Scorching the World

We like Thursdays because we don’t HAVE to go anywhere. We can get up slowly and do whatever we want! Anne and Carma and I wanted to plan our sister’s reunion for this year. We haven’t been able to do it before now because we didn’t have a date for Tom’s knee surgery and Carma didn’t have a date for their trip to Norway. So we spent a few hours with two sessions on Zoom and got a cruise planned! It is so exciting and a little bit scary! It will be so fun to be on a cruise with my sisters! This year and for this cruise, we are including husbands, but Vic didn’t want to go so Carma is going alone. But the 5 of us together will have lots of fun! I’m so glad we got that planned. We’ll go in December and will pray for good weather. My first priority was taking a shower with real running water! It was fabulous! I did Clean Queen, practiced the piano, and various other things while Tom stayed super busy with whatever he does. The biggest priority today was to get the studio apartment re...

Tom spent the morning working on digging the hole bigger and better so our friend, Curtis Flowe could continue to help us with the leak in the front water main. Curtis didn’t come over until around 10am, so I had a feeling they would not finish in time for Tom to be able to serve in the temple this afternoon. Wednesdays are the days we get the lowest attendance for helpers, so not having him today was worse than other days would have been, but that’s fine. It always works out in the end. So we were without water all night and there was no end in sight today. We had buckets next to all the toilets, and one seemed to be plugged. I learned once again to appreciate the wonder of being able to flush a toilet! What a blessing we never think about! And the blessing of showers! We thought about all the places we could go to take a shower since we couldn’t here – a dry bath in a gas station restroom, Tanya’s house, friends who are closer than Tanya, and even the temple baptistry. Pretty funny...

Today was my big brother’s birthday. I sure miss him! Tom left for work early. He took off from that job while we went to Nauvoo and then for another week afterwards. It worked out well because he had so many other things to do, but he had to go back today. He got home about noon. I had plenty of Clean Queen to do. Sometimes it gets complicated for my 78-year-old brain, but I think making myself to figure out things that should be fairly easy helps force my brain to not completely go dead. I practiced a little, then decided to do some painting while listening to Talking Scripture. It was so good! I lose track of time when painting, so it was suddenly time to chat with my sisters so I had to quickly clean up and get on zoom. I love talking to my sisters and we never run out of important (to us) things to talk about. Between the 3 of us there is plenty going on, plus we decided to plan our sister’s reunion for this fall! Tom got home while we were still talking. We had been talki...

I think we had the best turnout ever at the temple this morning. It was so wonderful! We had about 18 people and every job got done. We even had a couple of people on many of the jobs so we got them done faster. But there is always someone who is slower – two guys were vacuuming together – one to move the furniture and the other to run the vacuum, and they were having wonderful conversations as they worked. I’m pretty sure that is what slowed them down because everyone else was dressed and gone before they finished. The temple is a happy place to be with people! We made one stop on the way home so by the time we got home I had a lot of Clean Queen messages to catch up on. Tom got a nap, then while I was still working, he went to Knudsens because Todd wanted help fixing a leak in their front yard. It took several hours, but he helped Todd get it all taken care of. That’s a little funny because we have a leak in our front yard which Tom has asked Curtis Flowe to help him repair. On M...

I was playing today and mostly worried about playing Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer. I’ve practiced and practiced and there are 3 parts where my fingers just can’t remember what they are supposed to do. It didn’t help that I spent 8 days very recently not practicing once while we were on our trip. So I didn’t feel totally prepared to pay the organ this morning. We left about 8am so I would have nearly 2 hours to practice in the chapel. I really needed it. I need to spend more time practicing at home every day! It felt like deathbed repentance today! As it turned out, there wasn’t time for the intermediate hymn, which happened to be Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer. I was so very relieved! That was more than a month of stress for nothing! So glad! Our sacrament meeting consisted of short testimonies from all the youth who have gone to girl’s camp and FSY – For the Strength of Youth camp. Both were very uplifting and testimony-building. All the talks were really good. In case the kid...

Tom was up in the night for quite a while. He wakes up and can’t go back to sleep, so he gets up and eventually falls asleep in front of the tv. I didn’t hear or feel him leave, but I wake up when he’s not there. I was aware when he came back, which was right about when I was ready to get up. I stayed in bed until he fell asleep then I snuck out at about 6:30am. We are so silly and old. I did computer stuff for a while. It has still been beautiful weather – unseasonably cool, meaning in the low 70’s-80’s instead of high 90’s-100’s. So we haven’t been swimming, but we do have our windows and doors open to let in the fresh air most of the day. So nice! I love this weather, even if it’s almost the end of June and we haven’t started swimming yet. Tom worked on doing little finishing things in the kitchen – paint touch-ups and sealing the grout. We also went to target to get a new small rug for the kitchen. The one we had was pretty worn and tired looking so Tom decided this was the p...

