Scorching the World

  Tom didn’t sleep well at all. It was hard to get comfortable and he had to use the bathroom 5 times during the night. He’s pretty miserable although he doesn’t ever complain and he will still do everything he needs/wants to do. He says he has to just grin and bear it. I try to tell him he really doesn’t have to grin and bear it. He can stay home and rest and heal! We had 7 come to clean today. I knew it would be fewer today because several had told me they wouldn’t be able to come. Today was our last Monday to supervise cleaning, so we took the cookies I made yesterday and thanked those who were there for being so faithful. Several said they would miss us and thanked us for doing a great job. So sweet. We went to work out after the temple. Last time we went, they told us our membership had expired. We are under Silver Sneakers which is a Medicare benefit and shouldn’t expire before we do. Anyway, it took us by surprise when they said that, so we just said ok and decided to ...

  I had completely forgotten that I had signed up to have all 4 missionaries for dinner today. It was on my calendar, so it sent me a reminder yesterday and today, but I didn’t see either of them. Good thing the Elders texted first thing to see what time dinner would be! Tom is so good at pulling together a really great meal! He planned the whole thing out so it was easy for me to do. He didn’t sleep well because of shingles and woke up wondering if he should even go to Church, but yesterday the missionaries asked us to help pick up the African family for Church. I was playing organ today, so he forced himself to get dressed. He dropped me off at the church, then went to pick them up. He was back soon because someone else had gone to pick them up and they didn’t even need them. That was sad because he could have stayed home.   But he did enjoy being at Church. The meeting was really good. We didn’t stay for the 2 nd hour because he really needed to get in a comfortabl...

  I think Tom slept soundly all night; I woke up at 5 but held very still until almost 6. I wanted to go to Kaiser lab to get blood drawn early in the morning, so I got up and tried to be quiet but he woke up as soon as I got up. He was lying on the couch watching tv when I left. I don’t think he feels as good as he pretends. Shingles takes energy, so I know he is more tired and it hurts to sit or walk more than he lets on. He acts like he is fine but I know how it is even though so far his shingles is pretty mild, it is still quite painful. After I got back I started working on putting Christmas stuff away. We didn’t get much out this year, but it still takes some time to pack it all up. I was taking apart the Christmas tree that was in the house when Tom left to go clean the church. While he was gone I got all the decorations from our apartment and lights (from outside) packed up. I just need his help to get the tree (in the bag) carried out to the garage and take down and pa...

  Happy birthday to my sister! Anne has always been a shining example to me and many of the major choices I’ve made in my life have been under her influence, even when she didn’t know. Ever since I had shingles, every time Tom gets any kind of rash or anything on his skin (which he gets frequently) he worries that it is shingles. Yesterday he mentioned that he felt a pinching sensation in a private area. He had me look but there was nothing there. Today when he took his shower, he realized he had a rash on his backside and the place that hurt on the front was worse so I looked again and overnight he had developed a really angry looking rash. He said it didn’t itch at all but the part in front was quite tender and a little painful. Yesterday I laughed when he wondered if it was shingles. Today I told him I really think it is. So he called the Kaiser advice nurse, but he didn’t tell her how I would have. She told him to take some an allergy medicine and let her know if it got w...

  Today is our day to not have any required appointments/assignments/todo lists. I had my todo list and Tom had his. Mine was to re-clean the house. I needed to strip the beds and wash the sheets, then pack up all the bedding because the renters will bring their own. I needed to empty the dishwasher, empty the pantry of the stuff we put there temporarily, clean the bathrooms, and generally get everything we used over the days of Christmas visitors put where it belongs. I got it all done except taking down the Christmas tree and emptying the fridge. I put a lot away but piled most of it in our room to be dealt with later. Tom worked on his shed. He had asked Kaden and Christian to come help, but neither showed, so when I finished my list, I helped Tom. We got 1 wall covered in siding. It wasn’t easy because none of the walls   or framing is perfectly plum and level, so adjustments had to be made with each panel, but we got it done. At noon I was ready to eat so we took a ...

  Merry Christmas! I woke up at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I had songs going through my head and was trying to think of a specific one that kept my brain from relaxing. Tom woke up soon after so we got up and on the computers for a while before gong back to sleep for a little nap. 4am is way too early to get up! Even on Christmas! We finally went into the house around 7:30 to find most of the others awake and wandering around. Only Dexter and Chris were still asleep. Tom made a huge batch of spuds with sausage and eggs. Ravenna arrived during breakfast – she had left home at 5am, and Christian, Tanya, Kaden and Caeli arrived shortly after.  The boys are all so tall now! When everyone was finally awake and fed, we began to open presents. Caeli passed them out and was careful to make sure we saw what people got before handing out the next one. I think everyone was happy with their gifts from us. We found popcorn poppers that work in the microwave so you can use Orv...

  Trina wanted to work out this morning, so we arranged to go to our gym at 6am. She also had shopping to do, so I suggested we go to the store first to beat the crowds, then we went to the gym. Target wasn’t open yet so we went to Walmart and it was so pleasantly not packed with people. We got what we needed then headed to the gym. It was fun working out with Trina. She goes to a gym every day but it is a very small one and doesn’t have all the machines ours has, so she enjoyed working a little on each machine. She also showed me other exercises I can do to get a better workout. We also stopped at Smart and Final for ice cream before going home. While we were at the grocery store, it started to rain and on the way home it was pounding rain to the point of having to drive much slower. Then when we got home ( 5 minutes later and 5 miles away) it was hardly sprinkling while we brought groceries in. Much much later in the evening I asked Trina where the ice cream was. I had put ...

