Better, Projects, Waterfall, Primary

My shoulder is 100% better and so is my cold! I was feeling well enough to make a princess dress, shirt, and pair of pajamas for Samantha's 18" doll. James got the yard stuff done, and I even set up watering even though we don't need to do it quite yet. I ran some errands today, including getting a solenoid for the sprinkler system. One zone will turn on but not off. Thankfully, a solenoid is an easy fix that I've done twice now.

The weather has been super nice. We went to the park on Saturday and had pizza with the kids. Monday, we hiked up to a waterfall in Dry Fork Canyon. It was steep, and I was definitely unprepared for that, but the view was amazing. I've never seen a waterfall in that canyon. I guess all the melting snow has been good for something. There was another smaller waterfall that we didn't hike too, but it also looked really cool.

Tuesday, I had a presidency meeting. It was great, as always, and I felt motivated the next morning to get my checklist done and reorganize my binder. I underestimated how often things would change, so I had to reprint a bunch of stuff. (I'll never not use paper, even though I love digital.) I don't mind reprinting things once a quarter, which it what I'm going to do from now on so I don't end up with so many scribbles all over everything.

I've been feeling a bit grumpy this week, even though the weather's been nice. May is one of my favorite months. We don't need a lot of heat, AC, or water, which makes the utility bills cheaper. It's the first month with consistently warm weather. I also worry less about school since it's almost over for the year. (It's like the Friday of the school year.) I love being able to pack everyone up and go somewhere outside easily, no coats or boots needed, just sandals. The kids are happier and are starting to get blonder, more freckly, and less pale. This moodiness is temporary, I'm sure, and it will pass.

Yard Work, Feeling Broken

Friday, Samantha and I went over to the Abarcas for a playdate, the first time in about a month. It was awesome to catch up, even though talking made me cough a lot more than I had been. We played DnD that night, which was also fun.

Saturday, we worked in the yard during the morning. It took a couple of hours to clean up trash, rake up dead leaves, and sweep yet another layer of dirt off the walkways. I also put air in all the bike tires. James and Joseph went to the dump to get rid of all the trash we'd accumulated since it was a free day. We took it easy the rest of the day since I definitely overworked myself with the yard stuff. I could feel in on Sunday, too. Thankfully, I wasn't conducting and didn't have to hunt down any teachers since I still didn't have my voice back!

Monday, we took a trip to get a free car wash in Naples and picked up fertilizer for the yard. We haven't applied it yet, but that will happen soon. We're also hoping to aerate in the next week.

Tuesday night, James and I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. It was so much fun! I'd never seen the show before, but I was tapping my foot pretty much the whole time because it was so catchy.

I finally got my voice back! I'm pretty much over the cold now, but silly me, I reached for something in an upper cabinet Wednesday morning and strained a muscle right by my left shoulder blade. It hurt a lot the first day, and I tried a combo of ibuprofen, warm rice bag, and massage, but that wasn't quite right. Today, I'm staying away from massage and doing ice instead of heat, and I can already tell a huge difference. I'm also trying really hard to do nothing productive except the bare minimum. That's hard to do because I hate it when my house is messy, and I'm finally over the cold enough to actually want to do things, so it gets boring to just sit around and read (or watch TV). The weather has also been nice for the past few days, but I've been in too much pain to enjoy it. I have confidence that I'll be doing a lot better by tomorrow, and James is going to get the groceries this afternoon. I'm grateful that my family can step in when I'm not feeling well. Only James got the cold, and it wasn't nearly as nasty for him, so I'm glad for that too. Things have to get better from here on out, right?!

The Cold, Car Stuff

My family made it back safely on Saturday, but despite a lot of rest since then, I still haven't gotten my voice back! Well, not entirely. It has made improvements, but there's no way I'll be able to sing in the next week or 2. I remember this being the case in December. I was sad that I didn't have my full vocal range for most of the month and couldn't really sing Christmas songs. I was feeling crummy enough on Saturday and Sunday that I didn't go to Stake Conference. I'm feeling mostly better from the main cold symptoms, but I'm still super tired and a little lightheaded.

It doesn't help that it's been a busy week. Monday, I got a new windshield for the van, which took longer than I expected. Lewis and Samantha did really well with the 2 hour wait and didn't get antsy until the last 30 minutes.

Tuesday, James stayed home since I gave him the cold, so I went by myself to get a key fob programmed for the van. It wasn't too bad of wait, and they had no problems programming it. I was a little worried about only having 1 key. That seemed like tempting fate, so to speak.

Wednesday, I felt worse than I had on Monday and Tuesday, so I lazed around as much as possible. I attempted a new recipe at dinner, but it was an epic fail, so James got Chinese. I honestly broke down and cried at one point. I hate setbacks in getting better, and the whole day definitely felt like I was trying to walk through deep sand. I hate being so tired. Resting is boring because I can only handle so much TV or reading at a time.

