This Week at Our House #46 Thanksgiving and Mold

I am just going to paste in part of the email I sent to Ruth about our week with a few high lights.

We had Thanksgiving and a lot of unforseen work in addition. I'll tell you about it. On Monday we had hundreds of flies hanging out on our deck and coming in the back door, so we had to bleach the back deck. We are still getting a lot of flies though, so we have still had a ton of fly killing. It is supposed to freeze soon, so hopefully that problem will go away naturally. I wish I knew where they were coming from. We have not been able to find their source anywhere directly around the house or where the ducks and chickens stay. All seems to be clean.

On Tuesday, I had the regular unborn baby checkup. I decided that would be a good day to do all of our Thanksgiving shopping. I also decided to hold school on Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday

morning, Arwen began reading, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, to me. The beginning talks about the mom going to down for the day and saying "somebody, somebody has to clean this away. Then she picked picked out two somebodies Sally and me." Well that made me laugh pretty hard because that is what I do every time I go to town for doctors and shopping and that takes me a good portion of the day because we live a half hour out of town. I read that part to the kids and they laughed and groaned because they knew that I was going to town for that day.

As it turned out, I finished up the school things I needed to do earlier than usual and had enough time to clean the kitchen, wash the dishes, and do the laundry. I also got some of the kids who were coming along with me to get the floors picked up and swept. We were leaving the kids with a clean house rather than demanding that they make sure I come home to a clean house. But just as we were about to head out the door, Kate discovered mold covering all of her shoes. Mold was under her bed, behind her dresser, on the side of her bed and growing on the walls and edge of the carpet. (Now this is a new thing. It was not there two days before.) I had the doctor's appointment, so I had to leave then and I needed to take Kate as she was helping a lot with

Thanksgiving shopping and child care during my doctor's appointment. So I quoted from the book and picked out two somebodies, Johnny and Adam. All the kids had to clean up the girl's bedroom, pull out all of the furniture and wash up all of the mold and blow fans over the walls and windows to dry everything up. The main problem seems to be the high humidity and condensation. Blowing fans at the windows keeps everything drier.

Kate, Rachel, Arwen, Sam and I left once I had picked out my two somebodies. My appointment was a lot of waiting and very little of anything else. Kate had to sit in the waiting room for an hour with the little kids. Then we had to go to three stores to get all the things we needed. It was a long trip. When we got home several hours later, we had to clear all the groceries from the car and find ways to squeeze them into our one fridge-- always takes a while. Johnny and Adam then informed us that cleaning up the mold was a big and arduous task that took them a few hours. Thankfully, dinner was frozen crab rangoon, kung po chicken, and egg rolls that I had bought frozen at the store. Most days, I want us eating homemade healthy food, but on days like these, I am grateful for the frozen section. I cooked up some veggies to go with dinner, but we did not even bother with rice. Everyone was tired of working by then.

But we noticed mold behind the couch and had to take care of that. Fortunately, that was easier to take care of.

Wednesday, we finally had a dry enough day to get some real laundry done. It has been wet and rainy and very humid for weeks, and we had not been able to get much laundry dried since the previous Friday. Our dryer died in March, so we hang our laundry outside on a line to dry now. Rainy weeks make cleaning our clothes and towels difficult. In addition to that, Kate and I, Rachel, and Anya spent hours in the kitchen cooking for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, we made too many pies and ended up feeding one and a half to the chickens. But that is the main reason I love the chickens. I feed them all the food that we would have thrown away, and they give us eggs in exchange.

By the end of the day I had worked very hard and not gotten enough to eat, which seems to be the one thing that rises my blood sugar. It was the highest it ever was and certainly quite dangerous for the baby. John cooked up some meat and mexican mole for me, in addition to our pie dinner. We had made me a nearly sugar free apple pie, and not with fake sugar, just very, very little sugar. I loved having that. But I needed protein to bring down my blood sugar. I think this is all anti-intuitive. One would think eating less and exercising more would lower blood sugar not raise it. But for me right now, the days I work the hardest and eat the least are the days I have the highest blood sugar. I understand from the doctor that it's basically because my body is breaking down fats to give me more sugar. It makes me wonder what really is the right thing to do. Eat more and rest more, always seems wrong to me.

