Copywriting Crunch Time

I had a fabulous time at Bootcamp, then a whirlwind to West Plains Ward Conference, and returned home with a determination to be more structured in my work. That meant getting up at 6am every morning and trying to be in bed before 10. For the most part it worked.

I had this super-huge deadline by Friday. I had to revise these emails and direct mail pieces for my financial publisher. Really that meant rewriting two completely—as they didn’t like the offer—and substantially revising 2 more. I really liked one of the two in its more original form, so I rewrite it and then used the three magic words in copywriting: “Let’s test it.”  Until we get reader response, we are only guessing what will be attractive to them. So I hope they will do an A/B test and we can see which one draws better… and it would be satisfying if it were mine.

I did get the project mostly done by Wednesday, and then most of Thursday was spent reviewing it for all the little typos and consistencies. Did I ALWAYS italicize the name and add that essential plural to the last word?  It’s the crazy detailed work that I like least.

I also got two articles out for my executive coach, researched technologies for my start-up, finalized and revised a website for them, and very quickly wrote a class description for my life insurance agent. She’s teaching how to use Living Benefits life insurance to invest in Real Estate. They were thrilled with my write up. Then I needed to revise it into a much more boring format… sigh. Next week: the HVAC newsletters must be completed.

Tom finished the porch roof and it looks great. The sad thing is that no one can remember what the old ugly metal roof looked like. The porch roof looks like it’s always been there.

They predicted bad rains coming up from Texas. We had Texas sized weeds in our garden and wanted to get them out before the rains. Well, we only got perhaps a third of them out… but we also only got some sprinkles. We had allowed the sweet potato vine to grow all over the garden. I pulled up the vines willy-nilly. Then I discovered that every place it put down roots… which was everyplace it grew, I think. It also put down sweet potatoes. I think we’re going to have to hand dig half the garden to find all the potatoes before we rototill. And it’s likely we’ll have volunteer sweet potatoes for years to come!

Tuesday, the tree trimmer called and said they could trim the tree at 1111 S. Church Street. The tenant was concerned the tree was diseased and would fall on the house. I didn’t want to lose all the shade. So they came and trimmed limbs back and cut out all the dead wood. While they predicted a kind of lopsided tree, it actually still looks quite good. I hope the tree will stay a live a while longer.

Friday, Tom was about to go shopping in town, when he got a call. One of the ward members wanted to cut down a tree close to his house because he was afraid the next ice storm would drop it onto his house. Alas, in the cutting process, the tree shifted and crashed onto the roof of his house. The only up side?  It wasn’t cold, icy, and raining. The down side was two new skylights in his house from tree branches, broken trusses and the back wall pushed out several inches. So Tom went over and spent 4 hours with about 7 other guys chain sawing, and dragging limbs off the roof and out of the house.

My friend has been working on her necklaces and we went to visit her at a local craft show. She’s excited about the prospects of the business. Lots of pretty things there. I had to ask myself, why will I pay extra money for a great front door keypad lock… but not $30 for a beautiful knitted and beaded scarf?  Warped priorities, probably.

Today I went to our ward for choir practice and sacrament meeting. Andrew Jiles had just returned from his mission in Provo, UT and was speaking. It was a good meeting. I left right after to drive to Ava and arrived just as the Relief Society lesson was starting. After church I taught a teacher development lesson for the Relief Society teachers. My basic question was: Do you know, when the sisters walk out of the RS room that they have understood the lesson and will apply it in their lives?  Then we spent the rest of the time talking about how we can get the Gospel principles into the hearts of the sisters and what evidence we might have that this was occurring.

It was a lovely drive through beautiful fall colors. The ward had a gorgeous maple tree.

After I got home, I took a short nap. Then our home and visiting teachers came, and we had various phone calls and letters to send out.

AWAI Writer's Conference

Monday Tom and I packed and did last minute things. Mom, Cynthia and I joined Sally at the Swiss Ladies Luncheon near Downey.  This is the second time I've gone and the ladies are all so friendly.  Wendy and her two children visiting Sally and came as well.  And Mom invited her friend Gloria, who has Swiss heritage to come, too.  It was a nice mid-day event.

In the evening we went out to dinner with Cynthia and Jim.  Lovely restaurant, good food, and good conversation.  We tried to get to bed early.  On Tuesday we were out the door by 8:45 to go to the airport.  Tom flew home.  I flew to Florida for my writer's conference.

