Jam-Packed Week

It s been a wild week.  So much stuffed into it.  We had a delightful time at Mom’s and hated to leave.   Monday evening we went out for a delicious Chinese dinner.  Tuesday we left at the crack of dawn…um… pre-crack of dawn, driven by our faithful brother-in-law Jim.

We had an uneventful flight home.  It was kind of fun.  We sat next to a country singer, Bobbie Dean, on our last leg.  He had to hoof it to get to his show on time.  We had our friend pick us up and drove home in good time.   It was good to sleep in our own bed again.

Beans had grown in our absence, so we froze a half dozen or more bags of green beans.  Tomatoes were also giving their last gasp with ripening tomatoes on dead vines.  Saturday afternoon we did two batches of salsa.

Wednesday I did visiting teaching. We have a sister who is quite ill.  She’s 89.  Tom and I have visited her for years.  She recently went into the hospital, then a retirement home, then back to the hospital, then to rehab.  There were times I visited her that I wasn’t sure she’d be around… but she seems to be rallying some.  She has two little dogs that were her constant companions.  Her whole goal was to get back to her babies.  Her daughter didn’t think she could live alone any more, thus the retirement home.  Now it’s likely to be a nursing home as she doesn’t have the strength to do things for herself.  However, this week we just learned that the daughter had the two dogs put down.   I was shocked!  What if the mother gets well enough the dogs could have come visit???  And if she learns they were put down, she will be furious with her daughter and likely die mad.  I suppose grief may make one do strange things, but it seemed not well reasoned to me.  Now the daughter’s worried mom will get better.  How terrible is that?

Thursday I had a call with the co-founder of AWAI about the AWAI Boot Camp I’m going to next week. She answered a few questions I had about Boot Camp. Then I prepared for the seminary training. I trained by phone that evening instead of a group meeting.  It’s hard to get good attendance even when all they have to do is pick up the phone and listen.  But those that were on the call were involved and it went well.

Friday Tom and I drove to Branson.  I love the Harvest Festival at Silver Dollar City.  It has a cowboy theme and lots of craftspeople.  We watched a … lumber man?  house builder? trimming logs.  He axed off and trimmed the sides of the logs so they could be used for log homes.  He’s built about 35 houses!  One log at a time.  We watched pewter makers and potters and weavers. Glass blowers, wood carvers, quilters, painters.  One painter has Parkinson’s, his wife said… but he still paints!  This time we didn’t go on ANY rides.  We watched a wild west stunt show, a performing horse, a world champion roper, a cowboy poet, a Dutch oven care class, and a horse trainer with his no-longer-wild mustangs.

We dined at IHOP and stayed at the Dutton Theater Hotel.  Saturday Tom had a training in Branson.  Actually, I was to have had my Seminary training on Saturday… but I thought, with the next training in two weeks (at Stake conference) let’s save on travel for my people.  That was before I knew TOM had to go to Branson.  So he dropped me off at the library and I worked on shortening a Christmas program script for our December program.  Then I worked on a few things to prepare for my trip to AWAI Boot Camp.

When we came home Saturday afternoon, I tried to get some things organized for Boot Camp, but ended up spending about 4 hours making salsa.  Tom made a cake and brownies for Bishop’s Youth Discussion which was on Sunday, and I frosted the cake.  Then about 8pm as he’s talking to the missionaries, I hear him say, “Sure, Sandy will be glad to teach that class.”

Actually, I was.  I love teaching Gospel Principles.  This one was on the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  I took a picture of a kitchen machine a friend gave me—the kind that does mixing, chopping, blending and so on.  It was all in a box in pieces.  We talked about what good this gift does me if it just sits in this box in the family room.  What would the giver think if she knew that the gift she gave with love and charity was sitting there unused?  It came without a manual, so I’ll need to work to figure out how to use it.  How is this like the gift of the Holy Ghost?  We reject the giver if we don’t use it.  It doesn’t do us any good at all or bless us if we don’t use it.  We need to work at it to figure out the language of the spirit to get full use.  And when we do that—the Spirit can help us do lots of things.

Tom had BYD after church.  I did my last visiting teaching right after church with a sweet sister who spends all week out of town.  Then rushed home to be there when the kids started arriving.  They actually waited for Tom and all came in a clump.   Now it’s blog writing time.  Then time to think about packing.

