22 December 2021….*raspberry*

Ok. I decided I wanted to mix up some banana bread. Fine. 

I already know I can’t put it in the oven myself. So I called my son and ask him to help. He agreed to help. Mixing banana bread is not the same as mixing regular bread. I had to crack eggs. Not easy for me. I hope I didn’t get any shell in. Plus one of the eggs I tried had gone bad. I have heard how yucky rotten eggs smell. Now I know. 

Then I had to open milk. Again not the easiest for me. Spilled some. 

Dropped one of the bananas. 

Finally I got it all mixed together. Awesome. 

So now I can sit and wait for some help putting it in the oven to bake. I just noticed one thing. I am so sweaty I my need to take another shower. 

Ok my sons came to help me. 

One put the batter in the pans and into an oven. 

My other son was going to come over and help take it out. He forgot. He was about 10 minutes late. I had turned off the oven and opened the oven door. 

By the time my son got there all the banana bread was burnt. 

That’s life.

18 December 2021….review

I love the way math works. It can make you so happy. It can also make you miserable. 

Math doesn’t lie. 

Humans can manipulate other humans. Still numbers, by themselves, have no hidden agenda. 

In other news my ghost peppers are starting to ripen. I tried a very small one. Oh momma, that was hot. It lasted about an hour. And after, I could still feel a heat in my stomach. Heat was so intense that it was making me drool. I drank all my milk, it is almond milk, it still made it feel better. Eventually the milk was gone. I ask my children to get me a stick of butter. My son unwrapped it and I just took a bit of the stick. Gross. Disgusting. I cannot think of enough words to describe how yucky butter, that much, is. But I think I did calm the fire. 

I am not planning to grow another ghost pepper plant. I doubt I will grow anything hotter. I like to taste my peppers. Ghost peppers are I would say a novelty. 

I will grow them for as long as the plant survives. Then I will go with peppers that have less intense heat. 

I still want to make a pepper sauce. We will see what happens. 

17 December 2021…..this was kind of fun

I love you so much, but at the same time I can not tolerate being around you for any length of time. 

When I am around you I have to bite my tongue. I noticed my tongue bleeding after you left last time you were here. If you keep coming around, I will bite my tongue off. So, please do not come by any more. 

I love you so much I do not want to subject you to the vile, evil things that may come out of my mouth. That said I like having a tongue and I don’t want to bite it off and bleed to death. 

Please stay away. 

16 December 2021…..why, oh why, oh why.

I am so tired of the VA transportation. 

I was forgotten last night. The VA closed at 4:00. I was there until 5:15. I didn’t get home until 7:20. 

I’m mad. 

I have had people there attempting to gaslight me and just shutting down anything I might have to say. 

They say they are at the hospital but they can’t answer the phones. Then reprogram the phones. 

I honestly think that as far as veterans are concerned with the transportation department, veterans come in last place. As long as there employees get to leave work at 4:30 everyone should be happy. 

14 December 2021…..I love the fact that snow is rarely a thing here.

I get really bugged by many things. 

One thing at this time of year especially. I hate watching my children wrap presents. 

They do a very sloppy job of it. Still, they do it. That’s more than I used to do. I eventually got brown paper shopping bags and put presents in those. I could wrap presents. I just got tired of it. 

I went outside for a few minutes. My peppers are making me so happy. It’s halfway through December and my plant is still alive and producing. I love it. 

I have been listening to audio books. It is so much nicer than watching TV. I decided to get the book Atlas Shrugged. 

I’ve never read it before. Interesting. I like some parts of it. I get the idea that one person I know, who introduced it to me, took it to literally. It is a good story, with some very wise philosophical ideas. Still I can see, now, that some people have taken part of what I would say is just the story, and made it into part of there personal view or philosophy r and it’s not the part I would use for a personal philosophy. It has taken me 30 years to recognize. I have after 30 years recognized so many little things. I have never been the quickest to make connections. In a way I am grateful for that. 

I will write more about that later. 

2 December 2021….meh

So, I just got done having a pedicure. 

Wow! 

Most excitement you can have with your clothes on. Oh baby. 

I had a manicure also. I still think a manicure is about as exciting as getting you oil changed on your car. 

Pedicure is so much better. 

My peppers are amazing. 

December 2 and still growing season. 

I am tempted to move further south, so I can have warmer winters and thus a longer growing season. 

I just can’t justify moving at this moment. Maybe in a few years.

I have color starting to show in my ghost peppers. 

