26 May 2024

This week was mercifully less busy.  Helen and Arlo still had school to attend, but Felicity was home.  She took Helen to class on Monday morning and picked up her official diploma from the office.  She also had time to hang out in the choir room and add some finishing touches to her brick.  She helped me with Jude while I was working since Phil was working as well.  I will always take help when it comes to Jude.  Speaking of Jude we have made zero progress on potty training him, other than he now wears (and prefers) the more expensive Pull-Ups; he's SO stubborn!

Phil worked overtime on Tuesday and we're grateful the overtime has picked up as he continues to work on his "high three" in preparation for retirement.  It was very slow in quarter 1, so he's taking any opportunities that come his way to get caught up.  On Wednesday he and I had a date night in Tucson.  We grabbed dinner at El Sur (one of our favorites) and shared some yummy chicken fajitas while eating on the patio.  We went grocery shopping before heading home.  We are really exciting, I know! 

I picked up my finished tee shirt quilt this week.  I'm really happy with how it turned out and love the paw print quilting.  I spent time in the evening putting the binding on it and I added a label to the back.  Now I just have to start Felicity's tee shirt quilt!  Helen had her last day on Thursday and she was happy to have her theater audition behind her.  She performed a monolog as her theater final and it also served as her audition for advanced theater.  We have our fingers crossed for her.  I'm really proud of Helen, she also finished the year with a 4.0.  

Phil was back at working doing more overtime on Friday and Felicity went to work with my mom.  I took the day off to extend the Memorial Day weekend and because work has been hectic and stressful and I had no meetings or obligations on my calendar.  Arlo had his last day of school on Friday and when he got home mid day I took him and Helen and Jude to lunch at Freddy's to celebrate the end of the school year.  I was also really proud of Arlo, he finished on the high honor roll, he had all As and too Bs, it was too bad too, the Bs were an 89% and 88%,  He's just doing so well which is a relief because I was worried for him to transition to middle school.

We enjoyed having Phil home on Saturday and we did a fair amount of running around.  Trips to the store, to the feed store, etc.  I really have a lot of projects to get to outside, but laundry was the order for the day.  Where do all these mountains of laundry come from?  We did pizza and a movie as a family in the evening and watched "Wonka"; it was so cute, I really enjoyed it.

We've been struggling with Jude at bedtime lately.  At some point he decided that his room was "scary" and he refuses to sleep in there.  I don't know how true this is as he told me the other day he was afraid of the dining room table when I asked him to eat at the table instead of in the family room.  The last thing I wanted was a toddler sleeping in my bed, but that's where he ends up most nights.  This typically means that I wakeup crowded to the edge of the bed while he is sprawled out like a starfish.  Oh, well, this too shall pass.  On Sunday Felicity drove to the Institute building on the U of A campus to attend church in the Young Single Adult ward.  She said she had a good time and was happy to have friends there as well.  I filled in for her as chorister.  We enjoyed our meetings and had a really low-key afternoon.  I'm so grateful I don't have to work tomorrow!  It's too bad Phil isn't off too, but we'll make the best of it.

19 May 2024

What a crazy week, but so much good stuff!  I'm continuing to play with my embroidery machine and made a cute makeup bag that I plan to send to a friend when her birthday rolls around.  

The overtime at the fire station has finally picked up and Phil worked overtime on Tuesday and Wednesday and then worked his regular shift on Thursday.  The kids and I managed without him, but we definitely miss him when he's not here.

Arlo had his final band concert on Thursday evening.  He was so excited, but we were sad Dad was working and had to miss it...and because Arlo needed to have his tie tied!  I facetimed Phil and he walked me through getting Arlo's tie in order.  The concert was great.  I could hear Arlo loud and clear.  I'm so glad that he's enjoying band.

Friday was busy.  I was grateful that it was my day off as I had a lengthy to-do list.  First on the agenda my 36 week weigh in.  I'm proud to report that I'm officially 110 pounds down and now under the 200 pound mark. 

I will never be over 200 pounds again.  I'm feeling SO MUCH better. I know that these last 40 pounds will probably be harder to get off, but I'm committed. 

Felicity had her last day of school on Friday.  She had graduation practice and was going to work on her senior brick in the choir room.  The choir director allows each senior to paint a brick on the choir room wall, so she spent time working on that after graduation practice.  I made sure to get a last day picture.  So here's my beauty on her first day of kindergarten and her last day of 12th grade. 

