2020-10-08 — Ixnay on the Orncay

So… I found an ingredient that’s a little too potent–at least such that a whole can of it ain’t ‘tall what the doctor ordered ’round here.

Who would have thought that canned corn would be so overpowering to the other flavors? Granted, I didn’t have as many other things in there as I often do (it was a corn, carrots, pineapple smoothie, as I didn’t have enough room left in the blender to fit anything else). I’m sure I could have overpowered it with something, but man, corn is potent. Might have to do a half a can and add something else if I’m gonna keep trying to use up the old canned corn via smoothies.

And if that don’t work… ixnay on the orncay in the oothiessmay. And then… mom, they’re all yours. 😁

Let’s see, I set my alarm for 5:30 and got up at 6:45… which was better than the 7:00 it was yesterday, so… we’ll call that improvement. And it’s probably better that way. I was reading somewhere that it’s not so great for your body to try to make the jump all at once, that it’s best to work backwards in 15-minute increments. So… today was… uh… perfect! And tomorrow I’ll go back to 6:30, then 6:15, and so on until I hit 6:30.

With the winter speedily approaching, mornings are super dark, so it’s hard to get up even at 6:45, as it’s still mostly dark out. But we’ll get this. Yup. We’ll get this. I will gain mastery over every part of my physical body, including my ability to get up when my alarm goes off–no matter what.

That’s a hard one for me. Love me my sleep.

Anyway, so I got up and decided I was going to start my goal of memorizing one hymn a day along with the scriptures I’m trying to re-memorize. I was successful this morning. I memorized hymn #1, The Morning Breaks. I’ll sing it before I go to bed just to make sure I still have it down.

I also got pretty solid on the psalm part of 2nd Nephi 4. There are a couple spots where I might slip up a little, but otherwise, I’m pretty good there. I’m grateful that five or so years later, it’s relatively still in tact. It didn’t take much at all to get it all back on that one.

My house 5×5 is getting more desperate. I had to resort to dusting today. 😉 You know things are going well when the cleaning that needs to be done is dusting.

So… I did that. I did some servicize out in the yard, making some good progress, as the torn off blisters on the palms of both hands can attest.

Yes, I did have the thought to put gloves on.

No, I didn’t follow the little nudge to do so.

Yes, I’m paying the price and will continue to pay the price for probably the next week or so, which will be quite lovely working with all my hand tools as a mechanic and trying to work more in the yard.

Whoops.

I was happy that I was able to get the tiller running again today. It took quite a while to get it to finally go, and I had to re-do one of the fuel lines, but it’s working again.

Same with the push lawnmower. It would only work if I sprayed brake cleaner directly into the intake, so I pulled the carburetor off, cleaned everything out, and finally got it to fire up and go. That means I can sell it now. With the changes I’ve made to the yard, the push mower has become obsolete. I don’t think we’ve used it in maybe two years? I think that’s what mom said.

I spent a good little while looking at heavy equipment, houses, and land to buy. One of these days, I’ll do it. There’s a dozer about four hours south of here that’s like $30k or more less than what it normally might go for, and it’s in great condition. I’m… tempted to call and find out if it’s a typo, and if it’s not… I might just buy the thing? 😬 Then maybe I’ll start an excavation company. I’ve thought about that before as well. We’ll see.

Really, though… I just want to get into helping people in more non-profit-type ways, though. As a writer, a speaker, an organizer, a promoter of ideas and activities/projects, etc. I don’t want to spend much more of my life in the money game. I hope I don’t have to. I want in the service game.

Gotta have the means to do it, though.

Anyway, so it was day-off Thursday–hence the time to be working on so many things. It’s 9:42 right now. I started this at 9:00 p.m., perfectly on time, but it’s taking me a lot longer to write today’s entry than I expected, so I’m not quite ready for bed at the time I’d like, but… I guess since I’m getting up at 6:30, I’m actually doing great. Bed time will be 10:30 tonight, 10:15 tomorrow, etc. Sooo… on the contrary. I’m right on time. 😁

Anyway, got lots of good things done today. I sort of… didn‘t get done and didn’t even work on the highest priority project of the day–my business property taxes which still aren’t done.

That was the “put things in proper priority” goal for the day, and… well… I bombed that one completely. 🙃

Oh well. Next time.

So… how about we do gratitude now…

#1. I’m grateful I was able to get the lawn mowed today. It was long but not too bad. There might be one more mowing of the season before I can bid the lawnmower farewell until spring.

#2. I’m grateful I was able to get the chainsaw working again, which made it possible to cut up the big tree that fell across the back road. With Stevie’s house getting done in the next couple two or three months, it’ll be good to have that back pass cleared out and ready for travel between houses. 😊 Still need to get small mountains of fill to make the west side of the ravine less steep to drive up, and maybe add a curb to both sides of the road where it goes across the ravine, so nobody accidentally drives over the side of the narrow road back there and down into the deep ravine. That… would not be good.

#3. I’m grateful I was able to get the push lawnmower working, and that all I had to do was disassemble the intake and the carburetor and clean everything.

#4. I’m grateful to have made a little progress on the yard and the driveway. It’s only a tiny bit of progress, but it’s something.

#5. I’m grateful to have made some good progress on the garage. I actually spent quite a while working on it, finding one place where the brown recluses are hiding out. I put out traps for them tonight. Hopefully, that’ll help to trim the population. Once things are all cleaned and organized, might do a spider bomb. I’m gonna do my best to clean as many as I can out first, as well as their food supplies.

#6. I’m still grateful for this TENS unit! My neck… so cool that it doesn’t hurt in the positions it used to before I started using the unit!

Oh! I’ve gotta go walk another 80 steps because… well… can’t be 80 away from 10,000 and just… leave it that close!

Brb.

Done. 10,000+. Yee haw!

Well, my lovelies, guess what? Tomorrow should be my last day, perhaps ever, of canned spaghetti and meatballs. The Spaghettios are gone now. Milk is gone. Still have quite a bit of cheese left–string cheese and bagged shredded cheese. I think I finished up the expired macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles today. The kitchen counter, which used to be a sea of canned goods is now nearly back to sanity.

Grapes. I’m gonna eat some grapes. I love having so many fruits and veggies around. It’s nice! And you know, I’m grateful that grapes ripen rather close to the same time on each bunch. Would really not be as nice if the ripeness varied a whole tone between each grape in a bunch. So… thanks, God. 😁

Good night, my lovelies. Thanks, for being a part of my journey. Please pray/send positive thoughts to the my mother figure and oldest brother. I believe they’re saying goodbye to the family home in West Seattle and driving to Utah tomorrow (the 9th). Long trip.

Loves and hugs!

Lift the World.

~ stephen