Scorching the World

Thursdays are nice because Tom doesn’t have to work and we don’t go to the temple, and we can just stay home and do what we have on our to-do lists. We love everything we do each day, but once in a while, it’s nice to just do what we choose. I did Clean Queen, but there really wasn’t much today. It’s been very quiet lately, which is nice for me, but doesn’t make for a successful business! I’ve been binge watching past episodes of Will Trent so that I’m caught up with the ones that are recording currently. So over a few days, I’ve watched 8 episodes. It’s kind of a fun show, but deeply dives into the long-term effects of foster care on individuals. I tried to do other things while watching it, but the sound isn’t great so I have to watch the subtitles closely. It was fun to have time to do that. Tom saw on his calendar that Cannon had a tennis match scheduled for 3:30 today. I texted Tanya to confirm, which she did. So I put on makeup and we left. It wasn’t too cold outside, but t...

I try to be at my computer by 6:30am because that's 7:30 in Utah and the my cleaning ladies are already in their cars on the way to their appointments. That’s when they are most likely to be contacting me. The clients also start heading out around that time, so I don’t want to miss early messages that may be urgent. But this morning Tom came back to bed about 6am and I didn’t want to get up. He wakes up around 4am and is wide awake for a while, then is ready to go back to bed about the time I’m ready to get up. Welcome to old age. Anyway, I can hear if my phone dings, so when it started doing that, I finally got up, close to 7am. As soon as Tom got up and dressed he headed to the yard to get as much done as possible before the rain started again. I spent much of the day trying to get files transferred from my old computer to my desktop computer. It is such a slow process with pictures I decided to buy a usb transfer cable. It will arrive tomorrow and I sure hope I can figure ...

Last time we went to Laurel Lawrence’s class, she told me she was someplace and was talking to a lady who told her, “You remind me of a friend I had a long time ago, Laurel Lawrence.” Laurel said, “I AM Laurel!” and they had a great reunion. They had been neighbors a long time ago, so neither recognized the other. Pretty funny!!! Tom left for work at 6:30 and I went to my computer. It wasn’t as busy today, so I got to catch up on other computer-related things and also get in some good exercise. I started watching a new series called Will Trent and quite like it. There have been 9 episodes already, so I watched a couple of them. Then I got to talk to my sisters and that’s when Clean queen decided to get busy. I felt like I missed most of the conversations and every time I finished something I would have to ask them what they were talking about. It was pretty frustrating. Even Jeramey tried to call me but I didn’t pick up and just sent texts instead. By the time we hung up, I had lot...

I got a little Clean Queen started before we needed to leave to clean the temple. We had a small group today, so we didn’t get everything done, but it was still nice. After we got back, I worked on Clean Queen pretty much until about 7pm, with a few breaks now and then. I couldn’t believe how much there was to do. Lots of scheduling and fixing and arranging. And obviously I got caught up on my blog. Tom worked outside and got lots of things planted and places ready for planting. It was a beautiful day today – in the low 60’s, so he was super happy. I went outside and felt the sun a little, but had to keep going back to my desk and computer. In the evening we relaxed and enjoyed just another normal day. Anne managed to get information about Paul from CharLee and from the hospital. We don’t know what will happen to him next – whether he will go to a care facility of some kind or go home. All we can do is pray for peace for everyone involved. Prayer is the one thing that makes it ...

I was playing organ today so I wanted to be at the Church by 8am. When we got there, the building was still all locked. Everyone was late for bishopric meeting. But we didn’t have to wait long and I got right to the organ to practice for 2 hours. Except that I had a temple recommend interview at 9:30. Tom asked Brother Wadsworth to get me in earlier, as soon as he had time, so that was super nice. I’m always so nervous when I play that I didn’t really want a distraction from my warm-up. But it all turned out fine and my playing was good enough that it didn’t detract from the meeting. Good for me! The speakers were really good. They were all new members of the ward who moved into the new housing just north of us. I think almost half our ward lives up there now. If the stake had had a crystal ball, they might not have merged our two wards a few years ago. Now with the new housing, we are constantly getting new families. It is wonderful! I texted Christian to be sure he knew we woul...