I had an appointment at the salon to get my hair done later in the morning, so I enjoyed some self-care time.  While I was at the salon I got an email letting me know that Felicity had been awarded a $5,000 scholarship from the 100 Club of Arizona a non-profit that provides assistance, including immediate financial aid, educations, and ongoing support for all public safety members and their families.  This is a huge blessing!  We're still waiting to hear back on several other scholarships we've applied for, but this one will be very helpful as Felicity gets ready to start college in the fall.

The big kids watched Jude in the evening and Phil and I went into town on a date.  We went to dinner and then hopped between a couple of Home Depots and Tractor Supply where I bought five new trees.  I got a new apple to replace the one that blew over a few weeks ago and an apricot, avocado and two cherries.

Saturday morning we were fairly busy.  Phil planted my trees and I had an appointment in Green Valley.  When I got home we went to lunch with my parents at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Felicity's graduation.  We had a great time.  The waitress even made Felicity sit on a saddle while she announced to the restaurant that she'd be graduating later that evening.  It was wonderful!  

After lunch we dropped Felicity off at Kino ballpark where they were holding graduation.  We should have just stayed there because when we came back at 6 PM the line to get in was wrapped around the building.  It meant that we didn't get very good seats at all.  Luckily for me Felicity took some pictures, some friends sent me pictures, and the high school posted a live stream on YouTube so I was able to snag screen shots from there.  

Felicity and the other choir seniors got to sing the National Anthem which was beautiful.  About a minute in Felicity made eye contact with her band director and got teary.  The speeches were good and relatively short. 

The choir seniors also sang "Remember This" which was fun.  

I love the big cheer that went up when Felicity walked across the stage to receive her diploma.  She had lots of teachers there to hug her and someone sent me a great picture of my dear friend Allison, who was on stage as a member of the school board, giving her a big hug.  I am so grateful for everyone who has loved on, taught, and inspired my child over the last four years.  

They even had fireworks at the end.  I held it together alright.  It wasn't until I went through the pictures and re-watched the video today that I got a little teary.  I'm so proud of Felicity. I have a lot of mixed feelings.  Joy for her and excitement for her future.  Fear that I didn't do enough to prepare her to set out on her own.  Sadness knowing that she'll move to Thatcher at the end of the summer.  Loss that my family dynamic will change.  Gratitude for the blessing of being her mother. 

 Nana and Papa and Grandma Sue and Aunt Dorothy also came to celebrate with us which was great.  We took pictures in the parking lot after the ceremony and it took us FOREVER to get out of the parking lot.  Dad promised ice cream so we ordered milkshakes online from Sonic.  We drove up and parked, checked in with the app and waited and waited and waited.  Finally Phil pushed the button and they said they were closed because their computer was down.  So we drove around to the drive thru to give her our receipt showing that we had already paid.  The gal at the window said there was nothing she could do and that we could get a refund in the app.  When I asked where in the app I could get a refund she said "I don't know, I've never used it".  Ugh!  We wasted 30 minutes of our night and $17 for nothing.  Needless to say I don't think we'll be using the order ahead app at Sonic ever again.

Sunday morning Phil and I got up early, he was putting the finishing touches on a talk he was giving in sacrament meeting and I prepared for my Sunday school lesson.  Last week I was extended a new calling to teach Gospel Doctrine every other week which is the adult Sunday School class.  I happily accepted and pray I'll do a good job.  Felicity ended up staying home from church as she wasn't feeling well.  We were excited to have Grandma Sue and Aunt Dorothy join us for church; they came to hear Phil's talk during Sacrament Meeting.  He was asked to talk about the Family Proclamation  and I think he did a great job.  The main take-aways that I heard were that abiding by the principles of the family proclamation will bring happiness (and not doing so doesn't bring joy) and if your family doesn't look like the ideal family there's still hope through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I was very proud of him.

I gave my first Sunday School lesson second hour from Come Follow Me.  I mainly focused on the story of King Noah and Abinadi in the book of Mosiah from the Book of Mormon.  I think it went well.  There was lots of participation so I couldn't ask for more than that.

After church we went home to get Felicity and then drove to the Rita Ranch building where Felicity participated in Seminary graduation.  For the last four years Felicity has gotten up early to attend a religion class four days a week before school.  She has had amazing and wonderful teachers and learned good study habits and hopefully is graduating with greater knowledge of Jesus Christ and a resolve to do what is right.  We are again so proud of her and her example.

We came home and watched "The Singles Ward" together and had ice cream and decompressed from a very full and busy weekend.