I also started growing a scorpion pepper. I got a late start, otherwise in might be bigger. It’s about one ft. (30cm) tall. It is so exciting. 

This world is fun and stupid all the time recently. I worry that I need to do something different than I have. 

Still it is ok. 

I’m not dead yet, and even if I do die, life goes on. 

I would hope that people can cry for a week or so. 

I almost died once already. Everyone says my family was here. 

If they were I don’t remember. 

Then everyone is still going to need to eat, or pay rent or mortgage, floors will still need swept, etc. 

Someone can use my skeleton as a Halloween decoration. People that aren’t me can worry about the important and less important aspects of life. 

No one get the idea I want to die. 

I don’t. 

My life is great. But if it happens it happens. 

I am so tired of all the “stuff” going on. 

I watch or listen to the news and want to cry. 

Plus the VA makes me want to bawl some days, this being one of the days. 

But it could be worse. Overall, Let’s go Brandon. 

18 November 2021……ugh

I was taking some ibuprofen gel caps. 

Somehow it went down the wrong tube. 

After a few minutes the capsule opened and liquid ibuprofen got all over my windpipe. Hurt like hell. 

That was a week ago. I’m starting to talk better but my voice is still weak. 

I just got done ordering food. I can handle a delivery fee. A tip is no problem. The prices have gone up. I can give you one guess why. All I can say is “Let’s go Brandon”

I really don’t care, for the most part, if you claim to be Democrat or Republican. I know great people that claim both.  Generally, at a local and state level they are both pretty good. There are a few exceptions. My city for example. 

National politics is the realm of the insane. But it’s sad that most people only want to focus on it. I guess it is entertaining at times. I would call it cheap, but we all know how much money they are allowed to play with and who’s money it ultimately is. 

I had my children help me with my tomato plant. We pruned it and got it standing upright. I am excited for what may happen. The plant is a purple Cherokee. So the fruit will be purplish or reddish purple.  Then I have decided that I am going to make ketchup. Maybe some other kind of sauce or stewed tomatoes. I am not a big fan of raw tomatoes. I rarely eat them. Things made with tomatoes I love. Salsa, sauce, and other things. 

I was looking at a lot of different kind of tomatoes online. It would be different to have a white tomato, and make white ketchup. Maybe I will try that after the plants I have are finished producing.

I think the weather here is good for growing tomatoes. And peppers. Right now it is beautiful. I will go out and sit outside look at my plants. Maybe trim them. I have 5 tomatoes on my tomato plant and my pepper plant is loaded. I might get to give some away for Christmas. 😁

 

I think I was meant to live in Texas. Utah was nice when I was younger. I have a hard time imagining myself living there now. Especially in the winter. Especially in a wheelchair. Can you imagine a person in a wheelchair there in the winter. Talk about taking your life into your own hands. If I didn’t have metal studded tires there it would be impossible to go outside because of snow. If I did live in Utah it could only be in the summer. Some places it Utah are to expensive, and I question why you would live there. At the time Brigham Young and the pioneers arrived there, great. Maybe up to the 1950s. Anything since then. Naw. 

Most cities that are similar to areas in Utah, population wise, I used to say if you live there, at some point it time you lost a bet. I’m willing to go a little bit further now. The bet was most likely with God. You had zero chance of ever winning the bet you made

27 October 2021……hmmmm

I find it interesting that some people think the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about logic and reason. I would say it’s not. I find it interesting that some people consider feeling and emotion more important. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ must have both. In many ways it makes no sense. If I were to use just logic or just emotion I could justify almost anything. 

That is why we need the Holy Ghost to meld our logic/reason and our emotions/feelings together. 

If I could explain how excited I am that my pepper plants are fruiting I would. It is so exciting. 

I bought several different kinds of pepper seeds. I don’t think I have the space to grow more than one or two plants at a time. I don’t want my porch area to turn into a jungle. 

So I will just have to limit the amount I plant for right now. 

I went a little overboard on plants. 

I had just a lemon tree for a while. 

Then I’ve had two rosemary plants that died for different reasons. 

Now that pot has a Birdseye pepper. 

My son and I wanted an ice cream banana. It was very little when we got it. It’s really big now. Sometimes I wonder if that was the best thing to buy.😐 

I had two pineapple plants that were doing wonderful. Then our Texas snow and freeze happened. They didn’t live. 

So I planted my tomato and one of my peppers were the pineapples had been. 

Then because I had soil and pots, I planted another pineapple, it’s doing well. Also my tomato was growing like crazy. So my son helped me prune it but because I had pots we planted the branches and now they have buds. I need to ask him to come and take them to his moms house. 