I’ll leave tomorrow and go to Miranda’s and visit Tuesday.  Then early Wednesday I fly to Del Ray Beach, Florida.  The Boot Camp begins Wed afternoon.  It goes from 7am-9pm Thurs and Friday and most of Saturday. I’ll fly back to Miranda’s on Sunday and hope to catch church there in the afternoon.  Then I’ll drive home on Monday.  So you may not get a blog next Sunday.  And if you do… it will be full of things I learned at Boot Camp!

Fall Colors

We came back to Mountain Home and found the fall colors had burst forth.  Oaks are more restrained in their colors, but the sasifrass and sumac and maples are delighted to display their vibrant colors. I have my handsome man standing in front of a sasifrass tree.

 These are the colors coming down our road.

We went to Branson on Friday and I kept snapping pictures.

It looked so vibrant with my sunglasses... a little less so, without. So I put my sunglasses in front of the lens.

I know more color is coming.  But sometimes the winds come and the leaves disappear quickly.  So we rejoiced in the colors we saw.

A Great Week at Mom's

This has been a fun week at Mom’s house.  Tom has done many small… and not so small honey-do’s.  He’s repainted the front door and changed out the weatherstripping.  He’s adjusted closet doors to slide smoothly, found and installed flow reducers on the shower heads, fixed a chair, changed florescent bulbs in the kitchen and other lights, moved the light over the dining room table so it’s centered over the table… and likely more things I don’t know about.

Monday Mom and I drove to Sally's.  Lisa and Sally joined us and drove to the Swiss park where we had a lovely lunch with the Swiss Ladies organization.  Mom joined and got a great welcome with lots of applause.

Sally shared some Donop genealogy—folders of it—and I’ve taken it back to Mom’s to check out.  In the evening, we went to see slides of India.  It was very interesting.

Tuesday I sent off some spec writing assignments I did.   I looked some at the Donop genealogy.  I was invited to be interviewed for the Professional Writers’ Alliance.  Nice.  Mom ended up moving her arm wrong and feeling a “snap” in her shoulder.  So she tried to keep her arm immobile.  We shopped and fixed dinner—a simple one—and invited Cynthia and Jim over.

Wednesday Mom and Pat and I went to her Circle meeting at church.  They are a lovely group of women and we had a nice time.  Came back and then headed to San Diego to see Randy Stedman graduate from the Sheriff acadamy.  It was fun to see Randy and Cynthia and their baby, Jude.  Lisa and Russ were also there and Sally and Steve and lots of Randy’s family. 

 This was the sunset that evening!

 We stopped at the commissary as we were already on Miramar.  Then went to a great Mexican place for early dinner.  It helped us miss the traffic going back home.

Thursday  at 6am I had my mastermind call.  Usually it’s 8am central time.  This felt EARLY.  I was supposed to initiate the call… and I couldn’t remember my password on Skype.  I was up way too late on Wednesday trying to get that sorted out.

Later Thursday we went and did two sessions at the Newport Beach Temple.  It was lovely to go there.  We had some rain which was nice and refreshing, too.

 We took route 1 on the way home from the temple.  It's so beautiful and typically Southern California.

Friday I had lunch with Cynthia near her work.  It was fun to just sit and talk.   In the afternoon I worked on Donop Genealogy.

Saturday I walked with Tom.  He’d been walking every morning.  I hadn’t.  I should have.  I was really sore after the walk.   Cynthia, Jim, Mom, Tom and I went to the opera.  It was the  New York Metropolitan Opera opening day of  L’ Elizire (?)  The Elixir of Love by Donazetti.   It was very enjoyable.  We saw it on the large screen at a theater.  Great singing, fun acting, and a romping plot.  In between acts, we got some interviews with the singers and producers and some looks into the back stage.  Apparently this simulcast production started with 6 theaters and now it’s shown in hundreds.

Sunday Tom and I went to the Lake Forest Ward where we’d attended when we lived in El Toro.  After church Mom and I and Cynthia went to the community concert to hear a string quartet.  They were lively and played a variety of music.  I enjoyed it.  We came home in time to turn around and go to Cynthia and Jim’s for dinner.

Mom’s shoulder is feeling some better, but not great.  So she’ll go see a doctor… if she ever finds the time.

We’ve been having a really lovely time here.  It will end all too soon.

Trip to Mom's

I’m late!  I admit it.  And I have few excuses.  Worse yet… now I can’t remember anything very exciting about the past week.

