Ants

I put my blogspot on my homepage so I would remember to update it more often. Come to find out it is not the forgetting it that keeps me from posting - it is not having the time to put into it what I want. I have loads of pictures I want to upload right now, and because I don't have time, I put off updating. Seems kind of stupid in a way. The object is not necessarily to entertain anyone - the object is to keep a record of what is going on. Two week entries are not going to cut it.

Since my last entry a lot has happened. Some very negative things are in our lives right now, and we are having a hard time dealing with them on a superficial level, but not on an internal level; it is kind of weird.

Have you ever watched ants when you disrupt their hill? At first they scurry around like crazy doing whatever it is their job to do, but the next thing you know, they are doing what they usually do. Things get back to normal really quickly. They don't spend any time agonizing over the crisis.

I feel like an ant. I have to keep putting out fires. Some just keep burning, and don't seem extinguishable. Others can be resolved, and we just keep working until the next crisis. Like the ants, I don't seem to have the ability to keep the problems at bay. I do not seem able to "see it coming". Instead, I just sit there waiting for the next moron who wants to come along and smash my hill.

The economy is striking hard right now, and we are really trying to not spend our pennies. Coincidently, we have been on a rampage to clean up our "hill" and in so doing have found a lot of stuff we are selling and/or giving away. It feels good for the "hill" to not be so cluttered. Should the heel-grinding get really bad, we can more easily move a small amount of personal belongings.

(Can you tell I've been watching ants this afternoon. I just planted arugula, lettuce, and celery; a group of ants had the nerve to build a hill in an area I had been planning to plant in. No, I didn't smash their hill, but I did throw a little dirt on it as I planted my stuff next to it. Maybe we can live together cooperatively? In my experience, the odds of that are negligible, but I am forever the optomist.)

Because of the number of students who have elected not to pay tuition at Deseret Academy, we have been forced to reduce our staff to just Roger and me. We had hoped at one time that it would provide at least a part-time income for all of our children, but it doesn't appear possible right now. As we have tried to keep this "dream" alive, we have gone into debt. We were free and clear of all debt but a school loan just a couple of years ago, but now we find ourselves in pretty deep. I should have done this months ago when I was first prompted, but now I will have to suffer the consequences of not listening. Those consequences come in more ways than just financially because at least one of my children is very angry at us for doing this. I feel very lonely right now.

Of course, with just Roger and I taking on all of the responsibilities for our school, there is added work. There are times when I ask myself if it is worth it. I still don't know the answer.

Another challenge we are having is with my mentally challenged brother-in-law. He has been living in his mother's condiminium since her death 7 years ago. We have been getting phone calls and e-mails from the condo managers saying that he can no longer live there due to behavior problems he has been having. When we talk to Roger's dad and his brother, they assure us all is well. It has been very confusing. We finally arranged a trip there last weekend to see if we could clear up some things.

What a shock we had! The apartment is in horrible condition and is unlivable at present. It will probably cost us $20,000 to make the necessary repairs. Even then we may not be able to sell it because there is such a depressed market right now. We had to move Randy into an assisted living facility in Ft. Lauderdale, but he has left twice trying to return to the apartment. His case worker called to tell me they are moving him to another facility in the hopes he will be happier.

A big problem is that the neighbors are telling the authorities that we are stealing everything from Randy including his non-existent trust fund and "his" apartment. The APS case worker has told me they have lodged an abuse complaint against us, and we will be investigated. Isn't that lovely?

The odd thing about that is that Randy spent every cent his mother left him (which was about $17,000, we think) within a month after she passed away. She had planned on it taking care of him for a long time. Plus he took everything out of the safety deposit box which contained things he and Roger were supposed to share (not sell, mind you) and pawned them. We have no idea where the money went as he would not tell us. We assume he was conned as he has nothing to show at his home for it.

The apartment he has been living in is to be shared with his brother, Roger. Instead of being able to share in it, Roger has had to foot all of the bills for it, including a $300+ maintenance fee and untold "assessments". He also pays the light bill, and anything else that comes up. Some of these maintenance fees never made it to the bank apparently as the condominium association is also suing us for 1 1/2 years worth of unpaid fees. We supplied the attorney with our bank statements and cancelled checks, so that should not be a problem. They have actually put the condominium into foreclosure, I think. We may end up having to live in it ourselves before it is all over.

