Scorching the World

Tom left for work and I got up. I was starting my scripture study when Tanya came over to watch a movie. Someone told her about a movie called The Last Thing He Told Me, with Jennifer Garner. Her friend told her it was on Netflix so she asked me if I had it and I said yes. But when I tried to find the movie on Netflix it wasn’t there. Tanya said, “But you said you have it.” I said, “I meant I have Netflix, not that I have the movie." Turns out the movie will be on Apple + (which I don’t have) when it comes out in February. I hate that there are so many subscription things that have their own things to watch. I would have liked to see it. So we had to find other things to watch and I managed to keep her entertained for a few hours and fed her some of our leftover soup and homemade bread for lunch. She left right when Tom got home, which made him sad, but she had a meeting to go to. Tom and I grabbed a short nap then got to work on Lindy. I have a bunch of little things to t...

I hoped to get scripture study in before we left for the temple, but that didn’t happen. We went to the temple early because after missing all of last week we thought there might be a mess to clean up before we started. There wasn’t much of a mess, so we had plenty of time to wait for people to arrive. Almost everyone who came arrived a minute or two before 9 or right at 9am. One arrived at 9:45. We had a couple of people who were VERY slow and one or two who didn’t really ever understand what they were supposed to do, but we made it through. We finally left about 10:15. We had a good group but some very slow people. Tom had agreed to go help in the vineyard right after the temple. We had forgotten to schedule in the gym, so we totally missed that today. Again. We can’t wait to get back to exercising before we lose any muscle we might have gained before. So after some lunch, Tom left and I finished the flooring in Lindy (the motorhome’s new name). When Tom got home (after a nap...

Today is Carma’s birthday! I thought of her first thing and all day. I hope she had a wonderful day and knows she is loved! I was playing in Sacrament meeting today, so we went to the church a little more than an hour early so I could warm up. Today was ward conference so all the stake leaders were there, which made me way more nervous, but everything went fine. It was a really good meeting. The Bishop spoke on having a vision statement for our lives. The musical number was 2 young sisters (young meaning they only have a couple of kids) who sang one of the youth songs for the year, accompanied with the guitar. It was beautiful. So beautiful. President Tucker spoke about knowing that the Lord guides us personally and is involved in our lives when we seek Him. It was really good. The 2 nd hour was super cool. President Farley spoke to the adults and showed us how to prepare a talk using the Chat GPT. It was a pretty good talk, but he spoke on the difference between a talk prepared...

Tom was up in the night for about an hour, but came back to bed. I woke up at about 6am and snuck out. I didn’t want to wake him up by getting dressed, so I was limited in what I could do in my pajamas. I cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed the cooktop, and even went out to the motorhome (now called Mo) and worked out there a little. He slept so long that I was worried about him. I went in to check on him twice. Usually if I even walk down the hall that will wake him up, or if I open the bedroom door, that will wake him up, and especially if I walk through the room, that will wake him up. But I did all of those and even went over right next to the bed to make sure he was breathing. He was breathing deeply and was very sound asleep. He slept until 8:30am! I don’t think he has ever, in 55 years we’ve been together, done that before! I was quite concerned, but he woke up feeling wonderful and refreshed! He left to go work on the comet at our neighbor’s house and was gone all day again. Th...

Tom had arranged with a neighbor who fixes up and restores classic cars to help him fix the overheating problem on the Comet. So after he got off work, he took that over there and was gone until about 5pm.  He called me twice to take something to him that they needed. They had a very hard time making the new parts fit. He had a lot of fun working with Ray, but was frustrated that they couldn’t get it to fit right. I started working on a couple of things in the motorhome first thing this morning. While I was out there, Tanya came over and peeked in. She said it looks so much better but that the pattern on the contact paper really doesn’t match the flowers on the fabric trim. She also felt that we should paint the cab part of the motorhome, too. We had planned to leave that part as is. She has good opinions, but I’m not looking forward to redoing or continuing to paint. We watched some tv while she was here and talked about a variety of things. She is super interesting to talk to...

We were supposed to leave to take the motorhome to have the seats reupholstered at 8am, but about 7:30 Tom realized that the one he just bought at a wrecking yard didn’t recline. He had me try to help make it recline, but it wouldn't and that was the main reason for buying it! The on getting a better chair while they started on other things they needed to do. frame of it was also crooked which would be very uncomfortable to sit in for very long. That was super frustrating for Tom. He decided to just take the motorhome down to the place so they could get started and come back home to figure out what to do about the seat. When we got there, the guy showed him they had seats to choose from – old ones that were better than the ones from the wrecking yard but for about the same price, that they could reupholster. After much discussion, he decided to just use the seats we have. That way they didn’t need reupholstered. The only real problem with the seats that are there is that they do...

