It’s been an odd day today. Spiritually, I was both more grounded today and also more troubled… for a time.
Quite the journey. 🙃
I can’t really remember much of the day.
I slept in a bit, but I was praying pretty much every time I woke up and then dozed back to sleep.
Finally, about 7 ish, I just couldn’t stay asleep. I could have gotten up at five. I was wide awake, but I knew I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, so I tried to force myself to sleep, and I struggled, but eventually I did.
But like I said, I kept waking up again and again. At least that time was taken up chatting with the Big Guy.
Crawled out of Rover long enough to see Heather off for the day and then I don’t really remember much after that.
Lots of uplifting YouTube videos. Lots of listening to recordings I’ve made of the things that heavenly Father has told me in the past.
I continue to catch myself marveling at how much I’m learning from things Heavenly Father told me years ago.
It’s only recently that what I thought for years was a contradiction clearly wasn’t. I just hadn’t understood the words. I heard the words but kept hearing the same message in my mind. Then, not too long ago, I heard the words for what they actually said and realized that I had been missing the point the entire time. 🙃
I’ve also realized so many of the answers to questions or concerns that I have are right there and things that Heavenly Father has told me in the past.
It’s just… I’m honestly finding myself marveling from time to time.
It’s pretty cool.
Aaaaand, I have more questions still than I have answers, so there’s still so much to learn. 🙃
Spent a little while disposing of the poor blighted Apple trees. I was able to get them into small enough pieces to put in the regular trash can, along with their little root balls that I was able to extract and shake out of each of the potting bag thingies that they were in. Sad, but probably the best way to go at this point.
Let’s see… While I was listening to videos and previous spiritual experiences, I worked on the solar situation with rover. I have had sort of this temporary setup for a week and a half or two weeks now?
I’ve had two solar panels on the roof and two sitting next to the shipping container, but the two that have been on the roof have not been hooked up to my power station at all.
I haven’t actually had any solar power running anything since that whole mess that had me up all night and reeling for days.
But today, I did the hard work of pulling the panels back off, redrilling several of the holes to make them longer in order to be able to fit longer bolts, and then cutting and fitting a whole bunch of shims made of some sort of a composite material.
When all was said and done, I had two solar panels back on the roof and fully fastened down and shimmed so that all 12 bolts were able to be fully tightened down on each solar panel.
That all took a very long time. 😅
I also spent a little while trying to clean up my van. It’s so hard when I have things to get rid of but don’t want to just throw them away. I have old white shirts that could be donated, but they have little stains here and there. Nothing major, totally usable, but not by me anymore. I don’t want to just throw them away. I know there are people who don’t have any white shirts at all who might want them, but no one lets you donate clothing that’s not pretty much perfect. 😕
And other stuff, too. So much effort to get rid of things if you don’t want to just throw them away.
Spent a little bit of time trying to decide what I want to do in the future with the other solar panels that I have, if I want to drill more holes in my roof or not… With my new design for mounting, I definitely could get eight solar panels on the roof. So I guess basically what I need to do is start using power as though I were out on my own running around the country like I was in April and May, and then I can get an idea of what my power consumption is going to be.
Then I can get an idea of how many solar panels I need to operate my stuff and have some wiggle room for cloudy days and whatnot.
It would be nice to have enough reserve power to last me a week if it happens to be stormy for an entire week.
But we’ll see. I’m going to play it by ear. I’ll have the solar panels hooked up and charging things tomorrow, and I’ll see how everything goes. I’ve got the two more solar panels ready to hook up if I want, and I could put one of them in the old holes where I used to have it.
Spent a little while helping Hans with the tractor. He had to get some zerks and whatnot from Rapid to be able to get it all greased up. Unfortunately, when he tried to grease the tractor, one of the fittings that was missing a zerk all together originally wouldn’t take grease, and there were two other fittings that wouldn’t take Grease either.
It was sort of a one-person job trying to get those three troubled zerks taken care of, so Hans went into the house to start setting up lighting, and I worked on the tractor.
Spend some more time working on the solar panel stuff, then headed inside when Heather got home, made a smoothie for everybody, and chatted for a little bit before coming out here for the night.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful I was able to get the apple trees disposed of relatively effectively.
- I’m grateful that I was able to get the solar panels back on the roof and installed without doing any further damage (at least I don’t think I did any further damage).
- I’m grateful I was able to get each of the problem zerks to take Grease without too much of a headache.
- I’m grateful to Hans for picking up some long PVC pipe that I’m going to be using as drains for my little soaking pool.
- I’m grateful it was a much cooler day today. I think the high was around 81, which was magnificent compared to yesterday’s triple-digit temperatures.
Success:
- There were several points in time while working on solar panel stuff where in the past I would have gotten really frustrated, even really angry, and I didn’t! I felt the lightning quick irritation, and then I kicked it out each time. I think the worst it got was a relatively quiet “come on” grumbling that I was able to shut down pretty quickly as well. 🥳
Improvement:
- Still need to be using my time better. I did make some progress toward the New Zealand stuff. I got a picture taken of myself that… might work for the visa.
Thought of the Day:
The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future.
~ Jeffrey R. Holland
Hand of God In My Life Today:
Some of the concerns that I had today that seemed like they could be pretty troublesome simply melted away, and it felt like an external power did that. It was quite noticeable and a bit surprising.
Good night, my lovelies. 🥰
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 