Sunday 12th July. Scott had bought a new torch in preparation for going on Young Men's camp at the end of the month, and basically just annoyed everyone with it, including Lucy in the cabin...
I came downstairs to this... nutters!
Monday 13th July. I'd been making cards, and had some random sticky letters left, which spelled out this... not sure why I stuck them to the chopping board, I just felt like it!
Lucy had her 3 monthly hospital check-up at 4pm, which Harry and I took her to. She wasn't expecting a particularly good HbA1C result, but it was 7.2 which is pretty good. (The hospital rang me the next day with the result.)
On Tuesday 14th July, Young Womens was at Jo Waters' house, and all the Mums were invited too. Jo and her friend Sharon had gone to a great deal of trouble to make everywhere beautiful with bunting and gorgeous flowers in jars, and there was a wonderful spread of food. Originally everything had been set up outside, but it chucked it down and so everything was moved in doors. It was a lovely relaxed evening and I felt very spoilt.
On Wednesday 15th July, I went Visiting Teaching to Becki Cain in the morning, and after school Harry worked on the vehicle he had started making at Activity Night at church the night before.
I recently got a $35 voucher for doing a couple of card tutorial blog posts for Elizabeth Craft Designs, plus I get 50% discount at their online store for being on Karen Burniston's Design Team. One of the things I picked out were some Panpastels. They're really creamy solid pastels which blend beautifully on paper and aren't too dusty. Harry copied some gems from the Rocks and Gems book with them.
On Thursday 16th, I went to a lovely lunch at Rachel Lamin's new house with a few other school Mums. She's got a beautiful massive garden, and after looking around we had a delicious lunch on the patio.
In the evening I went with Becki Cain to Northampton Chapel for a Stake Council meeting.
During the meeting I was asked my opinion on something, and I gave it freely without thinking much first. With hindsight I would have expressed my views in a more gentle and considered way than I did, because I worried afterwards that I had upset the person who has some responsibility for the area I gave my opinion on. Also later in the meeting President Hirst gave some counsel/gentle chastisement - in my mind to me - and I felt awful, and could hardly keep the tears back for the rest of the meeting. (Much later, at camp, I had the opportunity to speak to President Hirst about it, and say that I had taken his counsel to heart and had tried to put things right. He didn't know what I was talking about and when I explained he was exasperated - saying that his comments hadn't been meant for me at all, but someone else in the meeting, and that he always finds my contributions in meetings valuable!! Oh well! I still learnt lessons from it all!)
After the meeting though, Steve Wright and Martin Guy could see that I was a bit upset and spoke to me kindly, which did make me cry! On the way home, Becki tried to cheer me up too and said I hadn't said anything too bad anyway. I asked Scott to give me a blessing when I got home, and I felt better afterwards, with a determination to just 'own it', and to try and be more humble, more mature and more loving, but also to have patience with the process of improving.
On Friday 17th, I went with Jo Blackhurst to Becky Wakefield's birthday pub lunch, with a lot of ladies I didn't know.
It was nice - sitting in the hot sun, eating nice food (lasagne), and chatting with new people about totally new stuff (walking holiday adventures they'd had!) It really took my mind off things.
On the way out through the pub afterwards, I heard Becky saying that she'd wanted to apply to be an On-Call Fire Fighter. My ears pricked up because for a while I'd been seeing the couple of On-Call Fire Fighter recruitment banners put up in town, and thinking 'I'd quite like to do that!' I'd not given it more thought than that though, but when Becky said she had, I asked her about it. She's friends with someone who works at the Fire Station, and he'd encouraged her to apply, saying that she wasn't too old or anything. She'd sent off for the application pack, and bought a load of books to help with the application process, but was struggling with the practice written tests in the books, and didn't think she'd be able to pass them. She said she'd give me all the stuff so I could take a look at it. I felt quite excited, though only superficially really - expecting that there'd be some glaringly obvious reason why it couldn't work out.
On Saturday 18th July, Scott took Harry to Joseph Wade's football birthday party in Alconbury, and I spent most the day making card kits for the girls to make on camp, as one of the activities.
I made about 80 kits... what a mess!
I felt really lucky that the preparation for camp this year hasn't felt too stressful. My counsellor Emma Corre took on the role of camp director, and has done much of the organising, while I took on a few specific assignments and have just chatted with her frequently to OK things and give advice.
Also at the party we got chatting to Emma's brother, who it turns out works at Preston Temple and knows Mum and Dad pretty well. He was quite excited and took our photo so he could show them who he'd seen at the weekend! He's a lovely chap and we had a jolly conversation!
It was a nice party anyway.
The next day at church, before Sacrament Meeting started I went and apologised to the person I thought I might have hurt. He was very kind, and said no apology was necessary, but I said it was, and we left it on good terms.
On Monday 20th, it was Harry's Sports Day. Originally he didn't want to do it (partly because I think he gets stressed because he wants to win so much), but I said he had to and in the days leading up to it, I chatted with him a couple of times to try and take the pressure off. He was happy enough by the time the day came, and Lucy and I went along to watch him. He came 1st in the sack race, and 4th in the running race, and had a good time cheering on his fellow 'Mars' teammates (all with red T-shirts on.)
Lucy and I sat on a park bench to watch, next to a lady and her husband. I didn't recognise them at first, but then realised they were the couple we had sold a Ford Ka to a few years back. We had a nice chat, and I was happy to hear the car is still working well for them! She also said she'd bought a book a while back from the hospital charity shop, which had been mine!
Later on for Family Home Evening, we decided to all walk into town to buy chips. We stopped at the park on the way, to go on the keep fit machines and play football (I just watched the football!)
Waiting for our chips!
We took the food back to the park, and the boys played for a bit longer. A very happy evening!
I went Visiting Teaching out to March on Tuesday, and in the car on the way, I pondered and prayed to know whether I should start the application process for the Fire Service. I had a very strong confirmation that I should, which was rather a surprise to me.
Wednesday was Harry's last day of school and I spent the week gradually getting everything ready for camp.
On Thursday 23rd July, I got the Information/Application pack I'd rung up to request from Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, and which I read through with great interest. Becky Wakefield had also given me all the books she'd bought on the recruitment process. It's quite a long process:
-Application Form
-Suitability Interview/Form
-x3 Written tests (Working with Numbers, Understanding Information & Situational Awareness and Problem Solving)
-Fitness Test (The Chester Treadmill Test) and Medical
-Interview
-Physical Assessments (Ladder Climb, Casualty Evacuation - dragging a dummy, Ladder Lift/Lower Simulation, Enclosed Spaces, Equipment Assembly and Equipment Carry)
I rang up Recruitment and asked them if I could pop along to the local Fire Station on a training night, just for an initial look around and to ask some questions. They said that was fine, and I arranged to go on the Monday following camp.
Also on Thursday, I let Tom sleep out on the trampoline - he'd been asking to for a while.
Lucy helping to test his bedding!
The tomatoes we grew from seed were doing well! Nearly as tall as Harry!
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