I got in to Ft Lauderdale at 9:30.  I'd planned to take the shuttle, but it wouldn't leave for about a half hour and would wander all over dropping people off.  Yuck.  I was tired... and so forked over 3x as much money and took a private car that got me there in 35 or 40 minutes. That was SO much nicer.

My roommate was already checked in.  She is lovely and delightful... and also very chatty. So I probably slept less and got less work done than I might otherwise have.  But I know a lot more about her than I did before this event.

Picture of me and my roomie.  Below: Pictures from our hotel room balcony.

 At the awards ceremony-- Clayton and Wendy Makepeace.  Carline Cole -r- was the copywriter of the year.  They were seated at the table next us.  Really genuinely nice people.

I know a number of people who have come to the event on a regular basis.  It's really exciting to see their careers progress.  Diligence pays off.  One of my major take-aways from the conference was the path of learning-- learning copywriting or any effort.  Mike Palmer showed a graph-- like a sine wave.   At the top of the first wave is "Uninformed Optimism." Basically we're enthusiastic and clueless.  It's needed.  We wouldn't start without this.  But the wave starts to dip with "Informed Pessimism."  It's harder than we think.  We realize there's a lot to learn and it takes practice.

The wave bottoms out with "crisis of meaning."  It's sink or swim time.  It's when the going gets really hard and we have to decide to quit or push through.  Many people fall off here and decide it's not worth it.  But as we push through, we go on up the other side of the wave to "Informed Optimism." This is where you see the result of your efforts and have accomplished the task.

The interesting thing is that there is a diagonal line running from the bottom left through the sine wave angling above the "crisis of meaning" dot and hitting somewhere around the "Informed optimism."  This is your skill level.  The importance of this is that by the time you  reach your crisis of meaning, your skill level is getting high enough to solve the problem.  If you just stick with it, you'll win.

I appreciated learning this because with every new kind of assignment, we go through the same emotions.  I thought I was the only one who would get into a project and think, "I suck!  I can't do this."  Now I know that's just part of the process... move on. Keep going.

One measure of my growth as a copywriter is that while I was at bootcamp this year, I had 5 current clients wanting to have me do something.  So I was fielding phone calls about editing, finishing web pages, doing articles, and pushing phone calls back until I returned home.  I've never been that busy with clients while at bootcamp.  And I'm coming home to a very busy next week.

I had a wonderful miracle of running into an editor I'd submitted a proposal to, and learning she still liked me and wanted to do business... but the new boss was slow to make decisions.

They were great, busy, exhausting, exhilarating 4 days.  I flew out on Saturday afternoon and got to Springfield at 9:30 that night.  Alas, my luggage didn't do the same thing.  Fortunately I had packed my dress, slip and church shoes into the carry on.  My first counselor in the RS presidency picked me up and took me to her house in Ava.  Sunday we got up early and drove to West Plains for their Ward Conference.

As a presidency we shared in teaching the 8:30 training meeting, but I'd asked my counselor to teach the RS lesson.  After we had a "linger longer" lunch and went out to visit a sister.  I was a bit sleepy... but the visit perked me up.  Tom had left a car there for me on his way to the Temple with the youth.  So I had a car for the trip home.

It's good to be home... and my luggage caught up with be about 7pm.  I'm going to try to get to bed early and catch up on some sleep.

Two Weeks-

We’ve been keeping busy. On the 27^th of September after church in the evening I drove to Deborah’s house and spend the night there.  She had a small out-patient procedure done and needed someone to be there and then watch the kids for a little bit.  I spent Monday with her and enjoyed the children.  Deborah seemed to recuperate pretty quickly.  They said she likely would… but it’s always nice when it actually happens that way.

I came home on Tuesday.  I’d planned on stopping at ½ of ½ on the way out of town… but they are closed on Tuesday.  I wanted to try and find something dressy for Tom’s 50th high school reunion.  For the rest of the week, I was busy trying to finish projects and get ready to go and visit Mom.

Tom worked hard on trying to finish the porch roof before we left.  He got it shingled.  Just needs some flashing and some of the siding from the Living Room wall put back on. We haven’t had rain in about 3 weeks… so these small things won’t matter.

I’d been working on these emails for a financial newsletter.  They were harder than I thought they should be and I finally got the first draft done the evening before we left for the airport.  I also had a web page to finish off.  Sometimes the technology almost makes my head ache.  It’s hard when you have to “translate” a sentence word by word to understand what the inventor is actually saying.

