Scorching the World

There are many things that drive me crazy about our ward. The meetings that ALWAYS start way late; all the people who have no idea how to fulfill their callings because they were never trained and didn't grow up in the Church to know how it should be done, and there is no one over them who can train them because they don't know either; the gospel doctrine teacher who sometimes teaches false doctrine; the last-minute planning for every event; no calendaring or scheduling or budgeting of events; the same ward events every single year; the 4 dances a hear that are all Mexican music while kids run all over the building; people eating in Church and during every meeting - food all over the building, kids running through the halls after Sacrament meeting with lollipops sticking out of their mouths; and I could go on and on. But we have at least 1 baptism almost every month, and most of the ward comes to all the baptisms. They are planned at the last minute and start 1/2 hour to 1 hou...

Tom and I decided to try to lower our expenses, so we perused our budget and found a few things we could do without, with just a little bit of inconvenience but not too much pain. We considered doing without TV, but we weren't sure we were that dedicated to lowering our expenses. So the first call was to AT&T. We wanted to eliminate our fax line. We figured we could handle the inconvenience of not being able to make a phone call while sending a fax - which really isn't very often. The incoming faxes might be a little more inconvenient, but not a big deal. So I called AT&T and told them, and they asked why, and I said, "we just want to lower our expenses a bit." So she asked if a $10 monthly credit on our bill would help. She said our account would be credited $10 for the life of the line. The line only costs $13, so I decided we could handle $3 for the convenience of having a dedicated fax line. If I hadn't asked to close that line, we would have continued...

Last night while getting ready for bed, Tom and I were chatting about nothing in particular and he said something about his ankles being wrinkled. I said, "you have wrinkled ankles?" And the more I said it the funnier it became. It sounds like a serious disease - wrinkle ankle syndrome. Imagine the nurse calling you into the office: "Would the gentleman with wrinkle ankle please come in." Imagine the TV advertising, "Do you suffer from wrinkle ankle? Try this wrinkle ankle cream." Or the nutritionists admonishing the foods that cure wrinkle ankle. Maybe it was funnier at midnight. So what is the correct way to make a bed? Is there a correct way to make a bed? Tom swears that the top sheet should have the pretty side facing down so when you fold it back, you see the pretty side. I always thought the pretty side should be up, so if you fold back the blanket, it doesn't look like your sheet is on upside down. I would take a cue from the hotels, but all th...

When my kids were little, I used to do a lot of canning. But I haven't done it for decades, so everything I'm trying to can almost seems like a new experience to me. Some things about canning are a lot easier, like the cool magnet on a stick for getting lids out of boiling water. Other things seem a lot harder because I'm older and lazy-er. This past week TRK's ward got a free truckload of tomatoes. I wanted enough tomatoes to do about 20 quarts, but wasn't sure if I was really up to the challenge. The biggest problem I see with canning is that it is always all or nothing. You can't just get a few of anything at a time. When the peaches are ripe, they are all ripe and need canned that week. When the grapes are ready - well, they are ready all summer. In this case, it was 4 large boxes of Roma tomatoes. They were pretty small, so peeling was the biggest chore. I started by myself about 8am so I could get a flow going and figure out the best way to do it. I did o...

I really thought I was eating healthy. I've focused for years on eating mostly fruits and vegetables. I'm not real crazy about meat, so there has been little in my diet. I do like fish, so I have that occasionally, and we hardly ever (meaning less than once a month) have anything with sugar or white flour. Imagine my surprise to be assigned to read a book about adrenal problems, only to find that I've been doing EVERYTHING wrong when it comes to what I eat. Come to find out I eat WAY too much fruit. People with adrenal fatigue should not have more than 1 fruit a day. I've been having more like 7-8 a day, because we grow the grapes and peaches. How can I not eat them? I always figured they're healthy, full of vitamins. Sure they have a lot of sugar, but it is natural sugar, so the body handles it ok. WRONG. People with adrenal fatigue should not eat bananas or raisins. I've eaten a banana every day for the last several years! And one of my favorite snacks is pean...