Everyone else had a pretty busy day too. So again, we were all tired and done and the next day we would be cooking a huge meal.

Thursday Kate and I started on Thanksgiving cooking around 10am, and we finished around 6pm. We had the meal, which was quite lovely, and then a lot of the cleanup.

While moving the table away from the dining room wall and window to prepare for a family meal around the table, we ran into more mold behind the table. So we had to do more mold clean up while cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

The dinner was delicious. John had spent a lot of time saying he wanted ribs, so we made those too and then he was mad because he said he wanted ribs and not turkey because he wanted us to do less. I thought he was just desperate for ribs on Thanksgiving. But in the end, the ribs as leftovers were a favorite. I may add them to the meal again since most of the cooking for them is done in the crock pot.

Friday is our weekly clean the whole house day. Which we did, but had a lot more to do. Kate cleaned the whole pantry because we have had mice in there and had to clean up mouse poop and pee. I found all their holes and stopped them up with steal scrubbies and had Johnny nail a board over them, so hopefully that won't be so bad. (Simon is a useless cat. He will not kill mice. They are his friends. But now the chickens and the kittens are starting to kill and eat the mice, so I am hoping that the problem will be solved soon.)

Well, during our cleaning, Anya found mold on the toy boxes and toy shelf in Susan and Sam's room. Johnny had finished his chore and went in to start cleaning there and it was bad. I spent a long time in there with Johnny after cleaning two bathrooms. We washed walls and carpets and the crib and the toy shelf. We ended up just moving out the crib and giving Sam a mattress. (We sort of have a spare one because Joseph and Joshua still share a bed even though they've had their own beds. Now they only have a sharing bed.)

Then I had to wash the floors still. Fortunately we had Thanksgiving leftovers for food. We were pretty tired by the end of the day.

This sounds like a tough week, but it wasn't bad at all. We all worked together cooking and cleaning and taking care of things that need to be taken care of. We had a delicious Thanksgiving coupled by some good family times. The kids enjoyed their three day school break.

Normally, we would be starting our winter vacation, but I am postponing that until the baby is born. I want to get as much school done early in the year as possible. We are still a week ahead in the school year from starting early. I am hoping to make some of that vacation time go into May, so we can just end the school year early. The kids seem semi-okay with this.

Some fun highlights:

• The food was all good and came out well.
• The kids cooked and cleaned a lot this year.
• Most of the little kids were thankful for chickens and ducks.
• Most of the older kids were thankful for siblings and Joseph Smith,
• Except Adam who was thankful for all of the food on the table and lots of other foods.
• Joseph and Anya, while discussing Black Friday and how people leave Thanksgiving dinner early to go shopping said the new version of the Holiday should be called, "Thanks-Give-Me". I love how they see the irony in our world, even as we don't participate.
•  
  
  As we were setting the table with our good dishes, Sam and Susan recognized that we were celebrating something special, but could not tell what, so they sat at the table and sang "Happy Birthday" over and over before we started the meal.
• When I showed Sam his big mattress, he got excited, moved a lot of blankets onto it, and jumped on it for about an hour.
• Sam has found a clever way to get the computer stuff that is locked in the closet. He pulls the cords out from under the door. That kid is undefeatbale!
• Sam actually played with toys instead of computer stuff the past two days. Right now he has train tracks set up across the dining room floor with dinosaurs set around it. 
  
• We are now getting between 4 and 6 eggs a day and all we feed our chickens is leftover food from our plates, split peas, oatmeal, cornmeal, and popcorn. I always heard chicken feed was not worth the cost of the eggs. But Brigham Young said if you have enough kids, you have enough wasted food to keep a pig. He was right. Our chicken feed costs us less than eggs, and they eat food that would have otherwise been trashed, as well as bugs and mice.
• We had a chicken kill a mouse, and then a kitten come and steal it from her.
• Wednesday night Arwen asked me how old you had to be to learn to cook. I said she was old enough now, so on Thanksgiving Arwen helped to make the rolls and mashed the potatoes and the squash. Arwen did such a good job, she needed very little coaching or watching over.

