15 December 2020....if you want to see the photos you have to click through.

So, to start with I am getting fat. It’s been happening for about two years. Before that I never got hungry or full, now I do. It is very hard for me to exercise and I get very tired of apples, the only fruit that is durable enough for me to store for any meaningful time. 

I have been growing my beard from a year now. 

I was watching a ZZ Top video the other day. I think the one guy has three years of growth. I’ve got my work cut out for me if I want to get there. I would like to be able to get it into a pony tail or braid it. I was looking at a picture of Joseph F Smith. That beard he had was probably two or more years of growth. Here a few photos of my beard as it’s been growing over the past year. 

I deleted over 4,000 photos my children made. They weren’t even real photos. They. We’re screenshots. Fun stuff when you take them. Clutter. 

I have tried not to look at Facebook and I haven’t followed the news for a while anyway. This presidential election has been a fiasco. It has always been about the blind leading the stupid. Who is which? Take your pick. Candidates? Voters? News media? Senate? Representatives? 

16 November 2020

So I have come to the conclusion that I am trying to do to much, again. It always happens. Some things don’t need to be done everyday. Some things do. So let me review my ongoing goals. 

Still here’s a picture of my cat

Running type exercise

I don’t have to do that everyday or even every other day. If I get maybe twice a week that is more than awesome. 

Write every morning. 

I don’t have to write the same thing everyday. Maybe one day I will write a poem. Another day work on a play. Maybe work on a novel. It is novel writing month. Maybe just write in my journal. 

Floss teeth 

I have not been wanting to because I put it off until later at night.That makes it so I don’t want to do anything. 

Volunteer

I have discovered many things I can do. Still I would be bad at moving a couch. Offering money so people can get a moving van that I can do. 

Budget

This one is tricky for me. Part of me thinks it should be done everyday. That’s probably overkill. Once or twice a week I can reconcile my account with what I planned for and do something. 

I came to, what I think, is an important understanding. Budgets are done before you receive money. After you receive the money it is no longer budgeting. It could be called accounting, you are accounting, making sure you know where everything has gone. I need to account for where all my money goes. There are always unexpected things. Still prior planning prevents pitiful performance. 

No robbing/borrowing from savings 

I think I've got a pretty good system set up. Now I just need to keep maintaining it. 

Spend time in nature

I really need to do something here. Going outside of my apartment is just not enough. Being outside is great. I went to a state park with my children a few weeks ago. I was able to handle the small nature trail. I went with my children to the trail head. It was beyond rough and way to steep for my chair in parts. I went about 100 yards then turned around. I just waited for the others to go on the trail and come back. I thought going outside was sufficient. I would say it’s not. I need to go out to national park or something once a month. Be in real undeveloped nature. 

 

Read Book of Mormon daily Read General conference talks daily 

I have been doing this. Slow and steady. 

Bake at least one loaf of bread a week month , hopefully sourdough.

I need to do better I had to buy bread from the store. I hate most store bought bread. Bread is so simple to make bread at home. I don’t care as much for sour dough. It’s good if you have the skills. I don’t think I do. 

So that’s my analysis of life right now. 

One thing I want people to do is click though to see the actual blog I might start posting multiple pictures so in order to see them all you have to click though. I’m not sure on all the details yet. 

Maybe I will only share half a post. 

Here’s me. 

Now something different. My opinion. Some people say hospitals are over crowded with carona virus patients. Some people I’ve talked to that are nurses say they have plenty of room and then some. If this pandemic is as bad as everyone claims, I think it would make more since to cross level the patients between all the hospitals. Every hospital should be helping to lighten the load of the other hospitals. 

My opinion. If any hospital is insanely busy with carona virus patients and they are not willing to transfer patients....whatever. 

Finally, the presidential race this year has been the blind leading the stupid. Who’s blind? Who’s stupid? Take your pick, you are right. 

More importantly who will school board and city officials be. 

My cat again 

4 November 2020...... I really would like comments on this one

4 November 2020

So I posted and shared on Facebook yesterday that I have no desire to know who the winner of the presidential race is. I didn’t realize at the time what else would be effected. I will try to innumerate the things I have discovered. 

So if I don’t want to know who won the presidential race I can’t watch TV. At least the broadcast type. So streaming; Netflix, amazon, etc. 

I can’t spend time on Facebook. The app I use to post my blog makes it possible for me to post on Facebook without going on Facebook. That way I won’t get news or current events. 

I can stay away from Twitter. Nothing but current events there anyway 

No you tube, unless I can figure out a way to select what comes through. 

I can write more in my journal and pick and choose the bits that I want to share. In fact I’m doing that right now. 

I can spend more time on my budget and organizing how and where my money will go. 

Now that I will actively being trying to avoid the news and writing about how I will avoid it I can see there are many things I will be able to do that I wasn’t able to do before. 