Tom went to help clean the chapel but nobody else showed up so he was home within half hour, since he doesn’t have a key. He found out later that the cleaning had been canceled but when we went on Sunday, the whole church building was a mess. Several of the men who were at church super early picked up trash and vacuumed. Back to Saturday.  I declared this day a rest day! At least for me.   Tom had a bunch of yard work he wanted to do. He always has a lot of yard work but it takes him a long time to actually go outside to do it. I thought I might go out with him and get some sunshine and exercise, but I had way too much to catch up on, so I never made it outside. He finally went out at nearly noon after he got a nap. By late afternoon he came back in and I asked if we could go shopping again. We went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Home Goods, and Walmart. I want some bins or baskets to organize the shelves in the laundry room but can’t find the right sizes. It’s frustrating...

Today was the s ame Friday schedule as always. Tom went to work at 6:30 and got home just in time to leave for the temple cleaning. I worked on Clean Queen and another project I have. When I bought a new computer, I took it and my old one to Geek Squad to have them transfer all the files. They have a much faster way to do that than I do. But I’ve found that most of the pictures did not get transferred, plus I want them on my desktop computer, so I’ve been moving them over. It is tedious and I’m sure there is a faster, smarter way to do it, but at least I’m saving them before the old laptop dies completely. I spent my time in-between CQ working on that. Anne and Carma and I are still super worried about Paul and all the situations that go with his declining health, so we decided to do a video call with him and planned it for when Tom and I got back from the temple. I started on zoom, then we realized that Paul probably didn’t have zoom on is phone, so we tried a video call on Face...

Even though I love all the things we have scheduled to do all week, I really enjoy a day where I can stay home and do what I want. I was determined to exercise today and get in a routine where I exercise every day, but I found that it is possible to do everything that I want to do in a day and try to exercise after I finish everything else, I will never have time to exercise. It has to be a priority and scheduled in or it will never happen. By the end of the day I don’t care whether I ever exercise, so it has to be before I get to that point. I got a bunch of sewing done today. I got all of the thrift store items fixed so I can wear them and they are so lovely! I got some laundry done, lots of Clean Queen, some laundry, some cleaning and other computer work done. It felt good to get caught up on lots of things and feel in control again. Our favorite renter, Kamila Carwile, moved out. So sad to see her go. She is like a daughter to us now. And our new renter, Kimy moved in. She is a...

I had a whole lot of Clean Queen to do before getting ready to go to the temple and as the time got closer, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to leave the computer at all. At the same time Carma called to tell of her latest conversation with CharLee who she had called accidentally and we decided to get on a Zoom with Anne, who was at a senior lunch, about to get her food. We chatted briefly while I was putting on my make-up and promised to talk later when CharLee called back with the latest updates. Paul is just not doing well, and yet continues to rally at the last minute. It looks like he will be going into a care facility soon. Clean Queen continued busy, but there was a magically a break in the messaging and we left for the temple right on time. We had a smallish group at the temple but got most of the work done. It is a pleasure to be there and be part of anything having to do with the temple. When we left, I had 38 missed messages. As I read through them, everything was mostl...

Tom left for work around 6:30am and I got up and started my work. Clean Queen really does dominate my life, and it would be nice to not feel so tied to the computer, and also I sure feel like I’m getting too old and senile to do the job well, but at the same time I am positive it is keeping my mind more alert that it would be if I didn’t have to focus and really think hard to keep track of everything. It isn’t a hard job, but a young mind certainly would help. It rained A LOT today. I don’t know why our pool doesn’t overflow when I see how big our moat gets in the front of the house. It’s nice to have a cozy, warm, dry house to live in. Because the elliptical was no longer in our office, I was anxious to rearrange the room so it didn’t look so crowded. It wasn’t hard at all and I really like how it is set up now except for one thing. I have my desk with my back to the window, facing the door to the room. That means when you come in the room, you see under my desk, the wires, my legs, a...