Stories from Ruth #61

 

This week had been wild! Cooking a fish whole and forgetting to clean it sums up the week pretty well!

Barry this guy we teach cane to church this week! Which was awesome!
I am out of time so I will share a scripture that touched my heart this week:

Mosiah 3:19 "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

I know that this gospel is true and is given to us to help us live a godly life and to be able to overcome the natural man and come off conqueror. It is only through Christ that we can overcome it. And I am so grateful for my saviour and his sacrifice for us all.

This Week at Our House #45

I think we had a good and peaceful week on the whole. Johnny came with me Monday for another ultrasound and discussions with the specialists about Gestational Diabetes, so that he could then help me with the grocery shopping. The appointment took 2.5 hours and the shopping took another hour and a half. The rest of the week, I was pretty strict about getting school in and keeping up on the housework. The kids were good and peaceful. We have been working to remove all contention from our home, and I think this week the kids did really well. We didn't have the usual quibbles over toys or spots on the couch. John and I are pleased with the efforts our kids are making to bring the Spirit of the Lord into our home.

1. John is moving forward on his big game, and he has had some job interviews and we are all focusing our prayers on getting this fixed for our family, and feeling hopeful that the Lord will bless us in good time.
2. I am being very good on the diet and have gained very little weight this whole pregnancy. Some days I feel well and some days I feel weak and tired. I was pleased that I got everyone's hair cut and all of the summer clothes exchanged for the winter clothes.
3. Ruth likes her new companion a lot and this is  good Christmas for these two to be together. Ruth's companion's parents wrote her and told her they could give her nothing for Christmas, and Ruth knows we can do nothing for Christmas too and I think as a companionship that makes them feel more comfortable. Hopefully they get to stay together for the whole season.
4. Kate has a great many things she is working on and has told the younger kids that she just doesn't have free time she used to have and so she can't play the long lego games with them nearly as much.
5. Johnny has been very busy with all of the things that he is doing and learning, so we see him around a lot less.
6. While Adam was lying on the floor, Sam and Susan lifted the top off from the piano bench and stuck it on his face which broke his already broken but still functional glasses. Now Adam has to be blind until his glasses come in, which could be a while yet-- poor boy.
7. Rachel made french bread twice this week and then made it into french bread pizza for dinner. So she cooked dinner twice too and did an excellent job with no tears or arguments.
8. Anya has moved her imaginary world outside and makes up the games for her Joseph to act out and anyone else who wants to join in.
9. Joseph has been reading and reading and reading and when he is not reading he is outside. He has loved the cool weather and exploring our big yard and playing pretend games with Anya. I love that my kids love the out doors and love going out to play and explore.
10. Joshua spent his week playing outside too. I went out to check up on the younger kids and Josh had Sam on a little scooter and was pushing him around. Before that, he had walked him around and collected different plants and rocks and sticks.
11. Arwen has changed her clothes probably 8 times in less than 24 hours because she wants to wear all of her winter clothes now. I exchanged them yesterday.
12. Susan loves to collect the chicken eggs. She goes and checks for them several times a day. Today she got one from her own chicken which made her extra happy. 
13. Sam had his birthday and loved it. Now that he can climb out of his bed, we are having a very hard time getting him to bed at night. It has made some nights every hard because he gets up and can't get back to sleep even if he wants to.
14. Baby Gideon is weighing in around 4lbs, according to the ultrasound and everything is looking good or the same as before. I can tell that I have above average amniotic fluid. I can feel it when I push the baby around, there is a swish that there wasn't with other pregnancies. But apparently, my extra fluid is very slight. 

