Warrior Dash

This was a fun week. After Silver Dollar City on Friday, Miranda, Dan and family came to our house.  We celebrated Easter here.  Had a good church, and invited Barb over for dinner.  Dan took our car and went back home Sunday evening.  Miranda and kids stayed.

We hung out Monday, did laundry and packed. I tried to get as much work done as I could.  Tuesday we left about 8:45 and drove to Andy and Kera's house in Mississippi.  We crowed into Miranda's car and actually the trip with quite well.  Her kids were great.

Rebecca and her kids were already there. Ah, we had such a good time!  Kera is such a great hostess.  Everybody pitched in with food.

The kids played well together.  There were six kids jumping on the trampoline at once and six or seven playing with the little train set.  Then they'd break off into Lego groups or barbie doll groups. Little Alex learned to crawl and by the end of the week, he was moving around pretty well.

Miranda, Rebecca and Kera went thrift store shopping on Wednesday and Thursday.  I couldn't go because I had business calls both days at that time. But when Dan came, he and I and Rebecca went thrift store shopping on Friday.  By then, Rebecca was on first name basis with all the store clerks!

Tom worked on some honey-do projects for Kera and on Nathan's car. He helped Nathan see the value of car maintenance.  Friday afternoon Nathan, Aaron and Andy went on a camp out.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early.  Tom, Miranda, Dan, Rebecca, and Katie went to the Warrior Dash race.  I had thought about going to take pictures and cheer, but ultimately decided it was better to stay with Kera and watch kids. (I'd planned on taking a few with me,)  It turned out to be a good decision.  There wasn't a good place to take pictures, and actually getting from parking to the race place was arduous.

But Dan got some good pictures.  Rebecca did too... until she lost her camera in the mud.

I packed up and worked on my Sunday lesson and watched kids.  When they returned victorious, Tom showered all the mud off and packed the car.  Then we made the trek home... with a brief stop at the commissary.  We got home about 9pm, unpacked, and hit the hay.

I was up at 5am to get ready for the drive to Mountain View.  They were having their ward conference today. Mapquest said it would take 1 hr and 53 minutes. And the weather was predicting storms.  So I tried to leave by 6:15 (got out by 6:30) for our 8:30 meeting.   The GPS said it was only 1 hr and 35 minutes. They were right.  But it was nice to have the extra time to chat with friends.

Again we had presidency training from 8:40-9:30.  Then meetings from 10-1.  I taught in Relief Society.  After that the RS president and I went to visit two sisters. We had great meetings and good messages from the bishop and the stake president. They announced a change in the ward boundaries at the beginning of the meeting.  That caused lots of tears at the thought of being separated.  I hope they can see it as growth.

The predicted thunderstorms moved in while we were visiting and I had intermittent rain as I traveled home.  I got home a little before 5pm.  We've had sun, showers, thunderstorms, and hail since I've been home. The weather seems to change every five minutes.

Spring and Silver Dollar City

I never posted last's weeks blog, so you get two.

Monday I flew home from Sarasota.  I arrived in North West Arkansas airport about 2 pm.  I went from balmy 75ish to 36 degrees!  I’d only packed a sweater.  But it was enough to get me to the car.  At least it wasn’t raining.

I spent the rest of the week playing catch up.  I have a website to write pages for and I visited with a new sales rep at VisionAmp to network.  I finished the draft of the basic book for Rebecca Rice.  I need to write some charts and get it sent out for review.  My relationship coach decided I was a bit too pricy right now.  He promises to come back… we’ll see.

I’m supposed to be coming up with a 60 day plan to increase my income and jobs.   I need to do that so it can get critiqued next week.

Thursday night was a relief society meeting. It was nice and relaxing.  What was not relaxing was that I found out I have a ward conference to attend 2 hours north on the day I was planning on being at Kera’s.  So we rearranged and will be driving back Saturday after the race.

It also meant calling the RS president and seeing what she’d like us to train on.  I want to connect with my counselors via Skype or conference call, but most of the others are not on Skype.  I guess I could just call them on Skype.  Or I could figure out Google +.  But I haven’t done either.   So we email and talk on phone.  And I volunteered to teach the lesson that Sunday as well.

Our garden is growing.  We’ve enjoyed some asparagus and our green onions are prolific.  We’ve had a pretty cool spring.  It’s delightful.  The redbuds are blooming.  The dogwoods look like white lace in the woods. My phlox is a carpet of scarlet and the tulips have bloomed their little hearts out.

Friday we went to Silver Dollar City (SDC).  Miranda and Dan drove up from Tulsa.  I love the tender mercy that had us both arrive at the turn off to SDC at exactly the same time!  The kids enjoyed the rides.  We all liked the Polynesian fire dance show.  And we topped it off with ice cream at Andy’s Frozen Custard.

 Camden's enthralled with the fire dancer.

They came back to Mountain Home.  We celebrated the Mountain Home Ward’s 50^th anniversary with a pig roast and other tasty food.  They had an open house and really had all the rooms looking nice and informational.

Today we celebrated Easter.  We had lovely talks on the resurrection of the Savior.  How blessed we are that we might live because of his sacrifice. Probably we should have had lamb—to celebrate the Passover.  But clearly we are Christians—since we had a ham.  We hard boiled some eggs to decorate… but didn’t.  I think we’ll simply change them into egg salad.  And because we have a lot of eggs, I tried making an angel food cake to go with strawberries and whip cream.  It took 11 eggs to make 1 ½ cups of egg whites!

Is it cheese soufflé that uses a bunch of egg yolks?

Miranda and her kids will spend most of the week with us. We look forward to visiting with Rebecca’s and Kera’s family this week, too.

Sarasota and Copy Writer's Workship

 This was a busy week.

