I forgot to add another cooking mishap for Megan. Poor kid is going to have all this stuff that people know that she wishes they didn't, but I think it's cute. So, for those who read, please don't tease her.
First of all I want to say that Megan really does a good job of cooking, but like all of us learning something she makes mistakes along the way. She is learning a lot of cooking this summer and as a result has a higher concentration of mishaps than she would under normal circumstances.
Now for the story...
I was busy chatting with a friend onlie whom I hadn't chatted with for quite some time and asked her to make rice casserole for dinner. For those who don't know what rice casserole is, it's made of rice, hamburger and corn then topped with cheese. Pretty simple dish. Anyway, so I ask her to get out a package of hamburger from the freezer, tell her how to defrost it in the microwave and continue on with my chat.
Without too much convincing she gets up and does what I ask. Sometimes this convincing is a task unto itself, pretty normal. So, she comes back later and says that the meat is still fairly frozen on one side. I tell her to flip it over and run it a different amount of time for defrost in the microwave, which she does. She comes in and tells me that it's still frozen after the second try. Now I'll admit I'm not paying as much attention to this as I should have, I should realize at this point that something isn't right, but I'm really enjoying my chat and I just tell her to put it in the pan anyway and, as it fries, it will defrost what's left and it'll be just fine.
She comes back several minutes later and says that it's not coming apart-I can't think of why this wouldn't work as I've repeated this exact process literally hundreds of times before, maybe thousands. Still, I tell her to keep working on it and I go back to my conversation. I tell her she might want to turn up the heat ever so slightly. We have a gas stove, so you don't want to turn it up too much as it makes a big difference.
She comes in about 5 minutes later and says that the meat just isn't coming apart and asks if she can cut it with a sharp knife. Now I'm really starting to realize that something is wrong, though for the life of me I can't figure out what that may be. So with great annoyance I get up from the chat I'm having and head into the kitchen. When I reach the kitchen I look in the pan and immeadiately two things happen. I now understand why the meat isn't working like it should and I begin laughing hysterically, I'm talking about instant tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.
By now you're probably wondering, what did I find? Well, poor Megan had gotten out the wrong type of meat, she had picked out a package that contained two steaks and was actually frying them up. I laughed and laughed. I had to help her fix it of course and we had rice casserole anyway.
The steaks went into the refrigerator.
So there you have another cute story about Megan, who is full of cute and funny stories, though she doesn't realize it most of the time...
Monday, July 26, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Megan's cooking what??
Cute story about Megan.
Yesterday we were making macaroni and cheese from scratch, we were making a pretty large batch so that we could have it for dinner and then quite a bit of leftover to freeze.
I put the pot on to boil with water for pasta and then turned my attention to other things. I asked Megan to put in a stick of butter and four Tablespoons of flour, which she did. Then I turned around to start stirring the mixture and to get started on the next step, which is adding cream cheese, milk and salt. When I turn around, there is no pot, so I look over the kitchen and find the pot, not worrying about it at all cause I never asked her to turn on the heat.
The pot was empty. Now I'm wondering what in the world happened? I go over to the stove where the water is getting warmer, thankfully not to warm yet and there is the stick of butter floating and four little clumps of flour, all gratefully floating. After laughing myself silly, I moved the butter and flour over to the other pot where it should have been to begin with and thankfully nothing was worse for it. However, it was soooo funny. Poor Megan.
Yesterday we were making macaroni and cheese from scratch, we were making a pretty large batch so that we could have it for dinner and then quite a bit of leftover to freeze.
I put the pot on to boil with water for pasta and then turned my attention to other things. I asked Megan to put in a stick of butter and four Tablespoons of flour, which she did. Then I turned around to start stirring the mixture and to get started on the next step, which is adding cream cheese, milk and salt. When I turn around, there is no pot, so I look over the kitchen and find the pot, not worrying about it at all cause I never asked her to turn on the heat.
The pot was empty. Now I'm wondering what in the world happened? I go over to the stove where the water is getting warmer, thankfully not to warm yet and there is the stick of butter floating and four little clumps of flour, all gratefully floating. After laughing myself silly, I moved the butter and flour over to the other pot where it should have been to begin with and thankfully nothing was worse for it. However, it was soooo funny. Poor Megan.
July 2010 update
I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I’m beginning to enjoy writing them. Hopefully all is well with you and your family. I’d love to hear from you anytime you might like to call, write or whatever.