Monday I spent some time working on my info-marketing course.   That evening we went to the Empty Nesters Family Home Evening at Janet Hohn’s house.  We had hot dogs around the campfire and s’mores and had a great time.  Visited with her dogs.

Tuesday I made applesauce.  Tom brought home 40 pounds of apples from the orchard on the way back from the temple.  It’s been a while since I’ve made applesauce.  We dug out the Victoria Strainer and the pressure cookers and got started.  Tom was busy fixing up the North College rental—painting and such—so I was mostly on my own.  But we managed to make 17 bottles.  Most of the time I remembered to add some cinnamon.  I didn’t add sugar.  I figured people could add that at the table if they felt the need.

Wednesday we voted on the Dump bond issue.  It was early voting, but we wanted to make our wishes on the tax increase and increased liability known.  Yesterday was the special election day and it was soundly defeated!  My friend Leslie wrote on her facebook:  “Today’s the day to go to the polls to vote against the land fill tax.  If you’re voting in favor, vote November 2. Wink wink.”  I thought that was cute.  Might be the reason it failed 4 to 1.   The others were waiting to vote later.

Wednesday I also went and had fun with Marion and clay.  I really didn’t have time to do this, but I need to be involved in maintaining friendships and in being creative in clay.  So I went and made two dishes.  It’s so fun to be creative.  “How do you want the sides?”  “Let’s make them about “this” high.”  Or “I think I’ll make a braid for the sides.”  And when things are not quite perfect…that’s part of the artistry.

Wednesday afternoon I helped Barb a bit with her book shelves.  Tom had already helped some with building them.  In the later afternoon, the church youth came over for an activity.  Hotdogs, chips, stories, games, a hay ride (pulled by the truck since the tractor konked the day before.)  I stayed for the tasty food (HUGE hotdog!) then heard the merriment as I worked on a few things inside.

Thursday we packed for our trip to Mom’s.  We had a friend drive us to the airport and keep the  car so we saved some on parking fees.  It was a fun dive and I learned a lot more about Dave than I knew before.  The flight was uneventful—the best kind—and we arrived at Mom’s by 9pm.

We’ve had a nice time here. Don’t remember what happened on Friday.  Saturday and Sunday we watched General Conference.  How fantastic is that!  Wow!  Such great speakers.  Exciting news that missionaries can now serve at 18 for boys and 19 for girls.  Likely there will be a dip in BYU class sizes for the next year.

Sunday Sally, Steve, Lisa & Russ, Cynthia & Randy came down for the last sessions of General Conference.  Then Cynthia and Jim came over and we celebrated Sally’s birthday a few days early.  Such fun company!  

 Happy Birthday to Sally!

 Celebrating new Baby Jude, Cynthia and Randy's little one.

Wonderful FALL Weather!

The weather has cooled.  It’s delightful.  Our flowers in front are blooming their hearts out. We had several showers of rain this week.  The garden is still giving beans. It’s a great time to be alive!

This week just seemed to go on.  Nothing spectacular or dramatic.  I guess that can be a good thing.

With the colder weather Tom went out and gathered some deadfall and burned it.  He’d cleaned up in this area before the ice storm, but all the dead branches left up in the tree have gradually made their way to the ground. He had some toasty fires going.  I went out and helped him a little bit one day.  The chiggers nibbled my legs in thanks.  Somehow, that makes me somewhat less willing to venture out again.

I’ve been continuing working on copywriting.  I sent a query on another article for the Barefoot Writer.  The editor said send it in.  I worked on it a while and then sent it to Deborah to copy edit.  She does such a good job!  She not only find the places where I have two spaces instead of one, she gives good suggestions on things that sound confusing or might be phrased better.  Me… I likes this girl.

Friday I went visiting teaching.  One of our sisters is sick in bed. Another is in the hospital.  Mind you they are both nearly 90.  But my companion was speaking about how healthy she and her husband were up until a few years ago and now they have a litany of ailments that have slowed and crippled them. Dang, it sounds unpleasant to get old!

Barbara, our neighbor is trying to get a portion of her garage turned into a little book store. She’s been fixing and painting.  Tom went over a couple weeks ago to put up dry wall and tape it. I volunteered to paint the ceiling.  Saturday we went to get some paint. I think she has a cute vision for a little book store with a boutique of some of her collectables in one corner. I hope it will bring in a little income for her. We talked about shelf design and I think we have a plan.

