Let’s just say that the night didn’t go as expected. 🙃
I close my eyes fairly early, I think, but I was wide awake. I had yawned a few times, as if I could have fallen asleep, but my brain woke up and just started churning.
Front of the things that was turning about was Prime Day. Lots of good deals, or supposedly so, and a decent handful of things on my purchase list that I hadn’t thought about previous, and last night was the last night to buy stuff at the Prime Day deals.
So then, I popped up in my phone and went to Amazon and thought for a little while, and debated, and eventually bought myself a second power station because the deal was so fantastic, and because if I were ever in a place where it was rainy for a few days straight, I would need more power because the solar panels wouldn’t be able to charge anything up.
So I got another Power Station. 🙃
In my cart was a pair of white dress pants, the super stretchy type that is nice for my nerve issues, so I went ahead and purchased that, having been happy with the black pair of stretchy pants that I purchased. They look great. They look like dress pants, but they stretch like spandex, so when I sit down, it’s much less pressure against my spine then the more rigid pants.
I think I then try to go to bed again, but wide awake, I started wondering what else I might want to buy during the great sale. 🙃
Then I remembered that I’ve been trying to find a 12 volt cooler to keep food cold, but I had never decided on one, so that set me off on a whole load of research trying to figure out which one to buy and why and what not, that research took… a long time. 😅
Eventually, I picked one, put it in my cart, and bought it.
Then I thought, well, if I’m going to buy another Power station, I’m going to buy a couple more solar panels. Maybe I can fit more on my roof. 🙃
So I ordered a couple of more solar panels. 😆
And then I thought about how I wanted to be able to spend more time in the water as sort of an anti-gravity therapy for my spine, but water can be pretty cold, so you can’t be in it for too long, and I’d thought about getting a long wet suit for a while, so I did a little bit more research, looked around, and bought another wetsuit, is the only one that I had was a shorty.
And then after everything, thinking more about my little van as a home for the time being, and having nothing to cook with, I decided to buy myself a small microwave. 😆
So I did a little bit more research… and bought a microwave. 😆
By this point it was 1 in the morning, and I needed to get up early to drive to Casper with Hans and Heather to serve in the temple.
At that point, I was regretting, a bit, not having gone on my own earlier in the night. 🙃 But the lack of sleep didn’t necessarily mean that going alone the night before was the best thing.
Unfortunately, despite it being after 1:00 in the morning, my brain was still just going and going I tried to quiet my brain, slow it down, and eventually I succeeded and eventually I fell asleep, but it wasn’t easy. 🙃
Neither did I sleep well last night. I’m so used to traveling in my own van with all of my stuff, not having to think about what I need to pack to bring with me because I always have everything with me.
So I was a little concerned about that, and in the morning when it came time to pack up, it took me longer than hoped.
Turned out we all had pretty rough nights. I think none of us got much sleep, and Heather woke up early dealing with lung issues even more than normal, apparently looks like she’s starting to get sick, so she stayed home, and Hans and I headed out, leaving somewhere just before 7:00.
The drive was good, Hans and I chatting most of the way. We also listened to a conference talk from Elder Cook, which, interestingly, was about his experience at the Casper Temple recently, the temple we were on our way to. 😊
So that was cool.
We made a few stops along the way, pit stops, food, etc but still arrived well in time for the 11:00 endowment session.
I appreciated the changes to the endowment a little more this time than I did last time. I’m glad to see it growing on me a bit. Though it was a little harder for me to focus the first time, I’m wondering if the change is might actually make it easier for me to focus on the most important things. I think it felt a little easier for me today, and my perspective was shifted a little bit today, I think.
😊
We didn’t have anything else scheduled other than just the endowment session, so after our time in the temple, we went over to the distribution Center for a little bit, and then we ran a bunch of errands–sportsman’s Warehouse for Hans, Wendy’s for lunch, Walmart for oil and oil filters for my van, Home Depot for stuff for the house, Staples to get 11×17 paper to be able to copy house plans on to…
Drive home was good as well. Hans and I talked for most of it, also listened to Section 76 and talked about that.
We switched drivers somewhere between Lusk and Mule Creek Junction, Hans having driven the whole way up and most of the way back.