Today, I got the summer tires put on the Yukon XL. It wasn't too horrible. I'm still tired, but it's a bit better than yesterday. I think this cold is especially bad because I was so sleep deprived when I got it. I usually need a week of extra rest just to get over a week of travel, and I don't think I've done that yet because I max out at about 8 1/2 hours a day. Maybe in another week I will be completely recovered!

NC and Rexburg Trips

I've had an exhausting week, to say the least, but it's great to be home alone for a day until everyone else comes back.

Thursday, I flew from Vernal to Denver to Raleigh. Christian picked me up, and I stayed at his house for the night since there were guests coming for the wedding. We stayed up way too late, but it was fun. Rachel gave me a whole bunch of clothes for the boys, so that really filled up my suitcase.

I went over to Mara's the following afternoon at 3, but things got cut a bit short since we had to go to Cary to decorate the building for the reception. It was a ton of work, and Mara and I didn't stay for the whole thing since she had to get her girls to bed. The older girls love me, and it was my first time meeting Juliette, who was born in January. We had a busy Saturday morning since the wedding was at 10:45. Oh, and it was pouring down rain all of Friday and Saturday. That make things a little colder and soggier than they needed to be. Lars and Emily's wedding was beautiful, and we had a luncheon at the church afterward which consisted of Danny's BBQ. Yum! Then, it was back to Apex to do some preparations for the reception. Everything looked beautiful and there was a lot of good food (pretzels and dips), but not a lot of people came, which was a bummer. We cleaned up afterward and were all completely exhausted.

Sunday, we went to a beautiful Easter service and then had lunch at Myles and Skyla's house. I felt pretty good up until 2:00, then I got hit with horrible cramps. For the rest of the day, I stayed on the couch with a heating pad. I'm glad I had the chance to rest and that this didn't happen during the wedding.

Monday morning, I made Lars and Myles their scrapbooks from old papers Dad kept in the file cabinet upstairs. Monday night, I went to dinner at Alpaca with Brinson and Ceci and then an escape room also with Carmel and her boyfriend, Matthew. We did the hardest one and only went over 1 minute! It was also a lot of fun. I stayed with Myles and Skyla that night.

Myles, Skyla, Wade and I attended the Richmond temple open house. It was a nice drive since we stopped at some parks, for lunch, and at a peanut store. I got some goodies to bring home. The temple was absolutely beautiful and had a colonial feel to it. After dinner with Myles and Skyla, I went back to Apex.

Wednesday, I started feeling a bit sick with a cold. I went to Mara's house again since we didn't have much time before. Myles and Skyla came for dinner, and Christian and Rachel came for dessert. We had a great time hanging out even though I lost my voice.

I didn't feel any better on Thursday, but I made it back to Apex and took it easy during the day. Rachel and William came to visit, and so did Brinson and Ceci later on. I attempted to go to bed early, but no luck.

I made it home today after dragging myself through the Raleigh and Denver airports. Phew. I felt like I was about to collapse, but it's clean and quiet, so I can rest without actually sleeping and throwing off tonight's sleep. I'm thinking 9:00 sounds pretty good, though! My cold is doing a lot better, and I think I might get my voice back tomorrow. Also, the snow is pretty much gone from our yard. I'm so excited! Spring is finally here! For the rest of today, I'm going to be as lazy as possible so I can catch up on rest/sleep before my family gets back tomorrow. It was a really good trip, but I'm ready to get back to my regular routine now.

Conference, Kenny's 11th Birthday, Trip

We had a nice weekend watching General Conference. I made a point to take some notes so I could actually remember some stuff and pay attention better. It only has to be a sentence per talk, but it makes all the difference.

I went to see a couple of Joseph's teachers for parent/teacher conferences. One joked that I didn't need to be there, but it's still nice to meet the teachers when your student is doing well.

James and I went to the temple on Tuesday night, and it was really nice to be in a peaceful place during such a busy week.

Wednesday was super busy. I returned the pump that James borrowed for pumping out the crawl space, signed Samantha up for Kindergarten, and took the kids to an Easter egg hunt at the church while James took Kenny to a doctor's appointment. We'd actually done Kenny's cake and presents a day early, and I'm glad. I also had to hurry to get Joseph to Mutual.

Kenny seemed to enjoy his presents. We had chocolate pound cake and chocolate ice cream as well. He'd forgotten to ask for more Calvin and Hobbes books until right before his birthday, but I'd already bought him one. I felt pretty good about that because sometimes I'm bad at figuring out presents. Thank goodness for Amazon wish lists.