I was not sore  this morning  from all the hard work yesterday, but we were both quite tired. I wasn’t quite ready to get up when Tom heard my phone in the office. He got it and brought it to me so I wouldn’t have to get up if it wasn’t urgent. Sadly, it was urgent. One of the teams couldn’t find how to get to their first appointment. They seem to be map-challenged because I found the directions easily. I think it had something to do with the fact that the address in the app said “upstairs” as part of the address, so their map came up with nothing. I pulled up a map and sent it to them, but it took almost half hour for them to understand where the house was. Jeramey jumped in when he saw the flurry of texts going back and forth but had to ask me what it was about because it was all in Spanish. But with his help we were finally able to get it so they understood. After that I continued with Clean Queen work until time to get ready to go to the temple. Tom worked on the kitchen...

Today we did the grout. It was much faster, and less taxing than putting on the mud and tile, but it still wore us out. Tom mixed one batch of grout and we worked until it was all gone. That did about 2/3 of the walls. So we rested a bit, then mixed another batch and finished. We worked from about 9am to 4pm, pretty solid. I think my arms will be tired tomorrow and I counted that as my exercise for the day. It s so beautiful! We still need to put on the outlet covers and do a couple of other finishing things, but it is so pretty I can’t stop looking at it. It is sooooo white. All white. I wonder if it is too much white. Decorating shows talk about contrast, but I love the white. Every time I look at the kitchen, I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off me and I feel peace. When we finished, Tom worked on clean up while I got ready for Relief Society activity. They had a game night with snacks that people brought. They had a visiting challenge that was like a game board wher...

We both slept fitfully. I guess we over-did it a bit yesterday. But this morning was all about finishing the tile backsplash before leaving for the temple. Tom was up way early, then went back to bed until about 7am.   I got up at 6am and caught up on computer stuff before heading to the kitchen to finish the tiling, Tom worked on cleaning up stuff and setting up stuff so we could work better. I worked on mixing the mortar and getting the rest of the tiles on the wall. Then he began measuring and pre-cutting the special sizes so they were ready when I got there. There were times when we were on top of each other, but it turned out well. It seemed like we would never finish in time before the tile saw had to be returned, but we kept at it and magically (or should I say miraculously) finished at 10am! Tom quickly cleaned up the saw, we showered, dressed, and made it to the temple on time after returning the saw. Whew! What a miracle we were able to do that! Wednesdays are the day...

Today was my Mommy’s birthday. I thought of her every time I saw the date. I miss my Mommy every day! Tom took today off work for our trip to Nauvoo. He didn’t know we would be back already. It was nice to have him home all day! We planned to put in the backsplash tile today. It is just backsplash, so shouldn’t be too hard, but Tom had to rent a tile wet-saw, and you have to rent them for 24 hours at a time. We really didn’t think it would take longer than 24 hours, and neither did we want to spend more than 24 hours working on it. My thought was to have Tom at Home Depot at 6:30am when they opened to get the saw so we could work on it all day and finish before they closed at the end of the day. Tom’s plan was to pick It up at around 10am, work on it most of the day, then finish up tomorrow morning and return it before going to the temple tomorrow. As it turned out, he was on long phone calls all morning, working on things he tried to do yesterday, and didn’t get the saw until ...

I got quite a bit of work done before leaving to clean the temple. I was just really being productive when Tom came into the office with his white clothes on and reminded me it was time to go! I had to really hustle to get dressed and ready! We had a wonderful turnout to clean. We got pretty much every job done. It is so uplifting and joyful to serve in the temple. I love when people finish a job and I tell them they are done and can go and they say, “That’s it? That was so easy!” We stopped on the way home to pick up the tile for our backsplash. Tom hadn’t even seen it yet, so I was a little worried about how he would feel about it. When we got home we talked at length about how I want it installed. I can’t wait to do it, but we have to rent a tile saw. Tom sold ours when we thought we would never need it again. Tom spent most of the rest of the day trying to get business done – he needed to talk to the credit union, the 401-k company, Kaiser, and a few others but nobody was ans...

