(written morning of the 13th)
Maybe I should tone down the genealogy blitz. I’m not getting enough sleep. 🙃
Of course, I don’t have much of an excuse today, because when I had the opportunity to take a nap, and was even semi planning on, I let myself get sidetracked on other things, but I’ll get to that.
It was another hot one today, actually hotter than it was yesterday. I think we hit 102°. 😶 Which makes the van cook pretty quickly in the blistering Sun with no trees for even a place to park in the shade.
🥵
But my Sunday morning bath felt good. 😁
Lately, instead of stepping down into the soaking pool step by step, or walking into the deepest part of the creek and working to muster up the courage to dunk myself (worrying about the temperature shock), and despite the fact that the water in the soaking pool is maybe only waist deep, I’ve taken to pulling my arms into my chest, plugging my nose, and jumping in body parallel to the ground (so as not to hit the bottom).
The initial temperature shock only lasts a handful of seconds, if that, and then I’m good to go, and if I just make the commitment to always jump right in and not dither, I don’t have to deal with getting to the edge and then trying to decide what I’m going to do. It’s simple: I’ve already made the decision, so the only question is am I going to keep the commitment today or not?
💪
After my bath, which I took a lot earlier than usual, I headed straight to church, meaning that I arrived there quite early as well.
That gave me plenty of time to get myself dressed, my wet clothes hung up to dry in the water-guzzling sunlight, and get myself organized for some morning study.
Which… didn’t really materialize. 🙃
It’s almost laughable how consistent my experience is when I set out to make an important positive change in my thoughts/behavior. Usually what happens is that I end up taking several steps backward pretty much right at the same time, sometimes before, sometimes shortly after taking that first step toward the intended positive change.
This last week has been the perfect little case study. On Monday, I finally had the courage to work on my book in a dedicated way and not just in passing, for the first time in… gosh… a long time.
And I struggled, and I ran into walls, and I got discouraged, and then I got myself sidetracked on what I often get myself sidetracked on when I’m in a middling-to-good place–good things.
In fact, my distractions are often “better” things, and were it not for the fact that I reserve the moniker of “best” (on the good, better, best continuum) for those things that are specifically both best actions and best timing for those actions (as directed/confirmed by the Spirit in the moment, or as my very best guess as to what is best if I don’t feel directed or the confirming witness of the Spirit), then it would be easy to call many of my distractions best things–service often being one of the distractions that I turn to when I don’t want to face the challenges that I’m struggling with personally.
That feels like it’s probably a really long run-on sentence, but I’m not going to go back. 🙃
Anyway, so though I was all set this morning my paperback copy of the Book of Mormon that I bought at the distribution center in Casper on Monday and my marking implements to highlight the passages that stand out to me in my current focus of study (the nature and character of God), I didn’t get almost anything looked at until sacrament meeting actually started, at which point I let myself get distracted with my own studies during the meeting instead of focusing on the speakers. 🙃
Sometimes… I’m a struggler. 💚
Fortunately, I’m a well-intended struggler (and no, I don’t believe the old proverb one bit: The road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions. We have a God whose focus is on the intents of our heart.
What we most deeply desire is what we are, and our intentions manifest our hearts.
🐿️
Anyway, so I got distracted and didn’t focus very well at all during sacrament meeting. 😆
Then after sacrament meeting, instead of going to elders quorum, which I was actually somewhat prepared for (having listened multiple times to the talk we were going to discuss), the branch president asked me to jump in and help him team teach the youth, as his companion wasn’t available.
I definitely wasn’t prepared to teach the youth the topic at hand. I’ve been absolutely terrible at following the Come Follow Me schedule pretty much… … pretty much since they started doing it. 😅
But I think it went decently well, nonetheless. The spirit was there, and I was able to testify of beautiful truths, even if less eloquently than I’d have liked, so that was nice.
I’m grateful to feel the Spirit. 🤍
After church, I hung out and talked to several of the members. Our tiny branch is losing a small but wonderful family. And I’d say it’s a big loss for us, but there’s always tremendous opportunity in loss, so… there’s not really anything lost overall: There’s just… change. 😊
With the heat hammering down on the trailer as mightily as it was, the little AC unit on the roof struggled to keep up, but it was still a heck of a lot more comfortable inside than it was out.
I started fading, and wanted a nap (too many short nights this last week with all my genealogical adventuring), but I didn’t want to try and nap inside the trailer, despite Heather and Hans both napping.
So I decided to head over to the springs, thinking that maybe I would jump in the creek, and then climb into bed and turn my fan on to at least give me some evaporative cooling to keep me comfortable as I napped.
I don’t have plastic sheets, though, so that would make things a little more complicated without risking mildew from deeply soaking water. 🙃
Of course, with as dry and hot as it is, it probably would just suck all the moisture out anyway pretty quickly.
That was all a moot point, however, as instead of getting wet and taking a nap, I got wet and stayed wet. I ended up spending the next several hours working on my little soaking area, finally making it look like a soaking area. 😊
I threw my perfectionism to the wind and just made functional, getting the big rocks out of the middle and set on the side in such a way that they could act as benches.
Some of these rocks are probably hundreds of pounds, so moving them was… not good for me. 😬 I tried to do it strategically as much as I could, but there were definitely times where I was holding way much more weight on my back instead of being able to rest the weight on my legs.
And my back is definitely not happy with me. 😬
Play stupid games… 😅
After lots and lots of work, it looks like this:
After spending all that time making my shaded soaking area look really nice, I probably spent 45 minutes building a brush pile in the middle of the creek between the soaking area and the park above, so you can’t actually see the soaking area from the sidewalk in the park above.
Until now, anyone who saw the little soaking area and decided to go check it out, would find a very undesirable place with boulders in the middle of where you’d want to soak.
But now… 🙃
Anyway, so I strategically placed a large brush pile to block the viewing angle down to the pool below. Hopefully, it’ll have the intended effect–keeping my pool from becoming others’ defacto first choice (It’s in the shade, and the water bubbling up from “my” spring is warmer than the water that bubbles up into the spring that everyone else goes to that’s next to the gazebo).
Anyway, I worked on that not-to-little project for hours, finally heading back to the ranch after sunset. Catching up a little bit with Heather and Hans, eating a small dinner, veging out for a bit, and then calling it a night.
All the Rock moving and sorting from yesterday and today has left my fingertips on my right hand a little… short on skin.
Apparently, I’m thin-skinned. 🙃
Which massively increases their sensitivity, such that I couldn’t even hold my burrito normally, because it was too hot. 😆
All my projects from yesterday and today have my fingertips to the point that I’ve scraped away enough skin that if I scraped anymore away, I’d start to bleed. My middle finger on my right hand has one little spot where I scraped all the way down to probably a single layer before blood. 🙃
Definitely not my first rodeo, though. I’ve worn the skin away so far that I’ve had bleeding fingertips. Where I guess I should say the pads of my fingertips?
🩸
Lift the world.
Bring it on. …with gloves. 🙃
~ stephen
Lift the World 