I had a slight headache when we quit working on the motorhome last night. I took a Tylenol in the hopes it would make it go away so I could sleep, but it didn’t. My head hurt all night – not terrible like a migraine, but just bad enough to not sleep well. That along with the metallic taste in my mouth made sleep not pleasant at all. First thing I googled how to get rid of the metallic taste, and found out that headaches and the metallic taste are results of the covid medication we are taking. I think I would rather have covid run its course than have these medication reactions. So I quit taking it. The metallic taste went away right away and by afternoon the headache dissipated completely! I felt GOOD! I was super excited to get busy on the motorhome today. I was especially determined to finish the paint job. This will be my 5th day painting the motorhome, and it is tiny! I could have painted a huge area in that amount of time, but there are so many tiny places, and every bit takes 3...

I woke up feeling really good! What a change from the last two days! So Tom and I got busy pretty early working on the motorhome. I really wanted to finish painting and Tom had other things that were his priority but then decided that if we could work together we might finish faster, so he joined me. There are areas where I have put more than 4 coats where some staining from moisture leaks keep showing through and make the walls look dirty, so he got out the Kilz and painted over them, then painted Kilz on the cabinets I haven’t sanded yet. Hopefully that will make it so I don’t have to sand them and tomorrow I can paint those cabinets. I have painted this area 3 times. Hopefully the Kilz will keep the stain from bleeding through. I finished painting the lower cabinets on the kitchen side and was able to get contact paper on some of the doors and drawers. It’s going to look so much better! But I didn’t finish! I think this was day 5 of painting and the motorhome is tiny! I still have...

I was miserable all night and woke up with a fever and severe head pain – not like a migraine at all, but just overall head misery. It hurt to do anything but lie down and I got really tired of lying down. I didn’t have congestion or cough or any other symptoms of covid, just head pain, fever and aching all over. That was my whole day. Tom, on the other hand, felt great! He had no fever, no congestion, no pain and was more than happy to take care of me for a change. It was the longest day ever. When it felt like it should be evening, it was only 10:30am. I listened to some tv but really didn’t want to open my eyes and preferred to have a blanket over my head all day. I managed to arrange to get my own covid medication by filling out info online, then Tom went to Kaiser to pick it up for me and got a few other things while he was out. It was so nice that we weren’t both sick at the same time and that we love to take care of each other!

I didn’t want to go to church without Tom so we both stayed home to watch Sacrament meeting on zoom. I’m grateful for zoom so we don’t have to miss out entirely. Still, it is sad to miss church. Tom began to feel a little better through the day. After we got the medication from Kaiser he felt like that healed him from one dose.   I tried to remind him to not discount all the tea, vitamins, and healthy food I had been giving him. Lol I began to feel worse through the day and by evening it was obvious that I had caught covid, too. What a pain. By evening I had a fever but our battery in our newfangled thermometer was dead so we didn’t know how high our fevers were. We ate the soup I had made, drank tea, and watched Come Follow Me programs all day, although I was watching them with a blanket over my head. It’s all good. We were grateful for a wonderful place to sit around and be together in our misery.

Tom was glad he had cleaned the church on Thursday so that he didn’t feel guilty about not going today. He slept pretty good but felt awful when he woke up. Congestion, cold, runny nose, achy, etc. He called Kaiser yesterday to set up an appointment to get a covid test from them so that he could ask a doctor for their medicine for covid. The appointment was for 12:10. I drove him, went and parked, and then picked him up when he was ready. I didn’t want him to drive, and I didn’t want to put on make-up to go into Kaiser with him. When we got home, I finished the cushions. I made several mistakes on each of them so it took at least 3 times longer than it should have. It was complicated enough, but with dumb mistakes, it took way longer than it should have. Then I attempted to make a tablecloth for the motorhome and again made several mistakes and had to rip it out and start over. So dumb. I had hoped to finish painting, finish sewing and get a whole lot more done in the motorhome...

Tom left for work early. I made sure he was dressed warmly because of the fever last night. I even tried to get him to call in sick, but he said, “It’s just 2 hours. I can do this.” He got home 4 hours later because he ran errands after work. He was cold, but warmed up before we left for the temple. I sewed all morning on the bench cushions. We had a good enough group to get everything done that needed it. We got out of the temple at 2:30 and Tom had his last checkup on his knee at 3:30, so we drove to Kaiser and took a nap in the car. We both slept really well! We went in to see if he could check in early, and found out his appointment was actually at 3:10 and he was right on time. Still, he had to wait at least half hour before they called him in. The doctor said he is doing very well. He showed us how to push his knee straight harder, and to push harder to get it to bend more – way more pressure than we have been doing, and said to do it 7 times / day!  This was to make hi...

