To my writing bootcamp and to Mom's

This is a two-week letter.

Monday October 16^th Tom drove me to Little Rock and I caught a flight to my Writer’s conference. The flight was pretty uneventful… which is a good thing. I had a close connection, so I really hustled from one side of the Atlanta airport to the other. It was with great sadness that I had to rush past Five Guys without stopping for a burger.

Then for the first time I tried Uber. It was a little confusing. For some reason, they called an Uber LX, which was larger and more expensive. I asked the guy what to do… and he grumbled just a little bit and said he’d take me for the lower fare. So I gave him a nice tip.

My sweet brother Steve used his Marriott Gold status to get me concierge status. So I could go to the concierge lounge for breakfast and a light supper… and chocolate chip cookies. (but they weren’t as good as Tom’s.)

Tuesday, I had a pre-conference women’s event from 9am to 5pm. It was very insightful and on personal growth as much as how to copywrite.

I had an article I wanted to get done for a new client. She seemed pretty demanding and a little condescending, but I thought I’d give her another article and another effort to see if thing might improve. I worked on that on and off, and had some of my copywriting friends critique it.

My roommate was from San Diego and a very easy person to room with. She takes her church- The Christian Scientists- to the Marine recruits at San Diego and loves it! So we had that in common as Tom and I had done that at Ft. Benning.

The conference was excellent as usual. It was fun to see so many friends there and see people that were beginning when I first came now moving up and gaining prestigious awards. I had lunch with a writer there for the first time- a nice young girl—maybe early 20’s and her sister, a graphic artist. It was delightful to see her win a spec challenge the next day! I ran across Clayton Makepeace several times (see photo below) and he graciously gave me some advice on the promo I'm working on.

I was supposed to meet with Wayne from Eagle Publishing. I’d worked with him on a little project years ago. And at that time, he was only interested in long form sales letters. I decided I really don’t like doing those. So I wasn’t sure we’d have much to talk about. But I finally met up with him at Job Fair and he was eager to have me work on some reports, follow-ups and other shorter pieces! Several other job fair booths also seemed interested. I sent out samples and we’ll see where it goes.

 It rained off and on while I was there. It didn’t much matter because I was staying in the hotel where the event was. However one morning I decided to go to the beach for the 7am meditation. As I stepped on the beach I felt a few scattered drops. As we began, the drizzle increased to a gentle rain. At first I was thinking, “Oh, I’m one with nature. I can enjoy the rain.” But the rain didn’t let up. It increased. I finally decided I was not meditating, I was thinking about getting wet! I picked up my mat and headed back to the hotel, walking through the lobby looking like a drowned rat. Fortunately, I had not worn clothes I planned to wear to the meetings. A little blow drying, and I was ready for the day. this is the beach view from my window.

Saturday, I caught a direct flight from Florida to LAX. I was one tired puppy by then. Up too late talking, up too early to get to all the sessions. (Actually, this year I skipped all the 7AM sessions and just started with the 8am ones.) The evening sessions finished about 9pm. So they were LONG days! Which led to sleeping most of the five hours on the airplane.

Sally picked me up. And rested from my nap, I stayed up and visited with her and Steve, far to late. We went to their church on Sunday. Steve English had recently been released from being bishop, so he and Sally were able to sit together. We stopped at the mortuary to look at Uncle Otto Walter’s old desk. It’s a great piece of furniture!

 In the afternoon, we drove down to Mom’s. Cynthia and Jim came over and we had a great dinner.  I love my family!

Mom had been feeling really tired and puny the week or so before I arrived. She seems to be gaining energy. But it may be an illusion. Perhaps she will crash after I leave. I try not to tire her out, but it’s a balance between asking what she needs and being respectful of her decisions to be as independent as possible.

Most of the week, I’ve been getting up about 5:30 and working for a few hours until Mom gets up. She decided to have her aids come even while I was here, so I got to meet Vicky and Maria. I can understand why Mom likes Vicky better. She seems to keep busy and is more pro-active. Maria waits to be instructed. I think perhaps she’s afraid of doing something wrong.

