Scorching the World

I had a headache all night. I finally took a Tylenol PM but it still hurt in the morning and I really didn’t feel very good. But I forced myself to get up and get moving.   I wasn’t very fast getting ready, but we went to the church to help clean and got there shortly after 8am. I was glad to see 5 cars in the parking lot. We decided they didn’t need us today and went to the gym. We wanted to go to another location of our gym membership to see what classes they have there. Our location only has boot camp classes which are pretty intense. The other location is not in a great neighborhood, is very run down and not very clean. But they have yoga, swimming, and other classes during the week, so we are planning to go there once or twice a week to get a different workout now and then. After wandering around and looking at all of it – it is really big – we stayed and worked out for a while. I still didn’t feel very good so I just walked on the treadmill the while time while listening to...

  Friday 12/29 Tom had to work today but got home in plenty of time to get to our senior lunch on time but at the last minute we got a call that took longer than I thought it should so we were late. I texted the lady in charge to let her know we were on our way. Normally she doesn’t have her phone with her while serving, so we were glad that she wondered where we were and looked at her phone and saved us some food. It was pretty good today. We hurried from there to get to the temple on time. We had 11 people show up today! There were people who have never come in the 4 months it has been assigned to their stake and finally came on the last day. We were sure glad to have them all come and we got a lot done. Tom even had people do some of the jobs for next Monday since it is a holiday and we won’t be doing those Monday jobs. We went from there to the gym. We had an appointment with a personal trainer (the first session with her is free an designed to make you want to sign up wi...

This whole year is quickly coming to a close. I don’t really like time to pass so quickly! We had an appointment with a personal trainer (1 free session for joining the gym) at 8:15, so I got up and got dressed quickly. We were almost ready to leave when I got a call saying that she needed to reschedule. Apparently, her alarm didn’t go off and she was running late. But we decided to go ahead and go to the gym anyway because we were all dressed for it. We both had good workouts. We’re getting to know the machines better and finding what works best for us. As we were headed out, the trainer stopped us to explain why she wasn’t here on time and to reschedule us for tomorrow. She is ‘interesting’. I wish I weren’t so judgmental but she has heavy false eyelashes with white on the outside edges and lots of other makeup and botox lips. I hope I can ignore all that when we have our session with her tomorrow. We took time to go over to the senior center for lunch. It was good today but we...

The most exciting thing about 2 days after Christmas is that it is Anne’s birthday. I sure hope she had a good one! We had not signed up for lunch today, so we got to stay home and get a whole lot done in the morning before heading to the temple. We are re-thinking the senior lunch program – not sure it’s worth the time and very low cost. I spent most of the day packing very slowly. I think I got a couple of boxes packed. I’m doing it slowly so I can go through and make sure things are organized in a way that makes sense and so things won’t get broken. We had a small group at the temple at first but people kept coming until we had to turn one person away because he was too late and all the jobs were taken care of. This is this stake’s last week to serve, so I took a persimmon bread loaf to share with them. Such good faithful people! After the temple we go straight to the gym and work out for an hour. It feels so good! I sure hope we see some improvement in strength, fitness, an...

Tanya invited us to go see Boys in the Boat at 10am. Tuesdays only cost $5, so if there is ever a movie to see, she goes on Tuesdays. Somehow she convinced Todd and Kaden to go with her, too. We had lots of time from when we woke up until time to leave, so we got a lot done. We decided to go straight to the gym from the movie, so we had to take our new workout toys – gloves and headphones. Tom gave me some spiffy sweatpants/workout pants so I wore those to the movie. That movie is really good. Tanya and Trina both kept telling me I needed to read the book too, so maybe I’ll find a way and still do that. I still had sore muscles from the last time we worked out, so I tried to not work those same muscles. It definitely feels good to make my body move! We stopped at a store on the way home for Tom to get a new planner for next year, but he is super picky and they didn’t have one he wanted. I guess I convinced him to look online instead, because later he needed my help to order the...