Friday we drove to Deborah’s house. It’s nice to have Barb there to watch the house and care for the chickens and the cat.

I shopped at ½ of ½ for about an hour while Tom went to visit Deborah and play with the kids.  I did find a glittery knit top that was marked down from $65 to $.99.  I like those kinds of sales!  It did have a spot of dye on it from a tag… but I was able to get 95% of it off with rubbing alcohol and it was in an inconspicuous spot. (And she looks great wearing it).

Deborah drove us to the airport and we headed off to Mom’s. We had a ½ hour delay leaving North West Arkansas airport and only a 40 min. layover in Minneapolis.  The pilot made up some time, but Tom and I ran across the airport and just made the next flight.  I really thought we were going to miss it.

Cynthia and Jim picked us up in Santa Ana and loaned us their car.  So nice of them!  Jim was having vocal cord surgery a few days later.  So we visited while he could still speak.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference for the church.  Wow!  Great talks.  I felt many of them dealt with becoming more spiritual, having the companionship of the Holy Spirit, being strong and sure in Christ in a wicked world, and having the confidence we can make a difference.  I am reminded that having joy is a commandment. So in spite of the doom and gloom we hear on the news, we can have a joyful attitude and spirit.  And that which we focus on we enlarge.  So as we focus on joy, we can increase it within us and around us.

It’s been a delight to be with Mom and the family out here.  Saturday night we went to Cynthia and Jim’s for dinner.  Sally and Steve came down for dinner on Sunday and Cynthia and Jim came over.

Tom spent the week doing honey-do things for Mom and a one for Cynthia and Jim.  Saturday we went shopping with Mom… and just had to stop at In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Monday we shopped again. Tuesday morning Tom and I went to the Temple while Mom went to a 90 plus luncheon.  It was lovely going to the temple here.  It only takes ½ hour or less to get there instead of the usual 4.5 hours.  When we arrived at the temple the first few people we met, Tom recognized from when we lived in El Toro 40 years ago.  We did initiatories for family names and then back to back sessions.  It was a delight.

I had send my financial emails off to a copywriter friend to critique.  When I got those back, I needed to finalize them and send them off.  I’d hoped to do it earlier in the week, but it actually took me until Friday night to get them polished and off.  In the meantime, my start-up group “leader” called.  He kindly and very nicely said they needed web pages done faster, how could we make that happen?  So in discussing it he said, “Oh!  Your best use is as a copywriter, not a researcher.  If we can get this material to you in a more concentrated, ready–to-use form, that will help things move faster.  YES!!!  So I created a template and sent it off.  I hope that will help.

Right now I’m eyeball-deep in learning about algorithms that will help predict when part of an airplane might be close to failing so maintenance can be planned and safety improved… and planes can be more on-time.  When I read the patent, it sounds like it might also be able to tell the pilot in real time that they’re doing something unsafe… but I’m not sure that’s true.

I’ve also come across inventions that propose to recharge cell phones with clothing that collects electricity and by grabbing electricity from existing energy transmissions.  Interesting stuff.

Thursday Mom and I went shopping to see if I could find a better top for the reunion. I found a lovely sweater… and I bought it.  But with 90+ degree weather, I decided to save it for another time.  We went out to dinner at a lovely Chinese restaurant that night.

Friday Mom and Cynthia celebrated Geneva Presbyterian Church’s 50 anniversary with great festivities.  Tom and I took that opportunity to go back to the temple.

Saturday Tom and I drove to Universal City for his 50^th High School reunion.   

We had pretty heavy traffic on the way up. It was at the Sheraton Universal on the 21^st floor with floor to ceiling windows on three sides and a lovely view of the night lights.  There were probably 200 people there from both the class of ‘65 and the class of ’66.  Tom met some people who had lived on his street and who had been in his scout troops and others who were in his class.  At the table where we sat, one woman asked if Tom’s dad had taught Sunday school at Panorama Pres.  She said he looked just like his dad.  

 

We made better time on the way home.

Today we went to the Alicia Park Ward.  On their list of missionaries serving, one was serving in the Peru, Iquitos mission where Nathan is.  One was leaving this week for Botswana in South Africa, and one was leaving for the Arkansas, Bentonville mission- where we live. It makes it a small world. Oh, and as I chatted with one of the sisters, she was best friends with our Mission President and wife from the Kenya, Nairobi Mission.