Like the ants, I feel completely powerless over the mightier powers that be. I feel oblivious to their power except for when they are stepping on me and trying to destroy what peace I try to make for myself. I just want to live simply and quietly, trying to take care of what responsibilities I percieve to be mine. How naive I am thinking I can just plop down in this particular garden bed!

Facebook

I know this is pretty random, but I really like Facebook. I have been thinking a lot about technology. Not even considering the advancements since I have been alive, I was talking to my grandson about the advancements that were made since HIS dad was born in 1973. Of particular interest to Wyatt were the video games. Remember pong? If you do, you are giving away your age. Atari was an incredibly primitive system compared to the video games of today, but you'd have thought my son had died and gone to heaven when we got our first system. I think he was about 10...

And video tapes. To say that video recordings are an improvement today would be a gross understatement. I think every one of them we ever had ended up in the garbage as the tape split one too many times. We even would take them apart and "splice" them with scotch tape, but that got pretty old after a while.

I also lived in the time of 8 track tapes which led to the cassette tape which had a pretty long run. I can remember being at my aunt's house one time, and she had a reel to reel player which was the forerunner of the 8 track tape. Talk about labor intensive. Of course, all the home movies were on reels as well, and that went well into my high school years and beyond.

Of course those were simpler days. I don't even know what was on television during the day because we NEVER watched daytime TV. I think they had game shows and soap operas, but we didn't watch it. If we were home, we were studying or playing outside or reading. Those are all three foreign concepts for children today. Most of the students in our school had no idea how to study when they came to us, and many of them are unable to read with any degree of proficiency when we get them. The math and communication skills of our nation's children are shockingly inadequate for ANY job, no less for the kinds of jobs needed to keep a country going.

Every presidential year, I think how sad it is that we are producing a nation full of citizens who don't know how to think. Of course, when one doesn't think, one is unable to reason. That can be very dangerous if the unthinking, unreasoning individual decides to cast his unthoughtful, unreasonable ballot. I wonder how the founding fathers would feel if they saw the campaign commercials being run that are directed totally at an American public who will not see through the propaganda.

Gee, I guess I found my soapbox. Facebook. I was going to tell you how much I like it. I have a few friends that have found their way to it. I had my account for awhile before I realized the advantages of it. I hope more of friends will too. The thing I like about it is that I can keep up with my friends without having to actually see them or even talk to them. It's as if they are publishing their own little newsletter for me to read each day. You know, like Christmas card newsletters. You know how we all love to catch up on what our friends are doing each year.

Of course, you might ask yourself why do I care what they are doing if I don't get to actually spend time with them. Well, that too is a sign of the times. Who has time to visit anymore?

Another thing I really like about it is that I can update my "status" each day, so it acts as a little journal entry. Since I am far too lazy to actually keep a journal, this works well for me.

I have even decided to use a myspace page to log my seminary lessons so that I will have a permanent record of what I taught when. Kinda late for that. I'd like to see what I would have written when I first started teaching a hundred years ago. I started it because one of my students has temporarily moved to Texas, and it will serve as a way for her to keep up with her lessons.

I also like facebook because I can update and catch up with my friends and family in my car on my mobile phone. I spend a lot of time in the car, so it helps me feel like I am making better use of this formally unproductive time. (Roger usually drives, and we go most places together.) We tried listening to talk CD's, but Roger and I don't like to listen to the same things. In fact, we don't listen to anything as Roger likes to spend time in the car talking. No fear, I can talk, listen, and facebook! I am a very good multi-tasker. One has to be these days. Computers may have made our work simpler, but now we have a lot more of it!

I remember when that first became a word: multi-tasker. It was when home computers started making it on the scene.

