Carey Family

Scott and Sue Family

Small Victories

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Winter storms make me feel yucky and want to curl up and hibernate.  I experience a variety of symptoms every time a storm roars through and they’re not fun.  So with this storm and the incredibly busy weekend I just barely survived, I wanted to lay in bed and read “David Copperfield” today.  But alas, it was not to be.  I spent the entire day packing up Halloween decorations, putting out Thanksgiving decorations, and cleaning my house in preparation for the college youth group that will be arriving at my house any minute.  (Now that all prep is done, I am sitting with my phone writing to you, dear reader).

You may be wondering at the title to this post.  It’s in reference to the fact that those activities didn’t use to take me an entire day.  Not too many years ago I could roar through the house like a bat out of you know where and have all that accomplished in a couple hours.  Not so now.  I am learning to pace myself, put on some music, and just move at a snail’s pace.  Frustrating, but it’s teaching me patience, I guess.

So here’s the victory: got it all done, got myself cleaned up and beautiful, and had 10 minutes to blog! Not bad!

Doorbell ringing………

September updates from Elder Brian

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9-6-2011
Hey what’s up!?  This is Elder Carey here, still in Mission Viejo at least for another 6 weeks.  Apart from my Greenie area, Mission Viejo will be the longest area that I have had on my mission!  Crazy, huh?!   I get bounced around a lot.  So, this would be the first time in over a year that I have stayed in area for 3 transfers.  I am super stoked though because this is an awesome area and an awesome ward! I love it A LOT!  I am really excited.

9-13-2011
Jueves:  We were on the freeway getting off at an exit, when all of the power went out!  You may have heard about it.  It was so annoying!!!  We were in the car for almost 2 hours stuck in traffic, trying to get home.  GAH!!  It was miserable.

Sabado: We sped over to the church to get ready for the fireside!  WOW, it was a HUGE SUCCESS!!  I was not expecting it to turn out soooo good.  Before every song, we had readers that read scriptural passages from the Book of Mormon about the Savior, and then before the last song, someone was asked to bear testimony. As I performed the last song, we turned all of the lights off, and they prepared a slideshow that they projected on the screen with pictures of the Savior.  They had a lamp, so that I could play and sing.  It was REALLY POWERFUL, there were a lot of tears!  It was super sweet.  I arranged all of the songs for the concert, except the last three.

The fireside went like this:
I Believe in Christ on the organ/piano (my comp and I)
Jesus Once of Humble Birth (sister missionary singing/me accompanying)
A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief (Me playing/singing)
Where Can I Turn for Peace? (Relief Society Choir, me accompanying)
How Great Thou Art (Me playing)
Our Savior’s Love/I Feel My Savior’s Love (Missionaries, me accompanying)
In Humility Our Savior (Me playing)
I Stand All Amazed (Me playing/singing)
I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Me playing/singing)

9-20-2011
We went over to teach [an investigator].  We brought [a recent convert] w/us, and she threw down, it was AWESOME!  Man, there is nothing better than bringing your recent convert with you to lessons.  It is the best thing in the world.  The lesson was great, and we were really happy.

9-27-2011
Lunes:  District Meeting.  It went really well.  I talked about all of the ideas that I have tried over my mission about working with members.  We are excited to make things happen.  I am stoked for General Conference this weekend, it is going to be sooo good.

The latest news

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1.  Ode to Inter-Library Loan: I have a tiny local library with a secret ingredient-ILL.  If I have patience, I can read anything I want, 3 times a month, for free.  Awesome!  This makes me happy.

2.  All Festival of Trees Gift Shop items have been made and turned in for this year.  I am done crafting for that.  I sewed more pillowcases and crocheted more burp cloths and made more cards.  My sister donated the leftover boutique items from her adoption boutique, so all told, I donated over 120 items this year.  That’s 110 more than my required 10.  (For the record, I always exceed the 10 number, but not by that much!)  Now it’s time to do my part for our family large tree in the bidding area.  This year our theme is Joy to the World and we’re doing classical music.

3.  I’ve been working fast and furious this week on Brian’s missionary scrapbook.  Have now finished year one, so am feeling pretty good about that.

4.  Our vegetable garden was retired last weekend and all remaining stalks mulched over with the tractor so it’s now a bare piece of ground.  We pulled out lots of annual flowers last weekend as well, but left in ones that were still blooming.  This week of uber-cold frost has now blackened those, so I need to get out this week and pull the rest.

5.  My new B&W picture wall in the family room is now complete and includes some vinyl lettering, which is a first for us.  After I finished, Scott seemed in a trance, saying we had vinyl on our walls, as if it was something he had never envisioned seeing in his own home.  I think it looks pretty cool and after he became reconciled, he thinks so, too.

6.  Monday night at midnight is Brian’s priority registration time for BYU classes.  I’ve spent a bunch of time working out classes and schedules and am now ready to jump on and get him some winter classes.  That’s for January 4th, when he’ll be home from his mission and then gone to BYU.  Seems soon!

A tale of misery and woe

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OK, this is my downer post-feel free to skip.  I’ve written it in my head several times over the past week and decided to keep waiting to get some perspective before blogging.  Not sure if I’ve been successful in gaining perspective, but maybe I’ve cut down on the invective and #$^%& words.  It all started with some kids bashing our mailbox with a baseball bat.  I found this out when the police officer came early in the morning to tell me about it.  We had replaced the box last year after it was destroyed by a pumpkin, but now the combined bashings have rendered our post untenable.  We live on a rural route so we have to have a box on the street, which means it’s open to the frequent temptation of cruising juveniles who want to destroy property.

Next we noticed that the hardwood floor in front of the refrigerator felt uneven under our stocking feet.  Upon further investigation, we found that the boards were warped, the water line between the frig and sink had a leak and we were looking at Scott’s favorite home repair: plumbing.  I’m being facetious, of course, because he’s a handy dude around the house but he really hates plumbing stuff.  Then I pulled our clothes out of the dryer to find they were still wet.  This was after 3 cycles.  Yeah, no heat in there whatsoever.  He looked at it and pronounced it DOA.  We’d had a couple days to absorb the mailbox, this other happened within a few minutes of each other.  We checked the basement office under the kitchen and no water down there.  Phew!

After several moments of despair, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.  We hung the wet clothes around the house to dry, went shopping for a mailbox, plumbing parts, and a new dryer and started fixing.  Scott got the leak under the sink fixed, we went to my in-laws to dry enough clothes to last us until the dryer could be delivered a week later, and put a continuous fan on the kitchen floor.  So far, so good.

Then a couple days ago we noticed a bad smell in the basement office and found we had wet carpet and a large wet area down the wall destroying the paint, and started fans on that.  They weren’t cutting it, so yesterday Scott rented a super blower to get it all dried.  I haven’t been down there this morning to check on the progress because it makes me want to cry every time I walk in there.  The only good thing I see is that we are both committed to tackling the long-standing problem of cleaning out the office this winter.  If only because we don’t want to move so much stuff out of there next time there’s a leak.  Oh, and the dryer was delivered late yesterday afternoon, so today I can do laundry and maybe get the clothes dry.

The icemaker is still not hooked up because Scott is nervous to upset the status quo, no decision has been made on what to do about the warped kitchen floor, I can’t even think about the mess in the office, and Blue Stakes has come to mark our parking strip so Scott plans to dig and install our new mailbox this weekend.  Just in time for Halloween pumpkin smashing.  And did I mention that we desperately need a new water heater?