. Then I had to leave during the closing hymn because I was due to visit the Young Single Adult ward Relief Society at 12:40. I love visiting with those sweet young women!!! What a great spirit there! Then I had to leave that early to get to Tanya’s ward for their special youth Sacrament Meeting. It was so good and I was so glad Tanya had invited us! Caeli had a speaking part, reading a poem with violin accompaniment, and I barel...

Nothing came of the guy who said he wanted to buy the Olds. So disappointing We had an early appointment to donate blood, so we got up and out of the house in time to be there by 8:30am. I got processed and began donating quickly, but when I was finished, Tom was still being processed. There are a series of questions you have to answer before you begin. One of them is whether you’ve traveled outside the US or Canada in the last something years, and I answered yes, and just had to explain that we had gone to Europe in September and Mexico in January. The lady helping me just clarified with one question. The lady helping Tom wanted all the details; she wanted to know what days we were in which countries and asked for details on lots of other things. Every time she left the room, when she came back in she would ask him his name, birthdate, and other things before continuing. So, we were at the blood bank until time for me to go to our Super Saturday at 10am!  And then we still...

Tom got to stay home today, so that was happiness! We sure stayed busy all day! In the morning I had some significant CQ work, and Tom had his stuff. I needed to go pick up some more Christmas, but I called and they said I needed to wait until after 12pm. Tom needed to go his office, so he went there while I did my thing and afterwards we met at Walmart. I got very delayed waiting for what I was doing and got a hot dog at Coney Island Grill while I waited. Tom and I met at Walmart so that he could leave the Olds there visible in the hopes someone would buy it today. He just keeps hoping! I have encouraged him to just donate it to a worthy organization. It is such a pain to keep trying to sell it and trying to take it places to show,   but he wants to get something for it, so he keeps trying. I also needed to return some shoes I bought yesterday and wore to the meeting. They were so big I kept stepping out of them, so I returned them before we left. We got back h...

Tom had to travel to far away places again. It’s been a long week for him! I did some Clean Queen and then went to run errands. It was amazing that I didn’t have any CQ emergencies and Tom didn’t need anything while I was gone. I worked on some Christmas finishing and shopping for upcoming activities. I needed to make a cake for the Stake Organization Training tonight. I decided to make a Boston Cream Pie/pound cake. So I got it put together, but when I went to put the pudding in the middle, I accidentally put it on the top half instead of the bottom half. Then, instead of scraping it back off, I tried to flip the top half onto the bottom half, and it broke to pieces. I had to piece it back together and then put the ganache frosting on top and it looked like the comic version of a lovely dessert. By then it was too late to replace it, so I had to just take it. I was pretty disappointed because I had hoped to take something lovely. At the meeting, the Stake Primary presi...

I can’t believe how long it takes to get solar panels. We started the process in the middle of summer, hoping to save money on air conditioning while we needed it. Here it is November, and they finally installed the panels today. They were supposed to replace our electrical panel on Monday, but to do that, PG&E has to turn off the electricity but they had to postpone because PG&E is supposed to shut off the power to the house, and PG&E is way backed up because they are dealing with planned blackouts due to the massive fires going on. I can’t complain, because some people are dealing with devastating loss due to the fires, but it was a minor delay to our installation. So now someone still has to install the electrical panel, then someone has to come inspect everything, then PG&E has to come do something that typically takes almost another month, then the panels will go active. With any luck, we’ll have solar by Christmas. Anyway, this morning started like most da...

Tom had to leave by 6:30 am, going back to the Bay Area again. I managed to do some things he needed before I jumped in the shower. We’re still trying to adjust to daylight savings so we wake up too early in the morning, but go to bed according to the clock instead of how tired we are. Clean Queen was pretty quiet today. I set up the appointments for tomorrow and arranged some other things, then decided it was quiet enough that I could leave the computer for a few hours. I went to finish our Christmas gift project. I think I’m done this time. By Saturday I should be able to get everything wrapped. Wahoo! Then I got the rest of the groceries that I didn’t get yesterday. I stopped in at Target for groceries because I was near there, but they just didn’t have everything I needed. Guess I won’t do that again. Walmart is farther away, but has all the stuff I normally need. Anyway, Anne, Lilian and I needed to coordinate a video chat, but we managed to hold it until I actually ...

Tom left about 7am and got home about 7pm, a little discouraged because he wasn’t able to accomplish all he had hoped. He still had about 1 ½ hours of work to do after he got home. In the morning I had some exciting emergencies with Clean Queen. One 2-hour appointment asked to postpone her appointment because her kids were sick. I handled that. Then another text from the client of the same name asked when we were coming. I realized after much research that I had the same phone number for two different Lindseys and had confused them. It was too big of a coincidence that they were both scheduled for the same day! I finally got that all worked out. Then at the end of the day another client asked when we were coming. This time it was the client who was confused or I didn’t understand what she wanted when we set up her scheduled appointments. Anyway, it all worked out in the end. At the same time that I was handling Clean Queen emergencies, Tom kept calling needing help with his eme...