It was a full week!

It all started with a phone call from our new dentist, Dr. Griffin, and an email from Steve's primary care physician on Monday morning. These two things set off a chain of events that still haven't been resolved.  Last week, the dentist had a cancellation for Monday afternoon and we plugged Steve in since he needs more dental work done.  Basically, Steve has no bottom molars.  Expensive crowns and bridges have all failed.  So we were SO happy he could get in sooner than December - which was their first offer.   But, the call Monday morning was to see if he could come in right away rather than at 2:00.  So, he hustled about and got there about 9:00.  That meant I had to find a ride to the Food Bank - which happily happened.   From his dentist visit, he booked Wednesday afternoon to have four extractions of molar nubs that were from failed crowns.  And he goes to a dentist in Jefferson City tomorrow who specialized in root canal evaluations.  Then, it will be back to the Dr. Griffin to decide where to go from there.  

The email from his doctor stated that his blood work from Friday showed elevated alk. phos. levels and could he get an ultrasound of his belly to check his liver and gall bladder.  The earliest appointment he could get was last Friday afternoon so now we await another email from his doctor tomorrow to see what comes next.  I hate waiting.  

Tuesday, we left early for a day in St. Louis.  We had temple baptisms scheduled for 7:45 in the evening so we thought it would be fun to go on a fall adventure with Emily and Larkin.  (Sadly, Beckie couldn't join us). Our destination - Eckert's Orchard just over the river in Illinois.  The day was just perfect and we had a delightful time visiting all the animals, riding on the tractor pulled wagon, picking Golden Delicious apples, finding a pumpkin.

This is Steve recreating a Field of Dreams scene.....

After the orchard, we had lunch at a McDonalds that was selling McRibs and then home for naps.  When the older grandkids got home, they got piano lessons.  And, surprise surprise - Quinn wanted to start so that's what I did.  I will now teach three lessons every other week.

Here are the five of us after our temple baptism trip.  It was a really special time.

Wednesday was all turned upside down.  Our repair man came in the morning and installed a new kitchen faucet and repaired one of our toilets and then we talked about all the things we needed done to sell the house.  It took all morning.  Then, Steve had his extraction and we weren't sure how
out of it he would be afterwards so I drove him there and back and did some grocery shopping while I waited.  On the way home, we picked up the missionaries since they were scheduled for dinner.  Beef stew was on the menu so I blended up Steve's portion.  Then, I had a Days For Girls work meeting with our ward Young Women.  I brought pocket squares to iron and top stitch, PUL to cut out, DFG labels to attach to drawstring bags, and shields to assemble and we were a busy little group for about an hour.  Marilyn, our local director, came to give a brief orientation for the girls.  

At that time, Marilyn asked if I would be the "sewing specialist" for our group and I agreed.  That meant I had to have a Facetime visit with a national sewing specialist to have our various items passed off as "Gold Standard".  Our DFG group has been in existence since January and it wasn't officially recognized by the organization until this meeting I had with the specialist!  

Rain, St. Louis, and Steve's dental work kept us from the briar patch most of the week but we did get out there Saturday morning and got all but about three feet tackled.  We made two trips to the mulch site that afternoon.  In between, we took Genny and Lincoln Sheets up to the Amish.  Neither of them had ever been so we visited ALL the shops we knew.  Had a great time!

We checked out "Won't You Be My Neighbor" and "Victoria and Abdul" from the library and watched the first one on Friday and I watched the second one last night.  The Mr. Rodgers one was wonderful.  What a wonderful man.  I enjoyed Victoria and Abdul.  Not sure it is Steve's cup of tea.  

We both were assigned to speak in Sacrament meeting today.  I had a cello trio rehearsal this afternoon (preparing to play in church next Sunday) and we had two families over for cookies tonight.  It was a teeny bit crazy for an hour.  

First week of October

Hmmm - what to write about?  It was all pretty much hum drum stuff.....

The "briar patch" is about half cleared out.  Buying a second pair of leather work gloves and wearing long-sleeved shirts has helped.

We had to replace our windshield after noticing a fairly significant crack on the driver side a week ago.  Safelite came to the house to do the work.  That was nice.  We had a $250 deductible.  That was not nice.

We had a fellow from church who is HVAC trained come over on Wednesday to service our heat pump and to set our really confusing thermostat.  He hosed off a whole bunch of dryer lint and that helped the house feel cooler during our first-of-October heatwave.  Happily, we are now experiencing regular October weather - windows are open and it is VERY nice outside.

I had to have my bow rehaired.  Even though it was just rehaired less than a year ago, it was done in dry Phoenix.  In humid Columbia, the hair absorbed too much moisture and it just couldn't tighten properly. 

I saw the Downton Abby movie with Elise Tuesday night.  Being a huge fan of the television series, I was delighted with the movie.  It won't win any academy awards but it was certainly fun to re-visit all the characters and have some closure.

