Tired of Living in ...

Seattle is becoming more seedy.  At least the parts near me.  There are 3 strip clubs on the main road near us and one now has a picture advertisement covering a van parked in front.  NOT OK!  When I saw it, I just wanted to move.  I find different roads to take so I don't have to drive past there.  I don't want my kids to see it.  There are  also 3 medical marjuana dispensaries on the same street.  And then today, I find out that the Seattle Public Library's policy is to let people look at anything they want on their public computers as long as it is "legal", even if other people can see it.  I just want to move someplace where there is no vice.  Or can we just have the second coming already, so everyone is virtuous?

I had to go to Bellevue today, by the temple, and I called Trip and told him I just wanted to live right next to the temple.  Can we move?

Not a New Year's Resolution.

I have been pregnant or nursing almost constantly for the past 14 years and I am done.  I think our family is complete, so I am not planning on getting pregnant again (I am alway open if the Lord has other plans).  

Also, I weaned Zelda a few weeks ago.  She was biting me and then I needed to take some medicine that I couldn't take while nursing, so we unexpectedly went cold turkey.  She hasn't even missed it.  

Now, I am in the process of retraining my body how much food and exercise it needs.  When I was pregnant or nursing, I would get so ravenously hungry and I felt like there was a bottomless pit in my stomach.  I could eat and eat and eat.  It is amazing that I am not heavier than I am.  Also, I felt a responsibility to protect my body that was sustaining another life, I didn't want to do any exercises that I could get hurt.  Bike riding was out (I am not a good bike rider and so the possibility of me crashing is great), and I had also developed Plater Fasciitis, but I have been wearing Orthotics for 2 years now and my feet don't keep my from doing anything anymore.  

I am ready to reclaim my body.

One of the Christmas presents we got was a family membership to the YMCA.  I can exercise without the kids interrupting me or climbing on me.  Wow!  It takes longer since I have to drive there, find parking, get everyone out of the car and checked into the child care, etc.  But I am not nursing Zelda anymore, so I have some extra time.  (She regularly nursed for an hour at a time a few times a day.)  I also get to take any of the exercise classes they offer.  I have been going to a yoga class twice a week and love it.  

Along with all of this exercise, I have been tracking and limiting my calories with www.sparkpeople.com.  

I watched two of my sisters do it and their results were amazing.  I am not planning on doing it forever, or for even very long.  It takes a lot of time!  But it is a great tool for retraining my body how much food it needs,  learning portion sizes and being aware of the food choices I make.  I don't know that I have lost any weight yet, it has only been 1 1/2 weeks, but I have so much energy and some of the extra fluff around my middle is not so fluffy.  My face doesn't look puffy in the mornings like it was starting too.

The last part I should mention is that when I was starting all this, we had a lesson in Relief Society at church about repentance.  It was taken from Elder Christofferson's talk The Divine Gift Of Repentance, from the last General Conference.  One of the things he says in it is, 

"Without repentance, there is no real progress or improvement in life." 

I thought to myself, I want to make real progress, so I am going to repent.  I took my desires to make changes to my eating and exercising habits to the Lord and asked for help to take care of the body that he gave me. 

I have been so blessed.  I have not felt very hungry (certainly never ravenous) and I haven't felt deprived even though I am eating considerably less than I used to.  I often end the day a few hundred  calories short of my minimum.  It has been really fun to look a the numbers and see what I didn't get enough of that day, fat, protein or carbs and then find additional things to eat to balance it all out.  Some nights I have to eat a serving of ice cream because my fats are too low that day, and I really could use the extra calcium.  Another unexpected delight is that food tastes so good!

This happening right around new year is all coincidental because I don't really make new years resolutions, but here is to a new me!

Juggling

I have found that I can only juggle a finite number of things, and as new things come in, other things get dropped.  I really enjoy going to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers camp that I belong to, but I only have gone once this year, I think.  It was low on the list for the year.  As Christmas time came in, with all the kids home and us busy, blogging got dropped and my Words With Friends game time was greatly curtailed (sorry everyone who is waiting for me to take my turn).
The kids go back to school tomorrow.  I should be able to get caught up:)

Sunday Morning Haiku

Quiet Peaceful Still

The spirit whispers to me

Lo, I feel God's love

Don't box me in.

I have noticed that we like to categorize things.  If you have these things, you go in this little box.  But people are so much more complex than that.  Just because we have X doesn't make us Y.

What makes a "Mormon?"  What is cultural and what is doctrine?  Is it the culture that defines us or is it the doctrine?  I propose that it is the doctrine.  We have some cultures that grow out of our beliefs, but they are not doctrine and there are active Mormons that don't follow those cultures.  As you read the profiles on mormon.org, you can really see that.

Mormons are known for having big families, but not all do and just having a big family doesn't make you Mormon.  There are plenty of other people that have large families, whether it is because of a religious belief they have, a cultural belief or their own personal desires.  We do have doctrine that supports having a big family, but there is no commandment, "thou shalt have 10 children".  In fact it is a personal matter.  It is between the husband and the wife and the Lord.  We believe in personal revelation.  The Lord knows how many children will make your perfect family, he will let you know if you ask him.

What about not drinking alcohol.  It is a commandment for us.  Although there again, are all people who abstain from alcohol Mormon?  No.  There are plenty of people who don't drink of other faiths or no faith at all.

Are all Mormons Republicans and have the same beliefs on social issues?  No.  I remember when I learned that Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, was also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I was shocked.  But he is and according to this article, "The Temple-recommend-carrying Reid is very active in his church."

So what defines mormons as opposed to other people.  It is that we have a faith and testimony that the Book of Mormon was written by prophets on the American continents and is the word of God.  That the Priesthood authority of God was lost to the earth after Christ's original apostles died and that it was restored again through the Prophet Joseph Smith.  And we believe that Thomas S Monson is a prophet, called and authorized by God to receive revelation for the world today.   I think those are the beliefs that are uniquely ours.  We definitely have other beliefs that shape how we think and feel, but they are not exclusive to us, so therefore can't be said to make us a Mormon.  They just make us Christ like or thrifty or honest or kind or a "family man" or what ever (and honestly, these characteristics  are usually works in progress).  

In your genes.

I have been thinking about the differences between T and I.  Not the boy/girl differences, but the likes and dislikes differences.  And I can't help but notice that it correlates to how our ancestors lived.  This makes me wonder if it is something in our genes.  Some imprint that then gets passed down in our DNA.  

I have a tendency to be thrifty and frugal, like my farmer ancestors.

 

T is likes nice stuff like his well off city dwelling ancestors.   

  

T would love to live downtown in the city and I want to live out in the country.  Last summer when we went to Idaho to visit family, my soul yearned to live out there in the wide open spaces.  I have never lived in the country before in my life, I grew up in the suburbs.  But my people did and that desire has passed down to me.  My soul wants to garden and have livestock (hence my chickens).  To make our own things and rely on ourselves.  I loved reading (and still do) the Little House on the Prairie books.  I love how resilliant and self reliant they are, they are my kind of people.