Our new chickens are doing tolerably well.  They are very skittish.  I tried to put them in early last night as I had the Relief Society broadcast to attend and an ice cream social before it.

Here are the chickens saying, "Monster!  Monster!  Must escape!"

 One silly bird did not want to be herded into the chicken tractor.  She flew over the fence.  By the time I got her back in, the others had ambled out… Phooey!  They just stayed out till I got back home about 8:30.

I took this photo Sunday.  After standing quietly for about 5 minutes they decided maybe they need not huddle together for protection. The are part Americana so they have puffy feathers at their cheeks.  Hmm.. if you ever get close enough to see them.

Saturday Tom left early and took the youth to the temple.  They had 18 youth and 12 adults.  Some of the adults were going with their children.   It was a long day, but they got as many baptisms done as they could in their one hour allotment.  Then they dined at 5 Guys and started their 5 hour trip home. 

They stopped at the orchard.  Tom called.  Will you have time to do 40 lbs of applesauce before we leave to go to your Mom’s?  Sure.

Sunday I taught the Gospel Principles class again.   Tom spoke some in the 3^rd hour as Relief Society and Priesthood met together to talk about the value of scripture reading.  We look forward to General Conference next weekend.

YARD SALE!

Essentially the yard sale overshadowed the whole week.  Tom started last week sorting through garage, barn, and shed and staging things in the center of the garage and the overhang.

Monday we went around and priced things. I went through closets in the house for other odds and ends. I also got notification for an Elance job.  It gave me a 5 day turn around to do 5 articles on finance and stocks at 500 words or more.  I was a bit disgruntled.

First, the pay was low.  Second, I’d agreed to the job if they did the research.  But they just gave me topics and said essentially “don’t worry if you’re not a financial advisor (or know what you’re doing). We tell everyone to do their own due diligence.”  And I’m thinkin’ REALLY??  How many finance articles do I read that are written by writers, not experts???

Why didn’t I turn it down?  Good question.  I’m new on elance and need good references.  I wanted to write for the financial sector and this seemed like a good start. When you begin elance, you have to work for dirt for the first few assignments.  But there was a pretty high stress level about writing these articles well.  I figured I needed to do one a day.

That evening, when I went to put the chickens in, one newbie was over the fence in the pasture.  Two others were in the garden.  I grabbed the pasture one and tossed her back into the pen.  The two in the garden needed more hands, so I went to get Tom.  When we came out… no chickens in the garden.  None.   And it’s nearly dark… and getting darker by the moment.  We wandered and searched, but no luck.  We hoped they’d show up in the morning.

Late, late Monday night Miranda and her “chicks” came to visit.

Tuesday we were up early chicken hunting.  We wandered all over the yard and checked under the porch, the garden, the pond area, the barn and the pasture.  No chickens.  I tried to get their friend out of the coop in the hopes she would call to them.  She was a bit distressed at my efforts.  Likely she called, “HELP!  MURDER! Stay away!” 

Just when I’d given up… the two ladies showed up on the pasture side outside of the chicken fence…anxious to rejoin their friends.  With a little persuasion we got them back under the fence to their friends…err friend.  The two older hens are more likely to chase and peck than be friendly.  I had some discussions with them, including a thrown cucumber.  I’m not sure it made them kinder to the pullets, but it made them more leery of me.  

Miranda spent parts of Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out with her friend Sarah Simpson (now married) who lives in Austria but was visiting home.  We did a little more yard sale prep and I managed to write the first finance article.  I sent it off to see if this was what they wanted.  They liked it.

Wednesday we checked that our ad was in the Baxter Bulletin.  We put out some of the weather indifferent stuff in prep for Thursday’s yard sale.  Our neighbor Barbara was having a yard sale with us.  So the missionaries and we worked over there getting tables set up and books set out.  I think we worked Barbara half to death.  In the evening I had a call and then a meeting at church.  Miranda held down the fort.  We had fun playing with Ethan and Camden and visiting with Miranda.

Eeeearly Thursday morning, before daylight, we went out to prep.  We’d listed the time from 8-4… but people were at the gate by 7am.  And being hungry for sales we let them in.  It was a lovely day!  Cool and sunny.  It was a great day to sit outside. Tom found a book from our sales pile and read that in the slow times. 

