What September Looked Like

Ugh... I hate how blogger's new format puts my pictures in reverse order...

Here we go again... September from beginning to end. 

On one of our nighttime beach walks,

Andrew and I found this half of a fish on the beach.

Ewww... That was a first.

I'm so happy that Whit has gotten back into art.

She is so creative and I love seeing the results.

She had been sketching hands, so I asked

her to sketch out the ASL for FAMILY.

We framed it and put it above our family pics.

One of Care Bear's meals for this month

was pot roast with veggies.

So good.

(And expensive! Sheesh!)

One Sunday after church, we drove past our first house

here in Greensboro. It is so cute! I was afraid this neighborhood

was going to go downhill, but people are still doing a good

job of maintaining their homes and lawns.

I loved that first little house!

I got all of my continuing ed classes done during quarantine

and am officially licensed for another three years.
I feel so professional!

Too bad I haven't practiced in 17 years and am not actually competent...

My latest DIY project:

Bathroom remodel!

I had so much fun working on this project.

I painted three of the four walls.

Put up subway-tile wallpaper on the fourth wall.

Stained the bathroom cabinet.

Removed and replaced the towel rack.

Replaced the light fixture.

And replaced the faucet.

Before and after looking into the bathroom

Before and After looking out from the tub.

When I couldn't find any artwork that I liked,

I had Whitney add her artistic touch.

She painted these canvases to coordinate with 

the shower curtain. So good!

After all that work fixing my washer last month,

I ended up having to buy a new one anyway.

Booooo!

Something ended up going wrong with the timer inside

and it's so old that they don't make the replacement parts

anymore. Nooooo! We found one used one for sale on eBay,

but it was $200 and my repair guy advised against

trying that. He felt like our money would be better

spent on a new machine.

I was SO SAD to say goodbye to our old washing machine.

Here's our new one:

It looks super basic, but it wasn't cheap.

It is commercial-grade.

Nothing digital.

Hopefully it lasts us another 17 years.

More "after" pics from the bathroom.

Drawful fun for FHW one night.

I loved Care Bear's drawing of 

Wu-Tang Clan

There was a cool bird of prey in our front

yard one evening. 

I think it was either a red-tailed or

red-shouldered hawk.

Whitney got her license!

With COVID-19 restrictions, she didn't actually have to take a driving test to get her license. That's kinda weird. However, we were told at the DMV that when we go to get her restrictions off in six months, that she will have to take the driving test at that time. I'll be interested to see how that works. They will be so backed up...

It's fantasy football time!

Here's the team I'm starting out with this year.

I love them! Very hopeful for a good season!

In fact, Yahoo awarded me with the Best Draft of the League award.

Woo hoo!

My friend, Bea, shared on Facebook that her friend, who is a chef, was doing a Facebook Live cooking show to make tres leches cake. I thought that sounded so fun! I bought all the ingredients and was all set to bake! It didn't go as I expected. She went too fast and I couldn't keep up with her. I ended up having to just look up a recipe online to finish it out.

But it turned out delicious! :)

Before our new washer could be delivered, we

had collected enough dirty clothes that we had to make a trip

to the laundromat. We hadn't been to one in YEARS.

We decided to make date night out of it.

We brought cards and played while our laundry ran.

It was actually pretty fun.

And also pretty expensive.

Andrew and I still play Pandemic pretty much every day while we eat lunch together. Such a fun way to spend out lunch break. This game was especially notable because we eradicated ALL FOUR DISEASES! I don't think that has ever happened. Boom!

After four years of teaching seminary, I was released this summer. It was a calling that I LOVED and was very sad to see it end. But it's also an exhausting calling. Andrew and I felt like it was hard for me to give him the support that he needed from me, especially on evenings when he would have late meetings. I was very protective of my sleep schedule as a seminary teacher and it didn't necessarily jive well with Andrew's church schedule. 

The silver lining is that I got another calling that I'm going to LOVE. Our Young Women's presidency was reorganized and I was called to be the second counselor. Yay! Glenda Leinbach is our president, Mendy Greenwood is the first counselor, and Laura Dudley is our secretary. I love all of these women! All of them have been in the ward longer than we have. Laura grew up in the ward and was in the YW program when we moved here. Mendy and I served in a Primary presidency together many years ago. They are all strong, spiritual women and I am excited to serve with them.

I'm also thrilled that I get to serve Whitney and Caroline. What a treat to spend time with my girls every week! AND I get to still serve most of my seminary students, too. Only one of my consistent students was a YM and he graduated last year, so most of the students I was close with were these YW. So happy I can still spend time with them. They are amazing.

 This is a pic from the first in-person activity for our new presidency.

We played Family Feud in the Greenwood's front yard.

Fun!

We have LOVED our hummingbird feeder this year.

So fun to see a hummer or two pretty much every day.

Peach cobbler season. Yummy yummy yummy.

I listened to a series of "Summer School" economics podcasts through Planet Money. You could take a final exam at the end. I aced it. That's right. I'm basically an economist, too. Ha!