Scorching the World

  Sample dress from website First thing on the agenda was to finish the little dress I’m making for baby Vivian. It is a super simple pattern that went together in less than half hour. All I was missing was ribbon for the shoulder straps. I go tit done, then gathered the things I would need to be able to mail it today, like a box, packing materials, scissors, tape to put the address on it, and a safety pin so I could thread the ribbon into it after I bought some. I packed up the bag that we take to the gym with water, got clothes for the gym ready. I packed clothes to wear to Cheesecake Factory where we were meeting Tanya and Todd because today all cheesecake was half price, then I was ready to take a shower. I put in my hearing aids while doing all that tried to remember that I would need to take them out before jumping in the shower, but forgot! As soon as I got my head wet, I remembered the hearing aids! Good thing they are water resistant! After the shower I did my morn...

  Tom and I were both wide awake at 4am, so we got up and did things until time for him to leave for work at 6. I found a pattern for a baby summer dress that I decided I wanted to make for baby Vivian to mail with the little baby toys I made the other day. So while it was cool enough outside, I chose fabric and cut it out. Tomorrow while it is cool I’ll make it then get it sent off. Fun stuff! Yesterday I watched a video that showed people from different parts of the world cleaning their houses. It was fascinating to me how deeply they cleaned and how much time and effort they put into it. They cleaned things I’ve never thought to clean. It was a very peaceful video – people talked about the reasons they spend time cleaning and that it had to do with peace of mind and adding more calmness to their lives.  A Global Clean   Anyway, it motivated me to clean things in our apartment that I’ve been planning to get to “any minute”. After my usual morning stuff, I began ...

We are so happy that our temple is finally open again after major remodeling! It seems like forever that we’ve been without a temple! We signed up to clean the temple this morning at 9am.  Actually, there was no signup; we just decided to go help. We woke up at 6, so we had plenty of time to get stuff done before leaving. I caught up on blog and stuff. Tom worked in the yard, but got permission to go at 8:15 instead so that he could go to pickleball at 9. The figs are ripe! We have green figs. All the other figs I see in stores and from other people's trees are black figs. I think ours are bigger and much sweeter. I didn't eat them for many years before Tom convinced me they were good. Now I love them. When I was on my way to the temple, Tom called me to see if I was already on my way. I had put my purse and phone in the trunk so I wouldn’t have to take them in the temple, so I had to answer the call on my watch. That was a first! I felt like Inspector Gadget, talking on my w...

  I could not go to sleep last night. After Tom went to sleep I stayed awake a long time. I finally got up and laid on the reclining loveseat, listened to Church music on Pandora and continued to try to go to sleep for a couple of hours before I went back to bed. So this morning, Tom got up a while before I did. It continues to be in the high 50’s in the mornings so we get to have our windows open. So nice! Because we are old people who wake up so early, it sure seems like a long morning before we leave for Church at 9;30. I know a lot of people who have a hard time waking up for Church at 10 but for us it feels like we’ve lived half a day before Church. Anyway… Church was good. The speakers were another new couple who just moved into our ward. It seems like we have a new couple move in about every week. Their talks were really good. I like it when new people speak in Sacrament meeting because we get to know them a little. Relief Society was good, too. There was a lot of ...

  It was in the low 60’s when we got up so we both headed outside first thing in the morning. I wanted to sew until it got too hot to be out there, but I just didn’t have enough projects in mind. I made one pattern I found for a baby toy.  It is basically a square with plastic sandwiched between two fabrics (so that it makes a sound when it is handled) and ribbons sticking out on all 4 sides, it takes about 5 minutes to make one, so I made 3. I sure wished I could think of other things to make. They turned out pretty cute. I want to make some baby hats and other things, but didn’t have the right fabric, Sad when I can be at the sewing machine but don’t have anything I want to make. I did get the sewing area all cleaned up and straightened up some of the fabric drawers. We were expecting Caeli to come visit, so when someone knocked on our front door, we assumed it was her. But it was Curt Flowe. Tom had asked him to stop by. They went out into the yard so Tom could show him s...

  I skipped yoga this morning because my arms were jello from the yoga yesterday and my workout at the gym on Thursday. Besides that, Tom took my car so that he could give driving lessons in it after work. He left for work at 6am, and I got dressed and went out to the shed to finish my sewing projects. I made covers for both our carry-on suitcases and made straps to keep the person item bags attached to the handles of the carry-ons.    It was totally not a necessary sewing project, but it sure was fun. My only thing is that I wish I had had enough stretchy fabric to make both covers to match, Oh well. Tom also thought it would be cute if I put a necktie on the front of his and I could put a bow or something on the front of mine. But these are fine and we will probably use them on our next trip in October, which may well be our last trip ever. It was a fun project and I only quit when I did because I was too hungry to keep sewing. I looked at other patterns of things...