We came back and had grill cheese sandwiches with Mom, Cynthia and Jim and then hamburgers tonight. Somehow they tasted just like the hamburgers we used to have every Saturday night growing up.  That was a great tradition.  

A new front porch... the beginning

It’s felt like a crazy busy week. Maybe that’s because I see the end of the year racing toward me and still have too much to do.

The garden is in disarray and needs to be put to bed.  But my excuse is that the tomatoes are still producing and the sweet potato vine is not yet dying off. No matter that about 70% of the garden could be weeded and tilled.

In addition to the typical writing I wanted to get done this week, I also went to Marian’s to do pottery on Tuesday. I had a casserole dish to glaze. I’d also been thinking about making trivets for next year’s Relief Society Women’s retreat. I wanted a picture and saying to convey the theme.  Alas, we have not yet chosen a theme.  But I created two trivets that might fit a possible theme- a well with “drink living water” and a sunflower with “follow the Son.”  I had a fun time with the different carving tools and actually made letters that look like calligraphy.  The goal is to fire the tiles and then make a latex impression of them.  Then that impression can be used to duplicate the pattern on other tiles.  I hope it will work.

Tom has started on his newest project- putting a porch where there was an aluminum cover down stairs in the porch area between the living room overhang and the garage.  He took down all the old covering.  Then he created a box to match the beam that supports the living room overhang.  That sucker was REALLY heavy.

He convinced me to help him hoist it up onto two ladders… with a bunch of blocks of wood to align it to the correct height.  Then it needed to be lowered to be wrapped with aluminum to match the other beam.  Then lifted it up again.  Then we put metal Greek columns (to mostly match the ones under the living room) under the beam and set the beam on top.  We were concerned that the cement might slope and so wanted the beam level and then the columns built under it.

I was really glad when the beam was finally attached to the posts and the wall!  I had vivid images of me dying from falling beam.  We—mostly Tom, also got the header up against the brick wall of the house.  Next are joists and then the roof.

Saturday was the women’s session of General Conference. Tom and I went to church to meet with other women to listen to it. It really was a great session.  Today we had a good choir practice and then the children’s primary program for Sacrament.  It was so fun to watch and listen to the little children. 

95° and Snowed Under

This has been a busy week for me. I received the initial payment for my Renewal Email Series job this week, so the clock started ticking on the deadline. I had some other projects lined up that I wanted to finish before starting this job. And then along the way I got other projects. So I stayed up late to finish the Creative Brief on the Email series. Then my executive coach asked if I could write more articles and the start-up company came up with another website—actually a series of websites to do. And I still have my HVAC newsletter to get started on.

So I’m feeling a little stressed.

Tuesday afternoon I helped out taking fair entries for the County Fair. I worked in the art and poetry section and it was fun to see the entries coming in. On Thursday Tom and I went to the fair to see how the work was judged. I didn’t enter anything this year. Maybe next year.

Thursday evening was a city council meeting. The owner of Creekside had wired the $50,000 money up front and come up with an agreement with the city attorney and the mayor. However they had to sell it to the city council. They were still grumpy over the apartment complex. Even though the city benefits regardless… they just don’t think the owner will be able to perform. Frankly, I don’t know either. They called me up and asked some questions. The Little Rock attorney asked me to say as little as possible… so I did. I was relieved they decided to honor the commitment they made two weeks ago. And at this point, my job has been accomplished.

We finally had the clock man come over. After oiling the clock, we now have ticking, time and Westminster chimes on our grandfather clock. It sounds so lovely!

The weather was hot all week, up in the 90’s. I had hoped the hot weather was gone, but it was not to be. Then Friday night a cool front rolled in and Saturday and Sunday have been absolutely lovely!

Last Saturday Tom and I had our 45^th wedding anniversary. So this Friday we headed off to Branson to celebrate it. We wandered around a craft fair and found some things we liked. Then we had a nice lunch. We went to Cottage Resort to look at a place for our Fox Family reunion and think it will work. We might add up rooms to see if it would work for the large reunion. In the evening we went to see the Irish Tenors and Celtic Ladies. It was a nice show. Good singing and lovely costumes. Some fancy footwork as well. We hit Andy’s Frozen Custard afterwards (about 10pm) and found it mobbed.  But we still had tasty ice cream.