  Just as if the whole past week hadn’t happened, we got up and got ready to go to the temple. We had a good group of all women, but almost all of them did 2 jobs. And they worked so happily! The temple is the happiest place on earth. No doubt about it! At home I worked most of the day on Clean Queen. I also had some skirts and blouses that I bought at the thrift store that I wanted needed to fix to fit right. I sold my elliptical so I wanted to get all the house cleaned up before they came to pick it up, and that included getting all the sewing/mending done. I didn’t get it all finished due to Clean Queen interruptions, but oh well. The funny thing about selling the elliptical was that we posted it on Craig’s list, and Tom had been speaking to a guy. Obviously, when selling, whenever get to people’s last names, just Tom talking to Chad. When Chad arrived, the woman with him entered and told Tom, “You look familiar. This house looks familiar! I swam in your pool!” She turned...

It was wonderful being with Trina and her family. Church was really nice. Both of the Sacrament speakers were really good! Excellent talks. And then the Sunday School teacher was a different one than we’ve heard in her ward and he was really good too. I’m so grateful that the Pettus family has stayed faithful and are doing their best to be good people and do what they know is important. That brings me great joy! After church Trina put together some leftovers, combined with a broccoli stir fry. Some people had leftovers from Panda from yesterday. It was all good. As soon as we finished lunch, I started making the apple cider donuts that I made for the Knudsens and Mike and Becky’s family. Tom and Trina helped and they turned out delicious. Later Ziona brought a pen and recipe card to write it all down. I guess she plans to make them some time soon. Too cute! It was fun to sit and talk before time to leave to go home. This time Ziona didn’t cry, but she did try to make up all kinds o...

When Tom was checking how long it would take to get home from Primm, it would be 6 hours. He realized that we could get to Trina’s house in 4 hours from here and then we could spend the night and go home tomorrow night. We haven’t seen them for a long time, so Tom checked with them to make sure it was ok with them. We were super excited with our new plan! But it took what seemed forever to get to Trina’s. We left Primm about 10am and got to Trina’s at almost 3pm. We did stop a couple of times to eat, etc., but we also hit very heavy traffic and progressed very, very slowly for very long times. When we were getting near Trina’s we decided to pick up dinner, so we found a Panda and bought what Trina said she usually gets. Trina was already home from work when we got there, and everyone was happy for the Panda Express food. Most of it got eaten. It was delicious! It was fun being at Trina’s house. She hired an organizer who helped her clean and organize the kitchen, dining area and ...

I got to go with Anne to her exercise class this morning because Clean Queen was being pretty quiet for a change.   We could have left earlier for home if I hadn’t gone, but it was Yoga day and I really wanted to be able to go to Anne’s class with her. The class was good and I’m sure I will be sore because we stretched muscles that haven’t been stretched for a long time. It was a lot more modified than I prefer, but I will still be sore! As soon as I got home I took care of the Clean Queen emergencies and was ready to leave. While we were gone, Tom had worked on taking the battery out of Paul’s truck for well over an hour but wasn’t able to do it. He finally gave up. He began boxing up all of Paul and CharLee’s stuff in the trailer but Acell told him they weren’t even sure they wanted to sell, so he gave up on that, too. He got our car all packed up and was ready to go when we got back from yoga. We left right about noon. We didn’t have breakfast because we were still full fr...