So needless to say, I have to many plants at the moment. It’s a good thing they are all outside.

 

I am so fed up with the VA right now. They do very good work most of the time. But overall they rarely communicate when they change something. 

For example, VA transportation. I don’t drive so I can have them pick me up for my appointments. Nice of them. 

Do they tell you what the phone number to call is? 

Do they tell you if it changes? 

Do they tell you if there is a change in process for getting picked up? 

I can tell you no to all those questions and many more things. 

It is similar if you are in a wheelchair. Communication with veterans seems to be very low on the priority list. Procedures change so often that it makes your head spin trying to keep up with what is changing. Even if changes happen only once a year, there are so many changes because there are so many departments,  it is hard to figure out what is going on most of the time. 

I have to call and follow up on more changes that just got implemented with the new fiscal year. Ugh. 

20 October 2021

The peppers I am growing are getting past flowers. Now they have fruit. That is something I find interesting. Peppers are Fruit. I can’t remember the exact definition but I did see it once. 

I just got done mixing my bread. It is so nice to have home made bread. Store bread is awful. Even the bakery bread is not as good.

 

So I wrote a while back that anger is just an emotion. Not good or bad. Just an emotion. 

In part I still feel that way. But in a way I have expanded on my thoughts. 

Overall anger directed at a person, not good. Anger directed at a situation, or thing is not the same. 

For example. Hating abuse. Good. Hating the abuser. That is a more slippery slope. 

Related, peace, non violent, and harmless.

 

I think we should always strive to be peaceful. But to be peaceful you can only be two things. Non-violent or harmless. There is a different. 

Harmless is incapable of causing harm. For example that would describe most babies. For sure babies are cute and they can hurt you, especially if they accidentally head butt you in the nose. I’ve been there before. But overall a baby is harmless. They don’t sit there contemplating how they are going to hurt someone, at least that I am aware. Babies are harmless. 

Non-violent is a very different thing. Basically, a person or entity is capable of causing harm or violence. But the person or entity chooses not to cause the harm or violence they are capable of. I can think of a couple examples.

 

First, The Savior. At the time he was betrayed he said “ ​Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”  Plus he healed the man who was with the group arresting him. Sounds very non-violent to me. 

Also, and some people may not agree, the US after WWII in Japan. The US could have said this is ours. Japan is a defeated nation. This land(Japan) is ours now. Ultimately, the US didn’t do that. Some people may not like what was ultimately done. That said, there isn’t much that Japan doesn’t sell to the US. The US could have gone and destroyed Japan. Ultimately the US helped build Japan back.

 

So that is two examples of non-violence. 

Harmless is not the same as non-violence. 

I have to apply this to me somehow. I am the most Harmless person in many ways. A two year old could beat me up. It’s happened. 

That said if I had to save someone and all I can do I drive my wheelchair extra fast so I can maybe help I will. 

11 October 2021……I love autumn in Texas. The temperature is in the 70s and 80s.

Happy Columbus Day. Really it ought to be Columbus/Leif Erickson/ Native American Day. They all did their part. 

I got a text telling me that I should encourage my children to get “schooling”. So I guess I need to clarify. Education is important. It has always been important. College, in the modern world, less so. 

If you want to go to college, go. No one is stopping you. It’s not totally worthless. But I would say it served more of a purpose when my parents went. By the time I went it was almost worthless. It still had value that could be found. If you go now I pray that God may have mercy on your soul. Honestly it can still be good, but the options are so hard to find and it is so expensive. 

Since the 1970s it has gone downhill because most colleges are trying to be a type of amusement park. Just be very careful about what you major in. Minor in business or marketing if you go to college. Everything is related to business or marketing in some way. Point. Find a degree that would be valuable to the rest of the world. It is to easy to get a degree in an area that no one values.

 

I have a BA that I can really do nothing with. I could write but writing tires me out so badly, and it is very slow with just one finger. I love what I studied. Just because you love something does not mean that is what you should do. Think about what will people will pay you for.

Then I got a masters degree. I thought it would help me be a millionaire. As if. In many ways I see the area of study I got my masters degree in as a secular religion. Pagan religions have more logic. In many ways it is good stuff to know. I went to do some training for Boy Scouts and it was exactly the same. The other thing is because the degree is considered a traditional “female” profession the pay is generally less.

 

Anyway, education is important. College is not the only education you can get. Go learn to be a taxidermist. Learn to maintain port-a-potties and maybe you can learn how to build a better one. Learn to install cable/internet. Learn how to weld. Be a car mechanic. Education takes many forms. 