Monday night I went with Cynthia and Jim to the California Club activity. Cynthia is president this year. It’s a fun group of people who like to dance and eat. This time we had lobster and we also had Elvis come to entertain us. He had good moves and a nice voice on the slower songs. People dressed up—sort of a fancy Halloween theme. I wore black pants and a spangly top. And Cynthia completed my attire with a “BOO” headband. Of course we needed a photo with Elvis. Note Cynthia's cute wich hat.

Tuesday, we went and got Mom’s hair cut. Wednesday we went to look at fabric and see if a place could fix the saggy chair. We also checked out microwaves, since mom needs a new, quieter one. Then we needed to see about installation. So she called her handyman Dave. He quoted an outrageous price for the combination of chair fixing and microwave installation: $1150. And he wouldn’t break them apart. So I googled upholstery and furniture repair and found a place in Santa Ana. They said they thought the chair could be fixed without needing to be reupholstered.

Thursday Cynthia came over and we hoisted the chair into the car and drove to Santa Ana. The guy was very nice. He thought it could be fixed for $50, no upholstery needed. Could we pick it up tomorrow?

Friday I went to the temple. It was lovely to be in the temple. I was able to do on endowment and two initiatory. Then I went to Santa Ana and picked up the chair. It was firmer. He did a good job. There was an upholstery fabric store next door to the chair guy… so I had to go in and take a look. Did I want cow hides to upholster my car seats? Or Naugahyde? Or Ultrasuede? I did find some lovely fabrics and one I thought would look good on the gold chair that has deteriorating upholstery. So, I bought it. We’ll see if it will fit into the suitcase.

I connected with some of the clients I met at bootcamp and I have an appointment to speak with one on Monday or Tuesday. I also heard back from the client I’d written an article for saying this article might work, if I could fix a whole bunch of things. I’ll fix the things, but then I’m firing her as a client. I sensed too much condescension in her email. I was invited to write a letter to my younger self for the Titanidies group.  This was the photo I used with it.  Man, I married well. what a cutie!

In the afternoon, Mom and I went shopping at a new vegetable store… supposedly better than Jordan Market. It was nice. But we didn’t buy a lot. We made up for that by going out to dinner.

Sunday Sally and Steve came down and we went to church together. Mom and Cynthia and Jim went to church. Then we met at Cynthia’s house and Aunt Ruth and her daughter Sherrill and husband Roger joined us for lunch.  It was a Walter Jr. Donop commemorative meal. We spent time talking about him. Sally brought some of his memorabilia down and shared it. He had saved every report card. He had the bill from the hospital stay when he was born.  Seven days: $73.

We had a tasty lunch of salads and cold cuts. Jim made his famous New York cheese cake for dessert. Afterwards, Sally came back to Mom’s house and we talked about cryptocurrencies for a while.

Recovery Week

Sunday and Monday I was a bit dead.  I had been so focused on the Nauvoo trip that I was pretty much done for a bit. I did a bunch of catching up and tying up ends from the trip.  We'd ended up with a 1/3 cup measure from the rental house. There were a few items the property manager needed to know about. Receipts to submit. Reports to make.

Monday evening we had Empty Nesters.  It wasn't a large crowd, but I still managed to find plenty of tasty food to eat and the sharing of special conference messages was enjoyable.

Tuesday I did some writing. In the evening John came over with the missionaries and we had a lesson. He seems to enjoy the conversation, but we both cling to our interpretations.  I can't imagine living without the companionship of the Holy Spirit. And he can't imagine living with it.

Wednesday I had my missionary physical and got a TB test. Waiting for doctor, lab, test took up most of the morning. However the nurse practitioner I saw was delightful. And her nurse asked me about Adam.  Amanda Ashcroft? was a friend of Adam's in high school. This was her mom.

Now that Tom is young men's president, he's off to church on Wednesday. He also met with his new counselors earlier in the week. The boys had a campout this weekend, but this time he didn't go.

Tom felt that one of the rental houses needed painting so he's been scraping and reglazing the windows. I think it will look very nice once it's done.

