Music, Reading, Exercise and Homework...

Monday, April 21st, Yeah me!! I had another purposeful day! This included doing the laundry, changing the linens in our bedroom to cotton instead of flannel (springtime is here!), creating a good draft of the May Relief Society Newsletter and updating my pictures and Blog. 

I still marvel at technology. In the evening, I was able to do lots of Relief Society answering of questions and steering people to others via texts and messaging. Maybe I marvel because I remember when that wasn't the case. Old age gives you a good perspective on all the blessings that come over the last few years. To sit in my chair and handle all these things using my cellphone is a marvel to me.

Tuesday, April 22nd, Claude started his day with a visit to a special dentist. He had a crown replaced. Then the tooth next to it started really hurting. He went back to Dr. Hollen, our dentist, and she referred him to this special dentist in Lexington. On Tuesday, he went to that appointment and, after lots of X-rays, was told he has a crack in the root of that tooth. There is no way for a dentist to fix that. It leaves the root open for bacteria and the only recourse is to remove the tooth. Claude will now have to have a tooth extraction, let that heal, them get an implant for that tooth. Yike! The good thing is we now may have enough for a medical deduction on our 2025 income tax filing next year. Glass half full perspective.

I started back on the treadmill. I was doing well with this until we went to Michigan and I didn't have my treadmill for a week. I decided to look at this from a different perspective. I had been walking for 15 minutes at 3mph. That would yield 3/4 mile of walking. I want to be ready for Greece and really believe we won't have any 'forced marches' on that trip. We will have some walks for good lengths of time to see the excursions we have lined up. What I need is endurance ability. So, I will now walk for 24 minutes at 2 1/2 mph. This will yield one mile of walking and hopefully build my endurance. And...I'm off and walking!!

While Claude was at the dentist, I took a recent edition of the Church News about the April General Conference. It has synopsis of the General Conference talks. I sat at our dining room table and marked off the talks we will be using for Relief Society lesson from May through October. The remaining talks I read the synopsis on and highlighted quotes. When I create the monthly Relief Society Newsletter, I always put a General Conference quote in it. I was able to take the quotes I selected and drop them in the next six months of Relief Society Newsletter formats I have created. That felt good.

I sat and crocheted three more squares for Bailey's afghan. 

In the evening, we traveled to LaGrange to attend Bailey's final Prism Concert at Oldham County High School. This concert is just fun. The different sections of the band perform numbers the students have picked and worked on in their own time. Since some students play multiple instruments, there is moving around to get to where the perform next. I always enjoy this because it truly highlights the fact these kids LOVE music. They are doing this playing things they choose and work on. It makes for a delightful evening.

Wednesday, April 23rd, I could not sleep Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Again, I fell asleep when we went to bed, slept for my hour and then my body thought it had a great nap and was ready to go again. Ugh. I made good use of my time. I researched and found that Dan Brown's next novel comes out in September. I know I have paperbacks of some of these books. I wanted to have them on my Kindle. They will make great reading for the LONG flight to and from Greece. I ordered the 5 current books in the Robert Langdon series and pre-ordered the newest book. It will come out in September. I look forward to reading all these books.

In the meantime, I decided to start reading The Illiad by Homer in preparation for Greece. This is going to be a slow read on a very LONG book. I am not great at Greek mythology, or Roman for that matter. I have read a brief book about Greek mythology in preparation for our Greece trip. I found my self wading through the first chapter of The Illiad on my Kindle. I would come to a name and press my finger on that word. That brings up a dictionary definition as well as a bar to highlight or make notes about the word. This really helped me to understand who the story is about and where they fit in Greek mythology. But, alas, my memory has never been good at remembering these kinds of things. Let's just stay I have lots of names and places highlighted and a few notes to help me remember the 'son of ___' is really '___'. I learned that Jove is Jupiter and I now try to substitute Jupiter when I am reading Jove. Doing all of this will be great exercise for my brain and I will be a bit more familiar as we do our excursions. It is work but it is good work.

My big goal was to clean our bathroom. Clean the tub/shower is one of my least favorite household chores. Our tub in this house is a big oversized. To reach across as I get older has always been a concern. With my arm, I am even more concerned. I used to spray down the entire tub/shower and then stand in a slippery tub to wipe all that down, then climb on the side of the tub to get the shower head down to rinse all of this. Why did it take me all these years to finally see that I could stand in a dry tub, spray a specific area and clean it starting at the top and working my way down. This is a much safer way for me to do this cleaning. I now struggle even more with getting the shower head down to rinse all of it off the tub/shower. The first thing we do when moving to a home is to be sure all the showers in our tubs have a shower head on a coil so it can be used to rinse the tub. Now, I am not so steady on my feet. Climbing up to get that shower head is a bit more concerning. I get the step ladder and use it but I still get a mite concerned. It felt good to get this chore accomplished. 

I wanted to call Chime Clocks to check on any progress with my clock we left on February 11th. I called and the nice fella answered the phone. I explained I left my clock on February 11th and was wondering if they have an estimate yet on cost to repair. That poor man in his very southern accent said, "I haven't got to February yet!" I thanked him and went to tell Claude about this interchange. We both had a good belly-laugh over this comment. When we left the clock, he showed us three walls full of clocks to repair. He assured us it would be at least two month and maybe longer. I wasn't surprised to hear his answer. It just rang funny that he hasn't even gotten to February yet. 

I was hungry for spaghetti. Not sure why. I mentioned it to Claude. That good hubby that he is, he made spaghetti for dinner. Yum!!