There are still things that need a university degree of some kind. Doctors, Lawyers, military officers, teachers. I don’t look on a college degree nearly as highly as I used to. It can still be valuable if you get a degree in the right subjects. 

Look at the department of labor and department of education websites. They give some pretty good information. 

So my peppers. 

My tomato. 

Me

My cat

6 October 2021…..(jazz hands)

I am very excited. My peppers are getting blossoms and tiny peppers. My tomato plant is getting blossoms. I was surprised that it had a couple tomatoes. Apparently I waited to long to pick it. It was hidden from me. I went to pick it and my finger went right through it. Yuck. Anyway. A ghost pepper and a purple Cherokee tomato. This is exciting. My scorpion peppers that I started from seed are getting ready to transplant. I have some pots. I think I just need to make sure they are in the shade for a few days. I need to go buy some potting soil. 

I know it is not growing season in most of the US. I am so excited that things can be growing here in Texas. It makes me so excited. I bough my ghost pepper and tomato when it was starting to get to hot. They survived the heat. They have both grown quite a bit. Now they both have blooms and small fruit.  I am so excited. 

The other thing that is exciting to me is Halloween. Right now until the beginning of January. Basically every month has a holiday and it is most of the month. I love it. I have decided to buy a few decorations for each holiday. 

I am so excited that so many things are going my way for a while. 

I have so much it would be hard to write it all down. 

Lastly, I think I’m becoming ok with the fact that I am in a wheelchair and my body doesn’t work well, meaning the way I want it to. I don’t like it but I’m ok with it. I can see lots of blessings that have come from it. The biggest blessing to myself and my children is the fact that because I can’t do much, I can give verbal instructions to my children and they can do something and learn. My son has some great ideas. I think things should be done my way all the time. He can find a much simpler way. Granted he is still young and needs some guidance. That said he is smart. I hope he does smart things like not going to college. 

My pictures don’t seem to be working. I will share those tomorrow. 

27 September 2021……one week. Ask me.

My peppers. Scorpion peppers. I love the fact that Texas has two growing seasons. The other one starts in a few months. I got a little bit of a late start, but since peppers are perennial I will just go into the next season. I hope it doesn’t snow and freeze in the months ahead like it did a few months ago. 

So, 2012 was said to be the end of the Mayan calendar. The end of the world? Maybe the end of an epic. 

Was it supposed to be the end of the world or did something unseen just change. Like a light-switch was flipped. 

President Obama had four years. 

President Trump had four years. 

President Biden has had his few months. 

It looks like the pendulum is swinging back and forth at an ever increasing rate.

 

Another analogy. Whatever “mortar” was holding the proverbial wall together simply evaporated at the end of 2012. Somethings will remain standing for a while. Eventually there will be a pile of rubble, metaphorically speaking.

 

But what do I honestly know?  I’m not any kind of a prophet. I’m just a guy in a wheelchair that likes to watch TV shows about things that question conventional wisdom.  Conventional wisdom, whatever that is. 

So I’ve thrown in my two cents. 

New topic. 

I had an insight. I was being attacked for something I wrote on Facebook. Ultimately it caused me to think. 

Many years ago I took a political science class. One thing that stuck with me was the teacher’s definition for politics, “the art of living”. I’ve always liked that definition. Still that has not been something I personally believed. Politics, for me has always been a more compartmentalized thing. 

Many people see politics as something you live every day. Honestly I have tried to avoid anything overtly “political” for years. Impossible, I know. 

That is how I see life. 

Everything is spiritual/religious. 

Some people my try to compartmentalize spirituality or religion. I try to compartmentalize politics. Neither one should, or can be relegated to a second position. They both constantly battle for first position but neither can be first because neither can be. At the same time they have very minimal interaction with each other, barely acknowledging each other at times and other times tripping all over each other. 

The way I view religion/spiritual matters is that everything we do is somehow spiritual/religious in nature. Politics, while it does exists, is only there for some of our interactions with other humans. Religion/spirituality is more about our interactions with God. 

That is a better way to look at it. Spirituality/religion is about our interactions with God. Politics is about our interactions with humans. 

Do some humans worry about other humans interactions with God? Yes. They try. Ultimately any persons relationship with God is very personal. Religion/spirituality is more about our relationship with God. Politics is about our interactions with humankind. Religion and spirituality are almost identical in my book. Not the same. Still you can’t have one without the other. 

Some things that are both religious and political:

Making our food or eating our food. 