Thursday we took the missionaries to Branson for transfers. We'd had three sister missionaries for 6 weeks. Now we are back down to two.  Since Tom couldn't drive them by himself, I went along for the ride. We left about 8:30. They picked up our two missionaries about 10:30.  But the new missionary coming to Mountain Home didn't come in until about 12:30. So Tom and I went out to lunch and then over to Menards to do some shopping.  We had to cut that short to pick up the new missionary and stopped by again on our way out to pick up the "dead" (but now fixed) solar light plus 4 more.

On the way home we stopped in Yellville to visit my potter friend Marian. We had a nice chat while Tom visited with her husband about explosive ordinance disposal and other interesting things. Then we went to visit a member, Tom who lives pretty far out. He built his own house, dug his own swimming pool and built a little apartment for some close friends of his. He's restoring a model A, and Tom went out to help him last week. It was a long day. We got home about dinner time.

Thursday night we were invited to a German Dinner at the church.  The family history center was celebrating German heritage.  I learned there was a German club in town and we were invited to join it. They had bratwurst, potato salad, baked apples and great authentic German bread.  Very tasty!

Friday ... who knows?  I picked most of the dried and semi-dried beans this week and have been putting them out in the sun to finish drying. Tom mowed the yard. Saturday he weed whipped it and it looks great.

Friday night when we were going out to dinner, we discovered a friend had come over to fix the Tractor.  So we were a little delayed. We met friends at a nice restaurant on the other side of Lake Norfork dam. I had salmon and it was delicious!

Saturday I prepped for the trip. I packed, organized computer stuff, tried on clothes and hope that I've remembered everything.

Sunday was Mountain Home's ward conference. Training began at 8:30am.  We sang in the Choir.  I had my counselor teach the lesson and she did a great job.  After church we had lunch, then visited, then I had a Just Serve meeting, and after that, the Self Reliance course.  A full day!

Monday I'm off to Bootcamp.

Nauvoo Week

This week really circled around the Nauvoo trip. I would wake up at night thinking about things I forgot, or how to balance things out better or would there really be enough food… or way too much. In preparing the food we figured it often by the person, then multiplied it by 130— or 120— and finally down to something like 110 people as sisters dropped out. Then we had to divided it by houses with houses having 18 (except when the GF folks came to breakfast) 23, 25, and 43. Try dividing 3 gallons of milk into 4 houses with those varying numbers of sisters.

I was sad as I got emails saying these sisters are dropping out. Sickness. Health of a spouse, work, indifference…. Each had a reason. But the atrophy was not as bad as it could have been. I downloaded conference talks onto my kindle to listen to on the way up. Then I learned my kindle refused to speak to my wifi speaker. So I got a cord so they would communicate.

This week I worked some on my financial promotional and we worked on our missionary application. I set up an appointment for a physical. And Tuesday night we visited with John, a thoughtful investigator.

Wednesday Tom and I drove up to Mexico, MO— about 1 ½ away from Nauvoo. The last hour or so we had torrential, unrelenting rain. They had predicted rain in Nauvoo Thurs, Fri, and Saturday. But we prayed for improved weather. I think the downpour was so that I’d think, wow, this little sprinkle is nothing! And that was what we had at Nauvoo, mist, sprinkles, and some dry periods. It was really pretty nice weather. With cloud cover, you can take better pictures.

We’d bought a lot of food and I had a shopping list for Aldi and Walmart in Keokuk one of the closest shopping towns to Nauvoo. Nauvoo has a Casey’s gas/shopette and that’s about it. My counselors were driving up together and they arrived in Keokuk about the same time we did. So we loaded their call with all the Aldi stuff that would not fit into our car. We didn’t have enough room for the 15 bags of lettuce, 7 containers of yogurt and ice cream we needed to get at Walmart, so Tom planned on going back.