So how will I keep up on current events? 

Well after I give myself a chance to detox, I can start looking at newspapers online. I can decide for myself and don’t need to let the talking heads decide what I should hear. 

So my desire to not know who the winner of the presidential race is, has far reaching consequences. 

If you can think of something, good or bad about my decision please let me know. Please write your comments on the blog comment section. I’m trying to avoid Facebook as much as possible

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15 October 2020.....happy birthday

Want to see a picture of me first thing in the morning? 

Scary huh. 

I am so disgusted at some of the choices I have allowed myself to make since my mission, when I was 21 years old.  Not that I have done anything that is “wrong”, but I have not allowed myself to be guided in a way that would have been best. 

The Lord told me time and time again, what would work the best. I did my own thing time and time again. Ultimately everything was my choice. Why I choose the way I did I will probably never understand. Sometimes I was told to do something. I choose to do something else. 

I am not happy about some of the choices I have made. 

I listened and tried to do as the Lord directed before my mission. In some cases I thought I new better after my mission and that was probably the time I needed Him most.

I talked with a friend that I was close to from that time. I ask why he or someone else didn’t forcefully just tell me what I needed to hear. He mentioned that I probably would not have listened. He’s most likely right. The fact is I still probably needed some kind of wake up call. 

I finally got my wake up call, so to speak.  I’ve had a stroke and me trying to do my own thing is not as easy as it used to be.  In fact it can be a bad joke at times. My ability to do lots of things I want to do, is extremely limited. I am forced to focus on what I want to do the most. “Full purpose of heart” must be part of my life. 

If I am working on anything am I focused on what I intended to be doing.  If I am getting ready to go somewhere, am I focusing on getting ready or going somewhere else. For example, if I am getting ready for church, is getting ready my focus or something else. 

I’m not the biggest fan of double tasking. Basically I see it as asking someone to provide lower quality work. That doesn’t mean life doesn’t throw multiple things at us at times so we have to do our best. 

I decided to watch some TV news. Bad idea.  I think I could feel myself loose IQ points. I’d say, it doesn’t matter what you watch; FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.,etc., a person becomes less intelligent the more they watch. 

So I don’t know when or how or why exactly it happened but dying is not something I want to have happen. I still don’t care if it does happen. I was just rereading what I wrote before and it doesn’t make sense to me. So I changed it.  I hate the fact that I had a stroke. It is not fun in many ways. I would not wish it on anyone. Still I don’t want to die. 

Now I should clarify. I have never been suicidal. I just do not care if I die. Dying is just the ultimate price for living on this earth. Now I’m having a pretty good time living and being human. Sure there are lots of things that aren’t ideal, whatever ideal is. But life is pretty good. 

I feel like I have had a second aging process. I have always been my physical age. My emotional age has gone from a child of about 5-10 to my 46 year old self since the stroke happened. In a way some of my systems had to reboot after the stroke. Now I’m version 2.0. The reboot process was, and is, slow. Maybe it is still going on in some ways. Over the last year and a little bit I have noticed differences. Some things I remember, but I have to concentrate on some of them more than I have had to the past. 

29 September 2020......thousand words

22 September 2020......why do I care?

So what is kindness?

 Is kindness doing everything for someone? Is kindness giving someone a fish, or teaching that same person how to fish?

Is kindness cutting a person open? Does that make you a psychopath or a surgeon?

Is wearing a mask make you a bandit or someone that doesn’t want to get others ill?

What is kindness? Who ultimately gets to decide?

What is someone physically capable of?  Who gets to decide?

So I have decided that I don’t want to post anything about federal or state politics. To devicive. Less important anyway. The city and the schoolboard have more effects and importance on my life overall. I have school age children. I still have to go out to get my fingernails done. So in order of importance school board, city, county, (here city and county are almost the same) state, then federal. I can’t write federal of entirely, I still rely on the VA for a lot. 

So, what is my logic. The federal government has, or should have, very little influence over my day to day life. I should focus most of my efforts on the schools my children attend, the stoplights near where I live, etc. Things that may have more effect on my day to day life. Granted, the national scene is “sexier”. Still important. It can influence my, or anyone else’s, life. Still it doesn’t deserve nearly as much attention as it gets. 

I am bummed out and annoyed. My travel wheelchair has some kind of problem with the CPU. So basically it is a dead weight until I can take it to the wheelchair repair shop. I want to do some traveling fairly soon. Maybe that will have to wait until I can get the wheelchair fixed. 

The worst thing is having dreams and aspersions and not having the physical capability to do anything about it. My children and I went shopping. (Shopping does not mean buying.) anyway, I found a marble track that you can setup different ways and I wanted to get it. The problem is my hands are not capable of the dexterity and strength needed to build or take apart the pieces. I have a similar situation with LEGOs. That is my never ending dilemma. There are things I want to do. I don’t have the capability to do most things alone. I can go to the store and look. I am limited to what I can carry in one hand if I buy anything. Mostly I just look.

