Eric and Angela were kind enough to buy me an entire Christmas village this year. Janae spent several hours arranging it for me last night. Here are the fruits of her labors.
An overall view, without the lights on.
The reason for the name. You can tell we live in a rural area, where this is quite common.
Pigs are also common, dragons are not.
Watch out Larry! We don't want our Christmas goat squished. And yes, that is an Indian Village.
Here are the Christmas Chicken and the Christmas Horse.
The Christmas Crab and the Christmas Flounder.
The Christmas Indians. Janae is pro-Christmas for everyone/thing.
And a small look with the lights on. I think it looks great. It would have been very dull if I had done the arranging, so thank-you Janae.
The following entry is my talk from Sacrament Meeting yesterday. For some reason I couldn't get the website to let me add anything else onto the entry to explain what it was. Also, I can't change the name of that entry. So, there are two entries for today.
IN a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food, and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day,corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew:
"Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today."
In Alma 34:32, Amulek tells the Nephites:
For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.
What is Procrastination?Why do we do it?How does it hurt us? How can we stop?
The dictionary tells us that the word procrastinate is Latin-based from the word procrastinatus,pro- forward + crastinus of tomorrow.Date: 1588.
Elder Marvin J. Ashton said, "To procrastinate is to put off intentionally and habitually something that should be done. Procrastination is unproductive delay. Someone has said, "Procrastination is a silly thing, it only makes me sorrow; but I can change at any time—I think I will tomorrow!"
One of my facebook friends posted this the other day:"Starting tomorrow, I think I will stop procrastinating."
Elder Ashton related this experience:"…I was visiting in a faraway country with a… missionary. When I asked, "How long has it been since you wrote a letter to your mother?" he said, "Oh, about three or four weeks, I guess." When I suggested he write her a letter straightway, he responded with, "What does straightway mean?"
"Straightway is a power word. Straightway is an action word. It means immediately, without delay or hesitation. It means at once. Also, it is associated with having no curve or turn—a straight course, track, or path. Procrastination would be the very opposite of straightway.!"
Matthew 4: 18-22
Joshua 24:15 states, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve; … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."Choose you this day, not tomorrow, not when we feel like it, not when it is convenient—but "this day," straightway, choose.
Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, told the following story in General Conference."When our oldest childwas 11 years of age, he was given an assignment, along with the other sixth graders of his school, to submit his favorite family recipe. As its contribution to a large spring fair, the sixth grade was producing a cookbook that would be distributed throughout the community. When the teacher announced the project and a deadline of a week from Friday, our son Brett immediately concluded there was plenty of time later to get the job done and dismissed it from his mind. Early the next week, when the teacher reminded the students of the Friday deadline, Brett decided he could easily complete the required task on Thursday night and until then he could occupy himself with other more enjoyable matters.
On the appointed Friday morning, the teacher directed the students to pass their recipes to the front of the class. Brett's procrastination had caused him to forget the assignment and be completely unprepared. Flustered, he turned to a fellow student seated nearby and confessed his problem. Trying to be helpful, the classmate said, "I brought an extra recipe. If you want, use one of mine." Brett quickly grabbed the recipe, wrote his name on it, and turned it in, feeling he had escaped any consequences related to his lack of preparation.
One evening several weeks later, I arrived home from work to freshen up before going to my evening Church meetings. A few days prior, I had been called as a stake president after serving several years as a bishop. We were somewhat known in our community as members of the Church who tried to live the tenets of our religion. "There's something you need to see," my wife, Diane, said as I walked through the door. She handed me a bound book with a page marked. Glancing at the cover, titled Noelani School's Favorites—1985, I turned to the identified page and read, "Hallstrom Family, Favorite Recipe—Bacardi Rum Cake."
Why do we procrastinate?
(Or why do I procrastinate?)
Life requires effort .We might lack the courage, the confidence, or the self-discipline.Perhaps we haven't made concrete goals.Maybe we don't want to look foolish in our attempts.While he was in high school, my son told me that his main goal in life was to avoid anything that would make him look stupid.He gets this from me.
