Week in Review

2016 has slipped in and taken a firm hold seemingly effortlessly.  We all have returned back to school and work and the daily grind leaving the casual, fun days of the holidays only good memories.  I thought it would be interesting to list our schedules.

• Kim has returned to his crazy schedule of working graveyard Sunday - Wednesday 5 pm to 5 am and then Friday 5 am to 5pm.  
• Shandra is working her CNA job Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 6 am to 2 pm, going to school Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 am to 4:30 pm and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 pm to 9 pm and working at the salon on Fridays and Saturdays. 
• Jason's shifts switch every five weeks, he has been working the weekends, but just switched to 12 hour shifts on the weekdays.   Needless to say we help out a lot with Kalel and RaeLynn.  
• I work 5 days a week at Eagle Gate and will soon be doing two days a week at clinicals instead of at the campus.  I usually work 1-2 weekend shifts at the hospital, but this month I am only scheduled "on call".  

Is it any wonder that I often feel like we are all just waving at each other as we pass from one activity to the next?  Shandra and I carpool two days a week so I do get some time with her.  Kim has come to the rescue frequently to pick up and watch the kids.

Our stake has put together a choir for a multi-stake Relief Society meeting in which Sherri Dew will be the keynote speaker (can't wait!).  Of course I volunteered to be part of the choir.  I love singing and I love being taught by good choir directors.  Tammy VanDeussen is the director and she has a great deal of experience leading choirs.  I have learned so much from her and we have only had one practice so far!  Chris Olsen Thorton is the accompanist and she is absolutely phenomenal on the piano!  I'm excited to be part of the choir but honestly I am struggling right now with my confidence as a singer.  I made the mistake of taping the last practice for the Symphonic Choir where my voice was recorded loud and clear.  After listening to that recording I am very uncertain of my abilities.  I am not going to give up, though.  I realize that hearing myself on a practice tape (especially since I didn't know the songs very well) is not the best way to gauge one's abilities.  So, I'm going to just keep on trying - mostly because I love to sing!

Tuesday night we had a fun lesson in Relief Society.  Kathy Campbell taught us the ins and outs of using the LDS.org website.  There is so much information available there from information on meeting times of wards all over the world, to temple information, to the LDS magazines, scriptures, news, and anything a person could want regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints.  It is a phenomenal site to learn and study more about Jesus Christ and any other gospel topic.

Next Jodi Wilding shared her love of journaling and blogging with us.  She is an amazing historian and has many, many books recording the lives of her family.  She gave suggestions on how to use resources available to us to record our histories.

I always love to learn from Jodi, she has great ideas and insights.  She did borrow a couple of my blogbooks to share.  I have to admit, I was a little proud to share them!  She told us how much she enjoys her books from Facebook so I came right home and ordered my own Facebook memory books.  I don't know why but I have a need to record and preserve memories - I always have.

It was a great lesson and then we had yummy, flavored hot chocolate with marshmallows for a treat! Ashley came to the meeting with me and we had an enjoyable visit with our friends in the Relief Society.  Unfortunately we found out that Kalel and Tristan were being little stinkers.  They kept escaping from the nursery and running up and down the halls of the church.  Perhaps 8 and 9 year old boys are too big to be in the nursery during the meeting.

I taught my first Fundamentals class to the incoming new nursing students this week.  I was a little nervous, but not too bad.  I REALLY do love teaching!  The class went well, I think.  I think this will be a good group of students.  It is strange because this group contains only ladies, there are no male students.

This isn't my class - I took pictures but promised I wouldn't post them.

On Friday I helped Brittani and Sue do a skills pass off in the lab with some of the students.  It was fun!  And I got a chance to know the students a little better - and they learned what a crazy nut I am.  They were practicing making occupied beds and Sue and I were the patients.  We both acted as were were dementia patients and gave the students a hard time while they were changing the linens.  It was a lot of fun to act more crazy than I already am!


Saturday Kim and I took my dad out to Wendy's for lunch.  Before he lost his driver's license he would go there every Saturday for burgers.  I knew he was missing it so I decided to take him every few weeks.  He has been kind enough to loan us his car while Kim's is in the shop.  He must have told us 10 times how nice his car rides and how glad he is that he bought it years ago.  He sometimes gets stuck on a topic and doesn't realize that he has told us the same stories many times.  We just smile and respond as if we were hearing for the first time.

Since my mother passed away Dad has pretty much turned the house into a bicycle shop.  I decided to take some pictures so that we have proof of his bicycle fascination.  I'm not complaining, I'm very, very glad that he has something to do for all of the time he has alone.  He also spends hours and hours polishing rifle stocks.  They sure look nice!

Today was Ward Conference and both our bishop, Mont, and stake president, David Wilding, spoke in sacrament meeting.  It was a wonderful meeting.  Mont, aka Bishop Parrish, spoke on how Lehi's dream applies to each of individually  (1 Nephi:8; 11:21-22,25; 15:36).  One of my favorite parts of his talk was when he reminded us how much Lehi felt when he partook of the fruit of the tree.

1 Nephi 8: 12 And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.

 

I want to know that desirable fruit and I want to share it with my family.  I need to focus on that great reward and also on holding fast to the iron rod so that I don't get distracted and lose sight of the exceedingly great joy that is in store for me.

President Wilding spoke on women and reminded us of the good that each of us does.  He complimented us and reminded us that we are doing better than we think.  Honestly his words made me a little uncomfortable because I do not feel that I am totally worthy of his praise.  I frequently feel so inadequate as a mother.  Enough said.

Sister Harrison from the stake taught Relief Society and reminded us of a challenge Pat Bott gave us last week.  She challenged us for 24 hours to think of everyone we meet the way that Jesus Christ thinks of them.  I pretty much forgot about the challenge last week, but I think I'm going to try this week.