This month has flown by so quickly, I can’t believe it’s already over! I realized yesterday that this is the last week of the month, but yet it seems like July has just begun. It has been a busy month. I started two new classes in school, Creative Writing and my next math class. I’m taking the writing class for fun, but the math class is of course required. I’m pretty bummed out about that, but I still have three more math classes after this one, so I’m doing my best to put on my happy face and have good thoughts. This math class seems less difficult than my previous one, which I spent as much time on as I normally would three or four classes. It was pretty crazy. This is builds on what I did in the last one and I think my brain is a little more accepting of what it’s trying to teach me.
I took my daughter Megan into the Dr. for a checkup and also for shots, but mistakenly believed that somehow the Dr. office knew her shot history due to having given it to the school (not sure why in the world I would have thought that) and they didn’t bother telling me that she needed her shot history (though I specifically told them that’s why I was coming in) so she didn’t get any shots that time. Now I have to take her back and get the shots anyway. She can’t go back to school until she has them.
Megan also went to Girl’s Camp for the first time. She had a really great time. The theme was “Valiant for Courage” and they learned much that would help them to be just that in today’s world. Megan said that other than the bugs she had a good time. She was so tired when she came home however because she was in a tent with other girls who would stay up and laugh until early morning (like 1am) and then they had to get up at 6 or 7am. Megan has been sleeping about 10 hours a night if I let her sleep it out, so you can imagine her exhaustion. My word how she is growing; like a weed sometimes. In fact, at her Dr. appointment, they measured her and with her shoes on and mine off she is only a few inches shorter than me. I always knew she would be taller than me, but I guess I didn’t want the day to come. I will be soon be the shortest person in the family, again.
Andrew leaves for Scout camp today right after Church. They will be there until Saturday some time, though I don’t know what time that will be. I’m not sure if they’ll need me to pick them up or not, but I know that I won’t be dropping them off, though I’m tempted to follow so that I know where I’m going if I have to pick them up.
We have lost power four times this month for a significant amount of time. Once was just out of the blue, no storm or anything for about four hours. We weren’t prepared when the electricity cut off our water supply too. I’ve been without power many times, but always had water…now we are trying to figure out what we can do to store up water for showers etc. and also to find some alternate source of power. Ultimately I suppose we’ll be buying a generator. We’d also like to get solar panels with a battery to store excess power at some point, but those are still pretty expensive.
We think we may have had a funnel cloud or something come through the north side of our house. Our garden was laid down in a circular pattern, thankfully it recovered, and our trees and such were all missing limbs on the north side of the house, just a few yards away were other trees with no damage whatever, so we are pretty sure something came by. Thankfully, nothing was hurt too bad except for one small tree, which we will cut up and use for firewood.
Yesterday I got on the mower and asked Andrew to show me how to mow the lawn. It’s too tall, he doesn’t always have time to do it and Megan isn’t allowed to as yet. I thought, “How hard can it be, you sit there, turn on the blades and ride around till you are done.” HA! If I had hired someone to do what I did and it looked like what mine did when I was done, I would have fired them. It’s by far the worst looking job I’ve ever done, no comparison. It was much harder than it looks and I even damaged a drain pipe…oops. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad and no real damage was done to the lawnmower. The drain pipe suffered a small chunk now missing. I felt better when Andrew said he had done something similar with a different drain pipe. I can see now why he doesn’t want Megan to do it. I also see why he says long pants and tennis shoes are pretty much required. Another thing we need to get is some kind of ear protection, man that’s loud. My ears were ringing when I was done. The ground is terribly uneven, there’s lots of objects to go around and I wasted a lot of time going over ground already mown because I couldn’t figure out how to do it without doing so. It was crazy. Thankfully I was spared the front yard. Living on a busy highway we get lots of traffic and I wouldn’t want people to stare at my poor job…hahaha, yes, it was that bad. It probably wouldn’t look so bad, but the clippings are just left there and with so much area to cover, we don’t even try to rake them up. Andrew says the front yard is actually harder because of the steep hill we live on. There are fewer things to go around though, so that’s good. Still…I’m glad I didn’t have to do it. He was so nice to finish what I had started!