12 May 2024

It was kind of a rough week for us.  Felicity was still really sick on Monday and missed school, it also meant that she missed her last high school choir concert. She was so upset.  She finally earned a solo for this concert and she didn't get to perform it.  She spent the week resting her voice.  Jude had his last music class on Monday and he and dad had a great time.  They created a Man in the Moon using veggies.

I finished up a tee shirt quilt on Tuesday so I guess that I should start working on Felicity's tee shirt quilt next.  I dropped it off to be quilted in between meetings.  In the evening I met Millissa, Allison, and Delora at the temple.  After the temple we went out to dinner at Seis Kitchen (which was delicious) and enjoyed a great meal and even better conversation.  

I was also able to give them the quilts that I made.  I'm excited to finally share photos.  I made labels for them commemorating our time in the Stake Relief Society Presidency together.

By Wednesday Jude and I were sick too.  Very few things are as frustrating as taking care of a sick toddler who doesn't understand why he feels crudy when you're sick yourself.  Jude has also decided that he's afraid of his bedroom and wants to sleep in our bed.  I have always been a staunch "no kids in the bed" mother and yet I wake up most mornings with tiny cold feet in the small of my back.  Let's pray this is a short phase.

Felicity participated in the senior parade on Friday morning.  The Vail school district has the seniors dress in their caps and gowns and parade through the elementary and middle schools in the district.  It gives them an opportunity to see old teachers and hopefully inspire the younger kids to make it through to graduation.  They had the band seniors play the fight song as the seniors paraded through.  

Friday evening I took a bunch of Tylenol and a handful of cough drops and Felicity and I went to the choir banquet.  Amidst slide shows and awards, each of the seniors got to sing a song of their choosing.  

 Felicity's solo went surprisingly well considering she had no voice at all on Monday.  She sang "Last Night on Earth" by Green Day as her selected piece.  It was a lovely night.  She had so many good experiences in choir over the last four, I know it's something she will miss.

I got up Saturday morning and ran to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, to Tractor Supply for dog food, and then to the grocery store.  I was feeling pretty awful by the time I got to the frozen food section of the grocery store and climbed right back into bed when I got home and stayed there the rest of the day.  Helen and Felicity had a drama banquet in the evening and Felicity opted to stay home, which was too bad because she won the "Best Female Ensemble" Oscar.

 Phil came home on Sunday morning and brought me flowers and a card for Mother's Day.  He also got me a new serger which I'm very excited about it.  I now have a whole family of Janome machines!  I spent the rest of my Mother's Day in bed sick.  

Felicity performed at the Monte Awards on Sunday afternoon at the Arts Express Theater.  The Monte Awards are the Southern Arizona high school musical theater finals.  Winners from the Montes get to go to New York and compete in the Jimmy Awards which are the high school equivalent of the Tony Awards.  Felicity didn't qualify to compete for a Monte because she didn't have a qualifying role in the musical this year, but they invited her as one of three special musical numbers to perform at the competition.  I kind of considered it an honorable mention.  It actually worked out really well, she ended up getting more solo time than most of the competitors.  Again, she did well considering she still had a raspy cough Sunday morning.  It took her a few bars to settle in and then once she did it was beautiful.  I'm grateful that she had this opportunity to be recognized.  We watched the live steam which was perfect, I could watch from bed and cough and sneeze and blow my nose as much as I needed to.  It also meant I got to grab a bootleg recording!  

 

05 May 2024

 Welcome May!  We are in the homestretch for the school year, its hard to believe.  We had a fun albeit busy week.  On Monday Felicity participated in a concert for United Sound which is a club at Cienega to provide musical performance experiences for students with special needs through peer mentorship.   I heard it was a good performance.  I got my Fancy Fox quilt back from the quilter this week so I added my label and got the binding on and its now ready for Christmas.  I love it, it turned out so cute.

 After the kids got home from various activities on Tuesday night we did family scripture study before bed.  Helen came out to the family room wearing a facial mask and Jude was enamored.  He couldn't focus on anything else.  He kept trying to touch her face.  Felicity found one for him to wear and so he walked around looking like Hannibal Lecter the rest of family scriptures.  Joy.  I couldn't even convince him to take off the mask when it was time to go to bed, so he slept in it.  I did, however, sneak in after he fell asleep to peel it off so he didn't accidently suffocate in his sleep.  He's a character!

I'm working on a couple of tee shirt quilts for Felicity and another senior this week.  I just had to add a touch of embroidery magic, so I made a label for each and a class of 2024 block.  The quilts are turning out really well. It would be awesome if I could get them done and quilted before graduation, but that time is closing in quickly.  Only two weeks left till graduation.

