Dangit, Gym!

Hello!! How is everyone? Things is going well. It has been an amazingly long couple of weeks. Jessica and I just passed our 2 month anniversary, but it honestly feels like a year or so. 2 days ago was my half birthday, that means 28.5 which can be rounded up to 29. =( oh well, more years to come I guess. Jessica and I were looking for things that we can do together so we decided to start going to the gym. She's had a membership for a while so I just added me to hers. We've been 3 times this week and I've gotta say, other than the pain and anguish it has been pretty fun. What bothers me though is that they have like a whole warehouse full of machines to workout on, but what the crap do they all do?? Seriously? How many different machines do you need that simulate a bench press? One, that's right. They've got like 12 and they are all different in some way, how far you lean back the different types of handles etc. but at the end of the day all you are doing is pushing weight away from your chest. I don't get it. But my favorite part is the cardio cinema room! I love it! I've done almost an hour of cardio this week while watching movies. I like it because it's dark in there so I don't have so many distractions, other than watching Jess run on the treadmill infront of me. I haven't tried the treadmills yet mostly because, well, I'm a big dude so I think I'll stick to the lower impact ones. My muscles have been sore all week. It started with my legs, could hardly walk. Now they are doing better but my arms are really sore. So far I'm up like a pound and a half, but that's ok. I can't imagine that it's muscle, but probably swelling in my muscles. Other than the gym we've been pretty busy. Christmas time is a time for getting together apparently, so we've been doing that a lot with different people. But/yet/and it has been fun. We are going to St. George (hopefully ACTUALLY going to St George) for Christmas and I'm marginally excited about that. OH, and guys... if you want some really awesome smelling lotion Vaseline makes some for men that is "fast absorbing" and it smells awesome. Anyways, I guess that's it for now. Hope all is well and that you all have a merry merry christmas this year.

Conference Talk Poem

Here is my first attempt at a poem based (loosely) on a conference talk titled "Come unto Me with Full Purpose of Heart, and I Shall Heal You" by Elder Patrick Kearon of the seventy during the priesthood session. Also DON'T FORGET TO READ MY OTHER POST titled "STRIKE THAT....REVERSE IT" because I posted this one right after that one, and I think the other one is better reading. So make sure to read both. Ok thanks :)

Dark the night, and I,
Far from the path
Disregard with prideful heart
the warnings of the wise

And soon my apathy turns to fear
tis not a thorn but scorpion
that pricks my wand'ring soul
and leaves me numb, alone.

And crying for the ones I left
I seek their tenderness
for in their arms is mercy found
despite disobedience

The venomous sting of sin
like a scorpion in the dark
will wound a rebellious soul
and poison a wand'ring heart

But turning to the savior
I find solace at his feet
for in His healing love
I recapture joy and peace.

Strike that... reverse it

So what I really wanted to talk about today is fast forwarding. This is a great technique I've learned over the last 2.5 years, but just recently have put to use. The main idea is that when you have a decision to make you fast forward in your mind to the outcome of each choice, thus you skip over most of the detail and get to the nitty gritty of the situation. I noticed that I did this with a certain girl the other day. We'll call her..... Jessica C. No no... J Clark. I made a choice about something that would have led to me pretending to be angry or hurt, which would have led to me believing that I was actually angry or hurt which would have turned into a miserable weekend. Now... this is a situation that I've played out several times in several prior relationships. And in the instant that I made this decision I "fast forwarded" to the outcome (aka the miserable weekend as described above) and was able, for the first time that I'm aware of, to change the situation. I immediately apologized, explained why I was sorry and what for, because at this point it only had made sense to me because I knew how it would turn out. Anyways, long story short, we had a great weekend and so I guess I just want to bare (bear?) my testimony of the usefulness of fast forwarding, that it works for I have seen it work, but only if you let it change your actions. How many times have I let things happen when I knew that I could change them if I had wanted to, or how many opportunities have I passed up because I didn't look at the results, only the effort involved? I've talked about this a lot in therapy, to avoid "certain situations" I can fast forward to what the outcome will inevitably be, mostly regret or shame or anger etc.
Anyways. I hope that you can find this useful in your lives, and, as always feel free to share experiences that you have had with this principle in the past or perhaps ways that you can apply it to things in the future. It seems that marriages could benefit from this, as Jess and I only see each other a couple times a week and we have benefitted from it and married people see each other... well..... every day. Best of luck.

