A Busy and Unusual Week!

A lot happened last week. On Sunday the 9th, we finally started the process of filling out mission paperwork for Garrett to serve a mission! Some things go quick, but the health information is taking a bit longer, with his heart condition and his mental health as the major things. It's overwhelming, but at the same time it's exciting to be starting the process. They have started some stake mission prep classes on Sunday afternoons, but I haven't been able to get Garrett to go to one yet. I think it would help him a lot, but I think he doesn't want to go because of the amount of people that we've heard have been going, which is close to 50 people. However, Garrett has at least started going to a temple prep class with just his bishop and 2 other graduating seniors from our ward. They do that Monday nights at Bishop Chan's house. I'll take what I can get, I guess!

Monday was activity days, and we had the girls make homemade valentines using heart shaped doilies and sewing two together using a needle and ribbon. Before going all the way around they would fill it with a chocolate candy and some paper conversation hearts. They each got enough materials to make two hearts but most only had time to get one made at the activity. It would have helped if we had more needles with bigger eyes (holes). We gave the girls the choice to give them to whomever they wanted. Charlotte never did finish her second heart, and I never did see Alice's finished heart. I think she gave it to her schoolteacher.

It was Sunday night that I started feeling a little sinus stuff starting in my nose and feeling a little fatigued. I started taking pills and doing allergy nose sprays right away to make sure I kept my breathing clear. I was tired on Monday at our activity, but I was feeling mostly good and able to keep my nose clear. On Tuesday I was feeling pretty good and I went to an appointment to have my very first mammogram. It was definitely a little weird but it wasn't too bad. Results came back normal. It's a good thing insurance covers mammogram screening, otherwise I would not want to do this every year. Another bonus is that we recently heard about a program through our insurance, Blue Cross, that will pay us incentives if we use in network facilities for certain procedures that would be lower cost. It's called Smart Shopper. I should be getting either $50 or $60 for getting my mammogram. That's more incentive for me to do this every year!

On Wednesday I had another appointment with a gynecologist to get a pap test. I haven't done that in 8 years, so I guess I was due. I haven't received the results for that yet, but I'm glad I finally got that done too. The same afternoon, I attended a Relief Society planning meeting for our next activity, which is tomorrow night. We'll be playing Bunco with a Valentine theme. It should be fun.

By Wednesday night I was feeling a little worse, just a little more tired and maybe a little sore throat starting. Normally Thursday morning I go to help with the math lesson in Charlotte's class, but I told the teacher I better stay home and rest this week because I was really feeling the fatigue now and I still needed to get some other stuff done as well. Charlotte had signed me up to make chocolate covered strawberries for their Valentine's class party on Friday. I had to go to the store to get fresh strawberries and almond bark for melting. The sore throat faded in the morning after eating oatmeal and drinking a honey lemon tea (honey, lemon juice, water and sometimes apple cider vinegar). After the girls got home, Charlotte got to work on her Valentine box dog, which she had started the day before. She wanted to do one last cool Valentine's box since it will be her last year doing Valentine parties. 

I learned a new simple heart hair style that I was able to do on Alice on Thursday.

Charlotte and her Valentine box.

It was designed after Milo, of course.

Uh oh, Milo's eating chocolate!

Even with the Milo tag.

I felt good enough to get the strawberries done. I enjoyed doing it too.

My plan was that Charlotte would take the strawberries to school with her the next morning. Well, it started snowing Thursday around 11am. Driving to pick up the girls from school was fun. I had to go slow and almost got stuck on a hill. I also decided that before the kids got home, I should go out and shovel the snow off the driveway so the boys could park easily. Then I started doing the sidewalk so the middle schoolers could walk on a clean path. Our neighbor Izzy shoveled most of our sidewalk already and I think he stopped to take a break. I stopped right before our other neighbor's driveway and went back to finish my driveway. The boys got home while I was shoveling, but neither of them came out to help me. I was NOT happy. They went in and watched TV while I was out there shoveling, while not even feeling very good. I told Curtis to talk to them later about that. Izzy came back out after I had gone in, and I saw him shoveling our neighbor's driveway. 

The roads were slick, so they canceled school. It's not very often you hear disappointment with that type of announcement, but the girls were looking forward to their Valentine's parties. I decided I better put the strawberries in the freezer to take the following week when they would have their party. I learned that I should have cut the tops with the leaves off first before freezing them. I didn't even think about what the leaves would do when frozen. I cut them off later after they were frozen and some of the leaves were falling off as I grabbed them. There were several inches of snow, I think, and this time our neighbor Paul (whom I had shoveled part of his sidewalk the day before, and whom Izzy did his driveway) came over with his snow blower and did most of our driveway and sidewalks. Curtis had instructed the boys to do it, but Paul beat them to it. The boys weren't even out of bed yet when Paul was out there. We are blessed to have such awesome neighbors on both sides of us! I just had to tell Garrett to shovel the walkway to our door because Paul did not get that part.

I was pretty happy that school was cancelled because I was feeling worse on Friday (no thanks to shoveling snow the day before) and I'm glad I didn't have to take kids to school. I was very tired and did the same thing with the sore throat in the morning. It felt better after getting the hot drink and food. I had to tell Garrett to take a couple of pictures for me of the girls playing in the snow because I did not feel like getting up to do it myself. They had been so disappointed with not getting snow in January and now they finally got to play in the snow! They even went across the street to do some sledding on the school hill.

Milo LOVED the snow! He was so excited that he would run around outside by himself, back and forth.

Curtis was a sweetheart and brought home some Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner for Valentine's Day, one was heart shaped. He also picked up a little something for all three of his girls. A single rose each, a donut and a small stuffed animal. I was not picture worthy that day, so it was just the girls who got pictures.

I spent the whole day binge watching Little House on the Prairie. I had been working on watching the entire season off and on last year and I was finally in season 9. We ended the day with watching "Enchanted" with the girls though. We had to talk them into it. Charlotte didn't remember that she had seen it before until we watched it, and Alice had never seen it. Of course, they both loved it.

Saturday I just binge watched more "Little House" and rested. The roads were better by then and Jack was able to drive himself to Choral Fusion practice. I can't really remember what else we did that day; just a lot of TV time for me and the girls played in the snow some more. It was going to snow again that night and we were almost sure that church would be cancelled, but early Sunday morning the message came that the main roads were clear and it was NOT cancelled. It just looked bad in the neighborhood. It wasn't that bad though driving through it. I wasn't even sure I was going to go to church just because I hadn't been feeling well, but I felt well enough to go by Sunday. I was still pretty tired though.

This is what it looked like Sunday morning after Curtis shoveled the driveway again.

There wasn't any school on Monday because of it being President's Day, but the kids did go back on Tuesday and do their Valentine's parties. I told Charlotte's teacher I would bring the frozen strawberries around the time of the party, which was the last hour of the day. When I showed up, they were on lock down. I wasn't sure if she would even get the treats because her class is in a portable. I dropped them off and went home, not knowing why they had a lock down. Charlotte's class did get the strawberries at the end of class and enjoyed them. What a very unusual Valentine's it has been this year! I'm just thankful that I wasn't more sick than I was. My nose stayed clear most of the time. There was just one morning that it got stuffy because I had slacked off on taking meds the evening before, but I got it cleared pretty quickly with the nose spray and more pills. So, I just had to deal with a little bit of sinus issues and minor sore throats, and lots of fatigue. I'll take that over a stuffy nose, bad sore throat, cough and mucus any day!