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.