OK, so that’s probably enough about me. Today I’m talking in Sacrament Meeting and also teaching the Young Women’s lesson. My talk is about enduring to the end and my lesson is on exaltation. It’s funny how those two are so connected. If we are faithful and endure to the end, we receive exaltation. I won’t add the talk this time because it’s quite long. I was asked to give a 15-20 minute talk. If you are interested in it, let me know and I’ll send it to you. J
This month has flown by so quickly, I can’t believe it’s already over! I realized yesterday that this is the last week of the month, but yet it seems like July has just begun. It has been a busy month. I started two new classes in school, Creative Writing and my next math class. I’m taking the writing class for fun, but the math class is of course required. I’m pretty bummed out about that, but I still have three more math classes after this one, so I’m doing my best to put on my happy face and have good thoughts. This math class seems less difficult than my previous one, which I spent as much time on as I normally would three or four classes. It was pretty crazy. This is builds on what I did in the last one and I think my brain is a little more accepting of what it’s trying to teach me.
I took my daughter Megan into the Dr. for a checkup and also for shots, but mistakenly believed that somehow the Dr. office knew her shot history due to having given it to the school (not sure why in the world I would have thought that) and they didn’t bother telling me that she needed her shot history (though I specifically told them that’s why I was coming in) so she didn’t get any shots that time. Now I have to take her back and get the shots anyway. She can’t go back to school until she has them.
Megan also went to Girl’s Camp for the first time. She had a really great time. The theme was “Valiant for Courage” and they learned much that would help them to be just that in today’s world. Megan said that other than the bugs she had a good time. She was so tired when she came home however because she was in a tent with other girls who would stay up and laugh until early morning (like 1am) and then they had to get up at 6 or 7am. Megan has been sleeping about 10 hours a night if I let her sleep it out, so you can imagine her exhaustion. My word how she is growing; like a weed sometimes. In fact, at her Dr. appointment, they measured her and with her shoes on and mine off she is only a few inches shorter than me. I always knew she would be taller than me, but I guess I didn’t want the day to come. I will be soon be the shortest person in the family, again.
Andrew leaves for Scout camp today right after Church. They will be there until Saturday some time, though I don’t know what time that will be. I’m not sure if they’ll need me to pick them up or not, but I know that I won’t be dropping them off, though I’m tempted to follow so that I know where I’m going if I have to pick them up.
We have lost power four times this month for a significant amount of time. Once was just out of the blue, no storm or anything for about four hours. We weren’t prepared when the electricity cut off our water supply too. I’ve been without power many times, but always had water…now we are trying to figure out what we can do to store up water for showers etc. and also to find some alternate source of power. Ultimately I suppose we’ll be buying a generator. We’d also like to get solar panels with a battery to store excess power at some point, but those are still pretty expensive.
We think we may have had a funnel cloud or something come through the north side of our house. Our garden was laid down in a circular pattern, thankfully it recovered, and our trees and such were all missing limbs on the north side of the house, just a few yards away were other trees with no damage whatever, so we are pretty sure something came by. Thankfully, nothing was hurt too bad except for one small tree, which we will cut up and use for firewood.
Yesterday I got on the mower and asked Andrew to show me how to mow the lawn. It’s too tall, he doesn’t always have time to do it and Megan isn’t allowed to as yet. I thought, “How hard can it be, you sit there, turn on the blades and ride around till you are done.” HA! If I had hired someone to do what I did and it looked like what mine did when I was done, I would have fired them. It’s by far the worst looking job I’ve ever done, no comparison. It was much harder than it looks and I even damaged a drain pipe…oops. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad and no real damage was done to the lawnmower. The drain pipe suffered a small chunk now missing. I felt better when Andrew said he had done something similar with a different drain pipe. I can see now why he doesn’t want Megan to do it. I also see why he says long pants and tennis shoes are pretty much required. Another thing we need to get is some kind of ear protection, man that’s loud. My ears were ringing when I was done. The ground is terribly uneven, there’s lots of objects to go around and I wasted a lot of time going over ground already mown because I couldn’t figure out how to do it without doing so. It was crazy. Thankfully I was spared the front yard. Living on a busy highway we get lots of traffic and I wouldn’t want people to stare at my poor job…hahaha, yes, it was that bad. It probably wouldn’t look so bad, but the clippings are just left there and with so much area to cover, we don’t even try to rake them up. Andrew says the front yard is actually harder because of the steep hill we live on. There are fewer things to go around though, so that’s good. Still…I’m glad I didn’t have to do it. He was so nice to finish what I had started!