Elder Marvin J. Ashton in his April 1983 General Conference address said, "To straightway follow our Savior requires effort on our part.How wise and blessed we would be if we eliminated procrastination and made a decision to serve the Lord and accept His invitation to "Come, follow me." Then when we have identified our goal, may we have the courage to act upon our decision.Satan may try to dissuade us by making the task look impossible, by making us doubt our worthiness or ability. Wishing things were different in our lives, or waiting for a roadblock to be removed or an attitude altered, can cause us to mark time rather than to move forward .William Shakespeare wrote, "Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt." (Measure for Measure, act 1, sc. 4, lines 77–79.)
Many, like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, live by the motto Play Now and Pay Later. My mother always told me (and her mother told her), " If you give a dance you have to pay the piper."Some think that if they wait long enough, their problems will go away. But they don't. They must be worked through. Before we can solve our problems and put our lives in order, we must accept full responsibility for our problems.
We often avoid taking action because we tell ourselves that our problem was caused by circumstances or people beyond our control. Therefore, we think we can abdicate our responsibility, and we find ourselves hoping that other people or a change of conditions will solve our difficulties. Rather, it is our responsibility to repent—to change, and to move forward without delay. As Amulek said, "Do not procrastinate the day of your repentance." (Alma 34:33.)
Many of us want the simple way out.Someone once told the story ofjokingly thinking he had found it.While driving above the city of Honolulu, he found a road named Easy Street.He said, "As I was dreaming of the life-changing benefits of my discovery, I took out my camera to record the blissful moment.As I looked through the viewfinder, however, my focus literally and figuratively became clear.A large yellow sign returned me to reality—Easy Street was a dead end!
How does procrastination hurt us?
Procrastination may seem the easy way, as it momentarily removes the effort required to accomplish something of value. Ironically, in time, procrastination produces a heavy burden laced with guilt and a hollow lack of satisfaction. Temporal and, even more importantly, spiritual goals will not be achieved by procrastination.
President Thomas S. Monson said, "Two centuries ago, Edward Young said that "procrastination is the thief of time".Actually, procrastination is much more. It is the thief of our self-respect. It nags at us and spoils our fun. It deprives us of the fullest realization of our ambitions and hopes. Knowing this, we jar ourselves back to reality with the sure knowledge that "this is my day of opportunity. I will not waste it."
How can we stop procrastinating?
Procrastination is a habit. But it's a habit that can be broken. First of all you have to make a decision to CHANGE! Next, take the problem to your Heavenly Father. Through sincere prayer he'll give you the guidance and support you'll need to make the change. Then back up your prayers with some serious action.
Here are a few things that I have found to be helpful:
• Make a daily list of projects and check them off as you finish each one.
• Start with your most difficult task, or the one you enjoy the least. The rest of your work will seem easy by comparison.
• Break down big and intimidating projects into smaller ones. Then do each one step by step.
• Remove distractions from your work place. Keep food, TV, cell phones, computers, and other temptations out of your way. You can get a lot done if you spend a short time on a task with good concentration.
• Set realistic goals.In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice finds herself coming to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. She is confronted by the Cheshire Cat, of whom Alice asks, "Which path shall I take?"
The cat answers, "That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn't really matter which path you take."Set goals.Write them down.Read them often.
• Avoid overcommitment. Don't say yes to someone's request when you have no intention of following through. Then if you say yes, do everything possible to keep your promise.
• Prioritize and pace yourself.
President Spencer W. Kimball said, "Do It."He later expanded this to "Do It Now."
--My own personal mantra is this:"Quit whining. Shut-up and do it anyway."
Make the commitment to change your habit of procrastination. The Apostle Paul counseled, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily" (Col. 3:23). Put enthusiasm into the many tasks you have to face and carry them out with a happy attitude. By abolishing the habit of procrastination you will find that you are accomplishing much more in life with much less effort. And the blessings will begin to multiply.
