Scorching the World

Tom developed a lump in his upper arm. He felt it in his shoulder yesterday, then today it was a huge lump in the bicep and made him look really buffed, but was quite painful and he was worried. I tried massaging it some, very lightly, with some essential oils. I’m not sure it helped any, but I couldn’t think of anything else. He finally called the doctor who said to put a cold compress on it and take ibuprofen and the doctor will call back in the morning. They will try to avoid having him go in unless absolutely necessary. Our morning was really quiet while Trina and Chris took care of stuff involving the computers and stuff at home. Tom worked outside as much as he could until his arm hurt too much to hold a hammer. About lunch time, we began making enchiladas. It is quite a process. Trina chopped up the turkey, I fried the tortillas and made the sauce, and got the olives and cheese ready. Cannon said he is always available to help anything that involves food and Ziona came, so t...

We managed to watch three Christmas movies that I had saved for Trina. They were mostly pretty good so it was fun. The kids all played computer games all day, taking brakes for the constant meals we provided. They barely eat enough to sustain life, and us adults make up the difference and felt over-stuffed all day. We should eat like the kids. When Tanya came, Trina reminded us that Ziona had wanted to play cards all day yesterday and we never got to it, so Trina, Ziona, Tanya, Tom, and I played solitaire for a lot of rounds. I always feel like I’m barely able to focus mentally, have a hard time focusing with my eyes to see what cards are out, and generally feel like I’m getting too old for it but it sure is fun. Tonight, Tom leaned over to pick up a card from the floor, the chair went out from under him and he very slowly fell over. Trina commented that it was the slowest fall she had ever seen. We laughed a long time over that. Ziona has such a cute laugh that it kept us laughing. ...

Clean Queen is back to work, but the leader we have now is pretty self-reliant, so she rarely contacts me. I still have to have my phone on my all the time, but I do manage to accomplish lots of other things during the day. It’s nice. I haven’t had to work quite so many hours during the holidays. Tom made potatoes, scrambled eggs, ham, and pancakes for breakfast. It was a huge breakfast and everyone left with happy tummies. The rest of the day we ate leftovers and snacks so meals were easy. Tom worked on his shed much of the day, but I stayed inside and watched movies with Trina. It was quite a relaxing day, but my hip hurt so much I couldn’t ever find a good position. That’s ok, there are lots of things that are worse. Tanya had to work in the morning, so Todd came and dropped off the boys, then Caeli drove herself up a little while later. Eventually we had the whole Knudsen family here to join the fun with Pettus’. The boy cousins sure love playing on the computers together. ...

Today is Anne’s birthday. What a happy day! I love my sisters. I love that our Sundays we can sleep in or at least lie in bed and just enjoy the comfort together for a little while before we get up. It’s the only day we do that and I love it! Sunday Devotional was nice because President Gillespie, the Mission President, and his wife were the speakers. It was good and we enjoyed it. Our Relief Society still has not started doing zoom RS meetings, but Tom had Elder’s Quorum. I started getting things ready for the day. We had tamales with mole (a very, very dark red sauce) for breakfast. The ultimate luxury food! So good. Knudsens came over about 2pm and we had lunch. Trina let us know that they would be here about 4:30, so after lunch we played cards and suddenly it was 4:30 and Pettus’ arrived! Happiness! We had a real dinner with them with leftovers from Christmas, then we started our Christmas program that we never got to do. First we had our talent show which was just a f...

  Tom says that if the day before Christmas is Christmas Eve, then the day after must be Christmas Adam. We expected Trina to come in the afternoon, but found out that they decided to wait until after Church tomorrow because Chris is speaking and is way too nervous about it. The other thing we expected today was the guy who is supposed to pour our cement but he never showed up. Tom texted him at night and he said it was raining too much. The truth is it only rained until about 9am, then the sun came out the rest of the day. I did a little Clean Queen to set up the appointments for next week, then I joined Tom and we worked on his shed by ourselves. Tom needed to put in the electrical for a switch and outlet before he was ready to put in a wall. It was hard because his tools are very dull and batteries kept dying. We framed another wall, and that’s about all that we managed to get done. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was hard work and occupied most of the day. We quit when i...

