Linty phone

On Monday night, my phone's battery died, which is always a disaster. When the battery is low, I can plug it in and tell that it's charging. But the charger has a hard time staying plugged in, so when the phone is completely dead, I can't tell whether or not it's charging. It did that to me on my birthday, but I eventually got it to charge; this time, I couldn't get it to charge at all, as far as I knew.

So, after work on Tuesday, I went to the Sprint Store to get a new phone. But I didn't get a new phone.

Instead, the salesman used tweezers to pull lint out of the charging port. I was amazed at the amount of lint in there! It's not something I had ever thought of! And now it charges beautifully. I had worried about the hassle of picking a phone and installing all the apps all over again, especially when my life is so busy right now. But I didn't have to! I gave the salesman a tip, since it was so nice of him to help me and not sell me a new phone.

It's good to know that if my phone doesn't charge, I can just remove lint from it. In fact, the driving factor for buying my current phone was that my previous phone wouldn't charge, but it turns out that might have been unnecessary!

I had a few calm days of work before things got drastically busy.

On Thursday evening, I took my niece to see the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. No one else in the family could/wanted to go. More than a year ago, my grandpa lost sight in his right eye, and it's been an ordeal ever since. On Thursday he had surgery for it, and he can finally see again! He is thrilled, of course. But my mom took him to the appointment, which is why she couldn't go to the concert. (That was, of course, a better place to be.)

We didn't have tickets, so we went into the Tabernacle for standby tickets. We were pretty far back in the line, but we hoped the Thursday and the rain would keep the crowds low. The missionary in charge was saying that last year, not a single person got into the Conference Center. (Except for us!)

 So when the concert started, we got to watch it on the screens; the choir actually walked through the crowd and up to their seats. It would have been fun to be there.

But then we did in fact get to go into the Conference Center! We missed a few minutes of the concert, but that was OK. The guest singer this year was Kelli O'Hara, and with a name like that, I expected an Irish theme. But in fact, it was an all-American, rural theme, with farm set pieces. Kelli O'Hara has a nice voice, but I didn't think she was anything spectacular. But I really enjoyed her singing "A Cradle in Bethlehem," an underrated Christmas song. They had the actor Richard Thomas tell the story of the boy milking cows for his Christmas present; we used to watch that video all the time in elementary school, and in Primary, and at home, but it's been a while since I've thought about it. The most unexpected part of the evening was Richard Elliott's organ solo, which wasn't a solo at all, because it was accompanied by a bluegrass band! Certainly a first for me. I greatly appreciated it. I also appreciated that they actually had Richard Thomas read Luke 2, instead of that abysmal video of children they used last year.

On Friday I worked from home. During my lunch break I took the opportunity to run to the trailhead, but not on it.

 I was glad to work from home, because then I was ready to leave on time for the third Christmas concert of the season, the Lower Lights. This has been a family tradition since 2014, when they were in the Masonic Temple. They've been at Kingsbury Hall since 2015. (Both my sister and my mom have a false memory that we went to see them at the Masonic Temple twice, but they are wrong. And I have the best memory and the best record-keeping habits in the family.)

 I enjoyed it, but for some reason I wasn't as into it this time. It was less Christmassy this time, and they omitted my favorite song! But it's always a fun way to spend a December evening. I recommend their concerts. They said there had been talks of calling it quits. I do wonder how long they will keep it going. They haven't had a new album since 2016, and some of the members have left Utah and left religion.

Then I had to spend all day Saturday working so I wouldn't have to work on Sunday. I started work at 10 a.m. and ended just before midnight. It's not my ideal way to spend a Saturday, but at least Jimmy the cat sits with me. To keep up morale, I had to take a break to get Crumbl's seasonal cookies for the week.

Gingersnap, peppermint bark, chocolate orange, and sugar cookie. Chocolate orange is a popular flavor this year! I am officially adding it to my mental list of Christmas flavors.

All that working enabled me to finally get through my entire Christmas playlist; it took two weeks and two days. That meant I could buy more Christmas songs! Currently my Christmas playlist has 1400 songs.

This week is looking to be another hectic one, both at work and at home. But I think I'll manage.