Funeral, Furnace and Football

Saturday the 27th of September was a drainer. Well, to start things off I played football Friday after work with some of my work buddies and this was my first sprint/stop sport I've played in a long time. So my legs are fried right now... Sunday morning. I am so sore that it's sad. Oh well, I'm just glad that I was able to get out and run. Anyway, Saturday was Mary Ward's funeral. I have only ever known her as Maudy, but I found out a lot about her that funeral service.

She lived nearly 40 years with Sherry Wasden (Hal's sister) and their late cousin Laura. Sherry is Hal's sister. Maudy is Hal and Sherry's mom's sister... so their aunt... and we call her our aunt as well.

I have known Maudy for nearly5 years and knew a different Maudy than was discussed at the funeral. The Maudy I knew, I loved... and I love her even more after hearing about her yesterday. I knew a Maudy that was tiny and feisty. She told it how it is and never sugar-coated anything. She called our dog "the beast" and hated the fact that we had it and sometimes brought it by. She was bitter, so I thought, but I loved her still. She was a huge BYU fan and I owe her despererately for the tickets that she and Sherry let me use the last few seasons.

The talks that were given talked of a lady that devoted most of her life to service, motherhood of others, to cleanliness, tidyness, spirituality, the lord and her friends and family. I went into the funeral thinking that it would be a sweet, somewhat emotionless funeral but I was very wrong. She died at the age of 77 to cancer and I cried through much of the funeral of the remarks given of her and the stories shared... both scriptually and personally. The hymn, "How Great Thou Art" sung by one of Maudy's ward members powerfully erupted a slew of emotions and made me realize how great our saviour really is. 

It was a great funeral service and I'm so glad for people like Maudy and Sherry and the love that they give.

Furnace - 

As for the furnace my dad and I spent the mojority of the two last days ripping out the older furnace and installing the new and improved high-efficiency furnace. I am excited to get it done, but we still have a lot of work to do on it. 

Burnin' the candle on both ends

I am tired! It's now 12:30 am on Saturday September 6 and I am calling it a night. I've been caulking the basement molding and trim and I still have a good couple of hours to go before I'm done with this tortuous task. Everything has run so smooth until the caulking, however I do have to admit after hoping on thisoldhouse.com I learned how to do a great caulk bead and it's taken a lot of time, but it definitely is the best caulk I've ever done.

While I thought of how crappy I am for not spending Leslie's b-day night with her... I started thinking, "but I'm finishing the one thing she wanted for her b-day... the basement." I still have to paint the trim and get things put away before it's done and hopefully I can do that tomorrow while I'm watching football. Cougs v Washington baby!

Anyway while feeling bad that I wasn't with Leslie I started thinking about how I am so behind in school right now and how I have a ton of church stuff to do. And how there are a plethora of other tasks around the house that I want to get to. I still have a month or two before it starts snowing again, but there's so much I want to do, and the time will fly.

I have Regional Conference for our stake tomorrow at the Conference Center. Normally I'd drag my feet to go to these, even though I'm Young Men's Pres, but this time I'm really excited to sit down and enjoy the fine talks and messages of the brethren that I know will make me feel better and rejuvenated.

Also tomorrow night I will be visiting the temple with Russ for stake temple night. (Russ and I are in the same stake). We will be doing initiatories and then show face at the chapel session before returning to our homes to see the rest of Utah v UNLV.

TaTa for now... good night.

The Basement

Well, I just finished putting the molding up along the wall and the floor. We are doing a two-tone paint job with green above and white below with white molding running horizontal through the middle of the wall. This was Leslie's b-day present and I'm almost done. She was pretty tired tonight, but I'm sure she is loving that it is coming together.

Tomorrow night I will finish caulking the cracks and nails and will hopefully be able to paint before Thursday, which is when the family is coming over for a BBQ. I'd love to have it done for everyone to see, even though the walls are all still naked and our furniture is, well, non-existent or terribly unwanted and unattractive.

This should definitely help the resale of our house though one day and soon Aubrey will have a place to play downstairs. Maybe if we're still here in a couple of years we could frame off a section of the basement and create another bedroom, but we'll see.

Personally I would love to be working outside and putting a roof on our awning and tile the concrete of our porch, but I know how much Leslie wants this basement to be done, so I'm gonna push through and finish it. I'll post pics as soon as I get some put together.

Oh, and we now have cable... yikes! I don't know if I should be happy now or not. This means I can watch all the sports I want, i.e. ESPN... and I don't think that's a good thing. Oh well, we are getting it cheap for the first six months and I definitely plan on canceling after that. Leslie wanted the cable so that I could watch the games at home instead of at friend's or family houses. But, I'm pretty sure she pushed to get it for her TLC fix. :)