In The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball wrote:
"One of the most serious human defects in all ages is procrastination, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibilities now.
"There are even many members of the Church who are lax and careless and who continually procrastinate.They live the gospel casually but not devoutly.They have complied with some requirements but are not valiant.They do no major crime but merely fail to do the things required—like paying tithing, living the Word of Wisdom, having family prayers, fasting, attending meetings, serving.Perhaps they do not consider such omissions to be sins, yet these were the kinds of thing of which the five foolish virgins of Jesus' parable were probably guilty.
Parable of the Ten VirginsMatthew 25:1-13
President Kimball continued, "The ten virgins belonged to the kingdom and had every right to the blessings—except that five were not valiant and were not ready when the great day came.They were unprepared through not living all the commandments.They were bitterly disappointed at being shut out from the marriage—as likewise their modern counterparts will be.
Elder Donald L. Hallstrom said, "Now is the time to exercise our faith. Now is the time to commit to righteousness. Now is the time to do whatever is required to resolve our undesired circumstances. Now is the time to reconcile with God through the merciful process of change afforded us by the Redeemer of mankind.Alma 34:32, 33
I've been struggling with my fibromyalgia lately. I hate that commercial where the lady whines about having fibro so I won't say much about it, just enough to say that I haven't been very productive with anything. I haven't exercised since Lehman Caves, been eating really terrible, sleeping terrible. So, I haven't been updating the blog like I want to. I'm just going to pull myself together and ignore all the health stuff. I'll do the best that I can with eating and exercising, but not worry about it for now.
Jim and Max just installed another LX system. Max came on Wednesday and left Saturday. I think this installation went much better than the first. There is always so much extra to figure out with each different piano. Jim is still working on getting the pedals re-installed for manual use. We will deliver it to Roosevelt on Saturday.
For those who don't know what an LX system is, here is an explanation. The LX is a system that makes a regular piano a player piano. It is the best one made in the world. It is the only one that plays like a real person is playing, not mechanical like Disklavier. The old players worked because the "player" pumped air into the piano. The piano rolls had holes in them which triggered which keys to play. Player systems today are electronic. The LX has electronic "plungers" that push the keys. Instead of player rolls, there are discs that can be played or music can be downloaded to MP3's. Regular cd's can't be played. Special encoded discs have to be used, but the LX can play all other system's discs. I'm still working on figuring out how to download my dvd camera clips to my computer. As soon as I do, I will post a clip of the piano playing.
Gain no weight during the holidays. Jim and I were too late to sign up for BYU's wellness initiative, so we are doing our own. BYU's is called "Lean Santa". The Army says, "Be All That You Can Be". We are calling ours, "Be Less Than You Can Be". Anyone who wants to join in with us is more than welcome.
Our basic goal is this:
Between November 1, 2009 and January 2, 2010 no weight gain.
Actually, we would like to post a weight loss during this time.
How we will do this:
1. Weigh-in. We had our official weigh-in this morning. I will be posting only my stats, not because Jim isn't doing well. He has been much better than I have been lately. There is usually a 100 lb difference in our weight, but right now it is much less. But this is my blog so I will only post my stats.
2. Calories. We are going to be eating 1500 calories each day. Obviously, that's going to make Jim lose weight faster than me. (Plus he's a MAN!) He will be eating much less each day proportionately than I will.
3. Menus. We are concentrating on eating lean meats, lots of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, little or no sugar or sugar substitutes. We are making up some menus so I will have a guide to help me. Any good recipes would be appreciated.
4. Exercise. We will be continuing our exercise program. Details will follow.
5. Stress management. The holidays can be really stressful and stress can lead to overeating. We will be doing things to counteract stress and be aware of stress making situations.
6. Keep track. Keep track of what we are doing. Jim uses a chart he has designed. I use the website SparkPeople.com. I love that website for keeping me on track.
That's all I can think of for now. This isn't a weight-loss blog, but it might seem like it is for the next little while. That's what my life will be about. Any encouragement, ideas, recipes, menus, positive comments will be appreciated.
