Thanksgiving

added author

So, since this blog gets like just above *no* readers I feel like this is such a good outlet to write how I think without worrying about, say, coworkers reading.

Curt has found that he might need something of the same outlet so I have now added him as an author. Now we can both vent a little.

:)

Women

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the talk "Women of the Church" by Gordon B. Hinkley in 1996:

"First let me say to you sisters that you do not hold a second place in our Father’s plan for the eternal happiness and well-being of His children. You are an absolutely essential part of that plan."

"As I go about from place to place, I am interviewed by representatives of the media. Invariably they ask about the place of women in the Church. They do so in an almost accusatory tone, as if we denigrate and demean women. I invariably reply that I know of no other organization in all the world which affords women so many opportunities for development, for sociality, for the accomplishment of great good, for holding positions of leadership and responsibility."

"You sisters are the real builders of the nation wherever you live, for you have created homes of strength and peace and security. These become the very sinew of any nation."

“I believe that for most of us the best medicine for loneliness is work, service in behalf of others. I do not minimize your problems, but I do not hesitate to say that there are many others whose problems are more serious than are yours. Reach out to serve them, to help them, to encourage them. There are so many boys and girls who fail in school for want of a little personal attention and encouragement. There are so many elderly people who live in misery and loneliness and fear for whom a simple conversation would bring a measure of hope and happiness.”

"Some years ago President Benson delivered a message to the women of the Church. He encouraged them to leave their employment and give their individual time to their children. I sustain the position which he took.
Nevertheless, I recognize, as he recognized, that there are some women (it has become very many in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can. I hope that if you are employed full-time you are doing it to ensure that basic needs are met and not simply to indulge a taste for an elaborate home, fancy cars, and other luxuries. The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place.
It is well-nigh impossible to be a full-time homemaker and a full-time employee. I know how some of you struggle with decisions concerning this matter. I repeat, do the very best you can. You know your circumstances, and I know that you are deeply concerned for the welfare of your children."

"For you who are single parents, I say that many hands stand ready to help you. The Lord is not unmindful of you. Neither is His Church."

"May He bless you, my beloved sisters who find yourselves in the situation of single parenthood. May you have health, strength, vitality to carry the heavy burden that is yours. May you have loving friends and associates to bear you up in your times of trial. You know the power of prayer as perhaps few others do. Many of you spend much time on your knees speaking with your Father in Heaven, with tears running down your cheeks. Please know that we also pray for you."

"I wish to say a word to you older women, many of whom are widows. You are a great treasure."

"What a resource are the women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You love this Church, you accept its doctrine, you honor your place in its organization, you bring luster and strength and beauty to its congregations. How thankful we are to you. How much you are loved, respected, and honored."

"I salute my own beloved companion. It will soon be 60 years that we walked from the Salt Lake Temple as husband and wife, with love for one another. That love has strengthened through all of these years. We have faced many problems during our years of marriage. Somehow, with the blessing of the Lord, we have survived them all.
It is becoming physically harder to stand tall and straight as we did in our younger years. No matter—we still have one another and we still stand together, even though we lean a little. And when the time for separation comes, there will be much of sorrow, but there will also be the comfort that will come from the assurance that she is mine and I am hers for the eternity that lies ahead."

"It was the Lord who designated that men in His Church should hold the priesthood. It was He who has given you your capabilities to round out this great and marvelous organization, which is the Church and kingdom of God. I bear testimony before the entire world of your worth, of your grace and goodness, of your remarkable abilities and tremendous contributions, and invoke the blessings of heaven upon you."

Refreshing...

There are so many things in the world today that make me frustrated, but when I found this story on CNN.com, all I could do is grin. What a great thing.

The gist of it is that a community came together and fixed a road in just a couple of days

...the kicker, the government had estimated the repairs at $4 million and wasn't going to fix it for a long while.

You rock Hawaiian people!

Oh how wise our prophets

"You and I as members of his audience choose whether to understand him as an out-of-touch old man still living in the Great Depression, or as a wise man giving us good advice based on years of experience, or as a prophet telling us how we fit into the cosmos"
-Jonathan Green, timesandseasons.org

To the boys and to the Men
President Gordon B. Hinkley, Priesthood Session, October 1998

In speaking on the state of the world if young men kept to the standards taught in the church:

"There would be no lives wasted with drugs. There would be no gangs with children killing children and young men headed either for prison or death. Education would become a prize worth working for. Service in the Church would become an opportunity to be cherished. There would be greater peace and love in the homes of the people. There would be no viewing of pornography, no reading of sleazy literature. You would honor and respect the girls with whom you associate, and they would never have any fear about being alone with you in any set of circumstances. It would be as if the stripling warriors of Helaman had recruited the youth of the world to their way of living."