We arrived at the Bunk House about 12:30. It’s the largest home that sleeps 50 and has a huge island in the kitchen with double stove, frig, and dishwashers. We unloaded all the food and then proceeded to divide it up. With the smaller number of sisters, we decided to combine a house, move the men to a closer house, and simply not use one of the houses. I wish I would have waited until the last minute to order the final house. We could have saved several hundred dollars! Ah well. The problem was that with fewer sisters we needed to recalculate the number in each house and then figure out how to divide up the food. Tom did make the run to Walmart— but later than we had anticipated.

My one counselor, Carolyn, did an awesome job assigning rooms, houses and beds to all the sisters. My new counselor helped to plan devotionals and to assign people to nights to go to the temple and the play. It was challenging, but worked out better that two of the wards with the largest number coming arranged on their own, to reserve temple and play seating. And ultimately everyone got where they needed to go!

The men were magnificent (there were two per house)! They did a great job of cooking and cleaning up. They were quite self-sufficient and the women felt loved and pampered as they were waited on and served food. It freed them to see more and do more since they just had to come in and sit down and eat. The women were very appreciative.

I went to the temple on Thursday night with the groups from Mountain Home, Ava and Mountain View. Sprinkles of sisters and the helping husbands (including Tom and I) went on Friday morning. Other wards attended the temple Friday night and then on Saturday morning. The non-temple groups went to see Rendezvous at Old Nauvoo, a play put on by the senior missionaries. Tom and I went on Friday night. It was funny and poignant as it looked at Nauvoo and the saints as they prepared to leave Nauvoo. These were all old dudes singing and dancing and acting and they were fantastic!

I had not realized that it was a choice between moving west or having a civil war within the state. The saints chose to leave willingly. But you could feel the sadness as they left all they had worked for and built up— homes, fruit trees, hand-made rugs and furniture, even livestock and gardens. It is a testimony to the strong faith they had that this was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was true. How can you not follow truth?

By Friday morning, it appeared that the food would be sufficient and was allotted fairly well. After Tom and I went to the temple, he went to nap and run, and I went to visit old Nauvoo with some of my presidency. Here we are in the women's statue garden.

We had a few bumps in the road. I needed 10 dozen eggs plus 19 for the brownies… but we ended up with 19 dozen eggs. However, the men made hard boiled eggs and offered eggs for breakfast, and surprisingly, most all of them got used! I asked Tom to buy 8 lbs. of broccoli, thinking of the frozen broccoli to steam for baked potato toppings. However, he failed to read my mind and bought fresh broccoli. One of the men there had run restaurants and offered to be in charge of the menu, ordering, and cooking for the next time we did this! I was ecstatic! I thought of him as I debated what to do with the broccoli. Would he prep it, divide it out and deliver it to the houses before the evening meal? Sure! We had about a tablespoon left over… so all was well.

I had also worried about having a ton of things to take home. We’d bought a jar of peanut butter, jelly, mayo and mustard for each house. However, I asked each house to divvy-up and give away the extra food they had and we brought very little back home. The only thing we really had left over were massive amounts of muffins and cookies. I had asked the sisters to bring muffins and cookies. They were to take them to the bunk house to be divided up. Some did… some didn’t. Our house had cookies the sisters brought— and we had plenty. We got an allotment of muffins from the Bunk House, but they had massive amounts left! We tried giving them away for sisters to eat on the way home, but probably still had 100 or more left over. I don’t exactly know what happened to them, and I’m not asking.

At the temple, Tom thought he saw a familiar name- Bob Brown.  We had known someone by that name in Yuma. Was it the same one? Yes. So after the play, Tom and I stopped at their house for a delightful catch-up on 40 some years. They are serving a year mission at the Nauvoo temple. They also served a temple mission in England. It turns out he is the uncle of one of our  former ward members. Small world!

Tom and I tried to leave as soon as we could on Saturday. We needed to check the homes and make sure the sisters had stripped beds, emptied trash and cleaned out all the food. We wanted to get home because a young man, Ethan, was getting baptized at 6:30 and we wanted to be there. It was a beautiful drive home. The leaves were turning color in northern Missouri. We had divided highways and narrow country roads to drive on. We drove though this town on our way there.