I want to do so many things that are beyond my physical capacity. 

The fact that I can’t do some things is very depressing at times. It is not the end of the world, but at times it feels like it. 

Alma 29:3

15 September 2020.....life is slow lately

I have been thinking about how I do things. I need to do something’s in a different order than I have been. Writing I need to try in the morning. Then reading scriptures later. 

I have so much that I feel like I need to do. I get so tired so easily these days. What do I need to cut out of my life? What do I for sure need to do?

So the idea that I have and keeps coming back to me is; what can I do individually. Individuals make up systems. We can only address systems if we are willing to address individuals. 

One thing that I have thought for awhile is a quote, that I am understanding for myself after years. “It is better to better to work for the salvation of one soul, than work tirelessly for the salvation of the masses.”

What can I do as an individual?

Don’t worry about what others may need to do because you have no control over it. 

So looking at most people, can they make their bed? 

Sure. 

Even me if I have people help me set it up the right way. I’m a big believer in having a made bed. In fact before my stroke, if I hadn’t made my bed in the morning, before I would go to bed at night, I would make my bed. It’s different in many was since my stroke. I still prefer a made bed, but it is not nearly as easy for me. Still I can do something. 

So I have noticed some change over the last 7 years. 

Some people said I acted younger than my age. They might have been right. Still doesn’t change the fact that I’m a 40+ year old man and they have treated me like a child at times. 

One thing I thought was stupid was some people felt they had to “tell on” me. Once, I was mad enough to chew nails. Madder than hell at my mother, it has happened at times. (I still love her.) I sent her an email. She felt she needed to share what I sent to her with someone else close to me at the time. The thing was I had already shared the information with the person. Honestly I don't understand how or why some people want to be so controlling. 

I have had a brain  injury. It effects lots of different aspects of a person. Physically, I can’t walk. My talking is not what anyone would call normal. Movement in general is a challenge, especially when I am not in my wheelchair. 

My emotions are a mess some days. If I need to cry, at times I can’t. That’s partly physical but becomes emotional. The thing is if you cry most people assume you are sad. You can cry when you are happy. One day I was very happy and crying. Everyone assumed I was sad. Very frustrating. 

Another thing is if I get mad hardly anything with my physical body works properly. I have had more times than I can count that I get mad about something and my ability to move is just stopped. I’m ham fisted at the best of times. If I let myself get mad about everything around me I would not be able to function. My fingers and hands become fists, I can’t straighten my arms, one leg goes straight and the other bends. I became a physical mess. If I let my emotions get out of control.  So I can function physically, I have to keep my emotions in check. 

Emotions are different depending on our age as well. 

In seven and a half years I have gone from being a child, maybe teenager emotionally to being more of the 46 year old man that I am. I think that I am starting to act 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90. 

Intelligence, that’s something I’ve never worried about. It has always been hard for me to communicate effectively but that’s a different story. Sure there are lots of things I don’t know. 

I’m not a doctor or a lawyer. Still I’ve had doctors and lawyers compliment me about how I think about things. 

I’m not a mathematician or a physicist. 

I’m not a business person or an economist. 

I have my masters degree. At times I feel I got duped into getting. 

So,

Emotionally, I’m a mess. 

Physically, I’m a train wreck. 

Mentally and intellectually, I can do pretty good. And by pretty good I mean I could leave most people crying under the table. 

Overall, so. 

I have come to a deeper understanding of this quote. 

“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

President Ezra Taft Benson

The Lord works with the individual. 

It’s a very slow process at times. 

For example. How long ago did the Lord give the proper name for his church?1838. 

When did the prophet of the Lord begin to ask us to us the proper name? 2018. 

The Lord allowed the bastardization of the churches name for nearly 200 years. 

The Lord moves, what I would call, painfully slow at times. Still the only way that something will last at times if it is slow. 

I like things fast at times. The Lord moves much slower. Sometimes I hate how slow things seem to go at times. 

So I don’t want to write about politics but I have to say something about this. 

This lady I know shared a video. I shared it myself. 

Basically the video was saying don’t vote for Trump. It didn’t say vote for someone else and that is the problem. 

There are four candidates. 

President Trump is obviously one of the four choices. Not the best person in many ways. Still he tries to be very clear about that he wants to do. 

Most people know who the challengers are. What I find hilarious is that the video said don’t vote for the President, but it didn’t say who someone should vote for. 

The President is not the best example I would say of a human being should be. He is a good business man. I would say he loves his country. I hate some things he does. Still he loves his country and he’s working for free, basically.