OK, so that’s probably enough about me. Today I’m talking in Sacrament Meeting and also teaching the Young Women’s lesson. My talk is about enduring to the end and my lesson is on exaltation. It’s funny how those two are so connected. If we are faithful and endure to the end, we receive exaltation. I won’t add the talk this time because it’s quite long. I was asked to give a 15-20 minute talk. If you are interested in it, let me know and I’ll send it to you. J
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
June update
My goodness this has been a busy month! Just after I wrote last month I assumed the chairman position for Relay for Life for the branch team. I didn’t realize how much work it was. If you would like to participate in any way, feel free to drop by. We will be selling drinks and snacks as well as having a few silent auction items available to bid. Another thing would be to come and walk, if you don’t know about Relay for Life it is the largest fundraising event for the American Cancer Society and it’s held each year in many different locations throughout the country. Teams organize and raise money and people from each team are asked to be walking from 3pm this Friday through 3pm this Saturday (for our location this year). We will be at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds. Another part of the Relay this year is a study that people can participate in to sign up with a small blood sample and then answer some questions. Every few years for many years to come they will send new surveys to those who join to use that new information to help cancer research.
The Youth Trek is also this weekend. Although I am not going to the actual Trek I have been helping sew the last several days as the youth are asked to dress somewhat in period clothing. I have now made a bonnet, seat cushions, and bloomers. We tried to purchase the skirts and such that needed to be worn by the girls. The youth will gather at the building at 4:45am on Thursday and check in at 9:00am in Manistee National Forest. They will finish on Saturday at 3:30pm. I am sad not to be able to attend, but my daughter Megan isn’t old enough yet anyway, so I guess it’s for the best. They do the Trek every four years and we all plan to go then.
This week I finished my Math class. Now I’ll take a few weeks off to catch up on other things and then plow back into the next course I need to take. This class has been rather difficult for me as I haven’t taken math since the fall of 1993. I never did really grasp one of the chapters, but I’ve decided that for the tiny difference it would make to my grade it’s not worth retesting for.
About two weeks ago we picked up 25 new chickens, all girls this time. We have one that is picking, literally, on the others, so we had to separate it. We are also working on building an actual coop. We have the four walls up, but then the heat/humidity combination was too much for us and we stopped. We still need to build and shingle the roof and then finish the inside. Still, we are glad to have the four walls up as that seems to be the hardest part.
I will be very glad when this week is complete, it’s a busy one. The Open House was wonderful, as were the actual dedication of the building and the special session of Stake Conference. I always enjoy Church events. I’m not really sure why that is exactly, but they fill me with joy. One of the speakers at Stake Conference spoke about the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting and joy is long-lasting. It was wonderful to hear much of what was said, the theme was about the joy we find in the Gospel. I know that the Gospel has filled my life with joy.
The Youth Trek is also this weekend. Although I am not going to the actual Trek I have been helping sew the last several days as the youth are asked to dress somewhat in period clothing. I have now made a bonnet, seat cushions, and bloomers. We tried to purchase the skirts and such that needed to be worn by the girls. The youth will gather at the building at 4:45am on Thursday and check in at 9:00am in Manistee National Forest. They will finish on Saturday at 3:30pm. I am sad not to be able to attend, but my daughter Megan isn’t old enough yet anyway, so I guess it’s for the best. They do the Trek every four years and we all plan to go then.
This week I finished my Math class. Now I’ll take a few weeks off to catch up on other things and then plow back into the next course I need to take. This class has been rather difficult for me as I haven’t taken math since the fall of 1993. I never did really grasp one of the chapters, but I’ve decided that for the tiny difference it would make to my grade it’s not worth retesting for.
About two weeks ago we picked up 25 new chickens, all girls this time. We have one that is picking, literally, on the others, so we had to separate it. We are also working on building an actual coop. We have the four walls up, but then the heat/humidity combination was too much for us and we stopped. We still need to build and shingle the roof and then finish the inside. Still, we are glad to have the four walls up as that seems to be the hardest part.
I will be very glad when this week is complete, it’s a busy one. The Open House was wonderful, as were the actual dedication of the building and the special session of Stake Conference. I always enjoy Church events. I’m not really sure why that is exactly, but they fill me with joy. One of the speakers at Stake Conference spoke about the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting and joy is long-lasting. It was wonderful to hear much of what was said, the theme was about the joy we find in the Gospel. I know that the Gospel has filled my life with joy.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
May 2010 Newsletter
Hello Everyone!