James and the kids left for Rexburg today, and I leave from the Vernal airport around 2 P.M. So far, I've spent the morning cleaning so I can come back to a clean house for a day. I'm so excited. Even though the snow hasn't finished melting, the kids are done playing in it, so I've been washing all the coats, hats, and gloves. I'm hoping to see a huge difference in the amount of snow when I get back from NC next Friday. Until then, I'll be crossing my fingers for some warm weather!

Eye Appointments, Car, Birthday, NC Plans

In the past week, I went to eye appointments for Kenny, Katie, Lewis, and myself. Kenny's vision got a little worse, I have a little bit worse astigmatism, and Katie and Lewis checked out fine for now. Katie will most likely need glasses for far away by next year, though. She used to be farsighted but is now slightly nearsighted. I ordered new glasses for Kenny and me.

I had a really good, relaxing birthday. I first went to the Women's Conference with Ashley, and it gave me a lot of peace. James and the kids vacuumed out the car (which we'd spend an hour cleaning the day before). We went to Outdoor Expo and had some fried Oreos, which were delicious. Overall, I had a nice, relaxing day. I also made Texas sheet cake and dark chocolate ice cream with toasted almonds.

I'm still waiting on the car's title/lien release, but I have an appointment to get a new windshield after spring break. They are booked until then! I blame all the nasty potholes and loose rocks that are in/on the road right now. James had to pump the crawlspace again due to all the melting.

It's been super busy this week. We found time to watch a movie with the kids on Monday and eat my birthday pizza from Papa Murphy's. The Thai chicken flavor didn't end up being my favorite, but that's okay because it was free.

The kids had a talent show for activities on Tuesday, and I even took a neighbor kid who is investigating the Church.

Today, I need to run a few errands and go to Joseph's Poetry Jam at his school. There's a lot going on before I leave for NC next week, but I think I have all the sleeping arrangements figured out. I'm also excited that I'll get to see the temple open house in Richmond, VA. Phew. I feel like maybe I'll be able to breathe once spring break is over, but I'm not so sure!

Melting, New Car, Stress

Instead of a date last Thursday, James pumped water out of the crawlspace. Despite a couple more inches of snow, the overall level is finally going down! There is a huge puddle at the end of the driveway too. It's annoying to walk around, but it's too deep to walk through, and sweeping it toward the drain doesn't help because more water fills from up the street. It would be nice to have some sunshine again.

I went to a RS birthday party activity on Saturday. We painted with watercolors and had snacks. It was overall really relaxing. I haven't been the most relaxed since then.

We bought a car! It's a 2017 Dodge Grand Caravan, and it's been the source of a lot of stress so far, just like every other time we've bought a car. This is normal for me, though. I've worried since last year when I knew we'd need to look for a new one. I'm happy to say that we paid in cash and it's already registered and insured. The only hiccup so far is getting it to start since it sat in a driveway for 3 months. I think we hooked up the jumper cables slightly wrong (since our car's battery terminals are hard to hook on anyway), but we got it started and James drove it for 30 minutes to recharge the battery. I'm really excited to have something more modern. It's the first car I've ever owned with a backup camera, automatic doors, and an automatic trunk. We ultimately decided on a van because it gets much better gas mileage than the Yukon XL and still has a decent amount of storage space. It's also well-rated for its year. We still need to clean it, get a new windshield, and get a spare key, but none of those things should be too bad. I'm hoping it lasts us at least 10 years. (Oh yeah, and it only has 83,000 miles on it, practically new!)

I've been stressing about some small things that keep coming back to bother me. One is my acid reflux. I had reduced my medication to a lower dose for a few months, but I felt that it was time to wean myself off the medication entirely since my eating habits have improved and I've lost 15 pounds. I haven't taken any since Sunday so I'm dealing with rebound reflux right now. The anxiety of getting a new car hasn't helped.

The heater is being dumb again too, but it's so close to us not needing it that I don't care anymore. It's 9 years old. I will reset it every day if I have to. It's inconsistent in when it needs to be reset, but it seems to be a problem more often in wet/windy weather. I suspect there is condensation buildup somewhere that isn't actually a big deal. It always starts up again, and that's what matters.

Kenny missed a day of school last week and this week for not feeling well. I have no idea why this keeps happening. He had a whole month where he didn't feel sick, so I think eating a snack before getting out of bed has helped, but it hasn't gotten rid of his issues 100%. I really don't want him to miss a bunch of school next year since it's middle school, but that's a few months away. He has an appointment on his birthday, so I'm hoping the doctor can provide some answers. Luckily, missing school so far has had no effect on his grades. I don't want to be too hard on him and make him go when he doesn't feel well, but some days he's fine by midmorning and I haven't pressed the issue.

It's my birthday this Saturday! James installed a trash can drawer for me, and I love it. Today, we're going out to eat. I hope I can relax a bit and enjoy my family.