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Stories from Ruth # 60

 

This week was wild. Sorry I didn't write last week it was wild too. Basically this week was meetings meetings, meetings. On Monday we had zone conference, then on Tuesday we had planned a lot of appointments because we forgot it was preparation day, on Saturday we had interviews with President Checketts, and then on Sunday the church did a huge remembrance day celebration. Now like those who do not know, like I didn't two years ago, remembrance day is a time to remember all those who died in WW1. They lay wreaths at memorials, everyone wears poppies from the first of November until the eleventh and the poppy has to be at 11 o'clock because at 11 in the morning of November 11th they have a two minute silence for that was when the armistice was and the war was over. Crazy week, I would not say too much work was done but we did have some cool miracles.

First one was Jade. He is looking for a better life when we stopped him and he wanted to know more.

We dropped a Book of Mormon at his house with a note that said to read Mosiah 4 which he did, and he loved it. It touched his heart. We taught him and sent him a scripture to read daily. He liked it and even one day sent the scripture to a friend of his. The day before we were supposed to meet him in person someone told him that the Book of Mormon was not true and was evil. She told him that we were lying to him. However, he had already read the Book and felt the spirit and the power it contained. The next day when he saw us he told us and we explained to him about the restoration and how even Christ was rejected by the pharisees although he was their messiah. It is the same with Christians and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, those who are unwilling to repent and change their ways will never become the disciples of Christ despite the multitude of various commandments they keep and tote their righteousness like a badge mimicking the pharisees. Even members are prone to such thoughts and are unwilling to submit their wills to God and sacrifice all that they have and are unlike Abraham but resemble to rich young man. Well Jade was touched by the lesson and by the vision Joseph Smith had of God and his Son Jesus Christ and is reading the Book of Mormon daily and praying to know the truth. 

I also met this member named Akhtar when I was in Watford. He referred his friend to us and taught with us for a while. Well he is in my ward here, and I felt impressed that we needed to teach his two little girls. Well on Sunday he comes up and tells us that he wants us to teach his girls! Bless!
Also on Monday night we had a lesson with Stephen. His wife is a member and so are all of his children. While teaching Stephen he mentioned bout how people react when they hear that they are Mormons and I felt prompted to tell him that that was how the pharisees reacted to Christ. Even a few minutes later he was pondering over it and the spirit permeated the room he said that it really resonated with him. He agreed to read the Book of Mormon daily and to pray about it daily. I also told him that I wanted the whole family to work towards going to the temple and to start by having family prayers and scripture study which he really liked and even said that it would bring the spirit more into his home.

I know that this church is true. I am grateful for this time that I have to go out and to declare the word of God, that he lives and he speaks to us today through a prophet and through personal revelation. This is the only true and living church upon the earth and everyday I am more grateful for it.
The scripture that has struck me a lot lately is: 

3 Nephi 18:15 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by

the devil, and ye be led away captive by him.
16 "And as I have prayed among you even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent and are baptized in my name. Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you."

We have to watch and pray always. We must be valiant, vigilant, and diligent in the work of the Lord and if we trust in him, keep his commandments, and submit our wills unto that of the father, we will be like him and able to live with him again.

Oh Tender Mercy! I felt prompted to knock on this lady's door, even though she was Hindu. She was from gouderati (don't know how to spell it but it is in India) and I told her I lived with Indians and loved their food. Well we gave her a "family proclamation to the world" since she did not speak much English and she said she had to go. We went to the next door and talked to this funny old English man named Bernard when the Indian woman popped her head out of the door and asked if I liked Indian sweets. The answer was of course yes, and she came out and gave us a bunch of Indian sweets including fresh baked ones! We might bring her cookies someday but she made our day!

Happy Birthday Sam!!!