Home computers! Don't get me started. I had one of the first calculators ever produced by Texas Instruments in 1974 (I think). It was quite large by today's standards. Heck, I even have a calculator "application" on my cell phone. That first calculator was not solar or cordless; if you couldn't plug it in, you had to use the slide rule. Yes, I admit it: I went all the way through Chem I & II, Physics, Trig & Anal. Lit. Geometry with a slide rule. I couldn't use one of them now if my life depended on it. Can you even buy those things anymore? I remember all of the sine and cosines had to be in the appendix because that was the only way to do geometry back then.

And telephones have changed a tad as well... I remember when phone numbers began with an exchange; ours was "ludlow"; LU, I think. My aunt's was "jackson" JA. Area codes were only when you had to call out from yours, and our area codes covered much larger geographical areas, so that wasn't very often.

Our phones all had the curly cord thing which meant we didn't travel very far away from the phone while we were talking on it. It also meant we didn't talk all that long because we had to get stuff done that was farther away than where the phone could reach. We also had rotary dials. I bet most young people don't even know what that is!

We didn't have to wear seat belts in our cars because cars didn't have them. Of course, we didn't have express ways for local travel, so no one drove very fast anyway.

It really is shocking to think how many things have changed in the 50+ years I have been on this earth. One has to think that if things changed like this every 50 years, the cave man is not too hard to imagine. The fact is that civilization didn't change all the much technologically for thousands of years. I think the printing press was the invention that changed all that because once mankind could read, it opened up previously unavailable paths. So now the circle is complete: in the next generation will our leaders be readers? If not, they will close many paths leading to many wonderful opportunities. I don't want to think what our civilization will be like without readers.

Of course, if I can keep improving on my hermit-like existence, I won't know about it, right? All I will know is what I surround myself with: books, books, and more books with plenty of technology thrown in there to enhance the communication experience.

Do you know that plastics came into usage during my lifetime? But that's a discussion for another day...

committment

Good old Steve. I love his slant on things. Please visit Darius' blog to follow this thread as this is a good summary of it.

http://trunkybeat.blogspot.com/2008/09/you-might-be-raw-foodist-when.html

(While you're there, sign up for the feed. He's very insightful and fun to read. Of course, I might be prejudiced...)

I actually started sun gazing Saturday after I heard the lecturer, Ken Rohla (http://beyondrawfood.com/blog/), talk about it earlier that day. I actually believe one could be a breatharian, but it will have to wait until I am ready to give up my current addiction: delicious raw food.

RE: $5 a day - that is $150 a month; I believe if one were willing to garden and sprout a lot, that number could go down significantly. I am also trying to learn to eat wild plants more which cuts down on the work and money spent. There are a lot of raw fooders who are past the initial novelty phase that eat very simply and very cheaply.

Re: cost. Health insurance is very expensive these days, and we won't even talk about health care. Even with co-pays, people I know spend a small fortune. The re-investment of those dollars into a more healthful lifestyle would save more than money. Darius again, would have a thing or two to say about that since his last bout with cancer.

I don't keep track of what I spend, but I know that just not eating at fast food places and restaurants has saved me tons. I really don't enjoy going out anymore - to eat - that is. I love going out to other kinds of activities that I never did much when I was a SADist. Even going to raw food restaurants I think of more as an educational investment as I try to eat things I've never made or sometimes never even heard of.

For example, Saturday, at the lecture, I had a samosa. I'd never eaten any Indian food before so was not sure what to expect. Kasey, the chef at Present Moment, came out and showed me how to MAKE the coconut wrappers. They were tasty and definately a special event type food for me anyway.

I went to a seminary inservice meeting the other day, and our lesson was on becoming converted to the gospel through this conversation:

Do you get it?
Do you feel it?
Do you love it?
Are you willing to live it?

All of these steps must be followed before one can say they are converted. I strongly believe eating a more plant based and natural diet is part of the Word of Wisdom, and it is an important part of my testimony of the gospel. I know that sounds extreme to some, but I think if we truly get it (the gospel), our lifestyle choices must be examined to see if they are in sync with it. Feeling it, loving it, and actually being willing to do it follow right along.

I need to post a new pic of Roger than the one in the previous post...he's under the 250 pound mark! That is the smallest he has weighed in at least 30 years. He looks amazing! He is becoming a little vain, actually!!!!