Scorching the World

I spent most of the day working on Clean Queen. Last week I thought we had the schedule for this week all set so the week would go smoothly. But this week every day has been one emergency after another. I managed to break away to go to lunch with my presidency. We went to the Corner Bakery where the food was reasonable and quite good. Everyone was happy with their choices. While we eat, we have a meeting to discuss everything upcoming. Now that Covid is slowing down, there are more things we can do, so there is quite a bit coming up. It was a fun lunch and so good, but I couldn’t eat it all so I took half of it home for Tom. I had about 30 messages to respond to when I got home. Lots of things had fallen apart, but Jeramey, the owner, was able to fill in for me. Tom spent some time looking for a parttime job. He found one delivering medical supplies to people’s homes and went to their location to apply. It would be nice to have just a little more income to pay for fun trips. He i...

The rain ended, and we woke up to thick fog this morning and severe fog warnings on the news. Our view out the windows was quite pretty. I love all the different kinds of weather – rain, snow, sunshine, heat, cold, wind, fog, etc., unless it decides to go extreme. Then it isn’t so fun anymore. This is the house across the street - the view from our front window. You almost can't see anything beyond the house across the street! And it was cold! I turned on the heat for a couple of hours! First time in weeks! I had an amazing amount of Clean Queen again today. We thought we had this week all set up and then each day it seems to fall apart all over again. Today one girl called in sick at the very last minute, so we were scrambling almost all day to make the schedule work. It took all three of us, but we made it through. I’m working on learning the hymns for Easter Sunday and they sure seem hard to me. I sure hope I can get my fingers and brain to cooperate because I hate to give up ...

I’m amazed at the power that I have sometimes. Tom washed my car really well. That was the first step. Then I decided on Saturday that the rains and winter are really over so I put down the rugs on the back patio that we had stored away all winter. We try to protect them from the rain and dampness. It’s been so long since the last rain and so warm lately, that I decided it was safe to put them back out. And then it rained today! Amazing! But we are seriously so happy to get rain. At first it looked like it was just going to be a few sprinkles, but it rained pretty much all day and sometimes it came down pretty hard. Way cool! I was freezing all day. I didn’t want to turn on the heat, and it didn’t get very cold, but I was still cold enough that I wore my bathrobe over my sweats all day. I did an amazing amount of Clean Queen today. Lots of requests for cleanings, lots of texts, and phone calls. My trainee is having problems with sick babies, so I did as much as I could to take it...

Since I was playing organ today, I wanted to go early to practice. So I hurried and got ready to leave with Tom at 7:30. I practiced and practiced and practiced. What I really wish is that people were a little reverent when I’m playing prelude. This ward seems to be especially rowdy before and after Church. Someday I think I will take a video of what it looks like. We had a combined 3 rd hour where the Bishop talked about our special Easter program and handed out invitations to give to friends. He has a plan to help the reverence. I just wish he would start that the week before Easter so people can practice. I’m playing the organ on Easter, so I’m already nervous. Once again, the hymns are ones I don’t know so it will take extra practice. Then Erilynne Christiansen told me they will be doing a special arrangement of the closing hymn that will be piano plus organ, so it’s even more nervous. Anyway, my hymns went well enough. The music director, Sister Snow, is very peaceful in how ...

Tom went at 7:30 to clean the building. What he doesn’t now is that I would have gone with him. He assume I don’t want to go, so he gets up and out of here before I have a chance to be ready. Hahahah I had a surprising amount of Clean queen, for it being a Saturday and all. But we are getting more organized and things set up better, so hopefully things will work smoother as we go. I practiced the piano like crazy because tomorrow I have to play. I feel like I’m just beginning to be able to play My Savior’s Love. If I only had another month to practice………… In the evening the ward had planned a movie night, showing Encanto, something Caeli keeps telling Grandpa he HAS to see because he loves it so much. We got there right on time. They had ice cream and toppings for everyone. We had eaten ice cream with strawberries and bananas for lunch, so I skipped that and went to the chapel to practice on the real organ. Tom sat to watch the movie. He was next to a couple of old ladies, so I...

I woke up at 3am this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up around 4 and never went back to bed. Because of that, I was sleepy all day. I watched a lot of Come Follow Me and kept falling asleep through them. I fought it because I was afraid I was sleeping so much I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night, but I slept just fine. I can’t believe I slept so much! The other thing I did all day was Clean Queen. It only added up to about one hour, but it seemed I was at the computer all day, helping my trainee, Bre. Hopefully we have next week set up so it should be smoother. Tom worked on his computer and in the yard. He ran a couple of errands, but since I was still in pajamas, I didn’t go with him. It was beautiful weather outside, but a little too warm to want the doors and windows open. It was perfect in the house and never got too warm. I love the time of year when we don’t have to turn on either the heat or the A/C! I’m playing the organ this Sunday and still haven’...

We woke up slowly and relaxed; I was thinking I didn’t have anything I needed to do today, so I could just recuperate. I showered and dressed and had breakfast. Then Tom asked when we needed to leave. I had completely forgotten about Laurel Lawrence’s class! I was having a lot of Clean Queen stuff, but went anyway. We made it on time and it was good to see people we love there. I am so grateful that the Lawrence’s make time to do those classes. Laurel does a ton of study for each class, but I have to say that since she started just doing the Come Follow Me lessons, she really doesn’t give much of anything that I didn’t already know after listening to the podcasts and some things contradict what I have learned. Her attendance is way down, so that’s sad. We did stop for groceries on the way home because we left our house without any fresh food while we were gone. I spent the rest of the day doing Clean Queen. I don’t know how I can be so busy all day on the computer and phones and ...

