April 28, 2013


Dear Mama,

Hi! How are you doing this week? I, personally, am completely 
exhausted. This one week has felt like a month and since I have four 
more weeks until the big move, I can only assume that it will feel like 
four months. Ugh!

Mickey Trousdale came over to take a look at the house and gave us 
a long laundry list of things that need to be done before we put the 
house on the market--mostly painting, but I just never realized how 
tiring painting a ceiling can be. Tilting my head back for hours has 
been giving me massive headaches like I haven't had since I was in high 
school. The muscles in the back of my neck are super tight and killing 
me. I was packing the books in the living room and noticed a musty 
smell, so I moved the book shelves also. The wall behind the shelves 
had mildewed. It is on that outside wall, and there is a crack about an 
inch wide between the concrete and the house and I guess moisture has 
gotten in there at one time or another. So we had to seal that up and 
then scraping down and mudding the interior wall. It still needs 
painting. In the dining room and the kitchen, the twins tore off pieces 
of the wallpaper when they were younger and it looked bad, so all of 
that had to come off (which Brenna steamed off for us). I have painted 
the dining room, but have yet to get to the kitchen. The bathroom 
downstairs has been completed, but tomorrow I will be working on the 
bathroom upstairs. We steamed the wallpaper from Hades off --finally!-- 
and have washed down the walls and mudded, sanded and taped. Tomorrow I 
will tackle painting the primer and the walls of the bathroom. As I 
wait for the paint to dry, I will continue to paint the dining room 
ceiling. Years ago, we decided to re-shingle the roof and Jay decided 
to do it himself to save us some money. Well, he took all of the 
shingles off of one level and then realized that he needed to do the 
other roof first. He was in the process of taking off those shingles 
when in the distance, we saw a huge storm approaching. We immediately 
started covering everything up with all the tarps we had, but there was 
not enough. I raced to the store and purchased some more but by the 
time I got back it had started to rain. We got the tarps up as quickly 
as we could, but by then some water had leaked through and did some 
damage to the ceiling tiles. We never fixed that and it didn't really 
bother me, I guess I never really look up, but that is why we are 
painting ceilings. The ceiling above the open space where the stairs 
are was the worse and Jay painted that for me just yesterday. He also 
painted the eaves on the south and north sides of the house that were 
starting to peel. Jay has to go back to work tomorrow and so I am on my 
own this next week. Monday and Tuesday are his two last days at NMSU. 
He has a feeling that it will be pretty crazy because everyone is 
already vying for his attention to take care of last minute stuff.
Wednesday, we (Jay, Brenna and I) are planning to go to Portales to 
the rental and start fixing it up, open a bank account, transfer 
utilities into our name, cleaning, and moving Jay and Brenna in as much 
as possible, and making sure they have some food to get them through 
that first week. I need more boxes! Everyone keeps telling me they 
have boxes and they will be happy to get them for me, but none has 
surfaced. There is so much to do. I haven't even gone to the gym all 
last week, and my pass ends at the end of this month, but trust me, I am 
definitely getting a workout, and am too tired to eat much. That is 
part of my problem with all of this work we are doing because I keep 
having to stop to make meals and bring boys to school and pick them up 
and running errands like grocery shopping, and doing laundry, etc...
We were supposed to get another Branch President today, and 
everyone is getting excited because they know that President Brown will 
shortly be all packed and moving on (to Snowflake, Arizona to be closer 
to family) the 11th of May. For months we have been told that he would 
come to call a new Branch President, but each time he never shows, and 
again, today, he didn't show. President Brown has been keeping 
everything on hold because he doesn't want to make changes that the new 
Branch President will be making. Meanwhile, Jay will be in Portales 
during the week from now on and won't be here to do Young Men's on 
Thursday's, but President won't call a new Young Men's president. We 
are leaving in three weeks and he needs to call a new Gospel Doctrine 
teacher. He insists that the new Branch President needs to do that. In 
three weeks, I will move and what happens will be up to them. The 
Branch is really hurting over this, and still our stake president not 
only does not show, he does not give anyone the courtesy of calling to 
let us know that this will be so. Next week is fast sunday and 
President Brown's last Sunday, then the next week is Mother's Day, and 
then the next week is the Nemrow farewell and we are gone. Part of me 
wishes to stay because our branch is so tiny and can really use our 
help, and yet, sometimes I feel they rely on us far too much. I 
mentioned in Relief Society that the 15th of May will be my last temple 
trip and Danielle said, "what are we going to do? How are we going to 
keep up the temple trips?" Someone else will just have to step up to 
the plate, I guess. Our High Councilman was there today and he said to 
me that he heard I was moving and I said, "yes". He said, "That's too 
bad." "I had the nerve to ask, "why?" Again, it was because we do so 
much for this branch. It will be sad to leave, but I feel that in a way 
it will be a blessing in diguise. It will seem hard at first as 
everyone readjusts, but they will work things out for themselves and 
hopefully it will be a good thing.

Cale had a track meet last Thursday in Melrose that I missed. I 
was asked to speak at the New Beginnings in Young Women's on what the 
Young Women program is all about. It was the same night as the track 
meet. I thought it was funny. They have four leaders in the YW 
program, and yet they asked me to speak instead one of them doing it. 
Anyway, Cale ran the 800 meter and came in 3rd to last. However, he was 
competeing with the high schoolers. In his age group, he came in 1st 
place. He came in 3rd for the 400 meters and 4th in the 200 meters. I 
think he is more like his father and is more of a cross country kind of 
guy than a sprinter. He didn't get home until nearly 11:00 at night 
after leaving at 11:30 in the morning from the school. Gratefully the 
weather was nicer.

Joshua drove to go pick up Cale from his track meet. He needs to 
get in 10 hours of night time driving, and so he drove on the back roads 
at about 30 miles per hour so he could get more "time" in. Jay took a 
nap. He said, "Hey, I have to be in the car, they didn't say I had to 
be alert". That's Jay for ya. Josh went to the Stake Dance last night 
and had a great time dancing with as many girls as possible. He said he 
had a great time. He got in about midnight, I guess.

Brenna is counting down the days that she has left for working at 
KFC. Two days and counting. I am sure her last day she will be 
counting the hours. They have been giving her a lot of split shifts 
lately which she abhors, but is gritting her teeth and getting through 
it all.

Sam is being Sam, wanting lots of adventure. All of the boys' hair 
is getting long and needs haircuts, but finding the time at the moment 
is a problem. Sam has been gelling his hair, but it is so long, it 
looks funky.

Well, it is about time for us to have our family activity. We are 
going to play Wentworth Stones. It is a game that Beck created using 
the Articles of Faith. I really like it a lot, but I have to make sure 
I have my reading glasses on, because the print can be very tiny. Great 
game, and you only really compete with yourself, which makes it good for 
Sundays because there are no fights and no contentions and no "that's 
not fair". Each time you get rewarded, too. My kind of game. Well, I 
should really get going...oh! And I got the paperwork for Aunt Margaret 
in the mail and will do the work for her on the 15th. I could use 
getting a day off from all of this painting and packing and cleaning. I 
send you all of my love, your 4th, Lisa.