I have been feeling for some time that I needed to start sending out a monthly newsletter again. For the most of you, the newsletter is probably old news, but I will still send it out. I hope you will enjoy it. I have not been good for several years at this, but the Lord, knowing my weakness has made it easy for me. I have two visiting teaching routes now, one is in-person and the other is a writing route. I type my letters each month to my sisters and this gives me a pretty good start on my newsletter. What a blessing in disguise.
The month of May has been very nice weather-wise. I know probably most of the state of MI is tired of rain, but I love rain! I am glad this storm came during the week however as we do a lot of outdoor things on Saturday and the storms on Saturday really threw us off since we don’t have time to do it any other day of the week. Our grass sure got tall. Hahaha
We moved into the new building on Mother’s Day, May 9th. It is very pretty and it’s so nice to be able to meet in our own building that is planned for our use. I wish that some of the building was larger, the chapel area for instance, but it is sufficient for our use at this time. On Mother’s Day they handed out beautiful carnations-my favorite flower. I’m not really sure why it’s my favorite, but I think partially because they last so long. I also think it might be in part because my Dad used to work for a company called Carnation when I was young and I just associated the two somehow. The Open House will be June 9th. I believe it starts at 6pm. I know we’ll be going by 7pm though. I sure hope you are able to make it. I’d love to meet you and get to know you a little bit. There will be refreshments of course and I believe a short program and then a self-guided tour of the building. Each organization is doing something special for the event.
We planted our garden, but nothing is really growing yet, probably due to the temperatures still being too low. I sure hope the seeds are still going to be good because we spent a lot of time planting. My husband loves gardening and as a result he planted about ½ acre or so of seeds and a few small plants (raspberries and strawberries). I think all told we spent 20 work hours doing the planting, not something I wish to do again anytime soon.
We bought chickens too. One set is about a month older than the other set. We are now working on building a chicken coop. The difficulty we have been having is that we aren’t sure how we want to design it. In addition to that we haven’t had much chance to sit and talk about how to design it either. I told my husband, Andrew, that we need to build it over Memorial Day weekend since he’ll be off on Monday as well as Saturday and now I’m really hoping for good weather that weekend so we can get a lot of work done on the coop. The bigger chickens are in a pen now, but that’s not going to last forever. We are going to start introducing the second bunch with the first one and hope all goes well. A friend of ours introduced a new chicken to his coop and it literally killed the entire group because of a disease that he didn’t know the new chicken had. That scares me a little, but ours all came from the same source, so I hope they will all be OK. One of the chickens has a bottom beak which is crooked, but it’s still OK so far. The others are starting to peck at it though (I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl) so we may have to kill it off sooner than we had planned. We got both egg-laying and meat-producing chickens. I hope it’s one of the meat kind, though I have no idea how to tell about that either.
May 15th and 16th was Stake Conference. The adult session was wonderful on Saturday and I actually was able to spend some time reading while Andrew was attending the Priesthood session prior to that. That was a nice treat. The overall theme of the Conference was to be prepared. I can add my personal testimony to the value of doing just that. We are trying to prepare in temporal and spiritual matters for if you aren’t prepared in both areas I feel strongly that it won’t matter much when hard times come along, which they always do.
Andrew is serving as Young Men’s president and the Scoutmaster, for those who don’t already know that. He is working diligently at getting everything organized so that he can move forward. Scouts had become very haphazard and he is trying to get it all back on track. He has a lot of online training to get done, which he needs to do before Scout camp in July. I try to help where I can. I helped him create a calendar (our small branch doesn’t see a need to have one), I helped him get folders together for his Quorum presidents and a few more things that are kind of difficult to explain. I have spent quite a bit of time helping him. I think he is now ready to move ahead mostly. He is also still serving as Physical Facilities Representative, which included both moves in the last six months that the Branch made, the cleaning of the building, the scheduling of the building and also the security of the building (making sure it’s locked each night). He is a little busy with all of that. I help where I can.
I spent a couple of days trying to organize the Young Women stuff. I am 1st counselor, but I know that if I don’t do it, nobody will. The president works full-time and is very busy with that and her family, the 2nd counselor is working and going to school and the secretary has become inactive. Now that I have all the filing-type organization done I will take it all to the building and organize the cupboard that we have.