After reading Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, 7 years of plenty, 7 years of famine:

"Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order. So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings."
...

"I hope with all my heart that we shall never slip into a depression. I am a child of the Great Depression of the thirties. I finished the university in 1932, when unemployment in this area exceeded 33 percent.

"My father was then president of the largest stake in the Church in this valley. It was before our present welfare program was established. He walked the floor worrying about his people. He and his associates established a great wood-chopping project designed to keep the home furnaces and stoves going and the people warm in the winter. They had no money with which to buy coal. Men who had been affluent were among those who chopped wood.

"I repeat, I hope we will never again see such a depression. But I am troubled by the huge consumer installment debt which hangs over the people of the nation, including our own people."

...

"I recognize that it may be necessary to borrow to get a home, of course. But let us buy a home that we can afford and thus ease the payments which will constantly hang over our heads without mercy or respite for as long as 30 years.

"No one knows when emergencies will strike. I am somewhat familiar with the case of a man who was highly successful in his profession. He lived in comfort. He built a large home. Then one day he was suddenly involved in a serious accident. Instantly, without warning, he almost lost his life. He was left a cripple. Destroyed was his earning power. He faced huge medical bills. He had other payments to make. He was helpless before his creditors. One moment he was rich, the next he was broke."

...

"We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others.

"In managing the affairs of the Church, we have tried to set an example. We have, as a matter of policy, stringently followed the practice of setting aside each year a percentage of the income of the Church against a possible day of need.

"I am grateful to be able to say that the Church in all its operations, in all its undertakings, in all of its departments, is able to function without borrowed money. If we cannot get along, we will curtail our programs. We will shrink expenditures to fit the income. We will not borrow."

...

"I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.

"This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That's all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable."

"Mormons" taking advantage of Mormons

This is an interesting commentary on a situation mainly in California of a Mormon acting in a Bernie Madoff way, swindling other Mormons out of millions.

I really like the author's conclusion:

"Dating all the way back to my undergrad years at BYU, I have made it a matter of standing policy that whenver anyone tries to get money from me (selling me something, investing, etc.) and brings the Church or related issues into it, my response is an automatic and irrevocable “No.” Any appeal to Church membership, Church authorities, personal claimed worthiness (”When I was in the temple the other day…”), etc., is a big red flag that the pitch being made cannot stand on its own merits.
The sad thing is that most Mormons are honest in their dealings with others, including their fellow Mormons. Tthat’s what makes the occasional fraud like this both effective and devestating. Those who take advantage of that trust are truly wolves in sheep’s clothing. Like the moneychangers in at the temple in Jerusalem, they turn the house of God into a den of thieves — but, unlike the moneychangers, they do so having sworn a solemn oath to take Christ’s name upon themselves. I for one would not want to be in their shoes when they face the Savior’s wrath."

I have always followed somewhat of the same policy.

My application in the same vein is that, as a general rule, I will try to never do paid remodeling/house building for anyone that I am related to. I just don't even want to introduce the possibility of souring a good relationship over business, it's just not worth it.

The same thing goes for a lot of things.

When Curt was first starting out in the financial industry (this was while we were engaged), he briefly (as in just a couple months) worked with a commision based financial advising group. We both felt like working with family members was not the thing to do. And yet, that is really what those kind of businesses are geared towards, start with your family and friends. So we discussed it and he quit.

I guess the conclusions that I come to are:

1) even though I deal as honest and uprightly as I can, I don't want to deal with people I have family or religious relations with, and...

2) I think that people who try to use family or religious relations as a basis for drumming up business are treading a potentially treacherous line.

Socialism

So, I try not to get sucked into the fear-mongering that is happening because we have a very liberal president + liberal majority of elected leaders + one not very happy economy.
This = some scared extreme conservatives = some fear-mongering.
It's hard though.
I just start feeling that edge of hysteria when I see how primed the situation is.

I found a very profound little nugget of clarity on why, even though in theory socialism is appealing to some (I mean what cold hearted person could see some of the suffering in this country and not want to do more), it just doesn't work.