Our GPS tried to direct us incorrectly at least twice, and I had some trouble trusting it and following it several other times, so I made a couple of wrong turns. One, Tom was convinced endangered life and limb… and he may be correct. But Praise God we made it home safely. And in time for the baptism. Nice guy. It’s always a joy to see how the gospel can change lives for good.

Sunday was Fast Sunday. Several of the sisters talked about how much they appreciated the Nauvoo trip- that it was a spiritual experience and a wonderful time to bond with the sisters in their ward and stake. Today Tom was also called to be the Young Men’s president. He will do a great job. We also had the self-reliant class in the afternoon. I think I am catching up on my sleep. Life is good.

More Nauvoo Planning

I'm trying to get all my ducks lined up for the Nauvoo trip.  One counselor has done an amazing job of organizing the lodging. The other has been working on the schedule for people going to the temple and to the Rendezvous at Old Nauvoo Play. The temple can only accommodate 45 in a session. So it's a little tricky to get 110 into two sessions. But some will do other things... so I hope it will all work out.

I've been organizing the food. I made a list of what we still need to buy. I finished cooking the last of the Taco Salad meat.  I will make the dressing on Tuesday, I think.  Then, I worried if Aldi would have the amounts we need to buy. When we went to get milk at Aldi for the family reunion, they said that we should have come in and prearranged for that amount.  But they don't accept phone calls... so I guess we just have to hope and pray.

Then I've been dealing with the list of food restrictions some of the sisters have. Some don't apply: mushrooms, oranges, etc. Gluten Free, I can handle.  But I have some vegan/no sugar or no sugar/no grain allergies I don't know what to do with.  So I assembled the list, deleted the ones that don't matter, and to the best of my ability organized alternatives to their allergies. For a desert, however, I threw up my hands-- no eggs, sugar, or grain, and vegan?  I would do a apple. But I asked one of the diet restricted sisters if she could come up with a desert for 11 (including the GF/chocolate free/ diabetic sisters.

I got a call from my longtime friend Tanya that she was driving up from Ohio to pick up a miniature baby bull from a place about 2 hours from us. Could she come visit?  Of course!  So we had a lovely visit Monday evening and Tuesday. Then she left early Wednesday. We did some work in the garden while she was here. Tuesday night Tom and the missionaries had an investigator over to the house for a lesson... But Tanya and I stayed out of their way and chatted. :)

Tom had been making a PVC arch for the chicken run and covered it with bird netting to keep the birds in and the varmints out. We helped stretch it some. Then Tom went on to move part of the fencing to make it fit the top arch better.

I also had a business woman connect with me about writing for her about Infinite Banking or the Bank on Yourself. She has some views that are different from those of Becky Rice who I wrote for before. Wednesday we had a long phone call as we learned about each other. We will try each other out and see if we are a good fit. She sent me some past E-Zine articles and I sent her some article ideas on Saturday.  That evening we had the missionaries over for dinner.

Tom's computer has continued to be an issue.  All the excel files come up read only. We took it into the computer guy. He fiddled with the drives. Nope, not fixed.  He reloaded some files, nope, not fixed. We finally think that the Word program is corrupt. Tom can transfer the files to another computer and change them and save them under a new name.  But when he sends them back to his computer, they pop up read only.  You can't save them, you can't copy them, you can't print them. Thursday I took the computer back for another check up.  And Monday we will take it in to have him uninstall and reinstall word. He is a Mac man, and we may go to something like that in the future.

Thursday I wrote out all the instructions for the cooking for the men who will be going to Nauvoo to help out. Tom thought it was understandable enough so that's sent off.  I did some writing, went visiting teaching, and somehow the day was gone.  Oh, I remember.  Our neighbor Ernie has been sick. He was in the hospital for three weeks.  They decided since he had a house, he could not be on Medicaid and sent him home. He was sick as a dog. Barb couldn't see him going to his house. It's pretty filthy, so she had him come to her house. He stayed there for a little over a week, and Wednesday went in for a doctor's appointment. Tom went with Barb and him. The doctor admitted him to the hospital to have him evaluated to go on hospice. I spent Thursday making phone calls because they were going to release him to in-home hospice and Barb was stressed out.