Tom, Trina, and I were up first and hung out in our room for a little while. We tried to decide whether to eat first or open gifts first. Since Geneva is always last to get up, we decided to eat while waiting for her to get up. Tom made burritos and I made a huge batch of persimmon pancakes – way too much even for the amount of people we had here. They were delicious! Definitely a recipe I would want to use again! -  As were Tom’s burritos and sausage. Good breakfast for a Christmas morning. I used to make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning but this was way better. Knudsens got here in time for breakfast and brought back the rest of the ham and pumpkin pie for dinner today. So lots of people ate lots of food. Everyone is pretty good at putting their dishes in the dishwasher and/or garbage can, so most of it was cleaned up, but much of the kitchen was left to clean later. I was trying to get the house clean before beginning to cook a new Christmas meal, and worked quite a bit...

Tom and I woke up first and showered and got dressed and ready. By 7am, I needed to get a couple of things out of the freezer so they would be ready for dinner at 2pm. Our ward was providing donuts for a “linger-longer” before Church. Some of us (Spencer, Ziona and I) discussed that term and how it you can’t linger before a meeting and Ziona eventually came up with the term “come quicker”  or something.  Tom and I needed to be at the Church by 9:30 for a last-minute choir practice. Spencer decided he would like to see if he could join the choir if the music wasn’t too hard. I gave him the binder I had brought home and he went through the music for a few minutes on the piano before we left and felt he could fake it good enough. Trina had hoped to go with us in the early car, too, but decided her family would never get ready on time if she weren’t helping them. When I told Dexter and Trevor that there would be donuts if they got there by 10am, they jumped up and got ready in r...

I was almost panicked about how many things I still needed to get done before Trina got here. Tom still had not vacuumed and I needed to finish prepping food and stuff like that. We had a choir practice at 9:00am and decided to go clean the Church before the choir practice – I mean, we’re going to be there anyway, might as well! The bishopric was there setting up for our breakfast before Church tomorrow, so we were able to get in the building, but NOBODY else showed up to clean – not even the ones in charge. We cleaned the chapel and brother VanWagonen cleaned the bathrooms, and that was it. Tom continued to help the Bishopric set up for the rest of the time until choir started. The choir practice was pretty good but definite problem spots. We could probably use another month on one of the numbers, but it was fun. We went home, had breakfast, and spent the rest of the day getting ready for Christmas. Fun stuff! There was a live nativity we heard about that is supposed to be t...

Tom left for work and I decided to go grocery shopping early, before everyone else. But by the time I took a shower and actually got to the store it was already 7am. Here I thought I was getting such an early start. Lol It took 1 ½ hours in Walmart to get the groceries. I could have been much faster, but they decided to re-arrange the grocery section since the last time I was there, so I spent a good amount of time looking for things and asking Walmart people where things were this time. Not a great way to make customers happy -   to move everything right before Christmas. Tom was at work, so I had to carry in all the groceries by myself and get them put away. Such fun! It’s so exciting to be doing the last preparations for Christmas. Then I swept and mopped the house and baked the rest of the cookies and got them bagged and ready. By the time Tom got home from work, I was exhausted. I have no stamina, but I do recuperate quickly. We went to lunch at the senior center, th...

Tom had his physical therapy appointment first thing this morning. I spent the morning finishing up cookie baking for the day and trying to begin cleaning up the kitchen and dining area. I have made a huge mess and if anyone else had done it and left it, I would be on them to get it cleaned up. But I need to do more tomorrow and don’t want to get it all back out again. When he got back from PT, he said the physical therapist declared him done. She can’t do any more for him. He is to continue what he is doing because he is progressing very well. Hooray! I hurried to finish getting ready and we headed out as fast as we could to go to the Bay Area to see Tami and Nico (Nina). We took their Christmas gifts, some grapefruits and the last of our mandarin oranges. We had a nice trip there – no major traffic slowdowns and we were very happy to not have the fog in Los Banos which usually follows rainy days. We had clear sailing all the way. We met Tami at Panera in San Ramon. They got t...

  Today was my Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary. I hope they are happy and having lots of fun together! We didn’t have to be anywhere first thing this morning, which is always nice, so we got up  slowly   and worked on stuff. You know, stuff. At 11:15 we went for lunch at the senior center, then went back home, changed, and went to the temple by 12:30pm. They are in opposite directions. We had a good group for the temple today! It’s so wonderful when faithful people are willing to give of their time to service in this way. They are wonderful people and I love getting to know them! We went right from the temple to the gym. This is our new routine. It means we have to change into gym clothes before leaving the temple which feels a little wrong, but so it is. We had a good workout. We are liking this free gift for old people. The gym is big enough that there are plenty of wonderful exercise machines to work out on. I felt like I had a good workout. Then we went ...

