Stake Conference

 

Podcasts

 I love to listen to podcasts when I'm walking.  Moth, This American Life, and Ted Talks Daily are my regular choices.  Lately I've been listening to Conversations with Jennifer Finlayson-Fife.  She has so many great things to say and is so pleasant to listen to.

Happiness is found in living a good life, not having "the good life."

Salvation isn't for after we die.  It's here and now. 

Visiting Grandma

 

We drove out and brought lunch to Grandma.  lP showed grandma all the fun things she has been doing in procreate on the ipad.  I showed grandma our pictures from California.  We played 2 rounds of solitaire.  Grandma won the first round and Phillip the second.

We celebrated 40 to 1 day.

M, G and I went to the homecoming game and wore red even though it was hot!

Covid strikes

 Friday night I felt achy.  I planned to go to the temple on Saturday so I took a covid test and it was positive.  I immediately put on a mask and proceeded to isolate.

Sunday we all tested.  Penny and Levi joined me in quarantine.

Wendesday Geoff joined the quarantine.

Thursday P bought us a nice canopy so we could enjoy the outside space even more.  The beach umbrella we were using to give us shade did not keep water off the table.  We were making do but P thought we could do better.  It was so nice to have a huge shady place outside that stayed dry!

On Sunday we made G join us for family quarantine time.  G and lP sat and read a book on his laptop.

We also played settlers for the first time after years of playing the Jr. version.

Student loan forgiveness

 I went to school in 1997.  Between the low tuition, living communally, scholarships, part time job, and my parents' help, I didn't have any student debt when I graduated.  I think it is wonderful that President Biden is excusing $10K of student loan debt.  Not everyone has the advantages I have.  Debt is terrible.

I think people assume students are partying and running up debt in college.  I suspect it is the students with wealthy parents doing the most partying.  If you have to borrow money to go to college, you don't have money to party.

Last year experiences

 We got a pass to the alligator farm.  We usually went about once a year, and now we aim to go monthly.

We also have a goal to go to the beach 100 times.  We're at about 65, so we need to get some more visits in : )  My hope is that the children will look back and feel like we really got to experience this town.  We'll be sad to move next year, but we will have new experiences.

back to school

 We've gone back to school.  We leave the house at 7am to drop off lP, then M at seminary, then G near his school with his bike.  I pick up lP and we can still make it to various activities.  M has band some days, and regular pick up other days.  G rides his bike home and does not get killed.

I took the 3 peas to a homeschool group meeting today.  It was popcicles and the park and tons of new kids.  It wasn't even all of them!  

M got all the electives she was hoping for but now is less thrilled with a new teacher.  G had hoped an internship at NG would be awesome, then we realized it was a vocational rather than higher ed path.  lP got to borrow an oboe from the HS band director that is so nice I'm worried to let her use it!  P went back to the Dr. and got his foot worked on, no fun.  B and L got haircuts and look snazzy.

I'm trying to re-commit to walking 1000 miles this year.  It's going to be hard and I might not make it, but I'm going to put in the effort and try.