I am feeling sheepish as I had a goal to write something every month. I of course did not follow through. I guess this is life. I am a mother and wife. I babysit from my home and I have been busy getting my oldest ready for his mission. I also teach Early Morning Seminary and was recently called as the Primary President. Needless to say I am overwhelmed. This is no excuse for not giving to me and my future generations.  Maybe this is why I am feeling overwhelmed. There is so much more that I want to do, and be and yet I have reached a time in my life when there is not even enough  time for me. I don't know where or what I could or can cut out of my life to make it easier and less busy.
 I recently turned 40. UGH! I know I know it is just a number. It is only half a lifetime if I am lucky enough to live to 80. Which means half my life is over... I know so pessimistic.  This is where I am though. I am full of joy and happiness at my life and where God has taken me yet so disappointed that I haven't grasped more. I wanted more of everything. I am disappointed at the time I wasted. I wasted complaining, whining and just not doing. I could have been and done so much more by now.  Mostly because I didn't understand my own potential, or how to manage my time wisely.
 My husband and I love to play a game on our tablets to unwind. Looking at myself honestly I think what a waste of my time. It is easy to get addicted to these time wasters. They make you feel as if you are accomplishing something and you are really just passing time.I am reminded of the episode on Star Trek the Next Generation when Riker brought a game on board the enterprise which ends up stealing the crew's will. It becomes a drug.  We justify it and say it is only here and there through out the weekend as we go about our business getting things done, waiting for our items to be made on the game. Yet in times past I would have spent that time drawing, writing, crocheting, reading,cooking, hiking, playing with my kids, or just plain doing. Doing other things that were productive for real.This fantasy life that I and others place ourselves in and portray online is not real. I want to feel real and do for real, both the good and bad. In one game you farm and make something out of nothing, in mere minutes, yet there is no opposition. The only one I can think of is when others  buy items just seconds before you can get it. Defeated you mindlessly tap on a screen until you can find another pick or axe. Nope no tornadoes, no famines, no floods, not even a single weed. No there is no real opposition, just accomplishment. I guess this is the draw as there is really no work involved. As if by magic and a swipe of a hand we can feel like Gods and make things grow. The patch of ground in the front of my house has been begging for me to make it peaty again. Yet I put little to no effort into it  because lets get real effort is hard. Effort takes time. Effort takes investment.  These programs  and games  aren't real and really I learn nothing except how to make sure my barn is full.   I for one am going to make a concerted effort to do and live a  more real life. Do is the operative word as these games are so wasteful and accomplish nothing except tell us we are smart, and look what you have accomplished! REALLY? I accomplished nothing.  I want to feel again. I want to feel the accomplishment of finishing something, something for me, something that is real. Something that is not wasteful of my time but feels like a contribution to making me a better, more accomplished person.
My father is one of these people who accomplished things.  He was born during WWII. He grew up dirt poor in Idaho. Let me tell you Easterners. Idaho is the West Virginia of the West. We all make fun of them and treat them as nothing more than country hicks.  Yet they know how to survive. They know how to do. Mom and Dad have talked about how everyone was let out of school in the spring to thin the beats and asparagus. All the kids in school worked. Dad joined the military to put himself through college. He went to college, then on to get his masters in a field that did not make him very popular in the early 60's. Nuclear Energy. When the country was giving in to flower power he was learning how to provide real power to these hippies. These hippies later would turn on him for working in a field that was so evil. He worked through his field while his wife stayed at home and had babies, six of them. While I was  Growing up he came home and worked on little projects around the house doing just about every little and big fix it job. There was nothing he felt he couldn't do. He is a person who accomplishes things. He has always in the past just done what ever he wanted. I don't think he understands the words I don't think I can. In fact he had me convinced that all men could do anything and everything. Until I got married, I didn't know that some men don't know how to fix things. We are loosing something as this era as men move on and age. I want to retain something of this in me. I want to be someone who accomplishes things.  This is how I want to live my life. Even if I feel overwhelmed and my body is tired I will push on and just do. I want to do EVERYTHING! I want to be someone who does, and lets face it 40 years goes fast. So I better get started.