Me going to work or choosing what I want to do when I grow up. 

Marriage or family matters. 

You could write an endless list. 

Politics and spirituality/religion are very intertwined. Almost inseparable. 

20 September 2021……Damn.

I had an insight about my condition since I’ve had the stroke. I have been noticing that every so often, maybe about six weeks, l start to become more confused about things that I am trying to do. 

I am still smart, I’ve had many people comment on that who are doctors and lawyers and I have had tests to confirm that my intellect is great. I had Psychiatrist give me recommendations about how I am doing since I had a stroke, a form of brain damage.

Even with all my intellectual abilities my intellect and emotions are greatly affected from time to time buy something that happened because of my stroke. I don’t know the word to best describe it, but I have a feeling someday I will.

I can get very caught up in whatever I am discussing or debating someone about. In fact I can lose my train of thought sometimes so badly that it looks like the train jumped the track.

I have been trying, and learned repeatedly, that my super power is listening, not talking. I really prefer writing because it is less likely to convey emotions that I don’t want to express at any given moment. 

I am like a bunch of yarn that is all wadded up with no rhyme or reason. My emotions can overpower almost anything I do. I once was in an argument with someone about something, I don’t remember what. But the argument came to a point where I tried to place myself equal to God. I know that is wrong. At that moment I didn’t care. I wanted to be right, and that is the only place logic would take me. 

Logic is very important. 

Emotions are very important

. 

They mix together very badly at times. Both are essential. 

The best example I can think of is an example I learned about many years ago. A state legislature passed and the governor signed into law that  dealt  with the homeless “problem”. They would buy the homeless person a house. I don’t know the details but it was a very sound idea that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it made many people very happy and saved the state lots of money. Maybe I will look up the program and see if it is still going. 

Logic and emotion do not  mix well. Without a mixture of the two you cannot have compassion. We all need to have the compassion of a surgeon. A surgeon helps, or can help. That said it is by doing some things that would be unthinkable by a less skilled person. 

We all need the compassion of a surgeon. They have a very unique blend of emotions, logic and skill. 

So, we all have conditions that cause us great confusion. Some conditions are chemical. Some are biological/physical. Some are placed upon us.  Sometimes we place them on ourselves. 

3 September 2021…..wow, wow, wow

So I have decided to grow peppers. I have one ghost pepper and

 one bird pepper. 

I started some scorpion peppers from seed. 

I love the part of the world I’m in. There are basically two growing seasons. So I hope I didn’t plant to late for the plants I started from seeds. I hope that I can grow everything year round. 

I have a few other seeds that I will start later. The biggest problem I have at the moment is I don’t have the space because I live in an apartment. I want to have a house some days. I know that I can’t do anything myself for maintenance. I would need to hire someone that can help with that. I can make a very good mess but cleaning it up that is something very different. 

There are lots of things I would like to do. For example I found a bee keeping course. 

All academic.

 It has been fun. I would love to do bee keeping because you can get honey out of it. The thing I have learned most from the course is I do not have the capacity to do the things that are required to do bee keeping. Desire only helps so much. 

So what do I do. Maybe I can be the benefactor for someone that really wants to do bee keeping. Who knows. 

I found something that I can do easily. Making vinegar.

 You only have to stir it once a day for 20-30 days. Then run it through a strainer and put it in a bottle. Granted, I need some help filtering and bottling it. But that is once a month. Stirring it one daily is right up my alley. So I have figured out how to use/waste my time once again. I think the vinegar I am making will be good for bbq sauce. Apricot. 

Now something completely different. 

I was talking with my children. They don’t like it when I get upset. Fair. I don’t like it when they get upset. Fair. I don’t know anyone that likes it when someone gets upset. That said I do not like or agree with how people call it a “negative” emotion. It is just an emotion. 

Unpleasant? I would agree with that. 

Emotions are not positive or negative. They are pleasant or unpleasant. 

Justifying emotion is a very loaded term. Everyone has the right to feel the way they feel. I don’t always agree with peoples reasons for why they feel a certain way. Still who am I to say that the why someone feels is “right” or “wrong”. I may not like the choice of a person at any given moment. That is my right. 

So as my children and I were talking. The story of the Savior and driving the money changers out of the temple came to mind. I’m sure some people may not have liked his anger. Whether you think it was justified or unjustified. Does it matter?  

I don’t want anyone to think that I am justifying not acting towards others in love and compassion. That said anger is not a “negative” emotion. It is an emotion. Full stop. 

16 August 2021……my say

Everyone that voted for Joe Biden is responsible for higher gas prices.

