Boy, have I neglected this blog. I probably won't be any better in the near future, as baby #5 is about to pop out. But I often compose posts in my head and wish I would actually get to posting them. I guess that doesn't quite cut it, does it?
Here are some thoughts that have been milling around in my head.
Materialistic Thoughts
I am sad that Quizno's appears to be going out of business. We lost ours here in our little town, and when I've tried to find another, those stores have closed too. In their place, I see lots of Jimmy Johns. Very lame. Jimmy John's two main ingredients appear to be Mayo and cheese. My last sandwich has three slices of cheese, lots of Mayo, some guacamole (yum), and some lame ice berg lettuce. Quizno's at least offered a good variety with lots of veggie and bread options. Boo to Jimmy John's.
If you know me at all, you'll laugh at this next statement, because I really don't like to shop. I dislike malls; they are silly places filled with silly things. But my new favorite store is at a nearby mall. What store is that, you ask? Lush. Have you heard of it? Probably way before I did. I found out about it through a book I read about getting plastics out of our daily lives, because I'm a granola like that. And the book mentioned Lush because they make bars of shampoo and conditioner. What the what? BARS of shampoo and conditioner? Yes!!! And they smell so good and work so well. The shampoo takes an incredibly small amount to work up a good lather and there's no packaging or anything to throw away. Amazing! I did not like the massage bar I got. It's basically a bar of lotion, which is a great idea in the no-plastic arena, but it hardly lasted two weeks and as it got smaller, it fell apart into smaller and smaller pieces, which did not work for smoothing all over for the lotion effect. I just threw it away, it was annoying me so much. So don't buy the massage bars.
Scriptural Thoughts
I started the Book of Mormon over again. For some years now, there is a passage that never made sense to me, and I finally asked someone who I thought could guide me in the right direction, and I'm getting some answers! It's in 1 Nephi 11:8-23. Nephi is speaking with the Spirit asking for further clarification regarding the Tree of Life vision he and his father saw, specifically in these verses what the tree means. The Spirit shows him Jerusalem, which Nephi recognized because he lived there, and then he sees Mary, and then Mary bearing baby Jesus in his arms. From this vision, Nephi understands that the tree represents the love of God. It never made sense to me how Nephi would draw that conclusion from the little conversation with the Spirit and the things that he saw. So my friend Heather at Women in the Scriptures directed me to some articles explaining how Nephi came to that conclusion, and it has been so helpful. Here are the links to the articles she sent me. Fascinating stuff!
\http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/9/2/S00003-50be458eb2b313Peterson.pdf
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705362168/Daniel-Peterson-How-Nephi-understood-the-Tree-of-Life-and-why-the-Book-of-Mormon-is-an-ancient.html?pg=all
I feel a great cultural divide when reading the Old and New Testament, and even sometimes the beginning of the Book of Mormon as it relates to Lehi and Nephi. I'm grateful for scholars that help me understand, and for the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants that are a bit easier to grasp, especially D&C.
Yard Thoughts
We are currently attempting to re-seed our yard and it is an ENORMOUS pain. When we moved in, our yard was ugly and very lumpy, almost impossible to mow with the huge gaps and holes everywhere. Our lawnmower was being destroyed. So we convinced our landlord to let us re-seed it, which he generously agreed to let us do. He eventually got around to tilling it up, but left the grass clumps everywhere. This is where I get annoyed, so you may want to stop reading. Over the past two Saturdays we have tried to rake up these clumps, but it would take about 70-80 man hours for Jonas to do this manually. The yard should have been re-seeded in March. I'm too pregnant to help out very much, and baby #5 is about to pop out. So we don't really have the leisure time to take a month and a half to rake the yard. Plus, all sorts of things are taking seed and starting to sprout up already. So now we are going to rent a tractor and pull something behind it to pull up the grass clumps, and then we can re-seed. I just wish our landlord had thought of this and offered to do it with his tractor. Oh well. The sad part of this saga is that because we have to pay to rent a tractor, etc., we now can't afford to build garden beds this year, so no garden for us. Probably for the best anyway, with a new baby on the way. Still, it makes me sad. But next year, we can have a great garden and hopefully some chickens too! For all the work that needs to be done here, I do so love our little house and huge yard.
The end. Thanks for visiting!
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