 I had lots of writing stuff to do on Monday and Tuesday.  Tom dug around all the trees and put mulch under them.  The goal is for them to face less competition from the grass and maybe produce more.

 Our tulips and Phlox have really outdone themselves.  They are glorious to behold.  And my flowering quince continues to blossom. I’d think spring was surely on its way, but Tuesday night is supposed to be 28 degrees.  This is why you don’t plant tomatoes just because you have some warm days.

Tuesday I spent getting ready for my trips.  Washing clothes, packing, deciding what needed taking.  I downloaded some lectures on copywriting to keep me busy on the plane and in the car—and then didn’t listen to any of them.

Wednesday I was up early and drove to the temple.  Along the way I picked up my 1^st. counselor in Wes Plains, then my secretary in Mountain View, and my 2^nd counselor in Houston.  Then we went on to St. Louis.  We had a lovely time.  We chatted on the way up and the way back and stopped in Rolla for dinner and face time chatting. It was a long day.  Up at 5:15 back at 9 pm.

I then needed to do the final prep for my departure a little before 7 am on Thursday.  I got the car loaded and did the finally checking of everything, printing boarding passes, getting mapquest directions to the XNA Fayetteville airport, making sure I had hotel confirmations etc.  Tom came home from his meetings and we talked.  So it was a late night.

I drove to catch my 11:30 flight.  Even had time to get gas before getting to the airport. The flights were uneventful.  The hotel next to the airport.  My roommate, Marcia had arrived earlier.  We dashed over to the Liedo Beach Resort for registration and reception. Then returned to the Hampton inn (1/2 the price) for the night.  The next day we had to be back at the Liedo by 7am for breakfast and networking with the speaking starting at 8am.

It was a very intimate setting.  I don’t think there were 50 of us and Clayton Makepeace had brought in 7 other top copywriters to rub shoulders with and listen to.  Many of the participants were also doing well with their copywriting. So it was a nice group and great information. 

 Here is my selfie and the ocean.

 This is our lovely resort hotel right on the beach.

We had great meals and good conversations. All and all a very worthwhile time.  I need to spend time reviewing my notes and creating a game plan. Saturday night was Clayton’s birthday celebration. He was generous with his gifts of time and information.

 I'm next to Carline.  Her two daughters have followed her in the copywriting business.  They want to stay home and be moms, and also make a living.  Kelvin and his LOUD guitar playing on my table.

 Marcia, my room mate is sitting next to me.  Gary, next to her, is a Jeff Walker (Product Launch) guru.

We returned to the Hampton for Sunday night.  It was great.  Tom called the bishop of the ward in Sarasota and his wife agreed to pick us up at the Liedo, take us to church, and drop us at the Hampton Inn.  My roommate went to church with me, so that was nice.  The ward was very friendly.  By the time we got to our hotel (about 5 pm) we were ready for a fast dinner and an early night.

 Monday I fly home.

Spring is in the air

We have been having lovely spring like weather.  There are small shoots coming up in the garden- peas, spinach, beets and potatoes.  We've eaten our first asparagus. We've gotten rain enough that we haven't had to water.  So life is good.

 my lovely phlox and grape hyacinth.

 daffodils or jonquils.

 Flowering quince bush blossoms and tulips.

Our chickens have been very generous. We are up to about 10 eggs a day.  This presents a problem.  We do not eat 10 eggs a day. So we finally created a sign and put it at the end of our driveway offering eggs for sale.  Last week we sold to 4 people.  Two friends and two who saw the sign.

It's kind of fun because I'm meeting people who live on our road.  Met a house plan designer looking for a blogger.  Something might come from that.

I'm chugging along on my copywriting.  My relationship guy who was hot to trot on promos slowed down because he was moving this week.  That was actually good news. I got some work done in other areas.  I'm getting ready to go to a Clayton Makepeace Workshop on Thursday- Monday.  Actually the course is over Saturday night, but I won't fly back from Florida until Monday.  I'm hoping it will help me get better paying jobs.

I edited a friend, Jane's book on family relationships and stopping the "explosions" in your life.  She share some ideas found in the One Minute Mother that I thought were excellent.  I decided to order some books to share.  After all, if I think it's great, everyone should think it's great and use it. :)  Actually it's a quick read.  I read it in about 45 minutes.  And it has some great parenting ideas.

One of our tenants moved out complaining about bad neighbors behind him.  Other tenants had complained as well.  Went to visit the sheriff to see what he could do.  Not much.  It's a bit frustrating.  They can arrest a kindergartner for terroristic threatening when they chew a gun shape from a sandwich, but can't do anything about people banging on doors at 11 pm with threats.  Tom and I decided to go and visit the neighbors, apologize for anything we might have done to cause ill will and seek for respect between us, them, and the tenants.  We only met with the grandmother (who we had evicted in January) not the tough sons or grandsons.  But we had a cordial meeting and I hope we have resolved the problem.

Friday we went to the home show.  It has gotten quite a bit smaller since the recession. Sad. But we met old friends and made new ones.  I talked to one of the HVAC vendors about doing a newsletter for them, so we'll see how that goes.

Saturday and Sunday we had General Conference. It's always a spiritual boost to listen to and watch conference.  The theme I picked out was Joy in adversity.  That the solution to a troubled world is to stay close to the Savior.  Increased faith and being yoked with the Savior brings strength and protection.  Not that you don't go through trials.  They are a part of life.  But that your burdens will feel lighter as you walk with the Lord. 

Also, that you can disagree without being disagreeable.  That we can and should stand up for our beliefs  but we can do it in a loving and compassionate manner.

One theme that Tom noted was the need for courage to stand on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ because we live in an ever increasingly wicked world.

Tonight we bought tickets to fly to visit Mom the end of May.