This Week

 This week is going to be busy.

Today is high school registration for my son.  After hearing about from other moms about the problems with trying to register online from home, we're just going to go over to the high school and do it there where counselors will be there to help with any problems.  It will be a relief to get that over with.

Tuesday is Young Womens and Young Mens for my oldest two children.  It's the fifth Tuesday, which means their activities will be at Bishopric member's houses.  Should be fun.

On Wednesday we have an awards reception for our 11 year-old daughter.  She entered a piece of art in a competition and will be receiving an award for it.  The reception is right during dinner time, of course.  We're all excited for her.

On Thursday our niece, Kaitlin, is getting married.  Her fiance is Muslim and she has also converted to his religion.  They will be married in a mosque in Salt Lake in the afternoon, so my husband and I will be going to that and to the dinner afterwards.  It should be interesting.  We have to wear ankle-length pants or skirts and long-sleeved shirts and take off our shoes for the ceremony.  The men and women are separated for the ceremony, with one group upstairs and the other downstairs.  Different, for sure.  The kids will be on their own for dinner, but macaroni and cheese is a favorite around here and two of the kids know how to make that.

On Friday our oldest daughter is going to an old neighbor's house to sleep over until Sunday morning.  They will be going to Lagoon on Saturday.  She's very excited.  It's always fun to see old friends.

On Saturday one of our youngest daughter's friends is getting baptized, so she and I will be going to that.  There is also a half marathon in Vernal that my husband and son may be participating in.  We're not sure on that one yet.

In other news, I'm completely off antidepressants.  I haven't done that for years.  It took a good couple of months to wean off them, most of which wasn't too bad.  I'm definitely more emotional now than I was while taking them.  I always feel like I'm either on the edge of irritation or two seconds away from crying.  Hopefully that evens out.  

I'm also trying to improve my eating and fitness habits.  No white sugar, corn syrup or white flour.  More water and movement.  I set up a points system where I earn points for how well I do each day.  When I get to a certain number of points, 210, I can buy a book on my Amazon wish list.  This has been a great motivation for me, as I always want more books.

Yard work has certainly picked up.  The front yard hasn't been too bad so far.  Mostly pulling a few weeds here and there.  And then there's the back yard.  The weeds are thriving, for sure.  Most of the garden is in: potatoes, onions, carrots, strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, and a few other things that I can't remember.  My husband usually does all the planning and the planting, and I do the weeding and harvesting.  I've been slacking on the weeding already.  It's not quite out of hand yet, but getting close.

I put in a time change request for the elementary school kids for next school year.  Instead of leaving the house at 9 like they do now, they would have to leave at about 7:45.  The high school starts much earlier and my son would have to be at the bus stop by 7:06 or something like that.  My oldest daughter leaves at 7:50, so it makes sense to have everyone out the door early.  It wasn't so much of an issue until now to drag out the getting-ready process for hours, but next school year, I want it more compact.  We'll see if my request is granted or not.

We went to hike the Y on Saturday.  The kids had done it with my husband and I had gone as a teenager, but we had never done it as a family.  I made it to the second benches as my stomach was not behaving and I thought it best to not be too far from the bathrooms.  We're going to go hike it again sometime when my stomach is healthy.