Laundry, Laundry, Laundry

Hello Jessie,
I hope things are going great!  Things are starting to open up here a
little bit; are you seeing anything developing in Alberta?  Based on some
guidelines I read in the paper this week, it sounds like we won't be able
to return to church until fall.  That's far longer than I had hoped.  I
presume that means the temple won't be open until then either, and then
they are talking about limiting ordinances to small groups for living
ordinances only.  That means I may not be able to return to the temple
regularly until possibly next year.  I hope that's not the case!
Enjoy your Sabbath day tomorrow.  We will think of you!
Love,
Dad

Laundry day!  I lost track of how many loads we washed and dried, but it was a lot.  There is one more ready to fold and another in the dryer, then we’ll be done with most of the laundry.  There are still a couple more loads that are ready to go in, but it’s getting late and I think we’ve folded enough for today.  We mopped the kitchen and dining room.  The bedrooms were cleaned so mom could vacuum upstairs.  She emptied the vacuum twice.  Yuck.

This morning I made banana muffins with two bananas that were so old they were entirely black and the peels were turning to shells.  I had to cut out some bruised parts, so I added some applesauce.  And they turned out wonderfully.

We participated in the semiannual ritual of digging through the buckets of clothes in the basement to get out summer clothes and put away winter clothes.  It is so… amazing? Nostalgic? Bittersweet?  Pick your word, it’s an interesting experience to pull out clothes for a young person that I remember a now-big person wearing when they were small.  Camilla looks great in the green striped Blues Clues shirt that Abbie wore more than ten years ago.  Either Emma or Camilla now has a dress that Julie and I remember Jessie wearing when she was little.

Last night Julie and I were talking and commented that we are both astonished that on June 1 we will have been in this house for eight years. The eight years in this home have gone so much faster than the first eight years in our last house.  In just three more years we will have been in this house as long as our last home.  Incredible.

This afternoon I spent a couple hours with Mike.  He wanted to show me the hotel where he is staying while his condo is repaired, then we went to the condo for a while.  The bottom two feet of all the sheetrock is torn off in the whole house and all the carpet is gone.  As long as that is torn up, Mike has decided to run some networking and video cables to wire up his home.  I tried to help him run some HDMI cable, but he couldn’t find his fish tape, and pushing the loose cable through the ceiling didn’t work.

On the way home I needed to get a new bottle nipple for Nathaniel, and decided to get a roast for dinner tomorrow since I was already stopping somewhere.  It was a comedy of errors.  Went to WinCo and had everything ready to go when I realized they don’t accept credit cards, I didn’t have enough cash, and I am not sure I remember the PIN on my debit card.  (Really embarrassing given my profession.)  Put everything back, then went to Smith’s.  Smith’s was nearly out of bananas, but I found a box of organic bananas that was under the regular display.  Beef is absurdly expensive, so I got a pork loin to fix tomorrow.  And their selection of baby bottles was pathetic.  I got one, but it filled Nathaniel so full of bubbles that he spit nearly everything back out.  That shopping trip wasn’t a failure (I did get two avocados for $1 each!), but I wouldn’t categorize it as a success either.

Thankful: I am very thankful for dishwashers (three loads today) and our washer and dryer.  We have three cars and they all work perfectly.  Two ovens and a stove to cook our food.  Buckets of clothes downstairs so we don’t have to buy new clothes for our kids as they grow.  We’re so, so blessed.

Ministering: Today I ministered to Mike.  I’m glad I could spend some time with him, and I hope it helped him feel important.

More later…

Hanging out with Mike

Spencer is getting very good at juggling!