My house is a fairly normal house. There is nothing fancy about it. For 50 weeks of the year there is nothing out of the ordinary about my house, as you can see.
Very ordinary, very plain.
But once a year in the fall, something wild happens to my living room. I can't explain it. Don't ask me what I am thinking. It's just there one day before the annual Halloween Party. People come home from school and there it is. This year's party, hosted by Janae, it tomorrow night. We will be invaded by all sorts of strange beings, stranger than normal, yes. And this is what they will come to.
And then, one day they come home from school and everything is gone and the house is back to normal. It happens every year. Wild isn't it?
I have wanted to go to Lehman Caves for a long time and we finally found the time to go. If I had known how great it was going to be, I would have definitely gone sooner. We left Friday afternoon. It was the deer hunt in Utah, so we felt like it would be a good time to get away. It's about a 3 hr. drive from Mt. Pleasant.
We camped in one of the campgrounds that is close to the caves. We went with the Stakers, so of course we had a good time. It was fun to sit around the campfire and just visit. We took the 90 minute tour the next morning. What a great cave! I couldn't believe all of the neat formations.
Amy, Sara, Anna, and Janae
Ed and Jim
The natural cave opening. There is about a 60 ft. drop to the cave floor.
A few cool formations.
After the cave, we went up the mountain to hike to find the bristlecone pines. Janae can use them in her leaf collection for Biology.
The bristlecone pines are the oldest trees in the world. They have found some that were "born" about 1700 BC.
Anna, Amy, Sara and Ed Staker.
Jim, Janae and Shauna
This was a great area to camp and hike. We would love to come here again.
Next trip: probably Grand Gulch or Kartchner Caves.
When I'm not out on thrilling hiking/camping adventures, I sometimes help Jim with his piano rebuilding business. That involves working on piano actions and restringing pianos. This past week I have been working on a Steinway grand that we have had in our living room for almost a year. It required almost a total rebuild and we needed to store it until it was time to go to the refinishers, which will be next week.
We waited until it was closer to the time to send it out to the refinisher to do our work. So this week I have been restringing this piano. Like the blog title says, it's not rocket science. Each treble note is made up of three strings and depending on where the note is the strings are different thicknesses. I say strings, but it's really a special type of wire.
I've got about 1/4 of the treble strung here. This part takes the longest in stringing because the wire is so long. The bass strings go over the top of these treble strings. They are premanufactured in Europe and are easy to install.
There are a ton of tools that piano technicians use. Here are some that I am using for this job.
I use a chart that tells me what gauge of wire to use for each note. I unwrap enough wire from the coil it comes in and then feed it through the a-graf and then wind it on a dummy pin. I remove it from the dummy pin and place it on the permanent tuning pin. I loop the wire over the top pin, through the bridge pins, through the next a-graf and wrap it around the dummy pin, then remove it from the dummy and place it on the permanent tuning pin. I tighten the wire and make sure the coils are where they should be. Thread, wrap, loop, thread, wrap, tighten, repeat. It's not hard, but it is tough on the fingers when working on the heavier gauges. Another thrilling day in my life. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
We got to Roger's Trough Thursday afternoon at about 5:30. It was much later than we planned to get there. We hurried and set up the tent and put all of the sleeping things in so it would be ready when we got back. We intended to to hike to the Indian ruins which is about 5 miles round trip. We weren't too worried about it getting dark because it was almost a full moon that night. Jim had been to the ruins before when he was a scout and they hiked most of it by moonlight.
So we started out and got about a mile down the trail. We stopped and looked at some cactus and at some mistletoe. We got talking and for some reason we decided to go back. We didn't feel good about going in the dark, especially with Kristine having knee problems. She was wearing her brace, but the terrain was much rougher than we expected.