I came inside and cranked out another finance article.  The articles themselves were not hard to write… but the research!  I spent hours checking out Stansberry Reports, the Palm Beach Letter, Morningstar, Yahoo finance, Motley Fool, and the Wall Street Journal.  Cowabunga!  Now I know why it’s so hard to choose good stocks.  One source says it’s the best thing since Apple.  Another says it’s a fluke.  One says it has great earnings, another says the analysts’ who follow it don’t recommend a buy.  Almost no one agrees on any stock.  Then they wanted parameters of stocks between $5-20 or innovative, or in the real estate or construction market.  Yikes.

Here’s the good news.  I decided I don’t want to write for the financial niche.  I might have gone to Bootcamp promoting myself as a writer in the financial niche. It’s great I learned early it’s not my favorite area.  I like learning about it.  I don’t want to be considered an expert.  I’m also writing for a job coach and I did a job for a career coach and motivational speaker.  I like those areas much better.

We had good sales our first day.  Early Friday morning a storm blew through.  We’d covered everything with plastic and put lots of stuff in the garage.  They’d said 20% chance of rain and maybe 1/10^th of an inch so we didn’t expect much.  But the wind whistled, lightning flickered, flashed, and cracked nearly non-stop, and a ½ inch of rain pelted in about an hour.

Most of our stuff stayed dry, but Barb’s tarps were old and allowed rain to wet sheets and books.  Very disappointing.  The bedding could be washed and dried, the books?  I loaned her a hair dryer.  I think she ironed some of the pages.  Books are her friends!

Miranda kindly made muffins and fed us as we cleaned up the rain debris.  She left about noon to go visit a friend and head home.  It was nice to have her here.

I’d put out a bunch of horse stuff—2 western saddles and an English saddle, 10 bits, 2 cinches, various tie-downs or chest straps, a few light blankets, leg wraps, etc.  Two saddles sold the first day.  Friday a woman came by flush from selling a horse.  She was setting up a consignment booth with horse stuff and basically cleaned me out!  Joy! (Still have the English saddle and one set of leg wraps.)

I got the last of the finance articles written.  Relief!  Saturday I reviewed them one last time and sent them off.

Saturday we were a bit more relaxed for the sale.  We sat around discussing what we’d do with the unsold things… but we still sold over $100 that day.  Mid day, Barb and I went to a surprise 90^th birthday party for Sister Dale.  It was lovely.  We came home and helped pack up all the stuff that didn’t sell.   We’ve got a pile to go to Salvation Army.  Another (including the old file cabinet) for the metal recycler.  And a small pile to try to find a consignment store to take.

By late afternoon, I was bushed!  I had a landing page for my coaching client to spend 2 hours on.  I did one hour in the late afternoon.  Then we went to the ward fish fry.   WOW!  Good food and lot of friends to visit with.  So much food, I could not taste everything.  So sad.

We went to Baxter Retirement Home to visit Sister Dawson and then we came home.  Tom went to bed early.  I finished my last hour on the landing page and joined him.

Sunday the primary children performed their annual program.  It was very sweet.  They processed in singing I am a child of God.  We have one boy with cerebral palsy in a wheel chair.  His part was to say, “I am a child of God.”  It was very moving.  The children sang well.

I taught the Gospel Principles class. It was fun.  After church we had a baptism that was well attended.  Then I went home teaching with Tom. 

And that’s our week… or more than you wanted to know about it.

Anniversary Week

 We’ve had such a fun week!  I worked Monday morning like crazy to be done in time to leave for Eureka Springs.  Then we wandered over there.  We made a couple of stops in town and on the way there and arrived at the Arsenic and Old Lace Bed and Breakfast about dinner time.

We’d stopped at the welcome center and grabbed handfuls of maps, places to see and dining establishments.  Fall is a bit of a slow time, and some of the eateries were closed.  The first night we tried a Mexican place—it was coastal Mexican food with lots of citrus.  Oh!  Can I say, GOOD?  Mmmm. I had a spinach salad with avocados, mango, cheese, bacon and yum.  The salad dressing had a hint of lemon in the vinaigrette.  Tom had chicken enchiladas with an amazing white sauce.  Again, it had a bit of lemon flavor, but the meat...mmm… like barbecued, but not the tomato kind…. just flavorful.

