Scorching the World

  Last day of August! Tom woke up pretty early this morning - like 2 or 3am, and tried to pretend he was asleep. He kept wiggling, which kept waking me up. Finally about 4:30 I asked if he was going to get up to go to the couch. He said no, so I got up and went to the couch to sleep where he wouldn’t keep me awake. So he got on his computer, which was too bright for me to sleep through. He finally went back to bed just before dawn so we both got to sleep until 7am. Rough night. I can’t wait to move back into our house where we won’t keep each other awake. We left for church at 8:30 so I could practice the organ before church started. It is a different touch than my keyboard at home, so it takes some getting used to, especially since I only get to touch it once a month. Sacrament meeting was really good. It was (not) a missionary reunion because we don’t do those any more, right? But the young man leaving soon plus his father and brother spoke and they chose all the hymns. B...

  I slept really well until about 2am. My head didn’t hurt at all until I woke up, then the pain returned and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. Tom was awake too, but was willing to hold still and just rub my head. So sweet. He rubbed my head until he was ready to fall back to sleep. I finally got up about 4am to lie on the couch in a slightly different position. I listened to a few conference talks before Tom woke up about 6am. While he was in the bathroom, I went back to bed and he joined me and we went back to sleep for about an hour. He went to the church to help clean, so I asked him to see if he could get in the library to get one of the new hymnbook sets I had made. I need to check to see which hymns are missing so I have a complete set to finish printing but sadly there was nobody there with a key to the library. While he was gone I did my morning routine and started cleaning. We were supposed to have the missionaries and Christian over for dinner and the house is f...

  I forgot to mention on Thursday that Caeli came by for a short visit. She is a little ray of sunshine when she comes over. This month is almost over! I did have a headache that stuck all night but have no idea what brought it on. It was still hurting when I got up, shortly after Tom left for work. When I was printing out booklets of the new hymnbook at the church Wednesday, we (Janeen) and I realized I was missing the last batch of hymns that came out in February. So yesterday I printed out a set of them.  I don’t know how to print them off the Church website so that it prints with page numbers, so I set up a word document with just the number, then printed that onto each of the hymn pages.  My worry is that I’m not positive which hymns came out last. I looked it up on several church news sites and other places, but there were differing lists. I wish I had a key to the church building so I could pull one of the sets and make sure which hymns are missing. I’ll have ...

  The woman I call “dangerously unbalanced”   wanted my help packing because she was feeling overwhelmed with it all. I don’t mind helping her and Tom needed to go back to mow the back yard. There is only a little time in a day where it is cool enough to be out in the sun, so we planned to leave at 7:30am. We didn’t get out of the house until about 8:30am because Tom has been looking for places for her to rent. He made a list of places that looked like good possibilities and then we headed over to Christian’s house where she rents a room. I got a text while we were on the way saying she just woke up and was “jumping in the shower” at about 8:30. We got there about 9am and waited. Tom went to start on the back yard and I waited until about 9am when she finally came out of her room. We moved about 10 already-packed boxes out of her room. She made a laundry pile that was about 3’ high and then we started packing more boxes. We packed 3 or 4, labeled them and put them in the...

  On Wednesdays Tom has pickleball. He plays on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays every week. Those pretty much take up the time we used to go to the gym. I hate to make lots of trips to Fresno in a day, so we haven’t been going to the gym but he is getting lots of exercise pickling. I’ve decided to find exercise programs I can use at home. I tried one called Bold that is with our Kaiser program. It seemed way too easy, because it is for seniors, but I’ll try more of them before I give up. I’m sure there are lots of options on You Tube. After my morning stuff I went back to sewing the new bag pattern. I like the pattern; it makes a really good bag, but it is way too big.        I put in lots of pockets I’m not sure I can make it smaller so I started looking for another pattern. Tom and I planned to go to the church during mutual to get the copies of the new hymnbooks I had printed and given to the bishop. I have been trying to get our ward to print th...

  I decided not to even get dressed today until time to go to the temple. How’s that for rebellious. The truth is, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought; I would have preferred to be dressed. Tom left for work and I spent the day sewing. I’m making another purse but this pattern is tricky to follow. I really hate trying to follow directions from a video. I would much rather follow a printed version instead of going back to the computer over and over to rewatch a little part. I spent quite a while doing screen shots and typing up the instructions as they were told in the video, but then whenever something wasn’t clear I would have to go back to the video anyway. It might be a cool bag when I’m done, but I spent all day on it and am not even half done. Still, sewing is fun. Usually I watch tv or listen to podcasts while I sew, but this one required full attention. The dangerously unbalanced renter wanted to go to Clovis to look at a rental possibility so Tom volunteered to tak...