Everyone that voted for Joe Biden is responsible for the border situation. 

Everyone that voted for Joe Biden is complicit in the fall of Afghanistan.

9 August 2021….no you can’t die. Not without permission

Is the CDC a 100% reliable source for information? 

They do provide good information. Still some of the recommendations recently do seem suspicious. 

Can infecting others it be minimalized? Maybe. 

How? Who knows. 

I am personally very dubious about masks. One of the reasons, they ride up on my face, because of my beard, and cut into my eyes. That might mean I will run over someone in my wheelchair, or crash into a wall.  

My big view is if you die, or I die, or anyone else, someone will cry and life will go on. The amount of time that a person cry’s after someone dies is mostly irrelevant. My father died over 25 years ago, I still cry at times. Not the point. 

Still anyone could die at any moment. With no warning. We could walk out of our house, countless things COULD happen. Could doesn’t mean they will happen. 

I remember a poster from many years ago with some tongue in cheek humor. I would say it should be taken more seriously. 

“ Surgeon General Warning: Doing anything, at anytime, at anyplace, with anyone, may be hazardous to your health.”  

Strictly humor, or words to live by?

Point is almost anyone can make their own life or everyone else’s life unbearable. You can’t worry to much. Once you stop breathing there are no do overs. 

Now I am truly confused how some people in the medical field are almost maniacal about how everything is so horrible. We are not to bad. I’m sure some doctors and Nurses that work on the front lines are bombarded. I honestly am not worried. When the bodies start pulling up in the streets, then we should worry. 

Some people might not like me saying this. We should all be thanking former President Trump for leading the effort to get the new vaccine out so fast. Granted there were countless doctors, researchers, technicians, and others who deserve praise and credit. Everything was done in record time. 

Overall a vaccine exists now. I got it and my boys got it. I haven’t grown any extra arms yet. If I start doing anything weird, like wanting to eat raw meat, I will let you know. 

Are your children really in any danger. No. According to the suspect CDC. But let everyone get their vaccine dose if they want it. It will have a pacifying effect on the population plus you won’t feel like you are going to hell if you go out in public without a mask. (I am probably going to hell anyway so if you end up there look me up.)

So if you work around carona virus people all the time, after you scrub yourself down to your neurons, go out in public for a while. (Some of us like dancing with the bodies that are piled in the streets.) 

Wait you say there aren’t any bodies in the street. You say that according to the CDC only about 500 people died last week. That’s an average of 10 per state. Those numbers include the territory’s as well. Damn. So if you’re sick with the rona you are most likely to recover. There go my plans for early death by getting sick. 

But you say you want to pretend you are never going to die still. 

Oh heaven help us. 

4 August 2021……I can’t believe it’s been a month

I have been thinking. I love my father and always will. He is my “Dad”. Right now, do not appreciate one thing. 

I am the oldest of my siblings. I got to be around him and my mother the longest of all my siblings. I got to see much of the good and bad of who my dad was. One of the things I do not like and am very glad I don’t have the ability to keep doing since a stroke is be a “pack rat”, if you don’t know what that is I would say a person that keeps almost everything. A borderline horder. I used to keep lot’s of stupid things. Of course it is good to keep some things. Not as much as my dad or l used to keep. 

In many ways I am lucky I had a stroke. I was able to find people to help me sort through the stuff I had. I threw a lot away. I donated a lot. I had to change my wardrobe. For me it is so much nicer being able to not have stuff. 

I do have a storage unit. I had to move lots of stuff quickly, so getting a storage unit was the easiest answer. I wear lots of T-shirts and other pullover type clothes. Wearing a beard is so much easier than shaving, and so much more comfortable. It helps the winter to be less cold and the summer to be less hot. Insulation both ways. 

But back to my dad. I love the house where I grew up. An old Victorian house. At the time it was originally built, way before me or my parents were born, it was considered a mansion. Then my dad built eventually built a huge garage, almost as big as our house, next to our house. Then he always wanted some old cars like he had when he was growing up. Add to that he wanted a garden with lots of different kinds of things. The garden area we had was enormous. Plus some things were perennial. Grapes, onions, rhubarb, plums, etc.  in many ways I led a very charmed life growing up and I never realized it. 

My dad grew up on a farm in a very small town. Smaller than where I grew up. In many ways I like that town a lot. Still the whole county were my dad grew up, last time I checked, only had one stop light. I was in that same area for college also and at the time the stoplight wasn’t there. The town I grew up in was bigger, it had stoplights. 

