Anxiously engaged

 Sunday we attend our church meetings.   P goes in person, we watch from home.  We attend all the auxiliary meetings too.  I do a zoom with my siblings on Sunday and we also deliver "special delivery" to 2-6 families on Sunday.

Monday we have our daily 2 scriptures and prayer and also hold FHE.

Tuesday I attend the missionary correlation meeting.

Wednesday the children have youth activities and I have Presidency meetings.  Sometimes we also have an Activity day zoom for lP and B.

Thursday we clean the church.

Friday we try to attend the missionary sport night.

Saturday I attend and sometimes lead the sisters in fitness class.

Motivation style

 I met with the sisters at the fitness class.  We were the only 3 people there.   In their devotional they asked me to consider what more I could be doing to be a disciple.  I always have issues lately with the missionary messages.  I feel like I'm in the choir.  We hold scriptures and prayer 2 times a day, FHE, home church.  I attend 3 hours of leadership meetings + another 2 hours of activities + 2 hours of church meetings weekly.  That very day we were going to Gtowne to do service for family, and return in time for me to attend a presidency meeting.  This challenge to do more makes me just want to put up boundaries and give less.

P is very good at motivating me to do better.  He knows that I'm the kind of person that responds to positive statements.  If I'm carrying 35 lemons and someone says "Wow" I say "Oh, yeah, watch me carry 40!".  But if someone says "You're only carrying 35, you should carry 36."  I want to throw them on the floor.

Some people respond ok to being assigned work.  Other people don't like being assigned work.

P and I are both serving in leadership.  G and M are also both serving in leadership.  We go and clean the church every week.  All this virtuous living should have the benefit of some joy.  I do feel joy.  I only like to be positively encouraged.  Is that so much to ask?

Do Gooding

 In February we decided to buy socks for the local homeless shelter.  I had them shipped to our home by mistake, so we got them delivered to the shelter today. 

Driving through downtown to the shelter we passed through the tourist zone.  So many people, so little masks.  The trolleys are operating at full capacity.  On our way home I stopped at the county vaccine site and was able to submit a form to get on the wait list.  Maybe I'll get a shot soon!

Sunrise 2021

 

We got up at 6:30 to drive down and watch the 2nd sunrise of Daylight Savings Time.  It was really beautiful.

We brought cinnamon rolls, chairs, blankets and coats. 

The weather was 60 degrees and clear. 

I brought a rubic's cube for G and he was able to solve it today.

M kept L contained the whole time! 

The sun rose red and beautiful.

 

The church has done away with youth programs that have pre-assigned goals.  The emphasis is on goal setting.  We've been aware of this program for 2 years now.  I put up this snazzy chart and everyone put up a few goals.  I'm going to add "Sunrise on the beach" to the completed section.

stuff

 We'll be deciding where to move in 2 years.  I'm looking around my home and thinking there are a lot of things I don't want to move with.  Over the next two years I want to let the kids use things up and wear things out.  I want to figure out what books we keep, and get by on less. 

I belong to a great group for getting rid of things.  It's tricky to whittle down what we have.  Even food items, we don't need so much, but I also want to use up or give away what we've had for years and never used.

We just came through the winter and had more blankets than we needed.  

What can I get rid of?  As L ages, I have donated all the baby and toddler things.  I should work on getting the puzzles donated.  He can't read yet, but he doesn't need the puzzles of a certain age anymore.  When a friend had a yard sale last summer, I was able to get rid of some nice things.  A good cause helps. 

What do we want to be owned by?

Vaccines and outings

 We met up with Grandma L, Grandma C and Grandpa S yesterday at the Ravine Gardens in Palatka.  It was a beautiful place and despite the harrowing hike it was wonderful.  

We tried to take the yellow trail that was marked 0.6 miles.  I don't know how they were measuring that but it started with 30 crazy brick uneven stairs going down to a dirt path.  Grandma's walker was useless most of the hike except to provide an occasional seat.

Grandma C rallied the children to explore this bridge.

Pictures with grandma L are always nice.

Grandma C brought Subway for lunch.  L kept saying it was the best lunch ever.  I can't say he was wrong.  It was so nice.  This was our first time eating together in a year.

After the hike of doom we drove the loop and stopped at this suspension bridge.  I now know that you can hike into the ravine and pretty much any staircase or upward elevation will take you to the paved road that surrounds the ravine.  That's good to know...

B wasn't interested in the suspension bridge but h really liked this pond that reminded me of the Bearenstain Bears Picnic.  I'm glad no gigantic mosquitoes, nor hordes of picnickers.

Levi took up position on this foot bridge and was very happy.

Geneology Jeopardy

 I was at a meeting and someone was wishing for more activity with the Family History.  This person is always pushing my boundaries for doing more.  An idea popped into my head for a game I woefully called "Bring your dead."  in which people would be asked to find a relative that fit a criteria, like birth year or something.  The group loved the idea.  The original pusher wanted it to be a weekly thing.  All of the other people in the weekly meeting were willing to let her run with that weekly dream.  I stated that I could attend once a year or something but that I already attend 7 meetings a week for church and cannot commit to another meeting.  