We were awake, packed and out of the motel by 7:30am. We had lots of snacks in the car, so we only stopped when the car needed gas or we needed restrooms, which didn’t always happen at the same time. I loved all the beautiful mountains through the trip. They are so pretty with snow on them! We didn’t have any traffic slow-downs and no problems so we were almost home at 6:30. We stopped for gas at the station right by our house and just then we got a notification that someone was at our door! So we took off without getting gas. When we got home, we found Caeli in our yard, doing the watering Tom had asked her to do for us. So sweet! It was great to come home to her smiling face! We unpacked, did laundry, showed Caeli pictures from the wedding and trip and I did quite a bit of Clean queen before we got to watch Jeopardy and go to bed. This was the weather outside (21 degrees) when we left Anne's: This was the weather after traveling a couple of hours: (35) It sur was a nice tri...

We had breakfast with Ray and Renee again, but this time we left before scripture study. I had fruit and toast again – so delicious – but Tom opted for a scrambled egg and toast, then fruit. Everything there is delicious. Then we packed up and headed to Anne’s. I think they weren’t expecting us so early. I hadn’t ever clarified that we would come after breakfast. Usually Tom has a bunch of people to visit on the way so we don’t get there until evening. We stopped at Carma’s to pick her up. We also brought a whole bunch of flowers from Amy’s wedding that Carma wanted, so we dropped them off. Not sure what she will do with them, but she was happy! We stopped at the Red Barn on the way to Anne’s. They have the most delicious apple cider donuts and is the only place we know of where you can get them. We were very sad to find out they only have them in the fall! So we bought 4 turnovers to have and share. I don’t know why I didn’t think to get 6 scones! So several people had to share. ...

Spencer had arranged to rent a car at the SLC airport, which he will drive to Texas to pick up his car. He preferred driving over flying so he could enjoy the countryside along the way. It was tricky finding the place to rent a car, because it is at the arrivals terminal where people are trying to pick up people, not drop them off like us, but we finally got him dropped off and said goodbye. It was fun to be around him for a while! He is an amazing kid! We got to Renee’s about 9:30am, and she had saved breakfast for us. I had told her we wanted/needed something light because we’ve sure been eating a lot at Mike's house, so she gave us home canned peaches and apricots and toasted homemade bread. So good! That is a breakfast item I had forgotten and will start including in my breakfast routines from now on! I had asked Renee if we could join her for her morning scripture study. She is so good about studying every day and a has a routine set where she reads the scriptures in David...

  Golly, it’s hard to keep up on writing this when we’re traveling! We wanted to watch our Sacrament meeting which was scheduled to start at 10am. It took me a long time to find the link, but finally did just in time. Then when there was nothing there, we realized it was 10am in Utah, but 9am in California, so we needed to wait another hour. Silly time differences! We were glad we watched it, though. It was really good. Shawn Rushforth spoke (from the Stake High Council) and was excellent. Almost every sentence could be put on a poster to read every day. Mike and Becky were both surprised that we still wanted to go to their meetings after watching ours, but we wanted to take the Sacrament and be able to join Sunday School! Their meetings didn’t start until 1:30pm! Up until today, it hasn’t been very cold in Utah – just cold enough that you get a little cold going from house to car, etc., but today it was in the 20’s when we went to Church! So cold! Their meetings were rea...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANITTA! We tried to call her to sing to her, but they didn't even answer their phones. We love Anitta! I didn't sleep very well at the Air BnB where we stayed. I blame it on the mirror that faces the bed - bad feng-shui or maybe I ate too many snacks too late last night. But I woke up at 3 and couldn't go back to sleep.   . I managed to hold still and stay in bed until Tom woke up at 5am. We got up and did stuff on the computer for a while, then Tom left to buy food for breakfast and I went back to bed about 6am. Traveling is hard on old people! It totally messes up our internal schedule. After everyone woke up, we went to M&B’s house. As soon as he got a big batch of potatoes fried, we all left to go have breakfast at Lonetta’s house. She is our niece and lives west of Ogden. They had a huge spread of food there with home-made gluten-free scones, a breakfast casserole, a fruit salad, and then we added burritos, which everyone loved. It was really fun ...

  The day was finally here!!! Hooray for wedding day! Becky had arranged for Ivon and Spencer (and I don’t know if there was anyone else) to go to the church to sweep and mop the whole cultural hall at 7:30 so we could go there to decorate. We had taken everything she had over to the Church and stashed it all in a couple of different rooms last night. So today we had to get it all out and find out where to put it. Some men quickly set up all the tables at one end of the cultural hall, and all of the chairs in rows facing the stage. Tom, Spencer, and I put the runners on the tables, then put the centerpieces. There were two sisters there steaming wrinkles out of the tablecloths, so we had to wait for them to finish before we could finish. We got all that done, then helped with various other things. There were a lot of people there helping. Mike was helping 4 or 5 others hang up pretty draping lights on the long walls. 5 or 6 others were hanging the pretty blue fabric on chairs, th...