Of course, we all know, we water and help those thought-seeds of doubt, to bear fruit/flowers that have the internal impact of hemlock/holly berries/poison oak on the system. Like ingesting poisonous mushrooms. Thoughts are not just fleeting...they flow, build up residue in our thinking, that snags and builds up negativity, in the form of self doubt, and it becomes like a beaver dam in our head. Now I admit this will take close examination of these sentences to get a mental picture of what I described!
So...I decided- no one is forced to read my blog. I have never held myself up as perfect, in the example phase, of living my life that is permeated with my love of being LDS. So why not?...just blog and let my co-d nature lose this round. Onward.
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Remember when you first left home to live on your own? To be all grown up and make all of your own decisions? The excitement and challenge, in addition to the confusion and self-doubt? Feeling ill-prepared on many counts and at the same time totally confident you could master it all. Slay the dragon with one wield of your sword. The mix and complexity and the joy and horror of living a mortal life.
My life had settled into years of routine and I felt in charge of the happenings. Now aging, especially with one-half, not up to par in the equation of available man-power, really changes things up! I feel like I'm back at square one. I think there are a lot of back to square one milestones in our life. Just the flow of family...married or not...that flow ebbs. Marriage brings the baby and more babies and less sleep and more expenses and all sorts of periphery stuff...like jobs and houses and moving and Church service etc. With younger years and better health it seems easier to figure out the landscape and pick the best available life-route.
Bored? Sorry. This is my reality. (and I seem to have no blog filter in my brain to pretend or act like changes have not occurred and I am not challenged!) Things have changed. I am trying to be aware of what I need to do to create, for the two of us, something very familiar and non-foreign.
Housekeeping. There are those that have NoStandards in that area. with mold and mess and germs wafting around and pans and dishes and grossness abounds and piles of junk and filth. I am above the LandFillNoStandards and have settled in with BasicLowStandards! That means things are picked up off the swept floor, dishes done, laundry done, surfaces clean. That also means you might open a cupboard and be killed, by the falling whatevers, lurking behind those closed doors. You might also be afraid of the piles of books and magazines and papers in my office and wonder if an avalanche is pending. BUT it's all clean trashy (Not to me. my treasures!) Did I mention--if the sun is shining a certain way, you might not be able to see through the windows? BUT if you have to use the toidy, you won't be afraid of germs? (that's a plus for sure!)
The reason for the LowStandardBasicGoal as the bulls-eye?... Because I never know when there may be a few days, because of health challenges with Terry, that things don't get touched. Therefore things remain pretty stable and never look any different. Things stay the same. Our life used to be challenged by toys etc. strewn all over. I find we can keep things strewn even without blaming it on toys and kidlets! Oh, yes...we can drop things all around with the thought in mind of-- later I'll move that-- and later might mean a long time.
Meals I still have my excitement about 2016. I mentioned meals before and my desire to freeze some things. There are times with compromised health or exhaustion from broken sleep, or whatever, that you just don't even like the thought of cooking anything!! I did up the ante and cook in the morning and adapting as I go along. I've enjoyed that!
I've made several batches of our favorites soups and have frozen them in serving sizes. They have already come in handy for us and for our son, when he got sick, and Chicken Noodle Soup was the only thing that sounded good. I had it ready in minutes. (drumroll!) I've made Gumbo, Navy Bean, Creamy Chicken Noodle, Chicken Rice with tomato and I can't remember what else. I'm going to still make Lentil and one more bean soup. Then spaghetti sauce. Then a couple of casseroles-to freeze and cook later. Now I did that in my LowStandardHousekeeping without guilt. I felt no pull to up the standard before I pulled out my soup pot!
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I did freeze one other thing. Using our son's Food Processor (ours was to small) I made pie crust and froze the discs. I got carried away and made 9 crusts. I felt pretty smug as this was for those times when someone needed something and I could easily whip out a pie! My Pie-making is no longer talked about in hushed tones at any dinners, with awe oh, that is one of her pies. I hope I get a piece. I'm not even thought of with all of the women that easily whip out pie after pie and everyone is saying to them...oh, I hope you brought a pie tonight! they are so delicious! No. that isn't my life.
My reasoning was...again...simplify to where I can still live my life and still do the tending to health stuff! I figured that I could have the pie crusts ready and I bought several cans of pumpkin and I do know how to make great chocolate pie and banana pie and even coconut pie. WELL, I used to know how to whip up a cream pie but anyhow that was my plan. I also purchased some pie-tins at the Dollar Store so no one would have to bother returning tins! Everything in place!!! Yes!!
Plan in place. Discs frozen in readiness. The RSP sends a blanket note that our Ward is feeding the Yakima Mission at a Zone Conference and she needs 5 more pies!! Be still my heart!! So I send an I can help note. So she needs two pies. Bliss. I roll out the dough. Prepare the pumpkin. pour it in. Lots of pumpkin filling left! The pie tins were not deep dish!! They are already in over when it dawns on me. So I bake them and go to check them and they have split in a full circle and you can see how dry the pumpkin is!! I decide that missionaries will eat anything so opt for the RSP to spray whipped cream all over them before serving. I took the extra pie filling and made another thin pie. Terry took a pinch of filling, while waiting for it to cool, and pronounced, like some Chopped judge...Nancy! This has no sugar! You forgot the SUGAR!!
The RSP had already commented on the pie's appearance--Crater Lake! She agreed to put whipped cream on. Later I emailed her and said...Terry said he doesn't want me to mention that he thinks the pies are horrible so I won't tell you that. I forgot the sugar. Just throw them away.
Did she or not? I don't know. I do know that someone else in the Ward, a real piemaker, had sent the Missionaries over to the RSP house with 4 pies. You know- one of those good deed doers that just wanted to help out and gave pies without being asked and all of that righteous doing that I envy. Bless her heart!
(I asked the RSP today if she threw them out on Thursday and she reluctantly told me she did...now you know the end of that tale!)
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Next on my list of trying to super simplify my/our life is the yard!
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If it's to be it's up to me. If not now...when? If not me...who? (a part of my creed that is being put to the test!) I want my sweetie to feel at ease and not guilty as I try to rearrange our life! so all of this is a challenge!
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In that first melodramatic paragraph...I mentioned mushrooms. Here is a mushroom from my childhood. We had so much fun smashing these with our shoes and watching the greenish cloud come out. a PuffBall. Poison. Just like all of life...we have things that can do us in and stinkin' thinkin' can, at the very least, do some polluting but if tended to full growth, thoughts become poison.
| Alaska Poisonous Puffball Mushroom |
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This talk is so incredible! IF I had children at home...I'd read this and section it up and teach what he talked about. It is just great! I think you could even simplify it for younger children.
Elder Ted R. Callister- CES Devotional --What is the Blueprint of Christ's Church? here
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