The Misses Watts: Stupid sickness, Yay, yardwork! and a writing conference

Last Sunday, we went to Steve's aunt's house (his mom's sister, Donna) because she and her husband got home from a mission and had an open house. They live in the same ward as my brother, so we went to Ben and Haylee's house after the open house and had dinner with them and my parents. Just before dinner started, I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn't sleep immediately. And I did fall asleep with 7 children running around the house. Even after a short nap and food I felt like konking out, and that's exactly what I did as soon as we got home around 9:30. I slept for about 11 hours and woke up feeling tired. It was craziness. I was like that until Wednesday evening, so pretty much nothing got done this week.

My Dad did come on Tuesday and helped me ready my garden for drip watering. On Wednesday, I had to take Emilia to get some new tennis shoes. We bought her a brand new pair right before school started and she grew out of them half-way through the school year. But she had a district-wide (mandatory for everybody) track meet on Thursday, so she needed some. The other girls all got new shoes, too. Sunday sandals, summer flip-flops, etc. There was excitement all around. Steve had Ben over to play LOTR card game that night, too.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I had my writing conference. I was very much looking forward to it. My neighbor, my parents, and Steve each took a day to watch the girls and I was so grateful for their support. There were tons of friends I got to see and a number of peeps from my writing groups took home top prizes in the first chapter contest, so that was exciting (after a bad experience last year, I didn't enter this year).

Me being sick last Sunday, and falling asleep as soon as we got home, I didn't do a blog post last week. One day, I cleaned out my back patio. It hadn't been done in probably 2 years and it looked terrible. I dumped a lot of gross water, cleaned out an old turtle sandbox, cleaned the grill, pulled weeds, swept up leaves, and pressure sprayed the cement clean. I also got our wasp killer and sprayed wasps out of mid-air (who'd gotten used to coming around for the water). It was a satisfying afternoon. My dad came one day that week and helped me prep my garden for planting. He rototilled and I planted/replanted and mapped. I registered my car that day and took a black widow that I'd caught to the Bean Museum to display if they wanted. They used to have two on display for a long time, but they haven't been there for a while, and since I found one while cleaning the back patio that was super easy to catch, I thought I'd take it to them. You can shudder now, Mom. ;) I made a bunch more shrinky dinks that i was planning on giving away at the writing conference. And Steve and I had a game night with a friend of his from work--at the friend's house, so we counted it as our date night, too.

I just thought of one more thing I wanted to add from this week. Today at church, since it's fast Sunday, we allow people to stand and bear their testimonies during sacrament meeting. Steve does it regularly, I do occasionally, but Emilia had never gone up since getting baptized. She asked if she could, and Steve reminded her of a few things and she said a prayer, then went and sat up on the stand waiting for her turn. When it was finally her turn (there were a lot of people up there today), she bore such a beautiful testimony. She said that recently at school, there were a lot of people using bad words and it was starting to make her feel uncomfortable. So she prayed to know what to do about it or if there was a way to make it better. Finally one night, she couldn't sleep, so she came to get me and we talked about what she could do and she felt that we figured it out. She then bore testimony that God answered her prayer by having her come talk to me, and that she had a testimony that he does answer our prayers. It was the sweetest thing and I was crying by the time she was done. It's my greatest wish that my children grow up to have a relationship with their Heavenly Father, and it made me feel like I'm on the right path.