Pioneer Day

The beastly hot weather has continued. It's a good week to stay inside. It was nice to have Rebecca and family back with us! The kids are fun to interact with... and Rebecca fixes delicious food!

Monday is always "dig in and work hard at all the stuff you didn't get done last week" day. I worked on my heating & cooling newsletter and did some following up.  Last week one of our less active sisters died.  She was not close to her family and asked a friend to be her executor. So it ended up that Tom was doing the funeral and I was giving the eulogy. I called the friend and gleaned knowledge from her. Then at the viewing on Monday evening, she had a step-daughter there (about the same age as the deceased) and she had a lot more information.  It was interesting to hear the other side of the family's divorce and estrangement causes.  I wrote the eulogy after gathering all that info.

We also connected with Chihowa retreat and may have found a better place for the family reunion. We hope to drive up there this week to take a look. You can check it out at Chihowa.org. I typed up info and sent it out to the sibs. Once we view the place, we'll try to send it to everyone else.

Tuesday was the funeral.  Tom and I got up early and weeded the garden and picked veggies. We have a great abundance of green beans and cucumbers. We've been using them, freezing the beans and giving the cukes away to friends and people at church.  That evening Rebecca, Tom and I went to see Central Intelligence. I'd rate it a B-. Too much slapstick and foul words for me, but an interesting premise and enough plot twists to keep you wondering until the end.

Wednesday I wrote the web pages for BotAlert-- a software that reveals automated robot tweets on Twitter. Did you know that about 40% of both candidate's "followers" are bots? Bots can spread dis-information, skew metrics, alter public opinion, Spam hate, and reduce the enjoyment of actually tweeting real friends. Some have been used to incite rebellion and change the course of elections. When people give so much weight to Social Proof, and that proof turns out to be manufactured, it give others more control than they should have. So this software detects them so they can be booted out.

Thursday I spoke with a hedge fund manager and asset manager at a small firm. He was looking for someone to help write his bi-weekly letter.  It was very interesting to talk to him. I hope it works out as I think I'd learn a lot. For some reason, this seemed like a good evening to serve Tom his favorite birthday meal-- Liver and Onions. Rebecca and family were having leftovers. I made a Chocolate cake, too.

Friday, when we would actually celebrate, Rebecca went off to Silver Dollar City. She was actually doing compassionate service. She was taking a sister to the airport... with an SDC stop on the way. The sister had an extra ticket she volunteered to give to Josh, so that added incentive. They made a pretty early day of it, and returned home in time to do cake and gifts for Tom's birthday.

I think our septic issue is finally over and finished at our Whiteville house!  Now the A/C is acting up. Oh, the joys of rental property. One ward member has been in the hospital with a bowel obstruction. He was working on a rental house, trying to get it ready to sell. 

Tom organized a work party and they went over on Friday to hang doors, paint, clean up trash and mow.  Tom went back again  two or three more times to try to get all the junk out from under the house-- walk out basement? Saturday morning he took Josh, Riley and Delaney with him to do some of the shoveling. Below is the trailer loaded with most of the stuff.

In the Evening Tom took some of the helpers out for ice cream.

Friday evening I helped Tom bake a blackberry pie and Rebecca made some pies as well for the Ward Pioneer day on Saturday. She also made a quilt top to quilt there. On Saturday morning I sliced some tomatoes from the garden and made cucumber salad. It was sweet, an older German lady said, "Oh that was wonderful salad. It reminded me of Germany."  I told her it was Nana's recipe and she was from Switzerland.

Rebecca and I set up two small quilts. One older sister wanted to learn to quilt. And several younger girls were interested in helping out-- including two of the grandchildren.

We also had the traditional tug of war between the bishopric and the primary children. The second run, Tom enlisted the aid of some young adults. Tom was thankful the traditional wading pool at the center line was gone as his feet stayed dry this time. It was a fun activity!

I came home and made spaghetti sauce from all the overripe tomatoes sitting on our counter. We turned it into baked zitti for dinner.

Today at church was good.  The choir sang a different but lovely version of "Come, Come, Ye Saints."  I got my temple recommend 1/2 renewed.  I need a second interview to complete it.  Tonight I have a phone meeting with my Relief Society Presidency.

This afternoon, Marian was in search of a prince... all she found was a frog.