  Today was our last day to supervise the cleaning in the temple. The new couple started last week but still had conflicts in their schedules. Today they had a doctor appointment, so we covered for them one more time. It is bitter-sweet to be ending this service. I’m talking to Tom about replacing this time each week with something of equal value. We had 5 people from our ward come to clean. Tom went early in hopes he could go to play pickleball. He did 3 jobs before anyone else got there but still didn’t get to leave as soon as he hoped. I did a couple of jobs, too, but we still didn’t get all the Monday jobs done. I suggested to Scott that they buy a Rumba vacuum that sweeps, mops and vacuums the whole temple. That would eliminate 6 or 7 jobs on Mondays. I doubt that it would happen, but it’s fun to think about. After Tom got home from pickleball and getting groceries, our neighbors asked us if we would list their motorhome on facebook for them. They aren’t very tech savvy,...

  Tom volunteered to help with the parking for stake conference, so we needed to be there half hour early. We usually get there that early anyway. But this time we didn’t use the early arrival time to get a good seat. Cannon’s homecoming talk was today, so we needed to leave before our the meeting ended, so we got seats near the door in the back. The talks were so good. There are so many really good members who really get what the Gospel is all about. They had speakers about many of the difficult times of people’s lives – a new convert, a member newly returned from inactivity, one leaving soon for a mission, one just returning from a mission, one with a weak testimony, etc. They were all really good. We were super sad to have to miss our new Stake President’s talk, but our priority was to hear Cannon speak. We got to their ward about 10 minutes before the meeting started. Tanya had invited anyone who wanted to come, so there were people there that we were really happy to see ...

  We have a “high heat advisory” going on in Fresno this weekend, so Tom got out early to water and do whatever he could before going to the church to clean. After cleaning he took Michelina for a driving lesson. I got my morning routine with blog, scriptures, and practicing before beginning my day. All I want to do is sew, but I have to exercise self-control. Speaking of exercise – I needed to do that too before sewing. Tom wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go to the leadership session of stake conference. He is an assistant ward clerk, so it was a grey area, so we decided it was better to go even if it wasn’t required than to miss it and find out he should have been there. Later he said none of it applied to him and he could have skipped it, but he enjoyed it anyway. When it ended, he came home to pick me up. I had a wonderful time sewing my day away and listened to about 6 podcasts while sewing.     it turned out pretty good, but it is bigger than I want, so...

  I didn’t sleep well last night – I kept thinking about the renter in Christian’s house. She is dangerously unbalanced. I was very sound asleep when Tom’s alarm went off, but he was already up. I tried to go back to sleep, but the stress returned so I got up and tried to distract myself with fun stuff. When there is sewing to do, it takes a lot of self-control to do my computer stuff, study scriptures, practice the piano and exercise before I get to the fun stuff. The stuff that is fun to do isn’t that fun to tell about. I sewed. It was fun. When Tom got home from work, we had a little bit of time for BLT’s for lunch and then took off. Fridays we always have a good turnout for cleaning. Today we had 10 people from 5 th ward, but that included 6 missionaries. We love it when missionaries come because since they are young and full of energy, they can do any job, as long as it can be done by 2 people. They can’t be separated, even in the temple. And they are so happy to serve!...

  I like when neither of us has to get up and go anywhere first thing in the morning. I did my blog and other stuff on the computer. My gmail keeps telling me that I’m out of storage so I chatted with Mike a little about it and realized I have 2 Google accounts. One has 15 GB and the other has 2 TB. I’m using the one with the least storage so I have to either move files or figure out why the other one   I need to figure out how to move some of my big files to my other account. I got to spend the day sewing. That was super fun. Tanya came over about 11:30am with mending she needed help with. I tried to teach my girls to sew, but she isn’t interested enough to get a sewing machine or even do any hand mending. Anyway, we made her bedroom curtains longer (when she got home she found they were still 2” too short), patched some pants and made the waist smaller on one skirt. It was fun having her here and talking while we worked. She has lots of projects that she would love hel...

  This was a fairly normal day – we both did our morning routines then Tom went to play pickleball, and after I had done my morning things of computer and piano, I went back to sewing. I can hardly stand to do anything else when I have a sewing machine available and set up. I tried making a wallet out of a couple of patterns. The 1 st one turned out ok, but not quite what I want. The 2 nd one was a total fail.   I was trying to follow a video that had no vocal and the pictures weren’t clear enough to know some important details. Sometimes written instructions with pictures are better than videos. We wanted to be at the temple early because today was the first day to train our replacements to supervise the cleaning. It turned out that the couple replacing us is someone I know. Rusty Moon used to be a Church custodian who I worked with for a number of years many years ago. He’s a way cool guy. I’m excited to work with them. But when we got there early, everything was p...

  We woke up about an hour before Tom left for work and got busy on morning things. That one hour sure goes fast. It’s a good thing he has an alarm set or he wouldn’t know its’ already time to leave. I did my routine quickly so I could get to sewing. I love having my sewing machine set up and have lots of cute projects that I can’t wait to get to. After Tom got home from work, we were just in the house, doing our own things most of the day. It was fun to just hang out and do our own things. We had arranged to go to the temple with Tanya, Todd, and Cannon at 6pm. As we were ready to walk out the door, I couldn’t find my recommend. I looked and looked. I just used it yesterday to go clean, but today it was nowhere. I was pretty sure the last time I saw it was on the table where I was sewing, making a new purse. I had to empty out my purse three times to make adjustments and figured maybe one of the times the recommend fell on the floor or something, but it wasn’t there. We finall...