Blanket 1

Tadaa!!!!
So Jessica and I got together yesterday and went and bought some (too expensive) fleece and, with the help of one of Jessica's friends, tied this beauuuuuutiful baby blanket!! It's so freakin' adorable!! This picture doesn't do it justice really. I just wanna wrap up in it and sleep! Anyways, blanket number 1. Check. I've started working on blanket #2 today. It's not going to be nearly as cute, but it is for a little boy and has monkeys on it :)

Pursuit of Happyness

So I don't know what it is lately, but I just feel happy.... like all the time. People make me happy, just random people or people at work or family or friends. I don't know what it is. The work family members will tell you that sometimes I'll just start dancing, just randomly, if it can be called dancing. All I know is that I haven't felt this good for this long in a VERY long time, probably pushing 12-15 years. I noticed about a year ago that I was starting to have more good days than bad, but I still had a lot of bad days, but gosh, I can't remember the last dark day, the last bad day or foggy, mind-in-a-haze day. I have a new friend named Jessica that some of you have met that has added to some of this I think, though it has been going on a lot longer than I've known her. Everything feels right with the world, which is usually just a calm before the storm, but that's ok. It's been nice to have a few rays of sunshine here in the middle.
Anyways, I guess that's all I wanted to say. I didn't get any other poems for this last entry, but I'll be the first to admit that the topic was kind of weird and I really didn't have much drive to write poetry the last few months. I nominate mom to pick the new topic. With Misty publishing her books I've just had this itch to write, so be thinking of things to write about or ideas you'd like to get out. peace.

New Post Time

The meteor shower is ALMOST HERE!! I'm so excited! I've been planning to see this one since I saw it last year up at the property with Russ and it was so amAZing! This Thursday and Friday can't come soon enough. =) That said, things have been going pretty well. Work is enjoyable, a few problem buildings that I've been working on but it has been good.
We need to have another poetry thing. I was thinking "The things these hands can do" as a possible theme. Hmmm, nah, it's decided. That's the theme. So start sending your poems in. I'm looking forward to reading them. Also, if you find time, my roommate has created a website @ PromoteTheGood.org that you guys can check out. Basically he wants a forum for people to talk about the good things that are going on in the world around them. He has a section for poetry and writing, I've already put one on there from our last poetry competition. It seems like a really good idea for a website. I think eventually he will have a movie rating thing on there with different categories so you can see what all is objectionable in a movie before you see it etc. Anyways, check it out. Register for it, it's free and I don't think he sends emails out or anything.
The motivational thought this post comes from the scriptures, not sure where, but I read it a while back. It says "The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace" which, to me, means that we need to stop whining about what the Lord asks us to do and just do it and HE will do the fighting. Sounds like a good deal to me. Anyways, best of the best to all of you. Send in poems! =)

Somehow I missed May

Hey, it's good to be back. Not much going on right now: still working, practicing the guitar from time to time, napping, watching movies etc. I made a new friend this past week. Her name is Reta. She is actually my roomie's friend and now lives in the apartment above us. She's really nice though. She invited me to go gardening with her and some people from her ward. I don't know how she talked me into it actually. It was a service project for a lady in their ward to plant her garden for her, and in return we could use some of the land to plant our own veggies. Well, the other two people that showed up had to leave right away, some type of miscommunication, so Reta and I set to work turning the dirt with shovels and pulling the weeds. We spent a good hour or so. We talked in Spanish, because she wants to learn spanish. She was actually surprisingly really good at it. Anyways, back to the point. So while we were gardening she mentioned that it was probably too late and the plants wouldn't grow, so I says that I'll never weed a garden that doesn't have veggies growing in it and it made me think about life how sometimes we need to stop weeding the gardens that aren't producing any fruit. In my case, for example, there are two girls that I like, both of whom, for one reason or another are unavailable to me, at least for now. But you wouldn't believe the amount of mental energy I spend just adoring these girls. Time to move on to greener pastures.
Likewise I know people that spend all their days sowing and dunging and pruning but are either having too much fun or are hoping for bigger fruits and completely forget they need to reap. That's human nature I think: you go gambling you just want to win 1 more dollar, you buy stocks you hold on to em hoping they'll just keep going up. I get caught up in this all the time. It doesn't matter how good I live my life or how well I tend that garden, if I never plant any seeds I'll never reap any fruit.
I made a program recently to help me learn names and faces of people in my ward. It works pretty well, I'd say. Pretty basic really, just flash cards with multiple choice. I love being an assistant clerk for this too. I get to meet almost every new person that comes into the ward, and I love the look of surprise on people's faces when I come up to them a week later and say "you're so n so, right?" Every chance I get, when I'm standing by someone I know and see someone I don't know I'll ask them who it is. It has been really rewarding emotionally to be able to connect with 30 different people, even for just a brief moment. This is one area I've really struggled in in this ward because there are so many faces that change so very often. I also wondered how I could possibly magnify my calling, I mean counting people is just counting people, turning in numbers is just turning in numbers etc so I figured this would be a good way I could stretch myself in this calling.
Alright, I think that's enough for now. Geez, I don't know why you're still reading, honestly. We need to have another poetry topic... maybe mad gab poetry. hmmm. Half an iced hay!