Again, this morning it was just the two of us to get up, sing “Oh Holy Christmas Morning” which didn’t quite work as a round with just the two of us, and then to open presents. It was quiet and sweet. Then we started cooking. Tom helped me all the way through – making rolls, a pie, scalloped potatoes, the stuffing, and getting the ham in the oven. On holidays I really wish I had two ovens, but we made it work. It took both of us most of the day, but we had everything ready for the 2pm dinner time. However, Ryan texted at 1:30 that they were still 2 hours away. So when Knudsens got here and warmed up their sweet potatoes, we went ahead and had dinner. We felt bad eating without them, but it was just too long to wait. After dinner we played a game and talked. When Ryan and Anitta got here, he assembled three salads, all of them quite different from a regular tossed salad, but absolutely delicious! We got to talk to them while they ate, then they hid in the office to wrap gifts they...

Today Tom and I were alone all day. No family Christmas Eve or big dinner or program or white elephant gift exchange. No singing or instruments playing Christmas music. No games, no family. But that’s ok. We will get to all those things eventually.. This time we were all alone. We figured it was the first time (not counting when we were on our mission) that we celebrated just the two of us in 52 years. Tom really wanted to get the roof on the shed before it rains this weekend, so we spent all day out there. We got the roof on and still had time to clean out the part of the shed that is left – meaning sweep cobwebs and the floor and wipe off the counter. He took out the stairs, and then we were able to sort out enough to get the shelf units back in there and fill them. We didn’t sort everything because we were running out of day, but we got it all cleaned up by the time it was dark at 5pm. It was a lot of work and felt really good to be outside in the cold weather working together. ...

I had a dentist appointment this morning so about the only thing I did before that was put a shopping list together and spend a lot of time flossing and brushing my teeth. The dentist appointment was probably one of the most pleasant I have ever had. I grew up with such bad memories of dentists, that I’m already stressed before I get there, but they did everything to calm me and make me comfortable. They explained things before doing anything, and showed me wheat they were going to do. They gave me a blanket to relax and warm me, which made a huge difference. They did crown prep, and it didn’t take very much time drilling at all, then the methods for making the mold for the temp or permanent crowns. Even how she put the crown on was different and much easier. So nice! I never thought I would describe a dentist appointment as nice! I had planned to go shopping after the dentist, but I forgot both phones, so I didn’t dare be gone very long without them. Once I got home, I just wanted...

We worked outside today. Before it was light enough and warm enough to work outside, we got a whole lot done in the house. The main bathroom and the laundry room needed paint touch ups, so I took care of that while Tom repaired a leak in the toilet valve in the extra bathroom. I swept and mopped the floors while Tom worked on other things and soon it was sunny enough to go outside even though it was only 44 degrees out there. Tom worked on taking off the remain boards from the 2 nd floor of the shed so he could put in a new roof over the one room he will leave and I continued to clean up boards from their nails. Tanya, Todd and the boys came about 2pm with our Christmas present – fresh tamales! We had that for lunch, then headed outside. The boys were very helpful this time and spent the whole time actually working. They never complained about being tired, hungry, or legs hurting. We got so much done! With their help Tom got the new roof framed in. It wasn’t easy because he was ...

We worked hard. First we went for a walk in 37 degree, foggy weather. It felt really good and waved at the same neighbors we see every time we walk. When the sun came out enough, we went outside to start working on the area where the garage will be. Tom took off the roof of the remaining part of the garage and I worked on clean-up, which meant removing giant nails with a crowbar, moving 2x4 and 4x4 boards to their correct piles, separating huge boards that were nailed or screwed together, etc., etc. It was hard work but felt good. I’ve had some sciatica lately, and the bending, stretching and stooping helped work out the kinks. We worked until it was beginning to get darker, around 4 or 4:30. By then I was beat and rested the rest of the day. The good news is I got the whole pile of wood cleaned up. (When I say I did it, I mean with a whole lot of help from Tom.) We had planned to take the gifts to ministering sisters tonight since we chickened out last night, but the fog had come ...

