This is the only photo I took all week! We finally got snow yesterday. Not much fell after this picture was taken. Emily got a little bit more - enough to build a snowman. And, Columbia got even more than that - maybe four to five inches.
This past week was one where Steve and settled into our routines - mostly old, tried and true ones like morning prayers/stretch/scripture study/walk. We have a new afternoon one that we hope we can make stick. We want to ride bikes followed by a half hour of local news followed by Jeopardy and then take the dogs on a walk before dinner. This all takes about two hours. Jeopardy and news are already a habit (I do sewing during the television time) but for our health's sake (and our dog's health's sake), we need to do the physical things more regularly. Our biking had a hiccup early on as my back tire had issues but a trip to the bike shop solved that.
Saturday morning Steve and I helped out at a funeral for the son of a good friend of ours from Columbia (Katherine Eschrich's son, Robin, passed away after a four-year battle with cancer). He lived in Fenton and so the funeral was held in the Fenton Ward meetinghouse, although Robin probably never darkened the door of that building. It was a weird funeral in many ways. First of all, the music selections (which is where Steve and I helped). He wanted the song "Praise To The Man" to be sung. I guess somewhere in his past when he was attending church, this song had a big impression upon him? But, to sing a song about Joseph Smith at his funeral is decidedly weird. Steve sang this song in a men's quartet comprised of men from our ward. He also wanted the song My Way" to be performed so I played it on my cello. The lyrics are totally an "in your face, God" statement but I guess that is how Robin was in life? His brother who gave the eulogy didn't wear Sunday clothes or even a tie - instead he wore work clothes and maybe that was some kind of obscure homage to Robin? Because his other brother had on the same uniform. Aside from his family, there were no other members of the church in attendance so, as I lead the congregational singing, there was not a soul who opened their mouths or even opened up the hymnbook to follow along. I was met with stares as I sang and waved my baton. A little unsettling. Happily, the bishop and men's quartet sang as well as much of the family and one lone man from the ward who had never met Robin but came to help with the funeral set up. The Praise To The Man quartet had a mostly easy piano part (which I played) but there were a few measures that posed some real challenges so I practiced it all week. And, while I didn't botch it up too badly in the performance, I sure played it better at home! (isn't that always the case???)
Steve and I had a temple baptism trip scheduled with Noah on Tuesday night. We drove to Ballwin to pick up Noah and half-way to the temple, Noah realized he didn't have his recommend! (It ended up being with Emily in New York). So, we took him back home and drove to the temple ourselves only to learn that the chlorine levels in the font were too high and no one was doing baptisms until they were lowered. So, we left our seven names with the baptistry to be done when the water was safe to enter and drove home. Totally aborted trip.
I was back in Ballwin again on Wednesday night taking Emily to her house and Beckie to her car after picking them up from the airport after their amazing three-day adventure in New York City. Their primary objective was to see Hugh Jackman in "The Music Man" on Broadway but the managed to do a whole lot of fun things before and after. It sounded like they had SO much fun.
We had very mild temperatures mid-week and I was able to putter in the yard for an hour or so: raking up leaves, turning the compost, etc. The dogs always love to hang out with me during those times.
We had a little scare with our external hard drive and I was afraid we had lost a lot of saved files. Happily, replacing the cable solved the problem but you can bet I will be doing some backing up in the days ahead. Our dishwasher is not draining and we are discovering that finding a repairperson is kind of a challenge. Hopefully by this time next week, it will be fixed and operating. Thankfully, we don't generate a lot of dishes so handwashing has not been a huge task.
Other fun things I did last week: I pulled out my oil paints on Thursday. I got to return to the pottery studio yesterday and did two hours of glazing. I was able to talk Steve into watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on Friday night. And, that pretty much sums up our week.
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