Saturday we met Miranda, Dan and children along with Miriam and Emily at Silver Dollar City. It was the first weekend of the craft show and Harvest Festival and was pretty crowded. Nevertheless, we had a fun time. We did little kid rides and then watched the Wild West show. Then on to the Fireman’s Landing with more kid stuff—a huge ball area where things suck up balls and shoot them out—and on to the merry-go-round and climbing thing. Then we finished off with the “get soaked as you shoot other people” ride and the “Fire in the Hole” rollercoaster ride, which Ethan pronounced “Great Fun.”  He and Miriam and Emily went on it twice and were up to a third time around. But the rest of us were getting tuckered out, so we headed home.

I came home and finished my lesson and training needed for the Branch Conference at Mountain View—about 1.5 hours away- for Sunday. They have a lovely little branch and a dynamic Relief Society Presidency. So it was fun to visit. I tried to avoid sleeping through Sacrament meeting. And I did manage to stay awake when I taught the Relief Society class. I had good participation there. Then we had a lovely light lunch and went off to visit two sisters. The president said they probably wouldn’t let us in and they’d be short 5 minute visits on the doorstep. But we spent a good 45 minutes at each house. Lovely women and nice visits. I hope they come out to church.

We had a chance to Skype with Adam and Savannah tonight. That’s always fun.

Fall, Glorious Fall!

Time seems to be racing along. It’s hard to believe fall has arrived! Labor Day is over. Winter colors are back in. It may even be time to put sandals away. And on que, the weather turned cooler. Tuesday after Labor Day was our last hot day. Then clouds rolled in and dumped 3.25 inches of rain in about 24 hours. Now it’s about 50 degrees at night and 75 degrees in the day and lovely. Leaves are starting to fall on the lawn.

We had a lovely weekend with Jonathan and Kristy and family and Deborah and Ian and family. The kids enjoyed everything but the mosquitoes and ticks. I think the wet weather has made it a bad year for bugs. We have more mosquitoes than I’ve ever seen in the 21 years we’ve lived here.

Monday, after the family left, Tom and I went to check on a rental that had just come up empty. They left it pretty clean… except for the fleas we didn’t know about. So we ended up tracking fleas home with us. Fortunately (for me) they were more attracted to Tom. But he was not thrilled so unfortunately (for the fleas) we bombed the house, Frontlined the cat, and now seem to be flea-free.

We’ve been considering putting in mini-split heat and air in the two bedrooms downstairs. They typically stay pretty temperate until we have masses of people here. Then they tend to get stuffy and warm. Tuesday North Arkansas Electric came out and did an energy audit to see what size unit we’d need. It really isn’t feasible to put ducting into those rooms, so a mini-split is ideal—if a bit pricy.

I spent time trying to finish up other writing projects to be ready to devote time to my new project with Street Authority. I’d read that Bob Bly, a great copywriter, prints off all the promos and newsletters and information about the project, puts it into a notebook, and uses that as his resource. I know I gain more and can make notes easier on print than computer files. So I went to PostNet and printed off over 300 pages of material. Now to read and digest it.

I worked at finishing up some of the websites. This is one that’s mostly done now: http://quantumde.com/. So you can see I had to brush up on my knowledge of Nano-technology.

Saturday was my Stake Auxiliary Training day. The presidencies of the ward Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary all gathered in West Plains for training. I was conducting and in charge of opening exercises. I also had to oversee and organize the training for Relief Society. And we- the auxiliary presidencies- agreed to fix food for a light lunch. Each presidency made food for 30- pulled pork, baked beans, relish tray, and cookies/brownies. I crock potted 13 lbs. of pork butt and made a relish tray of the remaining bell pepper (slices), cucumber (slices) and cherry tomatoes from mine and my neighbor’s garden.

I think the training went well, but I was glad when it was over. Saturday was also Tom’s and my 45^th wedding anniversary. That’s quite an accomplishment. I’m so glad I married a wonderful man!  We will choose another day to celebrate more fully, although we did have a chance to visit on the drive to and from the auxiliary training.

In the afternoon, Tom went to some other meeting and I took the left over tomatoes and onions and peppers and made a huge pot of spaghetti sauce--sans meat—and froze it in meal portions. My garden did not do well this year—although the weeds are now spectacular. With the cooler weather, I don’t know how many more tomatoes we’ll get. That’s about all that’s left in the garden except for a monster sweet potato vine. If it bears, in any resemblance to the length of vine, we’ll have a fortune in sweet potatoes!