It doesn't work because it penalizes the producer behavior and rewards slacking (or consuming).
Thus, everyone's standard of living goes down.

This has been proven.

How could our country be heading toward this?
Many reasons, but I am thinking of a couple that I want to list.
1)We as a people have forgotten to fiercely love and work for the freedoms handed to us.
2)A new generation has risen up, never having seen real, intense want or poverty.
3)In a world of credit, buying things with real money is foreign.
4)Therefore living within means is somewhat of a lost art.

The consequences have the potential to be frightening.
Without an appreciation for certain freedoms they disappear, ...without a knowledge of them being gone.
Now, I am "meh" on Angelina Jolie as a person, or tattoos in general...
...but I love her tattoo "know your rights".

There is absolutely no logical way out of the economic mess until budgets, personal and governmental, are kept to.
Anything else is postponing and expanding the hurt.

I don't like doom and gloom, but I also don't ever want to feel so beat-down-because-it-won't-do-any-good-anyways that I don't let my feelings be known.
Heaven knows people who I do not agree with are vocal.

(Plus I know that this blog actually only has a couple of readers as opposed to my happier blog, so I feel kind of safe using this as an outlet to vent a little)

Self Evaluation

I have not written in over a month.

It's not like I haven't been thinking, more like I have been thinking things that I want to keep in my own head to mull over. Maybe if these different trains of thought develop themselves enough or if the trigger events get far enough into the past I will want to share, but not right now.

I have been doing a lot of self evaluation.

I decided a while ago that I should learn more about the power plant I work in. I am of the thought that all learning is useful and applicable, even if not in a superficially perceptible way.

For example, I am reading a 1950's textbook on steam generation and its uses that was produced by the company that also made a lot of the original equipment for the power plant. It is very interesting, and it is a very brain intensive work out as I have to constantly be evaluating the information..."is this a subject that has changed over the past 50+ years, or is it solid science that has stayed the same?"...and "how does this information jive with or fill in the gaps of my education of building practices, physics, material properties, and chemical behaviors?"...and "so this would be applicable to the little power plant that I work in, and this other thing shows more of what happens in a large power plant like IPP, a plant some of my family works at".

I like it.

And, as I am doing so, I am finding that I understand more of what the supervisors are saying about different projects on different pieces of equipment. And this helps in cool ways like in understand the budgets better and being able to bridge the gaps in understanding between all of the different groups I deal with; accounting, work control, preventative maintenance, and human resources, to name a few.

I get all excited and then want to get a couple more degrees.
Which is not feasible at the immediate moment.
But I totally want to be a perpetual student.
But I also want to be a lot of things.
Good thing there is all of eternity to learn the things I want to know.
Namely Everything.

Goals for the New Year

So, I have never in my life set New Year's resolutions.

Not quite sure why that is.

Maybe it's because I am always setting goals for myself, so I've never felt the need (and maybe felt some aversion) to sit down at a time of the year when everyone else is.

Maybe I've always been too busy enjoying family and school breaks.

Maybe part of it is that I have this perception (right or wrong) that there is a tendency with these resolutions to always say "lose weight". I've always been happy with myself and my body (though I'm sure there have been weight fluxuations, I wouldn't know, I've never owned a scale). I've always thought it unhealthy for people to have a weight goal year after year.

As unkind as it is I have kind of scorned those who set goals just because it was the time of year it was expected.

Hopefully I have emerged somewhat from that train of thought.

Yes, it is good to set goals constantly...but the beginning of the new year is a good time too, right?

So here's my first stab at it:

1. I want to be more kind. I have a flaw in that I tend towards the cynical. I don't always focus on the good in people. I want to do better at seeing and feeling the good.

2. I want to dust off my drawing talent. I haven't used it in a while. Luckily I happen to have just increased my display square footage dramatically...time to get to work and fill it.

3. I need to be nicer to Curt. Sometimes I'm grumpy when I don't mean to be. I'm a very self contained person, and Curt sometimes feels the need to prod to get out some of what I'm thinking/feeling...which sometimes leads to my lashing out "leave me be". Many times I rue that because I know that he's just trying to understand me better like a good husband should.

4. I want to clean my house more. I enjoy cleaning. I just happen to like my projects better, and I always have a million of them going on. Projects=making mess. I need to slow down and create a better habit now, before that future time when I have kids and it will be many times harder.