  It is so nice to be home again and sleep in our own bed. It isn’t just that the bed and pillows that are the most comfortable – it’s being in familiar surroundings where we can really relax and not worry about what’s going on around us. Anyway, we slept well. We woke up early, so there was time to do some things before we left for the temple. There were things I didn’t like about my purse so I took the zipper and handles off and re-did them, hoping it was right this time. I barely finished before time to get ready to leave. Tom wanted to go to the temple an hour early so he could finish in time to play pickleball at 9am. I wanted to go with him (in separate cars) so I could make sure everything was ready. Since we missed Friday, I figured everything would be a mess. Plus we expected the new couple, The Moons, to start today so I wanted to be ready for them. When we got there, the custodial room looked really good. No mess at all and we found out the Moons aren’t starting ...

We decided to go to Sacrament meeting in Elko, at least long enough to take the Sacrament. We figured it wouldn’t make that much difference on how late we got home. Our hotel had a really nice breakfast included.so as soon as we were ready, we went down for that. It was a sit-down restaurant where a waitress came to take or order. The complementary breakfast was 4 choices – eggs with meat, French toast, and 2 others I don’t remember. But when we talked to the waitress, we found out the “eggs with meat” was actually eggs either scrambled or fried with sausage-either a patty or 2 links, with either toast, English muffin, or a pancake. The other options were way more than what they sounded like, too. We both got the egg option and had a very large breakfast before going to Church. We were sad that we had actually thought we wouldn’t be able to go to church at all, so we hadn’t packed Sunday clothes. So we tried to go late and sneak in unnoticed, but people greeted us like nothing was ...

These are baby Vivian in a little dress I made her. so cute!!!  I did not sleep very well last night, I remember spending all night trying to convince myself to go to sleep. But I woke up at 5 AM and waited for Tom to wake up at six. We were on the road by 7 AM because the hotel didn't have breakfast. :(  We never could figure out how to get the Bluetooth working on the U-Haul truck, so we thought about stopping at a U-Haul place in Las Vegas to have them set it up but decided not to spend the time and just kept on going. I followed Tom with me in the car and Tom in the big U-Haul 26-foot moving van for a long time and then decided it would make more sense for my car to be in front. With me in front, I could easily see him behind me, but when he’s in front, he cannot see the small car behind him. So I spent the day trying to make sure I didn’t get too far ahead of him by trying to not go too slow or too fast and guessing how fast he was going to be going. It changed all the ti...

 I got up when Tom left for work at 6 AM. I began packing and cleaning and I finished my purse.     Its specialty is that it has 10 pockets! There are things I'm not 100% thrilled with, so I will do some fixing on it next week. Then I took a shower and went over to the UPS store so I could send back something I bought from Amazon. There is now a UPS store only a little over a mile from our house so that makes it really handy! I got a lot done and most packing done so when Tom got home from work about 11:30 I was mostly ready to go. We had a quick lunch of corn on the cob and peach pie and some vegetables but the peach pie was the highlight. Then we took off. We drove to our friend's house, Ruthann, where we picked up the Moving van that we are driving to Utah for her. They had it all packed and ready to go, but it took us nearly a half hour to coordinate everything we needed to know and do before we could takeoff. Out how The air conditioner and the radio and several...

  Tanya wanted me to come over this morning and spend the day. I really didn’t feel like I had time for that, but she has so much going on and needs help or at least needs a cheerleader while she does things. She asked if I could come at 8:30. I didn’t quite have my morning routine done by then, partly because Tom was home and a bit of a distraction. I was ready to leave on time but Tom wanted help with the computer, then he wanted to go next door to measure a motorhome our neighbor is selling to see if we could park it in our back yard. We went over there, measured, and talked about it a little. I don’t think it is a good idea, but he keeps talking about it and the neighbors are waiting for a decision because they really want it out of their driveway. I finally got to Tanya’s about 9am. We talked about her projects and after talking an hour, I convinced her she needed a list she could prioritize. She had 32 things she wants to do just to feel better about her house and make ...

Tom planned to play pickleball at 9am but had some Synergy work he had to do first. He got stuck on one email he was trying to send where apparently the email address he was given was wrong. He needed my help to send 3 emails with attachments, but the one giving him problems just wouldn’t work. I had a nail appointment at 9am and sadly had to leave before he got it settled. He missed the first 45 minutes of pickleball because he couldn’t get that one email to go through. I found a place to get my nails done that is only 5 minutes away where they do a good job. I looked on their website where it said they open at 9:30, but they have a link to make an appointment, so I made one at 9am. I thought that was funny. Tom was still gone when I got back. I got busy with my morning things – computer, practicing, and sewing. I’m making another purse but it is taking me a long time because I have to watch tutorials every time I get stuck. But it sure is fun! Tom got back from pickleball abo...