Today is Christmas Eve Eve! Today I wanted to get everything as ready as possible so I can just pop things in the oven when people are here. We cleaned the  empty  house after we moved out and again after Thanksgiving company left, but it has been a month, so it all needed re-vacuumed, swept ad mopped. We decided to get up and busy early to get it all done before we went to clean the temple. So we cleaned from 6am to 8am. I thought we could do that in one hour, but it took a good 2 hours and didn't quite finish. We were a little late leaving, but I was impressed with how much we got done.  We only had 6 come to clean today (and several said they wouldn’t be here next Monday). Tom and I did jobs also, and everything got done. We decided to skip working out because we had so much to do at home, I had a whole lot of baking/cooking to do, Tom hooped to get the roof on the shed, and I was already tired after cleaning the house and by the time we finished cleaning the tem...

  The sister missionaries were hoping we could help pick up the family from Africa for church again today, but we had to be at the church by 9am for a last practice for the Christmas program, so they had to arrange other people. It’s not easy finding rides for that many people. Our rehearsal went well. We had 3 more men who sing well, and 2 of the ones who don’t carry a tune so well didn’t make it to church today, so we sounded pretty good. The whole Sacrament meeting turned out good. The bishop wanted a theme of Christmas around the world so he could include our members from other countries. So we had a segment on Mexico, Greece, Italy, Africa, Hawaii, and the Philippines. It as good and there were lots of smiles in the congregation and also quite a few tears. I would have liked more congregational singing, but you can’t do everything in an hour. After church we had a linger-longer with a whole bunch of different kinds of cookies. I skipped that, but somebody gave us some ho...

  4 days to Christmas! I’m ready and I love the anticipation and I can’t wait for people to come, but I don’t want it to be over so soon! Tom went to clean the chapel at 8. I stayed home and took care of my morning routine. I’m redoing my files in preparation for the new year. I love nicely organized, pretty files; it makes me happy every time I look at them to file something, but every year by the end of the year, I’m ready to fix them up pretty for the new year. I spent almost every spare minute working on that today. So fun! Tom ran errands on the way home so by the time he was ready to work on the shed it was nearly 10:30am. We worked out there until nearly 3pm. I didn’t do much – just cut boards the length he told me and handed him things. He was putting up the cross boards for the roof. It wasn’t much of a 2 person job but I hope I helped a little. Mostly I sat and watched him. Usually we have Christian and the Knudsens over for dinner on Saturdays, so Tom bought stuf...

  It was super foggy this morning when we woke up. We could hardly see across the street! When Tom got up, he found a text from his boss saying there would be a heavier than usual load of deliveries today. It sure sounded like he would be late getting to the temple! After he left for work at 6am, I got busy on my stuff. I did my usual morning routine.  One of the things I decided to do after that was burn my old tax papers. Each year I get rid of the papers from 7 years ago so I have a place to put this year’s tax papers. I like to burn them because it is so much faster and more fun than shredding. What I didn’t know was that for the first time ever, Tom had shut the flue so no matter how hard I tried to get the smoke to go up the chimney. the house quickly filled with smoke! I opened all the doors and windows and turned on the whole house fan, but the house was filled with smoke and smelled like the house had burned down. It was almost time to go to yoga with Ginger and Tanya...

For the first time in a very long time, we didn’t have to go anywhere today! That was super nice! But Tom had a major project. We waited for daylight, then Tom had to do some extra stuff outside before we could start on the shed. I think we finally started around 10:30am. He is adding a whole front to the existing shed that will be a little bigger than what is already there. It already had a floor/foundation, so he just has to reinforce the floor, build walls, and put a roof on it. Today we built almost 3 walls. What I mean is we extended 2 walls – they were half there, and we built one whole wall on the front. We worked on it until nearly 3pm by which time we were very ready for lunch and a break. We came in, ate and took a quick nap, then went back out. We finished the walls, so it is ready to put on the roof. I really don’t like the idea of Tom climbing on and building a roof at all, but I don’t have any sons who live close enough to be of any help – especially 5 days before Chris...

  Today is my 2 nd daughter’s birthday! Such a sweet and kind girl who has been through so many horrible trials. I love her so much! It is also my grandson, Ivon’s birthday! What a happy day! Tom worked on the shed after the sun came up until time to go to the temple. I worked on the usual stuff in the house until time to pick up the “brown bag” groceries at the Senior center. It costs us $3/month and we get a bunch of stuff we didn’t choose, so we give away most of it, but still get something that is worth more than $3, so it seems like it’s worth it. After several years of doing that, we just found out our neighbor also gets Brown Bag, so this time I picked hers up for her too. As soon as I got back from that it was time to get to the temple. We had 9 come to clean and got everything done just find. Such good people. Then we went to the gym and worked out. It felt really good . After just 2 errands we went home but only had an hour before time to leave for a rehearsal ...

  I didn’t sleep good again, but this time it was because I had a lot on my mind. I fell asleep quickly but woke up at about 2am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Tom woke up at 3am, so we got up and watched Don’t Miss This, then a couple of conference talks. I convinced Tom we could lie in bed and watch instead of falling asleep on the recliner, so he slept well after that. I finally fell asleep about 5am but Tom kept getting texts from Trina’s renter which kept waking me up. She is in the hospital, so I guess she has no concept of day or night. I guess we’ll have to silence both phones when we go to bed. I got up shortly after Tom left for work and got busy on my morning routine. After writing in the blog and scripture study, I set up the Christmas tree in the house. We decided that if we are having people come for Christmas, there should at least be a Christmas tree in the house so it looks more like Christmas and so there is a place to put the presents. The presents sure don’t f...