So in a way I think my dad was escaping the tiny town he grew up in, and took a step up in the world as he saw it. 

That said, there was one problem. My dad was a school teacher. 

At the time he started teaching, not a bad thing to do by any stretch of the imagination. For a long time he was single and didn’t have a care in the world. Then he decided he would buy a furniture store. Great. From everything I understand he had a great eye. He made things look good. My early years I don’t remember anything but the furniture store. 

Then my dad got a job teaching. This was new to me. Mom said dad had been a teacher before. I don’t know anything about before. I do remember her and my dad talking to someone and my mom saying that their income was cut in half, almost overnight, because people weren’t buying furniture or most stuff to go in there house. So me and my siblings mostly knew our dad as a teacher. I actually had him as one of my teachers in jr. high. 

Now, I had a father that was a school teacher, but he had these dreams that could not be supported on a teacher’s salary. Especially when you have 3 children, and will eventually have 3 more. Still, I grew up happy. I have no major complaints. Sure, I complained at the time, I was young and stupid. Still, I’m writing about more of a realization I have come to very recently. The reason I mention my past is because everyone is influenced to some degree by what happened in their past. And what my dad chose before I was born. 

So I was raised in a very big house. Things did not go well for my dad in many ways. The job he eventually landed in, he was good at, but it did not allow him to live the lifestyle, I think he would have wanted for himself or his family to live. 

That has left me with some very unrealistic ideas about money, houses and many other things. 

I have never understood the concept of money very well. I do a little more now. Money has always been a very abstract, almost absurd concept to me. I never understood how much money it takes to do certain things. I blame part of that on the fact that I grew up in the house I did. We had so much. I thought everything about the way I grew up was “normal”. Things about how I grew up were far from normal. I never understood that at the time. 

Money was not a concept we discussed, unless it was to say we didn’t have enough, or we can choose what we would go without. 

One thing I want my children to understand better than I ever have is how money works. 

I want them to understand better than I have the concept of money. It’s only taken me about 45 years. 

If they go to college minor in business or marketing. College is not required to earn money. In fact, I would say in this day and age college is almost a detriment. Education of some kind is a must. It doesn’t need to be college. 

Learn to keep a budget. 

Pay your tithing. 

Learn something about investing. And do it every month. 

Save as faithfully/Religiously as though you were paying tithing. 

Don’t have a stroke. But join the military or become a millionaire before the stroke comes. 

9 July 2021….hmm

 

So I have been bothered by something for a few days. 

I ask for help driving somewhere. The person that I was hoping would help could not. They found someone else. 

Fine.  

Then I was talking to the person and I was told the reason why they didn’t help me. 

Apparently I live in an apartment, and apartments are  “unsafe” places for vehicles to be parked.  They felt. 

The person did not have any problem calling someone else so another person’s vehicle could sit in my parking lot. 

We drove to where I needed to go. We drove back. 

So one person’s vehicle is to good to leave sitting in an apartment parking lot, but the same person doesn’t mind asking someone else to do what they are not willing to do. Ok. 

But I’m glad to know my parking lot is not safe for some people but perfectly fine for others. 

I understand that everyone has there choices and feels a certain way at times. Still the logic, or lack there of, is beyond confusing. 

I had the second COVID shot. If I start growing a second head I will let you know. I didn’t sleep well last night. I hope it gets better. 

So I have been thinking and contemplating. When president Trump was inaugurated, lots of people commented on how his wife was “channeling” Jackie Kennedy. Maybe. I want to go one step further President Trump was channeling President Kennedy most of his term. 

I have been trying not to watch TV recently. It’s a huge time suck. 

I started watching a show, and I just had to stop it was making me feel hopeless and aweful. I watched another show like that years ago. I had do stop watching it because it just made me feel bad. The Holy spirit can help you recognize if something isn’t worth your time. I am so tired of most of the TV now days

22 June 2021…..

In a nutshell, I hate masks. I wear one when I need to. I try to avoid going anywhere I have to use one. I really think they are pointless. Nothing more than public theater. I feel like I am suffocating. I had a similar feeling when I was in the army and I had to wear combat boots for extended periods of time. 

 I decided to get the vaccine because I needed to go with my boys when they got it. I don’t worry to much. I’m boarder line, a walking experiment anyway. After I spent my years in the army, I’m probably lucky I don’t have three arms and an extra head. 