So we stopped here and there and checked out the cactus, including the prickly pear apples. We cut one open and tasted it. Jim's mom used to make jelly out of the fruit when he was younger. I think it would have made great jelly. The fruit was quite tasty. We also saw several growths of mistletoe. Mistletoe is a parasite and attaches itself to trees and bushes and uses them for its nourishment. (I think it was Janae who commented that mistletoe was appropriate for lovers if it was a parasite.) We were going to pick some the next day on our way back to camp. We wanted it as fresh as we could get it.
The girls liked the sweat patterns on Jim's back, caused from his pack.
We went back to the tent and settled in. Party-pooper that I am, I went to sleep at 8:30. The others weren't up much later than I was. We wanted to get an early start. We decided to go to the Reavis Ranch and then see if we still wanted to go to the ruins. We were so funny. We had no idea what was in store for us on the Reavis Ranch hike.
We started off around 8:00 am. We had a little bit to eat, filled our water bottles and packed our cold powerade into Jim's backpack. The hike starts off going downhill for almost 2 miles. We went a little further than that and stopped to have some energy snacks. We passed by the trail to the ruins and the place that leads to old man Reavis' grave. The trail was so rocky that it was difficult for us to walk on it. I had left my pain meds back at camp. I could have really used them many times over by the time we got back.
The 2 miles down hill are followed by an uphill climb. This was mostly switchbacks that led us further and further back into the mountains. We passed around several mountains while going up and up. The trail was on the southward face of the mountains and it was hot. We finally got to the top which is called Reavis Saddle.
Looking back from Reavis Saddle to all the mountains we had hiked up and around. Camp was behind the furtherest mountain and to the right, out of the picture.
We were feeling pretty good at this time, thinking that we were almost there. We started down into the valley and walked and walked and walked and walked. It was supposed to be about 2.5 miles from the saddle to the ranch, but it was much further.
We came to this tree, an old alligator juniper. It's the biggest one in the world, about 7 ft in diameter. We thought that the tree we near the ranch ruins, so we kept walking. The tree wasn't near the ranch. The area was very pretty and we saw lots of interesting things, but no ruins or apple trees. According to our pedometer we should have been there, but we weren't. We sat down in the shade to rest. We decided that we would go just a little further and if we didn't find it, we would go back. We hated to go back without seeing the ruins and apples. We had come so far and I didn't want to have to do the hike again. We were getting pretty tired. Kristine's knees were both really hurting her. My knee hurt. Our feet were beginning to hurt. Then, we heard some horses whinnying. Just around the bend was an open field and the ruins were just past that.
The floor of the ranch house.
The old well.
Some old farm equipment.
And the apples.
The trees were loaded, but only high up. The animals had eaten everything on the lower branches.
Jim with his beloved apples.
We didn't stay as long as we would have liked because it was almost 2:00. We wanted to get back and drive down the awful road before it was dark. We were already hurting when we left. We had gone more than a mile farther than we had planned and the trail was rocky and harder to walk on than we wanted. But what can you do? We just kept walking. The girls are not complainers, but Kristine did voice some concern when we found bear tracks on top of our inbound tracks. A bear had passed within an hour of us. Luckily we didn't see him.
I didn't take any pictures on the way back. We needed all of our energy just to get back. That last 2 miles uphill was almost the end of us. Even Janae was having a hard time. We didn't pick the mistletoe. Jim figures that we hiked about 15 miles that day. I later read in our book that it's supposed to be a 2 or 3 day hike. I didn't cry when I saw the truck, but I thought about it. We had packed up camp before we left that morning. We also had cold drinks in a cooler that were the best tasting drinks I've ever had. We did get down the bad road before it got dark, but just barely. The rest of the trip was made in the dark.
We stopped at McDonalds because they have the best coke and we were too smelly and tired so we needed a drive thru. Jim and I ended up getting out anyway and both got charlie-horses in our legs. We drove to Max and Lynne's house, where a hot shower and the princess bed were waiting for us. By the next morning, Jim and I were feeling pretty good. The girls said never to ask them to go with us again.