This spunky little man is 2!!! He had his birthday this week, though, as all of the kids have commented, "Sam has been 2 for 2 months". He is a full on two year old with all the mischief and cuteness that goes along with the age. Sam LOVED his birthday! He knew exactly what was going on and acted very important the whole day. The following day, he was back to himself and all of his antics. Sam LOVES computers, computer parts, and electronics. Those are his "toy" of choice, which has caused no small stir in the family. We have had to find ways to lock up computers and computer parts and to keep him from trying to plug every cord he gets his hands on into an outlet. Sam's other love is food!! We recognized that within an hour after his birth. As we say, Sam was born to eat, and he loves a variety of food. Cheese, oranges, juice, and cold cereal seem to be his favorite, but he loves cookies  and ice cream too. Sam even likes to sit by me and eat my green salads and carrot sticks. Sam is my most cuddly baby. He likes to spend between one and three hours a day sitting on me and cuddling. And one last thing that Sam alone can claim is blue eyes. It took 11 children, but we finally got a blue eyed child. Ruth had blue eyes until she turned 2, and others had them until 1 or 1 and a half. But none of them had them as long and as bright as Sam. We're pretty certain Sam's blue eyes will stay, and since they give him so much attention, I think he likes having blue eyes too.

This Week at Our House #44

We had a reasonably quiet week, getting back to school. The kids did their school work without much complaining. Adam had an eye doctor appointment and a lot more of our chickens began laying eggs. We have 7 chickens and have been wondering for a while which ones are hens and which ones are roosters and it's looking more and more like we have 7 hens, as 5 are now laying and the two youngest are both nesting. We aren't even sure how that happened. I really didn't want more than one rooster, but expected more like 3 roosters and 4 hens. The eggs have been great, though and the kids are really enjoying them. I don't think I will have to buy eggs again for a while. Today we got 5!

1. John continues to work a lot of hours. When he is not working, he is either teaching the older kids or playing with the little kids.
2. I had a week of no doctor's appointments and that was wonderful. I will have one each the next two weeks. They were both this coming week, but I changed one to accommodate grocery shopping needs. I am seeing a fetal medicine specialist and a group of CNMs. 
3. Ruth did not write anything this week. Instead she sent a few one line response emails and two 10 minute voice recordings, so I have nothing to post from her. She would like me to send more voice recordings, but it's generally easier for me to sit down and write. But all is well with her. She is teaching the English for the first time. She has been teaching immigrants up until this transfer. I think she misses her immigrants, but I am glad that she will have an opportunity to teach the English in whom we likely have many common ancestors. 
4. Kate's been very busy working on her book and transcribing all the documents she and Johnny downloaded from the Joseph Smith Papers. She has also been doing a lot of math.
5. Johnny has been busy with transcription too as well as his computer programming, and math. He also spent one day on the roof.
6. It was cold this morning, so I told the kids they could wrap themselves in a blanket because I was not going to turn on the heat. Adam, instead rolled all the blankets together in a tight roll and then rolled the kids in the blankets. He tried to roll more than one kid together, but that did not work out too well.
7. Rachel adores Kate. She comes up behind her and hugs her and spends lots and lots of time talking to her.
8. Anya and Joseph spent the all their free time outside. They have some imaginary games they play together. Every now and then, I see one of them and another comes in and asks why the other quit the game.
9. Joseph checks on the chickens several times a day. They are free range and he is not happy if he does not know where they are and what else is flying in the sky. He also loves to chase them, hold them, and collect their eggs.
10. I asked Joshua what I should write about him on this blog this week and he has come up with all kinds of random things, like characters in the game Anya has made up.
11. Arwen got back into reading better than I thought she would after having taken a week off from school. She is progressing and now has all the skills she needs to sound out tough words. I think having her read some from the Book of Mormon has helped her a lot. Plus, she is not even 6 and a half yet, so I think for her age, she is doing quite well.
12. Susan gets tired between 6 and 7pm and tries to sneak in a nap that is nearly impossible to wake her up from, and then she tries to stay up until between 12 and 1am. I thought the time change might get us all to bed earlier and up earlier. But those hopes were wrong. My kids seem to live by the clock and some some inner clock. The hour change did nothing.
13. Sam continues to get into everything. He is talking a lot more too and talks in complete sentences. He will be two tomorrow. Johnny and Adam got chips, cookies, and candy for their birthdays. When I told him that tomorrow is his birthday, he excitedly pointed out his brother's snacks that he very badly wants.

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