We did another visit to Home Depot to check out prices, I sent a couple of emails, and we are finally a bit closer to our home improvement decisions.  We ARE going to have the foundation lifted.  We WILL get the huge crack in the driveway taken care of. I just need to see if the polylift solution will work for us.  I will call about that this week.  If we can take care it if that way, it should save about $5000 on driveway repair.  Regardless of how our driveway problem gets solved, we will have to visit the bank because we are going need a loan to get all of this done and just pay it back from the sale of the house.  Ugh!!!

Steve and I both visited the doctor on Friday - Steve in the morning, me in the afternoon.  And, we both watched a movie with Elise that night.  She brought over "Edge of Tomorrow" which Steve had never seen.  I enjoyed watching it a second time.  Earlier that evening, we had Dan and Malinda Crouch over for dinner and catching up on our families.  Steve was their home teacher for years. 

This weekend of General Conference has been wonderful.  Elise watched all the sessions with us.  Julina drove over from Indiana and watched all but Sunday afternoon with us.  She stayed with Steven and Tamara overnight in MUCH more comfortable accomodations than we could currently give her.  We all enjoyed a family dinner Saturday evening and Steve made a huge breakfast for whoever wanted to come this morning.  I had to be gone for two hours both on Saturday and today to substitute for the cellist in the Heartstrings Quartet!  Bill Miller, their usual cellist, asked me to sub for him way back in the spring and I agreed -  not realizing that it was conference weekend and way before Julina had decided to come for a visit.  Happily, by the time I had to play today, Julina was already gone so I only missed out on seeing her yesterday.  The up-side is I made $200 which I will use to buy new cello strings which should have been changed three years ago!

That's all, folks....

Last week in September

Highlights of a fairly average week:

Steve and I watched the last of the set of DVDs featuring BBC productions of Elizabeth Gaskel books:  North and South, Cranford, and Wives and Daughters.  We liked Cranford so much that we actually checked out Return to Cranford from the library and watched the second season.  We usually do this in the evening.

It has been a week of good connecting with people - lunch with Terri Anderson and Sarah Everett (which I almost forgot!  A Google calendar is only good when one frequently checks it!), ministering visits to two of our sisters with Elizabeth Crippen, ministering to a new member with Steve, catching up with good friend Julie Vornholt when she came over for supper Saturday evening, and driving to the Kansas City temple on Tuesday with Teresa Torres, a woman that Steve ministers to.  

We have been assigned to shepherd the over-45 singles in our ward and we had a potluck lunch yesterday - Saturday - to visit and to discuss how to best meet everyone's needs.  Three things were decided.

1.  we will have a monthly potluck at the church on the first Sunday of each month and we will play some easy games after we eat.  

2.  twice a month, on Monday evenings at 7:00, we will have a Come Follow Me study group.  We hope to hold these sessions at the clubhouse of the Hanover housing development because it is handicap accessible.

3.  at these gatherings, folks will call attention to upcoming fun events in and around Columbia that groups of singles can attend together.  

The potluck was a delicious feast and I think everyone went away blissfully full and excited about doing things together.  YAY!

Columbia Civic Orchestra started this past Thursday.  I am SO excited to be playing with this group again.  We have a tremendous conductor, the musicians are quite good, and we are playing some really fun music this season.  

With all this socializing and DVD watching, not much progress has been made on the home repair front.  We have been continuing working in the "briar patch" out in back.  We received nice rainfalls  twice this week.  And, so it goes......

Teresa, Steve, and me at the Kansas City temple

Steve looked particularly good with his green tie this Sunday morning

A visit to Indiana

Our week started a bit out of the ordinary.  After our regular Food Bank gig, Steve and Elise headed to St. Louis yet again!  This time, it was to join Emily and Beckie for a Cardinals game!

And what, you ask, did I do while all this happened?  I had a glorious afternoon and evening to myself to watch movies (Gifted, Dance With Me, and Leap Year) and cut out fabric I brought home from Saturday's Days For Girls.  I was in heaven!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were usual days.  We are now working in the briar patch - raspberries and blackberries and weeds in the south garden.  Lots of poke-y plants to deal with :/

Friday, we packed up the Element and drove to Greenwood, Indiana to visit Julina and Alex.  We bought breakfast for Shiloh on Saturday morning before she headed off to work at my favorite grocery store.  Saturday was a marching band competition at Greenwood High School and one of our main objectives was to watch Stratton's band show.  The event went on all day but we only attended in the evening since that was when Greenwood High marched.  Happily, temperatures were mild, we were seated on the shady side if the stadium, and Julina had three stadium seats for our comfort.  It was a nice time.  

Above is a photo of Stratton's pepper plant he has growing in the window.  Steve and Alex had some time together in the model train room. 