Next week we’ll meet Miranda and Dan for a day at Silver Dollar City.

Interesting week

Things seem to be starting to get interesting. I’ve almost finished the current start up webs sites I’ve been working on. The fun news of the week was that I think I finally landed a “whale”—a big client. I had a Wednesday phone call to talk about the project.

I wasn’t sure how well it went, but promised to send a proposal within a day or two. It’s always the debate on what to charge and I forgot to go back to my notes to remind me to ask for a percentage of the sales… but that’s okay. What was fun was that I wrote that I’d had a project put on hold (The one I was supposed to be available to do immediately and then…. No news) so I had an opening in September, but I also was awaiting two editors getting back to me (also true) so that spot might fill. But I had openings late toward the end of October. The editor got back to me THAT AFTERNOON asking if the September slot was still available, they’d like to take it. No comment on price or anything. I guess it’s true the busier you are, the less you have to dicker. So now I need to compose and send a contract.

The Creekside apartment job became more interesting as well. I wrote a press release, but the owner wanted to hold off until after the city council meeting. He had given a proposal to the mayor and the attorney and they agreed to put it on the agenda for the council meeting and I agreed to present it. It seemed like a win-win deal. My client would give the city $50,000 in installments to hold as security that he would perform the restoration according to the plan and time limits in the proposal. The city would have a security fence around it and flood lighting and security cameras and a night watchman, as well as mosquito abatement and yard mowing as it awaited renovation and through the renovation process. It was all at no cost to the city and they still got their $27,000/year in taxes. Or they could vote to condemn it and have to have it sit until all the appeals were exhausted and have no security during that time unless they paid for it and have to pay $50,000-$100,000 to tear it down.

It had sat for three years after going into foreclosure. It had vandals, squatters, and was an eye sore. Why not collect the security deposit and wait and see if the owner could fulfill his obligations. If he did, the city would get more income from the revenue of the people living there and from the construction taxes. If not, they had $30-$50,000 to help tear down the building. But no. The city was tired of having the building vacant for 3 years. My owner had only owned the building for 2 months, but he’d missed a deadline to get the fencing up. And, the mayor and attorney both claimed they thought the $50,000 was all up front, not in payments over a series of 4 months. And why should it take almost 5 months to start the physical part of the rehab.

So I was left explaining why it made sense to my owner to pay in payments so the city wouldn’t take the money, find an infraction, and condemn the building. (Oh, we wouldn’t do that…) and how they had not had enough time to learn to trust each other. (Oh, we’ve had time. He failed to perform… we don’t trust him.) And why it take so long to get started—permits, planning, assessing, putting bids out, and depending on other people when they can do the work. It was a pretty grueling city council meeting. At last they voted to go back to the owner. If he was willing to put the $50,000 up front, they would agree to his proposal and timetable. If not, they’d file the condemnation and he has 30 days to file to contest it. It was about as good a win as I could get, and my client was happy that they hadn’t voted to file the condemnation. Still, I thought the city was pretty stupid to plan to turn down $50,000 because it was just “buying time.”  I’m thinking, are you so rich you can afford to throw away that money?

What was harder was that just before I learned I had to attend that meeting we’d invited an investigator family and the missionaries over for dinner that night. We moved up the time… and I bailed early. But apparently they had a great discussion and the 20 year old daughter became interested in learning more.

Tom and I also went to look at houses for Adam. It’s possible his paid off house has enough money to help buy another house. We put a backup offer on “The Nasty House.”  It has 3 bedrms 2 bath a 2 car garage and nice bones. But it’s filthy. Will need all new flooring, roach droppings washed from every surface, new roof, and bath room repairs. But it has the potential to be a good house. Talked to the bank about financing. I love it that they are willing to work with me.

Thursday we had the Oriental rug cleaned. It had been returned by Andy and Kera and now that we had a hardwood floor, we had a place for it again.

On Friday evening Jonathan, Kristy and family came for the 3 day weekend.  They helped trim some trees and enjoyed a bonfire with s’mores… and ticks. On Saturday evening, Deborah and Ian and family joined us as well. It’s nice to see the kids playing happily (mostly) with each other. Sunday Hailey Alexis Reck was blessed in church. I had been asked to teach Relief Society, so I prepared a lesson on teaching and serving those we visiting teach as the savior would. Jonathan made delicious pizza to end our fast Sunday.