Merit Badges

So I've decided that I want to try and earn scouting merit badges, mostly because I think they look cool, but also because I need something to do. I heard on the news the other day that some kid had earned all of the merit badges (126 total I think) and it inspired me to start working on some. I've read through the requirements on about 10 different badges and they seem pretty easy. There is usually around 85 pages of material to read out of the pamphlet and 7 or 8 things to study or regurgitate or do. For lack of a better way to do this I've decided to start alphabetically from American Business to Woodwork. Some of them might not be practical (like scuba diving) but I'd like to see how many I could get. If anyone would like to join me, I was planning on doing one a month or so starting in either may or june (there's no deadline to finish). Also, if anyone has any suggestions or ideas on a way we could organize our efforts that would be good too. I've noticed on a lot of them that you have to discuss some issue with your scout leader, well, if you're my scout leader and I'm your scout leader.. then I'd be ok with splitting the workload in two where you cover one topic and I cover one topic etc. I dunno, just a thought. I don't want to make some stressful thing, but I think it could be fun to take some fieldtrips to a business, bank, farm or archaeology site and learn a little more about the world around us. Let me know if you'd be interested and I'll start throwing some stuff together. :)

Rarely if ever

So, I rarely, if ever jump on bandwagons for different things but a girl in my ward became a fan of something on facebook that really caught my attention. They are trying to get the video of Elder Holland's testimony of The Book of Mormon to the homepage of youtube by having as many people as possible watch it on the same day, May 3rd. I think it sounds like an awesome idea. The 3rd is a Monday, so I would invite each of you to watch his testimony found @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI for FHE. With millions of people logging into youtube every day this could be a great missionary opportunity, and even if it doesn't make it to their homepage, I feel this video can really strengthen everyone that hears it. Obviously you can watch it before then, but leave a comment on it if you'd like or click the green thumbs-up for it or any of the positive comments it has received. When I viewed it today it had 99,821 views, and the fanbase on facebook already had over 21,000 people signed up to watch it on the 3rd. Anyways, like I said, I rarely do this but it seems like a good thing to do. Thanks, and that's all.

Assertive

For the first time in my life I was able to describe myself as assertive. Awesome, I know. It's been dealing with my ex girlfriends this last few months. Also, I now have a goal to lose 25 lbs by my birthday. I figure 25 lbs will be a good amount, considering the first 10 lbs is just water. I'm already off to a really good start, one full day with excercise and eating right. Now, just 2.5 more months to go. 25 lbs is really only half of my goal, I'd like to lose around 50, but I figure that 25 will be a good kickstart. In other news, stuff happens..... and things..... with the stuff. So that's good. (I don't know either) I have been to the driving range a couple times the past couple weeks. I love being out in the sunshine, and I really love imagining people's faces on the ball right before I smash the crap out of it. That's fun AND rewarding. Plus it's good excercise and I've noticed that it really works my core, all good things. Not only that, but to be able to afford to go to the driving range once a week I have to give up eating out for two meals, so the benefits are two-fold. We have a home-teaching blitz again tonight. It should be fun. My companion luckily set up 2 appointments for us tonight, and the old eq president wants me to help him visit someone in between my appointments so it should be a great night. Hopefully we don't all get sick with all this crap in the air today though, my goodness. Well, I guess that's enough randomness for today. I hope everyone is doing well and if you ever want to go to the driving range, hiking, fishing or to the temple PLEASE CALL ME!! You have a standing "I'd love to go" from me, so it wouldn't even be a call to invite me, just a call to let me know what time we're going. Other than that, have a great conference weekend! :)

Happy Pi day!

