I’m glad it’s done

This is one week I’m glad to have over. It was overshadowed by the imminent Seminary Graduation that I was in charge of.  But let me begin at the beginning.

Monday Evening we had an empty nesters FHE.  It was fun!  This time people actually brought parts of dinner and they added hamburgers and such.  We sat outside, even though they have a lovely house and we got to tour it.  We learned what each person had done in their “before Mountain Home life” and how they ended up coming to Mountain Home.

I had a great time playing on my new tablet… until it broke.  It just froze up.  Bummer.  And after I’d figured out how to download free Kindle books, too.   NewEgg was good and sent me postage to ship it back.

I’m finally getting paid for some copywriting, and they wanted to pay through Dwolla.  Never heard of it.  So I spent time checking out this competition for credit cards.  Kind of a cool way to transact business.  Any two people who have Dwolla accounts can send or receive money for 25 cents a transaction.  So I set up an account and linked it so the money will go to my checking account.

We did normal things—worked in the garden. We have three zucchini almost ready to eat.  After all those jokes about a plethora of zucchini (Why do people lock their car doors in August?  So they don’t come back and fine zucchini in their front seats.  Why did the children of Israel complain about the manna?  It tasted like zucchini.) We’ve had failed crops for the last several years.  So I look forward to these.  My little herb garden is still…well... very little.  The plants are tiny.  And we have a nocturnal skunk that moseys by and digs in the gardens—for grubs I presume.  Tom caught it in the headlights and we watched it waddle off.  But it leaves little holes in the compost.  Worse, the pushed over dirt buries my little plants!

We’ve talked about reupholstering the dining room chairs for a while.  The problem is they are dang complex to do and thus, disgustingly expensive.  However as we’ve waited, they’ve not gotten and less ratty or any cheaper.  Alas, just the opposite.  So we hauled off a chair and a cushion and chose the fabric.  I hope we are pleased with the results.  I’d like to get my little metal framed rocker/recliner reupholstered, too, but it will cost twice that of a new chair.  Sigh.

On the copywriting front, the good news is that I got paid.  And I got another assignment that should bring in nice money.   I wrote some promotional pieces for Thieves directed at property managers who have mold or odor problems.  I need to figure out how to disseminate it.  And I want to link with a scientific website that has all the facts.  I haven’t done as much with my teen Style U website or my Writing4Income.  But one of my African friends asked about how to write and make money, so he and I are doing a writing course to help him learn to write for NGO’s or charitable organizations in Kenya.  I figure they always want case studies or good stories about how they money is being put to good use.  A thousand shillings per story would be good for George and $12 is cheap enough for most charities.

This was the last week of Seminary for most of the units I oversee.  Theoretically they were supposed to have identified all the qualified graduating seniors (completed all 4 years) or those who had finished 1 or more years of seminary and were graduating.  However, some still needed to turn in make-up work.  Some had years from a different location that they had not tracked down.   They needed to have worthiness interviews.  I had to ask people to speak, to sing, to lead music, to play the piano, to hand out the diplomas, to stand and congratulate their students (bishops) to help with refreshments, to clean up, to make sure the building was open… and a zillion other little details.  AKKK!  I finally got the last of the information and the program typed up (mostly) on Friday.  Saturday I worked at printing them off.  Somehow we got the church machine not to work anymore, and I had to finish the job at Staples.

Saturday night we had some couples over for dinner.  Tom had gotten his Ham radio license and three of the people we’d invited were also new ham operators.  So they talked radios and such and had a good time.  I made Rebecca’s Tortellini with zucchini.  I really think we need to do a family recipe book volume 2—for all those tasty new recipes.

Sunday the youth reported back on the Cultural Celebration and the Kansas City Temple dedication.  Wow!  Great talks.  They talked about how the jumbotron—the large screen—was down on the floor for repairs… and then could not be raised. It took up most of the auditorium floor and so they couldn’t practice.  Finally, all 3100 youth went to their knees in prayer.  Shortly thereafter, the jumbotron went up.  Another talked about how there were lots of challenges, but it was all worth it. That great blessings require great sacrifices.  She said how being in the presence of the prophet of God was so awesome.  The youth also sang some of the songs from the Cultural celebration.  It was really neat.

After church Tom spent time acting as Solomon... or trying to.  He says, you have two parties and they both say such opposite things about the same situation.  Where does the truth lie?  He did get home before we needed to leave for Springfield and the Seminary Graduation.  He is amazing.  He hauled in stuff, set up the refreshments tables and chairs, handed out programs, found the Stake president (15 minutes before we started) who had yet to sign the diplomas—and in all ways was a wonderful resource.  While I made a few mistakes, the program went well.  Great speakers.  Good singing.  And we had enough refreshments.  We were the last people out of the building.  I hope we closed it up right.  We got home before midnight.  A long day… but a good one.