We woke up slowly – or rather I woke up slowly. Tom was up in the night for a couple of hours. I guess he is back to his old habits. I woke up about 5am but stayed in bed until almost 7. Then I spent several hours catching up on my blog. I had the hardest time getting all the pictures to download! I need somebody smart to show me how to use icloud! Church was good! For the first time in a very long time, they did not have a high council speaker come. Instead, a couple spoke about fathers! They were good talks, then after the meeting they handed out large chocolate bars to the men. Sunday School was good. They teacher follows the same format every time – he brings up a topic, then asks for opinions on one of the scriptures, and it becomes a hot topic of opinions and comments. They are good comments and it is amazing to me how many different view points there can be on a subject that seemed so clear cut to me. I was so sleepy I could hardly bear to not lie down on the bench in the ...

Tom and I woke up over and over this morning, from about 4am on, and were ready to hit the road, but Tanya slept until about 7am. Everyone except Caeli got up, used the bathroom, and we hit the road again, with Tom driving. We had slept just north of St George, so we had a little over 3 hours to get to Las Vegas. When we got to Las Vegas, we went straight to the airport to pick up our cars from the long-term parking where we left them. Tanya thought we could drive to the area where we couldn’t find each other when we dropped off the cars, but the overhang sign was too low so it scraped the top of the motorhome. It made a terrible noise, and we were sure we had crashed and ruined it. I was sick to my stomach when it happened, worrying about the damage it had caused. Tom was driving at the time. Tanya was giving him directions, but Todd was yelling opposite directions at the same time. Then there was a siren, and we couldn’t tell if a policeman was trying to pull us over, then there wa...

Tanya drove all night last night. I kept her company the last 4 or 5 hours until we finally got into Colorado and found a gas station. We filled the tank, washed the very, very dirty windshield, and played fruitbasket turnover, moving almost everyone into different places for the daylight hours.    Tom took over driving, and Todd sat in front with him so Tanya and I could get some sleep.  We stopped in a very pretty Colorado ski town for breakfast. It was such a pretty town.    Tom loved these flowers. It is still on the bush, but he put it behind his ear. It was a beautiful mountain ski resort city! Breakfast was delicious!  Cannon had pancakes with Nutella and strawberries. Tanya had a dish with different colored beets, small red potatoes, and eggs. Delicous! Tom had a BLT. This is by far the fanciest BLT I've ever seen and it was delicious! It was so good! I had challah French toast with roasted apple bits. So good however, later the beets made Tanya pre...

We started earlier today. Tanya made the kids wake up earlier and have breakfast so that we could get to the other wagon ride at 9:30am. We had cereal in the motorhome, then took off in our little carts. It was warmer again today than yesterday, but while we’re in the carts the breeze helps a lot.   It was fun and interesting, but much like the one we went on yesterday. Then there was a performance near there of dancing, so we went to that. On the way, the Nauvoo Brass Band was traveling in their wagon. As they passed us, we asked for some music, so they stopped and played a peppy little thing just for us! It was awesome. Then they went down the road where there is a place for families to show younger kids the kinds of things that children did for entertainment and to help out. They gave each of the children there a triangle and then the whole band marched around the little area, playing one song, and the kids got to march along playing their triangles. It was cute. Then we f...

Wednesday -  Tom and I woke up at 7am! We’re doing really good at sleeping longer here, I think because we have no other choice. It has been such wonderful weather so far! Never getting too warm in the day, and cooling off at night. There has always been a nice breeze. I’m so very grateful for the good weather! Today we disconnected the motorhome and drove to Carthage which is only about 30 minutes away. When Joseph and Hyrum were taken there, it was a 6 hour horseback ride! Carthage is a much bigger and nicer city than Nauvoo. There were a lot of very beautiful and spectacular houses. We had to wait about half-hour for the next tour of Carthage jail. Again, they told the whole story in a way that ended feeling uplifting and inspired instead of broken hearted, sad, and angry. It was so interesting to see how they did it. We were so glad we went.       We found a Mexican restaurant for lunch and had such very good food! Almost all of us save half of our...

  Tuesday  Tom and I were awake by 5am, but managed to fall back to sleep and slept until about 7am. We went to shower, then stayed at the picnic table outside so everyone else could sleep. After Tanya and Todd got up we still stayed outside a while so the kids could continue to sleep.  They slept to about 10, then we headed into town on the golf carts. We looked at different stores, souvenir shops, art stores, hand-crafted stores, etc. It was fun. Tanya had figured out schedules of events and what time each started to make sure we got to them all on time. First we had lunch at the only restaurant again. The food isn’t all great. Cannon’s favorite phrase is, “It’s an acquired taste”. But it seems to be the only place to eat in Nauvoo. It was so smushed and soggy! The flavor was good but the presentation and texture were awful! Then we went to ride on a wagon pulled by some very impressive horses – Percherons! The elderly missionaries drove the wagon and narrated as th...