Phil took Jude to Grandma Sue's on Wednesday where he and his brother were doing some work for her in the backyard.  Jude had a great time and came home sunburned and happy.  I enjoyed some Jude-free time in the middle of my work-day especially because work has gotten so busy lately.

On Thursday was full.  Phil was at work which always makes things a little more hectic.  In the morning I had two turkey chicks start to hatch.  I don't know if the humidity in the incubator was off or what, but they were really struggling.  The shells were getting gummed up and stuck.  I tried to help the babies along a bit, but by Friday morning both babies had died.  Ranch life: two steps forward, one step back...except when its one step forward and two steps back which is what it has felt like this year.  Jude had a well-patient visit with the pediatrician Thursday afternoon.  He had a great time and was very chatty with his doctor.  He's doing great and growing well.  We had a brief conversation about potty-training and I acknowledged that I should be more focused on helping him to get fully toilet trained, but was not overly motivated.  I assured the pediatrician that I've successfully potty-trained three other humans, so I could probably manage Jude too...I only half believe that arrogant statement, this is Jude we're talking about.

I was asked to talk about homesteading at a weekday Relief Society activity on Thursday evening.  I was only supposed to talk for 20-30 minutes, but ended up going way over and spoke for an hour and still felt rushed.  I created a slide deck to keep me on target, but its a lot of information for one lecture.  I sure do love our ranch.  I brought oranges, grapefruit, goat milk soap, eggs, pork, and venison to give away along with some peach pie filling that I had canned and some preserves.  I also took the opportunity to take my vintage farm quilt to hang as a back drop.  Hopefully it wasn't too boring for the other sisters.  We also had lessons on canning and sewing which were interesting.

Felicity gave her Senior Exit Project presentation on Friday afternoon and I heard it went really well.  She's almost done with that graduation requirement.  In the evening she and Helen attended the band banquet where Felicity was honored with the Director's Award, which is the equivalent to student of the year.  They had a great time.

This weekend did not go the way I had planned.  Back in January I booked my family a resort vacation for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of this week.  A mini vacation without me.  For Mother's Day this year I was finally going to make good on a sentiment I've expressed for several years, that the perfect Mother's Day would be a weekend with a clean and quiet house free of people needing things from me.  So I booked a stay at the Great Wolf Lodge in Scottsdale for Phil and the kids and I was going to have the house to myself on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Life however didn't cooperate.  Felicity's Senior Exit Project presentation got scheduled for Friday afternoon and then the band banquet for that evening, so Felicity and Helen wouldn't be able to leave Friday morning.  Then Phil got called in for overtime on Saturday.  Well dang.  So Friday morning Phil took the boys to the resort for the day, they played in the water park for several hours and got to eat out and spend the day with Dad.  

They drove back home Friday evening and then Saturday morning Phil went to work and the kids and I drove back to Scottsdale to finish our mini-vacation.  We got pops and snacks on the way and enjoyed time in the very large indoor waterpark, climbed on the ropes course and rock wall and had a fun dinner out.  The kids snuggled in Saturday night with candy and pop and watched a Harry Potter movie marathon from their hotel beds.  Sunday morning Felicity wasn't feeling well, so we headed home early.  So while my selfish plans were thwarted, the kids did have a fun weekend.

On Sunday, we didn't get home in time to make it to church, so Phil went without us.  We had a quiet afternoon with Felicity spending most of the day in bed sick.  We're all hoping she feels better soon as she has a choir concert Monday with a solo and her senior solo at the choir banquet at the end of next week. I continued to work on my tee shirt quits, but I took a few minutes and made a towel for Phil's niece who is being baptized next month.  I learned a new skill, embroidering on terry cloth with different types of stabilizers.  It turned out so beautifully, I'm really proud of it!

I know I have been reporting on my weight-loss progress every four weeks, but I thought I would share a milestone from this week.  I have been at a plateau for the last six weeks or so and it has been very frustrating.  I doubled down last week and really focused on eating enough protein and really sticking to my eating plan.  My body FINALLY let go of some weight.  A lot of weight actually,  I lost 8.6 pounds this week and weighed in at 201.4 which means I have lost 100 pounds!  What an accomplishment!  I am officially down 101.6 pounds and am 68% to my goal weight.  I'm hoping that I'll be under 200 pounds next week and can continue to make good progress.  I think arbitrarily I want to be at goal by the end of September, which would be one year since I started.