  Today was Pioneer Day – a day that is greatly celebrated in Utah and not even acknowledged in California. Becky sent us videos of the Pioneer Day parade they went to that looked really impressive. In all the things I went to or did, nobody mentioned it. Funny. Tom had yardwork to do in the morning (no surprise there). It has been in the low 60’s in the mornings this whole week, which is so nice! I have the windows open until nearly noon and love the fresh air. Anyway, he was using the blower on the driveway, and the hedge trimmer on the Eucalyptus tree over the driveway, when for the 2 nd time in a row, he accidentally swung around and cut the cord. That ended that portion of yard work. He had to find other places that needed his attention. I took advantage of the cool weather to go into the shed to sew. I am making a couple of things to make travel more smooth – a strap to hold our “personal item bag” on the handle of the carry-on bag, and a cover for the carry-on bag. I’...

  Tom and I woke up about 4 but managed to stay in bed for about half hour before deciding we might as well be productive if we are awake anyway. So we got up and talked and worked on things, and I even took a shower and got dressed. One reason I was getting dressed so early was that our renter, Keira was going to come out and do another ultrasound on me. She needed to do it before I drank water, and then would do it again after I drank water, so she planned to come at 6am. But last night after we went to sleep, she sent a text saying she didn’t need to do it after all. After Tom read that message, it was about 5:30 so we laid back down and slept another hour. Tom had pickleball at 9am, so we planned to go exercise at 7;30, then he could go to pickleball from there and I could go to Kaiser to get my new glasses adjusted a little. They are a little uncomfortable to wear very long. The workout felt good. We haven’t gone all week – we just haven’t found a way to work it into our s...

  We slept well last night. It’s been cool enough in the evening and early morning to have to windows open. It feels so good to get fresh air. Tom started working outside while it was cool. He worked on Cannon’s car a little more and several other things. About 11am he went to go give the girl from Congo a driving lesson. He was gone a long time. He gets pretty frustrated that she doesn’t seem to understand or follow directions at all. I think this was the 4 th lesson with her. I cleaned up the house a little and worked on my temperature tree. It’s almost done! What am I going to do next? The mom of our renters is in school to be a nurse anesthetist and one of the things she has to do is ultrasounds. She has done them on her own pregnant belly lots of time and on each of her kids and her husband but needed to do more so she asked me if she could ultrasound my belly. She came out at 2pm. She has a little wand that connects to her laptop. She spent a long time and talked to us...

  Tom and I both woke up about 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. We talked some and eventually got up. We were still talking about the renter in Christian’s house and other stuff that is really dumb to be discussing at 3am!   I updated my blog, balanced the checkbook and listened to some videos on décor before we finally went back to bed about 5:30am. So silly to be old. Tom went to play pickleball at 8:30 and I just did stuff at home. After pickleball, he went to the grocery store to get a “few things” and ran other errands. His goal back at home was to get Cannon’s car running. It has been sitting in our front yard for about a year because Tanya doesn’t have room in front of her house for 5 cars. It was covered in pine needles and dust so he cleaned up the outside. He had to borrow the neighbor’s battery charger, which he put on it for several hours. By evening, it started! He was super happy and cleaned up the inside some. Todd called to see if he could borrow so...

  I slept really well last night even though I had very vivid dreams. I wonder if they mean anything. Tom needed help to cancel a subscription and to fix his free cell game. I restarted his computer and the game and unsubscribed him to something and got Free Cell working again, then he was happy. I also practiced and prepared things I needed until time to leave. We left at 8:30am so it's pretty amazing we did so much before that. Today was Ward Conference, so the stake presidency was there, along with all the stake presidencies of all the organizations. I was scheduled to play the organ today, so I was especially nervous about playing in front of all the people from other wards. Plus, my ward choir was singing, so I was nervous about making sure that went well. After the meetings we had a linger-longer and I had signed up to bring a dessert and also to help set up and run that. It was going to be a busy morning! Before church, I got a text from Nora Guillen and I told her my st...

  We had thought about going to the Bay Area today to go to the temple then visit whoever was available, but we both had other things we had to do today. When we asked Marc about possibly seeing them, he said the girls had a horseback riding competition and we could go to that with them. Exciting! We decided to do what we needed and try to head out by 8:30am. We almost made it on the road on time. I made a dessert for our linger-longer after Ward Conference tomorrow and cut Tom’s hair after I got a shower and was all ready. Tom did stuff outside before coming in for the haircut. We hoped to be at the park where the event was by 11am, but traffic was not great so we got there about noon. Marc had a little bbq heating up so he could make hamburgers and hot dogs for everybody. We brought our watermelon and a plate of cookies we got at the store on the way. Both were very well received and all got eaten. We got to watch Laelle and Tova compete in 4 events. Everything was done in ...