I had to go to the Emergency Room last week. Not fun. I had a kidney stone. Hurt like hell. They gave me medicine to dull the pain. I could tell I still had pain but at least it was tolerable. I was able to drift off to sleep for a while. When I woke back up I felt better, drugged, but better. The kidney stone had passed. Now I just had to wait for the ER to finish other stuff. I didn’t leave until 1:30 in the morning. 

I decided to look up kidney stone prevention. On the kidney association website. One of the first things they recommended is drinking lots of water and not sweating excessively just because you can.(ie, saunas)I find that funny because one person I know thinks drinking water will cause kidney stones. It doesn’t eliminate the risk entirely, but it sure reduces it. 

I have known people who act like if they don’t drink their body weight in soda, at least every year, they aren’t healthy. I seriously question that. 

Still I’m the living fluke. By all reasonable measures I should be dead. I’m past year eight now. 

I feel rotten. It is probably because I just recently went through such an ordeal. I still want to go places and do things. My body needs time to recover. More time than the average person. I remember several years ago, after my stroke, I went thee places on day. It took me the next two days to recover. I have had to learn that lesson repeatedly. 

I had a thought recently and I will try it. I am going to read and study each of the standard works concurrently. I have more than enough time. There are lots of study resources out there. 

Then I keep having the thought that I need to write a book. Get some of the thoughts in my head out in an organized manner. I am pretty sure it will be a slow process. I will try to keep you informed of my progress. 

One thing I have noticed is that TV is such a time suck, a waste of time. I get so much done if I don’t have it on. I have tried to avoid most television this last week. I have gotten so much more done. My cousin let me know about a movie he thought I should watch on Netflix. I don’t have Netflix anymore. 

Honestly I don’t mind just sitting there with my own thoughts. Maybe sitting outside for a while. I have been watching YouTube. That gets old quickly. I want to go and try some things I see. 

I just got a notification from Church News about temples reopening. I need to find someone to help drive me. 

4 June 2021.....ugh me

I made bread the other day. It was some of the softest that I ever made.  I hope  putting it in the fridge does not dry it out. 

I got a new Sim card for my iPhone and I need to install it. I don’t know if I really want to but I will so I can be a good boy. 

I have noticed that I am more suspicious as time goes by. Right after my stroke I was suspicious but in many ways I am more so now. It might go with the fact that I can be startled very easily. 

I want to get as many things done as I can. I am so tired of all of the things that have been going on in the US.I watch the news and it makes me depressed. 

I got a new shower head. The last one I had, something in it broke. It starter spraying me so hard it hurt. I thought it was going to drill holes in me. 

My new shower head is so wonderful. I don’t think I have ever had a shower head I like so much. 

I live in an apartment. One of the first things I do, and I recommend anyone does if you move into someplace new is make sure the shower head is something you like. If it’s not replace it to something you would be more happy with. A shower should be a semi sacred place. The new shower head I got is amazing. 

Now, I have been growing some plants. Japanese maple, Tomato, pepper, banana, lemon tree, citronella. Some I choose myself. Some my children helped choose. I am very happy with my little garden. 

Now I have a request. I would like to find someone that can work with me to design a house or two that I could use with me wheelchair. I would gladly do it my self but I have a very difficult time being just right with my hands. I’ve got lots of ideas. I need someone that has the physical ability and skills

13 May 2021.....myth

What I have to explain is very difficult because language is so clumsy. There are two types of tired. 

There is one that is more mental and perception based. There is one that is more physical. I’ve known about them for years. But I have never been able to explain them to my satisfaction. I will try to now. 

I used to go to a gym regularly. There were days I felt amazing but the people there would ask me if I was tired. There were days I felt like I could barely do anything but the people there though I looked and acted stronger. 

I noticed the same type of thing the other day. I felt great. I drove my chair to HEB, the grocery store, after I got my hair cut and went to the nail salon. I felt great. I wonder if I may have been acting tired at all. This morning I felt great until I started to get up then the more I moved the more tired I felt. 

Then there have been more days than I care to mention that I just want to lay there and do nothing. I know it is a miracle I can do anything at all. I spoke with my mother the other day. I got the impression that I can do more than she can, and that is saying a lot. Most people know I can’t do a lot by myself. I’m still annoyed some things take me so long. 

Now my perception about how the world is idiotic. It’s not hard to find idiocy. Most of us only have to stumble out our front door. For example my apartment management repainted the apartments. They look anemic now. 

So if you’re male great. If you’re female great. If you’re trans great. 

All the arguments about where someone should compete is stupid. Males compete against males, females against females, trans against trans, lizard against lizard. Dog against dog. Cat against cat. 

For fun. 

Me today I feel like I got run over.