On We Go

Monday was a nice start to the year. We still had Miranda and Dan here. I went out and worked on the house with Tom for about 1.5 hours. Then we came back and had the missionaries over for dinner. It was kind of a relaxing day.

Tuesday Miranda, Dan and family headed home. Sigh. A quiet house. Oh, funny thing. After Jonathan and Kristy left, they stripped beds. I washed sheets and made the upper bunk... the worst bed in the house to make. Tuesday, Miranda said... I stripped the beds for you... Yes. It was the one I'd made. Bless her heart, she remade the bed for me. She is wonderful and helpful! And she made another one to make up for the one the sheets would not be done in time to make.

Suddenly the house was quiet. We still had the tree and the trimmings, but Christmas seemed to be over.

I was hired to write some plant descriptions. They want lots of research and detail. I think it will be interesting. I'm already finding trees I want to buy. If this becomes steady work, it will produce a nice paycheck.

Now that the new year is here, I'm suddenly aware that we need to be working NOW to prepare for our Relief Society Women's Retreat. We had tentatively scheduled it in mid-March. But I think we will push it back to early April. Otherwise, we'd need posters and invitations out by the end of the month. So I worked on that a bit and Sunday evening had a phone meeting with most of my presidency.

Wednesday Tom worked at the house and I logged about 5 hours on the plant research. We are also studying the life and teaching of the prophet Gordon B. Hinckley this year and so I read the introduction to his life. I always have a goal to read all the lessons ahead of time. I start out well at the beginning of the year and then taper off. Perhaps this year I'll do better. I even got the Sunday School lesson read ahead of time.

Thursday was more writing, more working at the house, and an evening relaxing in front of Superman Returns. Nathan went job hunting, in spite of the cold he and Tom are sharing. He wrote up a resume and sent it to Baxter Labs. He took a preliminary test and went for a job interview on Friday. He has a tour of the plant on Monday and another test of some kind at the college on Tuesday. I believe he may start working there on Wednesday. It will be full time 3-11 M-F. He starts off as a temp worker. I guess if he does a good job, eventually they hire him and he gets benefits. Unfortunately, his transportation seems to be more tenuous. The transmission is acting up. I hope it can limp along for a while. The Elders Quorum pres. will look at it this week and we'll have a better idea how serious it is.

Friday evening Tom took me out on a "redneck date." We went shopping at Walmart.

This week saw the tub in the large bath with greenboard surround in-- and a cut-out for a cubby in the side wall. The tub got plumbed and the shower raised from above chest level to a more suitable height. The small bath got plumbed for the sink to move. Tom had moved the wall out about 16" extending the size of the tiny shower/toilet/sink area. A larger door makes it seem more spacious, too. And we have a lovely pedestal sink to put in there. With the plumbing done, Tom was able to finish putting up the drywall. Now we have to either buy new tile or clean the old to finish out at least part of the tile wainscoting on the walls. It's 4 1/4 inch white tile. You'd think it would be easy to match. But today's 4 1/4 in tile is actually about 1/4 smaller. It might work if we used wider grout lines, but I think we'll try to salvage enough to finish out the extension of the walls.

We had someone come in and paint the ceilings. That's a literal pain in the neck. The guy did a good job. And Tom and Andy got lights working in the bathrooms, laundry room and a new light over the sink. These new can lights are so fantastic! Tom replaced one of our old ones over our kitchen sink and AHHH! The light is so much brighter. I think these are the same kinds of lights Mom put in her kitchen.

I also made flight arrangements to visit mom Feb 6-16. It will be nice to see her.

Tom had a busy day at church with all kinds of youth meetings including Bishop's Youth Discussion at our house after church. We had 19 youth there. He'd made dozens of cookies and deviled eggs yesterday and they were appreciative. We'll have half a dozen more deacons coming in next year. We may outgrow our down stairs!

Tom and Nathan are still a bit under the weather. We hope they will improve soon.