Thursday, April 24th, one highlight of this day was actually purchasing tickets to Amy Grant & Vince Gill at the Ryman Auditorium in December. This is there Christmas show. We attended once and totally enjoyed ourselves. These tickets are much sought after and I thought I could get any. I looked again and had Claude come see what I found. We found seats we thought would be okay and purchased them. Christmas date number 2 is on the calendar!

In the evening we held our April Relief Society activity. This time we played the Jeopardy game with questions about April General Conference. Each of our presidency was assigned one of the topics to come up with questions and answers for. My topic was Music. We also had Temples, Trivia, Guess Who, and Testimony. Jenessa Dymock, Relief Society president's, husband, Zak, found an app we could use for the Jeopardy board. We each submitted our questions and answers to Jenessa and she filled out the app. Jenessa also loves making cinnamon rolls. These are a General Conference tradition for many families. So, our dessert was cinnamon rolls made by our resident Cinnamon Roll Lady, Jenessa. We started with refreshments and then enjoyed a very loose version of Jeopardy. No teams, we just all played and took turns. It was great fun. I believe it should be a tradition! 

I want to remember the kindness Claude did that was not used. We originally planned to move the chairs and sofas from the lobby to the Relief Society room. We decided at the last minute not to do that. Claude, not know we were now not moving that furniture, went to the garage and rummaged around to find the moving coasters for us to use. The go under the feet of furniture to help it slide on the surface with greater ease. I was really touched at his thoughtfulness and felt bad telling him we were not moving the furniture now. Good hubby!

There were leftover cinnamon rolls so we all took one home to our hubby. Yes!!

Friday, April 25th, Claude and I decided we needed a day to just be. I suggested the night before that we start our morning with a real breakfast: bacon, eggs and toast. I awoke feeling a little puny. I got up early and spent time in my chair reading the Iliad. Claude got up later and he did make a good breakfast to start our day. 

We then spent the day in our respective chairs. It was a rainy day and a little cooler than we have been experiencing. From my recliner, I can easily see out the door to the patio. I could hear the rain showers every time they came and enjoyed watching it. I promise you that through the day our grass grew another inch or two. Really. I am sure it did.

I suggested to Claude that we take one of our pork tenderloins and cook it with BBQ sauce, then add rice of some type and the chopped up chunky vegetables he had on hand. On my! It was such a delicious meal and perfect for this rainy, lazy day. 

Saturday, April 26th, we got back to adulting. I was awake before Claude and read chapter four in the Iliad. I am finally getting to the story. I still have to pause and research a person or two but I am getting a better hang of the story. I also practiced my Greek on Duolingo. I won't be speaking Greek when we go to Greece, but I may be able to pick out and recognize some words. I am enjoying the learning how ever far it gets. 

I was able to crochet a good bit. By the end of the day, I made 9 more squares. It takes 9 squares to finish a row. I now need to stitch them together and then add this row to my first one for a grand total of 2 rows in the afghan. This will take a lot of work but I am sure the more I add the more excited I will be to see the next row added. 

Sunday, April 27th, we had a great Sabbath Day!

A person entered the chapel that I did not know. I went back to him to say hello. His name was John Friley. I asked if he was visiting the Friley family in our ward. He was not. He just decided to visit the church. I asked if he had met the Elders. He had not. As the hand of the Lord is in our lives, the missionaries walked by at that time. I waved them over and asked if they had met John Friley. I explained he had just come to visit. They quickly struck up a conversation and then sat with him through the meetings. 

We had a great Relief Society lesson based on Elder Patrick Kearon's October General Conference talk entitled "Welcomes to the Church of Joy". It was delightful with many sisters sharing. A very cup-filling lesson. 

Claude and I quickly went to Jimmy John's for our meal of the day. As we went through the drive-thru, the manager saw us at the window and came for a chat. He is a biker and he loved Claude's Jeep. He chatted for quite a while. How pleasant is that?!

Claude was able to get a quick nap while I finished up the May Relief Society Newsletter. We have a May activity of attending the temple. I had an impression to include the Dedicatory Prayer for the Louisville Kentucky Temple. 

In the evening, we drove to Louisville to the Iroquois Amphitheater. This was Bailey's final performance with the Louisville Youth Orchestra. Joyce Romanoff, Michael's stepmother flew in for this one. Bailey would perform with two ensembles. The Concert Winds and Symphonic Wind Ensemble would play "The Great Race". The Repertory Orchestra would play three numbers, "Rolling in the Deep", "Shallow (from A Star is Born)", and "Havanna". There were a lot of birds in the trees outside the amphitheater really enjoying the music and singing right along. Andie and I got a kick out of an older lady, her husband and their son. They entered the amphitheater about half way through the program. The son looked about Claude and my age. They first entered the row in front of us and sat in the middle. Then they moved to the row in front of that in the middle. Next they moved to the second row from the front in the middle. I thought I missed them exit but they really had moved to the side section. The other thing that caught our attention was a young girl on the far left of the theater seating. A somber piece of music was playing and this little one was head banging to the music. Andie, who teaches first grade, was very amused by this energy. It was a good performance and Bailey was very happy to now have her Sunday afternoons back! 

We were back home about 7:15pm. Claude had a Zoom meeting from 8pm-9pm. I eliminated some saved documentaries. When he finished we watched Music & the Spoken Word. Then we watched an Unearthed documentary about the Acropolis. We paused it several times as we are trying diligently to learn where the path is that we will need to hike to get to the top. I researched some about the Acropolis and sent those files to Claude. It felt good to get a little more familiar with this part of our trip to Greece.