He took a nap for most of the rest of the way back while I listened to Hymns.
Lovely day. 😊
As we were pulling up our road toward the house, I noticed that our neighbors hood was up on his truck, so we pulled in to his driveway before we headed back to ours, chatting with him for a bit. He had been working on his truck, but all the sudden it wasn’t starting anymore, and sometimes the horn alarm would go off.
So we headed back home, and I changed my clothes and through everything in Rover and then headed back over to Darrin’s place.
I realized my scan tool was completely dead, so I started charging that, grabbed my multimeter, headed over to check his battery, and found that it was super low.
I grabbed my jump box, and his truck fired up just fine.
Apparently, his has the same issue that mine does, leave the key on, and it drains the battery down. Being a General motors product, that might have had a lot to do with the fact that often times, General motors products automatically turn the headlights on the moment you turn the key on.
Every. Single. Time.
😶
Those of you who are long-time readers might remember me complaining a little bit about that during the years that I worked as a mechanic, frustrated that they would design it that way (introducing an automatic significant power drain that we have to remember to turn off every single time we put the key in the on position, otherwise it can drain down the last remnants of energy in a battery when we need those last remnants of energy to do the test that we need to do).
Anyway, he was grateful to have the truck running in to know what was wrong with it. I told him what to do in the future if the alarm started going off like that.
We chatted a bit about his house progress and our house progress, and about the plane that he’s tuning up–telling me that once he gets it passed inspection for this year, takes it on a couple of flights to make sure it’s solid, that he’s gonna take me up.
Fun 😊.
Great guy.
Chatted with Heather and Hans a bit, tried to organize the disaster that was Rover’s insides after my scrambling to try and get ready this morning.
It’s 10:30, and I’m late to bed, and I didn’t want to be late to bed because I’m already low on sleep, and I wanted to get some time to prepare a little bit more for tomorrow’s talk, just… Have a good little conversation with the Big Guy and to try to ground myself in what He wants me to say and not just in things that I might want to say.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful to have been able to go to the temple with Hans and to have an enjoyable trip with him.
- I’m grateful to be able to get the oil and filters that I wanted to get for Rover.
- I’m grateful to be so much more flexible in my approach to life than I used to be.
- I’m grateful to have had the sobering and humbling experience of having a cashier at the register think that I was older than Hans, who’s 10 years my senior. Because of my own choices, my lack of thinking before acting, for years and years, gone are the days of my looking 15 years younger than I actually am, and apparently, I fit well into looking older. It was sobering and humbling. I even found myself afraid to smile at younger women for fear of being thought of as a creepy old guy. But I’m grateful because I’m humbled. I’m grateful because I feel genuine sorrow for treating so thoughtlessly the gift of this body that God gave me, for taking so much for granted, for not treating it with reverence and thoughtfulness. Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t feel chastised by God at all. This is simply a sorrow, a deep sorrow actually, for the choices that I’ve made so thoughtlessly that caused damage to the only body that I get while here on earth. Gratefully, God doesn’t care what I look like, and because of these experiences, I’m learning to care less and less. Admittedly, I do care, and it’s hard in some ways… but I’m learning to care less and less, for my own sake, I think.
- I’m grateful to have been able to help Darrin.
- I’m grateful to be able to go to the temple.
- I’m grateful to be clean.
Success:
- I gave my sincere and worthy effort today.
- I think my perspective right now on my body and what I’ve done with it so far in certain aspects is progress for me, both in humility and sorrow and recognition of… multiple things.
- I see myself more and more truly desiring the Lord’s will and not mine. I’m going to be working again on a specific meditation to ground me each morning, to ground me on the things that I believe are true that will help me maintain the perspectives that long to maintain.
Improvement:
- When feeling pressure (self imposed) to not let Hans down by being late for our departure time, with things going a little sideways as I struggled to pack and get ready, I started getting frustrated.
Thought of the Day:
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” asked Paul. We should ask that daily. The persistent asking of that question will change your life.”
~ Ezra Taft Benson
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I feel like I see the Lord changing me more and more, the softer, humbler heart, the increase of love, the heart desire to let go of what I want and what I think is best, and the increased hunger to know and do the Lord’s will.
I’m humbled and grateful.
Good night, my lovelies. 🥰
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 