Tom and I slept in a bit and didn’t even get out of bed until after 8am. It is the ultimate luxury when we can wake up slowly and lie there and talk for a long time, staying cozy warm in our blankets. We turn off the heat at night so, we don’t have much incentive to jump out of bed and get dressed. I wanted to deliver gifts to my ministering sisters tonight so I spent some time packaging them up pretty and attaching a note. I didn’t quite finish when it was time for Church. Anyway, we were dressed and ready for Church at 10am. The bishopric had put together a whole program of music. One person/group after another recorded their number in the chapel last Tuesday, then Santiago Ortega put it all together. So there was no reading or speaking in-between, just one number after another. They were mostly pretty good. (Mine was the one that I didn’t think was good enough at all.) Then we had 15 minutes before Sunday School started and I found out that I was going to have a stake meeting ...

Tom’s goal for today was to get the other part of the shed down. He had a plan. He invited the Knudsens to come and help and they were expected about 10am. But first there was a drive through breakfast at the ward, hosted by the ward organizations. We decided to go, just to support the ward and to see some friendly faces other than our own.   They had donuts and hot chocolate, which we really don’t eat, but we took some anyway. We hurried home and I started trying to print the envelopes for Christmas cards. For some reason I just couldn’t get them to print on mail merge. I tried and tried before going to the church, then again when we got home, trying to get them printed before Knudsens came. Knudsens won. Tom cooked them a wonderful breakfast, let them rest just a bit, then everyone headed outside except me. I went back to trying to get my envelopes to print. I started over lots of times that and finally decided the problem was the size of envelope I had chosen and went with...

  Today was payroll day. I’ve been really careful all week to be sure I was entering everything correctly and accurately so that today would be easier. Anne suggested we submit payroll early so that things would get through the bank sooner next week. As it turned out, only one girl could be paid through the bank, so I waited for the ladies to finish work so that I could pay the rest. Tom has been working on getting the permit to build the garage. We can’t do anything until the permit is approved. He had submitted it several weeks ago and should have been approved by now, and they finally told Tom that there was one measurement that was 2 feet off, so we needed to fix that then resubmit the form on an 11x17 paper. It took us 2 minutes to fix the measurement, then he left to get it printed and enlarged, then went to the county office. They looked at it, then sent him somewhere else to get it stamped. That was delayed because he didn’t have an appointment, but they eventually stam...

  I had hardly any Clean Queen work today and now Tom doesn’t have any work for me to do, so I was able to get some other things done that I’ve had waiting for a while. For example, I needed to get gifts ready to take to people I minister to, the other members of the stake RS presidency, and neighbors, so I got some of those wrapped and ready to go. I also needed to do a whole lot of filing. I try not to get behind on it, but I just haven’t had time to just do it, so today, I got to it. As I was cleaning up the office, I asked Tom if we still really needed the cabinet that we have there, where we used to have a television on. We put that tv in the studio apartment. He decided we could empty it and move it to the bedroom apartment we are setting up, so I spent time taking stuff out and finding good places for it all. That left a space next to my desk where I could put the little file cabinet! Now it will be much easier to file stuff. Yay, and the office is a little more organize...

Tom wanted to work in the yard today to finish taking down the roof of the shed because the cement guy is coming Saturday to put down the framers for the cement. But when he remembered he had a dentist appointment at 10am, he figured he didn’t have time to get anything done before going. This was is last dentist appointment that is covered by his work dental insurance, so it was important to get the work done before coverage ran out. My appointment for the same thing is the 23 rd . He came back with half his mouth numb so he couldn’t eat and he hadn’t eaten before he left. His boss had called him to see if he could come back in one more time today. They were having their end of year “dinner” and invited him to join. He didn’t know they were going to surprise him with a “gold” pocket watch. That was so nice of him. So after a short nap, he went to that then ran errands on the way home. Meanwhile I worked on printing the calendars and birthday lists that I always give our kids fo...