My idea evolved in the past 12 hours to a weekly Geneology Jeopardy challenge that could be posted on Facebook.  It would have categories like State, Initials, Children, Birthday, Temple etc... So fun!

I am learning to recognize people that push my boundaries, for I have learned what boundaries are.  People who ask you to do things you are not comfortable doing can be a good thing or a bad thing.  I'm learning to listen to my reservations.  I'm not comfortable having this individual comb through the responses to my facebook posts looking for someone who might be interested in being contacted by them.  In the church we talk about how our role is to be a light and that people will notice that and that their conversion timeline is their own timeline.  But I think being pushy can turn people off and I don't want to be a stumbling block to people.

Somewhere between tender mercy and miracle

 I try to not pick up groceries more often than weekly.  We were out of milk so I ordered some food for Friday.  When we arrived none of the cold items were included because the freezer had been down overnight.  I thought about going to Save A Lot but decided that we didn't actually need to get milk.  We could get by until Monday, when I ordered another pick-up. 

Saturday morning I got a call from a lady in the ward.  She has previously given me extra food that she picked up from the food bank that was too big for older individuals, like 5 lbs of ground beef!  Well this day she had a whole order including milk and sausage patties, some of the items I had on that order that didn't get delivered.

I think of the blessing it was that I didn't get those items so I had the room to accept the bounty.  I think of the blessing that this friend thinks of me when she has food she doesn't need.  I'm grateful that I have  a reputation for being willing to take food and make use of it.

Miser meets the Universe of abundance

 P is a miser and really doesn't like to spend money.  That has worked well for us since I spend the money.  He bought a special tool a few years ago to cut the boards of the deck that were rotting and needed to be replaced.  That tool never worked as well as he hoped, and the project has lingered.  Today he read that there was a faulty pin in the tool.  I suggested there must be another tool.  So he went and bought a dremel tool for $150.  

Concurrently, I was paying the insurance money to Cochlear Americas and found out that the insurance company sent about $200 more than Cochlear would accept.  This discrepancy will get worked out eventually, or not.  I am still waiting of insurance to reimburse me about $200 for previous claims.  

Sarah Kay wrote a poem saying that "The Universe has already written the poem you planned to write." and I decided to apply that here, "The Universe has already paid the bill you were reluctant to pay." 

I'm grateful we pay tithing and that our life is so abundant.  We plan to move in 2-2.5 years.  This sort of worries me because that's stressful.  Between maybe getting paid for my the work I did as conservator, and getting funds from my mother's estate at that time, we may have a nice cushion to live on for a while waiting for a great price on this house. 

I know we'll be OK.  P has a very long history of providing for the family and as much as I love it here, we will have spent 13 years bound to this location in the service of G.  We have been blessed living here.  And it's OK to see what else is out there.

Connector

 When I read Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" I identified with the idea of being a connector.  I am so grateful for the people who connected us with services, a home, free stuff, and all sorts of good ideas.  I am often tempted to give unsolicited advice, but sometimes I am a connector.  

An acquaintance expressed a dilema on the facebook and I suggested that perhaps hospice could send a nurse to the home.  "Hospice isn't just for end of life care.  I didn't know that until I knew that."  I felt pretty special for having that tidbit of information that she seems to be running with.  This lady is very well connected and usually has hundreds of comments and likes/hearts for her posts.  

When G was sick, we were signed up for hospice and that freaked me out.  But it was hospice who helped get us admitted when G was super dehydrated and we didn't have to go through the ER.  Hospice also sent nurses to visit us at home or during admissions.  They were really sweet women and I'm so happy we were enrolled in Hospice. 

During my mom's end of life care, hospice provided nursing, medicine, and equipment all for free.  I am really grateful for hospice.

I attended a Welfare training meeting for the church on Tuesday.  I was struck by how little the leaders present knew about social services that could be recommended to families in need.  Church funds are great for keeping families from want while they apply for food stamps, or get a new job.  We don't ask the church to school people's children.  They send them to schools paid for by tax payers, or they homeschool them.  The church does not provide home loans.  There are banks and government organizations backed by tax payer dollars to make that possible. 

Through my own experience I know some things that other church leaders don't know.  To me it is not responsible for people to be on church assistance long term.  We have decent government services that provide funds for food, housing, medical insurance childcare, as well as civic organizations to help with so much more.  If someone is more comfortable accepting help from the church, that is inappropriate.  To me, seeking appropriate government assistance is part of self reliance.  

Someone I know has told me repeatedly that they are not in favor of paying for other people's college tuition.  She thinks that's entitled.  She feels that by paying for her husband's school and her children's school she's done enough.  Several of my family members were against government assistance but they were OK living in mom's basement.  Not everyone has a parent paying for college.  Not everyone has a family support structure.  

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Do unto others as you would do unto your own child, and wish that others would do unto them.