  After Tom left for work, I got busy. After working on my blog/journal, other computer stuff, and practicing, my first priority was to work in the yard a little while. It was nice and not-hot outside. I helped clear up an area Tom has been working on. It felt good to be outside and getting real exercise. I spent about an hour. That was fun. My second priority was to get ready for choir. I got the folders out of the trunk of the car and made sure all of them had the music they need - full sets in each binder. I decided the easiest way to give a mini candy bar to them for singing was to put one in each binder. I also added some post it notes to help them find the right songs in the binders easier. To do that, I wanted to run them through the printer with the name of the hymn and the page number, but my printer wouldn’t work. The computer kept saying the printer was off-line, so I would turn it off and turn it on again, or unplug it and plug it back in, uninstalled and reinstal...

  Yesterday I got a headache while we were at Tanya’s house. It got gradually worse so I took half of a Tylenol before going to bed. I went to sleep immediately, but the headache didn’t go away. I got up about 1am and took a migraine pill, then slept very well after that. Tom went outside to do stuff while it was cooler first thing in the morning. He picked some fruit and vegetables to gift to neighbors and did other clean up. He also decided to start getting Cannon’s car ready for him to come home from his mission next month. It was covered in pine needles so he did some clean up, then looked for a battery charger to see if he could get it running. He tried to borrow one from the neighbor but couldn’t and tried to clean the battery but couldn’t find his wire battery post cleaner brush. So he didn’t get a lot done on that car today. I actually went outside this morning. It has been below 70 degrees in the mornings – unheard of in mid-July in Fresno - and I helped remove pla...

  Tom worked in the yard while it was around 70 degrees first thing in the morning. He left for pickleball at 9am. I did my morning stuff and got a lot done. I like my morning routine.  I bought a bunch of shopping bags while we were in Portugal and Spain that I love. They are bags that fold into little bags that snap closed. The only thing I didn’t like is that the bag and it’s holder-bag aren’t attached and once in a store the little bag fell on the floor. I realized it would be way too easy to lose the holder-bag so I wanted to attach the bags to their holder-bags. So this morning I got them out of the trunk of the car and went into my sewing area in Tom’s shed. I did find a way to connect them so now the holder-bag won’t get lost. I also did a little on my temperature tree before Tom got back home. He fixed himself some breakfast/lunch – it was noon by then, then we left to go to Tanya’s house. She wanted to redo her laundry room. Tanya has an enormous washer and dry...

  This month is half over! I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I hate it when that happens. I was really glad when Tom’s alarm went off for him to go to work and we could get up. I was thinking of music for choir to sing, which is dumb because I have all the music we need scheduled out for the rest of the year. After Tom left, I worked on the music from my head until it was time to chat with Anne. Nothing from my head worked but I did work out part of one of the songs that we will sing in about a month, so that is fun. Anne and I had a good chat. There are so many things going on in both our lives that update almost daily, so it’s wonderful that we are able to talk face to face every week. I love that time we spend “together”. I called a company to ask about our little “mini-split” air conditioner in our room. It runs non-stop, even after it has reached the set temperature. They said that’s just the way it is, so now we’re going to turn it off and o...

Tom got to go play pickleball with West Stake this morning. They usually play 3 times a week, but so many people travel in the summer that they have been canceling lots of the days. He sure loves it. Before he left, he did some yardwork, trimming or weeding, to get stuff into the garbage before it got hotter. I did my usual routine. It sounds boring, but I love my life and don’t want it to change. I had one top that the hem was coming out of, so before it got hot outside, I went out to the shed where my sewing machine is set up and re-hemmed it. I watched some videos on being more organized, which always makes me jump up and start cleaning and organizing. I sure wish I could find a better layout for our furniture in this studio and places to hide more things. Tom was gone several hours, then tried to work outside after eating lunch. It was too hot so he spent until swimming time to go out again.  We swam at 4:30 for more than an hour, then while he was wet, Tom did more yardw...