Tom had a doctor appointment first thing in the morning and I was not allowed to go with him. He went a few weeks ago to get his eyes checked because of diabetes and they found something and wanted him to come back so a doctor could look at it. That kind of made us nervous. We didn’t think his diabetes was serious enough to cause eye problems. While he was gone, I did Clean Queen. The doctor said there is something there and wants to wait to see if it grows. On the way home he ran a bunch of errands. It rained in the morning so Tom didn’t ever get outside to work on the shed. We spent the day just doing stuff. My clean queen phone was pretty quiet until I decided to take a nap. Then it was pretty constant; I eventually had to give up and tend to things. I tried to make a salt dough nativity. I think the dough was too soft because when I tried to stand up the person, it would slowly smush down like a snowman melting. So I laid them down to bake, which made them totally flat on the...

I had a LOT of Clean Queen work today. Now that Christmas is only about 2 weeks away a lot of people want last-minute deep cleaning done. Sadly for them, we have no open appointments left. My team leader, Beatriz, convinced the group to work one more day before Christmas and 3 days between Christmas and New Year’s, so today I filled all those days and still have 4 more people wishing they could get an appointment. Tom’s last day of work was Friday but there were things he didn’t get finished in time, so “we” finished those today. There is a massive list of all the mobile home parks that needed cleaned up. I worked for several hours on it before Tom came to me and said that there were things on there that we probably didn’t need. I got him to be more specific, and found that one whole column that I was trying to clean up wasn’t even needed! So that cut a few hours off what I still needed to do so I was able to finish the list with only one more hour. I spent most of the day on it. S...

Sundays are busy every week, but today I added Tom’s retirement surprise, so it was a lot busier. Before our ward devotional, I started making a cake. I decided to finally use the checkered cake kit that I bought many, many years ago from Pampered Chef. I read the instructions and made half red and half green. It had me use 2 boxes of cake mix and I only had 2 pans, so I had to bake half at a time, so it took twice as long. I’m not sure what I did wrong because later when I put it together it didn’t turn out checkered, but it was still fancy enough that everyone was impressed. It was 3 layers high. So I was still baking those when the devotional started. I’m getting used to how handy it is to do Church from home where I can still be doing things. I also did my nails during the meeting. We had a high council speaker today – Larry Lawrence who spoke from his home. He is such a good speaker and his talk was so good! Tom had Priesthood meeting half hour after our meeting ended, so wh...

Tom planned to go back out to finish taking down the front part of the garage first thing in the morning because the guy who will do our cement was coming today, but when we woke up, it was raining. We need rain, and want rain, and have prayed for rain, but not for today. It didn’t rain very long, but he never got to go out to work on it. Instead, we started working on setting up the guest room that we will rent out. We have done some things there, but Tom found a dresser at the thrift store that needed some touch up, so we did that, moved it from the family room where it has been for a week into the room, rearranged the furniture, hung a picture, covered a shelving unit with contact paper, and generally got the room more ready. Now we just have to find a small fridge to go there. The lady isn’t coming until January 1, but we want to not have to think about it during Christmas. We had decided to get some pizza to celebrate Tom’s retirement, so I got that ordered and we went to pick...

He has looked forward to this day his whole life. I guess all men do, but I think he has worked more years than most. I’m so proud of him for working so hard to support a large family. He needed to go to the office to turn in his work shirts, ID, gas card, and work phone, so he volunteered to take them some breakfast burritos. He has done that a few times through the years, so they asked him to make them one more time before he left. When he agreed to do it, he thought there were only 10 or 12 people in the office. When they told him that the company has grown so much that now there are about 18 people in the office, he almost told them to forget it. He wanted to make at least 2 each, so that meant making about 40 burritos. He bought the supplies last night and pre-cooked the sausage, bacon, and chorizo. He figured it would take about an hour to make them, but he allowed a half hour extra, “just in case”. Before starting the burritos, he tried to tie up all loose ends, but realiz...

