update

It seems like a good time to write a blog never comes these days. I'll explain more about why in a bit, but here's some of what's been going on the last week or so.

Last Monday, Joe defended his thesis. Yes, it is a bit early in the school year for doing something like that, but I told him (and he agreed) it really ought to be done before the baby comes in February. So he badgered his professor into moving along with the project all summer and into the fall, and a week and a day ago he passed his defence! Now all he has left for his master's degree is the classwork from this semester and next. Of course we found out that he only has two real classes next semester-6 of his 13 credit hours will be research/thesis work, which will give him some time to get going on his dissertation stuff as well as help out with baby Rachel some.

Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I went visiting teaching. I have another new companion, and this one actually returns phone calls. So far we get along well together, but I figured we would when I first called her cell phone and realized it had an 801 area code. There are just so many nice people in that area code ;) (okay, so there are plenty of wierd people too...but let's not focus on that). Anyway, I find that the longer I'm a stay-at-home mom, the more I enjoy going visiting teaching, and having my visiting teachers come as well (which they did yesterday; I also have one new visiting teacher just in from Idaho Falls... but I'm not sure what area code that is). Karen also enjoyed our visits, since all but one of our sisters to visit has little kids, and the exception has a cute little pug dog. However, Karen seems to have shared with the kids a little too much and by Tuesday night had a bit of a sniffle...

This weekend was really awesome. We had stake conference, which is usually just a nice break from the regular church meetings. However, we got a new stake presidency, which was a big deal to most of the people who have lived in the area a long time. To make the change, church headquarters sent out the 'big guns' (in the best sense of the term), and Elder Bednar was the presiding authority at the conference. It was really cool to hear him speak both Saturday night and Sunday morning. He was definitely more personable in person than as the talking head from General Conference. One note of interest about Elder Bednar is that he is a doctor of Organizational Science-the same thing that Joe's studying. It was really wierd to hear him talk a little bit about that, since it's the same kind of things I hear from Joe almost every day when he comes home from school. Hopefully Joe becomes a successful professor like Elder Bednar, but I don't expect or want him to be a university president or an apostle, so I hope the similarities don't go too far... Anyway, back to stake conference: Joe and I both sang in the choir, which meant we had to be up on the stand the whole time...with a 1-year-old we didn't know how it was going to work-until our friends volunteerd to take her during the meeting. We got there really early and saved a bench seat for them, and then watched Karen play and eat apple slices and cheese for the two hour meeting. She was really good, and it was nice to be able to listen to the meeting and not worry about Karen being too loud or obnoxious.

Also for this past week I've been transcribing some interviews that Joe had to do for his qualitative methods class. I think he's really supposed to be doing it himself, but with his thesis work and getting ready to go to Michigan for a conference he hasn't had the time and it needs to be done soon. Hence I've spent most of my computer time typing, and it hasn't been nearly as enjoyable as writing a post for my blog, but sometimes that happens.

Last note for the week. Karen's cold that she caught from someone last Tuesday has been getting steadily worse. I was going to take her to the doctor yesterday, but she seemed so much better yesterday morning that I didn't. Well, I should have because all she did yesterday afternoon was lay on the floor and watch PBS-not her normal active self. And this morning before we went to the doctor she could hardly walk because the fluid in her ears is messing with her balance. So, note to self: if Karen gets a bad cold again, take her to the doctor before she can't stand up by herself. I'm sure after a couple of days the antibiotics will have helped enough that she'll walk just fine again, but I feel like a lousy mom right now... At least I figured out the answer to one of the questions: when do you take a sick kid to the doctor? before they're too disoriented to walk.