Week in Review

 Last Sunday night I had a doozy of a migraine. It was the worst I've had in at least a decade and it completely knocked me flat. Matthew gave me a blessing and I was eventually able to fall asleep late in the night, then slept most of the day on Monday. Matthew helped the kids with school, and even procured popcorn shrimp and a container of ice cream for dinner. The strangest part of it all was that we couldn't identify a trigger. Usually my headaches are associated with diet and sometimes sleep, but both have been perfectly reasonable for quite a while now, so I don't know where this particular migraine came from. I also had a couple other symptoms that have not typically accompanied my headaches, which was a bit alarming. Matthew was talking to our friend Dave, who is a doctor, and he noted that my experience fell in line with some Covid symptoms and suggested I get tested. I wasn't able to go in on Monday, but right after online seminary on Tuesday I went to the Expo center and got tested by the State Health Department. The test itself was rather uncomfortable, but not unbearable, and was very little trouble. We got the results on Thursday morning, which were negative. I spent most of the week with a lingering headache and exhausted. We canceled archery on Wednesday since we didn't have my Covid results yet, and instead spent most of our evenings re-watching Avatar with the kids. 

I'm feeling nearly normal now, and no one else in the family got sick, so either it was just an inexplicably bad migraine or I caught some random virus. Yesterday morning I had seminary, then finally made it to the grocery store. In the afternoon Mercy and I were able to attend our appointment at the eye doctor. Mercy's eyesight is perfect and my prescription changed a bit, but not much. Yesterday we also finally took the turtle out of the water bucket where it's been decomposing and we learned that there are time limits on animal decomposition. We were hoping to keep the shell, but we left it in too long and all the bones weakened too much and started falling apart. Matthew felt bad about procrastinating so long (the kids reminded him everyday, but he kept putting them off) so he agreed to attempt some taxidermy on Hyrum's deer head that's been in the freezer since last winter. He doesn't think they'll be ale to do much with the cape, as it got pretty cut up when they skinned the deer, but they're working on a European mount for the skull. 

The kids slept out on the trampoline Thursday and Friday nights. Abraham and Mercy spent several hours playing a game with stuffed animals and blankets, and Hyrum especially loved bringing Mable up with them. He really wants her to cuddle in with him, but she is 100% beagle puppy and therefore 100% not interested in cuddling.

This morning, Matthew poured the epoxy in the Jolley's river table. The pour went much easier than he anticipated and was looking great, but we neglected to turn fans on to keep the temperature down, and it nearly started boiling. Parts hardened faster than we anticipated and we weren't able to get quite the design we were hoping for, but I think we salvaged it reasonably well. We will know better how it turned out once it cures and gets sanded. In addition to supervising work on the table, I spent most of the day making and dehydrating meals for Matthew's hunt. I'm having such a fun time with this particular task. I've made at 3-4 servings each of the following: Spicy sausage and peppers with pasta, Italian sausage and garden tomatoes with pasta, vegetable and pesto pasta, cashew chicken masala with rice, ratatouille with quinoa, macaroni and cheese, salmon and sweet potato hash, oatmeal with dried apples and pears, fruit and nut couscous, and coconut rice pudding. He may or may not find an elk, but at least he'll be well fed while in pursuit.