Some weeks are just busy!

From last Thursday through about tomorrow, things are just packed. It's funny how sometimes nothing much is going on at all, and then suddenly there's more to do than you really can. A few things we've been up to:

1. DH went to a conference in Kentucky Thursday through Saturday. It's always extra tricky getting kids ready for school with only one parent. We are very glad he's back.

2. I taught a basic music intro class on Thursday night. Alas, I don't think it went very well. It was supposed to be a class for people who don't know anything about written music but who currently are leading it. But the people who most urgently needed it weren't there, and so my class was split between people who didn't know anything about music and wanted to learn, and those who have played multiple instruments for many years. I suspect I bored half of them and confused the other half. Oh, well. I did the best I could.

3. My sister came to visit on Friday, which was nice, as I was no longer the only responsible adult in the house. Last time they came, it snowed and was cold and miserable, everything was closed for winter (only the snow had mostly melted to sludge so you couldn't actually do many winter activities), and people were sick. This time, the weather was beautiful and we almost had TOO much to do. We climbed a volcano and played at the sand dunes and made egg rolls (my sister's recipe) and talked about books and plotting and genealogy and went to the Relief Society dinner and general broadcast (I love listening to Elder Uchtdorf--he is SO German, plus, if you reference Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, how cool can you be?), and had a nice time. My kids get along with their cousins really well and enjoyed themselves.

4. My older boys had a court of honor on Sunday, and got a ton of scout awards I still haven't been able to sew on.

5. I'm teaching art this week at my 1st grader's class.

6. Ooh! New Czech genealogy records on line! Here are some fun popular Czech names from the 1700s: Benigna, Worssila, Vaclav, Apolline, Jan Nepomucky, and Wawrinec. I'm half Czech, but my grandparents come from different places. My grandpa's family were all serfs out in the country, and everyone is named like, one of three names. My grandma's family lived a little closer to Prague, were more likely to be free citizens (the serf system didn't end until 1848), and had a lot more interesting names. My favorite surnames (yes, one is German): Kleinhampl, which means "little jumping man," and Kratochvil, which means "an amusing person."

There's lots more going on, but um...I'm too busy to write it all down. Hope your week is going well!

Today

Just for the record, this morning I have accomplished the following:

1. made some food for a friend whose son is scary sick (well, not sick--but he's started having sudden, violent seizures)
2. shredded and frozen 13 cups of zucchini
3. blanced and frozen 8 more cups of chopped zucchini (this was all the neighbors' overflow)
4. cut up half a watermelon in hopes that it will get quickly eaten
5. fried a batch of crab eggrolls (we made some with my sister the other day but ran out of cream cheese, and crab only keeps so long. However, now I have to figure out what to do with them, as crab and cream cheese, deep-fried, isn't exactly health food)
6. baked three large acorn squashes to use later for dinner

Still left to do:

1. check in on a friend who recently had a baby
2. deliver said food to other friend
3. actually make that dinner for us
4. sew on as many scout patches as a I can, or at least the rank advancement ones, before 7 pm scouts tonight
5. do a sample art project because it's TOMORROW
6. do a critique
7. write
8. double-check the names I couldn't originally read yesterday when going through Czech records

I'm sorta feeling a little tired today...