Every day the plans with regards to Paul’s immediate future change completely. We met on Tuesday with CharLee, ReNae, and Paul to decide his end of life wishes. It was frustrating because none of us agreed with the things he was choosing, but it is his choice, and it was good to know what he would want in different scenarios. Then, during the night, he changed his mind and decided to go home on hospice. That caused a whole flurry of new decisions and big list of things that needed done before he left the next day. CharLee had said she wanted all of us to get together for lunch today, but with the new plans decided they didn’t have time to go to lunch, but needed help getting her house ready for Paul to go there. They need a bed, a Christmas tree, and a whole lot of other stuff moved before he goes home. There were texts in the middle of the night and many phone calls back and forth after we woke up this morning. One good thing that came from all that is that Anne, Carma, Acell, Tom...

Tom and I slept in until almost 7am! Unheard of for us! Carma had sent a text in the middle of the night, so I turned off my phone. When I woke up at 7, I found I had missed some important messages from Clean Queen workers. I got dressed and immediately got to work. Eventually Anne and Acell woke up. Acell had breakfast, and we had breakfast with him, but Anne left to work out at the gym. I wished I could go with her, but with all the work I had and Tom had an upcoming dr visit on the computer I wanted to be part of, I didn’t dare go with her. It was a good thing I didn’t go because I worked all morning and was still working when she got back. Carma arrived so we could go to lunch, but Tom was still in the middle of his dr visit on the computer, and I didn’t even get to hear most of it because I had a client call I had to take. My work and Tom’s video call took so long that we missed the lunch at the senior center completely. I felt really bad about that. But we left quickly and ...

Tom and I woke up as soon as the sun came up. I started working and worked until Renee had breakfast ready a couple of hours later. Tom and I also got a shower and packed everything up. Renee made us a wonderful breakfast as she always does. Fresh home-canned peaches and homemade bread, eggs and bacon, and home-canned tomato juice. Such luxury. This is the view from Renee's back door Renee and I sit together and Tom and Ray sit and talk about their stuff. We sat around and talked and talked until Tom and I needed to leave at noon. We were supposed to meet Anne and Carma at the hospital to meet with CharLee and ReNae and Paul so we could hopefully get some decisions made that they all could be happy with. We were there a couple of hours. Paul said he felt pretty good and was very positive. He had been moved out of ICU, and was actually being able to eat clear broth. He was really happy to be able to eat again instead of just having everything fed through a feeding tube. The do...

We hung around Mike and Becky’s house until noon. I had a lot of Clean Queen to do and we wanted to be there when some of the people came home for lunch, just to see them one more time. Becky gave us a wonderful lunch of hot oatmeal – the kind that has to cook for half hour, along with strawberries, peaches, bananas, pecans, coconut, sliced oranges,   and I don’t know what else. Good food. After a sad goodbye (we hate leaving there) we stopped at Walmart on our way out of town. We were so blessed that snow had stopped and we had clear roads again. We stopped in to see Olivia King. She took a trip to Dubai at the end of last year and it was fun to hear about that and see the pictures. Plus it is always just wonderful to talk to her. Again, it was hard to leave, but I promised Renee we would be at her house by 4pm. We got to Renee’s at 4:12 so that was close. We went to eat at Texas Roadhouse and had fun conversation while eating. The food is so good, I’m always stuffed when we...

Becky and Mike’s church doesn’t start until 1pm so it was a long morning before having to get ready. Sadly, I had a lot of Clean Queen stuff that came up that I had to deal with right away. Part of the urgent things started while I was in the shower. One of the cleaners couldn’t get in the house. I heard my phone ding with a message, but the rebellious side of me said, “It’s Sunday! Give me a break!” Sadly, my boss, Jeramey had to get involved and find a way to help the girls get in. It is a newer client, and communication is complicated and difficult, so eventually Jeramey called me, knowing I wouldn’t ignore a phone call from him. I tried to help, but eventually, somehow the team got in the house. I learned my lesson to not ignore messages even if it is Sunday morning. Also I learned to make sure I have all communication information long before the appointment comes up! It was interesting to visit their ward. It is a new ward because their stakes and wards were all shuffled to make...