Sunday, March 16th, the Elkhorn Creek Ward Relief Society gathered at the home of Sis. Cheryl White to view the General Relief Society Presidency Devotional Broadcast in celebration of the Relief Society birthday.
The Devotional began with the General Relief Society presidency (President Camille N. Johnson, Sister J. Anette Dennis, and Sister Kristin M. Yee) speaking from the Red Brick Store in Nauvoo where the Relief Society was organized. Elder Dale G. Renlund then spoke to us. We followed this with a testimony meeting of the sisters in our ward. Then we enjoyed some light refreshments and mingling. It was a cup-filling, sisterhood building evening for each of us.
It was our Andie's birthday. I posted this on our family Facebook page. "Happy Birthday to our Middle-Most Child! Today I share a few pictures from baby to high school graduate of Andie Christensen Marx. Andie is a delight. We are so grateful she came to our home. May you have a very Happy Birthday with all your little friends in 1st grade running you ragged today. May you have some days that are not so full this coming year. Enjoy this walk down memory lane. Keep making memories. Love Ya Bunches!!"
.jpg)
In the evening, Katelyn called. It seems Raelyn is taking a new medicine and she comes home ready to go to bed. This is very, very uncharacteristic of our Raelyn. Katelyn talked with the doctor to no avail. She was told to let Raelyn continue the meds. Katelyn wanted Raelyn to have a priesthood blessing. I told her to contact her Elder's Quorum president and he would be sure she had someone come to give Raelyn a priesthood blessing. Katelyn followed this direction and sent a text a brief while later that they had come and given Raelyn a blessing. Raelyn slept through it all. The brothers even commented that Raelyn was really not very active self. So grateful for the priesthood and the gospel. Good people who care for each other as family evening miles away from where I am. Such a blessing.
Tuesday, March 18th, we spent our entire morning working with AT&T to install a new modem. I received a text from AT&T stating I needed to click a link in the text to get a new modem. Concerned this was a scam, I called AT&T directly, spoke to a very nice young man who sent us a new modem assuring me I could install it all by myself! Claude and I waited until a morning when we both could work together on this change. It seemed simple enough. We stood the two modems side-by-side on the modem stand. We unplugged one cord from the old modem and placed it in the new modem in the spot that matched its label. We unplugged the electric cord to the wall and plugged in the new cord to the wall. Then we were to wait and watch the little flashing light on the front of the new modem and it downloaded all the info it is supposed to download. The light was to turn green. This did not happen. The new modem flashed red quickly with a very occasional green light flashing. Eventually it kept only being red flashing quickly. After about 20 minutes, I found the number I had called about the text message and talked to another nice young man. He ran the new modem through several tests with me unplugging and counting to either 30 to 10 seconds before replugging things in again. He had to make some changes on the order. After a full morning of this, the modem finally worked. There went that day!!
I gave up on trying to do anything in Sandiland and went to the living room sofa to crochet and watch documentaries. I love documentaries. One was even about the Acropolis. Claude came in and watched that one with me as we are making a Greek Isles Cruise later.
A very bright spot in my day was when I took the Relief Society birthday cards to the mail box for the mail man to pick up on Wednesday. As I left my front door, I noticed the little purple flowers filling the edge of our front flower bed. I have always loved purple as my favorite color. This, as Kim Mansfield used to say, was a 'slice of heaven'. When I came back from the mailbox, I stopped and took these pictures. Oh My, they are Beautiful. I was so happy I cut back the liriope and Claude and I cut back the tall decorative grass. Now these beauties could really strut their stuff.
I spent my morning getting airline tickets to Athens. It is a long flight and we wanted as few stops as possible. I managed to find tickets we both agreed on from Cincinnati to Charles de Gaulle to Athens and returning Athens to Atlanta to Cincinnati. Yeah!! It was grueling. We hoped to use our miles to help upgrade our seating. It would take all my and Claude's miles to upgrade and eventually figuring out that was not quite enough. I checked into transferring his miles to account and they charge $.01 per point + $30. Ugh!! Eventually, we decided to just buy the tickets I found that we liked in a step up upgrade. Since the leg of the trip from France to Greece is on Air France flying in behalf of Delta, I had to pay a premium for each of our seats. Sometimes life just nickels and dimes one to death!! But we had airline tickets.
In the evening we went to Goshen, Kentucky to North Oldham County High School to watch Bailey play with the Oldham County High School Symphony Band in the KMEA (Kentucky Music Educators Associate) Assessment. This was a very, very, very windy day. Claude had to work very hard to keep the Jeep on the road. We made just in time to get our seats to watch Bailey come into the auditorium. She was so happy to see us there. Bailey had some places in the final number where she was the only French Horn playing. Way cool!! The band was excellent and received all "1" which means "Distinguished". This was a great final KMEA Assessment experience for Miss B.