We woke up and were ready to get busy by 5am, so we spent some time working out our itinerary for our trip until it got light enough to work outside. My first priority in the motorhome was to finally hang the valances that I recovered. They look very cute. I did a couple of other things before it was time for us to take the motorhome to the radio place. They are putting a rearview mirror in it that works with a camera on the back. It will make it so we can see what is behind and on the sides of it while we’re traveling. Tom said he felt like he was driving blind whenever he has driven it so we felt this was more a necessity than a luxury. They also put in a new radio. That part is a luxury more than a necessity. After dropping it off we ran several errands and 2 hours later we were finally able to go home for breakfast/lunch. I spent the day trying to figure out how to cover the bench seats. It is not an easy job and will probably take a few days. Also, after we had company las...

We needed to be at the senior center by 11:30, so Anne, Carma and I had arranged to chat at 9:30, right after her phone appointment with her doctor. So I went out as soon as it was light enough to do some more painting in the motorhome. Today is day 4 of painting. I think I have at LEAST 2 or 3 more days to finish it. Suddenly Carma was finished with her phone conference so I hurried and put away the painting supplies and went to the computer. We had a good chat and talked about all the most important things from our lists. I had to go by 11:15am because Tom and I had signed up for “brown bag” and lunch at the senior center. Brown bag is a program to help seniors have food to eat. For $12 per month you get a couple of bags of food. You never know what will come, but it is well worth over $12. We got a bagged salad, a bag of soup veggies, a can of sardines, 3 pkgs of single serving frozen ravioli, a small box of MacnCheese, a can of soup, a can of Spaghetti-O's, 2 pkgs of top ...

Tom left for work early and I got up and set everything up to continue painting inside the motorhome. First I warmed up the paint inside while I worked on the computer for a couple of hours. I got my lesson for Thursday’s Relief Society activity ready and printed out, got emails and blog caught up and finished other projects. About 10:30 or so I turned on the little heater in the motorhome and got to the painting portion of the day. Painting in the motorhome is slow and tedious. There are so many tiny places and every surface has to have 3 coats. So as soon as one part is dry, I went back to add another coat. By about 2pm, I was about 75% finished, but just couldn’t paint any longer. I was SO TIRED! I just don’t have the stamina I used to have. I went in, had a snack, and fell asleep on the couch. To came home shortly after that. After work, he ran a bunch of errands and was very excited that he was able to find a captain’s chair for the passenger side in the motorhome. We really wan...

We woke up early again and had time to do some things before leaving for the temple. We had 19 people come to clean today! That is an all-time record! We actually got every single job done within less than 45 minutes. I could really get spoiled with this kind of help! Today was a holiday so maybe some more people were available. Such wonderful people to be willing to give up some of their Monday to help! We went from the temple to the gym to work out. I hurt my shoulder Friday or Saturday working out or swimming, so I was very careful to not re-injure it while working out. I still think I got a good workout. I try to push myself as much as I can. From there we went to the JoAnn’s store in Clovis to get the rest of the fabric we need for the benches in the motorhome, but they weren’t able to give us the fabric because it is still in the box it arrived in. There are boxes everywhere in the store. They are way behind on putting fabric out. They said to come back in a few days. I don’t...

January is already half over! Tom and I woke up early, so we relaxedly got on our computers to catch up on emails and things. SUDDENLY it was almost time to go and neither of us was dressed yet! We hurried but also told ourselves that if we were a couple of minutes late to Church this once, the world would not end. Fortunately, we made it on time. I don’t know how I dressed so fast! Church was good. The sister missionaries were the only speakers and they both gave EXCELLENT talks! It amazes me how such young people can be so impressive! We had a little snack before our little nap. We had choir practice at 3pm. Vauna Kelly is leading the choir this time. I really like how she rehearses the choir and how she leads. We’re singing a really pretty arrangement of Be Thou My Vision that is really pretty. We started dinner when we got home, but at 5pm neither Christian or the Knudsens were here. We went ahead and ate and kept everything warm for when they arrived. Tanya and I had a s...

Today was a super busy day! Kind of ridiculously busy. We were scheduled to clean the church at 8am, but Tom was scheduled for the semi-finals in pickleball at 8:30. So we got the people in charge to open the church for us at 7:30. That meant we had to be dressed and out of the house around 7am. I prefer Saturdays to start slowly and calmly. We cleaned the church until 8am so Tom could have time to warm up with pickleball before the semi-finals started.  There were quite a lot of people at the stake center for pickleball and at the same time a ward was attempting to clean the building in preparation for Sunday. But for the games, I was the only spectator/spouse there. Everyone else who was there went to play, not support/watch. But Tom loved having me there watching him. He had so much fun! He loves the camaraderie and being able to play something similar to tennis. It’s good exercise, proven by the fact that everyone playing works up a good sweat - so they don’t turn on the he...