I woke up at 3, thinking of what I want to do for the program on  Christmas  Day  and Christmas Eve. I invited our 4 missionaries that are in our ward right now to dinner on Christmas and I need to see who else will be coming for either Christmas Eve or Christmas day so we can make plans. I finally got up about 4am and started making lists. I waited until Tom got up at 6 so I could put my thoughts on the computer and start sending texts. After Tom left for work I did computer stuff. Anne, Carma and I did our weekly video chat at 8:30. I had already been up for 5 hours, so it felt like the middle of the day. It was good to talk again and go over what was good about the cruise and what we would advise others or change for next time. It’s good that we talk each week. When Tom got home, we went to lunch at the senior center. The food was much better today! I try to always give Tom some of my food so I’m not eating so much but today it was hard to part with some of it. W...

Most importantly of all, today is my 2 nd daughter’s birthday, and also my grandson, Ivon! We love them both so much! We will meet up with Tami on Thursday; we are really looking forward to that! I was getting ready for the temple, and although we still didn’t need to leave for an hour, I got dressed. Right then I got a notification/reminder on my phone of my nail appointment which was to start in 10 minutes! She lives 20 minutes away and I had no makeup and my hair was sticking up in back! AAAck! I hurried and smoothed down my hair, grabbed my makeup and a mirror and my purse and ran out the door. I was so glad I was only about 12 minutes late, but I felt really bad. She reminded me yesterday and yet I completely forgot this morning! Good thing I at least had clothes on for the temple! It’s fun to sit and talk to Ashley while she does my nails. It is relaxing, but I was still a little frazzled being late and knowing that would make me late getting to the temple I got to the t...

The house was 60 degrees when we woke up. We use an electric blanket at night now so we don’t have to heat the house at all. It’s so cozy. We both slept well and slept through the night. What a blessing! We had time to work on our computers for a while before getting ready to go to Church. Suddenly it was late so we hurried out of the house for Church. We got there so fast we were actually 10 minutes early. You just never know how long it is going to take. Church was good. Good speakers. We took notes. Sunday School was on week before last’s reading, but he still covered good points. The only thing about Revelation that he said was that he doesn’t understand the symbolism and that’s ok. After Sacrament meeting, Tom saw someone who looked familiar. When he looked closer, he realized it was Nora Guillen who we knew in Madera – Yolanda and Stan’s daughter! She’s so cute! We are excited she is now in our ward! I talked her into joining the choir because she has a wonderful voice. She looke...

I woke up at 2am for absolutely no reason except for things on my mind. I tried to go back to sleep for half hour and just couldn’t, so I got up at 2:30 and didn’t get back to bed until 5. So dumb. But I did get pretty much caught up with my blog. Now I just have to get it on the computer with pictures. I was able to go back to sleep and slept until almost 7am, which felt really good. I went back to catching up on emails and other computer things that needed done. It felt good to clear the pile, so to speak. Tom went to help clean the chapel at 8am and was glad he went because there was only 1 other couple there. I worked on things inside the house all day while Tom went outside to work in the yard. He has quite a list of things he wants to do out there and hoped I would eventually join him to help, but I have a bigger list of things in the house to do so I never made it outside. Tanya texted us in the afternoon to see if we wanted to go see Cathi and Curtis Thompson’s house. A...

We were all up and ready to go on time this morning. Tom and I had arranged with Anne for them to pick up Carma this time, but then we promptly forgot and went to her room. Sad that Anne and Acell walked all the way there just to find us already there. I felt bad that our combined memory completely forgot we weren’t   supposed to do that this time. Oh well, at least we were already together and didn’t have to find each other somewhere else. We got to the right deck to disembark with enough time that we got to sit for 15 minutes or so before they started letting people off. Being early made it so we weren’t stressed or hurried at the last minute. Tom was about to go somewhere when they started the line moving. I was so glad he was within earshot so I could call him back before he got too far away! It was a very long walk off the ship to customs, but it was smooth and went fast. We had to show our room key over and over, but at customs, all we had to do was smile at a camera. It’...