  Eileen Robison, who was scheduled to play the organ in Sacrament meeting today, was sick most of the week, so I was really worried that she might not be able to play. She had told me to play for her, but I couldn’t play the hymns that were assigned – they were too hard for me to learn in one week. She said I should just tell the Bishopric to change them all. I really didn’t want to do that, so I had emailed Arlene Wadsworth, who plays way better than me quite a few times during the week to see if she could fill in. I found out later that they had gone to visit family in Logan and were gone all week. Anyway, I didn’t sleep well last night, partly because I was so worried about getting stuck playing. As soon as I thought it was late enough to contact people, I texted Eileen who said she was fine and would be there. I was so relieved! I wish I were good enough to step in and play organ anytime, but I just don’t seem to be able to master lots of the hymns. I’m pretending it’s becau...

  Today they had free slushees at 7-11. Too bad we don’t like slushees. Hahahaha Tom left for work and I worked on my stuff here. ‘nuff said. Oh, except that I made my temperature cross-stitch thing into a pillow. It turned out cute and Tom said we will have to keep it forever. When he got off work, I met him at the gym. I got a good workout; the time goes quickly when I’m listening to podcasts. I listened to a talk Emily Belle Freeman gave on living vertically and to part of Kerry Muelstein on section 76. I’m so impressed with section 76 now that I understand it better! Amazing doctrine all wrapped up in one section. After that it was too hot to go outside, so Tom sat and watched tv with me while I worked on my temperature project. In the evening I suggested we go swimming and Tom agreed but never actually got up to go outside. We watched one movie I didn’t like called Bad Grandmas with Florence Henderson. It was pretty funny, but I thought it was a terrible movie. Then we...

  I guess this is what retirement is about – relaxing all day every day. At least that’s what my life seems to be.  I like it. I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke up at about 3am and spent the rest of the night trying to go back to sleep. So we didn’t get up until nearly 7.  Tom wanted to get out to do yard work earlier than usual this morning because Thursday is the day that the garbage is collected from the big dumpsters that some people have. He has made arrangements with several neighbors that if their dumpster has room on Thursday morning, he can put our yard waste in them. I did my usual in the house – computer stuff, practicing and such. Through the day I worked on my new temperature project of a tree. I’m liking it and hope I like it when it’s done. it’s lots more fun and less tedious than the cross stitch was. I listened to Talking Scripture and later watched part 1 of Follow Him. They both are so good. I have never appreciated the amazing doctrine in ...

  I didn’t do much today that was exciting to report, but it was a really nice day. The morning was usual stuff – blog, computer, budget stuff, practicing while Tom worked in the yard. When it got too hot outside, Tom hung out with me. I started a new temperature project. This one is a tree with one branch for each month. I found a pattern online but didn’t care for the shape of it so I’m creating my own. The first time I drew it on the fabric, it didn’t turn out good, so I washed the fabric and tried to get all the pencil out. Then I started over. I’m using a white fabric instead of the cross stitch fabric. I sure hope it turns out cool. Tom was trying to get a whole lot of weeding and cutting back done in time for the garbage cans to get emptied, so he went out again in the evening. It has been unseasonably cooler than normal this year. We are into the end of the first week of July and it still hasn’t reached 100 degrees. Highly unusual, and nobody is complaining about it!

  I woke up with a fever blister starting. The key to stopping a fever blister is to put arnica on it as soon as I feel it starting. But when it starts when I’m asleep, It’s already too late to catch it before it grows. So I spent all day trying to convince it to not grow. It’s half my upper lip now. Tom went to work and I got to chat with Anne. I love doing that every week! She gives me good ideas, keeps me grounded to the important things, and helps me adjust my focus. Our chat is always too short because I would rather talk all day, but it was still fun. After Tom got home and ate, we took a nap. I spent all day on stuff like practicing, computer stuff, and I finished my temperature cross stitch project by adding the temperatures/colors at the bottom. I’m not crazy about it, but at least it’s done. Now I have to decide if it is worth mounting on something.   In the evening we went swimming for our exercise for the day. Our renters joined us, so it was fun to watch the...

  It was nice to spend one more night at Trina’s instead of driving home on Sunday evening. She doesn’t go to work until 9am, so there was time to help her a little in the morning before we left. Ziona and Trevor were leaving for FSY, so last night and this morning Trina was helping them get packed and ready. The one thing they didn’t have was little containers for shampoo and conditioner, so Tom and I ran to Target to get that for them as soon as it opened at 7am. We also picked up some snacks for ourselves for our trip home. Then we were able to say goodbye to all of them before we took off for home. Tom really hates driving in slow traffic. He loves to drive and loves road trips. He loves seeing all the cool cars on the road and is distracted by cool stuff around us, but he has no tolerance for slow traffic. Fortunately, it only slowed down a couple of times and didn’t last long. We stopped at our normal place half-way home to get gas and take a little nap in the shade. ...