We called the attorney with the documents that said No, Ernie had no financial ownership of the house, only life tenancy. But since the trust had his and his sister's name on it, and it owned the house, the nursing homes said no deal. Hospice house didn't take him. So Barb took him back.  He was pretty weak and confused when Tom picked him up. The hospice nurse thought he wouldn't last the weekend.  But over Friday night he got agitated, more than Barb could handle. So they managed to find a place for him at hospice house. on Saturday morning

Friday I sent off some headlines for my big financial promo. I realized I was afraid of the project and so I was procrastinating.  I think once I get over this initial hump of finding a big idea, a big promise and writing the headline and lead, the rest should be easier. I'm glad I hired someone to help me through this.  It's intimidating. Friday I was busy with the computer and forgot my massage appointment.  I went in late and it was a good, relaxing time.

Saturday we watched general conference in between getting Ernie sent off and dealing with the vulture relatives. Saturday evening I went to a Republican dinner for Baxter County. It was very interesting with Jan Morgan, a fiery gun rights advocate and Mickey Craig from Hillsdale College.  I arranged to go with a friend and found several other people we knew there.  Tom went to the evening Priesthood session of  conference.

Sunday morning Tom got up and started some cinnamon rolls. Then he went to check on a Self Reliance class and on Ernie. We finished making the rolls. Then Tom went to pick up an investigator to watch General Conference. The sister missionaries came over after the first session for cinnamon  rolls and quadrilles. They taught a lesson, and then we watched the second session of conference.  Great talks!  A lot about staying close to the Savior and following his way in spite of adversity.  And that while we might not agree with others, we can be kind and respectful and that we should welcome all and not have divisions.

I have not done as much as I wanted on our missionary application.  That comes next.

Self Reliance

This week focused around the Self-Reliance Initiative that the church is supporting.

Monday I went for an eye exam. I had also bought hamburger for our the Nauvoo trip. On Monday and Tuesday I cooked it up in 2.5 pound batches with taco seasoning, beans and corn for taco salad mix. I also spent time those days working on the Weiss promotion reports.

Tom's computer got a virus and so we sent it to the doctor's.  I'd been struggling with my computer not recognizing the wireless printer. Now, without Tom's, I couldn't print, or scan.  My old printer/copy/scan/fax was down to only faxing.  So I said, "enough!" and bought another all in one printer.

Tuesday night was a Relief Society activity. We had a dinner and a visiting teaching meeting. It was delightful to chat with friends.

I finally got the research for the reports that I needed on Tuesday afternoon.  This was not a lot of help as I left early Wednesday morning to drove with Tom to Oklahoma City for a trip to the temple and a meeting with other people involved in Self-Reliance.

Tom and I stopped to visit with Deborah on the way down.  We did some sealings in the temple on Wednesday night.  Then on Thursday we went to the temple and did a session with a variety of people around the region who were there for the self-reliance initiative.  It was fun to see people from our old stake.  I met Miranda's stake relief society president.  After the session we went out to lunch and were able to have a question and answer session about the self-reliance program. It's doing a wonderful job changing lives.

We drove back home that night, stopping for a short time at Miranda's to change clothes to more comfortable ones and to admire the baby.  We got home about 10 pm.

Friday night Tom and I went to a local production of the Adam's Family.  This was a new musical with lots of singing and dancing along the same theme as the traditional Adam's Family.  In this version, little Wednesday had grown up, found a boy and wants to bring him and his parents over to meet the family. It was quite funny with many clever lines.  Bill, Vela's husband was Festus. That was our impetus for going.

Saturday I finished my three reports and got them sent off. They were approved with only minor revisions and they are interested having me do more reports, so that's nice. Tom and I went to the Bridge Bash at the Big Springs Park under Cotter Bridge. It was in support of the food bank and we joined people in assembling 20,000 meals in one hour! Saturday evening was the Women's Session of General Conference. It was very good

Sunday was the Ash Flat Branch conference. It is struggling little branch but there are some amazingly strong leaders and powerful women there. We had stake council after the conference and I got home about 5pm. Thus, this letter did not get sent out last week.