We wanted to listen to Conference as we drove home, but there wasn't a single station in Mesa/Phoenix that carried it. Part way between Phoenix and Flagstaff is an Indian ruin called Montezuma's Castle. It's just off the freeway and there was no hiking involved. We stopped there to make up for not getting to see the other ruins.
This is high on the wall face. The only way up was a series of ladders. The public isn't allowed up anymore. If I had lived there, I would never have come down after I got up there.
Another view.
On the way back to camp from Reavis Ranch, we all said that we were never doing that hike again. But time has a habit of helping us forget pain. Now Jim and I are saying that maybe we would go back. I do want to go back to the Indian ruins that we didn't get to see. There is another road that we can take to get to that so I won't have to go back on the scary road. We are planning trips to Lehman Caves and to Grand Gulch in the near future. Don't ask me what we are thinking.
Jim has heard about Reavis Ranch his whole life. His father was the foreman of a huge ranch near Florence, Arizona that was owned by Twain Clemens. (Yes, he's a grandson.) Twain owned the Reavis Ranch at one time and Jim's father had been there several times. He said he had never tasted apples as good as the Reavis Ranch apples. Jim has always wanted to go there in the autumn and find the treasure of "Gold-en" apples.
(Warning: History Lesson)
In the 1874 a rancher named Elisha Reavis built his home along a creek that runs in a very isolated area, deep in the wilderness of the Superstition Mountains. The creek fed a 140-acre ranch and watered fruits and vegetables grown on the property. Reavis would cart the produce down long, winding hills to sell them in nearby mining communities. In the winter of 1896 Reavis died along the trail while making one of his countless trips to town, and kind passersby buried him right where they found him. His makeshift grave remains to this day, near one of the trails that leads to the ranch.
After Reavis’s death, the ranch passed through many hands, including Twain Clemens. Clemens planted 600 more apple trees in addition to the 300 trees already there. The Department of Agriculture eventually acquired the property in the late 1960s as part of Tonto National Forest and subsequently closed the dirt road. Today only the apple trees, some rusty farm tool, a filled-in well, and the foundation of the farmhouse remain. The house was destroyed in a fire, which some believe was started by the Department of Agriculture to more quickly return the ranch to a wilderness area.
So on with our journey.
West view of the Superstition Mountains, as seen from the Museum.
To get to the Roger's Trough Trailhead, which is where we were going to begin our hike, we had to drive from Apache Junction to Queen Valley, drive on Forrest Roads for 15 miles and then on a terrible, awful, hidious, scary, bumpy, horrible road for 4 miles. We missed one of the turnoffs and went down the wrong road and got stuck in the sand.
We pushed the truck out and then got stuck on a cattle guard.
The back wheel axle got wedged between two of the rails of the guard. Jim had to jack up the truck and then we found this railroad tie. We backed up and then used the tie to get over the guard. Then we figured out that we were on the wrong road and had to go back over everything. Jim must have been a stunt driver in a former life. We got out without getting stuck again.
We got to the last 4 miles and that's when I read in the book we had bought at the museum, that we needed a 4-wheel drive to get up the last bit of road. I said to Jim, "It says that we need a 4-wheel drive for this part." Him: "We were supposed to have one for the last 9 miles too." Me: "You didn't tell me this part." Him: No answer. Me: "Did you know we needed a 4-wheel drive for this trip?" Him: No answer. Me: "When were you planning on telling me about these roads?" Him: No answer. The ride on this last road was a combination of "Indiana Jones" and "Big Thunder Mountain Railroad", only much more intense. We had to go fast enough to get some traction, but the road had all kinds of twists and turns on the edge of high mountains. Big drop-offs. Rough road. Big bumps. Huge rocks. No 4-wheel drive. No front-wheel drive. Everything flying off of the dashboard. White-knuckled hands hanging on for dear life. Too scared to shut my eyes. And then finally, we were in the parking lot, safe and sound. I didn't kiss the ground, but I thought about it.
Return tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of "Jim and Shauna's Excellent Adventure".