I had a presidency meeting at noon that I was hosting on zoom and Janice always gives us homework to do before our meetings, so in the morning there were things I had to prepare. So I spent some time on that, sprinkled in with creating reports for Tom and handling a few Clean Queen items. The meeting was fun and lasted over an hour. I like the ladies in the presidency. Janice is very spiritual yet funny and down to earth and extremely organized and good and staying on track with what needs done. I’ve been a counselor lots of times in different organizations, and have also been president lots of times in different organizations. I do love being the president because I get to do what I want, but I also enjoy being counselor and not being the one who is ultimately in charge. I don’t mind at all just doing what someone else suggests. And I have come to love the Relief Society. I’m over JustServe, so I am trying to find a good stake activity for next year, and I’m over missionary work, so...

When I got up there were messages on my Clean Queen phone so I started responding to them, then there were more, then there were emergencies, then Tom needed me to run some reports, so it wasn’t until after 11am that I was finally able to go take a shower and get dressed. Even then, I got a couple of messages while I was in the shower. Busy morning! It kind of continued all day. I had only one appointment for tomorrow so I was trying to either find enough more to make it worth the team going out, or I would have to cancel that one appointment. Somewhere in the day, Anne, Carma and I were all available and able to chat for a while. I still had some Clean Queen things going on and had to miss some of the conversations to listen to voice messages from Lilian, and at the same time I was creating a couple of reports for Tom, I was pretty stressed about trying to get appointments for tomorrow, but it was still good to be able to visit and catch up on what was going on, especially with An...

So since Tom is retiring on Friday, he wants to get enough work ready for all the marketers to carry them through to the end of the year. That means he wants me to run reports. Lots of reports. He emailed me the information for each park I needed to run a report on, and I spent almost all day and into the late evening trying to get them done for him. I still had 3 left to go when I finally gave up for the night. My neck was sore from sitting in one position for too long. I also practiced the flute for our ward's Christmas Devotional. It sounds terrible and at this point I’m not sure whether I can get my lips in shape in time to do it. They are pre-recording each of the parts of the program which they will edit and combine into a nice program. They have already started recording people, but I’m hoping to not get recorded until next week and hope I can be ready by then. I should really practice all year. Hahahahaha We’re trying to get things ready for our new renter to move in ne...

We went for a walk this morning, then each settled in to our various jobs. I’ve been trying to paint some little ornaments for some of my trees and it is taking forever. I have to paint each side with white, then paint each side with a glitter paint. With letting each dry in-between, I’ve spent several days on them. And they are just little silly stars. I almost finished painting 3 pictures to replace the colorful ones on my family room wall and I like how they turned out. They match the Christmas décor much better. I just need to wait for them to dry all the way. I got to chat with Anne and Carma in the afternoon, which was nice. Anne is having surgery tomorrow so it was good to check in with her and know the details. I also worked on a little surprise for Tom for much of the day. In the evening Tom decided to start moving things in our guest room to get ready for our new renter in January. There are a lot of things we need to move, set up, and get ready. We got one bed out and ...

Sunday is becoming a COVID routine> Tom has bishopric stuff until time for Sunday devotional at 10am. There has been Sunday School at 11am, but this week they changed that to 1pm. Our ward isn’t planning to start Relief Society until January. I miss having relief society. I don’t even remember what we did until time to leave for Tanya’s – we left about 11:30. We had planned to leave earlier but just as we were ready to walk out, Tom got three phone calls from people wanting to meet with the Bishop tonight so he had to set them up with appointments. At Tanya’s we hung out with her until Todd got up and everyone was ready for our Sacrament service. It was short and nice except that Todd asked Kaden to say the opening prayer and he didn’t feel like he knew what he should say and had a melt down that Tanya dealt with privately. After that, all was well, We finished that just in time for Tom and I to join our Sunday School, which we did on my phone, so it was tiny. There were only ...