Picking up speed

I feel like the next month or so is a slalom. A down hill race with dozens of events to accomplish or avoid. The finish line is when I arrive in LAX on October 21st. 

I spent the start of this week at Miranda's. The boys are doing a great job accepting the new baby. For the most part they play well, with only a few incidences of fisticuffs and/or hysterics. Rachael is doing well at sleeping at night. When Miranda took her in on Tuesday, she had not gained weight. She'd lost a few ounces. So now she needs to supplement. And of course Rachael says, "Oh, a bottle is so much easier to drink from. I'll just use the nipple as a pacifier." Miranda is not accepting of this arrangement. So I guess sometimes she nurses well, and sometimes she doesn't.

Wednesday I drove back home. Dan got me set up on the Microsoft Surface with books on tape from the Tulsa library. So I was able to listen to In the Hand of the Goddess, by Tamora Pierce. I stopped by Deborah's briefly on the way home. I was in a hurry, because Tom wanted to drive down to Andy's and go to a Young Woman recognition event for Katie that night (she was recognized for earning her YW Bee, an additional 40 hours of service). It made sense to get the Toyota back in time for him to take it, so he didn't have to drive the truck. We kind of hot-seated the car. I got out and he jumped in.

However, we did take time to stop by a rental house and see what all he'd accomplished. He is a miracle worker. It had looked absolutely trashed. Simply vacuuming it... well, not so simple. He said it took an hour!... and painting the walls made it look SOOO much better. Each time we have someone leave with a mess behind, we think, "we have to inspect more often." Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often. 

Thursday, I planned on being very diligent with my writing. I had three reports to write and wanted to try to get them knocked out pretty quickly. But somehow, just getting home and settling in seemed to take time. Also, as I was praying, I realized I needed to cover the new Relief Society curriculum in the training that was planned for this Saturday. So I had to call people and ask them to shorten their presentations and then plan on how I wanted to present this new material.

Thursday night Tom (who drove him that morning) and I went to the Self-reliance fireside. It was an introduction to a new self reliance initiative of the church. This is a fantastic program that joins people in councils with a facilitator and has them learn how to use spiritual principles to solve temporal problems. The four areas that can be covered are financial, getting a better job, getting better education, and starting your own business. It has an interesting organization to it.

The lessons incorporate learning and quotes from scriptures and leaders with discussion time. Then participants are encouraged to spend some time pondering about how to implement the things discussed in their lives. They commit to act. They have a partner that follows up with them during the week to help them take the action they committed to. And finally, they return and report how it went. I thought this would also be a good format for the new Relief Society councils we will be having on the first Sunday of the month starting in January. 

Friday I got some writing done and also finished my preparation for Saturday's Auxiliary training. I was to bring most of the food. Saturday I left for West Plains about 7:45 am for the meeting. We talked about disaster preparedness, improving attendance, the new curriculum and the self-reliance initiative. The meetings went well.  For lunch we were simply having meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, rolls, grapes and cookies. The counselors brought the cookies. I had a presidency meeting afterwards to discuss upcoming events-- Training the new Ava presidency, Branch conference at Ash Flat, trip to Nauvoo, and upcoming stake conference.

I think we got a lot accomplished. I hope we can meet the needs of each individual sister for Nauvoo. Those who can go to the temple and those who can't. Those who can sleep in top bunks, or not. Those who can eat everything... and those GF, or with strawberry, orange, nut, corn and other allergies. Certainly we need to rely on the Lord to make it all work!

After the meeting, I shopped at Aldi for food for us and for the Nauvoo trip. I have hamburger that I need to cook with taco seasoning and beans and then freeze in packages suitable for each house where the sisters will stay. We have approximately 120 sisters attending this event and they will be housed in 5 different houses.  With the number of sisters in the houses ranging from 16 to 40... the food division is a little complicated. I got home about 4:30. A long day.