Megan is busy with her life. Next Monday, the 24th, will be her final concert for this year. She is pretty excited about it. I hope she does well. She really enjoys it very much. She is ready for school to be over, but sadly school here does not get out until June 10th, so she has a little longer to go. I feel badly for her since she has been going for so long, but she has had two month-long breaks (one when we moved and another for the funeral trip) so I think she’ll survive just fine. She will be taking a break from piano and flute during the summer as her flute gets turned into the school for cleaning and maintenance and her piano teacher will be gone a huge portion of the summer. She will keep busy I’m sure with all those chickens (22), a garden, a basketball hoop, friends, and of course Church activities. She also just found out that at some point her class is going to be taped for a Nickelodean show, though she doesn’t know what it’s going to be called nor does she know when it will be on. The school sponsored a week about cyber-bullying and apparently they are going to be doing something in regards to that. If we ever find out what it’ll be called and when it’ll be on, I’ll let you know.
I’m leaving in part of my Visiting Teaching message this month. The talk is by Elder James B. Martino and is titled “All Things Work Together for Good”. Elder Martino began by telling a cute story of a little boy trying to learn to hit a baseball. After three tremendous swings that resulted in no bat contact whatever he was disheartened for a short few seconds, then his face lit up and he said “What a pitcher!”
Just like this little boy, we all have adversity. Of course most of our adversity isn’t nearly so easy to overcome. Some struggle with health, others with financial concerns. Some have family that they worry about for various reasons. Oftentimes we have multiple types of adversity at the same time, but we all have one commonality, we all have the agency to choose our attitude in regards to the adversity we face. If we choose to be grumpy and feel that nobody can help us regardless of the trial, then that is the reality we choose for ourselves. However, if we will have the faith to choose to turn to our Savior and our Father in Heaven we will be blessed with the strength and knowledge needed to endure, and usually overcome, any adversity in our lives. The Savior suffered for our sins, He suffered for our weaknesses and imperfections. He knows intimately how we feel when nobody else can. He is waiting for us to turn to Him and make that Atonement a power for good in our lives. I leave that witness with you in His holy name, even Jesus Christ, Amen.
I have been feeling for some time that I needed to start sending out a monthly newsletter again. For the most of you, the newsletter is probably old news, but I will still send it out. I hope you will enjoy it. I have not been good for several years at this, but the Lord, knowing my weakness has made it easy for me. I have two visiting teaching routes now, one is in-person and the other is a writing route. I type my letters each month to my sisters and this gives me a pretty good start on my newsletter. What a blessing in disguise.
The month of May has been very nice weather-wise. I know probably most of the state of MI is tired of rain, but I love rain! I am glad this storm came during the week however as we do a lot of outdoor things on Saturday and the storms on Saturday really threw us off since we don’t have time to do it any other day of the week. Our grass sure got tall. Hahaha
We moved into the new building on Mother’s Day, May 9th. It is very pretty and it’s so nice to be able to meet in our own building that is planned for our use. I wish that some of the building was larger, the chapel area for instance, but it is sufficient for our use at this time. On Mother’s Day they handed out beautiful carnations-my favorite flower. I’m not really sure why it’s my favorite, but I think partially because they last so long. I also think it might be in part because my Dad used to work for a company called Carnation when I was young and I just associated the two somehow. The Open House will be June 9th. I believe it starts at 6pm. I know we’ll be going by 7pm though. I sure hope you are able to make it. I’d love to meet you and get to know you a little bit. There will be refreshments of course and I believe a short program and then a self-guided tour of the building. Each organization is doing something special for the event.
We planted our garden, but nothing is really growing yet, probably due to the temperatures still being too low. I sure hope the seeds are still going to be good because we spent a lot of time planting. My husband loves gardening and as a result he planted about ½ acre or so of seeds and a few small plants (raspberries and strawberries). I think all told we spent 20 work hours doing the planting, not something I wish to do again anytime soon.