We returned to Columbia Sunday afternoon after attending church and eating lunch.  We drove home through some pretty heavy rain which had dumped at least an inch on Columbia before moving east.

A week in the life of Jeanne and Steve post mission

Today, September 15th, marks almost two months of being back home in Columbia.  What does our post-mission life look like?  Well, let me tell you....

Monday - Friday 

5:15 - wake up, pray, stretch (this is 15 minutes of yoga-type stretching that we do as we listen to a conference talk)

6:00 - individual scripture study.  Steve likes the dining room table.  I like the couch.

6:45 - work in the yard

7:15 - Steve stops and goes in to shower.  I continue until 7:30

7:30 - 8:30 showering, eating breakfast

8:30 - 9:00 walk.  We have two routes - east on Blueridge that takes us to the middle school or west on Blueridge that takes us to Derby Ridge.  We each have a grabber and a trash bag and we collect trash along the way.  My bag is for aluminum cans and Steve's is for all other trash.  On Friday, we have to set out our garbage and recycling right after we wake up and stretch and so that pushes our times for everything else back giving us only about 20 minutes to walk so we just circle around our neighborhood streets on that day.

9:00 - 10:00 Steve works on his journal and email.  I practice for 30 minutes (rotating between piano, cello, and violin) and sew for 30 minutes - usually on Days for Girls items

10:00-12:00  Here is where our schedule varies depending on the day:

Monday - we volunteer at the Food Bank from 10:30 - 12:30

Tuesday - every other Tuesday, we go to St. Louis to the temple and to visit Emily and Beckie.  I give Lucy and Noah a piano lesson.  On the Tuesdays we are here at home, I do some painting

Wednesday - we clean house.  Steve does bathrooms and the kitchen.  I do floors and dust.

Thursday - I do finances, Steve does laundry

Friday - we go grocery shopping

12:00 - 1:30 eat lunch and take a nap

1:30 - 2:30 we work on family history

2:30 - 4:00 open to whatever

4:00 - 5:00 Steve watched Jeopardy and I do email and work on dinner.  Steve cooks one day a week so he does dinner during that time.

5:00 - eat dinner

6:00 - 6:30 ride bikes.  

6:30 - open to whatever.  We often watch a DVD

9:00 - we do our joint Come Follow Me scripture study

9:20 - start getting ready for bed

10:15- lights out

Of course, this is the "ideal" schedule.  I usually never works that way.  But, it is something to work towards.  Below are some photos from our morning walks this week and from the Food Bank.  We have only worked there two times and, so far, we come home just wiped out.  Mostly because we are on our feet for two hours.  So far, the work we do is repackaging items for redistribution.  

We went to St. Louis twice this week - Tuesday and again yesterday.  Joe turned 40 on Monday and Emily threw a birthday party for him Saturday evening.  She hired Beckie and Micah to cook the food (delicious Mexican dishes).  We brought Elise with us and had a great afternoon/evening with family and friends.  Steven and Tamara had to stay back in Columbia and help host a ward picnic so we missed them. 

A new month....

Hello September! 

Our work in the front yard is winding down.  Steve and I chopped off the branches of three hazelnut bushes this week.  They were VERY vigorous and healthy looking but they needed to go because 

a) The nuts they produced had no nut in them - they were just shells 

b) we planted them in a really dumb location which was not very aesthetically pleasing for house-selling.  

So, on Wednesday morning, we cut them down to about six inches above the ground.  Each bush was actually comprised of several stalks but they were easy enough to lop with our super sharp loppers.  Thursday morning was a bit more challenging as we had to dig around the stumps and cut them lower than the ground and paint the freshly cut ends with a growth retardant.  For this cutting, we had to resort to our hand saw.  THAT was hard work and my upper arms are still a bit sore.  Hazelnuts have a very deep taproot so digging them out of the ground was not possible.  The only other thought was to cover them with dirt and plant grass seed over them.  Which is what we did on Friday - we seeded and straw-ed the front strip.  

It took two trips to the yard waste dump to get rid of all the very pungent stalks and below is a little hitchhiker from our second trip.  

For our Labor Day, we enjoyed grilled boneless ribs with our friend, Elizabeth Crippen.

We have had a house guest for the past week.  Patrick Layton.  He is distantly related to some church members from Jefferson City - Jim Layton and his sister, Joan Layton Merrell.  Both are currently not living in Jefferson City but, because he was to begin a job with the Missouri state historical society, he reached out to them to get some names of individuals he might stay with while he waited for his apartment to become available.   One person was Sherrie Downs but when circumstances arose to keep her from accommodating him, she called me.  He works in Jefferson City but planned to live here in Columbia so it made more sense for him to stay up here.  Poor guy had to "camp out" in our former "sports room" with just his twin mattress to sleep upon but the price was right!  He moved out yesterday into an apartment near Boone Hospital Center which will be a good location for a daily commute on Highway 63.