That evening we walked part of the town to walk off dinner.  The next morning we walked into town stopping at shops and galleries.  They have some very talented artists there.  Jewelry making, pottery, fine arts, mosaic, beads, fabric work—it’s all unique and interesting.  I especially liked the pottery and looked for ideas there.  They had some wonderful polished stones—spheres of agate and other highly variegated rocks.  Actually the only thing I bought was a fossilized snail.  It had lovely brown tones and I want to make it into a necklace.

When we got footsore, we hopped on the trams that go around town and admired the historic homes and the scenery.  We stopped at the Crescent Hotel and wandered around.  We went to the historic Catholic Church.  There was an underground tour… but we didn’t make that.  Apparently Main Street was called Mud Street because it was low and all the mud and water flowed down.  So they raised it – in some places as high as 12 feet.  The second floors of some buildings became the first floor.  The court house has deep pits around it with retaining walls so the windows can get light.  It would be interesting to see all the first floors that are now underground.

The weather was delightful and we ate lunch outside at Local Flavor.  Again, the food was very good and filling.  We wandered around town, but weren’t sure what to do for dinner.  So we stopped at the fudge store for snacks and went out for banana splits and called that dinner. Hah!  The advantage of advanced age.  No one tells you, you can’t do that… and if they do… you don’t have to listen.  Well… the scale does complain a bit.

Wednesday we drove around town and cruised all the little side streets.  Some people call it little Switzerland because it’s so hilly.  But it’s not nearly as tidy as Switzerland. I think it should be called little San Francisco.  The streets are very narrow and windy, the architecture is similar, and the culture is liberal. 

On the drive home we stopped at some yard sales.  I had to laugh.  We’d go into these boutique stores and think, who needs all this stuff?  Mugs, ornaments, doo-dads, wind chimes, shirts, hats, belts… just stuff!  But then we stop at the yard sales and here’s all this great STUFF!  We picked up a scissor, a lamp shade, some crinkle ribbon, a few romance novels.  Come on.  Doesn’t everyone need those?

We got home in time for Tom to attend his meetings.

Thursday Tom started cleaning out the garage, barn, and shed in preparation for our yard sale.  Wow!  He’s done wonders with the garage.  All of them are neater and more organized.  And we have a pile of stuff in the middle of the garage and under the porch to go to new homes.

I got a tracfone and will use that as my phone.  870 656-3194.  Of course, I’m not all that good at answering my phone.  But’ it’s there for when I travel and for business.  I have it programmed with maybe 5 names.  More to put in.

Thursday I did a little work and listened to a peer review for the article I’d submitted to AWAI’s on line magazine The Barefoot Writer.  They gave good information to improve it.  I got to listen in on reviews of other work… and it was not much better than my review… so I certainly didn’t feel singled out.  I made the changes and sent it back on Saturday.

In the afternoon we went to the fair.  It was fun to go around and see how my entries did.  Mostly they did very well.  My beaded necklace and my picture of flowers in Switzerland were considered for Best of Show for their categories.  I got all blue ribbons except for a white for my Switzerland Castle (too dark of an exposure) and my peach jam (too little head room and too much foam.)  I love it that they tell you why they rated it as they did.  Tom says the peach jam will still taste great.

Thursday night was Relief Society.  We had a good taster’s table and learned “texting for dummies.”  It was taught by two teen-aged girls.  Who better to teach about texting?  They really were very patient with some of the older women who had never texted.  It was a fun class!

Friday I did a little work.  Then I needed to fix dinner.  The missionaries were coming over and I invited two other sisters. One brought her handicapped granddaughter.  It was a nice evening, but somehow a bit stressful prepping dinner.  After they left, I needed to make cinnamon rolls for my Saturday meeting.   Well, I didn’t HAVE to make them, but we’d eaten some Silver Dollar City cinnamon rolls, and this just seemed to be the right time of year for them.

I’d also been busy visiting with seminary teachers and preparing the training for Saturday. One teacher is really struggling.  Some are still not able to post their attendance.  I think things are going well, and then discover there are glitches and struggles.  We had rain—a nice gentle rain—Friday evening and all day Saturday (over 1.5 inches). 

I drove to the training in Branson in the rain and came back in the rain.  Later that evening I picked up two sisters and we went to a Relief Society event on hand gun safety.  It was a good lesson.  Shot a 22 for the first time in YEARS!

Tonight Brother Lawson, who is the seminary and institute regional coordinator, will be speaking to our youth.  So I’ll be going to that.

It’s been a great week.  Happy 42 wedding anniversary to us!