We bought chickens too. One set is about a month older than the other set. We are now working on building a chicken coop. The difficulty we have been having is that we aren’t sure how we want to design it. In addition to that we haven’t had much chance to sit and talk about how to design it either. I told my husband, Andrew, that we need to build it over Memorial Day weekend since he’ll be off on Monday as well as Saturday and now I’m really hoping for good weather that weekend so we can get a lot of work done on the coop. The bigger chickens are in a pen now, but that’s not going to last forever. We are going to start introducing the second bunch with the first one and hope all goes well. A friend of ours introduced a new chicken to his coop and it literally killed the entire group because of a disease that he didn’t know the new chicken had. That scares me a little, but ours all came from the same source, so I hope they will all be OK. One of the chickens has a bottom beak which is crooked, but it’s still OK so far. The others are starting to peck at it though (I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl) so we may have to kill it off sooner than we had planned. We got both egg-laying and meat-producing chickens. I hope it’s one of the meat kind, though I have no idea how to tell about that either.
May 15th and 16th was Stake Conference. The adult session was wonderful on Saturday and I actually was able to spend some time reading while Andrew was attending the Priesthood session prior to that. That was a nice treat. The overall theme of the Conference was to be prepared. I can add my personal testimony to the value of doing just that. We are trying to prepare in temporal and spiritual matters for if you aren’t prepared in both areas I feel strongly that it won’t matter much when hard times come along, which they always do.
Andrew is serving as Young Men’s president and the Scoutmaster, for those who don’t already know that. He is working diligently at getting everything organized so that he can move forward. Scouts had become very haphazard and he is trying to get it all back on track. He has a lot of online training to get done, which he needs to do before Scout camp in July. I try to help where I can. I helped him create a calendar (our small branch doesn’t see a need to have one), I helped him get folders together for his Quorum presidents and a few more things that are kind of difficult to explain. I have spent quite a bit of time helping him. I think he is now ready to move ahead mostly. He is also still serving as Physical Facilities Representative, which included both moves in the last six months that the Branch made, the cleaning of the building, the scheduling of the building and also the security of the building (making sure it’s locked each night). He is a little busy with all of that. I help where I can.
I spent a couple of days trying to organize the Young Women stuff. I am 1st counselor, but I know that if I don’t do it, nobody will. The president works full-time and is very busy with that and her family, the 2nd counselor is working and going to school and the secretary has become inactive. Now that I have all the filing-type organization done I will take it all to the building and organize the cupboard that we have.
Megan is busy with her life. Next Monday, the 24th, will be her final concert for this year. She is pretty excited about it. I hope she does well. She really enjoys it very much. She is ready for school to be over, but sadly school here does not get out until June 10th, so she has a little longer to go. I feel badly for her since she has been going for so long, but she has had two month-long breaks (one when we moved and another for the funeral trip) so I think she’ll survive just fine. She will be taking a break from piano and flute during the summer as her flute gets turned into the school for cleaning and maintenance and her piano teacher will be gone a huge portion of the summer. She will keep busy I’m sure with all those chickens (22), a garden, a basketball hoop, friends, and of course Church activities. She also just found out that at some point her class is going to be taped for a Nickelodean show, though she doesn’t know what it’s going to be called nor does she know when it will be on. The school sponsored a week about cyber-bullying and apparently they are going to be doing something in regards to that. If we ever find out what it’ll be called and when it’ll be on, I’ll let you know.
I’m leaving in part of my Visiting Teaching message this month. The talk is by Elder James B. Martino and is titled “All Things Work Together for Good”. Elder Martino began by telling a cute story of a little boy trying to learn to hit a baseball. After three tremendous swings that resulted in no bat contact whatever he was disheartened for a short few seconds, then his face lit up and he said “What a pitcher!”
Just like this little boy, we all have adversity. Of course most of our adversity isn’t nearly so easy to overcome. Some struggle with health, others with financial concerns. Some have family that they worry about for various reasons. Oftentimes we have multiple types of adversity at the same time, but we all have one commonality, we all have the agency to choose our attitude in regards to the adversity we face. If we choose to be grumpy and feel that nobody can help us regardless of the trial, then that is the reality we choose for ourselves. However, if we will have the faith to choose to turn to our Savior and our Father in Heaven we will be blessed with the strength and knowledge needed to endure, and usually overcome, any adversity in our lives. The Savior suffered for our sins, He suffered for our weaknesses and imperfections. He knows intimately how we feel when nobody else can. He is waiting for us to turn to Him and make that Atonement a power for good in our lives. I leave that witness with you in His holy name, even Jesus Christ, Amen.
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