Several things on my mind today.
First, I'm done venting about Emily so I can open this back to the public. (I've deleted all those posts in case you're wondering what I'm talking about)
Second, as some of you have heard I have a new calling. They released me from the elders quorum and three hours later the stake exec sec called to set up an appointment to meet with a member of the presidency. Not really that excited. Anyways, so now I am an assistant ward clerk. This makes two years in a row that I got to stand and be sustained at ward conference. Actually, they read my name twice today on accident. The calling is going well. It's really more of my type of work, kind of behind the scenes, important stuff. It has already been kinda fun working more closely with the bishopric, getting to see them out of the routine stuff. Luckily our ward clerk does an amazing job. The kid is on the ball. He reorganized the entire filing system, well, the way he described it wasn't much of a system to reorganize. I got to count all of the tithing last week and this week, which was fun. You know how I love to count and organize. And so far there haven't been any discrepancies in the totals, something that I hear doesn't happen too often.
Third, things seem to be going pretty well. We had a fun bachelor party for Dan Ellsworth (new guy) from work. It was a blast. We took him out to Wendover and just had fun. My favorite part was when we were walking from the montego back to the rainbow and we pretended to have australian accents and russ was just lighting and dropping matches from one of the free matchbooks at one of the casinos and we just laughed and joked around. It has been a long time since I've been able to have just good open fun. We laughed a lot on that trip.
Well, hopefully I'll be able write a bit more often now. I've learned a lot this last month in therapy about my feelings being important, even though some people would have me believe otherwise. It has helped me realize that I deserve better than I let myself think, and I can do better than this. So, I'm starting over, again, and surrounding myself with people that actually care about me and can help me instead of judge me, because I'm worth it.

New Poetry Topic

Hey, someone suggest a new poetry topic. I feel like writing again but don't feel like I've had any good poetry ideas lately. Thanks

Nothing to say

I don't really have anything to say really, but things are going well. I privatized my blog again, as you've probably already figured out. Emily informed me a few days ago that she had discovered my blog somewhere around 3 weeks ago and I figured it must be time to lock the door on it again. I don't mind that she knows about me, I wish she had told me, but I'm glad it prevented an otherwise awkward conversation. This will be good I think, as now I have somewhere to talk about her. I really like her, maybe even ... well... We've seen each other every day for the last 10 days and have plans to see each other tomorrow. We've also been in somewhat of a fight yesterday and today.... but enough about that. I should be released tomorrow, I'm hoping. They're supposed to have called new guys for the job already so I imagine they will set them apart tomorrow. We have a meeting at 7:30 tomorrow morning as well, kind of a stake priesthood thing. I don't know who ever decided it was a good thing that 730 on any morning is a good time to get single young guys to come talk about the gospel, but they were wrong. Yes, they do find out who the more faithful or diligent ones are, but I feel it is counterproductive to have all the more faithful or diligent ones sleeping through church because they had to get up 3 hours early. Just a thought. I'm bitter today and just have no ambition at all. I slept till after 5 this afternoon, that was nice. I finally found my mp3 player and charger to be able to listen to some relaxation music while I try to sleep. The cool part is that I don't remember listening for more than about 10 seconds before I'm asleep, so that's awesome. I've always had a hard time falling asleep. anyway, just venting mostly.

WTJ? (What the January??)

I can't believe it's January already!! Insane, seriously! It's great not having to go back to school. OH, on that note, it appears I've graduated Cum Laude. For me, I guess it's not much of a feat, just means the top 10% in the Humanities department that year. I think I've always been in the top 10% though. But, just one more thing to add to my personal resume. It feels good to finally finish something big. Most big things in my life I've given up on: mission, scouts, learning "waterfall" on the piano, and many other personal goals and the whatnot. So I'm glad to have finished.
So, I'm pretty much dating Emily by now. She's amazing, really. Well, she's a lot like me, and I think I'm amazing, so by default she is amazing too. It surprises me how much we have in common sometimes. AND, she likes Calvin and Hobbes and country music (sometimes). She's an accountant, and a self-proclaimed nerd. I think the only draw back is she is a byu fan/graduate, and claims to not be musically inclined, though I haven't seen that yet. We went out a few times the last 6 months, but then we went out around Christmas, and on New Years and then 3 times since then, she met you all yesterday and I'm meeting her family on Sunday. It just amazes me how quickly it happened. It's like on "hitch" when he says something like "one moment you're just living your life, and the next you wonder how you ever lived without them." Now, I don't know where it will go, but I know where it could go, and that's cool by me.
Other news, I should be released from the elders quorum presidency in the next couple of weeks. It has been quite the adventure. There have been a lot of areas that I've done well in, and some other areas that I still struggle with, but on the whole it's been a great experience. I don't know how the EQP does it though. He works way harder than I do. However, singing one hymn a day I've now finished both the English and Spanish hymn books as part of my daily scripture study, so that's about 550 days in a row (or close to it). I've stopped memorizing for a while, but I think I'll get back on that soon. Alright, I think that's plenty for today. Thanks for reading, y'all are awesome!