We watched several movies this week - Spiderman, Far From Home in the theater, Aquaman, Tarzan (the 2017 one), Thor Ragnarok, and finished North and South (the BBC one about industrial age England - not the civil war).  I had lunch with Terri Anderson on Wednesday.  The grand piano was tuned.  Elise came over Thursday - her day off - while her car was in the shop - and Steve took her to an eye exam in the afternoon.  We helped to clean the meetinghouse on Friday and we attended a funeral for Ruth Minner on Saturday (she was 93).  

We had a basic repair guy, a foundation guy and a window guy come by this week.   Still waiting on several bids from people who came by earlier.  I guess I need to rattle their cages this coming week...

I will close with a photo of a monarch butterfly on our zinnias.....

August winds down

I seem to be having difficulties finding a good time to blog! For the last two years, our Sunday church meetings were at 11:00 or 1:00 and I loved my quiet Sunday mornings for blogging.  But, now we are back in Missouri and we have church at 9:00 am. I suppose I could arise at 5:00 am to write a blog but.....nope.  Hopefully, I will get back into the blogging groove this month....

Work in the front yard is finally coming to a close.  Weeds have been removed from all of the flower beds and we hope to plant grass seed on our front strip by the end of this week!  Next stop, the back yard!!!!!

We spent our month of August getting reacquainted with Columbia and with our pre-mission life.  Establishing a daily and weekly routine. Visiting dear friends.  Driving places around town and  discovering what business has left and finding new stores and businesses.  Continuing to go through boxes.  And, starting the "what's next" process - getting our house ready to sell next spring.  We met with a real estate agent who gave us some preliminary suggestions and names of people who do all kinds of repair work.  And, now we are getting bids for all of theses services.  Once the bids are in, we will meet again with our real estate agent and realistically decide what should be done based upon the costs and the ultimate price he thinks we can get on the house.  

I have also been trying to sell and/or get rid of some of the things we don't need anymore.  The ancient graphing calculator went to Noah.  Our dinosaur laptop just went to a computer shop to be wiped and recycled.  We brought our old computer monitor back with us from Arizona hoping that it could act as a second monitor for our laptop - especially when I needed two screens when doing family history.  But, our laptop didn't have a port for a monitor (you know, that screw-in type of attachment) so I thought I would just sell it on Facebook marketplace.  We had to get a different modem for our internet and I also figured to sell our old router, too.  I had a good experience selling the router.  Not so much for the monitor.  An interested buyer asked if I could meet in Jefferson City since he lived in Eldon.  So Steve and I drove the thirty miles to Jefferson City and sat in the parking lot of the state capitol for over thirty minutes before we decided he was a not call/no show.  Ugh!  But, then, on the way back home, I was remembering a USB convertor for an ether connection for our old laptop and I wondered if there was possibly a USB convertor for our monitor.  And, there IS!!!  A couple of clicks on Amazon and we now have just such a device.  So, thankfully, our potential buyer was a no show because I now can have two monitors when I need them.  I have to include this photo of our state capital building all wrapped up as it is being renovated.  It looks so strange!

Then, there was the issue with our new laptop.  When I tried to install Finale (a music writing program) with an installation disc, the tray wouldn't come all the way out.  Ultimately, after back and forth on-line chats, phone calls, and photos, we ended up shipping the laptop to be repaired - all at HP's expense, thankfully.  But, it was gone for a week and blogging on an iPad is not good. 

We had to get new library cards.  And we have been enjoying their DVD collection.  I have checked out Hidden Figures and A Monster Calls.  Elise has loaned us Wonder Woman and Aquaman.   We have enjoyed Spiderman-Into the Spiderverse and Ralph Breaks the Internet on Netflix.  We also LOVE the $5 Tuesday movies at our local theater and we saw Spiderman-Far From Home yesterday. 

We have started to take bike rides every evening.  My favorite route is along the Bear Creek trail to the bridge and back...

I have found a Days for Girls group right here in Columbia.  So, I have been trying to sew a little bit each day on shields.  And, I have a cello student!  Her parents know we are not staying around and she already studies with another teacher in town.  I am just a supplemental teacher.  She is in the ward and we are currently working on a cello trio to play in church in October.  

Our plan is to get to St. Louis twice a month.  Below are photos of our last visit.  Larkin is wearing a dress made for her mother when we lived back in Woodbridge, Virginia.  We got to see Beckie's cute apartment with so many lovely windows.  And, we had a fun trip to IKEA.

Last Saturday, we went in the other direction to Kansas City and visited the Renaissance Festival with Elise and attended a wedding reception for Kyson Gardner, a former Arizona Phoenix missionary from Paola, Kansas (just outside of Olathe, Kansas).