Today it was fun to go to church with Tom... actually drive in together. He was a bit lost in the morning with all that extra time on his hands! After church we met with the bishop to start the process for going on a mission. We plan to leave about mid-March.

While the trip to Nauvoo is the largest event on the slalom, we also have a trip to Oklahoma City Wed/Thurs of this week for self-reliance training, Ash Flat branch conference this next Sunday as well as the first self-reliance meeting. Then General Conference, Mountain Home Ward conference, my trip to my writer's conference.... and finally off to visit Mom! In the mean time, I have a 16 page promo to write plus various emails and ads. And we feel the need to de-clutter and get the house in order before our mission. I better take it one day at a time or my head will fall off!

Oh! And Tom's hand is healing up well.

Baby Week

Mostly this week I've been with Miranda and new baby Rachel.

I drove back to Miranda's on Monday morning.  Tom had errands to do so he was gone about 8am as well. He went to visit Ernie, our neighbor, in the hospital. He's been there longer than we expected him to be, but he seems to be getting a little better.

Tom's wrist, where it was cut, seemed to be getting more inflamed. So he finally went in on Wednesday.  They took the stitches out and gave him a broad spectrum antibiotic. It seems to be getting better, although the steri strips they put on didn't last long.

Baby Rachel seems to be doing about as good as a newborn can do.  She's nursing pretty well, sleeping 4 hours or so at night and only fussing periodically. She is very cute.  Miranda's a bit sleep deprived.  The other boys seem to be doing pretty well. They are enjoying their new play structure in the back yard.  Ethan especially likes interacting with Rachel, but all of them will try to make her happy.  Dan and Miranda took Rachel to a well baby check up on Tuesday and she is gaining some weight back.  Wednesday we took Camden to his allergy shot and did some shopping.

My writing goal for this week was to work on reviewing long form sales material from a three-day course I took a couple of years ago, and then to research the material I have on his program. Mid week I got an email from a friend who works for Weiss Research.  She asked if I'd be interested in helping write some special reports for a promotion.  Weiss is located around Delray Beach in Florida.  So they were shutting down for the hurricane, Irma. Thus, I might not get the research I need in a timely manner.  I've been watching the hurricane.  Since it's going up the west side of Florida, perhaps Delray will not have too much damage.  I have a writing conference there in about 5 weeks, or I will if it's still standing.

Early Thursday morning I got some messages on my phone. Mom' (GG's) cough and cold had turned into pneumonia. She'd go to the hospital and they admitted her, gave her a breathing treatment, and started her on antibiotics. They were treating it as if it was a bug she picked up while she was in the rehab center. She is feeling better now and may be discharged on Sunday. I really appreciate Kathy and Cynthia & Jim being there for help and support.

Miranda is well loved. People have been bringing her food each night. I've done laundry, picked up stuff, and held baby, but I really haven't done much in the kitchen but make breakfast.

Friday evening David McClellan came up.  And Tom arrived on Saturday about noon. We'd gone to
Sprouts and I bought him some goodies.  In the afternoon Tom dropped me off at 1/2 of 1/2 for clothes shopping while he went to the huge used book store.  I found some dresses, Tom found a few books.  And then he got some nice white shirts as well.

Because Tuesday is our anniversary, we decided to celebrate by going out to dinner at a tasty Mexican restaurant.

Today Dan's aunt and uncle, plus his brother, Charles and his wife and four girls came to the blessing of Rachel. She was wearing a beautiful christening dress that Kera sent up.
 
 It was nice and she was cooperative.  We'd done a little dinner prep, but Miranda and David McClellan did most of the work fixing cafe rio chicken and cut up cantaloupe, pineapple, and strawberries. Aunt Maryanne brought donuts and cheesecake for dessert.  The girls took full advantage of all the fun things to play on in the yard-- rings, trampoline, play structure, slide, and swings.

I finally got the food for the Nauvoo trip all planned out.  One of Miranda's very helpful friends came over and talked about where to shop and how much I'll need for 130 people.

 Tom and Rachel taking a nap together.