Thursday, March 20th, was the first day of Spring!! It was a beautiful day.
I spent my morning finalizing the airline/hotel situation for our Greek Isles Cruise. I had to select our eat assignments on the plan, I had to update my grid and I had to call the airline to give them our flights and have them remove them getting the flight. They would have gotten us flights but they would have been multiple layovers and sitting in the back of the plane. We had to add another night at the hotel. I will still have to find a way for us to get from the hotel to the airport when we depart for home. But it felt good to know all of this is in place.
I spent a good deal of time on the telephone. Usually, I do not have many calls. This day I had conversations with several people for various reasons. It totaled a lot of time. But it was good to talk instead of text.
I also started gathering the things we need to take on a trip to Michigan to visit with family. It was a productive day.
Friday, March 21st, we decided this was a good weather day and we needed to get out of our comfy little home. I gave Claude a gift card to Olive Garden for Christmas we had not used. And, our walking sticks came in the mail and we wanted to try them out. We puttered away in the morning with things we wanted to do at home. In the afternoon, our outing was to the Lexington Arboretum to take a walk with those new walking sticks. We did a mile long loop and learned that we like the sticks. I, for one, am much more wobbly on my feet. The sticks kept me walking in a straight line. They also helped me push a little as we went up little hills. It was a good first effort. We will try them in other places. Then we enjoyed a luscious meal of soup (for Claude), salads and bread sticks. So very good. It was a great outing for us.
As we walked, it was very evident we were into spring and winter was leaving us behind. We passed one tree full of dried leaves all pointing in the direction the wind must have been blowing them. They were almost frozen in time like the wind was constantly blowing. That was our winter. We also passed a tree budding out all over. That was spring. I love recognizing things like this.
Saturday, March 22nd, while a beautiful day, we would stay in our home and work on tasks we wanted to do. Before doing tasks, Claude suggested a biscuit run. Off to Bojangles we sped in the green Jeep. While eating our biscuits, we plotted our trip up north. Then I could send texts to family telling them our plan and asking if we could visit them on certain days. Now I'll need to make some hotel reservations. In a bit, we'll be 'On The Road Again' as Willie Nelson used to sing.
In the afternoon my big accomplishment was making two baby apron bibs for Katelyn's friends baby. I think these are so stinking cute! I had enough fabric to make the small and the large size.
Sunday, March 23rd, was the Sunday I had to take the Relief Society roll. I struggle with this. Remember names has been an issue all of my life. I would make a fake name that used words that would help me remember the real name. Like when I was a teenager and we had a street named Gladstone, I called it Happy Rock and then could remember Gladstone. We have a lot of new ladies in our congregation because of a boundary change. I am trying really hard but we now have that spring move-in thing happening. Then we had visitors as a choir came to sing. Ugh!! I was so grateful for Heidi Barney as she was able to help me confirm a few names I wasn't sure of. Little blessing!
We had a great Relief Society Lesson based on Pres. Henry B. Eyring's talk in the October General Conference entitled "Simple is the Doctrine of Christ". We had a great discussion and the ladies shared well. I read the talk before attending and this quote jumped off the printed page to me. It is from Alma 7:23) “And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.” It is okay to ask for the temporal things that are of worth and value to our lives. I love that I learned long ago to pause when I recognize something for which I should be grateful and say a quick prayer of thanks to my Heavenly Father for letting me know he remembers me. What an amazing relationship we can have with our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We hurried home so Claude could get a little nap before we hit the road. Neither of us had a good nights sleep and we had the promise of nasty rain on our drive that evening. Best to start that kind of drive with a rested body and mind.
We spent our late afternoon, early evening at Bailey's next to last Louisville Youth Orchestra concert. It was held at Christ Church United Methodist in St. Matthews, Kentucky. This church was truly beautiful. The banners along the front were the quotes from Christ as he was crucified. We are close to Easter. Bailey plays the French Horn and was on the back row, left end, third from the end of the horns. In one number she was the only horn playing in some places. This was the concert where they recognize the graduating seniors. Bailey was one of those. She also presented the guest performers with their bouquets of flowers. Our girl is really grown up and is about ready for that next step into adulthood.
We made it home just before the most powerful of the storms came. You know it was powerful when our lights flickered off for a brief bit. Our neighborhood power lines are buried and that doesn't often happen. It was a might storm with thunder and lightning. We were very glad we got home and inside before any of that madness happened.
Finally, I wanted to share some Facebook fun. Occasionally I find something on Facebook that makes me smile or even laugh out loud or it might make me pause as it says some tender feeling I have in my heart. This is one of the good things about Facebook.
This one I shared on our family Facebook page. I made sure Hayden and Bailey were noted in the post. I have given each of them a Legos kit for Christmas for several years. This gave me a chuckle.
No comments:
Post a Comment